The 2 Polar Opposites of Hollywood

Hollywood. The capital of the movie world (some would argue that Bollywood produces many more films but we are talking about those that most people get to see, worldwide). It dishes out more movies than you would care to remember but I find that it has 2 kind of movies that is most likely to hit with the mass viewers.

1. The All Action, Mega Special Effects, No brainer movie.
2. The well thought out script and easily relatable feel good movie (This does not mean those high and mighty artsy-fartsy films that the critics love but nobody sees).

The majority of the people will go with no. 1 in the list above. If the movie has mega loads of special effects and things blowing up every other minute, you can be sure it will take in a lot of money at the box office. Story line and character development becomes secondary but no one will care. When you ask they will likely reply you with a "It's just a movie! Just enjoy it!"

Recent examples of movies like this are Terminator:Salvation and Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen. Big explosions and mega special effects but the story line almost like an afterthought. Did they do well at box office? Yes. Did the critics like them? No. Terminator:Salvation got 35% of reviewers giving it a passing grade at the Rotten Tomatoes website. The new Transformers movie fared even worse at 21%.

I haven't seen any one of them but I don't feel like going. Maybe I can wait for the DVD. I had a feeling that Transformers will be bad after seeing the trailer where Optimus Prime was dwarfed by the then unnamed decepticon. I was thinking that perhaps director Micheal Bay had gone a bit too far this time. My fear proved correct.

Then there are those good script and story line feel good movies. These movies will not do as well at the box office but I like them more. They may not break any box office records but they produce for way less budget and gives just as much returns minus costs than those special effects extravaganza. Examples of some of them are:

1. American Pie
2. Must Love Dogs
3. Lizzie Macquire movie
4. School of Rock
5. Toy Story
6. Wall-E
7. Finding Nemo
8. Forrest Gump
9. Pleasantville
10. Enchanted

They are more original and fresh. They make you think, "That's a nice movie!" when you leave your seat. The other type just leaves you with a feeling that you had kinda expected all that happened in the movie.

Lately, it's getting harder and harder to find good movies coming from Hollywood. It feels like they have run of of ideas when it comes to movies. Most of the time it's either a sequel or a remake of some old TV series or old film. Anyway, I'm looking forward to 'UP' by Pixar. Seems like they are one of the few movie making studios out there that still delivers. It's a 3D animated movie but don't let that stop you from watching. I always list Pixars movies high on my must-see list and you should too.