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Triumph of meanness
  • 259 Replies sorted by
  • bwhitzbwhitz

    When you have "screenwriters", many of whom aren't really writers, creating material for the approval of MBAs and the marketing department, it's no wonder the medium feels exhausted.

    Well, I agree with you here...

    And in countries, like the U.S., without public film funding, the so-called "independent" scene will be just as bankrupt, because no matter how cheap the equipment gets, filmmaking remains expensive and revolves more around fund-raising and managerial effectiveness than conceiving and writing.....

    I think Kickstarter and such websites are starting to solve this problem... but public funding from tax dollars will never work as we'll get even more bureaucrats and unions skimming money from the process and in the end it's just going to end up being well-connected politician's kids making movies. Internet crowd funding seems to be the best solution right now. Nothing's going to be perfect though... it's an expensive art form.

  • jrdjrd

    but public funding from tax dollars will never work

    No? Virtually every country in the world provides film subsidies. In the U.S. they take the form of state tax credits usually of value only to larger productions, but in other countries both art-house and mainstream movie-making depend on outright state subsidies and grants.

    Can't answer for your tastes, but the Cannes Film Festival, for example, would have nothing to program if not for non-commercial sources of film funding -- art films subsidized by the state. Like it or not, this is the way it's worked for many years.

    In poorer countries, the absence of state funding means no film industry. In richer ones like ours, the absence of state funding means Sundance -- pious and foolish movies made by privileged, well-connected people about the poor, but without what used to be called "class consciousness", because class consciousness would the offend the rich dudes who attend Sundance and the festival's corporate sponsors.

  • brianlbrianl

    Digital trash or coffee and cigarettes isn't the choice. Dirty Harry wasn't about coffee and cigarettes. Also, GRAVITY isn't the kind of mindless vfx garbage we see from Marvel and DC properties. GRAVITY had a great concept, still the most precious and elusive thing for the industry.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    GRAVITY had a great concept

    Can you tell us this concept? As all I see is completely idiotic thing plus some VFX.

  • kurthkurth

    fragility of life ...survival under impossible odds

  • brianlbrianl

    @Vitaliy No, I think it's really good. It's so simple and terrifying: Adrift in Space. 3 words and you get it. The trailer conveys the concept in 20 seconds. This is story telling GOLD in my mind. Once they had the concept all they needed were the compelling vfx and camera work which they got. btw, I haven't seen the movie. I might hate it. But I believe they scored a winning a formula with the concept.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    btw, I haven't seen the movie. I might hate it. But I believe they scored a winning a formula with the concept.

    OK, in this case you need to see it. If they scored something it is mix of idiocy and inaccuracy.

    I have some problem if abstract concept is good, but all things are inaccurate and wrong and main hero is unstable emotional idiot.

  • brianlbrianl

    Yes, I really want to see it. I'm wondering if you also had major issues with some of the physics and science. A person with your background in science might be more troubled by such shortcomings than the average movie viewer.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    A person with your background in science might be more troubled by such shortcomings than the average movie viewer.

    :-) I think about 3-4 classes of school are pretty enough to be shocked.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    It is time to add more to the list

    Same fucking crap. Form over function.

  • oniononion

    Gravity was great at the iMax. It provoked a visceral reaction in me - the movement, weightlessness, inertia, acceleration and flying debris. I don't care if it didn't conform to correct physics. I have no interest watching it again though. I hated the Matrix sequels for their effects much more as they felt like watching a video game. Gravity had heft

    The last film to suck me into the world it built so completely was Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me. Mind blown for weeks after.

    And the film before that was Dumbo - the first film I ever saw.

    Either I'm just weird or the ways films affect the viewer are mysterious. Maybe a little of both ;)

  • kellar42kellar42

    While I disagree with a lot of the griping here, I'll venture that American Hustle and Wolf of Wallstreet, both of which I enjoyed from a filmmaking perspective, left me feeling a bit empty afterwards. I'll go with the form over function statement from Vitaliy. Cool performances, interesting films, but nothing to really pin yourself to...just shitty people's live blowing up across the screen. Dallas Buyer's Club and Captain Phillips were real winners for me, this season.

  • kurthkurth

    I guess films should only have characters you like?

    Obviously not, but what I found distasteful about Nebraska was ...these characters weren't written to be distasteful, and I'm speaking of the core family around Dern. They were written to be "heroic" ....as standing for some lost value system etc. , when, in effect, they were just as distasteful as the supporting cast, or more so. To me, that's a failure, in not only the concept, but ethics in general.

  • TheNewDealTheNewDeal

    Are you sure they weren't written to be distasteful? Maybe, many around us can be seen as distasteful some or most of the time. Is that ok? Or should we be rewriting other people around us to fit our standards?

    To me, cinema is mostly a survey of possible lives. I think that's why it's such a draw for so many. Historically is was often good vs evil. Clear lines. I love that it's grown into so much more today. Who is "good" and how, and how often, and how often are they "bad" too? It's funny how much time societies spend trying to understand and categorize people into "good" and "bad" words that exist only in our mind's interpretation. Cinema is great at opening the door to different interpretations of "heros" and "villains." So much like life today. For example, in Crimea today. Who are the heros and who are the villains? And how? Are any 100% good or bad?

    If people want simple, watch reality TV. There you get clear cut human disaster stories, and clear endings with victors, if you want it feed to you.

  • brianlbrianl

    @TheNewDeal along those lines sits the success of Breaking Bad. Already considered one of TV's greatest ever shows. The good versus evil thing can get sticky and confused when you watch a show like that.

  • kurthkurth

    I think when a culture has lost it's way...has become a human valueless society, where only "profit" matters, as we surely see in todays world, then this is mirrored in art as just another symptom. It's been my opinion for a number of years that what we're seeing....what everyone feels happening, on all fronts, is a collapse of western civilization. It's hard to prove this from the inside. But I think this is what it looks like.

    ...and FDR....Crimea is so transparent. It's only when you listen to msm in the US that it's confusing. We've got our puppet US politicians criticizing the validity of a free election when the same thing was done in Iraq under war occupation ...and that was valid, or so they told us ! The difference was the car bombs in Baghdad ! I guess that made it more legal in Iraq....and the million dead ?

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Another crapshit two entries

    do not waste your time on this shit despite inflated ratings (HW is very good at it now), better watch

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    I have small theory how crap is being born:

    I think that directors, script authors and actors without proper people to see after them just directly transfer their life, skills, ideals, knowledge. And it is rarely anything that deserve public attention (of course TV and tabloids think otherwise, but their place is in hell).

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Some new addition to company

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Next to company

    It's Hunger Games, for adults, on a train

    Fuckingly weird film made after heavy crack usage of everyone in film related crew.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Next in company

    Films slightly more than totally consist of all WWII related stupid stamps that ever existed:

    1. Hitler is one stupid fool knowing nothing and living in the dream world
    2. Generals are all good, wise, think about democracy and good for Germany
    3. They so love democracy that they want (very much!) to surrender to US/UK even before they make invasion.
      • I hope we'll be UK colony like Canada ... - direct Rommel words
    4. It is absolutely clear that all is lost (they are wise, remember), so any treason is ok and good
    5. Every few minutes they talk about how much they care for jews (jews seem to be main victims in this war as far as this film go).

    In other words, it is politically correct (in current terms) bullshit.

  • rheinpiratrheinpirat

    Have you ever seen this crap?

  • bheathbheath

    "without proper people to see after them"

    Yeah. @Vitaliy_Kiselev - I love all the camera gazing and the new sony, panasonic, and the 4k stuff. It's all really fun. But I REALLY love this thread, and what Vitaliy is saying because it's a comment on responsibility - ours as filmmakers and even wannabe ones.

    As the world becomes less and less gentle, we, who put our creative efforts into something could read between the lines in this discussion and experience some "choice therapy".

    I say to myself: The process of making the film or video is so hard, why not look deep inside and see what it is that i want to be doing EVERY DAY?! What am I conveying? But really, do you want to get up at six am and film 20+ tales of a man being kicked in the dink, or a girl slapped silly by a "protagonist". It's a puzzle.

    I'm a long-toothed dop and I can say that I'd love to see things change a little bit towards the good, so I can tell people what my job was for the majority of my life.

    Again, this discussion is very valid. Another on video games would be great but it's just triggers me too badly.

    Thanks for all of the posts here!

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Good songs related to subject :-) same name, but different

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Saving Mr. Banks

    This is special case, as movie is not very bad.

    But, as usual scenarists completely fucked reality making quite unusual character into strange bitch and making very cynic businessman into some cheesy stuff.

    Suggested read

    And very good quote:

    The real P.L. Travers had never been a fan of Walt Disney. In her review of Disney's first full-length animated feature film, 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, she wrote, "Oh, he's clever, this Disney! ... The very pith of his secret is the enlargement of the animal world and a corresponding deflation of all human values. There is a profound cynicism at the root of his, as of all, sentimentality."

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