A Tragic Tale
You may have noticed that I haven’t yet posted a review of the latest Harry Potter movie. It’s not because, in a fit of Institute induced lunacy, I’ve failed to see The Half Blood Prince. In fact, I’ve already seen it, Twice. It’s not even because the movie itself disappointed me, or angered me, in a way as to make writing a review of it difficult. Nor did I find it particularly unremarkable (I could write chapters on the screwball romantic comedy antics of Hermione and Ron, and further chapters on how stupid that scene in the burrow is). I wish it were any of these reasons. The truth is far more sinister.
Typically, when I go into the movie theater, it’s like being transported into a magical happy place. Even when I hate the movie, a la 27 Dresses, I’m still there. I may be thinking about the mysoginistic implications of there, but I’m still there. Of course, occasionally a movie simply fails to move me, but these are the exceptions, rather than the rule. It’s why I love the movies so much: good, bad or indifferent, I’m somewhere else.
Unless, of course, I’m in a movie slump. Movie slumps are not defined by choosing bad movies; in fact, it’s sort of in the nature of the slump that it has nothing to do with the quality of the films being watched. It’s quite possible that they’re great, engaging and wonderful, but for whatever reason my brain is incapable of making the cognitive leap to giving itself over to the silver screen. I am inclined to lay the blame in my own head, rather than on the movies at hand, especially considering the anecdotal evidence that it doesn’t take a good movie to get me out of said slump.
Consider: It’s 2006. I’ve just finished my freshman year of college. I wrote an in depth review of the Spike Lee movie Inside Man that left me exhausted. It was the first time that I had thought that hard about why I loved the films I loved. And something apparently snapped. From the time I saw Inside Man, March 24th, until I saw, of all films, The Break Up on June 2, 2006, I didn’t really enjoy a single film. I saw a couple that, retrospectively, I think were probably pretty good (including Brick) and a few that were even objectively awful (X-Men III, anyone?), but the movie theater, for whatever reason, failed to move me. And it wasn’t quality; otherwise how can you explain a good-to-middling film like The Break Up snapping me out of it? It was just a strange, sad brain malfunction.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, and you probably guessed it, I am in a movie slump once more. If I’m honest with myself, I haven’t really liked a movie since… Up. Which I loved unequivacobly, but still. Public Enemies bored me, Away We Go didn’t even move me to review it, and Bruno, despite making me giggle, failed to incite any more of a fervor. But the real kicker is Harry Potter. Objectively (and I promise to properly review it once the fog in my head has passed), Hp and the HBP was good, maybe even great with the requisite few caveats. I loved parts of it from a removed and objective stand point. But I didn’t feel it, the rising soar and fall of great cinema, and I am inclined to believe that this problem is in me. I haven’t really felt “in” a movie for weeks now.
For a normal person, this is just a weird phenomena; for me, it’s terrifying. And it leaves me wanting to see whatever movie possible to try and find this year’s The Break Up. Which may all be a long winded excuse if I see The Awful Truth, despite it’s ridiculously mysoginistic trailers.
Typically, when I go into the movie theater, it’s like being transported into a magical happy place. Even when I hate the movie, a la 27 Dresses, I’m still there. I may be thinking about the mysoginistic implications of there, but I’m still there. Of course, occasionally a movie simply fails to move me, but these are the exceptions, rather than the rule. It’s why I love the movies so much: good, bad or indifferent, I’m somewhere else.
Unless, of course, I’m in a movie slump. Movie slumps are not defined by choosing bad movies; in fact, it’s sort of in the nature of the slump that it has nothing to do with the quality of the films being watched. It’s quite possible that they’re great, engaging and wonderful, but for whatever reason my brain is incapable of making the cognitive leap to giving itself over to the silver screen. I am inclined to lay the blame in my own head, rather than on the movies at hand, especially considering the anecdotal evidence that it doesn’t take a good movie to get me out of said slump.
Consider: It’s 2006. I’ve just finished my freshman year of college. I wrote an in depth review of the Spike Lee movie Inside Man that left me exhausted. It was the first time that I had thought that hard about why I loved the films I loved. And something apparently snapped. From the time I saw Inside Man, March 24th, until I saw, of all films, The Break Up on June 2, 2006, I didn’t really enjoy a single film. I saw a couple that, retrospectively, I think were probably pretty good (including Brick) and a few that were even objectively awful (X-Men III, anyone?), but the movie theater, for whatever reason, failed to move me. And it wasn’t quality; otherwise how can you explain a good-to-middling film like The Break Up snapping me out of it? It was just a strange, sad brain malfunction.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, and you probably guessed it, I am in a movie slump once more. If I’m honest with myself, I haven’t really liked a movie since… Up. Which I loved unequivacobly, but still. Public Enemies bored me, Away We Go didn’t even move me to review it, and Bruno, despite making me giggle, failed to incite any more of a fervor. But the real kicker is Harry Potter. Objectively (and I promise to properly review it once the fog in my head has passed), Hp and the HBP was good, maybe even great with the requisite few caveats. I loved parts of it from a removed and objective stand point. But I didn’t feel it, the rising soar and fall of great cinema, and I am inclined to believe that this problem is in me. I haven’t really felt “in” a movie for weeks now.
For a normal person, this is just a weird phenomena; for me, it’s terrifying. And it leaves me wanting to see whatever movie possible to try and find this year’s The Break Up. Which may all be a long winded excuse if I see The Awful Truth, despite it’s ridiculously mysoginistic trailers.