Who killed the movies?

I'm disappointed to read here that Truffaut disapproved of a Bond film. I would have thought he would have liked that kind of escapist film, so full of cinemamatic bravado and fun.

I'm 26 years old and I gotta admit, everytime I see or hear about a mumblecore film I die inside a little bit. It's as if though filmmakers of my generation have decided to throw away all that I love about the medium.

Maybe I'm just a cinematic luddite, but I'd prefer to watch 2001, OUT OF THE PAST or BLOW OUT over most any piece of independent cinema today...

I have said, on record, that if 3D really becomes pervasive, I'm done. I can't watch that crap.

Excellent, highly personal post, Jim. I can empathize with those who have thrown in the towel, but I haven't experienced the phenomenon myself. There are times (Van Wilder, Meet the Fockers, Transformers 2 etc.) when I just want to stay home, sip coffee and watch an early Chaplin. But that passes.

At least these are instances when I know the filmmakers are trying to run a business. The real turn-offs are the White Elephants, those that try to differentiate themselves enough to appear new and profound but are far more regressive (500 Days of Summer for instance).

I still have respect for Cinema as spectacle - the grand narratives. But unlike the likes of Ford and Hawks where they made the audience open their mouths in awe, modern filmmakers seem to wallow in cynicism under the pretext of postmodernism.

May be I'll hit the saturation point soon. But may be I'll get used to it.

I can't say I've ever watched a movie that made me want to stop watching movies. I think of the movies a lot like panning for gold. When you find the nugget you keep it, but who even remembers how much dirt you had to sift through to find it?

I remember one of my cinema studies lecturers said he was only interested in silent films and had no interest in any films after the sound era. Mind you, he was not born until after the sound era started although his main field of study was the silent films. I actually love the films from the 1970s (the good ones anyway). I love the way they look, the writing is intelligent especially for studio films and the acting is terrific. I am also partial to the dramas of the 1980s (American and foreign language films). I also enjoy watching films from 1940s and 1950s, I don't find too many great films form the 1960s though. Today, I only watch films that I know I will like somewhat and that appeal to me. Yes, sometimes I am disappointed but I am never disgusted with myself for even considering watching the film, let alone paying for it. Having said that, I am always keen to find the next great film but in any given year these days, I find that I may see 1-2 great new films per year, if lucky!

I don't think I'll ever give up on movies. I somewhat gave up on Hollywood, but it deosn't represent all of the world's cinematic output. I think if cinephiles are disgusted by what Hollywood churns out every year, they should look elsewhere. South Korea, Germany, France et al. are producing interesting and worthy films every year. And even in the US we still have directors like Aronofsky and Paul Thomas Anderson, who still make great films, who still have a burning passion for cinema. I recently saw the Greek Cannes entry Dogtooth and was very surprised. It's disturbing, darkly comic and one of the most original takes on the subjects of over-parenting and repressed teen sexuality. So, I think, despite Hollywood's decadence, cinema is very much alive.

I'm fascinated by the future of cinema. There are current trends in popular films that drive me crazy- over-editing, hyper-stylized cinematography, remake after remake after remake, almost anything with Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, the list could go on. There's plenty to dislike about popular cinema, as there is plenty to dislike about popular music, or television. The truth is that this has always been true. Popular art, or pulp, has always been bad. Led Zeppelin wasn't the only band of the 70's. There was also ABBA. Truffaut's 'The 400 Blows' came out in 1959. I can't stand that movie, but you know what else came out in 1959? 'Plan 9 From Outer Space.' It's easy to forget the garbage that came between brilliance. And when you're living in that in-between time, it can feel like forever. But crack open a history book, it keeps repeating.

After all, how could James Fennimore Cooper write drivel like 'The Last of the Mohicans' after 'Hamlet?' How could 'Moby Dick' or 'The Scarlet Letter' or 'War and Peace' follow Cooper if he represented the decline of literature (even if we was at the forefront of the development of the novel.) The point is...

Now is only superficially different from then. Technology changes. Humanity doesn't. The thought that now is any different from then, or that artistic trends are destroying an art form, or that somehow people THEN knew how to do it better than they do now does more to evince the insecurities of the critic than it does to comment on art. It's an absurd opinion based solely on a person's inability or lack of enthusiasm to seek out good art- whatever their motivation for change that happens to be. Maybe they're afraid of becoming irrelevant, and decide to refuse anything new on the grounds that it's new? Doesn't sound that absurd. No one wants to die. Can you imagine becoming irrelevant in your own lifetime?

Who in the world is capable of predicting the future? You're a fool if you say you'll never be surprised again.

This year has been terrible for cinema. And if I wasn't looking down the road, I might say that the best movie I saw this year was 'The Bicycle Thief,' and some people might see that as grounds for giving up. But Terrence Malick has a movie due out, and that might make the entire year worthwhile. Might. How would I know? Maybe Harry Potter will break cinematic ground. Maybe. But it'll never have the chance if I draw that line and say "never again."

Besides, the fact is that good cinema has been made since 'Dr. No.' Maybe Truffaut would disagree. Maybe. But you know what? He's dead and the rest of us disagree.

Jim... amazing! As always.

First off, I think it's an appropriate time to say that I've learned so much from reading your writing Jim. When I think back to a mere two years ago when I -- if you go back and look you'll see it -- made a straw man argument (another thing I had no conception of before I started reading here) to try to disavow your take on the bludgeoning-obvious and perhaps exploitative cinematography of "Slumdog Millionaire" (which I now basically agree with you on by the way)... Man, it's been quite the ride/ learning curve, one I'm still very much on but you've already helped open my eyes to what I am seeing, to the images, the movie before me, not just the story package (The MacGuffin) it comes wrapped in. Considering, in contrast to "Slumdog", your writing on the cinematography of "Chop Shop", or why you like Bahrani's films cause they don't seem to follow a pre-set trajectory but are genuine explorations, this has been a sort of paradigm shift in how I see and interpret.

Other revelations: any and all Lynch films you've written on and I've had the pleasure of viewing. Your writings on the other "out there" David, Cronenberg, have really redefined how I view movies also. In Lynch's case, I've started to think about movies as memories/images/states of consciousness. In Cronenberg's, I've considered the importance of the visceral in movies.

By the time "Avatar" rolled around, something curious was happening. I found myself agreeing with you, after countless disagreements over "TDK" (another movie you were more or less correct about, I still think it has some considerable merits, but yeah, glaring flaws as well, tough film to recommend or not recommend). Anyway, "Avatar": I saw what you saw. In other words, I saw nothing original, visually striking, remotely visceral (the creatures of Pandora feel to me like stuffed animals, the world around them marshmellows maybe, puffs of CGI smoke) and for a movie about entering into other bodies and worlds, I never once felt moved into in that way, whereas in "Inland Empire" one can just about lose track of who they walked into the movie as by the time they walk out. (Or maybe I did just walk out of that haunted house of a film a different person, more aware of the details and sensations of the world around me.) In any case, I knew there was no going back now. I had entered some other dimension of experiencing films and most others did pale in comparison.

But here's the thing. Do I feel pessimistic about that? I'm a very pessimistic guy by nature and, yet, I feel very optimistic now about the world of film with my perceptions altered, made sharper. I can watch a film now and see it more fully, in more depth. I find that seeing even one film that way seems worth so much more than seeing infinite films how I did before. And so maybe it's cause I'm young and only freshly seeing films for the first time now, with your help and the help of some other greats like Bordwell, but I'm as stoked as I've ever been to see what comes next. I don't see why I shouldn't be with guys like Bahrani out there now and films like "Inland Empire" only finally being made now. (I guess you could argue Bunuel, Maya Dern and other experimental filmmakers -- or just good directors -- have been onto this for a while, but, let's be honest, there is still so much territory to be explored in film.)

Hey, Godard still lost me around "2 or 3 Things"... and say what you will about Alan Parker but I still worship "The Wall" (maybe a little sentimentally but don't we all have a few of those flicks too), I don't agree with you on all but thanks for opening my eyes, ears, consciousness, soul, et cetera. And hopefully this inspires some optimism in people, that maybe the future is friendly even if the *quantity* of quality, bold, visionary films of integrity has decreased.

Just quickly, past decades of interest, 60's and 70's:
Around 67 you have "Battle of Algiers", "Belle de Jour", "Week End", "Cool Hand Luke", "Bonnie and Clyde", et cetera... Try to find me a year with five movies from modern decades that are as cinematically revolutionary and with as much spine to really "go there" with subject matter.
Around 75 you have "Barry Lyndon", "Picnic at Hanging Rock", "Night Moves", "The Passenger", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Dog Day Afternoon." Read what I said above about my selection of 67 films.
It also gave us "Jaws". Terrific movie but maybe that the music was an omen of the blockbuster monsters to come... next time from outer space! And then from the future to kill Sarah Conner. Or just from some foreign threat that wants to blow us up. Or just anybody disturbing our local peaceful beach community. You get the trend.

It's interesting that you say you lose faith in people, not movies. I see much correlation in the last few decades decline of culture (not completely but, hey, overall) in both. I'm sure Roger does too. But have faith sir. I found my way here by Boyle's "Trainspotting", "Insomnia" (Nolan's) and, I dunno, "American Beauty" and a bunch of other hackey routes that would make (or have made) you pull your hair out... But I got here. Maybe there's hope yet out there in the world of mediocre moviegoers, any basic humanist impulses might bring them around to truly looking more closely at what they're watching someday. I think this is what Roger hopes with all his padded 4-star reviews...

I recall having a quite visceral reaction against the Dogma 95 "movement". It just struck me as a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to make up for a serious lack of creativity. The most serious drawback was its outright rejection of aesthetics as a fundamental element of filmmaking, encouraging its followers to embrace ugliness as a virtue. It became a naked embrace of amateurism.

The film that summed it up for me was "Dancer in the Dark", which remains one of the most repellent viewing experiences of my life. I might have forgotten about it sooner had it not garnered the amount of acclaim it did. It seemed to me another example of the critical establishment applying a different, more forgiving standard to European (read "non-Hollywood") cinema. I realize that it is not considered a "true" Dogma film, only in that it failed to follow all the commandments.

Granted, I have not seen many of the other Dogma films, and there may be one among them that may warrant a look, but that's beside the point. My impression is that if a film under its flag has been made that may amount to a worthwhile viewing experience, it is in spite of, not because of Dogma 95's declaration. "Julien Donkey Boy" being the only other title that I sat through, my prospects of actively seeking out another film on the list are slim.

The manifesto itself is reason enough to reject the movement as a whole. To relegate the principles of camera technique, lighting and sound design to non-essential, superficial burdens to be cast aside, shows a profound lack of understanding of the medium. To declare that one intends to strike off in a new direction, any direction, is not enough. A movement should be built around something more than what it rejects.

Also, the argument that the movement, in large part, was an attempt to open up the artform to newcomers is not persuasive. Newcomers, at least the ones that take filmmaking seriously, do not set out display and call attention to their stylistic inexperience (or ineptitude).

There is great value in figuring out how to make a film for the least amount of money. But the best low-budget films do not flaunt their lack of resources and often find ingenious ways to do more with less. It seems that Dogma is content with merely doing less.

All I have to do is watch one frame of something like The New World or Punch-Drunk Love or Inglourious Basterds to know that modern cinema hasn't forced me to give up yet. What gets me is that there is so much I haven't seen that sometimes the task of catching up seems so massive that I feel like buckling under the weight of it all and calling it quits because there's just no way I can see everything worth seeing.

There really hasn't been a specific film that has made me want to throw up my hands and cry uncle. I mean, I hate the Slumdog Millionaire's and the Crash's for all of their psedo-seriousness and Award winning, but really that just kind of irks me at the end of the day...then I pop in something by Malick or Mann or Anderson or Renior or Fellini or Bergman or Keaton or Llyod or The Three Stooges or...well you get my point. The really bad (or insulting) stuff is never SO bad that it makes me forget what good the cinema can produce. I imagine you may have pondered this when you saw Mississippi Burning (which I've been meaning to ask you: why do you hate Alan Parker so much? Did I miss something? I mean he's a hack, but you always make it a point to single him out...just curious if you've covered this on the blog before and I just missed it.), but just think of the great new cinema (and some of your favorites) you would have missed had you stopped believing in the medium then (No Country, Three Burials, The Descent, etc.).

The minute cinema quits referencing itself and becomes nothing more than a glorified advertisement for 3-D is the day I'll give up on going to the movies, though. However, there are too many strong, young filmmakers out there who -- to use a Cormac McCarthy phrase -- can "carry the fire".

As for what era intrigues me the most: Well, it certainly isn't the most prolific or cinematically arresting, but the 80's really interest me because with the VHS boon, and the onslaught of "convenience" that was being shoved down peoples throats, the film industry clearly shifted -- aided by Michael Cimino, of course -- towards something different. It was a different entity...they had to figure out, for the first time since the introduction of the television, how to combat the ease of getting movies at home. Of course, nothing could prepare the industry for what it looks like now, but I always find it interesting that the 80's and early 90's offered the opportunity to wait-out the theatrical run so that you could watch the film in the comforts of your own home. I would guess that spawned the degradation of the film-going experience, too, since movie theaters were trying everything they could to get people through their doors, so the standards for film-going slipped quite a bit (now THAT almost led me to giving up on movies, because I have a harder time concentrating on a film at home than I do in the theater). What was once cathartic and communal was not combative and decisive. And then of course once the theaters became a hangout for tweens, instead of the mall...or maybe because theaters started becoming attached to malls, it was all downhill from there.

Great post and great food for thought, Jim. I have to admit I've never really thought about what would happen if I gave up on movies, but I suppose I would be saddened at first, but then I would begin to (re)visit the cannon. Or, I would simply start reading all of the books on my bookshelf that I haven't gotten to yet.

I think everyone pretty much agrees that it was "Jaws" and "Star Wars" that inadvertently took away the funding for more dark movies or other kinds of movies. Although, Paul Thomas Anderson said, in a youtube interview by Mike Figgis, that explicit sex would have merged in with mainstream cinema if it weren't for video because they were both merging together at the time worldwide; a few still are today, but it kind of seems like they are doing it as a reaction to the MPAA standards etc. But as Godard said, "There's no hierarchy...they all live in the same house" and he also said something like the underground film makers work in the cellar, while Hollywood works up in the house. So, it seems that its the underground film makers that are going to change things.

To me it's a lot of these "comedies" that I really loathe. I'm a bit of a queasy person, so when people joke about some things, I just feel it goes too far, like Tom Green joking about his testicular cancer, when clearly you can see on his face that even he thinks it's not funny. I don't like this queasy humor; "Reno 911" does it too sometimes, but at least they improvise it...supposedly.

I knew there was a reason i didnt like Bond films.

I'm with you Jim, I don't feel like giving up but I feel great despair which brews into a nice pot of satisfying misanthropy. Most recently the brew has been stirred by seeing the box office takings of Sex and the City 2 (7.8 million here in Australia for its opening weekend I think. That is something like 2%-3% of our total population seeing it). Other big phenomenons such as Twilight hurt my head. Just knowing that so many people are that satisfied with banal, contrived and manufactured 'entertainment' is saddening. Oh and the single worst thing I have seen in years was Kevin Smith's Cop Out! Probably the most technically deficient film to have come out of Hollywood in recent memory.
Actually the anger at these films spur me on to find the great ones and champion them. Bad films don't kill cinema for me but actually energize me to a large degree.

That Hollywood churns out mostly generic crap doesn't surprise me because until they price themselves out of an average person's ability to go see them, people will still go out of habit, Hollywood will equate dollars with quality and the moviegoer will say they like something because they are reluctant to admit they wasted their money. To me, what's more disturbing is how generic so many of the "indie" films have become, where they've now been so influential for so long that would-be filmmakers trying to break in are following a different formula that proves just as predictable and ultimately boring as the stuff the big guys churn out. I've been saying it, but not too loud, for quite some time, that the real innovation, the things that engage me most these days tend to be television dramas since the TV universe has expanded so widely there are so many outlets to try different and daring things. When we were trapped with just ABC, CBS and NBC, we'd never been fortunate enough for them to be daring with a Breaking Bad or The Wire or countless others. You might give up on movies some day, but there will be plenty of old ones to revisit (or ones you never caught up with in my case), but there also will be the experience of some really fulfilling television.

Nothing's made me consider giving up cinema, though I'm probably too young (and too big a fan of the '60s) to have crossed that bridge yet, but I'm confused by Truffaut's argument. Dr. No made the world safe for decadence, so films were now more about other films than life? Setting aside the other decadence of French New Wave experimentation and the other decadence of modernist bourgey ennui (Antonioni comes to mind), his point strikes me as lazy. Essentially, he's chiding postmodernism for being postmodern and making no attempt to see what it's doing.

It's an excerpt, so maybe he substantiates his argument, but as it stands it's just reactionary, as if a Tarantino or PTA film (not to mention Contempt!) have nothing to say besides, "Look at all the films I've seen." Most importantly, his argument is almost absurdly irrelevant, since plenty of great films have been made in the decades since Dr. No. Maybe he has a point about Dr. No or slick action blockbusters, but the only thing he's nailed here is an easy target.

...[Dr.No] amounts as a degradation of the art of cinema, a type of cinema which relates neither to life nor the romantic tradition but only to other films and always by sending them up."

What? Had Truffaut never seen an Abbott and Costello movie?

Nice article. I saw (the restored version) Metropolis for the first time on the big screen and I might have seen the greatest movie ever made. Now I wonder if I should bother watching any more films. What can more beautiful and terrifying? Should I bother watching any more films?

I'm a hopeless optimist when I comes to film. I am relatively well versed in the cinema of every era, genre, and country, and think the best "era" is now and the best movie is (hopefully) coming out next year sometime. I see truly bad movies every other week but couldn't conceive of one that would turn me off from the entire medium, any more than I can conceive of having a meal so bad that it would turn me off from eating entirely (and I've eaten at Applebee's).

I wish there were more risk-takers in modern cinema, and I could see myself taking a break as you suggest, but I'd never stay away forever.

All that said, yeah, if you're panning for gold among the A-Team, Marmaduke, The Karate Kid, Sex and the City 2, and Prince of Persia, then good luck to you......

Isn't it a little much to bemoan the present all the time? When we look back at the past(of any form- music, theater, movies, books) we always filter out all of the works that don't survive, because the were mediocre or forgettable. And here's the really interesting thing- sometimes the most popular works of a time fade, but other works stick around. Does anyone really remember Titanic? I mean, you might have loved it, you might have hated it, but no one talks about it.

Anyway, to specifically answer your question, I've never seen a movie that made me want to give up, but I have seen movies that put me off going to the movies for days, including Be Cool, Resident Evil, Closer, 3000 Miles to Graceland, Godzilla, an earl 90's comedy called My Father The Hero that I walked out of. The worst, I think, was 8mm. Joel Schumacher tring to out-Se7en Se7en. Saints preserve us.

There have and will always be movies good and bad, movies you can relate to and movies you can't. James Bond's existence doesn't negate the existence of all that's good, and doesn't presuppose that more intimate films will never be made again. Anytime someone declares the cinematic apocalypse, it ends up being much ado.

Blaming movies as a reason to stop exploring culture is a cop out. Perhaps everyone at a certain age does eventually decide to "turn off" and rest in the comfortable cocoon of experiences they've already had, but I sincerely hope that's not the case.

The sad thing is, more people have probably seen Plan 9 From Outer Space than The 400 Blows. And of those who have seen both, some possibly enjoyed Plan 9 more, at least on a camp level.

There's not much good out there, and if 3D becomes the standard, then I quit, too. But I haven't yet given up hope on movies, OR on music for that matter.

I enjoy Silent Films, German Expressionism, Classic Hollywood Cinema, Hollywood Noir, Horror Films of all varities, the 90's American Indies and have a varying interest in all periods/styles/movements of cinema stateside and abroad; but I think movies in general come down to the great quote by Pauline Kael that, "Movies are so rarely great art, that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them."

One could say that Silent Films are the greatest of films and represent the pinnacle of the medium. But the fact is that only about 25% of films from the silent era still exist. We have no idea how much trash existed in that other 75%. If you went to your local nickelodeon and eventual movie palace from 1910-1930 did you only see the classics and groundbreaking films of Keaton, Chaplin and Griffith? Did your local theater even play the likes of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Battleship Potemkin? Or did you wade through a lot of trash to find the gems that keep you coming back? Or maybe you were satisfied with a few hours of entertainment.

For every Avatar, there are ten films from the Middle East I've never seen. For every Dark Knight (which I think is fantastic) there are ten South Korean films I've never seen. This is a Golden Age of Cinema. We may not have seen something earth shattering in awhile, but there are so many movies being made, coming from so many perspectives that if you know the right place to look it's impossible to keep up.

Every period/style/movement has a worthwhile canon of films that have stood the test of time. However, that doesn't mean those were the only films to come out during that era. They are not all classics. But a lot are entertaining. My multiplex may not feature the best cinema has to offer, but I can still go and have fun and invest emotionally in a movie I didn't expect to, like I just did with Get Him to the Greek.

Really enjoy your blog Mr. Emerson. Keep up the good work.

I can't imagine a film turning me against the medium-- whether a single movie I don't like or even a trend. I think that someone like Truffaut has some terrific ideas and is clearly an inspirational thinker on the topic of cinema; but that said, cinema is always going to be a popular medium. If anyone chooses to participate in a popular culture medium, whether it's film, music, journalism, literature, television, etc., it's important to keep in mind that you are but a single participant in an enormous hive mind. The whole mechanism has no center and is never specifically geared towards anyone in particular-- and in the world of film, the seats get filled by people who want to see iconic images fill their retinas and get swept away in something that will help their world make sense to them. That is slightly different aim, of course, than to witness a well-told story, or a well-told visual story, which may or may not be what people want at a given time.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that not only great films make me love film as a medium-- even a mediocre (or outright bad!) film can please me immensely, as long as it contains at least a smidgen of something that gives me food for thought, or gives me a glimpse into a world of the film-maker's creation that I would otherwise not have known about. That maxim holds for both high- and low-brow, I find.

You might be able to make a case that the start of the demise of cinema was when CGI became commonplace. I LOVE the fact that in the old days, a real stunt man was really doing those amazing things (albeit with a little help). Filmmakers had to be creative to be believed sometimes. Now, you don't have to be creative, and you don't have to be believed.

"I haven't spotted the end of cinema for me yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if, some day, I reach the point where I become disillusioned enough to throw in the towel."

It's called getting old Jim.

I think that cinema has become much larger since Truffaut's days. Consequently, there should always be something for a discerning and sophisticated viewer.

But I admit to being surprised at Truffaut's singling out Dr. No, of all the Bond films. If I had to pick one Bond film where they started down the slide from story telling to spectacle, I'd have picked GoldFinger. To be sure, the tendency for the slide was latent in Dr. No...

And I have to contrast Dr. No with "The Adventures of Robin Hood", or "Captain Blood", or my personal favourites of the swashbuckler genre, "The Sea Hawk", "The Black Swan", and "The Mark of Zorro". They all had their apsects of the spectacular, i.e., a tendency to spectacle. Would Dr. No have existed without any of those films?

In short, I think that it's a little too simplistic to point to one film and say that this film did X. Each film builds on what has gone before; some films take something that has been floating in the environment and crystallizes it out, so that it appears to be a relative departure from what has gone before. But I don't think you can consider it in isolation.

To be sure, I nearly walked out of "Who's Harry Crumb?", and only my perverse Scottish insistence on getting what I paid for kept me in my seat. I'm a bit choosier now.

A comment about "Avatar", as a lead-in to other things. I re-watched Hayao Miyazaki's animated epic (no better word for it, really) "Nausicaa" and the biosphere depicted in that movie seemed to have more reality, more heft, more credibility to it than anything I've seen from "Avatar" yet. (I have not yet seen the film, but given its impact I'm realizing with a heavy heart I need to see it just to be that much more in the know.)

If the movies as a whole have a future, it will be in the hands of people who understand that there are other things to do with them besides fill the distribution pipeline. It will be amongst people who see it as an artform, a storytelling methodology -- and most importantly, as a way to show people something they've never seen before, a way to get them to realize the world is a bigger place than they let themselves admit. It isn't going to lie in 3D (which obscures more than it reveals), or in "interactive" technologies that just show how little most people have to say -- filmmakers included -- about any given creation.

I think one of the few good things that has happened in the last couple of years is the precipitous drop in the prices for moviemaking equipment. It's now possible for people with relatively little money to make a good, professional-looking film -- which I freely admit isn't the ultimate hallmark of a movie's quality (I know too many people who think movies made in the 20s and 30s look unwatchably crude), but a good shortcut towards getting people to take the end results that much more seriously. The next really big movies, the ones that live on inside us, need to not come from the studio system because it's clear they have no idea how to nourish such things anymore, even if by accident.

The last couple of years have been pretty dismal, and I admit the clouds don't look like they're going to lift any time soon. But I wouldn't rule out the possibility of being pleasantly surprised. I think we all live for that, to some degree.

hi Jim,

Eno actually defined ambient music as something very OPPOSED to and DIFFERENT from 'muziak'

as can be read in his liner notes from 'music for airports':

http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/MFA-txt.html

Sadly, I think I'm there now. Three or four years ago, I devoured movie after movie...old, new, good, bad. Now, I just can't be bothered. Like you, I'd rather rewatch "Chinatown", or hell if we're staying modern, "Munich" or "Zodiac" than race out to see "Iron Man 2".

What I find sustains my interest in movies now is just tracking some of the established filmmakers. Years ago, I'd be out searching for the NEXT great filmmaker coming up...but now, I'd rather just absorb the latest from the Coens, Cuaron, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spielberg, or Polanski (just caught "The Ghost Writer" last night). Even Scorsese doesn't get me excited anymore.

Hollywood needs to realize that the movies have just become too disposable. Even casual film fans that I speak to say that Hollywood is dead to them...remakes of 80s movies, sequels, prequels, reboots, "origin" stories. Ugh.

Has there ever been a movie as visceral, as unromantic, as authentic, yet as cinematic as Gomorrah?
I don't think so....

Have I ever felt that neither-landish contented emotion (a strange mix of hopefulness and hopelessness) as in Gone Baby, Gone?
Not sure.....

Have I ever seen a police case become a giant labyrinth and manifest itself as a film where numerous cops run into each other, and find a strange humanity within them, as in Zodiac?
Naaah

Has there been a tribute as brilliant as The Prestige to the science of cinema-watching?
Maybe...

When one is sick and ill with fever and a running nose, does anything work better than a Johnnie To?
Aah, no contest.

We're all watching movies even when we're not watching movies. We watch people around us and we live a little bit of their lives. We watch Politist, Adjectiv and wish it run for another three hours, and we almost feel offended when our protagonist is waiting in the hallway for ten minutes and there is edit. No need.

Cinema is alive. Cinema is fun. Cinema is just beginning. What towel? The bonfire has just started. Throw in that log of wood. And dance.

Wow, Jim. I've been kicking around writing a post like this for a while now, but it looks like you got there first! (I may still write that post, though, so watch out!)

This year, something interesting happened to me: While in previous years I'd obsessively try to catch up on newer releases in theaters, mainstream and art-house while relegating my repertory explorations to DVD, this year I'm increasingly finding myself more interested in seeing older films on a big screen whenever possible. I've had some of my more memorable experiences in the dark with older films: revelatory umpteenth viewings of Breathless and Band of Outsiders; eye-opening second looks at two Jia Zhang-ke movies, Platform and The World, that had left me cold on DVD; and, perhaps most importantly, thrilling big-screen introductions to masterpieces like Bigger Than Life, A Brighter Summer Day, A Day in the Country and many more.

I don't think I'm becoming alienated from today's movie fare, mainstream or independent. I think it's a given that, every year, Hollywood studios will put out a lot of trash that they think will please a mass audience; I accept that, and sometimes I'll even readily enjoy said trash (hey, I'll gladly admit that I enjoyed Hot Tub Time Machine and Date Night, for instance). And I even like quite a bit of the so-called "mumblecore" films, at least of what I've seen (Aaron Katz has made two of them, Dance Party, USA and especially Quiet City). But it's come to the point where, when faced with the choice of seeing a highly praised foreign indie in a theater or going to see, say, an old Jacques Tourneur film in a new 35mm print...these days, I'd feel more inclined to go for the latter rather than the former, because I feel like I trust the older film more than the newer one.

Which, I think, is what you're trying to get at, Jim, if I'm not misinterpreting you...

A year ago I would've insisted that no movie could turn me away from cinema. I still insist that's true but The Lovely Bones came very, very close.

It's easy to get down at a time when Hollywood is offering nothing but pre-marketed crap -- I look at the movie listings and find nothing that's the slightest bit appealing. Maybe it'll improve in the fall, once the "blockbusters" have cleared the theaters.
In the meantime, I watch more from my Netflix queue -- just covered nearly all of Godard's '60s output (I hadn't realized till now that most of his movies in that period are about kids -- there's a feeling kids getting together and saying, "Hey, let's make a movie" -- like Judy Garland and Andy Rooney, except with semiotics). They're also an incomparable time capsule of what Paris was like in that decade. Next up, "Short Cuts."
So, if need be, I can keep my cinemania fulfilled until Hollywood comes out of its latest trough.

If you want the death of movies, go to Nazi Germany and see how films were used to further one of the most horrific events in history. On the opposoing side were people like Veidt, Lang and Brecht. The past, as others wrote, contain the victors, so one would watch Lang with impunity while Jannings is defended uncomfortably. It Happened One Night admired and Glucksdinder not available from any mainstream store. Robin Hood eagerly obtained and Munchaused barely remembered.

As you write film is having a somewhat similar fight between bringers of truth and bringers of falsenes.s Night of the Hunter has a scene expressing this beautifully. The Reverend is using cunning for the masses to listen to his prayer, while the Widow, a veritable outcast, voices the truth, but the only ones to listen are orphans.

Bringing in the sheathes indeed

I can't see myself ever giving up cinema or being totally disillusioned with it, for reasons you mentioned and others have mentioned in the comments. I really like what Shad said toward the top about "panning for gold" when it comes to movie watching. I see maybe two, three films a year tops that I would consider masterpieces, and another three or four that I would call great. And that's a good year.

I must say that even though I am a big fan of summer movies (the little kid in me still has a love for ridiculously bombastic flicks like Wanted), this summer has yet to produce a film I really enjoyed, in terms of mainstream releases. I was excited for The A Team until I read Ebert's review, which makes it sound like more of the same crap I've been seeing for the last month. Splice was at least interesting, but it was too deeply flawed for me to really love it.

I'm also on the "3D sucks" bandwagon, which certainly has discouraged me from seeing several recent films in theaters. Avatar was the exception to the rule, although I wish the film had been better.

One thing that certainly helps me the older and crankier I get is that I'm more and more selective about what I'll even bother to watch and though I'm limited to watching DVDs at home, I'm much more prone to giving up on a film before it's over than I ever was physically walking out on something. When I was younger, I used to feel compelled to see the bulk of things that came out, now I'm very picky. I've never seen a Home Alone movie and I bet I'm a better person for it. I've never bothered with a Michael Bay movie either and I imagine I've saved time there as well. On the other end of the spectrum, I know many people I respect who worship Terrence Malick, but after seeing and being bored silly by his first three films, I didn't bother to see The New World. I'd seen enough to know what to expect and that it wouldn't be my cup of tea. What I view really is my own private, neverending film festival.

pretty tiresome to have crash cited as a movie to make a person despair. the ultimate choice of the pretentious.

No way, Jim! Not evah. Watching a film is a near-daily experience for me and I just can't see that ever changing. Each year, there's about 20-30 new films to go along with the piles and piles of old films to see for the first time or to re-watch once again. Just looking at the list of films by Alfred Hitchcock alone--the most mainstream of dead filmmakers--finds a good 20 films I've never seen. And, it's easy to expand the experience by going from watcher of cinema to writing about cinema. There's always more to explore!

That said, I've also felt like giving up on people, or at least movie audiences. But I don't mind at all when a movie like Avatar or The Dark Knight rises up and gets people talking. No matter how I feel about the film, I'm always glad that it has gotten people excited about the cinema. That excitement leads to conversations and, as a film nut, those conversations always find their way to me. I may not have LOVED Avatar, but I enjoyed discussing elements of it (and my criticisms of it) with other people that wanted to talk movies. Just having such conversations (and being able to really talk about what I like or didn't and why) always elevates others to raise their game and give more thought to the movie. It's one of my favorite things about being the known movie nut; it inspires others to bring more to the conversation and to think critically.

I don't think any film could take the joy out of the cinema for me. At most, I can see myself becoming disillusioned with the "movie theatre" experience itself and becoming a complete homebody, glued to the seat in front of my sweet home theatre.

I don't see myself giving up on movies totally (but, then again, I'm still pretty young, and my gaze may start turning backwards one day), but I have been tempted to write off certain genres.

While watching the "Metropolis" restoration earlier this week and a print of "Seven Samurai" before that, I began to wonder if I would ever be interested in modern spectacle or epic movies again. I understand the convenience of CGI and, in some cases, the possibilities that it offers, but there's something about knowing that those are real people running from a flood, or that they're really fighting that battle in a giant mud pit, that takes my breath away. CGI has, despite the intentions of most filmmakers, tamed the spectacle film. "Metropolis" and other films like it are beautiful for their sheer recklessness; danger flees in the face of a computer generated image. Needless to say, I'm having a difficult time working up the excitement I would need to see "The Prince of Persia".

I don't think I could ever in good conscience give up on movies. I love 'em too much. And it's doubtful I could ever watch a movie that would make me give up on cinema. Yes, the output from Hollywood and even independent cinema has been severely lacking. And, yes, my friends and I bemoan the lack of good movies to go see. However, instead of turning my back on cinema, I did something else. Many years ago I invested in a region free DVD player. And the whole world of cinema opened up to me. My library is now heavily stocked with many foreign gems (particularly from Asia and Europe) that I would've completely missed out on had I waited for them to be released domestically. Or worse, awaited for the eventual remake.

I think, like with music, you have to put in the effort to seek out good movies. Instead of passively sitting by and gazing upon the heaping amounts of bland junk that's being shoveled out every week, I would rather work towards something. The payoff is immensely rewarding. And, in a way, fans the fires of our passions.

And the other way to keep the fires going is by sharing it with others. I gather my movie buddies at my place every two weeks and show them films they've never heard of. More often than not, they're pleased and surprised by what's out there.

Yes, to paraphrase Cormac, we're keeping the fire.

Keep the fires burning, Jim.

I had been anticipating Babel, The Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, The Science of Sleep, The Fountain. I saw them and though I didn't completely hate them all, I was disappointed. Those were supposed to be the good movies of the year and the last movie I could remember enjoying was Pride and Prejudice. I saw the Departed and didn't love it, though I could appreciate some technical aspects of it and it grew on me a bit. I would also rent some boring indie movies I don't even remember, and of course that didn't help. Then came the horrible summer with Transformers, Die Hard 4, one of the Pirates movies, and I was thinking it really was it.

But then, came Ratatouille. After that came many movies from all different sorts, fun typical commercial movies, comedies (Juno, Knocked Up, Superbad) action movies (Bourne Ultimatum, Beowulf), even decent if not great musicals (Sweeney Todd and the better Once), really enjoyable fantasies (Stardust), and I was again enjoying movies! Then came There Will Be Blood which made me again appreciate cinema, and then the best movie of the decade for me, No Country for Old Men.

For the last few months, I've started to get disappointed again, bored with movies. Still, it doesn't feel as desperate yet as in early 2007. I can still remember watching and being excited about Burn After Reading and A Serious Man, both of which I have either watched for the first time, or re-watched not too long ago (around March). Plus, I liked UP a lot and that is only one year old.

I had the feeling that I didn't want anything more to do with movies after seeing David Fincher's Seven, a movie I thought actually diminished me for watching it. I still won't watch any more of Fincher's movies (and I'm NOT interested in suggestions that Fight Club or Zodiac might change my mind). This was before I was on the internet, though, and once I was in touch with the movie communities on the net, I started to get a bit of vertigo because the ocean of cinema is so unbelievably vast. Even if I stopped watching new movies entirely, I don't think I could ever exhaust it. But I'm not going to do that, because there are always going to be new filmmakers like Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, Lucrecia Martel, or Bong Joon-Ho out there.

First painting, then the novel, now movies are dying a perpetual death. And these forms "die" for despairing critics, only to have their corpses periodically reanimated by the likes painters like Gerhard Richter, writers like Paul Auster and filmmakers like 2010 Cannes winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul. My prediction for the next premature burial: The Internets.

Jim:

I'm a sort of half-ass critic who nearly gave up on writing reviews this year. Almost one out of every three films I see falls into one of the following categories:

1. Remake
2. Reboot
3. Sequel/Prequel
4. Franchise (e.g. i, Robot, licensing a name having nothing to do with the original work; or, The A-Team, adapted for the big screen from television)

It is this total lack of creative thought that makes me at times come very close to abandoning any new films.

However, there are still interesting developments in independent cinema. Debra Granik's Winter's Bone was very well executed. Frank Mosley's Hold and Mark Landsman's Thunder Soul, a documentary about the renowned Kashmere Stage Band of Houston, TX, are fantastic considering the budgets they had to work with.

I think there's going to be a serious shift in good content, however, away from the conventional theatrical release. The problem with theatrical releases and television network programming is that both, whether box office-driven or ad-driven, rely on variable return models that can cripple the ability to put out consistently good content. However, subscription services like HBO are doing some great series, and I suspect that having a predictable, recurring revenue stream may have something to do with that.

I think the mobile revolution, bringing subscription content to devices such as iPad and iPhone, will go a long way toward ensuring up front that everyone gets paid, so they can instead focus their energies on making the story engaging.

I'm only twenty and still devouring as much of the old stuff as I can, so I won't talk about dissillusionment or anything like that (I'm still very much "illusioned"), but as for something new - admittedly there's a lot I haven't seen - I can't say I've seen anything like "Inglourious Basterds" or "The Limits of Control."

Can you, Jim? And I ask honestly - only to find out if there's anything out there so large, so epic (as much or moreso as "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings") and yet so deeply embedded with very particular, banal, trivial (and therefore, familiar and deeply personal) items from, what I would call, off-hand, at eleven o'clock at night, after working most of the day, something like..."the collective pop culture subconscious." Is there anything else that could make my suburban, fast-food, mainstream, movie-saturated life feel so...significant?

Seriously, is there? I want to watch it...now.

I recently graduated from film school, so obviously I adore the movies and still believe there are interesting stories left to tell... but I can't stand CGI, especially when it's used to replace actors. Very rarely has it worked for me, and on most of those occasions, it was used sparingly and/or in conjunction with tangible sets or actors (The Lord of the Rings, Where the Wild Things Are).

While today's average moviegoer would most likely laugh at the stop-motion skeletons in "Jason and the Argonauts", or even the make-up effects in something like the original "Planet of the Apes", to me, there is a certain charm in the artifice of yesteryear's special effects that is lacking in today's detailed, CGI vistas. I recall seeing "Revenge of the Sith" and knowing from the get-go I wouldn't like it, based solely on the opening space-battle. To me, that scene was chaotic and lazy. There was a lot happening and nothing happening at the same time. I much preferred the opening of the original "Star Wars", where we have only two spaceships, blasting little more than a few colorful beams at each other. The impact of that scene was based primarily on its presentation; if Lucas just showed two ships firing at each other through cross-cutting or started that scene with a wide two-shot, it wouldn't have been nearly as effective, despite the quality of the effects.

Sometimes I wonder, if "Jaws" was being produced today, would a CGI-shark be on display non-stop? Or if Lucas was making "Star Wars", would it be no different from the aforementioned space-bore, Episode III? I try not to think about it....

But no, I don't think I could give up on movies, primarily because I'm still young and not completely jaded, and also because there is still a treasure chest of classics I've had yet to experience. For every "Avatar", there's a Preston Sturges comedy waiting to be seen! And there ARE still good films being made. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of experiencing "Visioneers" with Zach Galifianakis (!). I had no idea what to expect, and was pleasantly surprised by this modest film's execution of its ideas, and the genuine drama unfolding on screen. It was like a darker, less over-the-top "Idiocracy", and better for that matter. It'll be interesting to see what happens with ultra-low budget filmmaking in the next ten years or so. And while "Visioneers" doesn't necessarily fit into the no-budget phenomenon, it at least gives me hope for the future as I too try to make movies.

As long as David Lynch is still making Dior commercials, and even doing that better than people like Brett Ratner could ever hope to shoot a local car dealer ad, then cinema's going to keep going strong.

Seriously, though, that Dior ad is good, and sooo Lynch.

Aside from that, the thing that may spell the end for me? 3D. I think that sometimes it works (CORALINE, UP, ALICE IN WONDERLAND), but most everything else it's a complete and utter waste; that includes AVATAR. I will say I have one caveat: I think horror is the only genre that can be improved upon with 3D, since a lot of horror films are set up as thrill rides anyway...

So yesterday I proclaim my cynicism with movies, and then tonight I happen to catch Oren Moverman's masterful (and extremely moving) "The Messenger". Nothing too crazy, just great acting and an attention to character and detail. Enough to make me fall back in love.

It was sometime in the 90s that I realized I found reading about new movies more interesting than actually watching them. I didn't get my first DVD player until September 2001 and started seeing a lot of films that I might not have seen otherwise. Also spending the few months in Thailand made me realize that there are multiple histories of film to explore besides the dominant narrative of Hollywood.

It's all a matter of perspective. If one's lens, so to speak, is directed squarely at "mainstream", American, studio films, then I suppose the concern is warranted. But, beyond that, world cinema is as promising and as vibrant as ever. I don't think "the movies" should be a concept restricted to mainstream American films -- I know that very little international cinema screens in theaters in the U.S., but we're living in an age in which it's far easier than ever before (because of DVDs, among other things) to look beyond the local theater and out across the world. If one feels despair at what's playing in theaters, it's not because there aren't great films to be seen -- it's only because that person is seeing the wrong films.

Jim, I think you make a very good point about movie quality, but I think the sort of disillusionment Truffaut was talking about is very valid, but for a different reason: you can disagree with the sort of movie being made. For example, Hindi cinema today is stuck in a limbo between pure, melodramatic Bollvudinity and an aspiration to understated (by Bollywood standards) Holvudinity, and it has led to many bad experiences for me. Another example is that I don't like how exaggerated everything is in '40s American movies (except in Citizen Kane, which couldn't have possibly worked in any other setting).

I saw Altman's "The Long Goodbye" about a week ago. That had a good visual look to it. I especially liked one scene on the beach where Wade, the bearded drunken burnt out writer, is trying not to lose his wife, and the movie is looking in from the outside and you see the reflection of Marlowe on the beach.

When I see people lamenting different tastes in cinema as "the death of cinema", it reminds me of the insufferable food snobs who lambaste any restaurant that serves the masses. You know, even a cultured person who dines on lobster and caviar might appreciate a cheap cheeseburger now and then.

I've been walking around for the last few days thinking about this very subject. I don't think it was any one movie as such, but the all-encompassing, pervasive nature of CGI imagery, that's made me feel depressed and bored by the movies (and TV) that depend on it. These aren't just SF and fantasy films, either - I'm talking about your regular street exterior, often now shot in a street that's been greenscreened into some sort of blank canvas to save time and money on art direction and extras.

So, now I watch a lot of new documentaries and old movies. I have fun with those.

I haven't given up on cinema as a whole but I think I've almost given up on certain genres of cinema. Most recent horror movies and romantic films are largely terrible. Most horror movies rely to much on gruesome, gory violence and lack any true suspense or terror. Most romantic films are either too cynical or feel too manufactured to be truly romantic.There's no real heart. I know there were a few good movies in each genre in the past decade but more so than other genres the bad far outnumbers the good.

Little Miss Sunshine and Juno winning the original screenplay Oscars back to back almost did it for me. It seemed for a while that an independent film wasn't going to find an audience unless it was a lightweight dramedy with an animated credit sequence.

I've never thought about giving up on movies, but I've often felt movies were giving up on me. My taste has always run against the blockbusters of any age I'm familiar with. I'm probably the only person I know who didn't like either Gone With The Wind, The Wizard Of Oz, or The Ten Commandments; so no surprise I hated Titanic enough to understand that I needed to miss Avatar entirely. (And I won't even discuss any movie based on a cartoon -- excuse me, "graphic novel," apart from the wonderful American Splendor.) The upshot is that for many years now summer blockbuster season has been a living hell for me. But then Oscar-nominee season comes around at last, and I'm happy again.

Here's a Godard quote about the simplicity of great filmmakers(in it he says Truffaut's films are "rigorous and tender"):

"The only film that I want to make, I will never make because it is impossible. It is a film on love, or of love, or with love. To speak in the mouth, to touch the breast, for women to imagine and to see the body, the sex of the man, a caress a shoulder, things as difficult to show and to intend as horror, and war, and sickness are. I do not understand why, and I suffer from it. What to do then, since I cannot make films simple and logical like Roberto’s humble and cynical like Bresson’s, austere and comic like Jerry Lewis’, lucid and calm like Hawks’, rigorous and tender like François’, hard and plaintive like the two Jacques’, courageous and sincere like Resnais’, pessimistic and American like Fuller’s romantic and Italian like Bertolucci’s, Polish and despairing like Skolimowski’s communist and crazy like Mme. Dovzhenko’s. Yes, what to do?"

I maintain that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom had more to do with killing off the movies than Jaws or Star Wars. Jaws and Star Wars initiated the Age of the Blockbuster, but it was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that created the PG-13 rating. How much unwatchable crap has fallen under that MPAA classification! The PG-13 rating more accurately targeted the mass audience, vulgarized PG movies, and sanitized R movies. There's a very noticable gap between the films of 1983 and 1985. They become considerably more homogenized, slick, and mass-produced. The fact the traditional studio system was officially dead as a doornail by this point and they were now being run by people who didn't care about movies as much as simply diversifying their portfolio and possibly, somehow, that by the mid-80s HBO and home video were now staples among moviegoers no doubt have something to do with it.

Whenever I go to the movies I only see teenagers in the audience. When it is an art house, I only see college students. Filmgoing still largely an adolescent pursuit. Adults don't really do it anymore. If they see something, they watch it at home.

So, whenever I feel alienated from the popular audience I think that I can attribute it to this.

The real turning point for me saying that I'm not interested in anything new was with the film The Go-Getter. It's a kind of generic indie kind of movie that's really not all that bad, but it made me think that independent films must compete with the entirety of film history as these films aren't really going to be seen except on video. And The Go-Getter cannot compete with the entirety of film history. Few independent films can.

So you can make the movie you want and know that it probably cannot compete with the complete works of Welles, Godard, or Bunuel, et cetera or you can work in the studio system and make a film that probably will be dumbed down or have its edge dulled so that it can reach enough people to justify the cost of its production and distribution.

Anybody who goes into filmmaking is an idealistic moron. But more power to you brother.

I still like going to the theater though. It's been two weeks since I went and I feel kind of cranky. I need to be around people looking up there on the screen. I feel like I'm making memories when I go to see a film. Even a bad one.

And there are always lots of great movies released every year and I can never keep up. I like Quentin Tarantino and Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. And Lars Von Trier and Michael Haneke. And Carlos Reygadas. And Steven Soderbergh is occasionally pretty interesting. Spielberg and Scorsese still got it. I can honestly say that I have something to look forward to every year and every year I find something that surprises me. Or outright floors me.

I'm still a believer.

But if there were no new movies being made and old films just continually got re-released in theaters. No, that would not make me sad. That's perfectly tolerable.

I've certainly given up on action-films. There was a time when they offered some measure of visceral entertainment; now they offer little beyond the scuzzed up hyperactivity of an interminable video-game cut-scene.

That the guy who gave us "The Terminator" and "Aliens" is now more concerned with filming Yes cover albums in murky 3D... that too was pretty wounding.

Oh, and even banal comedies now have to be vetted and approached with caution. You can't just buy a ticket and hope even for a few chuckles and a pat on the behind. No, you end up dragged to "Baby Mamma" and suffer through the most excruciating, insulated, bourgeois pestilence the likes of which would explode Marx's skull like a ripe watermelon. The world's falling apart, and we're supposed to commiserate with some Manhattanite snob --- who can afford a $100,000 surrogation without batting an eye --- because the yokels she's abusing mispronounce French architectural terms? Unbelievable.

But whenever things seem dire, right as I'm about to skip town, something rolls in from nowhere and blows the meat out my backside. I'm still riding pretty high on "Synecdoche, New York;" if our culture can still allow the production and distribution (albeit minimally) of something like that, then it can't be the end of the cinematic world quite yet.

If a romantic comedy stars Katherine Heigl and/or Gerard Butler, you can be sure it will stink. From seeing their films -- and many other contemporary romantic comedies -- a visitor from another world would go away convinced that men and women despise each other. Also, the premise that Heigl is a loser who can't get a date is so absurd it's almost Dadaist.

I was going to write a long post, but...to sum it up, I believe it's more laziness on the part of filmmakers/film writers and the results are onscreen. When more time and effort is spent on needless reboots/remakes etc, there's less time & money for originality.

That said...I believe that the "death of cinema" is still a little way off.

Oh, and that "friend" who couldn't understand the relation between Fritz Lang and "The Dark Knight?" I don't know if he himself understands much about cinema.
I've seen both, and I believe they belong in the same class of artistic achievement.

There is, I believe, a (growing) misconception, especially amongst critics, that just because a film is a blockbuster means it's quality of a film is diminished. Of course, the hard truth is that just because a film is a blockbuster doesn't mean it's necessarily good, either...(Transformers 2, anyone?)

I think calling it the end of cinema is a bit melodramatic. If Crash or The Dark Knight or some of those other titles are so irksome, there's always something else around the corner. Those films are no reason to just give up altogether. There are so many movies out there every single week (most of which none of us will ever see) and there are many great ones to be had each year. You just have to remain hopeful as you wade through the unremarkable. Kinda like you have to do with your daily life. Not every day is a vacation in Hawaii. Most are a slog through workeatsleeprepeat.

Yes, the crap on the big screen is overwhelming sometimes, but the bigger problem is that I find myself quoting Alec Baldwin in State & Main A LOT. And that quote is "so that happened". What I mean is, I see a movie and it's completely mediocre and forgettable. It isn't good enough or bad enough to talk about for even 5 minutes. And most movies are not Ed Wood-eque anymore. Production values of thoroughly meaningless movies are often first-rate.

Still, that doesn't mean that cinema is dying or dead. I end up seeing about 200 movies per year (on the big screen, DVD/BRD rentals, digi-cable) and at least 10 or 15, maybe even 20, are worth owning & seeing again. Maybe 3 or 4 of those will REALLY stand out. Now, that doesn't speak well for the other 185 that I see. Still, I'd have given up by now and watched only the DVDs I own if cinema was as bad as some people think that it is.

There's nothing wrong with living in the past a little bit, but let's try to remember that there were plenty of terrible movies even in the golden ages (the '70s, the late '30s, the end of the silent era). Nothing is what it used to be, nothing in life. Either ride with the change or go live in a cave. Cinema isn't dying. It's just not what it used to be. And if you need to cleanse your palette (so to speak), that's what DVDs are for!

But those who want to dump on 3D can add me to the list. That is NOT a positive evolution of cinema.

"Who killed the movies?"

No one. 4-5 great, original movies come out every single year. Some people like to pretend movies are getting worse because it makes them feel intellectual. They aren't.

I got into an argument with my dad the other night, over Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood." We had seen it a couple of weeks ago and hadn't really discussed it. I assumed he hated it as much as I did. It's a dreadful film, boring and obvious and self-important.

So, we're talking about movies and I happen to mention how bad I think the movie is. My dad got pretty angry at me, he was yelling, saying he thought it was a fantastic movie, very clever. I tried to explain why I thought it was bad, but he wouldn't have it. I understand that people have different tastes but I cannot understand how anybody can like that kind of film.

My dad has always been very narrow-minded about films. He's the kind of person that goes to the movies to "escape" and "forget about life for a while." He doesn't like movies that make the audience think because he doesn't expect films to do that. I'm constantly looking for movies like that, that challenge and anger and try to say something interesting. My father can't even watch foreign films.

And that's fine, I guess. But I could never live like that. What's the point of art if it doesn't make you think? I'll stop watching movies when they stop making the kind of movies I like. But every year there's enough interesting movies to make up for the Transformers and the superheroes, so I'm good.

These have got to be some of the greatest blog comments ever.

Truffaut may have hated Bond, but I guess he still thought Sean Connery was a considerable actor. He loved Marnie and believed it to be the Master's "flawed great film".

As a filmmaker, and still somewhat a film-critic (somewhat in that I don't do it as much as Ebert but more than others perhaps), I almost feel a craving, a need to find something that will excite me about movies. If it's in the past, of course, but I also have to look ahead to the future. I want to have a place as a filmmaker out there, but if I do I need to know there's at least something, anything worth going out there and digging into reality to try and find something worth filming. I realize the experience of sitting in a theater surrounded by people who love something that I definitely don't, and it's happened many times. But for those few times when I can get in on it, and be apart of what's exciting in a movie (cineplex or indie or whatever) that's what makes it interesting and worthwhile.

But I realize losing faith in people is something very legitimate, and it does tie in with art. Two of the films that, for moments, made me contemplate that the End of Cinema might be around the corner, and not just an angry wink at the end of Godard's Week End, happened to me last year. One was Transformers 2 (on a free DVD thank goodness), and the other was After Last Season. While one cost 1934922384823 billion dollars and the other cost ten cents, both of them made me momentarily lose faith in movies, people, life, the universe, and everything else. Michael Bay's hubris and lack of care for anything resembling storytelling, or anything as nourishing in entertainment (which I think can exist in blockbusters, re: Jaws, re: Iron Man) was expressed in that film, and then some. It's a monstrosity of a movie, dumb and proud of it, and that it has such a huge fan base (most critics hated it but fans must have loved it enough to get it to be 2nd only to Avatar last year in grosses - hehe, 'gross') just pours salt in the wound.

The other film I mention, After Last Season, is slightly more obscure. This film roused my interest in a sort of ironic way. The trailer, which can be found on IMDb, shows a filmmaker working at such an inept pace and with such non-direction and such abhorrent non-acting, that it looks like a void. But my curiosity got the better of me and I obtained a copy. It's hard for me to be more literal than saying it's the worst film of our times. It was made for 5 million, but it was 4,999,999 million too much. Sets made out of paper, elongated sequences of WTF CGI on a computer monitor, and a plot that you need subtitles to understand. In a way that signaled more of a death of cinema than Transformers, because while one person tried too hard with his megalomania and toys, another tried not at all.

Those are the extremes that put off of the medium and make me want to instead go and read a book or listen to John Coltrane or just go out for a frakkin walk or something. But then I look at the DVDs and videos I still need to watch, or I read a book like Film as a Subversive Art, and I realize again why I do this, and why I love the medium so. When it becomes alive, as you said in one of the comments, it denies death because it'll always be here.

Hollywood has always turned out crap like Ding Dong Night at the Moulin Rouge (1951) and McGlusky the Sea Rover (1934), right from the time Edison electrocuted Topsy. Cinema is no more dead now than it was when we got a new Gold Diggers travesty every year, or when Max Terhune made 50 films playing the same character, or when Lon Chaney was starring in the third remake of The Phantom of the Opera (1925). Uninventive sequels and "same movie, different name" are nothing new. They've been going on since Blackton Sketches 3 (1896). All that's happened is that you've gotten old, and conveniently forgotten how bad most movies have always been.

I've got strabismus, too, but (as I once posted on this site after watching Avatar) the 3D had the opposite effect on me: my brain was actually tricked into perceiving three dimensions for the first time in my life, and that thrilled rather than nauseated me. Having said that, I would indeed abandon cinema if 3D becomes a substitute for the visceral involvement I have always sought from it.

In recent years, television has offered so many "cinematic" spectacles with deeply moving characters and involving situations, it has become a worthy substitute, and I wonder if these developments have drawn talented people from the movie industry into television. If cinema continues its downward spiral into the mundane, CGI-driven wasteland of cheap emotion, there is plenty of good stuff on TV for people to watch. It's just a shame that we will lose the experience of sitting in a dark theater, sharing that experience with strangers.

Are people lamenting the nonexistence of thoughtful movies here, or their low public prominence and box-office grosses? Because they do most assuredly exist after all, so it's not a question of them actually being wiped out.

It seems to me that what people are truly lamenting is not the death of thoughtful movies, but the fact that the multiplexes aren't jammed with serious film buffs watching them.

To this I have to ask: what do you expect? Do you really think serious film people are going to suddenly outnumber casual filmgoers and teenagers, or suddenly have far more free time so they can attend the movies every single weekend all summer the way teens do? What do you want to do, bar teens from the movies? Instruct movie executives to ignore their biggest market?

There are plenty of interesting films out there if you want to look for them. The majority is not interested, because (and this is something that's probably hard to accept for someone who really deeply cares about cinema) the average person views movies as just another entertainment, alongside his XBox and his other recreations. The average person does NOT care deeply about film, and why should he be expected to? It is not particularly important to his life; unlike the film critic, the average person has a very long laundry list of things that occupy his thoughts far more often than film does. This is not necessarily a sign of some great mental deficiency; it is simply a case of different priorities.

I shoud possibly give up on movies? It would take supreme arrogance to even contemplate such a thing.

Could it be this is merely a symptom of nostalgia. Though with troubles, the 1950's had Robert Taft and William F. Buckley? Their character may be under question but they were quite bright people. People were able to start businesses without being defeated by large multinationals. Advertisers are allowed to hawk their wares to children, leading them to view the world as a megamall. On the other hand, we now give more rights to those scorned earler.

Ralph Nader made an interesting point in a blog that he was able to lobby more succesfully under Reagan then Clinton, attributable according to him because of stifling and mass apathy. Films don't challenge the way they used to, at least on the mainstream.

The final question is, are these connected? Could animus generated in públic life feed on subpar cinema? If so, what is the connection? Does it reach levels that Jim has to become Jack Mccoy and search through countless documents to find an ultimate truth?

I feel to answer any question, one must consider EVERYTHING surrounding it. It works on House. So these questions above should be considered when the topic of past vs. future come up, similar to those expressed on Ebert's blog about childhood years ago.

Finally, thank you Jim for giving me a place to express these half-baked ideas on history and trying to find a tenuous connection to popular cinema.

I've been hearing about the death of cinema pretty much ever since I started reading movie reviews and criticism. It tends to come up at times when the offerings from Hollywood are particularly dire -- like right now. There hasn't been a really good studio film so far this summer. There has been nothing at the cineplexes I've wanted to see for several weeks. But I'm hopeful something will come along soon -- in the meantime, there's the local arthouse, which showed A Prophet a few weeks ago -- a great film and one that keeps me hopeful about the future of cinema.

Jim, are you TRYING to sound like the sheriff from "No Country for Old Men"?

Video Games. Adult Swim. Family Guy.

I've seen plenty of awful films. Strangely, if I see an awful film from, say, the early 80's it doesn't depress me so much nor would cause me to throw up my hands in despair. Some modern fair has brought me close to a feeling of being removed from the experience I find everyone else enjoying, the clapping at the end of a recent viewing of Iron Man 2 for example. But I don't blame the cinema, no. I blame video games, Adult Swim, and Family guy. Shallow entertainment, a cursory reading of Post-Modernism or Meta-narrative, and just plain lazy writing. The bar has been brought low across the board I would argue, as media can be obtained from so many sources. To appeal to the lowest common denominator now you must reach really really deep. I fear for the youth of America, but I not for too long. I remind myself that I was able to locate older films and entertainment, wanted to know more about it, and a desire to be educated in it followed. But I can't say this influx of crap doesn't make me nervous, but maybe what will blossom from the current landscape will be, as always, something fresh and original and exciting. But I don't blame the cinema itself, not when you got Brahani and 'Joe' and Reygadas making movies. That's exciting, no?

I enjoy old black and white films. I was raised watching Three Stooges shorts and Marx Brothers movies. I enjoy watching from time to time something by Hitchcock, Wilder, or Kurosawa. However, I must confess that I have responded to contemporary films more strongly which include films from 60's, 70's, and 80's (the 90's were when movies started to suck,IMO). If I was to make a list of favorites, you would see mostly films from this period.

While, I don't find older films to be dull or esoteric but I can understand why people of my X generation might. It possible that they could find them to be corny or cartoonish. Back then,acting had to be more theatrical and larger than life and it might strike some as over the top. The music scores might come across as vital and bombastic (like the kind used for the original Star Trek series). Also, they can contain material that is not politically correct by todays standards.

So while I have seen many good and even great "old films". I do think it is sad that future generations may never appreciate them. I mean that is five decades of history being shunned but what can we do?. Who knows, years from now films like "The Godfather", "Star Wars", or "Jaws" will be dismissed on the basis of being old.

Epic Movie / Disaster Movie / Etc (I saw these mainly on a "know your enemy" basis)

Chocolate

Then there are movies that I don't hate, but I can't relate the immense love others have for them (people get angry when I bring them up, and I feel a little sad when they're called masterpieces): Love Actually, A Fish Called Wanda, Garden State, You, the Living, Scarface, It's a Wonderful Life, Saving Private Ryan (gasp), The Silence of the Lambs, Network, Amelie, American Beauty, alot of Tim Burton, some Godard

But no, I've never yet considered giving up on contemporary film, or even certain genres.

I got 2 words for Truffaut: "Learn to f**king type."

While he may be a phenomenally talented artist, he certainly doesn't speak for me or my tastes. James Bond as the death of cinema? Please. Talk about pretentious self-importance. No singular film or collection of films will ever make me stop loving films or art, and I love the diversity of expression as much as I love "true" cinema. Maybe I'm simple, but I respond very emotionally to the shoot out at the end of "The Wild Bunch" as much as much to Andy Dufresne's Christ-like escape in "Shawshank Redemption." I can sit through Baldwin's acting tour de force and social evisceration in "GlenGarry Glen Ross" and get the same high as watching DeNiro and Pacino bare their souls in the diner in "Heat", or watching Poitier and Steiger go toe to toe in "In The Heat of the Night".

Jackie Chan? yes. Buster Keaton? yes. Jim Carrey? yes (until recently). Physical comedy is physical comedy, no matter what twist you put in that drink. Talent will always rise and fall, but it is pretentious to think what entertained us in the past will not entertain us in the future, or that the artists of today don't have an appreciation of the artists who paved the way for them. Name one significant director today who doesn't owe a debt to Peckinpah, yet even 40 years ago he was reviled and I'm sure Truffaut probably stuck his nose up at his films.

Now music, that's another story. More so than Hollywood, the music industry had become a lot of rehashed techno-produced crap. I felt the last good rock album was Guns n Roses "Appetite for Destruction." Then I picked up Them Cooked Vultures and had my mind blown. Ahh, sweet release! Music with a set of stones still exists?

I agree there's a lot of fluff in the film industry, but I'll be honest. I liked "8MM". I liked "Crash." Me and my kids can't get enough of "The Dark Knight." I'll watch them again and again if they come on TV. I have no high expectations about what I'm seeing, and I don't know why I enjoy those films, but I get so sick of people over-thinking and over-analyzing what is simply entertainment. I can enjoy a Twinkie just as much as a thick piece of prime rib or filet mignon. Sure the quality of the food is vastly different, but so is the quality of my taste. Thank God.

(and bonus points for anyone who got my QT reference in my response to Truffaut)

When reviewing the Blu-ray of Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" for my blog, I was astonished to find out it was #5 of six films that had broken the $1 billion mark in ticket sales, passing "The Dark Knight." Then I realized that the increase was probably due to the extra $4 (more in other cities outside of San Antonio, I'm sure) that the theaters charge for 3D showings.

A few weeks ago, I took my young daughters to see "How to Train Your Dragon." Since they are 4 and 2 respectively, I knew that they wouldn't be able or willing to wear the 3D glasses for the film. There were only 2 showings of the film in 2D, and both of them were during the daytime.

That day you spoke of; it's already here.

I definitely haven't given up on cinema yet, although I will admit that I will never voluntarily sit through any film shot with a handheld digital camera again. After suffering through about 20 minutes of Paul Greengrass's "Green Zone", I had to get up and leave the theatre as the constant camera shaking (even during scenes where characters are doing nothing more than sitting at a table talking) literally was making me physically nauseous. I've had it with this BS notion that if a film is blurry and difficult to see, that somehow adds a sense of "realism" to the movie. Funny, because when I look at something in real life, it usually tends to be in focus and not jumping around. Greengrass is just as much of an obnoxious hack as Michael Bay, but because he directs films about more serious topics like the War in Iraq and not say, robot cars from outer space, he's taken seriously as a filmmaker.

"I've had it with this BS notion that if a film is blurry and difficult to see, that somehow adds a sense of "realism" to the movie. Funny, because when I look at something in real life, it usually tends to be in focus and not jumping around. Greengrass is just as much of an obnoxious hack as Michael Bay, but because he directs films about more serious topics like the War in Iraq and not say, robot cars from outer space, he's taken seriously as a filmmaker."

I liked the Bourne movies but in spite of the super fast editing and shaky cam not because of it.I'm getting tired of action movie's copying Greengrass's style.Its sad that these days more often then not I find the action scenes in blockbusters incoherent and poorly edited, especially when there's a hand to hand combat scene.

I am not sure if this was said previously, but the problem is, as expressed by people like Beradinelli, Ebert and others, that these trash movies are getting massive budgets and advertised round the world.

Mystery Science Theater gives a telescope to the times when nothing movies got nothing budgets.

Manos the Hands of Fate
Angel's Revenge- Alan Hale Jr. and Jim Backus in the same movie!
Eegah

Also, for my money, watching The Incredibles will be the cornerstone in my life to judging an action movie. How is it Bird can maintain non-stop action in a supposed kids movie, while Lucas could only manage showing pretty lights in the prequel.

Of course, as said, movies like The Incredibles give hope that real filmmakers can triumph over the bean counting mob of Lucas, Bay and Co.

Jim, do you think The Incredibles would be a movie Anton, aka Trauffat, would see?

It's interesting to hear Truffaut select "Dr. No" as the beginning of the end, or even to be talking about the beginning of the end in the 1970s, since many critics consider that decade to be one of the greatest or perhaps the greatest decade in the history of film. If there's any film that put an end to the filmmaking cherished by Truffaut, it would be "Star Wars"... although I guess that two years wasn't long enough to gauge the full impact that film would have on the art of filmmaking. Or why not "Psycho," whose bait-and-switch plot undermined both narrative and traditional morality, and arguably gave birth to all those cynical slasher films? Regardless, when I hear Truffaut pick out a James Bond film as a sign of the degradation of cinematic artistry, I naturally think "Curmudgeon!" But then I realize: that's exactly what my children's generation will say about me when they hear me saying that "Avatar" was the beginning of the end of the type of films that I hold dear.

If Emerson thinks any Alan Parker movie is a 'barbarity' then I need to know if he has seen Birdy.

It's a little melodramatic to announce the 'end of cinema', isn't it? When I see a movie like "The Lives of Others" or "The Man on the Train" or "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", I think filmmaking is alive and well.

Movies that have made me question the entire enterprise: "Schindler's List" (despite many good qualities, it's the epitome of Spielberg's manipulativeness), "ET", "Return of the Jedi". The man just doesn't know when to say when. For a long time, it seemed, he degraded his films by not showing restraint.

"Wild at Heart" made me never want to go to the movies again. At least not with a person I cared abuot, in case they liked that dreck, in which case I'd have to rethink my entire attitude toward them.

I am glad I know the difference between the "Crash" as in modern lame and "Crash" as in David Cronenberg. It is a shame Truffaut died in 1984 or he would have used "Nomads" (1986, McTiernan) as a punching bag; Ted Nugent soundtrack would have been the last straw. Look at the list of films by John McTiernan for a hint.

""Annie Hall"contains more intellectual wit and cultural references than any other movie ever to win the Oscar for best picture, and in winning the award in 1977 it edged out "Star Wars," an outcome unthinkable today. The victory marked the beginning of Woody Allen's career as an important filmmaker (his earlier work was funny but slight) and it signaled the end of the 1970s golden age of American movies. With "Star Wars," the age of the blockbuster was upon us, and movies this quirky and idiosyncratic would find themselves shouldered aside by Hollywood's greed for mega-hits. "Annie Hall" grossed about $40 million -- less than any other modern best picture winner, and less than the budgets of many of them."

So there you have it, Hollywood and The Academy killed the movies. I can buy that. Thanks for adding that Jim! It is indeed unthinkable today that a movie like "Annie Hall" (which I love by the way, like just about all Woody Allen) could win.

Great post Jim.

The Transformers movies have certainly pushed me to the brink of giving up on today's movies, and I'm only 22! They are so overblown, and laughably awful in terms of acting, direction, writing, etc...that it boggles my mind that so many people find them entertaining. Of course, a lot of people will tell me that I "think too much" when watching the movies, which is a defense I still don't understand. I think I'm perfectly capable of having a good time at the movies, but only if the movie isn't insulting my intelligence and at least seems to be trying to be entertaining, instead of just lazy. There's only so many times you can watch something blow up, you know?

The most despairing trend of today's movies for me, however, has been the dumbing down of kid's movies. Whenever I see a preview for a movie like G-Force, Marmaduke, or Beverly Hills Chihuahua, it literally sends me into a spiral of depression. These movies are supposed to be entertaining children??? No attempt at creativity or thought provoking material, no emotional resonance whatsoever for kids to latch onto. Just a shallow, empty experience meant to distract the kids for a couple of hours. I find these movies the most depressing because if kid's today are being raised on these movies, is there any hope for the future? I'm probably being a tad too gloomy, but then again, maybe I'm not.

Whenever I hit one of these moments, I remind myself that every once in awhile I am rewarded with a truly great movie experience. After all, if I had decided to just give up several years ago, I never would have experienced Zodiac, a movie I think is just about perfect. Perhaps this is just a low point in American cinema, and in 10 years we'll all look back on this and laugh. At least I like to think so.

I really respect and appreciate what the French did during the 60's, their movies, the birth of the "Cahiers", the Author's Theory etc...but when I read about what Truffaut felt when he saw James Bond I can't help but chuckle uncontrollably.

You see, we in Quebec are of French descent. We speak the same language, we watch some of their television, have their movies on our screens, listen to their music and so on. Well, the same as you guys in the States being in touch with British culture.

So believe me when I say that we get them, for the rest of you anglophones of North America you may understand them in part but cultural differences is too strong so I really don't think that your understanding is nowhere near the same level as us.

Case in point, we have a short phrase (or meme) that is understood here from Montreal to Gaspé. 95% percent of the time people will laugh a lot when they hear it. It is the phrase: "Maudit Francais", which more or less means "Damn those French".

The French have to whine, it is part of their DNA, if they don't whine once or twice during the day it seems they won't be happy. The phrase I just spoke of is pretty much used when we hear them whine. This behavior is rooted so deep in their collective unconscious I believe they don't know it exists.

Ironically we are so used to hear them whine that we don't use the phrase anymore, we simply think about it, which sometimes causes funny situation because two people will think it and know instinctively that the other is doing the same, which of course will cause burst of laughter on both parts.

Anyway, now the bigger the artist the louder he has to be and the haughtier the comments or remark will be. An artist in France has to be haughty if he wants to be recognized as one, the haughtier he is the bigger his recognition will be. Now couple that with the fact that they have to whine and you have a perfect reason for Truffaut's claim.

What he said is completely irrelevant because somehow someone was bond to have said something similar about this movie or another. So therefore it is sheer luck that Truffaut's sentence was remembered. The fact that James Bond is British speaks volume about Truffaut's intent. Indeed that was very haughty of him to speak in this fashion about the first "real" British success.

***

That being said, I too feel somewhat jaded with movies lately but, as everything else is, I believe that we are at the top of the cycle, the wheel will eventually turn back and quality will prevail.

Besides aren't you forgetting that not 4 months ago the best picture, best director, best editing and best original screenplay was awarded to The Hurt Locker instead of Avatar....now that's gotta mean something.

Lastly, reading this post and it's replies I felt puzzled whenever I would read the word "multiplexes" and "disappointed" in the same paragraph.

What do expect???

If you want a filet mignon do you go to McDonalds?

Philippe

I have pretty much had it with Paul Greengrass and the Shaky-cam. When I first saw Bourne Ultimatum I was, like most people seduced by the film. I really liked it. I saw It with some friends. Later I saw it again and realized that i did't like it. I was messy incomprehensible and simplistic. It found it to be lazy sloppy filmmaking. Now the style is everywhere. Even in Prince of Persia! I review movies for a website, so I have not yet given up on movies but a see a lot of bad ones but the laziness of modern hollywood annoys me more and more. I like action movies like most people do, but I wan't to see the action, not flashes and glimpses. I think the worst movie i have seen this year is the Green Zone.

Right now the best place to look for interresting films is Asia. Korea especially. I saw the Agentinian Oscar winner which i liked very much, i like a movie who dares shift tone, who dares to take genre seriously. Like the Host, the Korean monster film or The Secret in their Eyes, one of the better examples of film noir in a while.

From USA i liked A Serious Man, again a movie who shift tone, who alternates between the absurdly tragic and the absurdly funne (often both at the same time). Up in The Air which I found very elegant.

From the past i especially responds to Amarican genre films: The westerns of John Ford (The Searchers!!!), Wilder, Hawks, Curtis. The germans Murnaur whens talking about silent films. One of the most profound experiences at the movies was watching L'Aventura, another was watching The Great Illusion and The rules of the game on the same day

I still watch the new Blockbusters hoping to feel like a kid again, but it has been a long time since that happened. I think the last time was Spider-man 2.

CGI / computer animation. I can spot it every time, and it doesn't beat the older school special effects. The plot of Jurassic Park: "oh dear God, the dinosaurs are on the loose!" The plot of Twister: "oh dear God, the tornados are on the loose!" The plot of Transformers movies: "oh dear God, the robots are on the loose!" And so fourth. . .

Oh, one other thing: people can't assemble anymore without being irritating and inconsiderate of others. There is nothing like a giant screen, but I'd gladly wait for Blu Ray rather than be distracted by people texting, talking, yelling, etc. In my opinion, Cinema will never cease to be the height of human artistic expression - but the theater experience is being removed from the equation. Ultimately that will change cinema itself.

Bill W. earlier said that nobody is killing the movies, because there's always a few good movies to make up for the trash, and that we just like to say it because it makes us feel smart. That is pretty much what I think.

Sure, every year you get some absurd piece of trash that everyone loves. (I'm not going to say a movie is going to turn me off cinema, but "Inglourious Basterds" managed to turn me off on Tarantino.) But I'm fine, because there's something like "An Education" out there, waiting to be discovered. And in the search through the dirt to find to find the gems, you occasionally find a rock like "Tetro" or "Observe and Report," something that's not really a gem, but you can't help but treasure anyway.

Yes, 3D is a silly gimmick that's obviously just Hollywood trying to make a few extra bucks on every ticket. But 3D doesn't instantly turn everything it touches into trash. Even in the 50's, you had "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and "Dial M for Murder," both still well-regarded today. Today, something like "Avatar" may be visually innovative while having a story we've heard a million times, but then you get something like "Up," which tells its story with enough unexpected ideas to blindside people. Seeing a house coming towards you isn't art, but crying when a cartoon character you've known for ten minutes at most dies must be art.

One of the things I feel may hurt cinema is a lack of new techniques. (No, 3D doesn't count.) As somebody who's spent his entire life thinking about film, it's hard to think of something really experimental and risky in film. On the other hand, I've gotten into making silly webcomics as a hobby, and find the joys of experimentation there liberating. At the risk of sounding like a Werner Herzog wannabe, the future of cinema probably won't come from the film schools, but from other forms of media.

Chocolate

I do hope you mean Chocolat, by Lasse Halström, because, while that film was awful, Chocolate, by Prachya Pinkaew, is quite fantastic.

The film Chocolat itself did not make me give up on cinema, but it did make me give up on a single-screen cinema in my city, for playing it 27 consecutive weeks (The crappy seats didn't help either). Even the 26-week run of Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulain the next year didn't make up for it.

"Kick Ass" made me hate movies... OR on second thought - did it just make me hate people who watch movies?

Well, either way, it almost did me in.

I actually quite liked Chocolat.It wasn't great but it was enjoyable enough.

Movies that make me despair are obviously poor ones, such as Transformers 2, that sell like crazy and many of my friends appreciate. However, I've kind of lived with this my whole life as I've always tended to appreciate films my peers did not.

I can appreciate low-level entertainment, but to me there was nothing entertaining about Transformers 2 - it was a dumb story, boring, poorly acted, and an onslaught to my senses. I honestly cannot see what anyone found entertaining about it. Unfortunately, there are too many blockbusters made today with similar results (although in some ways I think Trans2 was the epitome).

@Aussie Dan

If it weren't for the "Aussie" in your name i'd swear you were an American. Most of them only see things in absolutes, such as black or white, good or bad...shades of gray are so rare.

Now McDonalds being black and filet mignon being white and me not being an American this means that all the shades of gray were implied in my remark.

So therefore there is McDonald quality at the multiplexes, better and much better quality can also be found there but if one expect a good amount of filet mignon at the multiplexes he/she is in for a big surprise.

Why would you automatically jump to the conclusion that I was referring to things in absolutes, damn it I am not stupid.

Not to say that you are but by your standards you put Spiderman 2 on the same level as 2001, Pulp Fiction and the Seven Samurai.....????

Philippe

Hey Aussie,

Late reply on my part, sorry. I guess it's not that I have a particular reason to not love them-- I just didn't find a particular reason to love them. With "A Fish Called Wanda," I just didn't laugh, and Kevin Kline kind of grated on me. I thought Scarface had a few great scenes, but to get to them, I had to wade through alot of filler that just didn't hold my interest (which was disappointing, because I usually enjoy De Palma). "It's A Wonderful Life" depressed me. The guy wants to go see the world, but ends up tied down to a family, and it's sold as a happy ending I just didn't buy. "The Silence of the Lambs" was a fun thriller, but I thought Lecter's character was too much of a "super-villain" to be believable or very scary. While I watched "Network," I got the sense that the creators felt they were saying something very profound, and were taking it much too seriously (despite the dark comic aspect). I didn't think the material deserved the vibe of self-importance I got from it, and the satire was not strong enough to make up for it.

Again, I don't have some hatred of these movies, I just don't relate to the majority opinion on them.

Also, I meant "Chocolat." My bad.

I don't know if there is a film that would cause me to quit on cinema, but I do know that Pixar proves that cinema has not met its end yet.

I just saw "Winter's Bone," and I thought that was pretty unique in the way it takes the "realist" aesthetics of much of American independent cinema and uses it to create something as mythic and dream-like as "Night of the Hunter." Sort of what David Gordon Green was trying to do when he made "Undertow" (one of my least favourite movies that I've seen recently).

"If it weren't for the "Aussie" in your name i'd swear you were an American. Most of them only see things in absolutes, such as black or white, good or bad...shades of gray are so rare."

Please. Don't turn this into a generalisation about nationalities. You said 'Lastly, reading this post and it's replies I felt puzzled whenever I would read the word "multiplexes" and "disappointed" in the same paragraph.

What do expect???

If you want a filet mignon do you go to McDonalds?"'

How is that not black and white? I would suggest that if anyone here saw things only in black + white, it's not me. Maybe you are 'American.'

"Now McDonalds being black and filet mignon being white and me not being an American this means that all the shades of gray were implied in my remark."

Where exactly were the shades of grey? You didn't imply any shades of grey.

"So therefore there is McDonald quality at the multiplexes, better and much better quality can also be found there but if one expect a good amount of filet mignon at the multiplexes he/she is in for a big surprise."

I disagree. As I said in my previous post, to make a statement like that based purely on where a film is shown (and perhaps how much it costs) is both narrow-minded and ignorant. I could say something similar about smaller/independent theates; if one is expecting anything other than rubbish dressed up as filet mignon, one is in for a big surprise, for most of the filet mignon are at multiplexes. That is a generalisation, but so is your statement about multiplexes.

"Why would you automatically jump to the conclusion that I was referring to things in absolutes, damn it I am not stupid."

Well, forgive me for not thinking that being contrasted to McDonalds is a compliment. If you weren't referring to things in absolutes, why would you compare it to one of the worst 'restaurants' in the world as opposed to a meal which is widely considered to be among the world's best? Even in this post, you said 'So therefore there is McDonald quality at the multiplexes, better and much better quality can also be found there but if one expect a good amount of filet mignon at the multiplexes he/she is in for a big surprise.'

You may not be stupid (which is irrelevent and which I don't care about), but people can only respond to what you write, and based on what you write, it is obvious what you mean.

You obviously think that if you want a fine meal, you shouldn't go to a multiplex. Well, I think that's ignorant and narrow-minded.

'Cinephiles' who judge a film based on where it is being shown are just as closed-minded as those who judge a film based on the fact it has sub-titles and is in black + white. Thank god, I am more open-minded than you are!

"Not to say that you are"

If you are going to call someone stupid, you should do so instead of implying it. Although, I would suggest that you are not in a position to call anyone stupid at all. Not after your two latest posts.

"but by your standards you put Spiderman 2 on the same level as 2001, Pulp Fiction and the Seven Samurai.....????"

I absolutely do.

Here are a few things which might shock you. You are not the arbiter of good taste or standards. Other people are perfectly entitled to disagree with you. Just because they do (god forbid) disagree with you does not make them stupid. You do not determine which is and is not Great Cinema. Simply because other people are more open-minded than you does not give you the right to attack them. Being more tolerant of different views (BTW, I regard Seven Samurai to be overrated) and not judging films based on where they are shown wouldn't kill you. Oh, and you are not the arbiter of good taste and standards, and what you think of my regarding Spider-Man 2 among the greatest films of all time does not concern me in the slightest. Thankfully, my tastes and standards do not revolve around you.

dear aussie dan,
i like the cut of your jib and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. your new friend, chris l.

I was 19 years old when The Girl Next Door was released and had just spent the last year putting myself through my own personal home study film course. I joined a group that I did not know well for an unplanned movie outing. The kind where you show up at the multiplex and see whatever is playing next. The Girl Next Door was playing next. I hated every minute of the film. I cringed at the content and nonsensical plot developments. I couldn't believe that I was expected to identify with the situations the protagonist found himself in. As a 19 year old, it was the first film that ever offended me. I felt insulted. That would have been enough to regret spending the $10 on the ticket and write it off to poor timing, but the real kicker came after. Everyone in my group and seemingly everyone else in the theater loved it. I had seen many bad movies, but I had never seen a film that so consciously took a direction that was completely opposite to what I looked for and enjoyed in the medium. For 6 full months, I did not see one single film made after 1950.

Truffaut was a big old grouch. Great cinema will never die. It's interesting that you quote Ebert's comment on Annie Hall the very year when a ten-million-dollar movie beat out Avatar for Best Picture. Movies are alive, all right. Even the "multiplex hordes" are full of people who have the capacity and willingness to enjoy great films - if they just learn to think and talk about them again. Heck, I laughed my ass off to Flubber one time. There's hope for us yet.

Incidentally, that's one thing that the Oscar people can and should do - promote great films. Everyone always complains how nobody sees the Best Picture nominees. Well, why not offer them on demand for cheap, as part of the Oscar pageant? The movie people will only benefit themselves.

If I had to pick a movie that symbolized the end of cinema, it would be "Top Gun." From that point on, movies would be a live-action mix of video games and music videos, more interested in explosions, rapid editing and spectacle then in genuine human emotion.

Why not? They were both heaped with praise they didn't deserve. I felt the same way exiting the theater after both films: that a computer had spit out a script designed to kowtow to the Academy and win awards.

This summer has made me consider giving up on movies. Shrek 4, Splice, Karate Kid 5, Twilight 3, 3-D, Nightmare on Elm Street 11, Last Airbender, Grown Ups. What an abysmal lineup!

Sequels, more than anything destroy the movie going experience.

Thankfully, there are still a few diamonds in the rough like Restrepo and Cell 211.

If Lucas makes another piece of crap Star Bores movie or something with Crystal Aliens in it I'm going to blow my top!

After thoroughly enjoying the first "Iron Man," I was appalled by "Iron Man 2" and doubly so because it was produced by the same creative team.

I felt the same way about "Ghostbusters" and "Ghostbusters 2."

On the other hand, there was the brilliance of "Alien" followed by "Aliens" from a different creative team altogether.

Only the first "Indiana Jones" was worth watching much like only the first "Jaws."

However, I don't believe anything will stop me from viewing a new crop of movies, year after year, but I won't be watching many of them in the movie theater.

With my HDTV and Netflix subscription, 90% of the films this year (and for years to come) will be seen at home.

It's too bad, too. I used to love going out to the "movies" on a Friday night. But there is more at stake here than the quality of the film itself. There are the increasing distractions... dim projection and poor sound... restless audiences... and all the other complaints listed above.

Alas.

On a side tangent, has anyone noticed how HBO and ShowTime have become the new cinema of sex, drugs, and rock and roll? Not that the majority of their product is any good, but the very least one could say is that they are not prudish nor squeamish... unlike the Hollywood cinema of today.

I am already at the point that you described, where I have just about had it with modern movies. I used to review them for a local newspaper. Then, in the past few years, I found myself going through three stages RE modern movies. (1) I started growing tired of seeing movies that were rehashes of old stuff, and I went to the movies less and less. (2) I grew more contented with reading movie reviews than with actually seeing the movies. (3) I got repulsed just reading the reviews.

I am now the way that you described William K. Everson, content to re-view the movies I grew up with/on. There is the occasional movie I'll venture out to see (and even enjoy, e.g., "Toy Story 3"), but I feel as though I've (almost) seen it all.