Could masterpieces like Mad Men or Breaking Bad have been made in any other decade than the past ten years? I dare say not.
Similarly, how many Hollywood movies did you really enjoy during this time? For the sake of discussion, let´s make an exception for animated movies like those from Pixar. 3D movies are, I think you´ll agree, in something of a golden age right now - this seems to be were the talent and imagination is drawn.
But live action movies, and the same old tired stars? The tired tropes, the washed-out premises, the phoned-in performances? I get more, so much more, out of an hour with Don Draper and the boys at SCDP than from a week at the movies.
No, they both are in a pit right now. There are some diamonds in the crap in both mediums. Tv is still wallowing in reality drek, and film is undergoing some sort of internal struggles that is resulting in the warmed over pap we are getting. Growing pains? Generation transitions? I don’t know, I just hope it ends soon.
With the vast amount of time needed to be filled on TV, it is not surprising that there may be two or three hours a week that are on the positive end of the bell curve, but most of the programmming is Jersey Shore level crap.
I dunno, TVs always going to be more then 90% crap. I think you need to judge it by how much good stuff there is rather then how much the bad stuff sucks. And over the last few years there do seem to be a lot more interesting dramas then there was in the 90’s or 80’s or the first part of the '00s.
As for film, I’m not sure I remember a holiday season thats been so devoid of movies that sound interesting. Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention, but still? There have been seasons where most of the big anticipated movies ended up sucking, but I can’t remember one where the studios just didn’t try.
I was talking about this not long ago. TV series have gone up dramatically in quality lately. The office, curb your enthusiasm, Rome, Arrested development, the sopranos, etc. etc. are all much better than what existed on tv over 15 years ago.
At the same time movies have become more about remakes of movies that used to be hits, or remakes of foreign films. That or many seem to try to use advanced special effects to make up for bad plots or dialogue.
Movies are languishing, partly due to a dearth of faith in their creators skills so falling back on remakes and sequels more than in the past, and partly due to people now waiting for DVD more commonly, so it has to be a super spectacular guaranteed hit before you’ll get decent audience numbers, otherwise they just won’t bother to go out.
TV can afford to be more cinematic, and is taking advantage of that. Not just in physical scope, i.e. 16:9 aspect ratio, but also in affording visual effects and, due to the aforementioned, getting a decent ex-movie cast.
This summer saw the release of Machete, which has a whole year’s worth of awesome all by itself, so it is lot like *every *movie is crap. There are certainly a lot of crap movies, but you are kidding yourself if you think there weren’t a lot of crap movies every year.
The late Fifties-early Sixties had many more fine dramas than today, and the comedies were high quality as well. There was a renaissance of good network dramas in the early Eighties when networks tried to stem the tide of cable. It seems as though TV works in ten year cycles.
I agree with the OP and had thought the same thing. Movies are crap, but there is seriously good drama and comedy popping up regularly on TV. I think this is particularly true for roles for women, there are hardly any good roles for women in movies (esp. if the woman is over 40), but TV has been putting out some meaty roles for women for the past 10 years or so.
The movies I enjoy most were from the late 30s to the late 40s, and it’s been steadily downhill ever since, with a few exceptions now and then. Look at some of the movies that have won Academy Awards. Some of them are embarrassing.
I don’t know, I’ll definitely agree with the TV part. I can easily think of 10 or so series that have come out in the past decade that I think are better than anything that came out in all the decades of TV before. Of course, most of them are on cable, so they take advantage of a production model that didn’t exist for most of the history of television but still, great stuff.
For movies, I think it’s the same as it ever was. There’s always been a ton of crap for every gem that comes along. It’s just that we remember the gems and forget the crap, so when you look back it seems like things were better. There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, this is just stuff I’m thinking of off the top of my head. There have been some awesome movies on the silver screen in the last 10 years. I don’t think they’ve leapt ahead of their predecessors in the way television has, but the good stuff is still pretty good.
TV: Yes there are far superior series both in writing (limited cable series tend to have less pressure and less episodes and therefore better quality) and visuals (CGI gets cheaper and easier every year). OTOH there’s still bad stuff, maybe even worse stuff than before (reality TV and celebriwhores), and that’s also a US-centric model. I think in general, whether or not TV on average has gotten better, the potential to be better has definitely increased.
Movies - well obviously better visuals for cheaper has been the trend. Sometimes takes a well written story over the top, sometimes just gives a bare bones script some pretty pictures. OTOH, major motion pictures are almost never masterpieces of writing. It tends to be that the moneymakers are either dumb blockbusters with splosions, or else lower budget films that become trendy or popular for some reason or some novelty. But as always, “indy” and “foreign” films tend to be where the deep introspection, revelation, or innovation comes from…
The overall trend in all mediums is - anything you could automate is easier, especially visuals, but for most other factors, there are simply more overall total number of films, so that the number of excellent films might be larger, but the percentage is not changed.
Agreed completely on the television side, though I’d say the mid-2000s were the most recent pinnacle. (The previous pinnacle probably being late 80s / early 90s.)
I totally disagree about movies, though. Current movies are awesome. I’m not talking about summer blockbusters or 3D pablum any more than I’m talking about American Idol on the television side. (And even the occasional blockbuster looks like it could be a great original, like Inception. Still haven’t seen it, but I look forward to it.)
I hesitate to name specific films because taste is so subjective. I will say I’m liking Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky and David Fincher a whole lot.
I suppose someone more motivated than me could do the same query for each decade and compare them. I doubt you’ll find a decade to top the 70s, but that’s only to be expected. Of course there was a sudden surge in quality immediately after the oppressive Hays Code was lifted.
I couldn’t disagree with this more. 3D technology is certainly in a golden age, but the actual content is for shit. For example, it’s generally accepted that Avatar is a shit movie on television because its only redeeming quality is the 3D effects. This is almost the very definition of a shitty movie.
Sure, there have been a few great movies the past ten years, but few and far between. The best thing this decade has to be The Lord of the Rings, the Star Wars of fantasy movies. Some minor comedy gems like Napoleon Dynamite or Oh Brother. I enjoyed Dark Knight, but if it had been made in the eighties it would have been just another movie and not the big deal it was.
But just think of all the great 70s directors - Scorcese, Lucas, Spielberg, FFC, De Palma, Altman. I mean, those are the Mozarts and Beethovens of movies, right? Some of the greatest Westerns as well, and Star Wars.
Or the eighties movies, which perfected mindless fun and action. Highlander. Ghostbusters. The Terminator. Die Hard. Aliens. Blade Runner. ET. Indiana Jones. Ferris. Two Star Wars movies. Brazil. Amadeus. The Princess Bride. Japan had a great era too: Ran, Kagemusha. All without (well, almost without) CGI.
The 90s were a great era that comined serious themes with entertainment. Some of the best horror as well. The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Saving Private Ryan, Matrix, GoodFellas, The Silece of Lambs, LA Confidential, The Usual Suspects, The 6th Sense, Se7en, Lock Stock, 12 Monkeys. Also, probably the best decade ever for animated TV shows, with the Simpsons in their prime, South Park, The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter´s Lab and a lot more simply wonderful, highly innovative stuff.
I wonder where the next decade is heading? I guess we will have the first really good, near-realistic CGI movies within a few years. With TV, I wonder: the masterpiece series like The Sopranos and Galactica are really popular, but then again there´s Jersey Shore and all those Idol shows which didn´t really require a lot of talent to put together. Will great TV continue to thrive? Are we seeing the last days of big budget live action movies, before they all go CGI? If movies go CGI and actors no longer need to be beautiful, what will happen to the star system?
I think there are still some gems on TV - the Discovery Channel has some things worth watching, and the old favorites are still around (House, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, the Food Network favorites, and the Closer, Burn Notice…). I mostly watch the dreaded black and white movies on TCM and have never seen Jersey Shore, yakking housewives of whatever. But I haven’t seen a movie in the theater, I go maybe once a year, and the upcoming Christmas movies look absolutely dreadful. I can’t think of one I’d want to go see (maybe see one or two on DVD). It’s really sad. What’s going on??
The 2000s were a decade of cynicism, depression, paranoia, despair, and finally escapist fantasy writ large.
Snatch, In Bruges, Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Brick, Thank You For Smoking, The Royal Tenenbaums, Lars and the Real Girl, Bad Santa
A History of Violence, The Bourne Identity, American Psycho, Pan’s Labrynth, Inception (?), Memento, Requiem for a Dream, Donnie Darko, Children of Men, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, (500) Days of Summer, Garden State, Ghost World, Wristcutters: A Love Story
The Prestige, Moon, Sunshine, Pitch Black, District 9, Cloverfield, The Ring, 28 Days Later, The Descent, Saw, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead
Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Spiderman, X-Men, Batman Begins, Iron Man, Sin City, 300, Watchmen
Even the comedies (for the most part) had a darker edge than previous decades:
Wedding Crashers, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Anchorman, Old School, The Hangover, Little Miss Sunshine, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Mean Girls
I don’t know… I would say I’m disappointed with both these days. Though I am a finicky viewer. For example, I love Charlie Kaufman movies, but none of them made any money. I miss the “artsy-fartsy”, (usually indie), experimental films that seem to have dying out.
Likewise, I miss shows like Arrested Development. There are a lot of people who have TV shows they liked canceled. To be fair I’ve not seen Mad Men and only saw a few episodes of Breaking Bad.