Cheap, In A Good Way

I imagine that the scions of wealthy families have it harder than they are given credit for. They may be born on third base and think they hit a triple, as I have heard to be said, but it strikes me that the pressure is really a tremendous burden. Perhaps they would have wanted to grow up in humbler circumstance along with the lesser expectations of someone in that station. I have to believe that Charles Foster Kane would have.

I think a lot of expensively-made movies are like those rich kids. Having been made for so much money, they have expectations thrust on them that are entirely unreasonable. It was a dreadful bomb as a big budget film, but I figure that 'Waterworld' could have been made for a fraction of the price and enjoyed a reputation as a fine B movie. As it was I liked it fairly well, but I would have liked not being alone in that opinion.

Expensive, prominent films don't just have a higher bar. They also have an impediment to being very original or very purely the expression of one artist. With more money, the creative committee grows larger and larger. With more people involved in making decisions, the decisions are less and less bold, so much the better to build a consensus. They would hope also that this leads to commercial success, and it might, but one thing that cheap movies often have is a genuinely unique and distinct quality.

There's a thrill in really not knowing what you're going to get. In these cheap movies, there are no set rules about what can and can't happen. You can't reassure yourself that the sympathetic characters will come out all right (either because they're the good guys or because they're portrayed by prominent actors), or that any other storytelling conventions will be honored. Only in these cheap movies is there consistently any surprise left.

Make no mistake, flying under the radar in such a fashion is no guarantee of being any good. Just as they can be much better and more original than they might be as expensive films, these cheap productions can be worse as well, but what is life without risk? Just as the story should hold surprise, so should the quality of the movie. I don't ever want to know what happens in a movie, and if I'm really adventurous, I don't even want to know if it'll be any good. I just want to know I'll be stimulated. That's the name of the game.