What do you feel is the biggest problem with modern entertainment

It's always there, true. At certain levels, however, it intrudes on the quality of the entertainment. Some ages are more enthusiastic than others. 70's cinema was more open, overall, than Victorian-age literature.

Also, there is variation in the particular categories/themes that are suppressed. Carlin's 7 Words are mostly concerned with sex organs and bodily functions (apparently it was wrong to remind people that they defecate and fornicate), words that today we encounter on streaming, cable, and social media with little to no censorship or concern at all. On the other hand, The Northman is suspected of being a dog-whistle for white supremacy because white Europeans of yore are depicted as... ...white Europeans. It's OK if there's too many mother****ing snakes on a mother****ing plane, but not if there's too many white Europeans in a period piece, hence the casting of Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn on BBC 5.


And this ramifies in writing quality. If we must represent group X in some character and if we must represent that character in a positive light (for fear of the dreaded inference that the story is saying "all people in this group are like this!'), then we're likely to write uncomplicated Mary Sues, and deny depth, breadth, and arc -- in short deny humanity -- to the very people we're trying elevate. In short, quality suffers more directly than the case in which the writer can't have a character say "piss" or "****" (reference to breasts that starts with "T").

A lot also depends on whether censorship is top down, bottom up, or both. In ages of top-down censorship, artists display considerable cleverness in defying the rules. When the censorship is bottom-up, however, writers internalize the rules (drinking the Kool-Aid) and quality suffers in the hands of those who genuinely feel orthodox messaging must come first. When it is both, as it is today you have a reinforcing feedback loop or corporate bosses on top who don't want to provoke a reaction by hitting a hot button (thus every press now has "sensitivity readers"), but who rather want cultural brownie points by signaling approved themes (spend your money with us!) and makers who are true believers.

Things have been different for 10-15 years now. We are not unique in having particular sensitivities and varieties of censorship. However, I think we can fairly say that we're in a censorious age and that we can fairly speculate how this intersects with good story-telling.

True. (Though there are also a number of foreign remakes of American films, especially from India.)

Generally I feel as if most remakes don't quite manage to justify their existence, but there are some notable exceptions.

I don't go by any particular canon (as you can tell from looking at my lists with all those lingering 40-something percents). I always make a note of films that sound interesting, whether that's one of Ebert's Great Movies or just someone on here saying "I think this movie is really powerful and worth seeing". So I have quite a varied and extensive watchlist. And different movies on it satisfy different sides of who I am as a viewer.

And while I'm really glad that there are over 100 movies that I really want to see that are available NOW via streaming services, I do from time to time get a little decision paralysis.

Decision paralysis can often be halted by sticking to a specific theme for the time being. Example, I'm currently on Japanese cinema. Just watched the Human Condition trilogy, finishing Ikiru, and I'm gonna rewatch Seven Samurai next.

That sort of works for me, which is partly why I like the 2022 Film Challenge, because it basically gives me a to-do list to follow.

But sometimes my brain just needs something different, which is why my Judy Garland marathon had an unplanned In the Mouth of Madness intermission.

I find the best cure for my decision paralysis is nervously sweating over all the movies that are going to leave the Criterion Channel at the end of the month.

It’s not my M.O., but I can see why you would do this.

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I actually only just saw this. I think that they can, but that takes guts. For example, Get Out was very bloody original and the political correctness, broadly speaking, was part of the “pitch”. I suppose that brings me to the conclusion that the biggest problem with modern entertainment might just be the near-total lack of guts/balls.

Excellent. This will distract you while I make with the Target supplies.

All your Targets, all belong to us.

All the Targets, to all the people.

Ok, MKS.

We're talking about

right?


That's the real problem with movies today---not enough quality quilted vests.

Well it seems that Hollywood nowadays has quotas to meet and they are going through a new Hays code if you will accept it's more like the 'woke code' instead. However, what started this? When I ask people, they say it was the 2016 election and it was a response to Trump becoming President.

But is that really started it? If Trump hadn't have been elected then would the Hollywood woke code, would not have happened?

That digital look. Save it for your YouTube channels, people.

Yes, I too quit House of Cards, Ozark, and I liked Homeland at first, but got tired of C. Dane's outbursts. It got ridiculous.

Bosch has been a pretty good series, despite it's nod to PC, but this current season is lacking. I'm a big fan of Michael Connelly's books, but they've gone off track this season.

I agree that Better Call Saul is the best I've seen on TV in many years (I did like the 24 series). Breaking Bad approached BCS at times in excellence, but to me the 3rd & 4th seasons had a bit of a death rattle, and got off track with the writing, especially with Skyler. From the beginning I couldn't see the casting of Anna Gunn as Skyler White, Walter's husband. She's a good actress but simply didn't fit with Cranston.

I have high hopes for Night Sky with Sissy Spacek and J.K. Simmons, although I've only seen the first episode.

If you watch the Goliath 4 seasons, let me know your opinion. Oh, I also liked the Fargo 4 seasons. Different cast each year.

Well, there's also that whole, Wotansvolk thing. I'm suspecting that movie's unfortunately going to be popular with a certain disreputable crowd. Similar crowd might be fans of They Live for the wrong reasons as well.

England isn't perfect, but it has the reputation of being a lot better about being color-blind in casting its roles (which, given all the talks of quotas in this thread, people should probably applaud).

Probably

"Where before the roles would have gone to white actors," probably isn't the best reference mark for Hollywood, since either the roles should have been color-blind in their casting and it's more than likely a number of those roles should have gone to non-white actors before or you had a lot of situations of white actors playing roles that are supposed to be non-white. Some times in the script, or as the Stonewall example I gave, a movie based on historical events, wrote out an important black figure. And that was 2015.

So you have either movies that have roles that require certain races or movies where it really isn't that important. And most roles in a movie probably aren't that important in that aspect. So, I guess you'd be concerned about the former. I gave an example, The Northman where that wasn't an issue. I can't tell if you mean number of movies or larger budget films. For the larger budget films, if it's large enough the studio is influencing casting like that, I think that's one of the smaller concerns you should have in terms of an, "artists true vision on screen". I don't know, that fear doesn't feel like it tracks with what I'm seeing on screen.

I mean, the premise of Get Out is a cross of The Stepford Wives and Get Down and Boogie (yeah, most people haven't heard of the latter, but the former was remade (poorly?) in the 00's. Which Get Down and Boogie was basically the blaxploitation version of The Stepford Wives).

But it wasn't a lazy cash-in and put some thought into what it was trying to say. It also only had a budget of $4.6 million according to google, which lower budgets tend to give studios more courage to take a gamble (possibly see the entire subdiscussion of Capitalism in this thread).

But I think if people are complaining about Get Out, Sorry to Bother You, and The Underground Railroad in this thread (which implicitly to me, they have been), I'd have to say, if that's the worst of your problems then entertainment is doing pretty damn great right now.

Fun fact I've heard over the years, the cast of The Fast and The Furious franchise has it written into their contracts their characters can never lose a fight. I guess I would weigh in on how that's bad, but honestly, I've never seen one of those movies. But that seems pretty damn limiting.

So, in commenting on the effect of China on US movies earlier, I forgot about the obvious, big one - remember in the remake of Red Dawn how somehow it was North Korea that invaded the US? I only vaguely do, because, again, a movie I never watched.

Admittedly, for the sake of world stability at the time, trying to cast our largest geo-political frenemy as a McBain Commie-Nazi enemy probably wasn't the greatest thing.

I believe the problem with modern films is: social media...

Film makers are very aware of the financial risk involved with their casting/writing/movie making choices. Those choices if perceived as wrong thinking, can get social media types to call them out potentially costing the film makers lost revenue and their future project choices shelved as too troublesome to make.