-
1 Attachment(s)
[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4689380]Are they standalone though?
In Winter Soldier, the reveal that SHIELD is HYDRA only works if you go into the movie knowing that Hydra=Nazis who Cap beat up in the war before going under the ice. You really need to have seen Captain America First Avenger to understand the emotional thrust of that. Likewise, Bucky=Winter Soldier. Also Arnim Zola aka the mousy sidekick of Hugo Weaving's character is actually some advanced computer program. I mean that's on the level of needing to have seen Captain America 1 to see Captain America 2 so it's not a big deal as say Captain America Civil War (which makes no sense if you haven't seen Avengers 1, Winter Soldier AND Age of Ultron on top of that).
Captain Marvel assumes a lot of broad knowledge on the part of the viewer, namely about Nick Fury, the Tesseract (the source of Carol's powers whose mechanics aren't explained fully in the movie and you need to know from earlier movies that the Teserract is some weird McGuffin), and also Ronan the Accuser.
Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther are [I]relatively[/I] standalone, I'll grant you. I mean yeah Thanos in Guardians being our first impression of the great villain of the series but even if you didn't see the Avengers you sort of know from the movie who and what Thanos is/supposed to mean. Black Panther likewise.
But even then on a stylistic level, all these movies look pretty samey. This video by Patrick Willems talks about this. and in all likelihood when Scorsese is saying these movies aren't cinema, this is what he's probably referring to.
[video=youtube;hpWYtXtmEFQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpWYtXtmEFQ[/video]
He has a three part video on this if you want to check it out for a longer argument. Here's part 1 where he expands on that ([url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6Bq_jK0Z1Y[/url]).[/QUOTE]
Have you seen the thor 4 love and thunder poster?
It has a theme park feel. Marvel should not be doing this type of posters. Not just is it ugly, its over the top and lacks realism. the same applies to their movies looking ugly.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]89432[/ATTACH]
The stylistic aspect of marvel looking the same is a result of the Disney formula, the directors they hire don't direct their movies. if you look at marvel movies of the past Spiderman, X-Men, Blade. they don't look the same, their tone is not the same either. again, where was Scorsese bashing marvel in the lates 90s and early 2000s?
-
[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4690146]The Walt Disney Corporation will always be "the establishment" far more than Scorsese ever will be. Scorsese's movies are on par in terms of hits/flops so in terms of power dynamics, Disney/Marvel is in a position of power over him and other film-makers. The directors of the MCU whether it's James Gunn, or others, despite their youth now have a greater level of power than he does. And yeah that applies to Gunn even after Disney temporarily fired him. When Gunn got fired, he immediately got a huge gig and big pay for The Suicide Squad...when Scorsese as a young man was fired from The Honeymoon Killers he had to go through four years of "director jail" before he got his break.
Scorsese would be "the establishment" as an American mainstream film-maker to say a director out of film-school, or film-makers from other countries like Argentina, China and others who Scorsese at various times has helped. Just this year, he helped the director of The Current War ([url]https://variety.com/2019/scene/news/current-war-directors-cut-martin-scorsese-harvey-weinstein-1203379557/[/url]), the Mexican born Alfonso Gomez-Remon regain final cut from Harvey Weinstein who tried to cut the film (because Weinstein likes to rape movies too). To them Scorsese has been a friendly establishment but that's only a small amount of power he has.
Well it's hard for there to be true real emotional stakes once you make it clear that no matter what the movies will keep churning, the setting will remain standing in such a way that nothing sticks and lasts. In that respects, the MCU is quite like the comic books. [B]For anyone schooled in cinema which for the vast majority of history and the vast quantity of movies has always meant one-and-done standalone stuff whereby movies end with changes that last stick and are undone...this stuff would look jarring[/B]. As Scorsese said, "they are sequels in name but remakes in spirit". In that the story will always be wiped clean in the next movie or one after and start from scratch again.
When the MCU came out, it had a charm of seeing an approximation of comics continuity in live action and it was [B]refreshing but now it looks like one of the advantages and virtues a superhero movie had which was a sense of definite resolution and change, is being removed. Look at Batman 1989 where Joker dies at the end, or Norman Osborn dying at the end of Spider-Man 1 or Ock in Spider-Man 2[/B]. Now you aren't going to get that since studios will want to do a Sinister Six movie or something eventually. So in that respects superhero movies went from cinematic takes on comics to becoming less and less cinematic.[/QUOTE]
Just a quick Point. You do know Marvel kill off most they're villians, it was a big fan complaint. Not sure the point you were trying to make with Joker/Osborne/Doc Ock. OBADIAH Stane, Whiplash,Killian, Killmonger,Ronan, Korath,Ego,Malakeith,Yellow jacket,Hela,Mysterio... that's all I got off the top my head. The only villians they brought back was Red Skull and most people didnt think he was dead anyway to begin with. Marvel killing a villian at the end of a movie Is way more predictable then them living.
-
[QUOTE=Midvillian1322;4690381]Just a quick Point. You do know Marvel kill off most they're villians, it was a big fan complaint. Not sure the point you were trying to make with Joker/Osborne/Doc Ock. OBADIAH Stane, Whiplash,Killian, Killmonger,Ronan, Korath,Ego,Malakeith,Yellow jacket,Hela,Mysterio... that's all I got off the top my head. The only villians they brought back was Red Skull and most people didnt think he was dead anyway to begin with. Marvel killing a villian at the end of a movie Is way more predictable then them living.[/QUOTE]
Marvel has a lot of problem with their villains. MCU has a medicore rogues gallery. that was a bigger fan complaints than a compliment. Killing villains carries no weight if they never made a convincing threat in the first place, which goes back to the lazy writing of mcu movies.
Watch Scorsese's gangs of Newyork and try and compare the villains in those films to mcu movies.
-
[QUOTE=Beaddle;4690384]Marvel has a lot of problem with their villains. MCU has a medicore rogues gallery. that was a bigger fan complaints than a compliment. Killing villains carries no weight if they never made a convincing threat in the first place, which goes back to the lazy writing of mcu movies.
Watch Scorsese's gangs of Newyork and try and compare the villains in those films to mcu movies.[/QUOTE]
That was a complaint but the fna base has loved the villians for the last couple years. But none of this has anything to do with what I said.
-
I wonder how Scorsese and some others will feel about this.
[QUOTE=Al Pacino]“I just saw Guardians Of The Galaxy… It was amazing. I did find it the most entertaining, inventive, beautiful film. So I’m not anti-that at all.”[/QUOTE]
[url]https://deadline.com/2014/08/venice-al-pacino-humbling-manglehorn-depression-actors-studio-guardians-of-the-galaxy-827062/#comments[/url]
[QUOTE=Al Pacino]“It was not something I would readily go see, but my kids got me to go, and one has to draw the line at where prejudice starts and where it ends — that was good stuff!” He had even more praise: “I recognized the ingenious stuff they were doing; the invention, the attractiveness of the way they were performing it. It had Shakespearian feeling to it at times. I was caught up in the big screen, the great sound…
I would do anything that I could understand in terms of how I fit in it. And you know, of course if I could fit in it. Anything’s possible,” he told me. Then he winked, “You know, I did Dick Tracy and I got an Oscar nomination, so come on. I mean, what can I say?”[/QUOTE]
[url]https://deadline.com/2014/09/venice-al-pacino-marvel-movie-guardians-of-the-galaxy-sequel-828455/[/url]
[QUOTE=Al Pacino]“I’ve met with the Marvel guy,” said Pacino, referring to the studio’s president Kevin Feige. “It’s a Marvel how things happen.” He added: “I would imagine that either there’s something he feels is right for me …” Pacino was then interrupted by a phone call and joked that it was Marvel on the line telling him to hold his tongue.
It was just inventive, funny, strong, the production of it, the ingenuity of it,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I like a movie like that, appreciate a movie like that? I’m not necessarily going to be in it, but there’s value to it.”[/QUOTE]
[url]https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/10/al-pacino-talks-guardians-of-the-galaxy-studio-marvel[/url]
-
[QUOTE=Blind Wedjat;4690409]I wonder how Scorsese and some others will feel about this.
[url]https://deadline.com/2014/08/venice-al-pacino-humbling-manglehorn-depression-actors-studio-guardians-of-the-galaxy-827062/#comments[/url]
[url]https://deadline.com/2014/09/venice-al-pacino-marvel-movie-guardians-of-the-galaxy-sequel-828455/[/url]
[url]https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/10/al-pacino-talks-guardians-of-the-galaxy-studio-marvel[/url][/QUOTE]
Spielberg has also said Hes likes Guardians better then The Dark Knight and Donners Superman. It's his favorite Comicbook movie
-
[QUOTE=Midvillian1322;4690421]Spielberg has also said Hes likes Guardians better then The Dark Knight and Donners Superman. It's his favorite Comicbook movie[/QUOTE]
Not all mega directors deslike MCU films. for now it is 90% to 10%. Spielberg is a mixed bag, he may have liked GOTG but at the same time he thinks the genre will die out which is an insult to MCU because mcu right now is ruling the genre and put out 3 films a year, they are extending it to 4 films a year in the future.
GOTG is a movie that has not aged well because this is what started the MCU joke fest era that they can never escape. in the contrary, it is one of the worst parts of endgame with (Thor) and that is the highest grossing film ever. the sequel to GOTG now makes the first film look worse because it is all about Jokes and CGI.The Joke is not on GOTG now that R rated Joker, a film, that was meant to be about a clown has hit a billion compared to GOTG that is not meant to be a clown type of movie.
-
[QUOTE=Mister Mets;4690108]
[url]https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/captain_marvel/reviews/[/url]
I would guess Scorsese didn't mention Avatar because it was one movie, rather than 20+ blockbusters.[/QUOTE]
Scorsese does not mention avatar because avatar was a visual film making masterpiece. scorsese got some avatar help making Hugo. MCU is a specific type of blockbuster that is irritating the crap out of scorsese. we really can't compare MCU to other blockbusters. we just can't. not even Sam Raimi Spiderman or Nolan's Batman blockbusters.
-
[QUOTE=Powerboy;4690296]But I tend to oppose any solution that amounts to, "Say, let's give the audience what they need rather than what they want because, in our superiority, we know what's best for them and what's best is what we define as art rather than what they really want. So let's not give them a choice and only offer the movies we want them to like".[/QUOTE]
Audience choice is precisely what Scorsese is talking about. Audiences don't really have a choice these days. Distribution restricts access to foreign films, indie films and other stuff from finding even a limited release. One can argue that audiences never really had a choice before. The only real time was the period between 1947 to the late 80s when the Supreme Court broke up the distribution monopolies of the studios and that allowed independent theatres more freedom to program stuff. That also happens to be the period of Scorsese's childhood and generally a major period of innovation and creativity across American cinema and international cinema.
[QUOTE=Blind Wedjat;4690409]I wonder how Scorsese and some others will feel about this. [/QUOTE]
Scorsese isn't exactly a cinema policeman. He's speaking just for himself and offering a personal view. He's not going to order hits on his friends for liking superhero movies or you know working on superhero movies. He cast Andrew Garfield in his movie SILENCE after all.
I mean if Scorsese went after people for expressing opinions different from his own, if he was incapable of tolerating people with different tastes and so on...that would make him no different from a MCU fanboy. And he is very different.
-
Just watched GOTG I and II, and I can say they are both fun wonderful movies that have aged very well. GOTG I is still better, but that ending to II...snif :(
-
[QUOTE=Beaddle;4690461]Scorsese does not mention avatar because avatar was a visual film making masterpiece. scorsese got some avatar help making Hugo. MCU is a specific type of blockbuster that is irritating the crap out of scorsese. we really can't compare MCU to other blockbusters. we just can't. not even Sam Raimi Spiderman or Nolan's Batman blockbusters.[/QUOTE]
Rob Legato who has done the special effects work for James Cameron's Titanic and Avatar, is also Scorsese's VFX guy who's worked with him extensively since The Aviator. He won an Oscar for both Titanic and Hugo.
Scorsese probably doesn't have issues with Cameron because he, like Spielberg and Lucas, doesn't make one kind of film. You look at Cameron's work he started doing Aliens, then Terminator, and then shifted to stuff like True Lies and Titanic before changing the game with Avatar. George Lucas likewise as a producer has funded and developed a lot of niche and weird stuff such as Mishima, an American movie shot in Japanese with a Japanese cast, directed by Paul Schrader (screenwriter of Taxi Driver). Lucas also produced Coppola's Tucker, Koyanniqatsi, Akira Kurosawa's Kagemush and Ran, and his company ILM helped Scorsese with the VFX for Irishman. Spielberg has been pretty vocal that his ideal is the Golden Age where directors made movies in multiple genres and shifting from one kind of movie to another, so Spielberg can do science-fiction but he can also do Empire of the Sun, he can do movies like Catch Me if you Can, Munich, and more recently stuff like Bridge of Spies, and The Post, and Lincoln. That's also Scorsese's ideal making different kinds of movies and not just the one kind. Does Scorsese like every movie made by Cameron, Lucas, and Spielberg...probably not, but he would see himself aligned with them in terms of what movies should be and what it should be about.
Whereas the MCU only make Marvel movies. They draw in talented actors and directors and homogenize them into mostly indistinguishable movies. As Patrick Willems and others pointed out, a lot of Marvel movies are made without the directors' involvements since Marvel invests a lot in stunts and vfx so pre-vis work is done independently of the director's demands. Directors don't have a say in action scenes and choreography as Lucrecia Martel pointed out. They also don't have a say in the lighting which is pretty stagnant across the board as Willems noted, pointing out the exterior lighting whether done by Gunn, Coogler, Waititi, and Russo all look pretty much the same.
Compare that to Spielberg's work as a producer. Spielberg isn't just friends with Scorsese, he's also helped him. For instance, Cape Fear was a movie Spielberg was gonna make but he knew Scorsese was having difficulties getting projects done, so he told Scorsese to make the movie, it would be done fast, and it would sell big and get him cache to make more personal stuff. Scorsese didn't like the script so Spielberg allowed him to change it extensively. Spielberg also backed Joe Dante when he made Gremlins. There was a controversial scene about Santa Claus that producers didn't want and Spielberg backed Dante even if he didn't entirely like that scene.
-
[font=Palatino Linotype][color=navy][size=3]Hey folks, getting a little tired of having to come back in this thread to delete rude personal comments. So I'm going to make it real simple; if you make a rude, insulting, condescending, or disrespectful comment about another forum member, no matter how light, you're getting kicked from the site. If you have a history of this, it might be permanent. Discuss the topic or go away.[/size][/color][/font]
-
[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4690549]Audience choice is precisely what Scorsese is talking about. Audiences don't really have a choice these days. Distribution restricts access to foreign films, indie films and other stuff from finding even a limited release. One can argue that audiences never really had a choice before. The only real time was the period between 1947 to the late 80s when the Supreme Court broke up the distribution monopolies of the studios and that allowed independent theatres more freedom to program stuff. That also happens to be the period of Scorsese's childhood and generally a major period of innovation and creativity across American cinema and international cinema.
Scorsese isn't exactly a cinema policeman. He's speaking just for himself and offering a personal view. He's not going to order hits on his friends for liking superhero movies or you know working on superhero movies. He cast Andrew Garfield in his movie SILENCE after all.
I mean if Scorsese went after people for expressing opinions different from his own, if he was incapable of tolerating people with different tastes and so on...that would make him no different from a MCU fanboy. And he is very different. [/QUOTE]
Okay, I admit this is a valid point. While most movies seem to get distribution, albeit a much shorter run than they would get without the MCU and similar movies, there are some movies that never get any distribution worth calling distribution. Granted we have lots of other means these days such as streaming, etc. But that doesn't help much if someone doesn't even know a movie exists. One could also argue that most people would not go to see some of the foreign and Indy movies even if they did know about them but that's another issue. I would even go so far as to say that, in multiplex theatres, you don't need a movie to be running in four theater rooms out of the eight available (or whatever the number may be) for everyone to get a fair chance to see the movie. That's only necessary for people that go see the same movie two dozen times. I'm sure there are also other factors such as the cost to the theater to get a movie, contractual agreements about how long it will be shown and in how many rooms, etc. But these movies are easy money so I don't see it changing.
Regarding your second point, yes, I've heard some of these people who deride the MCU say, hey, if you are an up and coming actor who needs the work and they offer you an MCU movie, take it. Take the paycheck. There's also the other way where an established actor who clearly can be picky in what he does like Michael Keaton does a parody of the superhero genre like "Birdman" turns around and takes an MCU movie because he thought the character was interesting and it was a good script. Keaton also asked the director if he chose him because he played Batman and if this was a shot at him to which the director said he hadn't even thought of the fact that Keaton played Batman and that this was not a shot at his Batman movies or the Christopher Reeve Superman movies but at the "glut" of superhero movies today. I put "glut" in quotes to indicate that I don't think two to four movies a year in a genre can be seriously called a "glut" when other genres in a given year have far more movies and it's nothing different than having a "glut" of westerns when they were the most popular genre or whatever genre may have been big at the time. (I am still grateful that the whole car chase movies of the late 1970s and early 1980s faded fast). The only difference with the current superhero craze is the sheer level of the popularity and the money they are pulling in.
On the last point, I don't think it is fanboyism to say that these movies have the right to exist and to dominate if that's what people want to see. Plus, in context, MCU fans would have to be saying that there should be less of other movies made which is clearly not what they are saying. Also, simply disagreeing and saying a movie is good that someone else thinks is bad may or may not be fanboyism. That's in the eyes and mind of the beholder.
-
[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4690146]
Well it's hard for there to be true real emotional stakes once you make it clear that no matter what the movies will keep churning, the setting will remain standing in such a way that nothing sticks and lasts. In that respects, the MCU is quite like the comic books.[/QUOTE]
Plenty of stuff has stuck. Shield disbanding, the five year jump, asgard falling, the various villain that have died. The only major undoing was the Thanos snap and to be fair that was never going to be permanent. They weren't going to erase doctor strange and spiderman in particular when they had barely started with them. But that very telegraphed undoing aside they have been fairly good about letting things stick.
-
[QUOTE=Powerboy;4690752]Okay, I admit this is a valid point. While most movies seem to get distribution, albeit a much shorter run than they would get without the MCU and similar movies, there are some movies that never get any distribution worth calling distribution.[/quote]
Thank you.
[quote] Granted we have lots of other means these days such as streaming, etc. But that doesn't help much if someone doesn't even know a movie exists. One could also argue that most people would not go to see some of the foreign and Indy movies even if they did know about them but that's another issue. I would even go so far as to say that, in multiplex theatres, you don't need a movie to be running in four theater rooms out of the eight available (or whatever the number may be) for everyone to get a fair chance to see the movie. That's only necessary for people that go see the same movie two dozen times. I'm sure there are also other factors such as the cost to the theater to get a movie, contractual agreements about how long it will be shown and in how many rooms, etc. But these movies are easy money so I don't see it changing.[/quote]
Put it rather well, on the whole. This is mostly what Scorsese is decrying.
[quote]On the last point, I don't think it is fanboyism to say that these movies have the right to exist and to dominate if that's what people want to see. [/quote]
Right to exist? Absolutely they do. No one would say/should say they don't have a right to exist. Not even Scorsese is doing that.
Right to dominate? No they don't. Superhero movies don't have any "right" to dominate over other movies. And it would be very bad/disconcerning if a bunch of movies made for children, largely to sell toys, ends up displacing a much wider range of movies that existed before, including chasing movies that were formerly mainstream like Irishman into streaming. I mean this helps no one except one company owning the stuff to get richer and richer.