BlahCade Podcast #20 - Forum Questions Part 1

[WhiteChocolate]

hmm, i love "donnie darko" - and yet understand it isn't going to be everyone else's "favorite" over a certain time period; it's famously a movie release botched by 9-11 (in as -the- "9-11" experience, and if i were still in film school, i'd be writing a dissertation about that ;0) - there's just some films that got caught in that chasm, and for whatever it's worth, there is now a "pre-" and "post-9-11" american cinema to consider. it's tough to put out the little definitions about why it's all different, but it's there... and "donnie darko" got caught in the cross-dimensional crosshairs, for whatever weird reasons (it's a mysterious enough film all its own - sort of like a john hughs script crossed with a twilight zone director at the same time!)

some things, ya can't explain... but the inexplicable is the mysterious beauty that keeps us going, as the human race...

 

[invitro]

come awards season it is highly unlikely we'll see Mad Max get any love, and yet it had critics gushing over it. And yet inevitably some costume drama will, simply because it 'looked' important. When was the last time a comedy got nominated as a best picture? I mean one that was truly funny, not a Woody Allen movie? There is a clear bias against presumed 'popcorn' movies, even though they can take you through a rollercoaster of emotions just as well as some thinking man's piece.

I run into this all the time working on film sets. I'll overhear a conversation of one of the producers or the DP, and they'll be talking in high praise about some obscure film they just saw at the local art house cinema, but they would never lower themselves to seeing whatever is in the top 10 at the box office. Meanwhile the very thing we're working on is rivaling Baywatch in storytelling quality.

When gripes come up, my philosophy is to get specific. It sounds like you're upset with the Oscar voters, not the critics. If you work on film sets, you should be in contact with actual Oscar voters a lot (I guess... I don't know the details of the movie biz), which puts you closer to them than 99.999% of people, so why not air your complaints to them?

P.S. As said before, I think most Oscar nominees in recent years are crap... but top 10 box office movies are probably even crappier. Well heck, for what it's worth, here's what wikipad says were the top 10 movies for 2014...

1.	American Sniper	Warner Bros.	$350,126,372
2.	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1	Lionsgate	$337,135,885
3.	Guardians of the Galaxy	Walt Disney Pictures / Marvel Studios	$333,176,600
4.	Captain America: The Winter Soldier	Walt Disney Pictures / Marvel Studios	$259,766,572
5.	The Lego Movie	Warner Bros. / Warner Animation Group	$257,760,692
6.	The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies	Warner Bros. / New Line Cinema / MGM	$255,119,788
7.	Transformers: Age of Extinction	Paramount Pictures	$245,439,076
8.	Maleficent	Walt Disney Pictures	$241,410,378
9.	X-Men: Days of Future Past	20th Century Fox	$233,921,534
10.	Big Hero 6	Walt Disney Pictures / Walt Disney Animation Studios	$222,527,828

Now I haven't seen any of these and don't want to. But come on... four comic book superhero movies? Two more Disney movies, a Transformers movie, a Hobbit movie, and a Hunger Games movie? These deserve best film nominations? These aren't even films... these are cartoons for children. Only American Sniper is something for adults. I don't blame Oscar voters for not nominating this stuff... it belongs on the Kids' Choice awards.

For comparison, here are the tops for 1971...

Rank	Title	Studio	Domestic gross
1.	Fiddler on the Roof	United Artists	$75,600,000[SUP][1][/SUP]
2.	The French Connection	20th Century Fox	$51,700,000[SUP][2][/SUP]
3.	Diamonds Are Forever	United Artists	$43,819,547[SUP][3][/SUP]
4.	Dirty Harry	Warner Bros.	$35,976,000[SUP][4][/SUP]
5.	Billy Jack	Warner Bros.	$32,500,000[SUP][5][/SUP]
6.	Summer of '42	Warner Bros.	$32,063,634[SUP][6][/SUP]
7.	The Last Picture Show	Columbia Pictures	$29,133,000[SUP][7][/SUP]
8.	Carnal Knowledge	Embassy Pictures	$28,623,000[SUP][8][/SUP]
9.	A Clockwork Orange	Warner Bros.	$26,589,355[SUP][9][/SUP]
10.	Bedknobs and Broomsticks	Walt Disney Productions	$17,871,174[SUP][10][/SUP]

I see all the top movies in 1971 were kids' movies, too...

 

[invitro]

- i -love- the abyss; short version (but not so much the long version).

I saw The Abyss when it was new... so I guess I was a late teenager. I was so mad afterwards, about as angry about a movie as I think I've ever felt. I thought it was seriously anti-science, which is a political stance that I had a lot of difficulty ignoring then (and now, to hopefully a lesser extent). Anyway, I haven't rewatched it or read about it since... I was probably being a moody teenager then...

 

[WhiteChocolate]

I saw The Abyss when it was new... so I guess I was a late teenager. I was so mad afterwards, about as angry about a movie as I think I've ever felt. I thought it was seriously anti-science, which is a political stance that I had a lot of difficulty ignoring then (and now, to hopefully a lesser extent). Anyway, I haven't rewatched it or read about it since... I was probably being a moody teenager then...

ohhh!!! really??? wow!!! (is about all i can say... it's one of the few cameron movies i can appreciate, at least i feel as "fully" as i can one of his, compared to his other works that are so broadly accepted... i dunno why. but i do know that many friends/colleages of mine don't share my admiration for "the abyss," so don't think it's anything about you - seens it's about me! and i dunno why...

i don't feel there's anything at all anti-science about it - it's about as "anti-human endeavor" as anything else cameron has put out; "humans are stupid/shortsighted/evil beings" seems like everything he's done! but not "anti-science"... where's-a that come from??

that was one of the movies i managed to see the very first day's showing of, on a whim mostly (cuz i knew a bit before it came out, and knew it was gonna be a "big one" regardless of the long run) - with a gf at the time; we passed by the theater and saw that was opening that day - i insisted we come back and see first showing of it; there was like only one other person in the theater... never had my hand squeezed so tight, as so many times in that movie!!!! great "date" movie then...

it was my "das boot," years before i'd ever seen "das boot" for the first time (and that is sooooo excellent in its own right - probabaly wolfgang's only one good movie!!)... but it -is- the movie that "broke me" of my "director's cut" dvd habit, as was so prevalent at the time... the "long version" is not always the "best" version! so if you've only ever seen the long version of "the abyss" (and there -are- some great bits in it, although mostly in the first half) - then try sitting down to the short version, where it's not so "jim gotta hammer and everything looks like a nail" as far as the third act goes... it -does- get a little too over-the-top there. i thankfully have the "short theater version" memorized, so whenever i see the long version, i just automatically "cut scenes" in my head as it goes...

there really is nothing like watching that opening navy-sub sinking portion in a nice, big, loud theater... not even "das boot." not even "titanic," which is the closest (and maybe lastest) cameron will ever get to water... the fact he shot most of that effer in an abandoned nuclear reactor, is just so weird and crazy... it's a one-of-a-kind, easy. gotta give it credit!! watch the "making ofs" on youtube if you're not still convinced... so much effort into that film; moreso than most...

"hippie, get me bud!"

 

[WhiteChocolate]

ohhhh, for cryin' out loud - if you're gonna post top movie boxoffice, start after 1980!! you're going far too far back, starting 1971... although i gotta give, when you erase your mind of everything else, "clockwork orange" was an extreme shocker!! hardly kid's stuff... at least in my college days, nearly twenty years after it came it, it still made people (women mostly) walk out on it. i don't blame them! not that there weren't other shocking movies by that time, extreme horror like "texas chainsaw" or "last house on the left" (though that one i always considered "goofy," it's offensive if you're fem), or "the exorcist" maybe is the next best comparison - kubrick -reallllly- pushed the boundaries with "clockwork." put yourself in the timeframe and reconsider it!

for those who think kubrick is some kinda has-been, you haven't really put yourself into time-and-place about cinema, and what was cinema-"speak" at the time, even including early pron... ;0 kubrick always broke the rules and the mindset of things, before lucas, coppola and spielberg set in.... ("apocolypse now" was perhaps the next best "shock" movie in some different sense, so much so that kubrick had to eventually come back with "full metal jacket" - more shocking in its own way)

p.s. most modern "top" lists couldn't much wipe my butt, if you know what i mean! not relevant... just cuz everyone likes sugar doesn't mean everyone can live on it for long. like, i was buying a sandwich at "subway" earlier, and they were playing "american top 40" countdown there - and i thought, "who even -listens- to this stuff anymore??" i just - don't; i don't ever expose myself to it, and i don't miss it; while listening to it there, i realized, "i'm not missing -anything- about this." ;0 so, is it worth something?? maybe to worthless money-counters someplace, who somehow manage to position themselves where they can make money upon it... i sure don't, and i don't care!! ;0

 

[invitro]

I think Kubrick is beloved now as much as ever, maybe more so, since The Shining got its big upgrade in critical opinion a few years ago, and now Barry Lyndon is... and I think there has been a big load of expensive Kubrick books, box sets, and other toys produced recently.

I don't know why I chose 1971... the early 1970's are by far my favorite period of US/UK film, so maybe that's why. I suppose the point I was trying to make - the juvenilization of the US* box office - probably would've been served without going back too many years (but I'm too depressed from seeing that 2014 top ten to check).

Top 40 has always been for the kids, although I would bet it used to be more for teens than that US box office list. I think the Top 40 has been driven by pre-teens more since 2000, or maybe it's gone from being driven 60% by females to 95% by females. I'm just guessing... the facts are what counts and I'm too lazy/depressed to look for them, too. I loved the Top 40 when I was a teen in the 1980's, for about five years from 1983 to 1988, it was probably my #2 interest then, after baseball... I'm serious about movies but about 100x more serious about (popular) music...

I don't mean to say my teenage viewpoint on The Abyss was at all correct, I think I thought it was more anti-scientist than anti-science, but I really don't remember why I thought that. I had some hang-ups then, and do now, too.

I also don't mean to say that enjoying children's or teen entertainment is wrong or bad in general... I have on occasion watched some teen TV programs, though I think it's more for education than entertainment...

* I wonder how much other countries' top 10 box office lists look like the US's.

 

[Baltimore Jones]

they were playing "american top 40" countdown there - and i thought, "who even -listens- to this stuff anymore??" i just - don't; i don't ever expose myself to it, and i don't miss it; while listening to it there, i realized, "i'm not missing -anything- about this." ;0 so, is it worth something?? maybe to worthless money-counters someplace, who somehow manage to position themselves where they can make money upon it... i sure don't, and i don't care!! ;0

This is probably just selection bias. When you listen to a "classics" or "oldies" station (even if they specialize in stuff that's only 10-20 years old), they're playing only the stuff that has stood the test of the time, the very best songs from a 10-30 year period depending on the station's specialty. In 10 years, there will be "Top 40" songs from today that will be recognized as truly great (Take Me to Church for example) and we won't hear all the crap anymore, so we'll remember the era more fondly. The cream rises to the top. You're forgetting all of the songs from the '60s or '70s or '80s-'90s that we DON'T hear anymore because they were so bad.

It's probably the same thing with SNL. People always say some old era was better than today, but that's because they're remembering only the very best sketches. There were always duds, and my guess is the ratio stays fairly constant most of the time. Same with songs, movies, etc.

Let's just say I get tweaked over long standing biases against 'popular' entertainment. There is the implication that a 'serious movie fan' cannot possibly be just that and like the drivel the masses enjoy. I called it at release and I'm calling it now, come awards season it is highly unlikely we'll see Mad Max get any love, and yet it had critics gushing over it. And yet inevitably some costume drama will, simply because it 'looked' important. When was the last time a comedy got nominated as a best picture? I mean one that was truly funny, not a Woody Allen movie? There is a clear bias against presumed 'popcorn' movies, even though they can take you through a rollercoaster of emotions just as well as some thinking man's piece.

I run into this all the time working on film sets. I'll overhear a conversation of one of the producers or the DP, and they'll be talking in high praise about some obscure film they just saw at the local art house cinema, but they would never lower themselves to seeing whatever is in the top 10 at the box office. Meanwhile the very thing we're working on is rivaling Baywatch in storytelling quality.

Believe me, I'm just having a go. If I have the time and the movie is easily accessible to me, I'll watch damn near anything. Except Field of Dreams. Gotta draw the line somewhere! This is what it reminds me of though...

When I was in junior high, we had to do book reports. Now there were plenty of books I wanted to read, lots of fantasy and sci-fi, but my teacher hated that stuff. He wanted books that 'have stood the test of time'. That meant lots of "Where the Red Fern Grows" and "My Brother Sam is Dead" type stuff. Books that hadn't been relevant in at least 50 years, and were just painful to a teen. And so I hated reading. I mean I would read some of the things I had wanted, but there was this overhanging attitude that I wasn't reading 'real' literature. Then I get into high school, and we read 'Lord of the Flies' and I think, wait a minute! This was too good to be a school recommended book! I read Dune, Clockwork Orange, and I'm thinking populist stories can be considered great. It dawns on me that some people just enjoy having a stick up their butt, and that's their problem, not mine.

By the way, I love Twin Peaks. That show ruined television for me for many years.

Agree with most of this. I wouldn't really consider the Oscars to be a good judge of the art of film though. It's "Oscar bait" for a reason - "critics bait" is not as much of a thing. Good critics are not morons (by definition).

 

[invitro]

There were always duds, and my guess is the ratio stays fairly constant most of the time. Same with songs, movies, etc.

So you think the top 10 movies of 2014 are as good as the top 10 of 1971?

 

[Dedpop]

So you think the top 10 movies of 2014 are as good as the top 10 of 1971?

 

[Baltimore Jones]

So you think the top 10 movies of 2014 are as good as the top 10 of 1971?

On average the top 10 of x year would be as good as the top 10 of y year. You can cherry pick years to disprove it if you'd like of course. They're probably slightly better overall today as there are more creators and more creative freedom and 120 years of film history to draw and improve upon.

 

[invitro]

On average the top 10 of x year would be as good as the top 10 of y year. You can cherry pick years to disprove it if you'd like of course. They're probably slightly better overall today as there are more creators and more creative freedom and 120 years of film history to draw and improve upon.

Fair enough... my 1971 was cherry-picking, though 2014 was not, of course, it's just last year. So which years from (say) 1970-1995 had a worse top 10 than 2014? If the quality is equal on average, half of the years 1970-1995 have a worse top 10, so it won't be hard to choose a year. Or if you think 2014 is much worse than other recent years, replace it with any year in the last five, if you'd like.

Why do you think there are more creators, and (especially) creative freedom today? I thought it was accepted that there is far, far less creative freedom today than in the 1970's in Hollywood.

 

[Baltimore Jones]

Fair enough... my 1971 was cherry-picking, though 2014 was not, of course, it's just last year. So which years from (say) 1970-1995 had a worse top 10 than 2014? If the quality is equal on average, half of the years 1970-1995 have a worse top 10, so it won't be hard to choose a year. Or if you think 2014 is much worse than other recent years, replace it with any year in the last five, if you'd like.

Why do you think there are more creators, and (especially) creative freedom today? I thought it was accepted that there is far, far less creative freedom today than in the 1970's in Hollywood.

I have no idea what the top 10 movies of 2014 were, I'm not even sure if I could name ONE of them as I don't see new movies very frequently. Note that when I'm saying "top 10" I'm talking about some theoretical objective measure of quality, not box office or "top 10 on Rotten Tomatoes". The list would almost certainly be closer to one of the lists that shutyertrap was annoyed with than it would be to a "top 10 box office" list.

I also don't know that much about the state of creative freedom in Hollywood, so I could be wrong on that point. My thinking is going back to "The Code" and to the "studio system" where they were churning things out. For the biggest blockbusters yes it might be less creative, but now there is a far greater opportunity to make films on a low budget, meaning many more potential creators seeing their creative vision through.

Things have also shifted a bit to television, mainly when it comes to the mainstream. If you could include, say, a season of The Wire or The Sopranos in when you're considering "films" from the appropriate year then I think that "motion pictures" as a whole are easily better overall now than ever (on average).

 

[Dedpop]

Let's stick to 1971.

 

[invitro]

I have no idea what the top 10 movies of 2014 were, I'm not even sure if I could name ONE of them as I don't see new movies very frequently. Note that when I'm saying "top 10" I'm talking about some theoretical objective measure of quality, not box office or "top 10 on Rotten Tomatoes".

Well, I pasted the box office top 10's for 1971 and 2014 above .

My claim is about the movies that Americans actually watch, weighted by # of times watched (which is roughly box office, I think) and that the quality of such has gone down markedly since about 1970-1995 or a bit later.

I thought you were claiming that the box-office champs of 2014 were as good as those of 1971, which I would find an interesting claim.

I would bet that the quality of the ten best-quality movies has gone down too, but I'd need to do some research. I don't know of a good aggregate source of critics' rankings other than Sight & Sound, which probably doesn't have enough ranked US movies per year for this purpose. Rotten Tomatoes might work, the yea/nay part is way too coarse to say much, and I don't know if their choice of critics is any good.

but now there is a far greater opportunity to make films on a low budget, meaning many more potential creators seeing their creative vision through.

I'd like to see some evidence of this... tons of low-budget movies were made in the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's. I don't know if it's more or less than now, or if it's easy to find out...

 

[shutyertrap]

I for one think the quality of movies has gone down, as so many decisions are made for purely economical reasons and not creative. I also think the longer you've been alive and watching movies, the more you realize the same stories are being told just in slightly different ways. Look, Tarantino steels from all sorts of old movies, and quite frankly I like how he interprets them. I had gone back and watched a bunch of Marx Brothers comedies and realized that I had already heard most of the jokes in other newer movies that I really liked. While I could appreciate them as the originators, the fact I'd heard the joke elsewhere first meant that in my mind, the Marx bros weren't. My formative movie watching years were in the 80's and early 90's. I watch movies today and get nostalgic, seeing where they stole plots, jokes, and stunt gags from. To my son though, he's seeing it for the first time so it's effective.

I just blame it on me getting older.

 

[Johni3w6]

Enjoyed the latest podcast, looking forward to part 2 of questions being answered.

Loved the spider and bug talk, which after I had to get rid of some spiders on my daughter's bike.
Looked up the Huntsman spider and am thankful I will never see one of those.

SYT glad to hear the bug in the light wasn't a house centipede, could you imagine that falling on your face.

Keep up the great work guys and all you do with the BlahCade podcasts.

Not a big movie guy but here are a few of my favorite ones in no particular order.

Papillion
The Professional
True Romance
Airplane
Back to the Future
Tron
The Usual Suspects
Primal Fear
The Black Hole
3 o' Clock High
Better off Dead
Stalag 17
Misery
Point Break * know some people give this movie a bad rap but what I enjoyed was that Patrick Swayze was not playing the good guy or hero.

 

[shutyertrap]

Point Break is so much fun. It is so over the top and completely unaware of that. "I am an F...B...I...Agent!" is one of the most laughable lines in the movie, and instantly quotable in the same instant. Kathryn Bigelow is really good at directing action sequences, setting them up. There's such an energy to the movie. It may be pure cheese, but you can't help but love it. When the first Fast and Furious movie came out, I said "It's a dumbed down version of Point Break, and that's saying something!" Keanu and Swayze totally make the movie, crappy surfing sequences included.

True Romance is a damn near perfect movie to me. A collection of fantastic individual scenes that somehow come together to make an entire movie. My favorites are the Walken/Hopper scene, Gandolfini/Arquette beat down (because she totally owns him in the end), and anything with Gary Oldman. Slater is so perfectly cast as you have no problem believing him as some knucklehead comic book store employee who could actually rise to do the things he does in the movie. It is incredibly romantic while being brutally violent, and thank god they didn't go with Tarantino's original ending of Clarence dying. The choices Tony Scott made that changed the script are spot on.

Absolute yes to The Professional. Mainly for Oldman's one line reading of "EEEVERRRRYYYYOOOONNNNNNNEEE!!!"

3 o'Clock High is a totally ignored gem. I used to love the kind of show off camera work it did, where everything seemed to be a trick shot. The impending doom that overtakes Jerry throughout the day is so great, as it's the kind of silly things a teen would totally blow out of proportion in there mind. Makes me laugh how being hot for teacher was still okay to be joked about back then, making the movie even somewhat taboo today. And the end resolution, so satisfying. A movie that you think is going to be warmed over John Hughes and instead turns into something completely unique.

Finally, Airplane. I defy you to show that to anyone, even a teen today, and not have them laugh. It's such a good spoof, without needing you to know all the pop culture references of the time. Of course it's even funnier if you do, but they don't drive most of the jokes unlike what passes for spoofs these days.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

A few of my favorites, not in order or anything:

Modern Times, Gold Rush - I'll lump both these together, but there's a certain charm about Charlie Chaplin that still carries on through his movies. Physical comedy and silent protagonists are still around today (see my son's favorite show - Shaun The Sheep - for exactly that).

Casablanca - my sisters and I sat down and watched Casablanca one Christmas morning, during the traditional dead time between opening presents, and lunch. It's a total quote-fest. Every other line was pretty much a case of "so that's where that comes from!!".

Bridge On The River Kwai - as a lesson in the futility of war, it's more subtle than Dr Strangelove or Catch-22, but does it in that epic David Lean way and of course Alec Guinness is majestic.

The Sting - and you thought M Night Shamalamadingdong invented the "twist" ending. (Of course Hitchcock and The Twilight Zone had been doing that plenty, but I've never been a fan of either.)

Star Wars+sequels - strangely not really part of my childhood that much; I was too young (4) when Star Wars came out, though I did see Empire on my 7th birthday, I was cruelly denied the opportunity to see RotJ when it came out and had to wait for it to come on TV!! Still, I'm fully invested now and the digital editions are great (albeit the nerfed "Special" editions).

Airplane! - yeah, couldn't agree more about it being hilarious today and any time.

The Princess Bride - and why not?

Aliens - a war movie that isn't, and the first "overage" movie that I persuaded my parents I was allowed to watch on TV or own on VHS (it got an 18 certificate in the UK, because the 15 certificate didn't exist in 1986 and there was nothing between PG and 18 at the time).

Goodfellas - I'm a sucker for a good narrative, and the first hour or so of this movie is a perfect narrative. Sure it spirals out of control a bit towards the end, but I like Goodfellas far more than I like The Godfather, which drags from the get-go.

Dodgeball - so completely over-the-top silly that it works every time.

Bond. James Bond. Blame my mother and the UK TV tradition of putting Bond on every Christmas for getting me hooked.

... and plenty more but I don't want to make too long a post.

 

[jaredmorgs]

I personally love Baseketball (sic) by the South Park creators. And Orgazmo. Ridiculous movies.

 

[shutyertrap]

I was terribly disappointed in BASEketball. Probably most because Matt and Trey didn't write any of it, and yet a Zucker did (responsible for Airplane and such), and when the movie failed to meet either of those expectations I was crushed. I think the only moment I truly laughed was the prolonged make out session between the boys. Orgazmo on the other hand, really funny stuff.