The terrible state of the movie industry

R

Rocker_5150

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I believe unfortunately people today have turned into media and Hollywood sheep, who go to the movies because they are told to by aggressive advertising campaigns. They would rather sit in front of a screen for 2 hours being wowed by special effects, rather than experience a movie with a soul and character, which many movies in the past seemed to have. I see this kind of atmospheric movie waning. I believe it all started to go pear shaped in the mid to late 1990s.

Today they rely on special effects, so have less of a need to concentrate on the characters, story lines, and the personality of the movie. Have you noticed how movies today no matter what the subject matter, all have exactly the same bland feel to them?. You watch one, you have seen them all. One of the most important things I believe a movie should have is a personality, in a sense a soul, that distinguishes itself from every other. The movie industry neeRAB to find it self again, and remember what
 
I do agree with some of your points. But things have changed.

In the "golden era" as some would say there was either no or little competetion from TV. Films could more readily address real life issues as there was no other shared medium to do this through apart from radio.

As TV started to take over this role films had to change or die. So the move to big blockbuster films, which blasted you with noise, sights and feelings that TV can never match (I'd argue thats still true even with Dolby 5.1 and 70 inch plasmas in the home).

Also remember that film makers have always used special effects to bring in the crowRAB - all the way back to silent movies, through King Kong, Jason and the Argounauts, Ben Hur etc etc etc

Persoanaly I like a mix. Sometimes a trip to see the latest "switch brain off" film is fun. The trouble is when you watch them on TV the plot holes just jump out more - the last time I saw Independence Day on TV I got realy angry and started shouting at the TV :) But the intelligent, well written and thought provoking films are there - just be choosy.
 
Every year, without fail, the vast majority of all movies are going to be sh*t. These are the movies that are forgotten and when you look back on that year only the good movies remain in the memory, that's why the past seems better than the present; more perspective.
 
I don't think that's strictly true. Yes, Hollywood may be making these films, but are people going to see them? Stealth, The Island, Fantastic Four and even to a certain extent War of The WorlRAB didn't exactly set the box office alight over the summer, while films such as Sideways, March of the Penguins, Brokeback Mountain, and House of Flying Daggers all did extremely well. Even films which should have suffered from being FX laden like Spiderman did well because the story was good. Hulk didn't because the story just wasn't there.

Filmgoers, I think, are changing in what they're going to see. There's more choice in the cinemas and I think that's reflected in the fact that the blockbusters failed this year. However, people were going still going to the cinema, just not to see those films.

Hollywood does need to look at itself though. The amount of remakes and shoddy scriptwriting which are produced is ridiculous. But as long as there are alternatives, people will still go to the cinema.
 
Hi Occational post



Yes, they are there, but they are becoming few and far between. I believe the huge explosion of reality TV and brainless Hollywood movies is working as a opiate of the people, its numbing peoples brains, they are learning to sit in front of the screen and turn them selves off, when a good movie will get your brain and imagination into gear.

I don
 
Arguements like this have been brought up throughout the history of cinema, especially in the context of Hollywood movies. With the onset of sound many argued at the time that this was the end of cinema as an art form. the same can be said for colour, VCR's etc.

It is important to remember the point made earlier that the majority of films throughout cinema's history have been average or poor, the films the majority of people remember as classics are remembered and rewatched and re-evaluated through each generation, whereas the lesser films are forgotton.

I remember growing up in the 80's when blockbusters were becoming prominent and people were saying the same things about Top Gun, Rambo etc, but there are many films from the decade which are now considered modern classics.

There are also contemporary books from the 70's critical of the films of the time such as Jaws, and one saying by the end of the 60's had seen the best of Stanley Kubrick as a director- I doubt many people today would agree with that.

In 15-20 years time I'm sure when we look back on the 00's there will be as many films remebered as fondly and hopefully the 2 hour fireworks displays will be largely forgotten
 
Sometimes poor films can become celebrated because they show things we've never seen before in the cinema.

Top Gun's fighter scenes with all the in cockpit views from supersonic fighters had never been shown so well on film. It looked fantastic, which was mainly why the film was a success.
 
The Greenskeeper, Leprechaun : In space, She lives by night, Shredder... there's been many good films recently. No one is forcing you to watch Hollywood movies or BBC/ITV.
 
there's plenty of g00d shit out there, you just have to know where to look. almost all mainstream movies are generically shite nowadays to cater for the tv masses.

but then a film like cache (hidden) comes along (saw it today in a non mainstream cinema in covent garden) and it makes you think why should i bother with this mainstream shit.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387898/

quite frankly my biggest gripe of all with the mainstream movie industry is the insistence on casting the same 'stars' in movie after movie. it just dumbs down the realism when you think OH LOOK, its that bloke out of so-and-so...or OH LOOK its joaquin phoenix....AGAIN. but i guess the big stars 'sell'

someone talked about brokeback mountain earlier - i haven't seen it yet, but it highlights my point. a current box office top 5 film i saw the other day was jarhead (its shit by the way) starred 'that bloke from donnie darko' - gyllenhaal, and surprise surprise, about a week later brokeback mountain is released with the main star....wait for it.....jake gyllenhaal. the originality eh? shall i go and watch him again a week after i saw him in jarhead but really BELIEVE it this time?
 
taking away the speciall effects point, i think hollywood should concetrate on making orignial films rather than remaking classic films or turning tv shows into films
offhand we have had starskey and hutch (which was prety good imo) dukes of hazzard (switched off after 10 mins) and now we have miami vice
remakes are happening of the posiden adventure, you could also stick pride and prejudice into this as well(even tho it was good in its own right) we're getting a prequel to the pink panther, king kong
as well as the chain films like final destination 3
 
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