7 ms·
Nowadays you have: superhero movies, sequels, remakes, empowerment of certain groups that aren't me, movies with a political message, or some sad dour art house
by nickthemagicman 6y ago
Nowadays you have: superhero movies, sequels, remakes, empowerment of certain groups that aren't me, movies with a political message, or some sad dour art house movie that makes you walk out feeling bummed out about life.
Compare 1994 or 1999 movie releases to 2021.
Fight club, the matrix, forrest gump, Magnolia, office space, sixth sense, american beauty, clerks, etc.
Nowadays: the father?, Mank?, black messiah, , chicago 7?
It's not about creating magical new worlds with thought provoking ideas anymore.
Maybe I'm explaining it poorly but film seems to have gone the way of the music industry.
Commodified instead of inspired.
I LOVE going to the movies.
I just wish there was something I wanted to see.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rob74 6y agoYeah, movies nowadays largely belong to two groups, with not much in between: (1) the brainless mass-market type (comic/video game adaptation, remake etc.) which (hopefully) make money, but don't stand a chance at the Oscars (except for rare exceptions like 2019's "Joker"), and (2) the "arthouse" type, which feel like an application for an Oscar nomination, but are not really commercially successful.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoI agree with your two categories. Everything in the art house world is like a dour sad soap opera nowadays jamming the problems of the world in your face for 2 hours. Look at most of the nominees this year. They just looked like sad bleak soap opera type movies that I'm going to walk out of feeling bummed out.
- Apocryphon 6y agoWasn't Joker supposed to be arthouse? Like a modern version of Taxi Driver.
- amelius 6y agoTry mubi.com (not affiliated)
- mosselman 6y agoThis is great thanks!
- hedberg10 6y agoMovies were never about meritocracy, but somehow every now and then through competition or the stars aligning, something good came out of it. The formula was changed, forcefully. It's very openly not about 'good' anymore, since that would be oppressive, racist and sexist. 'good' is also expensive. Enjoy the culture that was. We will never reach the same heights. It will all die off now, deservedly. The people responsible will blame the originators of 'good', turning their shame of the comparison not into growth, as mentally well people would, but digging their heels in even further, as they have always done since, oh, let's say 1867.
- astrange 6y agoEvery time you complain about something not being a meritocracy, you should remember the word was invented for a book about how it’s a dumb idea that won’t work.
- Swenrekcah 6y agoWhich book is that?
- kadang 6y ago_The rise of the Meritocracy_ by Michael Dunlop Young, according to Wikipedia.
- commandlinefan 6y agoSo was the word "capitalism", that doesn't mean it's actually a dumb idea that won't work.
- astrange 6y agoThey were right, that’s why actually existing systems are mixed economies.
- SyzygistSix 6y agoMany good films don't need to be as expensive as blockbusters because they focus on story and acting rather than explosions, special effects, and established A-list actors.
- yanivlib 6y agoYeah, I miss the good old days of movies with no political message whatsoever such as The Matrix, Forrest Gump and American Beauty.
- goodpoint 6y agoI'm going to assume this was sarcasm.
- Hitton 6y agoThere were always political messages, but difference is that in the past emphasis was on story with little political message sprinkled on top. Nowadays story is just a vehicle for the politics.
- michaelt 6y agoEh, depends on the lens you're looking through. Some would say a movie with a hero named Captain America who is literally wearing a flag is clearly political - even if in terms of plot and message the film is disneyfied and chinese-film-censor-approved. Lots of iceberg above the water, very little below. In comparison, Full Metal Jacket doesn't have a hero dressed in a flag - but oooooh boy does it have a message about the experience and nature of war.
- MisterBastahrd 6y agoYeah, let's see... superheroes... political... There was an early superhero who became popular by halting an execution, beating up a man who was disciplining his wife, and terrorizing a corrupt US Senator. In the next few books, he would force an arms dealer to visit a warzone endangered by his weapons and force a mine operator who operated a mine without proper safety precautions to be subjected to a mine collapse. Hell, he even fought against gentrification, which gets him hunted by the military and the police. The superhero in question? Superman. Some people might call it "political." Others might call it "life." Siegel and Schuster created a character to fight for the common man, and they used fantastic life experiences in the beginning instead of creating monsters and ghouls to fight. The first super-villain in the book didn't get introduced until year 2. Little Nemo might have been an acid trip, but Superman at his start was a political power fantasy about helping the little guy.
- nindalf 6y agoThere’s a HN rule against complaining that HN is becoming like Reddit. This comment is in the same genre - it was better in the good ole days. Spoiler alert - it wasn’t. You’ve cherry picked 5 movies from each era out of thousands. There’s no reason to choose these movies instead of others. While the biggest blockbusters are more likely to be remakes or sequels, there’s no shortage of interesting movies. Just from last year, original films that weren’t remakes or sequels and blew my mind - Parasite, Knives Out, Soul, The Father, Hamilton, White Tiger. Best part is, we’re living in a time when you have practically unlimited entertainment a few clicks away at absurdly low prices. It’s easy to find something that suits your particular niche if you just look. That wasn’t the case in previous eras where studios had to pander to the largest audience possible.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoSuperhero movies pander to the largest audience possible. The movies I mentioned were enjoyed by the masses despite being unique creative visions. Parasite was the same way. But it's a very rare example nowadays.
- majormajor 6y agoNone of Office Space, Clerks, or Magnolia were enjoyed by masses upon initial release. And some that got acclaim on your list have faded a lot since then (e.g. American Beauty). You know what was enjoyed by masses from 1999 that you left out? Star Wars Episode 1. Check back in twenty years to see what movies from the recent past hold up, and how many of them aren't from Marvel...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Apocryphon 6y agoYou’re definitely putting on rose—colored glasses for that era: https://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2001/08/28 https://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2001/08/28
- 6y ago
- Nimitz14 6y agoSome years are better than others. Of course 2021 was going to be shitty, have you been living under a rock and not heard of covid? 2019 was a great year for movies for example.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago2019 remakes or sequels: Lion King, Spider Man, Jumanji, Frozen, Avengers, Toy Story, Aladdin, Dr Sleep, Godzilla, Terminator, John Wick, Zombieland. There were a few good movies in 2019 like every year. Hollywood overall has become extremely derivative and market focused.
- Nimitz14 6y agoIf you went back twenty years one could also compile a similar list (not necessarily remakes, but something of a similarly low quality). Pretty clear you just have an axe to grind.
- betwixthewires 6y agoGo look through a catalog of movies from the 90s and even late 80s, particularly 1999 which was the best year for movies by far in the history of Hollywood. The quality has gone down substantially.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoYour claim is false.
- anoonmoose 6y agoThe Wikipedia article for 1999 in film is there for all to see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_film#1999_Wide-release_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_film#1999_Wide-release... Between The King and I (Disney animated), Baby Geniuses, Doug's 1st Movie, 10 Things I Hate About You, Wing Commander, The Rage: Carrie 2, My Favorite Martian, and Office Space, I see plenty of sequels, low-effort trash, and remakes. And that's just stuff that came out in the first three months of the year. edit: We got a remake of Wild Wild West, a remake of Tarzan, a sequel to Austin Powers, a sequel to The Brave Little Toaster, a prequel to Star Wars, and our second Shakespear adapation of the year in months 4-6. double edit: In 7-9, we got another Muppet movie, an Inspector Gadget remake, The Haunting and The Thomas Crown Affair were both remakes, a Universal Soldier sequel, and a Dudley Do-Right remake. I have no interest in continuing to analyze this list, thing were just as bad twenty years ago
- krapp 6y agoForrest Gump and Fight Club were deeply political. The former is deeply rooted in humanist left-wing ideology, and the latter in exploring the alienation of masculine identity in modern society. Also, you're listing empowerment of groups other than yourself as a negative? I must be misinterpreting that because the implication seems to be that you actually don't want to watch movies where anyone but your own demographic (I assume white male) are portrayed in a positive or empowering light. Or maybe you simply don't care for or can't empathize with such portrayals. If so fair enough, but that's your personal taste, not a failure of the movie industry as a whole.
- michaelt 6y agoI feel the same way, but isn't it just us getting old? Perhaps I merely think RoboCop was better than Superhero Movie #35 because they both target 14-year-olds, and I was only 14 for the first one.
- krapp 6y agoRoboCop was a satirical criticism of consumer capitalism and government corruption. It was steeped in politics.
- commandlinefan 6y agoBut in a clever, slightly subtle way. That's the difference between what we have nowadays.
- GoodJokes 6y agoExactly. Same with the original Star Wars.
- fuzzer37 6y agoWhen will we finally get the robocop statue?
- tsimionescu 6y agoYou've picked two of the greatest years in history for mass-market cinema, and compared it to the year of Covid19.... I think the main difference has been that films that used to be almost universally relegated to B movie category - action sci-fi - have become very much mainstream, especially thanks to Marvel. The quality improved dramatically compared to 80s and 90s and 00s B movies (though of course they are far below actual good movies in terms of complexity, emotional maturity etc), and they are a sure fire way of getting good revenue. As people get tired of them, we will likely start seeing more interesting experiments The most unfortunate direction though is that there is massive hostility in the popular culture against complexity and symbolism that is more than skin deep,for which I mostly blame the heavy handed way literature is studied in school. This is often repeated as the joke 'what the author said: the curtains were blue; what the teacher says the author meant: [long lyrical explanation of blue=sad]; what the author meant: the curtains were blue'. This obstinate refusal to look past the surface of a piece of art is a very hostile environment for mass market high art.
- runawaybottle 6y agoI think it has more to do with the audience’s propensity to be more interested in investing long term into world and relationship building. People want more than a 2 hour connection with a story it seems like. They’d prefer to know Jon Snow for 5 years than for 3 hours. So it isn’t that the audience is unwilling to invest into deeper stories, it’s just they don’t feel like doing it via short term relationships anymore. I’m sure Nomad Land has a point, but I think audiences are kind of over that now days. Serial drama is the powerhouse now days, not the epic movie.
- Apocryphon 6y agoA return to the beginnings of cinemas with Republic Serials and the like.
- tsimionescu 6y agoThat's a good point as well!
- 6y ago
- zeppelin101 6y agoYou're 100% right. The only thing I'll say is that there are still movies made worth seeing, but you have to look more carefully for them. Without a doubt, most of the box office hits and many of the award winners are overhyped, bland and not worth seeing.
- paulpauper 6y agoscreen writers have apparently forgotten how to write and read, so they must derive inspiration from picture books instead. I look forward to someone making a movie based on board games soon..oh wait, that was done