Getting a Bit of Action

Mindless action movies are a guilty pleasure of mind.  Die Hard, Air Force One, and more recently the current release of Olympus Has Fallen.  007 continues to be my favorite and fits this formula almost as if the screenplay came from a textbook.  I enjoy seeing the loan hero take on the many villains put in his way.

Yes they’re predictable and I know how the flicks events are going to pan out before the lights begin to dimmer.

So with the foresight of the films events what is there to enjoy?  Mindless action, massive explosions, corny dialogue, the company of friends and most importantly stranger alike cheering on the films protagonist. 

This past week a group of friends and I gathered for dinner with 2009’s Star Trek playing in the back ground and we rushed out to the midnight showing of Olympus Has Fallen.   What a blast.  As per the norm we knew that Gerald Butler would defeat the baddies and do so with a bit of style.  Last year it was Liam Neeson in Taken 2.  

What I enjoyed particularly about Olympus Has Fallen and predecessors like Die Hard is that the feature is rated R.  This means that the directors leashes are a bit longer and restraints less.  The action can be bigger and better and in this case I was not disappointed.  The bigger and better action means it’s a bit more graphic and more of it.   

Seeing this movie with a crowd was incredible.  Audience members cheered on the hero, laughed or just reacted in general with the corny dialogue, and narrated as Morgan Freeman marched onto the screen in his normal leadership in a time of national disaster role.  It’s a different kind of experience then one would get seeing say Les Miserables or Zero Dark Thirty,  I’m nor trying to down grade those great movies but they’re the kind of movies that color inside the lines of winning awards and that’s a whole other beast.

For me the action movie experience is one I treasure and look forward to routinely and now enough said as I have to plan my midnight gathering for this Thursday’s G.I. Joe Retaliation.

A Touch of Magic

Let’s start with a confession. Forgive me cinema fans for I am not a fan of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz.  It’s not an anti-classic thing because many of what are considered classics I throughly enjoy. Casablanca, Bridge on the River Kwai, All About Eve to name a few and all are watched with a good bit of regularity.  The fact is the movie failed to grab my attention and bored me.  I do give the movie a lot of credit for being a movie that has a bit of magic to it.  That magic is one of the many reasons I love the movies.

However I eagerly awaited the prequel Oz: The Great and Powerful the following reasons:

1. Sam Raimi’s directorial work tends to excite me. Spiderman, Army of Darkness, Drag Me to Hell to name a few.
2. I enjoy James Franco as an actor. 127 Hours, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Milk all good flicks.
3. I got to do a midnight movie party.

The movie disappointed me.  Gone is that magic that I found in the original.  I didn’t expect it to have the same magic but still have a touch to it.  

The CGI was just badly done, James Franco, and the rest of the cast, miscast, and segments felt forced.  It seemed obligatory to feature a musical sequence by the munchkins and an over emphasis on the Emerald City felt unnecessary.  The point is I didn’t like the movie and I’m going to harp on that because I don’t like the critical aspect of movies.

However the experience of going to the movies is what I love.  Gathering with friends, old and new, passing the evening away in good company is what I enjoy doing.  

I could say that it was a blast having everyone over and that would be true but this one was a bit more special.  It was a great night discussing movies, life, and the universe with friends.  

What I’ve come to realize is that my friends who don’t know each other tend to become friends because of nights like this and that is what creates the magic of going to the movies.  That’s why I put on the midnight gatherings and hope to continue to do so.

Whether the midnight movie is one I love -Skyfall, Prometheus - or one I’m not to fond of -Oz The Great and Powerful, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - being able to bring people together for a night of merriment is the real magic trick.