Rare Exports: Scary Movie

Given how ubiquitous the genre of “blockbuster parody” is today, it’s hard to remember a time when a picture like Scary Movie seemed groundbreaking. Well, lets be fair here, the idea of Scary Movie—tossing various popular movies of the time into a blender and molding the resulting pile of references and parodies into a vaguely coherent movie—was never that unique. Direct parody has always been prevalent in pop culture, Scary Movie’s creators were just the first to bank an entire movie on incredibly on-the-nose references. 

Rare Exports: Airplane!

For November, we’re going to look at American “Parody” Movies, starting with 1980’s Airplane.

Parody is a difficult thing to pull off well. At its best, parody comes from a place of knowledge, knowing enough about its subject matter to say something funny and insightful. When parody doesn’t work, it feels like a lazy crutch, “Hey we know about this popular thing too! Look at us!” But we’ll get to that as this month goes on.

Rare Exports: D-War: Dragon Wars

Alright, I might have had a bit of an issue with the old “consistency” rule of blogging. Sorry about that! But whatever the case, I and Rare Exports are back, and shall be back every week from now until the end of time (or until I go to college, whichever comes first). I’ll do two posts this week to close out October, so I’m not a complete failure and because I’m really excited about the next movie in this “Korean Monster Movie” series we (had) going.

Rare Exports: The Host

For October, I’ll be watching a bunch of Korean Monster Movies, starting with 2006’s The Host.

 

Following a Korean family in the midst of a monster attack in Seoul, The Host probably wouldn’t exist without 1954’s Godzilla. Born out of the horrors of the atomic age, the titular Godzilla was a one hundred foot metaphor for the nuclear holocaust, with Japanese director/writer Ishiro Honda building upon public fears in an unexpectedly dark story of destruction and loss. Not only did Godzilla establish the giant-monster genre, it set a number of the genre’s common conventions: a political undertone, an emphasis on human drama, and a “more-is-better” approach to the monster’s screentime. Fifty-two years later, The Host feels like a direct evolution of Godzilla, while doing enough new things to feel original in a genre that, at the time, was increasingly stagnant.

Rare Exports: Fresh Off The Boat!

I’m Tom and I love movies. Right now, I spend a good amount of my time at school making movies, but honestly, watching them is way more fun! There’s something incredible about how immersive movies can be, their ability to transport an audience to tell a story and transport an audience to new worlds.

There are just so many kinds of movies. Potentially endless amounts. You could like romance movies and I could like action movies and someone else could like movies that star talking animals, and all of those genres exist in endless supply.