Disappointing Trends in Movies

[Desdichado]

as a gay male, I find it annoying that movies will include nudity of one degree or other and/or other forms of erotic scenes involving young women to appeal to middle aged straight men and straight teenage boys, but for some reason its unacceptable to include similar scenes with young males to appeal to gay guys (or those straight women who find such visual...stimulas...appealing)

Troy
Starship Troopers
It happens. But a movie that panders to a gay voyeurism crowd is committing commercial suicide, IMO. The market that enjoys that isn't big enough, and the market that is offended by it is very large.

 

[Desdichado]

Outrunning the Explosion - in slow-motion apparantly people can actually move faster than even nuclear-detonation thermodynamic reactions. Again, rampant over-use has now rendered it a pathetic device that we simply have to put up with. No filmmaker is now going to show you the hero crashing out a window and falling into the water below and THEN having the window explode outward in a ball of flame. No, the expanding fireball must nip at the heels of the escaping hero, or even close rapidly upon him, all the way down the corridor, through the shattering window and then finally whoosh just over his head as his ballistic downward arc puts him below the windowsill - and the flame will expand up and out but never down. Somewhere back in time the movie industry simply decided that gasoline flames are the ONLY suitable form of explosion for film. Every car that goes over a cliff explodes ON THE WAY DOWN in a ball of flame although it's just been through a 15 minute chase with grenades and .50cal with minimal damage. The only movie in recent memory that seemed to go out of its way to demonstrate otherwise was Blackhawk Down. Gasoline explosions may be "cinematic" but not every explosion needs to be "cinematic".

And yet...

the filming technique used to create those scenes is usually...get this...a real stuntman outrunning a real explosion.

So for everyone who claims it's "impossible" and "unrealistic"...

Please be quiet now.

 

[Hijinks]

Bottomless clips. Nuff said.

*looks really confused*

Um, ok, anyway about kids in films. Typically, the reason they are in the film is their family or friends or whatnot is/are going through something extraordinary. They don't make movies about a mom taking her kids to soccer practice. If they did, then the kids would typically be behaving like normal kids. But when you have kids whose father has just been murdered and a Navy SEAL has to be their bodyguard (for example), yeah they're not going to act like normal kids. I can accept this, and if I don't want to see kids in a movie, I usually don't go to see said movie. Kids in movies are usually traumatized and/or had something abnormal happen to them to make them behave abnormally. I can think of a few exceptions - in Jerry Maguire the kid had a normal mom, pretty much, but he seemed pretty normal (if a little precocious) to me.

 

[sniffles]

As for children in the audience at inappropriate movies - "R" in the American ratings system means, "Noone under 17 UNLESS accompanied by parent or guardien". It's an NC-17 rating that means "Noone 17 or younger PERIOD." The blame therefore is twofold. It lies with lazy, stupid adults whose pathetic parentings skills aren't really your business to call into question at a movie (unfortunately), but also with a pathetic, meaningless, ratings system that doesn't even adequately communicate superficial content like levels of violence and sexuality, much less the VASTLY MORE IMPORTANT underlying messages being communicated to children through that content.

Have a bad experience at the movies lately, Funny Hat?

Actually, I think some of the blame here should lie with the theatres that don't enforce the ratings. How many times have any of us been asked for ID when enterting a theatre? The staff just take your money and hand you a ticket. They don't ask if you're old enough to be escorting that minor into the theatre, and they don't refuse to admit people with children to from NC-17 movies. The rating system is meaningless if no one applies it.

 

[Desdichado]

How many times have any of us been asked for ID when enterting a theatre?

It's been quite a while since I looked like I might be anywhere near 17 years old. If a theatre employee asked to see my ID when buying a ticket to a rated R movie, it'd be insulting.

But I agree with Funny Hat that the ratings system isn't really particularly useful. In my ideal world, movies would be given ratings that specifically flagged type of content rather than just broad "good" and "bad" ratings. Heck, in the ideal world, movies wouldn't be rated at all; they'd just release content breakdowns ala screenit.com. And everybody'd actually use those breakdowns, at least before seeing movies with their kids if not themselves.

 

[sniffles]

It's been quite a while since I looked like I might be anywhere near 17 years old. If a theatre employee asked to see my ID when buying a ticket to a rated R movie, it'd be insulting.

But what does a 17 year old look like? Some of them look like they're 14, and some look like they're 21. It's hard to judge. People tell me all the time I don't look 45, and I don't think they're just being nice. In my ideal world they'd ask everyone for ID, the same as liquor stores ought to do, or convenience stores selling cigarettes. I don't mind being asked if everyone else is being asked also.

I agree, though, that the rating system isn't very effective. What constitutes violence? What constitutes sexual content? Whose opinion are these ratings based on?

 

[WayneLigon]

Talkers, cell phones and crying babies are also annoying.

It's comforting to know they have their own special Hell.

And someone else said bringing children to certain films. I was horrified when I saw Basic Insrinct and some morons brought there under 8 daughters to the film.

We went to see Wrong Turn, a movie where one of the nice things that happen to people is being chopped up for the evening meal while still alive. These two women come in with five small kids. Like, 5-7 years old. Now, we might have understood this if the women were very young, but they were in their thirties or early forties. We just kind of stared at them, and discussed among ourselves what to do. Did they wander into the wrong theater? Did they not see the previews? But no, we can hear them takling and it's obvious that they know exactly what they're here to see. Now, I'm pretty much an advocate of removing any ratings system and letting whoever has cash in hand see whatever they want, but man...

 

[WayneLigon]

I have a suggestion for you all of you: Watch some foreign movies. You are constantly mentioning Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator, Pearl Harbor, Batman Begins etc. No wonder you get tired of the same old, these are all hollywood movies! Not exactly known for innovation there.

Lucky that apparently you live within a couple hundred miles of a theater that will show those things. If it wasn't for the 'net I'd never even know those movies existed; heck, I'd never know about the dozens of US-made films put out every year that we never see because they are all in limited release in the major metropolitan markets. If it wasn't for Netflix I'd never have seen many of those films.

Before I got that, we had to drive over 150 miles to Atlanta go see Princess Mononoke. Our only other option is a one-screen art theater that shows four films a month. They have managed to score some successes, like getting 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' when it was in indie release or (because one of the gamers in town works for the theater) we get some recent anime (like Steamboy), but usually they don't have anything I'd care to see.

You can't break out of the 'same old same old' when all that is available to you is the top ten Hollywood movies. Thank goodness for the Net.

 

[Merlion]

Troy
Starship Troopers
It happens. But a movie that panders to a gay voyeurism crowd is committing commercial suicide, IMO. The market that enjoys that isn't big enough, and the market that is offended by it is very large.

I dont think I was being fully clear. I just mentioned the part of the simple fact that it annoys me.

I dont think the reasons for it have much to do with gay/straight. I think its simply that female nudity in movies is accepted and male nudity is not. And both those things are linked to the fact that females are more or less conditioned not to respond to that kind of thing...or to admit it or act on it if they do.


I just think its funny...considering that theres hefty numbers of people who find any sort of nudity offensive (admitedly predominately women although again a lot of that is conditioning) and to them nudity is nudity...but for some reason filmakers will do it with women but not men.


I guess in some ways I find it more interesting than really being a pet peeve.


However the part about total lack of deccent gay characters is still just annoying.

 

[Dark Jezter]

My hate of shaky-cam fight scenes know no limit.

I was very disappointed when I saw this filming technique used in Batman Begins, and agree with those who think it's a cheap trick used by directors who don't know or don't care about filming a good fight scene.