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Post by novastar6 on Mar 18, 2022 22:19:36 GMT
RE: GHOSTBUSTERS old and new
So the men can talk normally, act like semi-regular people and just use subtle witty humor and very small movements to be funny and still be classically funny 40 years later, and the women have to be loud, obnoxious, disgusting, in-your-face, and downright stupid, to try and disprove the common belief that women aren't funny, which by the way, they failed at miserably. This is not a natural difference in the sexes, this is the original, which is not diverse, is genuinely written and executed to be funny, the new one, was not. And then the director blamed the movie's failure on the audience, saying they just hated it because they're anti-women. Wrong. . .
Some humor is universal, anybody can do the same thing, black, white, man, woman, etc., in the 1970s when The Jeffersons dressed up as old movie stars for Halloween, George did a dead-on impression of Charlie Chaplin, Helen and Tom made a perfect Laurel and Hardy, women and blacks doing the same humor that was originated 50 years earlier by white men. So it's a little hard to believe it would've been impossible for an all female Ghostbusters to be done without everybody being loud and obnoxious and borderline retarded and completely ignoring how real life physics work.
Haven't seen the new one (loved the old one), novastar, but based upon what you're saying, it sounds like the directing was terrible! There's way too much of that these days, but my thoughts on that are a book unto itself, so I'll leave it be. In any case, it's a shame that anyone, especially the wanna be director, Paul Feig, would blame the failure of the film on anti-women viewers. It's perfectly conceivable to me that a female version could have been just as smart and funny as the original. Too bad it wasn't. But that director is simply not capable.
And I don't get it. I actually like(d) Paul Feig, not enough to actually know who he was at the time, but I loved him IN the movie Heavyweights, and I love Unaccompanied Minors, that was the last good movie he made. Good, not great, but that's the natural progression of family movies among others.
I also don't get it, because many many years ago, about half of my life ago, I myself wrote a fanfiction concept for an all female Ghostbusters, sort of, people always talk about a reboot being the passing of the torch to a new generation, my approach was a literal new generation, that they were all the original Ghostbusters' daughters, which to me would've made more sense because they grew up with it, they knew it, they joined it WITH their fathers, that tells you how long ago it was, Harold Ramis was still alive and as far as the public knew, well, it was just a very natural order of events. I had this idea long before the 2016 movie was a fart in anybody's brain, and as soon as I heard 'all female Ghostbusters' even I went 'oh hell no', because I knew however they planned to do it, it wouldn't work. My brother was more hopeful, he was a die-hard Ghostbusters fan before I was born, he really wanted it to work, I appreciate that, but you could just tell it wasn't going to happen.
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Post by stryker on Mar 18, 2022 22:20:29 GMT
Sexuality. And I don’t mean just in terms of T&A. I meant just the mood. What’s the last mainstream movie that genuinely *felt* sexy?
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Post by novastar6 on Mar 18, 2022 22:30:59 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%.
Hey novastar, I decided to re-read the whole thread (so many wonderful comments in it, as lune7000 noted) and found this post from you, which I really appreciate. In many ways, it reflects some of what I've been saying in my more recent comments here. So thanks. (Can't believe I started this thread almost 5 years ago! And it's still relevant today.)
Oh my God, I hardly even remember writing this, it HAS indeed been a lifetime ago. Thank you for bringing it up again. I still stand by these views, and the more time passes the more examples I find that reinforce them.
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Post by novastar6 on Mar 18, 2022 22:44:01 GMT
This was an interesting thread to read and I started at the beginning. To summarize what folks wrote: Narratives that are too clever and lack straightforward storytelling- lots of flashbacks, scenes that disrupt story, confuse There are too many visual tricks: intricate camerawork, CGI, etc. that become an "end" instead of a "means to an end" Too much violence and sex: torture porn, rape, nudity where it wasn't necessary- comedy becoming vulgar and crude Main characters seem less sympathetic and are often horrible- crudeness and ego is emphasized over humility and sacrifice In addition, Isapop's video was pretty interesting too about how today's superheroes are like childish gods As for me, while I like much in today's movies, I do feel that the trends identified by many in this thread are generally true (and have been for the last 50 years). I like it all- every decade has it's joy for me and I cherish the decades for their signatures. Here is what I have noticed about films today:
1. The extension of scenes. It is not uncommon to see a person do laundry or eat food for two minutes. In the past those would have been edited down to 5-15 seconds. 2. The camera always seems to be slowly moving- so that watching a movie feels now like watching a lava lamp. 3. Everyone seems to be emoting overtly all the time- years ago this would have been considered overacting 4. Fewer characters go through an "inner change" where they realize their flaws- there is less learning 5. Evil almost always wins in horror films (or is never defeated) Like I said, great thread!
1. This reminds me of 2 things. One, on the books board, somebody brought up the annoyance of characters eating while talking and it has to be described in the paragraph. Two, it reminds me of you look up just about any random old(er) movie clip on Youtube, and look through the comments, and somebody, which will become everybody, will point out 'look at so and so in the background doing so and so', and sometimes it's something you didn't notice the first time, or the first 50 times you saw the movie, then you go back and see in a crowded scene, somebody doing some little thing that has nothing to do with the plot, but it makes it more real, because somebody in the comments has to point it out, nobody turns around and says to the character 'bro, wtf are you doing?'
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Post by novastar6 on Mar 18, 2022 23:42:52 GMT
I found a quote on a Youtube comment that sums up the way I feel about this sudden magical diversity in movies and TV, taken from Thomas Sowell Wisdom's video, Why Diversity Doesn't Work.
It doesn't get much simpler than that. Modern movies suck enough without having to check a bunch of boxes to show 'we're representing!'
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Post by mstreepsucks on Mar 18, 2022 23:54:51 GMT
One thing about diversity is, there isn't necessarily more of it now. The thing is that it now stands out more than in the past. In the past, when it didn't.
The reason, one of the main reasons is , is that minority actors aren't charismatic like they were in the past. Or likeable, as much. For example, new jack city. 1992.
And yes, the same exact criticism is... for white actors also. In other words you could say the same thing for non minority actors today. That's just how i see things. That's just my own, crappy observation.
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spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Mar 19, 2022 1:47:02 GMT
Personally, it's the sense of wonder. It's really rare to be truly blown away by a film anymore. People can say what they like about Dune: Part One, Interstellar, Prometheus, Avatar and Star Wars sequel trilogy but if there is one thing that perfectly describes these films, it's epicness - be it world-building BGM or setting. Scifis like these did a great job in this regard and there aren't enough of them.
Beautifully said, ghostintheshell (love that name). And about the notion of wonder: I think one could make the same argument about films that aren't Sci-fis, but that are maybe just simple stories in one genre or another. I know that so many of the great films from the old days (pick your era) evoked in me a sense of wonder about the human condition, an epicness of sorts, to borrow your word, which was inspiring and made me look at the world and the human heart differently. I don't feel that way when I see most films these days (American films in particular). And I miss it. I miss it a lot. Thanks for the reminder.
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lune7000
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Post by lune7000 on Mar 19, 2022 1:48:39 GMT
The whole diversity critique is a bit distorted. I am currently watching films from 2010 to 2020 and have gone through 300 of them- over 70% do not have any diversity in terms of main characters. A more diverse cast is more likely to be found in the expensive blockbusters which tends to distort the perception of the industry as a whole- but every movie isn't The Avengers.
The only time I find diversity problematic is when it reduces realism in films where that is important. In the real world, most people hang out with people from a similar background. I don't want to watch a drama that feels like a 2 hour Pepsi commercial. I would much rather watch an all Black, all Asian, etc. movie that feels realistic.
But if the film is a fantasy, etc. then realism doesn't matter. If someone is shooting lasers from their eyes then it is just as likely they have a transgender, Native American friend. Most film today doesn't require much realism.
But to re-iterate- most films still today have very little diversity- especially when compared to the US population (which is only 60% white). It seems like a manufactured issue.
Now, how those diverse characters are portrayed is an entirely different matter and far more problematic.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Mar 19, 2022 7:02:22 GMT
I never saw the newer Ghostbusters nor had any desire to but, if I understand what you're saying, you found it acceptable for the original to cast three white guys and one black one, but when a remake casts three white women and a black one, you find it objectionable because it's "politically correct" or "woke" (terms that have been mocked and tossed around so wildly as all-purpose indictments that they've pretty much lost any meaning). When I watch a film, I don't start analyzing or reading messaging into one character or another being something other than a white, heterosexual male, and honestly don't much pay attention to who is or isn't, unless it's to do with some aspect of the plot (as in Spielberg's West Side Story, which I saw just a couple days ago). I wonder if your sensitivities are allowing you to read more into what you're seeing than may actually be there.
Well you don't understand what I'm saying.
So the men can talk normally, act like semi-regular people and just use subtle witty humor and very small movements to be funny and still be classically funny 40 years later, and the women have to be loud, obnoxious, disgusting, in-your-face, and downright stupid, to try and disprove the common belief that women aren't funny, which by the way, they failed at miserably. This is not a natural difference in the sexes, this is the original, which is not diverse, is genuinely written and executed to be funny, the new one, was not. And then the director blamed the movie's failure on the audience, saying they just hated it because they're anti-women. Wrong.
The original concept for Ghostbusters was it would be a nationwide first responder service like police and fire, but the budget for that idea was waaaaaaaaaaaay out of proportion to what could be afforded, so they went with the idea of 3 guys first opening the business. Now if they'd gone with the original option, sure, there'd be men and women Ghostbusters, black and white and all ethnic backgrounds, just like TV shows of the day like Hill Street Blues. And if they'd gone with that, the women actresses would actually HAVE to be good and carry their roles and help carry the plot.
So it's a little hard to believe it would've been impossible for an all female Ghostbusters to be done without everybody being loud and obnoxious and borderline retarded and completely ignoring how real life physics work.
You'll get no argument from me about the state of comedy in the 21st century: strident and generic, with the same rat-tat-tat pacing that attempts to make every piece of dialogue a punchline and discards humor arising from character and situation in favor of what its creators apparently imagine passes for edgy snark. But from where I sit, none of that has anything to do with wokeness or PC. Even personalities like Stephen Colbert and John Oliver, considered by so many to be keen observers of current events and sharp commentators on sociopolitical issues, club their viewers and audiences over the head, rephrasing each punchline two or three times to milk the same joke, instead of getting their laugh from the one and moving on. The underlying intent seems to be, "Get it? GET IT? GET IT?"I suppose it's not surprising that a director of a film like the Ghostbusters "reboot" would blame his critics rather than take responsibility for his own failures, but - and pardon me for saying so - aren't you playing the same game he is when you cite it as an example of diversity taking the place of relatable characters? What was wrong with those new scenes in your clips would have been just as wrong if it were four white women, four black men, four gay ones, two men and two women or whomever. In fact, they serve as a good illustration of my complaint about 21-century comedy being generic: they could have been played by any mix-and-match quartet of "types," and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference.
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Post by stryker on Mar 19, 2022 7:56:02 GMT
Well you don't understand what I'm saying.
So the men can talk normally, act like semi-regular people and just use subtle witty humor and very small movements to be funny and still be classically funny 40 years later, and the women have to be loud, obnoxious, disgusting, in-your-face, and downright stupid, to try and disprove the common belief that women aren't funny, which by the way, they failed at miserably. This is not a natural difference in the sexes, this is the original, which is not diverse, is genuinely written and executed to be funny, the new one, was not. And then the director blamed the movie's failure on the audience, saying they just hated it because they're anti-women. Wrong.
This seems relevant to the discussion, so I thought you might find it - especially in an era where nobody is making romantic comedies - interesting.
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Post by stryker on Mar 20, 2022 5:27:49 GMT
LOL, apropos of my last post. It's rare to for find at a loss for words Doghouse. What did you think of Bill's monologue? Too close to the bone?
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Post by Doghouse6 on Mar 20, 2022 5:59:55 GMT
LOL, apropos of my last post. It's rare to for find at a loss for words Doghouse. What did you think of Bill's monologue? Too close to the bone? It was a pretty typical "New Rules" segment. Bill's always aimed his fire in equal-opportunity directions. Which bone did ya have in mind?
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Post by stryker on Mar 20, 2022 7:05:01 GMT
LOL, apropos of my last post. It's rare to for find at a loss for words Doghouse. What did you think of Bill's monologue? Too close to the bone? It was a pretty typical "New Rules" segment. Bill's always aimed his fire in equal-opportunity directions. Which bone did ya have in mind? LOL, not that bone. PS. Have you seen SHORTBUS Doghouse?
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Post by Doghouse6 on Mar 20, 2022 14:00:22 GMT
It was a pretty typical "New Rules" segment. Bill's always aimed his fire in equal-opportunity directions. Which bone did ya have in mind? LOL, not that bone. PS. Have you seen SHORTBUS Doghouse? I didn't actually watch that Maher clip until you asked me about it. I used to watch him regularly until his curmudgeon act became scattershot and tiresome, so he fell off my radar a couple years back. Naturally enough, his "Politically Incorrect" brand as "the lib who's honest enough to tell you what's wrong with libs" was carried over into his HBO show, but I've always felt it misses a bet by not living up to its name. I don't know if he still books as many righties as he once did, but he was often letting himself get bulldozed by them when they Gish-galloped with a stream of did-you-know-Hillary-did-this and why-did-Obama-do-thats, leaving him to only sputter in protest. The show's called Real Time. He's got a staff. They've got online access, and can bring up any info in a minute. He could have made it a feature of his show to fact-check right there in real time. About Shortbus: I saw maybe a half-hour of it a few years back and found aspects of it engaging, and it occurred to me hubby might do so as well, so I stopped it until we could see it together. Before we got around to it, it seems I forgot all about it until it was mentioned here.
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Post by DanaShelbyChancey on Mar 20, 2022 15:28:20 GMT
I haven't read through all the pages yet, so consider this a plus vote if it's already been mentioned.
Good sound, where I don't need subtitles to make out what the actors are saying. Yes, I am 66, so I thought I was just getting a ittle hearing deficient. But I have been on a 40's and 50's movie decade kick lately, and I don't need subtitles for those movies. So that proves it.
It might be sound techniques, collateral noise in the name of realism that obscures dialogue. I know actors don't always enunciate, again in the name of their characters realism. But it doesn't add to the character development either, if I cannot comprehend what they say!
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spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Mar 20, 2022 16:06:56 GMT
Good sound, where I don't need subtitles to make out what the actors are saying. Yes, I am 66, so I thought I was just getting a ittle hearing deficient. But I have been on a 40's and 50's movie decade kick lately, and I don't need subtitles for those movies. So that proves it. It might be sound techniques, collateral noise in the name of realism that obscures dialogue. I know actors don't always enunciate, again in the name of their characters realism. But it doesn't add to the character development either, if I cannot comprehend what they say!
Oh, Dana, you can say that again! And it's a combination of the things you mention. It's true that more and more actors do not enunciate well these days, and shame on them for that -- even the great mumbler Brando was always intelligible! But, and perhaps more importantly, it's the way things are mixed these days. There's so much compression in the digital world to begin with that it's not possible to make films sound as good as they once did. I've been on a lot of mixing stages and know whereof I speak. One has to try harder now. And I'm not sure that enough people do. Also, there's a tendency in the mixing world (actually has been for awhile) to let sound effects overwhelm everything, which infuriates me. Of course, it's aggravated by the digital compression, to the point at times where all the sound just becomes white noise. In 2018, for example, some friends and I were watching screeners for the awards, and after about five minutes of A STAR IS BORN, I was so angry because I couldn't understand a word the actors were saying -- and it was because of how it was mixed! I said right then and there that I wasn't going to watch it, so we moved on to another film.
Mixing was hard enough in the old days (really, anything before digital), but when I listen to those old films now, they are clear, clean, and perfectly calibrated in terms of their dialogue-to-sound effects ratio, so that even when viewed in a digital format they are understandable. I think what's happening today with sound in films is a disgrace! Thank you so much for mentioning it. It's a really big deal.
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lune7000
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Post by lune7000 on Mar 20, 2022 17:13:34 GMT
Good sound, where I don't need subtitles to make out what the actors are saying. Yes, I am 66, so I thought I was just getting a ittle hearing deficient. But I have been on a 40's and 50's movie decade kick lately, and I don't need subtitles for those movies. So that proves it. It might be sound techniques, collateral noise in the name of realism that obscures dialogue. I know actors don't always enunciate, again in the name of their characters realism. But it doesn't add to the character development either, if I cannot comprehend what they say!
Oh, Dana, you can say that again! And it's a combination of the things you mention. It's true that more and more actors do not enunciate well these days, and shame on them for that -- even the great mumbler Brando was always intelligible! But, and perhaps more importantly, it's the way things are mixed these days. There's so much compression in the digital world to begin with that it's not possible to make films sound as good as they once did. I've been on a lot of mixing stages and know whereof I speak. One has to try harder now. And I'm not sure that enough people do. Also, there's a tendency in the mixing world (actually has been for awhile) to let sound effects overwhelm everything, which infuriates me. Of course, it's aggravated by the digital compression, to the point at times where all the sound just becomes white noise. In 2018, for example, some friends and I were watching screeners for the awards, and after about five minutes of A STAR IS BORN, I was so angry because I couldn't understand a word the actors were saying -- and it was because of how it was mixed! I said right then and there that I wasn't going to watch it, so we moved on to another film.
Mixing was hard enough in the old days (really, anything before digital), but when I listen to those old films now, they are clear, clean, and perfectly calibrated in terms of their dialogue-to-sound effects ratio, so that even when viewed in a digital format they are understandable. I think what's happening today with sound in films is a disgrace! Thank you so much for mentioning it. It's a really big deal.
Synthesizer buff here, I work with Cubase, Ableton, etc. Are you saying that compression is raising background noises to the same volume as dialogue? Aren't they on a different bus (and not compressed together on main output)? Why would audio mixers do this? Is this an aesthetic or practical decision? Thanks.
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Post by mstreepsucks on Mar 20, 2022 17:31:10 GMT
I personally think, that nothing is missing. It's just , modern films are fine.
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spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Mar 20, 2022 18:34:27 GMT
Synthesizer buff here, I work with Cubase, Ableton, etc. Are you saying that compression is raising background noises to the same volume as dialogue? Aren't they on a different bus (and not compressed together on main output)? Why would audio mixers do this? Is this an aesthetic or practical decision? Thanks. Well, I am saying that -- digital or not -- if they aren't mixed right, background noises can rise to the same level of dialogue. That was true in the days of film mixing, too. But without question, compression is definitely one of the complications of digital sound editing, because it overwhelms and conflates everything. It doesn't matter if the elements are on different tracks (or buses); in film editing they were always separate, too, with each track (dialogue, sound effects, and music) manipulated separately and then together to achieve the desired goals. I think good mixing can and has been done in digital realms, with the right technologies and talents, though I do think it's harder to make the sounds sound "normal," because of the inherent problems compression causes, not least of which is that sounds are harder to hear, for lack of a better way to put it.
That said, I have to add that I began to notice a dialogue to SFX ratio imbalance in theaters quite awhile ago, when movies were still being distributed in film formats. When SOUND for the sake of SOUND began to become the most important thing, overwhelming everything else and dialogue be damned. That's an aesthetic choice, and a bad one, in my opinion. Oh, and let's not forget, part of bad sound in a film can be because sound recordists on set may not always be able to get the best sound recordings, making it much harder for the sound editors and mixers. Usually that would be solved with ADR, but maybe that's an example of a "practical" decision made because of a lack of money. It's a complicated issue, to say the least. But compression is definitely a part of it and must always be considered and addressed.
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Post by Rufus-T on Mar 20, 2022 19:12:25 GMT
Personally, it's the sense of wonder. It's really rare to be truly blown away by a film anymore. People can say what they like about Dune: Part One, Interstellar, Prometheus, Avatar and Star Wars sequel trilogy but if there is one thing that perfectly describes these films, it's epicness - be it world-building BGM or setting. Scifis like these did a great job in this regard and there aren't enough of them. Yep. That "Wow" factor simply is disappearing. It used to be a regular thing movies I watched from the 80s to late 90s. There is trend towards Indie talky artsy film. They may express the film makers' inner feeling, but ordinary film makers can't identify with those movies, nor entertained by them. When they do try to make epic, like Noah or Robin Hood or a Ben-Hur remake, they just don't have the talent, and too rely on CGI.
There are still movie that take you to a magical world, like you listed. However, many are not that strong in the story or the technical execution. I can count on one hand the movie in this century that really blown me away totally and also very rewatchable. I don't think there are any in the last few years, even for the best among them.
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