Hollywood is broken
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2022
- #FormerNetworkExec #CallMeChato #hollywoke
In this episode I get into my time machine and travel back to the Hollywood of 1971.
Movies I listed:
The French Connection
A Clockwork Orange
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Dirty Harry
The Last Picture Show
Get Carter
Straw Dogs
Fiddler on the Roof
Klute
Diamonds are Forever
Carnal Knowledge
Harold and Maude
THX 1138
Play Misty for Me
Vanishing Point
The Andromeda Strain
Two-Lane Blacktop
Billy Jack
Shaft
Escape from the Planet of the Apes
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Развлечения
I can’t remember who said it - it may have been Lawrence Kasdan - but there was a great quote from a colleague of Lucas and Spielberg who defended them when blamed for the state of modern Hollywood. “It’s not George or Steven’s fault that the people who copied them weren’t as talented as they are.” There’s a lot of truth in that. Raiders of the Lost Ark is endlessly re-watchable all these years later, yet I’ve forgotten most Marvel movies before the credits have finished. And Jaws and Close Encounters seem like arthouse character studies compared to todays blockbusters. Stories that might have been award-laden cinema releases in the nineties still exist, but they get padded out to ten or thirteen hours of streaming content, with bland Netflix/Disney Plus visuals and interminable filler episodes. A lot of the people who knew how to make real movies have left the industry - perhaps not of their own volition - to be replaced by people who primarily care about getting likes on social media and fawning profiles in Vanity Fair and The Hollywood Reporter. I don’t really see a way back until a lot of these folks get fired! But at least we have brilliant channels like this where someone who knows what they’re talking about can articulate our frustrations for us.
Yep
@@CallMeChato lol
Not only that, but corporate America was bound to get its hooks into movies eventually. It's not George's fault that the same thing that happened to car companies and telephone companies and clothing companies etc. also happened to Hollywood.
At least we still have the foreign cinema. Then again, the foreign cinema was always--and still is--a lot less accessible to domestic audiences.
Can it be because they only want to make a lot of bucks? I don't think they even care if you made it through the entire movie and walked out; they've already got your money at the door...
The most terrifying film I've ever seen was watching The Andromeda Strain at age 12 in 1971. It's still a fascinating film to this day.
My older cousin took me to see it at age 9 because he and I were the only diehard science fiction fans in the family. It was the coolest movie I'd ever seen. I read the book a week later and was surprised how much the film had updated things for the better. I still love to catch it late at night from time to time.
You don't want sand in your bum?
Read the book by Michael Crichton if you haven't already.
I've read nearly every fictional book Crichton has written. Sphere, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Eaters of the Dead, Andromeda Strain, Congo, Timeline, Prey (not one of his better ones), State of Fear, Terminal Man, The Great Train Robbery. I will merely reiterate and parrot your point on that recommendation.
My dad got me from school and took me to see it during his lunch.
I was 10. The science and SFX still hold up!😇
"James Bond escaping from the Planet of the Apes"... I'd pay good money for watching that movie!
I was thinking the same thing! Seeing Bond face off with Dr. Zaeus would be incredible.
There's also ma and pa kettle meet godzilla.
"Do you expect me to talk?"
"NO"!
@@cjk5115 I would pay double to see James Bond being played by Troy McClure singing "Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius".
P.S. I miss Phil Hartman.
@@ahothabeth That's two of us. "I hate every ape I see, from chimpan-a to chimpanzee!" That was easily one of the most brilliantly written Simpsons episodes ever.
"OMG not another Hollywood is broken video."
No actually, keep them coming. Theres a good percentage of the populace that have never seen proper entertainment, free of woke/identity politics, Written, directed and produced by those who deserve those titles.
What's the flavor of the month? Korean film or tv series?
To people who haven't seen good entertainment before: watch Quintin Tarantino's movies, and mel brooks' movies.
I've made use of this dry well of entertainment, and searched through movies from 60's through to 90's and found some real gems and not just hollywood, but Japan and France. Some incredible films.
@@MikeWhiskyTango check out the stuff made before 1934. They did some things in the early days of Hollywood that nobody did again until the 70's.
@@SAM-ru4vx the choice may seem haphazard between K movies and TV series, but this is the procedure: the executives get stoned, toss a dart over their shoulder at a wall on which are two pieces of paper marked “K movies” and “TV series”. Which ever one the dart hits is the way they go.
Turns out, 1971 was an even better year for movies than I remembered, and I'd argue that Hollywood no longer has the talent to produce that many movies that are that good, let alone do it in just one year.
When merit is subordinate to every other concern that they can drag up, yeah there’s not going to be an abundance of talent. It’s pathological and unfortunately not restricted to just the movies.
Best we can hope for is competence. Excellence is extinct and it’s not coming back.
I think acting, directing, production design, effects, etc. are miles ahead of 1971, it's just that Hollywood is losing its ability to write good scripts.
@@toweypat who’s the equivalent of Kubrick today? Or better yet who’s “miles ahead” of him?
@@BlookbugIV I should have said, as a whole, the level across the board is miles ahead. Even the lowest budget movie of today is likely to be made with competence.
@@toweypat yeah a routine competence that gives everything that sterile Netflix movie look. Nobody does anything with the camera - paint by numbers. Bland actors, rote direction, soulless production, inept scriptwriting. None of this is good.
Even the look of movies had a filmic quality in the past that is now lost. What you mistake for ‘ahead’ is the equivalent of packaged microwave meals being mistaken for an improvement over needing to go to a farmers market for ingredients.
Time for an Andromeda Strain rewatch to celebrate that list of films!
Watch the 2008 remake version, then the original.
I did, and I will never forgive myself and neither should you.
@@theunknowngamer5477 an unnecessary remake in the scheme of things.
@@theunknowngamer5477 the only good part is Ricky Shrowder in it but they made him into a Republican Characture I guess becsue he is an open Hollywood Republican..
@@zakofrx
I will re-rewatch the.....thing, with a new perspective.
My thought is that the stories we get reflect the lives the writers live. Tolkien wrote majestic artistic masterpieces from a life filled with joyful celebrations and horrible sufferings. The stories written by today's entertainment gurus demonstrate their comparatively sheltered and coddled lives safe within their cocoons. It's easy to write what you know when you know nothing of value.
What is worse, these coddled urbanites can't even use internet searchers for research.
Lived experience only goes so far. This stuff is a craft, and a guy like Tolkien had the tools. I'd trust the coddled guy who surrounded himself with great literature in his cocoon to churn out a good story, rather than the guy with the hard knocks in life who never spent any time reading literature.
@@Beatnik59 Agreed, but these hacks were neither one nor the other.
As if you know the writers or "their lives". Hollywood just puts out the adolescent crap that even adults lap up and can't get enough of. The average movie is now aimed at the mindset of a kid of 14 and adults now demand no better, or anything more mature, when they go to the movies. Low audience standards broke Hollywood, not writers.
^^^This!
Not every film needs a sequel. One timeless story hits harder than several shameless money grabs... I mean sequels.
There are a few instances where sequels were as (if not more) importants than the original entry.
Terminator 2, Evil Dead 2, Aliens, Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade, Kung Fu Panda 2, Die Hard 3, The Godfather 2, Casino Royal, Air Buddies 46: Time Travelling Mini-Putt Pupps vs Interdimentional Satan In Space and Underwater Cyber T-Rex Volcanos 3D.
@@fatkart7641 there are always exceptions to any particular rule. That doesn't mean every film needs a sequel.
9 is a timeless masterpiece that ended perfectly, no need for a sequel of any kind.
Except for Top Gun Maverick. 😬☺️
@@fatkart7641
I can't agree. Terminator is clearly more important than Terminator 2. Die Hard with a Vengeance? I lived through all the Die Hard movies, and I've never heard Die Hard with a Vengeance be the most talked about or most important of the films. It's always the first Die Hard that's the most celebrated, especially around Christmas time. You're probably thinking of importance in terms of CG technology or box office take or something else (I don't know what that something else could be.) But in terms of the quality of the film itself, sequels don't normally surpass the quality of the original. You know, there's Terminator, Die Hard, Robocop, Predator, The Godfather, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, The Matrix... I can give you Aliens, because that was clearly talked about as an important film, and I can also add The Empire Strikes Back to your list, because that movie is seen as superior to Star Wars.
As a minor point of argument, until the Craig Era, there really wasn't any such thing as a "Bond Sequel" since the stories were generally Stand Alone: it was a Franchise/Universe sure, but events of one movie very rarely carried over to the next (or even had any bearing on its plot.)
I think the big one that pops to mind is Traci Bond from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and her death affecting James. I know it was mentioned in "The Spy Who Loved Me" when Amasova/Agent XXX rattled off James' bio from the KGB and when she got to Teresa's death, James cut her off. I think they did it as this was Moore's first outing as 007 and they were trying to tie him with Lazenby for continuity. Other than that and the occasional recurring character (Jaws, Felix Letter, etc) they were quite Stand Alone as you mentioned.
@@danielseelye6005 The Spy Who Loved Me was Roger Moore's THIRD James Bond film. Live and Let Die was the first Bond film Moore starred in, and The Man With the Golden Gun was the second Moore Bond film.
A lot of people think The Spy Who Loved Me (including Moore himself) was Moore's best Bond movie.
His late wife was mentioned again in For Your Eyes Only. If I remember correctly, he visited her grave and her year of death was given as 1969, the same year On Her Majesty's Secret Service was released.
After ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, Sean Connery returned as Bond in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER.
The opening of Diamonds had Bond hunting Blofelt (I know I am misspelling the name) who had killed Bond's wife.
@@danielseelye6005 We need the jaws origin story prequel now! lol.
@@AvengerII You're right on Moore's filmography. Thanks.
"The French Connection" kept my father from visiting NYC for 40 years. I'd been bugging him for about the last 15 to take a trip out there just to check it out, because he and my mother love to travel, and they love live theater, so it seemed like a place they would really enjoy. Finally one day my father admitted that although he knew things were different now, his mental image of NYC came from the crime-ridden hell hole depicted in "The French Connection," which in fairness NYC kind of was in 1971, and so he'd avoided going there for essentially all of his adult life. I did finally convince my parents to take a trip out there a few months ago, however, were still too afraid to take the subway, and they went to a matinee so that they could be back in their hotel before the sun went down. Reminded me of an old "Simpsons" episode.
And that, my friend, was one of the big problems of that era in film making, I think. It was kind of "over the top" in its own way, with all of the violence and grit. It gave people a distorted sense of reality in the opposite way that the old, sanitized, "corny" fifties and sixties did. Because while that corny era portrayed everything as better than it actually was, the whole 1970's theatre of grit portrayed everything as worse than it actually was. And it was folks like your father that paid the price in terms of cynicism. I'm glad you all were able to overcome it, and go to a matinee on Broadway.
Now NYC is much more worse.
@@Beatnik59 I'd take the grit any day of the weak over the bland ideological pg-13 sequel garbage that tries to pass itself off as a movie in today's world
It could also be said people in Hollywood had a lot more life experience, and could relate to a wider range of originals. The new generation in Hollywood seems to only know the world from a tweet. Even if studios shift towards smaller productions, there experience of terrible spectacles would kick in, the narrow view they have wouldn’t widen in any meaningful way especially when they are already making money.
It doesn’t help that the new generation coming into Hollywood are akin to leaches. They know how studios make money and they want money. When I look at the credits to some of the bigger flops the writers have little to no prior experience, and what they have was either a one hit wonder, or they know people. It’s Hollywood inbreeding.
Creative inbreeding combined with the social media echo chambers and you get a feedback loop that will keep ramping up the lunacy because art imitates life imitates art. There have been documentaries on this effect and it’s impact. I recommend ‘Merchants of Cool’ 2001, Frontline PBS.
Will it end? I think it will only get a lot worse before it gets better if at all. Until these studios start taking a lot of loss, they will continue to pump the sludge.
To the point I didn't even care anymore if they burn down all the franchise and losing money. When their attitude sticks on insulting fans for not watching their movies instead of improving themselves, nothing to go but descend further into creatively bankrupt territory.
Still, feel bad for those who still had passion to make a genuine good film, Hollywood turn their backs on em.
Blackstone owns them all...and vanguard controls Blackstone.
They will need to lose a trillion at my best guess for them to purge the whole lot.
But Who will replace them?
If the only thing you read in life is your Twitter feed, how can you write anything that doesn't look like a Twitter feed?
Hollywood has "life experience." Indeed, Hollywood can't stop talking about the treasure trove of life experience it has collected there. It is a veritable cornucopia of life experience from all backgrounds, all sexualities, all colors, all genders, and so on.
But so long as nobody there is interested in understanding anything more profound than their Twitter feeds, then Twitter is all they are capable of producing.
If anybody was ever at a loss for why these "useless majors" like literature, history, philosophy, and so on were important, what we see going on in Hollywood is what we get when we think we can do without them. We said they weren't important. And so now Hollywood doesn't think these things are important. Only Twitter.
Good points. A lot of writers, actors, producers etc back in the 50s,60s had served and seen conflicts, so had that experience to mine. Nowadays, the latest generation have had everything given without experiencing genuine hardship and appear to be basing their lives on Sex and the city plus whatever they glean from Twatter.
"Creative inbreeding". That's a good summation.
Most of these modern movies seem to be written by people with comfortable lives who've been churned out of a movie-making factory assembly line for creativity. Then gets the big jobs qualifying for a checkbox on the list and having the aforementioned pre-programming from the factory.
While not from 71, The Outlaw Josey Wales is one of my 1970s film favourites.
Bonzo, James Bonzo. That was also quite a list. OMG hearing the meeting where they pitched Harold and Maude to current Hollywood, would be worth the price of a ticket.
A thumbs up at least! The pool scene with his Mom swimming past still floors me. What a gem.
I hope studios listen to you. The reclusive nature of modern Hollywood has me canceling almost all my streaming services, no longer going to cinema and reading (old) novels.
They won't
Same. Fortunately there are decades’ worth of older films and books out there.
Same
That’s a little sad man, the religious used to be like that, they used to just not watch, read or listen to anything current, because it was blasphemy are you turning out like them.
The Omega Man was a great 1971 movie. Yes it was a remake but it was still a great movie.
Heaston at his sci fi best.
@@grandmufftwerkin9037 Naw, that would be "Soylent Green."
@@Shadowman4710 I never did find out what Soylent Green was made of. I took ONE bathroom break.
Always good to hear from you. Yes, we've all blabbed about this before. Let me put it another way. After Persian Gulf 1, 1996, I left the US Army, honorably served, and went out into the World. Peddled my resume, and got a boring, crap job doing tax-related financial work. Great. Three years later after hating myself, I decided to get into real estate in Seattle. Worked great. Within 12 months I was moving three residential properties per month with an average commission/paycheck of $3K per. Sure there were ups and downs. Then I figured out if I marketed myself to bigger, more expensive luxury properties I could make triple that per property doing the same work, in the same time. The process is the same big or small. So I left middle america residential and stepped up to luxury properties, made a pile! By 2006, with enough capital up my butt and no wife or kids, I stepped into commercial property sales, got my broker's license and went to work. Took me two years to figure out that it's not how smart you are, it's how you know and your connections. Then it's 2008 and the Great Recession is on, blah blah blah. And then it dawned on me that during recessionary times, big coporate real estate investors were saving their cash, waiting for the bottom to bottom out so they could shotgun mega investment acquisition dollars and ride the rising tide to Orgy City. So, I redoubled my efforts and started talking to REITs, Pension Plans, Insurance Companies, Corporate Retail and poof!, big money was raining for years. By 2015 I retired a multi multi millionaire at 46 years old. I understand what the studios and production companies are thinking. They want the same work/effort but the bigger bucks, I don't blame them. It's what I did. And honestly if I were to have stayed working full time, I would never want to sell another middle-class 3/2 bed residential house for a $3K commission, cuz that's just not enough money for my time. Even so, quality work shows and LA/Hollywood isn't producing it. And that's the big deal and if they don't get their consumer cash-cow, clearly we're all racist. Be seeing you.
Point well made. And I hope you found that private life after all those years :)
@@cobba42 HAHAHAHA! The downside to all this, as a middle aged single man, no hotties are interested in me personally, just the money. And that's a shit-sandwich because these women are doing just what I did, only socially. Same process, same screwing, just a better paycheck in the same amount of time. And these women know their sweet spot, they're on a clock.
Your story does not surprise me. I have worked construction program management on major commercial projects, and I wondered why my group wasn't more valued by our company. Well, what we brought in fees in four years on a 250 million hospital project was blown away by a single transaction in one afternoon by one of the real estate guys, who simply brokered moving an oil company from one office building to another. And like you said, he did that through his connections. I have never looked at the world the same way since then.
@Bob Davis
That’s not exactly what the studios are doing though. The studios effort is directly reflected by the money they spend. You could argue that 10 movies at $10 million apiece is the same amount of effort as one movie at 100 million. And they’re providing more jobs.
Let’s say they spend 400 million on a blockbuster and another 400 million in marketing and they hit that big $2 billion super blockbuster. You’re in accounting you know what the return is.
Compare that to clockwork Orange which cost 1 million to make and brought in 100 million at 1000% return!
Not only will you employ dozens of times more people, you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket and you’re almost guaranteed to get monstrous returns from some of those movies. It’s a lot smarter making more movies look at how New World Pictures got started.
You can’t look at it like an independent contractor which you were these are big companies that can hire as much labor as they can afford. They need as much return as they can get per dollar spent. Not time spent. You had limited time but if you had employees you could’ve made the same amount of money in residential real estate.
@@Istaphobos I'll agree with that. But I didn't have people underneath me, just me. The one man show. An independent contractor, like I was, is a business, so I made choices. And I'm not getting cranky here. This is a conversation of value. Mathematically you could say, just like physics, Pressure is Force per area. Or Power is Energy per Time. Value means biggest bang for your buck or, dollars per time. Big or small, we all do it.
I was saying to a friend the other night "I think I'll watch an old move cause everything is shit now!"
I was a teenager in the 90's and all of these movies could only be seen back then by going to the local video store. Just like the theaters, there were so many friday and saturday nights spent watching these classic movies and ALSO going to the theater. I was a movie junkie. My wife asked me if I wanted to go to the movies the other day and I just shrugged. I just don't care anymore. At first I just thought it was because I'm getting older, but after seeing that list you just ran off, I realize now it's not that I have lost my love for movies, it's that there hasn't been a movie I've loved in years. I enjoy(ed) the Marvel movies, but not even those get anywhere near the repeat watches that I gave Evil Dead, Die Hard, Dark City, or Labyrinth.
(This is a long post. Apologies.)
Over a decade ago I was browsing a Usenet newsgroup dedicated to movies, and one of the posters there said something to the effect of (and this is a badly mangled paraphrasing): "From now on, Hollywood is no longer going to make great movies, just awesome ones. And that's a shame."
Turns out that he was right. We no longer have movies like Clerks, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Memento, Way of The Gun, Boondock Saints, Empire Records, The Big Lebowski, Singles, Reality Bites, or Career Opportunities - and that list is just of nineties movies (with a couple of them being from 2000).
Now we have the MCU and DCU - and they started out awesome, in a post-Star Wara effects extravaganza kind of way, and they certainly provided an awesome viewing experience until they devolved into woke drivel. But at the same time, it's difficult to call them truly great films. Their source material, the comics, had some truly great stories back decades ago when they were well written, but those great stories were never translated well enough into their movie counterparts and we just got awesome big budget popcorn flicks.
I was a little kid in the eighties when everyone in hollywood wanted to make the next Star Wars, and those movies were denounced and disparaged for it - but we got a decade of fantastic SciFi, fantasy, action and adventure movies because of it. Ghostbusters, Aliens, Predator, Highlander, Willow, Conan The Barbarian, Terminator, The Last Starfighter, Krull, Flash Gordon, Blade Runner, They Live, The Abyss, the list goes on... those were movies that (for the most part) walked the fine line between awesome and great. They were unashamedly awesome and mostly didn't try to be important cinema. But they still managed to be great, and are still great decades later, because they were made by those who had heart, and who wanted to tell good stories.
Those types aren't in hollywood anymore - they are either indie videogame developers, or writing novels and self publishing them on Amazon, or making crowdfunded comic books, or they're just not involved in a creative field. No one with heart is left in h town anymore, and now no one there cares - all they care about is (Critical Drinker voice) "The Message" and getting paid to spread it.
And its going to remain that way until hollywood finally caves in upon itself and falls into the sinkhole that is its modern foundation. One solution for movie-goers is to support indie films - three of my favorite action movies are Equilibrium (starring Christian Bale), Six String Samurai, and Desperado (starring Antonio Babderas and directed by Robert Rodriguez): all three are indie to the core, and provide an action viewing experience far better thsn anything hollywood has put out in the last 25 years. If more people were to detach from Hollywood and give indie films a try then more indie action films would be made, and that would only be a good thing - and it could even kickstart a new golden age of cinema.
Clockwork orange was so disturbingly great. I used to love movies. Loved going to see everything that came out when I lived in California. The past 10 years have been tragic. So few good movies and shows. At least I still have my movie collection to watch at home.
Northman is a original film that was able to squeak through the cracks of today's Hollywood along with Dune.
Northman is an uncompromising film and will stand the test of time because of it.
"The radio is broken..."
--Frank Zappa
Disney do seem to be cooking up ideas in a dangerous kitchen.
You can almost pin point when Hollywood truely broke in 2016 when Ghostbusters was released. There were issues slowly building but it all pretty accumulated in that year and just kept going. We're feeling the bad story lines and bad remakes and clunky dialog. The issue is the creativity is mostly gone, very rare to find a solid movie that focuses on a good story and less check marks to keep the internet happy ☹️
But wouldn’t you argue that’s said in every generation heck that’s said with music, they always say things suck now the past was better.
@@RickJames189 true, but I'm open minded enough to enjoy some of the movies that come out and loved them. It like rolling a dice same with music as well. That being said it would be nice to see some original concepts as well.
@@RickJames189 Not so much with Gen X, we tended to eschew most things from our parents‘ generation… hated their hippie and folk music, we LOATHED their fashion, and entertainment… but we did have an admiration for the 50s oddly enough. Also our boomer parents were so consumed with their own endlessly fascinating lives we were often left to our own devices (“latch-key kids”). It was only towards the end of the 80s that we focused on the events the 60s. My dad was a teacher at the time and complained my generation had more in common with the Silent Generation than his. Of course I’m speaking in hugely broad terms, but you can see it reflected in the films of the late 70s to late 80s
@@ActuallyCPOS that fits... I could never stand movies set around then.. Just watched Zardoz for a second time and it has all the Rubish script and hippies from then..
But I love movies like North by Northwest, Charade and to Catch a Thief...
And in the 70s movies started to movie away from the hippie stuff.. Just look at how the Dirty Harry movies changed over the years...
When I was in film class, we looked at New Hollywood that really took off with Bonnie and Clyde. A great book on the topic is "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood." You can blame Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate for killing the age of the director. You can also blame studio consolidation, and being sold to conglomerates, who care more about market share. I don't think it will come around again with the current studio system. It needs to get completely borked (rather than the current mostly borked) before some independent distributors start taking chances on some lower budget, more original content. What we really need is another Sam Arkoff and a modern Roger Corman. I remember a (probably apocryphal) quote from either Lucas or Spielberg, "I set out to fight the Hollywood studio system, and then I became it." Just my thought.
That was Lucas, and he said it in an interview about how he put together the financing for the original three _Star Wars_ films.
Ya I agree Hollywood is in the dumps, but as a cinephile, I hold hope that there's still some gems coming. To name a few just this year: Everything Everywhere All at Once, Three Thousand Years of Longing, Nobody, Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Bullet Train. But the talent is there, it's just underutilized.
Everything Everywhere and 3000 Thousand Years were wonderful movies. I'm glad I went out of my way to watch them both on the big screen.
Fun fact: "everything everywhere all at once" is an indie film, not a hollywood movie. Sure it got a company behind it, but that company works on indie films.
@@mr_indie_fan Haha, no I know, but I was implying that there are still good films coming out in spite of Hollywood's ineptitude. Also, I think it's fair to reference the film industry itself as "Hollywood" in most cases.
My parents had HBO in the very early 1980's. Prior to even getting cable, we had HBO. But in that ONE channel, there were so many good, worthwhile movies coming on that we had absolutely no control over. We didn't get to pick what or when. But they were movies still worth seeing. We have an entire universe of choice of new movies and series today across so many platforms and they all... are just subpar at best.
@@fakshen1973 You make a really interesting point about quantity being the priority over quality amidst streaming wars. It makes sense they have to shovel as much shit at us as possible in hopes something will stick.
You made my day, as Dirty Harry might’ve said
I consider myself an effects junkie. These days it's hard to impress me. Seems like all the crazy CGI has been done before...
Your video made me think of The Joker. A movie with a modest budget that was a massive success. Watching it in the theater I was awestruck by how beautiful it was. My eyes scanned every inch of the screen as if I was trying to absorb the movie.
CGI is the same as cartoons, kid stuff animation, who gives a F__k. No stunts, no stunt men, no real action, just some punk with a keyboard and a mouse, clicking away, painting a video. If anything and everything is possible, what's the big deal in the next big screen explosion with people flying everywhere, nothing. It's crap. Top Gun 2 was huge, not because of CGI, but because it had real jet's flying doing cool stuff. No need for cartoons in the story for adults.
All the kids in the world are about to have a rude awakening to the world very soon, after that, things will change big time. Movies too.
When I was young, my granpa put a metal throttle knob for an old ford in my hand. I didn't know what it was at the time, but he then put a plastic one in my other hand, same shape. A "replacement" part. He pointed at the metal part I was holding and said, "they don't make them like they used to...you'll find out someday too." I was probably four, maybe five. I didn't know quite what to think at the time, but as I watched him install the plastic part I remember a feeling of melancholy over both of us.
I've been on a binge lately (in between watching your videos, of course)... Kelly's Heroes, Good/Bad/Ugly, Dirty Dozen, French Connection, Where Eagles Dare, and so on. They simply don't make 'em like that any more. I'll happily rewatch classics like that with a good story, good characters, and a little heart over and over compared to the corporatised mush coming out now.
I think a major issue is the bonus structure. They release a billion dollar movie (good or not) by the end of the year to get their massive bonus, then leave to another studio or project before the feedback comes in. It's also the mentality of having to feed their keeping up with the jones monster. They can't just have a nice house and a few nice cars, they have to have 10 amazing houses and 20 unattainable cars they never drive.
Wow, this was worth the watch just to remember the chase sequence in French Connection.
Just the image of the very manly face of Gene Hackman on the French Connection poster would melt Twatter to its knees. Good times.
We had a much more literate audience back then. Studios focused on genre instead of gross. So beloved fandoms are now franchises.
That's the thing, between about 1939 and 1999 you could pick liberally any month of any year and have 2-3 really great classic, memorable films. We used to go to the theater expecting something good and entertaining, today we go to movies hoping it won't suck.
The French Connection came out literally this month in 1971.
They’re were terrible movies back then as well, there’s always been terrible movies.
@@RickJames189 yeah that's a fact but the entire vibe of going to the movies have changed, and the percentage of great movies has reduced.
One element of change that has had a big effect on what to put on a movie screen, and seems to be consistently overlooked is the rise and ubiquity of home entertainment systems. When most families have 65"+ sized TVs with dolby 7.1 sound systems, the movie has to be visually impressive enough to make people leave the comfort of home to pay to see it in a theater. This doesn't mean well told, relatively small budget films can't be made and seen. But the economics have shifted by virtue of changes in consumer tech, meaning modern independent films of the caliber of The French Connection are less likely to make money in the theater, but can find a life on streaming (as many already are).
This is so true. I've seen 2,291 full-length feature films so far..and there's we've been stuck in a curve of crap for the last decade. The last year I worked at the movie theater, 1993, we had a best-picture contender - non-sequel - released week or so:
1 Jurassic Park
2 Mrs. Doubtfire
3 The Fugitive
4 Schindler's List
5 The Firm
6 Indecent Proposal
7 Cliffhanger
8 Sleepless in Seattle
9 Philadelphia
10 The Pelican Brief
This doesn't include other massive hits: Falling Down, Army of Darkness, The Sandlot, Fire in the Sky, Betty and Joon, My Neighbor Totoro, Last Action Hero, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Rookie of the Year, The Joy Luck Club, Dazed and Confused, Rudy, Rookie of the Year, Cool Runnings, A Perfect World, Demolition Man, Carlio's Way, Gypsy, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Grumpy old Men, Tombstone, and hundred+ more. Yes. all in 1993.
Any of one of those is a fun re-watch....well except for Schindler' List, but you get the idea. Now we get maybe one per year? The left destroys all it touches.
I saw Planet of the Apes as a child and it stayed with me my whole life.
Agree with your points and it’s good to hear them articulated well. I think one other element has to do with the theater vs. home experience. In 1971, we had a tiny TV (can’t remember if it was still black & white) and 3 networks + PBS for entertainment. Going out to see ANY movie was fun in the 70’s compared to what we had at home. Audiences actually behaved like they weren’t at home too. Now only “event” movies get me into the movie theater - otherwise I’ll watch movies like Lighthouse in my home theater (80” TV, surround sound, etc. with no one but my wife to annoy me…). Oh, and I have to had fart catcher to my vocabulary now.
How do you explain Wes Anderson's films being successful in the theatre, then? He doesn't have big explosions or superheroes punching each other, just a quirky, visually interesting story. If the story is good and matched with the right director, people will see it in the theatre.
I gave up watching movies in the theatre for a different reason: cinemas refuse to curb cellphone users. People texting and even talking on their phones during movies ruins the experience. People act like they're in their living rooms and movie theatres refuse to educate them. I can remember a time when ushers showed disruptive people the street.
Constant wisdom supplied here. I thank you sir!
I tend to think part of the problem is tied to the death of the Hollywood System, the old school studio way of doing things, with the backlots and the warehouses of costumes and props and sets, and all the skilled craftspeople at work.
Granted, by the time of the movies listed the big studios were mostly divested of that wealth, backlots sold off for development as offices and apartments and so on, but the spirit was still kinda there. The Apes movies could not have continued without having the Fox props department (and Irwin Allen would have been straight out of luck!) as one example.
The idea of having a pipeline, a system to try out new talent, to be able to have writers pitch, to have name actors get behind a project, and affordable resources to use to keep production costs down…I think that’s still a workable business model.
The other thing is of course competition. When there were, what, 6 major and a dozen or so minor studios all trying to fill the theaters with product, and knowing that a small film that can pull in an audience 6 months later is as valuable as a big blockbuster that poops out after 5 weeks can make for more interesting films.
But maybe it’s just too late. We live in a time when instant gratification isn’t fast enough. Cripes, I recall Star Wars went an entire YEAR as first-run, and that rather decent Elvis film was out of most theaters after like a month?
I’m old. 😅
I watched twelve of the films you listed in the theater. I lived in a small town of about 35,000 and we didn't get every new release. Now we have multiplexes that show over 100 new films a year and I see 4-5 that interest me enough to go watch them. Sad Chato,
I look at a film like 1993's What's Eating Gilbert Grape. 11 million budget got 3 little known actors (Johnny Depp, Leonardo Dicaprio and Juliette Lewis) together to perform a beautiful family story that changed lives. We don't see many like those anymore.
I actually prefer watching Chato chatting over the movies available to watch in theaters and streaming!
Hollywood might get better but there's always independent movie companies
The situation is actually similar to the 1960s (only with musicals instead of superhero flicks). Back then the foreign market kicked Hollywood's ass and Hollywood was also obsessed with huge films like "Ben Hur" or "Cleopatra". Finally in 1970s in order to combat this, Hollywood studios concentrated on films akin to "Easy Rider" that was a surprise hit in every sence of the word.
Nowadays we have anime kicking Hollywood's ass (how much did the "Demon Slayer" made?). The only thing we don't have (yet) is the new "Easy Rider" - a surprise and 100% ORIGINAL low-budget hit that shifts everything in the right way and opens doors for the "New-New-New-NEW Hollywood".
I’m a Millenial (born in 1977) and I say “they don’t make them like they used to” all the time now, so it isn’t just a Babyboomer saying. P.S. I think the studio’s don’t hit singles & doubles anymore because the executive’s coke habits have gotten more & more expensive and harder to sustain within billion dollar box office receipts!
My favorite movie was a sequel. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Not the best movie ever but super meaningful to me.
Whoever decided to cast Christopher Lloyd as the Klingon captain is either an absolute genius, or an absolute madman. Either way, I think the choice worked.
The last film I really LOVED, and I've watched it well over a dozen times, was Moonrise Kingdom, followed closely by the Grand Budapest Hotel - ensemble casts, quirky, fun, original, and Anderson's odd framing in the scenes is fascinating to watch.
I love all types of movies, but yes movies such as Grand Budapest Hotel are what movie theaters were made for.
Anderson is great to binge on.
What did you think of the French Dispatch? Honestly interested. I loved Moonrise Kingdom, and finally warmed up to Grand Budapest, and need to rewatch that animated Dog one...but I love most of his work.
The 70's were Hollywood's second Golden Age.
As a 23 year old younging, I actually watched Dirty Hairy earlier in the summer and loved it. The film knows what it wants to be and doesn't pull any punches with the story or characters, and I would argue it's one of the best movies of its time. Additionally, I personally believe the decade of the 1970's was the greatest point in American film history, as it helped to redefine films of the previous decades and create staples in overall cinema that would play detrimental roles in movies to come. Sorry modern Hollywood, but you can't beat the classics!
It certainly shows San Francisco's downfall... I have allways wondered if they had tougher cops there if they would need online maps showing the public how much human waste was on each sidewalk..
Excellent points, as always kind sir. One quick aside, having seen the original Thomas Crown Affair, I have to give props to the Brosnan remake for being the rare 'remake is better than the original' film. Great job, Chato!
Same here...
Started with the Bronson one but didn't like the original when I watched it..
But I belive Russo helped with the Bronson version as her role was as strong as his..
I was 10 when I saw Vanishing Point and kept saying "But why'd he have to die?"
Great list, life goes on, such as it is
Watched French connection recently, almost fell asleep. Get prepared to watch guys looking at other guys over the street for endless minutes.
Those posters really took me back.
Thank you!🥰
The 70’s were unforgettable. 🍄 🌸 ✌️ ❤
I can still smell the cigarette smoke!😜😎
Hoping for for a renaissance of new/fresh talent.🙏
I don't like to blanket blame sections of audiences; however, I do feel a lot of this has to do with the younger audiences not taking the time to go back and watch classic films, even going back further than 71. There does seem to be this "I'm not watching it, it's problematic" mentality, or rather, someone told me not to watch it as they said it was "problematic". There were films I watched as a kid from years before I was born, that could've been considered "problematic" at the time I was watching them; but, we didn't have social media and we were understanding enough to comprehend that films were done in the context of the social climate of the time. Having said that, Hollywood over the past few years isn't helping themselves by only greenlighting garbage... and they wonder why they're not making as much money as they should, and why they get a lot of negative feedback... hmmmmm.
So kids, learn context, ignore those who say things are "problematic", and go watch a host of classic films and expose yourself to actual good writing, and not the modern "we're telling you it's good writing and if you don't like it, you're a bigot/ist/phobe" films.
The problem may be that you can't really make a film longer than 90 minutes today, maybe 120 minutes at the absolute tops. You look at those great films, like Lawrence of Arabia, or 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Ben-Hur, or An American in Paris, these films were long affairs. You'd need to reserve a whole afternoon or evening to watch it all.
Sometimes real life is just plain "problematic" and modern scriptwriters act like they want to create a boring sanitized world on screen that doesn't actually reflect reality no matter how much they claim it does.
@@Beatnik59 Seems to me it's a rare thing to find a recent movie that's only 90 minutes long - far too many films clocking in at over 2 hours; not because they're telling an epic story but due to bad editing, bloated storylines, unnecessary exposition, long convoluted VFX 'battles' etc!
It's not just the types of films but the way they are paced and shot now. Very quick scenes, as if no-one has the patience to watch longer shots. Very music video like, attention spans assumed to be in the seconds. Also, too much dwelling on emotional stuff, sentimentalization. A film like Dirty Harry, or The Firm with Robert Duvall tell their stories sparsely, economically and at a good lick. We're not directly invited to get involved in the character's 'issues'.
In the Wild Bunch at the end William Holden, in the middle of the final shootout is shot in the back by the woman he slept with the night before. He turns round: " Bitch! " and shoots her before getting on with the last stand. Shocking, but no sentimentality. His and Borgnine's friendship is the last note sounded before the inevitable. The type of movie making that just couldn't be dreamt up in an early morning script brainstorm, over croissants and skinny lattes after a quick gym workout.
You touched on the crux of the problem in your final question. "Does the talent even exist to duplicate such an unbelievable number of amazing releases?"
Hollywood, by which I mean the people who sit in rooms & decide things, is a jaded lover on his third marriage. You can't go back & recreate your first love. You can take them to the same exotic locations & attempt to recreate moments, but that robs you of the present and the future.
The only choice is to move forward or wither. Until the people in the rooms locate their testicles, (maybe look under the spreadsheets for projected earnings), there will be no drive to new venues. Hollywood is a baker offering people kale tartlets when all they wanted was a sweet & fattening apple pie.
Hey Chato (love your channel), are there as many good scripts floating around these days as back then? How much blame do screenwriters deserve? You said maybe not as many good books are produced, but there are decades of source material available, or they could write original screenplays.
I hope he responds to this. My very uneducated opinion is that you are correct: all the failures I see lead back to bad script and storywriting, and studios and creative heads valuing effects and pretty pictures over that.
My guess is that there are far fewer good scripts out there.
Where there was once ENGLISH LIT and ENGLISH COMP courses being taught in colleges , today these courses have been replaced with GENDER STUDIES and INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM .
That's a big part of why Hollywood sucks .
Studios buy scripts all the time. They are sitting on tons. I suspect it has something to do with waiting till the scripts they already bought, enter into a public domain situation, that allows them too keep the royalties to them, instead of having too pay them.
Tons are also stuck in litigation. But there's an untapped we'll of already bought scripts out there.
Not a screenwriting expert by any means, but cracking into screenwriting is amazingly difficult. I have a friend of mine who would submit his screenplays to screenwriting contests and frequently win, in an attempt to get some representation and break through but because he didn’t live in LA, New York, Toronto or Vancouver (he’s Canadian, so there are production companies up there) it was as if he didn’t exist.
He’s written at least a dozen very fun witty screenplays but none of them have been produced - a few did get optioned.
I’m not saying this because he’s my friend, if I thought the dialogue was crap, or the characters didn’t make sense I’d tell him: I’m the friend you ask when you want an honest opinion 😂
The problem is also that you can’t send your screenplay and expect it to get read without the right intro for risk of lawsuits should an idea that was horribly executed in your screenplay manage to also have been in a movie they released. To avoid that mess , my understanding is that screenplays without representation are just thrown in the garbage.
So people reach out to their networks for screenwriters and screenplays and we see the results.
I think the biggest challenge is that this current generation of writers seems to not have lived enough, experienced enough ‘reality’, only mediated hyper reality of media so they have little grist for the mill, and can only produce the equivalent of Wonderbread.
I think we need to have it sink in the current set of execs’ minds, that their theory of hammering their audiences on the head repeatedly doesn’t work, as either a source of entertainment or edification. Until then, we will have to gingerly examine their disagreeable leavings much as one might an unbroken housepet: with gentle and firm training. Don’t watch their stuff. They’ll figure it out or go broke.
Sad part is when a good classic cinema sort of film does get made now (I'll use the example of Ford vs Ferrari), I don't even hear about it for months to years after the fact. Every modern "current year" turd sandwich reboot/rehash/remake/worn out comic book quasi-cartoon though, I can't escape the marketing campaign saturation bombing.
That's a classic style I would say.
Yeah i just found out about turbo kid, and it took me a while to find "everything everywhere all at once"
Love that opening. "They just don't make them like they used to."
That would be a great movie. James Bond on the planet of the Apes.
The Andromeda Strain scared the SHIT out of me! I had nightmares for weeks after watching that movie on TV when I was 9!
You forgot Sorcerer!, (1977) from William Friedkin.
A beast of a movie, with Roy Scheider in the main role.
Watched the 2014 remaster recently with a mate and it's a stunning transfer. His jaw was on the floor a few times and then completely dislocated and fell off during the bridge scene.
First. Love the channel
When me and my buddy went to see the original Star Wars in 1977, we saw it on an indoor monster screen at a not uncommon family owned theater up the street. Well, the screen wasn't "monster sized" to us then, because most theaters at the time, had One Screen. So, the screen, could be as wide and tall as the back wall of the building the screen was in. So, we didn't think it was huge so much, as the screen was simply the size they often came in at that point in time.
Words can't describe, seeing the ship coming in overhead in the opening scene, it was HUGE like nothing we'd ever seen - and it was a Space Ship. OMG, what an experience!
In the decades to come, that theater went to two screens. Then shortly after to 4 screens. Then finally, they found the sweet spot, 8 screens was the number.
Me and my bud went back for two more viewings of that classic Star Wars adventure in '77. Later, when it had two screens, as a side summer job, I worked as the projectionist. I remember projecting one of the 'Rambos', one of the 'Nightmare on Elm Streets', a few others I can't remember.
The entire summer we ran... like 8 movies total, on those two screens. Now they do 8 at once, on "home theater" screens.
I should also mention, every Saturday, we ran a midnight showing of "Rocky Horror Picture Show". And, yes, people came in costume, or "Cosplay" of the day for all you embryos out there. We danced the 'Time Warp', ran up and down the Isles yelling things like, "Where's your fn neck?" at the commentator dude when he was commentating on screen, smoked big phatties, "snuck" (no one checked bags back then) in bags of food and even beers and booze.
It was quite wild. Best part for me, the projectionist was like, a respected position back then, where the guy before me was Union (he was the last one in that theater to be an IATSE member! After that, we projectionists got paid a lot less, with no contract, no benefits, no anything, cuz the days of Unions everywhere were ending. But, I digress. One thing we did have, was that we didn't have to clean up the mess that was left in the theater, that was for the ushers. Woohoo, sure beats what being in a Union got ya. But, as the manager reminded us, we didn't have to pay dues like the old timers did... gee thanks.
At any rate, going out to watch a movie sucks now. Smaller screens, can't smoke at all let alone grass, food and beverages priced like vintage wine, caviar and Foie gras... while being none of those - as we're presented piles of poop on screen, because that's what Hollywood makes now.
What's my point? Yes, it really was better back then. That's not just a thing all old people always say going back forever. In this case it's so true, it hurts - especially, when it comes to Hollywood.
Final note: We got to see 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' on that ol' big screen - never before, never since, was the USS Enterprise rendered more amazingly to audiences. As before, words just aren't enough. The experience was... at the very least, unforgettable.
Well said! Curious to see how the entertainment industry pivots from this awkward place it finds itself in these days.
their are good books out there, but what authour would trust hollywood with their work after such a disastrous recent history of really bad adaptions
I’ve a huge collection of HD Movies, from the silent era onward. It includes all the movies Chato mentioned. But I pretty much stopped adding current movies to the collection some years ago, with the odd exception.
Direction is paint by numbers now. It’s not just the wokeness that killed it - mediocrity did it in. TV got more like the movies, but what people don’t seem to notice, movies met tv in the middle. It wasn’t a one way street. The studios are mediocre and the culture that should be supplying auteurs is supplying activists instead.
We live in an interesting time when Escape from the Planet of the Apes holds up favorably to 90% of Hollywood movies.
I can't help thinking most if not all these movies would fail the industry's current purity test.
I would force Hollyweird to take about three decades off from adapting TV shows and comic books and previously made movies, and go to a used book library, and adapt SF, horror, and adventure stories from dusty old paperbacks with lurid covers. Stop being obsessed with name brand recognition; movies aren't breakfast cereal. No film over 20 million in total budget. Just tell good stories. Three decades of that...then we'd see.
They're HAS to still be hope! The world is huge with so many great ideas just waiting to be discovered!
"You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?" This line and movie (Dirty Harry) would never be made in today's PC Hollywood alone with 90% of the other movies you mentioned. I absolutely loved Harold and Maude with silent screen star Ruth Gordon. The cow has been sent to the hamburger factory years ago.
Get Carter. The book and the film are both excellent. A snapshot of life in England in the early 70s.
The Sly reboot? Nah, must've been A bad dream.....
Amazing!!! What a concept!!! Not making a film for effects or a sequels sake? Who knew? Storytelling and good writing is the draw? I don't know if I can stand the "Andromeda Strain" of it all!!!!!
One of the best takes on the current film industry I could ever imagine, the earnings back then were staggering in their multiplier over the cost, did they forget about the term "profit margin"? Of course some of the union support staff contracts and actor's and writer's guild contracts come into play but WOW.
"A banana martini, shaken not stirred."
Stuff like this is your most valuable contribution I think, a real signature piece
Two years after French Connection one of my all time fav movies came out, “The Seven Ups” 👏🏻👏🏻
Brad P said recently that if a movie costs 75 million to make and it costs another 75 million to promote. The theater partner get half the revenues. So he doesn't hit profit until after 300 million in sales. If a film didn't perform in the theater, they use to get another bite at the apple through rentals. Those days are over and that's why Hollywood is sticking to the tried and true.
I really enjoy your site. I could use a little less potty mouth because you are a clever funny guy with some keen insight.
I was just reading an article about Michael Curtiz (who directed Errol Flynn in 12 films and is most famously the director of "Casablanca"). Curtiz made an average of six films A YEAR, all of them good to great. Can you imagine that output in the current system? One reason "classic Hollywood" was so great was that old joke: "How do you get to Broadway? That's easy: practice, practice, practice." If you love something and are good at it, and do it a lot--sports, art, cooking, whatever--you tend to get better at it. Sometimes a lot better. And then you direct "Casablanca" or "Lawrence of Arabia". Or you're Meryl Streep, who's been in seventy films (and counting). Or you're Jack Nicholson, who's been in sixty-four films so far (and probably that's it).
Another thing about Curtiz: he said that story ALWAYS came first. And that heart of every story was people, making our choices, bad and good, and learning to live with them. That was the heart of "classic Hollywood". Story now seems an afterthought. Hollywood pariah Woody Allen said it best: "If you have a well-developed script and get the right cast to act it out, it doesn't matter so much if it's low-budget and not shot very well: the story will shine through." And no matter what you think of Woody, he's going down in history as one of the 20th century's great auteurs.
Excellent, informative comment, Ellen.
Klute and Play Misty for Me were my favourite out of those 1971 films listed. And guess what? My mum got me to watch those two. Thank you, mum.
One person described Hollywood's attitude like this:
Hollywood has a *lot* more competition in the smaller movie genre (Japan, Korea, and India spring to mind), and those movies can be made at smaller budgets. It is highly risky to make small movies, particularly those based on no existing franchise, and some whose nature cannot be readily merchandised. Would you buy an "Andromeda Strain" lunchbox?
However, take a look at the superhero genre: Hollywood has the rights to Marvel and DC characters that still make up 90% of superheroes people recognize. All they need to do most of the time is find someone to wear the mask, and nowadays they don't even have to be the same sex. Flashy superhero films rely on special effects, which is something where Hollywood still reigns supreme. They can be shamelessly merchandised, and Hollywood has found they can even recycle the plots with a reboot of the series. I've lost count of the times "Batman" and "Spider-Man" have been rebooted.
Currently, I believe superheroes are today's version of the Musicals or Westerns of yesteryear. They will continue to be shoveled out until they no longer make money. Then the Hollywood execs will treat them like box office poison while they frantically seek movies people will like. At that point, if Hollywood is lucky, they will experience a Renaissance of good films (along with a lot of forgotten mistakes) until they entrench themselves into whatever new formula promises a return.
I'm so glad I'm a 1976 baby....and native New Yorker. It's one thing to watch the footage of what you think an era was like. It's quite different when you're IN the zeitgeist...and the 1915--1930's generations were among us....trying to balance the Boomers and Gen-Xers.
The 1980's and early 90's were the last eras of (generational) "intersectionality". But, mostly the 1980's. And ahhh....the thrill of going to the video store to fight over those 2 new release VHS tapes.
Or, experiencing "The Time Bandits"...."Clash of the Titans"....and "Flash Gordon", in the theaters. Mom retrieving my brothers and I from school, on a Friday (midday ).....to escort us to the opening day of "Beverly Hills Cop".
Returning from summer camp, and my Mom raving about this horror movie where this man kills people in their dreams. Then, watching the VHS tape of "ANon Elm Street" in our neighbor's home (summer 1985)....screaming to death! Ahhh. I miss my childhood.😞
as a sci-fi fan I can confirm that "they don't write them like that" anymore.
the old sci-fi would range from believable 60s nasa missions (to ones with twists), to trek-likes, to brawdy fun times, to serialisations of all kinds, to contemplative "silent runnings", to robots gone wrong in a variety of 3-4 cast movies. These would be starring men with gravitas and ladies with femininity in their 30s-40s-50s rather than the modern endless-trope of know nothing blank-slate teenagers with zero self esteem or common sense.
now? for every bobiverse (man becomes von neumann probe) there's 50 shows that if you take any given episode/scenario and place it into any of the other settings nothing would change except the character names. Ships have shields, FTL comms, FTL drives, guns, missiles, wonky-cargo-ramps and a weapon locker filled with custom guns not because the story demands, but because "it's expected". No one is getting to the moon by firing a giant cannon, Kaiju piloting giant mech are defeated by plot convenience and a snarky but genius teen with an EMP now rather than by having a bunch of school children sing an anthem in a nearby shrine, there's not even a sky-speeder in sight unless it's travelling down a neon list street in some form of screen-saturating bloom-effect, let alone biplanes combatting in the clouds while seeking to land on top of a blimp/ship escaping with important plans/people. We can't even get the titular character to properly star in their own dammed movies without some snarky kid showing them up on a minute to minute basis.
The simple sense of fun befoer anything else is gone, now there is only "can you make it like yyy, but distinct enough we won't get sued".
Love this
I would 100% see James Bond and the Planet of the Apes. Even today, but Sean Connery and Charlton Heston on-screen together sounds amazing.
When you commodify art all you're left with is Ghostbusters 2016.
Yeah - _The French Connection_ : "... picking your toes in Poughkeepsie..."
Damn, those were good movies.
The amazing thing about that list is how many of those movies are memorable. In comparison, I usually forget a movie I watch these days within a day or so.
I'm over 50 and have an extensive collection of old movies & TV shows on DVD & Blu-ray. I haven't been to the theater in years. I've got Amazon Prime that has a pretty extensive selection of older content. I really don't need Hollywood anymore. There is endless great old content to keep anyone happy for the rest of their life.
These all came out in 1971??? What a year! Current Hollywood doesn't deserve to be top-of-the-pile.
To quote Christian Slater's character in the 1990 movie Pump Up The Volume, "Everything decent's been done. All the great themes have been used up and turned into theme parks."
The French Connection is an incredible film! But I'm a Gene Hackman fan. Mississippi Burning is hands down one of his best! Yeah... They don't make 'em like they used to.
Good year. I love Get Carter.
Or look at 1982: Blade Runner, ET, the Thing, Firefox, Poltergeist, Tron, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, First Blood, An Officer and a Gentleman, Tootsie, Ghandi, and Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan. And many, many others that I didn't mention because I got depressed looking up all of that awesomeness and thinking of the crap we have to chose from today.
It's a shame Hollywood has nothing good to tell. I still have to watch some of the movies of that list or simply watch'em again.
71 was a great year for music too!
Damn...now I want to see a James Bond Planet of the Apes movie.
If you look past the lack of colour and old timey feel/acting of even older movies, my god they are entertaining.
The dialogue is fantastic for a start.
Fathom Events has figured it out and is bringing great old movies back to the big screen.
Theses movies are from way before I was born and still hold up better than most movies created these days.
You make a really good point about this Hollywood obsession that every movie must be a record-busting blockbuster. Why not focus on quality? There are times when I think these executives are terrified of taking chances, so here come the remakes and the sequels. Maybe they'd be more daring if hundreds of millions of dollars aren't on the line whenever they do a project.
As a turn of the century baby who never watched a lot of movies and thus only had the VHS tapes, 1 intro to cinema course in college, and youtube to round out my knowledge base on the subject ... I had only watched Williwanka but knew 80% of those movies by reputation. I can't say I have watched a "recent movie" for at least a couple of years. I have no idea what is even coming out anymore.