Look, I didn't love Guardians 3, it's a conservative, Christian movie and I don't agree with most of its premises.
But there wasn't a dry eye in the house by the end of that, and I'm pretty sure most of them know what "it meant", and it certainly wasn't "almost like AI making a film". Ditto for Across the Spider-Verse, whcih is a progressive movie I do agree with.
There's always been this argument that successfull movies are bad, and I've never liked it. It's never been true. There are tons of bad films that make their money back, but for every Air Force One there is a Die Hard or Back to the Future (more conservative movies I don't agree with but are very well made, go figure).
So yeah, I do agree that Oscar bait keeps Oscar baiting, and that superheroes aren't killing cinema, which is a hard take to roll with this year in particular. But no, I actively don't think superhero movies or genre movies are worthless or trash, any more than I think westerns are trash or action movies are trash.
niktemadur@lemmy.world 11 months ago
In the late-70s/80s it was slasher movies. In the 80s/90s it was Rambo-style action movies, or Lethal Weapon and Fatal Attraction-style thrillers.
There have always been Hollywood bandwagons.
The difference is that back then the major studios made a bunch of films of all scopes and budgets, while today those same studios make fewer, more expensive movies.
If Scorsese was a young man today - or Robert Altman or William Friedkin, whoever - he probably wouldn’t get a chance to make a Raging Bull, he’d be steered towards a superhero film with - of course - NO final cut. The one exception is Christopher Nolan. And even he did an entire superhero TRILOGY.
Taking what Marty is saying and putting it another way - major studio content is not driven by a director’s creative vision in the current environment, but by producers… the suits and their market research.
Syndic@feddit.de 11 months ago
I’m by no means an expert but was that ever different? Making movies always was very expensive, so the people in charge obviously had to have money and then try to use that to make more money. That alone leads to rather conservative decisions regarding which movies should be produced and which shouldn’t. Artistic merit isn’t something I believe ever had much sway in Hollywood unless some directors actually used their previous success to bully the rich cats in charge to trust them or outright finance the movie themself. And that I guess is rather rare. I think the only thing really different today, is that market research today is way more advanced than it was in the 60’s or 70’s.
niktemadur@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Making lower budget films and giving artistic freedom to their directors allowed them to:
This was also in the days when a film could play in theaters for months, breathe and grow.
Now, they want every movie they release to make 100 million in the first weekend with a marketing carpet-bombing blitz.
In Scorsese’s 70s heyday, a “modest success” was seen by the studio suits as a success, they made many of these and were happy about it.
Nowadays, a “modest success” is seen as a fizzle. Half a billion or bust.
SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org 11 months ago
There probably are hundreds of weird movies made that cannot be explained by financial interest alone. In fact one was given above which you ignored. Raging Bull.