# I blame Christopher Nolan



## Guy Rowland (Apr 22, 2013)

Well, I don't really. Or entirely. But...

Thought this was worthy of a thread of its own. I do seem to be bemoaning the state of the modern blockbuster. Specifically, I think there's a huge gap - the truly family blockbuster. By family I don't mean a kids film, I mean a family film that is perhaps aimed at kids 8+ and adults. These films were all rated G/PG/U/A (depending on the era and country

Star Wars + orignal sequels
Jurassic Park
Back To The Future
Raiders of the Lost Ark + sequels
ET
Close Encounters
Jaws
Superman + sequels
Ghostbusters
Who Framed Roger Rabbit

(plus scores more that weren't quite that huge)

What now? All superhero movies are rated PG-13 (12) or higher - stuff that used to be bread and butter PG and U fare. Even the series that are really skewed more towards children - Star Wars and Harry Potter - have had 12 / 15 movies in their series. Entire franchises based on kids toys - Transformers et al - are rated PG-13 and take thier visual cues from porn for crying out loud. Avengers, Iron Man, X-Men.... all of them are aimed at teens up, and certificated accordingly. Meanwhile, the term "Family films" has become synonymous with childrens films. Some of those are the best films of the last decade or more, from the likes of Pixar, but they're not family blockbusters in the sense of those in the list above.

Further, the quality of the films above, by and large, is outstanding. A blockbuster was the pinnacle, made by the best directors, best writers, best technicians. Now they are frequently just business propositions, with generic scripts and devoid of ideas. (and yeah, I'm aware of the irony that this accusation was made against exactly these films above at the time!)

Take one in the list above - Back To The Future. An original concept with a script that really should have won every award that year. The direction impeccable, the effects (surprisingly few) look terrific. Where is a modern day Back To The Future?

The stock reply to all this is that times have changed, things have moved on. Audiences today are more demanding baying for harder stuff. I don't buy that argument. Lucas made Star Wars in '76 partly as a reaction against what he felt was modern, cynical films that people had got tired of. I think nothing has changed. People still respond to good writing, good stories, good ideas. And many of the best ideas are truly universal, appealing to kids and adults alike. 

This isn't some moralistic right wing rant - films for adults / older teens of course have their place. But an entire genre has been lost. My own theory is that the kids of the 70s, 80s and 90s have been over-indulged. As they grew, they noticed that a film like The Empire Strikes Back hinted at darker, more adult themes, despite being a U. As they shed their adolescent skin they wanted the same fantastical worlds, the same archetypes and mythical stories, but with that harder, darker, adult edge.... and more and more of it. And thus Comic Book Guy was born. What was the preserve of childhood and adolescence was stolen by the adults.

Christopher Nolan is perhaps an unfair target, as he is a filmmaker of great skill and imagination. And yet the Dark Knight Rises was such a miserable, joyless experience for me that it felt like a moment to take stock, to wonder what had become of the modern blockbuster. If even our brightest cinematic minds are part of this trend, its a sad thing indeed. I loved Inception - a terrific original grown up film for grown ups - I just wish he'd leave the family fare alone.


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## mathis (Apr 22, 2013)

interesting viewpoint, never thought about. But I think you're very right...


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## Rctec (Apr 22, 2013)

Actually, you are blaming the wrong guy...Gore Verbinsky made the first Disney pg 13 film with "Pirates". The whole economic landscape has changed. You can't make an "R" Rated movie like Robocop any more. Too expensive. So it's all moving to the middle. Or animation. Just like its hard to re-cupe on a pg movie that teens don't want to see.
But, to quote Alan Horn :" the Disney brand is a promise to mothers what they are not going to see"


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## Tatu (Apr 22, 2013)

I thank Nolan and others for thinking of us older kids as well, from time to time 

I think there's still plenty of movies that suite the old format. Super 8, Spielberg's Tintin and most of today's animations come to mind. And even Transformers. It's just regulations that get tighter, not the scripts.


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## R.Cato (Apr 22, 2013)

Everytime I watch a Transformers movie I get eyestrain due to the exorbitant use of effects....I don't think it's a real family blockbuster.

But Super 8, even with the big train explosion scene and Tintin are definitely worth the name family blockbuster. Also Disney Pixar movies often contain hints for adults or teens, which aren't obvious for little children. They're always great to watch, regardless if you're 10, 20 or 30 years old.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 22, 2013)

Rctec @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> Actually, you are blaming the wrong guy...Gore Verbinsky made the first Disney pg 13 film with "Pirates". The whole economic landscape has changed. You can't make an "R" Rated movie like Robocop any more. Too expensive. So it's all moving to the middle. Or animation. Just like its hard to re-cupe on a pg movie that teens don't want to see.
> But, to quote Alan Horn :" the Disney brand is a promise to mothers what they are not going to see"



Fair point Hans (but at least the first POTC was fun!). Films like Tomb Raider too were part of a telling shift. Nolan certainly isn't the architect of all this... I guess I just hold him to higher standards cos I know how good he is...

Spot on observation about moving to the middle though, that's exactly it, isn't it?


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## Lex (Apr 22, 2013)

Rctec @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> The whole economic landscape has changed. You can't make an "R" Rated movie like Robocop any more. Too expensive. So it's all moving to the middle.



I was just thinking about this few weeks ago after seeing "The Last Stand", the movie is not brilliant but it's a perfectly decent brainless action ride with great direction and good pace (cool score too). I couldn't stop thinking that the only reason that movie bombed so hard was the R rating...let's be honest there are far far worse movies in this genre then Last Stand and yet they made 3 times more money thanks to the PG13 rating...

alex


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 22, 2013)

I know Mark Kermode complains about the PG-13 effect, blunting genre pics. Hans put two and two together, and I've only just clicked the other side of the coin in that the same economic imperative means abandoning family films.

Bloody teenagers / 20somethings....


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## George Caplan (Apr 22, 2013)

can i just ask why do people watch all this shit in the first place? :? thats probably a more relevant question.


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## EastWest Lurker (Apr 22, 2013)

mathis @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> interesting viewpoint, never thought about. But I think you're very right...



As do I. Everything now has to be"dark"and "edgy".


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## schatzus (Apr 22, 2013)

It's a different time. Film is so much a reflection of the times in which we live. We live in a somewhat "darker and edgier" time then when any of the films listed above were made.


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## EastWest Lurker (Apr 22, 2013)

schatzus @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> It's a different time. Film is so much a reflection of the times in which we live. We live in a somewhat "darker and edgier" time then when any of the films listed above were made.



It is indeed a somewhat dark time but in previous dark times, filmmakers made films that were less dark than real life to counter that. Nowadays, people seem to want to wallow in it.

Watch "Goldfinger: and then watch "Quantum of Solace". Both well made, well acted, but you tell me which was more sheer fun.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 22, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> schatzus @ Mon Apr 22 said:
> 
> 
> > It's a different time. Film is so much a reflection of the times in which we live. We live in a somewhat "darker and edgier" time then when any of the films listed above were made.
> ...



Now THERE's a post I can 100% agree with! (well, except I'm not sure that the editing on QOS would qualify as "well made" but I'm splitting hairs).

You're spot on. Traditionally more escapist fare does well in times of woe. Actually last summer I had a surreal experience of the exact opposite (with all due apologies to HZ, I'm picking on TDKR again). With my sound hat on, I was lucky enough to work on the Olympic Games last summer. I was on the late shift in the Olympic Park, which meant I had mornings off. Needless to say, it was a joyful blast, and I loved every minute - an incredible atmosphere to be right in the middle of.

One one morning off, I thought, "I know, I'll go see an early screening of Batman". I came out utterly depressed. Where was the fun there? It was just unending misery, all in a film about a man in a cape saving the world from the baddies. And I thought "what the hell am I doing? Real life is AMAZING!"

I didn't go back to the cinema again.

Yeah, bombs go off, guns get fired. But every era has its woes. In my adolescence it was the IRA and the threat of impeding nuclear catastrophe. These aren't darker times at all.

Take Jurassic Park, which I caught on TV the other day. What a superbly crafted film that is from the script upwards. And it's still scary... but scary like a big rollercoaster ride. It's terrifying without being dark. There's light with the shade, spectacle amid the shadows, laughter next to the screams, and quiet next to the noise.

I was really lucky and saw the film originally at the Empire Leciester Square on the late night screening right after the Royal Premiere, the first public performance at the West End. The atmosphere was indescribable, everyone excited beforehand, swapping notes on past glories.... these were real film lovers. When the lights went down and the film started, the place went absolutely NUTS. And kept going nuts - laughing, screaming, cheering... both the obvious moments and every spectacular shot (two that linger in the memory - the overhead shot from the ceiling as the raptor leaps up just missing Arianna Richards' leg, and the final roar of the T Rex as the "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth" floats to the ground). Everyone stayed for the closing credits, roaring and cheering not just for Speilberg but for Tippett, Murren, Williams, and their crews.

It was a blockbuster that delivered on every level. Everyone left with huge grins on their faces. And you know what? It's not anemic. It's not whimpy. That T-Rex attack.... it's still awesome and scary, really visceral.

And I haven't seen anything really like it since. Not in a blockbuster. 

Sorry, rambling of course. The perils of a day off.

(btw, someone mentioned JJ Abrams... he's closest to pulling this off again one day).


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## EastWest Lurker (Apr 22, 2013)

A big +1, Guy.
The first J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie was FUN! I am looking forward to the next one.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 22, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> A big +1, Guy.
> The first J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie was FUN! I am looking forward to the next one.



Funny you should mention that - when I came out that's exactly what I said! It did remind one of happier filmic times. This new one looks darker though... not too dark I hope, give us a laugh too, eh?

Oh, Mission Impossible 4 was fun too. I like that JJ chap.


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## Darthmorphling (Apr 22, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Sun Apr 21 said:


> Raiders of the Lost Ark + sequels



I think you want to blame Speilberg and Lucas. Raiders was PG, but it Temple that brought about PG-13.

I think we are remembering PG movies with rose colored glasses. There are many PG movies from that era that would not get a PG rating today.

Your example of Back to the Future. I recently watched it with my kids and within the first 20 minutes there were numerous curse words that would have a hard time finding their way into a PG-13 movie of today. My son is obsessed with Speilberg films and was wanting to watch Jaws. We rented it, and did not finish it as it really frightened him. This is a kid who enjoyed all of the Raiders, Transformers, and Jurassic Park films. That scene when Richard Dreyfuss comes across the dead body in the porthole really scared the crap out of him.

I agree that the movies are a lot darker nowadays, but I don't think they are as scary overall.

As for Batman, except during the '60's, he has always been a dark character and the Joker just insanely dark. To make the movies family fun would take away from what Batman represents.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 22, 2013)

Both Jaws and JP are proper scary I agree, Jaws especially so. Maybe the certification was less strict then, I don't know. (oh, and Temple of Doom was by far the weakest of the three, not least because it was too dark... so I'd agree I'd strike that one from the list).

But Back to The Future, rude words an all, is fun in precisely the way modern blockbusters aren't. That's the key here - it knew its main purpose was to entertain, to thrill, to make em' laugh as well as jump. And there's no rose-tinted specs on that... its simply better craftsmanship, all starting with the scripts.


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## Darthmorphling (Apr 22, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> But Back to The Future, rude words an all, is fun in precisely the way modern blockbusters aren't. That's the key here - it knew its main purpose was to entertain, to thrill, to make em' laugh as well as jump. And there's no rose-tinted specs on that... its simply better craftsmanship, all starting with the scripts.



I agree that it was fun and my kids really enjoyed it. I do believe the Avengers would have garnered a PG rating back then though, so maybe it's not as bad as we think in terms of the fun factor. Avengers, while fun, was not groundbreaking. So I also agree that the quality of movies has gotten worse, overall.


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## George Caplan (Apr 22, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> schatzus @ Mon Apr 22 said:
> 
> 
> > Watch "Goldfinger: and then watch "Quantum of Solace". Both well made, well acted, but you tell me which was more sheer fun.



goldfinger by a mile.


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## nikolas (Apr 22, 2013)

Hmmm...

I'm VERY happy that for once super heroes movies are a bit more for adults (especially the dark knight saga!!!). I mean avengers was fine for my kids to watch (aged 9 and 7 right now), with nothing to miss and nothing to fear. Watching Rambo 'the first blood' gave them nightmares and so did the first Batman movie from Nolan.

I don't care though. I'm keeping them out of the recent masterpieces from Nolan and showing them lovely older movies for now (gave them goonies! :D). 

nothing wrong there...

_____________________

A tiny bit of psychological analysis:

I'm in Greece and Greece in is the fucks right now. While I enjoy the occasional fairy tale (Oz, powerful, blah blah was the most recent, along with Jack the giant slayer), I love a dark movie that tells the truth: we're in for it seriously.

It makes me feel less alone in this miserable world.

Welcome to my single dad family (wife's working abroad since August)!


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## JohnG (Apr 22, 2013)

There isn't much out there that I willingly take my 11 year old to see. Either it's idiotic (even some film adaptations of her favourite books are disappointing) or too much violence or too sexed up.

Pixar's great; she likes the Merlin series that our own Rohan Stevenson works on.

Otherwise, we read a lot.

I don't remember it being so great in the "good old days." There was a lot of dumb stuff then too, with great family films as rare as anything else truly good. "E.T., The Extraterrestrial" was (if I remember correctly) one of the biggest hits of all time but still family-friendly. Just as scarce then as now.


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## Consona (Apr 22, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> Watch "Goldfinger: and then watch "Quantum of Solace". Both well made, well acted, but you tell me which was more sheer fun.


_Sheer fun_ is rather subjective, don't you think?



Guy Rowland @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> Oh, Mission Impossible 4 was fun too. I like that JJ chap.


Just for the record, MI:4 was directed by Brad Bird. MI:3 was directed by JJ Abrams.



Darthmorphling @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> As for Batman, except during the '60's, he has always been a dark character and the Joker just insanely dark. To make the movies family fun would take away from what Batman represents.


Yea. :lol: 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JbvVigBPwhM/S ... utal02.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JbvVigBPwhM/S ... utal03.jpg


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 22, 2013)

Consona @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> Just for the record, MI:4 was directed by Brad Bird. MI:3 was directed by JJ Abrams.



Oh I am so embarrassed... I knew that too.

Dammit.

Mi3 was great, fortunately... though dark(!). Brad Bird... he's a contender too though. Incredibly gifted filmmaker.


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## EastWest Lurker (Apr 22, 2013)

Consona @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Apr 22 said:
> 
> 
> > Watch "Goldfinger: and then watch "Quantum of Solace". Both well made, well acted, but you tell me which was more sheer fun.


_Sheer fun_ is rather subjective, don't you think?

/quote]

Of course it is subjective! Look at the thread's title, how coud the ensuing discussion be anything but subjective?


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 22, 2013)

I figured we'd get the "batman was dark, originally" thing. Which to be fair, he was. In the same way (and I'm not being facetious), Bugs Bunny wasn't originally for kids.

Kids find animation, superheroes, fairy tales fundamentally appealing. Of course you can exclude or include them. Though of course there's nothing wrong with the occasional foray into pure adulthood, it seems a shame to be excluding them as much as Hollywood currently is.

I mean, there's a perfect example under my nose - Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack and the frickin' Beastalk, rated PG-13 / 12A. Battleship, a game for 8 year olds - PG-13. For the love of....

This is a great gag, but mainly cos its so damn plausible...


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## Ed (Apr 22, 2013)

nikolas @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> Hmmm...
> 
> I'm VERY happy that for once super heroes movies are a bit more for adults (especially the dark knight saga!!!). I mean avengers was fine for my kids to watch (aged 9 and 7 right now), with nothing to miss and nothing to fear. *Watching Rambo 'the first blood' gave them nightmares* and so did the first Batman movie from Nolan.



You showed 7 and 9 year olds... Rambo?


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## paoling (Apr 22, 2013)

There's a beautiful documentary on the evolution of the James Bond series, that shows this change in the mood and the atmosphere of the current movies.

When a Sean Connery's Bond Girl is killed, he just exclaims "Damn it!", and get back into the action.

When the new Bond lose his Bond girl, he fall in depression for the entire next episode.
Yes the action is spectacular, the stuntsman are better than those awful Pierce Brosnan movies, but try to be.. how can I say, more light hearted..? 
The very last Bond episode, in my opinion slowly has shown a change of direction.

Anyway most modern film characters have all the same kind nature: there's the rebel that is good at combat, the good boy that has a painful past, the old veteran who knows everything about war but has a rude character, the technician who is able to bypass every protection with a click, but it is inexperienced with women. The lady who acts like a man and it is a sex bomb, the rockstar in decadence, the unhetical businessman.

"Lost", the television series, has explored (and exploited) those stereotipes in detail...

But the thing that I really find unbearable is when animation movie characters mantain the same language of everyday life: "Hey Babe, let's go to dance, you're so cool, let's shake your bum bum!"

This is the reason I love Miyazaki movies: they bring you to another realm, there's space for the images and the music to form a unique kind of art.


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## nikolas (Apr 22, 2013)

Ed @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> nikolas @ Mon Apr 22 said:
> 
> 
> > Hmmm...
> ...


Yes! :D

someone noticed! :D

I knew that it was going to be interesting, due to being rather realistic, but we were going through a phase of talking about war and stuff and figured that it would make them realize things a bit better... I was dead right on this. 

and it did give me a very direct answer on 'what the kids are afraid of: FX or a real movie?'.


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## Consona (Apr 23, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> Of course it is subjective!


So I say _Quantum of Solace by a mile._  

Regarding the Bond movies. I think the new ones are subpar but I consider Casino Royale (2006) to be the best Bond film ever made. Quantum of Solace and Skyfall try to stay true to the new direction but they fail, imo. QoS failed slightly, Skyfall miserably.



paoling @ Tue Apr 23 said:


> When a Sean Connery's Bond Girl is killed, he just exclaims "Damn it!", and get back into the action.


Have the producers of this documentary seen Skyfall? 

http://youtu.be/eGZHxxTZBCI

Ok, he sighed a little. :lol:


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## ed buller (Apr 23, 2013)

wow

hungry hungry hippos looks awesome.....who did the score ?

e


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## synthetic (Apr 23, 2013)

Ironically it was Spielberg who brought back the PG13 rating after people thought that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was too dark and scary.


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## Darthmorphling (Apr 23, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> I mean, there's a perfect example under my nose - Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack and the frickin' Beastalk, rated PG-13 / 12A. Battleship, a game for 8 year olds - PG-13. For the love of....
> quote]
> 
> I have to admit though, I really enjoyed Battleship. It was completely cheesy and I had to really suspend my disbelief. However, when they started actually playing Battleship with the grid of bouys I started laughing. I also really thought the design of the bombs, as Battleship pegs, was pure genius.
> ...


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## Brian Ralston (Apr 23, 2013)

I can give one example that was an interesting learning experience for me from one of my films. It is not a blockbuster film of course. But a family film. The inspirational lacrosse film *Crooked Arrows* (made independently and later bought by FOX and Sony for Int'l) was made for teenagers. It was intended to be a PG-13 rating from the beginning. But I had the fortune to attend a couple of the test audience screenings with the director and producers here in SoCal. I learned a lot from being there and it was interesting to see. 

They learned that their film which was intended to target teenage boys was really tracking younger and equal for both genders. They also learned it was tracking older to include the parents as well. Parents were liking the film not just for their kids...but for themselves. So...now their "teen film" about lacrosse was really a larger demo "family film". The focus group held at the end of the sceeenings was the most interesting. I was surprised at some of the things the parents in the group objected to. They liked the good message of the film, the team aspects, the native american focus rarely seen accurately portrayed in films...but they mostly had concerns about (literally) two words used in the film. One was when a girlfriend of the goalie (a guy who did everything he could to avoid getting hit), came up to him on a time out, pushed him over and told him to not be a "pussy cause it was so "not hot." 

Really? the word Pussy was a problem? One mom said if she knew, she would not have let her kid see the film with that word. So...it got ADR'd to "wussy". 

The other was a running joke when the lacrosse term/play "V-Cut" got wrongly translated into the native American language for the team to use on the field as the word for "Vagina". The literal translation became "Vagine Dodge." And the boys on the team thought it was so funny...they used it repeatedly in game play to annoy their coach who got it wrong in translation. Parents did NOT want to hear the word "Vagina".

At the end...that joke stayed in the film. It was hard to take it out repeatedly and they ultimately chose to let it stay.

It was all a give or take. Hedging their bets on getting the most people to like the film so word of mouth word spread. 

There were some structural reshoots done too that changed the ending and this was all due to focus group reactions. In the end...it did make it a better film. And for an indie production without tens of millions for marketing...it did well. 

The focus groups were lamenting good clean family fair at the box office. They wanted films they could take their kids too. Since this was tracking younger....8-12 yrs were REALLY liking the film and that was younger than the producers expected. So it did have an affect on how they finished everything. 

At the end of the day...box office is key. What sells is what gets made. And those trends do change over time as society changes.


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## José Herring (Apr 23, 2013)

JohnG @ Mon Apr 22 said:


> There isn't much out there that I willingly take my 11 year old to see. Either it's idiotic (even some film adaptations of her favourite books are disappointing) or too much violence or too sexed up.
> 
> Pixar's great; she likes the Merlin series that our own Rohan Stevenson works on.
> 
> ...



I agree with John on this. 

Everybody remembers Star Wars '77 or just earlier Jaws, ect..., but do you remember _Damnation Ally_ or the summer earlier _Corvette Summer_?

I think it is so easy to say things were so much better "back then". But, in all honesty there was a lot of crap back then. A lot of it violent. A lot of it too sexed up. A lot of it really bad.

Personally, I think today movies are much better made on average than they were back in the 70ies and 80ies. On any given day today you can see a decent movie. Wasn't the case back then. If 4 good movies came out a year in the 70ies it was a banner year. :lol: You know John Williams averaged 2 films a year back then and for every _Star Wars_ or _Jaws_, there was a _Towering Inferno_ to go with it.


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## Ed (Apr 23, 2013)

I really liked Jack the Giant Slayer actually, a solid movie.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 23, 2013)

I certainly wouldn't say it's all rubbish nowadays cos it clearly isn't. This year's Oscar noms were a terrific and varied bunch. My whole point here is specifically to do with blockbusters. Let's look at 2012:

1	Marvel's The Avengers PG-13
2	The Dark Knight Rises	PG-13
3	The Hunger Games PG-13
4	Skyfall PG-13
5	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey PG-13
6	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 PG-13
7	The Amazing Spider-Man PG-13
8	Brave PG
9	Ted	R
10	Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted PG

And now compare with 1977:

1.	Star Wars	PG
2.	Close Encounters of the Third Kind PG
3.	Saturday Night Fever R
4.	Smokey and the Bandit PG
5.	The Goodbye Girl PG
6.	The Rescuers G
7.	Oh, God! PG
8.	A Bridge Too Far PG
9.	The Deep PG
10.	The Spy Who Loved Me PG

That's pretty stark. Essentially what's happened is that the PG mainstream has moved to PG-13 mainstream.

But look a little closer. The Hobbit - a short kids adventure story written in 1937. In 2012, it's bloated out to 9 hours across three parts, and rated to exclude the exact audience it was originally written for. The Hunger Games has the same certification, yet its source material couldn't be more different - a dystopian tale of children forced to kill each other. Even the animation has changed - the two animations rated PG in 2012, against the one G in 1977. It's the race to the middle ground.

More subtle still.... those 2012 movies seem tonally similar. I haven't seen Avengers, but TDKR - dark; Hunger Games - dark; Skyfall - dark; Hobbit - dark; Twilight - dark; Spiderman - dark; Brave - dark. A scan through the '77 list reveals that, if nothing else they're varied.

The history of film reveals one thing. When everything seems the same, the public will be hungry for change. Brian's post was interesting, parents are crying out for stuff that they can take kids just a bit younger too but isn't sappy on the one hand or animated on the other. One day, someone's gonna clean up... but who?


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## park bench (Apr 23, 2013)

The rating system was changed to adopt PG-13 thanks to Mr. Spielberg in 1984... So that list is a little out of context.
_followthemoney..._


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 23, 2013)

park bench @ Tue Apr 23 said:


> The rating system was changed to adopt PG-13 thanks to Mr. Spielberg in 1984... So that list is a little out of context.
> _followthemoney..._



Sure, as previously mentioned. But PG still remains, you'd think films might be spread among the two categories now, and yet the vast majority the G and PG ratings have gone one way - from G to PG and PG to PG-13. And (thought not clear from the top 10) it's widely moaned that there are fewer R movies, because everyone wants a PG-13 - Hans' race to the middle in action.

I just think it's a flawed model, even from a purely business standpoint. Box office total revenue has flatlined since 2009, despite price-hikes from 3D etc. Making only one kind of dark PG-13-rated violent-but-not-too-violent-one-size-fits-all-doom-fest does not make every movie reach the best it can be... it just makes it boring. And I suspect box office overall suffers because of it.

Bottom line, above all, we need more fun. The Hobbit wasn't fun, it was bloated, indulgent and - worst of all - in high frame rate. Bleugh.


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## MikeH (Apr 23, 2013)

josejherring @ Tue Apr 23 said:


> Personally, I think today movies are much better made on average than they were back in the 70ies and 80ies. On any given day today you can see a decent movie. Wasn't the case back then. If 4 good movies came out a year in the 70ies it was a banner year. :lol: You know John Williams averaged 2 films a year back then and for every _Star Wars_ or _Jaws_, there was a _Towering Inferno_ to go with it.




_ The Towering Inferno_ is one of my favorites! I'd put it up against any spectacle made today.


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## José Herring (Apr 23, 2013)

MikeH @ Tue Apr 23 said:


> josejherring @ Tue Apr 23 said:
> 
> 
> > Personally, I think today movies are much better made on average than they were back in the 70ies and 80ies. On any given day today you can see a decent movie. Wasn't the case back then. If 4 good movies came out a year in the 70ies it was a banner year. :lol: You know John Williams averaged 2 films a year back then and for every _Star Wars_ or _Jaws_, there was a _Towering Inferno_ to go with it.
> ...



It's got nothing on _Black Sunday_, or the _Eiger Sanction_ or _The Poseidon Adventure_. (the 1970's version with the John Williams score, not the crappy remake).


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 23, 2013)

One more thought on the good old days argument - the modern day blockbuster was born either with Jaws in '74 or Star Wars in '77 depending on your take. The golden era for blockbusters imo was 77-93. So only half the 70s counts...


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## Consona (Apr 24, 2013)

Maybe Star Wars were rated PG, but I have Darth Vader nightmares until these days. Not kidding. :D :? 



Guy Rowland @ Tue Apr 23 said:


> The Hobbit wasn't fun, it was bloated, indulgent and - worst of all - in high frame rate. Bleugh.


Interesting. I've enjoyed The Hobbit more than anything in past few years. Of course mainly due to childhood sentiment but nevertheless. (I haven't seen it in high frame rate though.)



Guy Rowland @ Tue Apr 23 said:


> and rated to exclude the exact audience it was originally written for.


Yea, this is interesting point.


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## Dan Mott (Apr 25, 2013)

The movie Kick Ass was the best superhero movie I've ever seen, partly due to the fact that it certainly wasn't aimed at kids, so they could really go full on with it. I've never had so much fun watching the bad guys get beaten up PROPERLY and I cannot stress that enough. Loved the directing and acting too.

Speaking of the Batman Series. I thought Batman Begins was brilliant. It was dark and edgy and wasn't kiddish. However, I noticed a very different tone in The Dark Knight and I thought the action scenes were not very well directed at all. It was very weak and kiddish to me. More of a family movie.

Then you have The Dark Knight Rises. I was falling asleep during the scenes where Bane wasn't in it. If the movie was aimed more towards adults, my god, Bane would have been the scariest most intimidating character I've ever seen in a movie. If they ever reboot Batman (which they will), I want to see a movie geared towards the adult side, but if it was, probably half the money would be made. 

Will be interesting to see what tone Man of Steel will be. Maybe it will be family style/kids. Or more adult themed. I'm just bored of these family blockbusters.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 25, 2013)

Dan-Jay @ Fri Apr 26 said:


> I'm just bored of these family blockbusters.



...which don't work for families.


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## choc0thrax (Apr 26, 2013)

Dan-Jay @ Fri Apr 26 said:


> The movie Kick Ass was the best superhero movie I've ever seen, partly due to the fact that it certainly wasn't aimed at kids, so they could really go full on with it. I've never had so much fun watching the bad guys get beaten up PROPERLY and I cannot stress that enough. Loved the directing and acting too.



IMO The Crow is by far the best superhero film. And the bad guys seem to get decently fucked up in it. It also marks the only time I've ever complimented Graeme Revell.


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## Consona (Apr 26, 2013)

For me The Dark Knight is not just the best comic-hero film but one of the best of the films I've ever seen.

I'm curious about Interstellar. Inception was like personal sci-fi story, I wonder what kind of story this gonna be. 

I blame Nolan for the fact I cannot enjoy other than Syncopy blockbusters because they seem so dumb in comparison with his films. :lol:


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## EastWest Lurker (Apr 26, 2013)

Consona @ Fri Apr 26 said:


> For me The Dark Knight is not just the best comic-hero film but one of the best of the films I've ever seen.



Yo have not seen enough _really_ good films


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## dcoscina (Apr 26, 2013)

choc0thrax @ Fri Apr 26 said:


> Dan-Jay @ Fri Apr 26 said:
> 
> 
> > The movie Kick Ass was the best superhero movie I've ever seen, partly due to the fact that it certainly wasn't aimed at kids, so they could really go full on with it. I've never had so much fun watching the bad guys get beaten up PROPERLY and I cannot stress that enough. Loved the directing and acting too.
> ...



Have you seen DREDD 3D? Didn't look like much from the trailers but I was pleasantly surprised. I collected Judge Dredd comics in the '80s and was appauled at the piece of shit 1995 Stallone version. This new version with Karl Urban was pretty good. None of the bloated self importance of the Nolan Batman series (though admittedly I enjoyed the franchise way more than the Burton/Schumaker efforts of the '90s). Dredd strikes me as a cross between Robocop and The Road Warrior. Some bitch that its narrative was taken from The Raid Redemption but the Dredd script was already written when that other film came out. 

Dredd is super violent btw. Almost gorier than Robocop but because Dredd is so nasty in this film, the filmmakers had to depict such depravity to better contextualize the main character's uncompromising stance on crime and punishment.


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## antoniopandrade (Apr 26, 2013)

Trends and styles come and go. Good filmmaking, regardless of style is all that persists. Nolan is a gifted storyteller, that cannot be argued. So is JJ Abrams, Spielberg and Lucas. Audiences also need time to "forget" so that they can enjoy a particular style all over again. That's why there are throwbacks to things 2 or 3 decades ago in music and fashion. I think that we will see a return to the "just for fun" blockbuster once audiences are saturated with the "dark thriller" blockbuster.


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## Consona (Apr 26, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Apr 26 said:


> Consona @ Fri Apr 26 said:
> 
> 
> > For me The Dark Knight is not just the best comic-hero film but one of the best of the films I've ever seen.
> ...



_really good_ is really subjective, once again...

But I'll be pleased if you could recommend some _good_ film to me.


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## EastWest Lurker (Apr 26, 2013)

Consona @ Fri Apr 26 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Fri Apr 26 said:
> 
> 
> > Consona @ Fri Apr 26 said:
> ...



Of course, discussions like this are by nature subjective.

Here is the AFI list for starters:
http://www.afi.com/100years/movies.aspx


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## Dean (Apr 26, 2013)

What about John Carter? I thought I was going to hate it but I love this cheesy,crazy nostalgic gem of a family movie!
This film silly summer blockbusters on a Saturday evening like 'The Last Starfighter' (remember that one?)or the original TRON,..what a charming film. D


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## choc0thrax (Apr 26, 2013)

dcoscina @ Fri Apr 26 said:


> Have you seen DREDD 3D? Didn't look like much from the trailers but I was pleasantly surprised. I collected Judge Dredd comics in the '80s and was appauled at the piece of shit 1995 Stallone version. This new version with Karl Urban was pretty good. None of the bloated self importance of the Nolan Batman series (though admittedly I enjoyed the franchise way more than the Burton/Schumaker efforts of the '90s). Dredd strikes me as a cross between Robocop and The Road Warrior. Some bitch that its narrative was taken from The Raid Redemption but the Dredd script was already written when that other film came out.
> 
> Dredd is super violent btw. Almost gorier than Robocop but because Dredd is so nasty in this film, the filmmakers had to depict such depravity to better contextualize the main character's uncompromising stance on crime and punishment.



I've seen DREDD 3D 3 times. I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw it in the theater because the trailers made it look kinda generic. It sorta had that under 30 mil throwaway Paul W.S. Anderson look to it. I'm a big fan of Alex Garland and Karl Urban is a great actor and I bet he's going to have a long career. It's interesting to see how well the film came together considering all the trouble they had with Pete Travis in post.

I find 2012 was a year of disappointments for me, though. Holy Motors had a cool trailer but turned out to be a pile of crap. Dark Knight Rises, Prometheus, Avengers, safety not guaranteed, cabin in the woods... I expected more out of these. Strangely it was mainly action films that stood out: DREDD 3D, Skyfall, The Raid: Redemption. Oh and Silver Linings Playbook which is brilliant.


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## choc0thrax (Apr 26, 2013)

And does The Incredibles count as a superhero film? Because that movie is ironclad. It's amazing. I should mention that's if you can ignore all the conservative and Randian themes running through it and that little CG Nixon in the limo at the end. But still, it's awesome.


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## MA-Simon (Apr 26, 2013)

> What about John Carter?


I liked it. Altough I went purely for the looks of it. Had a lot of fun.
When it played in Mannheim Cinemax, there were only 3 other people with me in the whole big room though. (That said, I went during daytime and by myself)
Would have loved to see the other parts of the Story... but it's dead now.

I have fond memories of this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120789/

Went in Oblivion a few days ago... went really downhill after they introduced the clone storyline. Also: The whole movie IS, to me, clearly a ripoff of the famous video game series Portal/Portal 2. Starting from the design, Story, Setting and "Sally" aka GLaDOS. Still wondering if some guys from valve were involved in the making or if they plan on suing eventually. How can they get away with this?


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 27, 2013)

choc0thrax @ Fri Apr 26 said:


> And does The Incredibles count as a superhero film? Because that movie is ironclad. It's amazing. I should mention that's if you can ignore all the conservative and Randian themes running through it and that little CG Nixon in the limo at the end. But still, it's awesome.



Absolutely it counts - greatest superhero film I ever saw actually. Kind of a fusion of Bond and a superhero film, outdoing both for sheer giggling entertainment. It's the F word again - it's fun. It's got one helluva script.

And just a general observation - the action flicks that work best often don't actually have all that much action in them... ACTION, character, character, character, character, character, ACTION, character, character, character, character, ACTION, character, character, ACTION, ACTION, character, ACTION, ACTION, ACTION, ACTION, character, character, ACTION would be a pretty good template. Only the character stuff has to be great obviously or it flies apart very slowly in front of your face. The Matrix, Terminator films, Die Hard, True Lies et al follow this rule. If the drama (and comedy if appropriate) part of the script works and then you can blow people away with a handful of brilliantly executed sequences, then that's a killer film.

Time perception while watching a movie is very important. I saw Oblivion this week (I guess it's a stab at a blockbuster), then I heard Mark Kermode's review. He had exactly the same reaction as I did. Just when the film is about to wrap up, you think "well, ya know, not terrible, where did I park etc etc". Then you look at your watch and realise "Gadzooks we're only an hour in". It's not that it was totally boring - it wasn't - but on some level the combination of character and structure wasn't working properly. I spent far too much time listening to the score I hated, thinking about what other films it had robbed and being impressed with the production design - in other words I wasn't engaged enough.

On great films you never think about the time, you get lost in it. Much as it has been subsequently ridiculed to the point of tedium, one of the great tricks of Titanic was making audiences think it ran for 1hr 45 even though it was well over 3. The Hobbit and TDKR felt like a lifetime. That's all on the page, and purely the result of one (ok, usually more than one) person and a $250 copy of Final Draft, not the $250m budget.

Actually, hate to say it, but John Carter felt like a lifetime too. It was so disappointing to see Andrew Stanton get those story basics wrong - pretty heartbreaking after knocking Wall E and Nemo out of the park. John Carter's character was so crushingly dull, nothing else stood a chance, it was just visual noise. It was essentially the same story as Avatar, but Cameron (despite what many claim) is staggeringly effective at penning a script that works. IMO Avatar was far from his best and was terribly predictable, but he had the basics in place to make the story work effectively. And it wasn't dark. And it made over $2bn. (yeah I know it was PG-13, but at least it FELT different).

Rambling. Again.


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## choc0thrax (Apr 27, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Sat Apr 27 said:


> choc0thrax @ Fri Apr 26 said:
> 
> 
> > And does The Incredibles count as a superhero film? Because that movie is ironclad. It's amazing. I should mention that's if you can ignore all the conservative and Randian themes running through it and that little CG Nixon in the limo at the end. But still, it's awesome.
> ...



Yeah, I guess if I count The Incredibles it wins as best superhero film. The Pixar storycraft is really on display in it. Michael Arndt has a section in the Toy Story 3 Bluray extras where he includes examples from The Incredibles, Toy Story, and Finding Nemo, that show a successful Pixar method to establishing and setting a story in motion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6mSdlfpYLU

I agree to some extent about spacing out action but I don't think that's the main problem. There are certainly a lot of action films that space it out and are still terrible. I know this because I just finally watched Iron Man 2. I think you're actually demonstrating the problem with your ACTION, character, character, character, character, character, ACTION, character, character... etc. example. I think it's a common problem for filmmakers to see scenes as either of those but not both. Character isn't supposed to take a vacation during action scenes. If you have your two leads in a scene eating dinner in a restaurant you might end up thinking that this is your character scene and then terrorists smash through the glass and now you're into your action stretch but you need to keep with the character stuff - the action is just another way to demonstrate it in a new context. Good action scenes also help explore theme and always need to push the story forward. I find a common problem is that films are often front loaded with 'character stuff' because they need to get in those pesky vitamins and nutrients before we can get to the delicious mindless action. Character needs to unravel throughout the story or you get the common endless second act drag where you notice "hey, my ass is like starting to really hurt in this seat. These 3d glasses hurt. Do I have to email Carol today or can I just pretend I'm busy?"... meanwhile on screen you have this mindless action scene where some CG robot punches another one for some reason you can't remember.

I haven't seen John Carter. It just goes to show that the smartest people can't hit it out of the park every time. Along with Arndt, Stanton is still one of my heroes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxDwieKpawg&playnext=1&list=PL26741D57ACFD213E (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxDwieKp ... 57ACFD213E)


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 27, 2013)

[excuse the snipping, it's all good stuff - the Michael Arndt video is golden]



choc0thrax @ Sat Apr 27 said:


> Character isn't supposed to take a vacation during action scenes.



Couldn't agree more, and you've exposed the flaw in my shorthand. The basic rule is that if you are invested in your characters, you'll care what happens in the action. Of course, they'll drive that action too usually (I'm still scarred by Braveheart, which had an alarming number of interminable battle scenes with little / no apparent through stories - "FOR FREEEEEDOM" I cried as I ran screaming out of the theater). I caught the end of Shaun of the Dead again on TV yesterday, part of the genius of the film is having relationship arguments while zombies are smashing the windows of the pub - the Wright / Pegg writing partnership is something special, as was his earlier pairing with Jessica Stevenson on Spaced.

And while some films are just an interminable wall-o-noise for 2 hours, others do follow the formula and fail. That's usually cos the character stuff isn't written well enough. At its core, all films are dramas, even something like Airplane needs the relationships to work and the story hang together, no matter how stupid it is (and the Zuckers were hot on this point). William Goldman passionately argued that There's Something About Mary should have one that year's screenplay Oscar. Comedy is hard.

As John Carter sadly showed, even if you're a master of storytelling, you might screw up (I'm more concerned that Stanton still seems to believe its a great film than I am about him screwing up in the first place, which is another facet of the hero's journey. If you make one of the biggest flops of all time that is also received mediocre reviews, either you peg yourself as a misunderstood genius or look at what went wrong). All these forumulae can be roads to ruin as well as gold. There's just something that strikes sometimes where all the stars align, as a writer (or a composer for that matter) it's what you live for. How come Callie Khouri never wrote anything as perfect as her debut Thelma and Louise? I don't think you can remove pure inspiration from the equation. Again, like composing, following the rules, knowing technique, practice and practice can help you to produce a really workmanlike ok product. But we all long for something more - where pure inspiration meets the graft that took it to draft 37 (cf Back To The Future).


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## Dean (Apr 27, 2013)

Hey Guy,

I also agree with you,I thought John Carter was mess but it was a brilliant nostalgic mess and I loved it.

Noyone remember The Last Starfighter? D


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## choc0thrax (Apr 27, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Sat Apr 27 said:


> [excuse the snipping, it's all good stuff - the Michael Arndt video is golden]
> 
> 
> 
> ...



A major problem with comedies is many of them aren't about anything. The same goes for horror. You'll see a lot of films that are just a collection of jokes or a collection of kills. You have to be able to strip away the jokes and kills and still have a dramatically satisfying movie under there. I think that's partly why Groundhog Day is my favourite comedy. It's more than just some jokes. I was recently writing a slasher script and spent months toiling on what the story was really about. It took a lot out of me. I looked like Tom Hanks in Castaway after a while and kept watching Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 as an example of everything not to do. It took stumbling across a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote to finally crack the central theme of the piece. I think a lot of horror writers(or at least in the slasher genre) spend a lot of their time just thinking up "cool kills".

The thing about filmmaking is that it's a total crapshoot. You can have a great script, great director, great actors etc. but it certainly doesn't mean the film is gonna be any good. No one has any idea how it'll be until it's done. And even after that, people's perception on it can change over time. Like William Goldman famously said - "Nobody knows anything".

BTW I'm a big fan of BTTF. Love the opening. There's heaps of exposition and character loaded into that scene with barely the need for any dialogue. Didn't know it took 37 drafts. Sometimes that's what it takes. I know that Malcolm in The 6th sense wasn't dead the whole movie until Shyamalan came up with it in the 9th draft. Stallone wrote Rocky over a weekend but it was understandably a pile of crap. The ending had Rocky throwing the fight and collecting a bunch of money so he could open a pet store for Adrian. Coooolll. Took him a lot of rewrites to get it to where it needed to be. Arndt wrote Little Miss Sunshine in 3 days but it took him a year of rewriting before it was ready to be sent out.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 28, 2013)

choc0thrax @ Sun Apr 28 said:


> A major problem with comedies is many of them aren't about anything. The same goes for horror. You'll see a lot of films that are just a collection of jokes or a collection of kills. You have to be able to strip away the jokes and kills and still have a dramatically satisfying movie under there. I think that's partly why Groundhog Day is my favourite comedy. It's more than just some jokes. I was recently writing a slasher script and spent months toiling on what the story was really about. It took a lot out of me. I looked like Tom Hanks in Castaway after a while and kept watching Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 as an example of everything not to do. It took stumbling across a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote to finally crack the central theme of the piece. I think a lot of horror writers(or at least in the slasher genre) spend a lot of their time just thinking up "cool kills".
> 
> The thing about filmmaking is that it's a total crapshoot. You can have a great script, great director, great actors etc. but it certainly doesn't mean the film is gonna be any good. No one has any idea how it'll be until it's done. And even after that, people's perception on it can change over time. Like William Goldman famously said - "Nobody knows anything".
> 
> BTW I'm a big fan of BTTF. Love the opening. There's heaps of exposition and character loaded into that scene with barely the need for any dialogue. Didn't know it took 37 drafts. Sometimes that's what it takes. I know that Malcolm in The 6th sense wasn't dead the whole movie until Shyamalan came up with it in the 9th draft. Stallone wrote Rocky over a weekend but it was understandably a pile of crap. The ending had Rocky throwing the fight and collecting a bunch of money so he could open a pet store for Adrian. Coooolll. Took him a lot of rewrites to get it to where it needed to be. Arndt wrote Little Miss Sunshine in 3 days but it took him a year of rewriting before it was ready to be sent out.



+HellYeah to all that. Groundhog Day is perfection. Rewriting is absolutely key, and then there's dumb luck. The best BTTF script story is the original ending, they went to a Nevada nuclear test site to get the 1.21 gigawatts, but ran in to budget problems. The eventual solution - the bolt of lightning - is of course infinitely better in every regard, and it came out of limitation (not for the first time). I know they worked on the script for years, and you're spot on with that early dialogue-less storytelling. Foreshadowing can be so cluncky, here it's effortless (apparently).

Cool about 6th Sense, didn't know that. And yeah, most of my script failures (I've had a lot) have come down to "what is it about"?

This is a brilliant tangent to this thread....


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 28, 2013)

(oh, forgot to say... I think if you have a genuinely brilliant script and have cast it well, the director has to work pretty hard to screw it up. Still might not find an audience though. But of course William Goldman was right, he usually is).


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## choc0thrax (Apr 28, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Sun Apr 28 said:


> choc0thrax @ Sun Apr 28 said:
> 
> 
> > A major problem with comedies is many of them aren't about anything. The same goes for horror. You'll see a lot of films that are just a collection of jokes or a collection of kills. You have to be able to strip away the jokes and kills and still have a dramatically satisfying movie under there. I think that's partly why Groundhog Day is my favourite comedy. It's more than just some jokes. I was recently writing a slasher script and spent months toiling on what the story was really about. It took a lot out of me. I looked like Tom Hanks in Castaway after a while and kept watching Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 as an example of everything not to do. It took stumbling across a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote to finally crack the central theme of the piece. I think a lot of horror writers(or at least in the slasher genre) spend a lot of their time just thinking up "cool kills".
> ...



Yeah, there's a lot of examples out there where budget limitations improved the film. Jaws and its malfunctioning shark is one of the best examples.

I'll agree you can get pretty far with a great script and good casting. You just have to hope that the director and producers don't screw up that script. I read about 200 screenplays a year and many of them get mangled at some point. Though, of course, only like 30 of those become actual films. It's a small miracle anytime a movie hits theaters.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 28, 2013)

choc0thrax @ Sun Apr 28 said:


> Yeah, there's a lot of examples out there where budget limitations improved the film. Jaws and its malfunctioning shark is one of the best examples.
> 
> I'll agree you can get pretty far with a great script and good casting. You just have to hope that the director and producers don't screw up that script. I read about 200 screenplays a year and many of them get mangled at some point. Though, of course, only like 30 of those become actual films. It's a small miracle anytime a movie hits theaters.



Again, embarrassingly, I'm just agreeing with everything you say. Can't remember who said it, but a great quote is "it's really hard to make a bad film" ie making a good one is a miracle.

Reluctantly dragging myself back to the topic, this thread has been useful for isolating my gripes (something the doctor suggested I do many months ago).

1. There is a near-uninformity of tone in blockbusters towards the dark.

2. There is a near-uniformity of rating in blockbusters towards PG-13

I wonder what blockbusters of today will look like 2 years from now. You could argue Tim Burton's Batman was one of the first films to herald a new darler age, though of course tonally it looks like Mary Poppins next to Nolan's trilogy. There was a dark humour and theatricality in Burton's pair alongside the gothic darkness (before the whole franchise went down the crapper). At the time it felt very daring, taking what had been considered kids fare before and restoring some of the comic's darkness.

I just have a feeling that someone will soon produce its opposite in a mega hit film, and that might change things back again. 6-10 year olds are potentially a huge market as animation shows [TANGENT]just as the 60+ market has been overlooked, but a few recent films have capitalised on this[/TANGENT]. The conventional wisdom seems to be it can't be done - you'll loose the teens if you appeal to the younger kids. Either that isn't true, or any loss in the teens will be offset by older audiences potentially I think.


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## Dan Mott (Apr 29, 2013)

choc0thrax @ Sat Apr 27 said:


> And does The Incredibles count as a superhero film? Because that movie is ironclad. It's amazing. I should mention that's if you can ignore all the conservative and Randian themes running through it and that little CG Nixon in the limo at the end. But still, it's awesome.



Ah dude. I love the Incredibles!

AND! Thank you! I didn't like The Avengers at all. I thought I was the only one. I was falling asleep during the movie. Pretty much 10 mins in you knew the whole plot. So I just sat there knowing exactly what was going to happen.

I also saw The Crow, though I didn't think it was a Superhero movie. It's pretty darn brutal!


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## Guy Rowland (May 5, 2013)

True Lies is on TV right now. What a HOOT. OK, it's hardly PG, but it's just a huge amount of fun.

I want more fun. Fun fun fun fun FUN!!!!!

(PS all the Bourne films bored the arse off me).


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## Darthmorphling (May 5, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Sun May 05 said:


> True Lies is on TV right now. What a HOOT. OK, it's hardly PG, but it's just a huge amount of fun.
> 
> I want more fun. Fun fun fun fun FUN!!!!!
> 
> (PS all the Bourne films bored the arse off me).



Iron Man 3 is fun, fun, fun! I thoroughly enjoyed the whole movie.


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## dpasdernick (May 16, 2013)

Vote with your wallet... stop going to the obvious gratuitous films... Maybe they'll take a hint and the next Hitchcock will rise from the ashes....

Personally I am wicked tired of the franchise model.


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## antoniopandrade (May 16, 2013)

After going to a series of graduate film students' thesis screenings, I couldn't help but to think how much fun I was having vs how much I wasn't having fun in theaters these days. And it wasn't just me. What was the last time you went to a theater where the entire audience was roaring with laughter the whole way through a movie? My 2c criticism is; big studio films tend to be overlong, overly dramatic, and overly pretentious. I mean, have you guys seen the Great Gatsby? That director actually said Fitzgerald would've liked the movie simply for the fact that it's causing the book sales to rise. Sheesh, I really have no words for that kind of idiocy.


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## EastWest Lurker (May 16, 2013)

antoniopandrade @ Thu May 16 said:


> he Great Gatsby? That director actually said Fitzgerald would've liked the movie simply for the fact that it's causing the book sales to rise. Sheesh, I really have no words for that kind of idiocy.



Actually, considering how relatively unsuccessful Fitzgerald was and how much he liked all the things money can buy, it isn't idiocy.

It does not mean however that he would have liked the film.


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## antoniopandrade (May 16, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Thu May 16 said:


> antoniopandrade @ Thu May 16 said:
> 
> 
> > he Great Gatsby? That director actually said Fitzgerald would've liked the movie simply for the fact that it's causing the book sales to rise. Sheesh, I really have no words for that kind of idiocy.
> ...



Still, I think the comment in and of itself reeks of pretentiousness. Fitzgerald did come from riches, but I think Gatsby is more a criticism of that lifestyle than anything else, and for the director to make that kind of comment seems off the mark completely. But don't take my word for it, watch the movie. I can give him this much, it's honest, portrays the exact pretentiousness that the Luhrmann shows in his interview.

FYI, I liked Moulin Rouge (the first hour or so) and really liked Romeo+Juliet. I just feel that Gatsby in particular is a much more complex story than what Luhrmann has adapted in the past, and he just skims the surface with his take on it.


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## dpasdernick (May 16, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Tue Apr 23 said:


> I certainly wouldn't say it's all rubbish nowadays cos it clearly isn't. This year's Oscar noms were a terrific and varied bunch. My whole point here is specifically to do with blockbusters. Let's look at 2012:
> 
> 1	Marvel's The Avengers PG-13
> 2	The Dark Knight Rises	PG-13
> ...





Guy,

Comparing the rating of films 35 years apart is a tough one. What once was taboo is now mainstream. I remember when the word "ass" was allowed on regular TV and the sitcoms would write it in as often as they were allowed. Kids are growing up one click away from the nastiest stuff ever. If I had the internet when I was a kid I would have put myself in the hospital with all the "abuse" I would have given it.  

Times have changed. It's easier to sell a movie with gratuitous effects and Megan Fox's boobies than it is to write a really great, unique story. That's why I say "vote with your wallet". Don't go see the next two Hobbits. I fantasize about living in a world where Honeybooboo and the Kardashian's are making minimum wage due to the fact that they have nothing to offer the world. Trust me, it's not them, it's us the consumers that define what is produced...


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## Guy Rowland (May 16, 2013)

True enough about changing standards, and I think there are significant differences between countries too. So I agree that my 1977 / 2012 list isn't quite as simple as it first appears. A film like Back To The Future I'd expect would get a PG-13 rating if released in the same form today, there's a lot of language in that. On the other hand, the original Star Wars trilogy would definitely not get anything above a PG today.

I think, however, that the knowledge of a film's ultimate rating permeates the whole production. The makers set out knowing that, no matter what the script says or even what they film on set, in the end it's gonna have a PG-13 certificate slapped on it. That rush to the middle affects the whole tone, blunting some stories while sharpening others, which reaches the absurd proportions of the Hobbit / Hunger Games greyness. I'm hopefully off to Star Trek today... the first one was a film that felt like more of an old school fun blockbuster and I've heard similar things about this one, but it's still a shame that it couldn't have been a PG imo. That sort of romp should be classic PG fodder.

As to voting with your feet - of course, but whatever I or my generation do won't matter. I've seen almost no superhero movies for a decade. I'll skip the next two Hobbits. I'm bored of them all. But teens / twenties never seem to get tired of it. All the while they turn out, the demographic profile will maintain the PG-13 tyranny.

I want to emphasise though - it's not just the certification. It's the overall tone. Take the spy subgenre. I was blown away by True Lies on the TV the other day, which would have been an R. Then there's the Incredibles, a PG. Both of these share some DNA, there's a real sense of outrageous fun about them, they are both comedies at heart but with this wildly OTT action sequences in them that are almost casual in their delivery of the absurd... this seems part of what makes them work (also both helmed by the most gifted directors around today who can truly combine character and action). At the time of True Lies, that was sharing much of Bond's DNA too, though License To Kill was actually tonally more in the direction of where Bond would end up 15 years later with Casino Royale. True Lies out-bonded Bond. But then - urgh - Bourne came along with a deadpan face and a brooding tone. Suddenly the wisdom was that that made the levity seem old fashioned somehow, and since then we've had three more of the bloody turgid things and Bond only now just regaining even a smattering of humour with Skyfall (Quantum of Solace is surely one of the worst "blockbusters" of all time). The whole subgenre is now oozing cinematic molasses.

Also with the Hobbit, the rating is only part of the problem - market forces also butchered that in a different way. Three movies = 3x more profit than one. When they're all done, someone gimmie copies of all three and an Avid, and I'll knock up something that runs for 90 minutes and has all the laughs in it, rate it PG and it'll be great.

BTW - I have heard Iron Man 3 regains some fun. I've not seen 1 or 2, but I might just have to try no3 one day (though I hear, like Avengers Assemble, it uses the ironic detachment tool a little often).


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## choc0thrax (May 16, 2013)

I saw Star Trek tonight. I thought it was pretty good. It's not as good as the first film but it is better in a couple ways. The grand spectacle of it all seems bigger. I was sitting near the screen watching it in IMAX 3d with a super loud soundsystem and it kinda felt like I was being raped by an angry gorilla. But in a good way. Also Cumberbatch is a badass. Bana's character seems blehhh in comparison. And Scotty's adorable alien friend is back.


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## Lex (May 17, 2013)

choc0thrax @ Fri May 17 said:


> and it kinda felt like I was being raped by an angry gorilla.



I'm gonna see it on Sunday, hope I like it this much too!  

alex


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## choc0thrax (May 17, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Fri May 17 said:


> I think, however, that the knowledge of a film's ultimate rating permeates the whole production. The makers set out knowing that, no matter what the script says or even what they film on set, in the end it's gonna have a PG-13 certificate slapped on it. That rush to the middle affects the whole tone, blunting some stories while sharpening others, which reaches the absurd proportions of the Hobbit / Hunger Games greyness.



BTW I totally agree. Everything in Hollywood is driven by fear and that fear results in trying to catch the widest audience. It's easy to see why this has happened - now more than ever the decision makers in HW are not really movie fans. Some don't even like movies. And because budgets are stupidly out of control you can be at risk for losing 100mil on your picture. Sleepless nights for execs are what drive everything to the middle. Danny Boyle just recently talked about this kind of thing but from the other side - there aren't enough adult films. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz6W0h3r30k


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## Guy Rowland (May 17, 2013)

Well Star Trek WAS fun. I thought it was gonna be 2 solid hours of HHHHHRRRAAAUUUUUUGGGEGGHHHHH but there was a bit of light and shade. And jokes. Hooray.


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## Tanuj Tiku (May 17, 2013)

I saw Star Trek last night in IMAX 3D in Mumbai and I also felt that the mix was too loud. 

Some amazing sound design once again but I felt that there needed to be some sonic silence and some of the effects were too loud.

Giacchino has delivered a great score, he has come into his own and I really liked the music this time. Time to pick up another score!

The movie looks fantastic, specially in IMAX 3D, its a real treat and the visual effects are some of the finest I have seen in recent times. 3D was used to great effect.


Tanuj.


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## EastWest Lurker (May 17, 2013)

choc0thrax @ Fri May 17 said:


> now more than ever the decision makers in HW are not really movie fans. Some don't even like movies.
> 
> /quote]
> 
> ...


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## choc0thrax (May 17, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri May 17 said:


> choc0thrax @ Fri May 17 said:
> 
> 
> > now more than ever the decision makers in HW are not really movie fans. Some don't even like movies.
> ...



You're right I do not live or work there - I work remotely from a less burnt and garbage-laden area of the continent. Although I will be in LA in about a week for a movie premiere and some meetings so we should probably hang out!

I know about this because of my dealings with execs and producers - whether it's in meetings or just based on the notes they give. Sure, there are still a lot of people who are big movie buffs but I believe the numbers are dwindling.


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## EastWest Lurker (May 17, 2013)

choc0thrax @ Fri May 17 said:


> Although I will be in LA in about a week for a movie premiere and some meetings so we should probably hang out!



Mmmmm, I don't think so. :mrgreen:


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## choc0thrax (May 17, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri May 17 said:


> choc0thrax @ Fri May 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Although I will be in LA in about a week for a movie premiere and some meetings so we should probably hang out!
> ...



C'mon Jay, you could use a warm hug. Not to mention the YOLO factor.


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## EastWest Lurker (May 17, 2013)

choc0thrax @ Fri May 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Fri May 17 said:
> 
> 
> > choc0thrax @ Fri May 17 said:
> ...



OK then, but no hugs. Let me know when you hit town.


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## choc0thrax (May 17, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri May 17 said:


> choc0thrax @ Fri May 17 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Fri May 17 said:
> ...



I can't guarantee no hugs. I'll get back to you.


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## snowleopard (May 20, 2013)

Thought Star Trek was good too. Not great, but I liked it. And it was a spectacle. Was fun at parts too. 

As to execs, well, it's well established that most studios are owned by huge corporations. Take that how you see fit. 

As to comparing 1977 to 2012, try comparing 1977 to 1978? If you're strictly going by ticket sales and ratings, then 78 was an "up" year as well, with Grease, Superman, Animal House, etc. But that was also the year of Coming Home, Midnight Express, Days of Heaven, An Unmarried Woman, Halloween, The Deerhunter winning best picture... If anything, one could argue that the 70's were more artistically or creatively diverse, and the tail end of _New Hollywood_. And for me, I'd go back to that kind of central thrust from the film industry in a heartbeat over what we see today.


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## Consona (May 24, 2013)

Darren Aronofsky Being Considered To Direct Batman Reboot

Now that would be a nice family Batman movie. :lol:


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## EastWest Lurker (May 24, 2013)

Now I see ads for Man Of Steel and it looks like instead of he fun ride the original Superman film with Christopher Reeve was, it will be turned into something dark with an angst-rdidden Supey.

Arggghhhh!


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## Guy Rowland (May 24, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri May 24 said:


> Now I see ads for Man Of Steel and it looks like instead of he fun ride the original Superman film with Christopher Reeve was, it will be turned into something dark with an angst-rdidden Supey.
> 
> Arggghhhh!



Yeah, I do know what you mean. I'm sorta reserving judgement.... one trailer ended with a decent knowing gag, that gave me hope. And of course the music is far more optimistic than TDK, even though it has weight. Clearly it won't be the same light tone of the originals, but I'm hoping it won't be quite as doomy as TDK.


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## Guy Rowland (Jun 26, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Fri May 24 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Fri May 24 said:
> 
> 
> > Now I see ads for Man Of Steel and it looks like instead of he fun ride the original Superman film with Christopher Reeve was, it will be turned into something dark with an angst-rdidden Supey.
> ...



I have just seen it. Jay - let me dispel any remaining doubt - it's not a fun ride.

I hated it. Absolutely loathed it. Two hours of my life I'll never get back. Somewhere in the last half hour I emotionally passed into genuine anger. I couldn't believe how relentlessly awful it was. This isn't Mac Donald's - it's 

*MAC DONALD'S*

The story, such as it is, is risible. It's totally nonsensical, idiotic, but I lost the energy to even give a hollow laugh as the next stupid thing passed into my brain. And yes, now I do blame Christopher Nolan - he co-wrote the story of this. It crosses over into being actually intelligence-insulting.

Fine - it's a popcorn movie, no-one expects Dickens. So let's have some fun instead, perhaps? A few good gags, some fun characters maybe. Nope, not one shred of fun is on offer either, just an absolute barrage of noise, both sonic and visual. It's just Transformers only louder and dumber.

I said in the OP I hold Nolan more responsible than most cos he's more intelligent. We've seen what he can do, what a talented artist he is. And he brings us THIS? This is supposed to be entertaining? I'd rather eat glass than sit through that again.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jun 26, 2013)

Pretty much the same take my brother-in-law and two friends had.


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## Consona (Jun 26, 2013)

So why did you two guys liked STID and disliked TDKR and MoS so much?

Btw MoS trailers are somewhat misleading. They lure on some psychological depth to Superman and there is not much of that in the film. :(


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## Guy Rowland (Jun 26, 2013)

Consona @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> So why did you two guys liked STID and disliked TDKR and MoS so much?



Speaking only for me of course... (btw I certainly didn't think STID was a brilliant film, but it was good fun, a solid 4/5).

1. Fun. There's that crucial word. STID had humour and a lightness of touch to contrast against the darker themes. Humour in a popcorn movie is a shot of adrenaline. MOS or TDKR had all the humour of an audit. That takes a decade. With no time off.

2. The characterisation in Trek was strong so you cared about what people said and did.

3. Mystery - this is specifically aimed at MOS. There was none - everything was laid out in bold stark (if nonsensical) terms. Where did Superman come from? You're told up front. How did he get here? We know. How did he grow up? We know. What is is his purpose? We know. What is his challenge? We know. How's he gonna do it? We know we know we know. Ditto for all the bad guys motivations, Lois Lane, everything and everyone just walked along the tram lines laid out for them. It was a brutal experience of bold exposition, with no grace or craftsmanship in the storytelling. HERE'S THE BACKSTORY - BANG - HERE'S THE PLOT - SMASH - HERE'S MORE PLOT - BANG SMASH CRASH BANG - HERE'S THE BANG SMASH CRASH BANG etc. Now of course Linedlof goes too far the other way - that guy can be all mystery and no delivery - but it engages you along the way (at least when he gets the characters right - there's no forgiving Prometheus).

I don't think any of these films make any sense, including STID (again, compare to the screenplay brilliance of a Back To The Future, a script described as "like a swiss watch"). But the execution and tone in Trek was infinitely superior, so they kinda got away with it.

MOS was full of eye-popping images and 20 incredible things happened every minute (btw - looks like Hollywood is well and truly over 9/11 and The Twin Towers), but none of it had any weight of impact - it was just a wall of visual noise. It was sort of a wall of aural noise too, but given the sheer amount of stuff that was going on, I thought it was crafted perfectly well - Hans' score shone through in the rare gaps between exploding buildings, and I bet that took some doing. But the sound and music were led by the action and that awful script - what else could they really do?

It was a sort of Guantanamo experience. You just ended up empty, oblivious to everything around you, a shell of a moviegoer. That's what happens if you ignore screenwriting 101.


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## JonFairhurst (Jun 26, 2013)

Another creative film with an airtight script that is family friendly is Galaxy Quest. Even David Mamet calls it a "perfect" film.

Personally, I'm really bored of films as roller coaster rides. Whether they are family friendly or dark as hell, we need good scripts with surprises, interesting, motivated characters, and insight into what makes us tick. Combine all that with a compelling premise and good technique and you've really got something - whether it's G or X.

Instead, we get explosions and fight scenes. Hey, I know what it looks like when things blow up and people get hit. How about some suspense and surprises for a change?


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## givemenoughrope (Jun 26, 2013)

Things seem to be going to the middle all around. World War Z, an apocalyptic zombie film which was actually quite tense/frightening in spots, was not an R-rating. Kind of ridiculous but they cleaned up at the box office. 

I'm not mourning the loss of the family blockbuster. I forgot it existed. I miss the thriller that doesn't actually make you feel dumber by the end. I've realized that when I'm looking for a film I'm really looking for Silence of the Lambs, The Conversation or The Tenant/Rosemary's Baby. Where are those films? The ones without the gratutitous gore, scare edits and lame M. Night trick endings.. Where are the films that teenagers twenty years from now will almost regret seeing bc they snuck in and then walked home by themselves afterwards and were just scared to death? The closest thing I've seen is Berberian Sound Studio and was still just ok. Bring back the (horror)/thriller that thrills you into next year. It also can be pg-13 (maybe) if done correctly.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jun 26, 2013)

givemenoughrope @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> Things seem to be going to the middle all around. World War Z, an apocalyptic zombie film which was actually quite tense/frightening in spots, was not an R-rating. Kind of ridiculous but they cleaned up at the box office.
> 
> I'm not mourning the loss of the family blockbuster. I forgot it existed. I miss the thriller that doesn't actually make you feel dumber by the end. I've realized that when I'm looking for a film I'm really looking for Silence of the Lambs, The Conversation or The Tenant/Rosemary's Baby. Where are those films? The ones without the gratutitous gore, scare edits and lame M. Night trick endings.. Where are the films that teenagers twenty years from now will almost regret seeing bc they snuck in and then walked home by themselves afterwards and were just scared to death? The closest thing I've seen is Berberian Sound Studio and was still just ok. Bring back the (horror)/thriller that thrills you into next year. It also can be pg-13 (maybe) if done correctly.



I guess you don't have kids or a squeamish wife. Mine made me stop 3/4 way through to vomit, came back and said , "NEVER bring a film like that home again."


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## givemenoughrope (Jun 26, 2013)

Ha. I don't. She's more critical than I am. Except I made her watch Takashi Miike's Audition and is still traumatized. 

I realize that the money is where the whole family buys popcorn (or is it, considering streaming, etc.) and there is magic in that (I love Pixar like everyone else) but I still want the scares and the horror. I've had to turn to foreign gangster and war films for that. I'm ready to play chicken on the 405.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jun 26, 2013)

givemenoughrope @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> Ha. I don't. She's more critical than I am. Except I made her watch Takashi Miike's Audition and is still traumatized.
> 
> I realize that the money is where the whole family buys popcorn (or is it, considering streaming, etc.) and there is magic in that (I love Pixar like everyone else) but I still want the scares and the horror. I've had to turn to foreign gangster and war films for that. I'm ready to play chicken on the 405.



Let me know when you are on the 405 so I can take another route


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## Jetzer (Jun 26, 2013)

Although more serious and dark, even TDK had more jokes and tongue-in-cheek moments than MoS. (+ everything else was better  ).


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## Guy Rowland (Jun 26, 2013)

JH @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> Although more serious and dark, even TDK had more jokes and tongue-in-cheek moments than MoS. (+ everything else was better  ).



Certainly TDK had some dark humour, can't really remember much in the other two.

I'm still reeling over MOS. I just can't get over how bad it was - it's hard to comprehend. I'm depressed beyond words that it has 8/10 at imdb. Surely that will go down as more ordinary folks see it and it, well, sinks in.

And Jon - Galaxy Quest is an absolute JOY. Feels like a world away. Saw it on TV a few months ago, still hysterical.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jun 26, 2013)

Love Galaxy Quest.


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## givemenoughrope (Jun 26, 2013)

I'm with Guy on all of the above. I was pumped on MoS, mostly bc of HZ, etc. (great opening 15 minutes btw) but I always felt that Zack Snyder films were so obviously banal and lacking even for popcorn affairs...Having Nolan involved might solve that but no dice.. 

It is strange how TDK does trump the other two so obviously. I even prefer the trailer to BB (featuring Glenn Branca's Augustus) which never happens. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYmWMoqHg6w


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## Farkle (Jun 26, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> Love Galaxy Quest.



+1. Everything about it is what I love in a modern Hollywood Movie. Talented actors in well-defined roles. A classic three-act structure that evolves organically, and feels correctly paced.

Outstanding music theme, that can transform into every possible emotional and narrative permutation.

Loving winks and nods to the Trekkie world.

Tightly scripted and well edited action scenes. And brilliantly delivered comedic dialogue.

And who knew Sam Rockwell would be so damn funny? He steals half the film! 

My wife and I walked into our wedding reception to the tune of "Galaxy Quest", and shouted at our families and friends, "Never Give Up! Never Surrender!". 

Clearly, that movie has a soft spot for me. 

Mike


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## Jetzer (Jun 26, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ June 26th said:


> I'm still reeling over MOS. I just can't get over how bad it was - it's hard to comprehend. I'm depressed beyond words that it has 8/10 at imdb. Surely that will go down as more ordinary folks see it and it, well, sinks in.



I agree, I like some popcorn movies, but I was bored almost the whole movie. I only liked the scenes with Costner, but sadly the interesting questions rased in the conversations with dad and young Clark were not really developed. 

Galaxy Quest is great! I thought nobody knew about that movie, but it is a bit of gem :mrgreen:


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## JonFairhurst (Jun 26, 2013)

Farkle @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> My wife and I walked into our wedding reception to the tune of "Galaxy Quest", and shouted at our families and friends, "Never Give Up! Never Surrender!".



Okay. That totally rocks.


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## Guy Rowland (Jun 26, 2013)

Farkle @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jun 26 said:
> 
> 
> > Love Galaxy Quest.
> ...



By Grabthar's Hammer, that is fabulous.

Sam Rockwell is very funny (as you say, who knew?) but I have a particular soft spot for Tony Shalhoub. The scene where they are descending to a terrifying planet for the first time and Shalhoub is sat at the back eating those cheesy dip things is something that makes me laugh every time I think about it. Oh, and Alan Rickman of course - "you broke the bloody ship" / "I'm going to find a pub". And Weaver - she's done quite a bit of sci-fi comedy now, but this is easily the strongest.

This is good post-MOS therapy.


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## Darthmorphling (Jun 26, 2013)

I have to find my copy of Galaxy Quest. That's what we will be watching tomorrow.


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## Consona (Jun 27, 2013)

Why do you compare two distinct genres of films? Why you compare the film where authors decided to go with more grounded way to some adventure comedy/parody?




Guy Rowland @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> 1. Fun.


I think action or flight scenes in MoS were really fun to watch. But I think it's not that kind of fun you are looking for. There's no lightness but why there should be? Imo, when there is non they should make a movie really psychologically and story-wise deep to justify that but that did not happen. :? Imo, it's a huge commitment when you decide to portray comic book hero in more grounded way. They should have put a lot more work into the story and script.



Guy Rowland @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> 2. The characterisation in Trek was strong so you cared about what people said and did.


Really? I must have seen different film...



Guy Rowland @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> 3. Mystery


Interesting point. But knowing the background and intentions of characters is essential for drama. You have to reveal all important things sooner or later.



Guy Rowland @ Wed Jun 26 said:


> But the execution and tone in Trek was infinitely superior,


Again, really? All those over-dramatic/tears everywhere scenes? Action scenes were mess, execution was mess on both sides, the director's and writer's as well. "Let's go get the son of a bitch." attitude... I think they did much better work on the 2009 Star Trek.

In a fact the writer's admitted they wanted dark á la The Dark Knight Star Trek but in the end it was some kind of mishmash with nonsensical script. Both films (STID and MoS) had awesome potential... :?


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## Consona (Jun 27, 2013)

Btw do you think films like Thor or The Avengers with really silly stories and scripts and not so dark tone are better than TDKR or MoS?

Or do you just think those are trash as well and you would like Donner's Superman v2.0?


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## Farkle (Jun 27, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Thu Jun 27 said:


> Farkle @ Wed Jun 26 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jun 26 said:
> ...



Oh, man, Tony Shaloub's delivery and style is also fantastic.

"Hey, guys.... ummm, they tell me... the ship can't take much more of this.. it's breaking apart. Just... FYI."

And, Sigourney Weaver, she's just aces as an actress, playing the intelligent woman typecast as a blond bimbo. Priceless!

Again, Newman's score, the main theme, when it's first done with that TV sized orchestra, and it's so dated and 80's, and then, when it comes back in full Hollywood majesty at the end? Just excellent! 

Yep, Guy, totally good Thursday therapy!

"Guy, you HAVE a last name."

"DO I!?!?!?!?!? DO I!?!?!?"

=o 

Mike


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## Guy Rowland (Jun 27, 2013)

Do I? DO I???!!!!

Fab post, Mike - cheered me up no end. And yes, a terrific score from David Newman.

Consona, I guess we have very different aesthetic tastes. Not seen Thor or Avengers btw - I hear the latter is kinda fun. MOS has sort of stopped me from trying any other superhero film for a while though I think.

As for Mystery - "you have to reveal all important things sooner or later". Well yes - that's the trick isn't it? How would Citizen Kane have played if the closing shot was the opening instead, I wonder?


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## choc0thrax (Jun 27, 2013)

Farkle @ Thu Jun 27 said:


> Guy Rowland @ Thu Jun 27 said:
> 
> 
> > Farkle @ Wed Jun 26 said:
> ...



One of my favourite parts in Galaxy Quest is when the Thermians prepare meals for everyone based on their regional diets. The look on Rickman's face when his kep-mok blood tick jumps off his spoon and back into the bowl is great.


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## NYC Composer (Jun 28, 2013)

+1 on Galaxy Quest. My kid and I saw it in the theater without any real expectations. Blew me away, so well done from every angle, so affectionate for what it was spoofing,


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## Consona (Jul 5, 2013)

@ Guy Rowland: I haven't seen Citizen Kane yet. :mrgreen:


I feel much better about MoS after I've seen the original Superman and Superman II. (I liked MoS before, just psychology of characters could have been much better, imo.) Scripts of those two films were nothing exceptional and rather nonsensical.

Reeve and Hackman fit their roles perfectly. I don't know why but I liked Miss Teschmacher character, she was somewhat amusing.

Spoilers ahead:

They introduce Zod, Ursa and Non in the beginning of the film but that's it about them. Little Lois Lane in the train, what's the purpose of that scene? Those Luthor's genius deductions about Krypton and kryptonite were so illogical it hurt. The Liberty statue in Metropolis. Kent jumps off the window and his cloths miraculously change to Superman dress in the midst of the flight. All members of atomic bomb security guard leave there posts to check somebody lying on the road. How could the army launch atomic bomb without checking up the target coordinates? Superman can change direction of rotation of Earth by flying around it in space and furthermore, it can reverse the flow of time. So why he cannot catch both atomic bomb rockets when he can fly nearly the speed of light around planet? And Superman has nothing better to do than saving kitten from the tree. :D And why would somebody intelligent hire guy like Otis (though Beatty was good in the role)? Maybe that's the price lighthearted film have to pay. But then it's hard to take any lethal danger situation seriously, Superman will save everyone anyway, only poor Old Kent had to die because it was expected. :mrgreen:

People are complaining that Superman in MoS had not lured Zod out of Metropolis to fight him out of populated areas, well have those people seen Superman II? :lol: And the action scenes would look exactly the same as those of MoS if they had technology at that time. Just look at those fighting sequences, Supermen punches Non so hard he flies through skyscaper, destroying everything in the path as so on. 
Villains can be set free only! be nuclear explosion in the space, what a coincidence... And what a coincidence they fly just around Earth out of all places in the universe. When Superman exposes himself to the red radiation (just because of he is in love, how utterly selfish, he can save millions of lifes as a Superman, but no moral dilemma explicitly occurs) he is supposed to be mortal forever!, well in five minutes he is Superman again. The projection of his mother can suddenly walk out of the crystal just because it's more dramatic?
Recapitulation of events of the first film at the beginning...


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## Ellywu2 (Jul 5, 2013)

I am not going to lie, I would watch the hell out of Hungry Hungry Hippos, though only if it is directed by Michael Bay. I want to see a giant mutant hippo running down a street whilst cars, utterly randomly and unrelated to the hippo, flip over all over the place. I want jets screaming overhead. I want slo-motion shots of aircraft carriers and sunsets.


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 5, 2013)

Ellywu2 @ Fri Jul 05 said:


> I am not going to lie, I would watch the hell out of Hungry Hungry Hippos, though only if it is directed by Michael Bay. I want to see a giant mutant hippo running down a street whilst cars, utterly randomly and unrelated to the hippo, flip over all over the place. I want jets screaming overhead. I want slo-motion shots of aircraft carriers and sunsets.



Actually you make it sound quite appealing. Put John Cusack and Cameron Diaz in the leads and I'm there. It's gotta be better than Pearl Harbor, right?


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## Ganvai (Jul 5, 2013)

Farkle @ 26th June 2013 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jun 26 said:
> 
> 
> > Love Galaxy Quest.
> ...



EPIC +111111111 :mrgreen:


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## Consona (Jul 20, 2013)

So, it is here.  

WORLD’S FINEST*

And Mr. Zimmer has to invent the Batman soundscape once again. 


*I believe this is not the official title.


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 22, 2013)

Consona @ Sun Jul 21 said:


> WORLD’S FINEST*



PITCH

Burbank, California. Across town, every movie studio is now making nothing but superhero or robot movies, everything else representing "unacceptable risk". Reboots are commissioned the moment a previous version makes it beyond pre-production. Audiences across the world are enslaved, paying $30 a ticket because there's no choice. But what's this? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a TELEVISION.

Suddenly, scales fall from peoples eyes, dazzled by sheer bright light of character development, original ideas and unconventional structure. Burbank itself implodes under the weight of its own dullness. Everyone cheers!


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## Consona (Jul 24, 2013)

Ok, but show me some human cultures which were not captured by stories about heroes. Or monsters...


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 24, 2013)

Consona @ Wed Jul 24 said:


> Ok, but show me some human cultures which were not captured by stories about heroes. Or monsters...



You want to see a film about a hero? Watch "42", that is a hero, not some fool in a cape. Or a fictional one? Watch Claire Danes on "Homeland."

I am just over the whole comic book super hero thing. Ditto vampires, zombies, chainsaw murderers.

Excuse me while I put on a Rocky movie :lol:


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## Darthmorphling (Jul 24, 2013)

There is hope.

http://www.citynews.ca/2013/07/24/summe ... ox-office/


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## Consona (Jul 24, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jul 24 said:


> Consona @ Wed Jul 24 said:
> 
> 
> > Ok, but show me some human cultures which were not captured by stories about heroes. Or monsters...
> ...


I'm not saying it's good or bad, just that people like those things for ages.


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 24, 2013)

Darthmorphling @ Wed Jul 24 said:


> There is hope.
> 
> http://www.citynews.ca/2013/07/24/summe ... ox-office/



Look out, here comes grumpychops...

While After Earth and The Lone Ranger don't represent cinema's pinnacle of creative thinking, they look like Eraserhead next to Man of Steel and the superhero genre. It seems audiences still can't get enough of Superman vs IronLung vs CatNurse or any other mind-numbingly tedious superhero concept / mash up that DC ever came up with. I fear the lesson that Hollywood is learning from Pacific Rim's mediocre performance despite a visionary director is that a) it didn't have enough stars and b), c), d) e) to k) inclusive it wasn't an identifiable DC brand. Look at the recent DC worldwide grosses / IMDB user ratings:

The Avengers - $1.5bn / 8.2
Iron Man 3 - $1.2bn / 7.6
The Dark Knight Rises - $1.1bn / 8.6
Amazing Spiderman - $750m / 7.1
Man Of Steel - $635m / 7.7

Five movies grossing over 5 billion dollars between them, all with high user ratings. I don't see the worldwide public falling out of love with DC. So who needs originality?

You'd think it wouldn't be that hard. There are tens of thousands of scriptwriters out there who pen blockbuster spec scripts. Find one - ONE - that is a great idea that isn't derivative. Then get a good casting director on board, and someone who knows which way round a camera goes. Get a brilliant editor and composer. Job done. (William Goldman frequently points out that the actual shoot is by far the least important part of the process - script, cast, editor and composer are all far more important).

Of course, this is naive nonsense, and as a blueprint for a making a blockbuster is as fantastical an idea as anything Frank Herbert came up with. So until the public tire of DC, we're gonna get a lot more of the same. Only more so. Doubled.


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## choc0thrax (Jul 24, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jul 24 said:


> Excuse me while I put on a Rocky movie :lol:



This one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgEH95t6m34


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 24, 2013)

choc0thrax @ Wed Jul 24 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jul 24 said:
> 
> 
> > Excuse me while I put on a Rocky movie :lol:
> ...



Love 'em all.

I remember when Rocky IV came out and the late Gene Siskel and the late Roger Ebert reviewed it. Ebert went first and just trashed it.

Siskel then said: "Roger everything you said is true. But I sat there for 90 minutes, ate my popcorn and had fun. And dammit, I wanted him to beat the Russian!"


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## choc0thrax (Jul 24, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Wed Jul 24 said:


> Darthmorphling @ Wed Jul 24 said:
> 
> 
> > There is hope.
> ...



The reason we're always going to be bombarded with idiotic films is because of the sad reality that the average moviegoer isn't too bright. For a long time I didn't want to believe that but I'm always proved wrong. Almost always anyway...

And not that I want to defend After Earth or anything but it did make 235 million so far on a 130 million budget. Not sure I could agree that that's a flop. The sky is always falling for those who refuse to embrace that the box office is global these days. People have been whining about Pacific Rim's performance this whole time and the thing still hasn't come out in the countries it was made to appeal to.

Something that hasn't been helping the case of original films is the fact that the few bigger ones we've had haven't been any good. Hopefully at least Elysium will turn out OK.


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## Consona (Jul 24, 2013)

JFTR: Only Superman and Batman are DC. Avengers, Iron Man and Spider-man are Marvel.


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 24, 2013)

DC is a state of mind (though this is not legally binding)...

Choco - yup, a true big budget flop is rare when worldwide, blu ray etc is taken into account. John Carter was one I'm pretty sure.

I'm PINING for a Back To The Future. You just know it's out there, 436th down on a teetering pile of an agent's office and it'll never get a shot.

Perhaps not helping my black mood, I saw The World's End a couple of days ago. It wasn't a bad film by any means, but it wasn't up to their previous giddy high standards, sorry to report. Interestingly the reviews have been very positive, but the public much less so - I have two friends who loved Shaun and Hot Fuzz, we all saw TWE independently and came to the same conclusion. Even the good guys seem off form.

Dammit, even Breaking Bad is ending soon... woe is me... woe is me...


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## Consona (Jul 24, 2013)

Aha.


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## Darthmorphling (Jul 24, 2013)

I guess I'm going to put my self out there as not to bright. I enjoy Superhero movies. I enjoy mindless action flicks. I also enjoyed The Notebook, which surprised me honestly.

I enjoy all kinds of movies from Kung Fu flicks, to House of Sand and Fog, to The original Hangover. 

I will be the first to admit a lot of people are not to bright, but I think the majority of people are semi-intelligent, but they are not so artsy. The higher one's education the more willing they are to consume art. My wife cannot understand why I watch classical performances, and she's actually quite intelligent. When she watches a movie, she does so for escapism which I believe a lot of people do.

I am looking forward to Superman vs. Batman or Batman vs. Superman, or what ever the hell it is called. I also thought 42 was an excellent film. I watched it with my older kids after having a discussion about racism and some of the words they would hear in the movie.

And I actually renewed my Netflix subscription so I could get caught up with Breaking Bad.

Don


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 24, 2013)

Escapism is great. Quite happy with a bit of mindless even, if it's fun and mindless - Con Air / The Rock and that era of dumb was a hoot, there were laughs amid the explosions. What I object to is the sheer numbing uniformity of it. The hero's journey... it IS possible to do this without, ya know, SUPERheroes. The Hero's Journey can be endlessly retold... but I'm amazed that people can stomach it being endlessly retold in pretty much the same way.


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## Consona (Jul 24, 2013)

I have to confess.

When I saw The Avengers for the first time I thought it was the worst film ever. Few days ago I've just realized it is not another The Dark Knight and it is not supposed to be. It is just huge action superhero flick. I just changed mindset and enjoyed that film so much. I thought action was really smartly designed, it went fluently from one hero to another, it was visceral and with witty details. One day I think it is infantile and stupid the other day I can enjoy it immensely.

I don't know what to think about films anymore. I'm somewhat bipolar in my opinions.


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## choc0thrax (Jul 24, 2013)

While trouncing the big films is fun, I don't think this thread is complete without taking a look at the smaller ones - namely "Only God Forgives". 

If you're looking for a fun way to spend an evening, get your friends together, make some popcorn, and settle in to watch this film. Hand out score cards and pencils and compete to see who can land the most jokes per scene. Separate the scoring into sections that include "Anything Goesling" "Kristin Scott Thomas one liners" "Wait, what's happening now?" "College film festival memories" and "Alternate movie titles". At one point I blurted out "Only Dog Forgives!" to rapturous applause.


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## Jdiggity1 (Jul 24, 2013)

Darthmorphling @ Thu 25 Jul said:


> I enjoy Superhero movies. I enjoy mindless action flicks.



You're in luck! 
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming...net&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=zergnet_76665


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## Guy Rowland (Jul 27, 2013)

Here's another article on the supposed failure of blockbusters in the Summer Of Doom:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/jul ... box-office

It's quite a well balanced article if you read on though, not necessarily endorsing its own headline. The final two paragraphs sum it up very well I think (Steven Gaydos is executive editor at Variety:



> Despite stormy forecasts, Hollywood appears to be too unwieldly or too unwilling to shift direction towards smaller, cheaper pictures. Guests at Comic-Con learned about upcoming studio productions including Pirates of the Caribbean 5, Thor 2, Fantastic Four 3 and a reboot of Godzilla. The director Joss Whedon came to the event to lament that "pop culture is eating itself" and called for "new universes, new messages and new icons". He then revealed the title of his next film to be Avengers: Age of Ultron.
> 
> "Look at Comic-Con and then tell me if you think Hollywood is going to cut back on its comic-book dependency," said Gaydos. "Look at how that event was covered by the critical establishment and you'll see how everything still validates the conglomerates' bottom line. By and large, people are not looking for intelligent, edgy, mid-range movies. They're looking for superheroes and special effects. They're looking for amusement rides. They're like the kids in Pinocchio who still want to go to Pleasure Island. They're voting to be donkeys."


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## dgburns (Jul 27, 2013)

Guy Rowland @ Sat Jul 27 said:


> Here's another article on the supposed failure of blockbusters in the Summer Of Doom:
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/jul ... box-office
> 
> ...



The simple fact that we're even talking about how these movies are a disconnect with many movie going people just opens the door to opportunity for the mid range to come in.Hwood knows one thing above all....how to re-invent itself and profit from the fact.
Don't worry about the bean counters,they will follow the money trail,and right now it points to more of the same.That and you should remember that for many in the film business,it's the "upfront money" that matters,such as people working in the production side of things.For many,this is all that matters,and bigger budget films means it's good for them.It filters all the way down to the daily crews etc.
At the end of the day,I don't begrudge industry folk trying to carve out a living.


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