EddieMoney

Which blurb was this? I must see!

pjflyer

As long as they keep churning out attractive white leading men they will be fine.

RichC2

I don't know, I see a shift toward Indian leading men coming soon.

hanshotfirst1138

What is left to see? It's a post-modern age now. Remember the rush of first seeing Jurassic Park? The Matrix? Star Wars? It was truly something you'd never seen before. Remember the first time you discovered Hong Kong action movies on beat-up old VHS tapes and had a window into that word? We have YouTube now, the Internet grows with each passing day, you can watch any episode of any show, any movie, any scene from a movie that's talked about, etc. There was a time when a film was controversial you had to drive to see it or sneak to rent the VHS tape. Now, you don't even have to get up from the chair to watch anything.

When Kermode and Mayo had William Friedkin on The Culture Show to promote Bug, he talked about how when Stravinsky first premiered The Rite of Spring, there was supposedly a riot. When Waiting for Lefty played, the whole audience shouted STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! When Psycho first premiered, people actually left the theater. No one who sits through big studio movies much cares. Some people like Pirates of the Caribbean, some don't, but you just leave the theater and move on with your life. The movie has nothing to say about anything. Maybe some people love it, maybe some hate it, but hey, whatever. It was "just a movie." There's nothing to engage with viscerally or intellectually. Stimulate some dopamine man. Why hire a true artist to make a movie when they're not necessary for success? Sell action figures, storyboard your action sequences, have a tie-in merchandising blitz, then put the movie into production. If it has a screenplay, great. If it has a good screenplay, even better. But even if it doesn't, people will pay to see a brand name.

Can you still make a good movie? Sure. But the age when you could discover something genuinely new is all but gone. Information is disseminated so quickly now, the buzz the Internet could once create has now, like almost everything, been swallowed by the mainstream, even most indie film have a "formula" quirkiness now. Godard once opined that "cinema is dead" or that he was an artist too big for the art form. Obviously, be wary with anything he says, but it's an interesting point. In a little over a hundred years, we went from having to get on a horse and ride to tell someone something to being able to access information that's quite literally at our fingertips. People are more and more jaded now because there's so much information, it's harder and harder to find something relevant.

DeputyDave

Ju On was certainly a better movie, but I saw The Grudge first so Ju On didn't scare as much as it would have. There is a reason I own both both Ju On and Ringu and not their US remakes.

RichC2

^^ I disagree with that entirely. Mainstream cinema has changed drastically, but I feel movies that are to be discovered and loved are still there. Also I didn't get much of a rush from Jurassic Park (it was a good movie though), The Matrix (felt too much like Ghost in the Shell meets Dark City for my liking), or Star Wars (saw it on video when I was 15).

You can look back on movies all you want, and say "how great it was!" but it's easy to overlook the abundance of crap and get to the good stuff in retrospect.

^ I saw Ringu before The Ring, liked The Ring better. Neither was truly scary but The Ring was far most visually impressive.

Mattflix

Maturity is part of it. I remember as a kid once, I passed by Creepshow 2 on HBO and thinking of how terrifying it was to see that killer oil slick. I watched it as an adult last month, and now I see it's the cheesiest movie. The times didn't change, I just grew up.

For other movies, if the special effect isn't well done, if I can see through the effect, or even if the movie isn't telling the story in a good way, the effect will come off limply. You can saw somebody's head off, if it looks like a dummy or if the blood is CGI, I won't care. Caro syrup and latex isn't scary. The feeling of it happening is scary. There's a reason watching Lindsay drown in The Abyss is traumatizing, it feels like you're watching a person drown and be resuscitated by people who truly love her.

For nudity, I think the internet has replaced the need to gratuitous nude scenes. I don't think Basic Instinct could be made today, and it wouldn't be a big deal to get a quick peak at a vagina onscreen. And that's probably for the best in movies. Yes I enjoy seeing naked girls like any guy, but a movie is there to tell a story and should only really contain nudity if that's needed for said story.

EddieMoney

Fixed your typo.

RichC2

Nudity is eye candy like any other, it's fun seeing famous women get naked.

There's a scene in Trance (2013) where Rosario Dawson walks into the bathroom, shaves her pubic hair, and walks out butt ass naked while the camera lingers over her vagina and then scans up to her breasts.

And that scene was very memorable. And then they semi-justify it as art.

big e

You, sir, have just convinced me to watch Trance.

RichC2

It's a pretty entertaining movie, with a couple phenomenal scenes.

DeputyDave

Watching Trance next.

DaveyJoe

Ju On is the best, but the other japanese films in the franchise are worth watching. They all have some spooky moments, and fill in some of the backstory about the original owners of the house where the curse originated. There's one you can stream on Netflix, Ju On Black/White(I may have that title reversed), that is okay, it's a new director and an underwhelming story, but it definitely has some good scares.