"Film Critics" or "Why Can't Old People Enjoy Movies?"

[Ecks]

okay so I just spent about an hour browsing rotten tomatoes looking up some of my favorite films, some classics, and most of this summers blockbusters. for the most part, most critics were very fair with their reviews, and even the ones that panned my favorites had a valid point or two.

but I have noticed at least one or two critics that literally have nothing good to say about anything, even movies with glowing scores and reviews by other critics. my question, and thus the point of this thread, is this: what exactly prompts some of these people to be so bitter and jaded? and as additional incentive to post in here, should any of us give a shit about these reviews? what are some reviews of films you all liked that made you scratch your heads and go "whuh?"

[Professor Smarmiarty]

the only valid critic is Armond White.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Then what the heck am I reading your review thread for?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Then what the heck am I reading your review thread for?

Closeted sado-masochistic tendencies?

[Azisien]

I seem to almost always disagree with Rex Reed. I don't know what that guy's problem is.

Roger Ebert seems to have a good head on his shoulders, but then he'll random give great ratings to movies like Knowing, starring Nicholas Cage with a Bad Haircut and Worse Plot.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Closeted sado-masochistic tendencies?

It's one or the other for sure.

[Bells]

Some just want the added attention to "fish" viewers into their blogs or personal websites/pages in order to draw attention and numbers up to something completely unrelated as a way to generate revenue or drive up the value of their name/website/column

Others (more in the non-professional spectrum) is just the old story of Internet + Anonymity = Dickbag

[Magus]

the only valid critic is Armond White.

He's definitely the most entertaining.


Culture’s Clash
by Armond White on Jul 25, 2012 • 9:52 pm

Batman’s Aurora Atrocitus

CITYARTS EXCLUSIVE ON A CULTURAL TURNING POINT

The Christopher Nolan Batman movies are not exactly life affirming, so why do pundits refuse to connect those films to last week’s Aurora, Colorado, massacre at the midnight showing of Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises? Instead, the problem of the films themselves has been swept away by a torrent of political distraction over gun control. After this clash of cinema and reality, have we forgotten that culture either dooms or defines us?

Over-smart responses to the shooting resemble the mindless state of most contemporary cultural commentary. It takes escapism–whether in movies or journalism–to a maniacal extreme by uniformly ignoring the causal relationship between the Christopher Nolan franchise and the murderous actions of James Egan Holmes (12 deaths and 70 injured persons) whose disguise resembled the role that Heath Ledger played in 2008’s The Dark Knight; even referring to himself as Ledger’s character, The Joker.

Holmes’ joke made the connection plain. Yet, standard-setting media consistently ignores the effect of movie content and idly promotes film as product. (See Charles Hurt’s marvelously blunt denunciation in The Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/24/hurt-letter-christopher-nolan-sean-penn-warner-bro/?page=2)

In the case of The Dark Knight Rises, confusion began with Roger Ebert’s misleading reaction in a New York Times Op-Ed on July 20. Evincing sociological and cultural denial, Ebert turned “I’m not sure there is an easy link between movies and gun violence” into a meme for his followers. Once again, tolerance for movies without substance or morality bled into social discourse. Another publication defended Nolan’s franchise, claiming Holmes “was not driven by those movies to slaughter…His actions needed no model in a fictional monster.” But facts, such as Holmes’ guise and diabolical plotting, prove the exact opposite.

Even before the film’s opening, a mainstream outlet’s essay broke the “embargo” studios usually impose on critics so as to prepare the movie’s social and political Pop status. That critic made facile, specious analogies between the tent pole event and the upcoming November Presidential election, a favorite tangent for Left pundits but a disastrous one for critics to risk unless a film has actually made an impact on the world. It’s difficult to assess this impact when Obama went to see The Dark Knight on vacation during 2008’s primaries; the publicized event sanctioned the film as a culture choice. This authorized Batman as a cultural totem and, eventually, one reviewer’s glibly mixed adjectives of improbable, genre-defying interpretations: “He is savior and destroyer, human and beast, the ultimate radical individualist and people’s protector. Yet as the series evolved, this binary opposition has grown progressively messier, less discrete…[it] further muddies the good and-evil-divide.”

The only thing that critic got right (she’s probably embarrassed now) was her blurb that “[Nolan’s] timing couldn’t be better.” Holmes might have been reading–along with customers of that fateful midnight premiere.

***

For years now, we’ve all read movie reviews that justify a culture of death and destruction. Can we ever recover from movies’ spiritual decline over the past few decades? Standard praise for “dark,” “wicked,” “twisted,” “subversive,’ “transgressive” dramas or comedies has lowered film culture. Can we continue to pretend this has no effect? That it doesn’t influence the already deranged? That legislated gun control answers a spiritual and aesthetic crisis?

The crisis begins with filmmakers who are not conscientious. A new hierarchy of Archnihilists holds sway: Nolan, Soderbergh, Cronenberg, Haneke, Tarantino, Fincher, Aronofsky, Winterbottom plus a newsmedia that indulges the fashion for anti-humanist entertainment.

A bizarre twist of cultural values could be felt in reports that endlessly repeated a catch-phrase describing The Dark Knight Rises as “the year’s most anticipated film.” By whom? Mainstream media fails to identify or particularize the audience that is susceptible to Batman hype; it perpetuates the idea that the series’ appeal is universal. Intrinsic to that fraudulent notion is an attitude that absolves Hollywood of any artistic or moral responsibility. Film critics who dared hold forth on the Aurora catastrophe all demonstrated a simplistic boosterism: “No matter what, don’t blame Hollywood.”

To draw a connection between Holmes’ killings and Nolan’s negativity requires rigorous critical thought which media pundits, quack psychologists and politicians are reluctant to do. Attributing this catastrophe to lax laws overlooks the effect that popular culture has on individuals and how it might eventually lead to a broader, dangerous social effect.

Ebert’s unhelpful commentary continues his box-office-friendly, Pulitzer-prised film reviewing. This links to the absurd Dark Knight Rises hype just before Holmes’ rampage–the media’s embarrassing trifle over the Rotten Tomatoes website’s commentary pages where routine insults and death threats were exploited to further promote the film’s release. RT’s prominence derives directly from the careless approach to film that Ebert instituted on television, nullifying critical response to grades, ratings, sound-bites–thumbling.

This popularized, non-evaluating approach is the basis of the Internet free-for-all that has been declared as “democratizing” criticism. But it essentially minimizes the insight and sensitivity and taste that ought to be brought to cinema. Here is where fanboys rule, especially their juvenile hostilities. (Death threats have been posted at Rotten Tomatoes for years, especially following negative reviews of Toy Story 3, Inception, District 9, so it’s no surprise that their viciousness is eventually reflected in James Holmes’ gruesomely realized death threats). This anarchic, indiscriminate approach to criticism parallels film culture’s laissez-faire permissiveness and pseudo-sophistication.

***

The most life-affirming movie so far this year is one many critics ignored, Andre Techine’s Unforgivable. Techine’s film contains one of the most violent scenes in any contemporary work of serious art. It rates detailing in light of The Dark Knight Rises’ widening aesthetic and political confusion.

When an emotionally disturbed youth reacts to a cruising gay man by angrily pushing him into a Venetian canal, the would-be suitor gets even by killing the youth’s pet. The latter sequence jolts audiences every time I’ve seen Unforgivable; Techine ensures that we feel the shock of violence and goes further to convey the troubled youth’s pain, the gay man’s pain and the terrible, conflicting motivations of each. The political resonance of that hideous act electrifies current attitudes toward violence and makes them problematic; it challenges our loyalties–especially toward the sanctity of identity politics. Techine’s probing look at a modern family’s unconventional histories and interconnections flirts with antisocial behavior but, despite a photogenic cast, never glamorizes transgressions. This is adult art, not pop trivia derived from comic books, which means its complexity derives from life-awareness. Nothing in Nolan’s Batman movies is as complex, nor ultimately as illuminating about the nature of human behavior and society‘s complicatedness. Nolan simply wants violence to be fun–and, personally, to be rich.

Consider the praise describing Nolan’s “postmodern, Sept. 11 epic of ambivalent good vs. multidimensional evil.” This is a recrudescence of knee-jerk rebellion to the Reagan-era; retreating to juvenile pop culture as a safe, if overblown, expression of political dissent. Hipness. And the same critic’s assessment “Batman has always been a head case,” recalls the facile countercultural psychoanalytic preferences–secularized attitudes, divorced from moral precepts–that now dominate mainstream film culture through negative emphasis on dystopian storylines and apocalyptic scenarios. Nolan’s Batman films epitomize this pessimism.

It is obtuse to excuse such nihilism as expressing a legitimate social vision, especially when Nolan uses the Batman legend to exploit 9/11 and entertain the destruction of society through hyperbolic acts of terrorism and assassination. Despite media puffery, Nolan is dealing with political ideas he doesn’t understand (as in a ridiculous evocation of the French Revolution via Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities). His repetitious, though extravagant, action scenes reveal an undeveloped sense of good and evil as proved by the confused motives of his hero and the obscured motives of his villains, the murky League of Shadows, The Joker, Two-Face Harvey Dent, Catwoman, Bane.

***

However you look at the July 20 tragedy–and I didn’t want to have another go at The Dark Knight Rises but this occurrence makes it necessary–it doesn’t take a forensic scientist to see how Holmes (“The Joker”) laid out the problem that the mainstream media desperately evades. (Remember how Jack Nicholson and Tim Burton’s 1989 film defaced the very idea of “Art” in a museum set piece?) Holmes did it on Nolan’s own decadent terms.

But praise for The Dark Knight Rises shows that we have lost a proper sense of tragedy (it’s muffled in Nolan’s deadly “ambivalent” heroism and fantastic villainy), which is to say we’ve lost the humane scale of measuring popular art. Another prominent reviewer praised Nolan’s work as “a visually stunning series of ruthless set pieces that made almost zero sense as a narrative…A jolly sadism was the dominant effect.” This is exactly the kind of prevarication that let loose the anarchy of midnight marauder screenings where unwise parents took children to see mindless, violent spectacle. “Jolly sadism” indeed!

Credit that critic for admitting “I was in a foul mood when [2008’s The Dark Knight] was over.” But he seems to have lost the confidence to trust his aesthetic instincts. Instead, he went deferential: “When I talked to some very smart young friends about it, the absence of logic and perverse cruelty was exactly what they thought was cool. For them, the dissociation from emotion freed an aesthetic response to extreme acts, to beauty. But even aesthetic ecstasy should run into a wall at some point.”

However, “aesthetic ecstasy” contradicts “a foul mood.” Where’s the beauty when narrative coherence is missing? Those “very smart young friends” could only have been other deluded film critics. Rightly noting that “The sophisticated response to movie violence that has dominated the discussion for years should now seem inadequate and evasive,” that reviewer is not talking true sophistication, just sophistry. Morally bankrupt and in willing collusion with the film industry.

To inflate pop culture with meanings it doesn’t earn jeopardizes a critic’s purpose. The challenge–and argument–are as old as movies itself. The use of violence as Pop Art makes the discussion vexing. (And I intend this to be a discussion; not an “attack” on other critics but an attempt to encourage discourse.) Nolan’s use of the Batman fantasy doesn’t represent the complex fears of modern, post-9/11 culture; sadly, he reduces those fears to mere entertainment.

But critics cannot have it both ways.

Nolan’s uncertainty about heroism and evil does not serve our urgent need for clarity. Instead, it dissolves our concerns into miasma–the dismal circumstances by which Colorado citizens sought pleasure in chaos.

Our infatuation with dystopic behavior in movies has come home to roost. It is hypocritical to pretend that after years of celebrating sociopathy (as in Oscar tributes to such ugly characterizations as Charlize Theron in Monster, Denzel Washington in Training Day, Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, Monique in Precious, Ledger in The Dark Knight) that we don’t recognize James Holmes’ madness. The widely broadcast photos of him sitting in court with his orange-dyed hair, wearing a petulant, unreachable scowl, in fact bears striking resemblance to hiphop’s favorite badboy, Eminem in one of his patented hoodlum-prophet guises.

Desensitized audiences and critics have lost the ability to argue on behalf of edifying or socially redeeming art. Nolan traffics in foul ambiguity and nihilism. Selling “darkness” to teenagers and adults will almost certainly have repercussions and it’s simply thoughtless and dishonest to deny this–whether in bad midnight movie-going choices or psychopathological behavior which, unfortunately came together in Aurora, causing pundits to scramble for the lamest excuses. Make no mistake, promoting gun control is just a lazy, blameless reflex. (Afraid of artistic censorship, pundits petition for public censorship.)

***

Before entertainment media became politically slanted, the issue of violence was discussed honestly. Back during the controversies surrounding Bonnie & Clyde, The Wild Bunch, A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection, Straw Dogs, Death Wish, Walking Tall, Taxi Driver, the aesthetics of film violence were openly debated. Since then–in the Tarantino years–violence has simply been received as another Hollywood excess we blithely accept and that critics automatically promote. Nolan’s Batman movies differ from controversial films like Taxi Driver that drew clear moral lines between its protagonist’s deranged behavior and the public good. Even Scorsese’s shades-of-gray gangster-movie follow-ups, while being sensationalistic, were clear-cut.

With aesthetic argument now crushed like a rotten tomato, Nolan’s drab, sadistic, numbing approach to dystopia and death becomes validated as a HYYYYYYPPPPPSST-TUR’s vision. If we don’t learn from this how culture defines us, then the Colorado debacle won’t even be a turning point, just another catastrophe like The Social Network premiering to hosannas the same week that Tyler Clementi was bullied to death on Facebook.

Most critics today are too “sophisticated” to care about the effect cinema has on the world beyond the box-office. Inured to movie violence, they consider themselves saner than James Holmes; they no longer expect movies to “put the sting back in death” as Pauline Kael once said about Bonnie & Clyde. Hollywood, where is thy sting? In Aurora.

tl;dr cinema must return to the heady days of French art films and Jimmy Stewart fighting Indians. Also guns don't kill people, Batman does.

EDIT: Haha, I like how even when quotes deride "HYYYYYYPPPPPSST-TURs" it gets translated to "HYYYYYYPPPPSTT-TUR". Love this forum.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Man I was on fire.... That was a funny review that dude sure did wrote. I wish I could review movies like him.

[BloodyMage]

I only really read critic reviews for fun since I can usually decide for myself whether I want to see a film or not. Like Prometheus, I knew I probably wouldn't like it and wasn't even sure it would be all that good, but I still wanted to see it to decide that kind of thing for myself.

But why are certain critics so jaded and bitter? Eh, perhaps they've spent much of their journalism career writing film reports and articles based on the demands of another person or a magazine's preferences that they've just begun to loathe cinema as a whole. Or maybe they truly believe that true criticism is the deconstruction and destruction of all films and if they don't do their job, film makers will have no motivation to ever do better.

[Nique]

Critics are basically useless in determining if anyone will enjoy a movie or not. But I do enjoy reading them/ watching them because they do tend to provide some interesting analysis of the structure of the film.

[Solid Snake]

Changing the subject entirely from movie critics because who the fuck wants to talk about critics, one semi-sorta-related tidbit I'll add is that, while there are many things I do not miss about old-school cinema (racism, sexism, white men playing every role, rampant nationalism) I really do miss all those scenes from older Golden Era style movies where you just got to see actors act, as opposed to, y'know, reacting to CGI explosions everywhere and holy shit it's just a neverending escalation of punching and kicking and bullets and sex and here's MORE sex and MORE explosions

Like I just watched this old-school movie yesterday on the Military Channel about John F. Kennedy commanding a boat in World War II, and the entire time I was like "This bullshit is clearly an exaggerated account that makes Kennedy into a jingoistic hero, the music is clearly manipulating the audience into believing the Japanese are evil and the Americans are saints, the Pacific Islander natives were stereotyped and completely miscast, and there literally are no women here."

But I was also honestly like: "Holy shit! There are multiple minutes spent here actually listening to characters talk! The characters can actually behave like human beings! The camera's not jumping all over the fucking place!!! The narrative isn't a constant series of graphic violent action scenes! There's no women around presented solely for their sex appeal as objectified eye candy!"

And shit, that's one of the worse so-called 'classic' movies out there.

TLDR: Take the liberal progressivism of the future (if not the modern era, because let's face it, we're still not all the way there yet) and mix it with the actual movie-making techniques of yesteryear, and you'd have a real genuine bona fide Platinum Age of cinema.

[Nique]

I want Snake to review every movie like this:

'Too much sex, not enough lawyers having sex'

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Snake- watch better movies. There are plenty of fantastic movies that meet your criteria, I don't even know how that is a valid complaint.
Two films that are coming out soon that shouldbe all actory- The Master comes out in September and PT Anderson is always a good bet, and Lincoln comes out in November which will be shit but it Daniel Day Lewis playing motherfucking Lincoln which should give you an actor orgasm.

[Lumenskir]

Well, in Snake's defense, and speaking a little from shared experience, it's hard to devote the energy and time necessary to keep up with the non-major studio releases (reading reviews and news to see which ones are actually interesting/engaging rather than sollipstic and dull, finding the smaller theaters where they're even playing, etc.) while you're also spending time and effort on law school, worrying about law school and job prospects, entertainment you find it easier to find/immediately enjoy, and constantly telling those damn kids to get off your lawn.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

In the time it takes to write one snake post you could read the entire release schedule for 2012

[Solid Snake]

Oh, there are a few phenomenal releases every year; I didn't mean to dispute that.

Hardly any of them tend match the lower-key, dialogue-heavy majesty of some Golden Era favorites, though.
Oscar Bait movies are so obvious in December that I also find that kind of annoying, because they too tend to follow strikingly similar scripts, but instead of "Violence and Sex, Sex and Violence" it's more like "Here's an amazingly oversimplified trope about believing in yourself and hope and faith! Let's run with that!"

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Yep- oscar bait movies are terribad, even worse than blockbusters which are mostly fun.
If you avoid either of these two extremes there are great movies to be had.
I see your point about number of films but I think that might be more just age than anything- we tend to forget the terrible films and just remember the best films of the time. Everyone complains about remakes now but in the golden age of holiday they would remake films like every year cause fuck it, people can't just watch the old one.
But like in 60 years people will probably still watch There will be blood but not transformers 3

[Bum Bill Bee]

TLDR: Take the liberal progressivism of the future (if not the modern era, because let's face it, we're still not all the way there yet) and mix it with the actual movie-making techniques of yesteryear, and you'd have a real genuine bona fide Platinum Age of cinema.

You know, I can't always understand people who say "popular mass media isn't liberal enough". To me pop culture is overwhelmingly and sometimes preachyiliy liberal between Glee, Modern Family, Northern Exposure, Gargoyles, Captain Planet, Avatar (both kinds), His Dark Materials, Series of Unfortunate Events, a lot of recent Simpson's episodes, anything written by Brian Vaughn or Joss Whedon, Eragon, Oprah, 4Kids censorship, Fergully, Gaga, Discworld, Dinosaurs, Animorphs...

I love a lot of those things and I understand concern over nationalism, sexuality, and there being too many white males. But how is today's popculture overwhelmingly conservative? Name me 30 franchises created from the last 20 years that you feel are sickingly Republican-like. I'd be fascinated to hear what you think.


And, More on Topic: Smarty hit the nail on the head about movies and aging.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

PopCulture is conservative out hthe ass- it's all about the petty frivolous trials of rich dudes and how their emotional journeys are great struggles of huge import.
Man when was the last time we had a tv show starring a homeless dude. That would be ace. I'll fucking write it.
Like it'll basically be friends but instead of a bunch of unfunny, vapid, morally decrepit twentysomethings it'll be about a bunch of classy hobos.

[Solid Snake]

Yeah I mean it's hard for me to feel that shows like Modern Family and Glee are 'too liberal' when the standard sitcom setup is employed in them all to various degrees, namely it's all about a bunch of white upper-middle class suburbanite families suffering Rich People Problems.

The problem with Glee, aside from the fact that it's been poorly written soap opera bullshit since a decent start in Season One, is that its morality lessons are described as 'liberal' and 'progressive' and 'biased' when the lessons are in fact: "Don't treat gay people like third-world citizens." and "Don't bully gay people." And, in Artie's case, "Don't treat your girlfriend disrespectfully like an object and expect her to remain your girlfriend and believe misogyny is somehow permissible due to your disability, you jackass."

Like I love how conservative commentators are all up in arms about Glee as an example that 'popular mass media is liberal' when in fact Glee doesn't have much of a political agenda -- I mean, it's not tackling climate change or the economy or social security or anything -- but instead because it's tackling 'Decent Human Being' stuff, like jeez, maybe even the staunchest of conservatives can one day concede that homosexuals should kiss in public without being ridiculed and disowned by family members or some shit.

...Instead, liberal and conservative commentators should rightfully critique Glee for actually being surprisingly sexist and homophobic in certain specific moments where the sexism or homophobia doesn't clash with their morality plays (it's been years since I've seen an episode, don't expect me to provide specific examples.) And for, you know, being a crappy show with crappy writing. Crappy shows with crappy writing should always be attacked for their crappy dialogue and their crappy musical segments and their crappy plot twists.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Hmm, I hadn't thought of the class issue at all. I was just thinking of the rise in environmnetalism, Homosexual rights, disability aknowledgement, racial representation, female roles, different ideaology aceptance,ect. These are all GOOD things, but sometimes they're done unconvincingly, sell-outish or strangely.

And some times, when its all taken in at once it feels a bit grating or abrassive, ecspecially if you're working, living, and learning in enviornments that take great means to press liberalism.

But okay, I didn't take everything into account, I am respectfully aborting the thread now.

[Lumenskir]

Oh, there are a few phenomenal releases every year; I didn't mean to dispute that.

Hardly any of them tend match the lower-key, dialogue-heavy majesty of some Golden Era favorites, though.
Oscar Bait movies are so obvious in December that I also find that kind of annoying, because they too tend to follow strikingly similar scripts, but instead of "Violence and Sex, Sex and Violence" it's more like "Here's an amazingly oversimplified trope about believing in yourself and hope and faith! Let's run with that!"
uggggggggggggggggh, I can literally hear the ear hair growing from all the way over here.

[Magus]

I feel like when people say the "Golden Age of Cinema" they are inevitably off by about five or ten years, though, or missing the quality films released in this day and age. Older movies are kind of hit and miss when it comes to quality and usually films nearer to the end of a decade or movement are better than ones that precede them by only a shor time. For instance, Everybody holds up High Noon as the quintessential Western (despite being much unlike the vast array of them up til that point, which mostly consisted of a cliche "cowboys and indians" or "cops and robbers" plotline, often with musical numbers. Think Gene Autry. The vast difference that High Noon created was quite revolutionary), and it's a perfect example of a movie about "people talking to one another" (the movie takes place in real time and consists of nothing but character interaction for most of its run time as Gary Cooper waits for the arrival on the noon train of a murderous outlaw he sent to prison five years prior) but the dialogue flows a little too quickly, the acting is a little bit off, there's an actual verbally sung ballad that plays in the background throughout the movie telling you the situation, etc. It suffers from retaining a lot of the flaws of the past decade even while it shows amazingly revolutionary moves towards the future. So I much prefer 3:10 to Yuma (1957, of course, not the recent remake)--it took the same concept and perfected it. If you look at it as movies from the '50s the latter movie tends to be better. On the other hand, if looking simply at the Western genre, I think the '70s was the height of what you could do with them--look at The Wild Bunch or Billy Two Hats and their countercultural qualities.

Another example is the Film Noir genre or the detective film--everyone associates them with films from the '50s (usually starring a big name like Humphrey Bogart), but I've found movies from the '60s and '70s that are far superior, such as Killer's Kiss or The Long Goodbye (itself a Phillip Marlow movie, but with Marlowe acting as an anachronism transplanted into the '70s).

Basically if you want the height of a genre or movement you should be looking towards the latter films in them, I think. And for many film movements they have been updated substantially every few years and are still evolving in our modern era--so relying too much on the Golden Age of Cinema will blind you to the quality films released in this day and age. I think we can all agree that films like There Will Be Blood or No Country For Old Men or The Fountain are amazing modern films that probably could never have been done 40 or 50 years ago.

[Nique]

And some times, when its all taken in at once it feels a bit grating or abrassive, ecspecially if you're working, living, and learning in enviornments that take great means to press liberalism.

Of all the things on tv to find abrasive, I personally wouldn't find the embarrassingly few amount programs that aren't full of bigoted, ignorant and intellectually dishonest tripe to be among them. And I mean, yeah Glee is annoying but like Snake Snake-posted that's because it's phoney progresivism that is actually hugely and laughably problematic.

Although I did like some episodes of Friends.

Well, in Snake's defense, and speaking a little from shared experience, it's hard to devote the energy and time necessary to keep up with the non-major studio releases

Also a lot of the time those are films that are sort of outside my purview of interest - which, maybe that's partly me just being uncultured, but hey it would be nice if there was more stuff in the genres I enjoy that made time for some depth or meaningful dialogue.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I feel like when people say the "Golden Age of Cinema" they are inevitably off by about five or ten years, though, or missing the quality films released in this day and age. Older movies are kind of hit and miss when it comes to quality and usually films nearer to the end of a decade or movement are better than ones that precede them by only a shor time. For instance, Everybody holds up High Noon as the quintessential Western (despite being much unlike the vast array of them up til that point, which mostly consisted of a cliche "cowboys and indians" or "cops and robbers" plotline, often with musical numbers. Think Gene Autry. The vast difference that High Noon created was quite revolutionary), and it's a perfect example of a movie about "people talking to one another" (the movie takes place in real time and consists of nothing but character interaction for most of its run time as Gary Cooper waits for the arrival on the noon train of a murderous outlaw he sent to prison five years prior) but the dialogue flows a little too quickly, the acting is a little bit off, there's an actual verbally sung ballad that plays in the background throughout the movie telling you the situation, etc. It suffers from retaining a lot of the flaws of the past decade even while it shows amazingly revolutionary moves towards the future. So I much prefer 3:10 to Yuma (1957, of course, not the recent remake)--it took the same concept and perfected it. If you look at it as movies from the '50s the latter movie tends to be better. On the other hand, if looking simply at the Western genre, I think the '70s was the height of what you could do with them--look at The Wild Bunch or Billy Two Hats and their countercultural qualities.

Another example is the Film Noir genre or the detective film--everyone associates them with films from the '50s (usually starring a big name like Humphrey Bogart), but I've found movies from the '60s and '70s that are far superior, such as Killer's Kiss or The Long Goodbye (itself a Phillip Marlow movie, but with Marlowe acting as an anachronism transplanted into the '70s).

Basically if you want the height of a genre or movement you should be looking towards the latter films in them, I think. And for many film movements they have been updated substantially every few years and are still evolving in our modern era--so relying too much on the Golden Age of Cinema will blind you to the quality films released in this day and age. I think we can all agree that films like There Will Be Blood or No Country For Old Men or The Fountain are amazing modern films that probably could never have been done 40 or 50 years ago.

I tots agree that out of "classic" films the 60s 70s tended to be the best because this si when we got the new waves hitting alongside vast countercultural movements and actual proper film students for the first time. They took the old film genres and redefined them and revolutionised them- man watch say a john wayne western and then watch say the shooting or even a fistful of dollars- the improvements are ridiculous. Everyone just complains about post say 50s film because that is when hippies started making films.
Modern films are still tots ace thogh.

[Lumenskir]

Also a lot of the time those are films that are sort of outside my purview of interest - which, maybe that's partly me just being uncultured, but hey it would be nice if there was more stuff in the genres I enjoy that made time for some depth or meaningful dialogue.
Well, what I was trying to get at is that it's pretty ridiculous to make sweeping comments about the blanket quality of entire ages of movies when you're not willing to put in the time and effort to make sure you're speaking with a modicum of reason.

Like, the last time I seriously played a J/WRPG was about ten years ago. If someone was talking about the modern state of the genre, the most I could say definitively was that I really liked the Lunar series. If I then said that the Lunar series was hands down the best example of the genre ever and nothing in the modern day could hold a candle to it, I'd be talking out of my ass because I'm arguing from feelings and conjecture.

I think people have this view of movies* where they envision a giant bell curve of quality over time, with the first movies being made from crude stones and milky glass, and then this explosion of great films soaring with greatness, and then some unspecified calamity that leaves us with the modern ages various Transformers 8: FARTS. This tends to negate the fact that they've been making around 250-300 films a year since the very beginning, about 90%+ plain old bad or forgettable, with an average of about 10-15 of those being able to stand the test of time, and maybe 1 a year being truly capital G Great. To say that the techniques or average film of [X Earlier Period] are per se better than the modern period is both simplistic and somewhat damaging to the genre, since it breeds this apathy of "Well, I can just watch the verified classics instead of looking for something good and new, why bother." and then that leads to modern greats being ignored while people gnash their teeth and wonder why modern studios don't make more movies like it.

*Really, any entertainment genre, but we'll stick with movies as an example.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I'm always of hte opinion that movies have generally got better over time- they take the best shit from their predecessors and improve it and get rid of the worst, they can study old films and why they worked/didnt, they have better techniques, better tools, better analysis of the form of movies.
But then again I say the same abot contemporary art compared to say the renaissance (which was just Greece 2: The Lack of Ideas) so what do I know.

[Lumenskir]

While I recognize that this isn't the exact point, or maybe not even in the same neighborhood of the point you're making, I find 'kill yr idols' just as damaging in the long run as ancestor worship. Just surrender (http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/21/135508305/the-sad-beautiful-fact-that-were-all-going-to-miss-almost-everything) to the fact that you'll never experience everything and comment only on what you actually know, not attacking the other of what you're unfamiliar with so you can build up the thing you like and have spent time on.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Isn't killing your idols watching/experiencing them then being like "Man these are shit, I can do better". Cause everything old is generally pretty shit.

[Lumenskir]

Isn't killing your idols watching/experiencing them then being like "Man these are shit, I can do better". Cause everything old is generally pretty shit.
The way I've always seen has been in the vein of "Why should I care about old things at all?" and then they pretend like anything older than some arbitrary cutoff is automatically worthless. Maybe 'fuck yr idols' would embody it better, I dunno.

I do agree that the "I can do better" impulse is definitely needed, but only because every entertainment genre at any given point in time is generally shit.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

The sentiment is generally true but I agree you should know why its true and have looked at the old stuff and truly understand it and why it works/doesn't before dismissing it.
Like the renaissance is shit but Donatello and Bosch are fantastico.