I’m a movie fan. I belong to AMC movie club and am a member of Film Forum. Watching movies is one of my favorite hobbies- I go to at least one movie a week, often new releases, though I love catching an oldie that I’ve never seen, or I loved so much I want to see it again.
Movies. Great entertainment.
However, movies are really not just entertainment. Movies also show the social climate of when they were produced. You can learn a lot about a time period by watching film.
Presently, we are having a real go of thriller/horror movies. I admit that this is not normally my go to genre, but some of the new ones are really good. They sort of thrill you on the visceral scale- you scream or shut your eyes, but they also hit on the intellectual. Once you open your eyes and get past the horror, you really start to think. Think about social issues and moral issues and how we live our lives in the 21st century.
I think this era started with Get Out. Have you seen it? If you haven’t, you should. Jordan Peele does a masterful job in this seemingly average movie about an average family meeting their daughter’s boyfriend. Spoiler alert: there is nothing average about these people. This movie scares you, but really makes you think and question. Isn’t that what true art is supposed to do? Think and question?
Here’s some recent thrillers that I think are spot on for combining entertainment and thought:
- The Menu
- M3GAN
- Vengeance
- The Batman
- Barbarian
- Emily the Criminal
- Bodies Bodies Bodies
- Triangle of Sadness
While these can be considered satires, that doesn’t take away from the underlying message that each of these films is trying to show. They do a really good job of showing hypocrisy, cancel culture, the problems with tech and social media, and the overall climate that the world faces today.
I’m interested to see where movies go from here- which direction they will take in trying to get people to wake up and think. I think this could be a really good era for the thriller and movie making in general.
Have you seen any of these movies?
Do you consider film to be art?
Do you think movies should make us think about the underlying issues that we face every day, or that exist around us?
Discuss