LAST WORDS: We'll Call You... NEXT!

Originally Written: May 1, 2007

Movies are the actors. Movies are the actresses. Movies are the music. But in the beginning, movies were mostly the producers. What’s next for us? We are bombarded by great thrillers but little substance. And on the other hand, the ones with substance usually lack that extra non-boring and non-weird (“Grindhouse”) quality. We have the stories, the technology, but none of the next innovators and generators of cinema magic to expand an empire. Film has worked hard for over a century to captivate but following the breakthrough of television and the Paramount legal case which decided the fate of studios owning their own theaters and holding rights on which theaters would show their films, Hollywood movies would be changed in the way they were produced, distributed, and exhibited. It meant doom for the movie making business but soon studios attempted to lure audiences with spectacle, widescreen presentation and improved stereo sound. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, theaters were dominated with musicals, historical epics and large-scale movies that benefited from bigger screens and bigger sound.

By the 1960’s, audiences were turning their backs on theatres once again with sales dwindling and money pits such as “Cleopatra” and “Hello Dolly!” becoming too regular for comfort. European art films and Japanese cinema were all making American debuts. The youthful baby-boomers found something appealing with foreign movies like Michelangelo Antonioni's “Blowup,” with its narrative structure and more importantly full-frontal female nudity. Kinky.

The studios made their move and began recruiting the next generation of filmmakers. This was the New Hollywood era. Old Rome had fallen. This energetic wave of movies had less studio control and is generally noted as having begun with 1967’s “Bonnie & Clyde” with Warren Beatty producing and starring in the movie. Vast amounts of movies followed: “The Graduate,” “Easy Rider,” “Midnight Cowboy,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Taxi Driver.” New Hollywood allowed younger writers, performers and directors to take control of the stories to appeal to the youth they were losing. New technology allowed them to drive paths out of the old artificial stages and into the outdoors. Movies were now more real than ever before. Stories now portrayed graphic violence, sexuality, fresh humor and crude horror.

But a blockbuster mentality was on the horizon. With mega hits such as “Jaws” being the first movie to surpass $100 million in 1975 and soon Star Wars and its barrage of toys and soundtracks, major corporations started buying out studios with the vision of high premises bringing top dollars for merchandising. Sequels showed the possibility of even more capitalization which had become respectable since Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II.” Of the New Hollywood hierarchy, only the most commercially successful would survive.

And indeed even New Hollywood was seen as pushing the limits of their passion for films too far. Steven Spielberg’s marginal comedic hit “1941” was criticized for its length and a prime example of directorial tyranny. “Apocalypse Now” was produced, written and directed by risk-taking Francis Ford Coppola but unexpectedly proved not to be a failure. What the Vietnam drama didn’t do his next expedition into musicals did tenfold. “One From the Heart” was a tune that didn’t hit the right note and ended the filmmaker’s line of hits indefinitely after 1982. In 1980 Michael Cimino went a long way himself (depending on taste) from 1978’s acclaimed “Deer Hunter” through the dismal “Heaven’s Gate” catastrophe. It was a mess and nearly four hours long uncut. It was his last major try at films and nearly bankrupted the United Artists studio.

Studios discovered where the market was going: high-concept, mass-audience, wide-releases. We are plagued by sequels now and the truth is we still love seeing old stories because we want to see more of certain ones but what will happen when the comic books become a little too old.

M. Night Shyamalan proclaimed his love for James Bond’s lady-boss when changing his first name to her letter and adding a period of time in the middle, and showed promise with “The Sixth Sense” but his movies have been on a decline from every angle since. M seems to try to mimic the old Hitchcockian style of movement: slow and dull. It should be noted, Hitchcock was a master and far better with his original work being sixty years earlier than Mr. Manoj Shyamalan. Manoj’s stories are simplistic and overall, stupid. “The Village’s” ending just seemed like he needed to end the film any which way except properly. And if you haven’t seen “The Village,” don’t bother, knowing that it sucked is good enough at your local bar. “Signs” was hardly suspenseful or imaginative and far from an inspiring alien movie. It had neither destruction nor divine encounters of the third kind. “Lady in the Water” was his first movie where audiences finally realized they wouldn’t want to be duped again into wasting their money. Disney was the biggest fortuneteller and didn’t take it into production from the start. They kept him for his short string of hits but dumped his storytelling Lady in the water to drown. He may not be a terrible director or screenwriter as long as it’s not his own material he’s directing or writing. Ask yourself: why did you see his movies? The answer: peer pressure.

Peter Jackson dazzled us with “Lord of the Rings” but his step onto Skull Island for “King Kong” was a giant leap into boredom and far from an 8th wonder of the world. He turns everything into an epic, long and overrun. And by midpoint on the hour long trip of the Venture ship towards Skull Island, I was ready to fast forward and take a dive off the Empire State building myself.

And so the list goes on with new directors such as “King Arthurs’” Antoine Fuqua, “X-Men” (1&2)/“Superman Returns’” Bryan Singer and of “Rush Hour”/“Red Dragon” fame, Bret Ratner. At times it appears these directors are more talented in a generic way. Even the old innovators are becoming a little used. Steven Spielberg’s plans are for a Lincoln biopic, “Jurassic Park 4” and “Indiana Jones 4.” Keep in mind: they use Roman numerals to spice it up. George Lucas is expanding the “Star Wars” universe into television. Martin Scorsese finally got his Oscar for “The Departed” in 2007 but for forty years hasn’t escaped the gangsters and violence he is convinced run this world. His movies are great but often lack emotion and sympathy, and were most likely the primary missing factors in his films that led to him eluding Academy recognition. Francis Ford Coppola also hasn’t had a memorable directorial hit in a long time or a grand one in double that time. Even missing the note, specifically in terms of box-office receipts, with the 1982 musical “One From The Heart” has been forgotten. Usually the large failures are remembered in the context of the successful. Was he not successful? Of course he was! This is the man that made a mob trilogy epic and the Vietnam war a trumph.“Bram Stoker’s Dracula” of 1992 did give a glimmer of hope and then he only made two forgettable movies since then. Now, I am not knocking down the old innovators, their interests in sequels or their continuing genres. I admire them greatly. I am simply questioning where the new age is to build off of the old because it should happen. It's exciting to have those icons.

And once again, this summer, a new reality show from Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg will aim to find the next great filmmaker to overwhelming dismay. If they are so good and life is indeed fair, would the contestants really need a reality show in the first place? I, a great man, once said: if you’re good, you’re good and how can a person be denied. Even the producers for Burnett’s “On the Lot” claim to give these contestants a second-chance. What made them deserve it?

There will be a shift in the stars we have and the talent we idolize. But right now, there doesn’t seem to be any of those guiding lights that can dominate behind the camera. Not the type that don’t just take scripts and punch out movies. Rather, those that seek ideas and fuel the creation of stories saying, “I have a good idea for a movie,” after their last one. The stars that are created are due in large part to the people behind the cameras that put them in front of them. Is it possible movies won’t get better, there are no ideas left out there that are transferable onto the screen? All we have are questions. Rather, the problem may be in our inability to truly access a new era out there, crowded by the wannabes and the well-connected mediocre.

...Movies are the music. Movies are the producers. Movies are the adapted screenplays. Movies are the original screenplays. Movies are... hope. I'm the last words: David Kobylanski.