By Rishi Kabir - Entertainment Manager
On a blissful Friday where all of the perfunctory deeds of past week seems to merge into a semi congealed memory-mush, there comes the inevitable choice- should I watch the pale workings of The Lake House, or should I go with Fight Club for the 500th time. Far be it for my nostalgia-laced mind to rebuke the workings of the contemporary film but it seems as if the ’90s served as a paragon of cinema greatness. This was the stage in which movies reached for universal substance rather than mere critical acclaim.
The film connoisseur can rarely find a movie that truly strikes the proverbial chord. Sure there’s No Country for Old Men or the dual-ended I am Legend, but for me I find that, like a good wine, the older the film the better the quality. Take The Matrix, the quintessential movie that combined bullet time-kung-fu-kurisawa homage with pseudo-philosophical daoistic Buddhism and Keanu Reeves…I’m sold.
Now that was a film that revolutionized cinema right before the millennium. But where are these films now? I denounce the Sideways or Junos of today as being overhyped indy flirtations of off-beat quirky hipster trends that come and go with the tides of male mascara-wearing bassists who have too much ambition and too little skill.
The indy film is but a trend that will fade when people start to realize that cinematic style will never trump narrative substance. But until the trend fades, we must struggle to grasp the rarities of a good film by looking for the classics.
Perhaps this tirade comes from my own cynical exasperations of trying to fight change. It’s human nature to reject the new and cling to the old. I find myself at wits end combating the new aesthetic by proudly chanting the anthem of the beloved John Hues and his masterpieces Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club or my personal favorite The Goonies. I even consider the more recent Donnie Darko as being of a similar vein.
But perhaps the clinging must end. Perhaps the pallete must be extended and my tastes should accept this new aesthetic. But I hesitate. As the song goes, “Every new beginning comes from other beginning’s end.”
By accepting the new do I reject the old or is there a way to reconcile the two? I bear my tastes as either being a lone aficionado or one of a silent minority. And so as I walk down the aisles of the new releases perhaps I’ll delve into the gritty Russian mafia flick Eastern Promises or soar into the Kubrick-inspired space odyssey Sunshine but whatever the choice I will vow to embrace the new.
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