What is Digg?91 Comments
- inactive, on 12/01/2007, -2/+44I saw Transformers, so I have to say Yes!
- D3koy, on 12/01/2007, -0/+26I have an idea for a movie: A guy walks into a bar....kills everyone, the rest of the movie is him using macgyver like tactics to avoid the guys chasing him...The Twist? The bar was full of mob guys, and the guys chasing him are mobsters, not cops...(which he is)at the end the cops do arrive and blow the crap out of the mobsters....
I'm expecting this movie to hit theaters by next June....haven't got a script yet, but hey...who needs that... - dotlizard, on 12/01/2007, -1/+23Big Media (BM™) tends to ruin everything it touches -- the corporate bastardization of creativity. FTA: "This means that each and every creative decision that’s made becomes not about what’s right for the film, what’s fresh and new and exciting and truthful – but about what the boss is going to say. That’s pretty much the sole criterion in the development process: anticipating the reaction of the big kahuna. And since most bosses are as unpredictable and impatient as they are shrewd and successful, everyone under them tends to default to playing it safe. Avoid anything untried. Do what’s worked before. Stick with proven formulas. And what happens? Anything new and original is weeded out. And everything turns to *****."
It's happening in music, it's happening in movies, it's happening everywhere. Somewhere up the line is a huge corporation pulling the strings of every creative mind (via the paycheck). The author has a good point - alternative financing and independent production is the only way to get an original thought through to the final cut -- otherwise it's going to be hacked to death by somebody trying to please his boss's boss. - sjbdallas, on 12/01/2007, -3/+24It is getting harder and harder to keep my netflix queue full of stuff worth watching.
- Rotzooi, on 12/01/2007, -0/+19The majority of people still don't care about good storytelling or anything that has a resemblance of depth of character. They want famous titties, big booms and helicopter.
People with taste are and will be a minority. - jbur816, on 12/01/2007, -1/+15Try some foreign films. Much better writing and acting, generally speaking. Start with "Elling."
- absurdist, on 12/01/2007, -0/+12Good ***** luck. There's way too much money involved in the current system to let little issues like artistic integrity interfere with the massive volume of dollar signs.
- rudy23, on 12/01/2007, -4/+16WGA writer? I always used to wonder who wrote up all that crap for Windows Genuine Advantage
- gerkin, on 12/01/2007, -0/+10I think that quote might be a bit backwards .. it should read: "Hollywood is a ***** Factory!"
- RollFizzlebeef, on 12/01/2007, -7/+16*****.
Hollywood is giving the people what they want, or they wouldn't pay to see it.
Just because the product isn't up to YOUR standards doesn't mean it isn't some backwards moron's favorite. - technoredneck, on 12/01/2007, -0/+9Well, I reckon nothing will ever compare to the innovation and creative genius of "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!!" or even "LOL WATCH MY CAT MEOW". Deep, meaningful, real entertainment right there, buddy.
- zachshmack, on 12/01/2007, -0/+9Part of the problem is we've been spoiled with big budget movies, so we come to expect them.
Big budgets = more risk for the studios if the movie flops.
They mitigate this risk by selling out and producing the same formulaic crap.
To really change film, you have to change the expectations and demands of the mainstream audience. - cipherscribe, on 12/01/2007, -0/+9I was so disappointed with that movie. Especially how they worked Ebay into the main story line and how they repeated "More than meets the eye" a couple of times into the script. UGH. Is it too much to ask to actually entertain us rather than try and sell us *****? JEsus! Or should I say Mohammad the Teddy Bear!
- synthpop, on 12/01/2007, -0/+8the kind of creative control he's talking about is what brought about the whole 'Heaven's Gate' fiasco, where sticking to one person's creative vision resulted in the collapse of an entire studio and that kind of control is never coming back. does anyone think Dreamworks would invest 150 million in 'Transformers' and not demand total control of the script? the result was of course a god awful script but because the movie is such a huge hit that's just going to encourage more crap scripts. it's up to us as the audience to stop rewarding Hollywood for ***** writing.
- lead2thehead, on 12/01/2007, -0/+8Very rarely do I see an original movie. Normally they just repackage the same stories over and over again. Here are some of the more popular formulas...
Romance Movie:
Man an woman meet. Man does something to piss off the woman so she dumps him. Both are miserable until the man does something spectacular and romantic to win her back.
Horror Movie:
Start with a group of oversexed students, including a guy and girl who fall in love and become the only ones to survive. A monster/ghost/murderer starts killing them. Annoying skeptics refuse to believe what’s going on right up until they die. Somebody has inside information on what's going on but nobody listens to him until the end of the movie.
Action Movie:
Musclebound hero gets pissed off when bad guys kidnap/kill/threaten his daughter/friend/girlfriend. Hero kills bad guys using guns/explosives/martial arts/high tech gadgets and either saves the day.
Forgive me if I'm not impressed. - crapmatic, on 12/01/2007, -0/+8My first moment of insight with the crap machine was when I was looking at posters in Blockbuster about 10 years ago. I was like "what the hell kind of name for a movie is Roberts Bacon?" I'd then see in big font stuff like Julia ROBERTS Kevin BACON with the movie title hidden away in relatively fine print. It was then obvious to me that the moviemakers weren't giving a damn about the content of the movie and were just using a widespread campaign of A-list namedropping to get us to rent. More and more I've noticed the better movies and features aren't using A-list celebrities.
- manicallday, on 12/01/2007, -0/+8 The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.
Hunter S. Thompson - HappyScrappy, on 12/01/2007, -2/+9"residuals are what we are paid for compensate for the fact that the studios take ownership of our work".
When you do work for hire, this is standard. I wrote a lot of code for the company I work for over the last 10 years, and it's all theirs.
In the end, the money holders control the stakes. Don't like it? Produce yourself. - bcat, on 12/01/2007, -1/+8You obviously haven't seen much YouTube.
- zachshmack, on 12/01/2007, -0/+6I think you bring up an excellent point. Many times I've watched a foreign film and thought the acting was great until I spoke with someone who knew enough of that language to tell me it was god-awful. :-/
But the main perk of foreigns films is that generally the themes are usually more meaningful than just lust, revenge, good guys vs. bad guys, etc. - Wartz, on 12/01/2007, -0/+6we know the country is going down the toilet, we just dont like you spamming it around in unrelated convos
- Yetidude, on 12/01/2007, -0/+6So, while watching a movie about giant alien robots turning into cars, jets, and helicopters, you decide that the scene with the secretary of defense wielding a shotgun is somehow illogical? How does that not work in the context of a movie where reason has been abandoned to begin with?
Also: Megan Fox. - capiCrimm, on 12/01/2007, -1/+7the thing with foreign films is that it's actually hard to rate the acting, so I think on average it appears better. I used to think the same thing until I started noticing the child actors were never bad. I think because you don't understand their language it all seems convincing, and you fill in the blanks when you read it.
The writing is also good. They tend to be deeper and more human. Like something you would expect out of a book, but sometimes I think they get stuck in their own ruts and it just feels better because it's different. Look at Bollywood, almost all of their movies are the same musical. Not to say their aren't tons and tons of foreign movie gems. - kwansolo, on 12/01/2007, -2/+7my netflix queue is full of independent and foreign films and documentaries for this very reason. well, i watched "into the blue" on mute for jessica alba.
- fyngyrz, on 12/01/2007, -1/+6Well, there's "the people" on the left side of the Gaussian, and "the people" on the right side of the Gaussian.
Who do you think is watching Britney, Flava of Luv, plastic surgery cut and paste programs, reality TV in general, Faux news, and spectator sports? Who do you think buys the crap in the general run of commercials and infomercials?
It is sure isn't the smart people I know, I can tell you that.
There's a whole 'nuther audience out there, just waiting for good material - and not getting it very often, and even then, the mistake is usally corrected ASAP (Firefly, for example.) - antoniuk, on 12/01/2007, -1/+6This is my problem with the writer's strike
"I made more money on my first studio assignment than I did in my first ten years of struggle put together. "
Leads me to believe they make a couple year's salary per job. Granted they write the material for the movies and shows we love but if you make 6 figures at a time, it is hard to relate to you. I make a decent salary but no where near this.
Granted if it is years between gigs, I can see the benefit of their argument but at the same time if you are unemployed for years, something is not right. - inactive, on 12/01/2007, -0/+4But no one is listening to us since it made 400 million dollars....
- yoda17, on 12/01/2007, -0/+4It is so true and applies to much more than the film industry. This is business and politics and how the world works.
- Tyr86, on 12/01/2007, -0/+4I'll take Famous Titties for 400.
- DoTheFandango, on 12/01/2007, -0/+4Why was the defense secretary of the USA in the Hoover Dam with a shotgun?
***** YOU MICHAEL BAY. - zachshmack, on 12/01/2007, -0/+4I was with you until "jewing"
- hoovcluck, on 12/01/2007, -0/+4don't forget TV
"its going to be the night of a thousand *****!" - manzoire, on 12/01/2007, -0/+3please tell me your joking. as a jewish person, i'm pretty offended by this. (your not supposed to know the truth)
- RobotBuddha, on 12/01/2007, -0/+3Thank you! I was a little annoyed about the strike for similar reasons. It gave me a bit of a double take that they're so willing to strike, and have a lot of other people lose their own jobs because of it, for a small increase in their net income. Meanwhile, most of the writing there has either started as crap, was ordered to be written as crap, or was a brilliant script that became crap by demand. That, after all this time, they're not willing to strike for.
- inactive, on 12/02/2007, -0/+3 There is a huge elephant in the room in regards to Hollywood but it wasn't mentioned here.
- mrfunktastic, on 12/01/2007, -1/+4Here's a solution: spend money on movies you believe in, and torrent the rest. The market will correct itself. Same goes for music and video games.
- artemus, on 12/02/2007, -0/+2Yet no films on the Stalin Purges, or the Great Leap forward.. Interesting...
- higdonius, on 12/01/2007, -0/+2why does the sight of people from the early 60's smoking offend you so much? i assume you don't watch any old movies. since those people smoked too. you're missing out, imo.
- RobotBuddha, on 12/01/2007, -0/+2He might. But the main thing with movies from other countries is that you're instantly increasing the percentage of available movies by a large amount. Even if 70% of the movies from country X suck, if they make a fair amount of them you've got a pretty big stockpile to choose from when older movies are taken into account as well. Plus, the added benefit of places like netflix, or torrent sites, serving as a bit of a preselection filter to make sure that the worst don't even get stocked or seeded.
- HappyScrappy, on 12/01/2007, -2/+4To be fair, they write what the producers want. I wouldn't blame the writers.
As to the other stuff, I stopped watching Mad Men because everyone is smoking all the time. It's ridiculous, I know TV isn't "real" and making everyone smoke isn't going to fool me into thinking it is. So it just comes of as an ad for cancer.
I think a shorter answer to your point might just be that you should realize that Hollywood needs to make marketable product. And violence and sex reduce the number of outlets and viewers for their content, reducing the value of it.
Anyway, gobs of violence didn't help the "Doom" movie. I think you're off the mark about what the problem might be. - indyGuy, on 12/01/2007, -0/+2Ok, how about some of the brilliant clips on collegehumor...
- isaactwito, on 12/01/2007, -3/+5Well we're all very happy that you've finally admitted you are an idiot, but there is a substantial number of people out there who are in this category of "intelligent". We'd really like if people like you would go ahead and jump off a cliff so that when you're all gone we can have a pleasant world with good media.
- hoovcluck, on 12/01/2007, -1/+3got to love the neo-comms!
- Dorepoll, on 12/01/2007, -0/+2What? College Humor and vlogs are better than The Office, 30 Rock, The Wire and etc? Am I suddenly in opposite world?
The average joe with a video camera makes awful videos. There are exceptions, but we are talking about "average joe" here. - 3tcp, on 12/01/2007, -0/+2The ***** apples Randy, the ***** apple doesn't fall far from the ***** tree
- Waterrat, on 12/01/2007, -0/+2 Nor am I...But yeah,you see variations on those same 3 plots again and again and again...I don't know why you are being dugg down, cause you are right.
- davecor, on 12/02/2007, -0/+2People are diggin him down because they resent him knocking what they like. Hollywood sticks to the formula because fans stay away from movies that force them to think.
I remember once hearing that movie executive depend on the "Idiot market" who are people who will watch or buy ANY movie if it has a few stars they recognize.
Meanwhile, people who LIKE to think seek out films from other parts of the world whose cinema doesn't cater to the lowest common denominator. - rtfx, on 12/02/2007, -0/+2http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762114/
This is, unfortunately, an entire feature film that supports his claim. The plot outline is practically propaganda against Catholicism, and the producers last names are strikingly Jewish.
I don't like the idea either, but Jewish people do have a tradition in entertainment, and a tradition of sticking together, and it's entirely possible that they've misused the privileges that stem from that at times. - Christbait, on 12/01/2007, -0/+2For the past 15, probably even more years, more or less everything coming out of Hollywood has been overhyped and overrated trash. Oscars or whatever awards a film gets really don't mean anything anymore.
There are films out there that use budgets that are a fraction of these big hollywood budgets and receive a fraction of the attention, yet they are infinitely better. - TheMachine1, on 12/01/2007, -0/+2Can the guy be a cross dresser who walked into the wrong bar and thought he was filming a John Waters movie but the guns had real bullets and the film production company was really controlled by the mob and the bar he was
suppose to shoot up was a bar full of cops? -
Show 51 - 84 of 84 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is