Give Credit to Contemporary Movies

This was a letter sent in to the Straits Times Life! Saturday mail bag last week:

Here's the letter I wrote in reply to it: 

This was Mr. Rajathurai's follow-up letter:

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I refer to the letter “Movies in 1960s and 1970s better” by Manoraj Rajathurai (Life, Nov 23). While it is true that major movie studios exist primarily to turn a profit and are always on the lookout for the next big franchise, I do not think the blanket statement that all contemporary films cannot compare to films from the late 60s and 70s is true. 

It is interesting that The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is cited by Mr. Rajathurai as having a “lack of depth”. For a film aimed primarily at a teenaged audience, the Hunger Games series touches on thought-provoking, compelling themes, including that of violence as the opiate of the masses. The Hunger Games books and films have served as a gateway for teenagers into literary dystopian classics like Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984.

The French Connection and Midnight Cowboy were Best Picture Oscar winners and The Exorcist was a nominee, so it stands to reason that these films be stacked up against recent Oscar winners, as opposed to the Twilight films. Are Argo, The Artist, The King’s Speech, The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men and The Departed really worse than The French Connection and Midnight Cowboy?

The 1970s saw the exploitation boom, a rise in B-movies and grindhouse pictures. Objectively speaking, it is hard to say that The Clones of Bruce Lee, Blacula or Fräulein Devil are better than every single film made recently. Mr. Rajathurai also states that films of that era “were not about the special effects”, when films like The Poseidon Adventure, Star Wars, Superman, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Alien certainly are about the special effects, in addition to being modern classics. 

Ultimately, I think it’s a case of comparing apples to apples. Sure, it might seem like every other new movie is a remake or a sequel, but high-quality films still get made today in addition to bad movies, just as in the late 60s and 70s.

Jedd Jong

24/11/13

Has Pixar Lost its Magic? A letter to the Straits Times Life! Mailbox

Last week, the Straits Times Life! ran an article by Boon Chan looking at Pixar's track record and what the poor (or middling) reception of films like Cars, Cars 2 and most recently Monsters University means. The studio is regarded by many as a shining beacon of innovative storytelling. So, has Pixar lost their magic? Several readers wrote in and I was one of 'em.

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I refer to Has Pixar Lost Its Magic? by Boon Chan (Life!, June 22). Even given some of their recent let-downs, the studio has created a legacy of well-told stories, films made by people who take “kids’ flicks” seriously and broke barriers in terms of technology and storytelling in making these films.

The best of Pixar's movies are built upon a high-concept premise that is strengthened with memorable characters and set in world audiences can readily buy into and get lost in. Ratatouille was about a rat who wanted to become a chef in a prestigious Paris restaurant – an amusing spin on the formula of children who decide to march to the beat of a different drummer than their parents. WALL-E delivered a character whom most everyone could instantly fall in love with in those poetic, dialogue-free opening twenty minutes.

The thing about the “worst 3” Pixar films selected by Chan is that they are largely unoriginal and clearly geared towards marketing and kid appeal. Cars is just Doc Hollywood with cars; to that end Cars 2 is The Man Who Knew Too Little with cars and Monsters University is a chaste Revenge of the Nerds with Monsters, Inc. characters.

Taking a look at the studio’s slate of upcoming films however, there’s definitely still potential for imagination and wonder: The Good Dinosaur has dinosaurs and humans co-existing in the present day, Inside Out takes place within a little girl’s mind and there’s also a project set in the world of Dia de Los Muertos (the Mexican Day of the Dead.) So I guess moviegoers shouldn’t give up on Pixar just yet, and hope that story wins out over what makes for colourful toys and backpacks. 

-Jedd Jong 

This is the article it was written in response to: