Where's The Story In Today's Films?

[sepiatone]

Story or no story, my movie going days are over. I have no interest in going to a cinema to watch a glorified DVD. I have facilities at home for that.
I have no interest in paying OTT prices to sit amongst cola slurping, chip crunching kids to watch artificial film.

Ditto. When the theatre I went to switched over to "all digital" it was the final straw. Why pay >$10 to watch a big TV set? I'll save the money and watch a smaller TV set at home (without the aforementioned "cola slurping, chip crunching kids").

Besides, they're not making anything today I want to see anyway. Oh, boy! Another TV remake! Another movie based on a toy, videogame or comic book! Wow! ... and, really, it's in 3-D?!! Gosh!!! It's like Hollyweird has been taken over by a hoarde of coked-up 13 year olds, whose idea of "class" is remaking The Chipmunks via CGI and having them eat shit.

Nah. Sorry. If anyone ever makes a good American film again, I'll hunt it up and watch it at home. I'm not holding my breath.

great point, one would ask why would anyone invest big money in a home entertainment system anymore as those same movies aimed at a 13 year old in the theater is destined for home consumption via dvd or streaming service from netflix or redbox. Clearly Netflix shot-themselves-n-the-foot, splitting off services and raising prices and the people have gotten smart realizing that much of what is offered is mind-numbing pablum. I still try to keep an open attitude for the newer stuff but the Juvenilisation of movies seems to have begun in the early 80s(with some crediting the blame to S. Spielberg). Just remember todays meaningless crass flick is the aging classic of tomorrow's late show.

[gjohnson]

Try the 1950's as when producers first started catering exclusively to the youth market. More kids began having disposable incomes as their folks doled out allowances on a regular basis, which gave rise to drive-in flicks, monster movies and Rock & Roll films (BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (55) was a monster hit the year it came out). It continued into the Sixties with Beach movies, more R&R and horror flicks. By the Seventies the gore level of horror films had risen substantially because teens and young adults had now become the major audience percentage attending films on a regular basis.

Steven Spielberg had nothing to do with it. He just had a gift at tapping into that market.

[Changsham]

I am too finding myself lost and disenchanted with modern cinema. Don't go often anymore. Recently went to see THE EYE OF THE STORM. This is not a teenage flick but something for more mature and cultivated tastes. Has some big names in it like Geoffrey Rush, Charlotte Rampling, Judy Davis and other big names in Australian Cinema. Won film of the year at Melbourne Film Festival and is widely critically acclaimed. Based on a Patrick White Novel. My wife wanted to see this film as it is based on one of her favourite novels.
Unfortunatley I fell asleep after about 10 minutes due to boredom. My wife woke me up about two thirds through and said she had enough and wanted to leave. Can't remember much about the film but my wife said it was long winded and pretentious and more about the actors showcasing themselves than about the story. We then went for a nice long walk for the remainder of the afternoon discussing how there does not seem to be any anthing we enjoy much at the cinema anymore. Later in the evening we watched Hitchcock's talkie version of BLACKMAIL on DVD which was thoroughly enjoyable and memorable.

[All Darc]

Other question:

Do you believe that today we have a overload of production of films ? I feel like there are three times more film by year today than 25 years ago.

Large budgety, large quantity, and little or rare quality.

[All Darc]

That's the Teenagercentrism I talk about.

Do you feel a bit like you was the last sane people on Earth, like in the final scene of Invasion of The Body Snatchers ???

Sometimes society it's so alienated by media, than I feel like that.

Besides, they're not making anything today I want to see anyway. Oh, boy! Another TV remake! Another movie based on a toy, videogame or comic book! Wow! ... and, really, it's in 3-D?!! Gosh!!! It's like Hollyweird has been taken over by a hoarde of coked-up 13 year olds, whose idea of "class" is remaking The Chipmunks via CGI and having them eat shit.
.

[All Darc]

I was watching the Superman's "restoration", that claim it's the film as original intented by the original director (Richard Donner), since Donner shoot almost the entire film but fightr with producers, was fiored and they hired Lester to direct at least more than 540% of the film, and the lester version have almost 50% of footage from Donner.

But some scenes looks weird. Like a few moments before Lois shoo Cark. In a shot Clark it's very slim and not like the shape as in rest of the movie. Also he uses another glasses, his hair looks with greese (gel), and few seconds later his hair is dry, the glass it's another.
Not just a continuity mistake, but worse, not acceptable.

And the re-use of effect when he turn the Eart back in time again...

I supose this "restoratrion" was just to cash again...

[CliffordWeimer]

Yes, a few of the scenes of the Superman II original cut used rehearsal footage and outtakes, but it's still a much different and much better movie than the Superman II we've had all these years. It's the only Superman film of the era I like; I think it's great and ranks with the two recent Batman movies and Spider-Man 2 as the best of the modern superhero movies.

[All Darc]

The rehearsel footage looks horribly and fool... They could at least use advanced CGI to make one of the glasses look like the other, or to fix the hair, making the dry greesse or the greese dry.
This scene spoils too much for my taste.

I supose this shooting scene was shot before SUperman I oficial shooting began.

[silentkermy]

Of course there are islands of quality. Most good films are small-budget or independently made. I get that and look for them. But as one poster said "the midbrow" entertainment, the mass culture/pop culture really is in decline. Not just films, but music and all the arts. The meanness and vulgarity, to me, are the most appalling

i agree if your looking at the more comercial films, YES they have alot of flaws, but the independant films are pretty good and have alot more soul to them (not all of them but i find more than a few).

and dont forget foreign films, who isnt looking forward to The Artist (2011)

[CoffeeDan]

I think everybody's missing the real reason that story suffers in today's films. The markets for good stories have all but dried up in the last 50 years.

We tend to forget that what we now call the "studio era" coincided with a great renaissance in the publishing industry around the turn of the last century. The stories and serials of the popular weeklies and monthlies like The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Liberty, The Cosmopolitan, The American Magazine, Everybody's Magazine, McClure's, Harper's, Esquire, and Redbook -- as well as the cheaper "all-story" pulp magazines like Argosy, Blue Book, and Black Mask -- soon became fodder for the movies. Look carefully at the credits in most films from 1920-60, and chances are they were adapted from a short story or serial that first appeared in the popular press.

In my research on Liberty magazine, I found that the following movies were based on stories or serials appearing in its pages:

THE SHOCK PUNCH (1925)
THE STREET OF FORGOTTEN MEN (1925)
BRIGHT LIGHTS (1925)
MANNEQUIN (1926)
LOVE'S GREATEST MISTAKE (1927)
THE SMALL BACHELOR (1927)
WALKING BACK (1928)
WHITE PANTS WILLIE (1928)
SHOW GIRL (1928)
DANCE HALL (1929)
THE GREAT GABBO (1929)
FOR THE LOVE O' LIL (1930)
MURDERS ON THE ROOF (1930)
SHOW GIRL IN HOLLYWOOD (1930)
CORSAIR (1931)
HEARTBREAK (1931)
NIGHT NURSE (1931)
THE LAST FLIGHT (1931)
THE LOST SQUADRON (1932)
TORCH SINGER (1933)
CHANCE AT HEAVEN (1933)
THE CIRCUS QUEEN MURDER (1933)
THE WOMAN ACCUSED (1933)
HI, NELLIE! (1934)
SADIE McKEE (1934)
WOMAN IN THE DARK (1934)
THE PRESIDENT'S MYSTERY (1936)
MY MAN GODFREY (1936)
BIG BROWN EYES (1936)
SERGEANT YORK (1941)
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942)
DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)
DESTINATION TOKYO (1945)
FRANCIS (1950)
THE MAN WITH MY FACE (1951)
THE HARDER THEY FALL (1956)

This is but a partial list -- one article I read says that over 120 movies had their beginnings in the pages of Liberty. Multiply that times the number of magazines publishing popular fiction in those days, and you see what an important source they were for the movie industry back in the studio era.

But starting in the 1950s, the companies who advertised in the popular press began spending more money on TV advertising, and gradually, the great general interest magazines fell by the wayside. Liberty folded in 1951, The American went under in 1956, Collier's in 1957, and The Saturday Evening Post -- which had the longest publishing history of any magazine at the time -- closed in 1969 after 148 years of publication (before it was revived as a quarterly in 1971, and continues to this day as a bi-monthly). These were some of the best markets for up-and-coming writers of fiction to showcase their works.

In addition, many magazines stopped publishing fiction altogether and concentrate only on nonfiction today. One of the best fiction showcases, Redbook, stopped publishing stories about 10 years ago. While it was and is commited to publish the best fiction from new and established writers, The Atlantic Monthly has cut back its offerings in recent years. About the only magazine that manages to publish as much fiction as it did in its heyday and continue to maintain its high standards is The New Yorker.

With the popular weeklies and monthlies gone, many writers turned to TV to sell their stories, and the various television markets (including the internet) continue to be the movie industry's greatest competitors. So it doesn't surprise me to see so many movies that are adaptations of TV shows, because it's mainly TV that now "publishes" the kind of stories and serial entertainment that used to be popular in print in prior generations.

[Christopher Jacobs]

More and more of today's movies are also being adapted from comic books (or "graphic novels" as they often like to be called these days), sometimes with surprising success and depth of characterization, and sometimes mainly as CGI showcases to promote toys. As others have noted, it's most often the independent and/or foreign films that tend to have more interesting stories, characters, plot structures, and filmmaking styles.

[Michael O'Regan]

More and more of today's movies are also being adapted from comic books (or "graphic novels" ...

...and computer games.

[Ray Faiola]

PLAYBOY still publishes fiction. (And I don't mean implants!!)