I've been reading a book about Introversion this week. In it, it says one of the reasons introverts need peace and quiet is because they are more sensitive to sensory input than extroverts and they need less of it to become overwhelmed.
In that case, I need to stop going to see movies like Avengers Assemble (worst film title ever) and Mission Impossible 4. Both of them are just noise, shit getting blown up and people getting chinned from start to finish. I know that Hollywood's a bit short of money these days, I think they must have decided, rather than make 6 super hero films for 6 times the price, they'd just film them all at the same time in New York. The plot was so non-existently bonkers I may have actually been watching 6 films at once, I wasn't sure.
Right from the minute Scarlett Johansen started kicking people's heads off in the first few minutes of the Avengers I was bored. In fact, Ruth turned to me after 15 minutes and asked me if I was as bored as she was. It was a good job I had the foresight to paint eyeballs on the outside of my 3d glasses, or I may have looked asleep.
It was the same last night. Tom Cruise decides, instead of walking out the prison door which has been opened for him, to go back and chin about a hundred blokes before leaving. It was just like watching a videogame. I fell asleep after that, and when I woke up a girl got kicked out of a window and then Tom was running at absolute top speed through a sandstorm. Then I went to bed.
Part of the reason I've found Mission Impossibles 2 to 4 so disappointing is because I really enjoyed Mission Impossible 1. And what did that have, that none of the others have had? More talking, that's what.
All the best bits of Mission Impossible 1 are people talking to each other. In offices, in restaurants, on trains. Just talking. There are one or two action sequences, but they are quite short and involve things like one man dangling on a string for about 10 minutes, or a bit of running about on top of a train.
All the real action is in the dialogue. And while I'm sitting there fighting to stay awake watching these supposed blockbusters, watching endless people getting punched, it makes me yearn for the days when films had a storyline that was advanced by actors talking to one another rather than by endless carnage.
Another problem I had with the Avengers movie was the sight of New Yorkers running for their lives, while buildings are being blown up around them. In the innocent days before 9/11 I used to enjoy seeing Godzilla eating the Chrysler building or seeing a tidal wave sweep through Manhattan. Having seen too much footage of real New Yorkers running away from things in terror, I find I can't enjoy it in the same cartoony way anymore. Filmakers seemed to go easy on New York for quite a while after 9/11, but now blowing up central New York seems to be acceptable again. I wonder what real New Yorkers make of it.
I might give Mission Impossible 4 another go later. It can't be as bad as I thought it was last night. But if it is, I'm going to watch Mission Impossible 1 again. I'm going to enjoy once more the sights and sounds of people talking to each other on trains, and in offices, and over the telephone. And I'm going to enjoy afresh the sights and sounds of stuff not getting blown up. Because on the whole, I think, in films, as in life, things are better that way.
In that case, I need to stop going to see movies like Avengers Assemble (worst film title ever) and Mission Impossible 4. Both of them are just noise, shit getting blown up and people getting chinned from start to finish. I know that Hollywood's a bit short of money these days, I think they must have decided, rather than make 6 super hero films for 6 times the price, they'd just film them all at the same time in New York. The plot was so non-existently bonkers I may have actually been watching 6 films at once, I wasn't sure.
Right from the minute Scarlett Johansen started kicking people's heads off in the first few minutes of the Avengers I was bored. In fact, Ruth turned to me after 15 minutes and asked me if I was as bored as she was. It was a good job I had the foresight to paint eyeballs on the outside of my 3d glasses, or I may have looked asleep.
It was the same last night. Tom Cruise decides, instead of walking out the prison door which has been opened for him, to go back and chin about a hundred blokes before leaving. It was just like watching a videogame. I fell asleep after that, and when I woke up a girl got kicked out of a window and then Tom was running at absolute top speed through a sandstorm. Then I went to bed.
Part of the reason I've found Mission Impossibles 2 to 4 so disappointing is because I really enjoyed Mission Impossible 1. And what did that have, that none of the others have had? More talking, that's what.
All the best bits of Mission Impossible 1 are people talking to each other. In offices, in restaurants, on trains. Just talking. There are one or two action sequences, but they are quite short and involve things like one man dangling on a string for about 10 minutes, or a bit of running about on top of a train.
All the real action is in the dialogue. And while I'm sitting there fighting to stay awake watching these supposed blockbusters, watching endless people getting punched, it makes me yearn for the days when films had a storyline that was advanced by actors talking to one another rather than by endless carnage.
Another problem I had with the Avengers movie was the sight of New Yorkers running for their lives, while buildings are being blown up around them. In the innocent days before 9/11 I used to enjoy seeing Godzilla eating the Chrysler building or seeing a tidal wave sweep through Manhattan. Having seen too much footage of real New Yorkers running away from things in terror, I find I can't enjoy it in the same cartoony way anymore. Filmakers seemed to go easy on New York for quite a while after 9/11, but now blowing up central New York seems to be acceptable again. I wonder what real New Yorkers make of it.
I might give Mission Impossible 4 another go later. It can't be as bad as I thought it was last night. But if it is, I'm going to watch Mission Impossible 1 again. I'm going to enjoy once more the sights and sounds of people talking to each other on trains, and in offices, and over the telephone. And I'm going to enjoy afresh the sights and sounds of stuff not getting blown up. Because on the whole, I think, in films, as in life, things are better that way.
