Everyone thought it was boring

I prefer to judge a film based on it's own merits. Not the time period.

Dude, I apologize, but you are completely ignorant. Art (including film) is a reflection of society. If you can't grasp that, then you have literally no understanding of cinema at all. And that goes for music and literature too, all forms of art actually.

The best movies with the greatest screenplays are about the subtext. Great films are rarely just about the self contained stories and characters that they convey. All the great writers infuse subtext and symbolism into their stories to express the themes that they're writing about. And it's closely tied to the time period in which they're written. Writers don't just get their material out of thin air, it comes from the culture.

Why do you think movies from certain eras are so different than movies from the next? It's because the social contexts change over time. That's the point!

Example, if you're unaware of the social context of how America's culture shifted from the early 60s to the late 60s and early 70s, then you won't understand what George Lucas's American Graffiti is actually about. It's not just a movie about a couple teenagers coming of age as they leave for college. The film is actually a representation of America's loss of innocence after JFK was assassinated, America's involvement in Vietnam heavily escalated, the nation was tearing itself apart from the political, social and cultural divisions etc.

If you know nothing about the generation gap with the baby boomers and their parents, then you won't understand The Graduate.

Cool Hand Luke and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are not just stories of a rebel who's locked away in prison. They're both representations of the anti-establishment sentiment that permeated America in the late 60s and throughout the 1970s. About "how the man is keeping anyone who doesn't conform down". And about how the public had no trust in authority.

RoboCop isn't just a sci-fi action movie, it's actually a satire of "Reaganomics", American capitalism run amok in the 80s.

And this is true for modern movies too (not as many, that is). District 9 is actually an allegory of apartheid which ended in South Africa in the 90s. The film's director was a teenager in the 90s who grew up in... South America! Is this a coincidence??

How can you not understand this concept? I mean, did you not read books in high school? Everybody had to read Animal Farm. It's not simply a story of talking farm animals. It's an allegory of communism and the Soviet Union.

Films, novels, songs etc. are best understood by the audience in the time periods in which they're written-- that's the point! Like all the great counterculture music that came out in the 60s. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, CCR-- they were writing songs about the war and about the social division.

If you don't understand the social context, then you won't understand the actual piece. You might like it, but you won't understand it. It's like the pop culture references in shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, Seinfeld etc. You might still find the jokes funny, but without knowing the context, you don't really "get it".

Nope, those are just excuses old people give to justify bad films from their own time period.

No, it's that you have no understanding whatsoever of what art and its purpose actually is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art#Motivated_functions_of_art




Religion should be made fun of. If I believed that stuff, I'd keep it to myself. -Larry David

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