Category: Greg’s Essays

Twisties: Why ‘Oblivion’ And Many Other Movies These Days Suck

oblivion


In my earliest Smug Film piece, I reviewed a movie called ATM and introduced this idea of ‘Roomies’—movies where the characters are trapped in some kind of room and the whole point is figuring out why they’re there and how to get out. Exam, The Breakfast Club, and Cube are some popular examples. Now I’m going to introduce you to Twisties, which have become quite prevalent lately.

I saw the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion in the theater by myself.  I like going to the movies by myself.  It’s cool.  There’s something about being by yourself in the grandeur of the theater that always reminds me how much I want to make movies.
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An Open Letter To David Lynch

Til presse m¯de p Gammel strand, hvor han udstiller.


Dear Mr. Lynch,

Beyond the joy of creation, recognition, and the obvious benefits of fame like money and girls, I think the biggest ambition of any artist is to gain the respect of the guys who influenced them.  To be considered an equal by them for just five minutes.  To talk as peers.

Mr. Lynch, you’re on my short list.  However, the road to fame is long, hard, and wrought with happenstance, obstacles, luck, and a zillion other x factors out of my control.  I just might not ever make it.  And even if I do, I might not ever do anything up your alley.  And, not to be crass, but you’re getting up there in years.  So, in the unfortunate and likely event that our paths never cross, I figured I’d at least send this little message out into the ether.  Maybe you’ll pluck it out of the universe one day while you’re meditating.  Or maybe you have a friend who’s a huge Smug Film fan. (Hey, I can dream, can’t I?!)
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The 10 Best Movies Ever Made

kane


The cinematic powers-that-be tend to decree that Citizen Kane is the best movie ever made, or sometimes Raging Bull.  I don’t have a problem with that appraisal.  It’s fun.  Lists are fun—they expose people to cool movies they may not have heard of, and cause debates over who’s the most badass horror villain from the 80s, or what the best movies for libertarians are.

However, what is annoying is that whenever these movie freemasons decide that Vertigo is the third-best movie of all time or something, it causes all the opinion-scavenging cinephiles-in-training to rant their little hearts out about how The Rules of the Game or whatever really deserves to be ranked third-best. These lists also do a good job of tricking people into thinking The Godfather is artistically superior to Back to the Future, which is ridiculous.
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My Uncle Gary, The Bargain Bin Junkie

gary


My dad has four brothers; the oldest, Gary, was born in 1951.  Gary was a hippie for a while, and saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in the theater (probably on acid, shh).  He’s a blue collar intellectual, a salt-of-the-earth fellow who knows about cars and Greek philosophy and cooking and political theory and electrical stuff.  Gary worked at a newspaper in Port Huron, Michigan for 25 years and then retired.  In 1985, his left index finger was severed in half by some machine.  When he removed his work glove he felt something dangling which felt like a string, and later he asked the doctor what it was, only to receive the reply, “that was your tendon, it had been pulled out”.  (That detail has no relevance to anything—I just wanted to make you shiver.)
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The 50/50 Rule: How To Watch Movies

5050


I’ve tried to write this essay a million times.  In fact, I was trying to write this essay since before Cody and I even started this site.  I’m still not exactly sure why it’s been so hard, but I think it has something to do with the inherent difficulty in explaining paradoxes—in this case, the paradox of knowing a movie is gonna bad before you’ve even seen it, but also knowing that it could, technically, be good, but also knowing that it will be bad.

Every movie is a product on a shelf.  And the job of the people selling the movie is to try to convince you that it’ll be good.  But they almost always do a terrible job.  It’s not their fault, really.  I mean, how can one capture the depth and complexity of Big in three minutes?  The social security number joke just wouldn’t play in the context of a trailer.  So the powers that be are forced to not only tell you the premise, but also give you some universally funny moments that entice you to see it.  This is why the least funny scenes are in the trailer, and why stupid people laugh at these scenes like Pavlov’s dogs.
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