I miss Hollywood, too bad it died.

Yeah, sorry, I can't do that. Some things remain a mystery even to me.

Billy Madison was on in the other room a few minutes ago and I watched it for a few moments. I just ... don't understand how those movies make it big.
 
CGI isn't the problem. A good story is a good story, whether it is told in black and white with practical effects and classic cinematography or if it is a high tech cutting edge film shot on a Red One and shown in IMAX. The effects in Transformers weren't the problem. The character of Optimus Prime (hero) and Megatron (villain) weren't what made those films bad. It was the studio, screenwriters, and director trying to appease the masses with out of place and embarrassing humor wrapped up in a weak script.

Also, personally I'm getting tired of all the reboots, remakes, re-imaginings, adaptations of crappy source material, etc... we need "new" stories more often than we are getting them.
 
Mark Harris said:
But what you're missing is that for every movie on TCM today, the studios of the second studio system(30s-40s) cranked out HUNDREDS of pieces of s**t. Studios used to make like 2-3 movies a WEEK. Very very few of them were what we now call classics.
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This is exactly right. During the "Golden Age" of film--namely the Thirties and Forties--the major studios were cranking out a couple hundred films a year *apiece.* Many films were shot in a week or two. Marquee films would take longer, and major directors would get somewhat more control, but in general they were highly regimented affairs that were shot and cut with little input from the director. Heads of production and studios, along with teams of editors, would get them first. It's actually remarkable the number of great films that made it through.

That said, the classics that endure I think are almost demonstrably better than the vast majority of the best of today. There were remakes aplenty in the past—directors would serially remake their own films as either similar stories (Ford's calvary trilogy) or the same stories (Capra's Lady for a Day/Pocketful of Miracles, etc.). The difference is that almost all of those directors came out of the silent era, having learned how to make popular films using almost solely visuals. They learned how to make visual stories, and it shows in their work.

Actors, then, too, had a much different background than actors today do. There was a wealth of life experience from which they could draw, and imbued them with a greater seriousness and depth, that's largely absent in today's stars. The modern legends are nearing or well into twilight stage: Eastwood, Hopkins, Duvall, De Niro, Pacino, Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Helen Mirren, Julie Christie, Vanessa Redgrave. Even those good to great actors of somewhat more recent vintage—Daniel Day Lewis, Jeff Bridges, Mel Gibson, William H. Macy, Liam Neeson, John Malkovich, Meryl Streep, Holly Hunter, Sigourney Weaver, Susan Sarandon—are in their fifties.

Who takes over for these people? Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Ed Norton, and Clive Owen are the only three interesting actors who can *almost* guarantee I'll see their movies *reasonably* soon. Put me in the theater on day one? Please. They're the only ones I can remotely see aging into a reasonable facsimile of a Jimmy Stewart, Robert Duvall, or Anthony Hopkins.

And the actresses are even less impressive. In fact I can't even think of one—someone in her twenties—who's made me remember her after I leave the theater, much less jumped out at me like Holly Hunter, Julianne Moore, or Jennifer Jason Leigh did. Wait—Julia Stiles. I liked her a lot in the Bourne movies. There's one.

There's just no there, there, anymore, for me. And it's not because I'm an old fogey. I'm 41. I was in my twenties in the Nineties when I began realizing the folks in the classics had much more going on than the young actors at the time. Maybe with better material they could rise higher, but I really do think there's something about life experience and the culture you grow up in that the modern generation of stars is just lacking, and puts them at a distinct disadvantage.

Which brings me to the my argument that the increasingly comfortable and dumbed-down culture over the past fifty years has a lot to do with it. Life was harder then. That puts something in you that comes out when you act. And just listen to the dialogue in most any of the films of the 30s-60s'. It's a vocabulary and level of cleverness that you simply don't find much in popular cinema today.

Over and over, though, in the bios I read of the classic stars, they talk about how this or that classic director pulled something out of them they didn't know they had. And those directors knew it was all about the story. So ultimately, it seems to go back to the story. The material has to be there for a good director to use it to pull out the kind of performances that make great actors.
 
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Some really fantastic work was done in the late 60s and early 70s. A few of my favorites. Obviously, a couple of those are contemporary homages to earlier pieces by innovators like Saul Bass.
 
Hollywood is alive and well. They're following a known formula of movie production that is guaranteed to make money. It would be fruitless to searcha and wait for modern Hollywood to release something with art and substance -- simply because an underwhelming minority wants to see them.

Don't need to tell you guys this: there's so much more out there? Why even worry about what Hollywood is doing? I'm more concerned that American indie film has become a little stale. But, there are some great things coming out of the Scandanavian indie producers; the southern European dramas and thrillers have novel ideas, often; and my current kick is on 70's psychological thrillers - Vanishing Point and Duel...not art, but at least a fresh attempt and making something new...even though they're 40-somethings now n

So, why fret about Hollywood?
 
Indeed, Audrey was quite something.

And maybe I'm just smitten, but isn't Kate Winslet one of the "greats" of our time?
 
capitalP said:
I think I'm the only one in the planet who liked CLICK, guilty as charged.
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Click had something there, although it isn't a masterpiece, I kind of feel it worked, it does what a movie like that has to do, entertain the viewers for one hour and a half..... And that how I feel about lots of movies, they work just as entertainment movies, no deep message (or not developed well....) or good cinematography or stellar acting, but hey they are entertaining, and lots of time you just want to laugh at silly things....
 
Many lamented the death of the studio system, but it fostered a new generation of more independent filmmakers. A lot of the classic movies I watch again and again are post-system pictures.
 
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