I wonder if these things are related…
Why is it that the older you are the more you can’t stand ‘Inception’?
If “Inception” plays especially strongly with a young audience, it’s probably because they instinctively grasp its narrative density best, having grown up playing video games. “When it comes to understanding ‘Inception,’ you’ve got a real advantage if you’re a gamer,” says Henry Jenkins, who’s a professor of communications, journalism and cinematic arts at USC. ” ‘Inception’ is first and foremost a movie about worlds and levels, which is very much the way video games are structured. Games create a sense that we’re a part of the action. Stories aren’t just told to us. We experience them.”
‘Scott Pilgrim’ Versus The Unfortunate Tendency To Review The Audience
Hating Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is perfectly fine. It’s got a style; you sort of embrace it and dig it or you don’t. But when there’s too much effort given to tut-tutting the people you imagine to be enjoying it, or declaring and promising that only narrow categories of losers and non-life-havers and other stupid annoying hipsters could possibly be having a good time when you’re not, it sounds pinched and ungenerous. And, not to put too fine a point on it, a little bit jealous and fearful of obsolescence.
That last article may have been directed at The Kansas City Star:
The geeks are pulling Hollywood’s strings right now, and that’s not a good thing
Their influence on what we see at the megaplex and on television is vast and powerful. The Ain’t It Cool News websites of the world are in effect telling those who are in charge what to do.
This is an awful development.
They’re making movies for a large, appreciative, sometimes-obsessive audience? Tsk. Tsk. How did Hollywood stoop so low? Let’s get back to making more of the right kind of movies, like The Switch and Dinner for Schmucks.
It wasn’t always like this. A quarter century ago, the heavy hitters of movies and television would have sneeringly dismissed these Comic-Con revelers as laughable losers.
I used to be with it. Then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now, what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I see someone who needs to be stuffed into a locker.
Maybe the author can see if he shows any of the 10 Signs You’re A Movie Snob rather than dismissing a culture he has no interest in, nor understanding of.
2 replies on “A generational divide at the movies”
My problem with Inception was that i totally understood it, but didn’t give a damn. The “cool” factors that made it a head trip to my generation didn’t confuse or irritate me – the lack of character development and actual emotional story did. I cared less for Cobb and more for Murphy, and when it came right down to it the movie did nothing to really make me care that the heroes got out of the caper brain-alive or not. And for all the hype of the special effects, I found the overall design of the movie to fall short of the imagination I expected there to be for a movie about dreams.
“It” has become more of a conceptual cool than an emotional “human experience” ride. In my mind, a combination of video game mentality plus caring about the players would do a film like “Inception” good…but it failed to do so. I “understood” Inception in my head, but not my heart – so I didn’t enjoy it.
It seems these writers are complaining more about the audiences for these movies more than the content of the movies themselves. Still, even a popular movies isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste.