Clues that a film will be sub-par?

Movies that were stuck in "development hell". Usually when one makes it out of that hell, you find out why it was there in the first place.

I don’t think any of these are red flags. As a frequent watcher of non-English language movies, I TEND to enjoy films from countries you might not expect to have a thriving film industry. If, for example, a film from Romania gets picked up for international distribution, sub-titling, and a DVD in the U.S., that probably means it has some merit (at least, some commercial value to the distributing agency).

For me, certain terms in the tagline or items from the film promotion make me wary:

Faith-based
Family friendly
Based On A True Story
Crowd Pleasing (ironically, often used to describe those foreign films that I like)
Ads that show the entire cast grinning like idiots
Trailers that take you through the entire plot (so I don’t have to see the movie; maybe I should thank them)
Trailers for comedies that can’t show us a single decent laugh from the entire movie

As of the past 10 to 15 years, probably 75% of new films are sub-par. No indicators needed.

* It's really low-budget

* The cast and crew have day jobs (basically another sign that it's really low budget)

* Worse is if the cast and crew have a lot of credits, but they're all really low budget films and they still have day jobs

* It's been distributed under ten different titles, all of which are very generic-sounding and unfamiliar to you

* It stars an actor who is at a point of their career where they'll do any project as long as you pay them their 10k (or whatever) daily fee; when you look at the IMDb page for these actors, you'll notice that they have 20 films listed as being in various stages of production at the same time, and they've probably been doing 20-30 films per year. Current examples: Michael Madsen, Tom Sizemore

* It's distributed by a company like SubRosa

* It's directed by Bill Zebub

The movie or trailer features either "Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina & the Waves or "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind.

for me after seeing plenty of movies you can pretty much narrow finding quality movies down with the following four categories...

-Subject Matter (naturally certain kinds of movies/subjects are just not as interesting as others)

-Cast (while this is not always the case usually people you know are better than no names)

-Director (once someone gets a established name with me, naturally they are more likely to output a higher quality movie. only problem here is that you don't see to many name directors releasing movies too often so this tends not to be too much of a factor because of that)

-Trailer (this comes in handy when the above categories are not as much of a factor)


so basically stuff that does not play inline with that then chances are the movie has little chance of being of any real worth for me.

also, when i go into most movies i just assume they will be either a 5/10 (Thumbs Down ; but okay enough for a viewing. most movies land here) or a 6/10 (a mild Thumbs Up). i think that covers roughly 7 out of 10 movies i see between those two scores with about 5 of the 7 being a 5/10.

----------------------------------

vegalyra



Hell, i would say that's [the bold text] a good ball park figure for movies as a whole in that the vast majority of movies are nothing special as even if we stick to mostly known movies, which helps raise the quality a bit, that 75% figure you mentioned is still close enough.

because looking at ALL movies i have seen only around 3 out of 10 of the movies i see are worth re-watching and only around 9% of everything i have seen i would call a favorite. even counting movies a bit outside of my favorites... that's still only 11-12% of everything i have seen which is right around 1 out of every 10 movies i see in the long term i would call a favorite.

but with that said... i would say 2016 and 2017 have been pretty weak overall (2016 is my worst overall year since 1998 as i would have to go back to 1998 to find a weaker overall year. 2017 is similar to 2016 but at least 2017 and 1998 have one movie i score a 7 or above unlike 2016).

but i would definitely not agree with dissing the last 10-15 years thing because the vast majority of my favorite movies have been from the 1990's to date with the 2000's decade definitely being my all around favorite decade as it's got the highest volume of higher quality movies for me (basically movies i score a 8 or higher (even though i consider 7/10's and higher a favorite)). even when i looked at years i consider more of my cream-of-the-crop of movies, which i pretty much narrowed it down to six years i think(like for a Top 5-ish), the 2000's decade had all but two years (all but 1995 and 2010).

Plot summary is often enough. If you compare the average plot summary written in 2016 to one written in 1970 via IMDB lists the difference in description is profound.

A 1970 plot summary might go something like: "an author is stalked by a homicidal maniac."

A 2016 plot summary might be: "a widowed father and son embark upon a journey of self-discovery."


Even for genre films the modern plot summaries are often lame-o.


Compare

The Blood on Satan's Claw 1971 plot summary:

Horror thriller set in 17th century England about the children of a village slowly converting into a coven of devil worshipers.


the Witch 2015:



A family in 1630s New England is torn apart by the forces of witchcraft, black magic and possession.


Taglines for Blood on Satan's Claw:

A CHILL-FILLED Festival of HORROR!
A living nightmare of black magic... and unspeakable evil!

The Witch:

A New-England Folktale.
Evil Takes Many Forms.



I think the Blood on Satan's Claw sounds a lot more exciting, both in summary and ad phrasing.
That doesnt mean the movie will be good (even though it is in fact, a great film) but you can already see the effort that went into the promotion of it compared with the other.

If Will Smith is in it