Your favorite movie sucks

[lisarea]

The Birdcage « How Hollywood’s toxic (and worsening) addiction to franchises changed movies forever in 2014

I don't think all the eggs belong in either the 2014 basket or the superhero one, but I do think the general premise is solid.

Discuss, and explain yourselves, here.

[BrotherMan]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I don't think all the eggs belong in either the 2014 basket or the superhero one, but I do think the general premise is solid.

I haven't read the article so deal with it. Whatever problems people are crying about with Hollywood have existed since Hollywood was a thing. The modern fascination with blockbusters and sequels go back to at least 1977 with Star Wars and Jaws and Superman. Heck, "sequels" weren't even new then. Remember a lot of movie consumption was through "serials."

[Ari]

The article does address that but argues that it's never been worse that it is today.

I think the article underplays the effect StarWars had. It was Starwars that convinced film makers that franchises were the way to go, Lucas and his company made way more money on toys and trademark/copyright licensing that they did on their original movies. The movies themselves, including the rereleases ended up just being the promotional shots for the big money. I don't think it's any accident that Starwars lead into an era of advertisement cartoons which were made solely to sell the franchise. It was the popularity of both of these that made studios realize the key to profit was milking a universe or set of characters until moving onto the next. Studios are way more interesting in getting their hooks into fans than anything else.

Just look at reboots, I don't think there's been a time where more franchises have been rebooted (effectively recycling the story) multiple times in so few years. You really have to go to public domain 'classics' to get any more abuse.

[beyelzu]

I don't know that comic book movies are necessarily not good movies.

"At this point, optimists usually say lighten up, because, after all, good movies always find a way to get through. But here’s the thing: They don’t. The evidence that good movies survive is the fact that every year brings good movies, which is a bit like saying that climate change is a hoax because it’s nice out today. Yes, good movies sprout up, inevitably, in the cracks and seams between the tectonic plates on which all of these franchises stay balanced, and we are reassured of their hardiness. But we don’t see what we don’t see; we don’t see the effort, or the cost of the effort, or the movies of which we’re deprived because of the cost of the effort. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice may have come from a studio, but it still required a substantial chunk of outside financing, and at $35 million, it’s not even that expensive. No studio could find the $8.5 million it cost Dan Gilroy to make Nightcrawler. Birdman cost a mere $18 million and still had to scrape that together at the last minute. Imagine American movie culture for the last few years without Her or Foxcatcher or American Hustle or The Master or Zero Dark Thirty and it suddenly looks markedly more frail — and those movies exist only because of the fairy godmothership of independent producer Megan Ellison. The grace of billionaires is not a great business model on which to hang the hopes of an art form."

At it's base, the article seems to say big blockbuster movies are crap, I don't know that I agree. I also don't know how much money was really around for the "good" movies.

Was it ever super easy to get money to make a masterpiece? I learned from watching entourage that Scarface lost money at the box office. I wonder how hard that was to get funded and what about movies after that for that studio. I guess I'm saying, I don't think there was a time where blockbusters were also a "good" movie.

Also, the inductive reasoning that good movies have always been made and so they will continue to be made has fuck all to do with the reasoning of climate change deniers. The author can reject induction, but I wouldn't as it has proven to work so well for the most part.

[Ari]

I'd say it's just the opposite, despite bullshit like Transformers, the Hollywood blockbuster has gotten better with comic book movies. If for only because they don't have to invent their own characters and have a solid amount of back story to pull from. Given that hollywood writing has never been that great, it allows a crutch that can then lead into what hollywood is great at, big special effects spectacles.

If the Sony leaks have taught is anything it's that Studio execs are childish assholes with no sense of taste, it's no wonder so much crap gets made.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by Ari

The movies themselves, including the rereleases ended up just being the promotional shots for the big money

That's the whole Disney model. It is very successful.

[slimshady2357]

According to this article, Death of Mid-Budget Cinema it's all Titanic's fault.

Ok, maybe not exactly what this thread is about, but certainly tangential at least and an interesting article.

[ceptimus]

Don't blame the studios - they just follow the money and they always have done.

Blame the stupid cinema goers who pay to watch dreadful formulaic movies and buy the generally poor-quality merchandise that celebrates said dreadful movies.

[lisarea]

That is so weird. I was actually thinking that mid-budget movies are dying, but it was just a hunch so I was thinking I should look up and see if that was really happening. So yeah, I wanted to say what that Flavorwire article is saying, so it's saving me some probably frustrating web searching.

Mostly, it's just that it's been a really long time since I've found a new director I like. I suspect there probably are directors out there toiling in shoestring obscurity that I would like if I could find them, but with arthouse theaters and video stores dying, they're harder to find, and I assume a lot of movies aren't getting made just from lack of funding. Most of the directors I like are dead or getting pretty old, and that scares me a little.

I've been seriously racking my brain trying to think of new directors, and the best I could think of were Shane Carruth and Joshua Oppenheimer. Carruth has made two micro-budget movies and Oppenheimer has apparently been working since the 90s. I was thinking Harmony Korine, too, but he's been working since the 90s as well. (And Werner Herzog has thrown his weight behind Oppenheimer and Korine, too, which helps.)

Werner Herzog is the only good director I can think of who is remotely successful right now, and I think he just got really lucky. And he's mostly making documentaries now, not narratives, which might also have something to do with it.

Seriously, if huge celebrity auteurs like David Lynch and Steven Soderbergh can't get their movies financed, how is some unknown going to be able to?

So it probably has something to do with home video, like maybe people don't go to theaters to see movies that aren't big bombastic spectacles. Maybe audiences have shrunk to the point that theaters can't sustain non mass appeal movies. Here is a thing that really weirded me out: Richard Linklater's Boyhood came out this year. Huge famous director, huge long-anticipated project, and I wanted to see it but I looked around a couple of times and could not find any showings in the entire Denver-Boulder metro area. That's not to say it didn't show somewhere at some point. It must have, but I couldn't find it. It's not like there aren't any theaters nearby. There are tons of them. Tons of screens. Massive multiplexes, several smaller Landmark cinemas, but they were all playing the same batch of movies. Guy Maddin has a new movie coming out next year, and I'm worried I might not be able to see it in a theater. And even more worried that none of the directors whose movies I want to see are going to be able to make more.

I mean, I don't doubt that a lot of mass appeal movies and whatever are good at what they are, but there are (or used to be!) other types of movies too. I don't have any interest in most of those mass appeal genres, so I probably notice it more acutely because I can't find anything I want to see in theaters. If you don't actively dislike that, you can still see some movies you like in theaters and maybe don't notice as much that you have to watch everything else at home.

[Crumb]

So it probably has something to do with home video, like maybe people don't go to theaters to see movies that aren't big bombastic spectacles.

I think this is a big factor. Theaters are expensive, so I only go to movies that I think need the giant screen to get the full experience. Most of these are the blockbusters.

[The Lone Ranger]

I remember reading an article a couple of years ago that made an interesting point. A few decades ago, the article claimed, pretty-much everything on television was mindless dreck, and if you wanted intelligent, thought-provoking fare of the moving-pictures variety, you had no choice but to go to the cinema. True, most movies were mindless dreck too (that was always the case; Sturgeon's Law exists for a reason), but at least there was always the chance of seeing something like To Kill a Mockingbird.

Nowadays, the author argued, the situation is pretty-much the opposite. Want carefully-drawn plots and well-defined characters, rather than action-packed, mindless "blockbusters"? Then your best bet is television. When they care to invest the time and effort (and, of course, the money) television studios can produce things like Game of Thrones, which would never work as a movie or even a movie series.

Such was the argument, anyway.


I suspect the author had a good point, though I'm not a television watcher. That is, I refuse to get cable and don't even have an antenna, so I can't watch commercial television; I use my TV for watching dvds/blu-rays. If something good comes out, I'll wait until it comes out on dvd/blu-ray and watch it then.


I will say that it frustrates me that it's hard to find enjoyable movies at the theater. Sure, there are always mindless action flicks to see, but cinema has always catered to the lowest common denominator. What frustrates me is that even when someone does make a more thought-provoking movie, it may play in only a few really big cities. For instance, based on the reviews it has been getting, I've been wanting to see Birdman since before it came out. And yet I haven't, because it isn't playing anywhere near where I live.


Of course, an "action film" doesn't have to be mindless and/or entirely driven by the special effects. But that's the easy way to go, so it's unsurprising that most action films are mindless dreck. Still, every now and again, someone manages to make a good one. I challenge anyone to say that The Avengers isn't a good, well-crafted, and quite enjoyable film.

I'm not saying that The Avengers was anything like, say, To Kill a Mockingbird, of course. But then, it wasn't trying to be. It wasn't trying to make any kind of point; it was just trying to be an entertaining movie. On the other hand, Captain America: The Winter Soldier did have a point to make, and it did so rather effectively, I think.


Similarly, while the executives in charge of financing it may be driven entirely by considerations of how much money they'll make from the merchandising, that doesn't necessarily mean that the people actually making the movie won't do their best to make a good, meaningful, and thought-provoking movie. I mean, Pixar manages to make good movies (most of the time; I didn't much care for the Cars movies), even though Disney executives seem to care only about money. And anyone who says that -- formulaic as it may be -- Frozen isn't a good movie ... well, we're gonna have words.



Anyway, all of that's a long-winded way of saying that 90% of what comes out of Hollywood is crap. That has always been the case, though. What I worry about is that it really does seem that there's less and less concern for making smaller, lower-budget, more thoughtful films. I suppose that's probably because studio executives are only thinking about the gazillions of money that can be made from a successful blockbuster -- especially if they can turn it into a franchise.

And even when someone does make a smaller, more thoughtful film, it may be something that you'll only be able to see on the big screen if you happen to live near a big city. Sure, I can see Birdman when it comes out on video, but it probably won't be quite the same experience. Has this always been the case? Was it always the policy to release "art house" films only to a few, select cities, and then give them a wider release only if they proved unexpectedly successful?


ETA: Yeah, I do think that the home video market has changed how movies are made and distributed. Why should I pay to see a movie in a theater when I can see it in the comfort of my own home? Some movies, though, really do work better on a big screen.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

I remember reading an article a couple of years ago that made an interesting point. A few decades ago, the article claimed, pretty-much everything on television was mindless dreck, and if you wanted intelligent, thought-provoking fare of the moving-pictures variety, you had no choice but to go to the cinema. True, most movies were mindless dreck too (that was always the case; Sturgeon's Law exists for a reason), but at least there was always the chance of seeing something like To Kill a Mockingbird.

Nowadays, the author argued, the situation is pretty-much the opposite. Want carefully-drawn plots and well-defined characters, rather than action-packed, mindless "blockbusters"? Then your best bet is television. When they care to invest the time and effort (and, of course, the money) television studios can produce things like Game of Thrones, which would never work as a movie or even a movie series.

TV is, as far as I can tell, much much better than it has been in the past, but it's good at fairly straightforward long-form narrative, and TV tends to be heavily managed and usually directed by a bunch of different people. You don't so much have the kind of auteur thing you can get in film. The only regular series, and the only American one, I can think of off hand is Twin Peaks. Lars von Trier's The Kingdom and Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander miniseries would probably count too. Twin Peaks is going to get another few episodes, and von Trier is supposed to be working on a new series too, so I hope that means that TV will be a viable format for that sort of thing, but to date, that stuff has been few and far between.

(Although I just read that von Trier quit doing drugs and drinking, and he doesn't know if he can work sober, so that one might not happen I guess.)

I will say that it frustrates me that it's hard to find enjoyable movies at the theater. Sure, there are always mindless action flicks to see, but cinema has always catered to the lowest common denominator. What frustrates me is that even when someone does make a more thought-provoking movie, it may play in only a few really big cities. For instance, based on the reviews it has been getting, I've been wanting to see Birdman since before it came out. And yet I haven't, because it isn't playing anywhere near where I live.

The big multiplex/mall theaters have always shown mostly "blockbuster" type movies, but where I am, there used to be ten or so smaller, independent theaters that would be showing first run and older foreign and independent movies. Of those theaters that are still movie theaters, they're now showing 80% the same things that are showing at AMC, and 20% smaller but high profile movies like Birdman. There is pretty much just one "arthouse" in the whole expanded metro area now, and they don't have anywhere near the offerings that theaters like that used to have. And most of the movies they do have are documentaries, most of which I'd just as soon watch at home.

Of course, an "action film" doesn't have to be mindless and/or entirely driven by the special effects. But that's the easy way to go, so it's unsurprising that most action films are mindless dreck. Still, every now and again, someone manages to make a good one. I challenge anyone to say that The Avengers isn't a good, well-crafted, and quite enjoyable film.

Challenge accepted. I was coerced into watching that movie, and I loathed it. Not just, "Oh, hey, this isn't really my thing." I actually hated it. All these macro- and micro tropes jumped out at me almost immediately, so throughout the whole thing, I had this internal monologue like, "OK, you've been talking about your boring feelings long enough. Now it's time for Robert Downey Jr. to say something irreverent to break the tension, and then switch to a couple seconds of serious-face leading into a fight scene." It kind of pissed me off. I felt like it was hitting me over the head, all IN CASE YOU CAN'T TELL THIS PART IS EXCITING SO HERE ARE THE MUSIC AND THE CAMERA MOVEMENTS OF THAT. SEE? SEE HOW EXCITING? I wanted to punch that movie in the face.

Which isn't to say it's bad or stupid or anything or that people shouldn't enjoy it. But I don't. And the next time someone makes me watch a movie like that, I'm not keeping that monologue internal.

And I could make some compelling arguments, I think, as to why a lot of smaller budget independent movies deserve to be seen in theaters. I mean, cinematography matters even for non-exploding subjects. I could probably even argue it matters more.

It's kind of inevitable, I suppose, that niche moviemaking doesn't have the audience to sustain theater showings, but it does make me wonder how smaller movies are going to be sustained at all anymore. Because a big part of what arthouse theaters and even independent video stores did was curating. They'd show or recommend experimental and niche movies by promising new directors as they came out. For example, I saw Jim Jarmusch's, Wes Anderson's, and the Coen Brothers' first features in their first run because my local theaters found and showed them. But if those came out today, I don't know how people would even find them. Maybe cable, or maybe specialized streaming services? (Netflix keeps getting progressively worse for that sort of thing, so probably not them.) And if people stop finding them, a lot of those directors' first features may never get made in the first place, and even if they are, more of those directors might have to keep their day jobs and their subsequent, larger budget movies might still never happen.

So I know it doesn't matter that it sucks for me, but I think it also sucks for a lot of people who don't realize it, at least yet. And that maybe ten or twenty years down the road, there will be billion dollar committee movies vs. pocket change auteur ones and nothing in between.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by lisarea

So I know it doesn't matter that it sucks for me, but I think it also sucks for a lot of people who don't realize it, at least yet. And that maybe ten or twenty years down the road, there will be billion dollar committee movies vs. pocket change auteur ones and nothing in between.

Apropos of this, I just got back from watching the latest Hobbit movie.

It was pretty good, overall, sure. But there were times when I couldn't help thinking, "You've got a perfectly good story here; would you please stop trying to wow us with the ever-more-elaborate and ever-more-unbelievable stunts and effects and just tell the story?". This trend (substituting effects for story, presumably to keep the mouth-breathers distracted) seems to be getting worse and worse.

I know that Shakespeare put lots of stuff into his plays to keep the groundlings entertained while everybody else paid attention to the plot, so it's not like this sort of thing is new. But when it gets to the point that the stunts and effects are so unbelievable that they destroy the ability to suspend disbelief, I think that's going too far.

[beyelzu]

Lisrea,

Have you seen or heard of Deadwood or Carnival?

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by lisarea

And I could make some compelling arguments, I think, as to why a lot of smaller budget independent movies deserve to be seen in theaters. I mean, cinematography matters even for non-exploding subjects. I could probably even argue it matters more.

I imagine that you could argue that cinematography matters more for independent films, but could you really argue that they need to be seen in a large screen to be appreciated? When a movie is a spectacle, it loses something(sometimes lots of somethings) when it goes to the small screen.

[Ari]

Given the size of TVs today... It's only a matter of time before the small screen and big screen collide. Sure they won't get to IMAX size, but given the ability to optimize a home theater setup to your exact seat, it will end up close.

[Janet]

I want to address a couple, scattered things.

First off, TV auteurs, I'm pretty sure Hannibal counts as auteur television. But my favorite television auteur, the first one that ever made me use that term, is Ken Finkleman. Unfortunately, only The Newsroom seems to be available on DVD. While that is great and you should check it out, I think More Tears was a better work. His latest work has been on Canadian pay channels so I haven't seen it, but I'd kill to.

As far as curating new films, that's a very well chosen word for it, I think. Because where I live, and probably many other places, that job is being done by museums. The only real place to watch art and independent films in Flint is the Flint Institute of Arts. Same with Detroit, although they do have a few art film houses in the suburbs. I actually want my next career to be as a film curator in a museum, but I haven't worked up the guts to tell the one from FIA that and ask him what additional credentials I would need.

I wonder how much the unwillingness to see films in the theater ties into a general societal unwillingness to interact with strangers. We see it in so many other realms. People shop online to avoid the malls. Downloading books from the library is booming because people don't want to deal with coming in here. People make friends on the internet *cough* *cough* because it's easier than going out and you can do it on your own schedule. I think trying to find an explanation specific to movies is foolish when it's a more general phenomenon.

And lastly, if I were a billionaire, I would totally be doing what Megan Ellison is. Which means that not only had Quentin Tarantino stolen my idea life of having my own art film theater to play with, someone else has stolen my other dream life. I am a bit disgruntled by that.

[Watser?]

I was gonna start a fighting thread the other night about Star Wars having ruined Science Fiction movies (not to be confused with SciFi or even SyFy) because I couldn't sleep. But then I was like meh. So meh to you again. I never like superheroes much, even less than Star Wars, so there's not much reason to ever go to any cinema lately. And the art theater here plays everything that's not a blockbuster.

[lisarea]

The thing that worried me the most is that without the draw of the big screen, you lose the ability to reach niche audiences.

Back in the 80s and thereabouts, there were multiple well attended multi-screen art houses in the area. They'd show movies by new directors, retrospectives of established ones, themed multi-features, all on these cluttered schedules. They'd show new releases for regular runs, but the older movies and retrospectives would change every day. So you could buy tickets to see, say, a Herzog retrospective a la carte or in blocks. You could literally go to the theater several days in a row and watch Werner Herzog movies in either chronological or some other themed order. (Or David Lynch or John Waters or Luis Bunuel or whoever.) That was bliss. I would do that again in a heartbeat.

In fact, the Denver Film Society sort of did that a recentish time ago (in the past 5 years maybe?) with David Lynch, and my brother and I went to I think all of them, and then brought our dates for Eraserhead at the end. And their curator introduced the movies with little talks and stuff. I think that was the best attended thing I've been to there. There were times, though, with new releases, where Matlock and I would be the only people there or close to it. Almost like the independent theater audiences had stagnated, giving up on finding anything new.

So obviously, something happened to the audiences, and I strongly suspect they're watching movies at home. I mean, I know I am mostly. It just isn't worth the effort most of the time to find new movies I want to see, and like I said, I don't even know which ones I want to see unless they're from directors I already know or I've somehow heard about them on the internet or something. It'd be great to see movies BEFORE Criterion selected them, but I don't know how now that there aren't movie nerds running independent theaters and video stores anymore.

I do recognize that TV is getting better and I'm sure there are other well written shows I would like (Also I remembered First Person and Berlin Alexanderplatz as auteur TV shows), but TV production is still heavily committee-run, and IMO, that's the problem. They've all got beancounters and marketing types overseeing the process to ensure that nothing is too confusing or challenging, and one thing I know about people is that they hate ambiguity and they hate not having some linear narrative with a predictably advancing plot line culminating in a nice neatly wrapped moral handed to them on a silver platter. They like recognizable narrative patterns and genres, and that doesn't leave much room for creativity. (If you don't believe me, the first installment of the Serial podcast ends today, and I predict great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the inevitable lack of a clear and solid conclusion.)

I just don't see any real solution to the creeping corporatism of the movie industry right now. I think we've seen just about the last of the auteur directors unless some kind of massive change happens.

[lisarea]

OMG. I just stumbled on this totally coincidentally:

An Interview with Jim Jarmusch About His New Film 'Only Lovers Left Alive' | VICE | United States

I haven't seen it yet (because shockingly, it wasn't playing at the multiplex), but this is why I love Jim Jarmusch. Every time his investors told him to put more action scenes in, he'd take existing ones out, just out of pure meanness. And that is exactly the kind of thing that filmmakers should be able to do. Not just the big successful ones like Jarmusch, but baby ones too.

And really step back and think about that. Some shithead financiers with probably MBAs or something telling Jim Jarmusch how to make a movie. That should never fucking happen.

[Janet]

I saw it. The library bought it. It was okay, but nothing to write home about.

[The Lone Ranger]

I'll second that. I made a 90-minute drive to see it, because I really wanted to see the movie.

I was underwhelmed. An intriguing premise (which is why I went to such lengths to see it), but not an enthralling movie.

[lisarea]

Do you like his other movies, though, and which ones? There are lots of people who don't like him period, others who like his more plot driven movies but not the other ones, and there are guys like me who like the less plot driven ones. I mean, Stranger than Paradise is one of my favorite movies ever, and a lot of people seriously hate that one.

I was kind of weirded out that he even made a vampire movie because I steer clear of those these days, so I was actually kind of heartened that the people who went to see a vampire movie thought it was boring.

[Watser?]

I have loved and I have hated Jim Jarmusch movies. Loved Stranger than Paradise, can't remember what I hated, blocked that out. But this didn't look like something I'd love, based on the trailers.

[The Lone Ranger]

Jarmusch did Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, did he not? I liked that movie, but I'm not familiar with his other work.

Only Lovers Left Alive had what seemed to me a terrific premise, which was flirted with but never really explored: "How would immortals view the human race ['Zombies', as the Vampires refer to us] and what we're doing to our world in our ignorance and short-sightedness?"


Instead, what we really get is 2 hours or so of Tom Hiddleston pouting about how "being immortal sucks and humans are stupid, and did I mention that being immortal sucks?". Hiddleston and especially Tilda Swinton turn in wonderful, low-key performances, but it feels like the movie-makers were trying so hard to create a mood that they forgot to do anything else. There's no plot, to speak of, no character development, and no real exploration of any of the movie's themes.

Such was my impression, anyway.