OT: Yet another reason why modern films are unwatchable

I work in a big company around lots of people (picture the movie Office Space), and I've noticed the really young people in my office do that "vocal glide" at the end of their sentences (that the woman on the YouTube link was referring to).  You know, where they're actually making a statement, but they sound like they're asking a question.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who's noticed this trend in modern speech.  I can't say I've noticed it that much in movies, but then again, like the OP, I'm very selective in regards to the modern movies I watch, so I don't see that many anymore.

Ah, yes: "high rising terminal" (or "rising terminal inflection," or "uptalk"). For my money, even more tiresome than vocal fry. There's another youthful vocal tic I've noticed: the elimination of the short "e." They don't sleep in a bed, they sleep in a bad. They don't get headaches, they get a hadache. They don't vote in an election, but in an alaction. We used to have someone on the local morning news who gave us the waather here in the northwaast.

As one of them might say, using pretty much the only adjective anyone below a certain age seems to know anymore, ameezine. 

BooRadley

Please forgive me the bit of a venting I need to do, but this thread has provoked it out of me, like it or not. Just some thoughts on the state of films today.

In my opinion the art, craft, and storytelling capacity of classic films has in many ways never been surpassed, no matter what new technological sleight-of-hand may come along (notwithstanding obvious and important exceptions).

I've often thought this is due to the fact that many of the early filmmakers were immigrants who brought a classical aesthetic to their work. For that matter, the early American-born filmmakers like John Ford, William Wellman, George Stevens, King Vidor, et al, were brought up on that classical aesthetic. In addition, they were more mature, even if young, and had more real life experience rather than just "reel film" experience, which made their work richer, deeper and more original even when it was -- as it often was -- derivative. In other words, they applied their knowledge of life to their work, rather than their knowledge of other films to their work, which is what happens so often today. This results in an endless parade of entirely derivative films, which have nothing meaningful to say about the human condition and seem to be interested only in paying homage to other directors or in shocking an increasingly desensitized audience.

There's an appalling degree of immaturity and coarseness in many popular American films today, it seems to me. Maybe that represents the culture at large, I don't know. I do know that I'd rather see Mervyn LeRoy's portrayal of chain gang life in I Was a Fugitive From a Chain Gang than I would Kevin Smith's portrayal of parenting in Jersey Girl, a film I couldn't sit through because of its juvenile and occasionally puerile stupidities. Or August, Osage County, in which every other word is the f-word. I'm sick to death of gratuitous sex, violence, and profanity in modern films. There's not a word of profanity in On the Waterfront, and profanity would not in any way have increased the film's greatness; in fact, it would have diminished it.

There are many exceptions in modern films, of course. In America is a wonderful contemporary film about parenting. And I'm sure there are also numerous examples of contemporary films that use CGI quite effectively in the service of a really good story -- not generally my genre, so I can't say for sure.

But it's hard to beat the brilliant writing/storytelling in films like The Best Years of Our Lives, Casablanca, On the Waterfront, ad infinitum, take your choice; or the artistry of the hand-painted glass plates used so brilliantly in films like Gone With the Wind, and the frame-by-frame hand-painted animated films made by the great Disney artists. Such craftsmanship somehow makes the films more "personal," if you know what I mean. It's like the difference between a well-prepared home-cooked meal and a McDonald's burger. One gives a quick rush, the other satisfies for a long time.

That's it. Thanks for listening.

I agree 100% spiderwort.