By Emma Dawson
At my 3rd grade birthday party, I invited a group of kids over to watch the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke—a subtly antiwar film about a middle-aged man’s experience and rise to heroism in a Florida prison. My parents raised me on Hitchcock rather than Disney, and I was more familiar with Humphrey Bogart than Zac Efron. I was not a normal 3rd grader.
Now, I have found a mission.
For the next school year, my goal is to introduce you to the classic movies you would otherwise skip over: the black-and-whites that you have ignored, but that play on screens more colorfully than any of today’s multi-million dollar budget blockbusters. Film producers today are revisiting worn-out plot ideas, reusing the same old characters, and remaking or rereleasing more and more films.
Over summer 2012, one of the biggest box-office hits was the classic romance-drama Titanic—something that viewers could just as easily rent, but that raked in hundreds of millions of dollars as a 3D rerelease. American Reunion was another competitor for the summer’s biggest hits, attracting viewers but presenting nothing too unique; American Reunion is fourth in a series based on the original 1999 comedy American Pie. These movies aren’t necessarily poorly done, they just fail to challenge their viewers or to present anything too new.
Films are following the same formulas and taking very few chances. It’s becoming difficult to find a film that isn’t either a remake, a sequel, or based on a book; subsequently, it’s easier than ever to predict the endings (and beginnings, and middles) of today’s movies. Yes, they flash across screens in 3D technology with snappy special effects, they advertise like crazy and pride themselves on ridiculously expensive production values, but the real movie magic is quickly disappearing.
I am going to make you realize how boring this is.
But don’t worry—I will do more than just rub the failures of this generation’s entertainment in your faces. Because there is a goldmine of brilliant movies that is perfectly within your reach. All you have to do is give them a chance.
