geralmar
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Post by geralmar on Jun 19, 2017 18:04:08 GMT
Not missing; but added: Why do so many movies have to have scenes of people urinating? It hardly qualifies as "character development" and always grinds momentum to a halt-- people urinating aren't exactly moving from one spot. It stopped being "humorous" long ago and there are less clichéd ways to suggest "naturalism." Perhaps what is missing in too many movies is a sense of propriety. But then I'm old so what do I know?
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Post by twothousandonemark on Jun 19, 2017 20:02:14 GMT
I think that mass appeal cinema has become too safe... & I don't even mean simply popcorn tentpole films.
Movies like Lincoln, Fury Road, Twelve Years a Slave... maybe I'm looking too much into things, yet 21st century film feels restrained, wanting to show us topics & subject matter, albeit never quite delving as deep as we'd like.
Or I could be crazy & this reply ridiculous lols.
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spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Jun 19, 2017 22:16:48 GMT
I think that mass appeal cinema has become too safe... & I don't even mean simply popcorn tentpole films. Movies like Lincoln, Fury Road, Twelve Years a Slave... maybe I'm looking too much into things, yet 21st century film feels restrained, wanting to show us topics & subject matter, albeit never quite delving as deep as we'd like. I think this is a brilliant observation, ttom! I think it's precisely the reason that I can see a film, presumably of substance, and a week or two later barely remember having seen it. And I think it's more than restraint; rather, the lack of deeply personal artistic visions, particularly of writers and directors, that, if invested, would provide both depth and substance that is challenging and memorable. So often this failure is thrust upon them by the studios, I know. But it's still a liability, which all must fight to overcome. It saddens me, and reminds me of a quote I read some time ago from Meryl Streep, who asked: "What have we done to this medium we love?"
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Flynn
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Post by Flynn on Jun 22, 2017 4:13:36 GMT
For me what is missing in films today is a lack of focus on storytelling. We've probably all heard the expression "style over substance." Well, I think today the general aesthetic is that style *is* the substance. I see and hear people raving all the time about how beautiful this or that film is, and that's always curious to me. It leaves me wondering, "Is that all you want from a film, that it looks great?" For some people to love a film, sometimes it seems like all it takes is a good clear image with a swoopy camera.
As I see it, attention to style elements has led to a lack of attention on things like story, storytelling, and character.
I also think there is a fear today of being conventional. A filmmaker must be unique and individual in their craft. This leads to filmmakers to reject the techniques of the master filmmakers of the past. If they maintained continuity, we'll jettison it; if they used match cuts to maintain unobtrusiveness, we'll be explicit about cuts. I suspect this kind of thinking has led to decisions that were motivated not by how best to tell a story but how to seem radical.
I'm bothered a lot today by movies that refuse to tell a story chronologically for reasons I cannot understand and that in my estimation lead to a worse version of the story. In The Imitation Game, for instance, the movie engages in a series of flashbacks to Alan Turing's difficult life as a child. Eventually, the flashbacks reveal why Turing acts the way he does, why he is so off-putting and such, if the story had been told chronologically, we the audience would have understood the cause of so many of the decisions he made and personal mannerisms he displayed. This would have made the character sympathetic for more than just the last quarter of the film. We would have seen the tragic events that led to the man we spend most of our time with in the film, creating a rich character in turn. But instead we get a reveal to a mystery we didn't need. While it still makes the end more poignant, it could have made the middle poignant too.
I guess today linear storytelling is considered boring and for the less intelligent. Smart people want puzzles, even if to the detriment of coherence.
I really don't think I've seen a great film from the last 15 years. I've seen a small number of good films, but none that have even come close to the quality of films from the 40s and 50s. We all have our preferences though, and it just stands that the aesthetics of modern filmmaking do not seem to jibe with my personal preferences of films.
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spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Jun 23, 2017 14:40:14 GMT
Flynn , thank you for your wonderful post. As a filmmaker, I couldn't agree with you more about what's wrong with films today, in particular the pernicious tendency toward style over substance. That's like a rollercoaster ride - it seems like fun, but doesn't last, linger, or teach. And I, too, dislike the trick of nonlinear films for the sake of being linear, when chronological order would be more effective. That said, I do have to admit that if a film is done in a non-linear fashion - not as a trick that so often doesn't even make sense - but as an honestly conceived, executed, and meaningful technique, it can be a remarkable experience. Citizen Kane is a great example of this. But that isn't in the category of the films of Christopher Nolan, et al, who just use the technique as a trick to make the audience feel they're getting a lot when they're really getting nothing. I had a teacher once tell me that as an actor you have to earn your right to come on stage. I think the same thing is true for a non-linear format. It should be used only when it's the only honest way to tell the story. And I'm particularly touched by your last point about feeling like you haven't seen a great film in the last 15 years. More and more these days I hear that from my friends in the business who've spent their lives dedicated to cinematic storytelling. I think I'd probably have to agree, which makes me sad (my one caveat being that I don't see a lot of foreign films these days, so I can't be sure in that regard). Again, thank you for your wonderful post. I can only hope that there will at some point be a transition back toward a more "traditional" style of filmmaking that will allow an audience the time to digest what they're watching, and, in that, grasp some important truth about the human condition.
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Flynn
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Post by Flynn on Jun 24, 2017 4:46:57 GMT
I agree about the excellent use of non-linear storytelling in Citizen Kane. I was thinking of that film when writing, but it didn't make it into my response. The flashbacks (I'm using this word solely for the sake of brevity) in that film are essential to the story being told, but flashbacks in so many movies today just feel like a ploy to manufacture interest where there is none, or at least where interest is lacking. It's like a modulation in music where you just move to a new key a half step higher. Sure, it adds interest, but it's a cheap and unimaginative way to do it.
The possibilities in today's films are nearly endless. The camera can move in any way desired. It can follow a charachter from the car to the front door of the house, spin around and zoom in on the turning knob, then pass through the lock, do a 360-degree turn to establish setting, pass through the small hole made by a coffee pot handle and so on. I think all that thought about these extraneous and narratively divorced movements have distracted filmmakers (and audiences) from attending to narrative. And it's a shame. Filmmakers often need limitations to create great art.
I think it's hard to set those limitations for yourself, though. Circumstances have to set them.
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Post by novastar6 on Jun 24, 2017 5:03:27 GMT
I haven't read through all the pages of everybody else's suggestions, so I'll probably be repeating some.
Simply put: brain, heart, soul.
More complicated, it's missing competent writing, it's missing likeable actors, it's missing believable characters, it's missing a simplistic real life look as all films had before CGI, it misses little moments like in Jaws, all the little things people do that make it feel like real life. Jean Arthur playing Swanny River on a trash can lid is more appealing in Mr. Deeds than Winona Ryder lying about her whole past.
Another thing missing, good guys, actual good guys, instead of this approach 'everybody's bad, but the heroes are just less bad than the bad guys they're fighting'. That's not how you get a Jefferson Smith, that's not how you get a Batman that stands the test of time of 50+ years.
Subtlety, that's also been AWOL for a long time. Compare the real National Lampoon Vacation with that monstrosity that came out a couple years back, one implies 90%, one disgustingly shows 110%.
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Flynn
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Post by Flynn on Jun 24, 2017 22:48:44 GMT
I agree about the excellent use of non-linear storytelling in Citizen Kane. I was thinking of that film when writing, but it didn't make it into my response. The flashbacks (I'm using this word solely for the sake of brevity) in that film are essential to the story being told, but flashbacks in so many movies today just feel like a ploy to manufacture interest where there is none, or at least where interest is lacking. It's like a modulation in music where you just move to a new key a half step higher. Sure, it adds interest, but it's a cheap and unimaginative way to do it. The possibilities in today's films are nearly endless. The camera can move in any way desired. It can follow a charachter from the car to the front door of the house, spin around and zoom in on the turning knob, then pass through the lock, do a 360-degree turn to establish setting, pass through the small hole made by a coffee pot handle and so on. I think all that thought about these extraneous and narratively divorced movements have distracted filmmakers (and audiences) from attending to narrative. And it's a shame. Filmmakers often need limitations to create great art. I think it's hard to set those limitations for yourself, though. Circumstances have to set them. I agree with you about everything, Flynn, except that circumstances have to set limitations. Sometimes they can and do, but if they don't, then the artist must. Put another way, it's important to remember that in almost every case less is more. Thank you for your thoughtful posts on this important subject.
I agree with you that independent artists can set limitations for themselves, but I have doubts that an artist who is part of the Hollywood machine can set limitations. I think I remember an interview with George Romero once where he said that no one is willing to give you 3 million dollars and let you have full control to make what you want. Rather, they are willing to give you 100 million dollars and want full comtrol themselves. (That's a paraphrase, of course. I've forgotten the actual amounts he used.) If someone gives you $50 mil, I wouldn't expect someone to set their limitations at $25 mil. That's all I'm saying.
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Post by novastar6 on Jun 25, 2017 2:34:07 GMT
I haven't read through all the pages of everybody else's suggestions, so I'll probably be repeating some. Simply put: brain, heart, soul. More complicated, it's missing competent writing, it's missing likeable actors, it's missing believable characters, it's missing a simplistic real life look as all films had before CGI, it misses little moments like in Jaws, all the little things people do that make it feel like real life. Jean Arthur playing Swanny River on a trash can lid is more appealing in Mr. Deeds than Winona Ryder lying about her whole past. Another thing missing, good guys, actual good guys, instead of this approach 'everybody's bad, but the heroes are just less bad than the bad guys they're fighting'. That's not how you get a Jefferson Smith, that's not how you get a Batman that stands the test of time of 50+ years. Subtlety, that's also been AWOL for a long time. Compare the real National Lampoon Vacation with that monstrosity that came out a couple years back, one implies 90%, one disgustingly shows 110%. I agree with you about everything, novastar. I just want to emphasize one thing you mentioned that I think is terribly important: that we need to see good guys, "actual good guys," as you said. For such a long time, I've felt that so much of the darkness, despair, and unmitigated evil portrayed in films today is not only not an accurate portrayal of life as we know it, but that it promotes the things it portrays, and desensitizes the culture at large. There is goodness in the world, and the human heart and soul, and we need to see it in our films - in a balanced way, of course, with honest human conflicts - in order to be able to to empathize and feel compassion for each other. I miss that in many ways more than I miss anything else. So I thank you for bringing that up in your thoughtful post. You're welcome, that's something that's bugged me ever since Nolan redid the Batman series. The Batman(Batmen) I grew up watching were good guys, plain and simple, that's why they're the super HEROES, that's why we liked them, Hollywood won't admit it but we LIKE when the good guy is an actual good guy who does the right thing BECAUSE it's the right thing, and we don't see enough of that anymore, in fact we never see it anymore.
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Post by novastar6 on Jun 25, 2017 2:35:49 GMT
Since I last wrote on this thred I've recently seen two new modern comedies Neighbors 2014 and Identity Thief 2013, well they are labeled comedies but I'm still waiting for the laughs. Did they use any scripts whatsoever or were they based on an idea "Wouldn't it be fun if..." and then make things up as they go. No wit, no timing, just screaming and yelling hysterical actors as if excess in overdoing things is funny. Not one smart line can be found in them. "Funny" actors letting loose without any restraint from the directors, doing their so called "funny" bits forever and ever. I watched these two movies mostly to see if comedy was dead in big hit movies of today that is labeled comedies, on TV. If this is the future in comedies the genre is dead, gone and buried, sadly. I watched them to see if my fears were true. Sometimes you just don't have to bite the lemon to know it's sour, as soon as I saw the trailer for Neighbors I knew it would be an un-funny piece of crap, same with the new Vacation, same with the stupid Jump Street movies, and the only people who protest that they ARE funny, in fact hilarious, don't seem to have any idea what that means.
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Post by Rufus-T on Jun 25, 2017 5:00:46 GMT
Interesting question. The first thing comes to mind is good script with interesting dialogue. Many movies nowadays either have too much dizzying action, filler swearing, or unnecessary sexual enticement. It is getting to the point that I wish they bring the Hays Code back, so that the directors and screenplay writers have to be forced to be creative again.
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Post by taranofprydain on Jun 25, 2017 5:03:24 GMT
Jumping in with another thought or two.
I just find something ironic about films with big $100 million plus budgets. They have practically all the money in the world, and yet so many of them feel mechanical. There is rarely wonder or joy involved. The smaller films have so much more honesty involved in them, and do sometimes have that elusive lifeforce in them.
Nova is right when they stated films need more soul. I am willing to trot out a 2016 film as an example. The film was Allied, an expensive major-studio undertaking set against the background of World War II. The two stars, Brad Pitt and Marion Cotilliard, were well-chosen. The period detail was ideal. But the film lacked the emotion needed to match the 40s films it so desperately wanted to emulate. The tragic last 15 minutes or so were the only part of the film tht held water. It was a deflating experience.
And teleadm and Nova are so right on many modern comedies. They are crass, crude, uncouth. There is no wit, just vulgarity. I mainly miss classic comedies of the golden age, but I also miss the films from earlier in the 90s like Sleepless in Seattle, Sister Act, The First Wives Club, Four Weddings and a Funeral, etc. as they, in spite of some weaknesses, took time out to make their characters intriguing and to inject true character-based humor. But that's gone now. It's been like this since the late 90s, when films like There's Something About Mary and American Pie pushed boundry lines and were big hits. And Hollywood has continued to make copies of them, becoming more tasteless in the bargain. I saw Fast Times at Ridgemont High for the first time not too long ago, and I was struck by how much (well, minus two or three scenes) of this 1982 film threatened with an X at the time, felt more bizarrely genteel than the comedies today. I think even audiences see through many of these comedies anymore. Many have strikingly low scores on IMDb. I saw the trailer for Identity Thief before Les Miserables in 2013, and it was as the British might say, a bloody painful sight to view. And part of what's so tragic about it all is that Universal reaped money off it and Neighbors, while audiences gave cold shoulders to more ambitious comedies from them like About Time and Hail, Caesar, ones that truly did have wit in them. I still yearn for a day when the genre might recover.
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Post by novastar6 on Jun 25, 2017 6:02:31 GMT
Jumping in with another thought or two. I just find something ironic about films with big $100 million plus budgets. They have practically all the money in the world, and yet so many of them feel mechanical. There is rarely wonder or joy involved. The smaller films have so much more honesty involved in them, and do sometimes have that elusive lifeforce in them. Nova is right when they stated films need more soul. I am willing to trot out a 2016 film as an example. The film was Allied, an expensive major-studio undertaking set against the background of World War II. The two stars, Brad Pitt and Marion Cotilliard, were well-chosen. The period detail was ideal. But the film lacked the emotion needed to match the 40s films it so desperately wanted to emulate. The tragic last 15 minutes or so were the only part of the film tht held water. It was a deflating experience. And teleadm and Nova are so right on many modern comedies. They are crass, crude, uncouth. There is no wit, just vulgarity. I mainly miss classic comedies of the golden age, but I also miss the films from earlier in the 90s like Sleepless in Seattle, Sister Act, The First Wives Club, Four Weddings and a Funeral, etc. as they, in spite of some weaknesses, took time out to make their characters intriguing and to inject true character-based humor. But that's gone now. It's been like this since the late 90s, when films like There's Something About Mary and American Pie pushed boundry lines and were big hits. And Hollywood has continued to make copies of them, becoming more tasteless in the bargain. I saw Fast Times at Ridgemont High for the first time not too long ago, and I was struck by how much (well, minus two or three scenes) of this 1982 film threatened with an X at the time, felt more bizarrely genteel than the comedies today. I think even audiences see through many of these comedies anymore. Many have strikingly low scores on IMDb. I saw the trailer for Identity Thief before Les Miserables in 2013, and it was as the British might say, a bloody painful sight to view. And part of what's so tragic about it all is that Universal reaped money off it and Neighbors, while audiences gave cold shoulders to more ambitious comedies from them like About Time and Hail, Caesar, ones that truly did have wit in them. I still yearn for a day when the genre might recover. If I may intrude in here a bit, this is also something I've talked about for years, today Hollywood can cough up a $100 million budget, they can spend 5 years making a movie, and it's crap. But you go back to when money and effects were VERY limited, and those films are gold, you see the priority was in the dedication, they weren't JUST out to hit a big box office payday, they wanted to make a movie, they wanted to tell a story. For lack of a better example, because its praises have been sung to death, look at the Wizard of Oz, look at those effects, all done without computers. But for a lesser known example, the movie that actually beat OUT the Wizard of Oz for best effects of 1939, The Rains Came, they were able to create for the camera, earthquakes, fires, floods, etc., actually many of what we call 'disaster movies' excel in this field. In Old Chicago, we hear the stories about the stunts were so dangerous, women weren't even allowed on the stage lot during filming of the climax, or the 70s, look at the Poseidon Adventure, or look at The Towering Inferno, they actually built 90 sets and set them on fire to get that effect, they actually set people on fire to get those shots of people engulfed in flames. You could NEVER do that today, instead they'd CGI it all and it would look fake as hell by comparison. Of course, Hollywood could also take a lesson from 1920s Germany, look at Metropolis, or go back further, look at the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a budget so poor all the backgrounds are paper, and it looks real, it looks very cool, it looks mystifying, it WORKED. And everything that makes a story good, is everything missing from movies today. Anybody here ever see Hell's Kitchen with the Dead End Kids and Ronald Reagan? I stumbled upon the later half of it when I was a teenager, it was part of a tribute to Ronald Reagan after he died, and the East Side Kids, or whatever they were called at any particular time in their acting career, always had something great, they were the 'tough' guys, but they had heart. In that movie after *SPOILER* Joey dies, and they're all crying because they realize their friend was murdered by the sadist running the camp, I was in tears the whole time, and after the funeral when they all start chanting 'he killed Joey, he killed Joey' and slowly become an angry mob charging Krispan, my blood turned cold. And as goofy as they were in later films, the heart was still there. Let's Get Tough, they want to enlist in the army after Pearl Harbor, but are denied for being too young, so they take their anger out on a Japanese store owner and smash up his shop. Then he gets murdered, and they find out he was actually Chinese, and has a widow left behind, so the boys pool their money to pay for the damages and buy flowers to apologize to the wife. None of that is anything you'd see them do in a movie today. Even at their zaniest, the Bowery Boys, they were more slapstick than ever but still had that heart. One of the earlier Bowery Boys movies was about corruption in a boxing match, one of the fighters gets beaten to death in the fight, and this tragedy sits hard with Mahoney. And personally I think part of why it worked so well with them was because it was a reflection on them themselves, in an interview Leo Gorcey talked about the guy who played Whitey, and he said which again, is not the kind of stuff you see or hear about anymore. Is there a correlation or causation on the absence of heart and soul in movies and in our society, I don't know, but it makes you wonder. Penny Marshall said she quit making movies after 9/11 because they stopped being about heart, whatever the connection is to the timeline, she seemed dead on. Ray Bradbury also had a comment on this, that 'after 9/11, Hollywood said 'we're going to make more family movies, and less violence', but it's only gotten worse'. And he was dead on right too. Their solution to 'family' movies today is stuff that's either still disgusting and vulgar, or talks down to even the youngest viewers and treats them all like idiots, so nobody can enjoy them. In the 90s, family movies meant stuff like Matilda, Heavy Weights, Camp Nowhere, Mighty Ducks, 3 Ninjas, House Arrest, My Girl, Jumanji, etc., in the 80s it was The Neverending Story, Return to Oz, Labyrinth, The Great Muppet Caper, The Goonies, etc., stuff everybody could watch, and everybody could enjoy. Largely because the plots might be a little unbelievable, but it was not a direct insult to the viewers' intelligence, which just about every movie in the G-PG category is today.
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Post by jeffersoncody on Jun 25, 2017 6:09:48 GMT
I think that mass appeal cinema has become too safe... & I don't even mean simply popcorn tentpole films. Movies like Lincoln, Fury Road, Twelve Years a Slave... maybe I'm looking too much into things, yet 21st century film feels restrained, wanting to show us topics & subject matter, albeit never quite delving as deep as we'd like. I think this is a brilliant observation, ttom! I think it's precisely the reason that I can see a film, presumably of substance, and a week or two later barely remember having seen it. And I think it's more than restraint; rather, the lack of deeply personal artistic visions, particularly of writers and directors, that, if invested, would provide both depth and substance that is challenging and memorable. So often this failure is thrust upon them by the studios, I know. But it's still a liability, which all must fight to overcome. It saddens me, and reminds me of a quote I read some time ago from Meryl Streep, who asked: "What have we done to this medium we love?" Here is a brilliant film you will still remember months after seeing it spidey. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFc4DM6yHcM
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spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Jun 25, 2017 11:17:26 GMT
Oh, this looks wonderful, jefferson! Just like a film should be. Thanks so much for the recommendation! I will seek it out.
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Post by taranofprydain on Mar 2, 2018 21:21:19 GMT
I know this is an older thread now, but my recent viewing spell has made me think again about modern films and issues. Its at this time every year, give or take a few weeks, that I delve into the most recent films, just for a few weeks, to see many of the Oscar contenders and various other films I had an interest in seeing from the previous year.
I've now seen about 28 films from 2017, and will probably get to another 2 or 3 dozen or so before I call the year completed. What strikes me though as we approach Sunday's Oscars is that personal feeling that two of the biggest Oscar frontrunners are a bit...off. This is not to say that Get Out and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri don't have strong points, but Get Out has a comic subplot that is detrimental to the highly effective suspense main plot of the film and Three Billboards has wonderful performances but also has a script that goes out of its way to be offensive via hurled insults that are not necessary for the story at hand. And many of the 2017 films that impressed me the most (Their Finest, Wonder, Last Flag Flying, Murder on the Orient Express, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Maudie, Victoria and Abdul, The Big Sick, Our Souls at Night, A United Kingdom) were generally snubbed of Oscar nominations. Indeed all those films combined only received 4 nominations total. I did really enjoy Dunkirk, Coco, and Darkest Hour so at least those are some Oscar players I was pleased by. It just sems a pity though that so many vibrant films were cast aside and forgotten. And honestly, even when watching the really good ones, I still feel a strong longing to go back to the classic films again. They just mean so much to me.
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spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Mar 3, 2018 0:06:30 GMT
Beautifully said, taranofprydain , and thank you. Regrettably, you've seen many more contemporary films than I have, so I can't comment on your titles, only those that were nominated (and I found many of those to be lacking to some extent). I do completely agree with you about Get Out and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, however). And regarding this: "And honestly, even when watching the really good ones, I still feel a strong longing to go back to the classic films again. They just mean so much to me."BINGO! And I know many others who might agree. I so long these days for a film to mean something to me. I'd actually settle for one that I could remember seeing after just a few days. Not all, but most, vanish from my memory, because they are not memorable for so many of the reasons you and others have mentioned here. It makes me sad, actually. Meaning is everything, and we have so little of that in the high profile and often lauded films of today. In my opinion, anyway.
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Post by Rufus-T on Mar 11, 2022 17:33:40 GMT
Another great comparison why the writing in many modern films are weak:
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Post by novastar6 on Mar 11, 2022 17:37:37 GMT
In short, EVERYTHING.
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Post by novastar6 on Mar 11, 2022 17:39:04 GMT
Not missing; but added: Why do so many movies have to have scenes of people urinating? It hardly qualifies as "character development" and always grinds momentum to a halt-- people urinating aren't exactly moving from one spot. It stopped being "humorous" long ago and there are less clichéd ways to suggest "naturalism." Perhaps what is missing in too many movies is a sense of propriety. But then I'm old so what do I know?
MEN urinating. Maybe they got them but none of the new crappy movies I see ever have the woman doing it, and oh if we would actually SEE anything pertaining to her period that would just be going TOO far and SO gross and uncalled for while the guy's just ssssssssssss all over the ground, groaning, farting, etc.
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