We spend a lot of time here at the Continental Congress analyzing why modern movies don’t land with audiences the way the great movies of the 70’s 80’s and 90’s did… you might even say that is the reason why I started writing these essays in the first place.
Your Excellency, once again very good. I was just a simple movie goer until you showed me these little thung that make a movie good. Just like my bricklaying. So, is it true that the movie "Reagan" did not qualify for academy nominations because of a lack of minorities in it?
A very illuminating discussion discussing subtle things that I may not have noticed but that make a difference. Also your discussion of villains needing a real motivation rather than "The same thing we're going to do every night, Pinky, try to take over the world!" is so, so true.
Thanks to costs coming down, there are a number of independent, usually star-driven, films that are great but fly under the radar. I reviewed several of them here http://frank-hood.com/2022/12/07/short-reviews-of-obscure-movies/. When I say star-driven, I don't mean ones that glorify the actor who doubtlessly helped put the deal together, rather actors who still remember how to tell a story and want to act in one. Speaking of deals, another great film is The Deal https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/convention-ate-hollywood-frank-hood/, where William H. Macy has a lot of fun making us laugh at the way corporate Hollywood makes moves these days.
I suspect you're right. But I tend to blame the alliance of the bean counters and the Woke.
Movies were riding a magnificient wave going into the 18990s or so, and soon billion-dollar movies were not uncommon.
But that just made everyone in Hollywood (okay, not everyone, but way too many) want to make billion-dollar movies. And too many began to believe that merely spending enough would lead to massive audiences and massive profits.
That got the bean counters seriously involved. Spend $300M on a movie, rake in $1.25B starts to look like the path.
Heck, with a good enough story, maybe it was.
But it also attracted the "Woke" crowd. I mean, seriously, can you imagine what Woke would have done to LOTR or the Harry Potter series?
And the Woke have never, ever cared about telling good stories. Hell, their ideology isn't even a very good story, which is why they have to force most people to swallow it.
So. Bean counters worried about expenses (why film on site when they have perfectly nice sets and CGI? why have those little moments and lagniappes that make the story more intmate and believable? They both cost so much!!), and the Woke worried about forcing ideology on people who just want a good story that they can relate to.
Not exactly sure when DP’s lost “the scope” of their calling; think it more of a gradual slide than night/day moment. Could be the fallout of directors seeking to become more “edgy” that has led to all the - now pretty stale - handheld-style. There’s always been “ill suited” DP’s; one of my all-time faves suffers from this: Robert Aldrich’s 1973 actioner “Emperor of the North” with Lee Marvin & Ernest Borgnine playing King of the Hill on a train in 1933’s Pacific Northwest. The film has a pronounced “produced-for-tv” look about it. A better DP would have recognized the immense scope of the story & gone for it. It’s not all bad but a good representation of lost opportunities. In more current times, Janusz Kaminski (RIP) always did a fine job & who better understood scope than some of the DP’s on Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” Trilogy but again we’re going back over 50yrs. Perhaps film schools are a/the problem; they seem to gravitate heavily toward whatever is “flavor of the month”.
Seems the more advanced humanity gets with technology the further we fall behind on the basics.
And you grew up in DC? I grew up in Annapolis! ;<)
Yep. I just rewatched the Lincoln memorial scene from in the line of fire… there’s a shot of Eastwood and Renee Russo that is similar to the shot of Evans and Mackey talking, except that the Washington Monument is fully in focus in the background… as it should be. Also, the dialogue in the scene puts Captain America to shame
Maybe… I think it’s more likely that the marvel movies just don’t have any tolerance for anything other than simple dialogue which does nothing but drive the plot
Well, comic books are a very restricted form of story-telling. But just because you take the plots and the characters as you ind them shouldn't mean you can't take advantage of the different medium and improve the dialogue.
I’m not a huge classic comic book guy, I mostly read non-superhero stuff, but my sense is the filmmakers brought a lot of new stuff to the Superman story in Donner’s 1978 version. Superman embarrassing Lois with his flirting on the rooftop for one thing…
Your Excellency, once again very good. I was just a simple movie goer until you showed me these little thung that make a movie good. Just like my bricklaying. So, is it true that the movie "Reagan" did not qualify for academy nominations because of a lack of minorities in it?
Oh I don’t know. It’s possible, but I doubt it would have gotten nominated anyway
A very illuminating discussion discussing subtle things that I may not have noticed but that make a difference. Also your discussion of villains needing a real motivation rather than "The same thing we're going to do every night, Pinky, try to take over the world!" is so, so true.
Thanks to costs coming down, there are a number of independent, usually star-driven, films that are great but fly under the radar. I reviewed several of them here http://frank-hood.com/2022/12/07/short-reviews-of-obscure-movies/. When I say star-driven, I don't mean ones that glorify the actor who doubtlessly helped put the deal together, rather actors who still remember how to tell a story and want to act in one. Speaking of deals, another great film is The Deal https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/convention-ate-hollywood-frank-hood/, where William H. Macy has a lot of fun making us laugh at the way corporate Hollywood makes moves these days.
As to Hollywood and comic books, I wrote about that in The Convention That Ate Hollywood https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/convention-ate-hollywood-frank-hood/.
Awesome, thanks for all these… will take a look!
I suspect you're right. But I tend to blame the alliance of the bean counters and the Woke.
Movies were riding a magnificient wave going into the 18990s or so, and soon billion-dollar movies were not uncommon.
But that just made everyone in Hollywood (okay, not everyone, but way too many) want to make billion-dollar movies. And too many began to believe that merely spending enough would lead to massive audiences and massive profits.
That got the bean counters seriously involved. Spend $300M on a movie, rake in $1.25B starts to look like the path.
Heck, with a good enough story, maybe it was.
But it also attracted the "Woke" crowd. I mean, seriously, can you imagine what Woke would have done to LOTR or the Harry Potter series?
And the Woke have never, ever cared about telling good stories. Hell, their ideology isn't even a very good story, which is why they have to force most people to swallow it.
So. Bean counters worried about expenses (why film on site when they have perfectly nice sets and CGI? why have those little moments and lagniappes that make the story more intmate and believable? They both cost so much!!), and the Woke worried about forcing ideology on people who just want a good story that they can relate to.
A marriage made in hell.
Not exactly sure when DP’s lost “the scope” of their calling; think it more of a gradual slide than night/day moment. Could be the fallout of directors seeking to become more “edgy” that has led to all the - now pretty stale - handheld-style. There’s always been “ill suited” DP’s; one of my all-time faves suffers from this: Robert Aldrich’s 1973 actioner “Emperor of the North” with Lee Marvin & Ernest Borgnine playing King of the Hill on a train in 1933’s Pacific Northwest. The film has a pronounced “produced-for-tv” look about it. A better DP would have recognized the immense scope of the story & gone for it. It’s not all bad but a good representation of lost opportunities. In more current times, Janusz Kaminski (RIP) always did a fine job & who better understood scope than some of the DP’s on Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” Trilogy but again we’re going back over 50yrs. Perhaps film schools are a/the problem; they seem to gravitate heavily toward whatever is “flavor of the month”.
Seems the more advanced humanity gets with technology the further we fall behind on the basics.
And you grew up in DC? I grew up in Annapolis! ;<)
Yep. I just rewatched the Lincoln memorial scene from in the line of fire… there’s a shot of Eastwood and Renee Russo that is similar to the shot of Evans and Mackey talking, except that the Washington Monument is fully in focus in the background… as it should be. Also, the dialogue in the scene puts Captain America to shame
“…the dialogue in the scene puts Captain America to shame.”
What happens with DEI hires.
Maybe… I think it’s more likely that the marvel movies just don’t have any tolerance for anything other than simple dialogue which does nothing but drive the plot
Well, comic books are a very restricted form of story-telling. But just because you take the plots and the characters as you ind them shouldn't mean you can't take advantage of the different medium and improve the dialogue.
I’m not a huge classic comic book guy, I mostly read non-superhero stuff, but my sense is the filmmakers brought a lot of new stuff to the Superman story in Donner’s 1978 version. Superman embarrassing Lois with his flirting on the rooftop for one thing…
The superhero schtick is totally lost on me.
I mean, the first Superman movie (1978) is a work of art