Maybe if they made movies as great as the old ones

Question

Just watched "Gunga Din" on TV for who knows how many times. OK, the makeup was goofy, there weren't many real Indians onscreen, but wow what a cast and movie. From 1939, "Hollywood's Greatest Year" it had a story written by the amazing Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur combination, but other writers who worked on it included William Faulkner and Dudley Nichols. Don't know much about the screenwriters Joel Sayre & Fred Guiol but brother, what a great produt.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031398/

Usenet · Accepted Answer

Great film. What they knew then, but has been forgotten now, is that a popcorn entertainment film can also be a great film.

Imagine if TRANSFORMERS had been made by the ADVENTURELAND team, and had all of the elements of a great coming of age story plus an exciting popcorn sci fi story. Problem is, today we get the popcorn without the soul and without the emotions and without the intelligence. We just get the TRANSFORMERS half.
GUNGA DIN was both halves.
- Bill

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Great film. What they knew then, but has been forgotten now, is that a popcorn entertainment film can also be ... without the emotions and without the intelligence. We just get the TRANSFORMERS half. GUNGA DIN was both halves. - Bill[/nq]
Everybody keeps saying that nobody knows how to do it right. But all you have to do is look at a recent movie like "The Incredibles" great fantasy, great adventure story, great characters. It's smart, it's funny, it doesn't have a wrong note. You can watch it over and over and it keeps on working.
So there are people around who do know how to do it right.

It's just that they a lot of people do them wrong and then those movies go on to make hundreds of millions of dollars (whether we like it or not) and it's just impossible to argue with that kind of monetary success.
It doesn't matter how much we hate Michael Bey or how much we think the Transformers movies are ****. We can point to the things it doesn't have. He can point to what it does have, which is an enormous return at the box office and then he gets to tell us to take our story issues and stick them in our *****.
And so do all of the people who push the buttons on what movies get made or not.
Except the people at MGM because they're all going to be out of a job soon. And apparently, a number of others studios, on account of they've been pushing the button on the wrong movies for so long that they've been losing a lot more money than they've been earning for quite some time.
So we get to say that to them the only trouble is, they're still going to be in the mansions they bought on the bonuses they earned for making the wrong decisions, while we're all going to be *** broke because there isn't going to be dime available to buy a script or make a movie in the foreseeable future while we say it to them.

Does all of this sound vaguely familiar?
NMS

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Great film. What they knew then, but has been forgotten ... the TRANSFORMERS half. GUNGA DIN was both halves. - Bill[/nq]
[nq:1]Everybody keeps saying that nobody knows how to do it right. But all you have to do is look at ... a movie in the foreseeable future while we say it to them. Does all of this sound vaguely familiar? NMS[/nq]
I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that Up! is the top-grossing movie of the year worldwide. I think it should be considered for best picture and why not? We're back to ten nominees, just like in 1939. Pixar just doesn't seem to know how to blow it, far as I'm concerned because even within Disney it's run like an old-time studio with the folks at the top knowing just what the want and staying creatively involved until they get what they have in mind.

Maybe if they made movies as great as the old ones

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions