4 ms·

Maybe I'm getting old, but what I would really prefer is that we could get some good movies, even if they touch on uncomfortable or ugly topics. Movies like Am

Maybe I'm getting old, but what I would really prefer is that we could get some good movies, even if they touch on uncomfortable or ugly topics. Movies like American History X, Fight Club, or What's Eating Gilbert Grape. It seems these movies would no longer be "allowed" to be made, or perhaps the modern zeitgeist censors them away. I just want to celebrate and encourage bona fide art and see more of it in the world. And I would gladly pay for my family to access this higher quality art.

exodust 3y ago
> It seems these movies would no longer be "allowed" to be made It may seem that way but I doubt it. I have faith in and trust artists, writers and film-makers to think outside the box. It's their job, and passion to do that. There will always be "safe", bland movies and TV among the good stuff.
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
Many (many) years ago I had an "agree to disagree" discussion with a co-worker about whether Romper Stomper was a good movie or not. She couldn't get past the ugliness of the content to see that it was 'a good movie' about bad things / people / situations. Alien 3 is also one of those, I think. I love it, but it's dark and dreary and hopeless - in fact, because of that.
beepbooptheory 3y ago
Why does it seem that way to you? I have not quite noticed that. I think when you are younger, there are movies that profoundly affect you. When you get older, and you have seen a lot of movies, its rarer to get the same kind of feelings. But that's just a part of growing up, it isn't a problem of censorship. I wonder even if, upon re-watching now, you'd think Fight Club is really the pinnacle of edginess and a profound art you attribute to it now, or if maybe you were just young when you watched it. And I also wonder if there are some great, profound works being made now that, for whatever reason, you have simply missed or felt the need not to see. Is "American History X" really leagues above "How To Blow up a Pipeline" in terms of "uncomfortable and ugly topics"? What about "Beau is Afraid"? Is that one censored by the modern zeitgeist? What about the films of Yorgos Lanthimos, Ruben Östlund, Harmony Korine, or Nicolas Winding Refn? Trying honestly, its hard for me to pinpoint what in particular you might think is censored these days. People are definitely still making good, uncomfortable movies. Edit with a few more directors making really great, messed up things at the moment: Julia Ducournau, Gaspar Noé, Rick Alverson, Boots Riley. Have you watched any Cronenberg lately? Lars von Trier? Haneke? What about recent Verhoeven films?? What about Paul Schrader? Bong Joon-ho? If these people are being censored, well, they are still definitely making some Art within those restrictions.
- lmpdev 3y ago
  I think they just mean edgy movies about Americans made by American studios
  - notyourwork 3y ago
    That's an easy way to be dismissive to someone without actually contributing to the discussion.
- CuriouslyC 3y ago
  Movies have gotten worse, without question. Big budget movies now are consistently cliché ridden rehashes of proven IP because studio execs don't want to take any chances. This behavior really took over in the early aughts, and you can look at the top 10 movies for each year to see the slide from ~2004-2010.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    And yet, they got huge audiences and revenues, so it isn't that studio executives judged the market wrong for many years.
    - CuriouslyC 3y ago
      It's not wrong if you don't care about art, or the legacy of the time. They're aiming for repeatable mediocrity, which is more profitable, but 50 years down the line nobody will remember the profitable trash, but they'll remember the art that was made before it.
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        Not sure I subscribe to your definition of art. Making a movie that has a hundred million people watching it when it is released is art in my view. Most "art" even from the 1970s is utterly forgotten by now, for example, while certain blockbusters endured.
      - 3y ago
mchanson 3y ago
Certainly mainstream cinema is not so great for challenging and interesting movies, but there are plenty of great international and "independent" movies being made. As well as quite a number of interesting and challenging TV projects. I've got someone in my family that surfaces this stuff for me which is lucky. Since I don't go out of my way to dig it up.
Eumenes 3y ago
Last movie I saw in theaters was The Revenant in 2015, and before that ... maybe the first Hobbit? Agreed that current movies suck, mostly Marvel crap and rehashes ... Local to me we have: Taylor swift movie, a new Saw movie, a new Exorcist movie, a new Paw Patrol movie. Lame.
btbuildem 3y ago
I think it's the profit motive that has ruined this medium. Most movies are just investment vehicles for the studios -- it's telling that when they're mentioned in the news, it's rarely the plot / storyline, but almost always the budget and ticket sales that are talked about. Seems like most of the big blockbusters are extremely formulaic -- the studios take what made money before, and rehash it over and over again until it stops making money. A really good example of that was one of the silly superhero movies - the first Guardians of the Galaxy. Somehow, a fresh take on the tired genre made it to production, and audiences reacted enthusiastically, because it was somewhat new -- and what followed? Two carbon-copy sequels that didn't work nearly as well as the first one. Of course that's within the constraints of big-budget studios that make movies as a high-return investment vehicles. Where else could you throw a hundred million dollars and get a 200% return? I'm sure art films still exist, independent films still exist. People still make movies because they have something to say, and that's the medium they want to speak through. Maybe the way to encourage that is to fund more art schools and subsidize independent filmmakers.
0xcde4c3db 3y ago
Movies like that are often only canonized as "good" in retrospect, after there's been time for them to marinate in the wider culture and have some consensus form around their significance and general quality. Around the time of American History X, your local theater probably would have been showing Antz, Rush Hour, The Rugrats Movie, and There's Something About Mary.
aidenn0 3y ago
If you came of age around 1999 you may have unusually high standards. Besides Fight Club that year also had Magnolia, Being John Malkovich, Boys Don't Cry, Three Kings, Go, and American Beauty. On top of that were big name sequels Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Toy Story 2, the TV adaption South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and the well marketed low-budget horror The Blair Witch Project. [edit] Somehow didn't manage to fit Office Space in that list. It would probably be near to the top of many other years lists, but 1999 was just silly.

exodust 3y ago

> It seems these movies would no longer be "allowed" to be made It may seem that way but I doubt it. I have faith in and trust artists, writers and film-makers to think outside the box. It's their job, and passion to do that. There will always be "safe", bland movies and TV among the good stuff.

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

Many (many) years ago I had an "agree to disagree" discussion with a co-worker about whether Romper Stomper was a good movie or not. She couldn't get past the ugliness of the content to see that it was 'a good movie' about bad things / people / situations. Alien 3 is also one of those, I think. I love it, but it's dark and dreary and hopeless - in fact, because of that.

beepbooptheory 3y ago

Why does it seem that way to you? I have not quite noticed that. I think when you are younger, there are movies that profoundly affect you. When you get older, and you have seen a lot of movies, its rarer to get the same kind of feelings. But that's just a part of growing up, it isn't a problem of censorship. I wonder even if, upon re-watching now, you'd think Fight Club is really the pinnacle of edginess and a profound art you attribute to it now, or if maybe you were just young when you watched it. And I also wonder if there are some great, profound works being made now that, for whatever reason, you have simply missed or felt the need not to see. Is "American History X" really leagues above "How To Blow up a Pipeline" in terms of "uncomfortable and ugly topics"? What about "Beau is Afraid"? Is that one censored by the modern zeitgeist? What about the films of Yorgos Lanthimos, Ruben Östlund, Harmony Korine, or Nicolas Winding Refn? Trying honestly, its hard for me to pinpoint what in particular you might think is censored these days. People are definitely still making good, uncomfortable movies. Edit with a few more directors making really great, messed up things at the moment: Julia Ducournau, Gaspar Noé, Rick Alverson, Boots Riley. Have you watched any Cronenberg lately? Lars von Trier? Haneke? What about recent Verhoeven films?? What about Paul Schrader? Bong Joon-ho? If these people are being censored, well, they are still definitely making some Art within those restrictions.

lmpdev 3y ago
I think they just mean edgy movies about Americans made by American studios
- notyourwork 3y ago
  That's an easy way to be dismissive to someone without actually contributing to the discussion.
CuriouslyC 3y ago
Movies have gotten worse, without question. Big budget movies now are consistently cliché ridden rehashes of proven IP because studio execs don't want to take any chances. This behavior really took over in the early aughts, and you can look at the top 10 movies for each year to see the slide from ~2004-2010.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  And yet, they got huge audiences and revenues, so it isn't that studio executives judged the market wrong for many years.
  - CuriouslyC 3y ago
    It's not wrong if you don't care about art, or the legacy of the time. They're aiming for repeatable mediocrity, which is more profitable, but 50 years down the line nobody will remember the profitable trash, but they'll remember the art that was made before it.
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Not sure I subscribe to your definition of art. Making a movie that has a hundred million people watching it when it is released is art in my view. Most "art" even from the 1970s is utterly forgotten by now, for example, while certain blockbusters endured.
    - 3y ago

mchanson 3y ago

Certainly mainstream cinema is not so great for challenging and interesting movies, but there are plenty of great international and "independent" movies being made. As well as quite a number of interesting and challenging TV projects. I've got someone in my family that surfaces this stuff for me which is lucky. Since I don't go out of my way to dig it up.

Eumenes 3y ago

Last movie I saw in theaters was The Revenant in 2015, and before that ... maybe the first Hobbit? Agreed that current movies suck, mostly Marvel crap and rehashes ... Local to me we have: Taylor swift movie, a new Saw movie, a new Exorcist movie, a new Paw Patrol movie. Lame.

btbuildem 3y ago

I think it's the profit motive that has ruined this medium. Most movies are just investment vehicles for the studios -- it's telling that when they're mentioned in the news, it's rarely the plot / storyline, but almost always the budget and ticket sales that are talked about. Seems like most of the big blockbusters are extremely formulaic -- the studios take what made money before, and rehash it over and over again until it stops making money. A really good example of that was one of the silly superhero movies - the first Guardians of the Galaxy. Somehow, a fresh take on the tired genre made it to production, and audiences reacted enthusiastically, because it was somewhat new -- and what followed? Two carbon-copy sequels that didn't work nearly as well as the first one. Of course that's within the constraints of big-budget studios that make movies as a high-return investment vehicles. Where else could you throw a hundred million dollars and get a 200% return? I'm sure art films still exist, independent films still exist. People still make movies because they have something to say, and that's the medium they want to speak through. Maybe the way to encourage that is to fund more art schools and subsidize independent filmmakers.

0xcde4c3db 3y ago

Movies like that are often only canonized as "good" in retrospect, after there's been time for them to marinate in the wider culture and have some consensus form around their significance and general quality. Around the time of American History X, your local theater probably would have been showing Antz, Rush Hour, The Rugrats Movie, and There's Something About Mary.

aidenn0 3y ago

If you came of age around 1999 you may have unusually high standards. Besides Fight Club that year also had Magnolia, Being John Malkovich, Boys Don't Cry, Three Kings, Go, and American Beauty. On top of that were big name sequels Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Toy Story 2, the TV adaption South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and the well marketed low-budget horror The Blair Witch Project. [edit] Somehow didn't manage to fit Office Space in that list. It would probably be near to the top of many other years lists, but 1999 was just silly.