I got really depressed reading this post about a recent Quentin Tarantino-sponsored film screening in Los Angeles.
The details of the event as described in that post seem to confirm the fanboyish approach that QT and his folks are using. No, they are not bringing back the Shaw Brothers films in their original form for new fans to enjoy; they are bringing them back dubbed so hipsters can riff on them.
Blogger Sean Tierney has lately been posting some really lengthy and insightful takedowns of QT but I think the problem is larger than QT.
The reaction to the poster for True Legend (2010) also illustrates what I'm getting at.
The film is, by all accounts, not that good -- I got the DVD in Hong Kong but sold it without opening it because of what people I trust said about it (and so I could make a profit on the DVD) -- and yet, the fanboys are eating up this retro look.
What are we applauding here, a marketing campaign?
I mean, people who actually care about this stuff already saw this movie a year ago and don't care now. Who is that poster meant to appeal to?
I'm guessing it's meant to appeal to the sort of people who buy their DVDs at Walmart.
Let's just go all out and scruff up the film, Grindhouse (2007)-style, and dub it.
I'm not saying that True Legend (2010) deserves a Criterion Collection presentation.
I'm just saying that it's time to say "Enough" to this Quentin Tarantino-sort of fanboyish nonsense.
I watch a lot of shitty Hong Kong movies but I don't watch them because I want to laugh at the shittyness; I watch them because I am interested in the film scene there and I hope that I can find one moment in an otherwise awful film that surprises me in a good way.
This is starting to remind me of why I don't tell people that I listen to jazz; I either get the people who think Kenny G is jazz, or I get the hipster who bought a few late period Coltrane records on vinyl to prop up in his loft.
Genuine interest in something requires more than a fanboyish reaction. It requires more than just being a hipster and laughing at something, or getting the references of a wildly overrated director/writer/producer.