Man, I just got Bad News Bears and I remember how much I love it. Foul mouthed and beer drinking kids are funny to me, as well as a good story. And its PG.
Which brings me to my questions:
1. Anybody else miss the day when this stuff didn't offend?
2. What happened, and when did this country become a nation of sissies as far as kids activities and movies are concerned? (Some schools can't play dodgeball anymore cuz it isn't fair to the less athletic)
3. Are we headed in the right direction with all this safeness and sensitivity?
This viewer doesn't think so. I think I turned out okay watching these movies and getting hit in the head with a dodgeball. God forbid these lessons: "Roll with the punches". And, "Just because you saw or heard something in a movie or song doesn't make it right".
Ok, so Ive managed to derail my own thread on the first post. So go ahead and mention some movies which are from the "good ol' days", and answer my questions if you want. Its a pretty big discussion.
PopcornTreeCt
10-28-04, 07:55 PM
Umm, well I can't really think of any. Its funny that movies today are more graphic when it comes to sex and violence yet the themes and storylines are quite tame.
Max Bottomtime
10-28-04, 08:01 PM
Blazing Saddles came to mind immediately.
Song Of The South would be another.
Robert
10-28-04, 10:31 PM
<b>True Lies</b> - A storyline involving Arab terrorists threatening to nuke major US cities? Not a chance.
DonnachaOne
10-28-04, 10:44 PM
BIRTH OF A NATION.
It's a straight adaptation of a book. That would NEVER happen again!
:)
Sincerely, I don't think a film like that could be made today because of the different laws, customs and attitudes.
I disagree with Bottomtime's answer of Blazing Saddles, however. I can easily see that film getting made today with someone like Dave Chappelle. A few years ago, with Chris Rock. A few years before that, with Martin Laurence... that's a film that plays well BECAUSE of the setting, in contrast with the views of today.
Hell, Keenan Ivory Wayans could ask Dimension tomorrow for money to remake it. God help us if he does.
Originally posted by Chill Pill
Which brings me to my questions:
1. Anybody else miss the day when this stuff didn't offend?I'm sure it offended plenty of people.
2. What happened, and when did this country become a nation of sissies as far as kids activities and movies are concerned? (Some schools can't play dodgeball anymore cuz it isn't fair to the less athletic)
3. Are we headed in the right direction with all this safeness and sensitivity? Not really movie-centric questions, are they... then again, that's what you're looking for. The times are different, no better or worse. It's that simple.
SunMonkey
10-28-04, 10:56 PM
I don't think there is anything wrong with being a bit more sensitive to movies as a cutural influence, but it certainly can be taken too far.
conscience
10-28-04, 11:29 PM
The Exoricst (demonic kids stabbing their privates, because it looked cool on screen.) -eek- ;)
MPAA: You can't do that.
---------------------------
Heathers.
I bet it would get an NC-17 without all of the "suicides".
PopcornTreeCt
10-28-04, 11:34 PM
The Seige, ironically a movie featuring a situation that could easily and realistically happen in today's climate, Hollywood would never make again and is probably regretting having already made it.
Perkinsun Dzees
10-28-04, 11:54 PM
GIGLI
Numanoid
10-28-04, 11:56 PM
There are no movies that couldn't get made today. There are, however, movies that couldn't get released into the mainstream box office today. Subtle difference, but it's there.
Deftones
10-29-04, 12:23 AM
Originally posted by Robert
<b>True Lies</b> - A storyline involving Arab terrorists threatening to nuke major US cities? Not a chance.
Hell, it was controversial when it came out.
DonnachaOne
10-29-04, 01:06 AM
Originally posted by PopcornTreeCt
The Seige, ironically a movie featuring a situation that could easily and realistically happen in today's climate, Hollywood would never make again and is probably regretting having already made it. When sales and rentals of the movie shot up after 2001, I somehow doubt Fox EVER regretted it after that.
El-Kabong
10-29-04, 01:59 AM
Well, up until today I would have agreed with you guys on Blazing Saddles. However, after seeing Team America - a movie not as witty as Saddles was, but as every bit as ofensive and politicaly incorrect - I would have to say that yes, it still could be done.
chriscooling
10-29-04, 02:14 AM
Pretty Baby.
The Tin Drum.
1900
Chill Pill
10-29-04, 05:17 AM
There are no movies that couldn't get made today. There are, however, movies that couldn't get released into the mainstream box office today. Subtle difference, but it's there.
True.
raven56706
10-29-04, 06:12 AM
Battlefield Earth
wm lopez
10-29-04, 07:30 AM
DIRTY HARRY ( A cop pounding on lawbreakers).
DEATH WISH ( White man gunning down minorites).
THE OMEN ( It would freak people out with today's events).
scott shelton
10-29-04, 11:11 AM
BAD NEWS BEARS is a good example. The remake, shooting soon, is going to be interesting...
Will they allow Tanner to be racist in the remake? Will the Bears lose in the end?
PopcornTreeCt
10-29-04, 12:55 PM
Originally posted by scott shelton
BAD NEWS BEARS is a good example. The remake, shooting soon, is going to be interesting...
Will they allow Tanner to be racist in the remake? Will the Bears lose in the end?
No and nope. My 2 early predictions.
Red Dog
10-29-04, 01:23 PM
Originally posted by scott shelton
BAD NEWS BEARS is a good example. The remake, shooting soon, is going to be interesting...
Will they allow Tanner to be racist in the remake? Will the Bears lose in the end?
Same with Smokey & the Bandit - just think of the scene btwn Sheriff Justice and Sheriff Branford.
Zodiac_Speaking
10-29-04, 01:31 PM
How about the intensity of I Spit on Your Grave, Thriller aka they call her one eye (and no I'm not talking about the Kill bills) or Taxi Driver. People today are too afraid that something might offend and in turn the movie suffers. Just let the movie due the talking.
The MPAA, I think, is totally screwed up. They bitch when a "R" rated movie has maybe a gruesome shot or two and the director has to cut it back, but then they'll let a f-word or two in a P-13 movie?!!? Go figure.
DonnachaOne
10-29-04, 02:01 PM
Wait, jonpeters... you're saying movies HAVE to be r-rated? Directors can't get their own cuts released? There's no such thing as unrated DVDs? Shock horror!
Stuff like the movies you mentioned are definitely still being made today. Where've you been?
Birrman54
10-29-04, 02:04 PM
Originally posted by scott shelton
BAD NEWS BEARS is a good example. The remake, shooting soon, is going to be interesting...
Will they allow Tanner to be racist in the remake? Will the Bears lose in the end?
REMAKE?!?@!?@
WHY? Why does hollywood feel the need to remake something that was already better than perfect?
GAH
birrman54
edit: I just checked IMDB, looks like Billy Bob is signed on, judging by his performance in Bad Santa, he could actually pull it off. I still have low expectations.
edit again: both writers did Bad Santa, again giving me hope.
kcbrett5
10-29-04, 02:45 PM
Originally posted by Robert
<b>True Lies</b> - A storyline involving Arab terrorists threatening to nuke major US cities? Not a chance.
The sum of all fears is the same thing and it did get made recently.
DonnachaOne
10-29-04, 02:47 PM
Originally posted by kcbrett5
The sum of all fears is the same thing and it did get made recently. Ah, but Arabs were relegated to secondary characters, replaced by (somewhat anachronistic) Nazis.
marty888
10-29-04, 03:43 PM
Can anyone actually see a movie like <b>FREAKS</b> being made today? I think not ....
taa455
10-29-04, 03:52 PM
Most of the slower paced epic films (such as L of Arabia, Spartacus, 2001: A Space Odyssey) wouldn't get made today. Not enough action.
rennervision
10-29-04, 04:41 PM
I was thinking of movies like "Gremlins" and John Carpenter's "The Thing." Movies with superior special effects even by today's standards, but if they were made today they would seem less real/scary because no doubt everything would be done through CGI.
ianholm
10-29-04, 05:07 PM
<b>Heathers</b>
Zodiac_Speaking
10-29-04, 09:53 PM
Originally posted by DonnachaOne
Wait, jonpeters... you're saying movies HAVE to be r-rated? Directors can't get their own cuts released? There's no such thing as unrated DVDs? Shock horror!
Stuff like the movies you mentioned are definitely still being made today. Where've you been?
I've been right here, actually. I know Dawn of the Dead (04) just released an unrated version on DVD, and thank God for a medium like DVD, but in that version I've seen much worse that was left in an R rated film. But no, a director should aim to get any rating that serves him/studio, but looking back at the last few years, the MPAA has been making no sense. Wes Craven has to repeatedly cut the ending for Scream down to avoid an X or reshoot it entirely, but then the MPAA gives an R rating to all the blood and butchery in Freddy Vs. Jason. They are too wish washy. You really belief a P-13 should have an F-word in it and still be rated P-13? I'm 23, and I find it NOT funny to hear some kid under the teen years yelling F-words. I think the MPAA needs to be rehauled. I am VERY pleased to hear Lion's Gate is releasing Haute Tension next year with the "NC-17" rating intact. I'm 23 and I can and want to see those movies, but when P-13 and R blur together, then it makes me scratch my head and go "Uh?".
And yes, nobody could ever film 25 minutes of degradation and rape in modern film (even with the unrated potential on DVD) like Zier did in ISoYG. Maybe that what makes the 1970s so unique.
mjlukich
10-29-04, 09:58 PM
Just wanted to to chime in on Blazing Saddles by saying that, yes, Dave Chappelle has done skits on his Comedy Central show just as racially irreverent, if not more so, than the anything in the movie. But that is skit comedy, and I do not believe that a major studio would release Blazing Saddles today. If they did, and casted Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock as suggested, it would have an entirely different complexion. (No pun intended) It would be nothing but a vehicle for the respective actor. Both those actors have reputations, so to spreak, and we would EXPECT nothing less than an over the top performance with shocking humor.
Suprmallet
10-29-04, 10:09 PM
Movies that could NOT be made today are any movies in Technicolor. All the Technicolor cameras got sold to China and all the Technicolor processing plants got overhauled to process regular film. :(
And slower paced epics can get made today. It just takes a director with enough clout to make them.
DonnachaOne
10-30-04, 04:50 AM
Originally posted by jonpeters
And yes, nobody could ever film 25 minutes of degradation and rape in modern film (even with the unrated potential on DVD) like Zier did in ISoYG. Maybe that what makes the 1970s so unique. Not even Miike?
Suprmallet
10-30-04, 05:31 AM
Miike can do anything. :)
dhmac
10-30-04, 01:37 PM
Originally posted by DonnachaOne
Ah, but Arabs were relegated to secondary characters, replaced by (somewhat anachronistic) Nazis.
Yeah, I don't see how anyone could miss that incredibly stupid plot-point in The Sum of All Fears. When I saw the movie and the nuclear bomb was lost in the Middle East, but then ended up in the hands of South African Neo-Nazis, I had to roll my eyes at the ridiculous level of P.C. screenwriting that was on display. (I've never even read the novel, but knew that it had to be Middle Eastern terrorists that got possession of the bomb in the book.)
TheNightFlier
10-30-04, 01:51 PM
Conan the Barbarian....today it would be a PG-13 music video with Vin Diesel and cutaways from all the blood.
calhoun07
10-30-04, 02:41 PM
What I don't understand is why movies themselves wouldn't get made today. If some of the movies discussed were made today, more than likely some of the scenes would be changed and other things would be changed to make it fit the times. Take A Fish Called Wanda for example. In that movie, there is a scene involving an airport and some shaky security at the airport, making light of it. Would the entire movie be scrapped today because it contained some airport humor that might offend people of the post 9-11 crowd? Unlikely, but the movie would probably be made without that scene or something modified to be less offensive. Same with the dog getting run over in the movie.
I think a better thread would be what movie scenes wouldn't be allowed today? I can think of a few from some early G rated movies of the 70's, like the nudity in Planet of the Apes, or at least the rating would be stricter today.
I think there is still room for the offensive material. There are independent movies, and also movies like Bad Santa which are just over the top and still work. I think what would change most are the ratings for these movies.
orangeguy
10-30-04, 02:41 PM
Fight Club - The ending would remind people of 9/11.
FinkPish
10-30-04, 02:42 PM
Originally posted by dhmac
Yeah, I don't see how anyone could miss that incredibly stupid plot-point in The Sum of All Fears. When I saw the movie and the nuclear bomb was lost in the Middle East, but then ended up in the hands of South African Neo-Nazis, I had to roll my eyes at the ridiculous level of P.C. screenwriting that was on display. (I've never even read the novel, but knew that it had to be Middle Eastern terrorists that got possession of the bomb in the book.)
Actually, only the guy that originally bought the bomb from the Arabs was South African. The guys in Europe were German, so I could see them as Neo-Nazis. There were also the Russian scientists and the American dock worker, and I believe the book had similar groups working in concert, aside from the Germans. And all of these changes had been written into the script and mostly filmed by the time 9/11 rolled around.
Dr. DVD
10-30-04, 03:17 PM
While it did get made recently, I couldn't see Brotherhood of the Wolf getting greenlit for a major American studio with the bad guys being who they were in it.
gnradd21
10-30-04, 06:34 PM
I doubt we'll see four well-known actors signing on for a shot-for-shot remake of 1979's Caligula any time soon. Just a guess. Not that it really hurt the careers of the four major stars in the first one, but still, I don't hear Helen Mirren or Peter O'Toole mention it very often.
DonnachaOne
10-31-04, 01:12 AM
Originally posted by gnradd21
I doubt we'll see four well-known actors signing on for a shot-for-shot remake of 1979's Caligula any time soon. Just a guess. Not that it really hurt the careers of the four major stars in the first one, but still, I don't hear Helen Mirren or Peter O'Toole mention it very often. Remake? ... I doubt that would happen, true. But I think it'd be pretty easy today to get a whole load of respected actors together in a film that they didn't know would end up being so embarrassing.
I'm sure you can think of several examples already...Originally posted by orangeguy
Fight Club - The ending would remind people of 9/11. Well, they just wouldn't have used that ending. After all, it's not the book's ending.
jaeufraser
10-31-04, 01:46 AM
Yeah a lot of these are movies that would just have little changes. Truthfully pretty much any film could be made under the right director with the right amount of clout. I would say 2001 would never get made in today's market, but of course nothing like it was really made back then either, that's Kubrick for you.
I mean look at Eyes Wide Shut...take that story and I seriously doubt any studio would even consider throwing 60 million dollars at the budget. Add Kubrick and a couple superstars, no problem.
So in reality pretty much any movie could be made, given the right talent with the right clout behind it. I mean there are still bid budget slow epics...Dances With Wolves was a huge hit and a fairly languidly paced epic, and The Thin Red Line is a 50 million dollar movie that's hardly a mile a minute war epic. If anything now we have more ability to make many sorts of films. In the 80s the idea of a 3 hour film was highly looked down upon, with some credit to Costner's success in turning that around. Granted, these types of films are usually more the exception than the rule, but in general that's always been the case.
Of course, that's barring a few exceptions...something like Birth of a Nation of course would never have a chance of seeing production, at least not with any significant funding.
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