The Super Bowl and classic movies

Well, not quite. I'm a Packers fan, and so naturally excited over their victory last night. I couldn't sleep, so it will probably take another day or two for sensible posting to resume. However, I noticed several commercials for summer blockbuster movies aired during this year's Super Bowl. Once again, 3D is the rage as it has been for a year or two and was for a few years back in the 50s. I for one wouldn't mind seeing that rage end, which brings me up to my next point. The movies being advertised last night looked to me to be more about the special effects than about the plot, a point that I mentioned way back when when I blogged about Village of the Damned. There's a movie with limited and not very good effects, that's made great by a disturbing and thought-provoking story. I should probably make an exception for the modern-day animation (I think the movie in question was Kung Fu Panda 2), which does look quite good and shouldn't have any bearing on whether the movie has a better story than animated movies of the past. That having been said, the commercial didn't make me want to see Kung Fu Panda 2: didn't they use Matrix-style camera angles for the kung fu kicks?

Third, can we get real color in today's movies? All of the footage in the trailers seemed to be dominated by blues, grays, and browns. About the only red and orange is in the explosions. I just mentioned The Garden Of Allah again the other day, and if you look at the photos, that has gorgeous color, as do a lot of the Technicolor movies from the following 15 years.

I won't criticize the lack of originality in today's movies taking plots from comic books or being part of a series of movies (did I see an ad for 5 Fast 5 Furious?). I've said in various places that Hollywood has never been original. Every time somebody whines about Hollywood's lack of originality, I like to argue that Ricardo Cortez was the ultimate Sam Spade.