Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 414 posts

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#101

Post by justinator »

t0bia_s wrote: post #18

I don't mind that modern films are flat end empty, because then I have more time for watch tons of good old films and I do not have regrets that I miss something. Last week I saw "Three colours" from Kieślowski. Absolutely amazing trilogy about liberté, égalité, fraternité.

Good pick- it’s to the point that I try to express my love of these movies and I just start sobbing. At once because of how beautiful these films are and also that I fear an audience for them no longer exist in a world where movies = The MCU.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#102

Post by hotpotamus »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #68
jpgvm wrote: post #7

Knew this was Critical Drinker before I clicked on it. Mate introduced me to it and he is absolutely spot on for the most part. Modern movies (and TV for that matter) have become so commercialized and expensive that the series they are now rehashing (Star Wars for instance) wouldn't be possible to create today. George Lucas definitely didn't have the name or history necessary when Alan Ladd gave the go ahead to make…

The biggest problem with movies is none of the labor has been automated much. You still need an entire film and sound crew. You still need a cast of actors and a director and a screenwriter and a composer. You still need to raise money, producers, etc. Sure, video & sound editing have had a lot of automation improvements via software - but that's pretty much it. One person can make a game with a bunch of cheap pre-ma…

I feel like CGI has increased productivity a lot. Not so much in big, effects driven movies, but in everyday type shots where they can change backgrounds or remove things so they don't need to make big elaborate sets or control environments quite so much. That's my guess at least. Film was also a huge cost of production and especially distribution that's essentially gone now. I think Hollywood unions also add a lot of jobs - look up the job of focus puller sometime.

On the other hand to all the expensive stuff - you can just not do those. I'd take Primer as an example. I believe it was shot for the cost of a Toyota Corolla and became a fairly significant film. I've also seen "low budget" movies (meaning $3-5 million or so) in the last decade or so that probably would not have been possible 20 years or more ago, so I feel like there has been some progress.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#103

Post by lordnacho »

For me the noticeable thing about modern movies is the pace. It's like something must happen all the time, if there isn't something moving or someone talking, it isn't a modern movie. I feel like been conditioned to not be able to watch older movies anymore, my brain is just like "huh why isn't something happening?".

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#104

Post by greggsy »

BoppreH wrote: post #24

Another enormous gripe I have with modern movies, other than the (lack of) interesting moral lessons from OP, is the sound design. Loud explosions and music, with quiet, mumbled lines[1]. I'm forced to watch every movie with subtitles on, or to miss a good chunk of the dialogue. And I'd go beyond that, and blame the mumbled lines for our lack of interesting quotes. It's a lot harder to have unexpected turns of phrase…

I’d wager that many engineers are still mixing for the cinema experience, but the vast majority of people are consuming media via their TV’s, laptops, tablets and phones, with an extremely diverse range of audio quality and placement. Findings a happy medium is incredibly difficult, if not impossible.

There’s certainly a need for a ‘context aware’ format that can dynamically change the way sound - particularly speech - is delivered based on the device, volume, or even physical setting. (I suspect that this is about as useful as the ‘loudness’ button on many older amps though.)

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#106

Post by tnbp »

viraptor wrote: post #58
BoppreH wrote: post #24

Another enormous gripe I have with modern movies, other than the (lack of) interesting moral lessons from OP, is the sound design. Loud explosions and music, with quiet, mumbled lines[1]. I'm forced to watch every movie with subtitles on, or to miss a good chunk of the dialogue. And I'd go beyond that, and blame the mumbled lines for our lack of interesting quotes. It's a lot harder to have unexpected turns of phrase…

> I'm forced to watch every movie with subtitles The silver lining here may be that people stop treating subtitles as torture and see some non-English titles more often. There are some fun movie cultures out there beyond Hollywood, but I've found the "ugh, I've got to read‽" response common.

I appreciate your inclusion of an interrobang here, which, like non-English movies, is too often overlooked.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#107

Post by Strawhorse »

lordnacho wrote: post #103

For me the noticeable thing about modern movies is the pace. It's like something must happen all the time, if there isn't something moving or someone talking, it isn't a modern movie. I feel like been conditioned to not be able to watch older movies anymore, my brain is just like "huh why isn't something happening?".

Juxtapose this with a movie like Lost in Translation, where as much of the progression comes from just observing characters and actions as comes from dialogue and interaction. That movie was a modern masterpiece and spits in the face of most Hollywood junk.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#109

Post by version_five »

As another post mentioned, this really only applies to big budget blockbusters. Just to summarize what I've observed:

1. Every movie is basically the "Mattel-Mars Bar quick energy chocobot hour" at this point, basically just an empty ad

2. Studios are currently falling all over themselves to show how ideologically correct they are

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#110

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

Joeboy wrote: post #48

I think I agree with the thrust of the video. My caveats would be: 1) When anybody dunks on "modern movies", they mean "modern movies with $>100m marketing budgets". Which is actually a small minority of modern movies. 2) The messaging has changed, but movies have always had terrible messaging in them. Edit: Maybe it's a bad idea to say this out loud, but when you get protagonists who are "just born preternaturally a…

There are also lots of modern movies sub-$100M budget that suck spectacularly. Many of them star Bruce Willis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd1eNS9HtXo
Post reply on HN