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Last really great movie?

Robin Masters

By Robin Masters
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Neonmoon

Neonmoon 38130

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On 3/31/2018 at 9:28 AM, Robin Masters said:

I first noticed how shit movies were getting when The Hurt Locker won best picture. It was OK, but c'mon, best picture? Same for Argo a few years later. For me the Shape of Water also falls into this category. If it was the 1950s that would be on at the drive-in with Creature from the Black Lagoon and it wouldn't get top billing. Then again I've also seen Dunkirk, Three Billboards, Lady Bird, and Get Out and they were no better.
Looking through the best picture nominees it just seems like the quality is dropping. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture#2010s

I go back to Inception before I see what I think as a real classic and it's a little to sci-fiey. Then its There Will Be Blood. Then a big gap to The Green Mile and Saving Private Ryan. Both of those, there's just no flaws, you have to be kind of a huge asshole to not like those movies.
I'm not saying there's no good movies. Most of the nominated movies are good, though there are more and more clunkers, I mean something spectacular, that if not up there with The Godfather and Citizen Kane, would certainly make a lot of top 20 lists. Is it just me getting old and remembering older stuff with nostalgia, or is this top top level not being reached anymore for whatever reason?

How many of the best picture nominations did you see the past 3 years?

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A-Tex Devil

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I was blown away by Arrival.  And if “rewatchability” isn’t a factor, Manchester by the Sea was truly great in my opinion.  So not that long ago.  

But I agree this years’ movies left something to be desired (although Inliked Dunkirk a lot more than most). 

And also agree that Children of Men is best movie of this century. 

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Robin Masters

Robin Masters 122

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On 4/1/2018 at 7:46 PM, LCHorn said:

This thread is predicated on a really stupid question.  “Great” is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

Maybe the question you mean to be asking is “why aren’t the studios making more movies that appeal to you”, or, “why am I seeing less movies that seem inspired to be great?”.  

Absolutely. And I'd love to hear, is it just me or are others noticing a decline in the number of what they consider "great" movies?
Looking at just the best picture nominees my greatness count peaked in the 1990s. Decline began in the 2000's and really dropped the last 8 years. Going back further 80s were less than the 90s, 70s more than the 80's, 60s and 50s down but still more than the 2000s. I'm 47, so the peak for me happened in my late 20s to early 30s. Is it my age?

If I'm channel surfing I'm gonna stop and watch Road House, Smokey and the Bandit, etc. every time. But they're not GREAT movies. (Point Break is though) Revenent to me, meh. It's sooo beautiful, incredible cinematography, shot with available light, but the story, meh. Same with Mad Max. Visually engaging, but overall ehhh.

Wolf of Wall Street, meh. The first time Scorsese did this movie, Goodfellas, it made my great list. Even the 2nd time he did it, Casino, is close. But, now it's just formulaic as hell. Yeah I'm gonna stop surfing and watch it, titties and some great lines but not great level movie. And this is why I wonder if it's me getting old. If you're younger and haven't seen Goodfellas and Casino, then Wolf might be great.

 

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Eskimohorn

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Absolutely. And I'd love to hear, is it just me or are others noticing a decline in the number of what they consider "great" movies?
Looking at just the best picture nominees my greatness count peaked in the 1990s. Decline began in the 2000's and really dropped the last 8 years. Going back further 80s were less than the 90s, 70s more than the 80's, 60s and 50s down but still more than the 2000s. I'm 47, so the peak for me happened in my late 20s to early 30s. Is it my age?
If I'm channel surfing I'm gonna stop and watch Road House, Smokey and the Bandit, etc. every time. But they're not GREAT movies. (Point Break is though) Revenent to me, meh. It's sooo beautiful, incredible cinematography, shot with available light, but the story, meh. Same with Mad Max. Visually engaging, but overall ehhh.
Wolf of Wall Street, meh. The first time Scorsese did this movie, Goodfellas, it made my great list. Even the 2nd time he did it, Casino, is close. But, now it's just formulaic as hell. Yeah I'm gonna stop surfing and watch it, titties and some great lines but not great level movie. And this is why I wonder if it's me getting old. If you're younger and haven't seen Goodfellas and Casino, then Wolf might be great.
 


I do think your movie Gran Torino is superb
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BigBenBamboozle

BigBenBamboozle 1957

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3 hours ago, Robin Masters said:

Absolutely. And I'd love to hear, is it just me or are others noticing a decline in the number of what they consider "great" movies?
Looking at just the best picture nominees my greatness count peaked in the 1990s. Decline began in the 2000's and really dropped the last 8 years. Going back further 80s were less than the 90s, 70s more than the 80's, 60s and 50s down but still more than the 2000s. I'm 47, so the peak for me happened in my late 20s to early 30s. Is it my age?

If I'm channel surfing I'm gonna stop and watch Road House, Smokey and the Bandit, etc. every time. But they're not GREAT movies. (Point Break is though) Revenent to me, meh. It's sooo beautiful, incredible cinematography, shot with available light, but the story, meh. Same with Mad Max. Visually engaging, but overall ehhh.

Wolf of Wall Street, meh. The first time Scorsese did this movie, Goodfellas, it made my great list. Even the 2nd time he did it, Casino, is close. But, now it's just formulaic as hell. Yeah I'm gonna stop surfing and watch it, titties and some great lines but not great level movie. And this is why I wonder if it's me getting old. If you're younger and haven't seen Goodfellas and Casino, then Wolf might be great.

 

Counter points:

1) 2007 was a superb year for "great" movies, with Zodiac not even getting a Best Picture nomination, and I consider three movies that year to be bonafide modern classics: Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood.  I could write a think or three on the brilliance of No Country/Coen's/Cormac's vision of the "death of the West", as captured so achingly beautifully by Tommy Lee's closing monologue. Best Picture is subjective, just like everything else when it comes to taste. Remember, Paul Haggis has a Best Picture statue for fucking Crash.

2) Children of Men is about as good of a modern sci-fi movie you can ask for, with some of the best technical cinematography this century.  It's a terrific film, strong on narrative, cinematography, acting, errthing. It's great.

3) In the last five years, I'd feel comfortable calling these films "great": Arrival, La La Land, Moonlight, Inside Out, Spotlight, Boyhood

4) Since 2000, great movies: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Mulholland Dr., City of God, The Lives of Others, Sideways, Lost In Translation, Spirited Away, Memento, 

5) There are some sneaky-good films out there I'd hesitate to define as great but are damn good and signal a future for great filmmaking: Whiplash, Her, The Nice Guys, The Florida Project, Hell or High Water, Wind River

tl;dr: movies are still pretty damn good

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RPM

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There Will Be Blood was excruciating slow paced. Still haven't managed to watch it start to finish. The Aviator is 20 minutes longer, has a more complex story and still seems like a shorter film. Cast Away moves at a quicker pace fer Christ's sake.

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Eskimohorn

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There Will Be Blood was excruciating slow paced. Still haven't managed to watch it start to finish. The Aviator is 20 minutes longer, has a more complex story and still seems like a shorter film. Cast Away moves at a quicker pace fer Christ's sake.


And you left out the Fast and the Furious
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Grandioso

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There are lots of recent movies that were "great," e.g., Arrival, Boyhood, Midnight in Paris. But if we are talking "great" as in standing tall above its peers, there are still at least a couple. Of the past 10 years, these are movies I'd consider "great" and candidates to become ubiquitous pop culture references. I.e., I see these movies holding up for years and becoming "classics." Naturally, this is going to include lighter stuff like comedies and superhero movies. I think it's tougher for dramas to stand out because usually their competition is so stiff.

Get Out

Whiplash

Inception

Up

Slumdog Millionaire

No Country for Old Men

Bridesmaids

The Dark Knight

Iron Man

The Hangover

 

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Captain Ron

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2 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Counterpoint:

 

m.cambia_la_tua_vita_con_un_click_christ

The unstoppable force vs the immovable object. "Anything with Christopher Walken is great" vs "Sandler can only make liquid shit movies"

Seriously, Walken is great, but he can't overcome the shit storm that a combo shit script, production company, premise and director.

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jimmyjazz

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I struggle with films that are technically wrong, like "Whiplash".  It was "Rocky" set at UNT.  Too many errors and inconsistencies.

The problem is, I only know what I know, so it's hard for me to judge certain films like "The Hurt Locker".

What I consider to be truly GREAT films are often smaller productions with deeply developed characters who actually interact with each other ("Tender Mercies"), or perhaps experience such beyond-normal situations that it's possible to suspend disbelief ("Into The West").  I don't see many of those being made these days.  "Boyhood" would qualify.  "Phantom Thread" almost got there, but fell short, despite Daniel Day Lewis' typical A+ performance.

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BigBenBamboozle

BigBenBamboozle 1957

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1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

I struggle with films that are technically wrong, like "Whiplash".  It was "Rocky" set at UNT.  Too many errors and inconsistencies.

The problem is, I only know what I know, so it's hard for me to judge certain films like "The Hurt Locker".

What I consider to be truly GREAT films are often smaller productions with deeply developed characters who actually interact with each other ("Tender Mercies"), or perhaps experience such beyond-normal situations that it's possible to suspend disbelief ("Into The West").  I don't see many of those being made these days.  "Boyhood" would qualify.  "Phantom Thread" almost got there, but fell short, despite Daniel Day Lewis' typical A+ performance.

It's why it's hard to quantify "great" films since 2000 in the vein of big 90s period pieces like Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan or Shawshank, when so many are intentionally smaller in scope character pieces.  Movies I thought were tremendous but smaller in scope like The Florida Project, Wind River, Take Shelter, Frances Ha, Y Tu Mama Tambien.  Intense character study films have had a great post-2000s run. 

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Mileslong

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I struggle with films that are technically wrong, like "Whiplash".  It was "Rocky" set at UNT.  Too many errors and inconsistencies.

The problem is, I only know what I know, so it's hard for me to judge certain films like "The Hurt Locker".

What I consider to be truly GREAT films are often smaller productions with deeply developed characters who actually interact with each other ("Tender Mercies"), or perhaps experience such beyond-normal situations that it's possible to suspend disbelief ("Into The West").  I don't see many of those being made these days.  "Boyhood" would qualify.  "Phantom Thread" almost got there, but fell short, despite Daniel Day Lewis' typical A+ performance.

 

I was in the movie “Tender Mercies”, “Split Image” and “”Silent Rage” /csb

 

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie I would consider great. “No Country for Old Men” would probably be the last one.

 

As mentioned above, “Girl with the Dragon Tatoo” Swedish version was amazing, all three of those were.

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Cheeseweasel

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On 3/31/2018 at 5:14 PM, RCRanger03 said:

That's an extremely subjective question and even if it weren't great is an ill-defined term. So prepare for an annoyingly long diatribe, but hey you asked

If I were trying to run a movie blog rating system it would go something along the lines of:

Acting Quality + Story Quality + Technical Quality = Rating, and also Rating + Subject Matter  + Personal Enjoyment = Personal Value to Me

Take one that people have mentioned above, Inception. 

Acting: Hardy good, Cotillard, Levitt and DiCaprio decent, Page was distractingly bad as usual and everyone else was passable.(3 of 5)

Story: Big boost for being original, bogs down a bit at times, interesting but shallow philosophic underpinnings  (4 of 5)

Technical: Pretty amazing visuals and effects, Sound work was top notch (5 of 5) 

Rating = 12 of 15 = 80%

Subject Matter: I like Nolan's brand of creativity, didn't have much beneath the surface though (3 of 5)

Enjoyment: Didn't regret seeing it in IMAX opening night, but also have yet to feel the urge to see it again (3 of 5)

Personal Value = 18 of 25 or 72%, definitely above average, but certainly not great by any means

For me a "great" movie is something that has a high rating and has subject matter that appeals to my mind or heart AND I enjoy (or enjoy breaking into with friends and/or fellow viewers). There's lots of Best Picture movies that I'd say are highly rated, but few that I'd say were great. Also I can agree that the subject matter's relevance to me might have no impact on someone else or even detract from a movie's rating.

A little known Irish movie a few years ago called Calvary is something I would call a GREAT movie.

Acting: Top notch across the board, from both pedigreed actors and no names. Brendan Gleeson deserved more attention. (5 of 5)

Story: Intense, Not formulaic or cliche, funny, deep, and a well crafted plot that didn't flinch or give up the ending, (5 of 5)

Technical: Well shot, beautiful cinematography and scenery, nothing groundbreaking, but nothing that distracted in the least which I appreciated (4 of 5) 

Rating = 14 of 15 or 93%, and I'd argue most people who did see it wouldn't rate it too much lower

However when we go to the second metric.

Subject Matter: I'm annoyingly Catholic, I train people at Catholic Parishes to prevent, recognize, and interrupt abuse situations, I lived IN a small Irish Community establishing and training Irish for youth programs and worked extremely close with both Irish Priests AND people who hated anything to do with the Catholic Church. Also I now work managing a community for the formerly Chronically Homeless here in Austin and I deal every day with profound brokenness both in my residents, the people who volunteer and work with us and myself. All this background connects me on a visceral level to this film and it's themes, and ideas. (5 of 5, and higher if I could)

Enjoyment: The in movie experience is a little raw (although deeply funny at times especially having my Irish experiences), however it's one of my favorite movies to show new friends and then right after have cut the bullshit let 's jump in the deep end conversations to digest the movie and talk about what it means to have shit going on in your life and how to help each other through that. (5 of 5)

Personal Value = 24 of 25 or 96%

For me that puts this movie at almost perfect and truly "great", but for a lot of people that second metric would depress the value a great deal bc they don't give a shit about any of the subject matter and would be at best depressed by the movie and they probably don't want to discuss it so even if it was well rated they wouldn't give it a "great" treatment.

 

 

TL;DR version:

It insists upon itself.

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TrashMaster G

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On 3/31/2018 at 5:28 PM, Eskimohorn said:

 

 


Excrement. That's what I think of Mr. RCRanger03. We're not laying pipe. We're talking about movies. How can you describe movies like American Bandstand? "Oh, I like Ladybird. I give it a 42, but I can't dance to it."

 

 

My exact reaction when I read the post.

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Dutchrudder

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Depending on what you consider "great" I would say there are several great movies from the last 5 years alone. They all have different reasons for being great, though I tend to gravitate towards sci-fi, but I greatly enjoyed every one of these movies. What are the qualifications of "great"-ness?

  1. Mad Max Fury Road
  2. Hotel Grand Budapest
  3. Interstellar (minus the ending)
  4. Logan
  5. Straight Outta Compton
  6. Hell or High Water
  7. Blade Runner 2049
  8. Ex Machina
  9. Edge of Tomorrow
  10. Guardians of the Galaxy
  11. Django Unchained
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jimmyjazz

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52 minutes ago, Dutchrudder said:

Depending on what you consider "great" I would say there are several great movies from the last 5 years alone. They all have different reasons for being great, though I tend to gravitate towards sci-fi, but I greatly enjoyed every one of these movies. What are the qualifications of "great"-ness?

  1. Mad Max Fury Road
  2. Hotel Grand Budapest
  3. Interstellar (minus the ending)
  4. Logan
  5. Straight Outta Compton
  6. Hell or High Water
  7. Blade Runner 2049
  8. Ex Machina
  9. Edge of Tomorrow
  10. Guardians of the Galaxy
  11. Django Unchained

I think "Get Out" is better than every one of those films.

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SimonBolivar

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On 4/1/2018 at 7:46 PM, LCHorn said:

This thread is predicated on a really stupid question.  “Great” is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

 

Maybe the question you mean to be asking is “why aren’t the studios making more movies that appeal to you”, or, “why am I seeing less movies that seem inspired to be great?”.  

For example, I just saw “ Call Me By Your Name,” which is a terrific coming of age romance, and it checks a lot of boxes for greatness.  That said, it’s also about same-sex romance, so if a viewer can’t get past that aspect (and there’s no shame in that), they aren’t going to respond favorably.  In another respect, it’s an independent movie with no major stars, so  it’s quite possible a potential fan might not even be aware of it. 

 

Call Me By You Name was only good for the views of Northern Italy in the summer time. I'd suck a cock to live like they were in the movie.

 

The love story itself seemed meh to me.

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Rimbo

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8 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Well, I knew nothing about it when I went in, so that helped.  I was expecting one of the lame romcoms my wife usually picks.

It just lured me in and surprised me in a great way.  I haven't enjoyed a film that much in a long time.

I think what you did here is the best way to approach films. Let the film be what it is.

I think the majority of those who are pissed at The Last Jedi are so because they wanted it to be a very different movie from what they got and, if they had walked into it just letting what was on the screen be the movie, they'd realize that this was not merely a good Star Wars film, it's the first one of the lot that actually had something non-trivial to say about the human condition, something interesting, something true, and did so in a very effective way.

It's rare that a movie attempts to do so, and among those that do, it's rare that they do it so well. And among the Space Opera/Space Fantasy genre, it's basically unique. Hard SF of course has done so for decades, but Star Wars, and the films of its legacy and ancestry, have never had anything to do with such things. They were born in pulp and pretty much always stayed there.

I'm also old enough to remember how divisive The Empire Strikes Back was. And we pretty much considered it the weakest of the original trilogy, until after a good half-decade or more had passed and we looked back, re-watched and realized, "Wow, that's the one that ties it all together."

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Eskimohorn

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I think what you did here is the best way to approach films. Let the film be what it is.
I think the majority of those who are pissed at The Last Jedi are so because they wanted it to be a very different movie from what they got and, if they had walked into it just letting what was on the screen be the movie, they'd realize that this was not merely a good Star Wars film, it's the first one of the lot that actually had something non-trivial to say about the human condition, something interesting, something true, and did so in a very effective way.
It's rare that a movie attempts to do so, and among those that do, it's rare that they do it so well. And among the Space Opera/Space Fantasy genre, it's basically unique. Hard SF of course has done so for decades, but Star Wars, and the films of its legacy and ancestry, have never had anything to do with such things. They were born in pulp and pretty much always stayed there.
I'm also old enough to remember how divisive The Empire Strikes Back was. And we pretty much considered it the weakest of the original trilogy, until after a good half-decade or more had passed and we looked back, re-watched and realized, "Wow, that's the one that ties it all together."


Your conclusions are all wrong. Last Jedi had a crappy plot, introduced crappy characters and its commentary about the human condition were crap. And even if you liked what it had to say, because the story and characters were weak, it did not do so in an effective way.

And I don’t know who you hung out with as a child, but we all loved Empire Strikes Back except that it made me cry.
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Mileslong

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21 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Cool . . . what role or scenes were you associated with in "Tender Mercies"?  It's probably my favorite film of all time.

I ended up just being in one scene.  we filmed at a an old country bar in arlington on south cooper.  it was near the old graham central station club.  they had me dancing with a girl to a song called "drinking canada dry", if i remember correctly.  the camera followed us across the dance floor as the song ended.  we walked towards a table to sit down and the camera pans to ellen barkin and her boyfriend and then focuses on them as they sit down at a table.

in the first take, the girl and i sat down at a table that barkin was supposed to sit at and they had to cut.  she was a bitch and said something like "what the hell are they doing at my table?" /csb

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