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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Hollywood, intellectually bankrupt, or occasional purveyor of fine cinema?

14:47 / 14.10.02

I got into one of those 'Hollywood can't make decent films, only popcorn pap' arguments the other day (I contended that greatness sometimes slips through the studio system), and was challenged to name three films from the last twelve months that can be considered to be at the top of the medium.

Recklessly, I accepted, only to have to spend the next half an hour trying to bring something to mind. I finally remembered 'Gosford Park' which we (my debating partner and I) both considered to be a fine example of the sort of film we were both talking about.

However, I am now at a bit of dead end, as I can't for the life of me think of one more Hollywood film I have seen in the twelve months that is 'equal' to Gosford Park as a shining example of the cinematic artform.

Now, it's not like I don't go to the flicks a lot - barely a week goes by without me seeing SOMETHING, I find this situation a little troubling.

Maybe I was wrong, and Hollywood CAN'T make good, challenging, incisive, intelligent cinema any more...

Help me out, I only need two more!

The Natural Way

14:56 / 14.10.02

Just bollocks. Of course good stuff can come out of Hollywood. God, you don't even need to justify that high art/low art crap w/ an answer. But it might be fun to try.

Hmmm....

14:57 / 14.10.02

How about Mulholland Drive?

But I think good films are very few and far between. I am settled into appreciating movies as incomplete things, including Gosford Park.

15:19 / 14.10.02

Hmmmm difficult one.....by comparison to the usual rubbish churned out by the machine there are probably a few : A Beautiful Mind, LOTR, Insomnia and One Hour Photo (if that is even considered a Hollywood movie) but none of them are completely flawless - all suffer from a certain amount of syruppy sentiment and bluster somewhere along the way but there you go anyway.

15:26 / 14.10.02

Mulholland Drive, Lord of the Rings - there's ya three, I think.

The sheer unvbelievable arseness of a lot of Hollywood produce, and the fact that people still pay money to see it, does baffle me sometimes .. but you can generally expect a really good film every few months, I think..

We're The Great Old Ones Now

15:37 / 14.10.02

What is a Hollywood film? Something made by the studios? Something distributed by a mainstream distributor? Anything not made by an indie outfit? What about where the money comes from to make the film?

You can talk about Hollywood and its evils as long as you're not going to try to be rigourous about it. After that, the classification starts to look a bit moth-eaten.

16:43 / 14.10.02

I thought that Mulholland Drive was an independant film. That Lynch had to scrape around for the money to finish it as a film when the bottom dropped out of it being a TV series.

You'll get your # 3 for the list when Freddy vs Jason is released.

19:43 / 14.10.02

My Little Eye. it was made by Universal. and is the best horror film i've seen in ages. i think i agree that Mulholland Drive is independant. but still a great film.

07:33 / 15.10.02

Thanks for the responses. I did posit Mullholland Dr. as another, but it was considered to be an independent - Studio Canal put up the money for Lynch to finish(?!) it I believe.

Nick, In response to your question, for the sake of the discussion, a 'Hollywood' film is one produced by the major studios - so LOTR would count.

We were not trying to be too fixed in our definitions - after all, almost every film that gets made has SOME Hollywood intervention along the way, and Studio Canal seem to be reaching that sort of critical mass where they will start turning out only crowd pleasers as their overheads grow and grow.

The Natural Way

11:00 / 15.10.02

Yeah, y'see I nearly went w/ the drive, but it's an indy (at least loosely). Sorry guys.

LOTR (the book)'s all about sentiment and bluster, so that's hardly a weakness. But, yeah, vere good Hollywood.

Hmm. This'n hasn't been great for Hollywood, but I could reel off tons of good Hollywood films produced in the last few years.

Basically - and no offence intended - yr mate talks bum, threadstarter.

11:40 / 15.10.02

"Hmm. This'n hasn't been great for Hollywood,"

Yer telling me! I thought three films would be a cinch to name. I know 'they' (Hollywood studios) are focussed on getting bums on seats, and that the target audience is getting progressively younger, but it worries me that I struggled to name 3 films that have moved/impressed/challenged me, and not just happened in front of my eyes.

Maybe I'm just getting old...

What concerns me more is that H'wood is never going to realise that there is still demand for decent cinema as targetting films at the teen market means that there is a fresh crop of them every year. As long as the number of kids going to the flicks makes them enough cash they're never going to try and bring in the adults.

20:25 / 15.10.02

My Little Eye. it was made by Universal. and is the best horror film i've seen in ages.

Good god. Is this a serious statement? I don't want to derail the thread, but I've really got to take issue with this. My Little Eye's completely lacking in any of the qualities that characterise good horror films - most noticably, there's an absolute lack of suspense throughout. The identity of the bad guy is telegraphed through after roughly twenty minutes. Characters are impossible to empathise with, their personalities being nothing more than thinly-drawn sketches. The film lacks a coherent start point, instead throwing you straight into the middle of the story and asking you to accept that six months have already passed (despite the actors involved playing it like they've only just met each other). It throws as many horror flick cliches as possible into the mix, then forgets to include any original material. There aren't even any seat-jump moments, which, considering that a director doesn't really need any great skill to pull these off, only goes to show how lacking in talent Marc Evans must be.

There is one disturbing moment, but it's disturbing for all the wrong reasons. As anyone who's seen at least a couple of teen slasher flicks will know, there's always one sexually-promiscuous female in the group who, as misogynistic morals dictate, must be shown to die in a peculiarly violent way. Smith's direction of this (wholly unnecessary) scene borders on gleeful. I have no desire to ever watch another of his efforts.

09:32 / 16.10.02

Well that's saved me £3.60..

Tryphena Absent

16:34 / 16.10.02

Oh but the sound in My Little Eye was fantastic, so grating, if you were going to see it at all you would have to go to hear it somewhere very loud. It was definitely the commendable part of the film and I enjoyed it when they realised why they were in the house. The bit with the plastic bag though, that sound, that was the bit I actually appreciated.

Murray Hamhandler

17:50 / 16.10.02

I think that this has been a terrible year for Hollywood. Signs is probably the best Hollywood movie I've seen this year and that's not saying much. Of course, films of quality are being pushed closer and closer to the end of the year, so as to take advantage of the AMPAS's short memory. My bets for quality films this year are on Punch Drunk Love, About Schmidt, Adaptation, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. But I guess we'll see.

18:12 / 16.10.02

the sound! exactly. that's why My Little Eye was fantastic.
EMPATHY? those people on the screen are not real you know.

18:31 / 16.10.02

at the risk or rotting even more, I have to jump in with both boots in defence of My Little Eye. The sound was SUPERB and not even gimmicky: it worked with the set up - microphones and distortion all over the house and that.

As with the nature of the thing the fourth wall gets broken a lot, but the position that the viewer is given slides further and further as the film progresses and I found myself getting implicated more and more. A teeny-slasher fuck scene that made me feel bad about enjoying it afterwards. And then, when we're pretty comfortable with characters looking directly at camera and giving dialogue the same device is used to give the nastiest shock of all.

And the multi-angle ending! This is not a happy film. Almost on a par with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the amount of discomfort it wrung out of me whilst I watched it. Come to think of it, it was the sound that got me in Texas Chainsaw as well. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

19:01 / 16.10.02

EMPATHY? those people on the screen are not real you know.

Yeah. God forbid an actor should ever make you believe in the part they're playing.

19:54 / 16.10.02

but the sociopathic killer sees humans as we see fish in a bowl, totally devoid of empathy. It's a set up where even bad acting only aids the premise! If you genuinely don't give a fuck about them then you're just getting comfier in the big boss' chair, watching their little docu-soap play out to the horrid end.

It's a thing of beauty I tells ya.

Tryphena Absent

23:06 / 16.10.02

Actually I really didn't like any of them very much, the guy with dark hair irritated me, it made all the death quite satisfying. The guys we were in league with (as the audience) were much more fascinating people.

02:33 / 17.10.02

how about freakin' Donnie Darko?

02:35 / 17.10.02

...and no, i haven't seen it yet or even heard reports about it, but Auto-Focus sounds totally fucking crazy.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:16 / 17.10.02

There's something very wrong when you can seriously say that one aspect of the movie - sound, photography, whatever - was so good that it made the movie good. What that means is that one aspect was so much better than the others that you noticed it...

19:19 / 17.10.02

Either that or it was so good that it made the movie good.

Murray Hamhandler

20:17 / 17.10.02

I'd count Donnie Darko, but that came out last year. And I'm not sure if it was a Hollywood film per se.

What's the criteria here, anyway? Are we talking about films that were produced by major studios? Distributed through major studios?

Last year was filled w/movies that I loved (Mulholland Drive, Amelie, Waking Life, The Royal Tenenbaums, Wet Hot American Summer) and some that were pretty close (Donnie Darko, Ghost World, Harry Potter, Hedwig, Training Day Moulin Rouge, LOTR). Not all big budget films, but a few notable major studio releases among them.

This year, I'm scraping to find movies that I even like all that much. Signs, Minority Report, Attack of the Clones, About A Boy, Road To Perdition, Spider Man, Panic Room... They're decent Hollywood films, but they're just kind of...there. They don't do much for me.

Tryphena Absent

20:38 / 17.10.02

The sound was the aspect of the film that hit the senses, it was so much more aggressive than the visual images but just as effective as pictures would have been. The vision in front of me seemed like the companion to it, it was edgy but not as edgy. The sound was what I enjoyed most about the entire film and that's not saying that the visuals were bad, more that they weren't as significant to the atmosphere created in My Little Eye.