Modern writing for films is terrible is my feeling. I can’t remember any weekend in the 90s an first decade of 2000s where I could not find one or more movies that I wanted to watch. These days neither me or the kids can find anything and we have been going to Sunday matinees and watching old 80s, 90s and even silent movies with Buster Keaton and they are better than the slop that made today. Frankly I’m hoping gen AI lets new and exiting storytellers end the industry.
Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix
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Re: Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix
#62Modern motion pictures are made for people who temporarily or permanently lack the mental capacity to understand deeper plots. The other audience is too small to bother with.
It's the opposite. Modern movies are obsessed with plot. Inception being an example of this. It's everything else, the image and characters that's lacking. You're never going to get something like Tarkovsky's Solaris again that just shows you a highway scene for five minutes.
Villeneuve commented on this a year or two ago in an interview where he pointed out that he hates the extent to which television has infected film with its focus on plot and dialogue at expense of what's visually on the screen.
Re: Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix
#63Modern motion pictures are made for people who temporarily or permanently lack the mental capacity to understand deeper plots. The other audience is too small to bother with.
I don’t think this was a 90s thing. I think it’s been a gradual progression to shorter, shallower attention spans. Contrast 2001 space odyssey to a 90s movie, it feels so slow. Then contrast a 2000s movie to a modern film and if you want to feel really sad, contrast that to a high budget YouTubers content.
i think your mistaking stuff here. 2001 space odyssey is considered a masterpiece by cinema enthusiasts. tested through short years. who knows if it'll still rank high in 300 years from now like some arts of old mediums; Don Quijote book is a great example
have been watched almost a hundred of hours of the early cinema (1920-1930) i found 2001 space odyssey boring as heck. had to go to a public theater to not sleep through, because the past 2 attempts at my house got me sleeping. cinema is a recent medium. it can go through a lot of stuff. and yet, you can find shallow films since the first era, till today. not every movie was made to be dense, slow or thoughtful. the 90s also had a bunch of shallow stuff
Re: Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix
#64The biggest thing for me is the cinematography. 80s/90s movies were filmed as if you're standing alongside the cast. * Many more shots from eye level * Significantly less jumpcuts * People actually cast shadows onto the environment, and filmmakers would fearlessly shoot scenes with full bright or full dark elements in them without trying to make everything dark and bright visible simultaneously * Waist-up or even ful…
It's also color grading that has changed.
https://youtu.be/tvwPKBXEOKE?si=rnVOSw1h1vM60l7x
Re: Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
My most "old woman yells at cloud" opinion is the fucking DISEASE of smartphones that is truly a cancer in our society. Don't get me wrong, I love mine, and they're completely possible to use in a way that coexists with the rest of your tech and life, but my god, the wide adoption of them has demonstrated the majority of our population has the regulation capacity of a fucking carrot. And my inner artist is absolutely…
"Commit to taking in ONE PIECE of art at a time you fucking dopamine junkies." "in-game radio station" You found a loop hole
Kinda but not really. The music was all created for the game specifically, this wasn’t a GTA situation. It contributes a lot to the weird atmosphere of that game, hence me being flabbergasted he rolled credits on it having no clue it was there.
Re: Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix
#66Anecdotally one thing I’ve noticed is that older films had much fewer characters. Take a movie like When Harry Met Sally — there are basically four on screen characters, giving more time to build chemistry and relationships
They are also shorter which means they don’t overstay their welcome
Re: Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix
#67If you think the stories in 90's movies are good, you need spend some time with classic era movies (pre-1970). When you have to let the writing carry the story, the movie works much better.
I watched All the President's Men on a recent flight and even on an airplane seatback screen it had me rapt. No romance, no sex, no violence except a cop pointing a gun in the first 5 minutes, just a good story with two great leads.
Re: Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix
#68[deleted]
Re: Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix
#69A big part of this is that modern movies are carefully calibrated so that you can follow along while sitting on your couch focused on your phone. Movies in the 1990's didn't need to have so much clanky dialog explaining, in careful detail, why we were someplace. The writers and directors could presume that the audience was actually paying attention to the movie, and so would make the necessary inferences. Modern movi…
The second screen effect is largely overstated when it comes to why movies suck. While it’s true for some movies and TV shows that end up being streaming exclusives, the same problem doesn’t exist in theatrical releases or even shows for TV for streaming services like HBO.
Modern movies suck mostly because of Hollywood mostly being risk averse and prioritizing profit over everything else. This leads to IPs being sequels, prequels, remakes, “parts of the universe” or adaptations of existing successful IPs. This also leads to creative directions that are “designed to pull maximum audiences” or in other words average. Almost every single Marvel movie has the same plot with a few changes in characters. It also translates to situations where ideas that would otherwise be successful being tabled. K-POP demon hunters is a great example, an original IP, that audiences want, being sold to Netflix because the executives somewhere did a couple of focus groups and came to the conclusion that this won’t work. Another side effect is lack of innovation. Pixar animation has largely been stale for years now, meanwhile Ne Zha 2 is taking in billions worldwide, Demon Slayer is was one of the most popular movies in the US despite its limited release and Arcane is one of the best rated TV shows ever. There’s a lot more like fewer stand ins to save money that make scenes look “empty and soulless”, overuse of CGI, overuse of Pedro Pascal, etc.
All in all, it’s enshittification if movies because less profit is unacceptable.
Re: Why 90s Movies Feel More Alive Than Anything on Netflix
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
My most "old woman yells at cloud" opinion is the fucking DISEASE of smartphones that is truly a cancer in our society. Don't get me wrong, I love mine, and they're completely possible to use in a way that coexists with the rest of your tech and life, but my god, the wide adoption of them has demonstrated the majority of our population has the regulation capacity of a fucking carrot. And my inner artist is absolutely…
It's all crap, my friend. You can pretend Super Mario is different than Predator longer than you can pretend the Big Mac is different than the Whopper or Home Alone is different than Home Alone 2. Little kids can hold two stuffed animals and make up stories where they are different, but when you're older you can meaningfully accept that it all scrolls by and your life is the same whether you ate a Whopper and root fo…
I have no clue what point you're trying to make. Super Mario and Predator are both classics of their genre, they're massively different. A Big Mac and Whopper are both hilariously inferior to any decent local burger place, or hell, even a chain that vaguely gives a shit like Five Guys or Freddy's. Home Alone 1 and 2 are both classics.
If you genuinely have never felt different after consuming any art for your entire life, that sounds like my personalized version of hell.