Why Do Movies Suck?

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  • #16
    Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

    We're not talking foreign films or even indies, though. We're talking McHollywood™. But blaming the internet for movies being perceived as wasted film is blaming the media, if not the victim. Check back to 1982...memorable movies were hitting the multiplex on a weekly basis. Not all of them were great by any yardstick, but the bulk of them were memorable. What's being churned out now is just disposable entertainment. Yeah, some of them are good and a few of them are great, but most of them are just instant gratification to be forgotten the minute the end credits start to roll.

    This isn't nostalgia on my part. Well, some of it is, of course...but not all. The problem is easily explained...Hollywood began its descent into mediocrity (for those who have a problem with calling it teh suck) when soft drink, liquor and electronics companies started buying up the studios back in the nineties and putting MBAs in charge of the greenlight.
    "Forget it, Jake. It's Hollywood."

    My YouTube channel.

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    • #17
      Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

      Had there been a Done Deal message board in 1982, I guarantee you that people on said board would have had the same debate about whether or not the quality of Hollywood movies was on the decline. And someone would have posted a link to boxofficemojo.com's 1952 Yearly Box Office Results page to prove their point while others took a dump all over PORKY'S, ROCKY III, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (those damned sequels!), POLTERGEIST (what happened to Tobe Hooper?! He sold out!), THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS, FIRST BLOOD, FIREFOX, FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH PART III, etc.

      Of this I have no doubt.
      Last edited by SuperScribe; 09-02-2012, 09:40 AM.

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      • #18
        Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

        Originally posted by Signal30 View Post
        We're not talking foreign films or even indies, though. We're talking McHollywood™. But blaming the internet for movies being perceived as wasted film is blaming the media, if not the victim. Check back to 1982...memorable movies were hitting the multiplex on a weekly basis. Not all of them were great by any yardstick, but the bulk of them were memorable. What's being churned out now is just disposable entertainment. Yeah, some of them are good and a few of them are great, but most of them are just instant gratification to be forgotten the minute the end credits start to roll.

        This isn't nostalgia on my part. Well, some of it is, of course...but not all. The problem is easily explained...Hollywood began its descent into mediocrity (for those who have a problem with calling it teh suck) when soft drink, liquor and electronics companies started buying up the studios back in the nineties and putting MBAs in charge of the greenlight.
        Frankly, you have no idea how well the films of 2012 will be remembered in 2042.

        1982 was a much better year than average in terms of classics, but how about 1983? A year ruled by films such as: Return Of The Jedi, Terms Of Endearment, Flashdance, Trading Places, Wargames, Octo*****, Sudden Impact, Staying Alive, Mr. Mom, Risky Business, National Lampoon's Vacation, Superman 3, The Big Chill, Never Say Never Again, Jaws 3-D, Scarface, Blue Thunder, Yenti, Silkwood, Psycho 2, Porky's 2, Uncommon Valor, Never Cry Wolf, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Easy Money, High Road To China, Spring Break, Two Of a Kind...

        That's the top 30 of the year at the B.O, in order of performance. Those are the movies that audiences watched, and the great majority is disposable entertainment. A couple of those films could be considered lightweight classics, and arguably none of them is a genuinely great film (Even if the list has a couple of personal favorites of mine).

        I have a hunch 2013 will be more memorable.

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        • #19
          Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

          Originally posted by ricther View Post
          That is true but you would think that the two would go hand in hand. People won't keep watching bad movies.
          Yet bad movies are making money because people are still watching.

          So why waste time and effort on making the movies any better? They are getting your money regardless of the film's quality and laughing all the way to the bank while you're sitting there watching a movie that has no good reason for not being any better.

          Almost every movie made today can be better. But the goal is not to make good movies. It is strictly to make money.

          I don't hear anyone other than myself complaining about this.

          This is no longer the entertainment business. It's just business.

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          • #20
            Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

            Originally posted by tuukka View Post
            Frankly, you have no idea how well the films of 2012 will be remembered in 2042.
            I'm guessing that by then, what we regard as film will be remembered in pretty much the same way as we regard radio at this point. It's a dying form and we're watching the death throes. All the studios are doing is rifling the pockets before the coffin is nailed shut.
            "Forget it, Jake. It's Hollywood."

            My YouTube channel.

            Comment


            • #21
              Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

              Because they're collaborative processes, that's why they suck. An author, painter, sculptor or composer doesn't have to worry about weak links in the creative process. Books and paintings are the singular works of individuals while films are like bureaucracies, with tons of people working together trying to achieve a single outcome, and it rarely ever works well.

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              • #22
                Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

                Wait. Let me get this straight: Are people bitching 'cause there's not a lot of "great" movies being made? Are people actually complaining because they were just entertained?

                As a side note, there's a lot of crappy books, music, and paintings out there.

                HH

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                • #23
                  Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

                  Originally posted by Biohazard View Post
                  Yet bad movies are making money because people are still watching.

                  So why waste time and effort on making the movies any better? They are getting your money regardless of the film's quality and laughing all the way to the bank while you're sitting there watching a movie that has no good reason for not being any better.

                  Almost every movie made today can be better. But the goal is not to make good movies. It is strictly to make money.

                  I don't hear anyone other than myself complaining about this.

                  This is no longer the entertainment business. It's just business.
                  You may be right but as a movie lover that is a tough pill to swallow. And I can't put all of the blame on Hollywood. We as an audience are allowing them to continue making bad movies by going to the theatre to watch them. And I also believe that today's audience has low standards and expectations that even the dumbest movie will satisfy them. I know this for a fact. My peers always look at me weird when I call a movie dumb that they believe was great or vice versa.

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                  • #24
                    Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

                    Originally posted by ricther View Post
                    You may be right but as a movie lover that is a tough pill to swallow. And I can't put all of the blame on Hollywood. We as an audience are allowing them to continue making bad movies by going to the theatre to watch them. And I also believe that today's audience has low standards and expectations that even the dumbest movie will satisfy them. I know this for a fact. My peers always look at me weird when I call a movie dumb that they believe was great or vice versa.
                    You are absolutely right.

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                    • #25
                      Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

                      Originally posted by ricther View Post
                      And I also believe that today's audience has low standards and expectations that even the dumbest movie will satisfy them.
                      I agree. I know people who enjoy really bad movies. They don't have the same perspective.
                      "Write the bad version first." -- Alec Berg

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                      • #26
                        Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

                        It's true that every decade has its lousy movies. I don't think the lousy movie angle should be the focus. Maybe we should phrase the question more towards: why did previous decades seem to have a better ratio of good verses lousy movies.

                        I think part of the problem is there are a number of current factors which were not issues in the 70s or even the 80s.

                        Premium Cable has for the most part taken over drama, thriller, heck -- even zombies -- and does it well. Hollywood seems to concede certain genres. Now we're seeing Westerns on cable, another genre Hollywood has conceded (except for the occasional remake, like 3:10 to Yuma, every five or six years).

                        Even when a drama does good BO (Precious, Slumdog Millionaire) the industry seems to view it as an outlier, a fluke, rather than proof the audience for such films exists.

                        It seems to me Spectacle films are the only arena in which HW feels it has no competition. So they've made the corporate decision to stick with spectacle.

                        The thing is -- if Hollywood continues to concede territory and specialize in light-on-story spectacle films what happens when the taste for these films shift? There is such a thing for going to the same pump too often.

                        There's another issue I hardly ever see discussed: acting talent.

                        I know we're writers but we have to admit actors can make or break a role. There was a wealth of great up and coming talent in the 70s and 80s. Compelling enough to draw audiences decade after decade. But, with each ensuing decade, fewer and fewer young talents have arrived on the scene to replace them.

                        (Personally, I think rom-coms have nose-dived mainly because there's been no replacements for Ryan, Hanks, Roberts, etc. -- no 20- or 30-something actors of today come even close to their on-screen charisma and talent.)

                        Anyway -- in my opinion Hollywood is making some of the same mistakes all huge corporations make: focusing on pleasing their stockholders rather than their customers.
                        Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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                        • #27
                          Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

                          My generalization can beat up your generalization.

                          I would never suggest that the general public are now mostly drooling cretins who would watch an hour of breasts exploding. Oh wait, did I just suggest that?

                          I think we have a giant rift in the universe here. On one plane, the artists of the world have gathered to decry what they see on the other plane. Just across the abyss the entertainers of the world will do and say just about anything for a paycheck. These two planes, spinning through space are in symbiotic, matched orbits, each watching the other through eternity as they plummet through space and time.

                          The artists, when confronted with the meaningless, vulgar bile of the entertainers, naturally react with violent nausea, and even projectile vomiting. The entertainers, so caught up in their own egos, don't even know that the artistic plane exists. They've heard rumors of it, usually in a dick joke at a party, but beyond that if has no relevance to their business interests.

                          Some try and make the journey across the abyss. Artists don flight suits and stow away on experimental rockets, to see if their own twisted trajectory might benefit from a highly-radioactive dose of the entertainment plane re-entry. Most are lost, forever.

                          Similarly, the entertainer may suddenly get the idea that what they really need to do is to go where no entertainer has gone before, and even if they burn up in the atmosphere, that too would qualify as entertainment.

                          The scientists who study this stuff, you and I, find it quite fascinating all around. The great rift exists, but as with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, we can never tell exactly where the art/entertainment fault line will slice through. This implies an infinite series of experiments to test the bounds and to taunt God into making an appearance.
                          Hell of a Deal -- Political Film Blog

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                          • #28
                            Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

                            Originally posted by Mister Maddox View Post
                            I agree. I know people who enjoy really bad movies. They don't have the same perspective.
                            It's the same with everything, really. People love bad music, bad food, bad beer, bad TV...most people have no taste or culture. They don't want art. They don't want anything smart. They want disposable garbage with no value. They want what's popular. They don't want to work and discover what's out there. They don't want to be engaged, or to engage themselves. They want everything as simple as possible given to them with the least amount of effort.

                            That is the average person in America. They couldn't even spell Billy Wilder, let alone have an appreciation for his work.

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                            • #29
                              Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

                              Originally posted by Biohazard View Post
                              It's the same with everything, really. People love bad music, bad food, bad beer, bad TV...most people have no taste or culture. They don't want art. They don't want anything smart. They want disposable garbage with no value. They want what's popular. They don't want to work and discover what's out there. They don't want to be engaged, or to engage themselves. They want everything as simple as possible given to them with the least amount of effort.

                              That is the average person in America. They couldn't even spell Billy Wilder, let alone have an appreciation for his work.
                              It's kind of disgusting how little respect you have for the "average person in America."

                              The average person in America has a 9-5, bills to pay, kids to care for, soccer and baseball games to go to, friends to entertain, a family to spend time with, sleep to catch up on and a spouse/significant other to share their life with.

                              The average person in America (and the world, for that matter) does not study film or write scripts or review movies on their blog. They watch movies sometimes, and when they do they watch whatever looks good or funny or scary or action-filled.

                              And if that movie keeps them entertained, great. If not, so what. They have other things to worry about.

                              The average person in America has no obligation to enjoy the movies you enjoy. Or to hate the movies you hate. They have lives and they live them. You should have some respect for that.

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                              • #30
                                Re: Why Do Movies Suck?

                                Originally posted by Biohazard View Post
                                It's the same with everything, really. People love bad music, bad food, bad beer, bad TV...most people have no taste or culture. They don't want art. They don't want anything smart. They want disposable garbage with no value. They want what's popular. They don't want to work and discover what's out there. They don't want to be engaged, or to engage themselves. They want everything as simple as possible given to them with the least amount of effort.

                                That is the average person in America. They couldn't even spell Billy Wilder, let alone have an appreciation for his work.
                                "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." — George Carlin.

                                But I don't think it's as bad as all that. The problem is that Hollywood is being lazy and pandering to that perception.
                                "Forget it, Jake. It's Hollywood."

                                My YouTube channel.

                                Comment

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