Don't get me wrong. I'm a total movie buff. But special effects are overused in Hollywood and they ruin almost every movie (except Jurassic Park, which was what like 20 years ago now? And still nothing comes close in the special effects department). There is one effect in particular that has got my goat (sorry for the harsh language). You all know it, and you've seen it a million times. The oh so surprising car/truck/bus hit. I can't stand it, and it takes me right out of a movie.
Last week, my chick and I rented
Ghost Town. Now, I am a big Robert Kelly fan, as well as a fan of
The Office (the British one only; I'm a snob like that, you see), so I decided to give it a whirl. (not to mention it also has that good looking blonde broad, Greg Kinnear) I've seen the trailer so I know that Mr. Talk Soup becomes a ghost at some point in this movie. About fifteen minutes in, he is strolling down the sidewalk and is about to be crushed by a window air conditioning unit that is teetering on a windowsill, belonging to a lovely young couple. (I would love to get into how, in commercials and now movies, men are portrayed as lumbering dummies who can't do shit right. All while their wives or girlfriends are giving that
he's an idiot, but he's my idiot smirk to the camera. But that's another blog.) Just when he's about be hit by the AC unit, he steps back, off of the curb, into the street and WHAM! You guessed it, he gets channeled by Oda Mae Brown...I mean he gets nailed by a fast moving vehicle. Why? I don't know, it had nothing to do with the movie. (and by the way, why are these vehicles always going like 99mph? how does a bus go that fast on a city street? This is
Ghost Town, not
Speed) It might have made sense if his wife hit him with the car because he was cheating on her, but it was just an unoriginal, overused shocking effect that is no longer shocking. Can't these screenwriters come up with a more original and entertaining way to kill someone in a movie? He could have been mugged, pushed in front of a car by a crackhead that got hold of the wrong stuff, or I don't know, maybe hit on the head with a fucking AC unit? I'll admit that when it happened I jumped, but that doesn't mean it was effective. (it probably just means that I'm a pussy) Immediately after it happened I was angry that it had happened again. (by the way it happens to David Brent at the end of the movie too - that's right, twice in one movie. yay!)
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