Some Originality...PLEASE!!!

Often when I am sitting at my desk at work, or lying in bed at home, I find myself thinking about movies. I did say that one of my frustrations is to be a published movie critic.

I think one of the reason I want to be a movie critic is to be able to shoot witty, left-handed rejoinders at the scores of arrogant, self-important pricks out there, whether online, in print or even on TV that feel that they can lay enough claim to the pulse of the public to predict how well or badly a movie that they like or don't will do. I actually have no problem with their positive prognostications, but it seems to me that too often, when they hate a movie, they predict it will fail rather than just wish it would, or ELSE, and this perhaps is even worse, predict that the movie will make a killing because the general moviegoing public is comprised of morons.

Oddly enough, there is ONE point on which I AGREE with these people, and it is the complete and utter lack of originality in today's Hollywood fare. (Let's be honest; what Hollywood churns out is what most people around the world today watch).

Last year and 2002, Hollywood released over twenty sequels. Personally, I don't count the Lord of the Rings movies as such, but that's only about one movie a year. That there are at least twenty other sequels out there is really sad. And when they're not sequels, they're remakes. I think the saddest thing about this truth is that I really don't need to come up with any scathing or even remotely negative adjectives to describe the state of creativity in Hollywood these days. The figures speak for themselves.

I take some heart knowing that some of the highest earning sequels of all time are the ones that basically reinvented the wheel. I have never seen the original "Alien" movie, but I understand that "Aliens" was almost unanimously hailed as a better film. I have yet to meet anyone that didn't like "Spider-Man 2" better than its predecessor. I know I liked it a lot better. But these are the exceptions to the rule.

You can take your pick of derogatory terms tossed out there: retread, regurgitation, rehash. They've all been used by the critics (and irritating, self-important internet posters) at least twenty times in the course of a filmgoing year, whether to describe sequels OR remakes.

It's kind of flattering, considering I'm Asian, to think that Hollywood is cannibalizing so many of these Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean thrillers for plots, but at the same time it depresses the hell out of me.

The good news is that there actually are some really acutely original filmmakers out there, although they are scattered around the world. I'll give a quick rundown:

Charlie Kaufman- the comic genius behind Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and most recently, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This guy really just stands out insofar as storytelling goes.

Jean Pierre Jeunet- the guy who gave us the whimsy of Amelie. The thing is, you won't see this guy making Hollywood movies anytime soon. His first and only one, Alien Resurrection, ironically enough killed the franchise before the suits at Fox cobbled Alien vs. Predator together.

To be continued (for those of you that actually care)....