Big Budget American Movies

So, last week, when I said "tomorrow", apparently, I had meant next week. Which is today. Let me not procrastinate any further and provide you with my insight on big budget American movies.

Now to differentiate, I don't consider most comedies and dramas so big budget as they tend to focus on acting/story. What I consider big budget American movies (from here on out BBAM) are mostly action movies, or something so heavily funded that it's ludicrous to think that they spent more money on this piece of crap rather than paying for your college tuition (DAMN YOU, STUDENT LOANS).

Because I'm trying to be timely, the latest BBAMs coming out for this holiday season are 2012 (coming out this weekend) and Avatar (Dec. 18).

These movies offer so much in special effects and visuals that will make your head spin 360 degrees; you'll want to vomit, but you can't because you've twisted your neck and nothing comes out, so you end up having really bad heart burn and being stuck in an uncomfortable situation. There is such focus on the visuals in these movies, that the acting and plot is put on a back seat. Now, some people will say that they just watch movies for fun, to turn their brain off and see some 'splosions.

It's funny how often people come out of theatres wondering what the hell they just saw. When Terminator came out, it had some of the best special effects, but because of its completely shitty story and dialogue, it flopped harder than a drunk sorority girl at Denny's... well... maybe not that hard. Anyways, it was no wonder that Christian Bale was pissed. I would be too if I was on that movie.

My biggest gripe about BBAMs is their complete lack of intelligence and their weak attempts to prove that they are. A BBAM that I can watch is something that has a simple enough story line that it doesn't create clutter and the actors are free to actually perform. Prime examples are Saving Private Ryan (Save a dude. Get out.), Jurassic Park (Dinosaurs go apeshit. Dude from Seinfield gets his face ripped off), J.J Abrams' Star Trek (College in space. Some shit about time travel), Crank 2 (Dude's a motherfucking timebomb of shitscapedes).

Well... Crank 2 is more out of fun because I feel it's self aware and knows what it's audiences want to see. It's not caught up in trying to explain the Iraq war through over glorified Smurfs or trying to have a spiritual reference in 2012. Crank 2 knows it's target audience wants to see stuff go boom and maybe see a tittie or two. By the way, let me take this time to discuss that I have no idea what the correct spelling of tittie is. It could be titty. Anyways, Crank 2 doesn't try to overcomplicate things with great overall meaning. It's just some bad ass paving the streets with blood.

A lot of great BBAMs are never too complicated, or if they want to have great overarching meaning, they give the actors some room to actually act and convey it (not just to pad time either). Michael Bay is a director who wants to do this, but does it very sloppy. He crams in plot elements and tries to make actors love each other after a fart joke or two. Didn't you see the deleted scenes in Pearl Harbor? Dude totally lets a long gut buster out before he proposes to his dead best friend's girlfriend, to which the dead best friend ends up being alive! What the hell am I talking about? Exactly. Don't watch Pearl Harbor. You'll only take the side of the Japanese... and wonder where the hell Cuba Gooding Jr. is nowadays.