BRINGING OUT THE DEAD

This quote pretty much sums the film up, IMO.

"The street's not like the ER; there's no walls, no control. To make up for that, they train me to act without thinking. I've come to realize that my training is useful in less than 10% of the calls and saving someone's life is rarer than that. I was a grief mop. It was enough that I simply showed up."

BOTD is probably the most convingly melanchollic and haunting film I've seen ever. A lot of films deal with sad stories, but the people in charge of the visuals and the audio techniques don't bother trying to draw the audience into the stories; they simply put some sad story on paper and then film it. I think it's presumptious of a filmmaker to think that anyone has any REASON to automatically give a care about a film's subject matter or story. Yet that's what filmmakers do most of the time. It was much worse before the '60's; films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange (especially the latter) really opened up the world to cinema as an art form and not just a bunch of meaningless matter. Films like The Manchurian Candidate (the original) are still being made, but they often just clutter the shelves of videostores for people looking for lite entertainment and don't really impact anyone emotionally or otherwise. It's really a mystery to me why Hollywood or anyone else invests money into those films, but then again, Bringing Out The Dead didn't really fare very well at the box office either. Perhaps if filmmakers didn't rip off other people's techniques and stories, making the audience think they can EXPECT anything other than the unexpected, the audience might not have looked away so much from Bringing Out The Dead. Granted, there's a portion of today's world that just doesn't give a care about the subject matter of BOTD, some who think it's too negative, some who have better things to do with their time than mope away 2 hours of time, and a lot of people who are too freakin' hyper to sit through a slow-paced 2 hour film. In fact, as expensive as films are to make, and as much as they cost to see in theaters, I wouldn't have expected this film to do well at the box office. But even on Amazon, the avg customer rating is less than glowing. The same can't be said of such tripe as JUST ONE OF THE GUYS (1985) or BEVERLY HILLS COP (1984). Don't get me wrong, I love the 80's, I love some of the contemporary films of the 80's, that could have only been made in the 80's, but Beverly Hills Cop is just plain stupid! There's very few comedic moments in the film, the story is weak, there's no other emotional elements that really jump out at the hearts of the audience members, so why the heck does/did everybody go crazy over that film? Of course, I think MANNEQUIN (1987) and ZAPPED AGAIN (1989) are very good examples of contemporary 80's films - light, fluffy, full of color and synth-laden background music, what were we living for in the 80's exactly? But then such a dark and unhappy and just overall GRIMY excuse for a comedy like DON'T TELL MOM THE BABYSITTER'S DEAD (1990) is like THE biggest teen comedy of the year, just like the TV Show the film's star got her start in (MARRIED WITH CHILDREN; w/ Christina Applegate, if you're too young or have some other excuse for not knowing these things...although MARRIED WITH CHILDREN had its charm, however grimy it was...and who can't identify with the show's core concept? DON'T TELL MOM... on the other hand was about children, and there's nothing more depressing than seeing a bunch of children living in a world of trash and loving it; maybe that's just me though...I didn't care too much for the 1993 adaptation of DENNIS THE MENACE though either for similiar reasons...).

I guess the 80's was just a bad time for films. a lot of the films I cherished on cable in the late 80's and early 90's have gone down in the history books as "box office bombs". THE GREAT OUTDOORS (1988) is a perfect example. Even most casual film goers will admit to some of the finer moments of 80's cinema being films that didn't do too well at the box office. NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) and SIXTEEN CANDLES (1983) are both considered classics to anyone whose familiar with them. Yet their box office success was minimal if not non-existent.

But this day and age, with the internet and the cautious tone of the world today, what's stopping people from weeding out all the stupid irrelevent filmmaking and just concentrating on the stuff that makes life worth remembering? But then again, even FORREST GUMP (1994) has its fair share of enemies, cynical cold hearted jerks they are...it's hard to know what really captured the hearts of audiences and what everyone just went to see 'cause their boyfriend/husband or girlfriend/wife wouldn't mind seeing it...TITANIC (1997) is the highest grossing film, and it seems like it got that way b/c of that reason; guys tolerated it for its action aspects and women tolerated the action for the romantic undertones. It had something for everybody but nobody LOVED that film.

Well...I can say I'm glad BRINGING OUT THE DEAD got made...it had something for very few, but I suspect those very few people LOVE(D) that film.

Ok, now it's time to quote the Alanis Morissette song...wait, we've heard that one before, haven't we?