Last Movie Watched

[AceofKnaves]

Now, whether any of his films are good art is a separate conversation.

This.

“Well you can’t argue with box office receipts!!”

I assure you: I can, and I will.

For the most part, I see an inverse of quality art to money made, not a correlation.

And I think the American public generally like their entertainment like they like their politicians: loud, obnoxious, and thoroughly mediocre.

 

[Ru1977]

I remember around Aliens or so, there was a lot of talk of Cameron being the 'new Spielberg ' as far as being a good filmmaker who also can gauge what the audience will respond to well. I dunno, maybe Abyss screwed him up because then he went back to the well, made a safe bet Arnold action movie, then I guess what some would seem sell out pictures ever since.

 

[Damien]

This is a tough one. I hate to be pedantic, but the guy made six $150 million movies. Three of them made more than $2 billion. Is it talent? Luck? An understanding of what your average movie-goer wants? Probably all of the above. Without looking it up, I'm sure Cameron is basically alone in those accolades. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

I don't like to equate 'box office numbers' with 'made good movies.' To me there's a huge gulf between the two. So I also don't like to say someone is talented because they made money. That way madness lies. And gets you Donald Trump for president because he has money and therefore must be good at things.

LOTR might be the best movie trilogy of all time, it's a shame what happened to the Hobbit movie(s). I really have no desire to watch them again. But if if were just ONE movie, it would be a whole different story. "Like butter scraped over too much bread" indeed.

If you can ever find it (sail the high seas, but sometimes it pops up on YT) look for "There and Back Again; The Hobbit Fan-Edit." Talented guy edited The Hobbit films into a single movie by removing all the extraneous garbage that was never in the book anyway, and it's 1000% a significantly better film. To the point of maybe even calling it a -good- film.

 

[AceofKnaves]

don't like to equate 'box office numbers' with 'made good movies.' To me there's a huge gulf between the two. So I also don't like to say someone is talented because they made money. That way madness lies. And gets you Donald Trump for president because he has money and therefore must be good at things.

Exactly.

 

[KAILRYU]

The Running Man was really rather boring and unnecessary.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

I used to buy tickets for Edgar Wright movies sight unseen. His last two were so bad that I don't ever care to see The Running Man.

I don't like to equate 'box office numbers' with 'made good movies.' To me there's a huge gulf between the two. So I also don't like to say someone is talented because they made money. That way madness lies. And gets you Donald Trump for president because he has money and therefore must be good at things.

I don't disagree, but you need guaranteed box office success for the studio model to work. Cameron has probably funded hundreds or thousands of pictures that wouldn't have been made otherwise.

 

[JakeEkiss]

I wanted to see Keeper because Tatiana Maslany is one of my ride or dies. She has acting chops and charisma. I can't understand why she doesn't get more roles. That said, I'm over Osgood Perkins. His movies look good, but outside of Longlegs, they're all bad. Even Longlegs is severely flawed.

Tatiana deserves the ride or dies, I think. She's so good. I somewhat wonder if she isn't secretly a weird little movie goblin like Elijah Wood or Robert Pattinson. Like perhaps she's just really picky and quirky with what she takes on. I hope it's that rather than her struggling to get studios to notice how good she is.

I've only seen one Perkins movie I think and it was Gretel and Hansel, and while it wasn't an amazing tour de force or anything, it lives int hat mid-range, fun but not great segment of genre films that I like having around. Keeper might or might not be better, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

Without looking it up, I'm sure Cameron is basically alone in those accolades. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Though this probably only complicates the issue, pretty sure Michael Bay isn't too far behind. If I had to seal away the work of one of those directors for all time it definitely wouldn't be Cameron, but only because I can't think of a single Bay movie that I'd say was actually good or even that fun to watch.

I do agree with @Damien that Cameron's heyday was over by the mid 90s.

I think there's some discussion there to be had over whether a director gets to continue being considered great if it's clear they had one period of creation that dwarfs the rest. I think about that a lot really. Is Rob Reiner a "great" director? He did Princess Bride, Few Good Men, Misery, Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, and Stand by Me all basically back to back. Does it matter he never replicated that run? Does he keep credit for setting a standard in like 6 subgenres in a row even though he basically never did it again?

I used to buy tickets for Edgar Wright movies sight unseen. His last two were so bad that I don't ever care to see The Running Man.

Last Night in Soho and Baby Driver? Or are you including the Sparks doc? Baby Driver and Soho I thought were certainly not up to the level of his previous outings, but I didn't loathe them. I think he's trying to alter the proportion of comedy in his movies and he doesn't quite have as natural a gift for movies that are mostly something else with comedy sprinkled in. He's better the other way around. I do hope he figures it out though. Hot Fuzz is probably my favorite comedy of all time if you go by how often I pop it on to rewatch.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

Baby Driver and Soho I thought were certainly not up to the level of his previous outings, but I didn't loathe them.

Baby Driver is a 5 or 6/10. The characters are forgettable and empty. Because of that, their arcs fall flat.

Soho is an empty-headed movie that believes it has something important to say. It's bad.

Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim are two of my favorite movies ever. They're 10/10, no notes films. I'm not sure if Wright misses Simon Pegg's writing, or what. I think he's seen a steep drop-off from the end of the Cornetto trilogy. In showbiz, greatness is fleeting. Maybe he's said all he has to say or ran out of juice. It happens.

I think there's some discussion there to be had over whether a director gets to continue being considered great if it's clear they had one period of creation that dwarfs the rest. I think about that a lot really. Is Rob Reiner a "great" director? He did Princess Bride, Few Good Men, Misery, Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, and Stand by Me all basically back to back. Does it matter he never replicated that run? Does he keep credit for setting a standard in like 6 subgenres in a row even though he basically never did it again?

I'd say yes for Cameron and Reiner. Aliens, T2, and Titanic are impossible to argue with, and the commercial success has to mean something, too. Those Reiner movies are all better than what most directors make in a lifetime. Reiner's not Scorsese or Spielberg, but it's an underrated run.

 

[JakeEkiss]

Baby Driver is a 5 or 6/10. The characters are forgettable and empty. Because of that, their arcs fall flat.

Soho is an empty-headed movie that believes it has something important to say. It's bad.

Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim are two of my favorite movies ever. They're 10/10, no notes films. I'm not sure if Wright misses Simon Pegg's writing, or what. I think he's seen a steep drop-off from the end of the Cornetto trilogy. In showbiz, greatness is fleeting. Maybe he's said all he has to say or ran out of juice. It happens.

Aww I wasn't that down on them. I think their worst sins are largely that they aren't nearly as memorable as his other stuff. I do think missing Pegg as a collaborator trips him up a bit, but then he didn't have Pegg on Scott Pilgrim either. I really do think a lot of it is he's better at a comedy with other stuff thrown in than he is at the inverse.

I'd say yes for Cameron and Reiner. Aliens, T2, and Titanic are impossible to argue with, and the commercial success has to mean something, too. Those Reiner movies are all better than what most directors make in a lifetime. Reiner's not Scorsese or Spielberg, but it's an underrated run.

The only part I disagree with here is that commercial success has to mean something. Like, it might if I was part of the investment class, but I'm not and probably never will be.

What a movie makes on returns means next to nothing to me and its only value, as far as I'm concerned, is whether a film met whatever threshold was needed for the director to make another. But in terms of the artistic or cultural value of the picture overall... eh... that means there's some virtue to the Bay Transformers and no, sorry, those are bad, they just happen to have the same appeal as junk food so a lot of people end up seeing them. They deserve to be forgotten and I think they largely will be.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

The only part I disagree with here is that commercial success has to mean something. Like, it might if I was part of the investment class, but I'm not and probably never will be.

What a movie makes on returns means next to nothing to me and its only value, as far as I'm concerned, is whether a film met whatever threshold was needed for the director to make another. But in terms of the artistic or cultural value of the picture overall... eh... that means there's some virtue to the Bay Transformers and no, sorry, those are bad, they just happen to have the same appeal as junk food so a lot of people end up seeing them. They deserve to be forgotten and I think they largely will be.

I hear you. I'll never read a Dan Brown book or go to an Imagine Dragons show. While I don't like their work, I think there's something to be said for getting asses in seats. If it were easy, everyone would do it. Or, 95% of the population would, anyway. The people who wouldn't mind being called a sellout while they put their feet up in their Malibu vacation home.

 

[JakeEkiss]

If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Oh, agree. My POV has nothing to do with equating it with a simple task. I just don't think putting asses in seats, on its own, has meaning. Michael Bay works hard on his films. He works hard to make films with the nutritional content of a Dorito chip. Took a lot of effort to make Doritos too. Do I occassionally scarf down a bag of Doritos? Absolutely. Do I fool myself into thinking they are as valuable to my life than any real meal I've ever eaten? Nah. But Doritos make somebody a shitload of money every year, and they will continue to long after I'm dead.

 

[JakeEkiss]

Other thing, if we assume commercial success says something about the quality or wider meaning of a film, then the implication is lack of commercial success *also* says something about it's quality or meaning, and I vehemently reject that idea out of hand. A lot of great pieces of art don't find their audiences, or don't find them right away.

 

[Damien]

I don't disagree, but you need guaranteed box office success for the studio model to work. Cameron has probably funded hundreds or thousands of pictures that wouldn't have been made otherwise.

100% true. But that makes Cameron a really good investor. It doesn't make him a good filmmaker.

I think there's some discussion there to be had over whether a director gets to continue being considered great if it's clear they had one period of creation that dwarfs the rest. I think about that a lot really. Is Rob Reiner a "great" director? He did Princess Bride, Few Good Men, Misery, Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, and Stand by Me all basically back to back. Does it matter he never replicated that run? Does he keep credit for setting a standard in like 6 subgenres in a row even though he basically never did it again?

I don't think we need to view accolades as eternal. Someone can have been a good director, and then become a bad director. Just like someone can have been a good actor and become a bad actor. I think this is especially true with the kinds of people that buy into their own hype. Writers, directors, actors, musicians; once they start believing the Internet fanboys' claims that they are the greatest X ever, they start believing it, and they stop TRYING.

Whatever Cameron was in 1990, he isn't that -now-.

 

[AceofKnaves]

Other thing, if we assume commercial success says something about the quality or wider meaning of a film, then the implication is lack of commercial success *also* says something about it's quality or meaning, and I vehemently reject that idea out of hand. A lot of great pieces of art don't find their audiences, or don't find them right away.

Good lord yes this.

My father used to say that guys like Cameron who were financially successful had “figured it out” artistically. Love you, Dad, but you have no idea what you were talking about. In my view, *consistent* commercial artistic success has less to do with creating great art and more with appealing to the lowest common denominator possible as to audience accrual . . . and something intentionally designed to “please the masses” is just never gonna be the *best* art, and it is likely not particularly “good” at all, although some gems do slip through the public’s meat grinder.

The Bay v Cameron argument is sound. I can’t think of any Bay films I think are “good”, but they sure make money. Cameron hasn’t made a good movie since the early 90s, and yet his WORST films (Avatar, Titanic) have made TONS AND TONS of money. And I can think of dozens of wonderful films that barely made money at all.

And for the record: I will take that Reiner run over pretty much any of the directors mentioned. Reiner is amazing.

 

[Revox]

Ever so slightly late to the party but I watched Black Hawk Down last night. I haven't watched many real conflict movies, and even fewer modern ones, not really sure what I made of it honestly. Amazing cast but just grim and futile, with a seemingly endless and deafening amount of gunfire and human parts exploding. I don't know how any of them still had hearing by the end of it, Spud* can't have been the only one deafened surely?

* Ewan & Ewen being there just made me imagine the whole thing was a Trainspotting sequel gone extremely awry.