Things That Bother You About Moving Pictures

[Dr. Insomniac]

Didn't know where else to put this, but Bruce Willis is retiring due to aphasia making it hard for him to communicate.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Was thinking about this on Twitter a few days ago, when was the last we got a really bad mainstream movie that everyone universally agreed was shit and became the next The Last Airbender or Meet the Spartans? The latter especially, because I saw a tweet talking about how the one of the few positives in modern Hollywood is the lack of those shitty spoof films, but I kinda miss the camaraderie that happened from everybody united in hating those movies. Everybody from superhero movie fans to arthouse film buffs to even fans of lowbrow comedies teamed up to despise the "Movie" Movie parodies. I haven't seen that kind of reaction in a while, when the entire film community had a common enemy. Nowadays, all the bad movies that come out in theaters are just unremarkably bad, have a few good elements so defenders pop up, or not bad enough to be interesting to talk about months after it came out. Cats seemed like it was going to be that kind of movie, but then it disappeared from the public spotlight even before the pandemic happened.

And it's not like awful movies no sane person would defend don't exist anymore, but they're mostly pushed into direct-to-streaming or ignored because nobody knows about their existence, instead of any of them gaining the same status The Room did.

[Dr. Insomniac]

It occurred to me that Everything Everywhere All at Once is only the 3rd sci-fi/fantasy film to win Best Picture, after Lord of the Rings and Shape of Water.

Also, the fucking Oscars forgot to put David Warner in their In Memoriam segment. The BAFTAs apparently forgot too. It's not like Warner's an obscure actor, he's been in movies normal people have watched like Titanic and The Omen.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So Indiana Jones 5 apparently sucks, like "Maybe we were too harsh on Crystal Skull" sucks. Which is a shame because Mangold has some hits under his belt. But I guess he was more in his The Wolverine mood than his Logan one.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'll be honest, I was never as big on Indiana Jones as some people, so the news that the newest (and presumably final one) sucks doesn't really sting all that much, especially because the original trilogy in and of itself had a perfect ending to it.

Still, I was hoping it would be good especially because of James Mangold's pretty strong pedigree, but it looks like it just didn't click this time, for whatever reason.

[Avaitor]

As someone who didn't grow up watching the Indiana Jones franchise and only saw the movies as an adult, I have to say that I don't think the world would be a worse place if Raiders was a stand-alone film. Temple of Doom is dumb and uncomfortable and the other two, while more fun, are largely Raiders retreads.

This one isn't looking any better, but I'm not worried about Mangold. Everyone's entitled to a miss.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Captain Obvious has chimed in regarding Miyazaki.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So Tarantino's ditching The Movie Critic, and what's stopping him from letting go of his "10 movies and I'm done" rule? Because I know why he started the rule in the first place, since he looked at De Palma's filmography, saw him go from making all-time classics like Carrie, Scarface, The Untouchables, to making something like Domino (I haven't watched the entire movie, but I've seen enough to be confused at how he made Nikolaj Coster-Waldau sound as if he's never acted in his life before), and went "Not gonna let that happen to me!" But it's obvious Tarantino's got ideas for another dozen movies like his own Star Trek or Kill Bill 3 or another kung-fu film, and his self-imposed barrier is more of a frustration than a safeguard. Like how many Tarantino projects went unrealized because he just couldn't let go of his 10-movie plan?

Besides, I thought Death Proof was a stinker.

While to contrast, you've got Coppola about to release his new movie, and I've seen reviews go "Maybe we should ditch definitions of 'good' and 'bad' and take this film all in as a unique experience". And that's another discussion about great directors who fall off vs great directors who keep churning out art well into old age. Like how for a while, I remember Spielberg was considered the former before he started making movies people liked again. Same with Shyamalan of all directors, and I don't really get it there.

[Avaitor]

I get the impression Tarantino is thinking more about the old masters, whose careers more often than not fizzle after a couple of decades. But a lot of those, like Ford, Hawks and Wyler were more studio hands than true auteurs, and they some of them have all-timers much later. Hell, Hitchcock was 30 years in when he did his impeccable run of Vertigo-North by Northwest-Psycho, but of course QT isn't a big fan of Hitch. Nowadays, we have Spielberg and Scorsese making all-timers 50 years into their career, there's no reason to think he can't still pull them off for another decade or two.

Also, he's technically already made 10 features, unless he counts Kill Bill as one or disqualifies Death Proof for some reason.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I assume he counts Kill Bill as one. I mean, I do.

And of course, Tarantino's well known for being... eccentric, so maybe there's more to it. Although it is ironic how he thinks directors eventually decay when I remember a few recent interviews where he said he liked The Irishman and the recent West Side Story. Hell, one of his favorite movies of all time is Battle Royale, and that film is Fukasaku's swan song in a long career of directing dozens of works.

Or maybe fatherhood's changed him. I'd get wanting to spend more time raising the kids, instead of going off and burning years on directing a movie while missing parental milestones.