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

The point of the Descendants was to touch on the lives of the wealthy Hawaiians and the Hawaiian tribal lands.


The point of Up in the Air was to show the industry of professional layoff people.


Both films had hooks and then decided to use those hooks to tell romance and dramatic stories from those hooks. Clooney also likely wanted a Hawaiian vacation and someone likes Up in the Air the book and optioned it.

So...name some names. What DO you prefer? We understand that you don't like soft touch flicks, so what else?

Ignoring the massive persuasive power of prefixing an otherwise normal statement with "ooh," those are all tremendously important things to people. All that's required to care about them is empathy, and generating that is, like, the primary task of filmmaking.

Technically, Ford v Ferrari answers all three of those questions with "build a really fast car".

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

This thread is still going!!


I watched the Straight Story yesterday and I have to say, for you it might be the blandest movie ever. Like no salt in it. But it's rated at an 8 on IMDB. To each his own!

At the end of the day, those are the stories many people like.

A man can watch Up in the Air and go, yeah that's my life! In and out of the airport. But I don't think a lot of people would say that when they see Deadpool being flogged around. Or even Batman pounding Bane.

__________________
My Favorite Films

But its much more than that. It captures the 60s racing/corporate culture.

I like movies that transport me to a time and place. Movies that deal with big concepts and ideas.

LOL. Love The Straight Story. If you want salt, buy a bag of chips.

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

Haha... I haven't had chips in such a long time, that I have forgotten what it tastes like!!!! I might as well watch Joli in Salt to make up for it though!

The point being that asking the same kind of personal questions underneath the superficial elements like cars and corporate culture is what truly lends the film its substance - the car stuff is appreciable in the abstract, but it means virtually nothing without the personal-versus-professional stakes that underline not only Ford v Ferrari but even a less tangibly exciting film like Up in the Air (especially when both films centre around a protagonist who is exceptionally committed to his job to the point where it makes other people concerned).

But that doesn't mean, the movie would be great if all they did was talking and the racing scenes happened off screen. History of cinema tell us that more people care about apocalypse now than shampoo or ordinary people. There is nothing transportive about up in the air. But there is certain transportive quality about 1960s racing culture. That is what sets them apart. The ability of a movie to put audience in a certain rich time period that they have no connection to is paramount attribute of a cinematic experience.

these concepts better suit a hbo movie and shouldn't be part of a cinematic theatrical experience.

I see no basis for that statement. You seem to merely be extrapolating your personal preference and pretending it’s an objective standard. More than that, you seem to not realize you’re doing it. You seem to actually believe you’re making an observation, rather than stating a preference.

its not a personal opinion...many of these small movies arent doing much business in the theaters. Alexander payne has never become a brand that can put butts in seats because his directorial style and the stories he chose to tell never have that intoxicating feeling that some of the other filmmakers' have.

Of course it is. There's no objective measure you can cite to say they "shouldn't" get releases in major theaters. That is, by definition, a subjective value judgment.

And some do. The ones that end up in lots of theaters are the ones theaters (and distributors) think can do enough business to be worthwhile.

Like, seriously, why do you think they're there? You think theater owners aren't trying to make money? They have lots of screens. They exhibit the things they think will maximize the amount of money they make, and since they can't put the latest inane Transformers film on every single theater (and don't need to, since even blockbusters aren't selling out all those screens), they put other films that appeal to other kinds of moviegoers, albeit not as many. It's not complicated, or confusing, unless you completely lack an understanding of cinema economics and basic empathy.

Two fallacies here:

1) Assuming that he's not "intoxicating" because he doesn't intoxicate you, personally.

2) Confusing rote attendance with how "intoxicating" something is. I have already noted the obvious distinction between films more people pay to see in theaters upon release, and the films people talk about and study for decades after. They are often not the same, and I've been continually calling out your bizarre conflation of ticket sales with other words like "significance," as if they were the same concept. They're not, and I'm just going to keep pointing out they're not until you address it somehow. So far, your response has been just to repeat the initial assertion with no acknowledgement of this simple, inarguable distinction.

Up in the Air grossed $83 million dollars domestically and $166 million dollars internationally. It has about 310,000 votes on the IMDb, putting it in the top 20 most rated films for the year that it came out. It shares space in that top 20 with films like Inglourious Basterds, Star Trek, Avatar, Watchmen, Up, one of the Harry Potter films, Transformers, The Hangover, and Zombieland. Payne's Sideways grossed $109 million, while Descendents grossed $177 million. (And both of those films had a budget of $20 million or less).

I really liked Up in the Air. It was about someone who has honed both a professional self and a personal philosophy who suddenly has both of those things called into question. If you've made it to your 30s or 40s, this is a common piece of soul searching that a lot of people go through. "I'm good at my job. I've figured it out. But is this who I want to be for the rest of my life?". It's about how shifting priorities can make you suddenly realize that something you've placed importance on isn't anything special, as in the scene where the main character hits the 1 million miles traveled mark on the airline and suddenly that's not something to be proud of. It's kind of sad.

Films are capable of engaging us, as viewers, on a lot of different levels. I watch a ton of action and horror. I know the thrill of immediate, plot-driven stakes. The Man from Nowhere is one of my favorite films, and there's a whole lot of knife fights and trying to rescue people from bad guys. And there's certainly something to be said for well-made spectacle, like the high-quality stuntwork that you get in something like the Mission Impossible franchise.

But sometimes the stakes are emotional, and the action that comes along with that isn't as adrenaline pumping. Two Days, One Night is about a woman who can keep her job if she can convince her co-workers to give up their annual bonus. That's it. Most of the film is just her character having these quietly desperate conversations with her coworkers, trying to convince them to vote to give up their bonus. But I was genuinely on the edge of my seat for the last 20 minutes. As other posters have said before (and it goes back to an old Roger Ebert quote), movies are empathy machines. They let us feel what someone else is feeling and understand their point of view. Letting yourself sink into someone else's point of view--to imagine what it would be like for your job to hang on the whims of your co-workers--can be its own kind of intoxication.

I felt this way about The Martian. Other than Matt Damon's character having the only remotely dramatic (and entertaining) storyline, the rest of the film was focused on boring NASA and their equally boring jobs speaking equally boring techno-jargon I couldn't give two crap about.

But hey, someone out there might have a passion for such NASA-related subjects, which is pretty much the point of these "normal lives" movies, to be honest. They touch on something someone's bound to care about, no matter how boring they are. Same with Hallmark movies.

Well, really, nobody's doing any business in theaters right now. When actual movies in actual theaters do return, it's a decent bet that there will be some sort of re-boot of the entire concept. In my real theater realm, I'm lucky enough to have several local theaters that show "small" movies, as in indies, art-house fare, foreign films, etc and, even before the plague, they were not the theaters that constantly worried about 200 million dollar movies that only made 100 million on the first day.

The small movies simmer along, don't cost much to make and are not overburdened with huge celebrity star salaries, so given some patience, are profitable, but on a smaller scale.

I'm impressed with just how bankrupt the makers of "big concept" movies have gotten and, if I ever see another Star Wars or Batman movie, I just might puke. It's just as used up as a plot line can be and with all the money and investors that are gambling on a huge box office to make huge profits, all those big franchises are trying to make a high jump with lead boots. Even when it is safe to take the tape off your windows, I bet it's going to be a while before people pack like sardines to see The Joker do the same sh*t he's been doing since the comic book days. I don't even want to thing about what will happen to second tier action like the John Wick series. That's all that's left in recent years that combines high budget with something pretending to be high concept. It was obvious 6 months ago and even more looming now, since those huge gambles on FX movies are all that's left of anything big and high concept in our world of shrinking movies that cost more.

It's weird to me that we keep talking about why people should have interest in things in films that are more realistic than most blockbusters. "Why should I care about some guy's family?" I dunno, why should you care about superheroes and alternate realities? Those movies have way less to do with your real life than whatever Alexander Payne's doing, so if anything the question should be asked the other way.

And if someone asked me that, I'd point out that superhero movies are actually relatable because they're expressions of courage and determination. The same way character dramas are expressions of various things beyond the rote plot summary. Maybe you'll never be a part of a split family or something (and maybe you will, and come to appreciate those kinds of films, if directly relevant personal experience is the only thing that makes a film worthwhile, to you). But maybe you've, at some point in your life, had trouble being accepted by someone who mattered to you. And maybe, just maybe, you can use that experience to empathize with the different life experiences being depicted in films like that.

That's how movies normally work for those who love the medium, at least.

I don't see much that's relatable about spandex guys who can jump over buildings except maybe for someone who relies on fantasies will probably not happen for their emotional life. I do love the medium, but I also think that these movies are like a much more expensive version of the point in movie history where producers were banking on something now completely forgotten like "Big Trouble on the Rio Grande". If you don't know about that movie, it may have not been made, but, if it was, I'd bet that you can only find it on IMDB, sitting at 3.8, starring Bill Brickman. It's like the 5th Batman movie, whatever THAT was.