What do you feel is the biggest problem with modern entertainment

I might be by myself with this but I was actually really glad Bojack Horseman ended. Loved that show but I felt like it was steadily declining since around the start of....season 4? Although also and separately, Im generally in favor and glad when tv shows end sooner rather than later whether or not its getting better or worse.

Same here, but I never listen to the radio.

I occasionally find a modern pop song that I like while watching newer movies, especially intros and over the ending credits. Sometimes I find a modern pop song while doing what I call a "deep dive" into YouTube or Amazon Prime music. This yields me several "keeper" songs each year.

Exactly, that’s the best way.

When I do listen to the radio, I am much struck by the hookiness/catchiness of the songs, but also the sameness of them, as if they've cracked the algorithm for pop songs and Dr. Hook is now DALL-E. All this pentatonic hookiness is fun for a few minutes, but taken in the scope of the landscape of contemporary music it is also rather bland.

When I do find a pop song that I really like, it is sometimes embarrassing to find out that the song is 10 yrs old. "My Hero" by the Foo Fighters comes to mind.

I think that some modern Western entertainment is bland, uninspired, and safe. Instead of tackling social issues in new, exciting ways, the woke culture of boringly PC entertainment breeds cautious, risk-free yarn that never transgresses, never violates, and never takes the form of a full-blown piece of art. (Yes, entertainment used to be art much more often than now, but it's a hard conversation because it requires us to agree on the definition of art.)

Today's socially-conscious films made by Hollywood are bad. Their only upside - they are great conversation starters. But only if you agree with them or want to bash them. Films used to have social themes but they were naturally enclosed in a story, in characters, in a greater free-flowing idea. Never so in-your-face. Never so simplistic. With one exception. Propaganda movies of the yore.

Hard-line propaganda films were always ridiculously and blatantly obvious. They demonstrated what they had to say in the most unimaginative way possible. Nowadays socially-conscious mainstream films have taken that path, manifesting their agenda in a similar way. And no matter if you agree with that agenda or not, it's painfully obvious and about the only worthwhile thing about these movies.

Does that apply to literally all modern Western movies? No. But there's a visible, worrisome trend that doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.

But of course, I'm only focusing on film. What's wrong with music, then? Well... For one, modern music you can hear on the radio is God-awful. Much worse than the popular music of the past. But if you dig a little bit, and, mind you, you don't really have to dig that deep, you can find lots and lots of great music. To the point of overabundance. But that's never a bad thing.

Yeah, you heard me right. I don't think the overabundance of films and music is an issue. And I'm sure @mark f would agree with me. We consume more films than anybody used to in the past before the internet made (nearly) all movies in the world readily available. But while it changes us in a way, I believe that great art (entertainment can be art, too) always prevails. Many times have I stumbled upon a masterpiece that moved me even though I was jaded, exhausted, moody, and had enough of films. But that one brilliant piece of entertainment (or art) brought my love for movies (or music) back.

So, I think overabundance can lead to only one issue. The issue of time. You have so much to see, and so little time. Ars longa, vita brevis. And you don't really know what to pick. But for cinephiles like me, the answer is simple. You pick (nearly) everything. You watch everything. And with a keen eye and good palate, your choices mostly bring you good to great choices. And then there's a new socially-conscious film that everybody's creaming over. Time to watch it and see if it's any different. If anything has changed. Nope. Not this time. Time to watch old films. And new films not made by money-crazy 'muricans. Go, go, Japan! Onwards to the final masterpiece!

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I tend to think that art and entertainment are just different sides of the same coin in movies. If someone with credentials likes it, it becomes art or if a critical mass of critics like it, or if the viewing public keeps liking it for a long time, all of those things make a movie into "Art".

In my non-movie life, I know lots of people that dabble or work in the arts in my town, including me. I see the same thing there. Because I don't think that I am the only person who has the ultimate power to judge Art vs Non Art or Good Art vs Bad Art, I just stick with "keep doing it, looks nice" and let posterity be the judge.

I don't know just what the answer is. As far as I'm concerned, just about any competently made movie counts as Art, even when it is frankly imitative or exploitive. After all, there's plenty of painters who are in high-zoot art museums who painted because someone paid them, so their Art was partially the Art of flattery, getting paid and pleasing the customer. It's a portrait of the Count's daughter, who really did NOT look all that good. That's not all that different from a movie maker who does another car-chase movie because they sell tickets and popcorn.

Generally, like many things, money is the issue. If you want millions to spend making a movie, the people who put up the bucks want a say in what the movie will be. Don't insult them. Most importantly, as an investment, they want to not just get their money back, but make a big profit. As a film maker, the biggest task is a return on investment for the financial backer, unless somewhere, in some universe, there's a money bag that doesn't care about profit.

It would be interesting, in a huge experiment, to have a huge fund, 10 million to each qualifying film maker, to make whatever film they wanted. No strings attached and nobody will tell you how to spend that money.

The cynic would ask, would film makers go for somebody's definition of "quality" (whatever THAT means) or profit. I think I know the answer.

Years ago I remember begging the DJ at a nightclub to tell me the name of a song he just played which had an ethereal female lead and pulsing synth track. The DJ looked at me like I had two heads and told me it was "I feel love" by Donna Summer.

I think modern entertainment is largely going from strength to strength though it may take some to get through the self-conscious inclusivity kick and just BE inclusive.

I do think Horror needs some looking at even though horror is also only getting better. My one piece of advice to anyone writing a horror screenplay is you need to avoid any words that tell rather than show i.e. no character ever utters the words "scary", "creepy", "eerie" etc. They just do not exist in their vocabulary.

For directors: tone it down with the music. When in doubt, don't include any music. So many potentially good moments are ruined by bad music direction. Hereditary is the worst offender.

Better for it to be 100 years old of course. I hate it when everything I'm liking is recent.

Yes, I hate it when everything I'm liking lately is recent.

That is essentially what happened. There is an algorithm, alright, a chord which is not sacred nor doth please the Lord, I should hope, but it does reliably make a song go to number 1. Four chords, actually.

https://amp.classicfm.com/discover-m...very-pop-song/

In a rather cinematic (Big Eyes? And yes, I know it’s a true story) twist, Ed Sheeran had to do a fair bit of singing at a copyright trial to demonstrate that said four chords make all pop songs sound exactly the same. Wish someone made a film about that.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainme...s-61006984.amp

I know I have posted this on the site before, but I am sure not everyone has seen it. Anyway, as far as modern music is concerned...



TLDR: Most popular music today is written by the same small group of people and overall, tonal and structural complexity in music has gone in the shitter.

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This was a huge problem for Spencer among its other faults. The freakin’ music just would not quit. Just about everyone in IMDB.com hated it in the reviews.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Music is essential since it's the emotional barometer for the movie. Without it, it's just people reading lines. In live theater, with no music, actors have to emote a lot more because that's how they communicate with the audience. Once music entered the movie world, actors had to under-act so they would not look hammy or Shakespearean. It's how, you know in an instant, when the bad guy entered the scene.

There's always been a small group of pop music insiders, plying their trade, and a style that sells. Most of the best music is well outside the mainstream, all there to be found by anybody who's interested. A subset of these folks write music for movies, using the same devices they've used for decades now. Another subset write for TV.

Yeah, what attracts a large part of audiences is the "visual assets" of the image that accompanies the music. You gotta be cynical when it comes to human behavior.

Yeah, this. Seems to be about vibe as much as anything, which is why so time is spent talking about clothes, quotes, hair, whatever, relative to the music itself at least.

I've said this before but there's a lot of very "uncool" bands where, if you just found them playing in some hole in the wall, with no preconceptions and no vibes or images attached to them, you'd think they were great.

On paper, this seems so odd, but it's still true. It; seems odd, because music is delivered through sound, which is perceived by the ears, but for many people, visual aspects are the main draw etc.

Yep. Having been to lots of symphonic concerts in my life, I'd rate them way below the tease quotient of the slinky, big-boob videos, but, in that case, it's about tuxes and gowns that look like they reject and rise above pop culture and have lots of money to put that on display. What they actually do is to just create a different set of expectations. It's just as visual as Katy Perry, but the audience is more pretentious, thinking that THEY don't respond to the visual cues and are only there for the music, when the cynic knows that they are also there to see nicely dressed people and mix with them while they are in their nice clothes.

Humans are the same all over, just different clothes.