The Hollywood Revolution

Hollywood is on the cusp of what could be a beautiful revolution. All it takes is the courage to make a leap of faith, the kind of courage that led director James Cameron to develop ground-breaking technology and produce Avatar, the highest-grossing film of all time. Now, I have no intention of devoting this article to Cameron-deification, as many have been wont to do. He's gotten enough of that in the past couple of months and we all know that guy doesn't need another boost to his Pandora-sized ego.

However, I can't help but express my respect for a guy who is changing the entire industry with a single tour de force. And no, not for creating photo-realistic CGI or for making more money than anyone would know what to do with. The very idea of Avatar excites me because it has the potential to pull Hollywood out of a creative rut. In less tactful terms: Cameron is proof that Hollywood still has an ounce of creativity left in its veins. Sure, we all cringed at the cheesy dialogue and scoffed at the predictable plot that easily could have been titled Dances With Wolves and Blue Aliens. But in all honesty, when was the last time you were excited to see, and were ultimately wowed by, a movie that wasn't a remake or sequel?

As it stands today, Hollywood is an incessant flow of retreads and revisions. This year's hits, including Sherlock Holmes, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, are adaptations and sequels of pop culture fixtures. No one need be reminded that this has been the case for years. Yet in recent months remakes have not overpowered our movie theaters as in the past. Instead, film critics, movie buffs, and the uninformed masses alike seem to be lending their buzz to films exclusively derived from original screenplays.

Take Quentin Tarantino, the quintessential maverick filmmaker, for example. His perfect track record has given movie studios enough confidence to let him do whatever he wants, and he certainly does just that. Shirking convention and forever belying audience's expectations, Tarantino continuously breaches the walls that a century of cinematic history has erected as fool-proof guidelines toward making money. Now, with his magnum opus Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino has perfected his style while proving to Hollywood that he doesn't need to recycle the same creatively sterile husks of film over and over again to reel in audiences.

This year's Oscar nominees are another indicator that movie-goers' proclivities are moving toward original material. Avatar and Inglourious Basterds, along with District 9, The Hurt Locker, Up, and Up in the Air (all of which came from original screenplays), were emphatically welcomed at the box office and widely accepted by young viewers. Without angry declarations, audiences everywhere are showing a newfound open mind for honest originality. Surely big names like James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino stamped on movie posters will attract the most eyes; but then observe the success of (500) Days of Summer and you'll see an appreciation for brand-new material that indie filmmakers have prayed for for decades.

So what do all these trends surmount to? They're all just statistics, anyway, indicating that film-viewers are ready for something new. There aren't any protesters boycotting movie theaters or radicals splattering red paint on G.I. Joe posters (though they probably should). The Big Man in Hollywood simply needs to come to the realization that he's selling his excrement and people are starting to smell the s***.

Impassioned though I may be, I'm fully aware that the American film industry is a monstrous, money-generating machine and therefore necessitates the weekly rom-com and action-packed refuse as fuel to make those rare gems possible. And, despite popular belief, even I'm not snobbish enough to resist indulging in the big-budget, formulaic popcorn flicks that crowd the marquee every Friday—I loved Iron Man and Star Trek and will probably thoroughly enjoy The Wolfman. But what really separates something like Avatar from these blockbusters? Big-budget? Formulaic? Check.

The divide is at the moment of conception. Did the vision spring upon the writer in a euphoric moment of love or was it extracted from a refrigerated test-tube that's yielded hundreds of identical films in the past? Once you get past that wildly suggestive metaphor, you will find that the movie experience is truly an act of passion with the ability to move the soul in unspeakable ways. As long as the studios put aside the thought of money and (gasp! the metaphor still works!) don't prostitute themselves with cinematic trash, we can all benefit from its original, inspired works of art. It just takes guts from the brave and revolutionary few devoted to the art form and the new frontiers that lie ahead. And no, James Cameron, that doesn't mean Avatar 2.