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The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

newyorker.com

241–250 of 454 posts

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#241

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.…

>Has this person forgotten Titanic, one of the best-selling movies of all time? It's extremely formulaic, predictable,

Wait... I've never seen it. Don't tell me the ship sinks!

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#242
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When movies are made for entertainments sake, they can still do well. ( Top Gun 2, for example ). I’m really looking forward to the Space Balls sequel. I have hopes that one will be good.

If movie needs number to be distinguishable then it is probably not good.

I don't know that I agree "Does the sequel dramatically change the naming convention" is a particularly powerful marker of quality.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#243
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When movies are made for entertainments sake, they can still do well. ( Top Gun 2, for example ). I’m really looking forward to the Space Balls sequel. I have hopes that one will be good.

Unfortunately, Top Gun 2 was not "for entertainment's sake" it was another round of US military advertising/propaganda, just like the first one.

If it wasn't sufficiently entertaining, it would be ineffective as propaganda.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#244
post #95

I think some films, especially movies that aspire to win academy awards, are meant to be played to the world wide lowest common denominator. Movies are made for USA and Chinese audiences first, but they are also made to be easily sold in Europe. This isn't to say that Hollywood thinks everyone is dumb, but they recognize that all these different people who grew up in different places aren't going to understand the sa…

Anora, Oppenheimer, and Everything Everywhere All at Once are not lowest common denominator movies. the academy has many issues but i dont think its catering to mass appeal and dumbing down

Serpell's interpretation of Anora is dismissive and shallow. the point is Disney infects the American mind and Baker's made that point across half his movies and in some cases incredibly blatantly. its implied and Serpell categorizing it under New Literalism goes to show they're probably right in many cases, but also use it as a convenient excuse to avoid analysis

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#245
post #95

I think some films, especially movies that aspire to win academy awards, are meant to be played to the world wide lowest common denominator. Movies are made for USA and Chinese audiences first, but they are also made to be easily sold in Europe. This isn't to say that Hollywood thinks everyone is dumb, but they recognize that all these different people who grew up in different places aren't going to understand the sa…

> movies that aspire to win academy awards, are meant to be played to the world wide lowest common denominator That's not the kind of films that tend to win the major Oscar awards. Those tend to be either a bit artsy (e.g. Anora this year) or "serious" biopics/history movies (e.g. Oppenheimer last year).

we made darn near the same comment. interesting Serpell called out Anora specifically

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropped? You've produced a graph showing they've been on the increase for the past 30 years.

And where the heck can you get a movie ticket for $11? A discount matinee viewing at my local theaters is from $17 to $20. $20-$23 if you go in the evening. The lowest price ticket, a Tuesday noon showing, is $12. I don't recall the last time I went to the movies with my wife and spent less than $60 (tickets, a shared soda, two snacks).

$11 sounds about right to me. It's an average so some areas will be higher and others lower but $23 sounds awful.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#247
post #149

I find this article rather underwhelming because it spends so much time calling out bad examples and so little time highlighting examples of subtlety (in any era). Without positive examples, I don’t think they make the case that this is a new phenomenon or even a phenomenon at all: all the author has done is identify a lens to criticize through. It may be the case that this is a recent phenomenon (though some other c…

A couple examples the author gave sounded plausible--though I hadn't seen the movies in question--but then I felt the author was beginning to reach. It's a bit of a humble brag to complain that movies are too obvious, isn't it? Serpell invites us to pat ourselves on the back for our sophistication as we turn up our noses at art that the uneducated rabble can comprehend. Yes, there is a tradition in the arts of weavin…

Yes, you are clearly also very educated. Impressive use of language!

I think it's pretty normal that as people get deeper and more invested in any given artform, they tend to become more appreciative of works that are less immediately pleasing to lay-people. You mentioned literature and (atonal) music, but this just as readily applies to food, wine, videogames, Anime, fashion, anything you can think of.

I'll agree that there's an unfortunate tendency for some people (again, in any artistic field) to get overly critical or dismissive of straightforwardly good work, especially if consuming, thinking about, and discussing the quality of work is their actual job and they're perhaps getting a bit bored of something they once loved. On the other hand, who better to recognize oversaturation of a given style or approach? I certainly wouldn't notice that wine producers are currently chasing the trend of dry whites, produced from heirloom European grapes to the detriment of all other kinds of wine! It's important to have at least some snobs, to push and goad artists away from currently oversaturated trends and continue the cycle of innovation and variety. And it's important to recognize that a critic complaining that a certain style is too popular doesn't mean they think it's a bad style or that you shouldn't enjoy it, just that they'd like to spend more of their life enjoying other things too.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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

As someone who is blessed to live in a city where multiple cinemas screen old movies and therefore go to the cinema very often, I must say I can’t disagree more. The experience of watching a movie in a cinema is to me incomparable to watching on a tv.

It’s not only the bigger screen and better sound system. The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with other people to actively engage with a movie transforms the experience.

Sadly, I have to say I agree with the article however in that 95% of the movies produced in the USA during the past two decades could as well not exist. Thankfully, the rest of the world still exist.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#249

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 it doesn't take skipping many movies now to be able to put a decent sound system with your 50"+ TV.

There are still some fun things to do at particular theaters, like Twisters in 4dx. But there is little compelling reason to otherwise.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#250

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…

>it was completely panned by the audiences which I think was undeserved, from a lot of people because they found it "weird" or incomprehensible.

The biggest issue with the movie is that it's boring. I personally think the weirdness wasn't used to it's full potential.

A very similar (and highly underrated) movie is Richard Kelly's Southland Tales which in my opinion is far superior and vastly more entertaining to watch. Which I guess does prove there is some merit to your point, since this movie was also panned by critics and audiences for being "way too weird".

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