I was watching The Land Before Time the other day and I noticed that after Littlefoot’s mom dies the film takes 6 mins before he has any interaction with a character that isn’t related to his grief. It took time to let him grieve and that’s why you feel his loss because you experience it with him. You add James Horner’s moving score into the mix and you get a timeless children’s movie that actually challenges the viewers by having them experience his heartache. It’s, like you said, sincere.
Movies today often lack a coherent theme. They're so focused on surprising "modern audiences" with plot twists and unexpected deaths, that the narratives crumble. They try to generate social media buzz with shock value, but neglect to tell a good story. So in the end, the movie feels utterly pointless, and a waste of your time to watch.
All I can say is that it doesn't feel like movies compared to movies 15+ ago or 20 years ago. I can even say Night of the museum felt like a rela movie. It doesn't ry to hard like moderm films nowadays
There’s this one Black Mirror episode where the whole society operates on manufactured positivity for points, and everything has this pastel cotton candy look to it. Looks pretty but feels empty, much like cotton candy itself. That’s what they feel like. Sterile. They want to do romance, but it can’t be too spicy or intimate. They want to do horror, but it can’t go too far. They want to do comedy, but the jokes have to be tame and appealing to the lowest common denominator. No one acts like human beings would, which makes it clear you’re watching actors in fake scenarios. So by the end of the experience you don’t really feel anything.
Great analysis. I've often noticed the same thing. One thing that never fails to remove me from the moment, is when a characters emotions don't progress naturally. Eg; Someone they love is killed, there's a brief moment of loss, and then they're completely back to normal...joking around, for the rest of the movie. That's not how humans behave.
That comparison to Thor really reveals how modern films now are insincere on purpose, ironic on purpose, and adversarial on purpose. I'm not entirely sure why they think this is what audiences want to see, but David Foster Wallace's assessment of terminal irony is abundantly clear in new studio system Hollywood these days. I really wish the industry would get itself out the throes of self aggrandizing and punching at ideals and begin to reflect empathy and humanism again.
The person preaching at you isnt saying what you want to hear. They are saying what they want you to hear. But since you've criticized them, you are a heretic that must be removed from the in group. You are a target of their preaching, but not an influence to it.
Yeah you're onto somehing. Most movies, especially the big expensive ones are very much afraid to be corny or offensive. They're like "Nobody can get angry at this bland joke, right? Put 50 of those in there and everything's gonna be fine" And so the movie ends up without any character, just a quick roller coaster ride that you immediately forget.
Excellent addressing of the subjects of post-modernism vs. modernism. The floor you danced all around goes a step beyond "nothing matters" ... from a creator's point of view, "Nothing I make needs to be, um, good, therefore, I don't have to work hard to be a creator, because I'm not like those people in times when modernism was in vogue." I think you said it. I just felt compelled to put that more concretely.
Your comparison is perfect with Spider-Man 2 and L&T. The former is a massive stand out in terms of emotional sincerity. And yes, it can get corny at times, but that’s because of who we’re following. The character we’re following isn’t a smooth talking James Bond kind of guy, he’s an awkward nerd who hasn’t had a romantic relationship, ever, of course it will sound corny, but it’s genuine and beautiful. L&T was made by Waititi, a guy who has absolutely no clue how human beings work and feel, because he’s the poster boy of insincerity, either when he’s making films, or in his professional life.
When it comes to adaptations, changing the character is not a terrible thing if it services the story being told. But that is kind of a tough line to draw. We have a video out that talks about what makes a good adaptation if you have the time and are interested.
I think this post-modern "insincerity" started in the late 90s when there was a sudden trend of movies questioning our reality by actively presenting it through literary tropes? The Truman Show, The Matrix, Dark City and Scream all done this around the same time. And with the Scream franchise with its parody of a parody Scary Movie franchise becoming so popular, cinema had to continue this meta trend. So in Marvel for example, for the next two decades characters would occasionally acknowledge how bizarre their world has become, pointing out that the existence of wizards, monsters and aliens as not being normal. Hence why you have so many jokes in these movies and shows where characters are constantly winking at the camera. This is not a bad thing if done well, even explicitly. For example I think WandaVision done this excellently, while She Hulk and to a lesser extent, Deadpool have been less sophisticated with it.
I agreed with your philosophical analysis. I first noticed about ten years ago that, “you know what? There hasn’t been a good new villain in a long time.” I wondered about that and it occurred to that of course there hasn’t been. We live in a society that denies the existence of evil. How can you make a good bad guy if evil isn’t real?
A lack of sincerity is a great way of surmising the current state of a large number of recent films. Great analysis overall with thoughtful insight. Subbed
Should be specified to modern American studio films. There's still tons of great foreign and indie films made every year. 2023 was arguably the best year for film in almost a decade.
Post-modernism seems to me like a very nihilistic point of view on the world. And it is impossible for a nihilist to write emotions (other than pessimism and cynicism) that people relate to. How is a nihilist suppose to write about love or heroism or sacrifice or the value of family when they don't believe those things have inherent value?
Mad Max: Fury Road, Blade Runner 2049 and Top Gun: Maverick are the few examples of how to do legacy sequels right. The Star Wars sequels and the Jurassic World trilogy are bad examples of how to do them.
blade runner 2 sucked...the first one is superior, better score, better actors just better movie, too much CGI crap in the new one....and the world doesn't resemble the same one anymore and for the love of gods can someone fire Hans Zimmer from the role of composer here on out? gods so sick of his crap! BR1 presented a movie about a guy killing replicants in a kinda sexy way yet we know the day to day for most people wasn't the best, they didn't have to be overt with stuff...the new movie has nothing else but the brutalism, the hate and depression so no that's not a good movie, it won't stand the test of time one can turn on the original and the score alone is relaxing....and enjoyable all I feel listening to the new movie is hate....
@@judgedrekk2981 Yeah. I can’t say that I don’t go around and passionately express my hate for other films, but I think you are wrong. To each their own I guess, but I very much don’t recall the CGI being at all noticeable whatsoever, and you have no right to bash Hans Zimmer like that. Your take just doesn’t work at all because the world in Blade Runner is not a happy place and I vaguely remember the sequel being at all so overt like you say. It wasn’t that at all. I think it is one of the best movies of the 2010s and one of the best sequels ever made. It doesn’t insult the original, but respects it and builds upon its themes while bringing some much needed nostalgia wherever necessary. I also don’t see how the world in 2049 doesn’t resemble that in the original, because all it did was expand upon it and show different places that had not been explored yet.
@@captainhowlerwilson508 all of zimmer's modern music is trash...sorry he's a hack at best...like I said any other composer would be better, learn to like better music! and I have every right to like and hate anything in the world.... you sir have no right telling me I have no right 1 charge obstructing justice 6 months in the cubes!
@@judgedrekk2981 The most ridiculous point you made though was about the CGI, which I could barely notice, and even if there was it looked so seamless and you seem to think it looks as bad as plenty of recent Marvel movies. If you think this movie has bad CGI, then you clearly don’t understand how they worked behind the scenes because they were all pretty interested in using plenty of practical effects wherever they could. Lastly, Hans Zimmer is not a hack at all, and has produced some of the best scores ever. Yes, you don’t have any right to call him such. You may not be a fan of him, sure, but he is clearly not a hack at all.
@@captainhowlerwilson508 the stupid color coded scenery....it's fake, and obvious that it was manipulated... i am tired of the over reliance on the fake CGI crap...you can't notice? that's on you not me... screw modern movies....
A great example of this in a recent movie was this past Halloween. My gal and I watched The Exorcist 3 (Theatrical cut), and I remember when this movie came out and pretty much everyone sh*t on it at the time, or ignored it. Now, to be fair, you can see the points where the studio cut their own footage in, blatantly. But, overall the experience was one of the best she and I have had in years. Because of that same sincerity. Particularly the dialogue between two friends, which ACTUALLY sounded like old-friend speak! Jokes, random asides, the way two old friends actually speak to each other! I started to care about the characters. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you've got Brad Douriff's monologues, which also don't work without sincerity. To use a lame example, we started watching Monarch: legacy of Monsters, and while it is a series, I think the same rules apply. The dialogue was atrocious (for the first episode, at least) Characters don't realistically react to things, but I quickly realize it's all for the sake of being vague, probably for some half-assed reveal in a later episode. ...and I have grown to HATE expositional dialogue in most modern things: -We need to convey to the audience that these two scientists are married, with kids, and the security man has been traveling with them for 3 years already, but he's a bit of a wildcard. Lines: "Boy, Steve, it sure is great that we all met three years ago, but you're a bit of a wildcard. We need to think about our kids, and did you know it's our two-year anniversary today!?" Or: "I think it's amazing that in the past three years, the two of you can travel around the world, looking for monsters, all while holding down a marriage and taking care of kids." "Maybe someday you'll have kids, major!" "Oh, no. I'M NEVER GOING TO HAVE KIDS. EVER. NEVER EVER." (Big reveal in episode 6, he's a secret father.) I haven't seen past episode 2 yet, but I can assume...
I thought this was a really interesting video because you speak so directly to the issue of sincerely and earnestness within the context of almost... um... like... embodied systems of value within films. When the world being created within a film so strongly discourages viewers from thinking about, reacting to, or analyzing real feeling moments of human interaction, it feels like the viewer is almost left to do the heavy lifting of "figuring out why anyone is supposed to care about this story" on their own .
Oh what a load of tripe. They are still making them even after they don't get good ratings. Its not entertainment driven, its politically driven. And its all nepotism now too. And because of these main factors, we will not see a good movie until the rich people driven by agenda go away.
Making movies is scary for those putting up the money. The script is now the kernel of an idea, but is still fundamentally a gamble. The more things you can append to it, the more secure you will feel. These crutches include several dozen layers of executive producers, script consultants, and lots and lots of cgi. The script goes out of the window as these crutches slowly smother the work.
I feel like this is why you can sit through multiple big budget films, and A) Not have any kind of overall reaction for the characters or their choices, and B) Cannot remember a single important thing or simple plot point from said movie(s).
I am pretty sure we just forget old bad movies. Check release lists for 1995-1999 for example and compare the full list to the few dozen "timeless classics" . We just collectively forgot the bland majority.
The way from good story telling to bad story telling goes trough the life experience and education of the writers. And in this regard there is a shift from writers that had a real life full of risks to writers that at least read a lot of books to writers that only watched Movies and now even to writers that never had any real lfe beside of watching TV and playing Video Games. Depending on the life experience and the amount of read books and watched Movies by the writers the stories go from deep and real (even in Comedies and Genre Movies and Shows) to childlike, incoherent and ironically distanced.
Totally agree with you. Books and plays are edited and honed until the final product is released to the public. They are designed to tell a certain story. TV and video games are by design episodic entertainments for instant gratification. There's nothing wrong with that for a diversion but they aren't as satisfying as a well-told story.
I got into a debate recently in which my partner was desperately trying to defend the whole "Death of the Author" "everything is subjective" BS. Guy was twisting himself into a pretzel, he used like seven logical fallacies in rapid fire, ranging from the ever-present strawmanning to outright going for twofer of goalpost moving and Chewbacca defense, when I disproved his claim of "noone has ever come up with an objective standard definition of art" by citing the Oxford dictionary definition. He had a small coniption, about how ridiclous it is that I need a dictionary to tell me what art is, and that language is constantly chaning...It was honestly depressing and impressive how much he wanted to reject reality.
All things that exist, even if it is difficult to define, even if it does not have form, has a definition. That goes all the way back to Plato and the universals. I've had debates like that with the other guy who runs this channel all the time, so I get your frustration!
I agree with “death of the author”, but whole-throatedly support you on the matter of objective standards for art. My best argument for “death of the author” can be summarized thus: a piece of art does not mean what the artist says it means. A piece of art means what it’s content depicts/evokes. If a writer-director makes a film about the tragedy of conflict, and of people coerced by their government to sacrifice their lives for nothing, it doesn’t matter if he says in an interview that it’s actually a story about heroism, or patriotism, or love, or duty. Anyone can draw evidence from the project itself, and everyone has equal right to bring forth the most faithful interpretation of the product, rank-be-damned.
@@realistic_delinquent In that case, you don't actually agree with "Death of the Author" concept at all, you just think you do, because you only know the first half, for which it is named. The whole phrase actually goes "The Death of the Author, is the Birth of the Reader". Barthes' thesis was actually that it's wrong to try to use intentions and biographical data to analyze the true meaning of a work, and instead every reader's own subjective interpretation takes primacy over the author's intent. So Death of the Author actually denies both the author's intent, and the objectively meaning of the art, and puts the job of gleaming it's meaning squarely on the reader. This is of course utterly stupid, because if the reader's subjective interpretation takes primacy, then Barthes has no objective basis to declare that the reader's subjective interpretation takes primacy, because to make such a declarition would be an argument from authority, which he does not have, because subjective interpretation take primacy, so it directly leads to circular reasoning.
I dunno. It just seems to me movies don’t want to “offend” anyone, so they don’t go deep. There are no risks. They pick a tone and don’t go outside of that range. No one can feel too happy or too sad or too angry. Most stuff I watch I wonder why people either loved it or hated it so much when it was just meh to me or had a few good moments but was average overall. An example was Barbie. I feel like I missed something and left feeling meh. I valued Ken’s arc so much more and still haven’t figured out why completely. He was more relatable I suppose. He was someone who wanted more. Mostly with movies, I feel like I am being patronized with flashy action sequences and cgi rather than story. When all a character wants in a story is a maguffin, how can we relate? Might as well make a fine tuned action sequence filled with cgi about me trying to find my remote…that i lost for the 100th time. There are no stakes.
As far as Hollywood movies go, the first big shift came in the 1950's when method acting took over and everything had to be "realistic" to be good. Gone were the Hollywood glamor type of films, or the Spencer Tracy "remember your lines and don't bump into the furniture" style of acting. It killed genres like westerns and musicals because they weren't "real" enough for the audiences. The next came in the 1980's when corporations took over movie studios and films became product: moviemaking was just one arm of their profit-making endeavors, so they were approached in that respect. Yes, in the Golden Age of the Studio System making money was a bottom line, but movies were their ONLY product so they put everything into them - nowadays they are equal to theme parks, merchandising and totally non-related entertainment products that all these corporations churn out.
I think one of the reasons is that there was a point where it was “hip” to flip the script on previous movie story tropes. However they flipped the script so many times that it is the new norm. So what was once a shock/talking point/omg did you see that is “yawn not again”. Plus hollywood started to be by the numbers - hiring to fill slots not talent. My hope is now AI/CGI software is becoming more available that talented individuals who had no voice before (ie not related to or sleeping with or sucking up to the hollywood elite) will be able to make series/movies and provide them on youtube/patreon/etc.
I think that collectively audiences have changed. Hollywood merely tries to give audiences what they want. Spectacle (CGI), surprises, snarky snappy dialogue that seems naturalistic, easily understandable surface level "drama" often with immediate comic relief, flashes of sexuality, socially conscious messaging that reinforces a world view, quick storytelling and editing for the attention deficient, and, money making (safe formulas, internally resisting unions, product placement, swinging for the fences every time) over artistic merit. I have been living overseas for a decade now exposed to non-American films, and I notice the contrast when I come back to the states. American movies now are aimed at a less sophisticated demographic it seems. And ironically, it is television that has ascended in quality perhaps because they have the advantage of a long (10-12 hour) storytelling format, while movies are limited to succinctly tell and finish a story in 2 hours.
I think there is also another form of sincerity missing, namely what the movie wants to be. Like with the forced comedy "hey look I'm entertaining" while at the same time being emberassed of just being entertainment and trying to be more deep, mixing two types of stories that just clash with each other. Then there are also movies that try to hard to be deep and meaningfull, but either failing at it, or doing it out of disrespect, like with the disney adopatation, who try to "fix" there source material. But to get back to the first point, the emberasment of being just entertainment, where does this emberasment come from? Why does everything now have to be deep or have a big message? You know waht where some ofthe best movies I have seen the last few years? Violent nights, dungeon and dragons, puss in boots2 and trolls 3. Dumb, silly but also a lot fun and entertaining, this movies knew exactly what they are and fully embraced it with any sort of sarcasm or subverting of epectation. Same goes for video games. Now every AAA title has to be made for afuture netflix adoptation, with the game aspect comming as last priority- I have seen at least 8 "games are not fun anymore" videos and everyone was about the AAA industry. Then I recently tried evil west. A modern game from an AA studio... it played like a ps3 game and the story was like an early 2000 popcorn flick and it was sooooo refreshing, a game that was just a game with a simple, dumb but hella fun story. Studios and sometimes the audience need to stop with forcing these high expectations onto everything. At least that my opinion
I agree and have always felt that there is value in simply "not taking yourself so seriously!" Just look at early Peter Jackson before he did Lord of the Rings. He was making B-movie horror and experimenting with how to make something within the medium itself before moving on the bigger more ambitious projects.
Another high-expectation problem is trying to manufacture blockbusters. Every movie won't be a hit franchise! A lot of the bad Marvel and Star Wars sequels and DC movies failed because the studio budgets were over $ 100 million to 1 billion on CGI special effects. Other reasons include less popular superheroes and classic Star Wars characters being killed off or upstaged, actors dying, etc.@@AKen_Films
Even the "good" contemporary films seem to lack the staying power of the earlier (pre-2000) films. I can watch CASABLANCA over and over again. The current crop? Once, thank you very much.
I personally think one of the big reasons why movies don't feel sincere anymore is due to the popularity of meta storytelling. One of the worst things that happened to entertainment was making fourth wall breaks and referential humor mainstream. A lot of people blame the MCU, Deadpool, James Gunn, etc but honestly it started back as far as Scream. It appeals to the audience being in the know on a joke or an observation, which has to then leave the scene it's in in order to connect to the audience instead of the people on screen. I understand that this kind of storytelling can make a character seem more relatable, but relatability should come from the narrative's characterizations that the audience resonates with, not the spoon fed references to our pop culture. And the lack of world building is why there are these constant references to out-world culture instead of anything in-world. If you're going to reference something in your movies, why not reference things that happened within the film/franchise instead of referencing things that happened in our real world, be it pop culture, politics, current events, etc? Can we still call it escapism if the allusions are so overt? And meta storytelling has the ironic consequence of not allowing you to engage deeper than surface level into a story because of this refusal to get deep into its own story with deflections of nostalgia mining and tongue-in-cheek references. Also, meta storytelling is just as much about tone and attitude as it is substance. I'm so over movies acting like they're embarrassed of what they are and constantly trying to invite you into the "joke" at it's own expense. If you are a COMIC BOOK MOVIE, why have a character comment on how stupid an outfit looks, or how dumb someone's superhero name is? These are hallmarks of the genre!!! Narratively it should be a non-issue! Imagine if Keaton said the iconic "I'm Batman" line only to have the terrified goon start giggling "Ayo, seriously?" Likewise, if it's a HORROR MOVIE, we know a lot of the decisions are dumb, but I don't need a character to say, "I shouldn't go in there, this is not a bad horror movie!" Can we play some things straight? Can we just accept the camp and the tropes of the genre instead of trying to apologize for, subvert, or elbow each other over it?
Taika Waititi could've really done something powerful with that scene where Jane confesses that she has cancer. The harsh juxtaposition of such a tragic, grounded concept agains such a fantastical, super-heroic backdrop could have really hit us. Compare this to the last Guardians of the Galaxy film, where Rocket flashbacks to the deaths of this friends. Like... That was filmed honestly and true, not full of stupid one-liners. I was really let down by the last Thor film. The tragedy of Jane vs. the theme of the villain (loss and tragedy) was really a missed opportunity.
Modern movies are drowned in exposition both emotionally and contextually. The first rule is show dont tell. Movies today only Tell while putting the show in the trunk. All new movies have characters that are only present to be an exposition dump.
If today’s movie industry weren’t allowed to do reboots, remakes, sequels and prequels, there wouldn’t be ANY new movies coming out, either in theaters or on streaming services. THAT’S why modern movies suck. While sequels did exist in decades past, they weren’t the ONLY way for the entertainment industry to entertain moviegoers. Quite often you hear people say all the fun and enjoyment of a modern movie is completely missing from movies, and they’re correct. In the summer of 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark wasn’t a reboot, remake or sequel. Indiana Jones was an entirely new character inspired by different Saturday morning adventure serials George Lucas and Steven Spielberg saw in movie theaters and on TV. But today, instead of coming up with a story or character inspired by an earlier genre, while at the same time borrowing from other genres and experiences to synthesize an entirely new thrilling story, we have to have the same exact character played by an actor who’s now in his 80s and well past his physical prime and believability as an action hero, AND we have to have a young female Mary Sue character who is fantastic at everything and surpasses anything that Indiana Jones has done or can do. This ISN’T FUN and NO ONE wants to pay money to see that. What’s worse is this sort of reheated frozen pizza format is happening again and again, story after story, actor after actor. Most movies are bland and uninteresting, audiences who watch movies are sick of this, and they’ll continue to stay away in greater numbers from movie theaters until things really make a significant change.
A lot of it doesn’t even have anything to do with the movies individually. I’ve been a film buff for a while now, since the 90s, trust me, the majority of movies have always sucked. It’s called the Sturgeon’s law. Today, it has everything to do with politics. Hollywood has always been liberal, but in today’s world ppl have had it with the messages that these movies have always been trying to broadcast. It’s not the movies, it’s the politics, there’s a culture war happening, and the film industry has become a casualty to it, considering the side they’ve always taken.
I don't get why so many people seem to perceive Hollywood as liberal. It's only a thin surface level of what we tend to call liberal. Peel back those layers and look with a critical eye, and you'll see Hollywood has always been conservative straight white male dominated just like every other industry in America.
Or maybe we are just tired of movies now because we have seen so many over the years. Humans get bored and I think the movies prove that. I am just annoyed by shows, movies, etc... I do agree that movies aren't working anymore.
Sequel-itis and franch-itis, ESG loan benefits, as well as the absolute unwillingness of studios to take a measured risk when fronting so much laundered money, are the reasons most cinema-bait movies are so bad. If you want a good to great piece of media, you have to look at the middle budget project from the middle budget studio, or more obscure even than that. My favourite films of this decade have all had budgets under $100m. Most much less, but Puss in boots… Got’damn.
MJ was not only testing to see if Peter loved her by kissing her. Remember, she already kissed him in the first movie, the famous upside down kiss, and at the end, she kisses him again at the funeral. She grabs her lips, having felt his lips familiar. Before the cafe scene in Spider-man 2, she kisses her boyfriend upside down while he's on the couch, which inspires her to call Peter. She isn't just testing Peter's love. She already suspects Peter is Spider-man and wants confirmation by feeling his lips. She says it at the end. "I think I always knew." Which brings me to another thing films today lack. Subtlety. All that can be deduced by the actions of the characters rather than exposition dumps.
Ohmygod I was thinking this EXACT thing- all my alltime faves have been "old" movies, just that feeling of "epicness", of sitting back in your chair and just going "whoah"- you don't seem to get that these days with modern cinema. Lol I literally just finished watching "The One" so I'm probably just feeling all nostalgic- that movie had everything!! And it was one of the first to kinda introduce us to the "multiverse" theory, which was clever at first but sooo done to death now. Just that last scene in "The One"- that dawning realization that he is doomed to do that FOREVER- ohmygod- chef's kiss😂😂However with modern movies it's more like a wry smile at the end, like "yeah, okay, you got me, that was good"...I dunno if the change in just myself growing up and getting all cynical ("...when you grow up, your heart dies"- Boom!! "Breafast Club"!! Another alltime fave!!!)...lol, ultimately, I just think these days they're way too into showing off about how "clever" the movie is that they forgot to add any heart
I think the problem is writers who have NO life experience. They never had a relationship with abyone, never had to suffer any kind of loss, never experienced the ups and downs of life. If you have no experience, how can you write about things you know nothing about? And make it believable. Also directors only care about special effects. If you pour on the special effects you don't have to have character development or even a plot!!
The lack of authenticity is just one symptom, not the root cause of the problem. Contemporary IPs are given meat grinder treatment by the studios, which has come to include attitudes from the writers and directors that consider themselves edgy buy openly displaying irreverence to the source material which ranges anywhere from character-breaking contemporary banter ("they flly now!") to radical character changes, inconsistent with the original IP (grumpy hobo Luke, manic Spock, foul mouthed starfleet officers,etc)
24:00 This right here is why for the last 10-15 years I have preferred movies/drama series from Japan and South Korea. Movies and TV shows from the US seem deathly afraid of making their audience feel anything. Conversely, shows from Japan and South Korea exhibit no such fear. Like, when is the last time you watched a show from the greater US entertainment industry that made you cry?
I also went to see it. It was flashy, but didn't stick many of the landings that the original did. Just as a comparison alone, it was bad. And to be fair, not a lot was out that weekend lol
the problem is, as time goes on it seems to apparently get worse, that these films we watch are reflecting the psyche and minds of the people that are writing the scripts at the time. and as we witness, the more modern minds are filled with ideas not based on experience, but rather, how they view reality is....as if watching it from afar while trying to inject their stupid 'witty humor' about the moment they are trying so convincingly to convey. if they just took themselves out of what they are writing then it would be 1000% better.
Because the medium is industrialized. Industrialization puts the focus on product availability (i.e. the quantity of content) rather than ideas themselves. Imagine a room full of food, but all of it is from National fast food chains. Sure, you have things people can eat and a lot of them. But what you don't have is a nourishing meal for even one of them.
I'd argue that _Everything Everywhere_ isn't a philosophically postmodernist movie even if it is artistically postmodern. Philosophically it's more existentialist, like _"Yes the universe is absurd and unknowable, but there is meaning to be found."_
Postmodernism is a complex phenomenon - definitely the things you mention are part of it, but so are many other things. By virtue of being alive now, you are postmodern, even if you don't realize it. It's the water we swim in. It's a skeptical reaction to modernism's belief that the world can be fully understood and controlled through reason. See also Russell & Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica" and Goedel's incompleteness theorems, which together found unexpected limits on mathematics. That all went down almost a hundred years ago, but the implications of big intellectual shifts like that can take a long time to play out. The ordering is something like Enlightenment -> Counter-enlightenment (including romanticism, Great Awakening religious revivals, etc.) -> Modernism (Darwin, Freud, etc.) -> Postmodernism (skepticism of grand narratives and meaning itself, e.g. Borges, Derrida---of course, skepticism is part of science, which is arch modernism, so the distinctions are muddy). There's an oscillation occurring that represents the unresolved relationship between the objective (scientific) and subjective (experiential) facets of reality. How to reconcile these two manifestly different but co-existing modes of being is one of the remaining grand challenges of science and philosophy, often posed as the hard problem of consciousness. (Apologies if I'm overexplaining.) Each swing of the pendulum emphasizes one or the other mode, whatever is opposite of the swing that came before it. (If you want to step further out on that limb, you could hypothesize that the alternating emphases represent trends over time in the dominance of left- or right-hemisphere modes of understanding.) And that unresolved tension comes out in our art. Someday these crappy postmodern movies may be highly regarded as the struggles of a culture to grapple with the most profound problems. But also a lot of them suck, because the philosophical issues are too profound to get an easy handle on, and it's too ivory tower for the average person. EEAAO showed that it's possible to break through the impasse and produce something that both grapples with these deep issues, and is a hell of a lot of fun. Not to mention that it accepts that people need constructive ways of viewing the world to move forward with their day to day lives, instead of deconstructing everything to hell. Thanks for the video!
My personal criteria for what makes a film good are character moments. More recent MCU movies (I don’t care for the tv shows) are focused on story first and characters second. Guardians of the galaxy was a character driven story and focused on the cast of the movie, while other MCU projects like Quantumainia, Love and Thunder, and Multiverse of Madness quickly rush through character moments in an effort to tell the next joke or introduce the next character. I didn’t even really like Thor Ragnarok that much because it felt like such a departure for the character of Thor to just turn him into another vessel to tell jokes, or the fact that Valkyrie has no real connection with Thor outside of them both being asguardian. Yeah the jokes are well written but you could remove the half of the movie that has Hela in it and it could still function as its own story and thats kind of a big problem. It feels like a 2 hour long TV special where there’s an A plot and a B plot and they just kinda tie into each other at the end. Even endgame and infinity war are on two separate levels of quality because one movie focuses on a character study of a villain who can be framed as a hero while endgame (still a good movie I’m not saying it isn’t) is moreso a journey through different setpieces, but I can excuse that because it’s the climax of the Infinity saga, and it had 22 films beforehand to establish characters
and on top of that, every new story they tell creates another long list of plot holes and contradictions that were set up in the pervious film. so you can't even enjoy the story. You just have badly imitated Joss Whedon humour.
You just watch the wrong films but tbf it’s difficult to watch the gems in the US. My theatre shows any kind of film from Europe and Asia and that’s like 90% of the films I watch. There’s more out there than Hollywood blockbusters.
Ha. Even the list of "good movies" is really stretching the definition of good. I feel bad that for Gen Z, TikTok is more culturally important than any cinema release in their lifetime.
As far as Thor: Love and Thunder goes, all of your critiques are absolutely valid. One thing, though... You assume they actually wrote a script and planned the scenes out, and that might only be half right for most of this movie.
I think about the Harry Potter movies versus the Harry Potter books. Let's take a look at the character of Hermione Granger. In the movie she came off as kind of sassy, whereas in the books she seemed more sincere. For example, that "it's levi OH sa, not levi oh SAR" scene, while it garnered some amusement from the audience, it was more sincere in the books. Movie Hermione came off like she was trying to show Ron up, while book Hermione sounded like she was actually trying to be helpful. And the ending of the Half-Blood Prince book was really sad, but you didn't really feel that in the movie. And the book had the scene where Hermione was freaking out about some exam grades even though she did the best out of herself, Harry, Ron and presumably everyone in her year.
I would compare recent movies to perhaps the later 60s through the end of the 70s.. Did good movies exist? Yes. Masterpieces were even made. But, by and large, these were the crap years of cinema, filled with then current-day themes that do not translate outside of the era. Lots of exploitation pieces. Lots of pop junk that no one cares about anymore. -- What do we have today? Again, it's "current year" themes, rather than universally timeless stories. Lots of exploitation movies, banking on gender, race, and sticking it to "the man" to get a rise out of the audience. Endless pop culture rubbish that abandons the basics of good filmmaking for a quick cash grab. The films are being made by people who don't understand what makes a great film, or they simply don't care and just want the quick cash. There ARE great films and filmmakers out there currently, but they are the needle in a haystack, rather than the needle in a needle stack which we've had in other eras of cinema.
I like your historical angle! It puts the issue into proper perspective and gets us out of nostalgia-based Gen Z-hating. Most movies of any era are dated B-movies by greedy, less-talented directors, screenwriters, and actors.
Hmmm I would venture to say that May December, Poor Things, and Tar (to name some recent examples) are all postmodernist films. And EEAAO, which you mention, seems to answer your question-how do you craft a stakes/emotion/authenticity when conventional narrative and where nothing is real and nothing matters. Anyway, I just mean that it’s a bit reductionist to say a lack of sincerity is why contemporary movies are bad. Also it’s confusing to title your video “the modern problem” then use the term “modern” in a different way. I loved your analysis of the two scenes!
I will say it bluntly - agendas. When you impose agendas into movies (whatever they may be), it usually stifles creativity, and the most important part of the movie - The Story - suffers. Let directors make the movie they want to without tying one hand behind their back.
I don’t think it’s a new phenomenon and I may be in the minority, but the last crusade really illustrates this to me. Loved it as a kid, a favorite, but rewatching as an adult makes me realize it’s a fairly shit, lazy follow up from the two that came before it. Not saying I don’t still love it but that’s nostalgia talking, and nostalgia has a huge impact on how we judge art over our years as they go
Back in the late 2000s/early 2010s, many of these CEOs and producers began to use the word "content". Movies have sucked since they used that model. It's very very difficult for me to be a fan of any film post-2010. Never felt this way prior to that. Peddling overt ideological propaganda is a major reason, as well, but treating it as pre-packaged content is the flaw here, especially as they kill off the mid-budget that previously allowed great writers and directors to flourish. With the mid budget, you got actual cinematic masterpieces and/or actual unique IPs that generate the studios long term money. Without it, it's shoddy indie films by rich kids or its big budget corporate films. Postmodernism.....there have been great literature and films that reflect the themes and ideas behind it so I don't think that would be a legitimate argument. Maybe the average filmmaker actually taking the concepts of postmodernism seriously and not ironically (which is what PoMo is meant to reflect....a brief pause to marvel at the chaos before ignoring it altogether, causing us to be wary of the individual in charge/the hero and their perspective but accepting them simultaneously) makes it ruinous for films since it no longer has meaning and is just random scenes put together. Therefore, it lacks sincerity. If anything, it is meta-modernism which is what kills film since it's the kind of pandering nudge-nudge-wink-wink at the camera that ruins it with superficial trends that don't age well. Again, it kills the sincerity as it ignores the universalism and authenticity of the experience.
You could be right about that. It seems to me that if one were to truly live by the philosophy inherent in post-modernist claims then, as you said, sincerity will be left at the door. It's possible to be more specific with just exactly what we're talking about, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I was trying to find something a bit broader that these more specific issues stem from. But I do think you're spot on here. Thanks for the comment!
Why modern movies suck? Over saturation and repetition. These are both part of the same problem. If you've seen one MCU film, you've pretty much seen them all (with limited exceptions (GOTG)). When you ask why 'modern movies' suck, you specifically mean modern Hollywood blockbuster movies. I've seen plenty of excellent indie, non-studio or foreign films recently. Netflix occasionally turns out a winner (Amazon, not so much). The problem is how can the audience break the studio's self-defeating addiction to making endless versions of the same thing for diminishing returns? Paul Thomas Anderson, Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Scorsese, Wes Anderson still make large budget (maybe not in the Andersons' case) studio films that are interesting and unique. Too many films are just paint by numbers repeats of the same IP. The obvious solution is to stop watching crappy films (which people seem to be doing anyway). The more pro-active option would be for studios to look to upcoming talent with interesting ideas that AREN'T overtly political but are entertaining and don't lecture to you. There are plenty of ideas and even standing IP that could be made into big budget films if done well.
I think there are historic and cultural shifts motivated by money responsible for the decline of cinema. 1997 Hong Kong, a long time British Colony, formally got handed over to the Peoples Republic of China. Hong Kong was very Western in comparison to the rest of China. This transition would be like your older sibling was leaving for college and telling you that you can have all their stuff. China inherited the wealth, expertise, social practices and cultural exposure that Hong Kong had. So now here is a nation that prior to this had little exposure to Western cinema who now has the wealth and leisure time to enjoy cinema. Hollywood saw this and over the past 27 years has been courting the Asian movie goer. But Hollywood has this mild understanding of what sells in Asian. Pretty, bright colors, action without purpose and shallow story. Basically a roller coaster ride. So we get Transformers movies or World of Warcraft. Huge hits in Asian and thoroughly criticized here. Keep the stories simple so it's easier to dub or translate for Asian markets. So that means our movies get dumbed down. Not for the "normie" in Nebraska like Hollywood would used to do. Now the added complication of diversity and progressive sentiments Hollywood is trying to plant their films. Hollywood has always tried to cast the widest net in order to get the biggest audience. But they've put the pedal to the metal and prioritized progressive ideas over story. Virtue signaling at the sake of story. This doesn't land with 50% of the USA. But there is an added complication of trying to be progressive AND sell your movie to a culture that has very different perceptions and standards. Look at China's Ugly Betty versus the US Ugly Betty. Even the Chinese say theirs wasn't as ugly as ours. Again they go to cinema and TV for escapism and to live in an ideal world for brief moments. It's funny that so much of the world worked to copy US cinema and emulate that success but now we're not making movies for US audiences.
People have been saying modern movies/art/music/culture sucks since the 30's, When you start to adopt this mindset, it means one thing; you're old and it's about time you died. Also Thor Love and Thunder > The Dark Knight
Why modern movies suck the creators have forgotten their job is to entertain, the movie magic to whisk you away to the past, the distant future or a fanatsy land of make believe. There are rules written and unwritten that hollywood has to follow, like the old Hays Code, these rules are representation and diversity to reflect the modern world and what you are allowed to show and not show on screen. If you don't follow these rules it will be unlikely you will get funding and if you do get funding and make the movie, you will be punished by not allowed to be considered for any awards. Hollywood abandoned the Hays Code cause their movies where no longer popular and movies made outside the states where being successful.
Just compare an entire season's worth of narrative from Star Trek Discovery to ANY single episode of Next Generation (even part ones of two-parters). TNG will come out on top every time, because they had writers who cared.
I was watching The Land Before Time the other day and I noticed that after Littlefoot’s mom dies the film takes 6 mins before he has any interaction with a character that isn’t related to his grief. It took time to let him grieve and that’s why you feel his loss because you experience it with him. You add James Horner’s moving score into the mix and you get a timeless children’s movie that actually challenges the viewers by having them experience his heartache. It’s, like you said, sincere.
Movies today often lack a coherent theme. They're so focused on surprising "modern audiences" with plot twists and unexpected deaths, that the narratives crumble. They try to generate social media buzz with shock value, but neglect to tell a good story. So in the end, the movie feels utterly pointless, and a waste of your time to watch.
All I can say is that it doesn't feel like movies compared to movies 15+ ago or 20 years ago. I can even say Night of the museum felt like a rela movie. It doesn't ry to hard like moderm films nowadays
There’s this one Black Mirror episode where the whole society operates on manufactured positivity for points, and everything has this pastel cotton candy look to it. Looks pretty but feels empty, much like cotton candy itself.
That’s what they feel like. Sterile. They want to do romance, but it can’t be too spicy or intimate. They want to do horror, but it can’t go too far. They want to do comedy, but the jokes have to be tame and appealing to the lowest common denominator. No one acts like human beings would, which makes it clear you’re watching actors in fake scenarios.
So by the end of the experience you don’t really feel anything.
Yeah.. And being scared of getting cancelled unnecessarily.
That’s why I loved Bottoms so much. It went there and it felt like watching a teen movie from the early 2000s
They make romance spicy and intimate but only when it’s LGBT and not a strong masculine character with a vulnerable feminine character
It the PG13 trope of movies making it for everyone and in turn pleasing no one.
Nosedive
Great analysis. I've often noticed the same thing. One thing that never fails to remove me from the moment, is when a characters emotions don't progress naturally. Eg; Someone they love is killed, there's a brief moment of loss, and then they're completely back to normal...joking around, for the rest of the movie. That's not how humans behave.
In super-hero movies, everybody acts like they're in college. That's worn out.
That comparison to Thor really reveals how modern films now are insincere on purpose, ironic on purpose, and adversarial on purpose. I'm not entirely sure why they think this is what audiences want to see, but David Foster Wallace's assessment of terminal irony is abundantly clear in new studio system Hollywood these days. I really wish the industry would get itself out the throes of self aggrandizing and punching at ideals and begin to reflect empathy and humanism again.
The person preaching at you isnt saying what you want to hear. They are saying what they want you to hear. But since you've criticized them, you are a heretic that must be removed from the in group. You are a target of their preaching, but not an influence to it.
Yeah you're onto somehing. Most movies, especially the big expensive ones are very much afraid to be corny or offensive. They're like "Nobody can get angry at this bland joke, right? Put 50 of those in there and everything's gonna be fine" And so the movie ends up without any character, just a quick roller coaster ride that you immediately forget.
Excellent addressing of the subjects of post-modernism vs. modernism. The floor you danced all around goes a step beyond "nothing matters" ... from a creator's point of view, "Nothing I make needs to be, um, good, therefore, I don't have to work hard to be a creator, because I'm not like those people in times when modernism was in vogue." I think you said it. I just felt compelled to put that more concretely.
Your comparison is perfect with Spider-Man 2 and L&T. The former is a massive stand out in terms of emotional sincerity. And yes, it can get corny at times, but that’s because of who we’re following. The character we’re following isn’t a smooth talking James Bond kind of guy, he’s an awkward nerd who hasn’t had a romantic relationship, ever, of course it will sound corny, but it’s genuine and beautiful.
L&T was made by Waititi, a guy who has absolutely no clue how human beings work and feel, because he’s the poster boy of insincerity, either when he’s making films, or in his professional life.
Peter's not even nearly as corny in any depiction before or since, paperback or not.
@@AugustRx You clearly haven’t read the original comics.
@@alexman378 He's a douchebag and his villains are corny not the comics
When it comes to adaptations, changing the character is not a terrible thing if it services the story being told. But that is kind of a tough line to draw. We have a video out that talks about what makes a good adaptation if you have the time and are interested.
Funny because Taika's Hunt for the Wilderpeople had a lot of wholesomeness. I guess he lost it once he became commercially successful.
I think this post-modern "insincerity" started in the late 90s when there was a sudden trend of movies questioning our reality by actively presenting it through literary tropes? The Truman Show, The Matrix, Dark City and Scream all done this around the same time. And with the Scream franchise with its parody of a parody Scary Movie franchise becoming so popular, cinema had to continue this meta trend. So in Marvel for example, for the next two decades characters would occasionally acknowledge how bizarre their world has become, pointing out that the existence of wizards, monsters and aliens as not being normal. Hence why you have so many jokes in these movies and shows where characters are constantly winking at the camera. This is not a bad thing if done well, even explicitly. For example I think WandaVision done this excellently, while She Hulk and to a lesser extent, Deadpool have been less sophisticated with it.
That’s what you get when you have a team of 20 writers in a room.
I agreed with your philosophical analysis. I first noticed about ten years ago that, “you know what? There hasn’t been a good new villain in a long time.” I wondered about that and it occurred to that of course there hasn’t been. We live in a society that denies the existence of evil. How can you make a good bad guy if evil isn’t real?
It really says something, when an irredeemably evil villain, like High Evolutionary, feels like the exception rather than the rule in cinema nowadays.
"That just happened" - the death of sincerity
Congrats on hitting 1k guys!! Proud of you all for working so hard, keep going!! 🥳🥳
A lack of sincerity is a great way of surmising the current state of a large number of recent films. Great analysis overall with thoughtful insight. Subbed
Movies in the past made you think....Modern movies TELL YOU what to think.
If you think movies in the past didn't tell people what to think, look up the Hayes Code. You'll learn alot.
Should be specified to modern American studio films. There's still tons of great foreign and indie films made every year. 2023 was arguably the best year for film in almost a decade.
Post-modernism seems to me like a very nihilistic point of view on the world. And it is impossible for a nihilist to write emotions (other than pessimism and cynicism) that people relate to. How is a nihilist suppose to write about love or heroism or sacrifice or the value of family when they don't believe those things have inherent value?
finally, someone who puts Over the Hedge in the same sentence as Citizen Kane and Fight Club
Mad Max: Fury Road, Blade Runner 2049 and Top Gun: Maverick are the few examples of how to do legacy sequels right. The Star Wars sequels and the Jurassic World trilogy are bad examples of how to do them.
blade runner 2 sucked...the first one is superior, better score, better actors just better movie, too much CGI crap in the new one....and the world doesn't resemble the same one anymore
and for the love of gods can someone fire Hans Zimmer from the role of composer here on out? gods so sick of his crap!
BR1 presented a movie about a guy killing replicants in a kinda sexy way yet we know the day to day for most people wasn't the best, they didn't have to be overt with stuff...the new movie has nothing else but the brutalism, the hate and depression so no that's not a good movie, it won't stand the test of time
one can turn on the original and the score alone is relaxing....and enjoyable all I feel listening to the new movie is hate....
@@judgedrekk2981 Yeah. I can’t say that I don’t go around and passionately express my hate for other films, but I think you are wrong. To each their own I guess, but I very much don’t recall the CGI being at all noticeable whatsoever, and you have no right to bash Hans Zimmer like that. Your take just doesn’t work at all because the world in Blade Runner is not a happy place and I vaguely remember the sequel being at all so overt like you say. It wasn’t that at all. I think it is one of the best movies of the 2010s and one of the best sequels ever made. It doesn’t insult the original, but respects it and builds upon its themes while bringing some much needed nostalgia wherever necessary.
I also don’t see how the world in 2049 doesn’t resemble that in the original, because all it did was expand upon it and show different places that had not been explored yet.
@@captainhowlerwilson508 all of zimmer's modern music is trash...sorry he's a hack at best...like I said any other composer would be better, learn to like better music! and I have every right to like and hate anything in the world....
you sir have no right telling me I have no right
1 charge obstructing justice 6 months in the cubes!
@@judgedrekk2981 The most ridiculous point you made though was about the CGI, which I could barely notice, and even if there was it looked so seamless and you seem to think it looks as bad as plenty of recent Marvel movies. If you think this movie has bad CGI, then you clearly don’t understand how they worked behind the scenes because they were all pretty interested in using plenty of practical effects wherever they could. Lastly, Hans Zimmer is not a hack at all, and has produced some of the best scores ever. Yes, you don’t have any right to call him such. You may not be a fan of him, sure, but he is clearly not a hack at all.
@@captainhowlerwilson508 the stupid color coded scenery....it's fake, and obvious that it was manipulated...
i am tired of the over reliance on the fake CGI crap...you can't notice? that's on you not me...
screw modern movies....
A great example of this in a recent movie was this past Halloween. My gal and I watched The Exorcist 3 (Theatrical cut), and I remember when this movie came out and pretty much everyone sh*t on it at the time, or ignored it. Now, to be fair, you can see the points where the studio cut their own footage in, blatantly. But, overall the experience was one of the best she and I have had in years. Because of that same sincerity. Particularly the dialogue between two friends, which ACTUALLY sounded like old-friend speak! Jokes, random asides, the way two old friends actually speak to each other! I started to care about the characters. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you've got Brad Douriff's monologues, which also don't work without sincerity.
To use a lame example, we started watching Monarch: legacy of Monsters, and while it is a series, I think the same rules apply. The dialogue was atrocious (for the first episode, at least) Characters don't realistically react to things, but I quickly realize it's all for the sake of being vague, probably for some half-assed reveal in a later episode.
...and I have grown to HATE expositional dialogue in most modern things:
-We need to convey to the audience that these two scientists are married, with kids, and the security man has been traveling with them for 3 years already, but he's a bit of a wildcard.
Lines: "Boy, Steve, it sure is great that we all met three years ago, but you're a bit of a wildcard. We need to think about our kids, and did you know it's our two-year anniversary today!?"
Or: "I think it's amazing that in the past three years, the two of you can travel around the world, looking for monsters, all while holding down a marriage and taking care of kids."
"Maybe someday you'll have kids, major!"
"Oh, no. I'M NEVER GOING TO HAVE KIDS. EVER. NEVER EVER." (Big reveal in episode 6, he's a secret father.)
I haven't seen past episode 2 yet, but I can assume...
I thought this was a really interesting video because you speak so directly to the issue of sincerely and earnestness within the context of almost... um... like... embodied systems of value within films. When the world being created within a film so strongly discourages viewers from thinking about, reacting to, or analyzing real feeling moments of human interaction, it feels like the viewer is almost left to do the heavy lifting of "figuring out why anyone is supposed to care about this story" on their own .
No one wants to take the risk, because the movies cost so much money to make
Oh what a load of tripe. They are still making them even after they don't get good ratings. Its not entertainment driven, its politically driven. And its all nepotism now too. And because of these main factors, we will not see a good movie until the rich people driven by agenda go away.
Making movies is scary for those putting up the money. The script is now the kernel of an idea, but is still fundamentally a gamble. The more things you can append to it, the more secure you will feel. These crutches include several dozen layers of executive producers, script consultants, and lots and lots of cgi. The script goes out of the window as these crutches slowly smother the work.
Minority characters are tossed in who are about their minority status.
I don't recall Nick Fury, Wednesday Addams, or the Black Widow complaining about their oppressions. @@teastrainer3604
I feel like this is why you can sit through multiple big budget films, and A) Not have any kind of overall reaction for the characters or their choices, and B) Cannot remember a single important thing or simple plot point from said movie(s).
I am pretty sure we just forget old bad movies. Check release lists for 1995-1999 for example and compare the full list to the few dozen "timeless classics" . We just collectively forgot the bland majority.
That is true. But I also think an average movie from 20 years ago is still better than an average movie today.
The way from good story telling to bad story telling goes trough the life experience and education of the writers. And in this regard there is a shift from writers that had a real life full of risks to writers that at least read a lot of books to writers that only watched Movies and now even to writers that never had any real lfe beside of watching TV and playing Video Games. Depending on the life experience and the amount of read books and watched Movies by the writers the stories go from deep and real (even in Comedies and Genre Movies and Shows) to childlike, incoherent and ironically distanced.
Totally agree with you. Books and plays are edited and honed until the final product is released to the public. They are designed to tell a certain story. TV and video games are by design episodic entertainments for instant gratification. There's nothing wrong with that for a diversion but they aren't as satisfying as a well-told story.
yeah it's terrible the amount of crap entertainment today exists, to be anyones inspiration. It's like a collective development of amnesia.
I didn't know that!
I got into a debate recently in which my partner was desperately trying to defend the whole "Death of the Author" "everything is subjective" BS. Guy was twisting himself into a pretzel, he used like seven logical fallacies in rapid fire, ranging from the ever-present strawmanning to outright going for twofer of goalpost moving and Chewbacca defense, when I disproved his claim of "noone has ever come up with an objective standard definition of art" by citing the Oxford dictionary definition. He had a small coniption, about how ridiclous it is that I need a dictionary to tell me what art is, and that language is constantly chaning...It was honestly depressing and impressive how much he wanted to reject reality.
All things that exist, even if it is difficult to define, even if it does not have form, has a definition. That goes all the way back to Plato and the universals. I've had debates like that with the other guy who runs this channel all the time, so I get your frustration!
I agree with “death of the author”, but whole-throatedly support you on the matter of objective standards for art. My best argument for “death of the author” can be summarized thus: a piece of art does not mean what the artist says it means. A piece of art means what it’s content depicts/evokes. If a writer-director makes a film about the tragedy of conflict, and of people coerced by their government to sacrifice their lives for nothing, it doesn’t matter if he says in an interview that it’s actually a story about heroism, or patriotism, or love, or duty. Anyone can draw evidence from the project itself, and everyone has equal right to bring forth the most faithful interpretation of the product, rank-be-damned.
@@realistic_delinquent In that case, you don't actually agree with "Death of the Author" concept at all, you just think you do, because you only know the first half, for which it is named. The whole phrase actually goes "The Death of the Author, is the Birth of the Reader". Barthes' thesis was actually that it's wrong to try to use intentions and biographical data to analyze the true meaning of a work, and instead every reader's own subjective interpretation takes primacy over the author's intent. So Death of the Author actually denies both the author's intent, and the objectively meaning of the art, and puts the job of gleaming it's meaning squarely on the reader.
This is of course utterly stupid, because if the reader's subjective interpretation takes primacy, then Barthes has no objective basis to declare that the reader's subjective interpretation takes primacy, because to make such a declarition would be an argument from authority, which he does not have, because subjective interpretation take primacy, so it directly leads to circular reasoning.
How the heck do u only have 940 subscribers with this quality content?! Subscribed
I dunno. It just seems to me movies don’t want to “offend” anyone, so they don’t go deep. There are no risks. They pick a tone and don’t go outside of that range. No one can feel too happy or too sad or too angry. Most stuff I watch I wonder why people either loved it or hated it so much when it was just meh to me or had a few good moments but was average overall. An example was Barbie. I feel like I missed something and left feeling meh. I valued Ken’s arc so much more and still haven’t figured out why completely. He was more relatable I suppose. He was someone who wanted more. Mostly with movies, I feel like I am being patronized with flashy action sequences and cgi rather than story. When all a character wants in a story is a maguffin, how can we relate? Might as well make a fine tuned action sequence filled with cgi about me trying to find my remote…that i lost for the 100th time. There are no stakes.
As far as Hollywood movies go, the first big shift came in the 1950's when method acting took over and everything had to be "realistic" to be good. Gone were the Hollywood glamor type of films, or the Spencer Tracy "remember your lines and don't bump into the furniture" style of acting. It killed genres like westerns and musicals because they weren't "real" enough for the audiences. The next came in the 1980's when corporations took over movie studios and films became product: moviemaking was just one arm of their profit-making endeavors, so they were approached in that respect. Yes, in the Golden Age of the Studio System making money was a bottom line, but movies were their ONLY product so they put everything into them - nowadays they are equal to theme parks, merchandising and totally non-related entertainment products that all these corporations churn out.
Not to mention the sad death of original ideas in favor of adaptions, sequels, prequels and reboots
I think one of the reasons is that there was a point where it was “hip” to flip the script on previous movie story tropes. However they flipped the script so many times that it is the new norm. So what was once a shock/talking point/omg did you see that is “yawn not again”.
Plus hollywood started to be by the numbers - hiring to fill slots not talent. My hope is now AI/CGI software is becoming more available that talented individuals who had no voice before (ie not related to or sleeping with or sucking up to the hollywood elite) will be able to make series/movies and provide them on youtube/patreon/etc.
I think that collectively audiences have changed.
Hollywood merely tries to give audiences what they want. Spectacle (CGI), surprises, snarky snappy dialogue that seems naturalistic, easily understandable surface level "drama" often with immediate comic relief, flashes of sexuality, socially conscious messaging that reinforces a world view, quick storytelling and editing for the attention deficient, and, money making (safe formulas, internally resisting unions, product placement, swinging for the fences every time) over artistic merit.
I have been living overseas for a decade now exposed to non-American films, and I notice the contrast when I come back to the states. American movies now are aimed at a less sophisticated demographic it seems. And ironically, it is television that has ascended in quality perhaps because they have the advantage of a long (10-12 hour) storytelling format, while movies are limited to succinctly tell and finish a story in 2 hours.
Excellent video man.
I think there is also another form of sincerity missing, namely what the movie wants to be. Like with the forced comedy "hey look I'm entertaining" while at the same time being emberassed of just being entertainment and trying to be more deep, mixing two types of stories that just clash with each other. Then there are also movies that try to hard to be deep and meaningfull, but either failing at it, or doing it out of disrespect, like with the disney adopatation, who try to "fix" there source material. But to get back to the first point, the emberasment of being just entertainment, where does this emberasment come from? Why does everything now have to be deep or have a big message? You know waht where some ofthe best movies I have seen the last few years? Violent nights, dungeon and dragons, puss in boots2 and trolls 3. Dumb, silly but also a lot fun and entertaining, this movies knew exactly what they are and fully embraced it with any sort of sarcasm or subverting of epectation. Same goes for video games. Now every AAA title has to be made for afuture netflix adoptation, with the game aspect comming as last priority- I have seen at least 8 "games are not fun anymore" videos and everyone was about the AAA industry. Then I recently tried evil west. A modern game from an AA studio... it played like a ps3 game and the story was like an early 2000 popcorn flick and it was sooooo refreshing, a game that was just a game with a simple, dumb but hella fun story.
Studios and sometimes the audience need to stop with forcing these high expectations onto everything.
At least that my opinion
I agree and have always felt that there is value in simply "not taking yourself so seriously!" Just look at early Peter Jackson before he did Lord of the Rings. He was making B-movie horror and experimenting with how to make something within the medium itself before moving on the bigger more ambitious projects.
Another high-expectation problem is trying to manufacture blockbusters. Every movie won't be a hit franchise! A lot of the bad Marvel and Star Wars sequels and DC movies failed because the studio budgets were over $ 100 million to 1 billion on CGI special effects. Other reasons include less popular superheroes and classic Star Wars characters being killed off or upstaged, actors dying, etc.@@AKen_Films
Even the "good" contemporary films seem to lack the staying power of the earlier (pre-2000) films. I can watch CASABLANCA over and over again. The current crop? Once, thank you very much.
It's all about subtext Spider-Man does not come out and say everything at once but Thor does. Spider man shows, Thor tells.
True
I personally think one of the big reasons why movies don't feel sincere anymore is due to the popularity of meta storytelling.
One of the worst things that happened to entertainment was making fourth wall breaks and referential humor mainstream. A lot of people blame the MCU, Deadpool, James Gunn, etc but honestly it started back as far as Scream. It appeals to the audience being in the know on a joke or an observation, which has to then leave the scene it's in in order to connect to the audience instead of the people on screen. I understand that this kind of storytelling can make a character seem more relatable, but relatability should come from the narrative's characterizations that the audience resonates with, not the spoon fed references to our pop culture.
And the lack of world building is why there are these constant references to out-world culture instead of anything in-world. If you're going to reference something in your movies, why not reference things that happened within the film/franchise instead of referencing things that happened in our real world, be it pop culture, politics, current events, etc? Can we still call it escapism if the allusions are so overt? And meta storytelling has the ironic consequence of not allowing you to engage deeper than surface level into a story because of this refusal to get deep into its own story with deflections of nostalgia mining and tongue-in-cheek references.
Also, meta storytelling is just as much about tone and attitude as it is substance. I'm so over movies acting like they're embarrassed of what they are and constantly trying to invite you into the "joke" at it's own expense. If you are a COMIC BOOK MOVIE, why have a character comment on how stupid an outfit looks, or how dumb someone's superhero name is? These are hallmarks of the genre!!! Narratively it should be a non-issue! Imagine if Keaton said the iconic "I'm Batman" line only to have the terrified goon start giggling "Ayo, seriously?" Likewise, if it's a HORROR MOVIE, we know a lot of the decisions are dumb, but I don't need a character to say, "I shouldn't go in there, this is not a bad horror movie!" Can we play some things straight? Can we just accept the camp and the tropes of the genre instead of trying to apologize for, subvert, or elbow each other over it?
Taika Waititi could've really done something powerful with that scene where Jane confesses that she has cancer. The harsh juxtaposition of such a tragic, grounded concept agains such a fantastical, super-heroic backdrop could have really hit us.
Compare this to the last Guardians of the Galaxy film, where Rocket flashbacks to the deaths of this friends. Like... That was filmed honestly and true, not full of stupid one-liners.
I was really let down by the last Thor film. The tragedy of Jane vs. the theme of the villain (loss and tragedy) was really a missed opportunity.
Modern movies are drowned in exposition both emotionally and contextually. The first rule is show dont tell. Movies today only Tell while putting the show in the trunk. All new movies have characters that are only present to be an exposition dump.
I just fell into this channel and I love the content.
If today’s movie industry weren’t allowed to do reboots, remakes, sequels and prequels, there wouldn’t be ANY new movies coming out, either in theaters or on streaming services. THAT’S why modern movies suck. While sequels did exist in decades past, they weren’t the ONLY way for the entertainment industry to entertain moviegoers.
Quite often you hear people say all the fun and enjoyment of a modern movie is completely missing from movies, and they’re correct. In the summer of 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark wasn’t a reboot, remake or sequel. Indiana Jones was an entirely new character inspired by different Saturday morning adventure serials George Lucas and Steven Spielberg saw in movie theaters and on TV.
But today, instead of coming up with a story or character inspired by an earlier genre, while at the same time borrowing from other genres and experiences to synthesize an entirely new thrilling story, we have to have the same exact character played by an actor who’s now in his 80s and well past his physical prime and believability as an action hero, AND we have to have a young female Mary Sue character who is fantastic at everything and surpasses anything that Indiana Jones has done or can do. This ISN’T FUN and NO ONE wants to pay money to see that. What’s worse is this sort of reheated frozen pizza format is happening again and again, story after story, actor after actor. Most movies are bland and uninteresting, audiences who watch movies are sick of this, and they’ll continue to stay away in greater numbers from movie theaters until things really make a significant change.
Just found your channel. Absolutely awesome sauce!
A lot of it doesn’t even have anything to do with the movies individually. I’ve been a film buff for a while now, since the 90s, trust me, the majority of movies have always sucked. It’s called the Sturgeon’s law.
Today, it has everything to do with politics. Hollywood has always been liberal, but in today’s world ppl have had it with the messages that these movies have always been trying to broadcast.
It’s not the movies, it’s the politics, there’s a culture war happening, and the film industry has become a casualty to it, considering the side they’ve always taken.
I don't get why so many people seem to perceive Hollywood as liberal. It's only a thin surface level of what we tend to call liberal. Peel back those layers and look with a critical eye, and you'll see Hollywood has always been conservative straight white male dominated just like every other industry in America.
Most of modern movies are very formulaic.
Or maybe we are just tired of movies now because we have seen so many over the years. Humans get bored and I think the movies prove that. I am just annoyed by shows, movies, etc... I do agree that movies aren't working anymore.
Sequel-itis and franch-itis, ESG loan benefits, as well as the absolute unwillingness of studios to take a measured risk when fronting so much laundered money, are the reasons most cinema-bait movies are so bad. If you want a good to great piece of media, you have to look at the middle budget project from the middle budget studio, or more obscure even than that. My favourite films of this decade have all had budgets under $100m. Most much less, but Puss in boots… Got’damn.
MJ was not only testing to see if Peter loved her by kissing her. Remember, she already kissed him in the first movie, the famous upside down kiss, and at the end, she kisses him again at the funeral. She grabs her lips, having felt his lips familiar. Before the cafe scene in Spider-man 2, she kisses her boyfriend upside down while he's on the couch, which inspires her to call Peter. She isn't just testing Peter's love. She already suspects Peter is Spider-man and wants confirmation by feeling his lips. She says it at the end. "I think I always knew." Which brings me to another thing films today lack. Subtlety. All that can be deduced by the actions of the characters rather than exposition dumps.
The more woke we become as a society, the shittier the movies get. Wonder why movies suck?
Ohmygod I was thinking this EXACT thing- all my alltime faves have been "old" movies, just that feeling of "epicness", of sitting back in your chair and just going "whoah"- you don't seem to get that these days with modern cinema. Lol I literally just finished watching "The One" so I'm probably just feeling all nostalgic- that movie had everything!! And it was one of the first to kinda introduce us to the "multiverse" theory, which was clever at first but sooo done to death now. Just that last scene in "The One"- that dawning realization that he is doomed to do that FOREVER- ohmygod- chef's kiss😂😂However with modern movies it's more like a wry smile at the end, like "yeah, okay, you got me, that was good"...I dunno if the change in just myself growing up and getting all cynical ("...when you grow up, your heart dies"- Boom!! "Breafast Club"!! Another alltime fave!!!)...lol, ultimately, I just think these days they're way too into showing off about how "clever" the movie is that they forgot to add any heart
I think the problem is writers who have NO life experience. They never had a relationship with abyone, never had to suffer any kind of loss, never experienced the ups and downs of life. If you have no experience, how can you write about things you know nothing about? And make it believable. Also directors only care about special effects. If you pour on the special effects you don't have to have character development or even a plot!!
Great analysis!
Great video, definitely subscribing 👍
Thank you!
LaLa Land is also a worse movie. It hides behind a beautiful veil but is just so utterly non exciting
"Oh, but it's _realistic_ if they don't end up together!"
Then what was the point of the last _hour-and-a-half_ we just watched?
The lack of authenticity is just one symptom, not the root cause of the problem.
Contemporary IPs are given meat grinder treatment by the studios, which has come to include attitudes from the writers and directors that consider themselves edgy buy openly displaying irreverence to the source material which ranges anywhere from character-breaking contemporary banter ("they flly now!") to radical character changes, inconsistent with the original IP (grumpy hobo Luke, manic Spock, foul mouthed starfleet officers,etc)
Mission impossible dead reckoning was really good 🎥
24:00 This right here is why for the last 10-15 years I have preferred movies/drama series from Japan and South Korea. Movies and TV shows from the US seem deathly afraid of making their audience feel anything. Conversely, shows from Japan and South Korea exhibit no such fear. Like, when is the last time you watched a show from the greater US entertainment industry that made you cry?
went to see the mean girls musical, my expectations were really low, but it still managed to be worse tban I thouhht it would be.
I also went to see it. It was flashy, but didn't stick many of the landings that the original did. Just as a comparison alone, it was bad. And to be fair, not a lot was out that weekend lol
the problem is, as time goes on it seems to apparently get worse, that these films we watch are reflecting the psyche and minds of the people that are writing the scripts at the time. and as we witness, the more modern minds are filled with ideas not based on experience, but rather, how they view reality is....as if watching it from afar while trying to inject their stupid 'witty humor' about the moment they are trying so convincingly to convey.
if they just took themselves out of what they are writing then it would be 1000% better.
Because the medium is industrialized. Industrialization puts the focus on product availability (i.e. the quantity of content) rather than ideas themselves. Imagine a room full of food, but all of it is from National fast food chains. Sure, you have things people can eat and a lot of them. But what you don't have is a nourishing meal for even one of them.
I always read the MJ "kiss me" moment as her testing to see if peter is SpiderMan, the way she did with John
I'd argue that _Everything Everywhere_ isn't a philosophically postmodernist movie even if it is artistically postmodern. Philosophically it's more existentialist, like _"Yes the universe is absurd and unknowable, but there is meaning to be found."_
Postmodernism is a complex phenomenon - definitely the things you mention are part of it, but so are many other things. By virtue of being alive now, you are postmodern, even if you don't realize it. It's the water we swim in. It's a skeptical reaction to modernism's belief that the world can be fully understood and controlled through reason. See also Russell & Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica" and Goedel's incompleteness theorems, which together found unexpected limits on mathematics. That all went down almost a hundred years ago, but the implications of big intellectual shifts like that can take a long time to play out.
The ordering is something like Enlightenment -> Counter-enlightenment (including romanticism, Great Awakening religious revivals, etc.) -> Modernism (Darwin, Freud, etc.) -> Postmodernism (skepticism of grand narratives and meaning itself, e.g. Borges, Derrida---of course, skepticism is part of science, which is arch modernism, so the distinctions are muddy).
There's an oscillation occurring that represents the unresolved relationship between the objective (scientific) and subjective (experiential) facets of reality. How to reconcile these two manifestly different but co-existing modes of being is one of the remaining grand challenges of science and philosophy, often posed as the hard problem of consciousness. (Apologies if I'm overexplaining.)
Each swing of the pendulum emphasizes one or the other mode, whatever is opposite of the swing that came before it.
(If you want to step further out on that limb, you could hypothesize that the alternating emphases represent trends over time in the dominance of left- or right-hemisphere modes of understanding.)
And that unresolved tension comes out in our art.
Someday these crappy postmodern movies may be highly regarded as the struggles of a culture to grapple with the most profound problems. But also a lot of them suck, because the philosophical issues are too profound to get an easy handle on, and it's too ivory tower for the average person.
EEAAO showed that it's possible to break through the impasse and produce something that both grapples with these deep issues, and is a hell of a lot of fun. Not to mention that it accepts that people need constructive ways of viewing the world to move forward with their day to day lives, instead of deconstructing everything to hell.
Thanks for the video!
What is the movie with John Goodman at 20:40?
The Good The Bad And The Ugly. Greatest movie of all time.
The only good Pinocchio is guillermo del toro’s
My personal criteria for what makes a film good are character moments.
More recent MCU movies (I don’t care for the tv shows) are focused on story first and characters second. Guardians of the galaxy was a character driven story and focused on the cast of the movie, while other MCU projects like Quantumainia, Love and Thunder, and Multiverse of Madness quickly rush through character moments in an effort to tell the next joke or introduce the next character. I didn’t even really like Thor Ragnarok that much because it felt like such a departure for the character of Thor to just turn him into another vessel to tell jokes, or the fact that Valkyrie has no real connection with Thor outside of them both being asguardian. Yeah the jokes are well written but you could remove the half of the movie that has Hela in it and it could still function as its own story and thats kind of a big problem. It feels like a 2 hour long TV special where there’s an A plot and a B plot and they just kinda tie into each other at the end. Even endgame and infinity war are on two separate levels of quality because one movie focuses on a character study of a villain who can be framed as a hero while endgame (still a good movie I’m not saying it isn’t) is moreso a journey through different setpieces, but I can excuse that because it’s the climax of the Infinity saga, and it had 22 films beforehand to establish characters
and on top of that, every new story they tell creates another long list of plot holes and contradictions that were set up in the pervious film. so you can't even enjoy the story.
You just have badly imitated Joss Whedon humour.
"Its Post Modernism!"
Awright, I've heard enough! Case dismissed, bring in the dancing lobstahs!
The title included "One Analysis." I'm glad you got that far into the video, though!
You just watch the wrong films but tbf it’s difficult to watch the gems in the US. My theatre shows any kind of film from Europe and Asia and that’s like 90% of the films I watch. There’s more out there than Hollywood blockbusters.
Will you make a video on Godzilla -1?
I've heard Blade Runner also had a good sequel released after a very long time, in addition to Top Gun Maverick.
Ha. Even the list of "good movies" is really stretching the definition of good. I feel bad that for Gen Z, TikTok is more culturally important than any cinema release in their lifetime.
"Big Stupid" is a pretty good summation of Post-Modernism, actually. Well-put.
As far as Thor: Love and Thunder goes, all of your critiques are absolutely valid. One thing, though... You assume they actually wrote a script and planned the scenes out, and that might only be half right for most of this movie.
Fair enough
09:30 With this scene being in the trailer you knew you were going to watch something quite spectacular.
I think about the Harry Potter movies versus the Harry Potter books. Let's take a look at the character of Hermione Granger. In the movie she came off as kind of sassy, whereas in the books she seemed more sincere. For example, that "it's levi OH sa, not levi oh SAR" scene, while it garnered some amusement from the audience, it was more sincere in the books. Movie Hermione came off like she was trying to show Ron up, while book Hermione sounded like she was actually trying to be helpful. And the ending of the Half-Blood Prince book was really sad, but you didn't really feel that in the movie. And the book had the scene where Hermione was freaking out about some exam grades even though she did the best out of herself, Harry, Ron and presumably everyone in her year.
Get Out is not a good film. What the film ultimately leads to is beyond boring, ridiculous, and kind of racist.
I would compare recent movies to perhaps the later 60s through the end of the 70s.. Did good movies exist? Yes. Masterpieces were even made. But, by and large, these were the crap years of cinema, filled with then current-day themes that do not translate outside of the era. Lots of exploitation pieces. Lots of pop junk that no one cares about anymore. -- What do we have today? Again, it's "current year" themes, rather than universally timeless stories. Lots of exploitation movies, banking on gender, race, and sticking it to "the man" to get a rise out of the audience. Endless pop culture rubbish that abandons the basics of good filmmaking for a quick cash grab. The films are being made by people who don't understand what makes a great film, or they simply don't care and just want the quick cash. There ARE great films and filmmakers out there currently, but they are the needle in a haystack, rather than the needle in a needle stack which we've had in other eras of cinema.
I like your historical angle! It puts the issue into proper perspective and gets us out of nostalgia-based Gen Z-hating. Most movies of any era are dated B-movies by greedy, less-talented directors, screenwriters, and actors.
Hmmm I would venture to say that May December, Poor Things, and Tar (to name some recent examples) are all postmodernist films. And EEAAO, which you mention, seems to answer your question-how do you craft a stakes/emotion/authenticity when conventional narrative and where nothing is real and nothing matters. Anyway, I just mean that it’s a bit reductionist to say a lack of sincerity is why contemporary movies are bad. Also it’s confusing to title your video “the modern problem” then use the term “modern” in a different way. I loved your analysis of the two scenes!
14:14 Olivia Rodrigo has more experience yelling "fucking idiots" whatever the fuck that was
I will say it bluntly - agendas. When you impose agendas into movies (whatever they may be), it usually stifles creativity, and the most important part of the movie - The Story - suffers. Let directors make the movie they want to without tying one hand behind their back.
I don’t think it’s a new phenomenon and I may be in the minority, but the last crusade really illustrates this to me. Loved it as a kid, a favorite, but rewatching as an adult makes me realize it’s a fairly shit, lazy follow up from the two that came before it. Not saying I don’t still love it but that’s nostalgia talking, and nostalgia has a huge impact on how we judge art over our years as they go
Do people not realize that Top Gun Maverick is pretty much a remake of Iron Eagle 2? I'm serious.. Check it.
I'll make a note to watch it!
because Hollywood works as a fast food franchise system
Back in the late 2000s/early 2010s, many of these CEOs and producers began to use the word "content".
Movies have sucked since they used that model. It's very very difficult for me to be a fan of any film post-2010. Never felt this way prior to that.
Peddling overt ideological propaganda is a major reason, as well, but treating it as pre-packaged content is the flaw here, especially as they kill off the mid-budget that previously allowed great writers and directors to flourish. With the mid budget, you got actual cinematic masterpieces and/or actual unique IPs that generate the studios long term money. Without it, it's shoddy indie films by rich kids or its big budget corporate films.
Postmodernism.....there have been great literature and films that reflect the themes and ideas behind it so I don't think that would be a legitimate argument. Maybe the average filmmaker actually taking the concepts of postmodernism seriously and not ironically (which is what PoMo is meant to reflect....a brief pause to marvel at the chaos before ignoring it altogether, causing us to be wary of the individual in charge/the hero and their perspective but accepting them simultaneously) makes it ruinous for films since it no longer has meaning and is just random scenes put together. Therefore, it lacks sincerity.
If anything, it is meta-modernism which is what kills film since it's the kind of pandering nudge-nudge-wink-wink at the camera that ruins it with superficial trends that don't age well. Again, it kills the sincerity as it ignores the universalism and authenticity of the experience.
You could be right about that. It seems to me that if one were to truly live by the philosophy inherent in post-modernist claims then, as you said, sincerity will be left at the door. It's possible to be more specific with just exactly what we're talking about, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I was trying to find something a bit broader that these more specific issues stem from. But I do think you're spot on here. Thanks for the comment!
add the word franchise and compare it to fast-food chains
Sub 797. I wish you the best of luck. You create great content.
If they are trying to stop people from pirating movies and tv, they are doing a standup job.
Why modern movies suck? Over saturation and repetition. These are both part of the same problem. If you've seen one MCU film, you've pretty much seen them all (with limited exceptions (GOTG)). When you ask why 'modern movies' suck, you specifically mean modern Hollywood blockbuster movies. I've seen plenty of excellent indie, non-studio or foreign films recently. Netflix occasionally turns out a winner (Amazon, not so much). The problem is how can the audience break the studio's self-defeating addiction to making endless versions of the same thing for diminishing returns? Paul Thomas Anderson, Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Scorsese, Wes Anderson still make large budget (maybe not in the Andersons' case) studio films that are interesting and unique. Too many films are just paint by numbers repeats of the same IP. The obvious solution is to stop watching crappy films (which people seem to be doing anyway). The more pro-active option would be for studios to look to upcoming talent with interesting ideas that AREN'T overtly political but are entertaining and don't lecture to you. There are plenty of ideas and even standing IP that could be made into big budget films if done well.
I think there are historic and cultural shifts motivated by money responsible for the decline of cinema.
1997 Hong Kong, a long time British Colony, formally got handed over to the Peoples Republic of China. Hong Kong was very Western in comparison to the rest of China. This transition would be like your older sibling was leaving for college and telling you that you can have all their stuff. China inherited the wealth, expertise, social practices and cultural exposure that Hong Kong had. So now here is a nation that prior to this had little exposure to Western cinema who now has the wealth and leisure time to enjoy cinema.
Hollywood saw this and over the past 27 years has been courting the Asian movie goer. But Hollywood has this mild understanding of what sells in Asian. Pretty, bright colors, action without purpose and shallow story. Basically a roller coaster ride. So we get Transformers movies or World of Warcraft. Huge hits in Asian and thoroughly criticized here. Keep the stories simple so it's easier to dub or translate for Asian markets. So that means our movies get dumbed down. Not for the "normie" in Nebraska like Hollywood would used to do.
Now the added complication of diversity and progressive sentiments Hollywood is trying to plant their films. Hollywood has always tried to cast the widest net in order to get the biggest audience. But they've put the pedal to the metal and prioritized progressive ideas over story. Virtue signaling at the sake of story. This doesn't land with 50% of the USA. But there is an added complication of trying to be progressive AND sell your movie to a culture that has very different perceptions and standards. Look at China's Ugly Betty versus the US Ugly Betty. Even the Chinese say theirs wasn't as ugly as ours. Again they go to cinema and TV for escapism and to live in an ideal world for brief moments.
It's funny that so much of the world worked to copy US cinema and emulate that success but now we're not making movies for US audiences.
Blade Runner 2049 was a good legacy sequel too
Sub 793. I wish you the best of luck. You create great content.
Thank you!
I was just about to argue about super mario bros being from illumination studios and it being good but I guess it was kinda mid
People have been saying modern movies/art/music/culture sucks since the 30's, When you start to adopt this mindset, it means one thing; you're old and it's about time you died.
Also Thor Love and Thunder > The Dark Knight
I'm literally 24
Too old.@@bfd_videos
Why modern movies suck the creators have forgotten their job is to entertain, the movie magic to whisk you away to the past, the distant future or a fanatsy land of make believe.
There are rules written and unwritten that hollywood has to follow, like the old Hays Code, these rules are representation and diversity to reflect the modern world and what you are allowed to show and not show on screen. If you don't follow these rules it will be unlikely you will get funding and if you do get funding and make the movie, you will be punished by not allowed to be considered for any awards.
Hollywood abandoned the Hays Code cause their movies where no longer popular and movies made outside the states where being successful.
I hate Thor: Love and Thunder. Especially because I had such high expectations compared to what we got.
Comparing Spider-Man 2 to Thor: Love & Thunder is like comparing a beautiful spaghetti dish to an inedible lamb chop dish.
That was not a comment I expected to read this morning. Feels like we found Gordon Ramsey's private youtube account! Thanks for the watch!
AI is coming to cover the tomb.
Barbenheimer?
Just compare an entire season's worth of narrative from Star Trek Discovery to ANY single episode of Next Generation (even part ones of two-parters). TNG will come out on top every time, because they had writers who cared.
I assume you're excluding TNG season 1
The Spiderman 2 compared to TL&T comparison seems unfair, TL&T was more in the genre of wacky comedies like Monty Pythons Holy Grail
And yet Holy Grail, and Life of Brian, have more sincerity and care for the film than TL&T
You look like AJ Soprano is we was Irish