Let's do some memos!

Too long for Tweets, too short for essays, too hot for TV! It's memos! To-the-point protests, suggestions, observations, and aggravations. These are not debatable so sit down. 

- Paul

Cult Movies

Beetlejuice? Scarface? Pulp Fiction? Lebowski? Does this pointless genre label really hold any water anymore? I think once Home Video gained momentum about 40 years ago just about everything became way too accessible to have any kinda "cult" following. I don't care how offbeat the subject matter is, once you've received the Criterion 4K treatment your spooky street cred is null & void, so get in the bin with the rest of the Barbies. 

Ironic Santa Claus

He's been portrayed as a maniac, villain, superhero, tough guy, imposter, layman, drunkard, and asshole. Over a century of Cinema and that should seem fine but I feel like the bulk of these were just from the past 10 years. Not to sound like a namby-pamby but can't we have some more nice Santa movies - ones where he isn't firing rockets from a jet-powered sleigh? I know these aging Hollywood stars need to remain relevant but that doesn't mean Kris Kringle has to become the other James Bond. 

With a cherry on top

Why are we so stingy with the cherries? Toppings include candy, cookies, condiments and various syrups, all kindsa other fruits - there's even a sundae built around a whole-ass banana. There's even all these yuppie options like potato chips and bacon and coffee beans, so let's stop pretending the singular cherry is so precious. Even Del Monte is like "here's your cherry slice" - and don't tell me about Cherry Garcia because that's bullshit. Next time they ask you what you want on your whatever just say "oops! all cherries!"

Product placement

Integrating name brands into your content is an art form - and stuff like Mac & Me and The Wizard are Van Goghs. If you wanna sell a product then build your movie right on top of it - don't even move the headstones. It's when they try to sneak it in there that it feels cheap. Anyone catch Fincher's The Killer? What an excessive amount of shill (especially from the Fight Club guy) - 10 minutes in and I was prepared to credit it as a McDonald's movie until I began to realize it shares just as much screen time as Starbucks and Amazon. That's not gonna work for me. 

Superman's suit

Even before the new trailer dropped, the behind-the-scenes pics of the newest costume went viral -- once more into the comments section, dear friends. James Gunn sucks, new suit blows! Yes, of course it blows you neck-bearded child, it's a grown man in candy-colored spandex with his underwear on the outside. Am I too cynical for admitting that maybe these lucha libre wrestling tights accessorized with a cape(!) was probably cooler in the 1930s than it otherwise would be today? Maybe if these movies didn't take themselves so goddamn seriously then these stylized pajamas would seem slightly less obnoxious. 

POV

"Point of view". Does anybody fall for this? It can be an exhilarating camera move like in Jaws or even Evil Dead, but when I see it I just think about the camera. A lotta 50s Monster Movies employed it to cut costs, and 80s Slasher Movies used it because they misunderstood the voyeuristic approach of old Giallos and Hitchcock films; looking through the eyes of the killer doesn't do anything for me if I don't care about anything that's going on. Same goes for porn; what kinda dimwit believes they're actually being blown because of some clumsy camera placement? It takes more than eye contact to think we're watching a Jonathan Demme picture, folks. 

Computer generated dead actors

I was kinda fascinated by this when it started to become trendy ca. Rogue One - heck, I though it was neat when Fred Astaire danced with a Dirt Devil back in the 90s. Now that they're using it just as continuity caulk in the cracks of their stupid multiverses I couldn't give less of a piss. That + they're getting so much worse at it - the most disgusting thing I've seen in any Alien movie is Ian Holm's irrelevant return from the dead in Romulus - Lyndon Johnson was more believable in Forrest Gump. 

Artificial Intelligence

"AI" for short, though I always read it as "Al", as in "Al Pacino". It doesn't have many fans amongst 99% of people - it takes away jobs and probably starts nuclear wars. Frankly machines have been doing that since the Industrial Age, and in the end it's always the living, breathing people we have to blame. Whatever, I'm not on about the political or even the SciFi angle of it; the biggest effect that's most in my face in the artistic angle - particularly the video and photography that shows up on social media. And my not-so-hot take is... I love it. All of this weird, distorted, psychedelic imagery has been infinitely more interesting and creative than most of the terrestrial content I've seen in the past few decades. Sympathy to the background artists and voice actors, but if we could replace the endless franchise shitshow with some of this abstract nightmare fuel then I say bring on all the HAL 9000s you got.