The Best Host Not Played By Andy Hallett
The Best Host Not Played By Andy Hallett
Mar 15I saw The Host this week and it’s just as awesome as everyone is saying: endearing characters, amazingly cool monster and some surprisingly deft humor. Go see!
But…groan, sigh, etc. As is the case whenever there’s a smart genre movie with something to say, critics are going out of their way to point out how the smartness and the something to say part mean The Host isn’t really genre.
Take this, from Time‘s Richard Corliss:
I’ve seen this sentiment echoed in other discussions of the film and it really sticks in my craw.
How many times do we have to say it? The best genre works usually have something to say beyond “monster go boom” or “spaceship go bang” and that’s why we love them and worship them and dissect them for pages and pages on the internets. Not that “monster go boom” isn’t entertaining, but you know what I mean.
I know that slapping two-toned face paint on Frank Gorshin seems sort of dorky now, but it counted as Metaphor With Something To Say back then. And there are countless other examples like that, but I shall not list them, for I know I am preaching to the choir.
Anyway. For its next trick, maybe Time wants to run an article about how comics aren’t for kids anymore? It’s always fun to watch Chris turn purple.
