THE JO-TEL … illegal blog downfield

I watched some scattered scenes from Apollo 13 last night. I’ve seen it before, but paying limited attention I was struck how many tiresome tropes of the mainstream movies it highlights. As a threshold matter, I think Apollo 13 is an admirable movie, on the better end of the Hollywood spectrum. Howard does a good job of using familiar camera work to portray how vulnerable these manned space craft are. But, at the same time, as I watched it I realized how bored/tired I was with the typical Hollywood-style suspense plot. The problem is that you know the dilemma will be resolved, even when the historical outcome is not public knowledge (like with the Apollo 13 stuff). Once you realize that, all the “twists” and suspenseful plot knots become transparent and tedious. I mean, it’s tough for me to fret when the CO2 starts rising because there’s still one hour left in the movie, so you know that they’re going to resolve this issue and then move on to face several others that will make this early dilemma seem small in comparison (it would be cool if the biggest challenge came one hour in and then for the rest of the movie they just dealt with minor malfunctions and inconveniences: “oh crap, we’re out of toilet paper!”). It’s hard to be anything but disappointed when everything else turns out okay. I mean, would be cool if everyone died in the end, even though in reality they all survived. Talk about a shocker! Kind of like how Shakespeare kills off Cordelia and Lear despite them surviving in the source legend. People were pretty broken up about that at the time. These days it takes a wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl to get most people that riled up.

-Shark