Pig-headed Cures for Pig-hideousness

I think that I am prematurely turning into one of those bitter old cranks that spouts off the saying, "they ain't as good as they used to be" about basically everything. In the case of movies, though, I generally do mean it. Maybe there are still a good number of interesting, novel, and unpredictable plotlines and characters emerging in at least the independent genre, but how often do we ever get to see that stuff? Surely not on a monthly movie night basis. That's how often I'd like to go out to the movies, if I felt it were worth it.

To tell you the truth, I'm not concerned about wasting time or money on movies that aren't very good. Sometimes the bad movies are so entertaining that they happen to be a welcomed use of my time and money. But, that's not what I mean by "worth it" regardless. The issue is, I don't want my standard of what makes a great movie to be compromised.

While I'm on the subject, is it a bad thing if someone pays for your movie ticket (date or otherwise) and you start laughing at how absurdly awful the movie was afterwards? Particularly when you know the other person doesn't agree? Cause, I do that. Sometimes. I'm specifically remembering the incident after the latest Hulk movie. I imagine it must have been better than the previous one...but I honestly can't picture how.

I know what you are thinking, "Why should we listen to someone that loves movies like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure?"

And I'd say, "Come on now, you know that is truly Keanu Reeves' best work."

There are a few different things I could decide to go off on regarding what I don't like about a lot of the movies I've seen lately. But today I am irritated by the movies that promote inner beauty and self-acceptance, and then create a physical manifestation of beauty and social acceptance as the reward for having done so. That is clearly ironic, and clearly unintentionally so. And the combination of "clearly ironic" and "clearly unintentional" spells out, "WTF were you thinking?" Then again, that's the current Hollywood scene for you, in regards to romantic comedies at least.


What got me thinking about the inner-beauty moral was a movie I saw recently called "Penelope." It's about a pig-nosed girl that is cursed with this deformity until she gets a blue-blood (old money, aristocratic type) guy to marry her. Interesting thing is (and by that I mean it is entirely uninteresting), the girl is very attractive besides having a snout. So, right away we can see where this is going. The curse will be broken and she'll be beautiful once the prosthetic is gone.

And cliche of cliches, what actually breaks the curse is her own self-acceptance of who she is and what she looks like. That's not a bad cliche, except since this self-acceptance magically caused the problem to completely go away, doesn't that completely defeat the purpose? That's right, your strength of character and confidence in yourself is only good for acting as a mystical potion that dispels your nasty pig-hideousness. After that, you can trade it in for some equally bogus cure for vanity.

Now, we are all familiar with the movies about the pretty girls with low self-esteem who just get a make-over and suddenly they are Miss Awesome. That seems to defeat the purpose of the message that is trying to be communicated, that we shouldn't dismiss the geeky kid, or even the smelly one, because deep inside they are wonderful people. For that "inner-beauty" stuff to ring true, wouldn't the smelly kid have to stay smelly? And we just love him despite the fact?

That's not the crime of the modern film makers alone by any means. How bout that tale of the ugly duckling? A swan?! Oh, please. Why can't the "special" person really be ugly? And stay that way? Is it because wonderful people don't deserve to be ugly? That too tragic for your comedy? Or is it because we can't swallow the self-acceptance tripe we are dishing out? Either way, this trend is the hallmark of a bad movie. It doesn't quite rank up there with the mistake of using monkeys for comic relief in my book, though.