gerry wrote on 2022-12-01, 12:21:
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2022-11-30, 04:08:
interesting, what it suggests is that many people don't consider "movies to suck these days", when looking at those ones with higher audience ratings. Looks like lots of movies are still being enjoyed about as much as in the past perhaps
the difference between non-audience and audience ratings can be huge though, it was so in the past too (though now critics can pretend that movies are downvoted due to some small minority doing something sneaky with votes)
Indeed.
I, for one, enjoy (most, but not all) superhero movies these days. Well, alright, I enjoy superhero movies for different reasons than I enjoy, say, Reservoir Dogs or A Few Good Men, but I enjoy all of them nonetheless.
I think the problem is not that modern movies suck, because there are still many good movies today. I think the problem is that some movies (not all, of course) today are trying so hard to push certain political/social agenda, that entertainment value comes second. Charlie's Angels (2019) is an example: its official trailer shows a woman choking and torturing a man for no apparent reason, and the film's director blamed men for the film's commercial failure.
It seems She Hulk and Batwoman suffer from the similar problem, where pushing certain social agenda seems to be more important than entertainment value. Hence, low audience scores for both TV shows despite high tomatometer.
On the other hand, Wonder Woman enjoys high audience scores, because it is highly entertaining. Me and family enjoy the movie thoroughly. Wonder Woman also dispels the accusation that male audiences hate strong female protagonist, while also showing that a good movie can have strong female characters without putting men down. Chris Pine's Steve Trevor --despite only a supporting character-- is a interesting character on his own, while David Thewlis' Ares/Sir Patrick is a cunning and charismatic villain, unlike Ghostbusters' Rowan North, whose only purpose seems to be nothing but pushing the narration that intelligent, introverted men are creepy losers.
And unlike Brie Larson's Captain Marvel, which is wooden at best, Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman is a very interesting character, with an intriguing mix of determination and innocence that reminds me of John Byrne's Wonder Woman (the issues that started right after COIE, like John Byrne's Man of Steel). Brie Larson, on the other hand, is nothing like any version of Carol Danvers I've ever read.
And don't get me started on Star Wars sequel trilogy, whose female protagonist is an overpowered Mary Sue. Princess Leia from the original trilogy is a strong female character, and yet she is not invulnerable. Luke Skywalker, the OT's main protagonist, has shown interesting character growth from a dorky farmboy to a galactic hero. Meanwhile, character growth is something that Rey totally lacks. And I wonder why the makers of the sequel trilogy wrote Rey to be such invincible Mary Sue; were they trying too hard to cater to the "strong women" narrative, that they completely forgot that an interesting hero is the one who struggles against evil?
At the end, I'm not saying that all modern movies suck. In fact, there are still good movies. However, it seems that bad movies today are the result of "agenda first, entertainment second" mindset.
buckeye wrote on 2022-11-30, 15:17:
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2022-11-30, 04:08:
"incel manbabies", now that's hilarious 😂😂😂😂. What will they up with next?
The word "incel" seems to be thrown a lot these days, that it starts losing its meaning. CMIIW, but as far as I know, incel is short for "involuntarily celibate". That is, people who want to get laid but can't, due to their apparent inability to find a romantic partner. But I have seen the word "incel" being thrown at a male commenter whom posted that (Western) marriage is bad for (Western) men; citing divorce statistics and alimony and such. I was quite confused when reading the retaliatory posts that call him incel. Wouldn't such marriage-avoiding men fall into the category of voluntarily celibate, then, making them exact opposite of incel?