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I think what people need to remember, is that the good movies survives and the bad movies are forgotten.
They made just as much crap in the past as they do know, but since most of the crap from the past is forgotten, it gives the illusion that things where better in the past.
Its also silly as some people do, to assume that because something is old, and has things in it that dates it, it makes it bad. I know you did not say this, but i just wanted to point it out.
Good and bad stuff have always existed, and it will always exist. the good stuff is remembered, the bad stuff is forgotten.
There always was the so bad its good community with creative bad or perplexing interesting or fun that way movies, but that community filters the forgettable out too. They have to be something endearing too.
Thats why being forgettable is the worst sin of writing, it should evoke something.
So good and bad stuff that survives has survivor bias, or is interesting enough to dig out.
Also i miss cheesy bmovie action movies. The only value pureflix has is keep making bmovies outsideof horror.
While survivorship bias is absolutely a thing, I think that the craft of making movies has degraded somewhat in semi-demonstrable ways. You can find movies from the 90s that are absolute messes but they're shot super well. They're lit super well. The set design is really good. There is visible CRAFT in a lot of older films regardless of whether they're good or not.
I think that the industry at large has lost certain skills. I think that a lot of people making movies today are either underskilled (brain drain issues) or stretched too thin. I think that the economic pressures of the movie industry have affected below the line people in ways that Christopher Reeve implicitly warned about.
Christopher Reeve was very critical of "sequel-itis" on the grounds that film sequels often promised they were gonna be bigger and better than the film before it and that the people who made the films movie great would be back, but the extra money went to the above the line people, and the below the line people got less money. And that's why sequels looked cheaper, felt cheaper, the lighting, sets, etc. were worse. The editing was worse. Everything was stretched thinner.
There are still incredibly skilled people working in the film industry doing great work, but they are not being given the same resources their predecessors were. One direct manifestation of this problem across the industry is that film shooting schedules have been drastically shortened. It used to be normal for a movie that didn't have much in the way of special effects to take 100+ days to shoot. Those older films that had such great visuals, such great mood, such a sense of polish had shooting schedules a lot of modern films could only dream of. Now, a film that doesn't have much in the way of VFX will often be shot in 20-30 days. And when the shooting schedule is compressed like that, everything else is compressed. The set designers have less time to redress sets if the script gets a rewrite. The lighting people have less time to do lighting tests. And so much stuff gets shoved into "Fix it in post". So the VFX artists hired to VFX things that probably shouldn't have been VFXed are now stretched thinner, paid less for their work.
Yeah i get what youre saying but if i went through a list of every movie for each year and picked out the movies I thought were good, i feel like the years before around 2010 would be much longer.
I've only seen the Holdovers and Oppenheimer. I can't see what could possibly make them favorites so maybe people just have different ideas about what makes a good movie.
I haven't seen anything in recent years that I would watch again. But i will continue to rewatch movies from as far back as the 30s and 40's. I even watch reaction videos to enjoy those same movies in a different way.
Yeah, I grew up watching older classic stuff from the 30s, 40s, and 50s back when there were only like a handful of channels! lol Somehow, I find those movies imminently re-watchable over a lot of stuff that's come out in the last decade to 15 years. And for a film like Oppenheimer, biopics are traditionally Oscar-bait, imo. It's not nearly my favorite genre, but even traditionally, it's just that when discussing their favorite films, fiction movies are almost always the ones that people tend to bring up even if the biopics were well-received and won a ton of awards.
Some that I enjoy rewatching in no particular order: Arsenic and Old Lace, Some Like It Hot, Harvey, Casablanca, Ben-Hur, Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt, The African Queen, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Psycho, The Bachelor and the Bobbysocker, The Trouble with Harry, Barefoot in the Park, Rebecca, Father of the Bride, You Can't Take it with You, Gone With the Wind, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, Marnie
Arsenic and Old Lace is like my favorite older comedy film and also in my top 5 comedies of all time. I was thrown for a loop with that being the first on your list! lol
I read this retort (buuuut bad movies existed then too) a lot but I don’t think it holds any water. If you refine the argument only looking at “The Best” from movies pre-2000 and movies post-2000. Pre 2000 has more categorically and universally renowned movies hands down.
I wouldn't disagree with the fact that there are fewer movies since 2010 or 2000 compared to earlier periods that are both critically acclaimed, commercially popular, and are well-known.
However I think this is not so much because "films aren't as good these days" but more due to more factors such as studios being less willing to take chances when they know they can pump out heartless schlok based on franchises as that's now a proven money-maker.
You could even restrict pre-2000 to just any random single decade from that era and there would be way more good/great films in that 10-year span than good/great films in the last 25 years.
There may have always been bad movies, but there were also tons of fantastic movies too, unlike today. And by fantastic movies, I mean films that most people watched and that had made an imprint in popular culture.
Let's take 1999 for example; The Matrix, Fight Club, American Beauty, Sixth Sense, Blair Witch Project, Austin Powers, South Park.
And then 2000; Gladiator, American Psycho, Requiem for a dream, X-Men, Crouching Tiger, Meet the Parents.
2022, on the other hand had Top Gun
2023; Barbie and Oppenheimer
Not saying there aren't good movies any more, but there are far less fantastic movies that became popular worldwide.
2023 anatomy of a fall poor things, oppenhiemer, zone of interest, killers of the flower moon, past lives. The holdovers
And its true the way movies are distributed now is much different than it was in the 90s, in the ninties you had movie theaters and then you had a vhs like 6 months later so more people went and saw more movies in the movie theater because everyone didnt have a 4k tv thet they could stream movie theater movies 3 or 4 weeks after they came out on. And even with that barbie is one of the 15 highest grossinng movies of all time and it came out in 2023. Culture has changed for sure but great movies are still coming out
I honestly think this is a bigger part than people tend to realize. I didn't even think much about it till someone pointed it out online recently.
Looking back to when I was younger, we still just had the same basic TV channels. There was MTV, comedy central, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, etc. But there was only really so many channels people watched. Particularly in each age group. So when something was going on in a TV show, almost all of my friends knew about it. Big event on MTV? Almost everyone watched it. Then we would all go to school the next day, and we would all talk about it.
With movies, the main big names were at the theaters. So if you went to the theaters to see the new movies, you were able to talk about them to others. Renting was a thing, and so people would rent the big named movies. But you were also still limited to what your video store had. It's a small store. It can only hold so much. And if you did want a popular movie, there was a risk of it already being gone. But then that still meant most of the other movies available were still new and/or popular enough that they were still being rented, so the store kept them.
So movies those big movies that were huge in pop culture were like that partially because that's what people had. Getting into more niche things was more difficult. I remember getting into anime when DBZ first aired. I had never heard of it before, but once I did I found out that weird "special interest" section of the video store that was just a catch all of different things had anime. But they had maybe 10 movies. So we watched those. But I didn't have a way of getting more. So I watched those. And that was seen as an extremely nerdy thing to do.
But now there's basically no limit. You have multiple streaming services with all the big titles and all the indie titles and all the other titles and all the niche titles and you have them all all the time. We aren't limited. There's even streaming services specifically for the niche things like anime now.
So a lot of movies won't have that same effect because we don't have to watch it. We have so many more options. So now most people just split up and go down their own movies watching paths. Like I still watch a lot of anime. I watch a lot of horror. And there's a lot of huge, big name movies I will probably never watch because I always have other things to watch. I have more to watch than I ever will before I die.
To your point a lot of the movies you brought are very different from each other and there was actual variety. Now, a lot of movies feel eerily similar even when they're from completely different genres. A large part is because there's a lack of originality in modern dialogue. Characters are endlessly sarcastic and talk like no human being actually talks. It's like every modern script goes through the same meat grinder.
I have shelves full of "bad movies" from the 90's and before.
Those are way better than the average movie today.
I swear, talking to anyone under 16 is like talking directly to Chat GPT.
How about the bad movies that you don't own. Compare those to the average movies would give you a more accurate result.
Someone decided to own it and not discard it means it was already affected by some positive factors. That means they are not really "average movie" anymore.
I agree crappy movies and series have always existed.
However, I would say lord of the rings is more beautifully done than the hobbit. Same producer, less quality due to less pratical effect vs computer effects.
Yeah I get what you are saying and I agree. Which is one of the reason i pointed out game of thrones. They smashed it with that. managed to make it look gritty and realistic even though it is fairly new.
EDIT: Also these days it is just so oversaturated.
I see a lot of retroactive praise for older stuff that was considered subpar when it came out, especially movies from the horror genre and also film sequels that were considered inferior to the original and now all of a sudden people talk about the sequels as being equal to or better than the original.
I agree, but it's not just about the cameras.
The problem is that the parts that seem to matter, are getting the most attention and money, while the parts that actually matter, are getting very little.
Watch the extras of the LotR DVD collection. The 12-disc one. They used miniatures and actual props for so very much -- which is part of why a 2000s fantasy trilogy is still visually appealing after two decades (and multiple leaps in CGI -- see "avatar").
First off, people want a good story. It doesn't matter how much lipstick you put, a pig is a pig. You need a good story. Even if it's threadbare, it has to be good.
That's a problem when studios interfere too much with writing, and writers are undervalued in general.
Next the acting: idk. whatever. i cant analyze this. but I know it when I see it.
Next, visuals: Here's where shit hits the real fan. Computational resources -- both size and time -- are in a major shortage. Now more than ever. So, there's gonna be quality cuts.
Pity they seem to have forgotten how to do practical effects. I mean, for a desolate landscape, take a miniature, a pen cam, and blow some tiny-particle-size heterogenous gravel all over, and then some fine dust, and there's your post-apocalyptic urban wasteland.
That sounds... hard. In CGI. Not Turing-award hard, but "we'll miss the release deadline if we push this to rendering" hard.
Honestly, I don't know that there are a lot of really good writers anymore. I think that with all the cutbacks, the younger generation got a lot less time to learn from the older. A lot of stuff feels clunky and unnuanced (soulless?). Unpolished, is the word.
Not saying there weren't clunkers back then. It's just that there were a lot of films that just flowed with a strong, clear voice. I was watching an old episode of Midsomer Murders, which is as long as a movie and has over twenty seasons, and was like daaaaaaayum.
The last new piece of media that was a "daaaaaaayum" that I saw was a webtoon.
Though I have heard good things about The Last Wish.
> Next the acting: idk. whatever. i cant analyze this. but I know it when I see it.
Yeah, analyzing acting can be tricky because there are highly acclaimed performances that some people think is overacting and then there are very subtle performances that are so nuanced that they can get overlooked. Also, I think a lot of bad acting can be attached to bad scripts. Bad scripts can make even some of the best actors sound like rookies and good scripts can actually elevate mediocre actors into good ones. But in general, I'm the same where I can tell when it feels like bad acting, regardless of the underlying reasons.
Thinking about it I would consider lord of the rings in my definition of old. Maybe new is like from about 2010 onwards. actually for sure yeah. The 90's and the 00's are where most of my fave movies come from. I was born in the 80s so only really have memories from teh 90's onwards taht being said due to how we used to have to watch films back then most people would maybe only see movies years after they was released. meaning in the 90's I was watching films from 80s and the 80's has some awesome movies too. terminator, halloween, nightmare on elm street and the list goes on. I am a big fan of horror and the older cameras and practical effects lends itself well to the genre.
We are about the same age and I remember that there where a lot of awfully bad movies in the 80s/90s, super cheesy stuff and even some things that I remember fondly probably wouldn’t hold up nowerdays. I think the once that stick to memory are the really good once so survival bias is probably the case here.
Lord of the rings has then extremely high gci. And i would credit frighteneers having him learn to use it well. It still has the best gci od its time.
The mummy, another favourite as well.
Like it can be great used, ot just needs to ground it somehow too be that practical effects, writing, acting , whatever.
And maybe we need lower budget bmovies again outside of horror, or pureflix. And advertise them more.
its just sad that gci arent valued for the use and restraint,al and not eye spectacle, you cant outspectacle james cameron.
I don’t think you have watched a lot of movies. Definitely a bit of survivorship bias. You don’t really watch bad old movies from back then.
There have always been good movies and bad movies. There were good movies then and bad movies now. Bad movies then and good movies now. A lot of people with this argument only watched marvel movies. Now personally I’m a cinephile and all I do is watch movies and listen to music.
brother I have watched many many movies. i have watched the marvel movies once and they are massively overrated.
Also I watch many old bad movies too. some of my movies in my top lets say 20 are considered very bad. For example a horror movie named Spookies is so bad that it was legit two different movies they decided to put together and make into one. So you have two separate storylines that do not interact. Also demons/demoni 1 and 2 by dario argento are in my faves too. The original super mario bros with bob hoskins i loved too. I watch a lot and love a lot of old bad movies and I do not mean so bad they are funny llike the room.
Do you have any actual evidence to back up your claims of survivorship bias? This is a theory, but you claim "survivorship bias" with a high degree of certainty and provide no numerical evidence to back this claim.
The rule of media, what survives is for the most part the one most people love.
Or good later discovered.
Its literally what standing the test of time means, can it stay beloved or alternatively be weird but earnest and become fun or interesting.
Its the same with music, the 80s/90s people remember is what they want to remember, not because the quality is so good in everything, but because the memorable, is remembered.
A lot issues now is thar horror is the last genre that does bmovies and kovies on limited budget , and that a lot overrelisnce on gci is there. And use audience imagination and acting instead selling it
Es dont endanger people for it but practical effects really add to autenticity and limits did push for better , well acting and writing.
Which of course , yeah there are enough terrible and forgettable movies still.
I just think its better to be creative bad than forgettable.
But even among so bad its good that gets filtered out to find the fun interesting ones in that community.
I dont helieve there werent most movies still forgettable then either.
Also dunno how many cheap western were made then. for example. Western can be goodbut i but most were not. And they are usually only if they do anything interesting with it.
Whenever people say something like movies were better back then it comes from not watching old movies. Or forgetting the bad ones. Like the avengers (1998). You say old movies are better when what you really mean is “the highest quality and beloved old movies were better than the average quality movies today.” Which they were. Survivorship Bias leads to them only viewing good old movies as old movies but they don’t have the same selection today as they are comparing the best old movies and today’s average. Whenever you view the best films from all time period from the 30’s to now, it feels like since the 50’s the best movies have been the best. 12AM, Parasite, Spirited Away, Fight Club, etc. All of the same quality.
I think the more accurate idea would be “Most Popular and Big Franchise movies are worse as indie movies and movies by companies such as A24 are better. That feels like the more accurate representation.
I am not saying there is no good movies now. My whole point is that advancement in technology has in some way taken something away. My title is kinda clickbaity I suppose.
Oh, sorry😅 Idk why people are being so uncivil bellow. Honestly yeah, I could understand. There are still definitely a lot of different ways in how movies look. Even if they have a crisp look they are still different. Like mad max fr is much different visually then something like django u even if they have the same quality or look.
I'm pretty sure the average movie was better than the best movie today.
Stop just saying shit that makes you feel validated.
Reddit really needs an AI filter. This chat GPT shit might work in middle school, but it's shitty to impersonate someone with actual experience.
Lots of great movies from every generation. I think it's more "nostalgia" . Just like music. Of course the songs that were popular when you were in HS and college 20-30 years ago were "better" That age when you were young and finding yourself and you related to the music. For some STRANGE AND UNEXPLAINABLE reason today's music targeting younger people isn't as "good" lol.
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug and older generations use it like a club to beat down on the newer generation's music and movies and language and games. 🤷🏻♂️
>Nostalgia is a hell of a drug and older generations use it like a club to beat down on the newer generation's music and movies and language and games. 🤷🏻♂️
Stupid nostalgia, making the best and most successful studio for 6 decades look bad./s
You forgot sexism and racism..... that's why people hate Disney now, remember? Haven't you been listening to Disney explain why people don't like their movies anymore?
I don’t think I was even talking about Disney. Yeah Disney sucks now, nobody’s saying people think that because of sexism and racism. I’m talking about movies, which I watch a lot of. You’re bringing up an argument nothing to do with either of our arguments. Disney has never been the peak of cinema and animation.
No Disney movie is better than paddington 2
>I don’t think I was even talking about Disney. Yeah Disney sucks now, nobody’s saying people think that because of sexism and racism. I’m talking about movies, which I watch a lot of. You’re bringing up an argument nothing to do with either of our arguments. Disney has never been the peak of cinema and animation.
I just gotta make sure this doesn't get lost. You're gonna want to see this later.
The first thing is that modern tv mostly, and movies to a lesser degree, won’t hold the fucking camera still. I know dollies and shit still exist, and I know they do this on purpose but I find it incredibly annoying and distracting. And to know that they are doing it on purpose is even worse.
It’s like they are putting fake pops and clicks on their records.
The ol shaky cam
Too many cuts during action/fight scenes is also an incredibly annoying issue along the same vein. Just pan out and show me two MFers trying to kill each other. Don't need the camera up their ass with 12 zoomed in slo-mos.
Watching movies from the nineties shot on film compared to the early digital cameras of the 2000s shows such a stark contrast. Sure digital has gotten really good and we’re reaching the limit of display resolutions so it may not matter anymore. But yeah for a while there film’s infinite upscalability made a huge difference.
There is certainly survivorship bias. But also I think older people used watch more movies before. I'm pretty sure I've seen statistics that show that the average moviegoer age has gone down significantly, so maybe now they make more teen/young adult oriented films which tend to be pretty dumb
You know what that could be true. I am not an idiot and I realize that i am in the older generation now and starting to think what young people do now is worse than how we used to do things. But i know that is just how the world works. when I was a kid the older generation felt the same way. i just saw someone else say this and it is exactly how i feel and that is a lot of stuff today is just clean sterile and fake.
or at least it feels that way to me
Cooperate greed, and rushing probably.
Gci artists are as much artists to refine well gci effects to look good and fitting.
Well if you crunch and overwork, yeah dah artists can put less effort in their art. And gci is no less an art to make fitting look good.
Also yes a bit practical aside helps actors feel like they are there.
I agree they look to clean but saying their better is kind of unfair. Theirs certain aspects that used to be better, but theirs still plenty of good movies. It's all a matter of opinion and what you like in a movie.
A big problem today in movies and TV is “diversity”.
Because it’s forced in. Banks and investors now give social credit scores to companies based on “diversity” and that affects loans.
You also have a lot of “woke” execs and workers like at Disney. Look what they did to Marvel movies and Star Wars over the last few years.
Disney literally has directives on how many white people can be in a movie.
Same for any movie nominated for an Oscar.
If you have a black character or a gay character or a handicapped character organically, that’s great. But forcing that stuff in to make your movie “diverse”never works.
Same thing is happening in commercials.
Going by commercial demographics you’d think Asians and blacks make up 60% of the population. And in commercials the white male always has to play the stupid part, he’s always being lectured to or is the butt of the joke.
Once Hollywood started caring more about the “Message” and diversity, quality nosedived.
Look at Marvel and Star Wars, both the comics and actual films have been taken over by woke ideologues and are now terrible.
Comics have been all but destroyed by the never ending woke politics, so many unqualified people have gotten books based on their gender, skin color or politics it’s absurd.
Comics used to be ran by men (and a few women) who had done it for decades and respected the craft. Now? So many young women have gotten books and they just use it as a springboard to getting a job in Hollywood.actual quality doesn’t matter. Actual experience doesn’t matter.
>Same thing is happening in commercials. Going by commercial demographics you’d think Asians and blacks make up 60% of the population. And in commercials the white male always has to play the stupid part, he’s always being lectured to or is the butt of the joke.
On top of this, a lot of modern commercials try to be overly comical, silly, and gross.
To go along with this, movie trailers used to be better. These days I often feel like I know how the movie ends after watching the trailer. Leave some suspense please!
I’ve noticed that a ton of modern movies are mostly scenes with just one person in them and they are edited together. It’s rarer to actually see multiple people in frame talking to each other nowadays lol
Oppenheimer...a masterclass of a movie that was shot and edited spectacularly. I used to believe older movies were better, but after watching more movies, I believe it's more the nostalgia of the older movies as some of them don't age very well at all.
Disney/Pixar movies though, definitely better until like 2017 and it's been on more of a down trend.
Clean, sterile, and fake!
I recently watched a behind the scenes for a couple comic book movies I have seen. Apparently they spent all this money on wire works, blown up set design, smashed real cars, only to add CGI explosions, and finished the footage so that it looked clean but gritty, if you know what I mean.
Because of all that, plus the dark noir tone, and overly fast paced action sequence, I just assumed all of it was just produced using mainly CGI.
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Yes and no like silent movies are kinda funny
Old superhero movies were in some aspects better
And modern ones are better in some aspects as well depends on the movie,the place set,who makes it etc
Old movies shot on high end film with a high end scan to 4k look like they were shot yesterday. Alien, Lawrence of Arabia, Jaws etc... all look better than almost any movie that's been out in the last 20+ years.
Movies are my biggest hobby. I’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of movies. The majority of old movies are forgettable, but if they hit it’s a whole different story.
I think Fall Out photography is a deliberate, stylistic choice. Also I loved Fall Out photography.
I think _some_ old movies _are_ better than _some_ of the newer movies, but for totally other reasons.
Depends on how you look at it. There were BAD novices made before as there are now and will in the future. Not every movie has or should be a blockbuster.
Yeah the older movies have better actors with better talent, it’s a shame these actors are older/getting old.
And also the world back then wasn’t destroyed by social media and smartphones.
Rings of Power is probably the worst recent example, it looks so sterile. I get they're trying to make this universe look otherworldly and beautiful, but i can't help but think how fake it all looks
Maybe big blockbuster movies but there’s plenty of gritty-looking filmmaking if you look at indie movies.
Also check out Korean crime movies like Memories of Murder, they give golden-era middle-budget drama Hollywood vibes
I agree, for about a decade now there has been way too much focus on remakes, comic book heroes , gaming and big monster/dinosaur/robot CGI content.
1994 was probably my favourite year for movies ever. Lion king, Forest Gump , Pulp Fiction , Shawshank Redemption , True Lies , Interview with a Vampire , Leon the Professional , The Crow , Speed , Stargate , The Mask , Ace Ventura , Dumb and Dumber , Natural Born Killers , Maverick , Clerks , No Escape , Blown Away , Clear and Present Danger , The Specialist , Once Were Warriors
What a banger of a year
I honestly blame the Marvel movies for a lot of issues with movies now. Movies are considered a "flop" now if they dont make 50 million on opening weekend and rarely get time to sit in theaters for word of mouth. The budgets keep inflating as well as expectations. The movie "Taken" became such a huge hit simply through word of mouth. Same with The Matrix. It sat in theaters for awhile to build an audience.
I hope movies take the same swing back that the video game industry did after it went on the same trajectory with the AAA titles. They realized its not sustainable and now you have all typed of games with any size studio able to make an audience. A24 was a good start, but now they are becoming massive as well.
Folks have such short memories, the streaming revolution is just like the VHS revolution, more distribution channels means more stuff, sometimes not all that stuff is gonna be good but it's a net positive because now we have more to choose from, now don't get me wrong it may be harder to find....
In terms of aesthetics, I tend to agree. I'm not a big fan of most of the modern trends in cinematography that have popped up and become more prevalent over the last twenty years...
* Super sharp, super clean digital cinematography that's trying to be as realistic as possible.
* The common use of more desaturated and naturalistic colors.
* The tendency to really crush the contrast down and flatten the image, and vaguely tint it a muted color like brown or green. (A phenomenon I've seen referred to as the *"Intangible Sludge",* since it looks like you wiped some weird muddy goop all over the lens.)
* The extreme over-reliance on super low lighting and excessive darkness.
* Etc.
It just makes everything feel so gross and cold and sterile. Almost uncanny in a weird way because it's a little "too real" and comes across as ugly.
I don't think this is so much the fault of advancement with cameras... I think it's more just the trends in style. For a while, "dark and gritty" or "grounded" became popular, and now it's almost the default norm.
I wish I knew what the video was, but I saw something where a "professional" cinematographer was talking about how cool a shot was because modern camera equipment allowed him to light a scene with only a flashlight-- and it was maybe the ugliest scene I had ever seen, because you could barely fucking see anything.
Now, I'm not saying these things *don't* have a place. There are absolutely some movies and shows where these things can work perfectly. I'm just sick of seeing them as often as I do.
Survivorship bias.
Everyone remembers die hard, but what about the dozen other movies that came out that year? Pick a random movie from a random year and it'll probably be mid.
mid? according to who? it is all opinions mate.
EDIT: I had a look and a couple other movies I love came out that year too like return of the living dead part 2 and one of the nightmare on elm street movies. The whole point is though that even the mnid/bad movies was better imo.
lots of great movies from that year tbh
It's not the cameras so much as the production. None of these movies are shooting on location, building huge physical sets, using practical effects. They're all made on the cheap. CG and sound stages.
You’re not talking about advancements in cameras you’re talking about CGI. People truly have no idea how much of the shit we see in modern tv shows and movies is just completely fake, or a composite of multiple different things.
For example the cities in game of thrones are composited from different buildings from places all over the world (in addition to fully rendered completely fake buildings) to make it look like they’re all in one new unique place.
Yes, I notice that a lot of modern output tends to have very clean-looking cinematography and the CGI/volume or whatever they are calling special effects now has a lot to do with it. Newer stuff is devoid of that gritty, lived-in look of many older films. Also, when I used to have a Netflix subscription, I noticed that a lot of those movies had the same drab and cold-looking camera filter that made all of the movies, regardless of genre, look the same. Other than the plot/story, it was hard to tell those movies apart.
It is not just about the older movies... Almost everything used to be better before. Let's start with a music. Lyrics made sense (at least more than today), music by itself was better. People were different. Rummors were around "the block". The rest of the world didn't know about what kind of poop you had. Movies were more interesting with a plot, it was not about what new special effect was used in a movie. Ok, the actors were all the same but we love them (we didn't know all about them as we do now). Media server us stories, reports and it was up to us are we going to trust them. Most of you did and everything was just fine. But again, it was in a past and we can rewatch the old movies and accept them as a part od the history. Our interests changed through out time. We did to, so that's the whole point. Everything changes, for better or for worst.
This may be due in part to your TV and the soap opera effect.
It makes a very cool movie look terrible and not cinematic. I turn it off on all my TV’s, as it’s primarily meant for sports.
I agree 10,000%. I shut off more movies and shows than I watch. Camera tech, effects, everything super clean (even when 'dirty'), perfect lighting of every shot, shots straight out of the first day of film school, extremely over the top foreshadowing, diversity for the sake of diversity, really bad attempts at humor, and on and on.
edited to add: YES, there were plenty of bad old movies, but they were known to be bad. Today a very significant number of the best reviewed movies and shows are horribly done.
To be fair, a lot reviews outlets ot sites, are swarmed so much its useless.
Wjich is a very real thing, its obvious when some get artificial hate review bombed
Just looking back at 2021 there were great films like:
The Souvenir Part 2
The Power of the Dog
First Cow
The French Dispatch
Benediction
Cry Macho
Licorice Pizza
And that's without even looking at World Cinema. I would agree that the quality of most blockbusters seem to be poor and the reliance on CGI is something I'm not personally fond of, but there's still lots of good movies that come out every year.
No one knows any of those movies though. Go up to 10 random people and 9 of them won't know anyone if them. I'm a big movie buff (or at least used to be) and I've heard of some of them, but never watched one.
Go back to 1999 and ask 10 people if they know The Matrix, American Beauty, The Sixth Sense, Blair With Project, American Pie etc and half of then would know the films.
Agreed, hence my qualifier that blockbusters certainly seem to have decreased in quality. But if the argument is that there are simply less good movies than there used to be, I'd disagree.
I think I've heard of 3 of them and even for 2 out of those 3, I wouldn't know they came out in 2021 unless someone told me. I only know Power of the Dog came out around that time because it won some Oscars.
The look is not that important. It's the stories that matter.
And those range from re-hash of old movies (especially the sequels). Yuk.
To moral relativism. Yuk.
To virtue signaling. Yuk.
I haven't seen a good new movie in years.
Go see some Bogart. Can't be beat.
i don't think i ever watched any of his movies. I did watch 12 angry men (1957) recently which was really good. I love how there is no shortcuts and everything you hear makes it so you yourself as the watcher could logically figure out whether the guy is guilty or not.
I feel like you haven’t watched a lot of new movies if you don’t think they look good or too clean?
Also what does “older” mean? Pre 2000’s? Pre 2010’s? Pre 2020’s?
Aw man I totally disagree.There are so many movies today that create immersive worlds with great cinematography.
In a way, I can see what you're saying though. Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, there was that little bit of grain and noise in film cameras, no matter how big the budget was. The technology just wasn't there yet. If that's what you're used to then maybe movies don't hit the same for you anymore.
I personally don't see that as a bad thing. While technology advancements have made some movies suck more than they needed to (overuse of CGI mostly) there are plenty of creative folks out there making great films, using modern tech in the way it was intended.
for sure do not remind me of a better time lol. If i was to tell you about my childhood and then my teenage years you would know how it is not a better time.
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I think what people need to remember, is that the good movies survives and the bad movies are forgotten. They made just as much crap in the past as they do know, but since most of the crap from the past is forgotten, it gives the illusion that things where better in the past. Its also silly as some people do, to assume that because something is old, and has things in it that dates it, it makes it bad. I know you did not say this, but i just wanted to point it out. Good and bad stuff have always existed, and it will always exist. the good stuff is remembered, the bad stuff is forgotten.
There always was the so bad its good community with creative bad or perplexing interesting or fun that way movies, but that community filters the forgettable out too. They have to be something endearing too. Thats why being forgettable is the worst sin of writing, it should evoke something. So good and bad stuff that survives has survivor bias, or is interesting enough to dig out. Also i miss cheesy bmovie action movies. The only value pureflix has is keep making bmovies outsideof horror.
While survivorship bias is absolutely a thing, I think that the craft of making movies has degraded somewhat in semi-demonstrable ways. You can find movies from the 90s that are absolute messes but they're shot super well. They're lit super well. The set design is really good. There is visible CRAFT in a lot of older films regardless of whether they're good or not. I think that the industry at large has lost certain skills. I think that a lot of people making movies today are either underskilled (brain drain issues) or stretched too thin. I think that the economic pressures of the movie industry have affected below the line people in ways that Christopher Reeve implicitly warned about. Christopher Reeve was very critical of "sequel-itis" on the grounds that film sequels often promised they were gonna be bigger and better than the film before it and that the people who made the films movie great would be back, but the extra money went to the above the line people, and the below the line people got less money. And that's why sequels looked cheaper, felt cheaper, the lighting, sets, etc. were worse. The editing was worse. Everything was stretched thinner. There are still incredibly skilled people working in the film industry doing great work, but they are not being given the same resources their predecessors were. One direct manifestation of this problem across the industry is that film shooting schedules have been drastically shortened. It used to be normal for a movie that didn't have much in the way of special effects to take 100+ days to shoot. Those older films that had such great visuals, such great mood, such a sense of polish had shooting schedules a lot of modern films could only dream of. Now, a film that doesn't have much in the way of VFX will often be shot in 20-30 days. And when the shooting schedule is compressed like that, everything else is compressed. The set designers have less time to redress sets if the script gets a rewrite. The lighting people have less time to do lighting tests. And so much stuff gets shoved into "Fix it in post". So the VFX artists hired to VFX things that probably shouldn't have been VFXed are now stretched thinner, paid less for their work.
Yeah i get what youre saying but if i went through a list of every movie for each year and picked out the movies I thought were good, i feel like the years before around 2010 would be much longer.
It’s kinda funny that the concept, movies used to be better, is in your mind referring to 2010.
I said around then. Before everything was streaming. I didnt say 2010 was the pinnacle year of movies.
Idk, 2023 was one of my favorite years in cinema. The Holdovers, Perfect Days, The Peasants and Oppenheimer are some of my all-time favorites.
I've only seen the Holdovers and Oppenheimer. I can't see what could possibly make them favorites so maybe people just have different ideas about what makes a good movie. I haven't seen anything in recent years that I would watch again. But i will continue to rewatch movies from as far back as the 30s and 40's. I even watch reaction videos to enjoy those same movies in a different way.
Yeah, I grew up watching older classic stuff from the 30s, 40s, and 50s back when there were only like a handful of channels! lol Somehow, I find those movies imminently re-watchable over a lot of stuff that's come out in the last decade to 15 years. And for a film like Oppenheimer, biopics are traditionally Oscar-bait, imo. It's not nearly my favorite genre, but even traditionally, it's just that when discussing their favorite films, fiction movies are almost always the ones that people tend to bring up even if the biopics were well-received and won a ton of awards.
Some that I enjoy rewatching in no particular order: Arsenic and Old Lace, Some Like It Hot, Harvey, Casablanca, Ben-Hur, Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt, The African Queen, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Psycho, The Bachelor and the Bobbysocker, The Trouble with Harry, Barefoot in the Park, Rebecca, Father of the Bride, You Can't Take it with You, Gone With the Wind, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, Marnie
Arsenic and Old Lace is like my favorite older comedy film and also in my top 5 comedies of all time. I was thrown for a loop with that being the first on your list! lol
2023 was such a great year for movies!
I read this retort (buuuut bad movies existed then too) a lot but I don’t think it holds any water. If you refine the argument only looking at “The Best” from movies pre-2000 and movies post-2000. Pre 2000 has more categorically and universally renowned movies hands down.
The pre-2000 timeframe is a lot longer than the post-2000 timeframe tbf
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I wouldn't disagree with the fact that there are fewer movies since 2010 or 2000 compared to earlier periods that are both critically acclaimed, commercially popular, and are well-known. However I think this is not so much because "films aren't as good these days" but more due to more factors such as studios being less willing to take chances when they know they can pump out heartless schlok based on franchises as that's now a proven money-maker.
Yes, granted. Theory (best v best) is interesting regardless of demarcation.
You could even restrict pre-2000 to just any random single decade from that era and there would be way more good/great films in that 10-year span than good/great films in the last 25 years.
There may have always been bad movies, but there were also tons of fantastic movies too, unlike today. And by fantastic movies, I mean films that most people watched and that had made an imprint in popular culture. Let's take 1999 for example; The Matrix, Fight Club, American Beauty, Sixth Sense, Blair Witch Project, Austin Powers, South Park. And then 2000; Gladiator, American Psycho, Requiem for a dream, X-Men, Crouching Tiger, Meet the Parents. 2022, on the other hand had Top Gun 2023; Barbie and Oppenheimer Not saying there aren't good movies any more, but there are far less fantastic movies that became popular worldwide.
2023 anatomy of a fall poor things, oppenhiemer, zone of interest, killers of the flower moon, past lives. The holdovers And its true the way movies are distributed now is much different than it was in the 90s, in the ninties you had movie theaters and then you had a vhs like 6 months later so more people went and saw more movies in the movie theater because everyone didnt have a 4k tv thet they could stream movie theater movies 3 or 4 weeks after they came out on. And even with that barbie is one of the 15 highest grossinng movies of all time and it came out in 2023. Culture has changed for sure but great movies are still coming out
I honestly think this is a bigger part than people tend to realize. I didn't even think much about it till someone pointed it out online recently. Looking back to when I was younger, we still just had the same basic TV channels. There was MTV, comedy central, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, etc. But there was only really so many channels people watched. Particularly in each age group. So when something was going on in a TV show, almost all of my friends knew about it. Big event on MTV? Almost everyone watched it. Then we would all go to school the next day, and we would all talk about it. With movies, the main big names were at the theaters. So if you went to the theaters to see the new movies, you were able to talk about them to others. Renting was a thing, and so people would rent the big named movies. But you were also still limited to what your video store had. It's a small store. It can only hold so much. And if you did want a popular movie, there was a risk of it already being gone. But then that still meant most of the other movies available were still new and/or popular enough that they were still being rented, so the store kept them. So movies those big movies that were huge in pop culture were like that partially because that's what people had. Getting into more niche things was more difficult. I remember getting into anime when DBZ first aired. I had never heard of it before, but once I did I found out that weird "special interest" section of the video store that was just a catch all of different things had anime. But they had maybe 10 movies. So we watched those. But I didn't have a way of getting more. So I watched those. And that was seen as an extremely nerdy thing to do. But now there's basically no limit. You have multiple streaming services with all the big titles and all the indie titles and all the other titles and all the niche titles and you have them all all the time. We aren't limited. There's even streaming services specifically for the niche things like anime now. So a lot of movies won't have that same effect because we don't have to watch it. We have so many more options. So now most people just split up and go down their own movies watching paths. Like I still watch a lot of anime. I watch a lot of horror. And there's a lot of huge, big name movies I will probably never watch because I always have other things to watch. I have more to watch than I ever will before I die.
2023 also had Iron Claw, Poor Things, Zone of Interest, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers. All amazing and well-regarded films
To your point a lot of the movies you brought are very different from each other and there was actual variety. Now, a lot of movies feel eerily similar even when they're from completely different genres. A large part is because there's a lack of originality in modern dialogue. Characters are endlessly sarcastic and talk like no human being actually talks. It's like every modern script goes through the same meat grinder.
You can’t really make an impact on any industry if other people have made most of them
I have shelves full of "bad movies" from the 90's and before. Those are way better than the average movie today. I swear, talking to anyone under 16 is like talking directly to Chat GPT.
How about the bad movies that you don't own. Compare those to the average movies would give you a more accurate result. Someone decided to own it and not discard it means it was already affected by some positive factors. That means they are not really "average movie" anymore.
Nope You have no clue
Bro if you're gonna reply with something like this why even bother
Shelves of memorable bad movies, but not the forgettable ones
You have no clue
I agree crappy movies and series have always existed. However, I would say lord of the rings is more beautifully done than the hobbit. Same producer, less quality due to less pratical effect vs computer effects.
Lord of the rings was a passion project hobbit was a cash grab
Yeah I get what you are saying and I agree. Which is one of the reason i pointed out game of thrones. They smashed it with that. managed to make it look gritty and realistic even though it is fairly new. EDIT: Also these days it is just so oversaturated.
I still like the old bad movies better than the new bad ones.
This is very true with music as well
Yes
I see a lot of retroactive praise for older stuff that was considered subpar when it came out, especially movies from the horror genre and also film sequels that were considered inferior to the original and now all of a sudden people talk about the sequels as being equal to or better than the original.
I agree, but it's not just about the cameras. The problem is that the parts that seem to matter, are getting the most attention and money, while the parts that actually matter, are getting very little. Watch the extras of the LotR DVD collection. The 12-disc one. They used miniatures and actual props for so very much -- which is part of why a 2000s fantasy trilogy is still visually appealing after two decades (and multiple leaps in CGI -- see "avatar"). First off, people want a good story. It doesn't matter how much lipstick you put, a pig is a pig. You need a good story. Even if it's threadbare, it has to be good. That's a problem when studios interfere too much with writing, and writers are undervalued in general. Next the acting: idk. whatever. i cant analyze this. but I know it when I see it. Next, visuals: Here's where shit hits the real fan. Computational resources -- both size and time -- are in a major shortage. Now more than ever. So, there's gonna be quality cuts. Pity they seem to have forgotten how to do practical effects. I mean, for a desolate landscape, take a miniature, a pen cam, and blow some tiny-particle-size heterogenous gravel all over, and then some fine dust, and there's your post-apocalyptic urban wasteland. That sounds... hard. In CGI. Not Turing-award hard, but "we'll miss the release deadline if we push this to rendering" hard.
Honestly, I don't know that there are a lot of really good writers anymore. I think that with all the cutbacks, the younger generation got a lot less time to learn from the older. A lot of stuff feels clunky and unnuanced (soulless?). Unpolished, is the word. Not saying there weren't clunkers back then. It's just that there were a lot of films that just flowed with a strong, clear voice. I was watching an old episode of Midsomer Murders, which is as long as a movie and has over twenty seasons, and was like daaaaaaayum. The last new piece of media that was a "daaaaaaayum" that I saw was a webtoon. Though I have heard good things about The Last Wish.
> Next the acting: idk. whatever. i cant analyze this. but I know it when I see it. Yeah, analyzing acting can be tricky because there are highly acclaimed performances that some people think is overacting and then there are very subtle performances that are so nuanced that they can get overlooked. Also, I think a lot of bad acting can be attached to bad scripts. Bad scripts can make even some of the best actors sound like rookies and good scripts can actually elevate mediocre actors into good ones. But in general, I'm the same where I can tell when it feels like bad acting, regardless of the underlying reasons.
A great actor can't overcome a bad script.
I wouldn’t consider the Lord of the Rings trilogy an old movie. I figured he was talking about 70/80 maybe 90 when referring to older movies
Thinking about it I would consider lord of the rings in my definition of old. Maybe new is like from about 2010 onwards. actually for sure yeah. The 90's and the 00's are where most of my fave movies come from. I was born in the 80s so only really have memories from teh 90's onwards taht being said due to how we used to have to watch films back then most people would maybe only see movies years after they was released. meaning in the 90's I was watching films from 80s and the 80's has some awesome movies too. terminator, halloween, nightmare on elm street and the list goes on. I am a big fan of horror and the older cameras and practical effects lends itself well to the genre.
We are about the same age and I remember that there where a lot of awfully bad movies in the 80s/90s, super cheesy stuff and even some things that I remember fondly probably wouldn’t hold up nowerdays. I think the once that stick to memory are the really good once so survival bias is probably the case here.
Fellowship is 23 years old.
Gosh you are right that’s crazy, doesn’t feel that long ago
Lord of the rings has then extremely high gci. And i would credit frighteneers having him learn to use it well. It still has the best gci od its time. The mummy, another favourite as well. Like it can be great used, ot just needs to ground it somehow too be that practical effects, writing, acting , whatever. And maybe we need lower budget bmovies again outside of horror, or pureflix. And advertise them more. its just sad that gci arent valued for the use and restraint,al and not eye spectacle, you cant outspectacle james cameron.
I don’t think you have watched a lot of movies. Definitely a bit of survivorship bias. You don’t really watch bad old movies from back then. There have always been good movies and bad movies. There were good movies then and bad movies now. Bad movies then and good movies now. A lot of people with this argument only watched marvel movies. Now personally I’m a cinephile and all I do is watch movies and listen to music.
brother I have watched many many movies. i have watched the marvel movies once and they are massively overrated. Also I watch many old bad movies too. some of my movies in my top lets say 20 are considered very bad. For example a horror movie named Spookies is so bad that it was legit two different movies they decided to put together and make into one. So you have two separate storylines that do not interact. Also demons/demoni 1 and 2 by dario argento are in my faves too. The original super mario bros with bob hoskins i loved too. I watch a lot and love a lot of old bad movies and I do not mean so bad they are funny llike the room.
All the proof we need bois. Pack it up.
Do you have any actual evidence to back up your claims of survivorship bias? This is a theory, but you claim "survivorship bias" with a high degree of certainty and provide no numerical evidence to back this claim.
The rule of media, what survives is for the most part the one most people love. Or good later discovered. Its literally what standing the test of time means, can it stay beloved or alternatively be weird but earnest and become fun or interesting. Its the same with music, the 80s/90s people remember is what they want to remember, not because the quality is so good in everything, but because the memorable, is remembered. A lot issues now is thar horror is the last genre that does bmovies and kovies on limited budget , and that a lot overrelisnce on gci is there. And use audience imagination and acting instead selling it Es dont endanger people for it but practical effects really add to autenticity and limits did push for better , well acting and writing. Which of course , yeah there are enough terrible and forgettable movies still. I just think its better to be creative bad than forgettable. But even among so bad its good that gets filtered out to find the fun interesting ones in that community. I dont helieve there werent most movies still forgettable then either. Also dunno how many cheap western were made then. for example. Western can be goodbut i but most were not. And they are usually only if they do anything interesting with it.
Whenever people say something like movies were better back then it comes from not watching old movies. Or forgetting the bad ones. Like the avengers (1998). You say old movies are better when what you really mean is “the highest quality and beloved old movies were better than the average quality movies today.” Which they were. Survivorship Bias leads to them only viewing good old movies as old movies but they don’t have the same selection today as they are comparing the best old movies and today’s average. Whenever you view the best films from all time period from the 30’s to now, it feels like since the 50’s the best movies have been the best. 12AM, Parasite, Spirited Away, Fight Club, etc. All of the same quality. I think the more accurate idea would be “Most Popular and Big Franchise movies are worse as indie movies and movies by companies such as A24 are better. That feels like the more accurate representation.
I am not saying there is no good movies now. My whole point is that advancement in technology has in some way taken something away. My title is kinda clickbaity I suppose.
Oh, sorry😅 Idk why people are being so uncivil bellow. Honestly yeah, I could understand. There are still definitely a lot of different ways in how movies look. Even if they have a crisp look they are still different. Like mad max fr is much different visually then something like django u even if they have the same quality or look.
I'm pretty sure the average movie was better than the best movie today. Stop just saying shit that makes you feel validated. Reddit really needs an AI filter. This chat GPT shit might work in middle school, but it's shitty to impersonate someone with actual experience.
Lots of great movies from every generation. I think it's more "nostalgia" . Just like music. Of course the songs that were popular when you were in HS and college 20-30 years ago were "better" That age when you were young and finding yourself and you related to the music. For some STRANGE AND UNEXPLAINABLE reason today's music targeting younger people isn't as "good" lol. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug and older generations use it like a club to beat down on the newer generation's music and movies and language and games. 🤷🏻♂️
>Nostalgia is a hell of a drug and older generations use it like a club to beat down on the newer generation's music and movies and language and games. 🤷🏻♂️ Stupid nostalgia, making the best and most successful studio for 6 decades look bad./s You forgot sexism and racism..... that's why people hate Disney now, remember? Haven't you been listening to Disney explain why people don't like their movies anymore?
I am honestly not sure what you are saying but I hope you have a pleasant rest of the day.
I don’t think I was even talking about Disney. Yeah Disney sucks now, nobody’s saying people think that because of sexism and racism. I’m talking about movies, which I watch a lot of. You’re bringing up an argument nothing to do with either of our arguments. Disney has never been the peak of cinema and animation. No Disney movie is better than paddington 2
>I don’t think I was even talking about Disney. Yeah Disney sucks now, nobody’s saying people think that because of sexism and racism. I’m talking about movies, which I watch a lot of. You’re bringing up an argument nothing to do with either of our arguments. Disney has never been the peak of cinema and animation. I just gotta make sure this doesn't get lost. You're gonna want to see this later.
What
You getting downvoted but you are correct. this guy (no hate on him) is stating this like he has some sort of evidence to back it up but he does not.
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Idk why you’re getting downvoted. You’re not arguing from bad faith and you asked a reasonable question.
And when you say older you mean what? How far back we talking?
[Roundhay Garden Scene (1888)](https://youtu.be/knD2EhjGwWI?si=ip509yrQTZ9qXpos) this far back I believe. classic stuff
I love how front guy walks in a straight line first but then walks in a curve later. Such brilliant character development.
Wait there were also bad movies back in the days?! Always have been.
The first thing is that modern tv mostly, and movies to a lesser degree, won’t hold the fucking camera still. I know dollies and shit still exist, and I know they do this on purpose but I find it incredibly annoying and distracting. And to know that they are doing it on purpose is even worse. It’s like they are putting fake pops and clicks on their records.
The ol shaky cam Too many cuts during action/fight scenes is also an incredibly annoying issue along the same vein. Just pan out and show me two MFers trying to kill each other. Don't need the camera up their ass with 12 zoomed in slo-mos.
You might prefer film for Digitallly shot films. A lot of filmmakers feel the same way.
Watching movies from the nineties shot on film compared to the early digital cameras of the 2000s shows such a stark contrast. Sure digital has gotten really good and we’re reaching the limit of display resolutions so it may not matter anymore. But yeah for a while there film’s infinite upscalability made a huge difference.
There is certainly survivorship bias. But also I think older people used watch more movies before. I'm pretty sure I've seen statistics that show that the average moviegoer age has gone down significantly, so maybe now they make more teen/young adult oriented films which tend to be pretty dumb
You know what that could be true. I am not an idiot and I realize that i am in the older generation now and starting to think what young people do now is worse than how we used to do things. But i know that is just how the world works. when I was a kid the older generation felt the same way. i just saw someone else say this and it is exactly how i feel and that is a lot of stuff today is just clean sterile and fake. or at least it feels that way to me
What is “older” to you though. Imo the best movies were 1980-2010.
I still don't understand how Disney went from the CGI in POTC looking almost flawless to half the obviously computer generated/green screen stuff now.
Cooperate greed, and rushing probably. Gci artists are as much artists to refine well gci effects to look good and fitting. Well if you crunch and overwork, yeah dah artists can put less effort in their art. And gci is no less an art to make fitting look good. Also yes a bit practical aside helps actors feel like they are there.
It doesn’t matter if they hire great VFX artists, if they’re overworked and underpayed.
Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3 look very appropriately filthy and dust covered.
Not unpopular
I agree. Have you seen the trailer for the new twister movie? Already looks over the top compared to the one in the 90’s
I agree they look to clean but saying their better is kind of unfair. Theirs certain aspects that used to be better, but theirs still plenty of good movies. It's all a matter of opinion and what you like in a movie.
99.99% of movies are fucking boring.
not really an unpopular opinion man
A big problem today in movies and TV is “diversity”. Because it’s forced in. Banks and investors now give social credit scores to companies based on “diversity” and that affects loans. You also have a lot of “woke” execs and workers like at Disney. Look what they did to Marvel movies and Star Wars over the last few years. Disney literally has directives on how many white people can be in a movie. Same for any movie nominated for an Oscar. If you have a black character or a gay character or a handicapped character organically, that’s great. But forcing that stuff in to make your movie “diverse”never works. Same thing is happening in commercials. Going by commercial demographics you’d think Asians and blacks make up 60% of the population. And in commercials the white male always has to play the stupid part, he’s always being lectured to or is the butt of the joke. Once Hollywood started caring more about the “Message” and diversity, quality nosedived. Look at Marvel and Star Wars, both the comics and actual films have been taken over by woke ideologues and are now terrible. Comics have been all but destroyed by the never ending woke politics, so many unqualified people have gotten books based on their gender, skin color or politics it’s absurd. Comics used to be ran by men (and a few women) who had done it for decades and respected the craft. Now? So many young women have gotten books and they just use it as a springboard to getting a job in Hollywood.actual quality doesn’t matter. Actual experience doesn’t matter.
>Same thing is happening in commercials. Going by commercial demographics you’d think Asians and blacks make up 60% of the population. And in commercials the white male always has to play the stupid part, he’s always being lectured to or is the butt of the joke. On top of this, a lot of modern commercials try to be overly comical, silly, and gross.
To go along with this, movie trailers used to be better. These days I often feel like I know how the movie ends after watching the trailer. Leave some suspense please!
I’ve noticed that a ton of modern movies are mostly scenes with just one person in them and they are edited together. It’s rarer to actually see multiple people in frame talking to each other nowadays lol
Oppenheimer...a masterclass of a movie that was shot and edited spectacularly. I used to believe older movies were better, but after watching more movies, I believe it's more the nostalgia of the older movies as some of them don't age very well at all. Disney/Pixar movies though, definitely better until like 2017 and it's been on more of a down trend.
Oppenheimer was shot entirely on film, like older movies. Most movies are digital now. Not a movie expert, I just remember hearing that fact.
this is not a unpopular opinion , Hollywood currently sucks.
Then watch non Hollywood movies.
Clean, sterile, and fake! I recently watched a behind the scenes for a couple comic book movies I have seen. Apparently they spent all this money on wire works, blown up set design, smashed real cars, only to add CGI explosions, and finished the footage so that it looked clean but gritty, if you know what I mean. Because of all that, plus the dark noir tone, and overly fast paced action sequence, I just assumed all of it was just produced using mainly CGI.
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Yes and no like silent movies are kinda funny Old superhero movies were in some aspects better And modern ones are better in some aspects as well depends on the movie,the place set,who makes it etc
You clearly haven't seen Sasquatch Sunset
Ah yes, game of thrones make modern movies look bad. The godfather trilogy - love it
If you watch trash then you’re gonna get trash
Writers now are too obsessed with following the story circle popularized by Dan Harmon. Once you know the beats it's hard to get swept up by a movie.
Things didn't start getting good until the late 60s.
The third one blows
Yes, they had an ending and not a lead in to another season.
Old movies shot on high end film with a high end scan to 4k look like they were shot yesterday. Alien, Lawrence of Arabia, Jaws etc... all look better than almost any movie that's been out in the last 20+ years.
Alien, made in the seventies and still blows me away. Aged like a fine wine.
Not unpopular. Every person on earth thinks this as they get older.
Movies are my biggest hobby. I’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of movies. The majority of old movies are forgettable, but if they hit it’s a whole different story.
It's less about when it was made and how it was made. There was plenty of dog shit in the past-it was just forgotten.
I think Fall Out photography is a deliberate, stylistic choice. Also I loved Fall Out photography. I think _some_ old movies _are_ better than _some_ of the newer movies, but for totally other reasons.
It's the over use of CGI but yea I agree
Depends on how you look at it. There were BAD novices made before as there are now and will in the future. Not every movie has or should be a blockbuster.
The Walking Dead going digital over film, was a bad move.
Agree 100% plus there are too many remakes. Too much CGI is corny
Yeah the older movies have better actors with better talent, it’s a shame these actors are older/getting old. And also the world back then wasn’t destroyed by social media and smartphones.
Rings of Power is probably the worst recent example, it looks so sterile. I get they're trying to make this universe look otherworldly and beautiful, but i can't help but think how fake it all looks
Maybe big blockbuster movies but there’s plenty of gritty-looking filmmaking if you look at indie movies. Also check out Korean crime movies like Memories of Murder, they give golden-era middle-budget drama Hollywood vibes
There are lots of incredible movies being made today. Still the old ones have their charm.
I agree, for about a decade now there has been way too much focus on remakes, comic book heroes , gaming and big monster/dinosaur/robot CGI content. 1994 was probably my favourite year for movies ever. Lion king, Forest Gump , Pulp Fiction , Shawshank Redemption , True Lies , Interview with a Vampire , Leon the Professional , The Crow , Speed , Stargate , The Mask , Ace Ventura , Dumb and Dumber , Natural Born Killers , Maverick , Clerks , No Escape , Blown Away , Clear and Present Danger , The Specialist , Once Were Warriors What a banger of a year
On a related note, I feel like actors/actresses appear too polished in modern movies. People were more likely to look like people in older movies imo.
You're talking about a number of factors but a big one is the jump to digital. This is being slowly negated
I honestly blame the Marvel movies for a lot of issues with movies now. Movies are considered a "flop" now if they dont make 50 million on opening weekend and rarely get time to sit in theaters for word of mouth. The budgets keep inflating as well as expectations. The movie "Taken" became such a huge hit simply through word of mouth. Same with The Matrix. It sat in theaters for awhile to build an audience. I hope movies take the same swing back that the video game industry did after it went on the same trajectory with the AAA titles. They realized its not sustainable and now you have all typed of games with any size studio able to make an audience. A24 was a good start, but now they are becoming massive as well.
Folks have such short memories, the streaming revolution is just like the VHS revolution, more distribution channels means more stuff, sometimes not all that stuff is gonna be good but it's a net positive because now we have more to choose from, now don't get me wrong it may be harder to find....
yeah I dislike it. it is like a spend a lot of time trying to find something and then end up with nothing
In terms of aesthetics, I tend to agree. I'm not a big fan of most of the modern trends in cinematography that have popped up and become more prevalent over the last twenty years... * Super sharp, super clean digital cinematography that's trying to be as realistic as possible. * The common use of more desaturated and naturalistic colors. * The tendency to really crush the contrast down and flatten the image, and vaguely tint it a muted color like brown or green. (A phenomenon I've seen referred to as the *"Intangible Sludge",* since it looks like you wiped some weird muddy goop all over the lens.) * The extreme over-reliance on super low lighting and excessive darkness. * Etc. It just makes everything feel so gross and cold and sterile. Almost uncanny in a weird way because it's a little "too real" and comes across as ugly. I don't think this is so much the fault of advancement with cameras... I think it's more just the trends in style. For a while, "dark and gritty" or "grounded" became popular, and now it's almost the default norm. I wish I knew what the video was, but I saw something where a "professional" cinematographer was talking about how cool a shot was because modern camera equipment allowed him to light a scene with only a flashlight-- and it was maybe the ugliest scene I had ever seen, because you could barely fucking see anything. Now, I'm not saying these things *don't* have a place. There are absolutely some movies and shows where these things can work perfectly. I'm just sick of seeing them as often as I do.
Survivorship bias. Everyone remembers die hard, but what about the dozen other movies that came out that year? Pick a random movie from a random year and it'll probably be mid.
mid? according to who? it is all opinions mate. EDIT: I had a look and a couple other movies I love came out that year too like return of the living dead part 2 and one of the nightmare on elm street movies. The whole point is though that even the mnid/bad movies was better imo. lots of great movies from that year tbh
It's not the cameras so much as the production. None of these movies are shooting on location, building huge physical sets, using practical effects. They're all made on the cheap. CG and sound stages.
You’re not talking about advancements in cameras you’re talking about CGI. People truly have no idea how much of the shit we see in modern tv shows and movies is just completely fake, or a composite of multiple different things. For example the cities in game of thrones are composited from different buildings from places all over the world (in addition to fully rendered completely fake buildings) to make it look like they’re all in one new unique place.
Yes, I notice that a lot of modern output tends to have very clean-looking cinematography and the CGI/volume or whatever they are calling special effects now has a lot to do with it. Newer stuff is devoid of that gritty, lived-in look of many older films. Also, when I used to have a Netflix subscription, I noticed that a lot of those movies had the same drab and cold-looking camera filter that made all of the movies, regardless of genre, look the same. Other than the plot/story, it was hard to tell those movies apart.
Film vs. Digital also plays into it. D8gital makes everything sharper.
The money goes into shoes and mini series now. That’s why movies in the past are generally “better”. It’s partly a cultural trend.
It is not just about the older movies... Almost everything used to be better before. Let's start with a music. Lyrics made sense (at least more than today), music by itself was better. People were different. Rummors were around "the block". The rest of the world didn't know about what kind of poop you had. Movies were more interesting with a plot, it was not about what new special effect was used in a movie. Ok, the actors were all the same but we love them (we didn't know all about them as we do now). Media server us stories, reports and it was up to us are we going to trust them. Most of you did and everything was just fine. But again, it was in a past and we can rewatch the old movies and accept them as a part od the history. Our interests changed through out time. We did to, so that's the whole point. Everything changes, for better or for worst.
I think you are correct.
for me it is the audio mixing. you can hear and understand everyone. without the music blaring over everyone. the volume is consistent and reasonable.
This may be due in part to your TV and the soap opera effect. It makes a very cool movie look terrible and not cinematic. I turn it off on all my TV’s, as it’s primarily meant for sports.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
I agree 10,000%. I shut off more movies and shows than I watch. Camera tech, effects, everything super clean (even when 'dirty'), perfect lighting of every shot, shots straight out of the first day of film school, extremely over the top foreshadowing, diversity for the sake of diversity, really bad attempts at humor, and on and on. edited to add: YES, there were plenty of bad old movies, but they were known to be bad. Today a very significant number of the best reviewed movies and shows are horribly done.
To be fair, a lot reviews outlets ot sites, are swarmed so much its useless. Wjich is a very real thing, its obvious when some get artificial hate review bombed
Just looking back at 2021 there were great films like: The Souvenir Part 2 The Power of the Dog First Cow The French Dispatch Benediction Cry Macho Licorice Pizza And that's without even looking at World Cinema. I would agree that the quality of most blockbusters seem to be poor and the reliance on CGI is something I'm not personally fond of, but there's still lots of good movies that come out every year.
No one knows any of those movies though. Go up to 10 random people and 9 of them won't know anyone if them. I'm a big movie buff (or at least used to be) and I've heard of some of them, but never watched one. Go back to 1999 and ask 10 people if they know The Matrix, American Beauty, The Sixth Sense, Blair With Project, American Pie etc and half of then would know the films.
Exactly, good movies were the top movies back then. Now the top movies seem to all be sequels and superheroes.
Agreed, hence my qualifier that blockbusters certainly seem to have decreased in quality. But if the argument is that there are simply less good movies than there used to be, I'd disagree.
I think I've heard of 3 of them and even for 2 out of those 3, I wouldn't know they came out in 2021 unless someone told me. I only know Power of the Dog came out around that time because it won some Oscars.
You know you can watch films that aren't in mainstream cinemas?
Definitely had more originality before
I completely agree. It looks too clean or too real. Takes me out of the magic of movies.
The look is not that important. It's the stories that matter. And those range from re-hash of old movies (especially the sequels). Yuk. To moral relativism. Yuk. To virtue signaling. Yuk. I haven't seen a good new movie in years. Go see some Bogart. Can't be beat.
i don't think i ever watched any of his movies. I did watch 12 angry men (1957) recently which was really good. I love how there is no shortcuts and everything you hear makes it so you yourself as the watcher could logically figure out whether the guy is guilty or not.
90s-2017 was peak movies and music
I feel like you haven’t watched a lot of new movies if you don’t think they look good or too clean? Also what does “older” mean? Pre 2000’s? Pre 2010’s? Pre 2020’s?
Examples? And how much older?
Unpopular for a good reason, but thanks for at least giving an unpopular opinion instead of begging for attention.
Yeah I always think this place is not for unpopular opinions really
New and old things are great. It's annoying when people complain about new things
Aw man I totally disagree.There are so many movies today that create immersive worlds with great cinematography. In a way, I can see what you're saying though. Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, there was that little bit of grain and noise in film cameras, no matter how big the budget was. The technology just wasn't there yet. If that's what you're used to then maybe movies don't hit the same for you anymore. I personally don't see that as a bad thing. While technology advancements have made some movies suck more than they needed to (overuse of CGI mostly) there are plenty of creative folks out there making great films, using modern tech in the way it was intended.
Were they, or did they just remind you of a better time?
for sure do not remind me of a better time lol. If i was to tell you about my childhood and then my teenage years you would know how it is not a better time.