Directors/Actors Who Dislike New Movies

[MortSahlFan]

This may shock you, but I love There Will Be Blood too. Almost as much as Thor Ragnarok.

"There Will Be Blood" is a hell of a movie. Loosely based on Upton Sinclair's book "Oil".

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

No one is writing great books as Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc. to adapt from.

Most great films aren't based on great books. Some of them are, most of them aren't.

[Jim Bob]

...I don't think the culture war 'New York' framing is throwaway, it may be an unconscious slip, but it does reveal a certain defensive mentality that scrambles for cheap slobs/snobs appeal in the face of structural criticism

Indeed.  It's the elite, rich and privileged, toadying up to the common man by making out that they're one of us.  Lord Snootington looking down at the riff-raff, from atop his white stallion and saying "gooble gobble" in an effort earn the admiration of the peasants at his feet.  Fuck off with it.  It's as disingenuous as all heck.  "We're just like you".  No you're not.  We don't live in a mansion like you and unlike you, we don't spend our days making million dollar movies about people in spandex hitting each other.  "Where we come from...".  You live in Hollywood, you cunt!

[chveik]

Most great films aren't based on great books. Some of them are, most of them aren't.

so what? most great films aren't adaptations of great books.

looks like someone has blocked me :(

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Most great minds aren't great, mind you.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Seeing the 'westerns' argument trotted out on social media a lot again, is this ahistorical stuff an agreed upon talking point or something

[marquis_de_sad]

Let's all just agree that superhero movies are ace and stop all this silly business.

Every page in this thread has someone misunderstanding the point that Disney is dominating the market and taking away the space for other types of films. No one wants to take away your manchild movies.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Latest Cahiers du Cinéma editorial addresses all this recent business

by Stéphane Delorme

Cahiers du Cinéma, Editorial n°762 – January 2020

The controversy which followed Martin Scorsese's sensational article in the New York Times against the marvelisation of Hollywood ("I don't think they're cinema") was not without interest, since Bob Iger, Chief Executive Officer of Disney and therefore of Marvel, then announced plans for a meeting with the filmmaker, like in a parody of The Irishman. At stake here is a major and profound issue for American cinema. Everything is getting reorganised. Netflix has triggered a small brain drain with the New York trio of Scorsese, Safdie and Baumbach, which weakens the historical studios when it comes to the Oscars. The signifier "cinema" is burning on all sides. The choice of Twin Peaks: The Return as n°1 in our top 10 of the decade (corroborated by our readers' top 10!) made some people gnash their teeth, especially in the United States, because it apparently isn't cinema but a TV show [in Eng. in the text]. So what, Avengers would be cinema, but not Twin Peaks? The key issue was to affirm the fact that cinema was present there at its strongest intensity. Cinema is in Twin Peaks and in The Irishman, just as it is in Uncut Gems, even though these works are not showing in cinemas. It is also in Joker, a torpedo against the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) inspired by Scorsese and which he almost directed himself (he truly does bring together all the elements of the debate), a film that is committed, thoughtful and risky, and not programmed for already conquered fans. The spiciest part of the story is that Robert Iger didn't come out of nowhere: he is the same person who, in 1989, as director of programming at ABC, prevented Lynch from making Twin Peaks the way he wanted, sabotaged the second season by bringing forward the revelation of the murderer, and almost fired the filmmaker because "he did not know the rules of storytelling." The people we are dealing with are destroyers. For Lynch to return 25 years later with "his" Twin Peaks is an extraordinary revenge. There is indeed, in the United States, a fight for cinema, carried out by Lynch, Scorsese, Coppola, as cinema is being emptied of its content in theatres and filmmakers take refuge wherever they can.

According to some, Scorsese isn't defending cinema but "personal cinema" [Eng.], a vague formula we do not use in France and which refers both to auteur cinema and to cinema in the first person. It used to be that personal cinema was the filmed diary of Jonas Mekas; now it is also Scorsese! This is a way of ghettoising filmmakers by creating a special genre for them. But let us keep the formula and flip it, and the obverse is an impersonal cinema: international, global, anonymous, aimed at target audiences. A personal cinema addresses persons. The reason we care so much about Tommaso is that Ferrara, who has taken refuge in Italy, finds inspiration in his emotions and in his actor. The Safdies say "Howard, he's us!" ["Howard, c'est nous !"]. Almodóvar (who mocked the "sterilised" and asexual Marvel films) talks about himself through Antonio Banderas. Each time the filmmaker mines his own experience to find treasures, life is sublimated. All of them defend a romantic vision: the filmmaker expresses a vision of man and of the world.

If we want to get past the literal idea that "cinema is what is shown in a cinema" (which serves to legitimise Disney, as it buys more and more screens), if we have an idea of cinema, like Scorsese does, the question then arises: is what we are seeing still "cinema", this magical word radiating with history, with thoughts and practices? We have to wonder how much longer geeks and disruptive start-upers will need this beautiful old word. The Russo brothers, directors of the gruel Avengers: Endgame, the biggest success of all time, ultimately agree with Scorsese when they respond to his article with contempt: "Cinema is a New York word; we are making motion pictures [Eng.]". The Russos are but one cog in the Disney machine that dethrones the filmmaker for the profit of the producer-king. Obviously, the conflict between producers and filmmakers has always existed, but producers have never been this ignorant, cowardly and lacking in imagination. At the end of the 1920s, William Fox and Winfield Sheehan were the first to create in the United States a safe haven for filmmakers: they had Hawks, Ford, Walsh, Dwan and Borzage under contract, and they invited Murnau, who then shot Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. These men had a vision. Today, Fox is owned by Disney, and the company does whatever it pleases with its masterpieces, if it is even aware of their existence. Cinephiles must wake up. This is not a conflict of generations, this is the destruction of art, past and present, by haggling wheeler-dealers.

Translated from French by Elena Lazic, with help from Caspar Salmon and Paul Ridd.

https://elena-et-les-films.tumblr.com/post/190325761571/cinema/amp?__twitter_impression=true

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Don't agree with the bit about 'Joker' being "a torpedo against the MCU", seems faintly ridiculous to me

[greenman]

I don't think he is saying in his clarification anything that anyone with a bit of sense couldn't work out from his general persona. I think he is broadly correct but picking in the easy target (Marvel films that he will never work on anyway) rather than the actual underlying, more tricky to criticise reasons like lazy, risk-averse studio execs (who he might have to work with at some point)

Going back to this as well I think Marty's career over the last 20+ years is actually a product of how risk-averse execs are going with a known name/brand and the Irishman especially for me is a film just as cynical in its targeting an audience as Disney blockbusters.

I really do not trust Netflix as some kind of guardians of cinema either and honestly I think their record for producing classic cinema pretty poor given the giant amounts of money spent. I'd say there dominance of the Oscars probably says more about how much they have spent to push the films involved, the Marriage Story leads deserve the noms but I don't think the Irishman deserves any of its noms.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I wouldn't worry about The Irishman winning any Oscars, as it won't

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Going back to this as well I think Marty's career over the last 20+ years is actually a product of how risk-averse execs are going with a known name/brand and the Irishman especially for me is a film just as cynical in its targeting an audience as Disney blockbusters.

Worth noting perhaps, that the money for Scorsese's two (fiction) films prior to The Irishman was raised piecemeal from many different smaller production sources because no big executive wanted to go near those projects.

[Sebastian Cobb]

In case you missed them, here's the first 20 marvel films.
https://youtu.be/CZpZylQs-F8

[bgmnts]

20 big budget films in 10 years. Ridiculous output.

[MortSahlFan]

Worth noting perhaps, that the money for Scorsese's two (fiction) films prior to The Irishman was raised piecemeal from many different smaller production sources because no big executive wanted to go near those projects.

Neither did any of the publishers for that fake-assed book. Eventually Frankie accumulated so much legal fees, the LAWYER wrote the piece of shit book so that it could be made into a piece of shit movie.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Well, I was referring to 'Wolf of Wall Street' and 'Silence' there, his two projects prior to 'The Irishman'. The book that The Irishman is based on is rather obviously spurious nonsense, as are most bestselling accounts of American organised crime, it would seem

[MortSahlFan]

Well, I was referring to 'Wolf of Wall Street' and 'Silence' there, his two projects prior to 'The Irishman'. The book that The Irishman is based on is rather obviously spurious nonsense, as are most bestselling accounts of American organised crime, it would seem

Pacino could have spent 5 minutes on YouTube watching a Jimmy Hoffa interview and done a better job.

"The Wolf of Wall Street" is the worst movie I've ever seen. It's empty debauchery ("but that's what it was supposed to be" excuses were almost as tiring)

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Can't say that I was too hot on Wolf of Wall Street either. I got what it was trying to do, but it was quite monotonous

[bgmnts]

Wolf of Wall Street has a really shit ending and is just full of really unlikable cunts being cunty, with no character arcs or redemption or any lessons learnt.

Poo.

[Noodle Lizard]

Especially since the real-life Jordan Belfort is still going and likely profited directly off it (didn't they have to pay him $1m for the rights alone?) Also, anyone at all inclined towards Wall Street/stock market cuntery would use it as an aspirational vision board - I wouldn't be surprised if we saw an uptick in penny-stock traders after the release of that movie.

To be fair to Scorsese, though, it was more Leonardo DiCaprio's project from the off - and a bit of a vain one at that. Remember, this was during the final stretch of his decades-long Oscar campaign.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Jordan Belfort seemed to get quite the profitable speaking tour out of it, he was prominently advertised as coming to the Hammersmith Apollo when I went to see Louis CK there in 2016

[Noodle Lizard]

Jordan Belfort seemed to get quite the profitable speaking tour out of it, he was prominently advertised as coming to the Hammersmith Apollo when I went to see Louis CK there in 2016

Good lord, really? I figured it would still just be sallow conference rooms in mid-range hotels.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I was pretty flabbergasted to see the posters at the time, certainly gives the end of the film a different hue: https://www.eventimapollo.com/events/detail/jordan-belfort

[mojo filters]

To be fair to Scorsese, though, it was more Leonardo DiCaprio's project from the off - and a bit of a vain one at that. Remember, this was during the final stretch of his decades-long Oscar campaign.

I have a pretty clear recollection of Scorsese stating in interview(s) that he considered that film as the last part of his own concept of a trilogy - going Goodfellas > Casino etc.

It stuck in my head, as I'd always thought of Mean Streets > Goodfellas > Casino as a trilogy of sorts. Each one advances the previous movie, both in the sophistication of storytelling, increased character complexity, plus technical cinematic proficiency.

I thought Wolf Of Wall Street was a fine film, but apart from the quaalude porn - I couldn't relate at all to Jordan Belfort. By contrast, Ray Liotta's Henry Hill was the perfect portrayal of an "everyman" character, caught up in an unfamiliar yet fascinating world.

[Noodle Lizard]

I'm sure Scorsese put the effort in and promoted it as well as he could, but it was DiCaprio and Warner Bros who bought the rights in the first place (I just learned that he was up against Brad Pitt in the bidding war, unsurprisingly) and it went through a series of directors, whereas Scorsese was involved with Mean Streets/Goodfellas/Casino from the get-go.

[greenman]

For me really the negative reaction to this story is that it seems to be pushing Netflix and other streaming services as the savours of "true cinema" which I think is highly questionable.

I would say really its been the arthouse/indie scene that's been the true savour of ambitious cinema post millenium, the system of picking up funding from various generally non big studio sources and distribution via small cinemas and home media. The latter especially is I think one of the most liberal environments we've seen for cinema, beyond national censors what ended up for purchase on disk was/is very broad indeed. I worry that with streaming services there will be more of a sense of a "brand" to be threatened, negative reaction against one film will potentially damage a streaming brand so fewer risks will be taken.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

^All true^

[Mister Six]

Wolf of Wall Street has a really shit ending and is just full of really unlikable cunts being cunty, with no character arcs or redemption or any lessons learnt.

Why are any of those things inherently necessary, or even desirable?

[colacentral]

Seeing the 'westerns' argument trotted out on social media a lot again, is this ahistorical stuff an agreed upon talking point or something

The ratio of westerns to non-westerns up into the 1950s was significantly higher than comic book to non-comic book is today. And you pointed out that other types of films were being made - well, they are now too. Scorsese's long piece justifying his statement even mentions a bunch of present day directors regularly releasing big non-comic book films - Wes Anderson, PT Anderson, Spike Lee etc.

The thing with westerns is that they were pulpy factory produced tosh for a mass market audience, but they too produced enduring classics that Scorsese would no doubt call cinema. The Winter Soldier is not Once Upon a Time in the West, but it is a strong action thriller in it's own right, not just amongst comic book films, with genuinely surprising narrative twists, and a different look to other Marvel films. It transcends the genre. Thor: Ragnarok is a sci-fi comedy just as Ghostbusters is, and is just as funny, if not funnier. We can debate the pros and cons of each in a straight comparison but the point is, would Scorsese call Ghostbusters cinema but not Thor? It too is visually distinct from any other Marvel film, and tonally opposite to Winter Soldier.

Even if you only take those two films out of the 22 or so Marvel films and say those are the only genuinely good ones that stand apart as modern classics of the genre, that is still a good ratio when you consider that most films produced in any genre at any point in time are mostly crap.

And again, Scorsese admits that he hasn't watched them, so it's ludicrous for him to define what makes cinema ("emotional surprises" etc) and then say some films he hasn't seen aren't cinema because they don't have that. How would he even know?

I'm not even invested particularly in the argument itself; if it's in good faith from someone who actually knows the material, I'd be glad to hear it. But it's not. He comes across like a right wanker and I get the feeling his problem is a problem with himself and his own insecurities more than anything.

[chveik]

The Winter Soldier is not Once Upon a Time in the West

it's not even Wild Rovers