a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by goobster
goobster  ·  1256 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Funski: A goofy bit of fun with movie descriptions

I've always loved this description of the film. Totally inappropriate and totally correct.

But also slightly off the mark of the intent of my post, which - I think? - is to obfuscate the plot and make it sound dull.





kleinbl00  ·  1256 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's the point, though: for 30 years, plots have been about cutting through obfuscation. "A small town sheriff goes fishing to make his beaches safer" still sounds kinda dope. "Farm boy leaves home to return misdelivered mail" - you'd watch that even if you didn't know the farmboy is Luke Skywalker. It's the navel-staring movies that fall apart - do a boring capsule for Syriana and no one will know what the fuck you're talking about. See, you can't even do it - "band seeks (yet another) drummer" is plenty to engage you and it isn't even what Spinal Tap is about. Rock Star did pretty good ratings.

A good movie you have to lie about what it's about to obfuscate it properly. "Annoyed with traffic, commuter abandons vehicle and walks home." That's the inciting incident, not the plot - the plot is "retiring cop must tie up one last loose end" and even that language is loaded with meaning.

This is how "The Emoji Movie" gets made - nobody gives a fuck what it's about, it's two hours worth of emojis so people are gonna see that. "Cats?" "Cats run around singing about stupid shit" (never watched it, not an Andrew Lloyd Weber fan). You have to take it to bad movies - "house cleaner saves the universe" - and even there you can tell that Jupiter Ascending should have been awesome. "Man helps son on hike" - After Earth fails in the execution. Which, really, shows you a lot about twist movies in general and M. Night Shamalyan in particular: "Cult lives in a forest."

If the basic bones are there, you can't hide them.