I feel like there's something wrong with me. It's gotten to the point where I don't really bother to watch many new movies -- maybe one or two a year -- and (I know this sounds kind of screwed up) I was relieved to have a year without a ton of blockbuster hype always in my face last year. Of the few movies I do see, it's come out to about 1 in 4 or 5 that I actually like. I'm not a snob or anything; I'm a lifelong nerd, into the nerdiest things. Comics are my favorite literature. Uzis and firey explosions are my jam. This is supposed to be my "Golden Age". Yet, when I go see new superhero, sci-fi, fantasy movies with production budgets bigger than the GDPs of small nations, I almost always come away feeling ground down by them.
I have all these streaming services at my fingertips and all sorts of time to fill, so I figured I'd give more new movies a try recently, and it at least helped me to identify what it is that sits wrong with me. It feels mostly like propaganda. The military boosterism in all these movies is mind-boggling. So many of the protagonists are military or military-adjacent, and there are just so many loving, lingering shots of war machines -- even in movies where the supposed moral is "war is bad." And all this talk about "how great is man", or "anyone can make a difference", but every single flick ends with a thirty-minute battle where an entire city (or planet) gets vaporized, and we're supposed to act like the folks doing it are the heroes? It doesn't thrill me like I guess it's supposed to. I mostly find it depressing. Am I losing my mind here?
I dunno. I don't want to be That Guy, but I guess I am That Guy.
I have all these streaming services at my fingertips and all sorts of time to fill, so I figured I'd give more new movies a try recently, and it at least helped me to identify what it is that sits wrong with me. It feels mostly like propaganda. The military boosterism in all these movies is mind-boggling. So many of the protagonists are military or military-adjacent, and there are just so many loving, lingering shots of war machines -- even in movies where the supposed moral is "war is bad." And all this talk about "how great is man", or "anyone can make a difference", but every single flick ends with a thirty-minute battle where an entire city (or planet) gets vaporized, and we're supposed to act like the folks doing it are the heroes? It doesn't thrill me like I guess it's supposed to. I mostly find it depressing. Am I losing my mind here?
I dunno. I don't want to be That Guy, but I guess I am That Guy.
