My name is Keith and I am a movie snob. I’ve been a movie snob for a few years now and it seems to be affecting my relationships with people. I watch a movie and can’t help but scoff at the (usually) mindless pap I’m exposing myself to. People wonder what my problem is, they wonder why I’m suddenly so high-brow about the movies I watch. The craziest thing is that they actually think that I’m the one with a problem.
The other day I saw the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the fourth installment in the series, made almost 20 years after the third Indiana Jones movie. When I heard they were making a fourth movie, I gotta admit that I had mixed emotions about seeing a fourth movie suddenly tacked on to what is, in my opinion, one of the greatest movie trilogies of all time. But, hey, I’m a huge fan so of course I wanted to see the trailer. Well, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull looks like one of the Star Wars prequels. In other words, it looks like a lot of hype and absolutely no follow through. Indiana Jones is making joke after hacky joke about his age, Harrison Ford himself grunts and moves, as Howard Stern would say, like Frankenstein, and, oh yeah, Shia LeBeouf (the tool from the Transformers movie) plays Indy’s son. Now, when I was watching this, I let out a sigh and said something like, “Oh geez, looks like they may have screwed the pooch on this one.” The person watching it over my shoulder said, “Keith, your expectations are way too high. You need to do what I do: keep them really low and then be surprised when the movie isn’t that bad.” At first, I honestly thought that maybe I was the one with a problem. Then I realized that I’m just a movie geek who knows better.
Maybe a minute ticked by before I realized that lowering my expectations when it comes to movies was the single worst bit of bullshit advice I’ve ever heard. Why the hell should I lower my expectations? I mean, is it my fault that movies nowadays include hackneyed romantic comedies, soulless remakes, comic book movies that have lost just about all the magic of the actual comic books (that is, except for the first two Spider-Man movies, the first two X-Men movies, Tim Burton’s Batman movies, the first two Superman movies–the ones Richard Donner directed, and Batman Begins, directed by Christopher Nolan), and movies that are about fucking dance-offs? If you wanna give somebody advice, call Los Angeles and tell them to torch Hollywood and start the fuck over. After all, Hollywood is the reason that my expectations are so high, it’s their fault that I’m now a movie snob. For instance, let’s take a hard look at Indiana Jones 4.
I love the Indiana Jones trilogy, okay, I love it. The movies are all (just about) 20 years old and they all still hold up. In another 20 years, I’ll still be watching those movies and I’m sure people from all generations will still think of them as highly as I do, they’re that good. Now I see a trailer for the fourth movie, which I think looks less-than-great and I’m the asshole. Of course I expect a lot, why the hell wouldn’t I? Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (two of the guys responsible for revitalizing Hollywood and revolutionizing filmmaking) crank out three solid, fun, well-written blockbuster adventure movies, consequently setting the bar so high that nobody has come close to making three adventure movies as good as those. Don’t get me wrong, I want to blown away by the new Indiana Jones movie, I really do. But I wanted to be blown away by the Star Wars prequels too and I ended up wanting to murder Jar Jar Binks, strangle the shit out of the uber-whiny Hayden Christensen, and bitch-slap George Lucas for doing everything in front of a friggin’ green screen. See what I mean? Don’t blame me, blame them. Blame George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Richard Donner, and Sidney Lumet. Blame Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and Robert Zemeckis. Blame Quentin Tarantino and David Fincher (I know, I know, but I had to throw Fincher in there, he made Alien 3, Seven, The Game, Fight Club, and Zodiac, all good, solid flicks). Blame all those guys who cranked out great movie after great movie, who made fun, compelling, memorable, relevant, thought-provoking movies that easily stand the test of time. Blame them for setting the bar so high. They’re the reason I have such high expectations, they’re the reason I’m now a movie snob. I mean, since those guys each made a bunch of wonderful movies and did it consistently, am I wrong for expecting the same level of quality out of other filmmakers? I don’t friggin’ think so.
I’ll put it another way. FedEx ensures overnight delivery. Sure, they offer other services now too but for a while there they were the ones known for guaranteed overnight delivery. Let’s say you go to FedEx something one day and the FedEx guy or gal says, “Hey, uh, listen. So you know how we’ve always provided you with overnight delivery in the past? You know how you’ve paid your hard-earned money for our services and expected the same level of quality time after time? Well, hate to break it to ya, but you can go fuck yourself, we’re doing what we want now. You might get overnight delivery, sure, but if you expect that every time, well, your expectations are just too high, you might want to seriously consider lowering them.” If that happened, UPS execs would be giving sexual favors to every FedEx employee, that’s how much they’d appreciate the extra business that FedEx just pissed away. FedEx wouldn’t do this because, well, FedEx knows better than to shit on their customers. Yeah, I know, Hollywood isn’t a buttoned-up corporation but you catch my drift.
Hollywood’s quality control has gone out the window and, unfortunately, I don’t see it returning anytime soon. This is a huge disappointment to me and, honestly, it should be a huge disappointment to anybody who enjoys a good movie. Don’t accept whatever Hollywood has to offer, don’t lower your expectations, and don’t your dare advise me to lower mine.
A home appliance analogy before I sign off: if you had a toaster that wasn’t toasting your bread or did nothing but burn your bread, would you hold on to that shitty plastic Sunbeam because you just figured, “Hey, I’ll get used to it” or would you trash that piece of shit and get yourself a 4-slot, stainless steel Krups with variable toast control so you’d have the same quality every time? I’ll bet that 9 out of 10 FedEx employees would tell you to get a grip, establish some standards, and pony up for a new toaster.