“It’s Just Dumb Fun”

I don’t know about you, but I am growing increasingly sick and tired of being told that I am “doing it wrong” when pointing out that a shit movie is, in fact, a shit movie.  The particular type of movie that I am talking about is the expensive, noisy, large feature film.

You know the type, not just the movie, but the idiot who keeps them in business.

First, it’ll (the movie) have a budget reflecting the GDP of some small country .  This is the first thing that smells good to your average movie going idiot.  That will be backed up by a hefty marketing campaign that seeps into every crevice, even websites you visit that have nothing to do with movies will probably be promoting it, such as a wallpaper ad or something.  Log off your computer and there it is again, blasting through your TV speakers during breaks.

At this stage in the game, our pitiful idiots have already been sold.  In fact, they had no chance – their little minds have been made up for them and pre-booked, literally and figuratively, simply because their consumerist brains react, right on cue.  Meanwhile, as is often the case, even half intelligent people can spot that there’s something hollow about the latest CGI sequel.

However, woe betide anyone who points this out.  Do that and you interfere with their hype, which they enjoy as much as, or even more than seeing the movie itself.  They love the foreplay and they loved being wooed and lied to.  Sometimes, I’ll check a forum and it’ll have a thread for a big upcoming dumb-dumb action movie.  There’ll be 50 pages leading up to the release date, then it lasts five further pages after it’s actually released.  760 posts such as “can’t wait“, followed after release by deflated nothingness.  Few of them hang around afterwards to admit the truth.  And yet, for the next mess, there they’ll be, right on time…

But anyway, getting back to the point.  When the hour comes and the latest bout of yelling and pulverized CGI concrete hits the screen and the cows drove back out of the theatre, the usual shit you’ll see on social media will be “great movie, just turn off your brain“.  I’m sorry, but that’s an oxymoron.  If I turn off my brain then what the fuck is the point in paying money for a seat?  Are you there simply to have everything but your mind stimulated?  Your eardrums pounded and your gut assaulted with sugary beverages?

This is not dumb fun but puerile shit

The Avengers series… low on plot, but high on implausible action, “turn off your brain“, admit it’s a classic or else.  Furious 6 sees Vin Diesel fly, physically, from one highway to another, catching a woman, also mid-flight, saving the day… don’t point out that this is garbage, just “turn off your brain“.  It’s “dumb fun“.  Nah, sorry, it’s just dumb shit.  Here’s a saying I heard once… simple things tickle simple minds.

That doesn’t mean an action movie devoid of an award winning story can’t be fun.  John Wick has an almost threadbare plot but it is anything but dumb.  It engages the brain of the viewer through excellent choreography and elicits excitement.  It’s well crafted, it knows its limitations and has fine pacing.  Art takes on many forms.  Rather what we’re talking about here are movies with crap storylines that try to cover the cracks with equally crap action, then try to cover those cracks with entire city blocks being levelled by toy figurines.

Why should a crap movie get a pass due to someone’s emotive attachment to the former glory of its namesake, or how many seconds it got at the Super Bowl?  Or because that actor you really really like is in it?  Are you people fucking idiots?

“Dumb fun” is often code for “your movie was shit, with no story and patronising shark jumping, but I’m going to give you a pass because you did a sweet job with the marketing and everyone was talking about it“.  And this kind of thing, these kind of idiots, raise the debt ceiling so that five more sequels and two more spin offs that are probably going to be even worse are a given.

Let’s stamp out dumb shit.  Make them earn your money…