Films That Make Me Die Inside, Vol. I
I so cherished each and every movie-going experience of my childhood that I was quite old- 14 to be exact- when I first realized there was any such thing as a bad movie.
For me, it was all about the experience of Seeing a Movie, the Power of Film: so long as images were flashing in front of my face, I was happy. Pinocchio was no greater wonder than Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; The Wizard of Oz just as much a triumph as Mighty Ducks 2… So, you see, it’s not that I didn’t actually see any bad movies- but I think my parents’ obsessive protectiveness helped me maintain my innocent belief that movies- all of them- were inherently good. Seeing movies was such a rarity, I liked everything I saw. I was so full of love and wonder at the mere act of watching movies that I lacked the discretion to know the difference between a good movie and bad one.
Until I saw The Flintstones.
It was the summer of 1994 and anticipation was in the air. Our beloved prehistoric neighbors-next-door were coming to life! To 2D! To the big screen! I could not have been more excited. My mother could try and dissuade me- but her calls of “bad reviews” and “looks ridiculous” had no affect on me whatsoever. I was seeing The Flinstones and it was going to be the best movie ever. Until it wasn’t.
The feeling I had as I watched the movie was unfamiliar… and it took me a while to recognize disappointment, for I had never before met it in the darkness of my beloved movie theater. But there was no denying it, after two hours of its relentless charmlessness and forced “humor,” I left the theater a different girl that day. And I have never been the same.
As I’ve grown older, I find I am just about the polar opposite of the girl I was growing up. Instead of endless optimism about the films I love, I struggle instead with the endless dread that each film will be worse than the last. And they most always are. But even my endless pessimism about the State of the Industry or my wistful regrets about the lost wonder of my youth could not have prepared me for the sheer atrocity that was Sex and the City 2. Like The Flintstones before it, it berated me with forced humor and relentless charmlessness. Like sequels through the many ages, it was redundant, painful, unnecessary. Like its predecessor, it seemed to have no narrative purpose at all, other than reviving once-beloved characters so that their creators and the women who played them could afford their new Hamptons summer homes.
I can’t write about the movie with any sort of sense; that would somehow justify the indignity of it all: to talk about the faux-female empowerment story would only make the wound of it hurt worse, to address the way the once-admirable characters have become commercial shills and shrewish harpies only digs the dagger deeper.
Daggers are used for betrayals, aren’t they? For that is what this felt like: a betrayal . A betrayal of those characters I fell in love with all those years ago, a betrayal of the girl I was when I still loved them… and, in that, it finally killed- at least for a few days- that optimistic part of me that not only loved to just see movies but loved the power of film.
At least we have Twilight: Eclipse to look forward to…
No- wait.
Films- and womankind- are doomed.
