So your mad at MovieBob, the movie critic, for referencing a movie and not a graphic novel?DannibalG36 said:
Why Movies Suck Now Part One: The Myths
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Sell it to Sci-fi as a monster movie. Young, idealistic humanitarian workers in Africa + grizzled tribesman/war veteran + hungry genetically modified hippos = Saturday night creature feature. Royalties, please.twm1709 said:
OT: I'm 18, but very few movie releases interest me. I can't stand the dumbed-down plots, the obligatory love interests (why is there ALWAYS a fucking love story crowbarred in?), and the awful character cliches just aren't for me.
Very interesting and I look forward to the next part. As for my thoughts.
Politics
This often makes the excuse round not from people with legitimate concerns, but people that would take up the big brother role and censor differing opinions if they had the chance. Most of the movie going public isn't overly concerned about the politics of a film going in. Avtar was very one dimensionaly left leaning, but it did big numbers, so big it's more likely that a lot of people put their normal inclinations to see half naked blue people in 3D. To balance it out, Starship Troopers had a one dimension pro military message I don't agree with, but I still enjoy watching the film when I'm in the mood for big bloody war action. Yeah, others find the political views they want to see. V faced not a generic big brother government, but a Bush inspired government to many people because they want to see that view (I won't get into why for fear of offending anyone, but it's safe to say that at that point, people are just looking for things to complain about.)
Boys
We talk a big game about wanting deeper films for adults, then turn Transformers 2 into a blockbuster and pretend the one dimensional philosophy lesson in the Matrix is the deepest thing around while missing the point entirley. Face ti, we're a stupid people that like to pretend we're not. Transformers 2 did how many hundreds of millions? That's a lot of teenage allownaces. We have to shoulder some of the blame for that. The fact is they are marketing to us, and we don't like what that implies. As for Tiwlight, it's a cheap romance novel pandering to basic urges. It's the female equivilant of an American Pie movie.
Originality
You know I have surprised people by telling the the Wizard of Oz was a book first (heck a series). Adaptation and sequals are stock in trade, and that isn't a bad thing. Then the nostalgia glasses set in and we forget that the stuff in MST3K was very real, and probably more representive of the average film that those chosen to be preserved. The reality is we've been oversaturated. You said about Kinght and Day that it was probably a movie you'd enjoy if you didn't see this kind of film as often as you do. That effect has hit society hard with mega cinemas, pay per view, cable, satelite, and downloads, not to mention books, TV, video games, anime,, I could go on. The reality is we've been oversaturated with fiction to the point where it is hard to impress because we've seen so much. It's no longer a treat, it's 3 meals a day. It's not like they're all bad, but we're more likely to have seen it before in some form and therefore get bored, and unfortunatly, innovation and origianlity is a lot harder to deliver on than to ask for. Then point 2 comes back to haunt s as when something unique does come along, we're too afraid to give it a try and fall back on old favorites.
Man so much of me expects one of the reasons you think movies suck today is that we are dumb enough to keep shelling out for the tripe they feed us.
Politics
This often makes the excuse round not from people with legitimate concerns, but people that would take up the big brother role and censor differing opinions if they had the chance. Most of the movie going public isn't overly concerned about the politics of a film going in. Avtar was very one dimensionaly left leaning, but it did big numbers, so big it's more likely that a lot of people put their normal inclinations to see half naked blue people in 3D. To balance it out, Starship Troopers had a one dimension pro military message I don't agree with, but I still enjoy watching the film when I'm in the mood for big bloody war action. Yeah, others find the political views they want to see. V faced not a generic big brother government, but a Bush inspired government to many people because they want to see that view (I won't get into why for fear of offending anyone, but it's safe to say that at that point, people are just looking for things to complain about.)
Boys
We talk a big game about wanting deeper films for adults, then turn Transformers 2 into a blockbuster and pretend the one dimensional philosophy lesson in the Matrix is the deepest thing around while missing the point entirley. Face ti, we're a stupid people that like to pretend we're not. Transformers 2 did how many hundreds of millions? That's a lot of teenage allownaces. We have to shoulder some of the blame for that. The fact is they are marketing to us, and we don't like what that implies. As for Tiwlight, it's a cheap romance novel pandering to basic urges. It's the female equivilant of an American Pie movie.
Originality
You know I have surprised people by telling the the Wizard of Oz was a book first (heck a series). Adaptation and sequals are stock in trade, and that isn't a bad thing. Then the nostalgia glasses set in and we forget that the stuff in MST3K was very real, and probably more representive of the average film that those chosen to be preserved. The reality is we've been oversaturated. You said about Kinght and Day that it was probably a movie you'd enjoy if you didn't see this kind of film as often as you do. That effect has hit society hard with mega cinemas, pay per view, cable, satelite, and downloads, not to mention books, TV, video games, anime,, I could go on. The reality is we've been oversaturated with fiction to the point where it is hard to impress because we've seen so much. It's no longer a treat, it's 3 meals a day. It's not like they're all bad, but we're more likely to have seen it before in some form and therefore get bored, and unfortunatly, innovation and origianlity is a lot harder to deliver on than to ask for. Then point 2 comes back to haunt s as when something unique does come along, we're too afraid to give it a try and fall back on old favorites.
Man so much of me expects one of the reasons you think movies suck today is that we are dumb enough to keep shelling out for the tripe they feed us.
@
I made this username (avatar?) just to make the same point you just made, but then I found out you beat me to it.
Shouldn't Plan 9 From Outer Space prove that there is equal suckage throughout all time periods?
I made this username (avatar?) just to make the same point you just made, but then I found out you beat me to it.
Shouldn't Plan 9 From Outer Space prove that there is equal suckage throughout all time periods?
What? I thought Starship Troopers was supposed to be a spoof of the overbearing pro-military message from the original book complete with obvious propaganda and family-unfriendly morals.Redd the Sock said:
Regarding Source Material:
Why are movies not held to the same creative standard as most other media? If "On The Road" was made into a movie, it may or may not be good depending on the execution. But if someone rewrote the book, it wouldn't be herladed as some fantastic masterwork.
On the same token, most covers (with a few exceptions) aren't seen as lucrative. If most bands wanted to put a cover out as THE single for their album, they would be quickly shut down by a label, no matter how many people loved the source material. Now, before people say "but rap samples all the time," it does, but sampling is not the same as a remake. There were a number of songs sampled for any Public Enemy song, but all of it was put into a different context. It's almost like saying "Big" was the same as "Castaway" because Tom Hanks was in both. In fact, the only rap covers I can think of are "Welcome To The Terrordome" by Pharoahe Monch and "Lodi Dodi" by Snoop.
But, why don't we hold movies to higher standards of creativity?
Why are movies not held to the same creative standard as most other media? If "On The Road" was made into a movie, it may or may not be good depending on the execution. But if someone rewrote the book, it wouldn't be herladed as some fantastic masterwork.
On the same token, most covers (with a few exceptions) aren't seen as lucrative. If most bands wanted to put a cover out as THE single for their album, they would be quickly shut down by a label, no matter how many people loved the source material. Now, before people say "but rap samples all the time," it does, but sampling is not the same as a remake. There were a number of songs sampled for any Public Enemy song, but all of it was put into a different context. It's almost like saying "Big" was the same as "Castaway" because Tom Hanks was in both. In fact, the only rap covers I can think of are "Welcome To The Terrordome" by Pharoahe Monch and "Lodi Dodi" by Snoop.
But, why don't we hold movies to higher standards of creativity?
"Bob Chipman is a film critic and independent filmmaker. If you've heard of him before, you have officially been spending way too much time on the internet."MovieBob said:
DAMN IT....you got me.
I REGRET NOTHING. I LIVED AS FEW MEN DARED TO DREAM.
*runs back to StumbleUpon*
I am glad you realize that geometric presentations of politics are only simplified approximations. The problem was that your original post, which stated that the political spectrum was "in fact" a square, didn't really give this impression. If this was not the intention, great.vivaldiscool said:
Please don't it has been done to death already and the more people write about it, the more people think it can predict politics with mathematical precision.
Just to elaberate on the politics point...
First off I'd like to see an actual numerical assessment of the political bias of movies rather than generalised statements. Everytime a big left wing movie comes out I tend to notice that most of the other movies around the same time have a rightish bias (with the exception of those commissioned around the time Obama was elected, but that's another story). I have yet to do a detailed statisitcal annalyse but in cultural terms we do see a lot generally right wing ideas promoted through films (action films shaping conceptions of war for example) so I suspect that all the noise about the left wing bias of films is a product of the exceptions shining brighter than the rule. Also there is the element of flack. Flack in politics/media terms is the process of attacking certaining media outlets to ensure their ideological purity. Right wing groups attack the film industry to make it feel cautious about expressing left of centre views in films. There are of course other preasures that cause left leaning films to be made but the complaints about bias in film are more or less an effort to enforce an ideological view rather than a statemetn of fact.
THe other thing I have to wonder is where is this idea that Concervative = small government, Liberal = big government drawn from? Globally concervatives are more than happy to spend large amounts on the military and legislate to influence interactions between people (no drinking, no same sex love, etc), and to my mind telling people who they can marry is big, interventionist government. Conversly you have leftist groups like anarchists who see both the governemnt and private industry as a combined system of oppression (hence why V for Vendetta was anti-government while still left wing). Liberals conversly tend to want to remove governemnt from moral decision making but are not means in favor of large governement. One most instrumental players in neo-liberal economics, that is the practice of removing goverenmental and social (but not bussiness) barriers to types of market activity was Clinton. And dosn't the alliance between the Liberal Democrats and Concervatives in Britain against the labour party kinda kill the whole dycotomy? The thing to keep in mind is that in U.S politics the two major parties agree 99% of the time, with debates forming around only what they disagree, meaning that 99% of issues are only discussed if third parties are able to raise them, as is the case with climate change and the healthcare debate.
First off I'd like to see an actual numerical assessment of the political bias of movies rather than generalised statements. Everytime a big left wing movie comes out I tend to notice that most of the other movies around the same time have a rightish bias (with the exception of those commissioned around the time Obama was elected, but that's another story). I have yet to do a detailed statisitcal annalyse but in cultural terms we do see a lot generally right wing ideas promoted through films (action films shaping conceptions of war for example) so I suspect that all the noise about the left wing bias of films is a product of the exceptions shining brighter than the rule. Also there is the element of flack. Flack in politics/media terms is the process of attacking certaining media outlets to ensure their ideological purity. Right wing groups attack the film industry to make it feel cautious about expressing left of centre views in films. There are of course other preasures that cause left leaning films to be made but the complaints about bias in film are more or less an effort to enforce an ideological view rather than a statemetn of fact.
THe other thing I have to wonder is where is this idea that Concervative = small government, Liberal = big government drawn from? Globally concervatives are more than happy to spend large amounts on the military and legislate to influence interactions between people (no drinking, no same sex love, etc), and to my mind telling people who they can marry is big, interventionist government. Conversly you have leftist groups like anarchists who see both the governemnt and private industry as a combined system of oppression (hence why V for Vendetta was anti-government while still left wing). Liberals conversly tend to want to remove governemnt from moral decision making but are not means in favor of large governement. One most instrumental players in neo-liberal economics, that is the practice of removing goverenmental and social (but not bussiness) barriers to types of market activity was Clinton. And dosn't the alliance between the Liberal Democrats and Concervatives in Britain against the labour party kinda kill the whole dycotomy? The thing to keep in mind is that in U.S politics the two major parties agree 99% of the time, with debates forming around only what they disagree, meaning that 99% of issues are only discussed if third parties are able to raise them, as is the case with climate change and the healthcare debate.
Actualy that level of exageration is part of what makes the film enjoyable, but since the film glamorizes the military from beginning to end (with a few subtile jabs early on) I find it can be viewed either way depending on perspective. If you're anti war then yes, it's so over the top it's funny, but a big military supporter (and I have seen online comments to the effect) could see it as the film to give the soldiers the glory they deserve rather than the "baby killer / murdurer" titles they got after vietnam.RestamSalucard said:
it's little more Scream, a little less Scary Movie (which was a good thing).
Ok I hear what you're saying. Can you give some examples of countless kitchen-sink dramas in the UK, and other bland and awful films in Japan and Korea? Also, Hollywood isn't always terrible, but like I said before, the films are usually bad, just as Bollywood films are usually bad, IMO anyway.SpiderJerusalem said:
Also don't think that I'm singling out America as making bad films. Like I said, American cinema is just as excellent as everywhere else, however Hollywood is certainly not. The article suggested that cinema was in decline, however I am challenging that as Hollywood in decline.
That is not a rhetorical question. Because here's the answer. Robin Hood isn't just five hundred-plus GI Joe because the story was compelling enough to survive five hundred years, to survive eras before tape and digital storage, to be told and retold when there was no mass communication, when people were dying en masse of the Black Plague and pop culture was the furthest thing from many minds. There is absolutely no question that the centuries before ours produced works that were considered amusing enough for their own time but have since faded into obscurity or vanished from the face of the Earth altogether. Robin Hood survived while characters and stories with less resonance did not.
If Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes et. al. are still being passed on and talked about in a hundred years, we can consider whether there's a reasonable comparison. But I kind've doubt it, in part because Robin Hood doesn't have to count on selling a line of toys for his survival.