Why are movies so bad?

[Agathon]

The secret to modern moviemaking is that there is really only money in porn these days.

What happens is that they make lots of porn movies, and then they just take those porn movies and edit out the sex scenes to make the regular movies, which get played at your multiplex. That's why the actors are so wooden and the dialogue is such ****. How else do you think that Keanu Reeves ever got hired?

[Cort Haus]

I prefer the old Bogart & Bacall type movies to most modern 'blockbusters'.

Hard-boiled dialogue and moody lighting

[Solver]

Originally posted by Bkeela
I've noticed a dramatic drop in quality in films the past couple of years. I've concluded either I've become stranded by the generation gap, or rationalisation has crippled the film industry.

Out of 46 films I've seen at a cinema over the past four years, only five I have enjoyed: Love Actually, Kill Bill Vol 2, The Village, War of the Worlds, and King Kong. 5 out of 46! (10.87%) Of the 41 films I didn't enjoy, I could have saved ~ $492 and about 3 and a half days worth of time.

Of 15 films I saw in 2003, I enjoyed 7 (45.66%). So for every film I saw and enjoyed, there was another I didn't like. If I could be bothered compiling data from my peak cinema going period of 1995 - 1996, when I saw a film almost every weekend, I'm sure the ratio of favourable experiences to bad ones would be much higher. Maybe on the order of 3:1.

After recently seeing Transformers and HATING it, I've now decided to boycott the cinema. Because no matter how good reviews a film receives, no matter how many fanboys rave about it, no matter how promising the special effects look - they still have crap writing. I'll make exceptions for anything by Spielberg and Tarantino.

Sounds like you just go to the cinema too much. Don't go just because you "want a movie", go when there's a specific movie you want to see. There are definitely many crap films, but I find that going to the cinema is worth it because I really only go for a specific movie. And at ticket costs of about 5$, the movie has to be really crappy to not be worth the money.

[Arrian]

War of the Worlds, and King Kong

There's no accounting for taste...

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

How could anyone like that War of the Worlds remake? It was a complete disgrace to the book, and every previous film version. H.G. Wells must have been spinning in his grave. (Though not as much as Douglas Adams after his masterpiece was massacred by Hollywood).

[Arrian]

Douglas Adams at least got to work on Hitchhiker's Guide before he died. There was some of him in it. I wasn't appalled by it. I wasn't real happy either, but there you go.

-Arrian

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Arrian


:vomit:

We really need:
-vomit
-frog
-better crying
smilies.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Bkeela
I've noticed a dramatic drop in quality in films the past couple of years. I've concluded either I've become stranded by the generation gap, or rationalisation has crippled the film industry.

Out of 46 films I've seen at a cinema over the past four years, only five I have enjoyed: Love Actually, Kill Bill Vol 2, The Village, War of the Worlds, and King Kong. 5 out of 46! (10.87%) Of the 41 films I didn't enjoy, I could have saved ~ $492 and about 3 and a half days worth of time.

Of 15 films I saw in 2003, I enjoyed 7 (45.66%). So for every film I saw and enjoyed, there was another I didn't like. If I could be bothered compiling data from my peak cinema going period of 1995 - 1996, when I saw a film almost every weekend, I'm sure the ratio of favourable experiences to bad ones would be much higher. Maybe on the order of 3:1.

After recently seeing Transformers and HATING it, I've now decided to boycott the cinema. Because no matter how good reviews a film receives, no matter how many fanboys rave about it, no matter how promising the special effects look - they still have crap writing. I'll make exceptions for anything by Spielberg and Tarantino.

With the exception of Kill Bill, you only mentioned Blockbusters. This summer's blockbusters were awful: Spider Man 3, Fantastic Four 2, Transformers... With the possible exception of Pirates of the Caribean 3 (PoTC 2 sucked, though) and the Potter movie. Fortunately, I saw none of them.

BTW, its not a blockbuster, but I hear that the 'Lives of others' is a great movie.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Varwnos
I read parts of the article, but it seems to me that the author is just expressing a personal opinnion, presenting it as fact.
I did read all of the bolded parts, and immediately they create the aura of projection, and false guessing.

For example:



This just appears to be a hyperbole, presented however as fact.

The same tone is to be found throughout. For example here as well:


Im pretty sure that this is not the case. Besides, this is way too gender racist a comment, and Pauline doesnt fail to sound clueless.

Granted that i am not aware of the author's ussual tone, the piece comes across as little more than pompous, with epithets defining objects left and right without the slightest effort to justify them.

Pauline Kael was a very influential American film critic. And, yes, the article is a rant. But even if you don't agree with her assessment of certain movies, she makes a lot of interesting points about the movie industry. And I'm pretty sure you'll learn a thing or two. I was absolutely unaware, for example, of the prearranged deals with the TV networks, even less of the amount of money involved.

[Dis]

anyone seen Die Hard?

I hate the fact that the greedy coporate types got a hold of the film. Edited out certain things to get a pg-13. They know they can sell the film twice when they release an unedited version on dvd. That's why I haven't seen it in the theatres, I'll wait till the unedited version is out on dvd.

Theaters

movies released pretty much the way the director intended on dvd