Directors/Actors Who Dislike New Movies

[rasta-spouse]

I have only seen a handful of Godard (60s stuff), so I'll take your word for it.

Watch some 90s Godard, or even the current millennium stuff. It is the definition of pretentious (and quite good). It'll turn your quaaludes into pocket puppies.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Not seen 90's Godard. Switched off when he did pseudo-documentary stuff; here's a confusing monologue over some footage of cars being built, here's some more confusing monologue over a woman walking up and down the stairs in the buff.

[rasta-spouse]

Yeah, part of his MO is weird voiceover (the worst being the croaky one on Alphaville way back). It is confusing and meaningless, I agree, and I think there's even a Billy Wilder quote saying what pseud he thinks Godard is running around with a little black book of quotes that he's going to use as a voiceover.  But there's some very cool imagery amidst the bullshit.

I especially like it when he gets ugly and digital.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Godard went a bit funny in 68-74 but he got really good again in '75 with Numero deux and he's been cool ever since

[Brundle-Fly]

I was pretty pissed off when Scorsese got paid 50 million for making a credit card commercial.

That's Orson Welles fucked too then.

[Enrico Palazzo]

That's Orson Welles fucked too then.

And David Lynch.

[Bad Ambassador]

I was having a similar conversation the other day. If Bill Hicks had lived, he'd definitely have done commercials.

[Brundle-Fly]

I was having a similar conversation the other day. If Bill Hicks had lived, he'd definitely have done commercials.

More likely cancelled, if he isn't already.

[MortSahlFan]

I was having a similar conversation the other day. If Bill Hicks had lived, he'd definitely have done commercials.

I doubt it. Especially after all his rants about doing commercials. Hell, even if he wanted to, I don't think he'd allow himself to do it out of pride.

P.S. - Hal Ashby was a favorite of mine I left out.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Ingmar Bergman did commercials for soap products

[peanutbutter]

Not seen 90's Godard. Switched off when he did pseudo-documentary stuff; here's a confusing monologue over some footage of cars being built, here's some more confusing monologue over a woman walking up and down the stairs in the buff.

I notice Chris Marker done several of his films with English dubs that he seemingly preferred to be shown to English speaking audiences than his French language original ones and feel Godard is hugely off in not doing the same thing. Chantal Akerman done it for News From Home too.


You know what would have made Goodbye To Language a lot better? Not having to deal with fucking subtitles whilst watching an absolute onslaught of visual stimulation?
You know what would have made Histoire du Cinema watchable? The same thing.

Kind of amazed that I've never been able to find an English dub for either (not that I've looked too hard). It totally fucks over the experience of such visually loaded films to have to deal with subtitles. I assume it's just that the kind of audience who sees these films are fixated on the idea of objective purity of vision ("This is the original version the artist intended") that they don't even think for a minute about how much the dissonance of needing to use your eyes for an extra thing offsets that.

[thecuriousorange]

Francis Ford Coppola: Marvel movies are "despicable"

https://amp.theguardian.com/film/2019/oct/21/francis-ford-coppola-scorsese-was-being-kind-marvel-movies-are-despicable

[phantom_power]

Old cunt who hasn't made a good film in 30 years shouts at clouds

[madhair60]

Ken Loach now https://www.nme.com/news/film/ken-loach-attacks-boring-and-cynical-marvel-movies-2559515

They're all absolutely right, of course

[Monsieur Verdoux]

King Loach

[thecuriousorange]

He should direct I, Bruce Wayne, where the titular hero loses all his money in the post-Brexit global economic meltdown, is made redundant from the Justice League and is forced to use the Batmobile as an Uber on a zero-hours contract.

[phantom_power]

The reasons Loach, Scorcese and Coppola make films are different from the reasons the Russo Brothers or other Marvel directors make films (or at least those films) but that is fair enough. They serve different purposes. Neither purpose is inherently better.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

...I think one of the purposes is demonstrably better, and produces better and more varied work

[Sin Agog]

I hate how every single bloody Kenji Mizoguchi movie has a scene where two characters are fighting and the good one (usually a young woman sold into sexual slavery by her family) is getting properly pummelled- I mean entire minivans and huge chunks of the road are being thrown at her- until, just when it looks like she's down and out, she summons hidden resources she didn't know she had, goes Super Saiyan, and wins the fight.

[phantom_power]

...I think one of the purposes is demonstrably better, and produces better and more varied work

That is very subjective and depends what you want out of a film. If you want something to entertain and thrill you for 2 hours without having to think much then I, Daniel Blake isn't going to cut it

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Notions of quality are indeed subjective, but the question is whether you want films that 'entertain and thrill you for 2 hours without having to think much' to completely dominate the industry, be the only thing showing in your local cinema, and to monopolise the culture to the point of anything else having difficulty finding funding or getting a foothold (Scorsese's last two films were funding nightmares, the Irishman taking 12 years to get proper backing and christ knows how times he's been on the cusp of making Silence before losing funding, even Wolf of Wall Street had a troubled pre-production with no major studio really wanting to put the money in, Coppola has struggled to get his films made since One From the Heart and it's unlikely that he'll get his dream project Megalopolis funded and made before he dies), then we've got a bit of a problem on our hands.

[Sin Agog]

That is very subjective and depends what you want out of a film. If you want something to entertain and thrill you for 2 hours without having to think much then I, Daniel Blake isn't going to cut it

I dunno about this entertainment/art demarcation everyone makes.  I'll often think what I want is to switch off and watch something easy, but then I start to glaze over before I'm even ten minutes in.  Unless we're talking about cup cakes, being glazed is not entertaining.  Now while it can be hard to drag myself over to the cerebral shit, once it's playing I'm usually locked in and riveted and ENTERTAINED in a way I'm not with something that requires no audience engagement whatsoever.  I dunno, man, popcorn movies can be bravura and full of humanity, too, but I'm way more likely to flatline during one of them than something ennertaining and heartfelt like I, Daniel Blake.

[phantom_power]

Notions of quality are indeed subjective, but the question is whether you want films that 'entertain and thrill you for 2 hours without having to think much' to completely dominate the industry, be the only thing showing in your local cinema, and to monopolise the culture to the point of anything else having difficulty finding funding or getting a foothold (Scorsese's last two films were funding nightmares, the Irishman taking 12 years to get proper backing and christ knows how times he's been on the cusp of making Silence before losing funding, even Wolf of Wall Street had a troubled pre-production with no major studio really wanting to put the money in, Coppola has struggled to get his films made since One From the Heart and it's unlikely that he'll get his dream project Megalopolis funded and made before he dies), then we've got a bit of a problem on our hands.

Well that's a different argument, and one I sort of agree with. I think maybe the reason Coppola has struggled to get his films financed though is that they have been mainly dogshit for the last 30 years.  Scorcese's problems are par for the course and have been since the 70s. Getting a film made is hard. It could be said that the sure fire blockbusters of Marvel films might allow lower budget films to get made with less scrutiny, and Netflix and Amazon seem to take a less hands-on approach which may help more ambitious film-makers, but again that is a different topic

[phantom_power]

I dunno about this entertainment/art demarcation everyone makes.  I'll often think what I want is to switch off and watch something easy, but then I start to glaze over before I'm even ten minutes in.  Unless we're talking about cup cakes, being glazed is not entertaining.  Now while it can be hard to drag myself over to the cerebral shit, once it's playing I'm usually locked in and riveted and ENTERTAINED in a way I'm not with something that requires no audience engagement whatsoever.  I dunno, man, popcorn movies can be bravura and full of humanity, too, but I'm way more likely to flatline during one of them than something ennertaining and heartfelt like I, Daniel Blake.

Don't get me wrong, I love both types of film, and points in between. I just don't believe the slightly snobby attitude that one is "better" than the other. Sometimes I want to see super heroes beat each other up and sometimes I want contemplative meditations on the human condition

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Well that's a different argument, and one I sort of agree with. I think maybe the reason Coppola has struggled to get his films financed though is that they have been mainly dogshit for the last 30 years.

They've been dogshit because he's by and large had to take jobs that he doesn't really want to do because nobody will give him money for more personal projects, when he's made his very few personal projects in the last 35 years, he's always been saddled with miniscule budgets, meaning that he can't bring the visionary zeal that defines his best work. That of course all started before the superhero craze, but the monopolisation of the market by superhero films is another nail in the coffin of auteur cinema or even artfully made commercial cinema that isn't shackled to a franchise that dictates a formula. The point of Scorsese's grousing is that these aren't even good commercial films, like the MGM musicals or the Westerns of Ford, Peckinpah, Boetticher, Mann. They're toy adverts with sponsorship from the US military. They're not even vulgar art, they're artless. And the idea that they're increasingly becoming the only game in town should be worrying.

It could be said that the sure fire blockbusters of Marvel films might allow lower budget films to get made with less scrutiny, and Netflix and Amazon seem to take a less hands-on approach which may help more ambitious film-makers, but again that is a different topic

This is simply not happening in any kind of sustained and consistent way. The mid-budget film is by and large dead, and a few high profile Netflix projects cannot fill that massive, massive void that compared to a fertile time like the 70s seems unbearably vast.

[Bad Ambassador]

Rather than blaming films you can't help sneering at, you should wonder about studios becoming entirely corporate, profit-driven enterprises that will not spend money on anything that isn't a guaranteed return on investment. That superhero movies are the current surefire hit is irrelevant, unless you're the kind of tedious dickhead gatekeeper who is disgusted by the idea of people enjoying themselves.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I think you need to calm down a bit. I have no problem with any type of film merely existing or being enjoyed by anybody. If you enjoy this stuff, fine, I don't care. Don't take it personally. And of course I blame the studios rather than 'blaming films', I made that really clear in a couple of posts in this very thread when I referred to the rot having set in before the Superhero era.

[chveik]

I like dogshit Coppola.

[Sin Agog]

I like dogshit Coppola

She prefers to be addressed as Sofia, thank you.

[chveik]

bit sexist