flawless. That's why she won an Oscar, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and international awards! Also it has a phenomenal 650,000 votes on IMDB, which puts it on a par with the kind of numbers only superhero flicks get nowadays--quite a thing for a mere comedy-drama!
shareShe was really, really good, yes. Everybody here was. Jennifer Lawrence being in X-Men has to do with the 650,000 votes (Cooper's no slouch in the popularity department, either).
I assume "mere comedy-drama" is used for rhetorical effect? I prefer these movies to most superhero flicks these days. Logan and Joker were rare exceptions, the rest has become banal, xeroxed junk.
Most superhero movies are generally just like the ones that came before. The good ones are few and far between. Too bad there are not more movies like SLP, instead of all the junk out there. I don't know how people get so excited for all of the xeroxed junk that is out there.
shareI think if you're really into film these days you have to keep your finger on the pulse of a local indie movie theatre that gets in the good stuff.
Last year I saw The Lighthouse, for instance, because I was keeping up with that stuff. It's a little effort, but can be quite rewarding.
Most people go to the movies to numb out their senses into a kind of psychedelic catatonia from the colourful aesthetics, frenetic pacing, and fun, jokey dialogue. They like the sitcom thing: 25 minutes of problems guaranteed to come out in the wash. That's not bad. I like sitcoms. I like blockbuster films. So I understand why people go. But, like you, I don't go to the movies just for that stuff. I'm also looking for real art and some deep stuff. And I do lament that it isn't more widely celebrated.
There was a time when they were converging into the same thing. When Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, Coppola, and De Palma (et al.) were up-and-comers in the '70s, they were bringing European sensibilities to American film and it became stuff like The Godfather - which has its thrills and action beats, but also has depth and power. Then came Star Wars and Jaws - not bad in and of themselves, but they started the ball rolling away from art cinema as mainstream entertainment and pushed it into junk food territory. I think it's because those movies took schlock genres (Flash Gordon and monster horror) and elevated it into art. Producers are not artists. They didn't understand what made those films great. They just saw giant numbers and said, "Take all that cheap, B-movie stuff and give it bigger budgets and toy lines!" And the rest is tragic history.
I saw The Lighthouse and loved it. I watch all kinds of movies, and have nothing against superhero movies except for the fact that 75% of them are all the same. They follow the same formula and rarely stray from the tried and true. One of my favorite movies as a kid was Superman with Christopher Reeve. It seemed to have everything and it just wasn't one boring fight scene after another. The characters were still important there. Now Superhero movies rely on the characters only as something that propels the action instead of a story. I do go to these movies, but I generally look at my phone to see when the movie is going to be over.
The 70's were a great decade for the movies, but you are correct that those early mainstream movies(blockbusters) were quite good, but with each passing year during the 80's and beyond they poured all of the money into stars salaries and spectacle. There was little to no interest in story or character development. After all these years I find it very puzzling how people can continue to go see these predictable and lifeless movies. It's a head scratcher.