| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 7/7/2007 12:01:16 AM | Some of the problems with modern movies.
Dull dialogue:
It doesn't need to be Shakespeare but can't they try at least?
Enough of the 4 letter words being used simply for shock effect..
Try saying some thing intelligent instead of vulgar. Most modern movies lack any sort of cultured dialogue. We never think of these people as being smarter than us, so we don't respond to them. Old movies were filled with snide put downs and witty comebacks. Today it's all #$#% %$@ You @#$%!!!. hardly intelligent writting.
Nelson Eddy and Jennette McDonald had better script writers. And they could sing too!
Slow talking:
The average modern script probably has 1/4 of the dialogue of a movie from the 1930's or 40's. Today's stuff is like watching a soap opera. Everybody is seeingly waiting until after the commercial break to reply to a comment. ZZZZZZZ.
All the actors and actresses look alike:
I have a really tough time watching a modern war movie. Every actor looks like the extra's in every scene. I never know who is getting killed or when. You stop caring about the character when you can't figure out which one he is. Didn't that guy get shot 5 minutes ago?? Watch "A Walk In The Sun" (The original version of Saving Private Ryan) and tell me you can't easily follow the story and care about the people. Every actor in it had a distincive face, voice, personality and body type. A very small budget picture but in many ways more powerfull than S.P.R. simply because you are there with the men and have no idea of what is coming next nor do they.
I watched some cop movie a while back with a couple of sandy haired top Hollywood hunks. Damned if I could tell them apart One was the good guy and the other the bad guy. But they could have passed as twins. That made the movie hard to watch as I was constantly trying to figure which one was onscreen. It really didn't matter as I never liked either character in the story
Too much use of special effects with no purpose to them:
Remember "Star Trek the Motion Picture"
And that was 20 years ago. Dullsville
Enough said.
Dull plots:
What the heck was that stupid CIA thing "The Good Shepard???"
Good grief! I live a more exciting life than that guy did! And nobody is rushing out to make a movie about me.
Good guys once wore white hats:
At one time you could look up to the heros in storys. Now in most cases the bad guys are more likely to have high moral standards. Most modern movies leave you with a feeling of well - just "Yuck".
Sex:
At one time the guy only kissed the girl at the end of the movie and they rode off into the sunset. Heck nobody ever took their clothes off. The hero never even lost his hat in a fist fight.
Today the guy is probably kissing his horse and riding his trail buddy off into the sunset before the opening credits roll. Where is the suspense or romance in that???
There are thousands of good movies out there. Many in Black and White which are far better than anything new. Watch any original picture and then see the "modern high tech remake". Very few stand up to the originals in quality of any kind.
Take "The Outsider" with Tony Curtis and compare it to 'Flags of Our Fathers". Same story but the orginal was far better in every way.
What makes a Hitchcock movie so good? Your imagination! You never see the knife hit the girl in Psycho. You don't need to. Your mind fills in the missing gore and that makes all the difference in a good movie.
All the Ketchup splatters and 3D special effects in CSI can't come close to it for realism and terror.
"A Walk In The Sun" Purposely has very little combat action in it yet it's very tense throughout. It's the character's reations to an uncertain future that make the story, not the explosions or bloody gore.
If you dig in the piles you can come up with some really great $1 movies.
John Wayne's "Island in the Sky" is another good picture. An untypical picture for him as he plays the helpless victim of a plane crash in Northen Quebec while the rest of the huge cast searches for him. No high tech stuff here. Just plain old guts and determination and very old planes! Seeing Andy Devine in a bathing suit!! is worth the price of admission alone. | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 7/7/2007 8:21:18 AM | The vast majority of movies have always sucked.
The reason why people tend to think that older movies are better is because only the top 10 % of movies of any given period of time (starting in the 1920's) urvive longer than maybe 10 years tops. | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 7/7/2007 5:39:01 PM | It's pretty sad when you can anticipate the next thing to happen. In an interview the guys from South Park(of all people) said they were told to follow a formula. Films are too often about revenue and not about content.
Indy films are a good alternative. | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 7/7/2007 11:10:08 PM | Thank God for movies, i love all types of movies. Foreign, independent, black&white, heck i even like some musicals. Yes there are some really stupid movies, but i'd rather watch one of those really stupid ones and try to fall asleep 
some good ones though:
Die-hard 1and2
Dune
Twister
Shrek
damn there's so many more, i could just watch over and over and over and over and.. | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 7/7/2007 11:26:04 PM | | There were more bad movies being made before the SAG came into existence. People glorify the the supposed golden age of movies, but come on . . . . Do you have any idea how many crappy movies were made in the 30s, 40s, and 50s? Yes, the SAG existed during this time, but when did it start to have any sort of influence? You think movies are bad now?!! LMAO! Per capita, movies have always sucked, not that there aren't some great ones being made every year. What's your point? | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 7/8/2007 1:42:43 AM | Watched Mel Gibson's Apocalypto tonight and while I never enjoyed Gibson as an actor for most of his career, as a director I think he is great. Apocalypto has a lot of nonstop action, plenty of real intimate moments between characters and builds to the epic size of nearly Ben Hur proportions.
One can really see all the time he has spent in the industry has really culminated into big greatness. Apocalypto is long at almost 2 1/4 hours but it flies by. It's definitely not a kids movie and should blow any 13-17 year olds mind.
Mel dares to be graphically violent in a time when it is most shunned. But its much more than that. I feel like I was thrust back into time and into the Mayan culture with extrapolations of what it might have been like. I am going to rewatch this with the Directors Commentary on. It's that good.
I don't think it catered to the lowest common denominator or this show would have run longer in the box office. I feel it is a lot better than the treatment it got. The reviews were bland so I was in no hurry to check it out. The whole movie was nothing short of incredible. Incredible, but mostly believable. Bowling with bees was a funny stretch but worth it none the less. I highly recommend this movie if you are not squeamish about how graphic movies can be. It's definitely a guys movie but it does have a family plot and love plot within it.
I enjoyed it a lot more than the last Bond movie. Did anyone else think Casino Royale sucked and moved slowly? Lacked action and clever lines. | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 7/9/2007 6:22:40 AM | A really good example is a foreign film that I really liked, a 1988 Dutch/French film called "Spoorloos. " I saw it on Bravo one night, and it BLEW me out of the water.
The same Dutch director, George Sluizer, did the Hollywood remake...called "The Vanishing".  To show you what's really wrong with American cinema today, all a film class would have to do is play each scene from both movies back to back.
What made "Spoorloos" so scary was it's take on evil. You meet the antagonist very early in the film, and he's not "a bad guy". He's got a wife, kids, and he's actually pretty clumsy (he chloroforms HIMSELF , while practising).  He looks pretty normal.
It's like kids who think that "bad people" will look bad.....and they often don't.
t may be that The Vanishing is a one-off: a film so original, so effective, so surprising and so ruthless that it represents a single, perfect coming-together of director, writer, subject, and cast. It delivers a shattering twist ending, but has a depth and lasting creepiness that makes it repay repeat viewings. Hitchcock always argued for suspense over surprise, but The Vanishing delivers both: the first time you see it, the mystery is intriguing and the solution horrible; the second time, when you know what�s coming, it takes on a more tragic, even more horrifying dimension.
http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=133&eid
=143§ion=essay&page=2
Now when "The Vanishing" was made, it was like taking the Sistine Chapel and "punching it up" with some Dayglo paint, and flashing lights. 
The ending, the shocking key to the entire film, was changed to make it "upbeat". When I first rented it, I was just in shock at how bad this remake really was. People saw the film, liked it enough (and saw it's value) to hire the same director to do an American version ....and then did everything they could to make it everything the original wasn't. | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 7/9/2007 5:06:08 PM | A few more recent movies I really liked were
The Departed
The Prestige
The Ilusionist
Pan's Labyrinth
Fracture
The Children Of Men
Pursuit Of Happiness
Some that may not have been in the category of classics, but in my opinion were a little different that I enjoyed was "300" and "Number 23" a very different kind of role for Jim Carrey. | |
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Älska
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Joined: 12/3/2007
Msg: 62 | |
| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 2/20/2008 1:18:14 PM | I saw The Bucket List last night and it blew me away! Two of today's finest actors, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, handled the delicate and scary subject of cancer with sincerity, humour, sympathy and heart-wrenching honesty. They managed to portray all the emotions that a cancer sufferer has to deal with but still make this a glorious and entertaining movie.
Oscar material without a doubt! | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 2/20/2008 2:15:59 PM | I loved the “Bucket List”, thank goodness I had grabbed some napkins at the concession beforehand. I have liked Morgan Freeman in pretty much everything I have seen.
I also like “Michael Clayton” and Clooney is always good, too.
I am probably in the minority but I didn’t really think much of “Atonement”, it was disappointing in my view.
I also like “Charlie Wilson’s War”, kind of a different role for Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman was fabulous as usual.
Wow, I go to way too many movies. | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 2/20/2008 6:30:17 PM | They still make good movies, you just have to wade through piles of crap to get to them, just like every other era.
I was really surprised by Casino Royale. James Bond, that's right, Bond. Forget everything you've ever seen in a Bond movie, this wasn't a tecno-cheese fest whatsoever. James is a thug and a cell and laptop are just about as gadgety as it gets. Like in Dune, plans within plans.
Little Miss Sunshine had my then GF and I laughing uncontrollably, Alan Arkin stole the show [spoiler] even after he died[/spoiler].
Children of Men is one of the best movies I've ever seen in a long time and includes some of the most detail filled and immersive cinematography ever, you really have to pay attention to the background to get the whole story. Very well made and even better than the book. | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 2/20/2008 8:32:02 PM | Depends on what you like. My faves are comedy and suspense. Sometimes I enjoy the older movies, but there are still a few good new ones. The ones I've heard people mention on this thread are old and new that I have enjoyed including Untited 93-very sad however, and Old Yeller-also sad. I like old musicals such as West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, and Oklahoma. A new musical remake that I really liked recently was "Hairspray".  | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 2/21/2008 5:53:29 AM | the only movies i like are horror movies cause people are so stupid in them...
and there fun to mock...scream actually has good old classic movies that arn't so phony...the newer movies remind me of society now...so i always watch scream where people actually arn't so dense in them... | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 2/21/2008 11:36:23 AM | its simple mathematics, since the actors demand 20 zillion dollars to act in them (any loser can act) the movie industry has to cut corners and raise the ticket prices at the box office.
there are some great visual effects (mostly computer generated -which should cut down on the cost) however the scripts are so unbelievable or weak -you have to buy a copy of the movie when it comes out on dvd and watch it several times to understand the plot.
as a general rule -if the movie has dazzled you within the first two minutes of starting -its a winner. however -if it starts off slow -(that $6 box of junior mints you bought at the snack bar is going to be the climax of the movie...) | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 2/21/2008 12:22:03 PM | I dunno. Maybe yes, maybe no.
Think I'm wrong... How about such treats as 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' or 'Surf Nazis Must Die.'
In all fairness, my guess is that most production is geared to a particular market segment. This helps (ideally) with the revenue stream. Not to mention DVD sales and the overseas markets. In short, a formula for large publicly traded companies with shareholders and a board of directors.
Does this mean that movies nowadays are lousy. Possibly. Then again, as one previous posted noted, mayby my tastes have changed and I don't fit the demograhpic.
Good point about the independents though. The Coen brothers come to mind.
My 0.02 (doesn't get much popcorn these days, that's for sure) | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 2/21/2008 12:53:07 PM | Some movies are really good while others stink. It has always been that way.
The Lord of the Rings series was excellent, for example. Never a dull moment!
But the Good Shepherd was so boring that I fell asleep halfway through it.
Right now there's nothing out that I want to see. But in a few months that may well change. Seems like the good movies come in spurts and the bad ones do too. Right now nothing good is on.
I agree with the posters who mention leaving certain things to the imagination. When I rent a DVD I always fast forward through the sex scenes because they add nothing to the story. I like the idea of sex in real life with a partner but don't want to watch it during a movie. Good characters and storylines are more important to me.
Hitchc*ck had the right idea to leave the murder scene to the imagination as well.
TV is terrible these days with the exception of a few Sci Fi Channel programs. The reality stuff is stupid, Greys Anatomy turned me off off the bat with its excessive sex scenes, and I found one episode of Two and a Half Men to be revolting--one of the characters had a one night stand in his home with a child living there. ICK
I've gone to the point where I get the DVD box sets for the programs I like so I can watch the parts that are actually interesting! | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 2/21/2008 1:32:37 PM | The main problem with movies today is, money.
$10 million is considered a low budget movie today.
Investors don't want to give money to a project unless they a sure it will bring back a profit. As a consequence, literally nothing but remakes and copies of other successful movies get made, almost nothing original.
One day, Sylvester Stallone will make a movie where Rambo foils a terrorist plot against the heavyweight championship prize fight with Rocky as the challenger.
There are lots of original screenplays and ideas out there but they can't get any money. | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 2/21/2008 3:11:18 PM | | They all have to have sex, a big bang, killing or a snappy line.. the story lines stink. I don't like much of what comes out today.. it kind of turns my stomach.. most of it is very predictable. I love the old movies becasue they told more of a story with out all the effect.. the newest one that gets my goat is step up two.. while i think the girl in it is smoking LOL.. it looks like a very silly movie with clowns dancing around. | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 3/2/2008 6:50:10 AM | Some I like :
Village of the damned '60
Misfits
Bonds : DN , TB , OHMSS , FYEO , TLD
Halloween , H2 & H4 (#4 is best of the sequels imo)
Jaws (it f-in rawks !)
Rocky 1-5 (didn't care for #6 , yes III & IV had some silly moments but all together good stuff)
The Deer Hunter
Conan
Commando
Predator
Twins
T2 (T3 was OK , but as a T movie it didn't live up.....)
At close range (haven't seen in many yrs now.....)
Biloxi Blues
Communion
Comfort of strangers
Speed | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 3/2/2008 11:06:39 AM | I heard this, and I think it is true.
Overseas, movies are better, They focus on Talent, ACTING
america they focus on Special Effects.
true
they have to focus on talent, so that means hire better actors and they are poorly trained.
spend their time on crap,such as:
Paparazzi
should be expanding the mind to be a better actor | |
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| Movies now suck...what happened?
Posted: 3/2/2008 6:22:22 PM | audiences have gotten dumber, therefore films have gotten dumber.
every once in a while, someone comes along with something good, but rarely do we see the likes of 'in the heat of the night' or 'to have and have not.' i think about someone like katherine hepburn in comparison to...say...nicole kidman, and it's just sad.
and special effects have become more important than anything else. god, i hate special effects. the destruction of film as art. | |
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