[demonrail666]

I was talking to some friends about this last night. We couldn't decide. Some said it was (overemphasis on remakes, reduction of plots to satisfy a teen/multiplex audience, reliance on gimmicks (3D), etc) while others pointed to the 80s (endless sequels of films like Police Academy, etc). What about the 90s? Is Hollywood in better shape now that it was then? Every decade produces the odd good film but overall which one has been worse than the current one?

[gast30]

well your taste is waking up LATE

[pbradley]

Everything has always been mostly shit. Focus on the qualitative outliers.

[Toilet & Bowels]

I'd say it's been pretty much the same level since the 80s

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by pbradley

Everything has always been mostly shit. Focus on the qualitative outliers.

That's the standard answer but I'd maintain that the average quality of films Hollywood churned out in the 30s, 40s and 70s was far better than what we've seen since the 80s.

[Toilet & Bowels]

I don't know about the 30s and 40s, and not having first hand experince of that period it's easy to have skewed judgement of the 70s as only the classics stand the test of time, but it does seem like Hollywood released a load more classic films then than it does now.

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

That's the standard answer but I'd maintain that the average quality of films Hollywood churned out in the 30s, 40s and 70s was far better than what we've seen since the 80s.

I would attribute that to cultural nostalgia. We tend to remember the gems more readily than the turds. People are less likely to recommend seeing such old films unless they, in some sense, transcended their era. Those that don't are forgotten.

Then again, I doubt my position to criticize decades. I'm mostly apathetic about film as a medium. Perhaps my distance from movies informs my ease of impartial judgment.

[Genteel Death]

The average person has more entertainment at their disposal now, and yet appears dumber than before. Hollywood movie producers must be aware of that.
I'm probably talking nonsense here, but I was thinking that maybe Hollywood's reliance on more state of the art special effects and making many movies look increasingly less real might have to do with the fact that now so many people can photograph, film and digitally manipulate things for super cheap.

[pbradley]

Oh, and I saw the new Harry Potter movie today.

The pacing was weird but nothing that encapsulated instant gratification, in fact I was bored by a portion of character development.

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by pbradley

I would attribute that to cultural nostalgia. We tend to remember the gems more readily than the turds. People are less likely to recommend seeing such old films unless they, in some sense, transcended their era. Those that don't are forgotten.

Then again, I doubt my position to criticize decades. I'm mostly apathetic about film as a medium. Perhaps my distance from movies informs my ease of impartial judgment.

It does seem like Hollywood plot writing took a severe battering for the past three decades, though. Certainly if you compare it to tv/theatre.

[pbradley]

If you say so. I do sense that I miss a lot of great contemporary movies that are released because they aren't sequels and remakes. What portion of the blame is the viewing audience? A large portion, I would think.

[GeneticKiss]

I dunno, I think it's pretty pessimistic to say all mainstream movies suck nowdays. I mean, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was a Hollywood movie, but you'd never know that to watch it (then again, it may not be the best example since it flopped at the box office). Yeah, the 30s and 40s had stuff like Dracula, King Kong, and Casablanca, but they also had throwaway serials and other stuff that hasn't aged well.

[jon boy]

i guess its always been the case except nowadays there is just such a vast quantity of films being made and a lot of them lack imagination and are purely vehicles to further some stars bank balance or pointless sequels that write themselves.

[DeadDiscoDildo]

Originally Posted by pbradley

Oh, and I saw the new Harry Potter movie today.

The pacing was weird but nothing that encapsulated instant gratification, in fact I was bored by a portion of character development.

I think the first few (4) harry potter movies (at least first 3) had really good pacing and character/charm to them. Since then they've been gradually getting worse, weirder, darker (tho a good thing usually, its a bit emo in their delivery)

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

I think the lackluster quality of Hollywood's modern output mostly reflects an industry struggling to catch up with the times. The boom of streaming media has truly altered how people access their media.

Note all the recent 3D gimmicks attached to films these days, just like in the 80s during the peak of the home video market, where many independent companies were giving the major studios some decent competition. Just like most films make more money on DVD & Blu-ray, or from video game licensing than their theatrical runs today.

This is an era where a video of a cat playing a piano, or an obese woman sitting on a toilet making stupid faces can churn out millions of viewers. Hollywood doesn't like this; this is competition. So major studios are attempting to make films for their massive 17 - 27 year old target audience who spend a grand portion of their existences refreshing their Facebook profiles as a source of entertainment.

Most people are so used to the many, many conveniences that modern technology has provided us, that they hardly have the patience to even sit down for a film. Hollywood doesn't really know how to market towards this demographic anymore, so they're doing anything they can to make their products as accommodating to the attention spans of the plentiful reality-tv-minded folk, as possible.

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

The average person has more entertainment at their disposal now, and yet appears dumber than before. Hollywood movie producers must be aware of that.
I'm probably talking nonsense here, but I was thinking that maybe Hollywood's reliance on more state of the art special effects and making many movies look increasingly less real might have to do with the fact that now so many people can photograph, film and digitally manipulate things for super cheap.

GD nailed it.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I was talking to some friends about this last night. We couldn't decide. Some said it was (overemphasis on remakes, reduction of plots to satisfy a teen/multiplex audience, reliance on gimmicks (3D), etc) while others pointed to the 80s (endless sequels of films like Police Academy, etc). What about the 90s? Is Hollywood in better shape now that it was then? Every decade produces the odd good film but overall which one has been worse than the current one?

this is possible the worst era for film, but by comparison look at tv. it's like all the talented people got tired of the studio bullshit and got hired by HBO. the past decade or so has been a sort of golden age of television.

the 90s had "indie" movies to save the day, but then the indie movie got gobbled up as a formula and now you have a bunch of predictable shit as well.

about the 80s, it was a lot of dumb shit, as the people who boomed in the 70s got replaced by shitheads like spielberg and zemeckis. the movie proclaimed as "best" of the 80s (raging bull) came out in... 1980! all downwards from there, until sex lies and videotape, while not a great movie in itself, sparks some kind of hope, but disney promptly buys miramax in 93 and everything goes to shit in the late 90s-- which is when tv starts to get good (buffy, the west wing, sopranos) .

i have this theery that it's a migration of talent from film to tv somehow, maybe cuz people stay at home with their "home theatre" rather than go out to the movies and getting people out to the amoebaplex requires "blockbusters".

[Keeping It Simple]

Hollywood has taken a major hit from the video game industry.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

this is possible the worst era for film, but by comparison look at tv. it's like all the talented people got tired of the studio bullshit and got hired by HBO. the past decade or so has been a sort of golden age of television.

the 90s had "indie" movies to save the day, but then the indie movie got gobbled up as a formula and now you have a bunch of predictable shit as well.

It's the same point porkie makes and I agree. the decline of Hollywood has certainly marked an upturn in US television. I think there are industrial factors that help explain that, namely that in the 80s (I think) the Hollywood screenwriters union agreed to abandon artistic control for a better pay structure, making screenwriters entirely replaceable. Basically contractors.

About the 80s, it was a lot of dumb shit, as the people who boomed in the 70s got replaced by shitheads like spielberg and zemeckis.

Yeah, Spielberg and Lucas offered a new way for Hollywood to think about its product: promote like made, catch the youth audience, bombard them with spectacle.

the movie proclaimed as "best" of the 80s (raging bull) came out in... 1980! all downwards from there, until sex lies and videotape, while not a great movie in itself, sparks some kind of hope, but disney promptly buys miramax in 93 and everything goes to shit in the late 90s-- which is when tv starts to get good (buffy, the west wing, sopranos).

The 80s also saw the rise of a popuilar brand of European cinema, stuff like Betty Blue, Jean de Florette, Diva, etc, which continued on with the rise of directors like Pedro Almodovar. None of these were particularly challenging in themselves but they managed, along with the indies you mentioned, to target a key area neglected by Hollywood: namely an intelligent adult audience.

As an aside, it's sad that a film now described as being 'adult' tends to refer to it being pornographic. Films like Grand Hotel, My Darling Clementine or High Noon are 'adult' not because they showed an excess of muff but because they dealt in ideas not readily accessible to children.

[atsonicpark]

If you compare mainstream films of today to even films from the 90's, they seem like they came out in a completely different time and place, another planet even... even something like FIGHT CLUB seems downright experimental compared to some of the shit that they chug out. Still, there's always been plenty of hits and misses, since the 80's; there's probably just less actors that I personally enjoy watching. Also, when a world class director like BRian DePalma can't get funding to make movies, what's that tell you? On the bright side, SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD absolutely ruled, as did SUPERBAD and quite a few other Judd Apatow films. I'm really surprised by how good some of those were, I really loved KNOCKED UP for example. I think there's some stuff that's going in an interesting direction, and I was pleasantly surprised when INCEPTION was accepted, as that film was great. Still, look at a film like, oh, TAXI DRIVER -- which made millions of dollars in the day, and is my favorite film of all time. Could a film like that even get made today, let alone released on a wide level, and make money? Could EASY RIDER? Y'know, the list goes on and on. There's definitely a weird sense of, as someone else noted, "video gamey" ness to most movies coming out (yeah, especially SCOTT PILGRIM, but they used that to its advantage, since that movie was clever as hell). Everything seems so calculated and obvious. Nothing is left for the audience to figure out.


Luckily, mainstream Japan of the past 10 years has released an incredible number of big budget gems -- including the surprise hit, 4 hour LOVE EXPOSURE which is one of the best films I've ever seen. So, I think it's not the worst era for big budget mainstream filmmaking, in general, there'll always be a place for that. But in Hollywood? Yeah, it doesn't look like anything the least bit compelling will be coming out for a long long time. Sadly, it'll probably just get worse.

[Skuj]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I was talking to some friends about this last night. We couldn't decide. Some said it was (overemphasis on remakes, reduction of plots to satisfy a teen/multiplex audience, reliance on gimmicks (3D), etc) while others pointed to the 80s (endless sequels of films like Police Academy, etc). What about the 90s? Is Hollywood in better shape now that it was then? Every decade produces the odd good film but overall which one has been worse than the current one?

Hollywood. LOL.