Maybe I am old fashioned but I prefer the old way of making films. There just seemed to be something about them that is more compelling than the stuff they make today.
Better plots, scripts and acting.
I think I could count on one hand the really good films I have seen over the last two years. I have made many attempts, but I just quit most new films within half an hour.
Maybe that is too premature but why should I waste an extra hour of my life if I am not getting the film's vibe.:p
I've tried to watch a number of films this year and most of them I have forgotten the titles, never mind what they were about and who was in them.
Recently I tried the new Star Trek film. I am a big fan of the original Star Trek and for me it's just superior in every way to the rebooted attempts.
But the new ST film this year, I gave up on it after 20 minutes. It was mind-numbingly dull, and looked cheap and rubbish. Bad CGI. Casting is also terrible. I mean seriously who ever thought Simon Pegg would make a good Scotty??? It's an insult to the original character and more importantly the actor who played him. Pegg even plays it as a skit. A joke. A ***s take.
Other rubbish films I made an attempt on were Ghostbusters, The Jungle Book, The BFG, Jason Borne, The Mechanic 2, etc. All dull. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
So it was back to a classic film last night, The Great Escape (1963). 10/10.
Love the fact it's 'an insult to the actor' (James Doohan BTW) that Pegg is playing his character. But it's fine to have an American actor playing an American lead character in The Great Escape...... depict one being Science Fiction and the other supposedly based on a real factual event...
Probably true to some extent. As I get older I become less and less tolerant of musical interludes in films. You know the kind of thing: the central character goes out with his or her mates and we have a loud dance music soundtrack to a sequence of knocking back shots, dancing badly, falling over, someone being sick etc. In the past few weeks Bridget Jones's Baby and Bad Moms have both done this.
Neither was a particularly bad film (in fact Bad Moms is a pretty sharp comedy) but both would have been better without the musical montages. Or would the target audience have thought they were much worse without the hilarious music sequences?
I can't watch movie montages now without thinking of Team America: World Police
The hours approaching, just give it your best
You've got to reach your prime.
That's when you need to put yourself to the test,
And show us a passage of time,
We're gonna need a montage (montage)
Oh it takes a montage (montage)
Show a lot of things happing at once,
Remind everyone of what's going on (what's going on?)
And with every shot you show a little improvement
To show it all would take to long
That's called a montage (montage)
Oh we want montage (montage)
And anything that we want to go from just a beginner to a pro,
You need a montage (montage)
Even Rocky had a montage (montage)
(Montage,montage)
Anything that we want to go from just a beginner to a pro,
You need a montage (montage)
Oh it takes a montage (montage)
Always fade out in a montage,
If you fade out, it seem like more time
Has passed in a montage,
Montage
Maybe I am old fashioned but I prefer the old way of making films. There just seemed to be something about them that is more compelling than the stuff they make today.
Better plots, scripts and acting.
I think I could count on one hand the really good films I have seen over the last two years. I have made many attempts, but I just quit most new films within half an hour.
Maybe that is too premature but why should I waste an extra hour of my life if I am not getting the film's vibe.:p
I've tried to watch a number of films this year and most of them I have forgotten the titles, never mind what they were about and who was in them.
Recently I tried the new Star Trek film. I am a big fan of the original Star Trek and for me it's just superior in every way to the rebooted attempts.
But the new ST film this year, I gave up on it after 20 minutes. It was mind-numbingly dull, and looked cheap and rubbish. Bad CGI. Casting is also terrible. I mean seriously who ever thought Simon Pegg would make a good Scotty??? It's an insult to the original character and more importantly the actor who played him. Pegg even plays it as a skit. A joke. A ***s take.
Other rubbish films I made an attempt on were Ghostbusters, The Jungle Book, The BFG, Jason Borne, The Mechanic 2, etc. All dull. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
So it was back to a classic film last night, The Great Escape (1963). 10/10.
If you're not making it past 20 minutes then you're not really giving these movies a fair go I think. Although of the ones you've listed that I've seen, you're also picking poor movies by which to guage all modern movies as rubbish. There have always been good movies and bad movies made every single year, for as long as movies have been made,.
Here's a list of American movies from 1963, the same year as The Great Escape:
How many of them have stood the test of time like The Great Escape and become classics? I recognise about a dozen or so from that list, a few of which are considered classics, with the rest being a similar mix that we see today of superhero movies (Tarzan), pop star vehicles (Elvis), dodgy horrors and "wacky" comedies. Considering that the number of movies made each year has dramatically increased since the 60s, it's to be expected that there's a lot more stinkers out there nowadays,but it also means there's a lot more decent movies too. you've just got to look a bit harder for them.
Maybe I am old fashioned but I prefer the old way of making films. There just seemed to be something about them that is more compelling than the stuff they make today.
Better plots, scripts and acting.
I think I could count on one hand the really good films I have seen over the last two years. I have made many attempts, but I just quit most new films within half an hour.
Maybe that is too premature but why should I waste an extra hour of my life if I am not getting the film's vibe.:p
I've tried to watch a number of films this year and most of them I have forgotten the titles, never mind what they were about and who was in them.
Recently I tried the new Star Trek film. I am a big fan of the original Star Trek and for me it's just superior in every way to the rebooted attempts.
But the new ST film this year, I gave up on it after 20 minutes. It was mind-numbingly dull, and looked cheap and rubbish. Bad CGI. Casting is also terrible. I mean seriously who ever thought Simon Pegg would make a good Scotty??? It's an insult to the original character and more importantly the actor who played him. Pegg even plays it as a skit. A joke. A ***s take.
Other rubbish films I made an attempt on were Ghostbusters, The Jungle Book, The BFG, Jason Borne, The Mechanic 2, etc. All dull. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
So it was back to a classic film last night, The Great Escape (1963). 10/10.
I guess it all depends on what you're into, but lately my favourite films have been
"Sully" & "La La Land"
For a bit more adventure "The Accountant" was pretty good
I just like things to be as good as they can be. I'm very liberal minded really, I don't mind what genre something is long as its good. I just feel that Hollywood execs are scrapping the bottom of the barrel at the moment in their desperation to remake anything they can on the chance there might be tuppence in it.
That's always been the Hollywood way though, There's always been remakes, reinterpretations, adaptations or movies inspired by other movies or plays. Here's a list of movie remakes, and there's plenty that were remakes back in the 40s, 50, 60s, 70s, etc.
Obviously, the more movies there are, the more source material there is for remakes, but there are occassions where remakes are justified and do improve on the originals.
Further example: I heard they are apparently re-making Death Wish...it could be a masterpiece...but I somehow doubt it...
Well, the original was hardly a masterpiece either, or even an original story.
I have some sympathy, modern films seem to be simple reboots or copies of old films that didn't need a remake in the first place.
The remake of the Italian Job was awful as was Flight of the Phoenix. Why for example did they need to remake Flight of the Phoenix? The old film had a great cast plot and the effects were even quite well done for the year.
OK I know, there were no women or ethnic minorities in it. White male cast so we can't have that.
Seems to be these days every movie has to have a tick box or right on PC correctness to fill or it won't get made, these films end up with a terrible cast poor plots and a political message that is as subtle as a dog dumping in the middle of a Wimbledon tennis court.
If the Great Escape were to be made today we'd have half the cast women with the baddies all white males and the good buys all black with a lesbian as the hero (one legged of course)
The jokes would be all right on PC Hollywood crap that no one outside the BBC or Guardian would find funny.
There just seems to be a lack of invention in Hollywood, I did enjoy the Martian it was well made but is really a remake of Robinson Crusoe, most of the humour and music references were from the book that were kept in (for example the Lord of the Rings bit which was made funnier by Sean Bean being there) and there in lies the problem.
Far too often films based on books do get changed for political reasons I mentioned above just to satisfy the tick box studio mentality.
Well said. They would never be able to make Jaws nowadays would they?
Three white guys in a boat for the last half of the film would simply not be allowed.
I agree about the recent Star Trek films. Just don't like them. Then again I'm not that keen on the older Trek movies. Always much preferred the tv series.
re. New films. I hardly go to the cinema now. I'm down to seeing one film there every one or two years (last one I went to see was Star Wars: The Force Awakens back in January). I rarely see anything advertised that entices me into going.
Ghostbusters, The Jungle Book, The BFG, Jason Borne, The Mechanic 2
No interest in watching any of those, even if it was for free.
I also love The Great Escape. Got it on Blu-ray. One of those rare films that seems fresh with each re-watch.
I fully support the theory that TV is now better than cinema. Now I only go to the "pictures" 2 or 3 times a year. I'd much rather lose myself in a boxset where you have the time and scope to see characters and storylines develop.
I fully support the theory that TV is now better than cinema. Now I only go to the "pictures" 2 or 3 times a year. I'd much rather lose myself in a boxset where you have the time and scope to see characters and storylines develop.
Really don't get this outlook. They're two different mediums. As Bret Easton Ellis commented, with television the script is always in charge. With cinema, the camera is always in charge.
Still, there's one thing they have in common. For every addictive boxset devoured in four hour chunks*, there's several dud series that never clicked, or were cancelled mid-season. Like cinema, televison is capable of wonders these days, but don't forget it too has a hit/miss ratio.
*you could watch two wildly different films in that time, btw.
I guess it all depends on what you're into, but lately my favourite films have been
"Sully" & "La La Land"
For a bit more adventure "The Accountant" was pretty good
I enjoyed Sully - Tom Hanks was great as he usually is.
Recently I also enjoyed Rudderless very much, as well as Spotlight, Whiplash, some indie and/or fairly unknown films - Altered Minds, Sparrows Dance, I Am Not a Serial Killer, The Circle, the Argentinian film The Secret in their Eyes, Management (yes, Jennifer Aniston can act ). I'm trying to find Elle (Isabelle Huppert directed by Paul Verhoeven) because it sounds interesting.
I do get where you're coming from - I don't personally watch many blockbusters, as they're just not my kind of thing.
Every now and again one will come along that I do enjoy (Max Max: Fury Road, for example), and I'm not actually opposed to the idea of remakes/reboots in principle, it's just that they rarely match up to the original!
Saying all that, there are some fantastic movies being made. Plenty mentioned already on this thread. I feel like I see a wider range of films nowadays due to technology - streaming has enriched my viewing experience!
Totally, utterly agree though, that TV is where the rich drama is. I've been gripped by many excellent shows over the past few years (The Night Of, True Detective, The Affair, Deutchland 83, This Is England 86/88/90, Stranger Things just to name a few). Staying in and binge watching TV is now so much more appealing than a visit to the local multiplex.
I do get where you're coming from - I don't personally watch many blockbusters, as they're just not my kind of thing.
Every now and again one will come along that I do enjoy (Max Max: Fury Road, for example), and I'm not actually opposed to the idea of remakes/reboots in principle, it's just that they rarely match up to the original!
Saying all that, there are some fantastic movies being made. Plenty mentioned already on this thread. I feel like I see a wider range of films nowadays due to technology - streaming has enriched my viewing experience!
Totally, utterly agree though, that TV is where the rich drama is. I've been gripped by many excellent shows over the past few years (The Night Of, True Detective, The Affair, Deutchland 83, This Is England 86/88/90, Stranger Things just to name a few). Staying in and binge watching TV is now so much more appealing than a visit to the local multiplex.
Depends what you want to class as a remake....lots of movies are adapted from short stories/novels and in most cases never ever come close to the original material.
There is plenty of dross in "old" movies too. Last week my wife noticed that an old movie she'd seen as a child, and remembered fondly, was on Film 4. It was "The Devil at 4 O'clock" a disaster movie about a volcanic eruption on a small island. We recorded it and watched together.
Oh dear.
It was badly acted (apart from Spencer Tracy) with a stilted, wooden script, and bad French accents. Badly directed and edited too. The special effects, even by the standards of the day weren't very special,
I saw a decent modern film just the other day. Bridget Jones' Baby (probably one of the last people in the country to see it). I must admit, though, that it was the first decent modern film I have seen in quite a while. The overall artistic standard remains depressingly low. As long as the accountants who make the crucial decisions in Hollywood remain entrenched in their belief that endlessly recycled formulaic stuff, with lots of loud bangs, is all that everyone wants to see, I can't see that changing. I am becoming more interested in lower budget and independent films where the quality has to come from good scriptwriting and acting, rather than a bottomless special effects budget.
I am most certainly stating the obvious, but Hollywood was, is and always will be about making money, and that it has done consistently well. Individual directors and producers might care about making a 'good' film, but making ever more moolah is the name of the game and there is far more of it still to be made in creating the kind of moronic stuff hated by the OP. Though surely he/she is being a bit harsh: there still are many good films coming our way, the Harry Potter film, for example.
But times change, times have changed for Holloywood. Once they were kings of pretty much everything in the entertainment world and folk flocked to the cinema in huge numbers. TV was still in its infancy and no threat whatsoever. No actor of any kind would have dreamed of appearing on the small box.
The rivals to Hollywood today, also now making oodles of dosh and taking much of it away from Hollywood are the cable channels and Amazon and Netflix (both of whom are slowly hoovering up the cable channels. Then there is the very real threat of the games industry which, I read, now makes more money than the film-making industry.
Writers and directors and to some extent actors prefer the cable channel format of series because they have far more time to develop a story: it doesn't all have to be shoehorned into two and a bit hours.
So Hollywood has resorted increasingly to lowest common denominator stuff. Hence, I suggest the predominance of crass, uninspiring crap coming our way from Tinseltown.
I've not seen as many great films in recent years but I think that's partly because I don't watch as many and partly because as I've got older I feel like I'm more familiar with the different types and I don't get the same impact as I would watching a Kubrick film as a teenager.
Anyway...quick think about movies I've liked in the last 5 years. All subjective.
Frank
The Revenant
Drive
Under The Skin
Kill List
Sicario
The Wolf Of Wall Street
Locke
The Hateful Eight
Prometheus
Everest
It's a combination of 1. the main target audience now being usa teenagers, and 2. everything filmed as if in a dark room, so that cgi effects can be easily ''slotted in'' .............
As with anything with the past - we tend to remember the good stuff and mentally cut out the cr*p. However I agree that there seems to be fewer and fewer really top quality films to watch these days.
Whereas I love many of the classics of 70s and 80s cinema I struggle with most 'classic' films of today. Fury Road, Interstellar, Sicario, Ex-Machina, Inception, Wolf of Wall street, Drive etc, I didn't really like any of them. I've enjoyed a few recent films - Flight, Rush and Her off the top of my head - but not many.
I agree with the comment that the current golden age of TV drama has somewhat raised expectations and that it's hard for a film to replicate the kind of character and plot development that they Even with fairly modern films I love like 'Primer', I just can't help but think how much better it would have been told over 10 one hour slots.
One thing I have done to improve things this year is that i've just given up with blockbuster movies - superhero/comic, disaster, big action films - i've gone cold turkey. So no more moaning from me about why the latest Avengers film doesn't have a plot or how the Independence Day sequel is just a cash in
I saw a decent modern film just the other day. Bridget Jones' Baby (probably one of the last people in the country to see it). I must admit, though, that it was the first decent modern film I have seen in quite a while. The overall artistic standard remains depressingly low. As long as the accountants who make the crucial decisions in Hollywood remain entrenched in their belief that endlessly recycled formulaic stuff, with lots of loud bangs, is all that everyone wants to see, I can't see that changing. I am becoming more interested in lower budget and independent films where the quality has to come from good scriptwriting and acting, rather than a bottomless special effects budget.
Bridget Jones Baby? I hope you are joking. Not only is it pointlessly about a woman, just because the book it was based on has a woman in the lead role, it trumpets it's PC idiocy by calling the film after the woman's name!
And in what mealy mouthed, leftist universe is a woman having a baby a suitable basis for a film?
At least it had one normal, white, male, decent, white, male, middle class, normal, reasonable, male, white, British actor in it in the form of Colin Firth. I'm surprised they didn't recast him as a midget Ghanaian lesbian! For shame!
Why don't we all just accept that all films now are basically The Black P Diddy vagina monologues and have done with it
I am most certainly stating the obvious, but Hollywood was, is and always will be about making money
But what the OP is trying to say is the actual WAY films are made now is not as good as the way they used to be.
He/She isn't trying to say that EVERY film made between the 40s to 80s or whatever was absolutely fantastic. It's simply that nowadays there's so many films with dire 'in your face' CGI effects, over acting and generally storylines that don't keep you glued to the screen.
Comments
Love the fact it's 'an insult to the actor' (James Doohan BTW) that Pegg is playing his character. But it's fine to have an American actor playing an American lead character in The Great Escape...... depict one being Science Fiction and the other supposedly based on a real factual event...
I can't watch movie montages now without thinking of Team America: World Police
The hours approaching, just give it your best
You've got to reach your prime.
That's when you need to put yourself to the test,
And show us a passage of time,
We're gonna need a montage (montage)
Oh it takes a montage (montage)
Show a lot of things happing at once,
Remind everyone of what's going on (what's going on?)
And with every shot you show a little improvement
To show it all would take to long
That's called a montage (montage)
Oh we want montage (montage)
And anything that we want to go from just a beginner to a pro,
You need a montage (montage)
Even Rocky had a montage (montage)
(Montage,montage)
Anything that we want to go from just a beginner to a pro,
You need a montage (montage)
Oh it takes a montage (montage)
Always fade out in a montage,
If you fade out, it seem like more time
Has passed in a montage,
Montage
If you're not making it past 20 minutes then you're not really giving these movies a fair go I think. Although of the ones you've listed that I've seen, you're also picking poor movies by which to guage all modern movies as rubbish. There have always been good movies and bad movies made every single year, for as long as movies have been made,.
Here's a list of American movies from 1963, the same year as The Great Escape:
1963 Movies
How many of them have stood the test of time like The Great Escape and become classics? I recognise about a dozen or so from that list, a few of which are considered classics, with the rest being a similar mix that we see today of superhero movies (Tarzan), pop star vehicles (Elvis), dodgy horrors and "wacky" comedies. Considering that the number of movies made each year has dramatically increased since the 60s, it's to be expected that there's a lot more stinkers out there nowadays,but it also means there's a lot more decent movies too. you've just got to look a bit harder for them.
I guess it all depends on what you're into, but lately my favourite films have been
"Sully" & "La La Land"
For a bit more adventure "The Accountant" was pretty good
That's always been the Hollywood way though, There's always been remakes, reinterpretations, adaptations or movies inspired by other movies or plays. Here's a list of movie remakes, and there's plenty that were remakes back in the 40s, 50, 60s, 70s, etc.
Movie Remakes A-M
Movie Remakes N-Z
Obviously, the more movies there are, the more source material there is for remakes, but there are occassions where remakes are justified and do improve on the originals.
Well, the original was hardly a masterpiece either, or even an original story.
Three white guys in a boat for the last half of the film would simply not be allowed.
Must be engrossing if you have time to come on to this forum whilst you are watching it.
re. New films. I hardly go to the cinema now. I'm down to seeing one film there every one or two years (last one I went to see was Star Wars: The Force Awakens back in January). I rarely see anything advertised that entices me into going.
Ghostbusters, The Jungle Book, The BFG, Jason Borne, The Mechanic 2
No interest in watching any of those, even if it was for free.
I also love The Great Escape. Got it on Blu-ray. One of those rare films that seems fresh with each re-watch.
Still, there's one thing they have in common. For every addictive boxset devoured in four hour chunks*, there's several dud series that never clicked, or were cancelled mid-season. Like cinema, televison is capable of wonders these days, but don't forget it too has a hit/miss ratio.
*you could watch two wildly different films in that time, btw.
I enjoyed Sully - Tom Hanks was great as he usually is.
Recently I also enjoyed Rudderless very much, as well as Spotlight, Whiplash, some indie and/or fairly unknown films - Altered Minds, Sparrows Dance, I Am Not a Serial Killer, The Circle, the Argentinian film The Secret in their Eyes, Management (yes, Jennifer Aniston can act
Every now and again one will come along that I do enjoy (Max Max: Fury Road, for example), and I'm not actually opposed to the idea of remakes/reboots in principle, it's just that they rarely match up to the original!
Saying all that, there are some fantastic movies being made. Plenty mentioned already on this thread. I feel like I see a wider range of films nowadays due to technology - streaming has enriched my viewing experience!
Totally, utterly agree though, that TV is where the rich drama is. I've been gripped by many excellent shows over the past few years (The Night Of, True Detective, The Affair, Deutchland 83, This Is England 86/88/90, Stranger Things just to name a few). Staying in and binge watching TV is now so much more appealing than a visit to the local multiplex.
Depends what you want to class as a remake....lots of movies are adapted from short stories/novels and in most cases never ever come close to the original material.
Oh dear.
It was badly acted (apart from Spencer Tracy) with a stilted, wooden script, and bad French accents. Badly directed and edited too. The special effects, even by the standards of the day weren't very special,
I think the projectionist was using a candle the other night when I saw Doctor Strange .
this is something that I notice from time to time - the light levels of projection seem to vary quite a bit , and I'm only talking about 2D films .
But times change, times have changed for Holloywood. Once they were kings of pretty much everything in the entertainment world and folk flocked to the cinema in huge numbers. TV was still in its infancy and no threat whatsoever. No actor of any kind would have dreamed of appearing on the small box.
The rivals to Hollywood today, also now making oodles of dosh and taking much of it away from Hollywood are the cable channels and Amazon and Netflix (both of whom are slowly hoovering up the cable channels. Then there is the very real threat of the games industry which, I read, now makes more money than the film-making industry.
Writers and directors and to some extent actors prefer the cable channel format of series because they have far more time to develop a story: it doesn't all have to be shoehorned into two and a bit hours.
So Hollywood has resorted increasingly to lowest common denominator stuff. Hence, I suggest the predominance of crass, uninspiring crap coming our way from Tinseltown.
Anyway...quick think about movies I've liked in the last 5 years. All subjective.
Frank
The Revenant
Drive
Under The Skin
Kill List
Sicario
The Wolf Of Wall Street
Locke
The Hateful Eight
Prometheus
Everest
Whereas I love many of the classics of 70s and 80s cinema I struggle with most 'classic' films of today. Fury Road, Interstellar, Sicario, Ex-Machina, Inception, Wolf of Wall street, Drive etc, I didn't really like any of them. I've enjoyed a few recent films - Flight, Rush and Her off the top of my head - but not many.
I agree with the comment that the current golden age of TV drama has somewhat raised expectations and that it's hard for a film to replicate the kind of character and plot development that they Even with fairly modern films I love like 'Primer', I just can't help but think how much better it would have been told over 10 one hour slots.
One thing I have done to improve things this year is that i've just given up with blockbuster movies - superhero/comic, disaster, big action films - i've gone cold turkey. So no more moaning from me about why the latest Avengers film doesn't have a plot or how the Independence Day sequel is just a cash in
Bridget Jones Baby? I hope you are joking. Not only is it pointlessly about a woman, just because the book it was based on has a woman in the lead role, it trumpets it's PC idiocy by calling the film after the woman's name!
And in what mealy mouthed, leftist universe is a woman having a baby a suitable basis for a film?
At least it had one normal, white, male, decent, white, male, middle class, normal, reasonable, male, white, British actor in it in the form of Colin Firth. I'm surprised they didn't recast him as a midget Ghanaian lesbian! For shame!
Why don't we all just accept that all films now are basically The Black P Diddy vagina monologues and have done with it
He/She isn't trying to say that EVERY film made between the 40s to 80s or whatever was absolutely fantastic. It's simply that nowadays there's so many films with dire 'in your face' CGI effects, over acting and generally storylines that don't keep you glued to the screen.