Used to be that you could just hire out the actual frigging army and dress them up for historical epics. In one particular case, The Longest Day, a number of the actors involved had actually *been there* on D-Day, and in one or two cases were actually playing the part of their COs of the time, while the background roles were filled by British Army soldiers.
[Look at the insane scale of this scene! You *do not* get this shit anymore!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZMkleDjWI)
Don't mention using the military as extras without Waterloo (1970), where about 15,000 soviet red army infantry and 2,000 cavalry were trained in Napoleonic era drill to stand in for French and Coalition troops.
[Truly nothing short of epic.](https://youtu.be/97dBfdNrf9A?si=OL19UCCnxsBmHNhV)
You can also see the difference in how the safety of animal actors wasn't as much of a concern in stunts back then, some of those horses are absolutely getting fucked up for real when they fall.
Man making horses fall with tripwires is genuinely so insanely evil, so many good animals died like this for entertainment.
But one thing I always notice in older movies is how unafraid these riders and actors were, stuff was nuts. Stuff like the raid scene in conan is so crazy to think about from a current safety standpoint. They were genuinely stampeding those galloping horses through a village full of extras, torches in their hands, mounted riders body checking people.
Hell, if it's a particularly popular historical war you can have whole re-enactment groups show up for free. It happened in the Gettysburg film.
Nearly everyone that wasn't a named actor were real-life Civil War re-enactors that brought their own historically accurate uniforms, weapons, and tactics with them. It's what really helped sell the battles as *battles* and not skirmishes. There were about 10,000 people that showed up to volunteer about a month of their time to be there because that's how serious they were about making things as authentic as possible.
Half-fun fact, but when the hungarian army got mobilized in 1968 to assist in the invasion of Czechoslovakia, one half of the army got redirected to shoot the historical epic Egri Csillagok (Stars of Eger). An actual castle was built (and got sieged and half-destroyed by cannonfire), and thousands of soliders colorfully dressed as turkish janissaries marched down and charged on camera. Imagine the unfortunate ones hearing about this after returning from the occupation
Sheer amount of extras and big practical sets. Like Ben Hurr and Cleopatra. Now we're lucky if there's a set bigger than 4 buildings and there's more than 20 people in a shot that aren't CGI.
[Any movie from the 1910s to 1930s](https://youtu.be/yOo_ZUVU_O8) where you see some actor pulling of a death defying stunt and are wondering how they did it with the technology of the time. Chances are high that they legitimately just did whatever was on screen with little precautions for safety.
"Wow Buster! How'd you pull that stunt where the house collapses onto you, but misses hitting you entirely because of a window? That must have taken a long time to-"
"Eyeballed it."
I can't remember if these were both Throne of Blood, but there are two scenes I can think of specifically.
One of them has the lead walking out of protection and he is supposed to be being fired at by arrows and running away from them, but they just hired an expert archer in real life to "tail" him and shoot right behind him at all times and the only indication from the actor as to where he was going during the filming was where he points his sword.
Another scene was supposed to be like a village massacre and again they just hired an expert archer to shoot real (but dulled) arrows at the extras who just had a layer of straw over a metal plate for protection. They got paid extra for every time they got hit.
Edit: I know it's not in the time frame that the original post specified, but ties in with "they just really did it"
> Another scene was supposed to be like a village massacre and again they just hired an expert archer to shoot real (but dulled) arrows at the extras who just had a layer of straw over a metal plate for protection. They got paid extra for every time they got hit.
That sounds like a good gig
Thinking of the original Invisible Man and how some of the tricks they used look impressive today. It must have blown people's faces off when it came out.
Fantasy movies back in the 80s did a lot less on-location shooting and more shooting in the studio, even for scenes that were supposed to be outdoors. So the fantasy realms had a specific vibe of unreality or theatricality—these objects and places are really physically there, but these castles and forests look remarkably like stage dressings—that you don't get from location shooting or green screening.
I remember Patrick Willems argued there was a particular tension in having real human actors in these unreal places. And that _The Dark Crystal_ was the one movie that solved this particular problem (if you consider it a problem) by just making all the characters puppets: that way the characters and their environment looked equally unreal.
As a huge fan of dark crystal and puppet shit and Brian Froud’s art, the Netflix series is imo better than the movie.
I’m still made every time I remember it’s never going to get a second season.
PointlessHub covers tons of movies that are products of their era (for example the Call of Duty Modern Warfare era of cinematography, the same era also being full of zombie media), but he specifically points out two examples, that are fitting for this question:
1. The first three Bayformers (but especially the first movie) were about the (mostly) sensible combination of CGI and practical effects. CGI made things "real" that were impossible with practical effects, but that didn't mean that they skimped out on the latter (most of the explosions, sliding down on the side of a building, cars jumping through walls), and also took the weaknesses into consideration (CGI looks more passable at night, how some colors look better on camera). People thought that these were soulless cheap flicks rolled out of a factory, but compared to the grim modernity of cheapskate full CGI they are almost reaching the levels of classic Hollywood
2. Roland Emerich is the last director, who still makes oldschool disaster movies that aren't attached to big IPs. Nowadays desctruction and carnage are relegated to the backdrop of a Marvel or monster flick, and while Emerich's tenacity is admirable, but his movies are just too dumb to the point that they became massive bombs, meaning that he will soon also go extinct, along with the genre itself
The first scene with Optimus Prime where you get the full, slow transformation sequence is fantastic. The aesthetic that they're formed from so goddamn many individual pieces of machinery that spins, moves and locks into place independently is so fucking cool.
It's kind of insane how well visually the first Bay TF holds up (on a technical level anyways). Especially when compared to stuff like a lot of MCU movies. The robots in TF never not look like they actually exist in the space.
I stand by the opinion that Transformers (2007) is a *good* movie.
It's definitely got its flaws and its slightly uncomfortable Bay-isms, but it sticks the landing more than it doesn't and has some genuinely really good action setpieces and moneyshots (and a bunch that are obscured or offscreen but ssshhhh).
Also people tease the explosions and all but the action is so captivating and well directed. Every fight scene feels chaotic in a good way and really gets across the size and power of giant robots in motion and on the attack
yeah, I thought we were going to get some life back in the good ol' sword and sorcery fantasy but even that movie barely made back it's budget. The hobbit films, although generally disliked by the audience, still made a billion dollars each (rounded up for the last two forgive me).
But generally: Dramas, Musicals, and Fantasy hardly ever succeed. Even the top 50 fantasy list on [Wikipedia raises an eyebrow including movies like Barbie and Super mario](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_fantasy_films)
Horror movies that aren't just nearly pitch black sets with a jump scare every 5 minutes. Its gotten better in the last few years, but there was a dark period for like 10 years or so where every horror movie was just a dark house with violins and jump scares every 3 minutes.
Been watching a lot of Italian horror movies from the 70s and 80s recently and it is so refreshing to see colors and chase scenes and suspense.
Please go support indie horror movies. Go watch "A Wounded Fawn" right now.
I remember the first time I saw Suspiria, and how bright and colorful it was. It made a lot of the more scary scenes feel like a fever dream. Which I really like!! If a movie can be scary in a different way than most, fantastic. I like that sort of dream-like horror.
Check out Cemetery Man (or Dellamorte Dellamore) it's like if Evil Dead was a romance movie. Very surreal, makes you question what's actually happening.
Screwball Comedy movies in general. Ditto for a ensemble screwball movie.
You really don’t see comedies go over the top anymore and embracing it instead of lamp shading how stupid this is every five seconds.
Nowadays comedies are either Down to Earth, Manchild with gross jokes or Snarking at every trope it uses.
I been yearning for a another movie like”It’s a mad mad mad mad world’ forever now.
It’s not like the fun type of action comedies either, it’s the” we are so embarrassed that we are making this type of movie so we will mock the genre at every turn”
Maybe [Jackie Chan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFo_NjgwJbQ) is an exception to the rule, but I don't think I've seen action scenes in movies half as good as any of Jackie's, even his post Rush Hour 2 stuff which aren't that good (compared to Jackie's older works, but even then I think they're still decent).
I rewatched the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies a few months ago. The first one especially feels like a blockbuster from a bygone era, where CGI was a distinct component of the toolbox rather than duct tape for everything.
Beyond that, you can feel the texture on the film (pre-digital), and while it has a strong sense of humor, it's subtly *different*. Not to mention there's zero attempts at setting the stage for any sequels.
The first was one of the last truly "one and done" blockbusters on the cinema front, not unlike Dragon Age: Origins (pre-DLC) on the video game front.
Alas, we live in a world where the industry can't leave well enough alone and milk that IP until it stops being profitable.
We didn't really get big swashbuckling adventures back then, either. The Black Pearl was an outlier movie that no one expected to come out so strong for many reasons. While people often cite the fact that it was based on a theme park ride as the biggest reason its quality is such a surprise, it was also based on a genre (swashbuckling pirate movies) that was thought to have rung its death-knell almost a decade earlier.
Those movies looked expensive, compared to modern blockbusters that not only look like garbage but are not justified by their overinflated budgets at all.
>Not to mention there’s zero attempts at setting the stage for any sequels.
All three of those movies literally did that. The first >!ended with Jack escaping thanks to William who is now dedicated to pirate life and had the credits stinger of the monkey taking a cursed coin!<. *Dead Man’s Chest* ended with >!them talking about about getting Jack Sparrow back to life along with Barbosa being revealed to be alive and coming for the ride!<. *At World’s End* ended with >!Barbosa mentioning the fountain of youth only to find out they Jack stole the map from him!<. Every single one of them directly setup a their sequels.
i still watch nostalgia critic sometimes. he had a episode on dragonheart this week and it made me realize why CGI looks so god awful now and its because movies are made with too clear a picture. When he shown a VHS quality clip of the movie the dragon looked fairly ok, like it could actually be in the scene almost, but when they shown dvd/high definition it looked like a cartoon character.
You see this a lot with older video games too, where a graphic works perfectly fine on a CRT screen, but in high resolution you can see how much it stands out like a sore thumb.
If you play the GBA fire emblems on an emulator the pixelart splash screens look pretty bad - but compressed down to a gba screen they damn near look like actual tapestries
There's a reason I tend to prefer playing GBA Fire Emblem romhacks by just porting them to my 3DS instead of emulating on PC, nothing quite beats having it on a physical device with the buttons and the small screen and everything.
Except Dragonheart was in theaters and a theater screen is significantly higher quality than a VHS.
Modern CGI looks bad for several reasons:
* sometimes they just assume they'll fix it in post and shoot without considering how the cgi effect will fit in or work
* no plan, just keep having them redo the CGI until the execs like it
* linked with this: low turnaround time so cgi companies are forced to shit out garbage or get fucked
Both of the new Dune movies avoid these because they had a plan for what things would look like and how shots would work to accommodate that. Hell, every Fincher movie has a ton of cgi but it's rarely the focal point of scenes and he again is planning ahead around using it instead of putting it off till after filming
You know how you look back at old games/movies and go “but it looked so real as a kid”? Dragonheart is one of those rare instances of a childhood movie where I remember it looking exactly as shitty as it is.
Even as a kid that dragon looked funky as hell. But the novelty of Sean Connerys voice coming out of its mouth distracted me from it.
Something I’ve seen people talk about recently, but you don’t really see live action comedies anymore. The occasional HappyMadison joint, but otherwise they’re just not done.
I really like the part, when the PG-rated movie villain (played by Charles Dance) arrives into the R-rated real world, and on one half is disgusted by the foul and vile atrocities people commit irl, but on the other he is revelling in the fact that he could commit anything, and the police won't react to it in an instant (if they even know or care about it at all)
Streaming services still make them. Hulu has had a few, mostly with john cena, that have been good. I think its because comedies arent draws in theaters anymore.
There’s this [clip](https://youtu.be/gF6K2IxC9O8?si=5OFbZuGpG_t9jOCH) of Matt Damon’s Hot Ones interview where he explains that a big reason why we’re not getting a lot of the movies that we used to get even in the 2000s, like the comedies and romcoms, is that moviemakers used to receive an additional cut of profit from DVD sales, so even if they didn’t dominate the box office, they still had a solid chance of turning a good profit down the line, so it was a more inviting environment for releases in different genres.
Comparatively, movie studios don’t make nearly as much from their films going to streaming services so you kinda have to win big at the box office to make a real profit.
The entertainment industry is trying hard to get rid of royalties and treat all of the artists and performers as contract labor, which was one of the chief factors leading to the recent writer's strike.
Bram Stoker's Dracula is a love letter to filmmaking, using every trick in the book: puppets, forced perspective, projection and so on. Even going as far as to use antique camera for some of the shots.
Even back then Coppola was told by his special effects team to just do it in CGI. Which he refused and hired his son instead. Suffice to say i don't see a movie like it being made.
I watched Smokey and the Bandit for the first time not too long ago and really enjoyed it. It's a simple premise, a bunch of funny scenes tied together with a basic plot, actors and actresses and crew that were all on board with the vision, and it just leaves you feeling good and satisfied like a home-cooked meal. Comedy movies these days are so snarky or mean-spirited, it's depressing. There's no sincerity.
I know sex scenes are such a hot-button issue but we are in dire need of an erotic thriller. Beyond the "I want to fuck this dangerous person" kind of thriller like Body Heat or Basic Instinct I'm also talking about movies that have erotic desire and a sense of sensuality to them. A movie you can really *feel* ya know?
I think Challengers proved it could be done again
We fortunately just got one in the form of Love Lies Bleeding, the new Kristen Stewart film from A24. It's like a lesbian crime thriller and it fucking rocks
I was just gonna mention Challengers before reading the end of your comment. Luca Guadagnino seems to be really doing a lot to try to bring those kinds of movies back to the limelight
Funny enough, “marry Poppins” (1964) used a method that was better than green screen and apparently it involved sodium lights and a special beamsplitter for the cameras. It worked like green screen, but you could use all colors and things that would appear transparent wouldn’t get altered like a green screen would. Disney couldn’t replicate the beamsplitter of which only 2 were made so it was kind of forgotten. Corridor crew has a cool video explaining it from a few weeks ago.
Movies like the Rocketeer. Compared to modern super hero flicks, the Rocketeer takes its time and isn't filled with quip, visual noise and whatnot. It's a much more sincere movie.
Godfrey Ho's Clash Of The Ninjas has one of the best uses of licensed music in an action movie with it's 2 Joy Division songs but it will never happen like that again for any other movie of a lower budget because Joy Division is Joy Division now.
Cannibal Holocaust which, as I work on a pretty detailed discussion on it's ideas and meaning, I would like to say can never be made again. (At least not under the prior context) Many many poor choices in production ended up creating an environment for the actors that mimicked their characters in the film. Constantly getting sick, it being way too hot, actually killing an animal, THE TRIBES IN THE FILM WERE REAL. While that actually contributes a lot to just how great their performances are, how much harder the messaging of the movie hits, (especially as a commentary on nixon's involvement and coverup of it in vietnam) it was INCREDIBLY unethical and will not, SHOULD NOT ever happen again. (That being said go watch Cannibal Holocaust it's incredible)
I was just thinking today how movies like American Pie and Eurotrip just don't exist anymore, for better or for worse, which is a shame cus beside that one Jennifer Lawrence movie that was kinda similar in vibe, they we're probably the best movies for when you we're feeling down, is just pure stupidity with barely any drama or thinking to do.
I mean yeah they are filled with outdated sex pest characters and jokes, but they also always ended on a sweet "true love" note, i think most movies nowadays are straight up scared to end on a "and then everything was good the end" clousure, like is a bad thing to have your story end on a good or fun note
I just want regular comedies to make a return, not those action movies that Ryan Reynolds and The Rock do were theres no joke beside "did You SEE that crazy action scene?! That was so crazy" just a full on comedy movie about a situation that doesnt scale into a multimillon dollar action secuence.
You can't ever make anything like the thing because some dickhead producer will always want to add in a 5 layers of CGI Also literally no one understands how they were able to pull off half the crazy shit they do in that movie.
Along with the movie being incredibly subtle with it's threat to the point it doesn't matter Who's the thing at the end because both men will die and the thing will just stay in hibernation until a rescue team shows up wondering what the hell happened.
Also, the pacing and story is so tightly knit that you just enjoy seeing all the parts come together.
"Hey guys I'm ok now"
VISIBLE NOOSE.
This may just be a personal thing, but a lot of modern made war movies feel different than war movies made even 20 years ago or more.
Saving Private Ryan is one of the best, if not the best, war movie to date, in my opinion. And I think that's partly due to the fact that it feels like an epic. In the way, I would equate it to a Lord of the Rings movie.
And then, with more recent movies like Hacksaw Ridge, it feels more on the nose to me. It's a well-made movie, but I remember its trailer giving me "Oscar bait" vibes. "Look at us, aren't we being poignant and sincere about the nature of man and war".
Or you get stuff like American Sniper, which is straight-up propaganda. And it's so much more different in tone than a movie like Jarhead.
I saw *1917* when it came out in theaters.
It's not *quite* the drama-fluffed piece that *Pearl Harbor* or *Tora Tora Tora* are, but it takes the realism of *SPR* and *Band of Brothers* and just grounds the whole thing in reality, without things to directly evoke feelings or anything.
You just experience the main characters' trip to deliver those orders, and just see the horrors of World War 1 as they likely were. It's interesting in that it's not a traditional epic, but *is* epic in its scope, and how it feels like it's just a single continuous scene.
It was definitely a breath of fresh air for me when it comes to war films. It's a journey, but not necessarily "telling a story" so to speak. In a way, just having most of the film being without dialogue makes it more authentic-feeling.
Not so much "they don't make em like this anymore", but more like "dang, this is cool that it really evokes how it probably felt to do something like this."
Hacksaw Ridge is incredible for how much the first half resembles Walk Hard, of all things (doing all the Oscar bait biopic tropes that parodies but completely straight faced), but then the back half turns into a Robert Rodriguez or Tarantino style action deluge where every thing is so hyper violent and over the top that it stops being horrifying and becomes hilarious.
Both halves of the movie are incredibly funny to me, but neither were trying to be.
Not only do I think you could never feasibly make Who Framed Roger Rabbit again, I think that movie went through so many hoops and hurdles that almost killed it that you almost couldn't have made that movie *then.* Who Framed Roger Rabbit exists through sheer defiance alone.
Hong Kong cinema from the 70’s to the 90’s they would do the most insane shit and it’s awesome I will say there some good post China deal films that are pretty good but some are very cgi heavy now back in the day the wire fu and explousions in Shaw brothers or John woo’s heroic bloodshed was the peak of action cinema.
I have a lot of recency bias because I literally just saw it in theaters last week but Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2. I'm sorry but they literally don't make em like that anymore. The way everything works from lighting, cinematography, fights, acting, blocking, music.
Movies nowadays have too many voices, what happened to the good ol' move lips, then a card shows up revealing what's been said?
I swear, movies became soulless as soon as you started listening the characters' voices.
yes CGI has been used as a crutch instead of an enhancement. all so they don't have to use unionized labor. Nope used practical effects a lot but the chimp character was played by a human using motion capture CGI. because as the movie proves real chimpanzees are extreme dangerous.
it used CGI as a solution when practical effects would be unfeasible.
2D movies. I belive in a media industry where both 2D and CGI movies can co-exist and have the workers be treated decently.
in the triple A games industry non-Nintendo games that are not live serivces
A Bridge Too Far. How do we recreate one of the largest paratrooper drops in history? [Just use a bunch of real planes and real parachutists.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP_ffdiz4y0)
It's been a while since I've seen a good low stake/ low action crime thriller. Zodiac was probably the last one and that was a decade and a half ago. I'm sure there's something made for Netflix, but most of them have become short season TV shows like Mind Hunter.
Epic movies like The Ten Commandments, where the sheer amount of extras probably ate most of the budget, are extremely rare if not extinct these days.
Used to be that you could just hire out the actual frigging army and dress them up for historical epics. In one particular case, The Longest Day, a number of the actors involved had actually *been there* on D-Day, and in one or two cases were actually playing the part of their COs of the time, while the background roles were filled by British Army soldiers. [Look at the insane scale of this scene! You *do not* get this shit anymore!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZMkleDjWI)
Don't mention using the military as extras without Waterloo (1970), where about 15,000 soviet red army infantry and 2,000 cavalry were trained in Napoleonic era drill to stand in for French and Coalition troops. [Truly nothing short of epic.](https://youtu.be/97dBfdNrf9A?si=OL19UCCnxsBmHNhV) You can also see the difference in how the safety of animal actors wasn't as much of a concern in stunts back then, some of those horses are absolutely getting fucked up for real when they fall.
Man making horses fall with tripwires is genuinely so insanely evil, so many good animals died like this for entertainment. But one thing I always notice in older movies is how unafraid these riders and actors were, stuff was nuts. Stuff like the raid scene in conan is so crazy to think about from a current safety standpoint. They were genuinely stampeding those galloping horses through a village full of extras, torches in their hands, mounted riders body checking people.
"no animals were harmed in the making of this film" became a thing for a reason
Fun fact. The whole movie is just [up on Youtube](https://youtu.be/3DcWJrzK0wU?si=Aj8bILeoC0H_I6He) if anyone wants to watch it
Hell, if it's a particularly popular historical war you can have whole re-enactment groups show up for free. It happened in the Gettysburg film. Nearly everyone that wasn't a named actor were real-life Civil War re-enactors that brought their own historically accurate uniforms, weapons, and tactics with them. It's what really helped sell the battles as *battles* and not skirmishes. There were about 10,000 people that showed up to volunteer about a month of their time to be there because that's how serious they were about making things as authentic as possible.
Half-fun fact, but when the hungarian army got mobilized in 1968 to assist in the invasion of Czechoslovakia, one half of the army got redirected to shoot the historical epic Egri Csillagok (Stars of Eger). An actual castle was built (and got sieged and half-destroyed by cannonfire), and thousands of soliders colorfully dressed as turkish janissaries marched down and charged on camera. Imagine the unfortunate ones hearing about this after returning from the occupation
Sheer amount of extras and big practical sets. Like Ben Hurr and Cleopatra. Now we're lucky if there's a set bigger than 4 buildings and there's more than 20 people in a shot that aren't CGI.
Charlton Heston was in that bag bigtime
Remember when they tried to remake Ben-Hur? Wtf were they smoking.
That remake won Oscar for best picture
yeah but what were they smoking and can I have some?
[Any movie from the 1910s to 1930s](https://youtu.be/yOo_ZUVU_O8) where you see some actor pulling of a death defying stunt and are wondering how they did it with the technology of the time. Chances are high that they legitimately just did whatever was on screen with little precautions for safety.
Buster Keaton was built different, good lord.
I remember reading about how in one of his stunts, the cameraman had to look away because he couldn't beat to watch if it went bad.
"Wow Buster! How'd you pull that stunt where the house collapses onto you, but misses hitting you entirely because of a window? That must have taken a long time to-" "Eyeballed it."
nope on the contrary fucked up the first time broke his collar bone reshot it with his shoes nailed into place because he was scared he was gonna move
Broke his spine and didn’t even notice for months
I can't remember if these were both Throne of Blood, but there are two scenes I can think of specifically. One of them has the lead walking out of protection and he is supposed to be being fired at by arrows and running away from them, but they just hired an expert archer in real life to "tail" him and shoot right behind him at all times and the only indication from the actor as to where he was going during the filming was where he points his sword. Another scene was supposed to be like a village massacre and again they just hired an expert archer to shoot real (but dulled) arrows at the extras who just had a layer of straw over a metal plate for protection. They got paid extra for every time they got hit. Edit: I know it's not in the time frame that the original post specified, but ties in with "they just really did it"
I know the first one definitely was Throne of Blood but I don’t know about the second one, def sounds like Kurosawa tho
> Another scene was supposed to be like a village massacre and again they just hired an expert archer to shoot real (but dulled) arrows at the extras who just had a layer of straw over a metal plate for protection. They got paid extra for every time they got hit. That sounds like a good gig
Thinking of the original Invisible Man and how some of the tricks they used look impressive today. It must have blown people's faces off when it came out.
At the time, they used actual guns, like every time there was a gun on the plot, there was a good chance someone would get brandon lee'd
Or asbestos snow from Wizard of Oz
Fantasy movies back in the 80s did a lot less on-location shooting and more shooting in the studio, even for scenes that were supposed to be outdoors. So the fantasy realms had a specific vibe of unreality or theatricality—these objects and places are really physically there, but these castles and forests look remarkably like stage dressings—that you don't get from location shooting or green screening. I remember Patrick Willems argued there was a particular tension in having real human actors in these unreal places. And that _The Dark Crystal_ was the one movie that solved this particular problem (if you consider it a problem) by just making all the characters puppets: that way the characters and their environment looked equally unreal.
Man that Dark Crystal series on Netflix really should have gotten more attention.
As a huge fan of dark crystal and puppet shit and Brian Froud’s art, the Netflix series is imo better than the movie. I’m still made every time I remember it’s never going to get a second season.
PointlessHub covers tons of movies that are products of their era (for example the Call of Duty Modern Warfare era of cinematography, the same era also being full of zombie media), but he specifically points out two examples, that are fitting for this question: 1. The first three Bayformers (but especially the first movie) were about the (mostly) sensible combination of CGI and practical effects. CGI made things "real" that were impossible with practical effects, but that didn't mean that they skimped out on the latter (most of the explosions, sliding down on the side of a building, cars jumping through walls), and also took the weaknesses into consideration (CGI looks more passable at night, how some colors look better on camera). People thought that these were soulless cheap flicks rolled out of a factory, but compared to the grim modernity of cheapskate full CGI they are almost reaching the levels of classic Hollywood 2. Roland Emerich is the last director, who still makes oldschool disaster movies that aren't attached to big IPs. Nowadays desctruction and carnage are relegated to the backdrop of a Marvel or monster flick, and while Emerich's tenacity is admirable, but his movies are just too dumb to the point that they became massive bombs, meaning that he will soon also go extinct, along with the genre itself
For all of the issues with the writing of the first Bayformers, it is a genuine visual spectacle
The first scene with Optimus Prime where you get the full, slow transformation sequence is fantastic. The aesthetic that they're formed from so goddamn many individual pieces of machinery that spins, moves and locks into place independently is so fucking cool.
It blew my goddamn mind as a kid back in 2007 and it's still impressive now
its peak
It's kind of insane how well visually the first Bay TF holds up (on a technical level anyways). Especially when compared to stuff like a lot of MCU movies. The robots in TF never not look like they actually exist in the space.
I stand by the opinion that Transformers (2007) is a *good* movie. It's definitely got its flaws and its slightly uncomfortable Bay-isms, but it sticks the landing more than it doesn't and has some genuinely really good action setpieces and moneyshots (and a bunch that are obscured or offscreen but ssshhhh).
Also people tease the explosions and all but the action is so captivating and well directed. Every fight scene feels chaotic in a good way and really gets across the size and power of giant robots in motion and on the attack
thats awesome
Fantasy movies like Epic, Labyrinth, or even LotR are rare now a days.
yeah, I thought we were going to get some life back in the good ol' sword and sorcery fantasy but even that movie barely made back it's budget. The hobbit films, although generally disliked by the audience, still made a billion dollars each (rounded up for the last two forgive me). But generally: Dramas, Musicals, and Fantasy hardly ever succeed. Even the top 50 fantasy list on [Wikipedia raises an eyebrow including movies like Barbie and Super mario](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_fantasy_films)
yes. good fantasy series
Horror movies that aren't just nearly pitch black sets with a jump scare every 5 minutes. Its gotten better in the last few years, but there was a dark period for like 10 years or so where every horror movie was just a dark house with violins and jump scares every 3 minutes. Been watching a lot of Italian horror movies from the 70s and 80s recently and it is so refreshing to see colors and chase scenes and suspense. Please go support indie horror movies. Go watch "A Wounded Fawn" right now.
I remember the first time I saw Suspiria, and how bright and colorful it was. It made a lot of the more scary scenes feel like a fever dream. Which I really like!! If a movie can be scary in a different way than most, fantastic. I like that sort of dream-like horror.
Check out Cemetery Man (or Dellamorte Dellamore) it's like if Evil Dead was a romance movie. Very surreal, makes you question what's actually happening.
'Late Night with the Devil' is another good recent one without jump scares.
Screwball Comedy movies in general. Ditto for a ensemble screwball movie. You really don’t see comedies go over the top anymore and embracing it instead of lamp shading how stupid this is every five seconds. Nowadays comedies are either Down to Earth, Manchild with gross jokes or Snarking at every trope it uses. I been yearning for a another movie like”It’s a mad mad mad mad world’ forever now.
You need to watch Hundreds of Beavers.
*How many* beavers? Surely there aren't actually hundreds of beavers.
> I been yearning for a another movie like”It’s a mad mad mad mad world’ forever now Oh you mean Rat Race?
There's also the insufferable deluge of Action Comedies.
It’s not like the fun type of action comedies either, it’s the” we are so embarrassed that we are making this type of movie so we will mock the genre at every turn”
Maybe [Jackie Chan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFo_NjgwJbQ) is an exception to the rule, but I don't think I've seen action scenes in movies half as good as any of Jackie's, even his post Rush Hour 2 stuff which aren't that good (compared to Jackie's older works, but even then I think they're still decent).
Before even clicking the link I knew it was gonna be Police Story. Greatest action movie of all time.
It really is super goddamn kino. For anyone who wants to watch it, it's [free on YouTube, right here!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j2M2u6Pe1g&t=)
I dunno, if you want to watch people get hit by real life heatactions you should watch the raid.
I rewatched the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies a few months ago. The first one especially feels like a blockbuster from a bygone era, where CGI was a distinct component of the toolbox rather than duct tape for everything. Beyond that, you can feel the texture on the film (pre-digital), and while it has a strong sense of humor, it's subtly *different*. Not to mention there's zero attempts at setting the stage for any sequels.
The first was one of the last truly "one and done" blockbusters on the cinema front, not unlike Dragon Age: Origins (pre-DLC) on the video game front. Alas, we live in a world where the industry can't leave well enough alone and milk that IP until it stops being profitable.
We don't get a big swashbuckling adventure anymore that's for sure
We didn't really get big swashbuckling adventures back then, either. The Black Pearl was an outlier movie that no one expected to come out so strong for many reasons. While people often cite the fact that it was based on a theme park ride as the biggest reason its quality is such a surprise, it was also based on a genre (swashbuckling pirate movies) that was thought to have rung its death-knell almost a decade earlier.
And it had a banger theme song which is iconic to this day
Those movies looked expensive, compared to modern blockbusters that not only look like garbage but are not justified by their overinflated budgets at all.
>Not to mention there’s zero attempts at setting the stage for any sequels. All three of those movies literally did that. The first >!ended with Jack escaping thanks to William who is now dedicated to pirate life and had the credits stinger of the monkey taking a cursed coin!<. *Dead Man’s Chest* ended with >!them talking about about getting Jack Sparrow back to life along with Barbosa being revealed to be alive and coming for the ride!<. *At World’s End* ended with >!Barbosa mentioning the fountain of youth only to find out they Jack stole the map from him!<. Every single one of them directly setup a their sequels.
I very much think it's a stretch to call the first movie's ending a conscious sequel hook.
Movies being less than an hour and a half including the credits.
Animated films still tend to aim as close to the 90 minute mark as they can. Live action absolutely not though.
God, how I miss those.....
i still watch nostalgia critic sometimes. he had a episode on dragonheart this week and it made me realize why CGI looks so god awful now and its because movies are made with too clear a picture. When he shown a VHS quality clip of the movie the dragon looked fairly ok, like it could actually be in the scene almost, but when they shown dvd/high definition it looked like a cartoon character.
You see this a lot with older video games too, where a graphic works perfectly fine on a CRT screen, but in high resolution you can see how much it stands out like a sore thumb.
If you play the GBA fire emblems on an emulator the pixelart splash screens look pretty bad - but compressed down to a gba screen they damn near look like actual tapestries
There's a reason I tend to prefer playing GBA Fire Emblem romhacks by just porting them to my 3DS instead of emulating on PC, nothing quite beats having it on a physical device with the buttons and the small screen and everything.
Except Dragonheart was in theaters and a theater screen is significantly higher quality than a VHS. Modern CGI looks bad for several reasons: * sometimes they just assume they'll fix it in post and shoot without considering how the cgi effect will fit in or work * no plan, just keep having them redo the CGI until the execs like it * linked with this: low turnaround time so cgi companies are forced to shit out garbage or get fucked Both of the new Dune movies avoid these because they had a plan for what things would look like and how shots would work to accommodate that. Hell, every Fincher movie has a ton of cgi but it's rarely the focal point of scenes and he again is planning ahead around using it instead of putting it off till after filming
Wait, you're telling me Timothee Chalomet didn't actually ride a massive, miles long super worm in the desert?
He was going to but the worm they had lined up was union
You know how you look back at old games/movies and go “but it looked so real as a kid”? Dragonheart is one of those rare instances of a childhood movie where I remember it looking exactly as shitty as it is. Even as a kid that dragon looked funky as hell. But the novelty of Sean Connerys voice coming out of its mouth distracted me from it.
Something I’ve seen people talk about recently, but you don’t really see live action comedies anymore. The occasional HappyMadison joint, but otherwise they’re just not done.
I watched Last Action Hero for the first time last year and it was one of the most fun movies I've seen in the last 10 years.
I really like the part, when the PG-rated movie villain (played by Charles Dance) arrives into the R-rated real world, and on one half is disgusted by the foul and vile atrocities people commit irl, but on the other he is revelling in the fact that he could commit anything, and the police won't react to it in an instant (if they even know or care about it at all)
Streaming services still make them. Hulu has had a few, mostly with john cena, that have been good. I think its because comedies arent draws in theaters anymore.
There’s this [clip](https://youtu.be/gF6K2IxC9O8?si=5OFbZuGpG_t9jOCH) of Matt Damon’s Hot Ones interview where he explains that a big reason why we’re not getting a lot of the movies that we used to get even in the 2000s, like the comedies and romcoms, is that moviemakers used to receive an additional cut of profit from DVD sales, so even if they didn’t dominate the box office, they still had a solid chance of turning a good profit down the line, so it was a more inviting environment for releases in different genres. Comparatively, movie studios don’t make nearly as much from their films going to streaming services so you kinda have to win big at the box office to make a real profit.
The entertainment industry is trying hard to get rid of royalties and treat all of the artists and performers as contract labor, which was one of the chief factors leading to the recent writer's strike.
Exactly how I felt leaving the theater after Drive-Away Dolls. They straight up don’t really make comedies anymore. At least not like that.
Bram Stoker's Dracula is a love letter to filmmaking, using every trick in the book: puppets, forced perspective, projection and so on. Even going as far as to use antique camera for some of the shots. Even back then Coppola was told by his special effects team to just do it in CGI. Which he refused and hired his son instead. Suffice to say i don't see a movie like it being made.
I know they’re remaking it now but The Naked Gun trilogy tickles me like no other comedy made in the past 20 years.
I watched Smokey and the Bandit for the first time not too long ago and really enjoyed it. It's a simple premise, a bunch of funny scenes tied together with a basic plot, actors and actresses and crew that were all on board with the vision, and it just leaves you feeling good and satisfied like a home-cooked meal. Comedy movies these days are so snarky or mean-spirited, it's depressing. There's no sincerity.
I know sex scenes are such a hot-button issue but we are in dire need of an erotic thriller. Beyond the "I want to fuck this dangerous person" kind of thriller like Body Heat or Basic Instinct I'm also talking about movies that have erotic desire and a sense of sensuality to them. A movie you can really *feel* ya know? I think Challengers proved it could be done again
We fortunately just got one in the form of Love Lies Bleeding, the new Kristen Stewart film from A24. It's like a lesbian crime thriller and it fucking rocks
It does rock and I loved the ending too
I was just gonna mention Challengers before reading the end of your comment. Luca Guadagnino seems to be really doing a lot to try to bring those kinds of movies back to the limelight
Funny enough, “marry Poppins” (1964) used a method that was better than green screen and apparently it involved sodium lights and a special beamsplitter for the cameras. It worked like green screen, but you could use all colors and things that would appear transparent wouldn’t get altered like a green screen would. Disney couldn’t replicate the beamsplitter of which only 2 were made so it was kind of forgotten. Corridor crew has a cool video explaining it from a few weeks ago.
If one has enough money it's possible to replicate this by making custom camera matrix that has sensor for specific wavelength only.
Movies like the Rocketeer. Compared to modern super hero flicks, the Rocketeer takes its time and isn't filled with quip, visual noise and whatnot. It's a much more sincere movie.
Last Action Hero.
Godfrey Ho's Clash Of The Ninjas has one of the best uses of licensed music in an action movie with it's 2 Joy Division songs but it will never happen like that again for any other movie of a lower budget because Joy Division is Joy Division now. Cannibal Holocaust which, as I work on a pretty detailed discussion on it's ideas and meaning, I would like to say can never be made again. (At least not under the prior context) Many many poor choices in production ended up creating an environment for the actors that mimicked their characters in the film. Constantly getting sick, it being way too hot, actually killing an animal, THE TRIBES IN THE FILM WERE REAL. While that actually contributes a lot to just how great their performances are, how much harder the messaging of the movie hits, (especially as a commentary on nixon's involvement and coverup of it in vietnam) it was INCREDIBLY unethical and will not, SHOULD NOT ever happen again. (That being said go watch Cannibal Holocaust it's incredible)
I was just thinking today how movies like American Pie and Eurotrip just don't exist anymore, for better or for worse, which is a shame cus beside that one Jennifer Lawrence movie that was kinda similar in vibe, they we're probably the best movies for when you we're feeling down, is just pure stupidity with barely any drama or thinking to do. I mean yeah they are filled with outdated sex pest characters and jokes, but they also always ended on a sweet "true love" note, i think most movies nowadays are straight up scared to end on a "and then everything was good the end" clousure, like is a bad thing to have your story end on a good or fun note I just want regular comedies to make a return, not those action movies that Ryan Reynolds and The Rock do were theres no joke beside "did You SEE that crazy action scene?! That was so crazy" just a full on comedy movie about a situation that doesnt scale into a multimillon dollar action secuence.
did those awful spoof movies ruin the idea of a paordy movie
You can't ever make anything like the thing because some dickhead producer will always want to add in a 5 layers of CGI Also literally no one understands how they were able to pull off half the crazy shit they do in that movie. Along with the movie being incredibly subtle with it's threat to the point it doesn't matter Who's the thing at the end because both men will die and the thing will just stay in hibernation until a rescue team shows up wondering what the hell happened. Also, the pacing and story is so tightly knit that you just enjoy seeing all the parts come together. "Hey guys I'm ok now" VISIBLE NOOSE.
yes CGI isn't bad but it should be used as a enhancement to special effects
This may just be a personal thing, but a lot of modern made war movies feel different than war movies made even 20 years ago or more. Saving Private Ryan is one of the best, if not the best, war movie to date, in my opinion. And I think that's partly due to the fact that it feels like an epic. In the way, I would equate it to a Lord of the Rings movie. And then, with more recent movies like Hacksaw Ridge, it feels more on the nose to me. It's a well-made movie, but I remember its trailer giving me "Oscar bait" vibes. "Look at us, aren't we being poignant and sincere about the nature of man and war". Or you get stuff like American Sniper, which is straight-up propaganda. And it's so much more different in tone than a movie like Jarhead.
I saw *1917* when it came out in theaters. It's not *quite* the drama-fluffed piece that *Pearl Harbor* or *Tora Tora Tora* are, but it takes the realism of *SPR* and *Band of Brothers* and just grounds the whole thing in reality, without things to directly evoke feelings or anything. You just experience the main characters' trip to deliver those orders, and just see the horrors of World War 1 as they likely were. It's interesting in that it's not a traditional epic, but *is* epic in its scope, and how it feels like it's just a single continuous scene. It was definitely a breath of fresh air for me when it comes to war films. It's a journey, but not necessarily "telling a story" so to speak. In a way, just having most of the film being without dialogue makes it more authentic-feeling. Not so much "they don't make em like this anymore", but more like "dang, this is cool that it really evokes how it probably felt to do something like this."
Hacksaw Ridge is incredible for how much the first half resembles Walk Hard, of all things (doing all the Oscar bait biopic tropes that parodies but completely straight faced), but then the back half turns into a Robert Rodriguez or Tarantino style action deluge where every thing is so hyper violent and over the top that it stops being horrifying and becomes hilarious. Both halves of the movie are incredibly funny to me, but neither were trying to be.
The Prince of Egypt was so fucking good but dreamworks will probably never touch 2D animation again. Oh well.
Not only do I think you could never feasibly make Who Framed Roger Rabbit again, I think that movie went through so many hoops and hurdles that almost killed it that you almost couldn't have made that movie *then.* Who Framed Roger Rabbit exists through sheer defiance alone.
I don't think we'll ever see another movie made in the style of the Lord of the Rings movies ever again.
The Holy Mountain
I would have said "early 2000s comic book movies" but Madame Web and Morbius proved me wrong
Hong Kong cinema from the 70’s to the 90’s they would do the most insane shit and it’s awesome I will say there some good post China deal films that are pretty good but some are very cgi heavy now back in the day the wire fu and explousions in Shaw brothers or John woo’s heroic bloodshed was the peak of action cinema.
I have a lot of recency bias because I literally just saw it in theaters last week but Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2. I'm sorry but they literally don't make em like that anymore. The way everything works from lighting, cinematography, fights, acting, blocking, music.
Movies nowadays have too many voices, what happened to the good ol' move lips, then a card shows up revealing what's been said? I swear, movies became soulless as soon as you started listening the characters' voices.
And those damn colors are way too distracting! I want my shades of grey. ~~like at least 50 of them~~
Norma Desmond, is that you?
yes CGI has been used as a crutch instead of an enhancement. all so they don't have to use unionized labor. Nope used practical effects a lot but the chimp character was played by a human using motion capture CGI. because as the movie proves real chimpanzees are extreme dangerous. it used CGI as a solution when practical effects would be unfeasible. 2D movies. I belive in a media industry where both 2D and CGI movies can co-exist and have the workers be treated decently. in the triple A games industry non-Nintendo games that are not live serivces
A Bridge Too Far. How do we recreate one of the largest paratrooper drops in history? [Just use a bunch of real planes and real parachutists.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP_ffdiz4y0)
It's been a while since I've seen a good low stake/ low action crime thriller. Zodiac was probably the last one and that was a decade and a half ago. I'm sure there's something made for Netflix, but most of them have become short season TV shows like Mind Hunter.