Disappointing Trends in Movies
- Thread starter Hijinks
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Lord Pendragon
First Post
It may be because I really like this movie and watch it whenever it comes on TV, but I have to point out that O'Connell doesn't outrun the sunrise in The Mummy Returns. The sunrise is clearly faster than he's running. What he does do is beat the sunrise to the temple, thereby preventing his son from being killed by the magic bracelet. But the sunrise had much more distance to travel, and still almost overcame him by the time he dove into the temple entrance.Joshua Dyal said:
Merlion, I'm a straight guy. I don't have a problem with homosexuality politically or socially. But--and I hope this doesn't offend you, but it's the truth--watching a gay sexual scene would disgust me. (Perhaps watching a straight sexual scene provokes the same sensation in you?) I would walk out of a movie that had a gay sex scene in it. I wouldn't watch the movie in the first place if I knew there was one in there to begin with.Merlion said:
It's my guess that this is why you don't see this sort of thing in more movies. Unfortunately, the majority of the viewing populace simply doesn't want to see it.
As to why lesbians seem to be more acceptable, well, straight folks don't have the same visceral reaction to a lesbian scene. It's not fair, but it's true.
Regarding "shaky cam" I don't mind it. In fact, I'll go on the record as saying I liked it in Batman Begins. Batman's fights seemed sudden, brutal, and unexpected. They didn't feel like the well-choreographed scenes of Blade. But they did feel dangerous. It added a lot to the mood for me.
Edit to add: And my own pet peeve, though you don't see it much anymore unless you're renting old Steven Seagal or Jean Claude Van Damme movies, is when they edit in the same fight footage into the same sequence. So you'll see the exact same footage of the exact same punch several times in the same "fight." Even worse when they repeat the punch three times in quick succession to simulate three quick punches, instead of getting the guy to actually punch three times.
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Orius
Unrepentant DM Supremacist
I'm not going to go into annoying stuff like ratings-challenged parents, people who talk too much, or cell phones here, because that's really an audience thing and not a problem with filmmaking itself.
I'm with the shaky/sped up camera stuff. I like to be able to see what's going on in the movie, and these "techniques" interfere with that. It's bad enough when a filmmaker puts it in because everone else is doing it; just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean it's good. If it's done to cover for a lack of acting/directorial talent, it's even worse. Cast people who can act, who can do the fight choreography, and get directors who know what they're doing. Hell, you might even save money on your budget because you're hiring a relatively talented unknown who will improve the movie rather than some overpriced big name.
Actors who are cast because they're famous and their presence is to draw in their fans, but who don't fit in the role, or who simply have no acting ability yet inexplicably have a career as a big name screen actor. But this is hardly a recent trend, as Hollywood has pretty much always done this.
Women who are smart and always right, and men who are morons, except for the geeks who can't get laid or gay men. Same thing goes for children who are either prodegies or have gutter mouths.
Chick films of any kind. Can't stand 'em.
Gratuitous material with no redeeming artistic value. This isn't just the gratuitous sex scenes, it's also needless violence, swearing, drug/alcohol use, and so on. It's not that I object to any of that, but it's rather a matter of context. I don't like pointless stuff that's thrown in there for simple shock value or the like and then defended as "freedom of speech/artistic expresion" when people object.
I'm probably going to get blasted as being insensitive for this, but the line, "No parent should ever have to bury a child." I'm not trying to be insensitive to the sorrow one feel's when his kid dies, but every character with a dead kid utters a variation this line eventually It's been used so much in movies and television that to me it's become a cliche that's lost all its poignancy.
I'm with the shaky/sped up camera stuff. I like to be able to see what's going on in the movie, and these "techniques" interfere with that. It's bad enough when a filmmaker puts it in because everone else is doing it; just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean it's good. If it's done to cover for a lack of acting/directorial talent, it's even worse. Cast people who can act, who can do the fight choreography, and get directors who know what they're doing. Hell, you might even save money on your budget because you're hiring a relatively talented unknown who will improve the movie rather than some overpriced big name.
Actors who are cast because they're famous and their presence is to draw in their fans, but who don't fit in the role, or who simply have no acting ability yet inexplicably have a career as a big name screen actor. But this is hardly a recent trend, as Hollywood has pretty much always done this.
Women who are smart and always right, and men who are morons, except for the geeks who can't get laid or gay men. Same thing goes for children who are either prodegies or have gutter mouths.
Chick films of any kind. Can't stand 'em.
Gratuitous material with no redeeming artistic value. This isn't just the gratuitous sex scenes, it's also needless violence, swearing, drug/alcohol use, and so on. It's not that I object to any of that, but it's rather a matter of context. I don't like pointless stuff that's thrown in there for simple shock value or the like and then defended as "freedom of speech/artistic expresion" when people object.
I'm probably going to get blasted as being insensitive for this, but the line, "No parent should ever have to bury a child." I'm not trying to be insensitive to the sorrow one feel's when his kid dies, but every character with a dead kid utters a variation this line eventually It's been used so much in movies and television that to me it's become a cliche that's lost all its poignancy.
Sign me up for the "We hat shakey cam" club. I watch action movies for the action, and I like to see whats going on. I do think a lot of the shakey cam is used to cover up the inabilty of the actors to prefrom the fight scens. Makes me miss the days when Martial Artists stared in martial arts movies.
Any movie where a team of special forces/SWAT are slaughtered by some threat, and the nerdy scientist and/or the little teenage girl have to kill it. Ugh.
Any movie where a team of special forces/SWAT are slaughtered by some threat, and the nerdy scientist and/or the little teenage girl have to kill it. Ugh.
Merlion
First Post
It doesnt offend me but I do find it a little funny since when it comes to it the two are a lot alike.
I know I'm getting off the subject a little bit here but I am curious as to your definition...obviously, mainstream movies do not show fully explicit sex scenes of any kind...usualy you see a guy and a girl in bed together, one on top of the other, writhing around, still more or less covered from the waist down.
So I'm curious...you would walk out of a movie that had a scene like that between two guys? A scene that really showed almost nothing? I'm just curious.
But really I guess the whole thing doesnt as much annoy me as I just find it sort of odd and funny. Female nudity is ok, but male isnt. I guess its because I was raised that gratuitious nudity is inapropriate, regardless of gender. But in Hollywood, female nudity is ok, and made use of, but male nudity (or even eroticism) is taboo.
Although it seems to be changing. Of course thats probably mostly because of two largely unrelated things...homosexuality is becoming more accepted, and I think women are starting to feel comfortable breaking out of some of their sterotypes (like that women dont enjoy seeing male bodies etc)
But getting back on subject a bit more, showing anything or not aside I do find it most annoying that gay characters in movies and TV are almost always 1) very much background characters and 2) generally walking sterotypes, usualy very negative.
I would love to see an action movie with a gay male hero
Also, I'd like to agree with those who have mentioned various forms of problems with hearing and understanding the dialogue in movies. Its of course especially bad in action movies and the like. I'm big on details and I often find myself missing important points either because the music/sound effects are too loud, or the actors wont speak up.
Oh and another thing..related to although somewhat contradictory to one of my other comments...even thought Western cinema usualy seems to want to spoon feed us the plots of movies, some times they also seem to have an odd aversion to clear exposition. The new War of the Worlds was especially bad about this. Movies...especially sci fi/fantasy ones...will introduce elements in the story...and some times give them a good degree of importance...but fail to ever explain what they are or how they work.
In the context of a movie where everything else is being handed to you, it comes out odd. And usualy its not like a mystery or anything...its just something that should've been explained but wasnt.
Merlion said:
Have you seen "Boondock Saints"?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144117/
William Dafoe plays a gay FBI crime scene investigator. I thought that the character was a bit sterotypical (Played to a lot of Gay sterotypes), but I was never quite sure if he wasn't just playing with the heads of the other characters in that regards. He's not the main character, but is probably the third or fourth most important character in the movie.
Storm Raven
First Post
Merlion said:
I think that the real reason is much more mercenary than you suggest: Hollywood thinks that female nudity increases the box office potential of movies, while male nudity does not. Everything in Hollywood eventually comes down to money, and if haviing lots of naked men onscreen would kick up profits, Hollywood would do it. But (rightly or wrongly) Hollywood producers in general seem to believe that naked women sell, while naked men are, at best, profit neutral.
Hollywood doesn't think naked men and gay sex scenes are taboo. They just think those things won't get them more money if they put it onscreen. Hollywood isn't about art, its about profit. Smaller "indie" films are more likely to explore "less profitable" storylines, because they are more indulgent of "artistic expression" than $100 million+ blockbusters.
Hijinks
First Post
I think one reason for this may have been when movies first started to get big-budget in the 60's and 70's into the 80's. Even up until the 80's, male actors were fully dressed a lot of the time, whereas the women started becoming more and more scantily clad. Think of John Wayne films - is he ever tantalizingly sans clothing? Not that this would be desirable in his later days with the whole grey-hair-eyepatch-pot belly thing going on, but in his day John was quite the hottie (Stagecoach and such). Yet he never had to take any clothes off to make a good film. Even in his films, you didn't see sexpots strutting around wearing string bikinis.
And there's another thing. Good male actors can draw in men and women viewers, regardless of what they look like; at least they used to. I'm a John Wayne fan; I think he was awesome no matter what the subject matter of the movie was. But in his later films he was quite not the hottie. But he had fans, and his fans supported him. These days, there aren't 5 or 6 leading credit male actors like John Wayne; there's dozens that are expected to put butts in the theater seats. Matthew McConaghey, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Christian Bale (beginning to, anyway), the list goes on. There's not a few other male actors to compete with, there's a lot.
The point of this rambling is that men didn't have to take their clothes off to make a good film, people still came to see the movies anyway. Back in John Wayne's day, he didn't have to be buff, ripped, or cut; he just had to act. Now they need rippling muscles, washboard abs, and chiseled cheekbones or they aren't considered big boxoffice. Men in John Wayne's day didn't have to work out, and so they didn't. They were in a lot worse shape than today's actors (Christian Bale in Batman Begins was insanely ripped, holy cow!)
These days, it seems like sex is needed to make more money for a film. Look at the upcoming X3. Why do they need to bring in a little-known sexpot trampy X-(wo)Man who uses pheromones to capture men? The first 2 X-Man films didn't make enough money or what? Teenage boys are going to go see it for Mystique alone. Who cares about another naked woman?
The only actor that I can think of to headline a recent movie that hasn't been in any movies showing off his body, is Ewan McGregor, although I'm sure there are others. And I like Ewan just fine (you rakishly grinning Scot, you!)
I think that men are just more visual creatures than women, and so men like to see ladies' naked bodies, but they don't want to have to work out themselves so women can admire theirs
That's the way it USED to be anyway, but there's been a shift so that men are required to be buff. I don't mind looking at hot male bodies, but to me the looks of the actors come after the plot, storyline, and effects of the film.Wow, that was rambling. I'm at work so I can't go back and edit
Lord Pendragon
First Post
Yes. Unless we're talking about pornography, as you pointed out, nothing in the mainstream is going to be explicit. Implicit is enough for me to leave. Implied I can deal with. i.e. two men enter a room together and close the door behind them and we know what they're doing, but don't actually see anything. But show me two men going at it under the sheets, I'm going to show myself to the door.Merlion said:
As StormRaven says, I think it's all about the money. Hollywood isn't making any kind of statement about gay men. They're merely responding to what they believe their audience wants and is willing to pay for. Gay men may want to see more romantic plotlines that reflect their interests. But if more straight men are turned away from a movie than gay men drawn to it (who wouldn't have seen the movie otherwise), then that's a losing proposition for Hollywood.
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