Microcinema Flashback - Godzilla vs. Bin Laden (2002)

September 11, 2001 changed the world. It changed everything.

One of the more important areas which were effected were public sensibilities to the military and to mass destruction. Still healing from the wounds of the tragic events from the year before, I talk about how Hollywood would have to change with the times in order to remain relevant.

*****

Godzilla vs. Bin Laden: The Re-Evaluation of the Hollywood Blockbuster (2002) July
By Pete Bauer

I took my daughter to the local public library the other day and found that they had recently added DVDs to the things one could check out. I wasn't in the mood for anything thought provoking, I wanted some mindless drivel. It had been an extremely long work week and I needed some mental down time. So, I picked out one of the biggest, expensive and unsatisfying examples of Hollywood drivel I could find, 1998's GODZILLA.

Ever since the terrible events of 9/11 I've been wondering how that would spill into the public's cinematic appetite. Since that day, I had not seen an abundance of philosophical changes coming from Hollywood (Sum of All Fears, Collateral Damage), so I wondered if anything had really changed. I wondered if something as truly horrifying as what happened in New York and Pennsylvania last September was going to have any lasting impact on the movie-going audiences. I thought that, if America had not truly lost its soul over the past 200 years, we would, as a people, no longer need the irrelevant fluff we so eagerly purchased from the media outlets previously in order to fill our lives. That films, television and books would some how take on a more meaningful purpose. I was afraid to think that our decades of excess living in a land where generations had lived with a war-less history, that we would have lost ourselves irrevocably to the baser urges of mankind.

And then I watched GODZILLA.

It was while watching this super-fictional attack on the New City of the north that I finally noticed the stark differences between "what was" and "what is" after 9/11. There was no escapism for me in watching a monster destroy people-filled buildings, or the military flying through the city in a desperate attempt to save human lives. And the jokes of the political ramifications of a Mayor ordering the evacuation of the city now seem so hopelessly out of place... almost offensive when considering what Mayor Guiliani dealt with when real-life terror impacted his city.

What used to be found as amusement or flights of fancy, such as destroying skyscrapers or blowing up well known landmarks, are now so morally inappropriate, so misplaced, so hollow and weak that it cemented in me how the world had truly changed. Prior to that awful day we were so distant from true life horror that it took a gigantic monster destroying a larger than life city to merely whet our appetite. Now, it's almost embarrassing to think that anyone would find such a story entertaining.

Years of the consistent devaluing of human life, of adding body count for cinematic impact instead of layering the true human stories that fill each of those dead bodies, culminated in the fact that we thought of it as nothing very important to watch a monster wreak the largest of body counts, for people to be stomped on like insignificant bugs. And that the killing of men and women serving in the armed forces was somehow an effective punch line.

Oh, how things have changed.

Does that mean there should be no more monsters in the movies? Of course not. But, what I hope it means is that America, and perhaps the world, are more in touch with the substance of their existence and to expect more from their escapism... to layer the stories with a touch of humanity as well as entertainment... that we have moved permanently above the expectation that the highest we should expect from our entertainment is the lowest form of our existence.

At least, I hope so.

Microcinema Flashback - The Hollywood Recycling Center - One Man's Classic is Another Man's Paycheck (2002)

From May 2002...

Imitation may be a sincere form of flattery, but in Hollywood, I think it's simply a shortcut to payday.

*****

The Hollywood Recycling Center - One Man's Classic is Another Man's Paycheck
By Pete Bauer

When you're pounding your head, trying to think of new story ideas, does it ever feel like that you have nothing new to offer? That the idea in your head is really just a re-tread of an existing film? Don't worry. This happens all the time. Sometimes, new ideas are hard to come by, even for the most lauded of screenwriters. Take Robert Towne. Here's a guy who's written some of the most important, critically acclaimed films in the history of Hollywood. He's written or helped write such films as Chinatown, The Parallax View, Marathon Man, The Two Jakes, Tequila Sunrise, The Firm and many more. He's also written two of my favorite recent films, Mission: Impossible 1 & 2. Just a few weeks ago I rented both MIs on DVD, watched and enjoyed them both. Then, last night, I plopped in one of my all time favorite films, a film that I had not seen in years... Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious. I was stunned to find out I was actually watching the original Mission: Impossible 2. Let's look at the similarities:

The stories revolve around government agents (Cary Grant in Notorious and Tom Cruise in MI2) who are asked to get to know a woman, a non-agent (Ingrid Bergman in Notorious and Thandie Newton in MI2), whom the government wants to enlist to assist them in a critical mission. Both agents quickly fall in love with these beautiful civilian women before they are told the specifics of the mission. As part of their job, both women are asked to rekindle an old relationship with an ex-lover (Claude Rains in Notorious and Dougray Scott in MI2) and must even agree to sleep with them, if necessary. Both ex-lovers are men who were desperately in love with these women previously, to the point that their partners (Leopoldine Konstantin, who plays Rains mother in Notorious and Richard Roxburgh in MI2) fear they are clouded by their lust and love when their old flames suddenly reappear back into their lives.

Once undercover, both women agree to meet with the agents for the first time at a horse race, where the ex-lover watches them from afar, then approaches them just as the agent leaves. Both women are successful at their espionage (Bergman gets the key to the wine cellar in Notorious, Newton picks the flash disc from Scott's pocket in MI:2). However, both women make a slight, critical error (Bergman doesn't get the key back on the key chain in time, Newton slides the disc back into the wrong pocket) which arouses suspicion in the ex-lovers. Once the men verify the women are traitors, they are unable to tell their cohorts in crime for fear of repercussion (more so in Notorious than MI:2). Both women are then poisoned (Bergman by the tea she drinks, Newton by injecting herself with a virus) and both agents must come to their rescue and save them before the poison kills them. Both of the women are saved from their missions in the nick of time by the agents, whom they love and who love them. MI:2


Stunning.

If there were only a few similarities, it would be different, but the first half of both movies are almost identical. The climaxes vary widely due to the style of the directors (Hitchcock and Woo), but the storylines are identical. The only major difference in both stories is that Grant, when he finds out what Bergman must do on her mission, refuses to admit his love for her. Where as in MI:2, Cruise makes a point to tell her that he'd rather her not take the mission because of his feelings for her. Hitchcock's love story is much stronger because it adds an entirely different level to the story. Grant's and Bergman's relationship is brutal at times and you want her to know that he really loves her just as bad as you want her to complete her mission and get out of there. But, beyond that and the directorial styles, the films are nearly identical.

Even though I think we need to tell the most compelling, unique stories possible, when Hollywood recycles, it also includes their screenplays (I won't even get into the whole Casablanca vs. Barb Wire fiasco). So, the next time you come across a great idea that may not have been all that original, remember that HOW you tell your story appears to be more important than WHAT your story is about. If someone as truly talented as Robert Towne can, maliciously or not, turn Notorious into MI:2, then you can certainly turn your favorite film into something uniquely your own.

How about Raging Bull as a sci-fi musical? Or Citizen Kane as a sitcom starring Gary Coleman? Or The Sound Of Music Television. And I'm sure Towne won't mind if I turn Chinatown into Universal Soldier VIII! After all, a man has to make a living.