The sad state of cinema today

[D3v1L80Y]

When is Hollywood going to start making original movies again?
And when are people going to realize that all the slop put into theaters today is just rehashed, craptastic versions of films from years past?

This comment (made on another site) regarding the new crapper, "The Condemned" irked me:

For everyone who doesn't know, this movie is a just a lame rip off of a movie that came out in japan a little while back called "Battle Royal." Take some time and educate yourself

I couldn't help but "educate" that youngster myself. For everyone who thinks it is a ripoff of "Battle Royale" (2000), remember that The "Running Man" (1987), came out 13 years before that movie did. And that the story was written by Stephen King a whopping 25 years ago in 1982.

This is not the only movie to be dredged up in recent years.
"The Hills Have Eyes", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "The Omen", "House on Haunted Hill", "13 Ghosts", "28 Days Later", "King Kong", "Dawn of the Dead", "Black Christmas", .... the list is endless. Practically every film released in the past 10 years has been a rehashed story or a blatant, "remake" of something already done before.

WHY does Hollywood feel the need to endlessly ruin these classic stories and films by redoing them?

 

[baggss]

Heck, "Disturbia" is just a warm-over the the Jimmy Stewart / Hitchcock classic "Rear Window" ...

Perhaps they do it because the classic still sell? Perhaps the collective IQ of the writers guild is smaller than my shoe size?

 

[D3v1L80Y]

Heck, "Disturbia" is just a warm-over the the Jimmy Stewart / Hitchcock classic "Rear Window" ...

Exactly.
What's even worse...the 'new' film "The Invisible" is a darker version of "Ghost", starring Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze, and Whoopi Goldberg.
Sad, I know.... of all the movies to steal your story from, you pick "Ghost".

 

[PowerBookG4]

I want hollywood to create a new original movie myself... but if they don't, I am bringing an original movie to sundance next year for all to see... not copied from anybody.

 

[gtg622r]

Smokin' Aces?
Deja Vu?
Lucky#Slevin?

 

[iKitten]

Screen writers don't seem to have much imagination anymore?! Also, I think Hollywood's ability to tell a story well ended over ten years ago!

 

[D3v1L80Y]

Perhaps the collective IQ of the writers guild is smaller than my shoe size?

I would have to agree with that.
One writer, however, is a personal favorite of mine:

Andrew Kevin Walker


I have followed most of his work, due in great part to the fact that I used to work with his brother. I have had the pleasure of meeting him on a few occasions. He came into town for the releases of "8MM" and "Sleepy Hollow", and rented out theaters for us to view the movies with him. He is not only a darn good writer, but a swell guy to be around to boot.
:black:

 

[technologist]

So long as people watch crap, Hollywood will produce crap.

Luckily, there's a century's worth of movies on DVD to cherry-pick. Combine that with the fact that theater-going is a drag in the cell phone era, and you may never want to watch a new release again.

 

[D3v1L80Y]

Smokin' Aces? = please.... hasn't this tired hitman groupie crapfest been done enough times with "Mad Dog Time", "The Boondock Saints", "Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead", "Resivoir Dogs",...etc. etc. etc.???

Deja Vu? = yet another movie about time-travel?????

Lucky#Slevin? = extremely poor and loose adaptation of "North By Northwest", and then the crap really hits the fan

 

[yogi]

Still better than inaccurate biographies (The Aviator, Walk The Line, Capote, Ray, Bobby, a.m.m)

 

[moss918]

...yet another movie about time-travel?????

How about Primer?

 

[scooter]

are we basically only talking about mystery/suspense/horror here or are we including all films categories?

 

[Village Idiot]

Smokin' Aces?
Deja Vu?
Lucky#Slevin?

The Transporter
Crank
Shaun of the Dead
Hot Fuzz
Tommy Boy
Reign Over Me
Happy Gilmore
any other Adam Sandler movie
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
300
Brave Heart
American Beauty
The Crow
Saving Silverman
The Matrix
The other matrix movies
etc, etc, etc...

Stop complaining about the bad stuff and go see the rest...

 

[caribiner23]

Remakes and re-interpretations have been around for as long as the movies themselves. And people have been complaining about a lack of originality in the movies since the beginning.

Storylines are reused over and over, each time with different special effects or twists overlaid. It's just the way the medium is.

Years ago, I dove deeply into silent film. The pioneers produced some wonderful movies, but even many of those were based on novels and plays (and in the case of comic geniuses like Keaton and Chaplin, were based on Vaudeville and Music Hall), so the complaints were floating around even then.

The last truly wonderful film I saw was Pan's Labyrinth, which wasn't even a Hollywood production. And it retells a story (well, a few stories), but in a different way, with neat effects and plot twists. It's a good movie, but I could complain that I'd seen the plot before.

My advice: watch Turner Classic Movies.

 

[Brown Study]

Remakes and re-interpretations have been around for as long as the movies themselves. . . . Years ago, I dove deeply into silent film. The pioneers produced some wonderful movies. . . .My advice: watch Turner Classic Movies.

Or at the Internet Archive watch/download the original, silent, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, or DOA.

It's long past time for yet another remake of the Ten Commandments, the first being a silent (with some of it shot in two-colour) and the second being 50 years old and including identical scenes as in the silent, since Cecil B. DeMille did both. Same with Ben-Hur, so the complaint isn't new.

One other example, The Front Page, now about three decades old, is ready for a comeback, and it's been done three times.

 

[Willem]

Stop complaining about the bad stuff and go see the rest...

I agree. There are lots of good movies released every year. I love going to the movies on Sunday afternoons.

It's the same with the regular threads that pop up about the lack of originality in video games. You don't need originality, you need entertainment.

As long as a movie or game entertains me and I feel that I got my money's worth then I really don't care of it's "original" or not.

 

[MacHeadCase]

Heck, "Disturbia" is just a warm-over the the Jimmy Stewart / Hitchcock classic "Rear Window" ...

Perhaps they do it because the classic still sell? Perhaps the collective IQ of the writers guild is smaller than my shoe size?

Not sure if it has anything to do with writers' collective IQ or the public's, to be honest. Like another member noted before, as long as people go and see crap, Hollywood'll make it.

Directors and writers bend backwards to give the public what it wants. Just look at the screenings they do with different endings and put the ending the majority likes best. IMO that's a bloody hinderance to creativity right there.

For example, Robert Altman was one of the directors I admire most and it amazes me how long he kept doing movies. How many of his projects were refused because they weren't mainstream enough? And I'm sure he went through a heck of a time to get funding for his movies.

 

[Village Idiot]

I have a part time job working in a children shelter and a lot of the times the kids will watch movies because there's not much else to do...

It think it's the kids that keep the crappy movie industry in business. We can't bring "R" rated movies in because of their age, but there's still a good does of pg-13 horror movies and stupid things they like to see. I must have watched "The Cave" 4 times along with that dumb movie where the girl is home alone and some one keeps calling her and harrassing her, just to find out he's calling from inside the house...That one was about 5 or 6...I refused to see it in the theatres or on DVD...it's a nearly 2 hour movie based on a short story and god is it bad...I can't believe I was forced to watch it....dumb kids...

 

[Leonard Lau]

While I do admit that the movie industry is in decline especially in terms of originally, I still think that the original thread poster is being a bit harsh when there is the odd film or 30 that are worth your viewing time and are reasonably recent-ish releases whether you are a fan of the genre(s) or not.

300
A Scanner Darkly
An Inconvenient Truth
Apocalypto
Babel
Blood Diamond
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Cars
Casino Royale
Children of Men
Clerks II
The Departed
Fearless
The Fountain
The Illusionist
Inside Man
The Last King of Scotland
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Lives of Others
Lucky Number Slevin
Pan’s Labyrinth
Perfume
The Prestige
The Pursuit of Happyness
The Queen
Running Scared
The Science of Sleep
Stranger Than Fiction
United 93
Volver

Sure, there will be several films on that list that you will disagree with but regardless of what your views are, there is still some magic within the movie industry today and the tradition will continue over the years.

It is just harder to pick out those (decent) films than it used to be.

 

[Mattlike]

I agree there really isn't a whole lot new out there these days. It seems that more and more Hollywood borrows from Asian cinema (at least from my point of view).

That being said, I go to the movies for one reason. That reason being to be entertained. I don't care if it is the greatest film ever produced or horribly acted. If it entertains me for 90 (or so) minutes, then my $10 was well worth it.

I am sure everyone notices, the most critically acclaimed movies every year are ever hardly box office successes. Could that because they are not very entertaining and are often (not always) boring?!

Pirates of the Caribbean: At worlds End & Spiderman 3 will most likely be the biggest box office successes of 2007. I doubt they will be very critically acclaimed, but you know what? To me they are pretty fun to watch and whats what I pay for.

my opinion anyway.