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That's a really good point. I think Hollywood still occasionally tried to do that. They just aren't much good at it anymore. I think it is largely because so many movies today are written by children for children. They have never faced any real adversity in life. So the dramas they manufacture seem ... well, manufactured.
I once asked in this forum whether we've run out of stories to tell. It certainly seems that way to me.
This is a great scene from a great movie. There are no explosions. No "drama" in the way we think about it today. It's a scene that's relatable to hundreds of thousands if not millions of men--losing your children in a custody dispute. And it's heart-wrenching. Either we're not capable of producing these types of stories anymore or we've already told every story worth telling.
The 90s had some great sleeper movies. SNEAKERS was one of them. As I said earlier, the 90s was a great decade because you still had a lot of the old guard still around like Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier in this movie. And Ben Kingsley was always excellent. And we actually had good roles and good scripts for these actors. It's not like today where you throw De Niro in a garbage movie with garbage script just so you can say your movie has De Niro.
Another great original story from the 90s was DAVE, a movie about a U.S. President who has a heart attack and is replaced by an actor/comedian. Great story and great actors. Ben Kingsley also appears in this one. Frank Langella is great in this too.
For my money, the single greatest scene in all of cinema came from a box office flop in 1982. No explosions. No quippy dialogue as the hero shoots holes in the villain. Nope. The hero actually finally admits to himself that he's been the bad guy all along. The "bad guy" chooses to become a hero. And they share a final moment of empathy.
This is exactly what all of our modern action and super hero movies are lacking: Heart, and something to say about the human condition.
Jodie Foster gave us some great cerebral movies in the 90s like CONTACT. She also turned in some great performances in SOMMERSBY with Richard Gere and LITTLE MAN TATE. I doubt any of those movies would even get made today. Back in those days, we didn't have to run to Britain to find quality actors capable of handling these roles because they were home-grown in drama schools right here in the USA.
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