Hollywood woes noted, and corrected

Film - Memos to Hollywood - NYTimes.com

A few days ago, the New York Times movie critics (AO Scott and Manohola Dargis) had an article which listed via mock memos all of the problems they could see with current Hollywood movies.

Many of them are pretty obvious, but it's good to have such high profile critics take a "meta" view of the industry.

One complaint that did strike me as odd, though, was this one by Dargis:

Enough with the gay slurs, the gay baiting, imitating, limp-wristing, so-not-funny lisping — in other words, enough with the hating. Yeah, some gay men are hilarious (Oscar Wilde). But people are funny, their identities are not. Try this simple test: Every time you feel the need to mock or denigrate gay men or lesbians, replace that joke with an equally vicious dig about African-Americans or Jews. Doesn’t sound so funny anymore, does it?

Not that I see many movies rated more than PG these days, but I wasn't aware of any controversy about Hollywood producing many "gay slurs" recently. (The comedies based on straight men having to pretend they are gay were not, I thought, regarded as good comedies, but not because they were particularly offensive to gays.)

But Dargis does hit the spot with this complaint "To: Filmmakers, especially under 40":

The tripod is your friend. Few filmmakers can pull off florid handheld camerawork because most aren’t saying all that much through their visuals, handheld or not. (Also: Shaking the camera does not create realism.)

The last memo lists all of the genres Scott and Dargis are sick of, but it's a little long to copy here.

Here's a few Opinion Dominion suggestions for improving Hollywood product:

1. Get a new bunch of 20's-ish lead actors with charisma and charm. These are qualities sorely lacking for the last decade or two. If they have it, we'll get a good few decades enjoyment out of following their career.

2. Having found a bunch of new actors, consider signing them up to "morality clauses". OK, maybe just call them "don't do anything to draw too much attention to your private life" clauses. Maybe this means a re-invigoration of the old studio system, but that's not a bad thing is it? Sure, the old stars had private lives that were a complete mess, but at the least the public had the pretence that there were fine real-life examples to follow amongst the famous. And you could watch a fictional heterosexual couple on screen without thinking "hmm, I wonder if she'll ever go back to being straight again in real life".

3. Here's a new genre to try: some optimistic science fiction. Ones that show good technology leading to a (basically) happy, expansive role for humanity in the universe. For example, we've never seen science fiction films showing space elevators, extensive lunar or L5 style space colonies where people like to live, asteroid mining, solar sails used to propel spacecraft, or plenty of cheap energy from fusion or other new sources (I don't count the "Mr Fusion" from "Back to the Future".) Yet these are all concepts that have been around in science fiction writing for decades and are a lot closer to possible realisation than interstellar travel.

4. How about another new theme to revive: movies that show some traditional Christians as basically good and decent people; not simple minded right wing hypocrites. (Australian film makers please take special note.)

5. Stop half-inadvertently glamorising drug use and murderous criminals (and someone find Quentin Tarintino a new hobby, quickly. I have seen a bit of From Dusk to Dawn - he wrote and starred in it - on some cable channel recently. It's appalling.) Try to encourage good behaviour in your audience for a change, in at least half of your product anyway.

6. Go back to 1950's standards when writing stories involving sex. Adults can understand that couples are lovers in hundreds of different ways other than by seeing them in bed. It's more creative too.

7. Yes, Nazis stories probably need a rest for a few years, but there are other WWII true life incidents in other theatres that have never been dealt with. Go looking for rarely heard real life stories and base movies around them.

8. If you can't find a new real-life story, then the fictional "secret story" behind a famous real life event is often a pleasing genre. It is certainly much better than movies which purport to be historical yet at crucial points completely lie about the actual history ("Braveheart", that second Elizabeth movie, "Australia.")

9. Make more movies cheaper (except in Australia, where it is impossible for many to look less populated.) A shot gun approach at least helps get over the fact that 90% of everything is crap, and DVDs help cheap sleeper hits become profitable anyway.