Pledge 2018

[OldCorpse]

Pledge (2018) - has kinda mixed reviews, but I think it's a really interesting movie - not in the sense of content necessarily, but how well it's made by relative unknowns. The story is not much to write home about, probably the weakest element here. But the execution is really good. The lighting, the camera work, and especially the music are all excellent. The acting is pretty good too. And again - these are all folks with few if any notable credits.

I often wonder about this - how is it that there are movies where the artistic and technical abilities are on such a high level, yet the folks involved are obscure. Meanwhile, they do much better work than so many big hollywood productions. What is it? I say this after watching "Sicario: Day of the Soldado" which was absolute trash (and which I am going to do a thread on soon). I really feel hollywood is messed up when there are so many more talented people out there who should have careers instead of a bunch of the sorry lot that actually get the big budgets.

 

[mothmachine]

I don't think there's anything new about first time independent filmmakers making something better than hollywood with a fraction of the budget. Most hollywood movies are formulaic, the bigger the budget the more that is the case, with only certain named directors getting a little more leeway. They have to make the studios/ investors money back, so you get yet another version of something already done before. And since a bigger portion of the revenues come from overseas for a lot of these movies, you tend to get a lot of action movies that travel well. The interesting stuff is usually made with smaller budgets, and the funding often comes from Europe, at least initially, because they believe in creative vision and arthouse kind of movies and always have to a much greater extent. I think this has changed only in that now so much of the good stuff is on TV and made for TV. Netflix and others are taking risks and good TV series are being made like never before. Feature films are starting to seem a little old fashioned.