movies

With the release of 2012 today, we're now at the peak of the apocalyptic movie season.  Soon to come will be the big-screen adaptation of The Road, which looks like yet another barrel of laughs.  This comes on the heels of animated apocalypse movies like 9 and WALL*E. 

This raises an interesting cultural question -- is the obsession with disaster/apocalypse films correlated with the economic downturn? 

I'm not sure the answer is yes. Roland Emmerich, the director of 2012, is just a disaster porn fetishist who likes to destroy the world every time he commits anything to celluloid (except mosques, apparently).  His first disaster flick, Independence Day, was released in 1996 -- not exactly the peak of anxiety about the state of the world.  Deep Impact and Armageddon were also released during the boom times of the last decade.  Furthermore, during the Great Depression, Hollywood responded by instituting the Hays Code and releasing films about "high society" that allowed the downtrodden American to fantasize about The Good Life (a fact that Woody Allen ruthlessly exploited in his best and darkest film, The Purple Rose of Cairo). 

Still, the last time I can remember a spate of disaster flicks being released in such a fast and furious fashion was in the 1970's, another period of economic and political upheaval.  Films like the Airport series, Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno, Meteor, and Virus were not pieces of great cinema, but they all seemed to hit some taproot of anxiety that caused people to flock to the movies.

So... a question to the pop culture mavens here at foreignpolicy.com -- do down times lead to more disaster flicks, or is this just a trick of the light? 

Children of the 1980's have suffered a series of body blows this summer -- the death of Michael Jackson, the death of John Hughes, etc.  Well, now it appears we will have to suffer another indignity.  MGM recently announced that they remaking Red Dawn (this week they announced their casting choices), a staple of basic cable outlets for twenty years -- and one of the most unintentionally campy movies ever made. 

For the uninitiated, the movie depicts a Russian/Cuban/Nicaraguan invasion of the United States, and the fierce resistance put up by a band of high schoolers.  As one of FP's movie geeks, I love this movie almost as much as I love Starship Troopers.  Harry Dean Stanton shouting "Avenge me!!"; Lea Thompson and C. Thomas Howell acting all tough;  Patrick Swayze shouting "because we live here!" as the justification for killing Russians; Powers Boothe's scenery-chewing; the Cuban occupiers subduing the population by accessing gun registration forms -- it's all good.  Wolverines!!!!!

Now, this movie -- the first one rated PG-13, by the way -- was pretty absurd even by Reagan-era standards.  Which brings one to an interesting question -- why remake it now? The commissioned screenwriter has provided the following justification:

Similar to the way the original played off Cold War fears in the 1980s, [writer Carl] Ellsworth says the remake will play off of current fears related to post-9/11 terrorism. ''As Red Dawn scared the heck out of people in 1984, we feel that the world is kind of already filled with a lot of paranoia and unease, so why not scare the hell out of people again?''

Well, sure, except that this makes no f***ing sense.  Post-9/11 terror scares Americans because of the prospect that an attack could take place at any moment.  The one thing actors like Al Qaeda can't do terribly well is secure and hold territory -- which is exactly what the Russians were ostensibly trying to do in Red Dawn.  I fact, in the original movie, it's the Wolverines who act a bit like terrorists, bombing Russian installations and such.  So I can't see how Red Dawn is a usable template for talking about post-9/11 terrorism concerns. 

This isn't as bad an idea as remaking Hogan's Heroes -- but it's pretty close. 

Due to travel snafus, your humble blogger was unable to post his traditional pre-Oscar predictions post.  Suffice it to say that I correctly predicted all of the major awards but, as always, screwed up the best documentary short and best foreign language film. 

Ten quick points, both positive and normative: 

1. I think it's telling that one of America's most competitive industries organized an awards show around an Aussie host, a British best actress winner, a Spanish best supporting actress winner, and a best picture winner based in Mumbai, India and directed by a Scotsman Englishman.  I'm just saying that the most globalized sectors of the economy are usually the most efficient and productive.
2. There needs to be a word for a cultural trope that manages to attract admiration from both genders and both the gay and straight communities.  Whatever that word is, Hugh Jackman seems to embody it. 
3. Is it me, or is there an iron law of Oscar shows that decrees that the last third of the show must drag on to the point where it sucks the life out of the show? 
4. The Academy could save everyone a lot of time and angst by assigning hosting duties next year to Tina Fey and Steve Martin.  They were funnier than any of the comedy clips. 
5. No nominations for Salma Hayek?  So what if she did not appear in a motion picture this year? 
6. Waltz with Bashir did not win Best Foreign Film?  Where's that damn Israel Lobby when you need it?!
7. Call me schmaltzy, but I did like the idea of having former Oscar winners praise each nominee.  The nominees really seemed to go for it, too. 
8. For just one day, I would like to be able to pull off the Mickey Rourke look.
9. Best Visual effect of the show -- Sarah Jessica Parker in her gown, as well as her ability to smile while sitting next to Matthew Broderick. 
10. Among those who got jobbed by the Oscars this year:  the adult actors in Slumdog Millionaire, especially Dev Patel;  Both WALL*E and The Wrestler should have been nominated for Best Picture, and one of them arguably should have won. 

I think that's it. 

Yeah, yeah, there's another government bailout of a bank and Barack Obama is unfurling his economic team and policy proposals.  Can we get to the important stuff?  Like, the sexiest movie ever?  Entertainment Weekly, as is their wont, has come up with their list of the 50 sexiest movies of all time, and gee, the list suck eggs.  The fact that 300 is on the list at all is the first tipoff that something is wrong  [But that one is for the gays!!--ed.  Oh, for Pete's sake, then put Top Gun on the list -- that flick has way more homoeroticism than 300.]    More importantly, I refuse to live in a world in which Mr. & Mrs. Smith is declared to the the third sexiest movie of all time.  Call me old, old school, but a list like this that has no Bogart-Bacall films, no Tracy-Hepburn movies, no Bringing Up Baby, no Thomas Crown Affair (either version), only one Susan Sarandon movie, etc., then the list is pretty piss-poor.  It does get one thing right, however.  This is a pretty sexy scene: 

 

Readers are encouraged to improve upon Entertainment Weekly and discuss which sexy movies were thoughtlessly omitted from the list. 

If the federal government had the power to delegate all banking supervision and regulation to Clive Owen -- and then deport Naomi Watts for her own good --  then I'm pretty sure our banking problems would be over: 

Seriously, if I were Sony, I'd release this movie ASAP.  From the trailer, it looks like a pedestrian shoot-em-up -- and there's no way the MacGuffin is going to get more topical than now.  Extra props to the screenwriter who came up with the name International Bank of Business and Credit -- since I assume it was designed to evoke this bank.