Posted on 05/19/2015 1:47:10 PM PDT by BenLurkin
“Now we’re essentially all consuming very childish things – comic books, superheroes. Adults are watching this stuff, and taking it seriously!
“It is a kind of dumbing down in a way, because it’s taking our focus away from real-world issues.”
“Films used to be about challenging, emotional journeys or moral questions that might make you walk away and re-evaluate how you felt about... whatever. Now we’re walking out of the cinema really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk had a fight with a robot.”
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“Tell Simon to go watch “Whipflash” or “St. Vincent” or “Foxchaser” and stop whining.”
I don’t go to see the action films that this guy is talking about. I don’t like them.
I would suggest he try avoiding them-——seems simple to me.
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I've owned Idiocracy for years, watched it at least a dozen times, and never knew that Upgrayedd did come looking for Rita. Apparently I never watched through the end credits, and he was in a scene after the credits, coming out of a third pod and starting to look for Rita.
Eh, I have to mostly disagree with this guy. Yeah, there are certain great films that we’d never see get made today. And that’s a shame. But I reject the argument that the dominance of lighter fare itself is anything new. Go all the way back to the 30’s and 40’s, and look at how many Charlie Chan, Boston Blackie, and Dagwood and Blondie movies they made. Dozens. None of those films were terribly deep, but they were entertaining (well, except for those horrid Blondie movies, LOL). Same goes with the B-monster movies of the 50’s, and so on.
It's been a long time since I saw it, can you refresh my memory?
Hey! I “LOVE” those old Blondie movies!
Two years plus sober now.
They were utter rubbish and a middle finger to long-term fans.
Whoops! Mea Culpa, FRiend. :-)
Right. That's why I liked WC Fields and Laural&Hardy so much.
Good job. I find I read a lot more now. I take less aspirin too. :)
Upgrayedd, with two D’s for a double dose of his pimpin’, is Scarface from the rap group The Geto Boys. (from 5th ward Texas) Some useless trivia for you...enjoy.
I’m not. I stopped going to movies.
Yup, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Paul and The World's End, now those are movies that initiated many an intellectual discussion!
I used to read Classic Comics and usually would read the Book they were based on afterwords!
He’s right. Trivial stories about superheroes fighting superhuman evils, while facing their own flaws and mortality, are a colossal waste of time. You should read great works of literature instead. Something to build the mind and character. Something old and good...
Beowulf, perhaps...
Joseph Campbell wrote this book called “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” published 1949. In it he attempts a comparative study of all the great, mythic stories ever, and comes up with a set of plot points they all seem to have in common. His story theory started to be used here and there, but when Lucas wrote Star Wars, he dived into it headlong, and his success became this massive vindication of the Campbell premise, that we really are only interested in one story, the Hero’s Journey, and if you want to make a highly successful movie, you have to use that story in some form. So everybody copycats it, and folks are making money hand over fist with this “new” formula, and then CGI and Marvel come along and push the thing into the next gear, etc. etc.
But now that I actually know the Campbell story theory, I watch these superhero stories and can almost set my watch on when certain key plot points are going to be deployed. Now when I watch those movies, I’m not entertained. I’m bored. Yeah, nice robot, nice kinematics, big deal. Yawn.
So I’m drifting back to stories that have the power of surprise, and have something to say about the human experience that I actually want to hear. Those are too rare these days, and if that’s all the OP is complaining about, I won’t hold his own filmography against him. It’s always good to aspire to something better.
Peace,
SR
I kind of figured it was a bit Inside Baseball for the average viewer. I really like Michael Keaton as an actor, and Edward Norton is always great. One of the problems for me is I really didn’t find any of the characters particularly likable. I didn’t care about any of them.
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