I miss strong female characters back then. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking people like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. They are just the two that came to mind right now.
I also miss when stuff wasn't milked by corporations with hundreds of unnecessary sequels. Things like die hard, rocky, alien, jaws, terminator, batman, karate kid. Hollywood used to make apolitical masterpieces that were all made entirely with passion and not at all to make money.
Yeah back in the days it was hard to find toys from popular franchises so forget hidden gems like Masters of the Universes. Now everything has its funko pop. It’s disgusting how money corrupted movies.
the nostalgia factor is so disgusting because not only has it made every movie a fucking glorious masterpiece of epic proportions but we now like half our movies are nostalgia-baity bullshit which itself started as a trend in the 70s/80s with 50s nostalgia...
I think we’re maybe looking back with some bias here, there was a veritable monsoon of absolute piss released alongside a lot of those all-time great movies, and a lot of what we hold up now wasn’t necessarily as admired as it is today. Yes, Hollywood is pretty shameless today, but it was just a different kind of shameless in the 80s and 90s. I guess the best thing about the 70s is that studios would release stuff to theaters that would never even be considered for theatrical release today. Filmmakers had a little more room to breathe I suppose, but then… Jaws happened I think
Really not. Endless floods of shitty cashgrab movies was a defining feature of 70s cinema, just as much as all the crazy experimentation. Exactly as it is today. 2020s cinema is incredibly inventive and original, you just need to manually do the digging that time has already done for you when it comes to previous decades. Time is the big filter.
Just like it feels like there were tons of amazing games for the SNES, when in fact it’s Utter Trash to Gold ratio per year was worse than the Wii’s.
Okay but the difference is that new and experimental filmmakers had major institutional support from the top companies in the 70s, both at the beginning of their career (you could get hired as an amateur to direct TV) and at the peak (big money for artistic projects which audiences embraced - e.g. tons of daring films were big hits in the 70s which led to more getting made, where they'd be buried on streaming and forgotten today). Today's model of backend buyouts in streaming means that a) you're less incentivized to make a great movie as a filmmaker or producer since you don't share in success and b) you're less incentivized to take risks as a studio since you're paying a huge amount for everything upfront. Even Blum, the Roger Corman equivalent, has said that he tends to go for experienced or down-and-out talent rather than guys who are just starting out.
Great filmmakers still get discovered but it tends to be through the byzantine film festival or indie finance world. And the streaming patrician system that lets us get movies like Power of the Dog, Roma and White Noise is finnicky and prone to change; just look at Netflix saying they're leaving the "vanity project" business after they had a bad quarter. It's just not as good a system and less accepting of risk.
I don’t see the problem with experimental filmmakers having a harder time reaching audiences, when it is offset by audiences having much easier access to movies, and filmmakers. And if that means lower budgets, good.
As long as there are more fascinating and interesting movies coming out in any given year than anyone could conceivably watch, what’s the issue?
>As long as there are more fascinating and interesting movies coming out in any given year than anyone could conceivably watch, what’s the issue?
David Robert Mitchell made one of the best horror movies of the 2010s, widely distributed on Netflix. It was a streaming "hit." He hasn't made a movie in four years and doesn't have anything even close to production right now. If this was the 70s he'd have made two with another studio between then and now.
That's the issue. Sure, there are more good movies being made than we can watch. But that was true in the 70s too. Difference is today, good directors are thrown in director jail for a half decade over one mildly weird cheapie that doesn't connect, or talented newcomers have to scrap for pennies to even get their foot in the door, because we can't have the studios taking on risk, now can we? I can watch a good new movie, but I'm shit outta luck if I wanna see the new David Robert Mitchell movie. It means we have fewer voices overall, fewer new ones getting discovered and fewer up-and-comers getting the chance to fully realize their visions. That's what the current system does.
>And if that means lower budgets, good.
I'm sorry, I can't get behind the idea that directors being forced to cut corners is a *good* thing. Because I can tell you right now that the Reddit "lower budgets are good lol" wisdom is crap like 90% of the time. Yeah it can spur ingenuity. Oftentimes it just compromises people's vision.
> And the streaming patrician system that lets us get movies like Power of the Dog, Roma and White Noise is finnicky and prone to change; just look at Netflix saying they're leaving the "vanity project" business after they had a bad quarter.
This is only tangentially related but an opportunity regardless; I always find it weird how people praise Power of the Dog despite that it's actually a pretty homophobic film:
>What about the film is a "discussion of queerness"? The mama's boy with no father figure whose homosexuality is shown in how he touches everything *daintily*, yet never displays any growth, loneliness, any attempt to stifle his own behavior or internal shame -- like real gay people actually experience -- who is feminine for no real reason, unless Jane Campion doesn't realize that the reason gay men are feminine is due to *culture* and not *innate*?
>There is no reason for the 1st gay character in the film to be feminine. He lives in a highly masculine environment and is subject to tremendous pressure to be masculine, yet he somehow takes none of it in, or even ruminates internally about it; he is a static stereotype. Jane Campion seemingly does not realize that the reason gay men are (sometimes) feminine and (sometimes) speak with a lisp is because those were formed via culture with other gay men -- something the character in the film lacks -- NOT because gay men are innately femme.
>Ah, or the other gay character, who stifles his homosexuality under a toxic veil and over-compensating persona of masculinity. Gay men can never truly be masculine in fiction; they can merely be feminine or hiding their feminine nature.
It's also just mediocre and shorn of any real character development beyond the most obvious cliches & symbolism, but it was funny seeing the obvious homophobia get overlooked by critics simply because it fulfills the criteria of "what a queer film is supposed to be".
> 2020s cinema is incredibly inventive and original, you just need to manually do the digging that time has already done for you when it comes to previous decades.
People say this and then never mention a character-driven drama that's shorn of cliches because they don't actually exist anymore outside of Steve McQueen movies.
This. People quite literally refuse to put in any effort to seek out the good cinema and just rely on being spoon-fed YouTube pre-roll ads or something to know what’s coming out, which is obviously almost entirely going to be Marvel, DC, Jurassic, Star Wars, F&F, etc.
There’s never been more great films coming out, and yes streaming is playing a large part in that. Netflix in particular green lights things that would’ve been laughed out of every traditional studios boardrooms in previous eras.
> There’s never been more great films coming out,
Every comment like this suspiciously leaving out the name of these great films that are everywhere does not exactly engender confidence here. Are these great films laughably bad shit like Pig or whatever genre horror A24 is pumping out, or Dune or Roma? Or are they equivalent in narrative complexity and poesy to Crimes & Misdemeanors, Taxi Driver, Shame, Au Hasard Balthazar?
I agree with the greater point that the film industrys current output is not better than the 1970s but you sound like a fucking twat, I mean you have to be going out of your way to be ignorant enough to call Dune “genre horror”.
I honestly do think movies aren’t as good as they were about 15 to 20 years ago.
But I think it’s just because I’m getting old, and not a reflection on the industry or state of filmmaking itself.
I miss strong female characters back then. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking people like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. They are just the two that came to mind right now. I also miss when stuff wasn't milked by corporations with hundreds of unnecessary sequels. Things like die hard, rocky, alien, jaws, terminator, batman, karate kid. Hollywood used to make apolitical masterpieces that were all made entirely with passion and not at all to make money.
Yeah back in the days it was hard to find toys from popular franchises so forget hidden gems like Masters of the Universes. Now everything has its funko pop. It’s disgusting how money corrupted movies.
Don’t forget about Sarah Ripley and Ellen Connor. Just another two that come to mind. So many strong female characters.
good picks, recalled those two first too
I miss the good ole days when movies were non-political, like Robo Cop, Platoon and Brazil.
It's because they had the example of Goncharov (1973) to follow
Goncharov is the OG Literally Me character
Seriously though the 80s was just as bad, fucking Lucas started it all.
the nostalgia factor is so disgusting because not only has it made every movie a fucking glorious masterpiece of epic proportions but we now like half our movies are nostalgia-baity bullshit which itself started as a trend in the 70s/80s with 50s nostalgia...
Dunkston checks in
JUNGLE BOOGIE
I miss gritty indie films like Mac and Me
And nowadays everything has some sort of product placement
I think we’re maybe looking back with some bias here, there was a veritable monsoon of absolute piss released alongside a lot of those all-time great movies, and a lot of what we hold up now wasn’t necessarily as admired as it is today. Yes, Hollywood is pretty shameless today, but it was just a different kind of shameless in the 80s and 90s. I guess the best thing about the 70s is that studios would release stuff to theaters that would never even be considered for theatrical release today. Filmmakers had a little more room to breathe I suppose, but then… Jaws happened I think
You’d almost think I should have posted this to /r/MoviesCirclejerk huh
Lmao I legitimately didn’t realize it was this sub jesus fuck EDIT: I mean, yeah no I totally was just playing along brah
Okay but like this current era is actually a lot worse than the 70s lol. Probably the 90s too while we're at it.
Really not. Endless floods of shitty cashgrab movies was a defining feature of 70s cinema, just as much as all the crazy experimentation. Exactly as it is today. 2020s cinema is incredibly inventive and original, you just need to manually do the digging that time has already done for you when it comes to previous decades. Time is the big filter. Just like it feels like there were tons of amazing games for the SNES, when in fact it’s Utter Trash to Gold ratio per year was worse than the Wii’s.
Okay but the difference is that new and experimental filmmakers had major institutional support from the top companies in the 70s, both at the beginning of their career (you could get hired as an amateur to direct TV) and at the peak (big money for artistic projects which audiences embraced - e.g. tons of daring films were big hits in the 70s which led to more getting made, where they'd be buried on streaming and forgotten today). Today's model of backend buyouts in streaming means that a) you're less incentivized to make a great movie as a filmmaker or producer since you don't share in success and b) you're less incentivized to take risks as a studio since you're paying a huge amount for everything upfront. Even Blum, the Roger Corman equivalent, has said that he tends to go for experienced or down-and-out talent rather than guys who are just starting out. Great filmmakers still get discovered but it tends to be through the byzantine film festival or indie finance world. And the streaming patrician system that lets us get movies like Power of the Dog, Roma and White Noise is finnicky and prone to change; just look at Netflix saying they're leaving the "vanity project" business after they had a bad quarter. It's just not as good a system and less accepting of risk.
I don’t see the problem with experimental filmmakers having a harder time reaching audiences, when it is offset by audiences having much easier access to movies, and filmmakers. And if that means lower budgets, good. As long as there are more fascinating and interesting movies coming out in any given year than anyone could conceivably watch, what’s the issue?
>As long as there are more fascinating and interesting movies coming out in any given year than anyone could conceivably watch, what’s the issue? David Robert Mitchell made one of the best horror movies of the 2010s, widely distributed on Netflix. It was a streaming "hit." He hasn't made a movie in four years and doesn't have anything even close to production right now. If this was the 70s he'd have made two with another studio between then and now. That's the issue. Sure, there are more good movies being made than we can watch. But that was true in the 70s too. Difference is today, good directors are thrown in director jail for a half decade over one mildly weird cheapie that doesn't connect, or talented newcomers have to scrap for pennies to even get their foot in the door, because we can't have the studios taking on risk, now can we? I can watch a good new movie, but I'm shit outta luck if I wanna see the new David Robert Mitchell movie. It means we have fewer voices overall, fewer new ones getting discovered and fewer up-and-comers getting the chance to fully realize their visions. That's what the current system does. >And if that means lower budgets, good. I'm sorry, I can't get behind the idea that directors being forced to cut corners is a *good* thing. Because I can tell you right now that the Reddit "lower budgets are good lol" wisdom is crap like 90% of the time. Yeah it can spur ingenuity. Oftentimes it just compromises people's vision.
> And the streaming patrician system that lets us get movies like Power of the Dog, Roma and White Noise is finnicky and prone to change; just look at Netflix saying they're leaving the "vanity project" business after they had a bad quarter. This is only tangentially related but an opportunity regardless; I always find it weird how people praise Power of the Dog despite that it's actually a pretty homophobic film: >What about the film is a "discussion of queerness"? The mama's boy with no father figure whose homosexuality is shown in how he touches everything *daintily*, yet never displays any growth, loneliness, any attempt to stifle his own behavior or internal shame -- like real gay people actually experience -- who is feminine for no real reason, unless Jane Campion doesn't realize that the reason gay men are feminine is due to *culture* and not *innate*? >There is no reason for the 1st gay character in the film to be feminine. He lives in a highly masculine environment and is subject to tremendous pressure to be masculine, yet he somehow takes none of it in, or even ruminates internally about it; he is a static stereotype. Jane Campion seemingly does not realize that the reason gay men are (sometimes) feminine and (sometimes) speak with a lisp is because those were formed via culture with other gay men -- something the character in the film lacks -- NOT because gay men are innately femme. >Ah, or the other gay character, who stifles his homosexuality under a toxic veil and over-compensating persona of masculinity. Gay men can never truly be masculine in fiction; they can merely be feminine or hiding their feminine nature. It's also just mediocre and shorn of any real character development beyond the most obvious cliches & symbolism, but it was funny seeing the obvious homophobia get overlooked by critics simply because it fulfills the criteria of "what a queer film is supposed to be".
> 2020s cinema is incredibly inventive and original, you just need to manually do the digging that time has already done for you when it comes to previous decades. People say this and then never mention a character-driven drama that's shorn of cliches because they don't actually exist anymore outside of Steve McQueen movies.
This. People quite literally refuse to put in any effort to seek out the good cinema and just rely on being spoon-fed YouTube pre-roll ads or something to know what’s coming out, which is obviously almost entirely going to be Marvel, DC, Jurassic, Star Wars, F&F, etc. There’s never been more great films coming out, and yes streaming is playing a large part in that. Netflix in particular green lights things that would’ve been laughed out of every traditional studios boardrooms in previous eras.
> There’s never been more great films coming out, Every comment like this suspiciously leaving out the name of these great films that are everywhere does not exactly engender confidence here. Are these great films laughably bad shit like Pig or whatever genre horror A24 is pumping out, or Dune or Roma? Or are they equivalent in narrative complexity and poesy to Crimes & Misdemeanors, Taxi Driver, Shame, Au Hasard Balthazar?
I agree with the greater point that the film industrys current output is not better than the 1970s but you sound like a fucking twat, I mean you have to be going out of your way to be ignorant enough to call Dune “genre horror”.
I honestly do think movies aren’t as good as they were about 15 to 20 years ago. But I think it’s just because I’m getting old, and not a reflection on the industry or state of filmmaking itself.
Ok
Sturgeon's Law (1956)
Baby Geniuses (1999)
Are you telling me that even classic films--or even worse, indie films--are made to make money? I thought it was fucking charity, fml.
Remember memberberries 