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Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

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Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#251

Post by CuriouslyC »

psychlops wrote: post #111
seanhandley wrote: post #82

I worked for a while with a guy who'd worked at the BBC for many years. His reasoning for why movies are more boring was simple: money. A production team is looking to distribute their movie in as many channels as possible, and with the broadest appeal possible. As a result, you see a film made with the broad strokes but lacking in subtlety. If a film might be challenging because of the subject matter, the complexity…

Oddly enough, money is also why exciting movies are made. Not many people make movies, nor art, out of the generosity of their hearts.

You can have movies make money without having the money drive creative decisions. The bottom line focus of corporate content is the reason american pop culture has turned to shit in the last 20 years and everything is a remake or a rehash.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#252

Post by plorkyeran »

ElephantsMyAnus wrote: post #214
School-Cotton wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 al…

I get that, but it matters very little in a typical sentence. I bet you could understand almost everything with all vowels replaced with schwas.

You can replace unstressed vowels with schwas and usually end up with something understandable. Stressed vowels cannot be schwaed. This is also specific to american English and doesn't work for other dialects, or even all american accents.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#253

Post by dmitriid »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #143
dmitriid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> uses the term "movies" to refer to "big budget movies", which are by no means the only movies out there They kinda are. Franchises have sucked all the air out of the room, and movies are given money on the premise that they will make money. Edit: not just money. But shit-tons of money that can be milked from multiple angles for many years. Already 10 years ago filmmakers were struggling to find funding for their pr…

> Franchises have sucked all the air out of the room Ahh, to remember the 1970's when a whole new crop of young American filmmakers were given the reigns to create some of the more original but still engaging content.

These days everyone is immediately drafted into :)

IIRC Marvel had trouble finding directors for their latest phase (or the one before that) because everyone was tied up doing franchise movies (or series).

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#254

Post by zionic »

dionidium wrote: post #248

It's not a coincidence that all the main characters featured in this video are women. The main thing the filmmakers are trying to show is that these are girl-bosses who can do anything men can do (and more) and it's so important to show that with utter, relentless completeness, that they've created characters that are magical, who don't need to overcome anything, characters who matter mostly as individuals, who have…

Deserves top comment

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#256

Post by CuriouslyC »

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…

I don't think this argument holds for TV. Unlike movies which have a large sunk cost, require a coordinated rollout and expensive marketing, television can make a short proof of concept pilot season and doesn't require a marketing blitz. Television also doesn't have the expectation of budget breaking CGI/effects. As a result, TV can take chances and do things the suits would never approve for movies. If a show fails, it fails small, but if it succeeds it can do just as well as any movie (e.g. friends).

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#257

Post by KineticLensman »

hotpotamus wrote: post #102
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

> I feel like CGI has increased productivity a lot.

Yeah, but take a look at the massive number of VFX people listed in the end-credits of CGI-heavy films. Often several different companies (e.g. DNEG) each with its own array of artists, modellers, riggers, tech, pipeline engineers, asset developers, IT support, etc etc.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#258

Post by fullshark »

Strawhorse wrote: post #240
fullshark wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every example here is a female protagonist also, I think it's also partially kowtowing to feminist cultural critics who are vocal online and are particularly sensitive to perceived slights.

That's ironic, because China hates strong female role models or protagonists in movies due to an endemically sexist culture

I think the Mulan update was a huge flop in China FWIW, so maybe Disney tried to thread the needle there and failed. New Star Wars movies also I think didn't do well there.

https://variety.com/2020/film/asia/why-china-hates-disney-mu...

> The most fundamental flaw, most felt, was that Disney’s new heroine starts out from childhood already equipped with superhero-like abilities, thanks to her extraordinary reserves of “qi,” the force that she cultivates and controls to excel as a fighter.

> Turning her into a superhero removes Mulan’s everywoman appeal, and leaves her with no room to grow as a character, huge swathes of Chinese viewers said.

Basically the exact criticism of the youtube video interestingly enough

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#259

Post by dragontamer »

dionidium wrote: post #248

It's not a coincidence that all the main characters featured in this video are women. The main thing the filmmakers are trying to show is that these are girl-bosses who can do anything men can do (and more) and it's so important to show that with utter, relentless completeness, that they've created characters that are magical, who don't need to overcome anything, characters who matter mostly as individuals, who have…

I don't think gender has anything to do with it though.

> it's so important to show that with utter, relentless completeness, that they've created characters that are magical, who don't need to overcome anything, characters who matter mostly as individuals, who have no duties or responsibilities to anyone else (most certainly not to any men). They're just total kick-ass take-no-prisoners empowered women.

But what you've just described is Christopher Nolan's Batman (who loses to Bane physically early in the movie, and beats him by... physically overpowering Bane a bit later).

The modern "superhero" genre is completely devoid of modern responsibilities. This wasn't true before... in the 70s, you had Clark who had to be a responsible person (show up to his job, write articles, etc. etc.). Despite being a magical alien from a futuristic society, Clark Kent had a number of "human" scenes, interacting with his boss, showing off responsible uses of his powers (ex: the Robbery scene, he manages to protect Lois Lane and the Robber, by pretending to be weak. Catching the bullet and pretending to go unconscious from fright).

Today, Christopher Nolan's Batman (who is considered well written), leaves his company to go off on a Ninja-adventure. Leaves all the decision-making to a rival group of executives, and then magically takes back over the company despite his multi-year absence after siphoning funds to a secretive and poorly managed research-and-development corner of the company. And somehow the people who ran the company during his absence are the antagonists who need to be disposed of by the end of the 1st movie.

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Don't get me wrong, Nolan's Batman is really interesting and fun to watch. But he's fun to watch BECAUSE he's an amoral asshole with crap moral lessons.

Iron-man is another movie character who has this effect as well. Assholes who magically get their way are often interesting to watch.

I wouldn't want any children following in the "lessons" of Nolan's Batman or 2008+ era Iron Man. They're awful moral characters.

Ray (Star Wars, episodes 7-9) is positively a saint in comparison.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#260

Post by spywaregorilla »

I liked this video. With the glaring exception of wandavision. Characters in that series are constantly telling her that what she is doing is wrong. There is no ambiguity that it's an evil selfish thing she is doing. It's also unintentional and subconscious because she can't control her powers and frankly she is weak. Her sacrifice is the loss of her children and husband because she recognizes she has to restore freedom to the innocents. This part of the analysis felt extremely unfair.
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