Is it me or during the late 00's movies (not only movies, but also music and other things, except tech.) got worse? I mean, most of the movies during 2005-2010 were/are either based on old things like toys for example (Transformers), remakes or complete rip-offs (unofficial remakes?). Not only are movies getting worse, but most current bad movies are boring. In the previous decades there were loads of bad movies, but they were at least slightly enjoyable. Even movies from the early 00's look better than most of today's movies. I still like a couple of them. I hope the things will change in the 2010's.
Current times almost always look bad compared to the past. We tend to remember only the best stuff from the past and forget all the crap. I remember growing up in my teens and 20s in the 1980s, I thought pop culture could never possibly have been any worse at any time in the past. Culture Club, hair metal, Rambo, Miami Vice, valley girls... God, I thought the decade was Hell. Things from the 60s and 70s were so much cooler. Now, I'm absolutely shocked to see people in their teens and 20s look back on the 1980s as a "cool" decade. And now, with the passage of time, I'm able to see the cool things about the 80s that won't ever be repeated, especially great B-movies like RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, RE-ANIMATOR and so forth.
Now, as for current movies, I think on balance things aren't much better or worse than they ever were. But the environment has changed. Hollywood is making fewer movies than before, and therefore taking less chances. Remakes and toy adaptations are guaranteed moneymakers; there is no incentive to be original or take chances with these movies. We also have fewer theatrical choices now; we don't have that alternative cinema that came from the grindhouses and drive-ins. Much of the stuff that would have played there gets sent straight to DVD, where it's harder to find a common audience through word of mouth.
There are still plenty of good and original movies being made, but you have to look harder for them. The independents and national cinemas from outside the US are where most of the action is these days. Heck, think of horror movies; Hollywood is only responsible for at most a dozen of the hundreds of horror movies that appear each year. Independents and foreign cinema delivers the rest, and that's where the innovation will be.
Looking at the list I just posted of my best movies of the decade, I see 4 from outside the US, 2 independents, 2 from the larger independents (Lions Gate and Focus), and only 2 that came from major Hollywood studios. That's 80% of the good movies coming from outside the Hollywood studio system. Yet, studio product takes up 90-95% of the available screens.
I agree with the 00s personally too. But Rev. does make some good points. There is great stuff still out there, you just have to search a bit harder through all the muck that Hollywood and a lot of the media/advertising tries to shove down our throats. To me, many of the best Horror films these days come from overseas. A lot of the films that get nominated for Oscars (but certainly not all) that you probably never heard of very well could be quite good too. Sometimes film festivals show and celebrate some great films that get little noticed elsewhere.
Rev. Powell, I'm sorry but you're not completely right!
I will never forget how stupid was the music from the late 90's. And most late 90's movies sucked then and now they suck even more. They are just overrated crap. I mean '10 things I hate about you' is plain awful. Even 'Titanic' is nothing more than a hyped movie. The thing is the late 00's/2010 are like the late 90's/2000 - we have crappy music and crappy movies. The early 00's were good because stupid late 90's trends went away. I don't really miss the late 90's and the bland year of 2000, but I love 2001-2005. The only bad thing about those years was 9/11, everything else was better than now and the overrated 90's. In 2001 junk music like Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys was old fashioned. I think the late 90's are way overrated, because people fear to say they prefer the early 00's more. And you want know the reason why? 9/11. I don't feel bad about liking 2001 over 1995-2000 though, because it was a better year for me personally and pop culture was better. People should try to separate disasters like 9/11 and pop culture. Yeah, 9/11 was and still is a terrible thing. However, 2001 movies and music were a lot better than nowadays music and movies. In 2001 I didn't see Lady GaGa's ugly face everywhere and Miley's teeth on every TV channel. I hope that from 2011 onward things will be similar to how 2001-2005 were, except 9/11 of course. I'm talking about pop culture-wise, not about disasters. 2010 sucks because it's like 2000 - it's too similar to the second half of the previous decade.
As for the 80's, I'm 21 and I generally think the late 80's were over-the-top and the early 80's were better.
Eh, I can't analyze it that much. I'd have to go through various 5 year periods and count up how much stuff I liked and how much I hated. Were the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls really worse than Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers? When I look back over pop culture of any era, it looks to me like it shakes out about 90-95% crap and 5-10% decent stuff. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
I think every era has something people don't like. I mean after 2010s past someone else will come along and say oh the 2010s where terrible I hope 2020s will be more like the 90s. I tend to look at it as ya there are some bad stuff out there. Be it music or movies whatever you fancy, but you dig deep enough there are some diamonds in the rough. Whatever is happening in that time it may as well have influence that great thing even if most people miss it. Those who saw it have something great to remember about that yesteryear.
The worst decade for movies is the 1960's.
Thats when a movie storage building when up in flames and a good number of films (like London after Midnight) are forever lost.
As for finding a decade of bad movies... 2000 to 2009... Why? one word... REMAKES.
In my opinion the 80's, the 90's and the 00's are alike because the earlier parts of them are better than the second part. Maybe except years like 1980, 1990 and 2000 that are transitional. So if the things repeat, the real 2010's culture will start in mid 2011. 2010 sucks because it's like 2006-2009.
I think that whatever time we "came of age" will always be remembered as the best. Back in the '80s I could turn on the TV any weekend and it was a bad movie extravaganza. If I was my current age back then, I'd probably realize that most of it was crap. But back then it was NEW crap. Not in the sense that it was a recent release, but in the sense that this whole world of bad movies was brand new to me. All these genres I'd never even knew existed before.
I think there's still quite a quantity of good stuff coming out. I have my personal tastes, and if I search hard enough, I can find what I'm looking for. Doing the looking is half the fun actually.
For me it's just the opposite - in the early 00's like 2001-2005 used to listen to Vh1's So 80s' because I thought that the then-current music was crap. However, since 2005, when music gradually changed I understood how good early 00's music was. It's the same situation with movies, cars and even fashion, although I'm not the most fashion-conscious person. :smile:
There seems to be a lot of continuity amongst threads lately. The Clash of the Titans thread, the anti-remake thread, and this one are all complaing about the same thing. Rev. Powell's valid points aside, that says something. It says that people are tired of the crap. I just posted something in the Clash thread that I'll reitterate here. Something I don't understand is that I will hear someone tell me they are going to see a movie that they have read is bad, that they know is going to be bad, yet they're gonna go see it anyway. Then they tell me afterwards how terrible it was and to save my money. This happens more than I can possibly understand. Perhaps it is because there are no options at the local multiplex, as Rev. said. That makes some sense. I still don't get it. Even members here, who by and large strike me as above the status-quo when it comes to movie appreciation will post similar comments, when they practically announce that they know something is going to be crap but that they're going to spend their money on it anyway.
By the way, I went to high school in the 80's and I still have the same mixed appreciation now that I had for them then.
Rev., I agree that Britney and the Backstreet Boys were better than Lady GaGa and The Jonas Brothers. But Britney, Jessica Simpson and the likes from the late 90's were way worse than Avril Lavigne when she was cool. I'm talking about the 'old' Avril, not the sell-out she became in the late 00's. "Complicated" is far better than "Baby One More Time" imo.
Ozzymandias speaks: To kind of go along with Rev's post, there is always a shake-out effect when we look back. The bad stuff falls out of the bucket while the good stuff sticks to the sides.
I've been working in my spare time on a novel that takes place in the 50's. When I go back and look at old TV listings and the movie ads in the local newspapers, I always find that the stuff with staying power had to vie for attention with stuff you never heard of.
The movies that have heavy promotion are usually films that I have never heard of. I occasionally find some of these on TCM or Fox Film. It becomes obvious why they are not fondly remembered. They are boring. Several bad remakes of 30's films were made in the 50s. The films I'm familiar with are usually at a Saturday matinee or drive-in. Also the major movies that have been remembered from that era are kind of subversive compared to what had heavy promotion.
TV suffered at that time from a practice of local stations pre-empting the network shows for syndicated shows like Dick Sinclair's Polka Party ("It is fun for the whole family") or local programs.
Ozzymandias has spoken!!!
80s ruled! 80s ruled, 90s sucked s**t and the 00s belong on mars man! :tongueout:
To me, if it (music, movies, fashion, ect ) came out after the mid 90's, I don't follow it. There are a few exceptions to this of course. I suffer from head in the sand syndrome, but it works for me
I sometimes think society is stuck in a fast food mentality. Instant gratification, instant satisfaction which means films full of flash and FX but with little plot and characterization, music that is soulless and pointless but constantly references sex and violence and/or plays up to pop culture expectation, TV that is full of shock 'em to get a reaction because it's all about ratings, money and not art. To me, everything has gone downhill since the 1990s came. I do remember the late 80s being very hopeful for a brighter tomorrow (Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now" comes to mind) that didn't ever come to pass in reality and then the 90s despair (Grunge rock gets its start, eventually Nu-Metal appears) set in. It hasn't really changed since then too much I think. There is still great stuff out there but the mass of stuff that gets the most advertising and attention is the stuff that seeks attention by delivering upon expectation of shocks, sex, violence and FX.
But you know when you really think about it and look back, I wonder what moviegoers of the 1930-50s, which I personally consider the best period for movies in history, thought of the shock and exploitation films of the 60s and 70s? I'm sure some film fans of the 30s and 40s probably didn't even think much of some of the drive-in fare of the 1950s either.
Quote from: Rev. Powell on April 08, 2010, 08:14:33 PM
Eh, I can't analyze it that much. I'd have to go through various 5 year periods and count up how much stuff I liked and how much I hated. Were the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls really worse than Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers? When I look back over pop culture of any era, it looks to me like it shakes out about 90-95% crap and 5-10% decent stuff. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Not only do I agree with you, but were
BACKSTREET BOYS and
SPICE GIRLS any worse than
THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY and
SHAUN CASSIDY? :wink:
Quote from: Allhallowsday on April 10, 2010, 11:38:06 PM
Quote from: Rev. Powell on April 08, 2010, 08:14:33 PM
Eh, I can't analyze it that much. I'd have to go through various 5 year periods and count up how much stuff I liked and how much I hated. Were the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls really worse than Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers? When I look back over pop culture of any era, it looks to me like it shakes out about 90-95% crap and 5-10% decent stuff. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Not only do I agree with you, but were BACKSTREET BOYS and SPICE GIRLS any worse than THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY and SHAUN CASSIDY? :wink:
My point exactly: same sh*t, different decade.
I also think Jase makes good points above. I think part of the reason the 30-50s produced movies with a "classic" feel may have been, ironically, the Hays Code. Without the freedom to sprinkle in liberal sex and violence throughout the picture, filmmakers were forced to rely instead on backups like plot and dialogue.
I would gladly take Shaun Cassidy over Lady Gag Gag or the Backpassage Boys anyday.
Rev., you may have a point about the Hays Code. While I've never liked censorship myself and when younger was a person who couldn't be more against it, these days it seems like all that's on TV is sex and violence. The cartoons are almost all offensive, the reality shows are filled with people engaging or wanting to engage in sexual or violent acts, TV shows highlighting criminal mayhem and carnage, it's like the media is stuck in an obsession with endless sex and violence because it sells, it brings in ratings. Blood and guts and sex and shock. Deliver that and you draw a crowd. Like the Roman Gladiators and the Colosseum, TV has now become a largely perverse diversion from the mundaneness of everyday reality. But it's perhaps gone a bit too far, become a bit too much to the point nothing shocks anymore, very little gets one to care or have any reaction anymore. Eventually they'll have to probably try and actually tell a story again because there'll be little left shockwise for people to see. Scary what may be around the corner otherwise...death game shows like THE RUNNING MAN?
Even the s**ttiest celebrity/movie/song from the 70's, 80's, 90's and early 00's is better than the current top hits. I mean Lady GaGa? I know some say she's the new Madonna. No, she's not!
Music, movies, pop-culture in general does not have same impact as it once did simply because it does not hold the same value. Think about it. Music and movies are simply an electonic files now, whereas once upon a time the music and the movie resided on a tape, or an LP. If you wanted to steal music from an artist, you had to walk into the local music store, look around to see that nobody was looking, stuff the item in your pants, and get out the door without anybody catching you. There was no instant gratification there, and a criminal record and public humiliation if you got caught. Even if you got away with it, you carried guilt. These things carry value. Now, if you could easily acquire music for free off the Internet, would you feel the same sense of value or guilt about having stolen from the artist.
There are some good things about the way things are now. Artists can market themselves and their music on their own now, and some have done so successfully. But, to me the greatest downfall in this age is the value of the artform in the minds of the public. I'm sure some of my fellow geezers will back me up on this, but back in the day holding an LP in your hands carried with it a sense of fulfillment, a sense of holding something that someone created. It had almost a magical sense to it, like holding Excalibur. If you have any old LP's, go now and pick one up and hold it. How does that affect you as opposed to opening up iTunes?
Quote from: Flick James on April 12, 2010, 04:16:05 PM
Music, movies, pop-culture in general does not have same impact as it once did simply because it does not hold the same value. Think about it. Music and movies are simply an electonic files now, whereas once upon a time the music and the movie resided on a tape, or an LP. If you wanted to steal music from an artist, you had to walk into the local music store, look around to see that nobody was looking, stuff the item in your pants, and get out the door without anybody catching you. There was no instant gratification there, and a criminal record and public humiliation if you got caught. Even if you got away with it, you carried guilt. These things carry value. Now, if you could easily acquire music for free off the Internet, would you feel the same sense of value or guilt about having stolen from the artist.
There are some good things about the way things are now. Artists can market themselves and their music on their own now, and some have done so successfully. But, to me the greatest downfall in this age is the value of the artform in the minds of the public. I'm sure some of my fellow geezers will back me up on this, but back in the day holding an LP in your hands carried with it a sense of fulfillment, a sense of holding something that someone created. It had almost a magical sense to it, like holding Excalibur. If you have any old LP's, go now and pick one up and hold it. How does that affect you as opposed to opening up iTunes?
I'm 23 years old, and I wholeheartedly agree with everything you just said. It's completely true, especially with records. You can get a real good whiff (albeit a musty one) of decades gone by through sleeve of an vinyl LP, a sleeve that will usually feature brilliant artwork and contain a big black disc full of crackly magic. It's like being a parent, watching your collection grow, being able to touch it all, clean it all, play it all and treasure it all forever. I can safely say I am the father to 500+ big black babies...
That's awesome. I think I have a couple hundred. I would have more if my cursed ex hadn't confiscated them. Old LP's sometimes even carry bonus vibe or an imprint of past owners. I have a copy of The Beatles' "Rubber Soul" that I bought at a vinyl store that must have originally been purchased in the 60's because the inside sleeve had all kinds of writings of admiration that clearly came from a young girl in the throws of a crush on Paul McCartney. Real mushy stuff, too. Also interesting are the albums I have from right around the time when LP's were getting phased out but some artists were still pushing out some vinyl, stuff that you usually associate with the CD age. I have an LP copy of Alice in Chains' "Facelift" as well as Soul Asylum's "Let Your Dim Light Shine," who were still pushing out a bit of vinyl as late as 1995.
It depends on what you want out of movies. Maybe I'm just pragmatic or optimistic, but I don't remember thinking ANY decade for movies in my lifetime has sucked. I loved the 80s movies growing up, but also enjoyed a number of classics, from nearly every decade. And I still like a lot of current movies. If all you look at is mainstream Hollywood, a lot of crap is coming out now. But that's always been true. But there's still a lot of good coming out each year. More and more independent stuff is worth watching, numerous foreign films are great, and way more stuff is available to all thanks to wide DVD availability and the internet.
Relatively recent films I've liked a lot: How To Train Your Dragon, Avatar, Black Dynamite, Coraline, District 9, Fantastic Mister Fox, Moon, Princess and the Frog, This Is It, Up, and Up In The Air.
You might notice that, aside from Up In The Air, all of these films are basically genre works. I believe Hollywood is still making very good genre films every year. In that sense, the 2000s is kind of like the 80s all over again.
I'm not sure what I think is the worst decade though.. Hard for me to say. I'm not sure if it is fair to count it, but I'd say the teens. I enjoy a number of silent films from the late silent era (especially 1925-28), but most of the earlier ones I find too slow and dull to be looked at as more than interesting stepping stones in film development. Outside of that era... For Hollywood film production, I think the 60s was weak. There are huge milestones in that era as the studio system broke down, but there are a great many snoozers as well. Most of my favorite films from that decade are either foreign (Japanese, Chinese) or co-productions (Spaghetti westerns). Looking at ALL industries though.. I think the 30s might be the most boring decade. The lockdown we got as sound recording became important caused movies to lose a lot of grace they'd gained in the late silent era. Many films from that era also suffer from poorly recorded audio that is difficult to understand. But, of course, there are some real gems as well.
So yeah, it's a tossup for me.
Oh, what I miss about albums/CDs is cover art. mp3s don't have one.
However, I still prefer watching TV to YouTube, I don't like that most PC screens are so small.
I'm only 21, I know something about tech, but I'm not very fond of it.
No current pop song is a match for I Should Be So Lucky, let alone some more serious stuff like Run To You, I Know What Boys Want, Steppin' Out, Jessie's Girl and many more.
If I restrict myself to horror films and sci fi films . . .
I checked two books out from the local library, "101 Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die" and "101 Sci Fi Movies You Must See Before You Die," if only because both books are divided by decade.
The horror book covering the decades 1910s to 2000s, and the sci fi book covering the decades 1900s to 2000s. And for some reason, the decade of the 1940s is excluded entirely from the sci fi book. If any sci fi films were made in those ten years, obviously the authors didn't think any of them well worth seeing.
Now, the authors think the best decade for horror films was the 1970's, as they picked 22 horror films from that decade. I on the other hand, taking the % of films seen + the % of films I liked, came up with a total score of 43% for the 1970's. Which would make that the worst decade for horror films for me. That is out of a total score of 100% seen + 100% liked = 200%.
As for sci fi films, the authors think the best decade was the 1980s, as they picked 30 sci fi films from that decade. I on the other other hand, taking the % of films seen + the % of films I liked, came up with a total score of 7% for the 1990s. Which would make that the worst decade for sci fi films for me. Again that is out of a total score of 100% + 100% liked = 200%.
Ozzymandias speaks: I think Rev. Powell was sort of on to what I was discribing that I noticed in my research. There were many movies that were heavily promoted in the 50s as "big extravaganzas" that also played it safe with the production code. Yet films that are remembered well from that era managed to get around the restrictions. Think about the Creature From The Black Lagoon watching Julie Adams in her white bathing suit or Marilyn Monroe's dress blowing up.
I had the day off so I went to the library and checked a microfilm of newspapers for October of 1958. I wrote down the names of the films at the local theaters. I also made note of the ones with heavy press kit material reprinted by the paper. Here's a list of those:
Harry Black and the Tiger (There was a heavy build up and press for this film - I've never heard of it)
Odongo
Andy Hardy Comes Home
The Little Hut
Windjammer
Elephant Walk
Barbarian and the Geisha
Fastest Gun Alive
Iron Petticoat
Imitation General
Naked Earth
A Certain Smile
Indian Fighter
Onionhead
Bullwhip
Merry Andrew
Enemy Below
Joe Butterfly
Day of the Badman
The Bravados
The only heavily promoted films that I recognized as classics were Cat On a Hot Tin Rooof and Damn Yankees.
Of the less promoted films were:
Desk Set (a surprise considering this is a Spenser Tracy and Kathreen Hepburn film)
Voodoo Woman
The Undead
Hot Rod Gang
High School Hellcats
And God Created Woman
What is interesting is that many of the films that were heavily promoted had big stars in them, such as John Wayne, Danny Kaye, Bob Hope etc., yet the titles don't ring a bell with me. I have seen Onionhead. It is a WW2 comedy with Andy Griffith and Joey Bishop. It has moments but not great.
Ozzymandias has spoken!!!
Sturgeon's Law: 90% of anything is crap. Combine that with the good ol' nostalgia filter we all carry and it simply looks like what we have today is worse than what came out before. It's just that we're seeing all the crap that nostalgia filters will push out of our memories in 10-20 years. Rest assured that there are gems coming out now, but it does take some digging to find them under all the uninspired crud that gets churned out with it!
I quite agree here .And i also hate some horror movies such as Shining and house of devil !