Why Have Movies Been So Bad Lately?

mikesd81 asks: "Why have movies and shows been so bad lately? I find myself looking on my Video on Demand service from my cable company or flipping channels and just nothing seems to have any depth any more. But on the other hand, I happened to watch Stargate Atlantis and there was an incredible scene that just caught the emotion and emergency. So is it the directing? The writing? The acting? It seems more and more movies just aren't worth anything. Let alone paying $20 to go to a movie." Let's not forget the recent number of Hollywood remakes and the amount of "reality TV" being pumped out by the networks.

Comments

Hollywood is out of ideas

[amrust]

Sorry. Someone had to say it.

Seriously, though. I think the constant deluge of remake-after-remake of classic TV series and older movies has killed my interest in going to the movie theater. Why go out, when I can pull 1/2 of the "new" movies off my own DVD rack, or watch the original on late-night TV.

But I guess someone is watching these rehashes, because Hollywood keeps making them.

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[tomstdenis]

The last few movies I've seen have been an excuse to get out of the house. That's about it.

They could show a futurama marathon on the big screen and I'd still go see it. Just for the excuse to get out.

Movies and music in general suck because like any other corrupt practice, they has been heavily marketed. I'm sorry, but at what point is Paris Hilton a properly trained singer?

Why is collin farrel [sp?] playing american hero cops? He's FUCKING IRISH!!!!

Tom

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[smittyoneeach]

No, their idea that "people are teh st00p3d" is what's out.

Movies with: actual plots, decent acting, and good taste will always be in fashion.

actual plots means that it's OK to require the viewer to pay attention. Tired, formulaic vehicles are exactly that.

decent acting probably means load-shedding the big names and going for some undiscovered talent.

good taste means that, while we require a hint of the human capacity for evil to understand why the villian is the villian, we aren't really interested in wallowing in the evil. Lynch/Tarentino will always have their fan base, and I'm not advocating censorship here, just letting you know that "less is more". Expanding on that, less emphasis on potty mouth and hormones would also enhance their dramatic value. Finally, stories rooted in sexual confusion are of no interest whatsoever.

Summarizing: movies with some didactic value, not just "chewing gum for the mind", are what is needed.

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[Robotech_Master]

Hey, yeah, and why did the Australian Mel Gibson play an American cop all those times, too?

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[Metrol]

I had a chat with some friends about this very subject not too horribly long ago, which I came up with a theory of my own. I don't think the problem here is that Hollywood is out of ideas. The problem may very well be too many!

Consider how the original Star Wars got to be the highest grossing movie of it's time. It spent over a year in theaters. Heck, the ads for it weren't much more than the movie's logo and some of the music. This movie had the time to let it be judged by the movie goers, who convinced others they needed to see this thing.

Today, there are so many new movies coming out that they're barely in the major theaters for more than a couple of weeks. Even a reasonably successful film may only see a month out there.

This is a huge shift in how movies are marketed, which is coming back to your point about all these remakes, sequels, and TV series. Today, if a movie doesn't produce big time within a couple of weeks, the studios lose money. There's no time for word of mouth, or generating interest in a good movie. If you were a movie executive whose primary concern is making sure everyone gets paid (especially yourself) what would you do?

Heck, we're already seeing what they'd do. Generate movies based on subjects that are already established household names which your marketing department has identified a certain demographic for. Let's toss together a "Bewitched" movie with some notable names and put it out there! Lots of folks over 30 at least saw reruns, and it should have a predictable attendance.

Even as of a few weeks ago I was reading an article concerning a debate over how much time after a movie leaves the theater should the DVD come out. If this shortens up even further (as it likely will) you can expect the remakes and the like to get even worse. 1 year for marketing, 2 weeks in distribution, 3 weeks later the DVD. Sounds like a recipe for even worse film making.

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[farrellj]

Far too many people in the movie industry are like the music industry...they all want a #1 hit, rather than a good product/art that sells reasonably well. Both used to have a bread & butter business of "B" level releases which were rarely blockbusters, but just sold and sold and sold and sold. An artists/studios/directors catalog of releases were as important, sometimes more so, than any one mega hit.

Since Big Media Business has a hardon for mega hits, rather than catalog, they go with things that were hits before...sometimes to the exclusion of new ideas! Look at the number of remakes in the movie business, and the number of cover tunes in music...And it's killing both businesses.

ttyl
          Farrell

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

good taste

Good luck with that one. Taste is purely in the mind of the beholder. What you think is good taste is unlikely to be what any significant majority of the population thinks it is. Your implications about David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino and your outright dismissal of any stories based on sexual confusion is glaring proof of the subjectivity of taste.

For example, while vast numbers of Americans clearly think "Passion" was in good taste, there are more than a few who saw it as exploitive, crude and excessively violent. Similarly with "The DaVinci Code" - I even got email from some people I know who thought it worthy of boycotting because its blasphemy was in such poor taste.

I'll even go out on a limb and say that no movie can rise above the level of passable but forgettably simple entertainment unless it challenges some of the widely held perceptions of what is acceptable in society. Any movie that makes such a challenge is certain, almost by definition, to conflict with what a large number of people in that same society would consider "tasteful."

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[Skreems]

You and the story poster just aren't watching the right movies. I live in Seattle, and just got done watching 52 films in 3 weeks at the local film festival. All but about 5 were absolutely fantastic... well worth seeing, and certainly much better than the dreck pumped out as the "must see blockbuster" of the summer.

And hell, even in mainstream cinema there's some great stuff coming out. Look at anything directed by Chris Nolan (The Prestige is coming out shortly), and anything written by Charlie Kaufman or Aaron Sorkin. In the last couple years we've had fantastic work from Sofia Copola, Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Quentin Tarentino, and Tommy Lee Jones (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada was just in theaters this spring).

Go see "A Scanner Darkly". Catch Aronofsky's "The Fountain" when it hits theaters. See Ed Norton in "The Illusionist". Keep an eye out for Lynch's "Inland Empire". There have always been crap films coming out, but if you know what to look for, there's some really exciting things coming out right now. Ignore the remakes-of-remakes, and look around a bit. You'll find plenty of new ideas out there.

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[Gnostic Ronin]

I don't think that Hollywood is out of ideas. I think it like so many other entertainment businesses are becomming allergic to risk. Part of the reason, esp. with the so-called summer blockbuster, is that it costs TENS OF MILLIONS to make a passable movie. Just getting "name" actors is serveral million a piece. Then you have sets, props, CGI, and marketing. By the time you get through all that, you have to make about $50 million just to break even. That's a lot of friggin popcorn.

So in essence, these companies can't take risks with their blockbuster movies. They have to get a hit, because if they don't the company's out millions of dollars, and quite frankly it would make it hard for the producers and directors responsible to get anyone else to take a risk on them. No company can afford to lose 50 million.

So it adds up to the same old thing. The same old Superman, the same old X-men, the generic romantic comedy, the generic cop movie, the generic action film. Doing otherwise is just too risky, for the producers/directors (a flop at the BO is almost career-ending), to the movie studio (a flop can put them in the red for the rest of the year, or maybe several), etc.

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[smittyoneeach]

I'll even go out on a limb and say that no movie can rise above the level of passable but forgettably simple entertainment unless it challenges some of the widely held perceptions of what is acceptable in society. Any movie that makes such a challenge is certain, almost by definition, to conflict with what a large number of people in that same society would consider "tasteful."

Bring on the challenges.
Your next set of blockbuster flicks:

• Simple farming community successfully fends off big-money developer who wants to spew McMansions.
• Gritty military hero has opportunity to snap the pencil neck of the foppish journalist who smeared his unit based on false propaganda, shows mercy and dedication to the ideals of the Constitution.
• Drama about marital misunderstanding nearly resulting in yet another ruinous divorce and shattered children, but the spouses forgive each other.

The real things needing challenging are the decay elements in society.

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[SamSim]

Ideas? No. I dare say there are literally thousands, tens of thousands of people in California, exploding with creative genius, who would love to make seriously challenging, interesting, unusual, original movies. What Hollywood lacks is guts. It is safer, financially, to put out a movie which is a lot like lots of previous movies. A movie which is based on a franchise which people are already familiar with. A movie which appeals to well-established movie-going demographics. Hollywood cares too much about money to take enough risks. So the movie corps go for safer and safer options. And we get bored.

There's a thought experiment. You have a long, straight beach, and at each end of the beach is an ice cream van. The ice cream vans are in competition. Reasoning that beachgoers will usually choose the nearer van, the first van moves a bit down the beach, the better to gain customers from its competitor. Of course, the second van reasons the same and moves closer too. Gradually they get closer and closer until you have two vans sitting next to each other right at the middle of the beach, neither of them getting much business from the beachgoers at the ends of the beach.

This is what's happening in the movie industry at the moment. The music industry too, in fact.

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[DarkSarin]

Perhaps, then, that would explain the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and why it was so quickly forgotten and passed over? Oh wait, it wasn't, now was it. Now, tell me what perceptions of "what is acceptable in society" did this movie challenge?

Sometime it is merely necessary to tell an interesting (possibly original) story and to tell it well. If there is a moral component to the story, or a challenge to the status quo, then fine as long as it is not overdone.

What they teach in Literature classes is true:

Plot, characterizations, and plain old descriptive power are what are needed to make a good story. I would argue that even movement is necessary (not action, per se, but close). If you don't have these then you don't have a story. Instead you have entertainment, action with no goal, movement without direction, and comedy without caring. This ends up feeling hollow. The depth of the plot is what gives the Lord of the Rings its strength and compelling interest, not some challenge to everything society cares about. In many ways this is what the original Star Wars movies had that the last three made did not: sure Mark Hamill wasn't the best actor, but the character was strong and the plot was good so that the movie could be great regardless of who played Luke. By contrast, the last three were so much action, mediocre plotlines, but extremely poor characterization that even great actors could have saved that movie (and I think it had some good actors who did the best they could with the directing and scripts they were given).

In ten years I suspect that Lord of the Rings will remain known as one of the greatest sets of movies ever, while something like (dare I say it) Brokeback Mountain will be relegated to a minority and dwindling fanbase. Movies that do one step worse and sacrifice everything for the message are doomed to failure.

I will say that a well done movie that raises important questions will benefit from it. I think that is one of the reasons that X-Men movies are so popular--they raise important questions about what moral boundaries we may encounter in the future, while leaving it to the viewer to realize that this has implications for our own times. They ask questions about society without being offensive or bashing you over the head with it. THis is important.

[For those that think that LOtR is a moral story, I have two things to say: first, JRR hated allegory, and was a fan of just telling stories, so any 'moral' found is going to be classic heroic traits such as honor, loyalty, bravery, courage, and love; second, the movie does not, via the story, challenge widely held perceptions. Quite the opposite, it reinforces classical ideals. IF you think that JRR had any intention of being a revolutionary with the story, then you probably don't know enough about him.]

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[Scooter]

Hehe I think Id have less of a problem believing Farrel as an American cop - after all, don't 30% of New York inhabitants think they're Irish (at least on St Paddy's day :P). I did have the misfortune to watch a real pile of old boots called "Alexander" the other night though. I thought "nothing much on, Sky Movies is showing this thing, loads of big names in it.. worth a punt". Oh dear. There's 3 hours of my life I'd rather have back. It should have been sub-titled "how the Irish took over the world". Very strange hearing ancient greeks and Macedonians saying things like "roight den, I tink we'll be off over dem ills and be invadin' the Hindu Kush - hows aboutcha?"

Absolute train wreck of a movie that droned on in no particular direction for 3 feckin' hours. I swear, 2 or 3 times I thought it was over and went to make coffee, only to find they were invading some other place when I got back, our hero was still eyeing up his best mate (but, following the advice of his adopted father, and unlike many of his ancestors, hadn't shagged his mother).

There's absolutely no excuse for Hollywood "running out of ideas" and making all these half-arsed re-makes: my bookshelves are crammed with excellent plots, many of which would make a hal;f decent screenplay. Let's face it, if Peter Jackson, could make a series of nicely paced action packed movies from the Lord Of The Rings, surely something could be done with say - half of the PK Dick stories still unfilmed, Magician, The Stainless Steel Rat series, Tad Williams epic, not to mention all the "classic" fantasy fare from Ursula Le Guin (I'm not counting that tripe someone knocked up a couple of years ago), Michael Moorcock (about the only thing Elric hasn't been in is a movie...), EE Smith, Asimov etc.

Put down the red underpants and Step away from the Superman plot. FFS. And Batman - that's been done to death now surely. Makes me laugh when I see the actors in these remakes being interviewed, and explaining their character, his background and his motivation - like we didn't already know.

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[hhnerkopfabbeisser]

> No, their idea that "people are teh st00p3d" is what's out.

That's pretty much it.
A big problem of our "modern" societies is that people's attention spans get shorter and shorter. From this side of the Atlantic Ocean I would guess that this is worse in the US than in Europe, but we're on the same track as you are, you just have a head-start.
This means that any message you want a significant number of people to actually notice has to
- be very short
- use very very big letters

Style is always easier to advertise than substance.

Sadly, even critics often don't rate good movies appropriately, maybe the movies was too complicated for them to get, or they just know their audience and adjust their own taste appropriatly.

While many blockbusters are now increasingly devoid of substance, good movie-makers still exist and do their job, but you have to dig deeper to find them than a couple of years ago.
Watch Butterfly Effect. Watch Stay. Watch Garden State. You may like them, or not. Interesting Movies don't aim for the smallest common denominator.
Some of these are big movies with big stars and all, yet you might never have heard of them. Or you didn't care.

Boycott spineless crap. Look out for substance.
Demand, and there will be supply, but don't expect the world to tell you where to find it in big letters. That's how Joe Sixpack gets told what to watch.

Re:Hollywood is out of ideas

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

In ten years I suspect that Lord of the Rings will remain known as one of the greatest sets of movies ever, while something like (dare I say it) Brokeback Mountain will be relegated to a minority and dwindling fanbase. Movies that do one step worse and sacrifice everything for the message are doomed to failure.

You have made the mistake of equating popularity with quality. The lord of the rings challenged no one to think. As storylines go, it's pretty much pure pablum - that you think it has "depth of plot" says more about your viewpoint than it does about the story. A story which clearly had length, but so many characters and so many events were archetypes right out of Joeseph Campbell's monomyth that it was as familiar and pedestrian as a thousand other good-battles-evil stories.

The movies were popular because they looked pretty, had enormous advertising budgets and were faithful enough to a story that huge numbers of people enjoyed as teenagers because it was one of their first exposures to the monomyth and thus played on the human tendency to mistake novelity for sophistication.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the movies were bad. The are just simplistic and bland - requiring no thought on the part of the audience, which is good enough for most people. But certainly nothing more than "chewing gum for the mind."

You.

[mnemonic_]

"I happened to watch Stargate Atlantis and there was an incredible scene that just caught the emotion and emergency."

After reading that, I must seriously question your ability to judge any film or video work.

Simple answer

[sakusha]

The reason why movies suck is very simple.

In the "golden age" of movies (whenever you consider that to be) movies were made by writers, directors, and actors who considered it an art form. Today, the studios are run by people who consider it a profit-oriented business.

Sure, the studios always wanted to make money. But technology has improved and now it is extremely expensive to produce a movie to modern technological standards, so budgets have skyrocketed. No studio will take risks when they're spending $100 million MINIMUM to make a movie. Unfortunately, art is all about taking risks.

Re:Simple answer

[soupforare]

Not to be facetious but what's "modern technological standards"?
We went decades upon decades without digital editing, let alone recording.

$100M minimum?
You can make a film, *film* now, for a fraction of that. You could shoot on video and make it a fraction of that fraction.

It seems to me that the amazingly high cost of movie making comes from ridiculous CGI, over-inflated talent payrolls, and marketing blitzes that start a year before the movie's even done shooting.

Clerks was ~$40k
pi was ~$60k
cube was ~$250k

I'm not trying to pull some bullshit romanticism faggotry. I'm just saying that pandering to the masses with shineys and pretty faces that we all know and love isn't going to promote cinema as an art.

There's nothing wrong with either but there should be room for both.

Re:Simple answer

[sakusha]

Movies have completely changed technologically over the past 25 years. Look at mainstream movies from the early 1970s and compare them with what they make today. I don't mean look at them on a DVD or TV, look at them in a theater. Everything has changed. Lenses and cameras are sharper, film stock is lower grain, sound production has gone from simple stereo to surround sound, even the lighting is better. Go look at a film from the 1970s, some film about filmmaking, like Truffaut's "Day for Night." Compare what they use to the kind of equipment is used on today's films. A typical modern film spends more renting ONE camera than they used to spend on their whole equipment budget.

I watched all this stuff change when I worked in Hollywood in the 1980s. Everyone talked about how the "bean counters" were taking over Hollywood, and how expensive productions were. I think the breaking point was the big Writer's Strike in 1988, the writers saw how much money producers, directors, and actors were getting, and they wanted a piece of the pie. Of course they didn't get squat.

Yeah, there's always the exception of some ultra-low budget movie that breaks big, but those never come from Hollywood, they're always from outsiders. The Studio system produces BIG movies because they believe that's the way to make big money. That's what pandering to the masses is all about.

The writing is the problem, for the most part

[DavidinAla]

I'm just getting into filmmaking right now. (I've only made one short film, which has been in 11 film festivals so far.) The problem that I see with most films (both Hollywood and indie) is the writing. In general, the technical work in movies is the best it's ever been. Acting is competent, at worst. The problems are in story construction and other aspects of writing. If you have a bad script, it doesn't matter how good your actors or photography or special effects are. Writing has been getting steadily worse for about 40 years. It has to do, IMO, with movie execs who are ignorant and illiterate. They don't know good writing -- as the great producers of the past did.

David

Re:The writing is the problem, for the most part

[syberanarchy]

The reason for this is that writers are shit on by the Hollywood system. Honestly. Alex Garland was given 1m to write the Halo script. I guarantee you that the director, stars, hell - even some producers will make more on that film than the writer. Writers in general have no real incentive to make a script good after getting "in the door," simply because they a) are paid the lowest of any creative professional in tinseltown, and b) don't see an extra dime if the film does well.

It's bullshit, especially because good direction can never save a shitty script. Directors - especially on the indie circuit - are egocentric little sods who go on and on about "communicating" their "vision." It really is like the director thinks it is "*their* movie. Why do you think so many decent writers want to direct? Not all of them are qualified, but it's the only way to get any goddamn respect.

I'm in the process of putting together an independent feature, and I can tell you, the director of the piece has been nothing but a liability. I keep him around because he's got some very good contacts and is an amazing bullshit artist (which will come in handy when it comes time to go to festival), but he acts as if I'm "just the writer." His attitude cost us when his little "I am worth so much" tirade turned off a wealthy relative to financing us. Now, we're running on sweat and blood. He pulled a Troy Duffy.

Writers OUGHT to fucking strike their asses off until they are given the same respect - if not more - that is given to directors.

Re:The writing is the problem, for the most part

[trifish]

You are right, it's about the scripts. BUT, screenwriters are not the guilty ones, the producers who pick bad screenwriters are.

Other problems of todays movies:

1) Emphasis on money rather than artistic values (unlike in the 60s and 70s and even in 80s).

2) Emphasis on good-looking teenage and under-25 actors (because teenagers are the majority of cinema goers). This brings in shallow themes and shallow characters (by the way, I'm 29).

3) Emphasis on the visual FX. This again brings in shallow themes.

4) Something like "fluidum" (sorry can't find a better term) of the 90's which also affected music. There are virtually no new original ideas. Everyone just remakes or remixes old hits. Only a few new good hits have been written in the second half of the 90s. In the 80s there was one original hit written each week. Most of todays teenagers don't even know that 60% of today songs borrow themes from the 80s.

When I was a kid in the 80s I really enjoyed music. When 90s came I was like "what the hell is wrong with the song writers?" This happened in the movie industry too. We are just experiencing different eras with distinct characterists just like, say, there were differences between Renaissance and Baroque. Fortunately, in modern times the eras change every decade, rather than every century.

Sturgeon's Law

[GrumpySimon]

Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.

I don't think movies are getting worse - they're just as crap as they always have been.

Re:Sturgeon's Law

[MichaelSmith]

they're just as crap as they always have been.

The older we get the more crap we have seen and the less tolerant we are of new crap. Hence the question: why is there so much crap around these days?

Things which I thought were pretty good when I was 20 now look like crap to be 20 years later. Maybe the absolute level of crap today is the same as is was in the past.

Some Movies aren't too bad

[imemyself]

I don't think I really agree with you about the movies. Yeah, there are a lot of movies with no depth, but there have been several in the past year or so that I've really liked. (The Inside Man, Lord of War, V is for Vendetta, Syriana, and a few others IIRC). I think it might be more of you just not liking the genre's of films that are being put out (not as many sci-fi). That doesn't mean that the quality of movies is necessarily going down.

TV generally sucks, but I don't think that's anything new. I rarely watch TV other than the news (and I get most of that off the Internet anyway), and occasionally a sitcom or two while I'm eating dinner.

Re:Some Movies aren't too bad

[mikesd81]

I watched V for Vendetta and for as long as the movie was I would have thought more character depth and plot would be there.....perhaps it is due to the fact I never read the comic.

Dear Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Why were things always so much better in my day?

When were (most) movies good?

[apflwr3]

When do you think movies were good? The 90's? The 80's? Look at the top ten list from just about any week from any year. There'll be one classic, maybe two, and one movie that's so bad it's good, and the rest is mediocre and forgettable. Most mainstream movies have always been aimed at the lowest common demoninator and if you think movies from the past were better you're just applying selective memory. Yes, there were times (e.g. in the 70's) when the bar was raised a little higher, but even then most movies were still dreck.

That said, there are great independant movies being made every day and even an occasional a big-budget flick that gets everything right. Some of it's foreign, some of them are documentaries, most will require a little more effort to locate (like browsing new areas of Netflix. It's not like the great movies from the past have disappeared, either-- if you can't find anything new to watch, why not try a classic you've never seen?

By the way, there's one more factor to take into account-- maybe you're just getting old. Look at some movies you used to think were great 10 or 20 years ago (I have no idea how old you are...) and see if they're as good as you remember.

money doesn't require it

[eliot1785]

Movie productions are actually investor-led enterprises, despite the fact that they are also an art form. While there are a lot of movies whose directors and actors really care about communicating an important vision or message, there are also a lot of movies that are designed solely to appeal to as many people as possible. They fill the movie with cliches and implications designed to please as many people as possible, but in appealing to everybody enough to get them to see the movie, they appeal to very few people enough to get them to actually like it.

Superman Returns is a case in point. Did you notice how that was simultaneously marketed to evangelicals with "Superman as Jesus figure" and gays with that article "Is Superman Gay?" and liberals with Lex Luthor's "bring it on" statement in the trailers? In reality the movie was none of these things, they just wanted to intrigue as many people as possible to bring them to the theaters.

Bottom line: For people trying to make the "summer blockbuster," it doesn't matter if the movie is good, as long as it sells. You make more money increasing expectations than delivering on those expectations.

This is why niche and indie movies are often better, because the primary goal of the writers, directors and actors is to present their vision. Now, I actually like a fair number of mainstream movies, but certainly not most of them.

Simple Answer...

[BTWR]

Q: Why are movies so bad lately?

A: Because it's a tired, cliched question/statement.

This year, like every year, has had some great movies and some bad ones. In the past year, we've had Superman Returns, Pirates of the Carribean 2, United 93, Munich, Millions, Crash, Capote, Match Point, Hustle & Flow, Batman Begins, Sin City, Walk the Line, Murderball, The Constant Gardener, A History of Violence, March of the Penguins, Wallace & Grommit...

And that's just to name a few. Is this any better than other year? No, not really. It's just that every year, there's always a lot more trashy art than good art. Any nostalgia for "back then" being better than now is just smoke and mirrors. For every Schindler's List, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Godfather Part II, you got Police Academy 6, Halloween 3, and Monster a Go-Go in those years (or shortly around it, that was just off the top of my head).

I'm sick of all these "movies/books/music/crime rates/teenagers were all better back then" arguments. Baloney. We only remember the best, and today, when every friday we get 3 new mediocre movies and every few weeks a decent one, we forget that there were also new movies every week in the 90s and 80s, and countless 8-track trash music from the 70s, and romance novels have been around since the 40s.

The remakes I can understand

[bersl2]

For as long as people have told stories, storytellers have had the tendency to put their own touch on the stories they received from those before them. I see the rash of remakes as a manifestation of this, as reinterpretations.

Now, the suckage is a completely different matter.

It's a trick of perception.

[NereusRen]

Have you ever heard someone say the following: "Look at this really old [thing]! It's still in great condition, whereas my new [thing] broke already! They sure don't make things like they used to..."

When you look at all the old things you have that have lasted 30 years and work great, compared to the things that break easily, you're comparing the worksmanship of the set {things that were built 30+ years ago and are still working} to {things that were built a few years ago}... of course all the older things you see around you are better-made, even if the worksmanship standards haven't actually changed over the years, because of the natural filter that they're still working, or else they wouldn't be around for you to compare.

Similarly, the set {movies I remember from more than a few years ago} will clearly be better than {movies from this year}, simply by virtue of the fact that you remember the better ones and forget the worse. Comparing today's Hollywood crap to yesterday's cream of the crop is unintentional, but it's exactly what's going on everytime someone rehashes this "story" every few months.

Re:art has been replaced by...

[JanneM]

That is why sequels suck and will always suck.

For me it doesn't matter if a sequel - or a remake, or a filmatization of a tv-series - sucks or not. A sequel can be fully as good as the original and I'll still not go see it anymore.

My problem is, sequels are dedicated to give me "more of the same" - which I don't want anymore. I saw the original already, I liked it - but why would I want to spend my limited time and money seeing the same stuff again? It's like going to a restaurant and always ordering the same thing. Some people like that. I prefer getting something different.

Frankly, I'm tired of the form that is a feature movie. Maybe it's me getting old or whatever, but I'm unable to build any enthusiasm even for movies I should really like. I think it started with Lord of The Rings, actually, which I saw and enjoyed - they're everything a movie should be for me - but to my own surprise I never felt I actually cared about it. I saw the first two, then really just forgot about seeing the third. I finally did see it on DVD, but out of a sense of duty, of finishing off something I started, more than anything else. It was great, it was absorbing, it was magnificient - and I would not have missed it at all had I simply skipped the whole thing.

We've had the 2-hour feature for a century or so; perhaps it's time for the form to reinvent itself?

Re:art has been replaced by...

[Dadoo]

the art and passion which existed in making movies and entertaining people has been replaced by hunger for making money

I totally agree with you.

I also find it interesting you say this, especially since, when the studios are talking about piracy, they always insist that, if we don't pay for their material, quality will suffer. I'm not trying to condone piracy, or anything, but I think we all know that's a bunch of BS.

Every so often, you hear about some actor who made a big deal (walked off a set, etc.) about the "art" of making a movie or television show, or didn't want to sell out. I always used to think they were just being childish, but I'm beginning to see their point of view.

Movies are NOT getting worse

[ivan1011001]

First off, there have ALWAYS been bad movies.

Secondly, I ran a simple python script on the IMDB's top 250 movies database and then sorted the titles by year, and then by decade.

below is a table showing the number of movies from a decade that made the IMDB's top 250 movies list.

1920s 5
1930s 15
1940s 23
1950s 39
1960s 31
1970s 25
1980s 29
1990s 41
2000s 41

As you can see, there are plenty of good movies out there. The submitter just needs to get a life.

Re:Movies are NOT getting worse

[MemoryDragon]

The IMDB is not really a good reference for such statistics because most people simply do not know the early movies anymore, you will find hardly any voter, who knows the 1929 version of Nosferatu which still is one of the main references for modern vampire or generally horror movies, you also will not find many who know the 1975 Werner Herzog Remake, which qualitywise definitely belongs onto the list. While movies like Star Wars Episode 1,2,3 are arguable some of the worst movies ever made but you still can find them there. Such best of movies lists are highly dubious due to various reasons, the main one that most voters of such lists have a very limited scope of what has been done outside of there teen years/20s...

Did you just turn 35?

[ewg]

Did you just turn 35? It seems like movies are pitched at the demographic from teenagers to mid-thirties. By 35, you've seen every trick in the Hollywood book, so nothing seems fresh. Everything strikes you as a copy of something you've already seen.

I submit it's not that the movies have been so bad lately, but rather that your sensibilities have changed.

Wow... Stargate Atlantis?

[shidoshi]

I was at a friend's house last night, and for whatever reason, that show seemed to be playing for hours. (I'm not sure if that's typical Sci-Fi, of if he had it on his DVR.) I'm going to be honest here... after watching what I did of it, you couldn't pay me to watch that show.

I know it's cool and hip to bash on Hollywood movies and network TV, but there IS quite a bit of worthwhile content out there if you actually take the time to look. I think the problem is some people just expect too much from EVERYTHING, and don't know when to just relax and have fun with something.

Nothing has changed from '20s till now....

[Brian_Ellenberger]

Why do you think the crap/good ratio has changed? Do you have any idea of the sheer number of bad B-type movies that were created in the previous decades that noone remembers or cares about?

The reason that it just seems like there is a high ratio of crap is because you only remember the GREAT movies of yesteryear. You don't remember the 1000+ cowboy/indian westerns or melodramatic romances because you most likely have never heard of them. You just remember Casablanca/Citizen Kane/etc.

Re:art has been replaced by...

[soft_guy]

Sequels suck and will always suck.

Umm, what about Back to the Future?

It proves the point.

It doesn't make sense

[MagicAlex84]

Having just watched Serenity and all the episodes of Firefly I've come to the conclusion that nobody cares about entertainment that's meaningful, because if the opposite were true then Firefly would still be on TV and nobody would give a shit about American Idol.

I used to wonder just this

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

I used to wonder just what you are asking. Then I saw MST3K. Once you realize the sheer number of abysmally bad movies from the past, you begin to understand that movies haven't gotten worse at all. If anything, they have gotten far better. Name one major movie released this year that has bad audio, bad camerawork, or incompetent editing? You can't do it. No matter how awful today's movies are, they still look and sound amazingly better than movies of the past.

Today's movies fail in terms of writing, acting, directing, or, in some cases, all of the above. Implausible plots, paper acting, horrible cinematography - none of this is new. But we don't remember "Monster a Go Go" or "Manos: The Hands of Fate". We do remember "Back to the Future".

That said, this year has been particularly weak. There's no Matrix, no Star Wars, no Harry Potter, and no Lord of the Rings. This year seems weak because 2001-2004 were so astoundingly strong. Whether or not you liked "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone", seeing the franchise come to the big screen was a huge deal for many, many people. The "Lord of the Rings" series was one of the most anticipated film adaptations ever. And although the "Star Wars" prequels were generally regarded as weak, the special effects were amazing.

I can name tons of movies that I enjoyed over the past 10 years, from Pixar's films (Incredibles / Nemo / Monsters / Toy Story) to the superhero films that worked (X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman Begins) to the unique and bizzare films (GATTACA, Fight Club, Memento) to great action/suspense films (The Matrix, Collateral) and a lot more.

What bad movies?

[Zhe Mappel]

Bad movies?! My friend, what are you complaining about? Armed with the IMDb and a little thing called taste, I haven't seen a bad movie in ages.

In just the last few months, I've been dazzled by cool stuff by Michael Haneke (*the* coolest end-of-the-world movie ever made, "Hour of the Wolf," the creepy "Hidden," and the revoltingly subversive "Funny Games") and Takashi Miike (the icy "Black Society" trilogy), the awesome 1976 black comedy "Network," and a pair of superb recent documentaries, "New York Doll" (70s glam rock) and "Why We Fight" (Eisenhower's warning against the military industrial complex). I can't also forget "The Servant," a sinister 60s-era British flick (made by Joseph Losey, the immensely talented film industry outcast from Wisconsin) about a manservant slowly taking over his master's life which has the additional gift of having been adapted by our recent Nobel Laureate in literature, Harold Pinter. Oh, yeah, and two really different, fantastic dramas about the boxing life: "Fat City" (1972) and "The Set-Up" (1949). Hell, I'd watch more, but the week's only so long and I have to make room for possibly the best serial drama ever made, Deadwood--a masterpiece in our time!

See, it's too late in the day to complain about Hollywood. Disappointment and boredom will await you if you depend on the idiot factory. Happily, the rest of the planet hasn't lost its touch. The library of international film is so full of good and even astonishing work that you need a lifetime to watch it all.

Like any subject, you won't get very far without some guidance. The little paragraph in the On Demand section? That isn't going to cut it. Get hold of a good film companion like Halliwell's, and read some of the great movie critics like Andrew Sarris or Pauline Kael. Or if you want to start this instant, then peruse the reliable Roger Ebert's short odes to great films. Start at random, you can hardly go wrong with anything here:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/secti on?category=REVIEWS08

American movies

[rs79]

You know, other countries make movies too... having just finished watching _The Longest Engagement_ I can't say I really care that hollywood makes shite these days.

Re:Well, because you only watch Hollywood movies.

[dom1234]

... I'd like to add :
If you are the kind of man to think the Matrix is highly philosophical and is the best movie ever or so, it's not surprising at all to see you bored of movies.
Another suggestion I have for you is to take the time to see old repertoire movies, there are plenty of jewels to discover, and cost much less than the new wiz-bang Hollywood movie playing on the wiz-bang screen in the wiz-bang theater.

90% rule

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid $5.75 to see A Scanner Darkly and got my money's worth out of it, and then some. But movies like that are the exception...

Yes, 90% of movies are crap, and always have been. But the older crap doesn't pile up in the video store like the new crap - they have to stock Garfield 2 and The Dukes Of Hazzard, but they don't have to get the DVDs of Ishtar, Heaven's Gate, or (to go back further) the 1925 Wizard Of Oz. Therefore, the oldies section and the foreign section tend to have the crap pre-weeded out of them already, or at least a lesser ratio than the 90%. That doesn't mean all old movies were great - just that the bad ones don't make it into the modern video store, improving your odds.

Re:Slashdot rejected my ask slashdot submission

[Thomas Miconi]

Question: Why Have Movies Been So Bad Lately?

Answer: Because you've grown up.

Duh!

Re:art has been replaced by...

[toddestan]

You mean like how The Matrix and The Pirates of the Caribbean suddenly became a part of a trilogy when the originals became hugely successful and Hollywood realized that there would be money in making a sequel, but they didn't want to call them sequels?

Re:Slashdot rejected my ask slashdot submission

[theshowmecanuck]

"Top" lists are always like this since our collective memory is relatively short term. The shorter it's been since we saw a movie, the better we remember it. Also, as someone pointed out, maybe once we get older, we have a higher critical standard.

I think these "top" lists should only give the options for movies older than say 5 (or maybe 10) years. This would let us get over the rosey glow we have of the movie and judge it for what it is. For example, (note, I haven't seen this yet but I now am looking for it) the goup The Monkees made a movie called "Head" (Jack Nicholson of all people was one of the producers). When it came out, everyone hated it. This was because the people who liked The Monkees went to see it and it wasn't at all what they expected. The band for their own reasons broke from the mold the record companies made for them and they did their own thing. Their fans, expecting the record company shaped image, didn't 'get' the movie. On the other hand, the people that might have liked it didn't go to see it because they too had the record company vision of The Monkees, and didn't think they would like it. After 10 or 20 years, apparently "Head" had a better critical acceptance since the people watching it then didn't have any (or less) precconcieved notions on the band. 'Best of' should be later. (I just read about the later critiques on "Head", so now I am interested in watching the movie! It might still suck (to me), but now it made me think... at least a little :-)

There are many times I don't see a movie for 5 or 10 after it came out because at first glance I didn't think I would like it. Fight Club is one that comes to mind. I think it is a good movie... now that I watched it. ;-)