"Docu-reality"

by Matthew C.
2008.01.18

Hello, there. I'm going to vent a little and get some things "off my chest". My ideas may not be organized that well, but I'm kinda tired. (My comments seem to be all "over the map".) Anyway, here we go:

Today the JJ Abrams movie Cloverfield hits theaters. I don't know. I liked the whole mysterious ad campaign they did, but to me it just looks like a cross between The Blair Witch Project and Godzilla. Of course I haven't seen it yet and I could be totally wrong, but that's the notion I get from the trailers anyway.

Another upcoming movie that looks suspiciously influenced by the whole "faux documentary, through the lens of an amateur filmmaker style" is none other than the great George A. Romero's movie Diary of the Dead. Now this may sound like blasphemy or heresy if you know me, but George's later works are not that good! (I still contend that Dawn of the Dead is great and fun and Day of the Dead is great and sobering.)

Being a Pittsburgh native, I love Romero's zombie films and truly want to support his efforts. However, I think the whole "zombie" genre isn't his thing anymore. Yes he made a huge impact. His social commentary shrouded in zombie movies was great, but that's the problem… IT WAS.

Anyway, back on topic: the "faux documentary, through the lens of an amateur filmmaker style" that doesn't seem to be going away.

The public is bombarded with the new "docu-reality" style that appears all over television. (In addition to all the "reality" shows, we still have things like Survivor that won't die!)

Speaking of things that won't die, zombies seem to be big these days. Hopefully they haven't been ruined by the media saturation and lame attempts to cash in on the craze. (28 Weeks Later? NOT GOOD.)

Anyway, it seems filmmakers (and I use that term very loosely) just seem to want to give people headaches anymore. Don't they teach film-school students how to tell a story with a stable camera anymore? Now I know I'm not as young as I used to be and this is starting to sound like an old man's rant, but zombie movies used to be fun. Horror movies used to be scary, they're not anymore. They're just sadistic.

When did sadism replace quality?

(And with Spain's 2007 entry Rec the trend of P.O.V. movies seems to be spreading...)


2008.01.22

On blog.wired.com, they refer to Cloverfield as a "jitter-cam flick".

In Wired magazine [issue 16.02], the new Romero movie is described as "a first-person account of the undead apocalypse made for the YouTube generation." And on blog.wired.com they write:

"With the user-gen DIY perspective via cell phones and hand-held camcorders, the movie is a cross between The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield..."

I don't know. I think the movie industry is going even farther down the crapper.


2008.03.04

I forgot to mention that part of the impetus for my frame of mind is recently watching Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez. He had some interesting ideas. But his visual ideas were much better IN THEORY that IN PRACTICE. Having the film visually degrade to replicate the "weathered film" look? Not a bad idea. In practice? It gives the audience headaches!

I'm all for zombie movies and Planet Terror isn't bad. It just really isn't that much of an experience. But it has zombies going around and killing people for an hour and a half (with shoddy camerawork).