Chris,

You certainly make some very valid points that I agree with. And from what you’re explaining, this is why we end up getting the same recycled big-budget crap year after year. Thus the rant that I was going on about, your rant seems to complement the exact point I was trying to make.

I too enjoy big-budget films but I also enjoy the choices of deciding on Jack in the Box or Taco Bell. :D You see, my major complaint is not so much the money and power but rather the lack of fresh, new and intelligent ideas. 80% of what we see in big-budget is simply recycled ideas done with new twists, but from what you are explaining, it only makes sense that we keep getting this unoriginal crap because it’s the powers that be that cram it into 3000+ Cineplex’s out there.

I think for most people, myself included, it’s easy to get trapped into the big marketing void. I often find myself like the next zombie in line shelling out the cash to see a film just because of the basis of “big-budget”. You are right because it literally is shoved down our throats and we all easily condition ourselves into thinking all high-dollar films are more important than others. It really is an unfair practice among many studios, but the real change has to come from the audience members in conditioning themselves to stop buying into it. Unfortunately, that will most likely be a long way off or may never happen.

Tim

Just for the record, "Sin City" was actually NOT considered a Big-Budget film. It was estimated at a 45mill budget which is actually pretty low when you consider major high-dollar films on a budget of 180 to 200mill.

Sad thing from my perspective is that nobody went to go see the one genuinely GOOD Hollywood action flick of the summer so far: George Romero's "Land of the Dead". In large part, I would suggest, because it simply didn't get the same promotional push that other garbage like FF got. I think about 4x as many people went to see FF opening weekend as saw Land of the Dead - I'd be willing to bet the majority would prefer the Romero film. There's wide release and then there's saturation release - shove FF onto 10% of the screens in the country and, well, there you go.

Mr. pUCCIO- You know i respect you very much, but on this i have to dissagree.
Older does not mean better. Melie's Trip to the moon introduced trick photography into filmmaking and "The Great Train Robbery" introduced intercutting. What i am trying to say is that you can fill a screen with characters and plot instead of visual elements. As for europe, there are quite a few big production companies (located in france mostly) that try to copy the US Studio system. I, as a viewer, prefer to leave the theater and have something to think about when i go home. From time to time, i like to watch action packed films. I mean, take a look at my collection (it hasnt been updated for a while).
And even if i was an action-movie FAN, there are no good ones anymore. They are all the same with the same recipe: "dillema, bad guy appearing, Action-reaction, Explosions-climax, ending, fade out"
TGP: About the freedom of choice thing.
Did you ever really had the idea that you were trully free? You live in a country that is actually a large market. Everything is based on Marketting. You hear the buzz about something and when you watch it you think is good. Yes, people buy books and music etc etc because they want to. The problem is, their choices are limited due to "marketting-sales" reasons.

Who knows. If your hatred of big-budget films ever becomes too much to handle, you could just decide to NOT see them in the cinemas. That's part of the capitalist free-market economy, buy what you want or don't buy what you don't want. I love great films, like "Million Dollar Baby" or "Pulp Fiction" or "Psycho". But I'm not going to get my underwear all tied up in a knot because people like to see crap. It's their loss. Just because I really dig reading Faulkner's stuff doesn't mean that I going to go out in the streets and protest against the latest book by Janet Evanovich. People have the choice to decide whatever the hell they watch or read or eat or love or hate.

If suddenly we didn't have these big-budget movies or any other crappy kinda movies, it would be pretty rough. Imagine if every movie that you saw was great. Your definition of "great" would loose its value. Quite frankly, I would rather see two or three terrible films before I get to the great film. After you see that great film, you instantly forget those other three, like taking a sip from yr first cup of gourmet coffee, after years of drinking Starbucks crap, in the morning, ah. :)

S Coasster,

I think we're more in agreement than not. "Older does not mean better." My whole point. I don't think there are any better or any worse films being made today than at any time in cinema history. We just tend to glorify the past, thinking everything was so much better "back then" when we were young or when the industry was young or whatever. Picture for picture, I believe there was just as much junk coming out of the old Hollywood factories as there is today. Remember George Raft? He was one of WB's biggest stars of the 30s and 40s. He was offered the lead in "Casablanca" but turned it down. But he made a whole series of mediocre films, the kind of stuff WB churned out a rate of two or three a week.

When I was a kid growing up in a middle-sized, middle-income town, we had three movie theaters to choose from. That was it: three movies that played at least a full week. Today in the same community there are three multiplexes showing a total (I counted them in this morning's paper), of about twenty-five different movies. (I'm not saying they're any better movies, but there are more of them.)

Today, Hollywood follows the same rule of thumb for promoting movies it always has, just bigger: What do they think will sell? It was always about money; it is still about money, and plenty of it. Read David Thomson's new book, "The Whole Equation." And viewers have even more choice today (as Chris says with DVD) than viewers had fifty years ago.

But, people, some of you are not talking about choice in films here: You're talking about people's tastes. Some of you like one kind of film, some of you like another. And you're trying to dictate what other people ought to like, using your own (perhaps more discriminating) taste to force it down their throats. You all know that film can be like religion: We all have have our personal beliefs and sometimes we want everyone else to have the same ones. And people have historically been willing to go to war to force their beliefs on others.

After having taught English for almost forty years and having tried valiantly to get students to appreciate good literature as opposed to, well, as opposed to not reading at all, I'd have to admit that you can't force people to like something. You can only lead them to the well, which is what we have today in the movie industry: More diversity in filmmaking than ever before and more choices in types of film, via DVD especially. The fact that a lot of sheep are unwilling to seek out the best is their misfortune.

Well, OK, today is Sunday. We're allowed a little sermonizing.

John

Hey Josh, he just said "ass" and he didn't say "hairy ass" as I would have. :D

Tim :p

Michael B2004,

How about we keep the content "clean" here. DVD Town does have rules for posting on the message board. "Family oriented" is an idea we try adhere to. Please help us keep the message boards clean.

Thanks.


- Josh

Eddie, I think your standards might be a bit too high. I see what you mean about Garner, but Johannson is gorgeous. While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it seems like you proclaim actresses as ugly every time I turn around. Usually the complaints are the other way around, saying that the ridiculous beauty of actresses inspires bad things in teenage girls. Oh well... (end of rant)

Eddie,

Welcome back! I was afraid for a while we'd lost you somewhere among the English pubs. I was also afraid we were only going to have Tim and Chris to kick around the Hollywood establishment, but now we've got the fearsome threesome reunited. Go team!

John