feel-good films

There are two kinds of feel-good movies. The difference usually comes at the end of the movies as you walk out the door. The good feel-good movies leave a warmth in your heart and tears in your eyes as you walk out into a world that isn't anything like the movie, but you wish it was. The other kind, the gross feel-good movies leave a knot in your stomach and a frown on your face as you walk out feeling cheated, knowing the world in the movie doesn't exist anywhere, and never will.

Often, people who come out of such movies either grumble about how unrealistic it was, while some will excuse themselves with "it's just a movie." The problem is that every movie has to have a logic of its own, similar to have games must have rules. Gross feel-good films don't bother with rules, but instead, just has everyone win regardless. It "feels good" because everyone wins, but by not setting up a framework for why and how everyone wins, the wins are meaningless. Imagine Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader decided to become friends and shared tea over a game of backgammon. Or Indiana Jones had treasures handed to him along with a ticket back to the States. Or the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park decided to go back into their cages, mend the fences and wait until electricity came on. In all three cases, the good guys would "win," but so what?

It's a matter of quality. It's not bad to like a gross feel-good movie, but it is bad to suggest it's the same as a good feel-good movie. It's the difference between a Pizza Pop and a homemade pizza. A Pizza Pop is fast and cheap, but it's not an authentic pizza. I saw two films recently, August Rush and Lars and the Real Girl, one is a Pizza Pop and the other a pizza. Guess which is which?