I'm reading "Bad Projection Is Ruining the Movie Theater Experience/Multiplexes are failing at their most basic function: delivering a bright, sharp image" (NY Magazine).
“Next to me is Jack Theakston, a projection specialist... who immediately diagnoses the problem: This is a 2-D showing of Ant-Man, but some neglectful employee has forgotten to remove the 3-D filter from the projector. 'It’s a polarized lens that cuts a picture’s brightness by a third,' he says. 'They just have to push it to the side when they switch to 2-D, but theaters forget to do it all the time. You can tell when it’s happening because if you look at the port-window glass, instead of a single image, you’ll see two, with one stacked on top of the other.'..."
Terrible about the projection. Also terrible that a great movie star is given the role of Ant-Man’s girlfriend’s mom. Such decline!
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80 comments:
"Movie theater?" What's a "movie theater?"
She's not just the mom, she's the original Wasp who is now older, a really strong character in her own right in partnership marriage to the older Ant Man Michael Douglas
People still visit movie theaters? Huh. Learn something new each day...
It took to the bottom of the 15th paragraph, but the contextually necessary "films themselves have been getting darker lately."
Interesting article. Now we don't have to feel bad when a movie theater closes. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Twenty years ago, I spent a pleasant half-hour or so (at a friend's kids barbecue / pool party) chatting with a couple who had been introduced to me as Chelle and David. Pleasant folks. Fine looking. Film and Hollywood did not come up in conversation.
Professor Althouse said about Michelle Pfeiffer, "Also terrible that a great movie star is given the role of Ant-Man’s girlfriend’s mom. Such decline!"
I don't think Ms Pfeiffer has declined so much as the roles available have declined. What else is Hollywood making these days besides superhero and animated movies?
There is much they can't control (like the quality of the movies--if there's not enough good product out there, their hands are tied), but when they screw up something like this, what else are they getting wrong?
Given that theatres are struggling to attract audiences, one would think they'd get this stuff right.
It's not just the lens filter. It seems to me that many movies have deliberately been shot in reduced light, or edited that way - they all show up that way on the screen, whether in the theater or at home.
I’m watching Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
I think I found your problem.
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania"? That's a thing? With Michelle Pfeiffer? Wasn't she good-looking? Why would she be playing someone's mother in a cartoon? I'm confused.
Fortunately, I gather this is all taking place in New York City, so it doesn't matter. It sounds like maybe the last one out is already dimming the lights.
Also terrible that a great movie star is given the role of Ant-Man’s girlfriend’s mom. Such decline!
It's not quite as bad as this comment suggests. Yes Michelle and Michael Douglass play supporting roles in the Antman movies, but that's what they are, supporting roles. Saving Michelle (Seemingly lost while being a superhero) was the main plot of the second movie, and Douglass is playing the original Antman, the scientist who invented the process. They are in no way cameo or exploitative roles.
I dunno last time I saw Michelle she looked kind of melty…
I remember Johnny Majors as the "Six-million Dollar Man".
I think everyone in Hollywood should follow the Madonna-Michael Jackson way.
Remove the nose - add fake bones - then - add the poof to look like a pimped up sex toy blow up doll - with lips ready to receive.
I have not seen the movie but the reviews I have seen indicate that Pfeiffer's role is substantive. Its Michael Douglas who mostly stands around with little to do.
Given the role? This is the second movie she's taken the role.
The major failure of theater companies is forcing customers to sit through ads and trailers from which there is no escape. Much worse than streaming from home.
@mongo
That’s exactly my point
People still visit movie theaters?
If conditions are as they should be--sharp focus, properly illuminated, an audience respectful of each other and invested in enjoying the film to the exclusion of any other activity--seeing a movie in a movie theater is still the best way to see and be immersed in a movie. Home viewing, even on a large 4K video panel, is a lesser, more attenuated experience.
"Ant-Man’s girlfriend’s mom". That's a bit of a misleading way to describe her character (although maybe it's a comment on the script, it was a decent part in the previous movie, but maybe she's given short shrift in this one, I haven't seen it yet). She's the original Wasp, a super hero in her own right, married to the original Ant-Man, who is played by Michael Douglas. So, if you view any involvement with the Marvel movies as a decline, I suppose it's a decline, but no more than it is for Michael Douglas.
But I don't see it that way. The Marvel movies are the modern version of something like "Gunga Din" (1939). The movie goer gets to hang out with the most charismatic people in the world (e.g. Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks) while they trade banter and go through the motions of some action plot that doesn't matter all that much. It's why Marvel tries to hire the biggest brightest stars on the planet. So, rather than a decline, it's a validation that she's huge; otherwise she wouldn't be playing a superhero.
Let me add my voice to the people correcting the -- misogynist? -- NYM writer for describing a woman's character with inaccurate and demeaning terms.
I suspect the movies are being shot darker because it helps blend in the CGI stuff.
CGI is why I no longer watch many movies at all. Eventually movies will be 100% CGI, and the young and gloriously beautiful Michelle Pfieffer will return to starring roles, but probably after she is dead.
Average movie theater technical quality has been inferior to the potential of home theater for about 20 years. A projector...just sucks...relative to a large flat panel with better color and contrast and higher effective resolution due to having a smaller area to cover.
The film producers know this and don't try to compete outside of IMAX and a handful of ultra costly productions -- they just hold the content for a few months to squeeze $$$$$ from those who can't wait for home release. And they keep theaters open to give couples somewhere to go on a date and families something to do together.
I don't understand Hollywood's fascination with shooting in the dark. It's become tedious. Not only in theaters, there are DVDs I have that are unwatchable during the day time.
I stopped going to see 3D movies in theaters because wearing the glasses made the image too dim to see properly.
Hard to believe, but it's possible I will never see a film in a theater again.
Ah, modern movies and television shows. Bad dialogue sound, bad lighting. And even those aren't enough to distract from the very uninformed writing.
We need another Star Wars moment where an up and coming director/producer breaks free from what has become common and tells a story with lots of light. Then you can ignore the poor acting. Let's face it, Star Wars did so well because finally after a decade it wasn't dreary like the other movies.
Michelle Pfeiffer and Jonathan Majors look like crap.. they’re decrepit husks of themselves, their faces so drained of color that they could pass for cadavers.
Yeesh, tough critic. What’s next, “her womb is so polluted”?
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/a685aaea-3ec3-4529-9c83-257b2ffaf332
It must be some sort of bizarre director's touch, thinking it's an artistic statement to make things mostly impossible to see. Bad enough we're inundated with movies based on comic books and almost nothing else. In a similar directors artistic touch, the prequel to "Game of Thrones", which HBO aired a few months ago as "House of the Dragon", became such a drag on me that I ceased watching it when, for two straight episodes, the screen was so black, I literally could not see what was going on.
I figured it was a great hi-jinx by the team producing it and decided that, yes, it was great fun, but I'd had enough being the brunt of some design so sophisticated it was unseeable. I mean when it's unseeable, you know you've reached the heights of sophistication. It was over my approved levels.
Anyway, of course the actors faces looked drained in "Antman". Yours would too if you'd worked your entire life only to be handed the script to play the time-traveling villain Kang the Conqueror. Jesus, enough with the comic book movies already.
La Pfeiffer I know, but apparently someone named Jonathon Majors has become a star while I wasn't looking.
Last night my wife and I discussed the fact that we haven't been to a movie together since "Skyfall"(?). We both have been to 1 or 2 alone or with friends since, but even so it has been years.
Can't say we miss the experience; leave aside incompetent projectionists or 3D, I get nauseated by quick-cut car chase sequences.
And the LOUD trailers.
"Ant man?" They really have turned into cartoons 24/7.
It's not just the lens filter. It seems to me that many movies have deliberately been shot in reduced light, or edited that way
Well, when you put a bullet through the chest of good cinematographers then, yeah, the movies will be poorly shot.
I saw it with a 31 year old female friend. When I saw Michelle on the screen, I turned to Latasha and asked, "You know who that is?" She replied, "No. Who?"
Me: (sort of singing but horribly out of tune) "Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold"
Latasha: (excitedly) "Ohhhh! _That's_ who he's talking 'bout!"
"Bad Projection Is Ruining the Movie [Theater Experience]"
Life in parts of NYC/LA has become a dystopia prequel and from the shadowed cultural heights gloom is projected all over the land. Projected? - yes. In Milwaukee City murders doubled 2020-2022. But the increase was confined to the black community which then voted Dem in the midterms and voted for more Dem leadership in Milwaukee and so no changes have been made in the policies that caused this localized increase. The whole white community is where it was before, except for fentayl. This is what I call darkness visible and guilt over silence about this terrible policy outcome, this localization of dystopia, is what is projected. Of course, my opinion is meaningless as it is an outcome of systemic racism and I apologize for living.
"Bad Projection Is Ruining the Movie [Theater Experience]"
Life in parts of NYC/LA has become a dystopia prequel and from the shadowed cultural heights gloom is projected all over the land. Projected? - yes. In Milwaukee City murders doubled 2020-2022. But the increase was confined to the black community which then voted Dem in the midterms and voted for more Dem leadership in Milwaukee and so no changes have been made in the policies that caused this localized increase. The whole white community is where it was before, except for fentayl. This is what I call darkness visible and guilt over silence about this terrible policy outcome, this localization of dystopia, is what is projected. Of course, my opinion is meaningless as it is an outcome of systemic racism and I apologize for living.
"Bad Projection Is Ruining the Movie [Theater Experience]"
Life in parts of NYC/LA has become a dystopia prequel and from the shadowed cultural heights gloom is projected all over the land. Projected? - yes. In Milwaukee City murders doubled 2020-2022. But the increase was confined to the black community which then voted Dem in the midterms and voted for more Dem leadership in Milwaukee and so no changes have been made in the policies that caused this localized increase. The whole white community is where it was before, except for fentanyl. This is what I call darkness visible and guilt over silence about this terrible policy outcome, this localization of dystopia, is what is projected. Of course, my opinion is meaningless as it is an outcome of systemic racism and I apologize for living.
"Bad Projection Is Ruining the Movie [Theater Experience]"
Life in parts of NYC/LA has become a dystopia prequel and from the shadowed cultural heights gloom is projected all over the land. Projected? - yes. In Milwaukee City murders doubled 2020-2022. But the increase was confined to the black community which then voted Dem in the midterms and voted for more Dem leadership in Milwaukee and so no changes have been made in the policies that caused this localized increase. The whole white community is where it was before, except for fentanyl. This is what I call darkness visible and guilt over silence about this terrible policy outcome, this localization of dystopia, is what is projected. Of course, my opinion is meaningless as it is an outcome of systemic racism and I apologize for living.
Not to mention that the sound is intolerably loud!
Every great beauty must come to terms with the fact that someday a reasonably cute girl is going to be better looking. Female beauty is a superpower but you can't dodge the kryptonite. Someday a high school basketball player with routine moves will make Michael Jordan look flat footed. I myself am at the present time a much better player than Kobe Bryant.....I think special effects are cheaper to produce in a darkened environment. Many other things too.
Hunter Biden's tax payer funded Hooker said...
I think everyone in Hollywood should follow the Madonna-Michael Jackson way. Remove the nose - add fake bones - then - add the poof to look like a pimped up sex toy blow up doll - with lips ready to receive.
I am thinking of the plastic surgery scene in "Brazil" right now.
Projection mistakes like the one mentioned happen all the time. I heardone story about a screening of Galaxy Quest. The start of the movie is in TV dimensions with the curtain pulled in over the screen to show only the fake star trek TV show that is Galaxy Quest. When the movie gets to the movie phase the widen out and the curtain is supposed to open to the new dimensions. Well, one time they forgot to open the curtain so folks had to watch the movie with the edges projected onto the curtains.
Rotten luck as a movie goer.
Also terrible that a great movie star is given the role of Ant-Man’s girlfriend’s mom.
Could have went to my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, who one would think has a strong claim to the role.
It's not just the lens filter. It seems to me that many movies have deliberately been shot in reduced light, or edited that way - they all show up that way on the screen, whether in the theater or at home.
I recall how horrified some actors were when HD showed up.
Perhaps they all got together to save their careers.
Its not a "decline" - its a paycheck. Hope she got more $ than Brando did a couple weeks work on a Superman comic book movie.
But sorry Ant-man is so dark. I like my Ant-men bright and shiny.
Yes, everyone's getting too artsy-fartsy with their filming and making things too dark. The actors are all getting too artsy-fartsy and mumbling their dialogue, as well.
Mrs. NorthOfTheOneOhOne and I streamed the original Twelve Angry Men from 1957 the other night, it was refreshing to be able to turn off the close captioning and not miss a word.
There's nothing necessarily wrong with taking a role in a superhero movie. Superhero movies can be fun and even seemingly fluff parts can be done well, not to mention can be surprisingly deep. Not exactly a superhero movie, but James Earl Jones was the villain in Conan the Barbarian and he was absolutely brilliant. The John Wick movies are surprisingly deep between the gun fights. The problem here is the Ant-Man movies are not very good compared to the rest of the MCU, and the recent MCU movies have been generally mediocre to poor. But it's not a SyFy original movie, or something recent with Steven Seagal. She's not exactly slumming.
I suppose we should feel bad that she is not acting in Oscar bait that no one besides the Academy cares about?
I'd say the same for sound. We leave the subtitles on when watching at home, but I've been noticing the subtitles are getting it wrong too. The AI translators can't decipher what actors are saying.
A complaint about lighting in a comic-book based movie, and we're to think it's the end of the world in filmmaking?
I'd submit that the "end of the world" moment came when they glommed onto the whole "Let's make comic books into movies..." idea in the first damn place.
I mean, let's face it: The comic books have always, always been the lowest common denominator in entertainment and storytelling. You go back and look at the whole enterprise, from back in the very beginning, and what you find is that the entire shoddy edifice is perched on a deeply-rooted pyramid of criminal activity and labor abuse. Many, if not most, of the major characters had their original creators screwed out of rights and paid pennies on the dollar for things that eventually went on to make millions.
And, it's not even very good entertainment, either. The plot lines are horrible and illogical, and you can see where they filed the serial numbers off of the ideas of much better writers that they didn't even bother to credit.
I've yet to understand the attraction, TBH. The whole character arc for almost every superhero wish-fulfillment character out there is childishly simple, and the result of similarly childish and immature dreaming.
If you think about it, the whole genre reeks of really bad and really schizophrenic ideas coming together in a mish-mash of really lousy storytelling. You see these magnificent people coming to save everyone, the superhero who got his/her amazing powers through some accident or twist of fate, and they come to save the day. It simultaneously encourages passivity in the public, 'cos in the comic books, the common man has nothing at all to do with anything going on; they're simple background, victims. The "special people" are coming to save them, with their lectures and their superpowers, and the common schlub is just going to have to live with having his car crushed or his family killed as collateral damage to their "glory". And, at one and the same time, they're pushing all of these ideas about the government and industry being the bad guys... Which is purely schizoid, because on the one hand, unelected and randomly chosen "good guys with special powers" are just great when they wreck the cities with their costumed psychodrama, but elected officials and businessmen just trying to make a living are often cast as the "bad guys" for wanting to do things like build a new highway or buy some property to erect new buildings on.
It's all weirdly subversive and simultaneously conformist as all hell; formulaic to a fault. You don't see anyone in these entertainments who is their own agent, if they're in the background; they're all set-dressing, victims-at-large. There are subversions, of course, deconstructions of it all, but they're few and far between and usually poorly done.
As a form of entertainment, it's a very half-ass and half-witted unintentional copy of your typical long-running theatre genre that's become institutionalized. If you've ever seen Noh or Kabuki, you can see the outlines of the whole derivative pile of schlock.
People who say that the superhero comic-book movies are good entertainment likely think that Star Wars and Star Trek are good science fiction, when the sad reality is that they're all derivative crap they copy/pasted out of much better works.
Yeah, I'm not a lot of fun at parties or talking about popular entertainment, but then I grew up reading the and watching the really good stuff. Today's Hollywood overproductions? They ain't it.
I remember seeing Gene Siskel once explain about the lights either behind the screen or the projector that affects the quality of the image. He said when he first got into being a movie critic, he was surprised how much better the images were when the studios gave him and Ebert private screenings.
He said that particular light is expensive to replace. I the image quality is affected and diminished as a cost save measure on the part of the theaters.
Perfect storm for the Movie Theatre industry.
1) Movies are now woke crap. Hollywood lost it's creative edge and most things are a boring formula. Anybody want to pay $60 to see the all female remake of Ghostbusters??
2) COVID restriction was a nail in the coffin.
3) 70" wide screen 4k and 8K TVs make waiting for a movie to become available at home much more attractive. A months worth of streaming equals the cost of one trip to the theatre.
The Majestic Theatre off I-94 in Waukesha is great. Reclining seats etc... But I haven't been there is like five years, and the parking lot in NEVER full. Movies are no longer a communal experience like they once were.
Narr, 11:00:
"apparently someone named Jonathon Majors has become a star while I wasn't looking."
I hadn't heard of him before seeing it, but he played Ens. Jesse Brown in "Devotion." The movie was superb, and he was excellent in it.
"Devotion" has gotten too little attention. A story from our forgotten war, coming at a time when more people want to see movies about superheroes than about very human ones.
What they did to corey stoll who was thd villain of the first one was terrible
Stark is one part elon one part hughes and one part downey i think when his character and evans left the picture it was the end of the mcu
Think of the old drive in movie theaters. Picture quality, sound quality, and comfort weren't always and important matter. You had a small metal speaker on the driver's side window, or you tuned your radio to an AM station. The screen was a mile away.
But on a hot summer night it was awesome.
The movies were more about everyone, and you didn't hear the actors on last nights CNN broadcast or twitter ranting about their bullshit politics. Drive ins were a place where families took the station wagon, and places you took a date with all your other buddies who had dates and cars.
It’s no secret that films are darker because the television sets people have at home have gotten so much better. Watch that Cohen brothers cowboy movie on a 4K flat screen with true black, and it’s like watching a picture from a glossy magazine come to life.
What else is Hollywood making these days besides superhero and animated movies?
The only reason to see a movie in a theater (and maybe not even then) is for special effects, surround-sound, 3-D, etc., if you go for that sort of thing. So that probably dictates the types of movies that theaters are showing. There's plenty of good stuff available on streaming that's virtually free, versus the $50 or more we'd likely spend going to a theater, which I haven't done in at least five years.
Also, it's not just video that's deteriorated, but audio as well. I'm not sure where I saw it, but there's been some discussion of how it's increasingly hard to make out what actors are saying, to the point that with streaming movies people are resorting to including subtitles. As I recall, one of the problems is over-reliance on sound engineers to fix whatever problems arise from directors' decisions about mic and camera placement.
It's a long-standing pattern, especially for female stars--but sometimes even for male stars-- to end long and distingushed film careers making some genuinely awful films. Most of the great female stars of the 1930s and 1940s (e.g., Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland) were making mediocre horror movies by the 1970s. Veronica Lake, for example, still got top billing as late as 1970, but unfortunately, in the execrable "Flesh Feast."
takirks, comic books, like most media, have varying levels of quality. Yes, they were basically designed to appeal to boys and are written as such, but there have been some great stories in comic books, full of philosophical discussion and powerful character development between action scenes. There is much to mine here for good movies and the MCU generally succeeded at this for quite some time. Then there is the art, which can be breathtakingly good.
The problem now is they have lost interest in adapting or writing good stories in favor of scoring diversity points. Diversity is not a bar to a good story, but these days lots of executives think that if they hire a diverse writer, a diverse director, race/gender swap a few characters, and/or focus on women beating up men twice their weight, that is totally going to equal success. It is a sign that the project is not focused on what is important, and almost always results in substandard work. (Do remember that people who exploit their diversity status are usually very good at exploiting their diversity status and not necessarily good at their actual jobs.) This is especially bad in the comic book industry right now, which likes to flout the diversity hires, almost none of which can write worth a damn, but they work for cheap and the executives get invited to the right parties. It also leads to the phenomenon of existing writers suddenly becoming "bisexuals," which counts as diversity and is more or less impossible to disprove, even if the person in question never engages in non-heterosexual behavior.
Then again, you may just have high standards. Enjoy what you like.
I remember from scarface just a few years before her deaged intro in the second film,
Douglas2 nailed it:
It took to the bottom of the 15th paragraph, but the contextually necessary "films themselves have been getting darker lately."
The movie is just really, really dark. It has nothing to do with projection quality. Another misleading news story.
Here is the trailer. See for yourself: https://youtu.be/RoiZ-yxpCn4
Watching a movie at home with a couple friends and drinks from the liquor cabinet and a large format flat screen with state of the art display and sound volume set to below the deafening setting that theaters use is a very nice experience, compared to what is on offer in most suburban movie theaters. Sure it’s not the same experience as watching a Jerry Lewis movie in some side street art house in the Latin Quarter, but that’s not an option for everybody.
"Movie theater?" What's a "movie theater?"
Exactly. I refuse to voluntarily give money to people who actively hate my guts. Let Hollywood rot.
“I remember Johnny Majors as the "Six-million Dollar Man".”
My partner’s first husband was buddies with Johnny’s brother Lee. He was a classically trained chef, and cooked for Majors on his private plane. When she met him, Majors asked her husband how such an ugly guy got such a beautiful wife, esp since she was smart, not crazy, and didn’t do drugs. It was obvious whom he was speaking about. He then offered to make her famous in Hollywood, which she politely declined. She just wanted to raise their kids. Didn’t figure it out until decades later when it came out that he and Aaron Spelling were neighbors, and played tennis together a bit. That’s where Spelling apparently met Majors’ soon to be ex wife. Turns out both the women were Powers Girls (John Robert Power modeling agency). Just to pass the wealth around, Thomas Magnum (aka Tom Selleck) said almost the same thing, about the ugly guy getting the beautiful wife, a decade later to her second husband. She had gotten a life sized picture of Magnum from her sister after she was widowed, that was on her ceiling for a bit, so when he came one time to pick up his car, she made sure she was there. She declined his offer too. She really likes big guys, and Majors was kinda a runt in her view. Selleck, on the other hand was just right. We religiously watch Blue Bloods every Friday evening for her eye candy. Even in his mid 70s, she still thinks that he is hot.
"Suprisingly deep" = thought it would be pitched to a six year old. But its actually pitched to a 12 year old. Suprise!
Most female stars (exception Streep) make terrible movies after 50 y/o is because Hollywood doesn't like old women. Probably because almost all the scriptwriters and execs are men.
There are been examples of actresses who played Cary Grant's girlfriend when they were young, and playing his Aunt or Mother when they were old.
Hollywood used to be even more biased in favor of young actresses. In the 40s you had Linda Darnell becoming a star at 17, and Lauren Bacall doing the same 20. Stars at 20, over-the-hill at 40.
Back before the turn of the century, I used to be a 3-D projectionist and one of the biggest problems with 3-D projection has always been brightness. Our system had two separate images (a left image and a right image) on each 35mm frame. One was on the top and one was on the bottom. They were put through polarizing filters and recombined on the screen as two overlapping images that were oppositely polarized. So you can see how much brightness is lost in this process. Every once in a while, someone would miss-thread the projector so that it was 1/2 frame off. That meant that the left image appeared in the right eye and vice versa. That gave the audience a massive headache and people would walk out of the theater in droves. (Instead of just flipping their 3-D glasses over.)
Guy ritchies spy caper is more creative
I love movie threads on Althouse. It's a bitch-o-rama highlighted by
1. Humblebrags about not being in a movie theater since ought-three.
2. Complaints about making comic book movies (because it's one thing Hollywood hates is billions of dollars in revenue)
3. "Woke-ism is ruining movies!"
Keeping with the times, the next sequel in the Ant Man franchise will be Aunt Man.
"...Usually, they’re two of the most radiant, dermatologically exceptional people in the world."
"But right now, they’re decrepit husks of themselves, their faces so drained of color that they could pass for cadavers."
Drain everyone's face of color, and no more worries about diversity.
Star wars star trek avengers even transformers are above good vs evil but that isnt allowed anymore its all about greay at least since 2009 with the first 2020 with the last
@Static Ping,
There's some decent "comic book" material out there, but the stuff I'm talking about is the mass-market drivel. Repetitious and tendentious propaganda, always echoing whatever was "popular" in its era. Alan Moore is atypical, and I have to term a lot of what he produced as being again, partisan propaganda.
The point I was making, however, wasn't well-expressed: Comic books are the ultimate left-wing propaganda vehicle. You stop and examine it all, even the supposedly "right-wing" crap just... Isn't. The propaganda versions of Superman and Batman from WWII? All of a piece with that.
The usual story arc is that the hero is coming to the rescue, and you get to do a self-insert into that role in your mind. It's childish and it builds the idea that mere nobodies, regular people, can't do anything to save themselves. The hero has to be anointed, by either alien birth or bitten by a spider, and then they can Can Come and Save the Day (tm). Only them. And, they've got to be approved by the authorities, whether the official types like the President, or the current anointed "special person" who is enlightened to do so.
It's a piece of the learned helplessness they want the public to have engrained in it, and when you go back and look at the milieu it all came out of, 1930s New York, with it's Fiorello LaGuardia and crime-ridden streets? Yeah; there's a reason they wanted people fantasizing about some caped crusader riding in to save them, rather than saving themselves.
There's a meta-message in all that crap, and that's precisely what it is: Crap. Doesn't even have the benefit of good writing, most of it, unlike say... Shakespeare, who was doing propaganda for the regime in Elizabethan times.
I really and truly despise the comic-bookization of everything. The heroes are all copies, with the serial numbers filed off of things invented by much better writers. The Iron Man shtick? That got ripped off from Doc Smith and Robert Heinlein, among others. No original ideas at all. And, what's worse? Like Star Wars, they didn't even do it very well. Kurosawa is probably still spinning in his grave at what Spielberg did with his movies. Of course, that's what Hollywood does--Steal. Look at The Lion King and compare it to the Japanese series Kimba the White Lion, for example.
And, what's most maddening? They can do good stuff. They just don't want to.
@Gusty Winds
"Anybody want to pay $60 to see the all female remake of Ghostbusters??"
As a proud female I can honestly respond.... yyyyyy NO.
Late to the party, I agree with Yancey Ward, that ever since CGI, Computer Generated Imagery, all kinds of movies are depressingly dark. ptewy.
Screens have been dark a long time. Hides CGI rough spots. One reason I watch few new movies.
Urban movie theaters have been awful for some time. I would have thought that ditching film for digital would have made things better, but maybe the new technology was too complicated (or too simple) so projectionists and theater owners stopped bothering with adjusting the image quality.
Jonathan Majors isn't a star like Michelle Pfeiffer. I doubt he's all that "radiant and dermatologically exceptional," and he's no relation to Lee Majors. He was in The Last Black Man in San Francisco which was not at all bad if you don't mind an indy drama about gentrification. The film is more incidental than plot-driven, but it leaves you with a powerful sense of something lost. Tagline: (about San Francisco) "You don't get to hate it unless you love it." One of the antagonists was a realtor named Clayton Newsom. Nice touch.
Paul Rudd is a good comic actor and Evangeline Lilly was nice in Lost, but do all these superhero sequels really add anything?
Urban movie theaters have been awful for some time. I would have thought that ditching film for digital would have made things better, but maybe the new technology was too complicated (or too simple) so projectionists and theater owners stopped bothering with adjusting the image quality.
Jonathan Majors isn't a star like Michelle Pfeiffer. I doubt all that "radiant and dermatologically exceptional," and he's no relation to Lee Majors. He was in The Last Black Man in San Francisco which was not at all bad if you don't mind an indy drama about gentrification. The film is incidental rather than plot driven but it leaves you with a powerful sense of something lost. Tagline: (about San Francisco) "You don't get to hate it unless you love it." One of the antagonists was a realtor named Clayton Newsom. Nice touch.
Paul Rudd is a good comic actor and Evangeline Lilly was nice in Lost, but do all these superhero sequels really add anything to the world?
I was in a packed IMAX last year waiting for Moonage Daydream to begin. Instead the automated projector began showing Woman King to a theater full of lily white Bowie fans.
After 5 minutes a bunch of us went in search of a manager, and it took him another 10 minutes to find someone who could turn that shit off and show the appropriate movie.
Woman king was very dark.
The movie just looks bad, it's not projection.
Static Ping said...
There's nothing necessarily wrong with taking a role in a superhero movie. Superhero movies can be fun and even seemingly fluff parts can be done well, not to mention can be surprisingly deep.
My sentiments exactly. The first few Marvel movies were very good, I thought. Heck, I believe even Robert Redford played the same character twice in two of them, something he hadn't ever done before (so sayeth IMDB anyway). Yes, lately they've been exceptionally mediocre to bad, but the sludge must be pumped.
People are also having issues with movie sound, too.
Ageing with progressive contrast.
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