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Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

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Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#231

Post by RobertMiller »

sandworm101 wrote: post #148
gcthomas wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big problem is that US actors have a history of recording adverts, so they are not classically trained, unlike a lot of British actors who have backgrounds on the stage and so have learned to speak clearly. I hate having to watch movies and TV with the subtitles on — the mumbling may be realistic, but I'm paying for escapism.

You probably hate clips like this. Male characters are dramatic, with big movements and loud voices to portray fear and disorder. The three female characters, including a very tough marine, are quiet and docile to engender escapist feelings of worry and protection. So which volume setting do you use? The camera is forced into an awkward zoom to reconcile the two. https://youtu.be/VrVZHxH2O1I "They mostly come at nigh…

I'd say the editors did a good job in this case, considering both "they mostly come at night, mostly." and "game over man, game over!" have both become iconic often-quoted lines.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#232

Post by Joeboy »

justinator wrote: post #223
Joeboy wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Almost nothing" in movie terms means "the cost of a house". Not "almost nothing" on a normal human scale.

I would actually say, "almost nothing" in movie terms means, "human scale almost nothing" all the way to perhaps, "cost of a house". We all have phones, video editing software is free, there's plenty of distribution channels. If you want to make a movie for "almost nothing", you can do so. Doesn't mean it's going to be good, or that anyone wants to see it. Is this a peculiar concept? We all work OSS every day, right?

True, to the extent that any 90 minutes of smartphone footage uploaded to youtube is technically "a movie". In order to be "a movie" in the sense that Evil Dead or Primer are movies, I would say you need a bit more than that.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#234

Post by jeltz »

dustingetz wrote: post #33

the english second language market is several times larger than the english market, so mega franchises like Marvel really need to keep it simple. a lesson for entrepreneurs as well.

There is no need to keep it simple for our sake, we can follow complex dialogue just fine using subtitles.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#236

Post by carapace »

a257 wrote: post #11

> Basically what this means is they are teaching people really sht lessons now, and if this sort of thing continues for too long, it's going to produce an entire generation of shtty people. Out of curiosity, how much influence do movies/tv shows have in shaping society? Could it be that the seemingly casual link between movies and culture be opposite? Or, in other words: B (bad movies) = "this sort of thing continues…

This is something I ponder pretty often, and I think the best you can say is that there are causal loops.

Certainly, planned media campaigns seem to cause (in some but not all cases) large shifts in mass behavior. (E.g. Bernays getting women to smoke cigarettes[1], or pedestrians being removed from the streets to make way for automobiles by deriding them as "jaywalkers" and then criminalizing the until-then ancient and universal custom[2].)

On the other hand, as much as I don't like to "blame the user" I can't help but feel like we have personal responsibility for our behavior. E.g. on the individual level it feel to me like a "cop out" to say, e.g. advertising made me eat this junk food and get fat (or whatever.)

In any event, if you want to study this sort of thing using formal symbolic systems, you have to use systems that can handle causal loops, i.e. Cybernetics: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/books/IntroCyb.pdf

[1] I view Edward Bernays as a mass murderer for his largely successful efforts in this regard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays#Tobacco

[2] The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime (Adam Ruins Everything) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#237

Post by foobarian »

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 do love watching foreign shows on their original audio track. Korean especially has an awesome sound! For example right in the first ep of Squid Games, protagonist talking with his elderly mom, lines where he is disagreeing or making excuses end with this long up-and-down "huuuuuuuuuh!" sound that is the coolest thing ever :-)

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#239

Post by spywaregorilla »

999900000999 wrote: post #39

What a great video! On Star Wars in particular, in the original trilogy, it's about coming from nothing, and overcoming your challenges. Luke fails, he makes numerous mistakes throughout the series. Ray never makes any mistakes, in fact in Episode 9 she clearly kills Chewbacca, but 30 seconds later they backtrack that decision. The new Star Wars movies are absolutely god awful, except for Episode 8. I liked it for a…

I would say 8 is by far the worst of the generally terrible new trilogy.

8 abandons pretty much everything from 7 and then tries to make a large sub plot about how the real evil is the oligarchical weapon vendors funding both sides. Ffs, the star wars universe has a faction self identifying as the evil dark side. It's not the place for his kind of thing.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#240

Post by Strawhorse »

fullshark wrote: post #183
Strawhorse wrote: post #105

We can blame a lot of the dumbing down on Hollywood's kowtowing to China

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
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