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The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

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Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#201

Post by briangriffinfan »

Barrin92 wrote: post #164
buildingsramen wrote: post #130

Hollywood has always been a little bit dumb, a little bit over-written. It's hard to have both artistic individualism and a reliable business. This is not a new trend. The examples are not very good. I would take Gladiator II, but Megalopolis was a self-funded project which is completely out of left field, and The Apprentice... I'm not sure what it's an example of. Many more titles are dismissed with a couple words.…

>but Megalopolis was a self-funded project which is completely out of left field sure, but it was self-funded and it was completely panned by the audiences which I think was undeserved, from a lot of people because they found it "weird" or incomprehensible. Which it wasn't in the grand scheme of things. I can't remember whose blog it was on but someone recently compared audience and critic ratings in the 70s/80s and…

I think people today, in general, would be unwilling to hold the idea in their heads that a movie might be good in a way that goes over their heads, or that they just don't understand. There's no curiosity that it might be more than what they saw it to be. And when everyone sees art as beneath them (or at least, certainly not above them), it loses that transcendent quality.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#202

Post by nozzlegear »

zamadatix wrote: post #138
somenameforme wrote: post #17

Fun fact: movie sales, in terms of tickets sold, peaked in 2002. [1] All the 'box office records' since then are the result of charging way more to a continually plummeting audience size. And this is highly relevant for things like this. People often argue that if movies were so bad then people would stop watching them, unaware that people actually have stopped watching them! Even for individual movies. For all the m…

In 2002, watching a movie at home for most people meant flinging a low quality VHS or DVD onto a ~27" tube TV (with a resolution so worthless it might as well be labeled "new years") using a 4:3 aspect ratio pan & scan of the actual movie. Getting anything recent meant going out to the Blockbuster anyways. In 2022, watching a movie meant streaming something on your 50+" 16:9 4k smart TV by pressing a button from your…

I was going to make this point myself. I think my wife and I have seen maybe three or four movies in a theater since COVID. Our theater didn't even close during COVID (they started marathoning older movies like Harry Potter), but once the big companies started releasing new movies directly on streaming services, we realized how much better seeing a new movie in the comfort of our own home can be.

So now we just wait for a movie we want to see to become available on Apple TV, and then we rent it.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#203

Post by kldavis4 »

somenameforme wrote: post #17

Fun fact: movie sales, in terms of tickets sold, peaked in 2002. [1] All the 'box office records' since then are the result of charging way more to a continually plummeting audience size. And this is highly relevant for things like this. People often argue that if movies were so bad then people would stop watching them, unaware that people actually have stopped watching them! Even for individual movies. For all the m…

2002 doesn't look like the interesting year to me. It seems like 2020 and the pandemic is where the most significant drop happened. So we're really looking at post pandemic recovery since that time. How much of the lower numbers are due to theater closures and / or high inflation since then?

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#204

Post by fouc »

raincole wrote: post #124
PaulHoule wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my pod we've got the theory that more people in the US like anime than domestic pop culture. All the time my son and I have random encounters with people who like Goblin Slayer or Solo Leveling or Bocchi The Rock but never find anybody who is interested in new movies and TV shows. They say Spongebob Squarepants has good ratings -- of course it has good ratings because it is on all the time. People mistake seeing a…

I don't know if it's really anime eating movies' cake. But anime is generally FAR more on board with literalism than movies. If anime is really eating movies' market share, the lesson movie makers need to learn is to be more on the nose, not less.

is it true that anime is more literalist than cinema? assuming we're looking at anime with an older target market than kids

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#205

Post by AlexandrB »

jowday wrote: post #15
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #5

Most movies are pretty bad. Always have been. I feel like I got scammed for paying to see 28 Years Later.

Weird, I thought it was one of the best movies I've seen in the last few years. Wasn't at all what I expected to see, but was incredibly memorable and impactful. F1 on the other hand was maybe the worst offender as far as literalism is concerned.

Yeah, F1 was extremely literal - characters would often describe what's going on in Brad Pitt's head while he's driving. On the other hand, it's a "big, dumb action movie" and at least it took itself seriously and didn't wink at the audience like so many modern blockbusters do.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#206

Post by frameset »

AlexandrB wrote: post #196
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit of a tight line to walk. Longer movies mean fewer showings per day. When I saw that Oppenheimer was three hours long -I want to watch that at home so I can take a bathroom break/snacks so a personal pause button is an improvement on the theater.

If movies are regularly going to be 3 hours long, movie theatres need to bring back intermission breaks.

I've always thought this would make sense.

Often during a three hour film I've ran out of refreshments and would like to buy a drink or something for the last hour.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#207

Post by ToucanLoucan »

zamadatix wrote: post #138
somenameforme wrote: post #17

Fun fact: movie sales, in terms of tickets sold, peaked in 2002. [1] All the 'box office records' since then are the result of charging way more to a continually plummeting audience size. And this is highly relevant for things like this. People often argue that if movies were so bad then people would stop watching them, unaware that people actually have stopped watching them! Even for individual movies. For all the m…

In 2002, watching a movie at home for most people meant flinging a low quality VHS or DVD onto a ~27" tube TV (with a resolution so worthless it might as well be labeled "new years") using a 4:3 aspect ratio pan & scan of the actual movie. Getting anything recent meant going out to the Blockbuster anyways. In 2022, watching a movie meant streaming something on your 50+" 16:9 4k smart TV by pressing a button from your…

^ All of that, and the COST. The last time the wife and I did a movie night for a big new flick we were excited about, we spent almost $80 when all was said and done for tickets and snacks for the TWO OF US!

Fucking absurd.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#209

Post by x0x0 »

zamadatix wrote: post #138
somenameforme wrote: post #17

Fun fact: movie sales, in terms of tickets sold, peaked in 2002. [1] All the 'box office records' since then are the result of charging way more to a continually plummeting audience size. And this is highly relevant for things like this. People often argue that if movies were so bad then people would stop watching them, unaware that people actually have stopped watching them! Even for individual movies. For all the m…

In 2002, watching a movie at home for most people meant flinging a low quality VHS or DVD onto a ~27" tube TV (with a resolution so worthless it might as well be labeled "new years") using a 4:3 aspect ratio pan & scan of the actual movie. Getting anything recent meant going out to the Blockbuster anyways. In 2022, watching a movie meant streaming something on your 50+" 16:9 4k smart TV by pressing a button from your…

Also, I know this sounds like get off my lawn, but people behaved better. Or maybe they didn't didn't, but the penetration of flashlights kept in people's pockets wasn't 100%. Which is pretty annoying now that a movie for two is like a $75 experience with popcorn.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#210

Post by jsbg »

PyWoody wrote: post #192
hanlonsrazor wrote: post #146

I have definitely noticed the same occurring in North American cinema, but I do not think this is a new phenomenon. Rather, it's just a symptom of the increased commercialization of indie cinema - commercialization requiring film for all to understand. If one is to broaden their horizons, overseas cinema is still devoid of this literalism. European cinema, Korean cinema, and the famously show not tell Japanese cinema…

For other relatively recent movies I'd add: > Evil Does Not Exist > Godland > The Beast > The Worst Person in the World > Misericordia > The Banshees of Inisherin > Amanda [0] > Afire [1] [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18469872/ [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26440619/

are movies like Evil Does Not Exist as popular in Japan as the examples in the article though? there must be a lot of similar niche movies made in the US
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