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Will’s Unpopular Opinion – Era of Timing – 3-18-19

This weekend, Netflix released another in it’s long line of Marvel based, B and C-lister TV shows, with ‘IronFist’; a humdrum retelling of ‘Arrow’, and/or ‘Batman Begins’. Critically it’s been met with less than great reviews, as the show’s footing out of the gate, seems to be wobbling like a new born calf. Marvel’s brand is being tarnished with a putrid 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. (Even though the audience rating seems to make up the influx with 88% fresh.) It’s been sited as being a “slow burn” by the fanboy’s looking to back their boy, but even that won’t be enough to elevate this calcium based, canary colored, do-gooder to a second season. The show isn’t prefect, but it’s not nearly as bad as the quick-to-quip crowd has been letting on. In fact, the show’s flaws aren’t necessarily writing based, but possibly more structure based. Genre fatigue may be setting in in the superhero community, and the time to change up the formula may be happening right before our eyes.

In an unprecedented event, February and March saw arguably one hit after another. Films like: ‘Lego Batman’,  ‘Get Out’, ‘Logan’ and ‘Kong: Skull Island’ all have incredible online ratings and the better than average opening night take-in’s you’d expect. One movie always bowing to the next, as the weekend’s reset themselves with each new premiere. Although these box office releases may not have faired in the summer “Thunder-dome” of public dollar based cage-fighting, there is no denying the ever apparent shift in blockbusters that clutter our local cinemas from week to week. What I’m saying is, is we may be at the dawn of a new era of cinema. An era that looks remarkably like the 1970’s.

And that’s a good thing.

For those who may not be familiar, the 70’s film era was a time span that was based less in “the studio system” and instead was driven by the social political climate that was constantly prevalent in everybody’s day to day. It was a time of conscious commentary, and would become a benchmark phase that found younger filmmakers taking risks and approaching stories who’s subject matter was absent in the preceding decades. The era introduced horror and suspense, the likes of which had never been explored before. Movies were able to mirror the social unrest that was latent in the news and the Nixon Presidency.  A dialogue was being opened between the filmmaker’s and their audiences that were more adherent than the Hollywood of yesteryear. And as a result, the world received what is still arguably the greatest era of film by many standards.

Marvel films, DC films, franchise reboots, sequels, prequels, etc etc, all hearken back to the B-movie Saturday matinee epoch of celluloid. It may seem like we’re only in the mid stages of that now, but with shows like ‘IronFist’ fizzling out, and ‘Walking Dead’ coming to a close, the comic-world as we know it is veering off to a more aware and socially conscious construct. That, and the over indulgent 60’s homage revival that couldn’t be escaped since ‘MadMen’ premiered 10 years ago, all point to the closing of a period that will be remembered as a simpler time for years to come. People want social commentary now. Our generation’s Kennedy wasn’t shot, but the tumultuous aftermath of a country on the brink of disarray is just as present now as it was 50 years ago. And so begins the slow descent into a crazed, fluffy hair, porn stash era of coke induced disco, that will remind the world for decades: that although our styles and politics may be repulsive, our films will undoubtedly kick major ass.

In 1976, ‘All the President’s Men’ would win 11 awards (4 Oscars) for depicting the behind the scenes sleuth detective work of Washington Post journalists, Woodward and Bernstein, as they uncovered The Watergate scandal that famously caused President Nixon’s contritious resignation. The movie however, still holds up, and is a shining example of film making at it’s finest. If Obama was the Kennedy of the 2000’s, than Trump is undoubtably the Nixon of the twenty-teens. However in an odd twist of introspective irony, it won’t be exposed tapes that oust Trump, but rather, probably, the lack  thereof; as the CIA, and FBI have both suggested that no such wiretaps were placed on Trump by the Obama administration during his election campaign.

If cinema and history have taught us anything, it’s that everything is cyclical. Every generation has their oun unique, yet similar, confection of topical events that shape the society we try to imbue. We’re currently rounding up the last of the major studio franchises, and are on the brink of something revolutionary. It won’t happen overnight, but when it does, it’ll hit with the same force as a ‘Godfather’ or ‘Jaws’. It’ll be impactful and meaningful, reinventing the rules as it goes along. Meaning, the movies of the future won’t be sequels or reboots, if only because similarly to ‘IronFist’, it’ll be deemed an error of timing. Suggesting, that our progressing culture won’t allow such successes; inciting the words: “I don’t mind what you did. I mind the way you did it.”

-Will Valle

 

March 18, 2017
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