Prefontaine Award for Annual Bizarre Duplication of Subject Matter
Olympus Has Fallen
White House Down
Here are the mix-and-match taglines:
"When our flag falls, our nation will rise."
"It will start like any other day."
Chances are that one or both of these "bad guys take over the white house" pics will be an option on an international flight you're on in the coming year. I'm here to help. So first - watch something else. And second - watch something else as well. But if you're on an especially long flight, watch White House Down.
As is always the case with Prefontaine winners, both are bad. White House Down is an unapologetic campaign commercial for the current president, complete with paramilitary right-wing bad guys and action hero Obama. Olympus Has Fallen trots out a kitchy, right-wing Yellow Peril plot line made all the more unwatchable by repeating the Red Dawn cop-out of inserting North Koreans for the Chinese. The reason is to retain access to the Chinese export market, apparently at the expense of being relevant, believable, or retaining access to the market for anyone interested in a good movie. Hollywood appears to assume that Americans don't know the difference between China, a strategic competitor that hosted the Olympics, and North Korea, an Orwellian nightmare that hosted Dennis Rodman.
None of this has anything to do with why both movies aren't worth your time, or what makes one better than the other. A big difference is that White House Down got access to the White House, Olympus Has Fallen did not. You can guess why. But also, White House Down has a real actor playing the bad guy, James Woods, instead of someone from central casting. If only they had known, they could have made Dennis Rodman the North Korean bad guy, which would have had the dual effect of both being the greatest promotional stunt in the history of film and at least explaining whatever the hell Dennis Rodman has been up to.
The Indie Movie They Will Try to Get You to Watch That You Must Avoid:
Short Term 12
The feel-bad movie of the year, Short Term 12 is about abused, underprivileged kids in a foster home. If you read enough "Best of" lists, some film school graduate will insist to you that this movie is "heartfelt," or, if they're British, "a gritty look at the real America." These are codewords for, "This movie is unpleasant and will tell you what to think and feel at every moment, but will have a life-affirming ending." If you think that's what art is, then cozy up for two hours of art. I'd recommend 2 hours of sleep instead. And Short Term 12 might just get you there.
The Indie Movie I Will Try to Get You to Watch That You Must Avoid:
Inside Llewyn Davis
I will insist that Inside Llewyn Davis is real art - rich with symbolism and intellectually vexing. Do not listen to me. It breaks my rule that art shouldn't be about art, but I'm invoking the Coen Brothers exception. I'm breaking my own rules here - that's why you shouldn't listen to me. If you want to stand up at the end of the movie and say, "I need a few hours to decide if I liked that, after I figure it all out...especially the cat," this is the movie you want to see. But you don't want to say that. At the end of a movie, you want to say, "That car chase blew my eyeballs out the back of my head" or "That Kate Upton/Ryan Gosling is an attractive member of the human race." My audience mates instead said things like, "So wait...was the first scene a flashback?" or "Well that was weird. What did you think?" These are acceptable responses. As is brooding silence. Or just not watching this movie.
Professional film critics will say things like, "This movie is style over substance." This is code for, "I don't get the substance." Nor need you. Because you don't need to watch this movie. But professional film critics will still put this movie in their top 10. You will not. They will do this because they're here to convince you that they didn't enjoy this movie, but they kind of did, but you won't. They want to lord it over you. Don't give those bastards the satisfaction. Don't watch this movie.
Do yourself a favor, don't listen to me. Don't watch this movie. Pick up the soundtrack at Starbucks. It's good, more enjoyable than the full movie. Which, to give a bit of the puzzle away, is kind of the point of the movie. But if you want to know what the hell the song about President Kennedy is about, you'll probably have to watch this movie.
Most Inexplicable Re-Release:
Russian Ark
The concept behind re-releases is to make more money off of a popular film, especially thanks to a new technology. Like Jurassic Park 3D. Russian Ark was somewhat less popular than Jurassic Park. It was only slightly more popular than Midget Zombie Takeover. It was re-released to advertise a new BlueRay version, which is not a new technology, but at least is better than HD-DVD, which was a viable technology when Russian Ark came out.
Russian Ark is a 96-minute single-shot stroll through a museum of Russian imperial court history. Achieving that 96-minute single-shot is one of those accomplishments like winning the Guiness Book World Record for time spent sitting on a toilet: it makes you wonder who thought this was a record worth setting.
The purpose of Russian Ark is to evoke the creation of an ark of Russian history, preserving its culture for future generations. If you just sat through the Sochi Olympics opening ceremony, you already did this, and got a few ultra-nationalist Russian policemen goosestepping their way through Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" for your trouble.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFtCg6bu8gE
Bad news Russia - there's a multi-generational soul gap. We had this in the 60's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGbpucWLfpE
Olympus Has Fallen
White House Down
Here are the mix-and-match taglines:
"When our flag falls, our nation will rise."
"It will start like any other day."
Chances are that one or both of these "bad guys take over the white house" pics will be an option on an international flight you're on in the coming year. I'm here to help. So first - watch something else. And second - watch something else as well. But if you're on an especially long flight, watch White House Down.
As is always the case with Prefontaine winners, both are bad. White House Down is an unapologetic campaign commercial for the current president, complete with paramilitary right-wing bad guys and action hero Obama. Olympus Has Fallen trots out a kitchy, right-wing Yellow Peril plot line made all the more unwatchable by repeating the Red Dawn cop-out of inserting North Koreans for the Chinese. The reason is to retain access to the Chinese export market, apparently at the expense of being relevant, believable, or retaining access to the market for anyone interested in a good movie. Hollywood appears to assume that Americans don't know the difference between China, a strategic competitor that hosted the Olympics, and North Korea, an Orwellian nightmare that hosted Dennis Rodman.
None of this has anything to do with why both movies aren't worth your time, or what makes one better than the other. A big difference is that White House Down got access to the White House, Olympus Has Fallen did not. You can guess why. But also, White House Down has a real actor playing the bad guy, James Woods, instead of someone from central casting. If only they had known, they could have made Dennis Rodman the North Korean bad guy, which would have had the dual effect of both being the greatest promotional stunt in the history of film and at least explaining whatever the hell Dennis Rodman has been up to.
The Indie Movie They Will Try to Get You to Watch That You Must Avoid:
Short Term 12
The feel-bad movie of the year, Short Term 12 is about abused, underprivileged kids in a foster home. If you read enough "Best of" lists, some film school graduate will insist to you that this movie is "heartfelt," or, if they're British, "a gritty look at the real America." These are codewords for, "This movie is unpleasant and will tell you what to think and feel at every moment, but will have a life-affirming ending." If you think that's what art is, then cozy up for two hours of art. I'd recommend 2 hours of sleep instead. And Short Term 12 might just get you there.
The Indie Movie I Will Try to Get You to Watch That You Must Avoid:
Inside Llewyn Davis
I will insist that Inside Llewyn Davis is real art - rich with symbolism and intellectually vexing. Do not listen to me. It breaks my rule that art shouldn't be about art, but I'm invoking the Coen Brothers exception. I'm breaking my own rules here - that's why you shouldn't listen to me. If you want to stand up at the end of the movie and say, "I need a few hours to decide if I liked that, after I figure it all out...especially the cat," this is the movie you want to see. But you don't want to say that. At the end of a movie, you want to say, "That car chase blew my eyeballs out the back of my head" or "That Kate Upton/Ryan Gosling is an attractive member of the human race." My audience mates instead said things like, "So wait...was the first scene a flashback?" or "Well that was weird. What did you think?" These are acceptable responses. As is brooding silence. Or just not watching this movie.
Professional film critics will say things like, "This movie is style over substance." This is code for, "I don't get the substance." Nor need you. Because you don't need to watch this movie. But professional film critics will still put this movie in their top 10. You will not. They will do this because they're here to convince you that they didn't enjoy this movie, but they kind of did, but you won't. They want to lord it over you. Don't give those bastards the satisfaction. Don't watch this movie.
Do yourself a favor, don't listen to me. Don't watch this movie. Pick up the soundtrack at Starbucks. It's good, more enjoyable than the full movie. Which, to give a bit of the puzzle away, is kind of the point of the movie. But if you want to know what the hell the song about President Kennedy is about, you'll probably have to watch this movie.
Most Inexplicable Re-Release:
Russian Ark
The concept behind re-releases is to make more money off of a popular film, especially thanks to a new technology. Like Jurassic Park 3D. Russian Ark was somewhat less popular than Jurassic Park. It was only slightly more popular than Midget Zombie Takeover. It was re-released to advertise a new BlueRay version, which is not a new technology, but at least is better than HD-DVD, which was a viable technology when Russian Ark came out.
Russian Ark is a 96-minute single-shot stroll through a museum of Russian imperial court history. Achieving that 96-minute single-shot is one of those accomplishments like winning the Guiness Book World Record for time spent sitting on a toilet: it makes you wonder who thought this was a record worth setting.
The purpose of Russian Ark is to evoke the creation of an ark of Russian history, preserving its culture for future generations. If you just sat through the Sochi Olympics opening ceremony, you already did this, and got a few ultra-nationalist Russian policemen goosestepping their way through Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" for your trouble.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFtCg6bu8gE
Bad news Russia - there's a multi-generational soul gap. We had this in the 60's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGbpucWLfpE
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