why are 90% of films aimed at kids today so damn LOUD AND SEIZURE INDUCING? sitting through the trailer reel before Princess and the Frog last week was excrutiating...
The Decline of Hollywood Movies
- Thread starter Joe Washington
- Start date
I prefer to call it Movie 2: The Quickening.
Yep, whenever people are skeptical of an upcoming sequel, sooner or later someone will call it [Movie] 2: Electric Boogaloo.
I go with Movie 2: The Revenge, myself.
YOU LIE!!!
There's actually a really good Roger Ebert article about this and the fact that people were saying the same thing in the late 80's/early-90's (no, really?). I wish I could find it online and send it to you.
He basically disagrees with the sentiment, and I do, too.
Hollywood is not to blame. I blame you people for any decline in quality that may be occurring. If you don't pay to see it they stop making it. If you pay they make more. Whatever schlock Hollywood is making now is mainly your fault-if you'd stop paying to go and see it maybe things will change. The pure capitalism of the movie industry is the only true democracy-consider carefully before casting your vote.
The only time period where Hollywood made any commitment to originality was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. And during that period, it was only because the studio system of the 1950s was in shambles and they felt that small, low-budget, personal movies could result in very profitable returns with little investment. Once Star Wars, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Ark hit (and Heaven’s Gate didn’t) Hollywood shifted to high-concept, big-budget pictures that could appeal to the lowest common denominator and make boatloads of money. And the most profitable of these movies turned out to be franchises: sequels and remakes.
If you're looking for originality in cinema, Hollywood has almost never been the place to find it.
If you're looking for originality in cinema, Hollywood has almost never been the place to find it.
Okay I confess. It's mostly me. When I'm not goofing around here, I spend all my time going to see the worst movies possible.
Due to my supernatural powers over the space/time continuum I managed to see All About Steve and Transformers 2 11,345 times apiece.Thespeckledkiwi
Vice Admiral
It's both.
I have been a little critical of how these blockbusters have gone. People are watching Transformers, Avatar...great SFx movies but terribly written movies.
I blame white people.
Stupid honkies.
Stupid honkies.
Come now, like spectacle wasn't popular in the days of yore. When George Lucas included the Ben-Hur chariot race in The Phantom Menace, he was onto something as far as that continutiy went - the extravagant period pieces of yesteryear are the predecessors of the epic blockbusters today. Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Avatar, Titanic, they're all a piece. Bloated extravagance in film goes all the way, way back to, uh, Italian pictures like Cabiria, which was then copied by D.W. Griffith's monumentally indulgent Intolerance. We love our epics!
And god bless Hollywood for them. I have Cleopatra on DVD. I've watched it many times. I like spectacle, damn it, I like seeing an atrium that's twice the size of a real thing and a fleet that at one point was the third largest in the world. Chamber dramas are all well and good, but once every so often (or more than that) we want our cast of thousands.
Right that said Transformers is terrible but that's because it's boring and I can't follow what the hell is going on; spectacle which is confusing is no spectacle at all.
Avatar though, I might go and see that again. That is an epic movie.
Okay I confess. It's mostly me. When I'm not goofing around here, I spend all my time going to see the worst movies possible.
Damn you, Temis! Damn you all to Hell!
john titor
Captain
Films nowadays don't grab me as they used to, too much fantasy and films with plot holes.
You might be right about the former, but I've a feeling plots holes have been around for a long time and probably are as common then as now.
I would concede Hollywood has been making garbage as long as it's been making motion pictures, but the diamonds in the rough sure seem much fewer and further in between now. Very seldom am I compelled to go to the theater now, my preferred venue to see movies. Most of my movie watching hours are devoted to films made in a time when Hollywood sucked less.
I'm too lazy to attempt to quantify but I was just looking at the best picture Ocsar nominees over the decades and looking at the list I get the distinct impression that far fewer "great" films are made now.
I'm too lazy to attempt to quantify but I was just looking at the best picture Ocsar nominees over the decades and looking at the list I get the distinct impression that far fewer "great" films are made now.
God yeah, I envy the days of the Greatest Show on Earth and Oliver!, really do.
That said, has a better film than Sunrise ever won the Oscar? I'm not entirely sure, to my mind quite very possibly not.
I think there are more films made each year than appear on the list of Oscar nominees. Some of the future great ones might not eve get nominated.
If you get a chance, look up Raymond Chandler's statements about Hollywood. He had some gems.
ETA:
Not only that, there were three adaptations of Hammett's novel between 1931-1941. Huston's famous film was the third.
I can only imagine the caterwauling that would go on if that sort of thing happened today.
ETA:
Not only that, there were three adaptations of Hammett's novel between 1931-1941. Huston's famous film was the third.
I can only imagine the caterwauling that would go on if that sort of thing happened today.
How can you possibly compare an over-special effects'd piece of crap like The Phantom Menace to a classic like Ben-Hur?
My grandmother saw Ben-Hur in the theatre - back when people actually had the requisite attention span to enjoy longer movies (there was an intermission part way through for bathroom/popcorn breaks). She tried to get me to watch it with her on TV, praising the chariot race as one of the best scenes in ANY movie EVER. It took me years to give in, though, since I'm not particularly fond of horses... but once I finally did see that movie, my jaw dropped and I was totally mesmerized by the chariot race. That whole segment of the movie is pure cinematic GENIUS.
There was a thread here some time back, over a year ago, in which some people stated they hated black-and-white movies. I don't get the hate for those - if the story is good, who cares about the color issue? Mind you, I suppose it's easier for those of us who weren't brought up with color TVs (I was 8 before we had a color TV).
Could modern Hollywood go back to making movies that didn't depend so much on the technical tricks? I doubt it. There doesn't seem to be much pure imagination or artistry there anymore.
Oh, and don't blame any of the crap movies on me - I haven't seen a movie in a theatre in almost 10 years.
Thespeckledkiwi
Vice Admiral
But the writing and acting have declined significantly. Even the crappy shows like the Last Starfighter, Little Monsters, stuff like that was fun to watch because it was engaging.
Hardly any of these blockbusters in the summer are hardly engaging anymore.
Have they? Do You have something to back that up or are you just repeating the same tropes people have been spouting since movies began.
I'm sure by the second year of the movies, someone was saying "These aren't as good as last year. The acting and writing have gone down hill."