As I am at the tail end of a 3 month staycation, in which I have become rather bored with the remaining offerings on Amazon Prime and Netflix, I have started going to the cinema again.
Summer is a good time to go to the cinema. Many years ago, I chose to watch the 4 hour epic Titanic one 40 degree celsius scorcher of a day. Four hours of watching ice bergs in a dark air conditioned theatre was a good way to wait for the cool change that evening.
So what movies have I seen this summer? Off the top of my head:
Dune Part 1
No Time To Die
Kingsman
Aside from those, the following other films are currently showing at Hoyts Highpoint:
Spider-Man – No Way Home
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Sing 2
Matrix: Resurrections
West Side Story
Clifford The Big Red Dog
House Of Gucci
Aside from House of Gucci and possibly Clifford, all the other films I have listed are either remakes or sequels of some sort. [Clifford reminds me of other giant dog movies like Digby or Beethoven.]
So what is it with Hollywood now? Has it lost all originality, or is it just that it has grown so stale and risk averse that it wants to rely on some sort of tried and true formula to make movies? Steven Spielberg used to be known for his blockbusters like Jaws and ET, and later on for some more nuanced films like Munich. Why is he now remaking West Side Story, a classic film from 60 years ago which needed retelling about as much as one of his own blockbusters?
And don’t get me started on Ghostbusters. The first film, from 38 years ago, was a lot of very silly fun (although I object to the ripping off of Huey Lewis’ I want a new drug for the theme song). The sequel, from 1989, did not need to be made at all – it was totally lacking in any originality. Why, after a failed woke feminist reboot, do we need to get a Ghostbusters 3?
Lost For Words! 
Very true. But has the rise of binge worthy brilliant material on streaming services become the preferred format for story telling? After all, there are seven seasons now in which the story can be told, allowing the viewer to grow with the characters and know every subtlety of their very essence.
Last night I watched the Ridley Scott film Last Duel. For a film lasting a hefty 2 and a half hours, I was amazed at how disjointed and rushed through the first half hour of the movie. It appears even Ridley did not have enough time to tell the story and had to do a rush job to establish the premise of the film ( I note the 2002 film Colateral Damage featuring none other than Arnold Shwazenegger completed the entire back story of his wife and child being killed before the opening credits had finished. This allowed Arnie to get right down to the business of what the audience wanted – any excuse to see Arnie kill the bad guys).
I find the modern feature film has become almost too breif to tell a story properly, and I think more and more, it will predominantly serve the purpose of providing a spectale of over the top surround sound and visual impact.
Or perhaps it is much simpler. Every movie is essentially a re-telling of seven plots and their own variations. Maybe we are out of story lines?
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