What's so great about current Hollywood movies?

Cafe Society
1

I’m being serious. I was talking to a young co-worker recently and we started talking about movies and I didn’t know a thing about 90% of what he was talking about since I haven’t watched a Hollywood movie in years. To be clear, I define watching as sitting down and intently paying attention, not just having the movie on and glancing at the screen every few minutes at most.

My co-worker said he was going to see Bad Boys 3 that weekend, but come Monday, when I asked him how it was, he just muttered that it was okay and nothing more. I didn’t watch a movie last weekend, but I could talk enthusiastically about the Asian variety shows I did watch if asked. And one of the shows I watch rarely has a clunker episode.

Which got me to wondering, am I really missing anything? Yes, I know individual tastes vary and there’s good and bad movies from any country, but on the rare occasion I see a movie trailer on TV (I watch mostly specialty channels like Food Network, Discovery and History), there’s nothing compelling to me.

The last Hollywood movie I know I watched is Despicable Me (2010) in the theater while my car was being serviced. And the only Hollywood movie I have in my viewing queue is Christopher Robin, which I got months ago.

I have zero interest in super hero movies which seems to be all the rage now. Same with the majority of sci-fi movies which play too loosely with the realities of science. While a drama or comedic movie may have some appeal, I know (at least from past experience) that 95% of the time, there will be a known beforehand happy ending which to me is boring. Horror movie trailers sometimes look interesting, but at least from what I see, there’s nothing truly new. I do like some animated Disney movies (I do watch Disney and Nick TV shows), but have no interest in live action remakes.

While an argument could be made that proof of the popularity and quality of Hollywood movies is their popularity overseas, especially in China, I would argue that since many times the movies are dubbed, IMO, ~30-40% of the movies artistry is lost by the replacement voice actors, no matter how good they are. And if the movie is subbed, there’s the issue of losing part the visual aspect while reading the subs and the lack of accuracy in the translation. I’d give the retained artistry of subbed movies 80-90%.

Ahhh…you say. So if you fully understand English, you’re able to get 100% of the benefit of the artistry of the movie. But the question comes back to: What artistry? Do Americans watch Hollywood movies because they’re good or because they’re there? Is 100% of fair to good better than 80-90% of very good to excellent?

To be clear, there are good number of Hollywood movies I enjoy, but those are largely pre-early 2000’s when I largely stopped watching those types of movies.

So back to the subject line…What’s so great about current Hollywood movies?

2

Wow. You rarely see a post that cries out for the response of “OK, boomer” as much as that one. Anyway, people like what they like. Get over it.

3

No, this is a lazy, boring response that completely ignores the importance of art and creativity to humanity.

If you like something, there is a reason you like it, not just people like what they like. If you dislike something, there’s a reason you dislike it.

That attempt to bridge that gap with conversation, analysis, introspection, argument, etc., is what makes art interesting.

And it completely ignores the fact that people can learn from other people. You can learn that are reasons to like or dislike something that you hadn’t considered. The ability to learn is our chief virtue as humans.

So disagree. But not this dismissal of the question. That “get over it” response is vile and dehumanizing.

4

I don’t really get the question. Did you enjoy Hollywood movies before? Because they’re still making them now. Yes, there’s superhero movies but it’s not as though they stopped making dramas or romances or war movies or other genres. Add in the movies being made direct for streaming services and there’s tons of options. Just because your coworker made a bad pick last weekend doesn’t really mean much. They made lame movies in every other year as well.

Did you just never like movies or are you suggesting that now movies are different?

Edit: I see you say you watched movies pre-2000s but, again, the 90s had a ton of shitty movies. And some really, really good ones. So what are you suggesting changed that now nothing can compete with the Food Network?

5

Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Marriage Story, Parasite, and 1917 are the nine nominees for Best Picture this year. If you want to see a bunch of fairly good movies made recently, just watch these. Except for Joker (and only that in a very vague way), none of them is a superhero film. Are they great films? Well, I don’t consider any of them to be one of my 100 favorite movies (and the list of my 100 favorites includes films from 1931 to 2015). So what? Great movies are distributed fairly randomly over time, and the fact that none of my favorites (and let me emphasize that there are my favorites, not everyone’s) doesn’t include any made since 2015 doesn’t prove much of anything.

The fact that you ask specifically about superhero movies suggests to me that you’re really asking about blockbuster movies. If you only go to blockbuster movies, what you will see isn’t the best movies of the year. What you will see are those that studios spent a lot of money promoting. There are always very good movies each year (but rarely great movies). If you rarely see movies in theaters, you’re probably not watching very many movies each year. If you rely on recommendations from friends who think Bad Boys 3 is one of the best movies made recently, you probably won’t see many good movies. There are a number of movie rating services online - Internet Movie Database, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and Fandango, for instance. Do you regularly read a newspaper that has movie reviews? Relying on what movies advertise on TV or whatever isn’t a good way to pick the best films.

6

“Hollywood movies aren’t as good as the shows I watch and why are people watching them anyway?” hardly qualifies as an analysis of artistic merits. Hell, it barely qualifies as conversation.

7

1917 is good and the filming is great , done by Roger Deakins who is probably the top guy working now. He’s won an Oscar and was nominated 12 times including for 1917

8

So do better than that. The answer you gave was worse.

9

Depends which ones you’re talking about. “Hollywood movies” isn’t one kind of movie. It runs the gamut from sci-fi action spectaculars to intense thrillers to period dramas. Which ones are you asking this question about?

Wendell Wagner has named all the Best Picture nominees, most of which are Hollywood productions (“Parasite” is not.) “Ford Vs. Ferrari” is a tremendous film that features wonderful acting, outstanding character study, and a fascinating look at a period of the history of the automobile; I have zero interest in auto racing or cars in general but I loved the film. (I took my 72-year-old Mom to see it, actually, and she loved it too.) “The Irishman,” though I generally did not like it, is certainly a showcase of outstanding acting. “Little Women” is a magnificent character-driven film and perhaps the best adaptation of a beloved literary classic. “1917” is a brilliant work of cinema from the perspective of technical filmmaking. “Marriage Story” is a simple film; not a special effect to be seen, but just a timeless story extremely well told.

I mean, that’s just from one year. In the last five years, Hollywood and its satellites in the USA have produced any number of films of utter brilliance; Moonlight, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Gravity, Get Out, Dunkirk, Call Me By Your Name, Inside Out, The Revenant, Lady Bird, all different and all offer something wonderful.

If movies aren’t your thing, that’s okay, of course.

10

There are still plenty of good films written for adults, but they are not as popular as sequels and superhero films.

The sequel/superhero film boom is easily explained: movies are expensive to make. So to protect their investment, studios need to stick with something that has a solid audience. Thus superhero films and remakes/sequels, since they are easier to promote. You just have to mention their name. Superhero films also have spectacle that looks better on a movie screen than on the biggest of TV screens.

So most of studios efforts go into that sort of film because it’s more of a sure thing (even if it costs more).

At the same time, even a remake can be an excellent movie (e.g., Little Women). It depends on what’s being remade.

11

And you’ve done nothing but whine about that. How is that an improvement?

12

I believe I’m making a valid criticism of an invalid attitude I’ve seen expressed on these boards. It’s an attempt to make things better here. If I can plant a seed of doubt the next time someone is tempted to express this anti-knowledge, pro-ignorance attitude, I consider it an improvement.

13

Watch movies from the 1930-70s, blockbusters and not so blockbuster, from all over the world… 99% of movies made in my lifetime suck. Awful writing, acting stinks, trivial and stupid.

14

Well, as it happens I’m really tired of the attitude of “How can people like something I don’t care about???” that I see ten times a week on here.

15

Still not a good reason for your condescension.

16

It’s an admission of ignorance and an invitation to offer new perspectives. It’s an opportunity to open a conversation.

It’s also a very natural starting point. If I dislike something that other people like, I can’t help but wonder what they like about it.

If then that person ignored every attempt at an explanation, that would show an unwillingness to actually learn or a lack of interest in an earnest response. But as an OP, it’s a fine starting point.

17

It’s hard to take seriously the OP’s claim of not liking current movies when he states this:

A better topic probably would have been “am I missing something by not watching modern Hollywood movies?”

18

How about a link to these amazing variety shows so we can decide for ourselves?

19

Regardless of how wrong you think the OP might be, the response “People like different things. Get over it.” is worse.

20

No, if you pay attention to his posting history, it says more “okay bigot.” I knew before opening the post that he would be making the point that the only good media is Asian media, because he is always posting about that. (He was more subtle about it in this OP than I expected.)
I watch a lot of Japanese/Chinese/SK media, too, and as a whole it is not deeper, more sophisticated, more subtle, or more scientificly accurate than Hollywood movies/TV shows. The endings are as predictably happy. The science is as predictably bad. The stories tend towards sappy, heavy-handed melodrama. Asian media falls as heavily under Sturgeon’s law as that from America or any other country. The claim otherwise is a form of "I don’t even own a TV"ism.