Might not be as fun as you’re expecting. Went to a kid’s Halloween parade on Sunday and out of about 150 girls, there were only 3 Elsas. Another parade yesterday (yes, my life is awesome) and only 1 Elsa out of about 60 girls.
If you want to get really lit, switch it to Spiderman. About 20% of the boys were Spidey.
I don’t think the film industry can be compared to the music industry in the same way. People take their families and kids to movies in a way that isn’t the same as buying CDs/mp3s. Piracy/Netflix/whatever has been going on for years and it just hasn’t affected the movie industry the same way. I certainly don’t buy DVDs/Blurays anymore (b/c I’m a pirate), but I see an uncomfortably large number of movies in theaters.
Perhaps what you’re observing is the fact that a few of the big budget movies that Hollywood is pushing are getting worse. The Michael Bay-ification of the American action movie, if you will. You can blame Hollywood’s desire to court more foreign viewers for this. Explosions translate across cultural boundaries, but good dialog doesn’t. These movies are only a small number of the films released in a year, even if they make up a large part of the box office.
2014 has been a good movie year. So far we’ve had. Mainstream: X-Men Days of Future Past, Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, Edge of Tomorrow, Gone Girl, Captain America 2, How to Train Your Dragon 2, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Outside of mainstream: Boyhood, Birdman, Whiplash, Gloria, Snowpiercer (overrated, IMO, but critics like it, only one of these I didn’t see in a theater), We are the Best, Blue Ruin, Locke, Dear White People, and Calvary.
I don’t think movies are getting worse. We are just getting older, so everything is like something you’ve seen before. You remember Ghostbusters or whatever is the one 80s movies that you liked. However, you forget all the other crap that has fallen into obscurity. I saw Top Gun recently. It is a fond memory of many people’s childhoods. However, if released today, that movie clearly would not be up to today’s standards. New Batman movies are better than the old Batman movies. Things just change over time.
Not sure what is the point of the comparison vs. music sales. Movies sales are certainly affected by piracy, but it’s more of an X% drag - piracy rates are probably not increasing and might actually be decreasing. The real threat to cinema sales is home entertainment systems. Cinemas are mostly buoyed by the fact that they get movies first, before DVD and online streaming. If Guardians of the Galaxy was released simultaneously in theaters and Hulu HD, 80% of people would stay home to watch it.
The number of tickets sold, is commonly known to be decreasing over time.
You shut your whore mouth. Top Gun is still a great movie today. If it was made today it would be a horrible movie with too much CGI and unnecessary explosions. As for Batman, the Nolan movies were great, especially the first two (the third one kinda sucks actually), but that doesn’t take anything away from Michael Keaton’s first Batman movie. Just watched that last weekend as a matter of fact. Holds up great. Terrific movie.
Respectfully disagree regarding the Batmans. Heath Ledger is better than Jack Nicholson. Michael Caine is better than everyone in the old movies. The old movie doesn’t make sense. Joker is a known supervillain, holds a parade and no one stops him? Then he shoots down the bat airplane with a comically long revolver; if the goal of the movie is to make Batman look like a dick, then mission accomplished. Furthermore, the cinematography and overall production value of the new movies is vastly improved. People can say “well, back then, there were no special effects” or something like that, but who cares. Those still count as improvements.
The chicks in the old movies were much hotter - I give you that.
^Agreed with Ohai.
But then again, I have never met a Tim Burton movie that I didn’t hate. Not a single one. Not even Beetlejuice.
WTF was this RawRaw. I wasted 2 hours of my life I want back because of you.
I think when Tim Burton is hit or miss. Once in a while, he makes a great movie like Edward Scissorhands or Big Fish. However, on the other hand we get some truly stupid shit like Batman Forever. To his credit, he is not afraid to try new things.
I think it also depends on whether you like Johnny Depp, who is like the star of every Tim Burton movie nowadays.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, though you’re lacking context. Burton and Nolan were going after completely different styles. Just as the comics evolved over time to become much darker and grittier, so did the movies. Burton’s still has some camp to it, no doubt. Burton also captured Gotham way better than Nolan did. Nolan eliminated all the camp for a much more disturbing story, which is also great.
We all have our favorite Batman movies. It’s just worth noting that Burton and Nolan approached the process very differently.
Animation seems to be where the real talent is. Not just effects but good scripts. Frozen, Lego movie, How to Train Your Dragon, you name it. Kids’ movies but not typical Disney fare like the old ones.
I am totally bored watching two hours of guy movies - violence and foul language or girl movies - ditzy PYT and foul language. It’s not the language that offends, it’s the predictability and unfunniness. Sequels are the worst.
Maybe like unmanned planes (drones), unmanned movies is where it’s at. Maybe because human actors have physical limitations when expressing themselves, animated ones do not.
Oh and for guy movies - it was a big deal back when Die Hard exploded a plane and a helicopter and so on; and Pulp Fiction shocked with the casual profanities, but that is a one-time shock value. Fast and Furious - yawn. Neither fast nor furious are worth shelling out big bucks at the theater. Crash, maybe. But even that is ~10 years old, isn’t it? No new ideas.
I don’t watch that many chick flicks but the ones I have been made to swtch, yawn again. It’s neither complex nor entertaining. After a while I just think, do I care if this heroine finds true love or not? I could be watching some quality porn right now, or read some real literature. The PG-13 chick flick is just somewhere in the middle. Law of the excluded middle applies.
That didn’t have anything to do with anything. Pulp Fiction taught us that giving another man’s wife a foot massage can get you thrown out of a third story window. Valuable life lesson right there.
Oh, I am aware of the campiness of the old films. However, the movies are just not as good by objective standards. Ok. Maybe cross out the weird plot devices to campiness. What is the best depiction of Gotham City is also subjective. I give the Nolan version more points for building a whole city populated by kids like Joffrey, but I can appreciate the Gothic thing from the old movies as well. However, the other arguments - quality of acting and directing, visual effects, attention to detail, and overall awesomeness - are still valid.
Basically, your argument is based on tastes. I’m saying, disregard individual taste and the new movies are better.
Some old movies are better - for instance Die Hard 1 is much better than Die Hard 4. The original movie has better acting and story telling, a more original concept, and overall better writing and execution, despite lack of a modern budget or special effects.
And Toy Story. Don’t forget Toy Story. Sort of a different genre, but Wind Rises was a huge hit in Japan last summer (13), and I watched it three times and cried every time. Not a typical animated film, but then again Ghibli isn’t just for kids.
RE: chick flicks, Bridget Jone’s diary might be the equivalent to your Die Hard–I know there were ones before that, but BJD is excellent. Not a huge fan of chick flicks as they are mostly predictable and just embarrassing to watch, but I do love those British films with gazillion plot lines and too many characters. And Hugh Grant.
@ohai - Again, I don’t necessarily disagree. I probably give older movies a longer leash than you do, but you’re right that it ultimately comes down to taste. I don’t think - all else equal - new movies are better. If anything I think many of them are quite a bit worse (every Michael Bay movie from 1990 on for example). There’s an arguement to be made that the acting, directing, and cinematography were all better before everyone could rely on green-screens.
Ha, “Love Actually” gets played in our house at least 4 times a year. Nuff said.
I’m not saying new movies are better. I’m saying that the new Batman movies are better.
WRT Batman:
Nolan > Burton
Batmans:
Nolan 2 > Nolan 1 > Burton 1 > 1966 Batman > Nolan 3 > everything else except Val Kilmer still kicks ass
Ok. I admit that Dark Knight Rises was disappointing. They were not able to capture the epicness of final part, so it just felt contrived. Also, John Blake is going to die - Batman essentially just left all the crime fighting gear to a random untrained guy and said go be Batman.
^I actually liked Dark Knight Rises. Personally, I liked it better than Batman Begins.
BTW–these soundtracks also kick ass.