Wow.

[snousle]

Just saw The Graduate for the first time. Why is it that films from fifty years ago are totally brilliant, where every current release I've seen in the past ten years just plain sucks?

I love the sparse, simple style of that era, with its abundance of silence and lots of room for introspection. Most of today's films not only lack originality, they offer no room for the viewer. Every little crevice must be filled, controlled, and focus-grouped into oblivion. It's so boring. What went wrong?

It must be the lack of cigarettes.

Comments

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

It's more the lack of script...and multi faceted characters that aren't black & white / simplistic goodies and baddies.

I'd agree with your statement if qualified with 'current release from Hollywood' - there have been some amazing films from Japan, a few from UK, Europe etc. but yes it does seem that Hollywood has mostly forgotten how to have a decent plot with characters and have something other than CGI and explosions...

I mean the last films I unreservedly loved were Tampopo, Sonatine, The Artist and Hugo - the latter is sort of Hollywood but very not in where it was filmed and most of the cast aren't American, so not really typical US fodder.

There have been some ace US documentaries though...like Bombay Beach. But they exist outside of the studio system which I think is the real problem.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Tampopo is one of the holy trinity of movies that define my life. (The others being "Paint Your Wagon" and "Humboldt County"). I will have to check out the other three you mention, I don't watch much in the way of films but I'm trying to make more time for it this winter.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Even American indie films I find too predictable and blinkered. I don't watch many movies these days, but the ones I do are mostly foreign. China's industry is getting as blockbuster-oriented as Hollywood's, but you still have directors like Zhang Kejia doing incredible work. His 24 City is one of the most interesting films I've seen recently. I've also been folloing the Germany-Turk Fatih Akın. His output is uneven, but I think deliberately so: Given the small size of the German market, he has to make a crap comedy like Im Juli or Kebab Connection in order to raise the funds for a serious project like Auf der anderen Seite or Gegen die Wand.

[putzmeisterbear.livejournal.com]

The Graduate was director Mike Nichols' second film (after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf which I recommend very highly) He was really making a name for himself as a director back then.

[progbear.livejournal.com]

WAOVW is a must-watch, in my opinion. Black comedy and searing drama in equal doses, a fascinating film.

His pre-directorial comedy records are also worth your time. His comedy partner at the time, Elaine May, also became a film director—albeit one with a, shall we say, checkered career (her Ishtar was one of the most reviled films of the 80s).

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

I'll check out Who's Afraid... kind of avoided it because of Taylor/Burton.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing about the line "Plastics" from that movie many times. I don't know why it was such a big deal that people had to talk about it.

Yeah, at some point in the '80s, along with Reaganomics and a whole bunch of other things that happened then, script writers were told that there's only one way to tell a story and you must follow "these rules". Ever since then...

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

It was the cigarettes ... not the ones the actors were smoking, but the ones the writers and director were smoking ... which gave them time to think about what they were doing

(Sadly) It's alla 'bout the Benjamins

[denbear.livejournal.com]

Most of today's flicks are junk with horrid directors (like J.J. "Super 8" Abrams, Roland "Independence Day", Godzilla" (1998), "The Day After Tomorrow", "2012" Emmerich and Michal "Transformers" Bay, insipid writers (Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci - two dicks who, on the TV series "After Film School", denounced Hollywooden as unoriginal and just out to remake older films, yet wrote schlock remake bullshit like Michael Bay's "Transformers" and Abrams' supercrap version of "Star Trek").

Most of these types of films are all special effects and 3-D... no cohesive plot, no originality and quite often bullshit acting from the likes of John (in denial) Travolta, Tom Cruiserboi and non-actress waste-of-space Kristen "Twilight" Stewart.

Studios just want money, most could give a shit about actual art. So sad that they could actually have both at the same time if they really wanted to...

[bbearseviltwin.livejournal.com]

Are the movies today really any worse than the ones from 50 years ago or have we just filtered out the bad ones over time? I do remember a lot of movies from the 50's, 60's and 70's that sucked nickels big time, but we don't remember those. Only the ones that stood out of the crowd.