tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post1619148859393874208..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Why is TV cooler than movies these days?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-68547357761776377122013-08-16T17:42:07.847-07:002013-08-16T17:42:07.847-07:00"terminator 2...those only made 200 million&q..."terminator 2...those only made 200 million"<br /><br />Wrong. That's only the US release. Terminator 2 made $519,843,345 at the box office worldwide and likely made as much in VHS sales and rentals. Added to the money paid for television broadcasts, merchandise (including toys) and adjusted for inflation, the movie was a massive blockbuster - the highest grossing film of 1991. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53181595076065366512013-08-12T21:48:52.243-07:002013-08-12T21:48:52.243-07:00"You aint looking in the right places. The 90..."You aint looking in the right places. The 90s were pretty good, 2000s produced their share of fine movies."<br /><br />I've been looking in movie theaters. Where ought I look? Sure, there have been a few good movies made this century. Off hand, I can think of nine or ten movies I thought were quite good over the last thirteen years, fewer than the number of movies of comparable worth that were released in that one year, 1975.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-37373217727602589872013-08-12T19:21:48.938-07:002013-08-12T19:21:48.938-07:00"Welcome Back Kotter" was a quality prod..."Welcome Back Kotter" was a quality product? "ChiPs"? "Three's Company"? They were shit. <br /><br />---------<br /><br />A joke in middle school. What do you call two black guys on motorcycles? Chocolate Chips. <br /><br />'Welcome Back Kotter' had some dumb funny jokes. "Have you heard of Chinese Jews?" "No, I've heard of orange juice, grape juice, but no Chinese Juice."<br /><br />THREE'S COMPANY is absolutely my favorite TV show of all time. Only SANFORD AND SON comes close. The stuff with Jack acting gay in front of Roper and Ferley were priceless. The good ole days. <br /><br />"Sure, a lot of movies in the 70s were trash, but there were still lots of good ones. Now, it is virtually all trash."<br /><br />You aint looking in the right places. The 90s were pretty good, 2000s produced their share of fine movies. <br /><br />http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/12/top-movies-of-yeardecade.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-11102386316850332662013-08-12T15:39:09.117-07:002013-08-12T15:39:09.117-07:00>The boorish behavior of others drove me away f...>The boorish behavior of others drove me away from movie theaters.<<br /><br />Ditto. That and the loud, assaultive trailers and the stupid, assaultive movies. Why pay money to feel almost raped emotionally?<br /><br />The dumber and more numb the public is, the more and worse stimulation it needs.<br /><br />Another factor is that I don't feel a part of American culture anymore, its attitudes, values, expectations. Movies naturally make a "we're on the same page," "we're all in this together" assumption. I'm not in this together.<br /><br />Hollywood can get along without me, I reckon.<br /><br />The Serbian director Srdjan Karanovic once told me that one of his elderly relatives, not a sophisticate, disliked cinema because he couldn't get used to shot changes. Seeing a cut from a wide shot to a close up startled him, made him jump a little in his seat. He rather rapidly lost interest in seeing movies.Davidhttp://david-passingparade2.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69542833185759027032013-08-12T10:29:24.357-07:002013-08-12T10:29:24.357-07:00breaking bad only gets like 3 million viewers
But...<i>breaking bad only gets like 3 million viewers</i><br /><br />But that's just on AMC, right? Surely more people watch it on Netflix these days. For the last ten years pretty much everybody I know of all ages now watches entire seasons either on DVD or Netflix over a few days or a week. Maybe my social circle isn't typical but waiting a week for each episode to air on some network doesn't seem very common these days.Matranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69447611494297626612013-08-12T08:03:50.513-07:002013-08-12T08:03:50.513-07:00"jody said...
most people remember the maste..."jody said...<br /><br />most people remember the masterpieces and leave out the rest. the average movie in the 70s was shit. the consumer today would consider them completely unacceptable and they would never get a wide release. the average movie in wide release today is A LOT better, in EVERY way."<br /><br />Nonsense. Movies are not better, and they are not better in every way. The writing is hackneyed, the acting is childish, and the direction is indifferent or just bad. Half of all movies today are expressly written for 12 year-olds, and feature little but loud noises and video-game quality CGI. Sure, a lot of movies in the 70s were trash, but there were still lots of good ones. Now, it is virtually all trash. Look at the list I posted above. When in recent memory have that many movies of comparable quality been released in one year?<br /><br />Your point about television is inapt too. Quality was higher in the 70s? Really? "Welcome Back Kotter" was a quality product? "ChiPs"? "Three's Company"? They were shit. Though in many ways, things are worse today, as you point out. Reality TV is pure prole-feed. TV has always been mostly crap. As Ernie Kovacs said: television is called a medium because it is neither rare nor well done.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26122788293896357812013-08-12T00:47:27.886-07:002013-08-12T00:47:27.886-07:00"Ad who says you need lots of gore and trashy..."Ad who says you need lots of gore and trashy talk to make an intelligent film for adults?"<br /><br />well, i didn't. i said you can still do a lot in PG-13 format.<br /><br />what does matter is that if you say fuck more than once, it's automatically R. no ifs, ands, or buts about it. 2 or more fucks gets you an automatic R no matter what. it could be animated movie about fluffy rabbits filled with 100% G rated material, but have 2 of the rabbits sing a little "fuckity fuck song", and it's instantly R. it could be a nature documentary about penguins, but if the narrator says somewhere in the middle "these fucking sea lions eating the fucking penguins", whoops, there goes the PG-13.<br /><br />what i pointed out is a lot of average movies are made with a couple fucks in the dialogue and those are all Rs. they are not 'serious' R movies, but average action movie, average horror movies, average drama movies.<br /><br />"JAWS is great fun but most movies back in 1975 were dreck too."<br /><br />most people remember the masterpieces and leave out the rest. the average movie in the 70s was shit. the consumer today would consider them completely unacceptable and they would never get a wide release. the average movie in wide release today is A LOT better, in EVERY way.<br /><br />in a way, i think steve has this exactly backwards. television was tightly controlled back then and there was almost no pure shit, schlock, or IQ 85 mouth breather braindead garbage on television. that stuff started to show up in the 80s, in small doses, and got more common through the 90s until reality television began around 2000. <br /><br />this is because, back in the day, network television, which was the only television, was controlled and monitored by the high IQ crowd, regulated by the FCC, and mostly restricted to high brow material. there was some stuff for the common man like sports and game shows and soaps, but no garbage programming. it was the advent of cable television which offered the purveyors of lowbrow shit to bring that into american homes. now television is mostly filled with lowbrow shit, especially 'reality television' which is mostly just stupid people talking. it has a very low production cost, which is good for the producers, but also a very low entertainment value - which would have been bad in the past, but now that america is getting dumber, that is also good.<br /><br />breaking bad only gets like 3 million viewers. that's really low. basically what this means is few people are watching it. that's about what the NHL gets for a good playoff game or what the ATP gets for a good, djokovic versus federer US open final. do you run into many people talking about ice hockey or tennis? on AMC alone, the walking dead gets about 9 million viewers, and on network television, humorless drek like two and a half men gets 15 million viewers per episode - i've never met a person who claimed to watch this show, yet it gets 5 times as many views as breaking bad.jodynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-51352353543396199882013-08-11T17:36:57.266-07:002013-08-11T17:36:57.266-07:00"It may be that the 1970s were a golden age o..."It may be that the 1970s were a golden age of American filmmaking precisely because there were fewer children during that decade than there had been in years. "<br /><br />There were even fewer in the 1980s and 1990s. Silvernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-33681441909472399112013-08-11T15:33:53.804-07:002013-08-11T15:33:53.804-07:00Joe Bob BriggsJoe Bob BriggsSteve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7487877080380160922013-08-11T15:29:56.383-07:002013-08-11T15:29:56.383-07:00I have some good news and some bad news.
Good ne...I have some good news and some bad news. <br /><br />Good news Billy Bob is still alive.<br /><br />Bad news he says as far as he can remember he has never reviewed any moviesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-86537135796917260362013-08-11T13:51:05.704-07:002013-08-11T13:51:05.704-07:00How to make cool 'quality' television show...How to make cool 'quality' television show that SWPLs will rave about:<br /><br />1. Take normal TV show<br />2. Add a lot of swearing<br />3. Add boobs (but make the sex gritty and unconventional so people don't feel like they're watching for the boobs)<br />4. Add graphic violence<br />5. Sneer at anyone who might like to watch a well-written TV drama without graphic rape scenes and faces getting ripped off. <br /><br />Best example? True Blood. The exact SWPL types who had seizures over the popularity of the 'Twilight' books and movies will watch endless seasons of a show with pretty much the EXACT SAME PLOT (ordinary Mary Sue girl inexplicably pursued by gorgeous supernatural men who fight over her). Because this one has people who say the c-word, so it must be quality.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-41334706653619670572013-08-11T12:42:48.977-07:002013-08-11T12:42:48.977-07:00"In contrast, television, especially subscrip..."In contrast, television, especially subscription channels, can rope in smaller but highly articulate predominantly white audiences for shows like Downton Abbey and Mad Men."<br /><br />I just saw the British TV remake of Murder on the Orient Express with David Suchet. It towers above anything that appears in the movies these days -- it even rivaled the 70's movie version with Albert Finney playing Hercule Poirot. The devastating final scene brought me to tears.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-63641478149321176182013-08-11T12:03:54.415-07:002013-08-11T12:03:54.415-07:00"As for unruly audiences, I have always spoke..."As for unruly audiences, I have always spoken up but increasingly theater managers don't give a shit. I switched from AMC theaters to Cinemark here in Dallas because the former shows no interest in maintaining standards. (And actually some of the worst audiences in my experience have been college students.)"<br /><br />Nobody forced your faux German butt to leave South Dakota.Truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17286755693955361308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-44904185077553369302013-08-11T11:55:38.739-07:002013-08-11T11:55:38.739-07:00Steve - some more free advice.
I read your movie ...Steve - some more free advice.<br /><br />I read your movie reviews from time to time but most of them are bland and safe. Sometimes they have real intellectual points to make. But who watches movies for ideas? Movie are entertainment. And so should be your movie reviews.<br /><br />My favorite movie reviewer when I was a child was Pauline Kael. Bitter, opinionated and often silly - but entertaining. When I grew up my favorite reviewer was Billy Bob Thornton. He's gone now and that leaves a huge hole in the Critiqueosphere.<br /><br />Right now there is a new movie out called 'Sharknado'. This is the kind of film that Billy Bob would have loved and I would have loved to read about. <br /><br />I fell asleep trying to watch 'Argo'. I wouldn't even try to stay awake while reading a review of it.<br /><br />The real cultural insights come from the cheesy 'B' movies like 'Idiocracy' not the sanctimonious and preachy films that are created to be Oscar winners. <br /><br />Albertosaurus<br />Pat Boylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13477950851915567863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-35506190515174216022013-08-11T10:44:35.864-07:002013-08-11T10:44:35.864-07:00This is very much about Mexicans for me. It is the...This is very much about Mexicans for me. It is the hunkering down in our own homes. The last movie my family and I went out to was Argo. For years we have gone to a movie on Thanksgiving night so whatever happens to be the best pick of the day is what we see. I avoid any shopping that I can because of the Mexicanization. I've been to our one mall twice over the last year and then I waited until a weeknight just before closing time when it's pretty much deserted. Grocery shopping is the one thing that has to be done and it is a dreadful experience. Most other shopping is done online or in small boutiques. My sister had to cut her vacation short this year at South Padre Island because of the Mexicans; a vacation spot that just 15 years ago was lovely. <br />Every action I take is determined by how to avoid the saintly brown ones. How's that for this fair land of freedom?Lizhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08139953074326436748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-21120258492824126782013-08-11T10:42:35.665-07:002013-08-11T10:42:35.665-07:00Love the pre-code! 1920's & 30's flick...Love the pre-code! 1920's & 30's flicks are the best for DVD watching in our house. However, the Telemundo & Caracol coproduction of the telenovela- "Lord of the Skies" was far more enjoyable than most USA productions. Yes, the sub-titles were missing at times, but one got the gist anyway. An interesting look into the drug operations & political corruption in Mexico. The gram that is sniffed by the trendies in NYC was a minuscule fraction of the TONS these cartels deliver to America. Along with copious amounts of bloodshed involved naturally. But hey, no need to consider lopped off heads when you're trying to cop a buzz, right? Gracias to Joshua Mintz for this 20 - 30 million dollar budgeted novela! Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-79661995906862553132013-08-11T09:51:06.447-07:002013-08-11T09:51:06.447-07:00" Maybe if Mexicans or other hispanics made a..." Maybe if Mexicans or other hispanics made a bigger stink in English we'd have to care. Or maybe not." - no one will ever feel guilty about someone who made the choice to come here for a better life(tm)*.<br /><br />*at your expense.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-28273416584632749332013-08-11T09:17:39.488-07:002013-08-11T09:17:39.488-07:00Are you suggesting that the reason Mestizos aren&#...Are you suggesting that the reason Mestizos aren't sitting at home watching "Girls" is because they have some sort of cultural or intellectual gap? <br /><br />That's racist. peterikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13430366198523151162013-08-11T08:54:36.380-07:002013-08-11T08:54:36.380-07:00Illegitimate births among most hispanics are still...Illegitimate births among most hispanics are still conducted amongst strong family units. A young woman living with grandma, mama and brothers and sisters will get pregnant by a boyfriend who may or may not move in during the pregnancy or after the baby is born. If he is illegal he probably will move in. Or, the father of the children may be an uncle of the young lady. <br /><br />In fact, the least healthy situations for children arise after a divorce in which a woman has left her extended family household to live with her husband who has now moved on and left her with all the financial responsibililties for her children.<br /><br />My friend is a good friend of a mexican closeted gay guy who lives with his multi-generational family and all of them, from granny to the toddlers, love to watch gruesome horror movies together. The family that watches horror movies together, stays together! How many white families watch movies together this way anymore?Miss Carnivoroushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00946466041548077150noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-46051591779440736442013-08-11T07:52:41.319-07:002013-08-11T07:52:41.319-07:00"MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, VERTIGO, REAR WINDOW, ..."MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, VERTIGO, REAR WINDOW, PSYCHO, TOUCH OF EVIL, IN COLD BLOOD, MAJOR DUNDEE, THRONE OF BLOOD, KNIFE IN THE WATER, JULES AND JIM, and many others have plenty that is twisted and dark, but none would have garnered an R.<br /><br />More often not, violence and foul lingo are just a cheap short cut to be 'edgy' and 'daring'. "<br /><br />I tend to agree. So much dialog requiring thought and strategic articulation before utterance can be replaced with emotion-laden curse words that number, at most, half a dozen. Why people think this is "adult", edgy, meaningful, cool, etc., has puzzled me since adolescence. I wasn't so much shocked or impressed by George Carlin's dirty word skit, as sort of embarrassed that anyone would think being able to constantly use such language was some sort of progress, or freedom. After all, once you can use them all the time, what does one do for the quick, shocking, cool, edgy, blasphemous, etc. phraseology? One has to re-start thinking, and that's difficult.<br />I always thought one reason Seinfeld was good and still interesting, is because they could not use a lot of the language the real people might have, and had to express what they were trying to mean. W.C. Fields was the master of the curse words that weren't curse words, and he was brialliantly funny.<br /><br />Also, the gore factor. My eyes glaze over when the blood and body parts start flying. Some of the most haunting and frightening films ever were from the 50s and 60s when you really could't do much real gore and had to depend on psychological horror, filling in the blanks with imagination. Much more effective. limitsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-623845058157084372013-08-11T07:44:41.786-07:002013-08-11T07:44:41.786-07:00"The last movie I got to enjoy smoking in was..."The last movie I got to enjoy smoking in was 'Chinatown,' for cryin; out loud!"<br /><br />You smoked cigarettes in a movie theatre? I am no spring chicken, and I have always thought no smoking signs dated back to the earliest days of theatre. You've got darkness and fabric coated seating, fcol. And even then, a lot of people didn't like breathing second-hand smoke in closed environments. whew. This definition of right & wrong in culture really does get down to very personal obsessions.smoke filled roomsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-21824591344417391152013-08-11T07:34:24.242-07:002013-08-11T07:34:24.242-07:00"jody said...
there's a converse eff...<i>"jody said...<br /><br /> there's a converse effect which steve didn't mention: television programming in general is getting dumber."</i><br /><br />This is perfectly true. With some time on my hands lately, I spent some time watching Antenna TV, one of those new "between the channels" digital OTA TV stations, which caters to the nostalgia market. I was shocked how much better the shows - many of which I hadn't seen an episode of in 30 years - were than what's on today (premium cable such as HBO/SHO/AMC excepted, of course). Even the sitcoms were more intelligent - shows like Soap, WKRP, and Barney Miller. I remember that back in the late 70s/early 80s people used to make fun of Threes Company as the height of brainlessness - watching it today, it may still not exactly be Shakespeare, but at least it's genuinely funny (something that in itself is not easy). <br /><br />Does anyone think a show as deliberately paced or clever as Mission: Impossible or Suspense would last three weeks on TV today? Especially on a "major" network?<br /><br />Definitely not an encouraging sign.Anti-Democracy Activisthttp://antidem.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-60686199889113987812013-08-11T06:47:41.811-07:002013-08-11T06:47:41.811-07:00"Anonymous Anonymous said...
JAWS is great f..."Anonymous Anonymous said...<br /><br />JAWS is great fun but most movies back in 1975 were dreck too."<br /><br />Sure, a lot of movies released then were crap, but there were a lot of really good movies too. Herewith, a short list of movies released in 1975 (courtesy of IMDB, sorted by IMDB votes):<br /><br />One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest<br />JAWS<br />Monty Python and the Holy Grail<br />Dog Day Afternoon<br />Barry Lyndon<br />The Man Who Would be King<br />Three Days of the Condor<br />Love and Death<br />Nashville<br />Rollerball<br />Tommy<br />The Stepford Wives<br />The Wind and The Lion<br />The Great Waldo Pepper<br />The Day of the Locust<br /><br />What recent year has produced that many movies of comparable worth? And I'm not even including any foreign films in 1975, or worthy B movies that were released that year, like "Hard Times", "The Land That Time Forgot", and "The Eiger Sanction", or even entertaining schlock like "Rocky Horror Picture Show" or "The Devil's Rain".<br /><br /><br />Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30140771632454480012013-08-11T06:18:10.879-07:002013-08-11T06:18:10.879-07:00Age. Transportation to distant theaters is a hassl...Age. Transportation to distant theaters is a hassle, crowds are rude, prices are high for people on a limited budget. If we're paying for cable and computer at home already, why bother? Also, being old, we're schooled in patience -- we don't have to see the latest blockbuster right now.not securely anchoredhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09979789156769394267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66831988383771246882013-08-10T22:44:52.873-07:002013-08-10T22:44:52.873-07:00Movies don't have to try hard to keep you inte...Movies don't have to try hard to keep you interested. They've already got your money before you sit down to watch.<br /><br />TV shows, on the other hand, have to keep you interested, otherwise you'll change the channel, and won't see the commercials.Inkravennoreply@blogger.com