Comment

Comment on Hollywood Is Cranking Out Original Movies. Audiences Aren’t Showing Up.

SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

military-themed movies turning off more leftist moviegoers? I feel that way to some extent

I suppose that depends on how war is depicted in the film. War is hell, but sometimes it’s necessary. I don’t love the idea of war, but Slaughterhouse Five lives on as one of my favorite books about war. Understanding war and its impacts are important, even if we don’t like a world in which we have to resort to war.

Sure, a lot of American film makes war movies all “RAH RAH RAH USA USA USA,” but that doesn’t mean all films about war have to be that way, especially films about war made in other nations, who perhaps don’t have their military so deeply ingrained in the film industry.

Hell, Three Kings is still an underrated war film which has an undercurrent of themes regarding capitalism and consumerism and how it relates to war.

source

Sort:hotnew top

brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Sure, a lot of American film makes war movies all “RAH RAH RAH USA USA USA,”

Here are the 3 “original” movies in my local theatre, to get more of what I mean:

Levon Cade left behind a decorated military career in the black ops to live a simple life working construction. But when his boss’s daughter, who is like family to him, is taken by human traffickers, his search to bring her home uncovers a world of corruption far greater than he ever could have imagined.

harlie Heller (Malek) is a brilliant, but deeply introverted decoder for the CIA working out of a basement office at headquarters in Langley whose life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack. When his supervisors refuse to take action, he takes matters into his own hands, embarking on a dangerous trek across the globe to track down those responsible, his intelligence serving as the ultimate weapon for eluding his pursuers and achieving his revenge…

Written and directed by Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland (Civil War, 28 Days Later), Warfare embeds audiences with a platoon of American Navy SEALs in the home of an Iraqi family, overwatching the movement of US forces through insurgent territory. A visceral, boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare, told like never before: in real time and based on the memory of the people who lived it.

The last one (Warfare) kinda stands out, but see the pattern? “Ex black ops protag” is super popular, and I posit that, on average, it’s a turn-off for leftists.

source
- SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Oh, I don’t dispute any of that. There’s tons of media in that vein, and it is indeed all a turn off.
  
  Hell, most of these just seem like movies that all want to be 2008’s Taken with Liam Neeson really badly. Even Taken was honestly very silly and absurd. Like, he just walks away from these situations where he fucks up half the city and the cops somehow can’t find him? It just cuts away and suddenly he’s fine and on to the next bit.
  
  However, it was an incredibly popular film, spawned multiple sequels, and there’s definitely a whole genre of films in this vein. Nobody said Hollywood was very original, even when it comes to an original film. They still want formulas that they think will sell. Action tends to be the most popular, and to make action believable you have to have some backstory that makes these guys top tier fighters.
  
  At least the John Wick films didn’t rely on him being ex-military, I guess.
  
  source
  - brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Yeah. I mean, there was stuff before Taken (Bond, Die Hard), but Taken has to be one of the most influential movies of the millennium, lol.
    
    source
FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

military-themed movies turning off more leftist moviegoers? I feel that way to some extent

Maybe but not because I’m liberal, because we’re shit. The fact that “The Covenant” exists is FUCKING INFURIATING to me. I signed up to put my ass on the line, knowing any flight out of CONUS had a return ticket. We not only told the terps we’d take them to the American dream but made them put their lives on the line…then flew away and made a fucking movie about how it’s too bad they’re all stuck in the suck.

source
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
All quiet on the western front was a pretty good war film

source