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

[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]

Originally Posted by Bum Bill Bee

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.

Originally Posted by Lumen

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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 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.