I’m going to be super forward this week in saying that the
post will definitely be shorter than the past couple. The last two weeks, I’ve written 3000-4000
words before editing. As easy as the
writing was because I had a fully formed idea, it was time consuming. I don’t have that much time right now to
flesh out a longer post. School has
started up and this has to be second priority to my schoolwork. With that in mind, I’m still going to put
effort into these posts and I’ll still try to give my usual level of quality
(which, admittedly, isn’t anywhere near perfect). I want to give anyone reading this a reason
to keep reading. I don’t want to let you
guys down. With all that said, let’s get
onto this week’s post.
There has been a minor meme going around recently based on a
cliché, somewhat irritating movie trope.
It’s the beginning of a movie.
Something crazy is happening. The
person who will be the main character is caught up in this event. All of a sudden there’s a freeze frame or the
character breaks the fourth wall and looks directly into the camera. In many cases there is a record scratch sound
effect that goes with it. Then you hear
something along the lines of “You might be wondering how I ended up in this
situation. Well, it’s a crazy story and
it’s going to take a while to get into.
We have to go way back to…” Then
the movie flashes back to the beginning of the story and you get to see the
events unfold. You know the trope.
That trope has become a small meme, popping up every once in
a while. People will take a crazy
looking screenshot and caption it with something like the quote I wrote
out. The fun they’re having is in
turning every movie they know into one of these trope filled movies. Things like this have happened before. They will happen again. But this one is strangely related to the
movie I watched this week.
Budz House was
released in 2011. It followed a group of
friends as they got wrapped up in the weed business. Bud (Wesley Jonathan) was an aspiring comic
book artist living in his mom’s house.
His friends JPeezy (J.T. Jackson), Pretty Tony (Aaron Scotti), and Ooley
(Jorge Diaz) were always hanging around and smoking weed. With the price of weed going up, they took it
into their own hands to find some. They
stole it from Ooley’s cousin, Big Happy (Emilio Rivera). After stashing the stolen weed under the
porch, they discovered that it had grown into a secret grow op thanks to the
poop dripping out of the pipes after Big Shitty (Faizon Love) clogged
them. One Punch (Gerald Kelly), the
local drug lord, went after the friends to take back his turf while Big Happy
went after them to get his product back.
If that sounds confusing, that’s because it is hard to
explain the movie. There wasn’t a single
story that could sum up Budz House. It was a series of small stories that
happened one after the other. There was
the story about the mysterious dancing girl on the internet, followed by the
story of getting more weed, followed by the story of selling the weed, followed
by the story of Bud trying to sleep with the girl he thought was hot, followed
by the bad guys going after Bud and his friends. The stories didn’t overlap much. They just happened to involve the same
characters. But that’s not what I want
to write about. What’s important is the
beginning of Budz House.
The movie began with a bunch of people on a lawn pointing
guns at each other. They scuffled for a
couple seconds before Bud turned to the camera.
There was no record scratch, but he was breaking the fourth wall. That was enough. He said that if you wanted to know what he
did to have all of these people fighting each other, you would have to flash
back to earlier in his life. That was
the only way to know what led to the current situation. He also said the name of the movie.
Let’s break down the pros and cons of this sort of start to
a movie. There are two primary
pros. The first is that using a crazy
moment can help to kick up the adrenaline of the viewers. If you start the movie with action, it is
easier to create interest. This is
especially true of stories that start slower.
The other point in the good column is that this kind of opening can
create anticipation. Viewers will want
to know what unfolded to cause this event.
Why is the main character in the situation? The movie spells that exact question out to
you through narration or the speech of the main character. In Budz
House, it was Bud looking directly into camera and saying that you would
need to flashback to understand. The
viewer looks forward to finding out how the things happened.
I would say that the cons greatly outweigh anything good
from this kind of starting point. Though
the adrenaline is built up, it fades quickly.
In many cases, the rug is pulled out from under the viewer as soon as
the real start of the story happens. The
introduction to the characters is much slower than the crazy scene. It works with a cold open featuring James
Bond because that resolves a mission and then you naturally begin a new
one. Showing a piece of a story then
going back to the beginning without the resolution feels like it is cutting the
momentum. As for the anticipation, if
you’re spending the movie trying to figure out how the events unfold, you
aren’t giving enough focus to what is happening. You’re watching characters get introduced but
trying to put the pieces together and reach the end before the movie does. The lack of focus can cause you to miss
important details or completely lose interest before finding your answers. It does a disservice to everyone.
Of course, this trope isn’t only apparent in bad movies. There are critically acclaimed, hit movies
that have managed to use this idea to a good effect. The one I remember most, which isn’t quite
the same because it lacks the narration or outright saying of “Can you believe
this situation?” was Michael Clayton. The movie began with a scene from later on,
and the viewers spent the movie watching the events that led up to it. The main note is that nothing points it
out. It just happens. Maybe the thing that makes this trope so
cheesy is that in many cases, filmmakers feel that their audience isn’t smart
enough to understand what is happening without it being directly referenced. Audiences aren’t that dumb. They should get more credit.
With that trope going around the internet in meme form, it
is apparent that many people know about the issues with it and are willing to
parody it. At the same time, proper
parody needs some form of appreciation.
If you want to spoof this trope, you need to be able to appreciate it in
all of its clichéd glory. You need to
appreciate it in movies like Michael
Clayton, where it works well. You
also need to appreciate it in movies like Budz
House where it doesn’t work as well.
Much like my love of movies, you need to be able to recognize the good
and bad of something in order to fully understand it.
You can appreciate these notes as well:
- Budz House was suggested by @the_gaming_king, who seems to be suspended from Twitter. I’m going to link to that suspended account anyway.
- Wesley Johnathan played Bud in Budz House. You might remember him from Crossover.
- Budz House also featured Faizon Love, who was in Torque.
- Finally, Aldo Gonzalez was in Budz House, after already appearing in Date Movie.
- Have you seen Budz House? Have you seen this meme going around? Do you know the trope? You can discuss this stuff in the comments section below.
- Are there any movies that you think I should watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies? You can tell me about them on Twitter or drop the suggestions in the comments.
- I have a snapchat (jurassicgriffin) on which I sometimes put up clips of the bad movies I watch. Add me if you want to see the movie clips I share.
- Next week’s movie is the little known Redneck County Fever. The only information I know about it is one of the actors, and I don’t know what character they play. There is a black hole of information on this movie, so that will make for an interesting post. Or not. We’ll see next week.
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