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Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

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Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#21

Post by artyom »

Nobody else to blame but themselves. Of course, Hollywood is full of narcissists so they'll blame everyone else, e.g. streaming, prices, etc. but the reality is of the last 10-15 years of mainstream US cinema is:

- Scripts that sound more like an HR meeting than a good story.

- Blockbuster superhero movies that are all the same movie.

- Lots of remakes that added modern CGI flare and destroyed the artistic value of the original.

- As consolidation of studios happens, way more "safe" stories that aim to not offend anyone. I think the only one able to get away with it right now is Tarantino.

Prices, streaming, theaters, etc. -- they're all accessory to the problem. People went to the movies for enjoyment, why would they go to endure them? There's no cultural collective experience anymore in the sense of going to see Lord of the Rings or Matrix with your friends for the first time.

Also this is happening throughout all media. Music and video games have the same kind of discussions.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#22

Post by iammjm »

Actors being this wealthy and famous has always been a mystery to me. Oh so you are a good looking person that recites other people's words for money while faking emotions? And you can take as many takes as you can and your fuckups will be corrected in post-production anyway? Well I guess the work you do totally merits the hundreds of millions of dollars you've amassed. Like even kicking a ball or whatever makes more sense to me because there is an objective measurement of what it means to do it well, while with actors its mostly about sympathy or preference

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#24

Post by the_af »

awongh wrote: post #10

The cultural relevance of movies, and American made movies isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but I think the economics of streaming is finally playing out in the loss of the geographical concentration of power in Hollywood and California. This is the endgame of the feedback loop of streamers causing industry consolidation... the direct connection of dollars people spend to sit in a theatre seat was slowly declining,…

> The optimistic viewpoint is that maybe new AI production tools will trigger a re-democratization of creative movies

I don't think so.

Part of the downfall of movies -- blockbusters movies anyway, the kind where being a box office hit matters -- is that they have seemed produced like AI slop even before AI. Making it easier to produce more slop isn't going to fix this.

Then there's one thing making noise in my brain. It's not polite to say it, but here it is anyway: should movies be democratized? And art in general? Maybe people without the means of making art that reaches millions shouldn't be enabled by AI. Maybe it's ok that not everyone can produce this kind of art. Maybe the world is saved from a crapton of, well, garbage. More than what's currently being produced, anyway.

As for non-blockbuster art, it's already democratic. Everyone can grab a phone camera or a paintbrush and create art for their friends and family. And that's ok.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#25

Post by SamuelAdams »

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #19

I haven't been in cinema in the past ~10 years and to be honest I wouldn't care if no more movies were ever made, simply because there are hundreds, if not thousands, amazing movies made since the beginning of the cinema that I didn't watch. Most of the new movies are crap anyways, so why waste time and money when I can watch a classic movie instead which has a much higher probability of me enyjoing it.

The same argument could be made for the book industry, where there are centuries of content available. And yet, people still read new books.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#26

Post by embedding-shape »

rdtsc wrote: post #17

There just aren’t as many good new movies. Most movies we watch at home are from decades ago. If we didn’t have streaming maybe we’d go to the movies more often, but it’s hard to say. A few movies we watched are not worth the money. To stay afloat they have to raise ticket prices, but if we’re paying so much, the movie better be absolutely outstanding, and the are just not usually, so we stopped going.

> To stay afloat they have to raise ticket prices, but if we’re paying so much

What are you paying when you go to the cinema? Just went to the cinema today to see Hoppers, and was slightly surprised that the tickets were only 8 EUR per person, then we spent maybe 5-10 EUR per person on snacks too, so ended up paying maybe ~15 EUR per person overall. This was outside a metropolitan city in South-Western Europe, maybe that's why, or I've just lost track of what's expensive/cheap.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#27

Post by paulryanrogers »

iammjm wrote: post #22

Actors being this wealthy and famous has always been a mystery to me. Oh so you are a good looking person that recites other people's words for money while faking emotions? And you can take as many takes as you can and your fuckups will be corrected in post-production anyway? Well I guess the work you do totally merits the hundreds of millions of dollars you've amassed. Like even kicking a ball or whatever makes more…

It's celebrity. People want to imagine themselves like these icons they've built, even if only through the laziest of efforts. I wonder if it's an innate human trait to aspire to be like those we admire.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#28

Post by philwelch »

awongh wrote: post #20
fullshark wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultural relevance of movies is already greatly diminished. Maybe these AI tools will trigger a reversion of movies to the days of the nickelodeons where plot, story, and character are irrelevant and people just shell out money (attention) as long as the moving image looks cool.

Can't it be both? In Marvel movies the plot, story, and characters are irrelevant and it's still the current greatest American cultural export.

They might have been in the last decade, but now it’s just yet another franchise audiences have stopped caring about.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#29

Post by stavros »

morkalork wrote: post #8

Is this article a weird cut-paste of older content? This passage makes no sense in the rest of the context, the tense is all wrong. >Starting in 2029, the Oscars will also be streamed globally on YouTube, which the academy hopes will attract new audiences and reinvigorate the ceremony’s popularity after years of declining viewership. Edit: I read 2019 not.. 2029. That's actually incredible. Are they going to get in o…

Hm, what's wrong with it?

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#30

Post by embedding-shape »

morkalork wrote: post #8

Is this article a weird cut-paste of older content? This passage makes no sense in the rest of the context, the tense is all wrong. >Starting in 2029, the Oscars will also be streamed globally on YouTube, which the academy hopes will attract new audiences and reinvigorate the ceremony’s popularity after years of declining viewership. Edit: I read 2019 not.. 2029. That's actually incredible. Are they going to get in o…

What exactly doesn't make sense? The Oscars are moving to streaming the event globally on YouTube (bunch of TV channels has said they'll stop broadcasting it in 2029), and the viewership of the Oscars has been declining for years. I'm not sure I see what's wrong in there.
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