Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

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cagedwisdom
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Re: Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

Post by cagedwisdom »

An interesting question so I decided to crunch the numbers on my rankings. Before I get to that, my initial thought was that yes, Hollywood-movies in general hold a lower standard today than they did 10, 20, 30 years ago.

I use a five-point rating system. 100/75/50/25/0. Love/like/apathetic/dislike/despise. I counted how many films from each decade I had given each rating. I went as far back as the 80s, because that is the first decade where I had over 100 films seen. Here is the data in a quick excel screenshot.

Image

The usefulness of this data can be called into question. This is obviously all subjective and very unscientific data. I've seen proportionally few films in the 80s/90s compared to the 00s/10s, and most of those films were seen in "hindsight", rather than around the time they came out, which is the case with films from the 00s/10s. In particular films from 2009 on I've seen around the time of release, as I've seen almost everything in theaters. My criteria for what films I like and not may also have changed over the ~10 years I've considered myself a film freak, although I don't have any particular reason to believe that's the case.

Looking at the spread here I can see a few things of interest re: this topic.

A) Ratings of 50 are remarkably consistent across the decades, ranging from 23,60% to 25,64%.

B) Ratings of 100 dropped consistently from the 80s to the 00s, then rose significantly in the 10s.

C) Ratings of 25 are relatively stable until a significant drop in the 10s.

D) "Good" ratings of 100 + 75 are 43%/46%/39%/56% over the decades. So relatively stable, until a moderate rise in the 10s.

The fact that ratings of 100 have risen more in the 10s than ratings of 100 and 75 combined tell me that there is something fishy about these numbers, and by that I mean that my rating criteria may have changed. It's likely this means that some of the films I may have rated 75 before, I now rate 100. On the other hand, the fact that the 50 ratings are so consistent over time seem to indicate that there is some consistency in the ratings as a whole, particularly considering this is the "divider" rating I use between films I like and dislike. All films over I like, all films under I don't, and those are criteria that are pretty hard to "miss".

The fact that the 25 ratings have gone down may indicate that I have simply seen less mildly bad films the past 5 years. I certainly haven't made any conscious effort to amend my viewing practices, I feel I always attempt to see both good and bad. This may account for at least some of the rise in positive ratings, though, it's hard to say.

My conclusion is that apparently I do like the films of the past 5 years more on average than any of the films before. I wouldn't have thought so. It's not by very much but this would indicate that quality hasn't gone down, but if anything up.

Even given the numbers I kind of disagree and would say the quality in general has gone down, but there it is. Would be interesting to see everyone else's numbers, for comparison. :)

m3tan
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Re: Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

Post by m3tan »

ShogunRua wrote:Because as noted above, movies today are produced to "hit all 4 quadrants". That means appealing to boys, men, girls, and women. The shit today is what happens when you try to appeal to as wide a demographic as possible.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. The four-quadrant formula has basically led to the complete demise of my three favorite genres of movies: gangster, war, and science fiction. You'd never guess I'm a fan of any if you viewed my ratings of anything this century. Basically the only types of movies I like these days are the adult fare Stewball claims 70% of men refer to as chick flicks (an estimate I sadly agree with BTW). I can count the great Hollywood gangster, sci-fi, and war movies made since 2000 with one finger: Children of Men. There are only a handful of movies in those genres that are even DECENT and they are the scant few that AREN'T four-quadrant: the Hurt Locker, Black Hawk Down, the Departed, Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of our Fathers. It's so bad these days that when Prometheus came out, I was crossing my fingers and praying it was good/successful because I knew if it wasn't (AND it wasn't), that meant five more years before a major studio green lighted any more real science fiction...

Four quadrant flicks dominate those genres now and they range from OK (Avatar, Gravity, Inception) to mediocre (Enemy at the Gates, Hunger Games) to downright awful (Pearl Harbor, Gangster Squad, any Star Wars). There is nothing this century that can even sniff at the classics from the 60s-90s: Godfather, Goodfellas, Blade Runner, A Clockwork Orange, Alien, Apocalypse Now, 2001. Hollywood simply won't make movies like those any more. Sadly I'd even say the 4-quadrant stuff made in the 80's and 90's (Star Wars, Back to the Future, E.T., Saving Private Ryan) is superior to the stuff today.
Last edited by m3tan on Wed May 07, 2014 3:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

m3tan
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Re: Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

Post by m3tan »

I think another factor that is lowering the quality of mainstream Hollywood films is technology and how it has affected our access to media. I'd argue that in the past 10-15 years, most quality drama has shifted away from cinema and moved to television. Character development and complex storytelling usually take time. Prior to this century, you had 48 minutes to tell your story on TV and compared to 3 hours or more at the cinema. Therefore almost all TV content was episodic in format with everything being neatly resolved in 48 minutes or less. Now thanks to DVRs and streaming services, the cable networks in particular, have no aversion to telling stories that take weeks, months, or even years to unfold. Shows like Mad Men, Sopranos, House of Cards, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad (take your pick frankly) clown stomp any dramatic television that we had in decades past. So I think there has been a gradual shift of dramatic talent (writing, directing, acting) to the cable networks. Another huge handy cap in the past was the "made for TV" stigma as it related to low budgets and substandard special effects. I thought Babylon 5 was a great space opera but I had to look past the painfully bad special effects - which many didn't. Game of Thrones doesn't suffer from that problem at all. The budget and technology of most cable network programming is sufficient now to eliminate the cheesy it's "made-for-TV" stigma. Yet the budget is not unlimited, as with the Hollywood blockbuster, so special effects can never become the main focus. There are some good special effects on GoT but no epic CGI battles that cost a gazillion dollars as with say LoTR. That's a subtle distinction that IMO allows GoT to be far superior...

Stewball
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Re: Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

Post by Stewball »

mattorama12 wrote: It certainly isn't where it was in the 70s, but even a lot of the 70s greats were outside the mainstream Hollywood machine.


You sayin' the 70s was the golden age?

lisa-
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Re: Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

Post by lisa- »

so, i've just made a collection containing the top 5 grossing films in the US from 1920 until now (most years, anyway). most importantly, it doesn't count rereleases, so it's an indicator of popularity at the time.

http://www.criticker.com/?fl&filter=e33943

could be good to use to properly compare the biggest hollywood films across the years. for me, it quite clearly shows that big-time hollywood has been absolutely atrocious since new hollywood, but it's been like that since the mid-70s - not really worse today.

m3tan
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Re: Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

Post by m3tan »

lisagirl wrote:so, i've just made a collection containing the top 5 grossing films in the US from 1920 until now (most years, anyway). most importantly, it doesn't count rereleases, so it's an indicator of popularity at the time.

http://www.criticker.com/?fl&filter=e33943

could be good to use to properly compare the biggest hollywood films across the years. for me, it quite clearly shows that big-time hollywood has been absolutely atrocious since new hollywood, but it's been like that since the mid-70s - not really worse today.


Thanks for this! It helped me quantify my gut instinct. My PSI from your list has steadily declined by the decade. It peaked at 69.3 in the 70s and dropped every decade to a low of 47.4 in the 2010s.

Even worse, the four quadrant / tent-pole philosophy has really turned my cinema tastes topsy-turvy. In theory the films I like most (war, sci-fi) are now in practice the films I like least. And vice versa, I generally don't care for kids movies, yet they are consistently my highest rated amongst the blockbusters. Other than the LOTR trilogy, my top rated blockbusters from your collection are ALL animation - Up, Wall-E, Toy Story 3, the Incredibles. 4 of my 5 lowest rated are supposedly my favorite genre, science fiction: Transformers x2, Star Wars x2. No wonder I'm so frustrated. Sigh...

mattorama12
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Re: Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

Post by mattorama12 »

m3tan wrote:I think another factor that is lowering the quality of mainstream Hollywood films is technology and how it has affected our access to media. I'd argue that in the past 10-15 years, most quality drama has shifted away from cinema and moved to television. Character development and complex storytelling usually take time. Prior to this century, you had 48 minutes to tell your story on TV and compared to 3 hours or more at the cinema. Therefore almost all TV content was episodic in format with everything being neatly resolved in 48 minutes or less. Now thanks to DVRs and streaming services, the cable networks in particular, have no aversion to telling stories that take weeks, months, or even years to unfold. Shows like Mad Men, Sopranos, House of Cards, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad (take your pick frankly) clown stomp any dramatic television that we had in decades past. So I think there has been a gradual shift of dramatic talent (writing, directing, acting) to the cable networks. Another huge handy cap in the past was the "made for TV" stigma as it related to low budgets and substandard special effects. I thought Babylon 5 was a great space opera but I had to look past the painfully bad special effects - which many didn't. Game of Thrones doesn't suffer from that problem at all. The budget and technology of most cable network programming is sufficient now to eliminate the cheesy it's "made-for-TV" stigma. Yet the budget is not unlimited, as with the Hollywood blockbuster, so special effects can never become the main focus. There are some good special effects on GoT but no epic CGI battles that cost a gazillion dollars as with say LoTR. That's a subtle distinction that IMO allows GoT to be far superior...


Damnit, I meant to talk about tv in my post. Anyway, you did a better job than I would have, so good on you.

Stewball wrote:
mattorama12 wrote: It certainly isn't where it was in the 70s, but even a lot of the 70s greats were outside the mainstream Hollywood machine.


You sayin' the 70s was the golden age?


I'd put the top 25 movies from the 70s against the top 25 from any other decade, no problem. If we're comparing the "average" movie from a decade or the overall bell curve for a decade, I'd probably go with the 90s.

Suture Self
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Re: Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

Post by Suture Self »

Movies have never been better. Music has never been better. Both artforms are more accessible than ever. Life is great. We live in exciting times.

Now, I obviously have a lot more movie watching to do, and I especially want to get around to a lot of the Pre-Code Hollywood films from the 20s and 30s, but as far as my personal taste goes, movies took off in the 50s/60s and the quality hasn't let up since.

ShogunRua
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Re: Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

Post by ShogunRua »

Stewball wrote:
ShogunRua wrote:This is dumb.


Well, thanks for the considered analysis.

Neither gender is the problem, and I can prove it. How?

Because as noted above, movies today are produced to "hit all 4 quadrants". That means appealing to boys, men, girls, and women. The shit today is what happens when you try to appeal to as wide a demographic as possible.

There are far fewer movies made today specifically with men in mind, but there are also fewer pictures made for women, too.


Your last paragraph argues against the one before, much less is it proof. And I think children are a fifth quadrant as well.


Sigh...Stewie, Stewie, Stewie. A quadrant, by its very name, is made up of four parts. Thus, there is no such thing as a "fifth quadrant". It would be as stupid as saying "the fourth side of a triangle".

Also, I specifically mentioned "boys" and "girls" above, both demos that include children. I just didn't spell out the age ranges.

Stewball wrote:All-in-all there's probably 10 or 12 fan categories, each with sub-categories according to race, religion, potty-humor, predilection to watch movies in the first place and on and on. It isn't as simple as hitting all the quadrants.


Okay Stewie, I told you how the movie analysts that earn a full-time living studying this shit decide to model it. But I guess you know better, right?

Stewball wrote:How is it there are fewer pictures for women?


Read that sentence again. There are fewer pictures specifically targeted for an all-female audience now, in 2014, than there were in 1994.

Stewball wrote:A lot of what you call "shit", is liked and admired by a good and or large majority. Does that make you wrong? Of course not, but it doesn't make you right either. Your "shit" is yours.


That's one way to approach it, the old "everyone's opinion is equally valid". (I suppose the people who feel this way ask bums on the street how to deal with their medical problems, since after all, the bum's opinion is equally valid to that of a professional doctor)

But if that's the case, why do you spend dozens of posts arguing about movies, and attempting to convince us of the genius of Her and The Counselor?

In fact, why are you posting on a movie message board at all?

ShogunRua
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Re: Is Hollywood in the Dark Ages right now?

Post by ShogunRua »

Now, to answer everything else!

Rufflesack wrote:Post


Excellent work. It would take me a while, but I look forward to compiling the numbers for myself, too.

m3tan wrote:I think you've hit the nail on the head. The four-quadrant formula has basically led to the complete demise of my three favorite genres of movies: gangster, war, and science fiction. You'd never guess I'm a fan of any if you viewed my ratings of anything this century. Basically the only types of movies I like these days are the adult fare Stewball claims 70% of men refer to as chick flicks (an estimate I sadly agree with BTW). I can count the great Hollywood gangster, sci-fi, and war movies made since 2000 with one finger: Children of Men. There are only a handful of movies in those genres that are even DECENT and they are the scant few that AREN'T four-quadrant: the Hurt Locker, Black Hawk Down, the Departed, Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of our Fathers. It's so bad these days that when Prometheus came out, I was crossing my fingers and praying it was good/successful because I knew if it wasn't (AND it wasn't), that meant five more years before a major studio green lighted any more real science fiction...

Four quadrant flicks dominate those genres now and they range from OK (Avatar, Gravity, Inception) to mediocre (Enemy at the Gates, Hunger Games) to downright awful (Pearl Harbor, Gangster Squad, any Star Wars). There is nothing this century that can even sniff at the classics from the 60s-90s: Godfather, Goodfellas, Blade Runner, A Clockwork Orange, Alien, Apocalypse Now, 2001. Hollywood simply won't make movies like those any more. Sadly I'd even say the 4-quadrant stuff made in the 80's and 90's (Star Wars, Back to the Future, E.T., Saving Private Ryan) is superior to the stuff today.


Great post, and I largely agree.

lisagirl wrote:so, i've just made a collection containing the top 5 grossing films in the US from 1920 until now (most years, anyway). most importantly, it doesn't count rereleases, so it's an indicator of popularity at the time.

http://www.criticker.com/?fl&filter=e33943

could be good to use to properly compare the biggest hollywood films across the years. for me, it quite clearly shows that big-time hollywood has been absolutely atrocious since new hollywood, but it's been like that since the mid-70s - not really worse today.


Would definitely be interesting to compile stats from that link, too.

FarCryss wrote:Movies have never been better. Music has never been better. Both artforms are more accessible than ever. Life is great. We live in exciting times.


I agree that we live in exciting times and you might be correct with regards to music. In fact, we're probably at the apex of quite a number of other forms of entertainment. But unless you're solely looking at resolution, pixel count, and special effects, movies have certainly been far better.

By the way! When talking about music, popular music nowadays is shittier than ever. I would gladly take the popular music of the 70s over what's trendy nowadays.

However, when considering music overall, I prefer modern times to the 70s.

Unfortunately, we don't have an analogous situation with movies, because films cost a few orders of magnitude more money to make than music does. So if a certain type of movie isn't going to be wildly popular, it simply stops being made.

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