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Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

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Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#201

Post by ElephantsMyAnus »

sandworm101 wrote: post #117
Pasorrijer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A response to your edit, I was on a zoom call with current musical editors / producers and that is 100% part of the problem. Many of today's actors /actresses almost mumble their lines and make it absolute hell for the audio people to pick them up, whereas theatre trained individuals were loud and enunciate the crap out of everything.

They are trying to be authentic. That is what actors are taught these days, to portray "realistic" characters that move and sound as realworld people. The net result is mumbling and tiny little movements that in turn mandate tight closeups and asmr-like microphone placement. Try that on a stage or in any live performance and you will be called wooden. Compare actors like Samuel L Jackson, Percival Ulysses, Jane Lynch…

I'm not a native speaker, but, I think it's rather the opposite. It's very inauthentic.

English is a rather unusual language that the meaning is mostly carried only by consonants, while vowels are almost meaningless.

What actors seem to be doing is that they focus too much on their accent, and the vowels that define it, and mostly ignore the consonants. Which means you can only hear the accents, but not what is being said.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#202

Post by zthrowaway »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #97
zthrowaway wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what fascist means? Or are we just going to use that word for everything that we find unappealing now? Would love for you to define it, and explain how it applies to American nostalgia for older classic movies that are a foundation of our pop culture.

> The core mobilizing myth of fascism which conditions its ideology, propaganda, style of politics and actions is the vision of the nation's imminent rebirth from decadence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art

Trying to spin people glorifying classic movies to be a form of Nazi degenerate art would've worked better (though I disagree with this even being remotely the same thing and view it as hyperbolic.) This still has nothing to do with fascism.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#203

Post by ComradePhil »

Cry me a river! Why are adults in the west (I'm not talking about 18 year olds or even 30 year olds... I mean proper adults, like 35+) watching superhero movies clearly written and performed for kids? I do understand nostalgia but I really don't think westerners understand the concept of growing up. Like, at some point, it has to be like

"Yeah, I enjoyed this so much when I was 6 and I can see why a kid me would love this... but I am 36 now and while the actual content does remind me the great carefree time when I was 6, it no longer appeals to me as a person I am today... because it is so far removed from the things I know and care about that I can't really relate".

When a grown ass man excitedly talks about a new kids movie that came out, I really don't know how to react without cringing. It's way too common and I've had to join to not look like an outcast at times and sit through terrible forgettable overdone movies. Please stop.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#204

Post by karpierz »

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…

> Edit: Maybe it's a bad idea to say this out loud, but when you get protagonists who are "just born preternaturally awesome", they're generally female, right? I'm not sure the same trend applies for male protagonists.

I think this is a bit of selective memory ala: https://xkcd.com/385/

Did you have particular movies in mind with this? The whole Marvel universe is riddled with male protagonists who are simply better than other people. That's the whole schtick that the Watchmen criticises.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#205

Post by CharlesW »

Pasorrijer wrote: post #90
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…

A response to your edit, I was on a zoom call with current musical editors / producers and that is 100% part of the problem. Many of today's actors /actresses almost mumble their lines and make it absolute hell for the audio people to pick them up, whereas theatre trained individuals were loud and enunciate the crap out of everything.

> Many of today's actors /actresses almost mumble their lines and make it absolute hell for the audio people to pick them up, whereas theatre trained individuals were loud and enunciate the crap out of everything.

There's zero correlation between how loud someone says their lines and how loud they are in the resulting mix when ADR is used.

There is a limit to how far you can push this for lines recorded live because of environmental noise, but in that case there's more control than ever before because of software like iZotope RX (which is close to magic).

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#206

Post by _tik_ »

noduerme wrote: post #19

I kind of appreciate the gamer-style review of Mulan, just, like, not having as much difficulty or leveling up in the live-action version. Putting it in that way makes a meaningful point and is something that can actually be fixed. What can't be fixed, unfortunately, is Disney's enslavement to China. The classic Disney narrative was at one time was aimed at selling the American Dream. Which, bullshit as it may have t…

I think this argument is overstretching into a political argument. The live action Mulan movie is consider a flop in China. The Chinese audience hate it. It is more successful in Singapore and Saudi Arabia. Disney remove one of main major male character to be aligned with the MeeToo movement. For the Animation version the Chinese complained for their foreign looking character and it is too different from myth. China love Kung Fu panda. The find kung fu panda show a sincere love to Chinese culture without over trying too be a chinese.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#207

Post by School-Cotton »

ElephantsMyAnus wrote: post #201
sandworm101 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are trying to be authentic. That is what actors are taught these days, to portray "realistic" characters that move and sound as realworld people. The net result is mumbling and tiny little movements that in turn mandate tight closeups and asmr-like microphone placement. Try that on a stage or in any live performance and you will be called wooden. Compare actors like Samuel L Jackson, Percival Ulysses, Jane Lynch…

I'm not a native speaker, but, I think it's rather the opposite. It's very inauthentic. English is a rather unusual language that the meaning is mostly carried only by consonants, while vowels are almost meaningless. What actors seem to be doing is that they focus too much on their accent, and the vowels that define it, and mostly ignore the consonants. Which means you can only hear the accents, but not what is being…

> English is a rather unusual language that the meaning is mostly carried only by consonants, while vowels are almost meaningless.

Sorry but this sounds like nonsense. Vowel distinctions absolutely matter in English. Think of how many words would be indistinguishable otherwise: bout, bought, bet, bat, bit, beet, boot, boat, bite, but, and bait are all distinguished from each other only by a vowel.

(And, yes, these all sound quite different to me, an American, though non-native speakers often have trouble making or recognizing some of the distinctions. Some native speakers further distinguish “bot” from “bought”, but I don’t.)

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#208

Post by bendergender »

version_five wrote: post #109

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

Wait till you hear about the history of shows like Transformers, HeMan, Gundam, etc. Media has more or less been an ad for 50+ years at this point, that's hardly a new phenomena.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#210

Post by JadeNB »

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 definitely watch all movies, English and foreign, with subtitles, and can't stand dubbed movies. I've found an amusing effect of well subtitled movies is that sometimes I forget that they're on, and, if I walk away and can only hear the dialogue but not see the subtitles, then I have to take a minute to process why I can no longer understand it ….
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