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From: dwhitney@uok.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Movie Flame - (nf)
Message-ID: <5100030@uok.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Jun-84 22:06:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uok.5100030
Posted: Thu Jun 28 22:06:00 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Jul-84 02:14:33 EDT
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Nf-ID: #R:tekig1:-168300:uok:5100030:000:1917
Nf-From: uok!dwhitney    Jun 28 21:06:00 1984

#R:tekig1:-168300:uok:5100030:000:1917
uok!dwhitney    Jun 28 21:06:00 1984


The reason I (being Mr. Whitney) make comments berating certain films as
"snob-class" and "pretentious" is merely because that is exactly what they are.
Average folks who work eight hours a day want to go to the movies to escape
from reality, not have Hollywood's version of it crammed down their throats;
hence, the success of escapist films such as Indiana Jones, Star Trek, E.T.,
you name it.  The Academy Awards always go out to those films with deep
social relevance, and they try to hide those which are geared strictly for
entertainment.  It has almost come to the point that if it makes money, it
must be purely commerical "fuzzy-thing-sellers", and that it cannot be truly
good filmmaking.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't like E.T. (too silly), Jedi
(too dern flag-waving and 4th of July).  But there is a distinct difference
of market appeal in films for those seeking to escape society's dilemmas,
or those looking for pretension.  No one in my family, that I know of (and
we are a rather large group, all totalled) saw Terms of Endearment, Cross
Creek, or any other films which were so widely acclaimed by the critics
and the Academy.  (the black-tie folks who hand out the little gold statues)
Being average people, we enjoy simple comedies as Airplane, Cannonball,
9 to 5, and the like, because they serve a very simple purpose: they
entertain. When movies start to preach social issues, or if a society becomes
so simple-minded that a two-hour flick can change entire society's views on
some big subject, then that is when movies get out of hand and their
focus of purpose entirely lost.  If being one who enjoys escapist, non-preachy
films makes me a puerile, mindless juvenile, then color me guilty. I have
no need for Hollywoods browbeating, liberal-preaching, and self-gratifying
lectures disguised as art and distributed to movie theaters with slick posters

Here's to entertainment.
David Whitney