There are a few genres that have essentially disappeared (temporarily? permanenetly?) from the world's movie screens:
WESTERNS - Sure, they come out with one every now and then, but the art of making good westerns has been lost. Years ago, we could rely on directors like Henry Hathaway, John Ford, Sergio Leone, and Sam Peckinpah to crank out top-notch westerns. The last good western was UNFORGIVEN. When will we see another?
MUSICALS - Take a look at movies like SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, OLIVER!, WEST SIDE STORY, and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. Why can't we see more quality musicals like these?
BIBLICAL (OR NEAR BIBLICAL) EPICS - THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, BEN HUR . . . where have they gone?
SWASHBUCKLING PIRATE MOVIES - I shudder when I think of movies like CUTTHROAT ISLAND and the soon-to-be-released PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. Bring me back to the days of Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks.
What are some others that I might have missed?
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I say comedies, most now think simply being vulgar is funny. I don't.
Agreed. Clever is hard, Crude is common. Give me a Marx Brothers romp anyday. Am i the only one who like clever word play? Thats one of the reasons i like Red Dwarf...they don't just insult someone, they make a production of it!
Same with Black Adder. Show some style, guys, style!
While I'm extremely far from being a Western conossiuer, wasn't Tombstone with Kurt Russel and Val Kilmer released after Unforgiven? Tombstone's a great Western, IMO. Other than that, the only other modern Western that I can remember loving was Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis. But maybe that's more of a guilty pleasure.
As for Biblical epics, the world has changed so much that everyone would probably find some way to pick the movie apart. I doubt they would even give the movie a fair chance. For instance, I believe that Mel Gibson's under some heavy pressure for wanting to do some religious flick in some language other than English. So as far as Biblical epics go, I just don't know if there'd be a market anymore.
Nick
I don't know, those Left Behind and Omega Code movies seem to do pretty well---at least well enough to make sequels. But yeah, I think the big-budget Hollywood Biblical epic is a thing of the past, for various reasons.
Occasionally, you'll see a good Western, but even the bad ones are few and far between. They just aren't making them....
The Southern car chase comedy [a la Smokey and the Bandit, etc.] is one you don't see anymore. I think anything with a regional flavor is something that you don't see much of anymore.
And here's another vote for today's comedies being mostly unfunny.
..While we're at it, how about no-brainer action movies, ala Golan-Globus? In a perfect world, Golan-Globus would still be churning out craptastic action movies at the same pace today as they were in the 80s. Where have the Rambo-type movies gone? How about Commando 2, Ahnuld? What about violent Conan type movies, instead of watered down stuff like the Scorpion King? I've heard that Mel Gibson's doing Mad Max 4 sometime in the near future; I'm excited about this, but a little skeptical as well. Will there be any exciting and inventive chase scenes like the one at the end of Road Warrior? Hell no, but one can always dream..
Oh yeah, and Sho Kosugi needs to make a comeback. Long live Ninja movies!
Nick
Let's not forget gritty exploitation flicks like Last House on the Left. Something about the grainy film quality and the simple straightforward "I'm just here to make a movie, not impress you with my camera angles" directing style. The art is lost.
Brother R
Brother R - I totally agree.
The death of the drive-in theaters left us without a good venue for movies like LAST HOUSE. Most horror/exploitation movies now are glitzy and full of CG effects and have lost all of the "raw honesty" of the drive-in hits of the 1970s.
Not only that, but the great ad campaigns of those days have disappeared. Will we ever again see brilliant trailers, posters, and marketing campaigns like they had for LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT ("keep repeating, it;'s only a movie, only a movie, only a movie . . . "), or SUSPIRIA ("the only thing more frightening than the last 12 minutes of this movie is the first 90"), or MARK OF THE DEVIL (where they handed out "stomach distress" bags at the box office and said that the movie was rated "V" for "violence")?
I am on a quest to buy as many DVDs from that era as possible. Included in my collection are:
*LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT
*THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
*SUSPIRIA
*DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT
*DEEP RED
*FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS
*THE BLOODSUCKER LEADS THE DANCE
*THE VAMPIRE HAPPENING
*HOUSE OF WHIPCORD
*NUDE FOR SATAN
*ANTICHRIST
*THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE
*EXORCISM
*FRIGHTMARE
*DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS
*GANJA AND HESS
*REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE
*EXORCISM AT MIDNIGHT
*LISA AND THE DEVIL / THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM
*NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES
*LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES / THE SEVEN BROTHERS MEET DRACULA
*SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES
And many, many more. People just do not know how to make these kinds of movies anymore! Thanks for bringing this up, Brother R . . .
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Today, nobody in the industry knows how to make a good horror film anymore and if a horror film is made, it's just the same "slasher wearing a mask, stabbing people, and stalking dumb teens". But, their are no good zombie, vampire, or any other original horror film being made today.
Original horror today is a dead genre, at least in my eyes. Oh well, I'll just sti back and watch John Carpenters THE THING and admire it for what it is: good, original horror.
Having just watched David Twohy's Below, I'll politely disagree. The ghost story is making a big assed comeback. And I'm drooling over the upcoming release of 28 Days Later, which is supposed to kick ass as well. The horror genre moves in cycles, every few years some pinhead in the papers wonders why such gruesome movies are popular (with lots of pseudo babble explaining it this way and that way) then, when a trend dies down, someone writes an article proclaiming the horror genre dead...only for a fresh movie to come out and do well and start the whole dang ball rolling again. Right now ghosts are hot, soon it might be aliens again, then...who knows?
And you know K, back in the day, many a fan whined that all horror movies seemed to be the same, some dude in a masking killing topless chicks. The day I'm talking about is the 80s, though.
The reason Gibson's under so much pressure isn't just that we wants to do a Biblical film in foreign language-- it's that he wants to make a 6-hour one in Aramaic with no subtitles. The best part is that Aramaic is a dead language; not only does no one know how to speak it, nobody even knows how it's supposed to be pronounced. They could be saying ANYTHING!
I agree with you on Westerns, though I also liked Tombstone and I never really cared for Sergio Leone.
I really like to see a return of Swashbucklers like Captain Blood and The Black Swan, what I really liked about these type of films was that they were just carefree adventure flicks, they might have a moral or but no one really took it seriously. Now they make things like Cut Throat Island(GI Jane with swords).
I think one of the reasons no one makes Swashbucklers or good Westerns anymore, is that no one seems to want to have fun anymore. Now movies have to make a political statement or debunk myths and legends. This works fine when you want to see a social commemtary/message flick, but sometimes you just want to see a sword fight or a shoot out.
Mad TV or SNL is bound to do it. Or just have them talking in jibberish.
I don't think Gibson's ideaa is such a stupid one. He says the film would have 'minimal dialogue', so the film would rely on visual storytelling. Which I think is a brave concept. If he were making a silent movie people would be telling him it was a good idea. So what's wrong with a random-language film? Not that I'll be watching it any way. Religion's not exactly my favourite subject for a film.
Pete
Damn right Deej! That's what I've been saying for years. Waht the HELL happened to just going to the movies and having fun?! Is it a sin to make a movie that doesn't teach you anything? As for movies that need to make a comeback: Ninja flicks! Were they usually absurd? Yes. But that was the fun of it. That's what's missing from alot of movies these days THE FUN!!!
If theres anything I love almost as much as a zombie its a PIRATE! ARRR!! the ass of a fine lass be the booty fer me! heheeee! alright thats dumb but if i heard someone say it to me id melt! MAN! and a zombie pirate is just TOO MUCH! BUTT ive never seen a pirate movie that wasnt Hook. and i dont really consider that a pirate movie.
whats a good pirate movie? i dont think ive ever seen one!!
and i dont mean a dashing man dressed as a darty pirate winnin the harts o fancy wimmin i mean a good bloody beating abusive pirate movie!!
love colleen
>What are some others that I might have missed?
Not my favorites, but how abaout;
Arabian fantasies, like The Thief of Bagdad, Sinbad etc.
Jungle adventures like Tarzan, Bomba etc.
>The horror genre moves in cycles, every few years some pinhead in the papers
>wonders why such gruesome movies are popular (with lots of pseudo babble
>explaining it this way and that way) then, when a trend dies down, someone
>writes an article proclaiming the horror genre dead
Everyone's probably sick of me saying this, but the horror genre moves in cycles because executives have no concept of quality. It goes like this;
-A good horror movie comes out.
-Executives see it making money and want to jump on the bandwagon.
-Their movies are crap.
-Since they have no concept of quality, they can't see that they're crap.
-Their movies flop.
-Since they can't see that they're crap, they think the only reason their movies flopped where another succeeded is that the public is tired of horror movies.
-They decide that horror movies are no longer popular enough to make.
This happens with SF films too as well as specific 'franchises'. After each of the lame Trek films (the odd numbered films), I read some dimwit saying that the public had lost interest in Star Trek. No, they just won't pay to see lame movies. Of course this idea that one Star Trek movie might not be as good as another is lost on them...
What about Zombie movies? When was the last really great zombie movie a-la Dawn of the Dead made?
The Japanese made a couple of good ones in the late 90s, depending on one's tastes--personally, I didn't like WILD ZERO because it wasn't scary enough, but JUNK was good. Zombies are a little too specific for me to consider it a genre by itself, but there's been at least one film [RESIDENT EVIL] released that had zombies in it. Whether it was a "good zombie movie" or not is another question.
I like the old films, but there's only so much you can do with zombies.
I'll have to say they don't make old fashioned Martial Arts movies any more. I 'm talking about with bad dubbing, and a lot of absurd fighting styles. (like in Grey Eagle Silver Fox when the old man used Baked Chicken Style and Wooden Spoon). We get a few movies that are made now or a decade ago that are beter but don't seem to have the exact same charm.
They also don't know how to make good buddy movies like Bill and Ted. Something so entertainingly funny is rare. The same for good old fashioned action movies with no plot but that still are good.
Epics are never done today. Like those Roman Legion type films. A cast of thousands type stuff.
I don't know of any good bloody beating abusive Pirate movies. The Island, had pretty nasty and somewhat abusive pirates in it. But, no one likes that one....except me. The Black Pirate has a good scene where a pirate cuts a guy open to get at a ring he swallowed, and when he gets the ring out of the man's gut, it's all wet and shiny, presumably with gastric juices.
All the Pirate flicks I like heavily feature "dashing man dressed as a darty pirate winnin the harts o fancy wimmin ", I like the Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, sword fighting without messing up your hair movies. Like Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk. That's right! I enjoy watching fine boned Englishmen, with pencil-thin mustaches, dressed in tights, hopping around, and hitting each other with their swords. DON'T JUDGE ME!!!!!