[Shawn_McD]

Bigger budgets, more engrossing dynamic stories, doing better remakes of the originals.

I'm glad I've lived to this era, imagine dying in the 60's and never seeing great masterpieces such as Godfather, Lord of the Rings, Troy, Gladiator, the Blade and Matrix trilogies...a travesty.

What are you favorite era's in cinema? Mine is now.

[Ernest Rister]

We are living in a Second Golden Age, only we can't see because we are kneck deep in it. The innovation we're seeing in films like Eternal Sunshine, the freedom we're seeing in independent films like 21 Grams, the overall level of craft in our "mainstream" mass-market films, the new technologies married to old-school storytelling values at places like Pixar and Peter Jackson's WETA...it's just amazing. I grew up in the 80's, and we are being downright spoiled today by the bounty of riches available to movie fans.

[Elinor]

Personally I like films from the 40s and 30s, and some indies today.

Most of the studio stuff today is superficial eye-candy, and star vehicles for the $20 million/pic actors/-tresses. Plots are thin and contrived, acting is weak, scripts are gawdawful. But hey, they do have spiffo special effects.

[Robert Ringwald]

Honestly, I think every era is relatively the same. You've always had star power and eye candy being the main focus. If you want to see the good stuff... you really have to look for it.

Sometimes it's easy to find, other times it isn't.

I had a friend tell me she thought they didn't make good movies anymore.

I can think of tons that are amazing achievements in just the past 5 years.

[JonZ]

Mid 60s thru early 80s is where most of my favorites are from, but the 90s was also a amazing decade for films.

[Peter Apruzzese]

Every era has produced great films.

The worst aspect of modern films is that many of them are poorly photographed - thin, underlit negatives that make for murky theatrical prints.

[JohnRice]

Quote:

The worst aspect of modern films is that many of them are poorly photographed

Couldn't disagree more. In several ways, cinematography is the strongest across the board it has ever been. It is probably the only area where even blockbusters usually are extremely well done. Whatever you are talking about, it is either not photography or you don't really know what you are talking about. The duplicating process may not be what it should, but that has nothing to do with the photography.

Quote:

Most of the studio stuff today is superficial eye-candy

Yes it is, but the big studio stuff is a small percentage of what is made and as Ernest Rister pointed out, so much of the rest of it is as good as ever. I feel the percentage of creative film is probably the highest it has ever been. It also annoys me that so often the blockbuster stuff is used as "proof" that the industry, and particularly the American film industry, only produces mindless crap. Sure, disregard all the good stuff and it is easy to say all the rest is crap.


Shawn, I do agree with you, not that I would use Troy, Blade and Gladiator as proof. those may be big and expensive, but they're really no better than anything produced in any other era.

Quote:

The innovation we're seeing in films like Eternal Sunshine, the freedom we're seeing in independent films like 21 Grams

Now those are excellent examples.

[Haggai]

Compared to the 1930s and 40s, one basic factor that's often forgotten is that there are simply a lot fewer films being made these days. The studios were cranking them out at a much higher rate back then. So there was more of everything: more great movies, more good movies, more mediocre movies, more crappy movies, more hidden gems, more high-profile flops, more small lousy movies that almost nobody saw or wants to remember, etc. The first thing I usually think of when I hear someone saying something like, "there were so many more great movies made back in the day" is "yes, and there were a lot more movies made back then, period, including a lot more crap that nobody remembered after 1 year, let alone 60 or 70 years."

[Michael Reuben]

Quote:

Whatever you are talking about, it is either not photography or you don't really know what you are talking about.

I'm confident that Peter Apruzzese knows what he's talking about. I believe he's a projectionist by trade.

M.

[JohnRice]

Haggai, I'm not sure that's actually true. There are a lot more studios now and there was no such thing as Independent Film in those days either. Each individual studio may have cranked out more movies, but I doubt the total number was higher than today. Of course, I have nothing to back it up. It is absolutely true that time has washed away the loads of garbage that were made, so comparing everything made today to the cream of the crop for 60 years ago isn't fair.

[Eric Peterson]

There is no doubting that there are great films made today, but in general I'll take any film from the 40's or 50's at random over anything at today's multiplex at random. In general, I would say there are less than 20 films worth seeing each year. I've just seen my 10th and have about 5 to go before the year is up.

My biggest complaint with films today are two-fold
#1 - Piss Poor writing - There are some good writers today, but nothing even close to Hollywood's golden age IMHO. I hate censorship, but in many ways the lack of censorship has made writers lazy because they can say and show anything that they want to.

#2 - Too much reliance on SFX (Related to #1) - I like the LOTR Trilogy, but I wouldn't list any of the trilogy as one of my yearly favorites, primarily for this reason, and I won't even mention SW Ep II.

The innovation we're seeing in films like Eternal Sunshine, the freedom we're seeing in independent films like 21 Grams

Two of my favorite films of the last 1-1/2 years and ESOTSM is my #1 for this year with only "The Aviator" & "Billion Dollar Baby" remaining that could possibly unseat it.

By the way, I'm no old fogey yearning for the past. I'm 32. (Of course maybe some people think that's old)