Controversial opinions about other movies

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  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,179
    This is probably how I rank them.

    GHOST PROTOCOL
    MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996)
    ROGUE NATION
    MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II
    FALLOUT
    MARRIAGE: IMPOSSIBLE
  • Posts: 15,105
    I never heard of Nimoy and Landau being approached, but they definitely wanted Peter Graves to return as he had already done for the 1988 revival series.

    There’s two issues with Phelps becoming the villain. One is the writing for sure, but more importantly is the way John Voight plays him from the very beginning. He just exudes EVIL when he’s smoking his cigarette. He never feels like he was ever a good guy. The guy kills his wife instantly and without remorse! It just makes me wonder that if Graves had actually returned to the part would he have played it differently enough and push to make his Phelps more ambiguous? It is a strange choice to turn the series hero into a villain.

    It’s like the equivalent of starting a Star Trek film where the TOS cast dies 15 minutes into the movie and we follow Lt. Ethan Hunt from there on. Later he finds out Captain Kirk was the man who betrayed and murdered his fellow crew and Hunt kills Kirk at the end.

    I like the movie, but I treat it as a separate entity rather than a continuation of the TV show. It just doesn’t work as one. I can imagine if Twitter existed in 1996 we would have seen an even bigger outrage by the fanbase.

    Pretty much how I feel about it.
  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 7,108
    It appears I will have to give these recent MI’s a shot. I’ve only seen the first two and I thought they were fine, but nothing more.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,179
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    It appears I will have to give these recent MI’s a shot. I’ve only seen the first two and I thought they were fine, but nothing more.

    That kinda sums up the whole series. The best way to describe them is if they were Brosnan Bond films directed by John Glen, which for a considerable subset of Bond fans is probably a delight.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,157
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    It appears I will have to give these recent MI’s a shot. I’ve only seen the first two and I thought they were fine, but nothing more.

    That kinda sums up the whole series. The best way to describe them is if they were Brosnan Bond films directed by John Glen, which for a considerable subset of Bond fans is probably a delight.

    I strongly disagree with that. I honestly believe that M:I 3 to 6 are on par with some of the best Bond films.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,205
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    It appears I will have to give these recent MI’s a shot. I’ve only seen the first two and I thought they were fine, but nothing more.

    That kinda sums up the whole series. The best way to describe them is if they were Brosnan Bond films directed by John Glen, which for a considerable subset of Bond fans is probably a delight.

    I strongly disagree with that. I honestly believe that M:I 3 to 6 are on par with some of the best Bond films.

    Same here. I don't think the above description is accurate at all - though I wouldn't consider myself to be a big John Glen fan.
  • This is probably how I rank them.

    GHOST PROTOCOL
    MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996)
    ROGUE NATION
    MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II
    FALLOUT
    MARRIAGE: IMPOSSIBLE

    Flip Rogue Nation and ’96 and this is my ranking exactly.

    I never watched the TV show, by the way, so Phelps was always just the villain of the ’96 film to me, but given that Star Trek analogy above, yeah, I can see how that would be a bold and bizarre move to fans of the show.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,179
    It’s weird that the show has been dwarfed by the movies these days because when I was a kid in the 90s it felt like the show was a HUGE part of the pop culture lexicon. No surprise, it was a highly successful show lasting seven seasons and two extra up to 1990. Nobody didn’t recognize the theme music. Tom Cruise wasn’t known for franchise films in the 90s, but he knew MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE would turn him into an action star.

    Now these days there are large swaths of fans who aren’t even aware that it used to be a franchise before Tom Cruise came along. I feel like once he took over there was an effort to downplay the show in publicity to an extent. After all, Tom Cruise kills what used to be the leading hero of the franchise. Contrast that with EON, who still heavily market older Bond films because to them it ALL matters.
  • Posts: 7,407
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    It appears I will have to give these recent MI’s a shot. I’ve only seen the first two and I thought they were fine, but nothing more.

    I've seen them all, and pretty much what you think of the first 2. Ok, but not great, they dont hold up to repeat viewing! And dont come any where near Bond, for me!
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited April 2022 Posts: 16,338
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    It appears I will have to give these recent MI’s a shot. I’ve only seen the first two and I thought they were fine, but nothing more.

    That kinda sums up the whole series. The best way to describe them is if they were Brosnan Bond films directed by John Glen, which for a considerable subset of Bond fans is probably a delight.

    I strongly disagree with that. I honestly believe that M:I 3 to 6 are on par with some of the best Bond films.

    I wouldn’t include 3 in that (I think it’s the least interesting of the bunch) but I’d agree that they’re on a par with the best Bond films. They don’t go for style as Bond does, but they make up for that with stunning action, tension set pieces (which Bond doesn’t really do any more) and very satisfying heist plots. I love a heist, so combining that with spies is close to being my perfect film :)

    It’s tricky to rank them because the top three could probably go in any order, but I think I’d go:

    Rogue Nation
    Mission: Impossible
    Fallout
    Ghost Protocol
    MI2
    MI3

    MI2 isn’t really an MI film, but it’s still a fun and breezy 90s action film (even though it came out in 2000!) and is more watchable for me than MI3. There’s a big gap in the ranking between it and GP though.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,157
    It’s weird that the show has been dwarfed by the movies these days because when I was a kid in the 90s it felt like the show was a HUGE part of the pop culture lexicon. No surprise, it was a highly successful show lasting seven seasons and two extra up to 1990. Nobody didn’t recognize the theme music. Tom Cruise wasn’t known for franchise films in the 90s, but he knew MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE would turn him into an action star.

    Now these days there are large swaths of fans who aren’t even aware that it used to be a franchise before Tom Cruise came along. I feel like once he took over there was an effort to downplay the show in publicity to an extent. After all, Tom Cruise kills what used to be the leading hero of the franchise. Contrast that with EON, who still heavily market older Bond films because to them it ALL matters.

    I don't think the TV show has to be intimidated by these films any more than, say, the '40s Batman serials have to be by the later Batman films. We are, after all, talking about completely different eras and completely different mediums. A 2023 Mission: Impossible 7, which is supposed to lure the masses to a movie theatre for two hours of fun, is something else than a 1966 TV series that focused on a constant, stay-at-home viewership by television rules from way back when. The show was great, but in my opinion, so are the recent films, even if they are not exact copies of said show. The films always give credit to the show, by the way. I don't really think the TV show is being downplayed or deliberately erased from collective memory.

    The late '80s revival of the TV show didn't do too well, by the way. That had something to do with when it was aired and all, but I do recall feeling underwhelmed myself when I saw this show. I was an early teenager but I still hadn't seen the first Cruise film at that point. The '80s show didn't speak to me like the reruns of the '60s show had. Perhaps enthusiasm for the televised M:I had dwindled below profitable margins and a new direction was the only viable alternative.

    The younger generations cannot be faulted for not seeing too much of Geller's show either. I'm not seeing the show in any streaming list, nor heavily promoted on Bluray and such. So indeed, to some folks who grew up more recently Cruise's is the only Mission: Impossible. Perhaps when this film series has run its course, someone will pick up the idea of doing a new M:I series for TV, drowning in '60s spy/heist nostalgia, but reshaping the formula to appeal to a more modern audience; six decades later.

    And yes, EON still do market the older Bond films, because that's what they are selling: Bond films. They started with DN and built from there, all the way to NTTD and soon to Bond26. The Cruise/Wagner Mission: Impossible films, by contrast, were intended as something else than the series. I don't recall Richie's Man From UNCLE heavily promoting the old UNCLE TV series either. Different people, different mediums, different objectives and interests.

    So all in all, I respect both the '60s TV series and the current film series. One doesn't render the other obsolete. But they are two different things, like '60s Star Trek and Abrams' Star Trek. Shrugging one off in favor of the other is not my MO. They are, at best, spiritual cousins, but not direct descendants, at least not since M:I 2. Cruise's films have organically evolved towards a formula and tone more or less established by M:I 3, and applauded, first by critics, then by critics and audiences. Seeing the impressive critical scores and financial numbers for the recent films, the world is basically telling Cruise that he's doing great, that this is what we want--so please, Tom, make more. Such a level of success equals confirmation that he's doing the right thing. The TV series has had its saying; now, a few generations down the line and in a different part of the family, another wind has blown in. And that will most likely happen again when the next two films are bagged up and released. It is nevertheless perfectly possible to like both of these. They are not competitors, after all.

    And with that, my ranking:

    1) Ghost Protocol
    2) Fallout
    3) Rogue Nation
    4) M:I 3
    5-6) M:I 2 - M:I
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,338
    Yes I don’t see Eon promoting the 50s TV version of Casino Royale very heavily.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,179
    mtm wrote: »
    Yes I don’t see Eon promoting the 50s TV version of Casino Royale very heavily.

    That’s a false equivalency.
  • Posts: 1,394
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    It appears I will have to give these recent MI’s a shot. I’ve only seen the first two and I thought they were fine, but nothing more.

    You’re in for a good time.The last couple of MI’s are far superior to anything Bond has done for the last few films.

  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited April 2022 Posts: 16,338
    mtm wrote: »
    Yes I don’t see Eon promoting the 50s TV version of Casino Royale very heavily.

    That’s a false equivalency.

    No, don’t think so. No more so than equating the MI TV show not being promoted alongside the current MI movie(s).
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,179
    The 50s adaptation of CR was an episode of an anthology show called CLIMAX! that went largely forgotten shortly after it’s original airing and had zero involvement with EON, whereas the original M:I was an extremely successful long running series produced under Paramount. So much so they saw fit to adapt it to a series of films that thrive to this day. The comparison doesn’t even make sense.
  • GoldenGun wrote: »
    It appears I will have to give these recent MI’s a shot. I’ve only seen the first two and I thought they were fine, but nothing more.

    You should. I do believe that at their best they've been doing "classic Bond" (GF, TSWLM, GE) better than a good chunk of Craig's more dour run. Watch Ghost Protocol for the epitome of this. Then Rogue Nation for something more serious. Then Fallout for Craig-level serious. Then M:I III for lens flare.
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,179
    It definitely felt like they were aping the Craig films with the last two films, FALLOUT especially with the twists, turns and personal connections.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,338
    The 50s adaptation of CR was an episode of an anthology show called CLIMAX! that went largely forgotten shortly after it’s original airing and had zero involvement with EON, whereas the original M:I was an extremely successful long running series produced under Paramount. So much so they saw fit to adapt it to a series of films that thrive to this day. The comparison doesn’t even make sense.

    It doesn’t make sense because Paramount still sell the old MI series: there was a big new boxset of it out about two years ago.
  • Posts: 12,462
    Would it be considered a controversial / unpopular opinion to say that for many years now, maybe around early 2010s, I've generally much preferred smaller / indie movies to Hollywood content? They're often much more thought-provoking, original, and just interesting than the rehashed stuff coming out of all these safe, big-budget movies. That's not to say I don't like any high-budget films being made now, but I definitely feel like the less mainstream stuff being made now tends to be superior.
  • Posts: 1,394
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    It appears I will have to give these recent MI’s a shot. I’ve only seen the first two and I thought they were fine, but nothing more.

    You should. I do believe that at their best they've been doing "classic Bond" (GF, TSWLM, GE) better than a good chunk of Craig's more dour run. Watch Ghost Protocol for the epitome of this. Then Rogue Nation for something more serious. Then Fallout for Craig-level serious. Then M:I III for lens flare.

    Fallout is quite simply the greatest all action blockbuster Hollywood has produced since Terminator 2.

  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 7,108
    FoxRox wrote: »
    Would it be considered a controversial / unpopular opinion to say that for many years now, maybe around early 2010s, I've generally much preferred smaller / indie movies to Hollywood content? They're often much more thought-provoking, original, and just interesting than the rehashed stuff coming out of all these safe, big-budget movies. That's not to say I don't like any high-budget films being made now, but I definitely feel like the less mainstream stuff being made now tends to be superior.

    For me it’s always been like that, Bond is the only exception, though EON isn’t exactly Hollywood either. I’ve always preferred European (incl. British) movies over Hollywood.

    Still though, there’s a huge drop in Hollywood quality between the previous century and this one. The difference between films like Casablanca or Ben-Hur, and what you get these days is incredible.

    There are always exceptions, of course :)

  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    edited April 2022 Posts: 1,711
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    FoxRox wrote: »
    Would it be considered a controversial / unpopular opinion to say that for many years now, maybe around early 2010s, I've generally much preferred smaller / indie movies to Hollywood content? They're often much more thought-provoking, original, and just interesting than the rehashed stuff coming out of all these safe, big-budget movies. That's not to say I don't like any high-budget films being made now, but I definitely feel like the less mainstream stuff being made now tends to be superior.

    For me it’s always been like that, Bond is the only exception, though EON isn’t exactly Hollywood either. I’ve always preferred European (incl. British) movies over Hollywood.

    Still though, there’s a huge drop in Hollywood quality between the previous century and this one. The difference between films like Casablanca or Ben-Hur, and what you get these days is incredible.

    There are always exceptions, of course :)

    I think this opinion has always been pretty fashionable, and also wrong. ;-)

    You're making at least two mistakes here: first, you're almost certainly comparing the best of the past with everything coming out today. Just looking at the action genre, I'm willing to bet that comparing the entire action output of any 21st century year with that of any 20th century year will be favorable to the more modern films.

    No reasonable person would argue that scripted television (or series) is not vastly better than what existed pre-Sopranos. It would be odd indeed if for some reason scripted series had improved while its sister medium had got significantly worse.

    The other mistake is the comparison to European cinema. I suspect you're comparing commercially-minded Hollywood product to more independent arty European stuff. Because if you look at European films intended for massive audiences, it is all abject crap. Like forgotten Hollywood films from the 1980s. I mean, if Germans made Look Who's Talking, now in 2022, it'd be the biggest hit of the year here (and it would also be significantly worse than the actual movie). Or when French filmmakers make alleged comedies about how people from different regions are different (!) or how some older people get flummoxed by the presence of black people (!), it's just several floors below Hollywood's output.

    Even prestige films in Europe tend to be populated by theatre actors unaware of how to perform on camera, projecting their melodrama to the back of the room. And the "writing": I don't know if I've seen a modern European art film where you couldn't add or subtract 30 minutes to the runtime without making any goddamn difference to the work.

    To be fair though, I'm relying heavily on my experience with German cinema, and Germany never quite adjusted to the talkie era.
  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 7,108
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    FoxRox wrote: »
    Would it be considered a controversial / unpopular opinion to say that for many years now, maybe around early 2010s, I've generally much preferred smaller / indie movies to Hollywood content? They're often much more thought-provoking, original, and just interesting than the rehashed stuff coming out of all these safe, big-budget movies. That's not to say I don't like any high-budget films being made now, but I definitely feel like the less mainstream stuff being made now tends to be superior.

    For me it’s always been like that, Bond is the only exception, though EON isn’t exactly Hollywood either. I’ve always preferred European (incl. British) movies over Hollywood.

    Still though, there’s a huge drop in Hollywood quality between the previous century and this one. The difference between films like Casablanca or Ben-Hur, and what you get these days is incredible.

    There are always exceptions, of course :)

    I think this opinion has always been pretty fashionable, and also wrong. ;-)

    You're making at least two mistakes here: first, you're almost certainly comparing the best of the past with everything coming out today. Just looking at the action genre, I'm willing to bet that comparing the entire action output of any 21st century year with that of any 20th century year will be favorable to the more modern films.

    No reasonable person would argue that scripted television (or series) is not vastly better than what existed pre-Sopranos. It would be odd indeed if for some reason scripted series had improved while its sister medium had got significantly worse.

    The other mistake is the comparison to European cinema. I suspect you're comparing commercially-minded Hollywood product to more independent arty European stuff. Because if you look at European films intended for massive audiences, it is all abject crap. Like forgotten Hollywood films from the 1980s. I mean, if Germans made Look Who's Talking, now in 2022, it'd be the biggest hit of the year here (and it would also be significantly worse than the actual movie). Or when French filmmakers make alleged comedies about how people from different regions are different (!) or how some older people get flummoxed by the presence of black people (!), it's just several floors below Hollywood's output.

    Even prestige films in Europe tend to be populated by theatre actors unaware of how to perform on camera, projecting their melodrama to the back of the room. And the "writing": I don't know if I've seen a modern European art film where you couldn't add or subtract 30 minutes to the runtime without making any goddamn difference to the work.

    To be fair though, I'm relying heavily on my experience with German cinema, and Germany never quite adjusted to the talkie era.

    I’m sorry mate, but that’s just your perception. I don’t agree at all that European actors overact and their writing is superfluous. On the contrary, I generally find European actors to be much more subtle and understated. I’ve lost count of how many American remakes of European films were turned into something more bombastic and on-the-nose.

    Personally I like my films to be slower, which gives me more time to get to know the characters, while absorbing the atmosphere better. I am not looking for efficiency when I’m watching films, it is after all an experience and not a production chain.

    This is all personal taste however, and nobody is right or wrong, but I’m overall a lover of Eurocinema even though I like both. Still though, my top 50 is more or less inhabited by European films such as “Ladri di biciclette”, “Le samourai” or, more recently and definitely one that you have heard of as a German, “Das Leben der Anderen”. I fail to recognise where these films suffer from overacting or superfluous writing by the way.

    To each his/her own of course, but may I add I don’t really appreciate when someone deems my preferences to be wrong and that my reasoning behind my choices are mistakes. No offense of course, just wanted to point that out.
  • Posts: 1,916
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    It’s weird that the show has been dwarfed by the movies these days because when I was a kid in the 90s it felt like the show was a HUGE part of the pop culture lexicon. No surprise, it was a highly successful show lasting seven seasons and two extra up to 1990. Nobody didn’t recognize the theme music. Tom Cruise wasn’t known for franchise films in the 90s, but he knew MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE would turn him into an action star.

    Now these days there are large swaths of fans who aren’t even aware that it used to be a franchise before Tom Cruise came along. I feel like once he took over there was an effort to downplay the show in publicity to an extent. After all, Tom Cruise kills what used to be the leading hero of the franchise. Contrast that with EON, who still heavily market older Bond films because to them it ALL matters.

    I don't think the TV show has to be intimidated by these films any more than, say, the '40s Batman serials have to be by the later Batman films. We are, after all, talking about completely different eras and completely different mediums. A 2023 Mission: Impossible 7, which is supposed to lure the masses to a movie theatre for two hours of fun, is something else than a 1966 TV series that focused on a constant, stay-at-home viewership by television rules from way back when. The show was great, but in my opinion, so are the recent films, even if they are not exact copies of said show. The films always give credit to the show, by the way. I don't really think the TV show is being downplayed or deliberately erased from collective memory.

    The late '80s revival of the TV show didn't do too well, by the way. That had something to do with when it was aired and all, but I do recall feeling underwhelmed myself when I saw this show. I was an early teenager but I still hadn't seen the first Cruise film at that point. The '80s show didn't speak to me like the reruns of the '60s show had. Perhaps enthusiasm for the televised M:I had dwindled below profitable margins and a new direction was the only viable alternative.

    The younger generations cannot be faulted for not seeing too much of Geller's show either. I'm not seeing the show in any streaming list, nor heavily promoted on Bluray and such. So indeed, to some folks who grew up more recently Cruise's is the only Mission: Impossible. Perhaps when this film series has run its course, someone will pick up the idea of doing a new M:I series for TV, drowning in '60s spy/heist nostalgia, but reshaping the formula to appeal to a more modern audience; six decades later.

    And yes, EON still do market the older Bond films, because that's what they are selling: Bond films. They started with DN and built from there, all the way to NTTD and soon to Bond26. The Cruise/Wagner Mission: Impossible films, by contrast, were intended as something else than the series. I don't recall Richie's Man From UNCLE heavily promoting the old UNCLE TV series either. Different people, different mediums, different objectives and interests.

    So all in all, I respect both the '60s TV series and the current film series. One doesn't render the other obsolete. But they are two different things, like '60s Star Trek and Abrams' Star Trek. Shrugging one off in favor of the other is not my MO. They are, at best, spiritual cousins, but not direct descendants, at least not since M:I 2. Cruise's films have organically evolved towards a formula and tone more or less established by M:I 3, and applauded, first by critics, then by critics and audiences. Seeing the impressive critical scores and financial numbers for the recent films, the world is basically telling Cruise that he's doing great, that this is what we want--so please, Tom, make more. Such a level of success equals confirmation that he's doing the right thing. The TV series has had its saying; now, a few generations down the line and in a different part of the family, another wind has blown in. And that will most likely happen again when the next two films are bagged up and released. It is nevertheless perfectly possible to like both of these. They are not competitors, after all.

    And with that, my ranking:

    1) Ghost Protocol
    2) Fallout
    3) Rogue Nation
    4) M:I 3
    5-6) M:I 2 - M:I

    Great post, capturing many of my own thoughts and opinions. Somebody posted earlier about the original M:I series being familiar and it was through the tropes such as the music and self-destructing tape and some of that. But the series itself wasn't widely-seen after it left the air. I can't recall it at all in syndication when I was a growing up. Maybe on some cable networks, but unlike Star Trek, Batman or Andy Griffith, for example, it just didn't widely show up, not even on Nick at Nite.

    I recall that '80s revival but the problem with it was Peter Graves was ancient and due to the writers' strike at the time, they ended up remaking existing scripts and it was always being shuffled around the schedule and not able to build an audience.

    The best thing is when one medium can influence interest in the other and that's what the film series has helped with the TV series. Although I'm sure a lot of people who watch the movies can't understand why there's no big stunts and why the plot moves slower in the TV series. For me, I appreciate both.
  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    edited April 2022 Posts: 1,711
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    FoxRox wrote: »
    Would it be considered a controversial / unpopular opinion to say that for many years now, maybe around early 2010s, I've generally much preferred smaller / indie movies to Hollywood content? They're often much more thought-provoking, original, and just interesting than the rehashed stuff coming out of all these safe, big-budget movies. That's not to say I don't like any high-budget films being made now, but I definitely feel like the less mainstream stuff being made now tends to be superior.

    For me it’s always been like that, Bond is the only exception, though EON isn’t exactly Hollywood either. I’ve always preferred European (incl. British) movies over Hollywood.

    Still though, there’s a huge drop in Hollywood quality between the previous century and this one. The difference between films like Casablanca or Ben-Hur, and what you get these days is incredible.

    There are always exceptions, of course :)

    I think this opinion has always been pretty fashionable, and also wrong. ;-)

    You're making at least two mistakes here: first, you're almost certainly comparing the best of the past with everything coming out today. Just looking at the action genre, I'm willing to bet that comparing the entire action output of any 21st century year with that of any 20th century year will be favorable to the more modern films.

    No reasonable person would argue that scripted television (or series) is not vastly better than what existed pre-Sopranos. It would be odd indeed if for some reason scripted series had improved while its sister medium had got significantly worse.

    The other mistake is the comparison to European cinema. I suspect you're comparing commercially-minded Hollywood product to more independent arty European stuff. Because if you look at European films intended for massive audiences, it is all abject crap. Like forgotten Hollywood films from the 1980s. I mean, if Germans made Look Who's Talking, now in 2022, it'd be the biggest hit of the year here (and it would also be significantly worse than the actual movie). Or when French filmmakers make alleged comedies about how people from different regions are different (!) or how some older people get flummoxed by the presence of black people (!), it's just several floors below Hollywood's output.

    Even prestige films in Europe tend to be populated by theatre actors unaware of how to perform on camera, projecting their melodrama to the back of the room. And the "writing": I don't know if I've seen a modern European art film where you couldn't add or subtract 30 minutes to the runtime without making any goddamn difference to the work.

    To be fair though, I'm relying heavily on my experience with German cinema, and Germany never quite adjusted to the talkie era.

    I’m sorry mate, but that’s just your perception. I don’t agree at all that European actors overact and their writing is superfluous. On the contrary, I generally find European actors to be much more subtle and understated. I’ve lost count of how many American remakes of European films were turned into something more bombastic and on-the-nose.

    Personally I like my films to be slower, which gives me more time to get to know the characters, while absorbing the atmosphere better. I am not looking for efficiency when I’m watching films, it is after all an experience and not a production chain.

    This is all personal taste however, and nobody is right or wrong, but I’m overall a lover of Eurocinema even though I like both. Still though, my top 50 is more or less inhabited by European films such as “Ladri di biciclette”, “Le samourai” or, more recently and definitely one that you have heard of as a German, “Das Leben der Anderen”. I fail to recognise where these films suffer from overacting or superfluous writing by the way.

    To each his/her own of course, but may I add I don’t really appreciate when someone deems my preferences to be wrong and that my reasoning behind my choices are mistakes. No offense of course, just wanted to point that out.

    The winking emoji was sincere: the use of "wrong" was of course a joke.

    I also like slower-paced films, and I'm not much of a fan of Marvel and co. My favorite films are probably Computer Chess and Adaptation. But it is, as you say, a matter of taste, and I do think that fact just adds to some of these comparisons being mistaken. Indeed, they don't make movies like Ben-Hur or Casablanca anymore, because if you deliver your lines like Heston, or even Bogart, you will not be taken seriously as an actor by anybody. Tastes have changed.

    I could compare The Power of the Dog to some Elvis movie and suggest a huge climb in the quality of Hollywood films, but that wouldn't be reasonable either. It's not like and like. But I would say that if you take the schlockiest mainstream stuff of the last decade and put it up against equivalent fare from 50+ years ago, the new schlock is a hell of a lot better. There's a base level of competence in most everything released nowadays, much to my chagrin as a lover of movies that are total misfires. Occasionally we're blessed with an I Am Sam or a Prometheus, but the worst you usually see is that something is boring or shallow. It's rare to come across acting that's much worse than mediocre.

    Again, I'm not a fan of Marvel, but those movies tend to be well-acted, well-written, and well-produced, and have themes and subtext beyond what was common even 20 or so years ago.

    My comments about European prestige pictures having meandering scripts with extraneous scenes was kind of a postscript, and again, a matter of taste. But the popular cinema stuff...I mean, I hate Transformers, but those movies might literally be better than Fack Yu Göthe or Intouchables! :))

    EDIT: I'm not German, just slightly arrogant!
  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 7,108
    I’d take Intouchables over anything Transformers or Marvel, but as you say it’s all a matter of taste. At least we can both agree that Bond is awesome ;)
  • Posts: 15,105
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    FoxRox wrote: »
    Would it be considered a controversial / unpopular opinion to say that for many years now, maybe around early 2010s, I've generally much preferred smaller / indie movies to Hollywood content? They're often much more thought-provoking, original, and just interesting than the rehashed stuff coming out of all these safe, big-budget movies. That's not to say I don't like any high-budget films being made now, but I definitely feel like the less mainstream stuff being made now tends to be superior.

    For me it’s always been like that, Bond is the only exception, though EON isn’t exactly Hollywood either. I’ve always preferred European (incl. British) movies over Hollywood.

    Still though, there’s a huge drop in Hollywood quality between the previous century and this one. The difference between films like Casablanca or Ben-Hur, and what you get these days is incredible.

    There are always exceptions, of course :)

    My controversial opinion: both Ben-Hur and the 10 Commandments are overrated.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited April 2022 Posts: 16,338
    GoldenGun wrote: »
    FoxRox wrote: »
    Would it be considered a controversial / unpopular opinion to say that for many years now, maybe around early 2010s, I've generally much preferred smaller / indie movies to Hollywood content? They're often much more thought-provoking, original, and just interesting than the rehashed stuff coming out of all these safe, big-budget movies. That's not to say I don't like any high-budget films being made now, but I definitely feel like the less mainstream stuff being made now tends to be superior.

    For me it’s always been like that, Bond is the only exception, though EON isn’t exactly Hollywood either. I’ve always preferred European (incl. British) movies over Hollywood.

    Still though, there’s a huge drop in Hollywood quality between the previous century and this one. The difference between films like Casablanca or Ben-Hur, and what you get these days is incredible.

    Those two films were 17 years apart - I think it would be a touch hyperbolic to say there haven't been at least two excellent Hollywood movies in the last 20 years (and Casablanca was a pretty small scale affair so the net widens further on that).

    BT3366 wrote: »
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    It’s weird that the show has been dwarfed by the movies these days because when I was a kid in the 90s it felt like the show was a HUGE part of the pop culture lexicon. No surprise, it was a highly successful show lasting seven seasons and two extra up to 1990. Nobody didn’t recognize the theme music. Tom Cruise wasn’t known for franchise films in the 90s, but he knew MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE would turn him into an action star.

    Now these days there are large swaths of fans who aren’t even aware that it used to be a franchise before Tom Cruise came along. I feel like once he took over there was an effort to downplay the show in publicity to an extent. After all, Tom Cruise kills what used to be the leading hero of the franchise. Contrast that with EON, who still heavily market older Bond films because to them it ALL matters.

    I don't think the TV show has to be intimidated by these films any more than, say, the '40s Batman serials have to be by the later Batman films. We are, after all, talking about completely different eras and completely different mediums. A 2023 Mission: Impossible 7, which is supposed to lure the masses to a movie theatre for two hours of fun, is something else than a 1966 TV series that focused on a constant, stay-at-home viewership by television rules from way back when. The show was great, but in my opinion, so are the recent films, even if they are not exact copies of said show. The films always give credit to the show, by the way. I don't really think the TV show is being downplayed or deliberately erased from collective memory.

    The late '80s revival of the TV show didn't do too well, by the way. That had something to do with when it was aired and all, but I do recall feeling underwhelmed myself when I saw this show. I was an early teenager but I still hadn't seen the first Cruise film at that point. The '80s show didn't speak to me like the reruns of the '60s show had. Perhaps enthusiasm for the televised M:I had dwindled below profitable margins and a new direction was the only viable alternative.

    The younger generations cannot be faulted for not seeing too much of Geller's show either. I'm not seeing the show in any streaming list, nor heavily promoted on Bluray and such. So indeed, to some folks who grew up more recently Cruise's is the only Mission: Impossible. Perhaps when this film series has run its course, someone will pick up the idea of doing a new M:I series for TV, drowning in '60s spy/heist nostalgia, but reshaping the formula to appeal to a more modern audience; six decades later.

    And yes, EON still do market the older Bond films, because that's what they are selling: Bond films. They started with DN and built from there, all the way to NTTD and soon to Bond26. The Cruise/Wagner Mission: Impossible films, by contrast, were intended as something else than the series. I don't recall Richie's Man From UNCLE heavily promoting the old UNCLE TV series either. Different people, different mediums, different objectives and interests.

    So all in all, I respect both the '60s TV series and the current film series. One doesn't render the other obsolete. But they are two different things, like '60s Star Trek and Abrams' Star Trek. Shrugging one off in favor of the other is not my MO. They are, at best, spiritual cousins, but not direct descendants, at least not since M:I 2. Cruise's films have organically evolved towards a formula and tone more or less established by M:I 3, and applauded, first by critics, then by critics and audiences. Seeing the impressive critical scores and financial numbers for the recent films, the world is basically telling Cruise that he's doing great, that this is what we want--so please, Tom, make more. Such a level of success equals confirmation that he's doing the right thing. The TV series has had its saying; now, a few generations down the line and in a different part of the family, another wind has blown in. And that will most likely happen again when the next two films are bagged up and released. It is nevertheless perfectly possible to like both of these. They are not competitors, after all.

    And with that, my ranking:

    1) Ghost Protocol
    2) Fallout
    3) Rogue Nation
    4) M:I 3
    5-6) M:I 2 - M:I

    Great post, capturing many of my own thoughts and opinions. Somebody posted earlier about the original M:I series being familiar and it was through the tropes such as the music and self-destructing tape and some of that. But the series itself wasn't widely-seen after it left the air. I can't recall it at all in syndication when I was a growing up. Maybe on some cable networks, but unlike Star Trek, Batman or Andy Griffith, for example, it just didn't widely show up, not even on Nick at Nite.

    I recall that '80s revival but the problem with it was Peter Graves was ancient and due to the writers' strike at the time, they ended up remaking existing scripts and it was always being shuffled around the schedule and not able to build an audience.

    The best thing is when one medium can influence interest in the other and that's what the film series has helped with the TV series. Although I'm sure a lot of people who watch the movies can't understand why there's no big stunts and why the plot moves slower in the TV series. For me, I appreciate both.


    Whenever I watched the M:I series it always seemed to me that a big reason it rarely appealed was that the heists never seemed to go wrong: the IMF's plans went incredibly smoothly, no-one had much of a personality (the characters were literally interchangeable to the extent that there would be a different one there the next week and it didn't make any difference) and there wasn't any drama. I love heist dramas (which is what M:I is) and a key point of a heist story is that the plan has got to go wrong.
    I have read that as the series went on that they did start to do more of this, but I'd already stopped watching by then because it was a bit boring(!).

    Hustle is a probably a better heist TV show (but I guess this is the thread for controversial movie opinions rather than telly ones :) )
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,179
    It’s easy to get the impression that there were more quality movies made back then because we’re so far removed from that era that the only films that do stand out are the classics, because all the crap has been forgotten. The same will be the case with today’s films where only the standouts will be remembered years down the line.

    When younger people who weren’t even born in the 80s claim they love 80s movies, they’re likely only talk about the classics that stood the test of time. I’d be surprised if a Zoomer has ever heard of a movie like PORKY’S.
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