"the bad movies get sifted away."
i definitely think this is a big big part of that belief that everything's terrible now and was better in the past.
there were 28 'blondie' movies made between 1938 & 1950. i don't think many people talk about them or watch them. are they any good? no idea, but i'd lay pretty good odds on most of them being somewhere between below average and unwatchable. maybe that's wrong. i can't be arsed to find out.
that said, i do think movies have changed a lot. i've prattled on here in the past on why i think that is, and why in some ways that's made them worse, or at least studio films are worse. & i don't wanna drone on again. that's annoying.
to keep it short: the market for film has changed a lot. particularly as far as the theatre-going audience is concerned, things are simply not the way they were. used to be going out to the movies was one of the primary american passtimes for adults. they'd go two or three times a month. so you could have adult, mature, even weird movies like bod and ted and carol and alice be made by a studio and have it be a big hit that lots of people would go to.
that world doesn't exist anymore. most of that can be laid at the feet of consumer choice, i think. adults have a billion channels and a billion video games and all kinds of stuff that compete for their attention that wasn't there in the past. so studio films now exist mostly as a way to attract kids, teens and younger adults to theatres. the market has changed and the kinds of movies made, at least for theatrical showing, have changed a lot.
so i think it's right to say they're different and in some ways worse. they're certainly not as mature or daring.
but there are tons and tons and tons of movies made for streaming and independent distribution that are as weird and fucked up as anything made in the 60s or 70s, and if that's what you want, then the places to look are mubi and indie theatres and so on.
blah blah blah. meant to keep that short.
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capuchin (3362)
3 years ago
That all seems reasonable enough.
Yeah. There's definitely a sifting process. People are still watching Pulp Fiction. Hardly anyone even remembers Killing Zoe or any of the other Tarantino-adjacent/Tarantino-rip-off stuff from the mid-90s. To give one random example.
But I think the rest of what you say is also probably true enough. As someone who isn't - and never has been - terribly 'mainstream' in my tastes, trips to the multiplex have almost completely dried up over the last fifteen years. I think I only go when my young nieces are in town... The nearest arthouse/indie cinema - which does show things more to my tastes - is an hour and a half away. And, eh, I'm also lazy... so, yup, I'm a Mubi guy these days.
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[deleted]
3 years ago
i'm a little more receptive to mainstream film myself, at least to an extent. i've been to the theatre at least 1/2 a dozen times since they re-opened in august, and i've seen lots that i've enjoyed. the green knight, pig, the night house, malignant, the card counter were all good to great in my books.
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capuchin (3362)
3 years ago
Oh, I'm not horribly leftfield. I'm interested in seeing at least two of those films you've mentioned. I'm just much more likely to wait until they're on a streaming service than go to the cinema. I'm part of the problem.
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