Are Marvel Movies Cinema?

Tools    





Even though I assume the question is in jest, I'll answer anyway: nah.
Well, good. Both the question and the original comment were certainly both in jest.



My Darth Star is in for a service
My feeling of the subject is similar to the food marketplace.

You can have a sublime meal at your local family run restaurant. Fresh ingredients, exquisite experience, fine wine. Maybe that restaurant makes a profit some years. Maybe some years it doesn't. Sometimes the meals can be a bit pricey. But the food is more often than not lovely, hand crafted by a chef, lovingly prepared .

Or you can have a McDonalds. A mass marketed product enjoyed across the world for the everything now consumer. That makes the company $6Billion profit every year.

Sometimes you have a blow out and go for the 2nd option. But if you choose that option every single time, something's got to give.
I'm with you on the quality cooked meal over a Muck Donalds but yet again it is subjective.
I'm sure eating in that exquiste restaurant would cost a small fortune after a while so it is a treat you have every now and then.
The other thing is why is Mucky Ds so popular?
The mass appeal of a slab of meat in a bun with some lettuce and ketchup accompanied by some anorexic chips (fries to you Americans).
It's basic but people seem to love them.
A bit like a blockbuster movie.
Now the exquiste meal is not as popular but appreciated by the more discerning epicurist.
A bit like a Fellini film.
Different tastes appeal to different people.
You have got to admit though those top chefs do tend to look down their nose at the fast food outlets as if they are better than them while the FFOs just have to point to their popularity and their profits.



Speaking a a fairly regular Joe who stumbles across this site in 2003...

Far from feeling looked down upon or condescended to, I have, for the most part, felt more enriched and downright lucky to have fallen in with a group of people that are more widely versed and knowledgeable about film. I still watch all my run-of-the-mill stuff and blockbusters, but have also absorbed, and continue to absorb and explore, more shall we say refined cinema. For every Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Infinity War, I now also watch Stalker, Don't Look Now, or Three Colors: Blue. Without this site and its more dedicated, hard core cinema heads, I doubt that would be the case.

Ad for whether or not Marvel movies are cinema, I tend to lean towards yes - but I also think there are many types of "cinema" or, just to chuff Marty off, "content."
Second this big time. although I was 8 years behind you getting here. Being here opened me up to a whole world of cinema I had no idea existed. Apparently shouldn't have subscribed to EW when I was a teen. I have so much cinema to explore now which is amazing.

Definitely room for both. I can go to the theater with my boys to see the latest blockbuster, come home and fire up some pretension on the Criterion Channel. Life is good.
__________________
Letterboxd



You have got to admit though those top chefs do tend to look down their nose at the fast food outlets as if they are better than them while the FFOs just have to point to their popularity and their profits.
This isn't a Michelin restaurant. It's a family run local one! Chef is on basic pay. Just does it fore the love of the job.



Insults can fly pretty liberally from both sides of this particular cultural divide. But I'm not sure those who enjoy popular films are any more condescended to than those who like more 'art school' fare are considered snobs, elitists, phonies, pretentious and people who simply don't know how to have a good time. I've pretty regularly seen the notion that they are being 'fooled' by directors who are just con artists. That, sometimes, they are only pretending to like the movies they say they like (the good old Emperor's New Clothes argument). Sure, these movies forums do give more of a voice to those who like these smaller, weirder movies, but they certainly aren't exclusive to these views. You are simply getting a better representation of both sides of this argument. Blockbuster lovers are still here in full force. Back in the real world though, you're back to being the only person around who has these pretentious or eccentric views that people seem to be deeply distrustful of or confused by.
Even putting aside this condescension, I find it weird how defensive people get when you express you don't like these movies, at least in my experience.*I mean, they make billions, are well reviewed and generally well liked.*Are we not allowed to dislike them at all? There's a weird level of identification going on, as if an attack on these movies is an attack on the people who like them.*I'm sure somebody smarter than me has gone into this in more depth at some point.*


My experience may be coloured by a bizarrely heated argument I had after my viewing of Guardians of the Galaxy when a complete stranger took issue after overhearing a conversation with my friends where I explained my lukewarm reaction.



Even putting aside this condescension, I find it weird how defensive people get when you express you don't like these movies, at least in my experience.*I mean, they make billions, are well reviewed and generally well liked.*Are we not allowed to dislike them at all? There's a weird level of identification going on, as if an attack on these movies is an attack on the people who like them.*I'm sure somebody smarter than me has gone into this in more depth at some point.*


My experience may be coloured by a bizarrely heated argument I had after my viewing of Guardians of the Galaxy when a complete stranger took issue after overhearing a conversation with my friends where I explained my lukewarm reaction.
There seems to be alot of confrontational fanboyism with these types of franchise movies. I understand that people will always defend what they like (that includes me). But there seems to be clear cut lines of almost cult belonging. Some even divide into an either or situation. Which I really don't get.



Martin Scorsese’s infinity war:


And to return to Scorsese’s latest, actual, point: Curation should be celebrated, just as expertise should be appreciated and encouraged. And there’s a reasonable place for the algorithm. The rapacious capitalistic dictates of what kinds of movies get seen, streamed, and distributed shouldn’t be swept under the rug, any more than the grim economic realities of our current era that led to that predicament. Sure, we can well assure Scorsese that we know the difference between varying kinds of content: A Fellini film and a YouTube video of a cat falling out a window to AWOLNATION’s “Sail” are very different things, thank you very much. But it’s disingenuous to pretend we’re his intended target: The corporations and bottom-line-minded decision makers who dictate the value of content don’t give a **** about qualitative differences, and certainly don’t care about the artistic merit of one over the other. Who controls our access to both art and entertainment is very much a matter of crucial importance, and the extremely rich people determining those matters do not need defending. They need the Martin Scorseses of the world to call them out; and rather than take umbrage at the suggestion that any movies we enjoy could be anything less than capital-A Art, maybe the rest of us need to support Scorsese, lest we eventually not even know what it is we’re missing out on.



Valorific definititions of art don't seem to work. If a work must be "good" to be "art," we are deprived our our ability to talk about "bad art," and there are certainly bad poems, bad paintings, bad films, etc. We can certainly call the Marvel Movies cinema. And we can also love them or hate them.



To really say that they are not cinema would would require describing objective features that reveal them to be more like a play or something.



Misspelled name....its just a fancy word for Film!
I think Marty's comment is really a lament at the state of cinema in Hollywood in the wake of Netflix and its purchasing power of studio output.Add to this, the watered down nature of many of the Marvel and DC films. Its the fact that most of these super-hero films (and most Hollywood productions) have to be screened for test audiences, have to be globally acceptable to Hollywood's biggest overseas markets - China and India, and are full of safe concepts that are easy to sell to a mass national audience. All of this makes the shareholders happy but leaves the audience in a bland run around of sameness.

This places a lot of pressure on seasoned or new directors who want to make anything other than a franchise entry, remake, Marvel, or sequel. In the early 50's, TV offered up a challenge to filmmakers to bring back the dying film industry, and now streaming services should be creating that need in Hollywood, accept that the studio's are in a state of fear as to how to move forward and get the fastest bang for their buck and crushing creativity in the process.

I suspect whats buried in Scorsese's comment is the want of control over his own ideas that he had during the New Hollywood Period that emerged in roughly 1967, that year alone you had the 5th 007 film, a big hit, In The Heat of the Night, Bonnie and Clyde, The Dirty Dozen, all along side earlier foreign films hitting the U.S market for the first time such as A fistful of Dollars and Le Samurai. The loss of several private small art-house theaters that specialize in bringing films by Ozu or Fellini to U.S audiences is a direct result of streaming and the financial powerhouse that is Disney and other major investors. its not just about choice of movie for the audience, but also for the director with a vision that doesn't correspond to Hollywood's financial fear of failure. Now, of course indie films are still popular and frequently are praised in the mainstream, but you have to hope that you're town has a theater that will play those films and many places don't.

Studios have always feared risk, but these days its near insanity dealing with each element of fear that the shareholders want removed. Much of this goes back to the early 80s with films like Heaven's Gate that went over budget and nearly bankrupted the studio. The paper printed the numbers and the public became aware of cost and the obsession about how expensive films are better than lower budget movies which is of course ridiculous.

The studio heads still ask the questions though! Will the test audience like the film? what do we need to change? will it sell overseas?, how should we end the film? By the time the movie is done its been sanitized to the point where the creativity has been watered down and lost. Box-office names like Spielberg are even resorting to remakes like West Side Story because that's an easy sell. Steven Barely got Lincoln made into a movie because studio heads were afraid there wasn't an audience for it!

Today, the shareholder and license-holder have more power than the director and his or her team and that's resulting in a lot of highbrow quality ideas getting kicked to the curb in favor of safe projects that can easily be sold overseas. Something that wasn't as major a concern during most of the 20th century. The good news is, like anything, whats popular and what the audience craves changes. Someday mainstream film-making will hit another renaissance.
__________________
Its not old, Its Classic!



I am the Watcher in the Night
I've weighed in on this in the past so I will not repeat my original sentiment (summary: yes, the best of the MCU is great cinema, e.g. Winter Soldier or Infinity War). However, in the wake of recent Marvel movies/TV, Id like to add something a little different: the MCU is now a big pile of stinking mess.

The first big post Endgame project Marvel had (minus Black Widow as the release was delayed due to Covid) was Wandavision. The trailers really intrigued me and I tuned in, soon watching the entire series. It was not bad, in fact, the first couple episodes and their sitcom settings were genuinely entertaining and intriguing. Then the cracks started to appear, the same cracks which had been apparent in the MCU post Guardians of the Galaxy....a disrespect of their own property. While the Hulk and Thor were badly treated in various movies, at least Thor was taken seriously in Infinity War and Hulk had a bit of a redemption in Endgame, yet too much was being played for laughs. Almost nothing mattered because it could all be laughed off.

Enter Quicksilver. Fans weer hot on that, is this the multiverse? How will Quicksilver manifest in this story?

The answers: No and he was the set up for a boner joke. Wow...

My expectations dropped significantly for The Falcon and The Winter Soldier but the first episode blew me away...the production quality, the epic action sequences, all of it had me thinking the MCU was headed in the right direction, then the season followed and i twas the greatest of all sins: boring. The production dropped off pretty quickly, action sequences became repetitive, the story was bogged down with preaching and the love/hate dynamic between the protagonists felt forced. The show is no longer remembered and its only been about 3 months.

By the time Loki hit screens I knew what to expect, a show filled with fake outs, a lack of conclusion and political messaging. Don't get me wrong, messaging on matters of race, imperialism and gender are important but Loki just took the pee. The male Loki became a passenger in his own story, there was a bland romance and ultimately...well ultimately nothing happened. No cnclusion, no universe changing battle, no nothing.

The MCU hasn't fared any better in the film department, The Eternals has been a ratings failure (I have yet to watch it), Shang Chi was the most bland origin story I have ever seen and I stopped watching half way and while Black Widow would have worked better pre-Infinity War, Johanson has some charisma which carries the film but gender swaps and every male character being a laughing stock does not cut it. It's lazy, no one cares and it kills the franchise.

Is the MCU cinema? I don't know anymore but it certainly is a mess.
__________________
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"

"I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle"



Opinion: Please stop asking film directors about Marvel movies

...the Marvel Question is bad for all sides. It encourages lovers of auteur films and viewers of cape fare to consider each other the outgroup. The balkanization of cineastes is already bad — it’s a rarity when filmmakers such as Paul Thomas Anderson sing the praises of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” — and deploying this question is only making the problem worse. It’s an inherently divisive way to discuss an artform that at its best brings people together and, as Scorsese once said, opens “doors and minds.”



This clip reminded me of this thread.

Hmm; I agree with some of what he said there, but I still find it odd that he singled out Logan for praise as one of the best Superhero movies (which is one of the things I 100% agree with) after he was dismissing it earlier as just another example of the genre where a guy just runs around fighting people while wearing a spandex outfit (which is not even remotely true, obviously).



Registered User
I find the movie snobs and the mindless CBM fanboys to be equally annoyning.



Marvel is Luv💓