Hollywood films suck-Quality movies are on Netflix

[Dieter the Brock]

Complete bullcrap man. These movies are GLOBAL. They are HISTORIC. That is a fact. There are people that were kids when Iron Man first came out and are now entering into adulthood with Endgame. They grew up with these movies, including myself.

You clearly haven't watched, or if you did, didn't bother to pay attention to the characters in these films and their evolution from 2008 to now.

I'm going to watch, and will continue to watch each and every single one of them.

BTW, the movie you are referring to is Dr. Strange. At least get the title right.

You said it.
Avengers is not an American movie
I agree

 

[Dieter the Brock]

I disagree with everything you said.

That’s okay, but you might want to do some research into what is happening to the film industry.

Hollywood wants to make cash. The biggest market is China. China has strict rules for what they show their audience. Hollywood needs to follow those rules or their movies don’t get shown in China. Hence Hollywood films - like the Avengers - are made specifically for Chinese audience which is why some of us feel such disconnect. The fact you like them these superhero films just means what is happening - the destruction of American cultural export - doesn’t effect you specifically. You are the lucky one.

For the rest of us let’s do something about it. Stop paying for and watching commie bullshit

p.s.
Dr Strangelove - yes
Dr Strange - fuck no

 

[Angry Ram]

You said it.
Avengers is not an American movie
I agree

The horror.

That’s okay, but you might want to do some research into what is happening to the film industry.

Hollywood wants to make cash. The biggest market is China. China has strict rules for what they show their audience. Hollywood needs to follow those rules or their movies don’t get shown in China. Hence Hollywood films - like the Avengers - are made specifically for Chinese audience which is why some of us feel such disconnect. The fact you like them these superhero films just means what is happening - the destruction of American cultural export - doesn’t effect you specifically. You are the lucky one.

For the rest of us let’s do something about it. Stop paying for and watching commie bullcrap

p.s.
Dr Strangelove - yes
Dr Strange - freak no

No thanks. I'll continue to enjoy the movies, as will millions around the world who won't sleep over China.

 

[Dieter the Brock]

The horror.

Dr Strange with his homo laser

 

[Mojo Ram]

You may call it over-saturation, but I call it historic.

It's historically over saturated. Something is either over saturated or its not. One may enjoy a flooded market or not, that's not the conversation. You're a big fan and that's cool. I was a fan myself.

The energy drink market is over saturated for example. Doesn't matter how you or i feel about energy drinks. It's a fact.

Please don't feel the need to defend what you enjoy. This conversation is not about that.

 

[Mojo Ram]

Storytelling has been around since mankind
Good ideas aren’t the problem
It’s the Chinese

You're talking about marketing and target audience. I haven't done any research into that area of global marketing. Good conversation but not really my point.

Good ideas are the problem. They're running out of them in terms of artistry on all fronts. It's attrition by means of history. It's like giving a child a coloring book and 1000 different colored crayons. Eventually there's nothing new left to do.

 

[Dieter the Brock]

@Mojo Ram
I actually think the business side affects this notion that there are no longer any good ideas.

I still don’t think lack of ideas is an issue. Recycling ideas has been going on since the beginning of time. There are only two real World Visions for storytelling - orthodox and existential. Orthodox being based on Christ and their two off shoots are Comedy and Tragedy. In a comedy a character tries to expand his boundaries of self-determination and is met with folly until he heeds the sage warning and gives it up to God and is rewarded with marriage and the promise family (see Groundhog Day) - the other being tragedy where the character doesn’t heed the sage advice and plows though anyway which leads to literal or figurative death. This is how 90% of films and stories are crafted.

Existentialism is the concept that if God was here he left a long time ago and now man has control of his fate - see every Woody Allen film he’s ever made.

These ideas are meant to be recycled over and over and the variations are endless. Just like music. It’s endless. Great ideas are all based on the last great idea and all good stories stand on he shoulders of giants.

But the issue isn’t lack of ideas - man has them. They are out there. But it’s just getting super hard to find them cause of how money dominates everyone’s consideration of whether an idea is good or bad

Lets take for example Netflix. I hope this will help illustrate my point that the business side of entertainment isn’t interested in “good ideas” or “fresh ideas” more so than they are with content that they can sell to the largest number of people possible without losing ones job. Netflix is great for filmmakers - mainly cause they are giving money away to tons of projects in their quest for new content. Without new content on Netflix rolling through every week people will stop watching. So their emphasis is on quantity and not necessarily quality. They don’t care if it’s good or bad, they just need something to show.

Now with the major studios:
Licensing deals like Disney has with Marvel, Lucasfilm, etc are huge money and thus they aren’t going to run the risk of creating “new” content when they can create a sequel that they know will play huge to the Chinese audience they cater to. Why run the risk of getting a John Carter type of financial loss. That’s why the studios are churning out safe superhero movies over and over. Hence the sequels. And more sequels. The studios aren’t set up like they were in the studio system where they groomed beautiful women to be stars and leading men, and scripts that were well crafted. That era was busted in an effort for free agency.

That left us in the 60’s and 70’s where we got the best movies ever. That is an era of the auteur where filmmakers had the most freedom and Hollywood let them do what they wanted. But things got expensive for the studios and things changed to the format we see today after Star Wars. Now it’s the age of the blockbuster - where people look to Box Office numbers as if that indicates how good a film is.
The fact anyone looks to box office numbers is a joke. It shows you though whats happened to the American movie-goers mentality. Oggling other peoples fortunes as a way to gage quality - it’s ridiculous.

Now there is no room for running risk.

All good movies are independently financed and only after pick up distribution deals.
It’s a money making machine. And it’s only gonna get worse as online platforms fight each other tooth and nail for Content. And major studios are stuck with their huge investments in Marvel and the like.

Now on ideas - check out the Lobster. It’s a real movie man. About people and relationships. And it is feels totally original.

So there is hope, but the great filmmakers will always be few and far between the hacks who dominate the industry today.

* forgive typos


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yK6i2Ivlphw

 

[Mojo Ram]

Lets take for example Netflix. I hope this will help illustrate my point that the business side of entertainment isn’t interested in “good ideas” or “fresh ideas” more so than they are with content that they can sell to the largest number of people possible without losing ones job. Netflix is great for filmmakers - mainly cause they are giving money away to tons of projects in their quest for new content. Without new content on Netflix rolling through every week people will stop watching. So their emphasis is on quantity and not necessarily quality. They don’t care if it’s good or bad, they just need something to show.

Now with the major studios:
Licensing deals like Disney has with Marvel, Lucasfilm, etc are huge money and thus they aren’t going to run the risk of creating “new” content when they can create a sequel that they know will play huge to the Chinese audience they cater to. Why run the risk of getting a John Carter type of financial loss. That’s why the studios are churning out safe superhero movies over and over. Hence the sequels. And more sequels. The studios aren’t set up like they were in the studio system where they groomed beautiful women to be stars and leading men, and scripts that were well crafted. That era was busted in an effort for free agency.

That left us in the 60’s and 70’s where we got the best movies ever. That is an era of the auteur where filmmakers had the most freedom and Hollywood let them do what they wanted. But things got expensive for the studios and things changed to the format we see today after Star Wars. Now it’s the age of the blockbuster - where people look to Box Office numbers as if that indicates how good a film is.
The fact anyone looks to box office numbers is a joke. It shows you though whats happened to the American movie-goers mentality. Oggling other peoples fortunes as a way to gage quality - it’s ridiculous.

Now there is no room for running risk.

All good movies are independently financed and only after pick up distribution deals.
It’s a money making machine. And it’s only gonna get worse as online platforms fight each other tooth and nail for Content. And major studios are stuck with their huge investments in Marvel and the like.

You and i are in complete agreement and understanding on this.

The rest of your post not so much, and even if i did grasp and agree, we're unable to go there in this forum.

I will check out Lobster though :cheers:

 

[Karate61]

Superhero movies suck so bad! Totally childish and completely boring. Dumbest, fake stories ever!

 

[bluecoconuts]

It's not a lack of ideas, it's that movies are expensive to make and new ideas are riskier. Studios who are trying to meet executive financial goals don't want to take risks that can cost them their jobs, so they stick to what's safe.

 

[Akrasian]

It's not a lack of ideas, it's that movies are expensive to make and new ideas are riskier. Studios who are trying to meet executive financial goals don't want to take risks that can cost them their jobs, so they stick to what's safe.

And most major studios either make lower budget films too, or have a division with different branding that makes lower budget, artier films. If you look at this weekend - Mindy Kaling's "Late Night" opened, along with Ron Howard's "Pavarotti" and "The Last Black Man In San Francisco" among many others, leaving out sequels, non-US films, and superhero stuff. It's out there - maybe not in 4000 theatres, but other films are playing. When I lived in a little town in Oklahoma called Pauls Valley, I would sometimes need to drive a few miles to see certain films, but even then there would be theaters playing somewhere relatively near me. If you live in a semi-big city, pretty much every film would be available at some point.

 

[Mojo Ram]

movies are expensive to make and new ideas are riskier. Studios who are trying to meet executive financial goals don't want to take risks that can cost them their jobs, so they stick to what's safe.

This is all true but it doesn't make a case for a lack of original ideas from an artists perspective...which is the bigger picture.

 

[Dieter the Brock]

You and i are in complete agreement and understanding on this.

The rest of your post not so much, and even if i did grasp and agree, we're unable to go there in this forum.

I will check out Lobster though :cheers:

Right on

p.s. by the way just to clarify the World Visions aren’t political discussions or religious discussions but are simply frameworks people in literature have used as a blueprint from Shakespeare to Clancy. Just like notes in music

 

[coconut]

The Lobster sucked. Original yes. Sucked balls yes.

BTW China owns more of Hollywood with each passing year.

 

[Angry Ram]

Dr Strange with his homo laser

And this statement confirms how I take your viewpoint on this matter. Bogus.

 

[Akrasian]

BTW China owns more of Hollywood with each passing year.

Alluded to in this thread title is that a LOT of Hollywood talent is signing on to make films for the various streaming services. Those movies may make a token appearance in theaters if they think they are award quality, but leave them quickly, so that in most places they will be HBO or Netflix exclusives (or whichever streaming service). That's not a Chinese thing - that's because artists want the paycheck and the freedom of making what they want, without the frequent result of playing in two theaters for a week or two then going to video. Stable paychecks are a wonderful thing.

 

[1maGoh]

Why run the risk of getting a John Carter type of financial loss.

It's not a lack of ideas, it's that movies are expensive to make and new ideas are riskier. Studios who are trying to meet executive financial goals don't want to take risks that can cost them their jobs, so they stick to what's safe.

It is totally risk aversion and not a lack of ideas that's causing a lack of content with new ideas. Say you have 2 ideas, one is new an interview while the other is a sequel to a movie that made several hundred million dollars. If your livelihood depends on it, you choose the sequel because you know the sequel will make you money. It's the same reason movies used to be made from books. They knew the books had a following, so they make a movie out of it. It's safe.

In the vein of risk aversion, why would someone take an awesome story like John Carter and let the director of Finding Nemo direct it? Seriously? How does Finding Nemo give anyone confidence that he can direct an epic sci fi action movie? He ruined something I'd been waiting for since middle school. What a jerk.

 

[coconut]

Alluded to in this thread title is that a LOT of Hollywood talent is signing on to make films for the various streaming services. Those movies may make a token appearance in theaters if they think they are award quality, but leave them quickly, so that in most places they will be HBO or Netflix exclusives (or whichever streaming service). That's not a Chinese thing - that's because artists want the paycheck and the freedom of making what they want, without the frequent result of playing in two theaters for a week or two then going to video. Stable paychecks are a wonderful thing.

I mentioned China not in regards to film quality but rather film content, in particular the positive depiction of China.

 

[fearsomefour]

Complete bullcrap man. These movies are GLOBAL. They are HISTORIC. That is a fact. There are people that were kids when Iron Man first came out and are now entering into adulthood with Endgame. They grew up with these movies, including myself.

You clearly haven't watched, or if you did, didn't bother to pay attention to the characters in these films and their evolution from 2008 to now.

I'm going to watch, and will continue to watch each and every single one of them.

BTW, the movie you are referring to is Dr. Strange. At least get the title right.

Well they certainly have a rich field to pull characters from.
As someone who was never into comics as a kid it all gets a bit one note.
It is interesting how the story lines cross, intersect and blend. I don't know if it follows the original story lines or if they are taking liberties.
For the most part it has been good movie making.
There are obviously millions and millions of fans in the US, which is to say nothing of the international fan base. I bet millions more have been inspired to go back and check out old source stories. That's cool.
But, its like being a fan of metal music. I grew up on it (and jazz) learned to play music because of it. I can listen to Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, to Motörhead, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, to Metallica and Pantera to Dragon Force and Dillinger Escape Plan and hear it like an evolution. Someone else is just waiting to hear a song they know.
And to them, it all sounds a bit one note.

 

[fearsomefour]

It's not a lack of ideas, it's that movies are expensive to make and new ideas are riskier. Studios who are trying to meet executive financial goals don't want to take risks that can cost them their jobs, so they stick to what's safe.

That about sums it up.