Mad Max 1&2, the time where mainstream movies were good

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

I watched Mad Max 1&2 in a row this week end.
In both movies, 3 hours of time, you may have something like 20 mins of talking.
This might be detail.

but the end of both movies left me in a shock.
I can't remember one single big mainstream American movie lately (past 10 years) where you don’t hear incessant blabber.
And I realized that 1979 (mad max 1) and 1981 (mad max 2) were very different times.

a time when Big american-style mainstream movies were good.

I use to think that the past decade was so poor in terms of mainstream movies was due to the lack of innovation and the hollywood studios just repeating the same formula over and over.

When I see Pirates of the Caribbean, I’m like ”well I guess it would be good if the movie didn’t share so many commons traits with the rest of the Hollywood production”
So yeah, lord of the rings and Pirates of the Caribbean’s have A LOT of mechanics to share (in terms of character design, scenario, twists, jokes, directing, action scenes ...)

But I came to realize that no, these recent movies are just bad. in many ways.

Watch mad max 1 and mad max 2. They are great. Simply GOOD MOVIES. And not particular masterpieces like the 7 Samurai that come once every 20 years, no, they're just random GOOD MOVIES, and mainstream studios can't seem to do that anymore.

mel gibson maybe say 50 words in the whole movie. he is not explaining every little acts he does. he is not acting out every little emotion he is supposed to transfer to the audience at every moment.
There is no dramatic music every 5 seconds every time the audience is supposed to feel something.
The camera does not focus on his face and eyes every time something surprising or new comes in the scene.

There is one scene, where mel stops his car when he finds the flying machine for the 1st time, car stops, mel gets out of the car.
Simple scene, all shot from far above. Camera is still. A shot that last 5 seconds. 5 seconds where you don't see the oh-so-emotional hero's face. 5 seconds that 99% of the today's audience would find boring. it wasn’t boring at the time.
The movies are just great. We don’t have that anymore.
We’ve been fed pirates of the carribeans, lord of the rings, mtv-style kill bill, bourne identitys, batman begins.

Yeah, some will say that they like these new movies, it’s entertaining.
My point is that, in the 80’s and early 90’s the “entertaining movies” were good in terms of cinematographic quality.
Now movies might be entertaining but the lost all their qualities.

Mad Max movies are such a prefect example, they in some ways incorpore ideas and style that someone like Kitano’s movies would have. I’ll go into that later when I have time if people wanna discuss 

[Izzy]

Wait...you never like non-french films, have u been smoking the wacky backy again?

Modern cinema does seem to have lost its way, but  I'd happily take the sequal/remake nonsense Hollywood spews out than the recent glut of pseudo intellectualism - seriously anyone that thinks V for Vendetta is 'clever' worries me no end...

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

Wait...you never like non-french films, have u been smoking the wacky backy again?

that's not true at all !!!! ?___?

Modern cinema does seem to have lost its way, but  I'd happily take the sequal/remake nonsense Hollywood spews out than the recent glut of pseudo intellectualism - seriously anyone that thinks V for Vendetta is 'clever' worries me no end...

well yeah.
mad max would appear to be a dumb movie with car racing, but in the end it's far more deep and interesting than many pseudo-intelectual action movies or so (v for vendetta, the matrix ...)


i think the cause is this word > EFFICIENCY
everything has to be efficient nowadays, and movies dont make an expetion.
kids must get the emotions right away.
we wanna make it shockin > tons of blood
we wanna make it intelectual > complicated sentences and quotes from old people
we wanna make it heroic > music and dramatic camera angle


it's like .... fast food. we dont wanna waste time.

[SuperMike]

There were always bad movies, people just forget them later. Like twenty or thirty years later from now, people are going to think in our generation we only had the movies what we consider classic today.

I don't know if others will agree, I used to think the 1970's were when every movie was good but the only ones I saw were like The Godfather, Star Wars, The Omen and others which are the only ones people still talk about.

Without having nostalgia poisoning, I will still say that there hasn't been a comedy or a horror movie that impressed me latley.

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

i can see what you mean

but i was refering to the "mainstream" movies.

the fact that a big mainstream movie was able to be good 20 years ago.
when it can't now.

mad max 1, star wars, terminator, die hard , were big mainstream movies.
and they were good quality-wise.

since 1995 i haven seen any good mainstream movies.

same with music i guess.

[Axls Locomotive]

I feel your pain

but they are giving the people what they want unfortunately...as far as i know the audience figures are on an upward trend...and far more than when films such as the terminator came out. I recall there was a major lull in audience figures during the early to late 80's

POTC is a great movie...but as you have said, there are far too many movies out there that follow similar production values.  I think one of the problems is that movies are just so expensive and complicated to make that they have to rely somewhat on previous framework....but on the other hand companies know its a formula that works and makes a profit

soundtracks bug me no end...i mean who buys them?...its the same soundtrack except they change a few notes around...how many times are they going to copy LOTR soundtrack and the Braveheart soundtrack onto other movies?

[jabba2]

Someone goes to see these movies....not me... I gave up on many forms of modern entertianment awhile ago. I still like cable TV/documentories science shows stuff like that. Buit movies? Fuk no! They are the worst to go along with music. Once in awhile a pretty good movie comes out but its never the most popular stuff at the box office. And alot of new music is laughably bad.

[Danny Top Hat]

You guys are so fucking depressing.  There are loads of great movies coming out all the time, you're just so bsuy jacking off to Axl Rose's minge you missed them all.  They're there for sure.  Watch Film4 ND you#lll see.

I like the Mad Max films.  Did you warcxg Sin City?  That' good too.  I saw the Motorcycle Diariesd last night - that could be a classic.  You're all fucking lesbiens, especially the gurls.  Haven't seren any finny movies lately?>  Watch Anchoeman and laugh your fucking balls off.

[sic.]

I will still say that there hasn't been a comedy or a horror movie that impressed me latley.

Have you seen The Descent, the recent UK horror film about cave-diving?

It's rather seldom that I nowadays get actually scared in a theatre, The Descent did just that. Unfortunately, I gather the American distributor Lion's Gate botched the ending by removing the final scene for whatever reason. They also put it out in August, which is a lackluster month in terms of ticket sales.

But even as a bit cockeyed version, it's still better than 99% of what is called the modern American horror cinema.

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

You guys are so fucking depressing.  There are loads of great movies coming out all the time, you're just so bsuy jacking off to Axl Rose's minge you missed them all.  They're there for sure.  Watch Film4 ND you#lll see.

did we say there are no good movies .? no.

i said there are no good mainstream movies.
mainstream big blockbusters are now crappy. that's all i said.

i dont think you'll find good movies on tv anyway. try in your local smallest theater.

[Axlative]

I watched Mad Max 1&2 in a row this week end.
In both movies, 3 hours of time, you may have something like 20 mins of talking.
This might be detail.

but the end of both movies left me in a shock.
I can't remember one single big mainstream American movie lately (past 10 years) where you don?t hear incessant blabber.
And I realized that 1979 (mad max 1) and 1981 (mad max 2) were very different times.

a time when Big american-style mainstream movies were good.

Is there a logic here?

Step 1: Watch a couple of great Australian movies

Step 2: Complain why American movies aren't as good today

 

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

I watched Mad Max 1&2 in a row this week end.
In both movies, 3 hours of time, you may have something like 20 mins of talking.
This might be detail.

but the end of both movies left me in a shock.
I can't remember one single big mainstream American movie lately (past 10 years) where you don’t hear incessant blabber.
And I realized that 1979 (mad max 1) and 1981 (mad max 2) were very different times.

a time when Big american-style mainstream movies were good.

Is there a logic here?

Step 1: Watch a couple of great Australian movies

Step 2: Complain why American movies aren't as good today

 

oh god.... here is the " let's focus on the issue poster" ..... did you find any spelling errors in my post too ? i'm sure there are, look for them ...

[Axlative]

oh god.... here is the " let's focus on the issue poster" ..... did you find any spelling errors in my post too ? i'm sure there are, look for them ...

Given that you spent most of your original post describing how great MM 1&2 are, I'd say it's relevant to comment that Hollywood didn't create them in the first place. Afterall, it's you who narrowed the comment down to "American movies suck nowdays".

Also your other "great movie" example is The Seven Samurai which is Japanese. And you also refer to Takeshi Kitano as being good.

So my simple point is: was there ever a great American movie in your opinion in the first place?

With your current examples the question you're asking is "Why aren't American movies today the way foreign movies used to be?" 

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

oh man !!! you're crazy 

to quote myself

mad max 1, star wars, terminator, die hard , were big mainstream movies.
and they were good quality-wise.

batman, full metal jacket, home alone ...

d e t a i l s.

[Danny Top Hat]

I stand by what I said, though obviously with a little less venom in my tone.  I think Sin City was top class, and Star Wars III.  I think there are loads of good Hollywood movies coming out these days but, if you don't like any of them, there's plenty of other films to choose from.  There's a whole world of quality cinema to choose from, in fact.

Admittedly there's been no film of Terminator standards recently.  I wonder if James Cameron will pull off Battle Angel Alita.  I hope so because the story's quality and it's just up his alley.

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

but all these movies, sin city, star wars III can be "destroyed" in terms of cinematographic quality.
yeah ... movies are a matter of taste. but flaws are flaws.

maybe i dont wanna say flaws. maybe i wanna say redundancies.
sin city, SWIII the have so many similarities. mechanics.

my example of mel gibson going out of the car was good i guess. recent movies feel they have to SHOW in a CLEAR way every little emotion they wanna pass on.

one scene = one emotion
one character = one clich?

next step will be words on the screen telling you how to feel. efficient. too effecient i guess.

[SuperMike]

Speaking of movies today, they need to give up on movie adaptions to video games.

[sic.]

mad max 1, star wars, terminator, die hard , were big mainstream movies.
and they were good quality-wise.

Some examples you got there. Mad Max is what you should call an independent film, as it was outside the studio system. Furthermore, as for being a 'big' mainstream movie, Mad Max was big only surprising everyone by becoming a sleeper hit through word-of-mouth (this is true to Star Wars and Terminator as well, though they were both much more expensive). Its profit-to-cost ratio was only eclipsed by Blair Witch Project, as it was made terribly cheap. Mad Max was/is a good film, but I don't think it should be put into the same category as the others, at least when talking about production values. For the same reason, I think Die Hard is a pretty wild selection into your bunch, as it came out in a different time and from a very different background then the others. A true Hollywood production, Die Hard was designed to be a very slick, lean and mean action romp for the masses, with admittedly good ideas.

Randomly listing films you consider 'mainstream' and 'good' doesn't really count as a conclusion.


also: If I were to call any of the Mad Max films mainstream, I'd definetly go with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. And there's a good reason for it.

[DeN]

Axlative is right, Mad Max are australian movies. 

and it wasn't mainstream movies when it cames out (the first one cost 350 000 $)

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

with time mad max became a mainstream movie.
the industry wasn't in the same state to put production into classes right away.
result is mad max was a mainstream movie (if if took years or not to become one)

mainstream is a social effect. you take 20 kids in the early 90's they would know and have watched mad max > mainstream

Axlative is right, Mad Max are australian movies.

read couple posts ahead.