It’s Summer. We’re spending time with families and friends. We’re going to the beach, eating seafood and pizza, we’ve had the high of Christmas and New Year and now we’re and the kids are on holidays, what could possibly go wrong?… Rain and extreme heat.
When it rains around here this time of year or when the mercury is topping forty, there are thousands of holidaymakers and families who are faced with the most serious question of the holiday season. “What movie are we going to see?”
There is no accounting for taste and this is explains the sub culture who actually want to pay hard currency to see part three of The Hobbit.
I don’t have a problem with Tolkein. I admire his stamina if nothing else. But I have never been one for Sir Peter Jackson. Melodrama, loud noises, dragons and screaming in New Zealand…? Really? This is cinema is it? In the words of Bilbo Baggins;
Truly the tales and songs fall utterly short of your enormity…
I tried, but I just can not believe the guy from the original “The Office” is handy with a broadsword under pressure. Nobody goes from “cynical slacker in outer London” to “central character in a Heroes Quest” with the same haircut, the same accent and successfully transports me into an imaginary world of elves and bearded companions.
I don’t care if I am alone in my view of Jacko, and these are the sort of ill-founded prejudices that will rise to surface in households and caravan parks on this – the longest school holiday, when it starts to rain or the sun gets too hot.
Crouched ‘round laptops we scroll down screening times, viewing options that provoke high stake discussions and reveal true character. The debate includes a variety of stakeholders. For those who will be taking financial responsibility for the outing, it demands the patience of Kung Fu Kid Three. It will be a costly mistake if you don’t get it right.
There will be some films that won’t even make it to the agenda. Maybe an aunty recently consciously uncoupled from the Gweneth Paltrow franchise. There will be an uncle who cannot stomach animation, somebody who just “doesn’t get” Seth Rogen, you will be teenage boys who are pre-programmed to barf at the mere mention of “Rom-Com”.
The “which movie” decision will be made via a vote, but if you play your cards right, the campaign will conclude with words like:
- “Great! Good choice”
- “Cool! I can’t wait.”
- “Thank you for helping our family to make this informed decision.”
First off, it must be recognised that consensus is a rare result. It is important to be prepared to go for the emotional jugular to produce the outcome that you desire. Some may feel the need to punctuate the debate with undermining questions like…
- “Is that your idea of a sick joke?”
- “Are you actually clinically insane?”
- “Did you honestly, really like that first one?”
- “Do I look like I’m interested in wasting my money on that stoner schlock?”
If that doesn’t work, you’re in deep. You’re slipping off the raft like Leonardo in Titanic. Icy water is lapping at your raft of rational selection – you need to start exposing some middle aged bare-knuckle rejoinders like:
- “Okay! Let’s just… Forget it! Who wants to play Canasta?”
- “Fine!! You guys go, enjoy it! Here’s the money, I’ll stay home and clean the bathroom…with the electric toothbrush I gave you for Christmas.”
Use a gentle reminder to make the point that you are paying for the tickets:
- “The King Under the Mountain is dead! I took his throne! I ate his people like a wolf among sheep!”
But if this doesn’t work, you’re doomed. As a last ditch effort, if you can’t even find Perestroika in the car, try suggesting home made choc tops accompanied by some excellent TV trash. To illustrate this point: SHARKNADO 2 (the second one) was screened on New Years Day. I can only guess from the title that the first one was so successful that Hollywood executives decided to make another one.
I was working in the kitchen while this film was enjoying a very limited release in our lounge room. I glanced up for a moment and smiled while sharks swam through an apparently flooded New York City. Sure, it was bloody and highly unlikely. But it delivered on the promise that it was going to be a bad film about a tornado of sharks.
This broad-brush plot coupled with really cheap CGI and outstanding E-List Celebrity Casting meant that the movie succeeded where others had failed. It delivered a cautionary tale of Human vs Shark in the subway and I knew it was on the money when I heard the following dialogue emanating from the audience on the couch.
“Do you reckon the guy in the cab is about to get eaten?”
“Yeah… Someone has to.”
Perfect storm Summer Holiday viewing? Absolutely! But it’s not the same as hitting the multi-plex with a giant popcorn and a big screen in surround sound and thongs.
The moral of the story is, there are movies we all want to see, movies that you don’t want to see and movies that some times we have to see to keep the holidays happy. Shakespeare was to realise this in his No Buddy flick when he wrote;
To Hobbit, or not to Hobbit: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the house to suffer
The slings and arrows of outraged family members,
Or to take arms against a sea of marketing and obsession…
The answer was written by Jacko’s hero: Tolkein. In his self published auto biography entitled; “Lord of Hobbit Ring – including out takes, bloopers and a sealed section on Elves.” He gives a famous line to Gandalf (the one with the beard and the pointy hat). He is attending a Press Conference in the future to promote the launch of The Hobbit Part Three and he says;
We’ve been blind, and in our blindness, our enemy has returned.
You bet he will. You bet he has. You bet he did. Check the gate. That’s a Wrap!
THE MUELLER NAME 
Ross, there is only one place for Tolkein. In the pages of a book. Perhaps at the most an illustrated Folio edition but ONLY in a book.