Wedding Crashers and what's wrong with formulas
I just spent the entire day doing nothing, literally. I played motherload for more time than I care to admit and slept.
So, at the end of the day I actually wanted to go out and do something. My woman was away so I went to see Wedding Crashers.
This movie was actually pretty good. I think it stands next to 40 year old virgin in alot of ways, however, both of these movies have one big and terrible flaw: formula. It's the same garbage, even with good movies. I go see the movies for the first half usually, because the last half the screen writer got uncreative and does the same goddamned thing as all the other movies. I think the writers and execs have figured out that people primarilyonly remember the beginning nad end of things. However these two movies only the beginnning was really good.
First, I'll go ahead and say what was really good about these movies. For wedding crashers it was all Vince Vaughn (casting Owen Wilson in anything but Zissou has been a mistake.) He was fantastic. The opening dialogue of the movie told you that this movie was something that you weren't ready for, talking about sex with strangers and sweaty latin men. Vaughn has an amazing monologue about how he doesn't want a commitment and then we go into a 5 minute montage of these two guys crashing weddings and then to the meat of the movie. If the whole movie was like this then this movie would have gone down in history but no. While the movie itself was good, the rest of this movie ran the basic gamut of formula, which I'll get to later. The same is true with 40 year old virgin. The beginning was great and the talk of national geographic nipples blew my mind, but even still this was not a classic.
The formula goes like this:
Sure, there are some minor variations, but this was the case with just about any major Hollywood movie I've seen in the recent past. The lack of this plot was what was right with Clerks, American Pie (the first one only,) Napoleon Dynamite and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sure, they weren't romantic comedies, but so what. They probably would have been if the producers had their way. This is what made these movies so good.
Coming back to this movie, it should shown you more of the characters exploits outside of a montage, and more dialoge from Vaughn. When he started on with Gloria, his love interest, she should have been developed into a rounded character (as rounded as the movie gets.) The (weak) plot twist involving her doesn't make sense in retrospect. The weak setup made for plot holes and was just overall lamely carried out. The worst of all was all the good they could have done with it.
However, for all this ranting I really recommend going to see this movie, it's as funny as movies get nowaday.
So, at the end of the day I actually wanted to go out and do something. My woman was away so I went to see Wedding Crashers.
This movie was actually pretty good. I think it stands next to 40 year old virgin in alot of ways, however, both of these movies have one big and terrible flaw: formula. It's the same garbage, even with good movies. I go see the movies for the first half usually, because the last half the screen writer got uncreative and does the same goddamned thing as all the other movies. I think the writers and execs have figured out that people primarilyonly remember the beginning nad end of things. However these two movies only the beginnning was really good.
First, I'll go ahead and say what was really good about these movies. For wedding crashers it was all Vince Vaughn (casting Owen Wilson in anything but Zissou has been a mistake.) He was fantastic. The opening dialogue of the movie told you that this movie was something that you weren't ready for, talking about sex with strangers and sweaty latin men. Vaughn has an amazing monologue about how he doesn't want a commitment and then we go into a 5 minute montage of these two guys crashing weddings and then to the meat of the movie. If the whole movie was like this then this movie would have gone down in history but no. While the movie itself was good, the rest of this movie ran the basic gamut of formula, which I'll get to later. The same is true with 40 year old virgin. The beginning was great and the talk of national geographic nipples blew my mind, but even still this was not a classic.
The formula goes like this:
- Introduce the protagonist(s), try to impress you (this is usually the good part of the movie)
- Set up the plot (still pretty good, but the exposition is usually way too long and you know what's going on before it happens)
- Introduce antagonist/conflict
- Have heartfelt scene where the antagonist/conflict gets in the way of the protagonist's happiness.
- Have another montage of how miserable the protagonistis.
- car chase or other action moment where the protagonist does something daring, strange or what have you that makes them realize the value of making the right decision
- Show the protagonist coming to terms with resolution and confronting problems, usually with a heartfelt but unbelievable speech
- Show scene where everyone is happy, usually a wedding or something.
Sure, there are some minor variations, but this was the case with just about any major Hollywood movie I've seen in the recent past. The lack of this plot was what was right with Clerks, American Pie (the first one only,) Napoleon Dynamite and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sure, they weren't romantic comedies, but so what. They probably would have been if the producers had their way. This is what made these movies so good.
Coming back to this movie, it should shown you more of the characters exploits outside of a montage, and more dialoge from Vaughn. When he started on with Gloria, his love interest, she should have been developed into a rounded character (as rounded as the movie gets.) The (weak) plot twist involving her doesn't make sense in retrospect. The weak setup made for plot holes and was just overall lamely carried out. The worst of all was all the good they could have done with it.
However, for all this ranting I really recommend going to see this movie, it's as funny as movies get nowaday.