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

Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

theculturenewspaper.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 565 posts

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#61

Post by xp84 »

Larrikin wrote: post #33
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.

This is a boring opinion. It's the equivalent of what happens to many older adults when it comes to music. All of the best songs came out in their teens to about 30 so what's the point of listening to anything new? It assumes there is no innovation and the person just traps themselves in the past. You could say there hasn't been any good new music since 1970 and humans have been making music for thousands of year. Or…

To test whether you’re right, please list 10 movies made in the last 10 years that will stand the test of time as truly great movies. If fewer than one per year is worth watching, it’s a hard sell to say that we should spend our time sorting through the chaff trying to find it.

It’s entirely possible that we’re in a period where most of those with creativity have just stopped making movies. Interestingly, I find TV has everything movies are lacking, creativity, originality, even big name actors that used to make movies.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#62

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

awongh wrote: post #31
sbarre wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I support unions and labour rights, the last SAG-AFTRA strike mostly just helped the big studios realize they could do more with less. Hollywood is a factory town at the end of the day, and we all know what happened to most factory towns in America. This one is just getting there a few decades after the others.

This is definitely another case where a union could either understand where the bigger economic forces are headed (in this case globalization, IP licensing, residuals that no longer make sense, attention economy fracturing the marketplace etc) and adapt to how people will consume content in the future, or double down on an economic model that is one generation behind. In theory the union is the only org capable of st…

How will unions help stand up to streamers? Many of the “Netflix originals” are already just co financed or licensed foreign films and many others are filmed in Canada.

People always think unions are magic when I saw in my small town where I grew up in South GA was that when union demands got to onerous - factories just picked up and left.

Just like software engineers scream unionization when tech companies can just expand departments overseas and as a bonus, they don’t have to worry about H1B shifting policies

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#63

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #25
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.

I think book sales are significantly down compared to most periods in the last 50-100 years? Still a culturally significant thing, but economically not what they used to be ...

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#64

Post by mentalgear »

the_af wrote: post #58
jl6 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anton Ego in Ratatouille gives this take on what democratization should mean: Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.

That's a pretty good take, I think. What I object to is this notion that everyone should make art, and that AI empowers them. As in (and yes, I've read this, I'm not making this up) "people without writing skills can now write novels". That seems wrong to me. People without writing skills (or drawing, or movie making) should not be making those things.

I would distinguish: they could make them for their own entertainment, but should not market them. But come to think about it, how much non-AI slop is out there that has become popular from entities with no or mediocre talent in it: generic Hollywood blockbusters, supplements, yellow papers, influencers ... all slop that became popular not due to its quality but secondary resources in form of marketing, placement and persistence of the propellants.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#65

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

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.

We pay $6 tickets for first run movies on Tuesdays at the Studio movie grill as a cheapish date night with movie + dinner + drinks and reserve seating

Movie theatres hardly make any money from ticket sales with 80% of the ticket price going to the studio during the first two weeks and then declining. They make money off of concessions

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#66

Post by willmeyers »

I mean when you have Larry Ellison and other goons pledging investments in these major studios, it's no wonder people who actually enjoy watching movies don't want to give their money+time to watch some dumbed down bottom of the barrel slime that AI has decided people will sit through.

Thankfully, filmmaking is becoming more and more independent. It's never been easier and cheaper to make a movie and share it to millions of people on YouTube or Vimeo. Why go through Hollywood, investors, or give money to festivals for a chance at success when you can just upload the thing and see what happens?

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#67

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

thefounder wrote: post #6

The main issue was the content the movie industry produced which looked like a lot like some AI slop. I think the DEI lecturing was another nail in the coffin. Unless that changes and they magically add something new to the cinema experience I think they will keep diving into irrelevance because now everybody can produce AI slop.

Yes they should never had a Black lady playing an orange alien from Tamarin on the Titan TV series. It just wasn’t realistic.

We should just have all White males leading movies

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#68

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

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…

There's certainly a lot of actors that seem to just phone in a performance and are mainly hired due to their looks and high profiles, but don't forget about the actors that can elevate just about any role that they're in due to their skills and artistry.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#69

Post by pkorzeniewski »

Larrikin wrote: post #33
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.

This is a boring opinion. It's the equivalent of what happens to many older adults when it comes to music. All of the best songs came out in their teens to about 30 so what's the point of listening to anything new? It assumes there is no innovation and the person just traps themselves in the past. You could say there hasn't been any good new music since 1970 and humans have been making music for thousands of year. Or…

I didn't say there're no new great movies coming out, I simply stated that there are enough of great old movies than I PERSONALLY don't need new movies.

> it just seems like a very boring way to live out your life.

Quite the contrary, I constantly discover interesting old movies from a wide variety of genres and different parts of the world.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#70

Post by delichon »

The little dinosaurs are ignoring the great big elephants in the room: gaming. The article doesn't mention it. The market for video games in 2024 was around $225B, compared to movies at around $33B. Hollywood has worked very hard not to realize that their industry has become niche and have succeeded.

My last week may be an indicator. I've watched zero TV or movies but have spent about 40 hours helping a small colony of scrappy hard working beavers survive on post apocalyptic earth. Steam got my money, Hollywood didn't.

Post reply on HN