This is Something I Wrote on FB Two Years Ago

Explosions Are Boring

by Tracy Reilly on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 5:23pm

I originally wrote this on Facebook, but the "Notes" section there is so buried, it seems pretty pointless.  So I copied it to here instead.

Ok, so I asked my 14-year-old what he thought of the title "Explosions Are Boring".
"Would you read something with that title?"
"No way."
"Why?"
"Because it's stupid. And not true."
"Would you watch anything that involves an explosion?"
"Probably."
What about a movie that's made up of just explosions; would you think that was boring?"
"No."
"Why not? Wouldn't all those explosions get boring after a while?"
"Are they all the SAME explosion?"
"What if they were?"
"Well, that wouldn't be as good as if they were of different explosions,"
"What, like different buildings blowing up?"
"Yeah, or lighting the fuse."
"Oh, you mean with suspense. Like in Spy v. Spy. The black spy lights the fuse, and we see the fuse burning up to the white spy, who's sitting on the bomb. That's more interesting."
"It's funny."
"So explosions are funny?"
"Not always..sometimes they are just kewl."


Maybe this is because I'm female. To me the first explosion, even, is boring. The explosions in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID reminded me of the explosions in CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG, James Bond, as do the ones in STAR WARS, THE BLUES BROTHERS, RESERVOIR DOGS, Lord of the Rings and The new Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes.



I mean, c'mon, I know some folks find this to be visually stimulating, but don't they all look essentially the same? First there's the flash of white and orange light, tinged with a bit of yellow, a central character flying, having been knocked off his/her feet by blowback, towards the camera, followed by a rain of bricks, loose mortar, and clouds of gray smoke. As the smoke clears we see bent I-beams and broken steel reinforcements. I've seen it so many times I could probably do an oil painting from memory, and it wouldn't look like a Roy Lichtenstein. Boring. Wake me up when the dialogue starts up again. I know for a fact that I fell asleep in a movie theatre for the first and only time, during James Bond: Moonraker.

I should mention I saw a real life controlled explosion in 1991. It was a Mel Gibson movie, back when he wasn't the personification of raw, bleeding testosterone taking lethal form (oh, yeah, it was one of the LETHAL WEAPON movies; that must have been subconscious). Mostly I was there to protest the exploding of a landmark 1920's historic hotel on our waterfront. But deep down I thought, "maybe explosions are more exciting in person: let's watch!"

Not only was it just as boring as in the movies, it was over in about 10 seconds. To paraphrase Charles Bukowski's surprise when he first saw the Pacific, "It was not
beautiful." I didn't even get to see Mel, just two stunt guys running out of the building way before it blew.

So, I'm thinking, is this just some sort of Zelig-like behavior that is part of ritual bonding? Does anyone else get slightly bored in the middle of a July 4th display? Is it all a false front? What Would Bukowski say?

October 25, 2015:  Ok, even I have to admit the Explosions at the end of the movie Zabriskie Point are way cool--like little slow motion abstract paintings to Pink Floyd.  No, I'm not kidding: it has Pink Floyd in the soundtrack (1970!) , a variation on "Careful With that Axe, Eugene".