Tarantino suggests modern era tied for worst ever

[AndrewCrossett]

I think the current era is tied with the 1880s for worst ever. Although Roundhay Garden Scene did have a nifty twist ending I didn't see coming.

[HollowSage]

I think Tarantino would have been better to say (something I think he's already said before in the past): I really miss 70s cinema.

That's a view I can understand in a lot of ways without heaping hate at the 1950s and 80s cinema. For all the bad, there was also a lot of lasting cinema (globally) from those decades, as others as posted about.

I and probably others think American cinema in the 1960s wasn't so hot (early 60s was awful). So why did Tarantino leave that decade out? Steve McQueen alone can't save the 60s.

As far now, I definitely side with Tarantino a good bit. It's harder to defend Hollywood as it is right now, it really is. Our best blockbusters are relatively weak films. It's tough. Of course there's still some great films. But they're lower and lower budgeted and fewer see them. It feels like streaming shows have overtaken cinema in terms of boldness and quality. It's a tough time.

Why does Hollywood need defending? All they do is make movies that they think audiences want to see. If anyone has an issue with the movies that are popular now or whenever then the issue is really with the audience. The audience decides what is popular not Hollywood.

[Kirby101]

I think the current era is tied with the 1880s for worst ever. Although Roundhay Garden Scene did have a nifty twist ending I didn't see coming.

You win the thread

[Agent Z]

I get where Tarantino is coming from since he hates conformity in film. Also, Tarantino is definitely a scholar of film yet like many film aficionados he becomes smug about the films he sees as less art and more commercialized. When in film school I knew a kid who despised Spielberg. Why? Because he gave the audience "Happy Endings" and never challenged them. I remember laughing at the time Saving Private Ryan had just come out not too long before this and I said, "Yeah we all wanted to see that bastard Tom Hanks die".

But for me the 80's was one of the best eras in films just google a year and films like "1982 Films" and it's not one good movie or two it's like one or two dozen truly fantastic or fun movies.

Tarantino's not even a film scholar by his own admission.

“When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them, ‘No, I went to films.’

https://filmdaily.co/craft/directors...the-classroom/

[They Live]

I think Tarantino would have been better to say (something I think he's already said before in the past): It feels like streaming shows have overtaken cinema in terms of boldness and quality. It's a tough time.

Hollywood or wanna-bes are milking what they can milk no matter if the material is bad or good. Think from a hardcore actors perspective like Gates McFadden who wants to "what is considered good theatre, rather then good television, or respecting the origin of the media itself. Meaning actors making acting not for the audience but the actor themselves. This is why "Graphic novels" became a thing and was slowly substituted for comics from the far-east or flat out comics rated-r for adults despite the material being censored for the region itself.

"Toys"? Are we talking about the 1992 Robin Williams film is better than Blade Runner?

"Toys" pulled a "Blade Runner" within our universe. Yes the land clearly would be something like north west Europe, and clearly does not dictate it is our world, until the general starts to reference various wars but like "Blade Runner" toys predicted the future. Drones being piloted by 17yo corn boys, Amphibious mobile creations as with electronic spy snakes via Zionist Israel used to monitor the Gaza Strip, along with micro-mosquito's ( which is a thing and not just featured in "Richie Rich" ). The actual worklife itself to clear and indirect abuse and harassment of co-workers, via uppers. Even the innocent of various co-workers and the glorified "man-child" ( upper-west-side ) inventor who put the whole thing together. But instead of him having his head cracked via his creation he slumps over face first in front of his brother via his twirly propeller hat, and Alfred of course along with slew of office-workers, retired vet security-guards, assembly-line-workers, with a hip-hop atmosphere so clean you could smell the plastic off the assembly-line.

But by far is the reveal via the end. Through the entire show you kinda had the idea that she was disabled, being used for sex via her brother and possibly father, and was given a fake position that was obvious so fake and so insert job-title for that %1 female employee requirement, asides for the copy-machine worker. Just seeing the fact that a "Man-child" ( Robotnik, Willy, Dr. Gangreen ) made artificial-life and it was standing in front of everyone. Then comes the scene where the final antagonist via this game is taken out of existence, only to have the super-happy-80's ending where the nurse who tended to both father and son is still in the picture. Knowing well the plastic soldiers go out to inspire little boys ( maybe little girls ) to become future military participants. While the elephant rises to announce the ending of the story, as with the closing of the elevator.

Talking about capitalism, employment, family-values, and the idea of playing god while entertaining small children, wrapped into one bliss. Besides the MTV-dance number beats that obvious HSBC Geisha any day of the week. Toys did not need to promote innuendo or sexual behavior of any sort. It does all of that and more while keeping a clean and dynamic appearance.

There is nothing original about Tarantino's work. By his own admission, he just recycles crap he watched as a kid. His Django Unchained is a remake of a western film from 1966.

Nothing is original. Everything is piggy-backing off something else. Little fish feast on big fish. Just how we drank milk from our mothers-breasts to know the true meaning behind the obsession with the "roundness". If anything is original then it is something drawn from our world and even that is compromised. Take "Rick and Morty" content. Most of it is taken from it not already appeared in "Scud: The Disposable Assassin", "Cherry", "Earthworm Jim", and various Channel 101 skits. There is an entire episode that flat-out parodies "Los Cosa Nostroid". RAM clearly notes that it is referencing something else.

All films if not most are generically lesser-children-books made for somebody who wants to watch martial-arts, suggestive sexual intercourse, and explosions meant to set off various responses.
Like how we all have this problem called "Baby Speak" until we get into the job market and or realize that our peers slowly grow into to the habit of seeing each other as walking appendix.
Same where all videogames are literally Tic-Tac-Toe ( nobody can disprove this ), other wise your playing a game of Pacinko.

Tarantino has a long history of trying to make films within established brands.

........is living the dream he had from his childhood or whatever. Like a normal person who had a skill and got good at it. So what if he took Cleopatra Jones, updated her to the current setting of where she would be still looking so fine , and the kind of life she would get away living with or people she deals with. So what if he made a movie featuring what clearly is a live BDSM set, that had questionable images and videos. I mean you could see parody after parody. Your going to argue the "Wicked Lady" should have never been remade and or how nobody should have adopted the character for usage in other scenario's. Guy lived and now let others live.

You win the thread

I think that is a masterpiece in itself. It makes you say imagine what the less fortunate people were like during this time. "Wicked Lady" anybody??? Thank the maker.

[HollowSage]

Don’t do drugs kids.

[80sbaby]

https://www.justjared.com/2022/11/18...l-be-his-last/

Quentin says himself that he's "out of touch", so I wouldn't put too much stock in what he has to say about the current era of film. If it's not for him, that's ok but millions of people like what's coming out.

[Zero Hunter]

I think the biggest thing with all these older directors complaining is that after decades of getting handed blank checks to do whatever they wanted studios started cutting them back. Guys like Martin Scorsese or Tarantino don't need 100 million dollars to make the kind of movies they make. but they still want that blockbuster money for themselves and the actors, but the studios are les inclined to give it to them these days which makes them mad so they **** on blockbusters.

[Username taken]

I think Tarantino would have been better to say (something I think he's already said before in the past): I really miss 70s cinema.

That's a view I can understand in a lot of ways without heaping hate at the 1950s and 80s cinema. For all the bad, there was also a lot of lasting cinema (globally) from those decades, as others as posted about.

I and probably others think American cinema in the 1960s wasn't so hot (early 60s was awful). So why did Tarantino leave that decade out? Steve McQueen alone can't save the 60s.

As far now, I definitely side with Tarantino a good bit. It's harder to defend Hollywood as it is right now, it really is. Our best blockbusters are relatively weak films. It's tough. Of course there's still some great films. But they're lower and lower budgeted and fewer see them. It feels like streaming shows have overtaken cinema in terms of boldness and quality. It's a tough time.

I think the first point is critical. Some people are just missing different periods of cinema.

Tarantino is a guy I truly respect given how he came up in the industry. I also fully understand how the entire industry has really changed.

A lot of quality movies aren't even being given full releases in theatres anymore and are going straight to streaming (something that guys like Spielberg have railed against). But it is what is and I can't really see how anything will change given just how much money these corporations now have compared to years back.

[Username taken]

All this being said, the one thing I will push back against (that some in this thread are suggesting) is that movies are now "woke" compared to the past.

That is patently untrue given how much the MPAA has completely clamped down on sexual content in movies. Movies from yesteryears had a lot more "objectionable content" compared to today (anyone that's watched movies from the 1970s to around 1993 knows what I'm talking about).

The big studios on their own part try as much as possible to get a PG-13 rating for their big movies just to reach the largest audiences. And even when R-rated movies are released, we rarely get any sexual content in them.

A lot of people complain about movies being preachy today because we have LGBTIQ representation in a few superheroes and animated movies. This representation itself is so sanitized that you wouldn't even know they were in the movies (without prior comic books knowledge, no one would know Ayo and Aneka were gay in Black Panther 2). This moral panic is irritating because these people are bringing another form of "satanic panic" and want to erase the existence of LGBTIQ people which is absurd considering a growing number of people in the US are identifying as LGBTIQ.

[HollowSage]

I think the first point is critical. Some people are just missing different periods of cinema.

Tarantino is a guy I truly respect given how he came up in the industry. I also fully understand how the entire industry has really changed.

A lot of quality movies aren't even being given full releases in theatres anymore and are going straight to streaming (something that guys like Spielberg have railed against). But it is what is and I can't really see how anything will change given just how much money these corporations now have compared to years back.

Rather than just complaining all these directors who have a problem with the industry today should do what Marvel did. A bunch of them should get together and start their own studio. Then make whatever movie they want to make and if it’s a hit then make more and so on and so on.

If Marvel can start a studio while on the verge of bankruptcy then four or five big name directors should be able to. Who knows. It might even work.

[babyblob]

Rather than just complaining all these directors who have a problem with the industry today should do what Marvel did. A bunch of them should get together and start their own studio. Then make whatever movie they want to make and if it’s a hit then make more and so on and so on.

If Marvel can start a studio while on the verge of bankruptcy then four or five big name directors should be able to. Who knows. It might even work.

Its easier for directors to bitch about the fact that fun blow em up movies with Super heroes and fast planes make more money then a 4 hour black and white art house film about a drug addict looking for his run away run eyed dog only to get to the ending where both get hit by a bus while running to each other.

[Mister Mets]

I think for any era we can see a lot of movies that might have dominated the theaters at the time and say that was the worst. But then, when we look at the best movies from that era, we find some of the best made. Today is dominated by blockbusters, but there are some great movies being made as well.
Could you call a decade bad that included Marty, On the Waterfront, 12 Angry Men, the Searchers.......

When the AFI did its Top 100 in 1997, the 50s were the most represented decade, with twenty films, so there is definitely an argument that the really good stuff could compete with any era.

https://www.filmsite.org/afi100filmsA.html

I guess from his perspective, he wouldn't care for the period that's no longer considered the Golden Age of Hollywood before things get more daring in the mid to late 60s, when the influence of the French New Wave hits America.

There's a website I follow that tries to look at international acclaim, which would also determine world cinema. The 50s have roughly 140 films in the Top 1,000, which surpasses previous decades. Only the 60s and 70s do better according to that exhaustive analysis.

https://theyshootpictures.com/gf1000...ilms_table.php

[Mister Mets]

Did he just say 80s was one of the worst? A decade many see as one of the best eras for films?

Can't take him seriously at all with that comment. Guess ET, blade runner, raiders of the lost ark, color purple, my left foot, ghostbusters, little mermaid, who framed roger rabbit, and back to the future are some of the worst films of all time huh?

I think it's more about weaker films than the good stuff. He seems to believe that bad stuff can diminish a reputation, which may be why he's big on the idea that he'll quit Hollywood after ten films.

He is intitled to his own opinion of course even if i roll my eyes at it. The guy who made kill bill a live action anime and a movie about vampire hookers can't talk about real in films, however.

It's not about genre. He obviously likes weird stuff. He's less interested in studios playing it safe, which does happen with major franchise films made for an international audience.

I think Tarantino would have been better to say (something I think he's already said before in the past): I really miss 70s cinema.

That's a view I can understand in a lot of ways without heaping hate at the 1950s and 80s cinema. For all the bad, there was also a lot of lasting cinema (globally) from those decades, as others as posted about.

I and probably others think American cinema in the 1960s wasn't so hot (early 60s was awful). So why did Tarantino leave that decade out? Steve McQueen alone can't save the 60s.

As far now, I definitely side with Tarantino a good bit. It's harder to defend Hollywood as it is right now, it really is. Our best blockbusters are relatively weak films. It's tough. Of course there's still some great films. But they're lower and lower budgeted and fewer see them. It feels like streaming shows have overtaken cinema in terms of boldness and quality. It's a tough time.

We may be overthinking a quick comment in trying to determine what he meant by not liking the 1950s.

He's a big fan of the French New Wave and various international movements. And even if you didn't care for the early 1960s in American film, you had the French New Wave, Fellini at his peak, Antonini at his peak, the Golden Age of Japanese cinema, and experimental works by the likes of Buñuel. In the late 60s, you get to spaghetti westerns and more adventurous Hollywood films (Kubrick, the counterculture, violent outlaw dramas, etc.)

Who cares what Tarantino has to say to promote his book? I have never heard a meaningful in-depth analysis from him, if he praises a movie he sounds like your typical Twitter fanboy.

Him counting the 50s among the worst movie decades fits that impression. The decade that was Hitchcock's best, saw Bergman, Fellini and Kurosawa bringing out some of their finest works, not to mention countless masterpieces like Paths of Glory, Touch of Evil, Sunset Boulevard, All about Eve, High Noon, The Searchers, Twelve Angry Men, Tokyo Story, The Night of the Hunter, and so on. Guy should stick to commenting on grindhouse movies, that may be his area of expertise.

This isn't something he did to promote his book of film analysis. It came up in his podcast.

Rather than just complaining all these directors who have a problem with the industry today should do what Marvel did. A bunch of them should get together and start their own studio. Then make whatever movie they want to make and if it’s a hit then make more and so on and so on.

If Marvel can start a studio while on the verge of bankruptcy then four or five big name directors should be able to. Who knows. It might even work.

That's a fair point. If he wanted to, he could try to form his own studio like American Zoetrope or BBS (a production company responsible for Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider and The Last Picture Show.)

[ed2962]

Why does Hollywood need defending? All they do is make movies that they think audiences want to see. If anyone has an issue with the movies that are popular now or whenever then the issue is really with the audience. The audience decides what is popular not Hollywood.

Well, the audience can only respond to what gets made and distributed. It's been a decades long criticism that at best the major studios won't take chances on certain material "But will it sell in Peoria?" At worst, not greenlighting movies based on their own biases, "black people don't like science fiction"..."People don't want to see women action roles"..."Put a dog in that scene because people like little dogs"...