So Much Money So Many Duds

Over indulgent movies and their impending suck factor

By Morgan P Salvo

 There have been movies about indulgence, such as Barfly, Lost Weekend and Le Grande Bouffe but to me the ultimate sign of indulgence is either spending a ton of money on a film or creating a dud that nobody wants to watch. If you Google “the most expensive movies ever made” and “worst movies ever”, it seems there’s a lot of overlap between these two categories. Hollywood likes to spend and big wig execs like to profit, plain and simple. It’s all marketing strategy nowadays, not just art and entertainment. At some point the blockbuster overtook the real story movie. I say blame it on Star Wars and Indiana Jones (yes, Lucas and Spielberg) where making money instead of art reigned supreme. Easy Rider didn’t come with action figures or Happy Meals.So when a movie fails to produce moguls pull the plug on the “what-doesn’t-work” scenario fast. But it’s always a gamble. Seriously, who could’ve thought Pluto Nash would bomb?

Most box office blockbusters are not critically well accepted and by default, the bigger the cost the bigger the dud. We got Kevin Costner with two big entry blunders The Postman (filmed here in Oregon) and Waterworld, both flops and heavy financial losers, proving one cannot rest on Best Picture laurels. After swallowing The Lord of the Rings accolades whole Peter Jackson went on to spend all his extra dough on remaking King Kong and it cost a gazillion and flopped like a dying seal. Heaven’s Gate was the beginning of the end of over indulgent long winded storytelling. Michael Cimino was practically black listed for that fiasco, which was a shame because it was actually a pretty good movie. What he really should be punished for is that 45 minute wedding scene in Deer Hunter.

Disaster flicks are ripe for indulgence. The Towering Inferno fizzled out, Poseidon Adventure tanked and the master of lame Roland Emmerich’s 2012 fell off the map. Then we have biblical epics that actually did okay, like Cecil B DeMille’s The Ten Commandments and William Wyler’s Ben Hur, (both Charlton Heston vehicles), but high expense and star power of  Richard Burton & Liz Taylor’s Cleopatra created a financial loss. What used to be heaped on lavish sets and a sea of extras has now been replaced by CGI. Currently something like Resident Evil has 20 minutes of computer geek credits.Ok so some movies succeed in cashing in but usually those are the ones that cost little to make like the incessant Paranormal Activity franchise. They cost about 5 bucks to make and rake in unfathomable millions.
  James Cameron has two mega hits that are way up there cost-wise Avatar and Titanic. Avatar was the most expensive kid’s movie ever made and its simplistic core had nothing to offer but special effects. Titanic on the other hand is that rare item that is the most quintessential horrible movie EVER made, cornball to the max, and it won a jillion academy awards. The fact that it is so popular still boggles my mind. If I ever teach a class on what’s wrong with movies Titanic is on top of my list.

Travolta invested in crazy sci-fi in the telling of scientology via space war in Battlefield Earth to bomb financially and critically big time and Mel Gibson’s went uber-sadistic in his version of Jesus’ last days in the Passion of the Christ, though that paid off. And speaking of space, what about the entire Star Wars anthology? Why would anyone think to make a prequel with better special effects than the original flicks to depict a world with advanced technology in the past? Let us not forget M Night Shyamalan’s wretched piece of cinema The Last Airbender which not only solidified his downward spiraling career but was one of the most expensive worst movies ever. Although it had box office success it was universally panned by critics.
Terence Malick deserves special recognition since no matter how you look at his films they are steeped in indulgence and Tree of Life is the best looking, boring masterpiece ever made.

Any Busby Berkeley movie would work but then any musical really but let’s put the hip ones up that bombed at box office but gained cult status.  Hair, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar Then there’s just plain stupid movies that deserved a box office death like Sahara, Gigli, Ishtar (which I actually liked), Speed Race,r Wind Talkers (well anything with Nicolas Cage in it since) and the ever reliable Hudson Hawk.Even going back to D W Griffith’s Birth of A Nation was absolute overkill on every level.

Remakes are the poster children of indulgence. Producer Michael Bay has been single handedly systematically destroying the classic horror movies of yesteryear. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the Thirteenth and Nightmare on Elm Street all have his indelible stamp of over produced high tech wizardry that prove to be a major let down from the original versions. Leave well enough alone.

The bottom line is that in film, over spending is almost always more about the filmmakers and less about the audience. My feeling is that no movie is worth the money spent and almost all producers squandering ideas and money nowadays just to make a buck by indulgent remakes and/or formulaic crap get what they deserve.

Special significance should be given to these honorable mentions:

John Carter

Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

X-men: Last Stand

Dark Knight Rises (or All Nolan’s Batman flicks)

Spiderman 3

How the West was Won

Alexander

Van Helsing

The Alamo