I tend to think that it's not much different than it was, say, 50 years ago though. I doubt that kids in the early 1960's were interested in silent movies any more than kids today are interested in black and white movies. Generally, kids have always liked what is new and aren't concerned with what is 'old'. It's a relatively small number of people who were there or people who like things from many different eras that remember the past.MatthewA said:
Other than the Walt-era Disney animated films, kids don't watch the older films because they aren't aware of them. And considering how much of what is marketed to kids probably shouldn't be (that Oogieloves movie, had anyone bothered to see it, was probably some form of mind control, and would probably send the message that it's okay to talk in movie theaters).
You missed Destry Rides Again and The Young Mr. Lincoln.zoetmb said:
This seems to have turned into something resembling the "While we wait for a few words about...Lawrence of Arabia" thread.MatthewA said:
I guess that's an improvement over a few words about Moonraker.Lromero1396 said:
Now that, I agree with (and Blade Runner is my favorite film!).TravisR said:
Fair enough.Jason_V said:
Some think Gladiator is a great film. IMO, I consider Black Hawk Down a great film and Thelma and Louise close to being one.
I think Prometheus is a great film along with Gladiator and BHD. I also happen to love GI Jane. A critic once mused that a great film has at least 5 good scenes and no bad ones. That's my criteria.Robert Crawford said:
In the 1950s and 60s, many older movies, including silents (although very scratched and shown at the wrong frame rates) were played on television. So baby boomers remembered many of those films, regardless of whether they liked them or not. The same is true of classic cartoons. Even as a child, I "knew" that those films were "old" and many seemed archaic, but we didn't have a lot of choices and watched anyway. But I wound up also hearing a lot of the really great music in those cartoons and that always stayed with me. And as Elaine once said to Jerry, "it's a shame that everything you know about culture comes from a Bugs Bunny cartoon." Elsewhere in the forum, there was some postings about RKO's "Million Dollar Movie" TV series. In the late 50s and early 60's, I saw King Kong, Son of Kong and Godzilla endless times on that show, but also La Strada and Citizen Kane. Kids wouldn't watch the equivalent of that today because they have so many more choices, so they don't have to but the limitations of the time actually caused me to make better choices. In the late 60s and especially in the early 70s, there was a new appreciation for older movies, especially the silent comedians, on college campuses. That's when we had the big revivals and re-examinations of the works of Chaplin and Keaton, among others. That's when I first saw Metropolis, Greed, Un Chien Andalu and many great other early films. But today, home video has pretty much killed off the revival theatre, places like New York's Film Forum notwithstanding. The difference today IMO isn't so much that kids aren't interested. It's that there's no respect for older culture in any sense. One of the things that having hundreds of TV channels and virtual media does is teach kids that the culture is disposable. So we watch or listen to something and we move on. On the other hand, movie producers like to reach back to older culture because it's recognizable and in fact, it's difficult to get financing for any movie that doesn't already have a pre-sold title. And so any name or character that a baby boomer can recognize is rebooted because the marketers know that either the baby boomer will see it themselves or they'll take their kids or grandkids to see it. And thus we have, for better or worse, all the comic book movies, a new generation of Star Wars films coming, the current Oz prequel, etc. The other issue is that a culture must be taught and most people don't bother - they'll let their kids listen to or watch almost anything, especially if it's a brand. But in the case of my own grandkids, they are taught and we have watched "The General" together and she will tell you that her favorite composers are Woody Guthrie, George Gershwin and Charles Ives. So it is possible to instill culture and we have to stop being lazy about it.TravisR said:
Howard Hawks -- of course! I think I remember Roger Ebert quoting him in one of his book collections of reviews. We can agree to disagree about Prometheus. And GI Jane.JoshZ said:
You know in a general sense I’m sure that is very true. But the ‘60’s and ‘70’s were a very different time period than now, with a lot more overall awareness of classic Hollywood in the public’s collective consciousness.TravisR said:
Matthew I think that’s the key. Old movies were all over TV. In 1979, for example, cable TV in my area meant you had your local affiliates, some stations from the nearest large city (in my case that was Boston) a few independent stations (the famous WOR) and if you wanted to pay for it, HBO. And that was it. Old movies were a great way of filling air time and you couldn’t change channel (rotating the dial) without going past one. Were kids “into” old movies? That depended on the young person. But kids were definitely aware of names like Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Boris Karloff, Bette Davis, etc whether they’d seen their work or not.MatthewA said:
One old movie house in my area would present a lot of classics when not showing the latest independent film. My car would be packed with kids wanting to see an old movie the way it was meant to be seen, on the big screen. And these were not “film geeks” like me. Some were “jocks”, some were “freaks”, but whoever they were I never had trouble over filling my car for the trip to that theater. It was a time, shortly to end, when kids liked to be seen as knowledgeable and mature by the adults in their lives. Flash forward to the mid ‘80’s and, in a total reversal, adults would try and mimic “teen speak” in an effort to appear young and trendy.MatthewA said:
I said the movie has "virtually nothing but bad scenes." As far as I'm concerned, the movie has one good scene, the part where David wanders around the ship alone at the beginning. Other parts of the movie may have striking visuals, but that doesn't make them good scenes. The guy in the rubber albino bodybuilder suit falling into the waterfall was laughable. The abortion scene was repugnant (and totally absurd on any sort of suspension-of-disbelief level). The last scene with the Xenomorph cameo felt tacked on and pointless, as all the obnoxious 'Alien' call-backs at the end of the movie did. Those are my opinions. You may have different opinions. Do I have a "personal bias against the film?" Only in that I went into it genuinely hoping to watch a good film, and instead sat through one of the worst pieces of crap I've seen in many, many years. So, yes, I have a personal bias against terrible movies.RBlenheim said:
Just tell us what you really think about the film?
That depends entirely upon your criteria for a scene. My interest in any scene extends as far as that scene supports an interesting and involving narrative, so for my purposes, Prometheus doesn't really have any "good" scenes. Without context, what are we even evaluating?RBlenheim said:
