Dumb Nonsense

[Hot Pepsi]

I tried to watch Godzilla vs Kong.

I couldn't get through the last Godzilla film before this one and I found this one unwatchable after about 30 minutes. I could see it was just going to be a big fist fight between the monsters, but I didn't want either of them to get hurt. I wanted them to destroy the planet. So I just stopped caring.

But soooo many people seem to like it as "dumb spectacle" or whatever and it's getting a great response. I just found it tedious. The dialogue is clunky. The premise of the "hollow earth" just seems - not even silly - but just kinda random and arbitrary and not even all that interesting as dumb premises go. I just can't seem to care.

Normally, this half-ass review wouldn't be interesting to anyone, even me, but it made me think about my relationship to big blockbusters and why dumb shit is sometimes awesome and sometimes just dumb.

I thought I'd like this one. I liked the first Godzilla movie (of this new group, I mean) and the Kong Skull Island and I liked the first Pacific Rim. I sorta like the Transformer films. Michael Bay sucks, but I really liked the CGI and sound design of the robots.

I saw all of those in a theater, which may have something to do with why I liked them but haven't been able to get into any big monster clashes on my TV* I sorta liked Rampage with The Rock, but the second Pacific Rim was too dumb to carry on and I got bored of Godzilla vs the Monsters or whatever it was called.

Increasingly, I just don't know how I'll react to Big Nonsense.

I watched the Justice League Snyder Cut twice. I liked the Matrix. I liked the Robert Downey Sherlock Holmes movies. I like all James Bond films, more or less. I watch those direct-to-video animated adaptations of DC comics I read as a kid. I even sorta liked that Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern film. I love all the Star Wars stuff, even the bad ones, and love all of the Tolkien stuff. Even the third bloated Hobbit film is ok for me. I liked the Miami Vice film (but then, I've liked every Michael Mann film I've seen. Still haven't seen Blackhat, though).

Part of that is because I have a nostalgic relationship to those things, but I even liked the first two Underworld films and didn't know anything about those going in. I like the Marvel films, even though I didn't read those comics as a kid (other than a bit of Daredevil, Wolverine and Spider-Man). I liked The Crow film a lot more than the comic.

But I'm actually luke-warm on Die Hard and most the 80's action "classics." (Except for T2 and Road Warrior). I'm totally out on the Fast and Furious films. The car stuff is good but the acting and dialogue are just too stupid. The dialogue is especially just awful. I couldn't make it through more than one. I don't like any horror, except some of them about ghosts like The Woman In Black.

The only Tarantino film I like - and I've seen almost all of them - is Inglorious Bastards. They all have some scenes that I find masterfully acted and created, and Tarantino seems like a nice guy to hang out with, but I just can't stomach the way he does violence. Somehow it was ok when it was with the Nazis, but of the two Brad Pitt WWII films I've seen, I liked Fury more.

I do not understand how Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time or who the hell wants to see four more of those. Apparently, I'm not alone in that puzzlement. But they're coming. Maybe they're massive in Asia or something like that?


I wish my taste were more predictable. It would save me a lot of trouble.


Are there any patterns to which shit you like and which shit you just think is shit?




*Which is big by historic standards, but not huge. I tried watching GVK (or is it KVG?) on my dad's bigger TV and I still couldn't stay interested. I watched The Departed again instead.

[Incandenza]

I believe that Avatar was really big in Asia, but it's gotten a bit of a critical re-examination recently. The podcast Chapo Trap House did an Avatar episode a few months back, talking about it as an criticism of the US military and imperialism, and I saw some people on Twitter saying they liked it now. There were definitely some people who saw it multiple times in the theater, but it seemed to be seen as embarrassing almost as soon as it was out. There didn't seem to be a serious base of Avatar fans. I wonder if that shows that Hollywood is safer just recycling already-known and established IP like Marvel and DC, and don't want to take the chance on something that doesn't have a level of familiarity with it already.

The one recent Godzilla movie I'd like to see is Shin Godzilla, a Japanese one from a few years back that I heard is supposed to be really good. It's not on any of the big streaming services, and I'm not really interested in renting it.

[Hot Pepsi]

Avatar’s politics were very obvious and on the nose. I am on that side, but I don’t need a bloated CGI fest to explain to me why colonialism and resource extraction are bad for indigenous people. It just felt like a $300m remake of that commercial with the crying Sioux guy that we had in the 1970s.

I can’t recall any of the characters or dialogue being very interesting or memorable. That’s what Star Wars and the successful superhero films have going for them that James Cameron can’t seem to consistently come up with.

I also recall that was when Hollywood was trying to make 3D happen, again, and it just made me a bit seasick.

[Ginger Yellow]

The podcast Chapo Trap House did an Avatar episode a few months back, talking about it as an criticism of the US military and imperialism,

it is, but in the most facile, cliched, White Saviour way possible. It's Dances With Wolves in space, but even less subtle, as has been observed many times before.