Reminder: Art is dead in Hollywood

I've stopped going to movies, almost entirely. I see some Hollywood crap once in awhile (saw the new Superman, for example, which I found myself saying I liked in an utterly numb way) but 5 years ago, 10 certainly, it wasn't unusual for me to go to a movie many times a week. There simply are no good, even fun entertaining movies coming out of Hollywood anymore, least wise that get distribution. Not even offensive stuff, just boring formula stuff driven by the money boys and accountants who want to get in the pants (for the money) of the post-post-post ironic generation. Lots of good movies still being made by the looks of it (as, for example, appletrailers.com can reveal) but nothing but Hollywood Production machine smelly shit gets to the theatres (and I don't do the film festival ticket dance, so...).

Even finding many good films on video (er, DVD) is a bit of a surprise these days. As with last night's discovery of S. Korean director Song Hae-Seong's film "Failan." He Who is Here Now had seen the film when it came out in 2001 and loves the film, so we rented it.

A stunningly sad plot about a married couple who have seen each other but once and in each instance the other not knowing they have been seen: she a Chinese indentured worker in Korea (who brilliantly--and it turns out, ironically--avoids a life of prostitution); he a bumbling failure as a third-rate gangster who hears, even from the losers around him, that his life is a pathetic failure. An unusal description of a love story, but a brilliantly turned (tragic) loves story just the same.

Anyway, I delight with each announcement that the movie industry is in trouble, for out of failure of the Hollywood Production model may come access to real films.