At The Cinema, Do You ever Get the Feeling You're Watching The Same Movie Over and Over?

[Rodders]

I'm just bored with movies in general, i think.

It stands to reason that most stories have already been told, so to find something new and original is difficult. My personal issue with modern movies is the over reliance on action over story. Action gets boring after a while, but a good story...

 

[BAYLOR]

I'm just bored with movies in general, i think.

It stands to reason that most stories have already been told, so to find something new and original is difficult. My personal issue with modern movies is the over reliance on action over story. Action gets boring after a while, but a good story...

Horror movies all have that same cookie cutter look. They have the ghost, hobgoblin or whatever jump out the shadows the same way over and over again with the rutl that it has no more shock value . And , how many more Annabel the killer Doll movies are they going to keep churning out?

 

[Vince W]

I'm just bored with movies in general, i think.

It stands to reason that most stories have already been told, so to find something new and original is difficult. My personal issue with modern movies is the over reliance on action over story. Action gets boring after a while, but a good story...

Absotividly agree. I've been watching some older films and they actually tell a story rather than 75 minutes of disjointed cgi buffoonery, a couple of pointless shots of near/actual nudity, some hollow reworking of an old idea, and no character development. And that's just the Hollywood offerings. The streaming services are substantially worse.

 

[CupofJoe]

UK and US Cinema is all about the blockbuster. It has to be to make the economics work. That tends to lead to largest common denominator films.
If you get to countries that protect their film industries [France is a good example] then you can see some very interesting and challenging films getting a wide audience.
I should be lucky that I live in an area with a large Asian/Indian population so there are the cream of those film industries make it to the local big screen. Pre lockdown, I've had a few very interesting evenings trying to work out why the Spy is singing to a bride while they are both dancing in a fountain. Colourful musical lunacy to me but the rest of the audience seemed to make sense of it all.

 

[Foxbat]

I haven’t been to the cinema in years and given the current output, I can’t see that changing. The last thing I saw was Pan’s Labyrinth. There’s been nothing since that has made me feel that I must go watch it in a cinema.

It will be interesting to see if the transition to streaming post-pandemic is permanent or if audiences will return in large numbers to the cinema.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Horror movies all have that same cookie cutter look. They have the ghost, hobgoblin or whatever jump out the shadows the same way over and over again with the rutl that it has no more shock value . And , how many more Annabel the killer Doll movies are they going to keep churning out?

I think horror movies have really gone down hill in the last 20-30 years. There just aren't movies of the calibre of Halloween, Jaws, Aliens Poltergeist, The Exorcist etc. Probably the best decent scary movie was Blair Witch 20 years ago.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Horror movies all have that same cookie cutter look. They have the ghost, hobgoblin or whatever jump out the shadows the same way over and over again with the rutl that it has no more shock value . And , how many more Annabel the killer Doll movies are they going to keep churning out?

I think there was something of a mini-renaissance of horror films a few years ago with It Follows, the VVitch, Hereditary, Babadook, and Midsommar. There are good ones out there, but they tend not to be the mindless LOUD quiet LOUD variety. The Colour out of Space was pretty ok, and A Cure for Wellness was suitably lovecraftian.

One of the biggest challenges today is there is no journeyman stage where young professionals can learn all aspects of their craft. This applies to music, too. One of the reasons the Beatles were huge was they had a massive backlog of musical styles they could draw on, honed in their days in the Bierkeller. Compared to now, where musicians can learn production techniques rote from youtube videos, get catapulted in the mainstream and fizzle out after a year.

Same thing with directors now - they have a small window from doing their first tentative steps, a breakthrough movie, then a short period of being in demand before disappearing without trace.

And the algorithm means that producers are only looking for cookie cutter niche fillers with minimal budget for maximal return, or four-quadrant tentpole movies built on established franchises, or brands. If you liked that, you'll like this...

Going back and watching old Ealing comedies right now, and the wit and range on display far exceeds anything in production now in movies (maybe Armando Ianucci - very much enjoyed The Death of Stalin), for that you have to turn to prestigious HBO shows - Succession, Veep, Better Call Saul, etc, etc.

 

[Valtharius]

"You're now making movies for 16 year olds and China"

youtube.com/watch?v=oj8JK6c5x3M

 

[AlexH]

Why bump this old thread when there's already an active cinema-bashing thread on the first page?

I think like every medium, there are great films out there if you look. These are the films that need more support. I mentioned in the other cinema thread that Wolfwalkers this week was best at the cinema - the animation at times is stunning. Yes, the crux of the story had been done before, but it's a great story and there were still unexpected twists for me.

I became a bit disillusioned with film over the past few weeks, and that watching included a fair few classics I hadn't seen before. Cinema visits (first Gladiator then Wolfwalkers) have got me invested again.

Some other recent films I think are best experienced at the cinema, and I'll try and stick to Hollywood (given it seems to get the brunt of the criticism, forgetting all the superb independent and non-English films out there):

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Avengers Assemble (these two stand head and shoulders above other recent superhero films in my opinion)
Jurassic World (yes, it was a retread, but it looked and sounded great, and was FUN)
Rogue One
Whiplash
Gravity
Any 2010s M:I film
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (stunning settings on the big screen)
Your Name.
Baby Driver
Mad Max: Fury Road (I'm not usually a fan of all-out action films, but this was superb)
Parasite was an absolute riot to see at the cinema

I've mentioned a couple of under the radar animations already, and someone else will hate these films of course - but One Cut of the Dead (watch without spoilers), Bait, Coherence, The Red Turtle and Leave No Trace are all great films I guess most people criticising modern film won't have seen. But even if you don't like any of them, there will be films out there you'll love. And sometimes I think people almost want to hate certain things, so these things don't really stand a chance in the first place.

I might even argue that the 2010s was the greatest overall decade for films. Here are my favourites (and there are will of course be loads of great 2010s films I haven't watched):

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls049362246/

 

[Dave]

If it was this one then I agree, but otherwise, you go to some different cinema to me.

How many of these cinema-bashing threads can you create?

 

[JunkMonkey]

They're still doing the sam movies over and over again . Reboots and remakes.

But they always have done. To possibly misquote one of my favourite movies about Hollywood (The Independent) "Milk the cow till it's dry: then make hamburgers and wallets."

I remember reading somewhere about one of the poverty row studios (Republic, Mascot, one of them lot) That at one point the studio had a pile of scripts in the office. The day they finished a film they threw the script on the top of the stack, then pulled the one from the bottom out and went into production - rewriting may have been involved.

 

[W Collier]

Why bump this old thread when there's already an active cinema-bashing thread on the first page?

...

Or, to put it another way, Do You ever Get The Feeling That You're Seeing The Same Forum Thread Over and Over?

Perhaps the reason we don't see original movies is the same reason we don't see original forum threads: there are no new ideas. Everything's been done.

 

[BAYLOR]

Or, to put it another way, Do You ever Get The Feeling That You're Seeing The Same Forum Thread Over and Over?

Perhaps the reason we don't see original movies is the same reason we don't see original forum threads: there are no new ideas. Everything's been done.

In terms of original thread Ideas, ive ive long since fallen into the abyss of creative bankruptcy and repetition.


But in seriousness, you're absolute correct on both counts.

 

[BAYLOR]

When I see sequels?

 

[Guttersnipe]

When it comes to horror movies, yes. Jump scares are cheap, and I'm sick of ones involving Ouija boards, Satanism, and paganism. Too many possessions and haunting.

 

[alexvss]

Blake Snyder, author of the Save the Cat! beathsheet, acknowledged that everything had been done, so he used to say :"Give me the same, but different."
Even movies like Parasite hide being the same ol' thing:

 

[KGeo777]

A movie's originality depends a lot on what the cast and filmmakers bring to it as individuals.
That's obvious.

They made a ton of westerns in Italy but each film had a different cast and score and there was some variety.

What I noticed recently with modern movies (I have a habit of considering movies made 20 years ago as new for some reason) is the dialogue tends to be more expository about the given moment than it used to be--characters are far more likely to state their feelings or inner thoughts or tell you what another character is thinking or doing. Nolan movies are terrible for that.
The complaint used to be that movies were more plot-driven than character-driven but it has moved in a direction where it's character-driven to the point of being a kind of group therapy session.

The creepiest thing though, is how movie posters have become very unemotive-no facial expressions--a blank staring face. I notice it with superhero movies or dramas--it doesn't matter what--but a lack of expression is on display. Is that how uninspired they are that they can't even come up with a poster that looks energetic?

It's so Borg-like.

 

[BAYLOR]

What I noticed recently with modern movies (I have a habit of considering movies made 20 years ago as new for some reason) is the dialogue tends to be more expository about the given moment than it used to be--characters are far more likely to state their feelings or inner thoughts or tell you what another character is thinking or doing. Nolan movies are terrible for that.
The complaint used to be that movies were more plot-driven than character-driven but it has moved in a direction where it's character-driven to the point of being a kind of group therapy session.

The creepiest thing though, is how movie posters have become very unemotive-no facial expressions--a blank staring face. I notice it with superhero movies or dramas--it doesn't matter what--but a lack of expression is on display. Is that how uninspired they are that they can't even come up with a poster that looks energetic?

It's so Borg-like.

Go see the movie, resistance is futile .

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

I sometimes feel like I'm watching the same endings over and over again. So often I'll get really into the first three quarters or so of a film: interesting characters, situation, ideas, dialogue, style. But it inevitably builds up to a ridiculously over-the-top climactic action sequence that drags on.... and on.... and on... and on.... and on, leaving me glancing at my watch as the starship crashes slooooooowly into the city, the characters survive the twenty-third fall that should have left them a greasy smear on the pavement, the blades of the duelists start to rust in the rain and the hero gets punched through a wall for the fifty-seventh time.

"The Wolverine" is a good example of a film where the fight scene midway through was vastly more interesting than the final one. I love the quiet ending of "Solo", which literally just involves a standoff between handful of people in a room. Sadly, that risky strategy didn't pay off. But I also love "Thor: Ragnarok." Lengthy, deliberately overblown climax, but with suffient imagination, style and humor to make it actually interesting for once.

 

[KGeo777]

They are remaking THE EXORCIST as a trilogy, bringing back Ellen Burnstyn. Expect a lot of deja vu.

They say Linda Blair isn't in it but I will bet money she is being saved for the sequels.