The Increase in foreign films

So here's a poser for ya;
Are more people watching foreign films because they are tired of poor lazy filmaking from Hollywood; or
Is this increase due to the internet, a wider selection available to more people than before and companies like amazon that now sell previously unavailable foreign titles?

IMO, CGI is the worst thing to happen to filmaking, it has made filmakers lazy, and a lot of Big Movies substitute story and plot for expensive effects. Foreign filmakers don't have the same budgets as Hollywood Blockbusters, and this forces the director to be more creative and clever. I tend to find foreign films less formulaic, and on the whole they tend to have layered stories with complex characters. Unfortunately, Hollywood is now remaking loads of foreign films, and although some of the remakes are good films, they never better the original. Just my humble opinion, what d'ya think people????
P.S. I'm wearing a French beret and Salvador Dali moustache as I write this thread!!!

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I can only speak for me, but I started posting on movie boards about 2.5 years ago and a lot of film students post here, and people in other countries. I got a ton of recommendations from them of films that are consistently wonderful.

I think Hollywood has been pandering to the lowest common denominator for a long time and they've been undershooting for decades. People are getting tired of things being dumbed down, but only if they have something else for comparison.

With the upsurge in support for indie films in the US in the last decade, hopefully we're seeing the start of things getting better. I'd like to think so, anyway.

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The worrying thing about indie films, is that the bigger studios are now buying all the indie companies because of their recent success. Memento was passed over by so many companies, and if it wasn't for Steven Soderbergh's suppport of Chris Nolan, it might never have been made. Fox now own the rights, and this worries me. Hopefully the big studios will leave the decision making to the people responsabile for making indie films in the first place. Hell, how long before Fox put forward the idea of Memento 2?
If it ain't broke don't fix it!!!
I hope I'm wrong, but Hollywood's laziness astounds me. Every year it's sequels or remakes, tired of the MTV movie making of guys like Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer. Before you say it, Pirates of the Carribean was good, yeah but Johnny Depp rocks!

I can understand your concern.
On the flip-side... it wasn't that long ago that Soderberg was just some guy working on a script in his parent's attic. As more previously indie filmmakers hit the bigger paychecks, I'd hope that the trend will move more toward letting people make their own decisions.

It's amazing how little creative control people have, though, despite being the ones who had the idea to begin with. A friend of mine is a director of a tv show and has told me a bit about how ideas that were originally really worthy of production get dummed down to drivel by network execs who are thinking only of easy marketing plans.

Tell me about it. I've had more possitive responses from my script-professor in New York about my Glasgow based trilogy than I have had back home in Glasgow." Can we change the ending to be more happy, cause people don't want to see downbeat endings. "

People nowadays are far more intelligent when it comes to films, life's not always full of happy endings, but I guess that's one man's opinion. If I had the new format for areality show, I'd be rolling in it.

Personally, the internet has done nothing for me. I'm just blessed with a robust sense of adventure, excellent taste and a number of good video stores near by. A pox on the vox populi!

Yeah, it's really frustrating. The formula works, in most cases, but it is possible to do something original and creative. Keislewski gets away with it. Kar-Wei does it. There are more Americans starting to do things a little differently, though, and seeing cmomercial success: Sofia Coppola made a movie about 2 people who aren't "buddies" and aren't "lovers"... Zach Braff bucked the 30/60/30 formula with Garden State... Alexander Payne wrote about characters who were actually pretty big douche bags. None of those movies would have been made 20 years ago.

Can a vox support a pox?

I could not disagree much more. It hasn't made filmmakers in general any lazier than any effect would. Technically, if we didn't have makeup or stuntmen, filmmakers would be forced to write more engaging dialogue, but that doesn't mean films in general would be better.

CGI is just another tool, ready to be used or abused. It allows people to make thin, formulaic films like The Day After Tomorrow, but it also allows people like Peter Jackson to adapt The Lord of the Rings. It gives us more good AND more bad, but we can often spot the bad and simply not see it. For that reason, I think it's clearly a net positive.

This is part of a larger complaint about the quality of films in general that I've never quite understood. The consensus among cinephiles seems to be that Hollywood puts out an inordinate amount of crap. This may be true, but why would it matter unless this were coming at the expense of better films? Seems to me that Hollywood's putting out more of everything, and the presence of more crap doesn't diminish the quality films that are still there, unless they begin to replace them.

In other words, it sounds like complaints about the quality of movies are often really complaints about the tastes of fellow moviegoers.

Yeah, I've seen good examples of CGI, but I do still think its a lazy option. At the end of " The Clone Wars " it looked like Sam Jackson was running through a cartoon, compare it to the original trilogy's battle scenes, I know what I'd rather watch. It's a personal choice, but I do feel let down every summer, when blockbuster hype takes over, the majority of the times I feel let down by the end result. I've spent a lot of time in New York, and the reaction of American crowds is definetly different to back home when watching a movie.
Again IMO there has been a general dumbing down of movies, but as you rightly point out there is a huge increase in the number of movies being made every year.
P.S. If in the future, my film career eventually happens, and I'm guilty of over using CGI technology you have my blessing to use this thread against me.
Thank you for your opinion O wise one, the force is strong.

I don't think there's an increae in foreign films per se, i think there's just become a more demanding niche audience that distributors can successful release a film to. Hollywood makes about 2000 films a year, distributes 460, and about 50 are successful, thats a hit rate of 2.5%, whereas industries like France have 30% of their box-office occupied by French films, of which 100 are made and 10 are successful, hit rate of 10%. Not sure how that fit's in but it interested me. Anyway, i think industries like Japan are stuck in a Catch 22, the small production companies make the excessive films, which in turn American distributers buy cheaply then release and in turn a niche is created who want more of these films, opposed to other more artistic films, same applies for France, films like Irreversible and Haute Tension are picked up cheaply and distributed abroad. Also DVDs and internet shopping has just allowed the niches created to have growing access to foreign films, and Hollywood is learning that foreign films can mean success, look at Spirited Away- nominated for an Oscar (suprise!) yet campaign effort was put in as it was against 2 of the companies own films, so now hopefully Howl's Moving Castle won't suffer the same fate. And Shaolin Soccer, im pretty sure it was dubbed and recut yet still made money, so now Kung Fu Hustle is released in original form. I'm actually just reciting my last exam answer, but whatever. Rock on foreign films.
As for CGI, i agree with Yoda, you can't fault LOTR for the use of CGI, but i also agree about Star Wars. Let's not forget the films like Ichi the Killer used CGI, apparently it was used as a commentary and ironical, but i'm not convinced that's not just a cop out.

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I think it is a mix of both. Part of it has to be that creativity within the Hollywood system is being suffocated, in favor of "safer bets" financially. People have begun seeking something different, which eventually leads overseas.

But I also think the rise of channels like IFC and Sundance, as well as more theaters that show indies and foreign films. Around my neck of the woods, AFI just opened a three seat theater, and Landmark Cinima has opened 2 arthouse chain theaters. This makes it easier to see films that were tough to see in theaters before.

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The internet certainly helps from a marketing perspective. The bigger issue is the DVD market, which is huge and ever expanding, and the shrinking profits at the box office. It costs a whole hell of a lot less to buy the distribution rights to a movie that has already proven successful overseas and then market it in the US. The profit margins are high.