Who put that plot there?
By Candie Kelty
Ah, story development. Yep, nothing like a well-developed script, a really interesting plot, a back-story to help you understand the character’s motivation. Just keep it the heck out of my action movies!
When I was a kid, I watched The Incredible Hulk on TV every week. I remember Bill Bixby doing some talking and getting into some kind of conflict and then he said, “Don’t make me angry, you won’t like me when I’m angry!” and then ROWR he got huge and all of his clothes shredded off except his pants, all he did to his pants was pop the top button, and he turned GREEN and he looked all different and he growled and he threw things and he picked up the car and he took care of the bad guy and he did some running and his hair got all messed up and people ran, yeah, some people ran away and the Hulk broke some stuff and then and then and then he turned back into Bill Bixby and had some sort of angst and then he hitchhiked.
When I went to the theater to watch The Hulk I was excited at the chance to see the big green man kicking some butt on the big screen. For the first hour of the film, I believed it was possible to die of boredom. If I had gone to the movies expecting a bunch of talking, I would have been fine. I mean, I sat through The Shipping News at the theater twice. On purpose. But watching Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly chit-chat was just more than I could bear when all I wanted was my big green man. By the time he finally turned into the Hulk and started with the much-anticipated action, I was in the final stages of death and all the fighting sequences did was bring me back to normal.
The same sort of thing happened yesterday when I watched Monster House. The movie eventually delivered what the title promised: a monster house. However, when I go to an animated movie (that didn’t come from Japan) I’m expecting slapstick, perhaps some funny dancing, impossibly silly violence, pretty colors -- something cartoony. It took far too long for the house to start acting monsterous so I took to amusing myself by blowing as hard as I could into my husband’s hair and stealing so many sips of my daughter’s Slurpee that I made myself nauseated.
Superman Returns almost had the same effect on me, but not quite. Thankfully, Kevin Spacey and Parker Posey kept me amused during the down time.
I know how I’m always a preachin’ about how I can’t stand how we’ve been reduced to watching genre films, but please! Sometimes I go to the movie theater expecting to pick up my brain on the way out because I won't be needing it during the movie. It's a two-hour vacation from the thinking, if I want to reason or have complex emotions during a movie I don't go see a movie about a superhero. I need minimal back story to drive it along, just enough explanation so I have an idea of what’s going on, but I’m not really interested in the big green man’s issues with his father or what his motivation is. Keep the plot out of the action!
When I was a kid, I watched The Incredible Hulk on TV every week. I remember Bill Bixby doing some talking and getting into some kind of conflict and then he said, “Don’t make me angry, you won’t like me when I’m angry!” and then ROWR he got huge and all of his clothes shredded off except his pants, all he did to his pants was pop the top button, and he turned GREEN and he looked all different and he growled and he threw things and he picked up the car and he took care of the bad guy and he did some running and his hair got all messed up and people ran, yeah, some people ran away and the Hulk broke some stuff and then and then and then he turned back into Bill Bixby and had some sort of angst and then he hitchhiked.
When I went to the theater to watch The Hulk I was excited at the chance to see the big green man kicking some butt on the big screen. For the first hour of the film, I believed it was possible to die of boredom. If I had gone to the movies expecting a bunch of talking, I would have been fine. I mean, I sat through The Shipping News at the theater twice. On purpose. But watching Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly chit-chat was just more than I could bear when all I wanted was my big green man. By the time he finally turned into the Hulk and started with the much-anticipated action, I was in the final stages of death and all the fighting sequences did was bring me back to normal.
The same sort of thing happened yesterday when I watched Monster House. The movie eventually delivered what the title promised: a monster house. However, when I go to an animated movie (that didn’t come from Japan) I’m expecting slapstick, perhaps some funny dancing, impossibly silly violence, pretty colors -- something cartoony. It took far too long for the house to start acting monsterous so I took to amusing myself by blowing as hard as I could into my husband’s hair and stealing so many sips of my daughter’s Slurpee that I made myself nauseated.
Superman Returns almost had the same effect on me, but not quite. Thankfully, Kevin Spacey and Parker Posey kept me amused during the down time.
I know how I’m always a preachin’ about how I can’t stand how we’ve been reduced to watching genre films, but please! Sometimes I go to the movie theater expecting to pick up my brain on the way out because I won't be needing it during the movie. It's a two-hour vacation from the thinking, if I want to reason or have complex emotions during a movie I don't go see a movie about a superhero. I need minimal back story to drive it along, just enough explanation so I have an idea of what’s going on, but I’m not really interested in the big green man’s issues with his father or what his motivation is. Keep the plot out of the action!
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