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I believe that if you choose from the menu (local movie schedule) you'll certainly believe that movies are bad these days. Every now and then we will get a limited release gem that makes seeking them out worthwhile. I just looked back at my top moves from 2008 to 2016 and there isn't an American director / American film in the #1 spot - they are all foreign films. Quite a few #2 - Kelly Reichardt has two - Certain Women (2016) and Wendy and Lucy (2008), and she's an independent American film director. Other notable American #2 spots: A Serious Man (2009), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Anomalisa (2015). The Coen Brothers and Martin Scorsese films could be considered of hollywood origin I guess.
I think it's not just if you choose from your local movies - it's most especially if you look at the highest-grossing films. It's pretty rare to find an exceptionally good film is also the top money-maker.
(But I have to say, although I admire your take, our tastes are very different!)
OK, so I truly want to have a constructive debate about the state of cinema these days. Can movies be objectively defined as bad? If so, using what standard?
I am a musician and my late wife was a visual artist and the only "standard" for juding muic or art is "Do I like it, or not?" If I don't like something at first, that may change, as I go deeper into it or have an "awakening" over it.
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I always get into this debate with my best friend because he is of the idea that it's all subjective and no one can define a good film,
That has been said of music and art but my definitions is: Do I like it or not? I enjoyed all the murder, shooting and killing in John Wick but prefer stories with emotional or social content plus some good music, like La La Land. My biggest complaint about many current films is that they either have no endings or bad endings which is disappointing.
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To me an amazing film that can be seen as quality is Hell or Highwater. It awoke in me a yearning for good storytelling and drama I haven't seen since the 90s really.
It was a good film but had a disappointing ending, for me.
Reboots of proven popular franchises = sure thing $$
So, yeah. It's mostly crap.
But look how much good stuff is being done in other places (tv, streaming, etc).
I have seen nothing for years worth spending the price of a ticket. When the latest releases come on cable I end up bailing less than an hour into it and switching to something on TCM. Nothing compares to the story-telling and characters from the 30's,40's,50's.
Even the new Star Trek movies are boring compared to the movies made in the 1980's with the original crew. The special effects make the movies too unbelievable.
C'mon. There was a lot of shlock produced in the past. Most of it passed quickly into oblivion, but there were lots and lots of junk. Even many B actors like Fred McMurry made upwards of 30-40 movies in their times...how many remained known a year after their release? Very little from the 70s is still watcheable.
... Fred McMurry made upwards of 30-40 movies in their times...how many remained known a year after their release? Very little from the 70s is still watcheable.
Try more than a hundred. Then there's Double Indemnity (1944), The Cain Mutiny (1954).
It's hard to judge other moviegoer's comments without knowing their background - likes, dislikes, favorites, top 10 movies for a given year. A statement that says they just got back from seeing the movie somethingorother and then start to pan it has very little meaning without the context of where they are coming from. The same goes for choosing your critic, which I alluded to in an earlier post in this thread. If you are going to read movie reviews, the only reliable way to get good advice (for yourself, according to your tastes) is to find a critic that likes the movies you like, and does not like the movies you don't like. The closest for me was Roger Ebert. I agreed / followed his advice (I seek out his 4 star movies, and seek out his top 4 star movies - his Great Movies, and am rarely disappointed). I did not agree with 100 percent of his reviews, but it was in the high 90 percentile, easy.
Today, I still do my quick search when I see something that may be interesting - take the documentary Kedi (2016). I will search: Kedi ebert, and check out the rogerebert.com reveiwer's take on it. Most times I will only look at the star rating (this one gets 4 stars from Sheila O'Malley), and maybe read the first sentence - so as to avoid SPOILERS. I almost never read an entire review before I see a film. Too much chance of a Million Dollar Baby type situation (when a stray comment on the radio SPOILED the film for me before I had a chance to see it). The most reliable rogerebert.com critic, for me, is Matt Zoller Seitz. All of the rest are hit or miss, but I do check them out.
According to imdb this (Kedi) had a limited release in Feb 2017 and it never played here. So I will keep checking justwatch and maybe I can stream it in the future.
So much to reply to but I am glad that the debate is going.
First off, I want to stress that I get that good moves are being made just that the business has changed and good movies these days are relegated to other mediums such as streaming services, cable or art house theaters. Back in the 90s and early 2000s when I was first learning about cinema I would go to the regular cineplex and was able to watch films such as Fargo, which was the first great film I watched as a kid in between Independence Day and the Nutty Professor. It was playing right next to the Nutty Professor. I remember sneaking in and thought OMG what a crazy good film.
These days a good film like Michael Clayton would be seen as high drama and might only be found on NetFlix or HBO.
The business has changed and big studios are looking to turn films into theme park rides. They want to make billions or half a billion in the least so they're investing more and more into crazy action films. Even the comedies today all have some crazy explosive action.
My theory is that they figured out that most audiences are film buffs, they go to the mall and say, hey ya wanna see a movie, the other person says, sure pick one and they randomly pick one to pass the time. They're making bank on that and the comic book fanboyism. Studios DO NOT want to take risks with dramas that might not hit the mark.
I also know that there was a lot of bad stuff back then too but I rewatched some of the "bad" "Hollywood blockbuster" films of the 80s and 90s and they still had a story and were coherent. These days the studios are so desperately trying to appeal to international audiences that things get lost in translation, or they're pushing a young actress, the product placement is out of hand, they shove incoherent or convoluted plots together to create a tent film to spawn eight sequels.
I mean c'mon I KNOW you guys can tell the difference between a bad film of today vs the bad films of yesteryear. These days they're just insulting your intelligence with the stuff they come out with. They're banking on the fact that you won't care or won't notice because you're just in it for the ride. The excuse is that it's just supposed to be "fun". That's how they explain away lazy writing.
I even think critics have stopped being nitpicky by having a frame of reference on film and are simply judging the film for what it is, a ride, that explains why some really cheesy films with all the stuff I listed above have high Rotten Tomatoes scores, that and I think Rotten Tomatoes considers a mere "meh" as a fresh rating.
The bar has been lowered for more mainstream films. That is obvious. And it isn't about it being mainstream that makes it bad because Hollywood can make good blockbuster films as they have in the past it's just that they are micromanaging all the films down to the last detail to make sure it's a failsafe risk and that it's a good investment for future sequels. In the process, the story gets diluted.
I mean c'mon I KNOW you guys can tell the difference between a bad film of today vs the bad films of yesteryear.
Actually, I can't. Plan 9 From Outer Space and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (two name just two bad films that are notable precisely because you can actually find them available to watch) were yesteryear's equivalent of the bad films of today. "Coherent story" isn't an adjective I'd apply to either film.
I think you're forgetting that most of the truly BAD films of yesteryear are completely forgotten today, precisely BECAUSE they were bad. They don't get aired at film festivals, or on commercial TV channels (except possibly very late at night on very minor channels) or transferred to DVD or digitized for streaming.
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The bar has been lowered for more mainstream films.
The bar has been lowered for big-budget Hollywood tent-pole movies. Fortunately there are lots of movies being made today that are either not huge budget, special-effects laden tent-pole movies or are not made by Hollywood. And we've never had more access to those films (or to the library of older GOOD films) than we have today.
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Back in the 90s and early 2000s when I was first learning about cinema...
And that explains a few things. You have no memories of the days before home video or cable TV. Believe me, in the past good movies were NOT easily found! Once a film left the local cinema (assuming it ever played in your town to begin with, which was not a certainty), you had no idea if you'd ever see it again.
Actually, I can't. Plan 9 From Outer Space and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (two name just two bad films that are notable precisely because you can actually find them available to watch) were yesteryear's equivalent of the bad films of today. "Coherent story" isn't an adjective I'd apply to either film.
I think you're forgetting that most of the truly BAD films of yesteryear are completely forgotten today, precisely BECAUSE they were bad. They don't get aired at film festivals, or on commercial TV channels (except possibly very late at night on very minor channels) or transferred to DVD or digitized for streaming.
The bar has been lowered for big-budget Hollywood tent-pole movies. Fortunately there are lots of movies being made today that are either not huge budget, special-effects laden tent-pole movies or are not made by Hollywood. And we've never had more access to those films (or to the library of older GOOD films) than we have today.
And that explains a few things. You have no memories of the days before home video or cable TV. Believe me, in the past good movies were NOT easily found! Once a film left the local cinema (assuming it ever played in your town to begin with, which was not a certainty), you had no idea if you'd ever see it again.
Did you miss the part where I said that I was mostly talking about mainstream cineplex movies which includes modern comedies, action films, and even tent pole films. Plan 9 from Outer Space and the other Ed Wood films were indie flicks that were far from the norm. I consider the golden age of film maturing into greatness from 70s to 90s-early 2000s.
I think the point of contention we are having is that you think I'm just talking about the content of all films but I'm mostly talking about the mainstream. The business has totally changed in that you have a plethora of ways to find good films and they are coming out, but as far as the cineplex experience and what's considered good in the main; the bar has been set quite low. This isn't me trying to be iconoclastic or critical to be cool, but compare the blockbusters like Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, Predator, etc to the Fast N Furious series or Transformers, etc. I recently rewatched the original Independence Day which was the mindless blockbuster of its time and it was more coherent and told a better story than the sequel released last year. These films were the fun movies of the summer while the fall and winter movies were Fargo and Michael Clayton. Now all movies are the fun summer blockbusters year round. If you want good films you turn to other mediums; Netflix, HBO, Amazon, smaller theaters, etc.
I agree with you and think we are saying the same thing but you're misreading what I'm saying, possibly because im not saying it well enough, I apologize. You're right that we live in an era where good films are still being made, I'd disagree that many good films are being made but good films still exist, it's just not in the mainstream as much anymore. Big studios rarely want to risk their money on anything but a tent pole movie.
My theory is that they figured out that most audiences are film buffs, they go to the mall and say, hey ya wanna see a movie, the other person says, sure pick one and they randomly pick one to pass the time. They're making bank on that and the comic book fanboyism. Studios DO NOT want to take risks with dramas that might not hit the mark.
Whoops I meant that most audiences aren't film buffs.
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