What happened to Hollywood during the 80's?
#26
DVD Talk Legend
I've always made this observation:
The 1980s had the best big-budget blockbusters. The tentpole movies always had cool special effects but almost ALWAYS had strong stories and/or plots. Genre flicks like GHOSTBUSTERS, BACK TO THE FUTURE, ALIENS, ET, BLADE RUNNER, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, THE TERMINATOR, GREMLINS, BEVERLY HILLS COP, etc. may have been about the big comedy, big special effects, big thrills, etc., but always took the time to establish their worlds, their characters, their stories. In comparison, major blockbusters from the 90s and 00s seem to focus more on special effects, quick editing, throbbing pop soundtracks, etc. over character, plot, and story.
However, the 90s and 00s were/are much better in terms of producing and promoting smaller budget, independent, and foreign movies. Films like CLERKS, SWINGERS, PULP FICTION, FARGO, MEMENTO, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, etc. gained more prominence in their time than quirky fare did in the 80s.
'80s: better blockbusters
'90s: better independents
'00s: better donkey porn
Turd, and why the groin
The 1980s had the best big-budget blockbusters. The tentpole movies always had cool special effects but almost ALWAYS had strong stories and/or plots. Genre flicks like GHOSTBUSTERS, BACK TO THE FUTURE, ALIENS, ET, BLADE RUNNER, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, THE TERMINATOR, GREMLINS, BEVERLY HILLS COP, etc. may have been about the big comedy, big special effects, big thrills, etc., but always took the time to establish their worlds, their characters, their stories. In comparison, major blockbusters from the 90s and 00s seem to focus more on special effects, quick editing, throbbing pop soundtracks, etc. over character, plot, and story.
However, the 90s and 00s were/are much better in terms of producing and promoting smaller budget, independent, and foreign movies. Films like CLERKS, SWINGERS, PULP FICTION, FARGO, MEMENTO, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, etc. gained more prominence in their time than quirky fare did in the 80s.
'80s: better blockbusters
'90s: better independents
'00s: better donkey porn
Turd, and why the groin
#27
DVD Talk Hero
The little dirty secret about '70s cinema is that while many great films were made, no one fucking saw them. Outside of a few hits (Jaws, Star Wars, Godfather, Exorcist) theater attendance was at an all-time low - because the masses didn't really care for these great "big budget indie" movies. The success of Star Wars changed all that (along with big budget disasters like Heaven's Gate), and Hollywood caught blockbuster fever - where every movie had to open big, and was made and marketed to do so, especially in the '80s.
#28
Moderator
From the mid seventies to the late eighties, horror, exploitation, Kung Fu, blaxpoitation became a success. The major studios might have become standard, but it was the decade that the genre-cult pic came of age. It was common place to see smaller studios/theatres/newspapers release, except films that nowadays would have just been released on video and forgotten. Midnight movies were the rage, double features, the drive in. Horror films that could and proudly advertised their unrated 'no one under 17 admitted' status. Alas, the (US) film industry makes box office input and success paramount, finding the real obscure films is becoming harder and more difficult to make, market and distribute.
there are so many films to list here's just a sample
Basketcase
The Evil Dead
Caligula
Liquidsky
Zombie (the onslaught of a dozen Italian zombie pics)
Maniac
Last House on the Left (the genesis of the torture-porn genre)
Cannibal Holocaust
there are so many films to list here's just a sample
Basketcase
The Evil Dead
Caligula
Liquidsky
Zombie (the onslaught of a dozen Italian zombie pics)
Maniac
Last House on the Left (the genesis of the torture-porn genre)
Cannibal Holocaust
Last edited by Giles; 03-27-07 at 02:33 PM.
#29
DVD Talk Gold Edition
Matt Millheiser - I couldn't agree more. Thanks to Jaws and Star Wars in the 1970s, I feel the 1980s perfected the popcorn film. Being a child of the 80s, I love escapist films. But now they just seem loud and soulless. I really think CGI is a major contributor to summer movies becoming crap. (With a few exceptions. Spiderman 2 comes to mind.)
The funny thing is that CGI effects-heavy movies were basically pioneered in the 1990s by James Cameron (Terminator 2) and Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park) - and those movies hold up rather well. But after later successes by the likes of Michael Bay, Stephen Sommers, McG, and (ironically) George Lucas, the downward spiral began.
By the way Shannon Nutt - don't forget Amadeus. A fine film that won best picture for 1984.
The funny thing is that CGI effects-heavy movies were basically pioneered in the 1990s by James Cameron (Terminator 2) and Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park) - and those movies hold up rather well. But after later successes by the likes of Michael Bay, Stephen Sommers, McG, and (ironically) George Lucas, the downward spiral began.
By the way Shannon Nutt - don't forget Amadeus. A fine film that won best picture for 1984.
Last edited by rennervision; 03-27-07 at 02:59 PM.
#30
Moderator
Originally Posted by rennervision
Matt Millheiser - I couldn't agree more. Thanks to Jaws and Star Wars in the 1970s, I feel the 1980s perfected the popcorn film. Being a child of the 80s, I love escapist films. But now they just seem loud and soulless. I really think CGI is a major contributor to summer movies becoming crap. (With a few exceptions. Spiderman 2 comes to mind.)
The funny thing is that CGI effects-heavy movies were basically pioneered in the 1990s by James Cameron (Terminator 2) and Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park) - and those movies hold up rather well. But after later successes by the likes of Michael Bay, Stephen Sommers, McG, and (ironically) George Lucas, the downward spiral began.
By the way Shannon Nutt - don't forget Amadeus. A fine film that won best picture for 1984.
The funny thing is that CGI effects-heavy movies were basically pioneered in the 1990s by James Cameron (Terminator 2) and Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park) - and those movies hold up rather well. But after later successes by the likes of Michael Bay, Stephen Sommers, McG, and (ironically) George Lucas, the downward spiral began.
By the way Shannon Nutt - don't forget Amadeus. A fine film that won best picture for 1984.
Even in the horror genre, CGI blood effects hasn't really thrilled me as the output of incamera effects common place in 80's monster movies.
#32
DVD Talk Special Edition
Originally Posted by rennervision
Thanks to Jaws and Star Wars in the 1970s, I feel the 1980s perfected the popcorn film. Being a child of the 80s, I love escapist films. But now they just seem loud and soulless.
And mind you I have built a pretty good sized collection of the high profile and cult films from the 1980's, but only after being able to check off all of the good films from every other decade on my wish list. And I have to be in a mostly undiscriminating mode to sit down and watch almost any of them. While many of them are entertaining enough in the right frame of mind, there are very few movies from the 1980's which I would describe as "important" or "meaningful."
Not that such qualities are all one could or should get out of the experience of watching a movie, mind you.
#34
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31 words: I think people who have mentioned blockbusters like Jaws hit the nail on the head. But you can't forget all the great, lesser known movies that came out in the eighties.
#35
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I just finished watching the Back the Future Trilogy in a long, long time. Wow. What a great set of movies. Matt Millheiser is dead on right. Long live the 80's.
#36
DVD Talk Godfather
Originally Posted by Giles
From the mid seventies to the late eighties, horror, exploitation, Kung Fu, blaxpoitation became a success. The major studios might have become standard, but it was the decade that the genre-cult pic came of age. It was common place to see smaller studios/theatres/newspapers release, except films that nowadays would have just been released on video and forgotten. Midnight movies were the rage, double features, the drive in. Horror films that could and proudly advertised their unrated 'no one under 17 admitted' status. Alas, the (US) film industry makes box office input and success paramount, finding the real obscure films is becoming harder and more difficult to make, market and distribute.
#37
Suspended
The last good and quality film of the 70's was Polanski's Tess, then a lot of things happened: cocaine, disco, the VCR, a porno flick in every home, bad fashion choices (women dressed like pastel corporate Godzillas and wearing gym shoes to work), Reagan, popular blockbusters like Star Wars aimed at kids, the creed of greed, the culture of torture, etc. But most of all this film happened:
My IMDb review of Spielberg's 1941 (1979):
My IMDb review of Spielberg's 1941 (1979):
3 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
The exact moment when the doodoo hit the fan., 30 July 2003
Author: Benoît A. Racine ([email protected]) from Toronto, Ontario, Canada
There is a scene in `1941' where a German general and a Japanese submarine commander (all over-simplified and therefore hateful racial stereotypes) have kidnapped a hapless country hick (Slim Pickens) and are coaxing him to defecate because he has swallowed a toy compass from a box of Cracker Jacks, that is apparently the only way for their stranded submarine to find its way out of Los Angeles harbour.
This scene is not only important because of the way it heralds countless instances of toilet and body fluid humour in Hollywood movies for decades to come. It also acts as a metaphor for the film itself: a bunch of grown men who should know better, hopelessly looking for a sense of direction amid what is basically human excrement.
`1941' is one major stinker. What can you say about the intelligence of a script based on events that happened in 1942, that calls itself `1941'? About scriptwriters who apparently hadn't even graduated to potty-training when they wrote this piece of drivel, are responsible in a large degree for the general dumbing-down of America and who went on to write even more infantile opuses like `Forrest Gump'? About a storyline that depends on the public's acceptance of attempted date rape as an amusing premise? About cameos by self-destructive over-the-top substance-abusing actors just this close to an overdose as a medium of entertainment?
In my book, `1941' is an important historical milestone in American consciousness. Shot in 1979, it marks the exact moment in time where American movies graduated from simple self-indulgence (i.e. `The Godfather' and countless other films in its wake, glorifying guns, cars, gore, sadistic violence, dismemberment, disloyalty and organized crime as a favourite form of family entertainment) to grossly excessive special-effects-driven children's fare (`Star Wars' and its ilk).
It is probably besides the point to add that this film is extremely strained and unfunny and that even its musical score (by John Williams) sounds like Sir Edward Elgar conducting a symphony orchestra during a controlled flatulence contest.
I truly resent one commentator's comparison of this film to `It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World' which had a sharp, clear morality, which is that greed is not only bad, it is ridiculous. What is the moral of `1941'? Anyone? War is funny? Thank you. I rest my case!
To be perfectly fair, writer Zemeckis did eventually obtain redemption for his youthful indiscretions by directing such fine films as `Contact' (an ode to human reason, dedicated to the memory of Carl Sagan) and `What Lies Beneath', which is just plain good.
The exact moment when the doodoo hit the fan., 30 July 2003
Author: Benoît A. Racine ([email protected]) from Toronto, Ontario, Canada
There is a scene in `1941' where a German general and a Japanese submarine commander (all over-simplified and therefore hateful racial stereotypes) have kidnapped a hapless country hick (Slim Pickens) and are coaxing him to defecate because he has swallowed a toy compass from a box of Cracker Jacks, that is apparently the only way for their stranded submarine to find its way out of Los Angeles harbour.
This scene is not only important because of the way it heralds countless instances of toilet and body fluid humour in Hollywood movies for decades to come. It also acts as a metaphor for the film itself: a bunch of grown men who should know better, hopelessly looking for a sense of direction amid what is basically human excrement.
`1941' is one major stinker. What can you say about the intelligence of a script based on events that happened in 1942, that calls itself `1941'? About scriptwriters who apparently hadn't even graduated to potty-training when they wrote this piece of drivel, are responsible in a large degree for the general dumbing-down of America and who went on to write even more infantile opuses like `Forrest Gump'? About a storyline that depends on the public's acceptance of attempted date rape as an amusing premise? About cameos by self-destructive over-the-top substance-abusing actors just this close to an overdose as a medium of entertainment?
In my book, `1941' is an important historical milestone in American consciousness. Shot in 1979, it marks the exact moment in time where American movies graduated from simple self-indulgence (i.e. `The Godfather' and countless other films in its wake, glorifying guns, cars, gore, sadistic violence, dismemberment, disloyalty and organized crime as a favourite form of family entertainment) to grossly excessive special-effects-driven children's fare (`Star Wars' and its ilk).
It is probably besides the point to add that this film is extremely strained and unfunny and that even its musical score (by John Williams) sounds like Sir Edward Elgar conducting a symphony orchestra during a controlled flatulence contest.
I truly resent one commentator's comparison of this film to `It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World' which had a sharp, clear morality, which is that greed is not only bad, it is ridiculous. What is the moral of `1941'? Anyone? War is funny? Thank you. I rest my case!
To be perfectly fair, writer Zemeckis did eventually obtain redemption for his youthful indiscretions by directing such fine films as `Contact' (an ode to human reason, dedicated to the memory of Carl Sagan) and `What Lies Beneath', which is just plain good.
Last edited by baracine; 03-29-07 at 04:48 PM.
#38
DVD Talk Ultimate Edition
Scorsese, Coppola, Cimini, etc. came of age in the 70s, I think it's just the way directors were groomed changed. Cameron hit the scene with The Terminator in the mid 80s, which was a borderline B movie. But I think Soderberg and sex, lies, & videotape's success changed the template for independent films. Like independent movies had to feature a certain level of edginess, and a lot of studio pictures were trying to reach an ET/Star Wars level of success between box office and merchandise.
#40
Suspended
From Wikipedia's History of film page:
1980s: sequels, blockbusters and videotape
In the 1980s, audiences began increasingly watching movies on their home VCRs. In the early part of that decade, the movie studios tried legal action to ban home ownership of VCRs as a violation of copyright, which proved unsuccessful. Eventually, the sale and rental of movies on home video became a significant "second window" for exhibition of films, and an additional source of revenue for the movie companies.
The Lucas-Spielberg combine would dominate Hollywood cinema for much of the 1980s, and lead to much imitation. Two follow-ups to Star Wars, three to Jaws, and three Indiana Jones films helped to make sequels to successful films more of an expectation than ever before. Lucas also launched THX Ltd, a division of Lucasfilm in 1982 [2], while Spielberg enjoyed one of the decade's biggest successes in E.T. the same year. American independent cinema struggled more during the decade, although Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980), After Hours (1985), and The King of Comedy (1983) helped to establish him as one of the most critically acclaimed American film makers of the era. Also in 1983 Scarface was released and became a phenomenon. It also turned it's leading actor Al Pacino in to a Hollywood legend. Probably the most successful film financially and commercially came in 1989 when Tim Burton's dark vision of Bob Kane's creation was brought vividly to life. Batman shattered box-office records, Jack Nicholson's portrayal of the demented Joker earned him $60,000,000 (the most money an actor has ever made from one film) and it catapulted Tim Burton and Michael Keaton to superstardom.
British cinema was given a boost during the early 1980s by the arrival of David Puttnam's company Goldcrest Films. The films Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, The Killing Fields and A Room with a View appealed to a middlebrow audience which was increasingly being ignored by the major Hollywood studios. While the 1970s had helped to define the modern blockbuster motion picture, the way Hollywood released its films would now change. Films, for the most part, would premiere in a wider number of theatres, although, to this day, some movies still premiere using the route of the limited/roadshow release system. Against some expectations, the rise of the multiplex cinema did not allow less mainstream films to be shown, but simply allowed the major blockbusters to be given an even greater number of screenings
In the 1980s, audiences began increasingly watching movies on their home VCRs. In the early part of that decade, the movie studios tried legal action to ban home ownership of VCRs as a violation of copyright, which proved unsuccessful. Eventually, the sale and rental of movies on home video became a significant "second window" for exhibition of films, and an additional source of revenue for the movie companies.
The Lucas-Spielberg combine would dominate Hollywood cinema for much of the 1980s, and lead to much imitation. Two follow-ups to Star Wars, three to Jaws, and three Indiana Jones films helped to make sequels to successful films more of an expectation than ever before. Lucas also launched THX Ltd, a division of Lucasfilm in 1982 [2], while Spielberg enjoyed one of the decade's biggest successes in E.T. the same year. American independent cinema struggled more during the decade, although Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980), After Hours (1985), and The King of Comedy (1983) helped to establish him as one of the most critically acclaimed American film makers of the era. Also in 1983 Scarface was released and became a phenomenon. It also turned it's leading actor Al Pacino in to a Hollywood legend. Probably the most successful film financially and commercially came in 1989 when Tim Burton's dark vision of Bob Kane's creation was brought vividly to life. Batman shattered box-office records, Jack Nicholson's portrayal of the demented Joker earned him $60,000,000 (the most money an actor has ever made from one film) and it catapulted Tim Burton and Michael Keaton to superstardom.
British cinema was given a boost during the early 1980s by the arrival of David Puttnam's company Goldcrest Films. The films Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, The Killing Fields and A Room with a View appealed to a middlebrow audience which was increasingly being ignored by the major Hollywood studios. While the 1970s had helped to define the modern blockbuster motion picture, the way Hollywood released its films would now change. Films, for the most part, would premiere in a wider number of theatres, although, to this day, some movies still premiere using the route of the limited/roadshow release system. Against some expectations, the rise of the multiplex cinema did not allow less mainstream films to be shown, but simply allowed the major blockbusters to be given an even greater number of screenings
#41
DVD Talk Legend
Originally Posted by rennervision
By the way Shannon Nutt - don't forget Amadeus. A fine film that won best picture for 1984.
#42
Suspended
The real question is: "What films of the 80's were ahead of their time?"
In my humble opinion: None. They were all the re-hash of what came before, mostly Star Wars, Halloween, Jaws and The Godfather.
In my humble opinion: None. They were all the re-hash of what came before, mostly Star Wars, Halloween, Jaws and The Godfather.
#44
Suspended
Originally posted by Slop101
Brazil and/or Blade Runner
Brazil and/or Blade Runner
#45
DVD Talk Hero
Well, if you look at it that way, nothing ever is really original or new, because if you look hard enough you can always trace it's roots to something that came first.
#49
En vacance
I always saw 1980-82 as still part of the '70s creativity. It didn't really become '80s film' as we identify it (high concept, formulaic, colorful fashions) until somewhere around 1983. Plus a lot of the early 80s films have this lovable gritty look and they still had that 70s wavy hippy hair.
#50
I love me some 80s movies, but the 70s are probably my favorite decade. You had Nicholson, De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, and Hackman at the very top of their games. Not to mention Spielberg, Copolla, Scorsese, Lumet, Kubrick, Scott, and I'll throw in Lucas for giving us Star Wars, all offering some great work.