Monday, October 20, 2008

Spending Money on Rotten Tomatoes

I want to go to the movies, really I do...but I can't justify spending the money on rotten tomatoes.

This years film season seems incredibly lean. I don't know if it's a result of the writer's strike, or some other cause, but even the most interesting movies are released with the most lackluster critical and public approval.

I respect the film critic collection that occurs on the website rottentomatoes.com and for example this past weekend only one of the top ten grossing films had a "fresh" rating, which is Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. Otherwise, the other movies playing had less than desirable critics ratings including Max Payne, W., Eagle Eye, Body of Lies, Secret Life of Bees, and the list goes on & on.

It seems to me that 2008 is certainly an interesting year, but real life is more interesting than fiction.

There's hardly any quality roles for African-Americans or Women in films this year, but Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are the two top featured people in the news, and the presidential debates have been pulling in higher ratings than ever.

The stock market rises and falls in a way that's far more unpredictable than most of what's out there now.
Real life events like the Olympics were incredibly enjoyable to watch, out of it came new American heroes like Michael Phelps, and an extravagant world-wide sporting event.

In fact, sporting events have been incredibly interesting to me this year. Whether it's the Red Sox's ability to come back from behind or college football upset after upset, it's hard to see why anyone would want to waste their money on Nights in Rodanthe when real life is far more interesting.

I want to be excited about the upcoming projects of the next two months heading into award season, and believe me I will...but it's hard to know what I'm going to be excited to put my money into, and what can wait for rentals or be skipped completely.

Even some potentially interesting films like The Road and The Soloist have both recently announced that they will now be 2009 releases, which of course effects some academy award predictions for sure. And might mean two less films I will be watching this holiday season.

Has there been anything you've recently seen that you've loved, or something you're dying to see...or have you too, been entertained by reality far more than fiction?

2 comments:

Darrell said...

This is a good time to rent movies. Wendy and I have seen a number of good to great movies recently ... thanks to DVD and the IFC channel. But you're right, the cinemaplex is a barren place as of now.

Lorna said...

I've been trying to find Transamerica to rent or to buy without investing in the Canadian equivalent of Netflix.

Nothing out there is drawing me but it's as much about being at home as it is about art.