by Joe Dixon

Created on: March 04, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

It strikes me this month with the release of two new films, The Number 23, and The Freedom Writers, along with a host of other modern movies released recently, that directors in Hollywood (one the whole, Michel Gondry and Christopher Guest, among others are exceptions) have no ideas of their own. I could go on, but I shall, for the purposes of brevity, discuss these two films.

I must say at this point that I have not seen either of these films. I have seen trailers. From these trailers, I deduce that these films bear more than passing resemblances to older, perhaps in one case at least, less popular films. There was a film released in 1999 by the name of Pi. It is a black and white film with an astonishing soundtrack. It tells the story of a reclusive Jewish scientist who uses a computer to predict stock market movements. After installing a new piece of hardware, the computer crashes leaving a 216-digit number. 216 is 6x6x6, 666 is the number of the beast. This number slowly drives him insane. In the film, The Number 23, Jim Carrey's character is driven insane by coincidences involving the number 23.

Now, I'm sure that people will stand up and defend the strength Carrey's acting in this movie, and I have a great deal of respect for the man (he has made some fantastic, innovative films, including one with Gondry). However, I feel that this shows laziness, and complacency from some of the people who are in charge of creating the culture which we base our lives upon.

The second new film out recently that I find to be directly derivative is The Freedom Writers. This is based on a true story, and one probably that deserves to be told. However, the same story was told twelve years ago in a film called Dangerous Minds, an outstanding, uplifting film which tells the story of a young female teacher who goes to a school full of under-achieving kids and turns it around. It too was based on a true story.

This is not meant as a direct attack on these new films, just a lament at the apparent fact that the creatives across the world to whom we look aren't nearly as creative as we'd like to think they are.

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