film

Fear Of A Checklist Planet (Or Universe)

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The Fan To Pro gang often chats about various issues, and one issue that came up as Serdar and I discussed the Marvel adaptions that sometimes it felt like Marvel was checking off boxes on what to do.

This isn’t to say that Marvel hasn’t done some good stuff.  I consider “Captain America” to be a fine piece of filmmaking with a great central actor, “Iron Man” to have managed to inject old-school charm into high-tech adventure, and “The Avengers” to have done the seemingly impossible with style and heart.  Frankly, the studios and staff are to be commended for making actual, good, movies.

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Inbreeding, Horror, and The Other

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So I got my latest issue of Fortean Times (If you don’t know what it is, just trust me and get it), and among their media section was a blurb review of a film called “Inbred,” which sounds like your standard people get butchered by inbred clan of psychos.  It’s really been a standard trope in Western horror for awhile – the terror of some separate, inbred group of maniacs out to kill you.  The most prominent example of it is likely “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and it’s legions of illegitimate children, but you can easily find the roots in Lovecraft and the various swamp denizens, tribal cultists, and wizardly families who were both possessed of terrible knowledge and a lack of genetic diversity.

It’s not hard to determine why this is terrifying to people, and tells us a lot about humans:

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The Hunger Games Takes in $155 million this weekend.

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The story is here.

First, from everything I’m hearing, this shouldn’t be surprising as the books are popular.  In fact, as we’ve seen movies can get panned and still do well if tied to a popular property.  I just saw “Transformers” this weekend (don’t worry, with Rifftrax) and it was dismal – but still made money.

However, the reviews of Hunger Games paints it as an actually good film with an exceptional lead actress, and a film that overcame narrative challenges.  It’s sounding like an adaption done right – and an adaption to learn from.

My Takeaways:

  • It’s pretty clear we’ll get a sequel.  The timeliness of some of the issues may also help.
  • I think this gives a boost to the YA/Teen adaption genre again since it sounds like an authentically good movie, thus winning over skeptics.  Of course this also means another round of development hell for the various licensed properties out there (I, myself, think Incarceron has a shot at being impressive).
  • This is also a boost for adaptions/remakes in Hollywood, which is A) out of ideas, and B) glad to adapt stuff that definitely will sell.  So, an odd side effect I see of this is less true originality.
  • The rather brutal nature of the subject matter may actually be refreshing in Hollywood and it’s weirdly sanitized violence.
  • Though it sounds like “Hunger Games” has a chance to rank up there with the Potter films in the “Holy crap, it’s a good adaption” category, I still am not sure any of the lessons of good filmmaking with percolate into film culture.  I’m a cynic.

– Steven Savage