Badmovies.org Forum

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI9RSlHqu-w#)

TL:DR

"Terrible" doesn't mean not entertaining but not edifying, and because of that in the long run makes movies not entertaining, and thus terrible (the assumption is that viewers value works that are not just entertaining)

Reasons:

Business: the need to gain sales from an international audience through stories that are easy to follow to cover bigger budgets, rehash material in franchises to keep them alive, etc.

Bad Writing: ultimately driven by business demands

***

Additional points on bad writing:

Two ideas to consider: Horace's point that poetry should entertain and instruct, and Aristotle's rules for storytelling (e.g., stories should be unified, characters consistent, etc.)

I've always felt that filming on 35mm looks way better than digital: digital is faster and it speeds up production and post production time but it's never looked as good for me.

My wife and I were watching Midway (1976) the other night, and she made the comment about how grainy the movie looked on DVD, and I told her that it makes the movie look more authentic "and see all of those planes? Those are real planes, and they had to find pilots to fly all of them. No CGI in this movie." I couldn't even sit through Midway (2019) after buying it on 4K blu ray a while back. I might force myself to watch it someday just to justify my purchase of the movie, but it doesn't even compare to the original movie in any real way; I never thought that fake action scenes could ever bore me so much, but this one did. The main difference for me between the two films, using your quote as an example, is that the original movie looks authentic and believable even though they were also using a lot of actual war footage in that film, while the digital remake looks almost like a video game and the crappy performances didn't help it at all (Woody Harrelson as Admiral Nimitz, for example!)

The problem isn't the type of film used but the storyline. That's why they spend hundreds of millions of dollars in movies that are still terrible. The irony is that compared to other film costs writing is the cheapest.

yep. first thing that comes to mind... and studios having too much control over directors. or rather companies and corporations having too much control over studios.

complete lack of originality and risk taking in major releases. bio-pics, remakes, and movies about recent news stories taking precedence  over brand new stories.

an 'old boys network' of actors (of both sexes, and not all of them old) dominating casting choices based on past reputation alone. (to an extent this has always happened I guess? seems ubiquitous now)

PC warlords influencing what can and can't be said and/or done in a MOVIE. It's a movie. it won't steal your soul and hang you upside down from a crane.


who was it that said "85% of everything is garbage"? ...I also agree with that guy. (most of his other quotes suck though  :teddyr:)

I think modern studios have to pander to so many special interests that storytelling is handicapped. For example, I'm told that in the Top Gun sequel the Japanese and Taiwanese flags that Tom Cruise sported on his jacket in the 1986 original had to be removed in the 2020s sequel to avoid insulting the Chinese, who own a big share of many modern Hollywood studios. We live in repressive times.

i think part of is the reason is that they rely too much on the test audiences too, a good example is the Pet Sematary (2019) remake it had that godawful ending because 14 year old boys liked it better than the Original ending which actually was far better and i think the film would have been greatly improved because of it.

it would have still prolly have sucked but not as  much anyways

I like a lot of modern films, actually.

there are some out there that are good though ya just have to find them and not all of them get nominated for an oscar i'd say half of them maybe that get nominated are terrible. i am just throwing a number out there of course. though i did watch Hidden Figures (2016) recently and that was a modern flix and it was a damn good one too

It's not so much repression as the need to cover costs. The domestic market has not been able to do that, which is why producers have to market to an international audience.

One can see that and other factors in light of what's called Hollywood accounting. I think the gist is that what's usually given as the cost of the movie is the production budget, but there's also a marketing cost that can also be very high, as well as additional costs for distribution, licensing, etc. Meanwhile, what's seen as the producers' earnings in the form of revenues is cut by up to half because the other half goes to theater owners, distributors, etc.

That means a movie has to earn around 2.5 times more than its production cost just to break even, and given the fact that these are for-profit companies with investors who want to maximize returns, breaking even is obviously not good enough.

Other points:

Producers may spend a lot on holding on to franchises, which means they have to squeeze out as much as they can from them. This explains why even in television shows, producers will instead of ending them in a high note run them to the ground, and it certainly explains why they have to come up with sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, and so on.

There are returns from spinoffs and merchandising, but investors want their returns right away; otherwise, they might not fund future endeavors and move elsewhere. But even with success, the need to maximize profits continues, which explains why there are director's cuts, special editions, TV series spinoffs, and so on.

Industrialized countries have been weakening during the past two decades because of late capitalism while the rest, such as China, are becoming stronger. This explains why there are more investors from other countries, and can also be connected to the first point, which is to sell to an international market.

Major studios rely on tent-pole flicks derived from such, but may make much larger amounts in relation to cost through cheaper movies, especially those shown during dump months, or times of the year where more members of the audience are busy with work or school. Examples include The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal, which made many times more than their costs. However, even though relative profits may be high, absolute profits are not as great as those gained from successful tent-poles.

Finally, the potential for financial disaster is much higher because of much larger amounts at stake, too many producers competing with each other, audiences who are growing tired of seeing too many of the same things while facing high ticket prices and cheaper options (like paying a few dollars a month for streaming or just waiting for prices to drop as they are released physically or digitally in bargain bins), and technology (including digital cameras and computers) which makes movie-making more accessible.

i was watching something or maybe i read it? i forget where it had people complain about the price of going to the movies and why it's so damn expensive these dates and the answer from i think it was some manager was that it wasn't their fault at all nor are they the ones that raise the prices but it's the studio's who are to blame.  i dunno if that's true but i can see that actually

Moving from film to digital production methods still may have been a catalyst. With computers it’s much easier to reshoot a scene, fix problems in post production, cover up poor storytelling with FX pieces, etc.

The Mulan (2020) remake was not bad. But it got a lot of flak over what was going on in China just down the road from production with the Uyghurs being oppressed by the CCP government. Disney+ doesn't care because you can watch the movie on there. It's a shame that people will get turned away from the movie by woke-ism, because while the story itself is okay, the cinematography itself is beautiful.

yeah the use of CGI was part of it but i dunno we have shaky cam now and talking with my brother  a couple months ago i think it was? & he was saying how the reason it's stuck they did studies is that it gives your heart to start pumping fast like if there is an action scene for example. and i freaking hate Shakey Cam i just want to shove that camera up the directors ass and that director would be Paul Greengrass who last time i watched one of his Jason Bourne films it gave me a headache cause of shakey cam and my mom got ill just watching it

Most modern movies are terrible because they are full of suck, suckosity and suckism.

I'd say it's a mix of nearly all the movies coming out of Hollywood these days being made by a handful of mega-corporations (Disney, Warner, Sony, Paramount, and Universal) and everything being extremely sanitized, corporate, and samey even compared to just ten or fifteen years ago.

Even as recently as the 2000's, even the mainstream Hollywood blockbusters seemed to have more variety and while remakes were incessant and of poor quality, they usually weren't quite as bad as remakes in the 2010's and 2020's. Superhero movies also were nowhere near as dominant either and were generally more enjoyable than the MCU or DC's equivalent.

I think a lot of this decline has to do with the infamous WGA strike in 2007 coupled with the Great Recession that immediately followed afterwards. Studios wanted to cut costs on writing and hired a bunch of whiny college kids who went full high school cliques and mainly hired their friends as opposed to actual writers once they were in long enough to have some level of pull in the writer's tables of various studios.

that sounds about right Studios are known to be cheap ass mofo's even going back to the early days of Hollywood for example John Carradine's career was destroyed by Fox because they didn't like the fact that his price for each film was a bit higher with each film they wanted him for even though the prices were peanuts compared to what the stars were making at the time.  so the fact that they are still like that is no surprise at all

Most modern movies suck due to being remakes, rehashes, sequels, same old comic book based s**t, and wokeism you know get woke go broke.

you know it's funny how some of the greatest films of all time were actually remakes such as The Maltese Falcon (1941) though i didn't love it as much as most people when i watched it a couple years back i think it was? it was a massive hit at the time and it was the 3rd remake of that story.

than you have The Fly (1986) which is also a remake of the (1958) classic as well just two name 2

Ultimately the movies being made are what people pay to see. If we didn’t, they’d try other stuff. I don’t blame the studios. They are just doing what they are designed to do. There are alternatives though, you could support independent films via Kickstarter for example.

Very few studios have balls or backbone same with producers to stand out and do their own thing.

What's a " woke" movie?
 Can you give an example?
And I never heard the term "get woke go broke".
Did you just make that up? And thought it would catch on because it ryhmes?
 :question: :question: :question:

This sounds right!  :thumbup:


(https://i.imgur.com/DaSyIYc.gif) (https://lunapic.com)

Karen???
So woke, that some film critics of color have found the trailer downright laughable.....

What people tend to forget is that most movies of the past were terrible, too. Here's Pauline Kael in 1980: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1980/06/23/why-are-movies-so-bad-or-the-numbers (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1980/06/23/why-are-movies-so-bad-or-the-numbers)

Written during the golden age of New Hollywood, a year after ALIEN, APOCALYPSE NOW, same year as THE SHINING, RAGING BULL... Most movies of any era cater to popular tastes while taking as many shortcuts as possible.

EDIT: I looked it up.

Fer crying out loud, it's an exploitation movie!

That's a blockbuster alright!  :bouncegiggle:

http://youtu.be/nfEPWa1ay0U (http://youtu.be/nfEPWa1ay0U)

Jimpickins didn’t make up the phrase “Get Woke, go broke;” it’s been around for a few years now; I first heard it applied to the 2016 Ghostbusters remake.

Basically, a “woke” movie tries to appeal to people who see some injustice in society. If you lean too much into that audience, you may wind up alienating a lot of people, resulting in lower profits.

You could also restate the phrase as “Moralizing at the expense of storytelling is expensive.” That phrase would work if the movie, book, comic leaned right or left.

Keep in mind, some audiences want a moral they agree with; that’s why “Get Out” & “God’s Not Dead” made money.

^ I thought folks didn't watch those films just because they sucked.
And it doesn't seem to apply to many films- just obscure s**t that you cherry pick.

I don’t know how much I agree with the phrase; some of the movies I’ve seen it used against, like Disney’s Star Wars movies, were fairly successful. Or the films had problems besides moralizing, as you pointed out.

OR...

Movies have been getting worse & worse for years!

DECADES!!

 :teddyr:

I cut my cable package to just the local channels years ago due to inflation, so I don't know what's big, but I have noticed a few things....

Off the top of my head, no more smoking.....
That means Nick Fury & The Man With No Name are no longer allowed to chomp on their cigars & cigarillos while kicking @$$ anymore....

Another thing, is that everything needs to have a token LGBTQ....
So token, that often, the audience needs to be made aware that they're LGBTQ, with the character getting token scenes & token dialog...

^ I have not seen that happen.
Are you just imagining this will happen?  :question:
Do you smoke? If not, why do you care?
I smoke, pot and tobacco, and if they took Clint smoking a cigar out, gee- I would watch my old vhs, so I could watch him smoke, I guess.  But I don't see Clint making many more  movies, and I don't recall that many Nick Fury movies where he is smoking a cigar. Comic books, yes.
Is all this bulls**t that important? Who gives a f**k?

No, I see it on a lot of TV shows based on comic books.........

Well, that explains a lot.  :question:


You said 'no". So you never seen it happen except some  superhero TV shows.
C'mon, man. You can do better than that.

Usually in modern movies only "evil" characters smoke, if you pay attention. In my opinion, it's a rather pathetic attempt to discourage the habit, to be honest, but hey, what can you do about it.

About the Disney Star Wars movies, according to this article, the franchise has made so far $1.8 billion in profits:

https://observer.com/2020/08/star-wars-gross-profit-earnings-disney-box-office/

but the studio spent $4 billion to buy the franchise.

There's another problem:

I think the budgets don't include marketing, which can reach up to $100 billion for each movie. For example, the marketing cost for the first movie was $175 billion.

Second, I think the box office receipts are halved given the cut for distributors and theater owners. There are more details here:

https://stephenfollows.com/how-movies-make-money-hollywood-blockbusters/

That means a movie has to make at least 2.5 times its production budget just to break even. And in this case the profits have to cover more of the $4 billion paid for the franchise until investors start getting a return.

In addition, there appears to be growing dissatisfaction with the franchise as seen in sales, for example, for merchandise for the sequel trilogy characters. And revenues appear to be going through a downward trend for each movie.

This might explain why they are now giving more attention to TV shows, but those appear to face similar issues. For example, I recall that for another franchise, Star Trek, Discovery costs per season as much as a Hollywood tent-pole flick, and I hear that it might be cancelled because fans are also turned off by its emphasis on "wokeness." And viewers tend to subscribe for a few dollars to binge-view one season for a month, and then unsubscribe.

One more thing: it appears that one reason why not just studios but various companies focus on it is not because they believe in the stuff but because it increases their ESG (environmental, social, and governance) scorecard, and thus allows them to attract more investors.

Very few are willing to take risks I mean if NC-17 existed in the 70's and 80's quite a few directors would've took advantage of it unlike todays directors.

They had the X-rating back in those days. For example, Scarface (1983) was going to be an X-rated movie in its original form unless the director Brian DePalma opted to tone down or cut out the bathtub chainsaw scene along with the plethora of F-bombs used in the movie. DePalma cleaned it up a bit and resubmitted the movie to the MPAA a few times, but they still weren't satisfied with the amount of violence and cuss words in the film and retained the X-rating. Finally, DePalma just got fed up and submitted the movie to the MPAA in its original format, and for whatever reason the MPAA approved it for the R-rating that it still has today. Later on, when asked if there would ever be a "director's cut" of the film, DePalma said that the version that we got is the "director's cut" because of the whole MPAA fiasco.  :cheers:

Because they rely too much on F/X, unreal action scenes, and pretty stars instead of a solid story and good acting.

They feel like fast food. You eat the s**t, it fills you up for awhile, but not a memorable meal.

there are modern movies which are awesome

there are older movies which are awesome

there are also modern movies which are terrible

there are also older movies which are terrible

The question is what proportion of each are awesome & terrible.

And I'm not sure that question really has an answer. What is an awesome film? What makes a movie good? Dramatic conventions change over time; it's possible people who say modern movies are terrible are just pining for old conventions which most others find passé today.

I agree. A lot of the horror groups I am in seem to argue endlessly whether slower paced films like Hereditary and Midsummer are good or crap and the arguments can get quite heated. If you enjoy them, then watch them, if you don't like them, then don't watch 'em. I don't understand the endless debate on them.

"Why Modern Movies Suck - They're Written By Children"

By Critical Drinker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ92cggLMx8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ92cggLMx8)

Some points:

In the past, writers could come up with very complex characterization, which when combined with very good dialogue led to excellent storytelling. This has been recently replaced with shouting and fighting.

Characters were also diverse but consistent. This has been replaced by characters acting like teenagers, with diversity that's only superficial.

Finally, it was mentioned briefly here but emphasized in other videos, that spectacle was used only to heighten parts of storytelling, and characterization drove action. Now, it's mostly action (and sometimes senseless) and spectacle, such that too much of both makes movies ironically banal.

The biggest tragedy about all this is that the solution to these problems is also the cheapest: work on better writing.