> > I agree that the movie wasn't that good. Do you think it was a > > victim of the writer's strike in that it was rushed to avoid > > problems from the strike? Seems there are a bunch of movies > > out like that and that were going to get bad movies going into > > summer as production resumes to get product out but is also > > rushed. > > I don't think it was a victim of the writers strike. In the > last 15 years the producers, studios and financing has morphed > into 6 giant conglomerates who control all media. The result > is that nearly everything made these days is done for a board > of directors. Executives under this structure are afraid to > take risks. So for people with mass tastes, who like American > Idol or 40 year Virgin nothing has changed. In fact there is > more to see out there. > > But for those of us who like to be surprised by new ideas this > is the beginning of the end.
Your review of my review :-) of Vantage Point got me to thinking about it, Stu. No, it wasn't par- ticularly good, but I managed to enjoy it anyway. I guess I just slipped into that ok-I-know-it's- probably-going-to-be-a-dog-but-I'm-going-to-try- to-enjoy-it-anyway state of mind that one pretty much has to bring to 90% of films or TV. I *love* that other 10%, but at the same time I don't want to lose the ability to enjoy a 90%er every so often, just for the hell of it. That said, what movies in the last few years have really contained "new ideas" for you? I would imagine that doing what you do for a living you're pretty familiar with a lot of the old ideas, more so than most film viewers. I've certainly seen what I thought were new ideas (and clever parodies of old ones) on Pushing Daisies. So I'm actually curious as to which movies you really thought did something new. When someone asks me these days to name a really great recent movie, the first one my mental hard drive finds is American Beauty. I know that there have been great films since then, but they don't stick in my memory the way that one did.
