It has been a common thread all of my life, beginning since I can remember in the mid-90's, "movies keep getting worse," "there's no good movies anymore," "it's all Hollywood tentpole pictures," "
it's all superheroes and explosions." All of my life this refrain that we somehow keep moving away from quality films and that somehow the past, oh that sparkly past with never a shade of gruff was always so bright. That is not the case. We are over-saturated, but hasn't that been a common trend as technology has advanced. It isn't new to the twenty-first century. It became easier for people to make movies as time went on, and thus we had an increase in the quantity of movies. So, isn't it just a ratio thing, "adjusted for inflation," of our ease of access?
I've always hated that argument, that there just isn't anything good anymore. I guess it just got accentuated sitting in a film class while a slew of would be filmmakers bemoaned a studio, or a streaming service for putting out a ton of crap. As though filmmakers didn't make crap since the dawn of time. This isn't even to mention the overall subjectivity of art in general, or film as art, or if that is its only purpose.
I suppose I should qualify my own measurement for what makes a good film. I have one word for that, and its dirty and filthy and not exactly a concrete and concise word, in fact its probably a word that my fellow film student bemoan as the fall of the motion picture - and that is hardly to account for the odd draw of filmmaking if people think its hopelessly going to be shit. That word is: Entertainment.
My own priority one of any film is, is it entertaining? But that is a broad word to apply to anything. I can be entertained just as easily by a well choreographed action sequence, as I am by a silent and stunningly meditative piece of acting. Entertainment is broad. That is my first goal of watching anything, its a surface appreciation of the film I am watching, and for many that is where the qualification ends. I am also entertained by: fiery dialogue, beautiful and silent/epic/subtle/broad cinematography and/ or set design and/or special effect, etc. etc. What I find as I watch a film is that upon second or third or fourth viewing, I gather more and more why that acting, or action was so entertaining, and I find that my initial draw for something was there because someone just put together a damn enjoyable movie.
You must confine a film in its genre. You have to look at horror for its qualification as good amongst other horror films, such as you have to judge adventure alongside other adventure, and so on and so forth, not to mention the dangerous task of labeling films that fall through kaleidiscoped eye of mixed and mashed genres.
Maybe I am digressing too much. The superhero movie has been extremely prominent since the dawn of the twenty first century, particular with the onset of Sam Raimi's idealized Spider-man movies, and the hit and misses of a string of X-Men, and a Daredevil, and so on and so forth. (yeah I know X-Men technically came first before Spider-man, but let's be honest the train didn't truly leave the station until Raimi hit us with that vibrantly colored red suit.) Then we got Iron Man, and an interconnected universe and what started out as one Marvel movie a year, ballooned into two, and then to three, and so on and so on. Its not like that was it, or that there was no innovation in the superhero genre.
One of the most influential movies of the twenty-first century was a superhero film: The Dark Knight. We got a Batman movie, again, after Tim Burton gave us one amazingly dark piece in 1989, and then a twistedly dark piece a couple years later, and then lost the trust of the people, and tossed Batman into a gutter of misguided nonsense. Christopher Nolan gave us a superhero/big budget extravaganza with an Oscar caliber performance and breathtaking visuals that seemingly appeared practical. And, as if to spoil us he made another big budget money-making extravaganza just a couple years later, Inception, and I don't understand how anyone can say that you can't make a great film and still appeal to the masses.
I believe James Gunn mentioned it on a tweet aimed at Jodie Foster who cried fowl because she didn't want to have to make a superhero movie, and Gunn pondered, and I'm paraphrasing here: why don't we transform this money-making beast and explore it, and make it better, and be artists and tamper with the formula, because it appeared for the most part Marvel Studios was letting its directors do that, save for a falling out with say Joss Whedon and Edgar Wright. This may be a digression but I studied Jaws in film class because its a classic, and it wasn't just because it was a monster shark movie that thrilled the hell out of people, its because Spielberg and company figured out a way to make a damn effective film, and explored their medium, and delivered something spectacularly beautiful. It had blood, it had chills, but it had amazing cinematography and an iconic score and great performances.
There have always been shit movies. We just remember the greats because they lasted the test of time. They did something new, or had great performances or great dialogue, or spoke to a generation. That still happens today. "But there's no originality anymore," people will say, and I'm like (even if in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter,) "A movie just won best picture that features a woman having sex with a fish-man."
I for one embrace all films. The ones that are made well in their particular modes. Superhero films can push technology, they can push what is possible to be seen on screen, and they can also recycle the same old crap over and over again. But most of the time, they are just plain fun, why is that a crime, even if you are a movie snob, like I probably consider myself, I can still watch movies with child like wonder, I wish more people could still do that.
Innovation and chance taking is not dead to the "Hollywood system," filmmakers still take chances, the best film of 2017, to me, was Blade Runner 2049, and it was a big bloated sci-fi masterstroke, that cost two arms and two legs, and didn't regain enough of its box-office back. It failed in a way but it was still a chance in the system, even if it was a "sequel." There was an example of a film that could have cashed in on audience nostalgia but that was made by filmmakers who loved the original and who wanted to truly expand upon it, it was a gamble. Then, we move to that tried and true, and the starter of the blockbuster wildfire, Star Wars. Disney (love it or hate it) let Rian Johnson (love him or hate him) take a billion dollar franchise and screw with the audience by giving us a challenge to our expectation of a sequel, and in my opinion that paid off, we got a deeper story, plot holes and all, but something different within the system, and I don't know, that gives me hope for the future.
Fret not you haters of box-office returns, there are plenty of films to love since the dawn of film until now that never got the recognition they deserved, and that didn't have mass appeal. They still get made, so shut up, and watch them, and stop worrying about what the general audiences are watching because as far as I'm concerned with the exceptions here and there a lot of the big movies are moving to taking chances and I think that's cool.
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