Word: hollywoodizing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...movie-making is always frustrating. Defenders of the status quo will inevitably claim that the American people want to see high-tech action flicks with hackneyed plots. The truth, however, is that we are tricked into seeing blockbuster films by carefully crafted media blitzes and the draw potential of Hollywood heartthrobs. We all can remember when we went to see a film such as Armageddon even though our friends told us it was awful. Like insects that fly into the light after watching their comrades burst into flames, we convince ourselves that a movie in which Bruce Willis saves...
...major studios are unwilling to assume. They can create multifaceted characters and develop themes with enough subtlety that viewers must labor to understand them. They rely on plot rather than on explosions to keep the attention of their audiences. Of course, some Indy films are as terrible as Hollywood flicks, but the best of them are more intellectually rewarding than anything that Hollywood has to offer...
...movie develops an original moral theme with enough subtlety so that the film does not end in the typical Hollywood way, with the main character summing up the importance of the film in an ostensibly stirring speech. It also take a renegade view towards violence. The director, Robert Benigni, makes it clear that people are about to die and spares us the gore. As a result, Benigni creates more sympathy for their pain than the desensitizing violence of Hollywood murders...
Unfortunately, as long as Armageddon grosses over $200 million compared to the $3 million pulled in so far by Life is Beautiful, Hollywood will not have the impetus to change its ways. However, pushing for partial reform is not a pipe dream. Viewer revolt against megablockbusters has already begun in small measure. Predicted cash cows such as Deep Impact and Godzilla brought in less than expected at the box office. If the failure of these films starts a trend, then studios may begin to re-emphasize plot lines more over explosions. Though Hollywood may never become a mecca for high...
...successful will he be? A look at the ur-Hollywood pic, Cecil B. DeMille's "Ten Commandments", is straight from the Democrats' playbook. A young, strong, and less-nutty Chuck Heston leads his people from the cruel bondage of the Pharaoh Ramses (Yul Brynner). Of course there's the must-see Red Sea parting, and for fantasy time, plagues of frogs, boils and locusts that the Big Creep might enjoy visiting on the special prosecutor...