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ElizabethJoestar's Replies
Still, I would say that "the mainstream is gone." Quality entertainments in the Hitchcock tradition (I would count Chinatown, LA Confidential and maybe Gone Girl in that group) are dwindling. I'm hard-pressed to name a movie with the impact of Bonnie and Clyde or The Wild Bunch or The Godfather in recent years (of that genre.)
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Exactly what I was saying. Yes, there is quality in the US.... OUTSIDE Hollywood. You have to dig for it. At the very least, streaming makes some of those niche areas more visible. The internet makes such material easier to come across.
This theme is being developed "out there": the movies alone aren't good enough as entertainment anymore. I have played video games with some friends (of all ages) and though they are not for me -- I get it: they are INTERACTIVE. You play them. You just WATCH a movie. You just sit there(perhaps receving joy and sustenance and meaning from the experience, but still...)
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I enjoy video games a lot, particularly RPGs like Final Fantasy which have stories to go along with them. They're not for everyone and they're definitely a different medium from movies and books.
I don't think kids are bored by movies though. They still enjoy cartoons and anime (soooo many children I know love the TROLLS movies... the kiddie CG one, not the weird 80s horror schlock). And they enjoyed the MCU a few years back. But there's more stuff to compete with now. Hollywood isn't the only game in town anymore.
PPS. "Endgame" my ass. You just know that they will all come back...maybe with different actors.
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THIS is the main reason why I have cooled on the MCU. I know I come off as a premature curmudgeon, but I did enjoy the MCU. I got really into it, to the point where I'd have long discussions with friends over what was going to happen next-- hence my annoyance with ENDGAME, which introduced time travel, much to the detriment of the writing. The new shows like LOKI have only shown that introducing time travel and a multiverse only serve to make death inconsequential. In other words, why should I care when they can just pluck Iron Man from another universe where he didn't die? No stakes.
So yeah. Not interested in the MCU or really anything modern Hollywood has to offer.
I saw ENDGAME opening night. I did indeed experience that. Even though I hated the movie, those moments were magical.
And yes, @swanstep, I am aware of Kael's comments about the end of movies in the 1980s (not a fan of hers personally, though she had her moments). Indeed, critics complained about "things not being the way they used to" even in the 1950s, looking back nostalgically to the 1920s and 1930s (Chaplin, Von Stroheim, Lubitsch, Griffith, and the like). Arguments like that are used anytime anyone seems to criticize modern Hollywood and suggest maybe there's been a dip in quality (and I get why Kael felt that way in the 1980s mind you-- and it kills me anytime I agree with her on anything!).
However, the dramatic shift away from stars and non-action blockbusters is unprecedented in Hollywood history. Yes, there were dramatic shifts in the past (shorts to features in the 1910s, silence to sound in the late 1920s, competition from TV in the 1950s, etc.), but they still had stars and the movies were not dominated by a single genre the way they seem to be now. Every attempt to make a "new" blockbuster always seems to fail (ex. JUPITER ASCENDING comes to mind), hence the endless recycling of what works.
Regarding the MCU "burning out," the fact that SPACE JAM 2-- a sequel very few even wanted-- made more bank than BLACK WIDOW suggest to me the old powerhouse is not going to be what it was. I used to hear non-fans talk about the MCU all the time. I don't anymore. And Black Widow was a character who's been in the series since 2010. How will they fare with unfamiliar characters like the Eternals? I'm skeptical.
Now the question is which version of Ben Hur?
Or is it left up to interpretation?
Yep. It's a contrivance so we get that last scene with Echo performing. The talkie remake actually has Echo sent to prison, which is far more logical for the reasons you put down here.
No, you're not. I love Chaney to pieces and have seen most of his 1920s movies several times.
It's implied to be the result of men constantly "pawing" and leering at her. She might have even been molested.
Literally, only because Chaney is in it. He's a horror icon, and this unfortunately eclipses the majority of his career (I'd call him a character star more than a horror actor... really, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE UNKNOWN are his only true horror films).
The Whispering Chorus is an expressionistic masterwork-- very different from what made him famous, but it is a great movie.
To add my two cents, I find that some filmmakers seem to have better filmographies only when they make a few movies. I think of Kubrick, whose run from THE KILLING to EYES WIDE SHUT is considered a pretty impressive series of films. Maybe QT feels the smaller the filmography, the less room there is for failure.
At any rate, plenty of filmmakers made some of their best work in their late period, after long careers, so I hope QT doesn't cheat himself or the audience if he does have a few more film ideas in him.
In these later years of my life, I am stuggling against two things with "the movies": One is the movies themselves -- looking too "fake and acted and unreal" and why do I care about them anymore? The second IS the movie star. I know that some of them get superrich still, but maybe "star worship" is something left behind in my youth, too.
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I have the same cynicism about most movies these days that you do. The last non-superhero Hollywood movie I thoroughly enjoyed was CAROL... but then again, that movie is homaging Douglas Sirk. The magic just isn't there. I don't treat CG like a bogeyman, but it does stun me that all Hollywood can do with a technology that allows you to do anything is create explosions.
I keep hoping against hope that soon we'll have a revival like Hollywood did in the late 1960s, but I don't think that sort of thing would happen in today's hyper-corporate Hollywood. Tbh, I'm perfectly content to avoid Hollywood from now on-- they had a good run between the 1920s and at least part of the 2010s, if I'm being generous. Indie filmmakers are making more interesting work with less money, as are filmmakers overseas (PARASITE is in my top ten of the 2010s in general).
I suppose that once the movies moved on to the "blockbuster model," no movie star could really out-do that particular international box office win. All they could do was try to get some good "other movies" made.
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I noticed that too. It's just weird that movie stars, a Hollywood mainstay since the 1910s, should be dwindled like that.
MCU actor Anthony Mackie was 100% correct when he said "The rise of the superhero signaled the death of the movie star." It seems like people my age (millenials) go to the movies to see new entries in the franchises we grew up with and actors, while we might favor some of them, are not enough to draw us to non-franchise films (how many people saw CHERRY because Tom Holland, the new Spider-man, was the star of the film?). I don't know why this is the case. Is it an excessive attachment to nostalgia? Possibly. I don't know if people before the 1990s were so attached to their "childhood" in the same way. However, that's more a question about franchises than about movie stars. Blockbusters and movie stars coexisted just fine for a long time, so I don't know why the former might be detrimental to the latter aside from the international box office becoming more important-- so I guess you answered my question.
As it is, I have to wonder what the future of Hollywood will even be. Though Marvel ruled the cinemas throughout the last decade, I don't feel that same buzz anymore. It used to be when a new MCU property came out, everyone was excited, from the nerds to the general audience. BLACK WIDOW has just come out yet I only heard one person at work discussing it. I don't see kids talking about it (they're all obsessed with Minecraft, Nintendo, and TikTok in my neck of the woods). I myself was disappointed with AVENGERS ENDGAME and pretty much have burned out completely on superheroes and blockbusters in general. This doesn't mean the blockbuster is destined to die out... but I doubt the MCU will be the powerhouse it was.
Blake Edwards was a master with those sorts of scenes. The amount of visual humor reminds me a lot of classic silent comedy.
I assumed it was a fancy way of saying "photoplay," an old-fashioned term for movie.
Hollywood movies input modern fashions into historical movies often, especially in productions made between the 1910s and 1970s. Even when it comes to recent history, they can't resist it (the 1920s scenes in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE feature decidedly post-WWII hairdos, for instance).
It's something you just laugh off.
Agreed on both these counts. Plenty of movies made before this had smart writing, great tension, believable characters, etc.
Fear and Desire: Feels like an overlong TWILIGHT ZONE episode that also homages Eisenstein.
Killer's Kiss: Saw it once and remember nothing but the ballet scene.
The Killing: Nice, taut late-period noir.
Paths of Glory: Atypical Kubrick but very powerful. IMO his first great movie.
Spartacus: I know Kubrick hated it, but it's actually one of the better big epics of the 50s/60s.
Lolita: A compromised but fascinating adaptation of a great novel. Despite the censors limiting what Kubrick could do, I think the casting was great across the board and the dark humor remains intact.
Dr. Strangelove: Hilarious and still very relevant. I actually need to see it again. I've only watched it once.
2001: Sublime.
A Clockwork Orange: My favorite of Kubrick's work, a disturbing and hilarious satire. Like Lolita, it captures the humor of the original source material perfectly and benefits from perfect casting, only the overall effect is more successful since now Kubrick did not have to wrestle with the censors during filmmaking.
Barry Lyndon: No doubt, Kubrick's best-looking movie, a social tragedy that reveals more and more layers with every rewatch.
The Shining: Such a weird horror movie, the film that launched a thousand fan theories. I adore it and still beat myself up that I missed out on attending a revival screening a few years ago.
Full Metal Jacket: Seen it twice. I'm not big on war movies, but I like this one a great deal. Love the Jungian themes.
Eyes Wide Shut: A surreal odyssey through one man's sexual desires and emotional insecurities.
Makes me sad too since Kubrick is one of my favorite directors. I have to wonder what Kubrick would have thought of the modern filmmaking landscape though.
A lot of great movies are off the beaten path.