God I Hate Cinema

Have you ever seen that video about news reports across different TV channels being overlayed next to each other, expanding an ever-growing grid showing more and more news broadcasts seemingly read from the same script?

Reverbing the same words, using the same tone, hell, even having the same tempo.

That’s what the Mario movie felt like to me.

Behind every WOHOO!! I could see an overlay of every animated movie character saying WOHOO!! as they take a wild leap into adventure. Every musical intermission, every strong moment, every scandalous adult joke, every high and low.

I had seen it before. Not once, not twice, but dozens of times.

Is this what people call… generic?

But I love basic. I love generic. I laughed watching the Emoji Movie.

Am I becoming cynical?

That weekend I watched all of the Despicable Me movies, all of the Minions, Boss Baby, Hotel Transylvania. I laughed, I had fun, it was a speedrun of the joy of enjoying animation as an adult.

THEN WHY??? Why was I so bothered by the Mario movie?

It was a celebration. For every Boss Baby-like movie, there was a disdain and lack of acceptance of it as a product worth existing. This in my mind created a balance, a sense of awareness, that I was about to enjoy 90 minutes of capitalist slop that was marketable to young audiences, and parents, and me.

But outside this circle everyone else is critical of these movies, perhaps a little too harsh sometimes. I mean many people say there is nothing of value to Sing!, and yet I feel like that movie spoke to me on how I feel like an artist. The struggle of the characters dealing with hardships and responsibilities as they try to better their lives through acting, that is a powerful message.

But the Mario movie was seemingly loved across the board.

At the time, I tried to not think too much about it. In a world where every blockbuster is carefully constructed and measured to be as universally loved as possible, where is the harm in people enjoying a movie?

The very next year, generative AI had shown a significant growth in its capabilities. It was both exciting and scary. Seemingly gone were the days of 8 fingers on each of the three hands that compose the human body.

It can even output Pixar-like, yet rudimentary, movie posters. Even small clips of characters opening their mouths in awe, good enough for ads, yet not good enough for any other form of production.

Among the hundreds of criticisms AI has, one of them is relevant to my emotions regarding the Mario movie.

In the future movies are gonna be generic slop, built from overlaying every successful movie, have no artistic merit because everything is carefully generated following audience analysis and trends to deliver a soulless product.

Warranted success.

Shareholders will go bananas when they see the profits skyrocket as movies need less artists, less resources, and produce as much, if not more, money than before.

The Mario movie felt like a grim warning that that was the world we were headed into.

It was corporate generic slop produced following trends that draw influence from every other successful film ever made, surgically crafted to trigger every stimulus at the right moment to guarantee joy out of the viewer.

And it was celebrated. It was massively consumed, praised, loved, and accepted.

The horror.

Now I gotta say, it would be very anti-intellectual of me to propose a world where the market success of a “slop” movie equates the market success of an AI slop movie.

If I’m being honest, even if within the next five years generative AI becomes good enough to output a cinema-quality film (and don’t lie to yourself joking about fingers, you know sooner than later that WILL be possible), the audience will boo it.

I don’t think we live in a world right now where such a product will be celebrated.

But I believe we live in a world where each new generation will be more accepting of such productions. Perhaps within 15–20 years, long after these movies become the summer norm, there will be one that most people will say, “Oh this is actually okay.”

And the current generation, which already has a very angry and whiny stereotype associated with it, will be 50–60 years old, automatically rendering whatever critique as resentful nostalgic bias.

That is a future I believe will most likely happen.

And no amount of Bugs Bunny memes saying “I wish Elon Musk dying” will change anything.

Because in the most realistic sense, even if whatever CEO is at the lead of AI entrepreneurship died tomorrow, it would keep going. It is a very immature Team Rocket failed-plot-of-the-week way to view the world.

I don’t even think it merits going into detail.

If you’re thirty and think the world behaves that way, I don’t care to be your friend.

The world isn’t a simmered-down system of power where a handful of comically evil individuals hold the fragile structure of a crumbling system together.

The world isn’t One Piece where a single mighty punch by a hero to the bad guy is enough to save a country.

HELL! One Piece isn’t even like THAT! Fishman Island was liberated only to be next in line for the next oppressive power to try to seize it, and a thousand+ episodes later still isn’t liberated!

Phew, rant much! But more on this in my Gladiator II review n_n!

The reality of the matter is that I felt schizophrenic watching Dune Part 2.

Y’all seen South Park, right? You know that mocking loud, bombastic voice they give to some characters when trying to strawman a caricature for absurdity of the trend of the week?

The entire time, like every minute of the runtime of Dune Part 2, I felt like the director was behind me spoiling everything.

Watching the romantic leads sleep on the same tents, promise they would be for each other forever, as EVERYTHING from the framing, the illumination, the music, the sounds, created this ominous, dreadful vibe that one of them was lying.

All while the director was behind me saying,

“UHH UHH!!! DO YOU THINK ONE OF THEM IS LYING? IT SOUNDED UNGENUINE RIGHT? BUT LIKE YOU SHOULD FEEL INVESTED IN THIS COUPLE, I MEAN THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH THEY COULDN’T POSSIBLY BE LYING! LET’S FIND OUT!!!”

For a film full of highs, betrayals, plot twists, rich characters with ambitious plans, all weaved towards a clash of ideas, a conquest of principles, a new world order, everything was predictable.

And not because I am so smart and illiterate that I can anticipate every twist, no matter how insignificant. Not because of that.

Because the director was behind me spoiling every single thing, guiding my emotions, building anticipation like, “DUDE THIS IS GONNA BE SO GOOD WATCH WATCH WATCH THE PAYOFF WILL BE INSANE!!!”

As I walked out and saw a Deadpool versus Wolverine poster, I thought to myself,

This… this is the new de facto storytelling.

I live in a world where Hollywood sorts us in two categories. You either love Marvel, or you’re far too smart for Marvel, you rather enjoy films such as Dune Part 2.

After that, why wouldn’t it? By every possible metric, Dune Part 2 was beyond perfect, it was a success.

Even though I lived two blocks from a movie theater, for nearly a year, I didn’t go to watch any films. At least not on my own.

At this point it felt like the film industry wasn’t the engagement with art that I wanted, but social lubricant. If my friends wanted to go watch a film, I’d go just to hang out.

I’d laugh, joke, pretend it didn’t bother me to watch a friend watch a TikTok explaining the movie, and then decide to never hang out with that particular friend again, or the next, or the next.

Until my movie-going experience became almost exclusively women because, well, as I can’t go into the women bathroom, I can only pray that when women walk into a bathroom after a film it isn’t to watch a TikTok explainer, but to fix their makeup, powder their face, and flick their clit or however they dispose of their consumed sustenance.

It is a mystery that keeps me sane enough to walk into a movie theater from 2024 till this day.

I’m going to be less detailed describing the experience and go to the point.

The film presented a very modern view of the systems of power through the allegory of ancient Rome. I’m not a historian or a history aficionado to expect the film to be historically accurate, or the authenticity of the outfits.

Word on the street is that Christopher Nolan is onto that, but seems like not really, anyway.

The movie made me realize something. From a writer perspective, why is it so hard to have a system as an antagonist?

Certainly it is not impossible. Orwell, Kafka, Huxley, Bradbury, all of them lived through stories that show the complexities, hope/hopelessness, and intricacies of having the lead characters go against a system.

So why has it become a lost art in modern writing?

As I watch the two queer (both in modern and traditional sense of the word) emperors embarrass themselves playing a clowning caricature of a figure in power, a figure so old as time that it mimics the idea of jestering the royal court, I had to consider the merit of what was being presented to me.

1984 presents the premise that through language we can form complex thought. Complex thought leads to ideologies, many of which can be either oppressive or revolutionary.

There is a little more depth to it, but I’ve always been fascinated by it.

I don’t consider myself a smart individual, but I know just enough big words to understand academic text, and I can engage with premises on an intellectual level.

I can read a talking point and understand the political and academic implications of it, but that’s always had a discrepancy with how the people who present the idea seem to engage with it.

I’ve got the nag that it feels as if people engage with points as an interconnected web of cause and effect:

“this is bad, therefore this happens, and because this happens this system is in control to keep it happening, because it ensures that power is maintained for the people in control of this power.”

When the reality is more complex than that. Not much more complex, just more complex. Nay, even slightly more complex.

Once you start engaging with the theory and implementing the frameworks of thought into any form of anthropology or political analysis, you realize there is a structure, an architecture, a matrix if you may.

The idea that there is ever so one or two individuals that could be dethroned by one or two more individuals begins to feel childish. Begins to feel like you’re watching the world using Fairy Tail as a framework to analyze the balance of power.

Gladiator II wanted me to think about the wellbeing of Rome, colonization, the prison system, the poverty of their people, the lack of public healthcare even.

And this isn’t me trying to be the guy who thinks too hard about the capitalist allegory of vampires to sound smart, the movie really does present all of these modern concerns through allegory.

So I had to sit watching the film and ask myself,

Why do I feel so offended right now? Why do I have this feeling like my intellect is not being respected?

When Macrinus orchestrates the execution of one of the two emperors with the intention of puppeteering the remaining one, because of the way allegory works the implication was clear:

This broken, inefficient clown of a system is gone, I had bridled it, and now I shall be the one to rule under my just-as-equally-oppressive-and-cold-but-efficient philosophy.

Honestly it doesn’t matter what political ideologies the twin emperors or Macrinus represented. Communism, feudalism, capitalism, it truly doesn’t matter.

Because whatever system you choose Macrinus to represent just lasted one night (or on movie time, 20 minutes). There isn’t a critique, a challenge, or any meaningful commentary to the rule of law behind Macrinus, because he gets killed again by the embodiment of freedom.

And in this abstract world, freedom is a template for whatever you want freedom to be backed by.

This put things into perspective for me.

Can art not reflect complex thought anymore? Is it being simplified so an audience understands it? Systems can’t be that hard to comprehend, can they?

But perhaps it is too grim.

Oh, it’s just capitalism making another marketable movie because revolution sells and it has some “woke propaganda” behind it!

Feels like such an anti-intellectual conclusion.

Because at the end of the day the merit of art exists almost by default, and I truly, genuinely want to understand where society is where such a production is not only profitable but enjoyed.

I’m sure anybody reading this has seen quote retweets or reposts on social media dunking on somebody for misinterpreting a film, or quoting a film with authority on a subject with:

“this movie is literally about…” “this movie literally warns us about…”

It’s always felt like a practice lacking intellectual integrity to me.

Why would you give fiction predictive authority over any given news?

On an article talking about genetically modifying bees so that they can lactate, somebody will unequivocally say,

“didn’t Jurassic Park literally warn us this is a terrible idea?? lol”

A futile practice which only serves to bait engagement.

As in the world of sci-fi there is statistically an array of films that could be used as exemplars that cover the spectral range in between the weighted cons and pros.

It truly narrows down to which movie you like best.

Going back to 1984, what if film has become a collection of words, a dictionary by which by quoting any movie title we communicate the intent and weight that any of the keywords within that film can abstractly summarize?

And communicate with our friends the equivalent of a whole speech summed up to two or three words.

And your friend in return can retaliate, picking up exactly on what scene is relevant to the topic at hand and counter or expand upon it, essentially serving as a shortcut to thought.

In theory this is wonderful. It feels like a natural evolution for language, and it is an evolution that comes from the hand of artists.

But then I got to remember those nights watching Netflix with my friends. Watching them half-asleep, watching a stream while multitasking their engagement with three different apps.

I reminisce all the times I walked into a bathroom and heard the robotic voice that TikTok creators use on their clips.

Just without the existence of AI, the way in which language is evolving isn’t keeping up with our ability to process it as a community.

People don’t talk politics, they exchange talking points.

People don’t metabolize art as an expansion of ideas, they quote it as a shortcut to accelerate conversation.

Despite the complexity of the topics Gladiator II presented, the one question I was left pondering was how much value should I be willing to give accessibility.

After all, the existence of Gladiator II does not mean more complex movies can’t exist.

Just a few weeks later The Brutalist premiered, and I watched it three times because I needed desperately to feel like a movie respected me.

The question of why it is bad that accessibility of thought dominates the film industry dominated my mind for most of 2025.

You may think I’m some sort of movie snob who feels superior because on his lone weekends I watch old Italian cinema alone, and you’re right!

But I don’t say it out loud.

If a coworker or IRL friend sits with me at lunch and talks about Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 while I draw, I will listen. I won’t enjoy it, and I’ll try to avoid it next time, but I won’t be an arsehole!

If anything there is value in understanding why the philistine feels joy.

Ah! So mean.

Avatar films have generic dialogue, hella woohoos, and one-liners that overlay with 500 other movies and carry the same zing to them, but it finally clicked with me.

If film can abstract itself into language, why can't scenes? Why can't quotes?

As the teen leads of the film go through what I can only describe as the most relatable puberty ever, there is a scene that made me think.

When Kiri cries and yells at Jake,

"DAD I HATE YOU"

that generic line, which is so generic that people are even putting money on Shrek 5 having that exact same line delivered in that exact way, just as almost every teen daughter in every animated movie has ever said, invokes two emotions, depending on who listens to it.

A pubescent daughter will relate to the angst of the dismissal of her feelings.

A parent, on the other hand, will probably remember the knot of emotions the first time they heard their daughter say such fueled words.

It is generic. It is safe. It carries a thought so abstract yet so universal that it translates differently.

There is a complexity to the layers of communication packaged in such a small sentence.

And I mean, given the amount of production and capital funding behind such an ambitious project, dialogue better have this wide reach to be as meaningful to as wide an audience as possible.

But there is more to that.

There is a science, a craft to it, and it roots in an understanding of human psychology.

It is rather easy to dismiss something as "audience tested", but to have the ability to connect to almost anyone regardless of gender, age, social class, and culture, and orchestrate their emotions through gesture and quotes that anybody on this planet can comprehend…

Man, that James Cameron fella sure is a master of his craft.

So, I am contradicting myself on the following axioms:

• Hated the Mario movie for being too audience-tested and overlaid.
• Hated Dune 2 for orchestrating emotions.
• Hated Gladiator for simplifying complex systems to mass appeal and sanitizing thought to ensure accessibility.

And yet, I think Avatar 3 did all of those things greatly.

I don't think the film is a master at storytelling. Its strengths are visuals, and acting has everyone wishing some of the core cast took acting lessons. It is by all means philistine material, but premium deluxe 4k full HD philistine material.

But why? Why wasn't I bothered?