The End of Great Films

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

I don't have a problem with computers, its that people seem to think that stuff made on it, no matter how stylistically peculiar, is anything other than just another really nice looking Big Mac.



Saying something is a leap forward when it isn't is disingenuous. I saw the movie, and I did feel like I lived through a comic book. And it was "cool" and that is it. It didn't feel particularly "impressive", which would be the most milquetoast of adjectives for something being heralded as a "leap."



It came out of his body on an instrument that is depicted in hieroglyphics dating as old as 1400 BC. Western music is made up of 12 notes, regardless of genre. So yes, Hendrix was a great big giant effing leap forward. But to be fair, he benefitted greatly from being 14 years old when the electric guitar was invented. Right guy in the right time for a metaphorical musical gold rush. Kind of like with computing power and the original Matrix (and all the crazy innovative camera work and everything else that movie invented that became entirely mainstream).

I think we agree on a lot. I have a lot of respect for Spiderverse personally. I think it will be looked back at as a transition in how animation is done. The computer entering the game is the same as the electric guitar. It's a new tool. Some will find a way to utilize it in a way that is innovative and interesting. People have been drawing for as long as there have been people, no different than music. A few people innovated with it, while some people just did the same crap but louder. Maybe you think Spiderverse is same crap but louder. I disagree. Lord and Miller themselves come from 2-D animation as comic artists, then Clone High and have basically not missed with the quality of their feature films, it's not like they're chumps. It didn't make you feel like it made me feel. It's art it's not going to hit everyone the same and that's okay. People can love Beethoven and hate Hendrix, or enjoy a Van Gogh painting while thinking Picasso sucks.

I both agree and disagree with the whole premise of this thread. Certainly things are super saturated, and there' a lot of crap. To your point, access to these tools makes it so really anyone can make a movie, given time. That's a beautiful thing in my opinion. It will ultimately give more voices more opportunity. But it does make it harder to sift through the bad because there's so much of it, because while anyone can technically make a movie, not many people are actually artists with something to say. But I also think it means that there may be gold where you don't expect. Spiderverse, I wasn't even going to see it. I thought the title sucked, I didn't need more Spiderman or multi-verse. I went to it with a friend who had an extra ticket and found myself blown away. I enjoyed that feeling. And I feel like some people won't give it a chance to be something genuinely interesting simply because it's a Spiderman movie and I think that's wrong. I don't think it's "the end of great films". Just like I don't think it's the end of great music or art or whatever. I don't really think that's possible. What people think is great may change though, especially as new tools allow new explorations. This Is America would have been considered just noise to a lot of people. So would Comfortably Numb. David Letterman purely shat on basically the creator of computer music saying no one would ever listen to it. Well, he or you or I might not overly love all of it, but it's undeniably part of music. I hate most computer-based music, but f*** if Daft Punk isn't rad. People connect with different forms of art at different times for a whole host of reasons, usually to do with our society's circumstance at large.

Anyways, you aren't a fan. I enjoyed it and if it inspired my own creative aspirations, well that's enough for me.

[timun]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

Dark Knight was more than a good movie, it legitimized super hero movies and ushered in an era where the most important movie events were almost exclusively super hero movies.

Whaaaaaat the #### are you talking about, "legitimized"?

Opendoor's comment is bang on the money; holding The Dark Knight up as a cultural touchstone and masterpiece yet to be equalled is hilariously specific to one's age and proclivity for comic book superhero movies.

Don't get me wrong, I saw that movie twice in theatres and I liked it a lot at the time, but I've never watched it again since. Thus by the GreenLantern2814 standard:

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

To me, a movie you can’t watch over and over is not a great movie. And great movies really don’t get made anymore.

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

Not to bring everything back to Dark Knight, but the moment the semi flips in the middle of Gotham was the last “oh wow” moment I had in a theatre.

... it was not a "great" movie.

It was a lot of fun, it was very well made, but it is most certainly not the last movie with an "oh wow" moment. That's patently absurd. GreenLantern2814: your entire premise is absurd. It's full of nonsense. E.g.

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

There’s almost no CGI in Dark Knight

There are hundreds of CGI effects in The Dark Knight. Like, what the #### are you talking about?!? Half the face of one of the main characters was a CGI effect!

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by timun

Whaaaaaat the #### are you talking about, "legitimized"?

Opendoor's comment is bang on the money; holding The Dark Knight up as a cultural touchstone and masterpiece yet to be equalled is hilariously specific to one's age and proclivity for comic book superhero movies.

Don't get me wrong, I saw that movie twice in theatres and I liked it a lot at the time, but I've never watched it again since.

It made it so that Super hero movies were not longer just for nerds and children. It made them mainstream. While there were always super hero movies they were never something you had to see to understand peoples cultural vocabulary.

Was it a great movie from an artistic perspective, probably not, but it was certainly cultural touchstone that elevated the public perception of a genre that moved on to dominate the box office for nearly a decade.

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

It made it so that Super hero movies were not longer just for nerds and children. It made them mainstream. While there were always super hero movies they were never something you had to see to understand peoples cultural vocabulary.

Was it a great movie from an artistic perspective, probably not, but it was certainly cultural touchstone that elevated the public perception of a genre that moved on to dominate the box office for nearly a decade.

I would attribute that more to Spider-Man (2002).

It may not seem like a big deal now, but it was the first movie ever to break a $100M opening weekend.

[blankall]

A part of this is probably you (and me) getting old. You say that a great film is a movie you'd want to watch over and over again. As you get older, you just get less excited for movies, music, etc... You have less patience. It happens to everyone.

If we're talking about superhero movies specifically, 95% of them were absolute trash up until recently. Like not just a little bit bad....really bad. In the 90s they occasionally made a good one like Tim Burton's Batman or the Crow, but so many were just complete crap that people would assume were a parody now.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Playfair

We just don't get the movies like we used to, the epic, well acted, directed stories.

Schindler's List
Life is Beautiful
Gone With the Wind
Forest Gump
Braveheart
Bridge Over the River Kwai

I don't know, just to name a few. I realize it is all subjective. But the point I am making is you don't get the performance of a Tom Hanks, or a story telling of Life is Beautiful in most movies these days. Times change I guess, so do our tastes.

The historical epic is pretty much dead as a genre. They’ve very expensive to make, and that market niche has been taken over by fantasy franchise films which have broader appeal with today’s audiences. Ridley Scott still had the clout to get an expensive historical film like the Duel made. But it bombed. And I’m afraid Napoleon will probably bomb too, which will be the nail in the coffin.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

I would attribute that more to Spider-Man (2002).

It may not seem like a big deal now, but it was the first movie ever to break a $100M opening weekend.

It seems at the time that it was a movie for kids and nerds, but maybe you're right. Maybe the Dark Knight was not a water shed like I have been arguing. But it is undeniable that shortly there after was the ea of the super hero movie.

[SutterBrother]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

Every single one of those movies is at best mediocre, most are steaming piles of crap, and will most certainly not be thought about 25 years from now in the same way the Matrix is now (which I still think is a pile of crap but history proved me wrong), and then Star Wars 25 years before that. And they're not even "good" movies. But they exploded the imaginations of the entire world. There is nothing that happens on screen any more that makes me go "oh wow" because I have a computer too.

I don't even like music recordings anymore that isn't a live performance. I know what goes into music production now compared to even 20 years ago. Talented performances by talented performers hasn't been a thing for a long time. If a five minute metal song needs 65,000 edits, are they even really a band?

If you thought that about the Matrix (not to mention my list) I guess we’re in the territory of our subjective fields not overlapping.

Would love to see your list of great movies?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Playfair

We just don't get the movies like we used to, the epic, well acted, directed stories.

Schindler's List
Life is Beautiful
Gone With the Wind
Forest Gump
Braveheart
Bridge Over the River Kwai

I don't know, just to name a few. I realize it is all subjective. But the point I am making is you don't get the performance of a Tom Hanks, or a story telling of Life is Beautiful in most movies these days. Times change I guess, so do our tastes.

Braveheart does not belong on that list.

I rewatched Braveheart. Now that I'm not teen who gets riled up by all the violence, the movie is trash. It's non-sensical.

The movie starts out with a middle aged Mel Gibson playing a romantic lead to a far younger lady played by an actress in her early 20s, and it's revenge porn from that point on. It's basically just Mel Gibson stroking his ego for hours. It's also horribly homophobic and misogynistic. All of the villains are mustache twirling caricatures of bad people and Gibson, despite being constantly unnecessarily violent, is depicted as always righteous.

It's a dumb movie.

[Yeah_Baby]

I think there is a point to be made, like GirlySports mentioned earlier, and Matt Damon on Hot Ones, about the death of the DVD meaning a bid budget movie couldn't get a second kick at making it's money back. So you have small indies and your paint by numbers board room blockbusters.

I agree that blockbusters are mostly trash these days, in contrast to the popcorn films of years gone by, by to say nothing is memorable since 2008 is hyperbole.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Coach

The computer entering the game is the same as the electric guitar. It's a new tool.

There is absolutely no comparison between operating an electric guitar (or any other musical instrument operated with one's body) to achieve an emotional reaction from people from a performance, and jerking off into a computer. Because in comparison of the time, talent, intellect, and goddamn courage required to operate a musical instrument well enough to achieve an emotional reaction from people from a performance, anything in a computer is jerking off.

(We're talking about movies/art/artistic integrity here. Please don't bombard the thread with all the obvious exceptions. Medicine, NASA, engineering, blah blah blah...._

Anyways, you aren't a fan. I enjoyed it and if it inspired my own creative aspirations, well that's enough for me.

The most important thing is you have creative aspirations, and felt inspired. I like and respect anyone that defends the merits of what inspires them. Artistic integrity is important, and so is arguing about it. Lol.

[opendoor]

Haven't blockbusters mostly been mediocre forever though? 25 years ago, Armageddon, Godzilla, Deep Impact, Dr Doolitle, and Lethal Weapon 4 were 5 of the 10 highest grossing movies.

15 years ago (when the Dark Knight came out), Indiana Jones/Crystal Skull, Hancock, Madagascar 2, Quantum of Solace, and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian were top 10 grossing movies.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

I think there is a point to be made, like GirlySports mentioned earlier, and Matt Damon on Hot Ones, about the death of the DVD meaning a bid budget movie couldn't get a second kick at making it's money back. So you have small indies and your paint by numbers board room blockbusters.

I agree that blockbusters are mostly trash these days, in contrast to the popcorn films of years gone by, by to say nothing is memorable since 2008 is hyperbole.

They need to rejig how movies get paid for streaming. Give the movie makers a payment each time their movie gets streamed. People are still spending their DVD money (and likely more) elsewhere. It's juts not always getting to the people who make the content.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

There is absolutely no comparison between operating an electric guitar (or any other musical instrument operated with one's body) to achieve an emotional reaction from people from a performance, and jerking off into a computer. Because in comparison of the time, talent, intellect, and goddamn courage required to operate a musical instrument well enough to achieve an emotional reaction from people from a performance, anything in a computer is jerking off.

I'd put the artistic integrity of a band like New Order (who used a lot of sequencing on many of their best songs) well above some guy wanking a generic blues riff on an electric guitar. They're just tools.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by SutterBrother

If you thought that about the Matrix (not to mention my list) I guess we’re in the territory of our subjective fields not overlapping.

Would love to see your list of great movies?

I think the point I'm making is that I don't think movies are that "great" at all, at least not anymore thanks to the price of admission to make it being so low that its made so much pure crap it ruined, or at least brutally devalued what came before.

That "special feeling" that I've seen mentioned by lots of people that is missing is because even a terrible movie had the built in feature of being redeemed to a large degree simply because it managed to come to exist.

Paramount had to rewrite all the legal rules for Trekkies to make fan-films because they are too good now, and rather than just let the Trekkies take it and go nuts they're fighting tooth and nail to keep a profit genie that is well and truly out of the bottle.

Someone mentioned having awards for movies based on their budget. I think this would make movies way more interesting again. I'd be glued to the under $50k category, thinking how I could actually win the thing, and not waste my time bemoaning another 250-million going down the tubes to The Incredible SpiderSheMan 13, Venomina's Revenge.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by opendoor

I'd put the artistic integrity of a band like New Order (who used a lot of sequencing on many of their best songs) well above some guy wanking a generic blues riff on an electric guitar. They're just tools.

I learned to sequence on a Kerzweil K2000, and now I do it on my cellphone. You seriously just compared plonking in 1's and 0's to operating a musical instrument with your body and mind as one in real time. Can New Order even perform without a computer? Electricity? Can they take a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a ruler, and produce something that can be handed to another musician to play? Like, even a piano? Let alone an orchestra...

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

There is absolutely no comparison between operating an electric guitar (or any other musical instrument operated with one's body) to achieve an emotional reaction from people from a performance, and jerking off into a computer. Because in comparison of the time, talent, intellect, and goddamn courage required to operate a musical instrument well enough to achieve an emotional reaction from people from a performance, anything in a computer is jerking off.

(We're talking about movies/art/artistic integrity here. Please don't bombard the thread with all the obvious exceptions. Medicine, NASA, engineering, blah blah blah...._



The most important thing is you have creative aspirations, and felt inspired. I like and respect anyone that defends the merits of what inspires them. Artistic integrity is important, and so is arguing about it. Lol.

I don't disagree with this in terms of music and performance. In terms of a tool for filmmaking I do. Filmmaking is not a performance, it is a mosaic of 100's of art forms. There are performances involved with it and a big part is capturing a live, human performance that we can connect with. But whether it has to be edited, animated, scored, written, etc... it ALL goes through a computer since way before 2008, or 1999. Even if this are done in traditional methods. Is a script better if it's done on a typewriter or a computer? The writer may have written it on paper with a pen first regardless, and animator will almost certainly start with hand drawn on paper before, regardless of whether they plan to animate on paper or computer, and even if done on paper they will scan it into the computer to edit it. You don't think Hans Zimmer uses a computer to record and mix his arrangements? Movies shot on film are also edited in computers. And yes that can mean that some people are just doing things for the sake of doing, but the masters will use those tools to help themselves work faster and better too. Just because someone is sitting to do their art form doesn't mean they're just whacking it or whatever. I feel like you're pretty dismissive of the talent and dedication necessary to get great at those things. Did you just pick up a guitar, go on stage within a few minutes and were a wild man rockstar? Or did it take hours and hours of sitting in your room "whacking it" to endless E A and D progressions? Paul Kossof of Free literally slashed the front of his amp open to get the distortion sound he wanted for All Right Now. Now you can get that sound on a foot pedal. Do you use foot pedals with your electric guitar?

Filmmaking is still a VERY young art form and things are going to get even wilder with VR and new cameras that capture light points and AI. It will no doubt lead to new levels of suck, but it will also lead to new levels of entertainment and artistry in the hands of people who are actual artists.

[Spurs]

Jordan Peele is a good director???

His movies suck but to be fair I only saw Get Out and Us, maybe Nope was a great film that I missed.

As for the original post I think this has to do with a lot of nostalgia, I am not a movie nerd (so if offensive if there is a more PC term I will switch to it) but I have been watching a lot of older, highly regarded movies and they aren't nearly as great as people claim.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by opendoor

I'd put the artistic integrity of a band like New Order (who used a lot of sequencing on many of their best songs) well above some guy wanking a generic blues riff on an electric guitar. They're just tools.

I love New Order, but they are basically took principles of punk rock music and made them electronic. They do the equivalent of playing power cords. There's a talent to making something catchy. However, I wouldn't describe what they do as displaying musical proficiency. Anyone could play their songs after only a few months of practicing. Whereas true mastery of any musical instrument takes decades.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Coach

I don't disagree with this in terms of music and performance. In terms of a tool for filmmaking I do. Filmmaking is not a performance, it is a mosaic of 100's of art forms. There are performances involved with it and a big part is capturing a live, human performance that we can connect with. But whether it has to be edited, animated, scored, written, etc... it ALL goes through a computer since way before 2008, or 1999. Even if this are done in traditional methods. Is a script better if it's done on a typewriter or a computer? The writer may have written it on paper with a pen first regardless, and animator will almost certainly start with hand drawn on paper before, regardless of whether they plan to animate on paper or computer, and even if done on paper they will scan it into the computer to edit it. You don't think Hans Zimmer uses a computer to record and mix his arrangements? Movies shot on film are also edited in computers. And yes that can mean that some people are just doing things for the sake of doing, but the masters will use those tools to help themselves work faster and better too. Just because someone is sitting to do their art form doesn't mean they're just whacking it or whatever. I feel like you're pretty dismissive of the talent and dedication necessary to get great at those things. Did you just pick up a guitar, go on stage within a few minutes and were a wild man rockstar? Or did it take hours and hours of sitting in your room "whacking it" to endless E A and D progressions? Paul Kossof of Free literally slashed the front of his amp open to get the distortion sound he wanted for All Right Now. Now you can get that sound on a foot pedal. Do you use foot pedals with your electric guitar?

Filmmaking is still a VERY young art form and things are going to get even wilder with VR and new cameras that capture light points and AI. It will no doubt lead to new levels of suck, but it will also lead to new levels of entertainment and artistry in the hands of people who are actual artists.

True, but they'll be drowned in crap. Like we are now.

I've used a computer creatively every day for the last 30 years dude. I know what it is. Your amp and footpedal comments are entirely beside the point. Buddy still has to operate strings attached to wood with his human body. Anything attached to that is just fluff so far as my point goes. There is nothing that happens inside the box, no matter how complicated, that is anywhere close to being that profound. The tool, the computer, has devalued that to the level of minecraft.