I know that what I’d like to see in the film word in 2014 can’t happen on screen.
Too much camera work has already been done. Too many plans have carefully been drawn. Hollywood works too far in advance.
Give me one year of movies where everything happens in the present, right here on Earth.
I ask for a 12-month hiatus on historical films, films about the future, films that take place on imaginary planets or even planets that do exist but don’t support human life. Oh, yeah. No animated films, either.
Let the moratorium on starting the movie-making machine on all of the above begin this instant.
Of course that devotion to the now would have eliminated a good bulk of cinematic history, great, good and horrid.
But as I sit in the darkened theater and watch all of those trailers that trumpet what’s coming, I think of the brain power that goes into the examination of the past and prognostication of what might be in the future. I think of all the dollars that are spent on the retelling of history and the fancy of what might be.
And I think of what could happen if all of the creative and financial juice went toward one solid year of examining, probing and commenting on what we’ve got going on right now. I’d want to see writers turned loose on creating characters that are based on current behaviors. I’d like to see cinematographers focused on capturing the beauty and squalor that really exists, and the many shades between. I’d like to see producers work to examine what makes us good, bad and even indifferent. I’d like to see directors concentrate on realistic performances of everyday occurrences and extraordinary achievements.
Just one year for movie-goers to give up their comic book heroes, their extra-terrestrial battlegrounds and their mankind-devouring zombies. That’s all I’d ask.
We might all be better for it when we come out the other side.
Do I hear 2015, anyone?
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