[lbo-talk] more on why movies suck

Asad Haider noswine at gmail.com
Tue Nov 17 14:32:09 PST 2009



> > Hmm. What makes you think Hitchcock wouldn't get a movie made today?
>
> I don't know where Doug got that. He absolutely would get movies made
> today, the same way Altman did until he died and the same way
> Eastwood, Linklater, the Coens, Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson, and many
> others I can't think of off the top of my head do now.
>
>
Yes, and as far as I can see the explosion-based movies and today's auteurs rely heavily on one another, since the auteurs so frequently come up with terrible movies but nevertheless can rely on bourgeois anti-commercial sentiment for an audience.

I prefer the cynical pleasure of the cinematic mainstream, not because I need mainstream "entertainment," but because I am more likely to see bursts of subversion by cultural workers, rather than the annoying mythologies of cultural decline that come from people who work in the culture industry yet consider themselves to be artists. I personally don't think Hitchcock achieved anything significantly more important than the anonymous cinematic factories that predated him and outlived him. Maybe we should remember Roger Corman in his place.

Also, please remember that those numbers may be dramatically skewed; people going out to the movies usually pick the big events, the big-budget spectacles that they have been promised will blow them away on the big screen. Though, regrettably, some people will labor under the illusion that Pirates of the Caribbean is anything other than a major piece of shit, many movie goers will be unimpressed and forget about the movie. That's why Hollywood is relying on sequels and adaptations that already have audience, rather than trying to pull people in on the basis of quality. Either way a large portion of movies are being downloaded--which is likely to grow exponentially--and these movies may be more important in people's everyday lives.



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