Alright, first post of 2023! Over the holidays, my wife and I had some serious movie marathons, which mostly comprised of films she missed when they first came out. They’d been hanging over her head for years and it was time to right some wrongs...
Avatar (in advance of seeing Avatar 2). The Fugitive. Rush Hour. Wolf of Wall Street. Easy A (that one was for me, she’d seen many times before). Police Story. Eclectic, I know!
Most of these held up, some better than others. Rush Hour was still charming and hilarious, the physicality of Jackie Chan is timeless (as evidenced by the ever-perfect Police Story), the odd chemistry between Tucker and Chan is still vibrant. But there are plenty of moments that “bump” today’s sensibilities — anti-Asian jokes, Black man stereotypes, misogynist jokes that were eviscerated by #MeToo. Despite these moments, the film worked - we were still rapt, and laughing, and cheering for them. Then we tried to watch Rush Hour 2 - oof… it is somehow a magnitude more problematic. Especially in the gross misogyny department (the massage parlor, the spying on the DEA agent “strip tease,” it permeates almost every scene). And within thirty minutes we decided it did not “hold up” and we stopped watching.
What does it mean for a movie to hold up? It worked with audiences at the time of its release and doesn’t now - but what does that really tell you? Is the storytelling still good but its nature too problematic? Obviously there are problematic films that are still hailed as classics. Was it specifically responding to a moment that meant the particular historical audience connected with it - but we couldn’t because we don’t have the context?
Ultimately, I think it’s really an informal, personal equation. The peccadilloes of dated style and the larger offenses against progressive thought go up against the quality of the universal aspects of the storytelling. Rush Hour might have been problematic but it was inherently a good enough comedic romp. Rush Hour 2 was more problematic and ultimately, on its own legs, lower quality storytelling. Less original and leaned on its grosser instincts. So the equation tips.
Every film goes through this subjective sort of calculus I guess. Watching at home, so many years later, Avatar was strange. Without the spectacle to distract as much, on a smaller screen, you feel the runtime more. You notice the cultural appropriation. Does it hold up? For me, sure, because I go for the world and visual feast - I go to have a “video game” like roller coaster ride - not for much else. If the effects didn’t miraculously still look so good, it would’ve tipped the scales to “not hold up.”
The most interesting question to me is what sort of societal and industry changes will lead a movie made today to hold up or not twenty years from now. Some of my favorite movies of 2022 (separate post incoming) - Tar, Banshees of Inisherin, Fabelmans… will they hold up in 2042? Will they have stepped on some invisible boundary through history that renders them irrelevant?
