In brightest day, in blackest night, where should Green Lantern shine his light next?

I had the occasion to take a look at Green Lantern again recently through my ongoing DVD rentals for this blog and I thought I would do something a little different this time. Part of what I am going to do is review the film itself but I am also going to talk about what I think should be the next step in DC Comics and Warner Brothers attempts to get a cinematic universe off the ground, because I believe that in order to get anywhere, they do have to include Green Lantern in the process.

Recently, Zack Snyder, director of the highly anticipated Man of Steel was asked about the possibility of a bigger plan like what Marvel did with The Avengers stemming from the afore mentioned Superman movie Man of Steel. He said that at the moment Warner Brothers and DC Comics were more interested in getting their cinematic superhero characters in order before looking into something like that but that they were open to it. And with recent reports of attempts to get a Justice League movie off the ground, one can only assume that the idea of where this all might be heading is in the executive minds. But I think he was right to say that they need to get their cinematic superhero house in order first.

This is evident by taking a look at things like Superman Returns and Green Lantern, they may have been really well done but they left much to be desired from both non-fans and fans alike given their general reception. They did well in the theatres but in the world of superhero movies, doing well at the box office just isn’t good enough. You only need to look as far as Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Legend trilogy to see what it’s like to do well at the box office AND be widely praised by anyone who might go to the theatre. Green Lantern had such a problem. I thought very well of it as someone who doesn’t know the character that well but is a big fan of superheroes, but I didn’t love it. As a filmmaker, I could see many of the things that they were trying to do and in some places they succeeded, but overall the story elements just didn’t click as well as they needed to so that they could really shine.

Where I think they ultimately failed is in the use of fear as their primary driving theme. It’s a great theme as many who went to see Batman Begins will attest to, but it’s because of its use in Batman Begins that it ended up falling flat. They wanted to show that fear was not the only element or tactic that you need to use in order to be a hero, but the characters were so often bogged down by fears that were never really articulated well enough that they made a serious impact on the story. Not to mention, fear is not the only emotion that needs to be put forward when doing a Green Lantern movie. Recent years in the comics have introduced numerous other Lantern Corps based on different elements of the emotional spectrum. I am by no means suggesting that you should come out of the gate with all these different Corps in a new movie, but the elements were all there in the previous movie. There was love, hope, courage, greed, anger, compassion, and potentially even life and death.

All of these other elements took a backseat to fear, although there has been some suggestion that the others might make an appearance in future installments, as a way of in some ways seeming to compete with Batman and the powerful themes and ideals that are pervasive in Christopher Nolan’s films even if that wasn’t their intention. This was a mistake, and one they need to rectify if they are going to move beyond their fear of Batman being their only superhero at the box office.

Will power, or the will to act, is often either fueled by or creates a bi-product of emotion. If I have felt the power of love, I find the will to act out of love. If I have felt anger, I find the will to act out of anger. And often doing so leads to other emotions from which to draw strength. All these elements were in the film but were not fully realized in the story itself. So I say...

In brightest day, in blackest night, where should Green Lantern shine his light next? Into a broader emotional spectrum of themes.

Does Arrow hit its mark?

The final pilot that I managed to see in the recent 4 day weekend of fandamonium that is FanExpo was Arrow, the newest show based on a DC Comics superhero character after the end of Smallville which chronicled the story of a young Clark Kent as he grows up to become Superman. Many attempts to get something else off the ground in television have been tried since the success of that show and so naturally they are often compared to Smallville and I am sure that many will be in the years to come. Attempts were made to do a Smallville spinoff of the Supergirl character which appeared on the show, as well as an unconnected Robin story which follows the same formula of a young Dick Grayson before he came to be trained by Batman. All of which seem to have fallen by the wayside. So the fact that Arrow managed to make it as far as it did is something of a feat in and of itself.

What I think contributed to Arrow getting itself off the ground is that it didn’t try to trade off the success of Smallville in the same way that previous superhero origin story attempts have. Despite the fact that the character of Green Arrow appeared in Smallville and would eventually become a main character in its final years, Arrow doesn’t seem to take the easy way out. It cast new actors in the roles of Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance when it could have easily brought them over and pleased the fans of both Smallville and many comic book fans as well, but it didn’t. The show attempted to stand on its own and tell its own story in its own way. For that, people should be grateful.

This is not to say that I am not a fan of the idea of a shared universe or that I don’t want to see what I like about characters I have followed for a long time represented on screen. I do. But as a writer I understand that this isn’t always the best way to go. Part of developing a TV show or a movie which has a built in audience is making sure you don’t alienate any potential new fans you can create by telling a story not steeped in too much history. That’s one of the fundamental lessons of a show like Smallville. The story of Superman is not a new story, people know the origin and they have seen it represented in so many different ways. Smallville took what that history and gave it a different tone, a different viewpoint, and weren’t afraid to have a sense of humor about it.

In watching the pilot of Arrow, I think that seems to be a lesson which the creators seem to have learned well from and taken to heart. They seem to have great respect for the character’s history in comics, as well as his importance on Smallville, but it’s by no means an ode to the fans who love him already. Fans of the character and of DC Comics characters in general will definitely appreciate the show and the respect the character is given, but there are all kinds of aspects which even a casual fan or someone who isn’t a fan at all can enjoy. You have the hero with the cause worth fighting for, an unrequited love story, the importance of family and the question of how that is defined, and most of all you have humor.

All of these elements are portrayed quite well by Stephen Amell, and yet the other characters are no less interesting or well thought out. Each of the characters have their own problems and their own struggles to face that don’t rely on Oliver Queen to be told, but ultimately I think what will make the show work is how his alter ego the Green Arrow will interject himself into those problems and help them solve them to come out better for it, much like the show seems to have done.

So does Arrow hit its mark? With pin point accuracy.

Is J.J. Abrams new show a revolution in storytelling?

One of the other shows that I got a chance to see this past weekend at FanExpo was the new J.J. Abrams show called Revolution. Anyone who knows anything about J.J. Abrams career knows that he has something of a strange reputation when it comes to his body of work. From Lost to Alias to Fringe and Alias, his TV work has been something to gawk at in terms of their popularity and the frustrations of its fans. Chief among the ideas that has frustrated fans is Lost, which seems to have lead many to believe that while he comes up with great ideas, the execution of those ideas leaves something to be desired and his involvement is often more of a detriment to the storytelling process.

Perhaps that is true, we certainly don’t know enough about what goes on behind the scenes to really make a determination of J.J. Abrams involvement and how much he has or hasn’t affected the storytelling process. What isn’t in question is that when people hear his name attached to a project, they tend to perk up and pay attention. He is a very high concept creator and people seem to appreciate his work for that, if nothing else. The new show Revolution is no exception in the list of TV shows that he has created. It’s very high concept and world building in its function as a TV show, but is that revolutionary in today’s TV landscape? A lot of shows have come to our screens in recent years with a high concept and a story worth telling.

Shows like Flash Forward and Terra Nova are quick to establish the world that their characters live in, but some of their lesser competition misses the mark in terms of the characters that ultimately drive the show. Unfortunately, I feel like this is the case for Revolution. The world is very clearly established and has a lot of potential to tell some interesting stories, but falls well short of establishing the characters that end up being the focus of the show. Without creating any serious spoilers, many of the characters which appear to be driving the show’s story forward are background characters in the opening scenes. It’s not until even half way through the first episode that it becomes clear who the main characters are, and in order to do that they have to dispense with numerous more interesting characters that could have just as easily been interesting in their own right and been the focus of the show. Why not do that instead?

A while back I watched a lecture that J.J. Abrams did in which he talked about his interest, or perhaps obsession, with mystery. He talked a lot about how he and so many other people are intrigued by mystery and that the unknown is such an interesting aspect of life and storytelling in general. But what wasn’t touched on was the importance of characters. They should never be a mystery. And by that I don’t mean that they aren’t allowed to have secrets or mislead people. I mean that we should always understand exactly who it is that they are. We should always know why they do the things they do or we should at least find out at some point. As the audience, we should never be uncertain why we care about the characters we are watching. In order to do that in television, your main character or characters need to take center stage. In Revolution, the event takes center stage. The reason why the world is the way it is drives the story and in many ways the main characters take a backseat even more so then they do in the first 10 minutes of the pilot.

Is J.J. Abrams new show a revolution in storytelling? Not really, but at least people will watch it.

Should Kevin Bacon’s new show find a Following?

“The FBI estimates that there are up to 300 serial killers operating on any given day in the United States alone.”

A phrase that has often been uttered in TV shows of a crime drama nature when faced with the more disturbing cases of that show, most often involving serial killers. By any means a staggering and disturbing statistic that highlights many other aspects of the world we live in today. One such aspect is the way in which many people develop an affinity for serial killers and the work they do, whether it’s copycat killers who try to emulate them, or the serial killer groupies who flock to such men (because by and large serial murder is committed by men), or just those who collect details about them out of some twisted affinity for the morbid or obscene. The Following, a new show that I had the fortune to see at a recent screening held at FanExpo, attempts to bring many of these tragic elements together to form a story worth telling.

There are a lot of things about this story that are interesting because of it. You have the tragic hero with the checkered past, the young upstart who wants to believe they know everything, and the driven professional who wants to believe that having a plan will result in everything working out. Where the story differs from a lot of what has been seen before is that at the center of what will most likely be driving the force behind the story is a serial killer who has managed to develop quite a fan base.

In a world that has become increasingly fan focused, it’s a worthy question to ask what if the person you’re a fan of isn’t so nice? What if what you’re doing to impress them isn’t a good thing? Are you still a fan or are you something worse? Are you just obsessive? To some extent I think that The Following is attempting to answer that question. The question of how far it is okay to go for what you love. However I think it also has another interesting element to it that at the very least as a writer I am very interested to see. One of the major hooks of the show seems to be that both main characters are writers, and part of the shorthand that is established in the beginning is the idea of storytelling as a metaphor for life.

The struggle, the heartbreak, the moral of the story, these appear to be one of the backdrops on which many of the future episodes will be based and it has certainly peaked my interest. Anyone who knows me is aware of how much I believe in the way that art imitates life and the importance of understanding and learning about the ideas and principals behind those stories. The Following appears to try to blend all of these elements together and at the very least I think it’s clear that the creator, Kevin Williamson, has a very clear understanding of that that is trying to be blended, which is interesting because I haven’t always felt that way about his work.

He can be somewhat hit and miss with the stories he is trying to tell, from his hits like Scream and Dawson’s Creek, to his stumbles like The Vampire Diaries which stumbled out of the gate before finding sure footing and The Secret Circle which never did. Taking a look at what he has done with The Following so far, I feel pretty confident in saying that he has the potential to make this one for the hit column.  And so...

Should Kevin Bacon’s new show find a Following? I think it should, but only time will tell if it will be a good following or a bad following.

How many people are left “Up in the Air”?

People who know me for any serious period of time know that I spend a fairly large part of my time in search of a job. My biggest dream is to work full time in the creative industry. An industry that almost by default lends itself to unstable bouts of employment. The fact that my own life seems to have a high turnover of employment, I like to think, prepares me for what I live in hope will be my ultimate career. Living with that reality means that I have a certain amount of experience leaving companies as well as joining them. So when I sat down and watched the movie “Up in the Air”, I couldn’t help but enjoy seeing things from the other side of the proverbial table when it comes to letting people go.

Thankfully, I have never worked for a company that has the money or resources to employ what might only be described as a termination specialist to do the job of letting me go, but I can’t imagine its much of a picnic for anyone involved. I know it’s never been much for me. However much like the main characters in the film itself, Ryan Bingham and Natalie Keener (played by George Clooney and Anna Kendrick respectively), I find that I have developed a certain amount of emotional distance from the jobs that I get and the way in which I deal with them, which makes dealing with the loss of the job all the easier to leave if and more often than not when necessary.  To paraphrase from Fight Club that I have somewhat embraced:

“I am not my job. I am not my possessions or my position in society.”

In as much as that is true of me, this is true of the characters of “Up in the Air”. Even though their jobs are their lives, the characters themselves are not their jobs. They are both defined by, and yet set themselves apart from their jobs. It’s an interesting contradiction that plays itself out in the film. A lot of their lives revolve around the work that they do, and yet they still find time to go to parties, meet people, and find time to relax in between the work that they do. I suppose it’s ironic that a film about the end of people’s employment doesn’t depict the job the main characters do for a living as soul crushing. That Ryan Bingham (Clooney) actually likes the work that he does, hard as it may be, and Natalie Keener (Kendrick) spends much of the film trying to move past the more difficult parts of a job in which she is constantly confronted with the absolute worst moments of many people’s lives.

Also worthy of note is that my bias against any actor participating in the films of Twilight has been fundamentally shifted by Anna Kendrick in this film. While I still generally question anyone’s willingness to play a part in a film series that is so incredibly terrible on so many levels, watching Kendrick perform in movies like this and 50/50 have helped me to separate the material from the actor and appreciate the people involved all the more. She plays the character of Natalie with subtly and emotional depth that I don’t really see in Twilight when I have watched it.

Clooney of course, is, well, Clooney. Even as a man with a face so recognizable, he manages to embody the character of Ryan Bingham beautifully who believes in a life without connection while developing a need to connect with people.

So how many people are left “Up in the Air” by this film? I’m guessing not many.

Who was more tied down by Black Snake Moan?

Musicals are a tricky thing to pull off. Whether they are on stage or in a film so many of them can fall flat if the mind behind them isn’t exceptional or they have a team behind them that is exceptional. But when they do and they get it right, they have the ability to go beyond the simple box that people tend to place them in. To put women and children and men in the seats eager to experience the magic that flows from them. And then there are films like Black Snake Moan. The type that occupies this weird middle place that is both great and controversial at the same time, great because of the music that is used within it (the director suggests that while not your typical musical, it is a musical) and controversial because of the subject matter that it deals with throughout the film.

A film like this can sometimes attract a very narrow audience given the basic framework of how the story plays out, but I can’t help but feel that a wider audience should have the benefit of watching it and trying to understand the concepts and ideas that the film is all about. It centers around two main characters, Rae (played by Christina Ricci), and Lazarus (played by Samuel L Jackson), two people who are both broken inside for different reasons that have never met but through a series of unfortunate circumstances will be thrust together and force each other to deal with what broke them in the first place.

Now I can hear people who have never heard of the movie saying, what’s so controversial about that? It sounds like your typical everyday Hollywood plot. And I can see how people might jump to that conclusion, but where the controversy comes in is in how they end up forced to deal with each other. Lazarus, because of many of the circumstances that brought Rae to him, is forced to tie a chain around Rae’s waist and keep her chained to the house until he can figure out a way to help her. She also happens to spend most of her time around the house half naked. I know, it sounds like the beginning of a torture porn film like Saw, or the premise for a really well written porn film. Many of the people who have seen the film have come to the conclusion that the chain is a metaphor for men needing to assert their power over women, and that in order to control women they have to be domesticated.

I however would take a much broader view of the film in really analyzing it. The director, for all intents and purposes, has tried to plead the fifth on whether or not the message of the film is anti-feminist. Honestly, I don’t think feminism enters into the equation of this film. Not all films have to have female empowerment or feminist, or anti-feminist messages in them, in the same way that not all movies with a racially diverse cast have to be about race. Some movies do, and some don’t. My opinion is that this movie isn’t really about race, or female empowerment. It’s a film about trauma.

Both the main characters are dealing with a type of trauma. Both of them have had key people in their lives leave them for one reason or another recently and they are both trying to come to terms with the fact that they are now alone, either temporarily or permanently. Rae being the one who has more troubles then she knows what to deal with, is metaphorically and literally tied down by the pain of what she’s going through and Lazarus is trying to help her see the metaphorical chain that she refuses to set herself free from. And so the question becomes:

Who was more tied down by Black Snake Moan? The audience or the characters?

Who wants to get Buried?

I’ve had the opportunity to rent a few DVDs recently and catch up on quite a few films that slipped through my gaze in the past few years. So I thought I would take a moment and review them. The first film of the bunch that got buried in my sub-conscious is the aptly named “Buried”, a film that seems ambitious from the get-go.

For those that didn’t hear about it when it came out, the film stars Ryan Reynolds as a truck driver in Iraq whose convoy gets attacked and they bury him so that he can be used for ransom by his kidnappers. What’s most ambitious about the film is that it takes place entirely within the coffin that Paul Conroy (the obviously stressed Ryan Reynolds) was in. There are a lot of film directors who focus on creating the right shot and for the right emotion, with the right lighting and colors to create that shot. In most movies that’s a fundamental aspect for the storytelling process, and to some extent that’s true of this film too. More important though in Buried is the performance of Ryan Reynolds. Truly this is a film built for an actor’s study.

How else do you explain a film about a man in a 6 foot box fir over 90 minutes being such a riveting piece of film? It’s a terrifying thing, watching a man struggling to deal with the reality of his situation. He starts off bound and blind to what happened to him, much as we, the audience, are coming into this. Slowly but surely we watch as, even trapped in a coffin buried under mountains of dirt and rock, things keep getting worse for him. Watching the truth of the situation unfold is unlike most films out there today. Many films, particularly horror films, rely on what’s just around the corner or the unknown to tell a story, and to some extent so does this film. But the beauty of “Buried” is that in some ways they are both the same thing. The uncertainty and the danger of the situation Paul Conroy is in, exists entirely in your head and where it might go stays there on the edge of your seat with you.

It goes without saying that Ryan Reynolds can be viewed as an unusual choice for a role that relies so heavily on the acting chops of the main actor. His most well known roles tend to be the romantic comedy kind and people don’t really associate them with great acting. But in this film, he proves that he is up to any challenge that might come at him. Does that mean he will always choose the right film or that the script will be up to the standards necessary to bring out such a performance? No, but when that great script does come along that lets him punch above the weight of other actors, boy does he have it in him.

It’s unfortunate that a film such as this seems to have flown under the radar for as long as it did, there are a lot of great things about it. But I can kind of understand why because of how uninteresting a film like this can seem to most people. Single shot movies tend to have the same problem so I can see how a film shot in a single location could have trouble finding an audience, not to mention the huge blockbuster that is Green Lantern (in the sense of money spent, if not in box office returns) which Ryan Reynolds also starred in which was released around the same time.

Who wants to get “Buried”? You should, or at the very least you should go looking for the film and dig it up from wherever it might be hiding.

Boss Review: Who's The Boss? - That Blog Thing - Movie Reviews, Film, Film Reviews, Boss, TV, Television, Television Review,

I have something of a ritual that I go through every so often. Whenever a new season of a show is up and coming, I go back and rewatch the previous season or seasons of the show to understand the context of where the show is when it returns. But also because I watch so many shows on television that I need to make sure that I know what’s going on. Coming up fairly soon is season 2 (I believe it's this week in fact) of the show “Boss”, and I couldn’t be more excited for it. In case you’re not aware of the show, Boss is a political drama starring Kelsey Grammer, best known for his work on “Cheers” and his spin-off “Frasier” as Frasier Crane, as the corrupt mayor of Chicago who has recently found out that he has a degenerative neurological disease.

Most of Kelsey Grammer’s work post Cheers has been in the comedy realm and they haven’t gone all that far. From shows like “Back to You” and “Hank”, a large portion of them have been cancelled within a matter of episodes airing. But with Boss, he has found a juggernaut of a show to headline. Airing on the cable network STARZ, it was picked up for season 2 even before the first episode aired. And taking a look at even the first episode, you can see why from the get go. When you watch it, you really feel like you’re getting an inside look into the world of politics in this day and age. Now I can understand that this might not sound entirely interesting to some people, but you have to consider the fact that this is a drama. It’s not all about the politics. In many ways, it’s about a corrupt man who has been further corrupted by the tragedy of his condition.

Often times when you see a show which focuses on someone with an incurable decision, they tend to be the kind of person with a great number of regrets in their life which they feel the need to repent for. But while he does have a few of those, by and large he is completely comfortable with who he is and what he does. Yet it couldn’t be more gripping to watch. To see the way in which Tom Kane (played to perfection by Kelsey Grammer) manipulates the people around him without remorse or ethical dilemma is both fantastic and disturbing at the same time. The people around him, from his wife, to his staff and political opponents all pop out at you as characters you know are horrible people and yet you can’t stop watching them both manipulate and get manipulated by the people around them in a matter of fact type of way.

What is often even more interesting is the fact that the left versus right, Democrat versus Republican divide is almost inconsequential in the story they tell. While numerous references are made to political parties or ideologies are made, most of it is entirely beside the point as far as many characters are concerned. During a time in which endless discussions seem to take place about divisive politics along party lines, this show digs deeper into the realities of politics where such a divide doesn’t really enter into it. To use a more recent show as a contrasting example, where a show like The Newsroom attempts to elevate the news above the party politics narrative that many real organizations have fallen into, Boss tries to highlight the dirty, grimy, yet exceptionally well dressed cronyism style of politics that is even more deeply rooted and often systemically wide spread in the system. Anyone who loves The Newsroom, I think, will almost definitely enjoy watching this show.

Who’s the Boss? Kelsey Grammer is the freaking boss.

Is the film industry being purposely ironic?

Recently I have read my fair share of articles and blogs talking about story telling in the film industry. Many of the discussions focus on the fact that there are too many sequels, prequels and remakes coming out lately. They talk about how Hollywood is creatively bankrupt and only cares about money. One of the newest articles I read started by asking if the film industry and Hollywood was out of original ideas? The irony of the article being that writing an article about a lack of originality in Hollywood is becoming less and less original the more it happens.

People talk, at length, about how terrible the new dynamic of Hollywood is and how it destroys creativity in the industry. Now I’m not above recognizing some of the films out there have problems. There are some pretty terrible films out there. I have even been known to get critical of really popular films, and recognizing that films that I’ve previously loved don’t end up aging very well. It’s not the prettiest thing in the world, even if many of the actors and actresses do. But I think it’s a mistake to think that this is a systemic thing that can’t be or doesn’t want to be fixed.

Film is not a uniform art. Heck, art is not a uniform art. There are many ways to go about it, many ways in which to tell a story. Independent or Hollywood, we in the arts all understand that, but if “new and original” ideas are the bench mark of good storytelling, then we pretty much bottomed out on original ideas three hundred years ago. And even then we were living on borrowed time. To use my previous review of The Amazing Spiderman as an example, just because a Spiderman has been done before doesn’t mean that the new film doesn’t have value, that there isn’t a story worth telling in the Spiderman character. Superheroes are the mythology of the modern age and there are so many different versions of them over the years, the films should be viewed the same.

Does that make them creatively bankrupt, or does it make the characters emotionally and creatively complex? There’s a prevailing belief within many storytellers that film peaked in the 1970s and things have been going downhill since then. But take a look at some of the films from that era and somewhat before. “West Side Story” is a musical version of “Romeo and Juliet”. ”It’s a Wonderful Life” is basically a retelling of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. “Scarface” from 1983 is a more violent remake of a 1932 film of the same name. “The Wizard of Oz” is basically the same story as “Alice in Wonderland”. The films many people in the film industry view as original ideas aren’t original at all. Yet for some reason, this time it’s different.

Many people say that the reason it’s different is because the studio system has changed. That the big time corporations that now own film studios have turned them into money making monsters who only care about profit. But is that actually the case? From what I understand the popularity of “Casablanca” prompted the studios to talk about making a sequel for it. The availability of the actors involved made it hard to do but the thought still crossed the studios minds. It would seem the only major difference between 1942 and today is that studios actually plan ahead of time for sequels and find actors who are willing to consider doing them. That isn’t really much of a change in my opinion. If anything it just means that studios are becoming better planners.

And on the subject of sequels and prequels, one needs only to look at what is often referred to as film’s redheaded step child, television, to see examples of why there are so many these days. Some stories simply can’t be contained within a 90 minute time frame. Or even a 2-3 hour time frame. Television has been known to tell a story over up to 25 hours split into individual episodes. Yet people complain that stories are being told over several films? And if it’s such a problem, why are so many major Hollywood filmmakers and actors moving into television these days?

Now I will admit there are some films that don’t need sequels. There are some films that lose something because a sequel or prequel is made of the original film. I am not big on sequels like “The Matrix Reloaded”, “The Crow: City of Angels”, and the rather extensive amount of direct-to-DVD sequels to films like “Bring It On” or “American Pie”. Not to mention all the different horror films with less than decent films. But you also have films like “The Dark Knight”, “Back to the Future: Part 2” and “Superman II”, all of which have improved on the original and did great things.

For every bad sequel or prequel out there in the film industry, there are all sorts of examples of really great ones. So when I read a blog or hear someone talk about the endless parade of sequels, prequels and remakes I can’t help but wonder where all the hate is coming from. Originality is a state of mind, not a formula. It’s not the amount of money you can put into a production. It’s about emotional honesty. Any film can be great if the filmmakers care about the material and are on the same page creatively. But I continually hear about how independent film is better than Hollywood. About how creatively bankrupt and out of originality it can be. The influx of opinions that all sound the same is so much that I just have to ask...

Is the film industry being purposely ironic?