Everywhere you look, you’ll see a top ten list of 2023 movies. In almost every case, I have not seen one of those movies — not a single one. This is not uncommon when you live in the glorious sticks as I do. We have one movie theater within 30 miles, and it will play John Wick 4, not some dumb independent film about a one-legged lesbian Eskimo on a journey to find theyself.
What is different is my perfect indifference towards these lists. You see, in the past, those lists meant something. Over time, I would search out those movies —not because I’m a completist or need to be part of every New Thing. I just wanted to see them. Being a movie fan is about digging for gold. You might move a ton of dirt to locate a nugget, but the nugget is worth the effort. You see, a great movie is a friend for life, something you carry from then on, a two-hour voyage to another place and time with interesting characters and much to think about.
That’s all gone now. Moving a ton of dirt is one thing. I’m not afraid of work. What I won’t do is swim through a river of sewage. And the nuggets aren’t nuggets anymore. They’re more like flecks.
Look at this pile of sewage. Okay, I might see Killers of the Flower Moon. Then again, I might not. Unless I can buy the Blu-Ray from Redbox for $4.99, I’ll never see it. I’m certainly not going to subscribe to Apple’s crappy streaming service.
This is where you say, How do you know you won’t like it if you’ve never seen it?
And this is where I say, Come on, y’all.
It all started with Donald Trump winning the White House in 2016 and hit lightspeed with the murder of George Floyd. This is when the entertainment establishment was injected with what Elon Musk calls the Woke Mind Virus. This virus has effectively and forever killed the One Thing that makes movies great — that thing you take home with you.
Bear with me a moment as I attempt to illustrate my point with a rewind to the glorious 80s…
If there are three movies foo foo critics laugh at as simple-minded more than Road House (1989), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), and Red Dawn (1984), I’m unaware of them. But wait … what explains their durability? What explains their iconic status? Why do these movies stick with us? The answer is simple: they deliver a product we take home with us.
If a movie doesn’t reach down and grab something inside of you, what’s the point of watching it at all, much less again? You already know what happens. You already know how it ends. Do you rewatch episodes of Judge Judy or Storage Wars? No. By design, those shows are brain candy: all content and text. There’s no subtext. There’s nothing to mull later, nothing to turn over in your head.
On the surface, Road House might be all about kicking ass, but it’s really not. Patrick Swayze’s Dalton character is a mystery, a violent man with a code of non-violence who rips out another man’s throat with his fingers. What’s that about? we ask ourselves.
John Rambo is equally mysterious: a man betrayed by his country who still loves his country, a loner dedicated to his comrades.
Red Dawn isn’t about the Soviets invading Middle America. Instead, it’s about a group of American teens forced to lose their innocence in ways unimagined. For them, life goes from football and pretty girls to realer-than-real like that. Red Dawn isn’t even about shooting Commies. No, it’s about how America’s bounty breeds soft boys and what happens when they face danger, scarcity, and, above all, impossible moral dilemmas.
Laugh away, but those movies give you something to take home. You’re not told how to feel. You’re not told what to think. This subtext is a gift for you to figure out. You’re not force-fed the answers, so you turn that subtext over in your head.
That’s just not the case today.
Instead of being the jury and wrestling with a verdict, we are demoted to helpless spectators watching judgment come down. We’re told what to think. We’re told how to feel. Everything is text and, therefore, fake. The characters refuse to behave or interact in believable and intriguing ways that force us to figure them out or allow us to identify with their human-ness. Instead of being flawed and complicated, they are simplistic and one-dimensional avatars/symbols created to make a political point. And when it’s all over, there’s nothing to take home with you.
Over the Christmas break, I watched the Italian film A Special Day (1977). The year is 1938. Hitler arrives in Rome. To prove their fealty, everyone clears out of an apartment complex for a rally … except for Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. She’s a frustrated housewife. He’s a homosexual about to be arrested and deported. They meet, talk, and have a one-day affair. I’m still turning those characters over in my head. Most of all, I want to know what happened to them. Why? Because I came to care about them. Why? Because even though I’m not a housewife or homosexual, I relate to them. A Special Day is all questions, no answers, and that’s something you take home.
My pretty wife and I are currently rewatching The Wire (2002-2008) for the fourth or fifth time. That show never really lets you go.
Oh, but I’m supposed to be a MAGAtard rejecting today’s garbage because I’m bigoted against gays and black people.
No, what I’m bigoted against is simple-minded shit.
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“This novel is a high-wire narrative that meditates on life and death and God’s eternal presence.… I read this book in one sitting and look forward to reading it again… This is, quite simply, a great American novel.” — Robert Avrech, Emmy-winning Screenwriter Body Double, A Stranger Among Us.
Borrowed Time is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available on Kindle, Audible, and hardcover.
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