But also movies are definitely worse now, right?
It's basically a TV show at this point, up to the point they have to reset the universe periodically so that, so the characters don't have to grow too much
Mainstream movies are def worse imo. They all feel like AI generated plots that are super predictable and only give a shit about appealing to the most broad audience possible to get the best return on investment.
Could be for sure. I just remember movies taking more chances. Like the mid-budget movies that would try to do something different instead of some sort of reboot or superhero movie that all have massive budgets.
Id argue that mainstream horror is worse. I've watched movies that are horror and were successful mainstream films from the 70s and 80s and I feel so few modern mainstream horror movies hold a candle to them. Hell, even their schlock seemed more fun.
Compare The Thing or The Exorcist with anything made in the last 25 years
tbf this might kind of parallel this issue with music, where we remember the good stuff and forget all the trite shit that was popular.
Nickleback sucking is a meme over a decade after the band lost relevance. And before that, there was Creed. And all along the in-between there was the Mickey Mouse Club to Porn Star pipeline of a dozen identical young girls groomed into generic American music idols. And then the Boy Bands... holy fuck the boy bands.
Hell, you can trace this shit all the way back to Elvis and further still if you're really curious. I grew up listening to 50s music and watching 50s movies, then watched them recycled and reinvisioned and reproduced until they were just a gray smear of media waste that was weaponized into the Culture War. Madison Avenue didn't always rule our world, but they've been in the driver's seat for at least three generations.
Definitely helps to remove any complicated plots or dialogue so that it travels overseas well
His stand-up act is great once your BAC hits a certain percentage.
Yup, Cheetah. I think I saw 1 or 2 trailers and everything from her pre/post transformation looks to her personality shift seem like a 1:1 copy of Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy lmao.
Decent chance she is the mini-boss and there is a big reveal, like in the first movie
the "big reveal" in the first movie was such an obvious fuckup. having there be no big bad villain, like the entire films narrative was leading up to, might have made that shit show of a cape movie actually good.
just brutally disappointing
Trying to change up the movie tropes a bit, but, yeah, doesn't work enough to compensate for the lack of emotional payoff
having her be forced to realize that mans inhumanity was the cause of all the suffering rather than a mystical god-plot to yadayada would have been such a better payoff, and it would have made sense in terms of her proceeding to fuck off back to her island for the next hundred years which is jarring as hell to hear about in whatever the big ensemble movie was, because it turned out her mom was right about people being monsters or whatever.
but no. god fight! super punch! none of that introspection on human failure stuff here!
:virgil-sad:
I'm fairly certain Maxwell Lord is the main villain of the movie with Cheetah as the secondary antagonist.
Ugh. Really selling me on skipping this with the Batman Forever comparison.
I can still turn off caring about the neolib propaganda, but knowing the actress served in the IDF is a little harder to ignore.
Yeah, the lib me of a few years ago thought that was cool, like, not just a pretty face. I don't know enough about it to have an emotional response to it now, but know intellectually it's bad.
Just did a Google search, but can you share a leftist link/summary. Got immediate propaganda vibes
idk, I just know she was in it for mandatory service and she doesn't seem apologetic about it. Wikipedia says she boasted about getting a movie role because of her experience.
Sounds about right. I'll probably still watch the movie at some point. Try to experience it as a "libs like this; imagine liking this" viewing. Otherwise just completely turn off my brain
Wait do you mean a summary of Gadot's service in the IDF or a summary of war crimes committed by Israel?
Telling on myself here, but Israel, it current conflict and it's history is a major weak spot for me. I assume whatever America is doing over there is bad, but otherwise don't bother to keep up on the details.
No worries! It's a complex topic and Americans are fed smokescreens and misinformation about it that makes it harder to learn about. Suffice it to say that you're probably not failing in your duty as an anti-imperialist just by enjoying a movie starring a zionist.
The short short version is that the creation of a Jewish ethnostate in 1948 was achieved by the forced expulsion of the Arab peoples of what was then the British territorial holding of Mandatory Palestine and their confinement to progressively smaller and more scattered areas. Today Palestinians live under a military occupation, subject to checkpoints, surveillance, blockades, attacks from Israeli settlers, and occasionally indiscriminate aerial bombing. The US' role is that it provides more aid to Israel than to any other country and uses its veto power in the UN to defend Israel's violations of international law. In return, Israel is a valuable asset to helping the US empire maintain power in the middle east.
I'm not completely sure what the best all-around primer is, but I recall Citations Needed's two-part episode on the "two state solution" (1, 2) being pretty accessible. Also check out The Electronic Intifada for news on the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
Thanks for the write up! I love that people go so far out of their way here. I have an idea amd want to normalize people reposting really good responses to main, as a c/bestochapo type thing. Mind if I start with yours?
I went to the cinema last night (no Covid cases for a month where I am go us I guess) and there were THREE trailers (out of maybe six or seven total) that were just for Netflix movies. And they all looked bad.
Something about sitting in a cinema watching trailers for movies made by subscription-only Netflix that were releasing in theatres felt extremely late capitalist to me.
Definitely late stage movie theaters. It's amazing they lasted the summer. They won't make it another summer of covid
I have a hard time enjoying anything anymore. but I think my depression helps that a bit
Yeah, I know the feeling. I can only enjoy stuff when people are around me enjoying it unironically. Otherwise, who cares?
On one hand it feels like big tentpole studio movies have become stupider. On the other with modern tech anyone who can swindle some asshole investor for half a million bucks can make a competent indie flick, if you are into that kind of thing.
Not that good. Good Middle of the road grade in any era but now
Well this is timely, youtube surfaced these trailer reels yesterday and as a fucking idiot I thought, "hey there might be something good coming out."
BEST UPCOMING MOVIES 2020 & 2021
BEST UPCOMING MOVIE TRAILERS 2021
This was 2x50 minuts of trailers, the next more garbage than the one before. Western movies quality is going straight to hell. There wasn't a single movie with an interesting plot or felt like it had a voice that wanted to say something about society. It's all this studio lowest common denominator BS, every plot has to appeal to every nation on earth so it can earn $1B+. CGI has gotten worse, things just look fake as hell now and no one cares. Scripts now all feel like they are generated by Machine Learning algorithms to be the most bland and least offensive 2 hours and 30 minuts. The only thing they will give you is violence and explosions. Ohh and fuck super hero movies, just absolutely fuck off with that bullshit, same with the operator aesthetic, I'm not going to the movies to worship ghouls at the CIA.
There were 2 movies in that huge pile of garbage that caught my interest, but not anywhere near something I would pay to go see these were all firmly in the "wait for it to come to streaming" category.
cgi has gotten worse
because capitalists decided artists need be paid only with exposure.
to the elements, i guess
Flagship movies are definitely worse, but if you're willing to put in the effort there are more good movies now than there used to be. Same thing as with music.
I have never seen anything so on point in it's critique of superhero and celebrity culture and all of its overlaps. Greatest dissection of the genre since the dark knight and watchmen.
speaking of capeshit did anyone else watch the boys season 2? it was pretty good tbh, better than season 1 which I enjoyed but felt was more shallow.
I liked it but damn did it aggravate me how 99% of the season's climax was "woah Stormfront's a NAZI?!?!" as if you couldn't guess that from her name as soon as she was introduced haha.
I can't stand excessive CGI. Not from some film snob "cinema died in the 1910s" position, but because I know it's an actor in a green room interacting with invisible things. It makes a film like Barry Lyndon seem like a foreign medium and ages so poorly that I feel less engaged by Avatar than I do Bladerunner.
https://images.app.goo.gl/rEsr36tFNDtYYhJc8
https://images.app.goo.gl/U6rjvtqnEBe7yiNz9
I'm always super curious about adults (people in their 30s or whatever) watching a movie from my childhood for the first time. Do they hold up, or was I just a stupid kid. Very few movies are good from a leftist perspective.
The Big Lebowski, if you haven't seen it. Or otherwise a movie that was huge with white dudes in their 20s like 15 years ago
I can't think of any I either haven't seen or don't pretty much know from osmosis. I've seen Big Lebowski many many times. It's great.
It's a deconstruction of masculinity. It's been a while since I've seen it but could go more point by point with a rewatch I guess
I've done those threads. It's fun. Just do a personal Mega-Thread of watching the movie
Good call. I did that for the Star Trek movies on a different forum and it was a good time
Apparently there's a discord or something specific for this sort of thing. A "watch together" feature or something. I never bothered to figure it out. But if you do, post a link
I’m 16 so we probably don’t have movie overlap. Part of me understands the subliminal marketing and politics inherent in every movie, but another part of me just wants to be distracted by an engrossing story for an hour and a half
I would pitch you movies from the 80s and 90s, but not sure if you could get over the pacing and editing. They would be too slow, I bet. I can go back to the 70s for some classics, but I basically cut it off mid 80s (as a guy from that decade)
. They would be too slow, I bet.
Movies from the 80s and 90's are objectively better most of the time BECAUSE they took time to develop the story and such
Too many blockbuster movies now feel like they were written by a sonic fanfiction writer in a manic episode
Which movies would you pick? I bought into the whole breaking bad thing recently and I enjoy the storytelling
If you haven't see the The Matrix, it's one of my favorites. Only the first one, tho. Movies were diverse enough back then you could just pick the top two or three movies of any given year and get decent/diverse movies.
I’ve seen the first matrix. In turn, I can recommend a movie from before our times, 12 Angry Men
Good movies can be timeless. It's the stuff that is based on trendy shit that age really poorly. There was a period in the early 2000s when everything had a 3D scene. Hot garbage
We got shown it in HS English and everybody in the class actually enjoyed. Really damn good movie.
Even the fourth Indiana Jones movie that everyone loves to hate on was ten times more fun and interesting than any big budget movies these days. Okay maybe it wasn't but still.
There are neolib stuff I can enjoy as I need to turn off my brain, but not these movies
I don’t count movies/books/games etc. made for the sole purpose of making money and maybe brainwashing people as art. Just shitty products.
