People Renting Movies

Recently I took a peek at the list of top movie rentals at rottentomatoes.com, and I was shocked at the crap you people are renting. Please refer to the list below and cringe with embarrassment for humanity.

WTF

Of the sixteen movies that have a rating, only one is “fresh,” Gran Torino at 79%. I think that rating is a bit high, but no one should be embarassed at being seen walking out of the video store with a copy. Next is The International. I have not seen it, but it stars Clive Owen, Naomi Watts and fricken Armin Mueller-Stahl, sounds acceptable. Defiance is at 56%, which I also haven’t seen, but you can definitely look the clerk in the eye while you rent any movie where Daniel Craig kills Nazis. In fact, the act of renting a movie about The Holocaust makes you morally superior to those of us who haven’t.

It’s a pretty steep dropoff from here, and those top few are mind boggling. Maybe I’ve lived in a cave, but I didn’t even know what Knowing was. I had to look it up, and I literally laughed out loud at the synopsis: “Nicolas Cage stars in Knowing, a gripping action-thriller of global proportions about a professor who stumbles on terrifying predictions about the future—and sets out to prevent them from coming…” Besides the interesting placement of the ellipses (not mine), that is one whale of a setup. Some screenwriter actually sat in a meeting somewhere and made that pitch, presumably with a straight face, and then someone gave the film a green light and spent $50 million dollars to make it. So far it’s grossed $155 million, worldwide.

I’ll give you all a pass for The Haunting in Connecticut. I’m sure it’s as bad as the rating, but it’s a horror movie. That’s expected.

If you’ve rented Push, on the other hand, you should apologize to your family and loved ones for the shame you’ve brought upon them. Burn your Blockbuster card, cancel your Netflix and Xbox Live memberships, and move to Montana to live in a shack where you will write manifestos decrying the sad state of the American entertainment industry (otherwise known as blogs).

When I first saw the trailer for Push, I was honestly shocked at how bad it looked. Even a bad movie generally contains two minutes of footage that, when spliced together correctly, make it look like it might be slightly interesting. This one struck me from the outset as the most banal crap I could imagine. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Yes, crap.

Yes, Dakota Fanning is cute. Yes, Djimon Hounsou is a very good actor and plays a solid heavy. Yes, it was cool when Magneto made guns float in the air, and that kid who played Johnny Storm wasn’t so bad. All of these things in combination do not guarantee a good movie, though. What Push seems to be lacking, if the reviews I saw are to be believed, is some substance to back up the special effects. Not an uncommon problem in modern day Hollywood. Why do studios keep cranking out these crappy movies? Because people keep paying to see them. Dance, Spiderman, dance.

And speaking of lists of crappy movies, I don’t have the energy to go into all of the injustices in the list of popular movie rentals on Xbox Live, but there is one I am compelled to comment on. This is an injustice both immense and inexplicable, that you may not understand unless you’ve actually seen the film in question, which is called The Center of the World.

As I write, this movie is rated 16 of 1131 movies available on Xbox Live (if you browse all movies, and sort by popularity). It was released in 2001 and was directed by Wayne Wang. Wang had previously directed The Joy Luck Club, which was almost universally loved by critics. Molly Parker and Peter Sarsgaard star, and I remain a huge fan of them both, despite their involvement with this picture. Miranda July has a screenwriting credit.

It is horrible, just mind-numbingly boring and empty. I went to see it with a friend in the theatre, and we were in shock as to how such a talented group of people could produce such a soul-sucking film. I still have no explanation. This is not a big budget action film like some of the ones I’ve mentioned, either. It’s a small, character driven piece that was shot on a low budget on digital video.

Why is it popular on Xbox Live? Because it’s about a guy who’s a dot com millionaire who pays a stripper to go on vacation with him. And I think she gets naked.

#facepalm

Now, I don’t expect you all to be renting Citizen Kane every weekend, but there are better options than some of the crap you’re watching. Here’s a small sampling of movies below Center of the World on the Xbox Live list that are at least watchable, if not much better:

A Clockwork Orange
Quantum of Solace
V for Vendetta
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Braveheart
The Matrix
Blade Runner: The Final Cut
Training Day

And Defiance. You’d like to be morally superior, right?