[skinnymuch]

You only chose older films to contrast with Dune (2021). Blade Runner being the newest at nearly 40 years old. It’s a lot easier to bring up old media. Be it music or movies. People revere the old, the classics.

Apocalypse Now, which is amazing, in my opinion, didn’t get amazing reviews upon release.

Fall from grace means you didn’t like Arrival too much either? I loved Arrival as I loved Sicario and Enemy.

> Alien or Blade Runner?

I love the concept of time so personally I enjoyed Arrival more than either of these. Same with Ex Machina, Annihilation, Primer, and Upstream Color. I also think these films are better too. I admit I must have a bias against glorifying the classics because of it being done so much. Obviously everyone has biases.

> There is good cinema within our generation but it is startlingly rare. Most of what makes it to the theaters is bloodless, drained of anything to say about anything at all.

Yes. This is the easy way out. Revering the old is easy. In 40 years people will be saying how new films don’t compare to Dune (2021) or Blade Runner 2049.

You said what makes it to theaters. Not wide release films. That would include a lot of indie and other films. In that case, I completely disagree. I believe it has gotten better. I get to see movies with a wider range with the easier access and technology for smaller films that get to be made. Same with music.

[emptysongglass]

Yes, Arrival was terrible and bloodless. The central conceit was what I called the sundered triforce but this tropes page calls the Dismantled Macguffin [1]. It was Villeneuve's first real stepping out into becoming whatever Hollywood needed him to be and it shows every step of the way.

> This is the easy way out. Revering the old is easy. In 40 years people will be saying how new films don’t compare to Dune (2021) or Blade Runner 2049.

Startlingly rare within our generation means what I say. I would expect there to be a strong corpus this round given film history but it defied my own expectations. That doesn't mean I don't think good examples exist just that they're, well, startlingly rare.

Upstream Color was courageous I'll give you that. But I think it took real moxy from Carruth to make it happen: he did the music, shot the film, wrote it, directed it, and starred in it and for basically no money just like Primer. And I think directors like Ana Lily Amirpour who did A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night are the courage we need to see. The problem doesn't appear to be a lack of directing talent so much that the media machine takes that talent and corrupts it absolutely.

Look what happened to Ridley Scott or Taika Waititi. They became owned and operated by the industries behind them which must ensure a broad appeal for the highest ROI. It's market forces at their most efficient at a global scale we've never seen before.

[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DismantledMacGuf...

[skinnymuch]

> bloodless

Most of modern life for most people in the west and even beyond is relatively bloodless. At least not bloody filled :p.

I enjoy films that are slow paced and stick closer to reality. So usually I’d prefer them not to be so dramatic. But I get you mean bloodless in how simple Arrival was too.

I don’t disagree at all with those points about Arrival. However Denis didn’t write most of his films any way, no? I enjoy the concept of time a lot so really just that combined with the visuals are enough for me to love the film. You’re def right on the massive weaknesses.

I gave only a few examples. I don’t pay too much attention to what is the major film in theaters. There’s only like 2 major releases on average per week. Even if it’s 3. That’s only 150 films. There are so many good films put out.

I think modern day stacks up if not exceeds past days especially when you don’t look at the major wide releases that are in thousands of movie theaters.

I think we would end up disagreeing on how good current films and old films are. I would not think of old films as good as you would, etc. if we were to begin listing a bunch out. This same sort of thing has happened with me with friends and music before.

To throw two recent films I watched. Though they aren’t new. The Lighthouse and Midsommar. The latter especially stacks up with how so much coverage of it was framing it as a happy story with a happy ending…when it’s a psychological horror film where every protagonist loses.

It’s also harder to compare only films. TVs golden era is arguably happening now. There’s a lot of very high quality awesome TV. Notably thanks to HBO, Netflix. I think one of my favorite shows, Rectify, was on IFC. Pretty obscure. This takes away from films as people can only multi task so much.