At the movies - From the couch

They also had some great movies that flopped. It was a weird era.

:rofl::joy::rofl: you crack me up.

Bring back Charlie Chan!

I didn’t watch it for the accent, moreso the 2 blonde chick running around the pool in bikinis :wink::+1:

Theres heaps of good movies now, maybe more than ever, it’s the cinema is now eaten up by Marvel/franchise/sequels and most of the auteurs either have a very limited release or go straight through streaming services. The 70s when you had all those great American directors dominating the box office was an outlier and will never happen again. Studios just won’t give out the massive budgets to true directors of vision without interference like they once did.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to even compare todays movies with those of the fifties, let alone say they’re not as good.

INT: Kitchen Table, dinner.

SFX: like the static at the start of a record for some reason.

‘Gee, pop! The circus came into town today. I’d sure like to go down and take a look.’
‘Sounds like someone should be thinking more about their chores.’
‘Charles, he’s just a boy.’
‘The hell, you say! Well this is a fine how do you do for a working man to put up with when he comes home.’
downs a shot and storms off
‘Sorry, mom.’
‘That’s alright, Jimmy.’

End scene.

Similar to music you just don’t remember the really bad stuff that was in the past. Yes 90’s had some classic movies but are you remembering all the mindless rom coms, terrible teen comedies and utter trash that where all the sexy thrillers that dominated both the movie theatres and rentals.

Also for every Arnie or Micheal Bay classic action movie there was a Steven Segal piece of absolute trash made. Man the whole direct to video action movies of the 90’s contained so many terrible films

3 Likes

Those sexy thrillers were awesome. I wish they’d bring them back. Hollywood has become so adverse to sex and nudity. Combined with copious violence, what more could you want?!

2 Likes

I will say that the loss of video rentals has really hurt the ability of movies getting reavaluated and becoming cult classics. A lot of 80’s and 90’s movies that we consider classics now didn’t do well at the cinema but in the video store and word of mouth they got watched a lot in years later.

It doesn’t happen now because of streaming and algorithms. Basically once a movie is out of the cinema and on Netflix it gets about two weeks to get noticed then it’s gone and very unlikely to ever get noticed again. There are heaps of movies in the last decade that if you missed are worth watching but simple aren’t visible to you. In the past you might have seen all the new releases at the video store so moved onto the 2 for 1 section and found movies that where a bit older.

1 Like

I think the issue today is studios arent really taking chances on smaller scale. And a lot of the bigger name actors aren’t prepared to forgoe a lot of their salary to make smaller films.

I think. Lot of studios are so worried about offending certain groups they massively water down their movies

I honestly can’t see movies like the below being greenlit anymore

Few good men
Jerry Maguire
Cop land
Memento
The hangover
Something about Mary
Mrs doubtfire

Even young/ not well known directors now do one or 2 good independent films with some buzz and get quickly snapped up by marvel

1 Like

2 Tom Cruise films and a Robin Williams comedy. That’s about as bankable non risk taking film making as you can get. I’ll give you the rest of the list.

2 Likes

Those films would still get made, but they’d just get bankrolled by a streamer. Studios just wouldn’t put the money into marketing it for a wide release.

we don’t really live in a monoculture any more

bulkloads of new movies based on original screenplays get made. you just don’t hear about them anymore because they don’t play the trailers on the telly

which you’re not even watching

3 Likes

And nobody wants to watch them, because they’re ■■■■.

Agreed.

Studios don’t make $30-40 million budget films anymore. They swing for the fences with blockbusters, or they make super low budget. That really distorts the films available to watch. There’s less interesting stories that are well made. The big budget films have to appeal to everyone, which makes them bland.

If you look at the gap in the movie market, it’s that middle tier film that made studios a consistent but not extravagant chunk of coin.

Shawshank Redemption cost $47 million in todays dollars. Not a chance that budget gets approved in this day and age.

2 Likes

It’s a damn shame. They are usually the best films.

1 Like

You still get things like Baby Driver and JoJo Rabbit, but they are exceedingly rare.

2 Likes

A Promising Young Woman, Don’t Worry Darling, anything by A24…
Peele’s films.
Smaller films are still being made.

2 Likes

Are you saying those are good films??