What is the point of movies like up in the air or descendants

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These are movies about regular people doing regular things and the directors find a spin on daily routine and somehow they get recognized for their work. But in the end its still a movie about people doing stuff that is not particularly interesting or engaging.

Just because you make a movie about a bank teller that is trying to connect with his long lost daughter doesnt mean his bank teller life is interesting enough to be made into a movie. I just dont get why someone would even aspire to become a director like alexander payne or worse jason reitman. Its just regular people doing regular stuff.



Both of the movies in question are far more dramatic than most people's normal lives, so I'd probably have to reject the premise entirely.

Even if this were not the case, though, the answer would be something like: they use their technical skill to illustrate universal and relatable human experiences, and a lot of people like stories that do that. In fact, that's what most stories do, however many layers of abstraction might sit on top of it.

I'll go a bit further, too: making "ordinary" things more interesting is, in a way, the most impressive thing you can do with the medium. Anyone can make you want to look at a giant alien robot blowing things up (though it gets old pretty quick). Making you want to read someone's facial expression or body language to figure out how they're going to react requires a lot more skill.

If you want to understand Reitman, Payne, and other directors like that, it probably means first not thinking of movies as a mode of conveyance for mere ideas, massive stakes, or plot points.



I do understand where you’re coming from, but I think such movies differ massively among themselves. Some I, too, find incredibly boring, but some are masterpieces, often more engaging than your average science fiction film. I think Up In the Air is a very good film, but it didn’t blow my mind when I watched it... Some films about ‘ordinary’ people have stayed with me for years, like Sadie (2018). I agree with Yoda, it’s about finding the universal truths in everyday life and showing them effectively. Besides, on a different note, many science fiction/ genre classics start out with an everyman protagonist, before the outlandish stuff happens to him. So, regardless of what the genre is, a significant part of effective storytelling is establishing rapport/empathy with the character who is just like most ordinary people.



Both of the movies in question are far more dramatic than most people's normal lives, so I'd probably have to reject the premise entirely.

Even if this were not the case, though, the answer would be something like: they use their technical skill to illustrate universal and relatable human experiences, and a lot of people like stories that do that. In fact, that's what most stories do, however many layers of abstraction might sit on top of it.

I'll go a bit further, too: making "ordinary" things more interesting is, in a way, the most impressive thing you can do with the medium. Anyone can make you want to look at a giant alien robot blowing things up (though it gets old pretty quick). Making you want to read someone's facial expression or body language to figure out how they're going to react requires a lot more skill.

If you want to understand Reitman, Payne, and other directors like that, it probably means first not thinking of movies as a mode of conveyance for mere ideas, massive stakes, or plot points.
i would say directors like payne and reitman are products of their circumstances. They wanted to make movies their own way and from their own original ideas that the they had to keep the budget to bare minimum and not take advantage of massive financial resources at studio systems. This resulted in movies that take place is the most ordinary suburbs with people that are not special. Who even cares about american beauty as much as they do about gladiator ? more financial risk gives more reward even in terms of legacy.



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Because it's not what the movie's about but how it's about it. Many of the greatest films of all-time could be described as "regular people doing regular things", whether it's The Apartment or Tokyo Story or A Woman Under the Influence. Even a seemingly boring subject can be made interesting in the right hands.
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i would say directors like payne and reitman are products of their circumstances. They wanted to make movies their own way and from their own original ideas that the they had to keep the budget to bare minimum and not take advantage of massive financial resources at studio systems. This resulted in movies that take place is the most ordinary suburbs with people that are not special.
I don't think this makes a lot of sense, for a few reasons:

1) Big ideas don't cost much, so even if they wanted to keep budget down they wouldn't have to make movies about normal people in realistic scenarios.

2) Effects are increasingly cheap: there are lots of good high-concept sci-fi films with budgets below even studio character dramas like the ones you're talking about.

3) Doesn't seem like these kinds of directors branch off into wildly different types of films once they achieve more success, even though they could probably do so if they wanted to.

Who even cares about american beauty as much as they do about gladiator ?
Geez, lots of people. Who even talks about Gladiator any more? I think you're extrapolating your own personal opinion onto the movie going public at large here.

more financial risk gives more reward even in terms of legacy.
Yeah, I don't think so. I realize from past interactions that you think of box office as the primary consideration in filmmaking, but there's just no real evidence that filmmakers think that way, and it obviously doesn't correlate very well with which films are most admired and discussed years or decades later, either.

It's fine if you want to decide box office is some kind of measure of quality, importance, or "legacy," but it seems as if these questions and claims (and lots of others in the past) are based around treating this as a fact, rather than something you've just decided to latch onto, perhaps out of a desire to take a highly subjective thing and make it seem quantifiable.



Because it's not what the movie's about but how it's about it. Many of the greatest films of all-time could be described as "regular people doing regular things", whether it's The Apartment or Tokyo Story or A Woman Under the Influence. Even a seemingly boring subject can be made interesting in the right hands.
Yeah but those are all boring. How much money did they even make? Was Leonardo DiCaprio in any of them?



John Wayne Gacy worked in KFC. His life was anything but ordinary. Just sayin'!


But you ask why these movies are made, without mentioning what should constitute a general script of a movie? Marvel stuff? Jason like stuff? Poltergeist like ghosts? Goodfellas like goons? Or just chainsaws?



You see there is an amazing charm in stories being grounded in reality and what a person faces in their day to day lives. Descendants is a peach of a movie. So is Up in the Air. I would argue movies should be more like it. Marriage Story did something similar and got praised for it, and rightly so.


Hollywood should focus more on these scripts. Europe already does a lot of them, but it's lacking in the US.
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I haven't seen the movies in question, but based on the description, the movie Wendy and Lucy comes to mind. I might be shallow or thick, but I found it ravingly empty, and I have serious problems with grasping what could be driving someone to bother making a movie like that.



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Maybe. Have you seen the movie?

hm?
Up In the Air, yes. The other, no. I'm replying to the OP "...movies like..." and the first paragraph, "These are movies about regular people doing regular things and the directors find a spin on daily routine and somehow they get recognized for their work. But in the end its still a movie about people doing stuff that is not particularly interesting or engaging."


That is storytelling 101. We all tell anecdotes of our experiences to others. Sometimes we embellish with humor or exaggeration, but at the heart of it all we're all just recounting our lives in one way or another, or what we might prefer our lives to be. Normal people relate to people doing normal things.
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Welcome to the human race...
I took Wendy and Lucy to be a character study about a transient who has to deal with losing her pet as a result of the callousness with which she is treated. It invites empathy because losing a pet is a relatable problem to many people and the difference is in seeing how someone without a stable living situation can manage to handle such a task in addition to their usual adversities.



The other take on this is going outside the "everyday people" genre, but then, to what? Crime, monsters, superheroes, action flix are all about as overburdened by overuse as those genres can be. The last time I saw one, I made a resolution to myself, to NOT see any more leotard movies until I really have the urge. That hasn't happened yet. I really would rather see something smaller, low budget and not as overused. Superheroes especially, seem to be about where westerns were in 1970....a limited set of plot lines, generic characters and lots of horses and dust. Now that's complicated gadgets, larger than life villains, leotarded superheroes and lots of loud, digital FX. Crime has been done over and over and still doesn't pay, monsters come and go, and incessant action, especially car chases, have just been done to death. Big franchises like Star Wars have gotten bogged down in too many generations and too much plot history. It's good to just get away from that stuff for a while.



These are movies about regular people doing regular things and the directors find a spin on daily routine and somehow they get recognized for their work. But in the end its still a movie about people doing stuff that is not particularly interesting or engaging.
Based on the above, I presume you like only superhero movies?
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Based on the above, I presume you like only superhero movies?
no..i like movies where stakes are more than just "ooh how am i going to express my feelings" or "how am i going to express my parental love" or "how am i going to make something out of my life"



These are movies about regular people doing regular things and the directors find a spin on daily routine and somehow they get recognized for their work. But in the end its still a movie about people doing stuff that is not particularly interesting or engaging to me.
There are fixed your first paragraph. See the difference?



no..i like movies where stakes are more than just "ooh how am i going to express my feelings" or "how am i going to express my parental love" or "how am i going to make something out of my life"
Strange that in 2 years here you have no favorite movies listed. Just saying.