Critical Drinker
Appearances
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
What is happening with James Bond? Give me the updates. It's a bit of a mess at the moment. So in a nutshell, it is now being corporatized. The Broccoli family, who have been running James Bond on screen ever since the 1960s, and I can't believe I'm saying the word Broccoli in relation to James Bond, but there it is, It was originally Albert Broccoli and then his daughter, Barbara, took over.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
uh the ip from video games so how they will to some extent and you know from their point of view it's actually a godsend because you've got characters and storylines and entire worlds that have already been created for you all you need to do is adapt it and hollywood you know throughout the say the 90s and the 2000s they were notoriously bad at this sort of thing they couldn't find the formula to crack video games um that's why you had god-awful films like the mario brothers movies and so from the 90s but
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
In the 2000s, maybe they started to get it with things like the Tomb Raider films that actually were fairly commercially successful, all those Resident Evil movies, which were dogshit interpretations of the games, but they made money again. And now we're into this modern era where we've got things like The Last of Us TV show, which not only is making...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
a lot of money for HBO, it's getting lots of critical praise as well because the games were very cinematic in their own right. So you're seeing these conversions where games are getting closer to movies in terms of their maturity, the themes and ideas they present, the characters and the acting that they portray.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I mean, it takes a certain level of skill to destroy something as thoroughly as they did and to blow a billion dollar show. But they found a way. And then run it back on season two. Yeah, they'll keep going with it because they said they were going to do five seasons and they will just out of pure spite. Kind of in the same way that Disney have managed to absolutely tank Star Wars as a brand.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
are able to present to you um and the commercial appeal of crossing that over into actual movies and tv shows because you've got a built-in audience a built-in fan base and a pre-made story with pre-made characters so the the potential there is enormous
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
um why why not start to build out red rising or the name of the wind or something else generally speaking because books no longer have that cultural impact like when was the last time we had uh say a harry potter series something that like crosses over into mainstream cultural awareness 50 shades probably We tried to do that.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And that's great if you're a frustrated middle-aged spinster who drinks a bottle of wine every night. But that's not appealing to general audiences. And that's the reality, man. At this point, the publishing industry is super female-oriented. It is designed for middle-aged liberal women.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
unfortunately like that's all you get and so there's there's no more uh massive fantasy series no more massive sci-fi series uh you're not you're not going to get a a dune or a lord of the rings anymore or even a harry potter anymore because the conditions that that can allow that to flourish um and appeal to a broad market don't really exist anymore it's geared towards a subset of the population what's happening with the harry potter tv series because i heard that oh no
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
We've got a black Snape, man. We've got a what? Severus Snape from the movies and from the books, famously played by Alan Rickman, who was a great approximation of the character. They've cast a black actor now to play him. They've decided to re-swap him. and yeah, good luck with that, I suppose.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Um, yeah, the problem is he's, he's explicitly described in the books as having like long, dark hair, pale skin, like dark eyes. Um, so we know what he looks like. Everyone, um, agreed that Alan Rickman did a great, um, performance as Snape. Uh, but they've re-swapped him and it's just, it's endemic to the, the way of thinking that you have in Hollywood productions now.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Well, we've, we've got to get more diversity in there. Um, no matter what it means to the, the lower or, um, being accurate or respectful to the source material. It doesn't matter. JK's still heavily involved though, isn't she? She is, yeah. I can imagine her signing off on this.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
One of the most recognizable IPs in entertainment history. In the space of less than a decade, they've completely and utterly destroyed it. So it takes a certain level of skill, but luckily that skill seems to be prevalent in Hollywood these days.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I think she's said in the past well, you know, there's nothing in the books that explicitly says that Harry has to be white. Sure. I mean, it's her series. Like, if she wants to trash it, I'm not going to defend her for it.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Yeah, 100%. It's so funny when people start saying like, oh, based JK Rowling. It's like just because she has a problem with trans people, like people assume like a whole slew of ideas about her politics. In every other respect, she is a raging hardcore lefty. It's just that one issue that she has a problem with.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
So yeah, I can totally see her being behind changes like this to the TV show and not having an issue with it. So fine if that's what she wants to do.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
i i'll be totally honest with you man i never really gave much of a shit about the harry potter movies i mean for me um i was always much more of a like lord of the rings guy or whatever and when it comes to christmas you know i've got die hard i've got home alone i've got like all the christmas classics there harry potter never figured into it that much for me i totally respect the fan base around it and like if they love it then great it's just it never particularly grabbed me um as a viewer so
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And a lot of them have queues like right out the door and onto the street. Like that's still the level of enthusiasm for it. So it's still a massive brand. I don't know if they're still doing those, you know, Fantastic Beasts movies. Maybe the...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I think with Dune 2, it certainly did better than the first one. There was a lot more hype around it when it came out. So there was definitely more enthusiasm there. And I think it probably is a good example of a movie that achieves quite a lot of cultural and commercial success and also was actually a pretty intelligent sci-fi movie and a good stab at replicating the source material.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Let's see actually what it got. It was... Yeah, so it made $714 million worldwide, which is set against the budget of $190 million. That's actually all right. That's a pretty good earner. I would say. That's not bad. Yeah. I mean, the thing is you see tallies like that and you think, oh my God, that's insane amounts of money. But like, you've got to factor in the cost of like advertising.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
You've got to factor in the fact that distributors take like between 40 and 60% of that revenue. And so when you see it makes like 700 million at the box office or a billion dollars, really only like maybe 500 million actually goes back to the studio that made it.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
You might see it. The problem is that Jeff Bezos does not run Amazon Studios. That is run by a woman called Jennifer Salke. And she is the one who's largely responsible for failures like the Rings of Power. Because she is very much into the message, as I talk about in my videos quite a lot. And she...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I mean, to a degree, you're seeing streaming exclusive movies that are getting bigger and bigger now. Like The Gorge was one. I think that came straight out onto streaming with pretty respectable budgets and pretty big stars attached to them. So it's no longer this idea of direct-to-TV or direct-to-streaming movies that are just low-budget trash. So it's definitely changing. I think the...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
The fact that piracy is more of an issue now, the fact that streaming services are able to throw so much more money at it, does incentivize studios to get things out onto streaming as quickly as possible. So you do see a really short theatrical window now and a really short gap between theatrical release and streaming or whatever.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
So it's just the economics of the new technology that we're grappling with. And also, yeah, maybe for a lot of people now, the hassle of going to the cinema and the expense of it is becoming more of a thought for them. And it's becoming more of a big investment for you. Say you want to take your wife and kids to go see the latest Disney kids movie or whatever.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
You want to go and see Snow White if you've completely lost your mind. Then you factor in the cost of tickets, you factor in the cost of all the popcorn and all the crap that everyone needs. That's well over $100. It's probably, what, six months of your Netflix subscription? Yeah. Yeah.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And that's to sit in a crowded movie theater with a bunch of people who are talking and looking at their phones and just disrupting the whole experience. Or you could wait a few weeks and watch it at home in your nice, comfortable living room and do whatever you want. And you could pause it whenever you want. What would you rather choose? That's the reality of cinema going now as an experience.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
It's changing. So what does that mean for the future of it? It probably means that it will become gradually more like the way we see going to the theater, to go to see a stage play or something.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
It will become more of a niche thing gradually, where a smaller selection of people who are real connoisseurs or real passionate about that particular method of performance still go to see it, but general audiences will just watch it at home.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
essentially directed uh the way that rings of power has gone as a show um even to the point where they had a tolkien scholar in who was tearing his hair out saying no all of this stuff that you're writing is complete nonsense this would never happen in tolkien's world uh and for his efforts he was fired uh so that tells you everything you need to know so yeah jeff bezos may well indeed um
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
well i mean we didn't we have the bridget jones whatever like bridget jones 17 like the old folks home or something um just that just came out yeah i didn't see it either but i know it did exist and so there's still the concept of rom-coms i think uh comedies in general just straight up comedies are dead at the the cinema um
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
and the reason being everyone's fucking offended by everything and so when you you've got to tiptoe around every potential issue and you don't want to offend anyone you can't be funny anymore it's impossible uh and so comedies have died i've talked about this many times on live streams and so on uh we tried to name like what was the last truly good uh comedy that hit cinemas and the best we could come up with was like tropic thunder and that's well over a decade ago yep
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And would cause an awful lot of uproar if you did it. Sure. It would never be allowed today. But all that stuff, like political correctness is the death of fun and it's the death of comedy and it's the death of entertainment.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I think the hunger is always going to be there for comedy because everyone wants to have a good laugh every once in a while and you need it. And I think what you're eventually going to see is this is all part of this growing backlash that we've seen to wokeness, for lack of a better word, that it's so puritanical.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
It's told you all these things you're not allowed to say, that you're not allowed to laugh at, that you're not allowed to make fun of. And I think as a collective society, we have reached the point of saying, I don't give a fuck anymore. I just don't care. I don't care about your stupid censorship. I don't care about your fake offense. I don't care if you think that's racist or sexist or anything.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
All of those words have stopped meaning anything. Now, you've used them to the point of insanity. No one cares anymore. And I think now the ground is now prepared for comedy to actually make a comeback.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
If some studio actually has the balls to do it and make a comedy that's not afraid to be a little bit edgy and offensive, if they were to do something like Tropic Thunder now, I actually think it would play really well because societally, I think we're ready for it now. We passed all this crap and we're ready to...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
and it's great to see it actually collapsing now but it makes me excuse me it makes me sad to think about all the people that have uh suffered as a result of this whether it's all the people that said the wrong thing or you know they dug up an edgy tweet that they made 10 years ago and that got them cancelled or they were forced to issue groveling apologies or the the people who literally ate themselves to death because they were told like oh yeah you're five foot two and you weigh 300 pounds oh that's fine like you can be healthy at any size no you fucking can't
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
It absolutely does, yeah. And as I said earlier, there's a reason that the Bond franchise has been this cultural mainstay for all the decades that it's been around, well over half a century. There's something timeless and consistently appealing about James Bond as a character, and they never lost sight of the fact that he was centre stage in everything. It is about Bond.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And they have, in a way, safeguarded it to some degree. It's debatable how good of a job they did in the Daniel Craig era, but they kept it from becoming too exploited. I think they got a little bit frustrated with dealing with Amazon, who had bought over MGM, which ultimately owns the rights to Bond. And so... The most recent development is that they have tapped out, essentially.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
We don't want a Moneypenny spinoff. We don't want a Q department spinoff or anything like that. You can't franchise Bond because he is the core of everything. And he's a character that needs to be used sparingly.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
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Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
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Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
You know, one movie every couple of years, don't delve too much into his private life, into his backstory, maintain the mystique, maintain the things that have made characters like him so appealing for so long. That's been the secret to his longevity. And they're going to lose that, I think.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
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Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Yeah, I mean, I think if you really wanted to do it, you'd have to divorce her and come back to the UK and beg forgiveness from the king. Serving the armed forces for another couple of years. Yeah, I mean, he's getting a bit old for that. But maybe there's something that could be done there. But yeah, there would have to be a humiliation tour, I think, to get him back on track.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And I just don't think he would be willing to do it. I think he's just too... He honestly feels like a hostage, almost. He looks like he's been completely emotionally captured by her. Has anyone seen if he's blinking Morse code secret?
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Help me. Yeah, it's like when they do the interviews with people like Oprah, and he's almost waiting for permission to speak from her. You can tell 100% she just wears the trousers and just dictates everything that he does.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
That was a weird one. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure if like honoring them is quite what you should be doing.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
yeah but because like um what was that actress saying like oh i want to pay tribute to the sex workers of the world like maybe you should like focus more on helping them so they don't have to like be doing this for their their careers i don't know i don't think there's anything particularly noble about that but um The Oscars in general were just a snooze fest this year.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
There was nothing particularly controversial. There was nothing particularly interesting. And Nora pretty much was the big winner of the night. A fairly solid, stodgy drama. There wasn't a huge amount I could say about it. The Oscars were just boring, really. There was nothing really to pick up from it.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I think it was nominated for Best Visual Effects or something. So it was there. I don't know.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I think they wanted to do a bit of a 180 from the previous year, where there was a lot of big-name box office successes up for contention. You had things like Oppenheimer, Barbie, that sort of thing. This year, I think they wanted to go the opposite direction. It was very much smaller films, independent movies, all that sort of thing. Very much your traditional Oscar-bait kind of movies.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I don't know if they thought that was going to give them a bit more legitimacy and raise the interest in it or what, but
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I think that maybe there was a memo that got passed around saying like, right, don't get political. Okay, that shit ain't working for us anymore. Like, I don't care how much you hate the orange man. There's no point in ranting about it because no one cares anymore. We've done this for 10 years and it's old now. I think so because they were pretty toned down about it for the most part.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
It might be, to a degree. The way I described it was like, Hollywood, this entire awards season, they gave the impression of a man who has been bent over a table and violently humbled by society at large.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
They have been told, in no uncertain terms, we don't give a shit about your political views, we don't care what protest or what cause you want to support, we're not interested in that, and we're increasingly uninterested in your actual movies, even. So, yeah, it was very toned down. It was very sedate and almost intentionally non-controversial. And if anything, that is a good thing.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Like, it's good that they're recognizing that. And now that's probably where I would recommend that they go as an awards ceremony. And maybe they need to let go of the idea that it's going to be this huge...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
huge event that like hundreds of millions of people are going to tune into it's not really it's an industry event it's a chance for them to like recognize talent within their industry uh in the same way that companies have award nights for like best employee of the year or whatever yeah okay yeah it's like you're not going to pretend that like you know the the average person on the street's going to give a shit about like microsoft's top coder this year or anything but for the people in it for the people in that industry it's super important so great good take
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
You know what it is? I think it was the novelty of seeing your favorite movie stars unscripted. They were just there. They were all hanging out together. Back in the day, it would be like, oh my God, Steve McQueen is hanging out with Paul Newman and just chatting away and they're having a few beers or whatever. That was quite the novelty.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And to hear them get up on stage and give their unfiltered speeches or whatever, that was cool. But now... You see them everywhere. They're on social media. They're giving every retarded thought that pops into their head is like going out onto their Twitter feed. And so the novelty of seeing them in this unscripted environment doesn't exist anymore. And so the appeal of that starts to diminish.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
The thing is, it's not obligatory for you to do that as a celebrity, as a movie star. You don't have to have an Instagram feed. You don't have to be on Twitter or whatever. You can forego all of that and maintain that distance between you and the fans. It's just they're chasing that cheap dopamine hit.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And I think probably during things like the pandemic, it was really acute because they couldn't be in movies anymore. Everything was shut down for a time. And so they wanted a hit somehow. They wanted attention. And so they would go on social media and do it that way and get that validation. But the downside is, yeah, we get to see you as a human, as a flesh and blood person, just like me and you.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And not the star anymore. Yeah, you're supposed to be untouchable.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
yes yeah yeah you're supposed to and obviously it's a fantasy but like it was something that made them interesting like the mystique around them kind of like what we talked about earlier with james bond the more you tell me about his private life the less i'm interested in him as a character it's the same with movie stars the mystique is what drives our interest in them so true who do you think has got the right balance who do you think from sort of modern movie stars has got a good uh a good blend
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Gosh, now you're asking. I'm trying to think. Maybe someone like Anya Taylor-Joy. I think she's not super active on social media, in which case, that's great. Congratulations. She's still an interesting performer. I'm always kind of curious about what movies she's in. They're not always great, but I think she's still quite an interested star.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I mean, well, it was a disastrous show. I think everyone recognized that. Nobody, even at Marvel, can pretend that that show was a success. And it's been pretty much scrapped now. So they can chalk that one up to bad ideas, I think.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Yes. I mean, he's obviously from a different generation, but he's still very much active now. Yeah.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
That's a complex question, right? Can it get back to being profitable financially? It can, yes. It needs to rest for between five and ten years before they start doing more stuff.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
The ideal scenario would be stop making new things in Star Wars, say that we're kind of shelving this brand for a time, fire everyone at Lucasfilm who's responsible for anything that's happened in the past ten years, and then come at it fresh with a new trilogy of movies to great fanfare and great fan anticipation. Let people miss it again. because that's what we need.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
So yeah, that can come back to being profitable. Will it be this cultural juggernaut that you walk down the street and everyone you meet will have heard of someone like Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader? Will it get back to being that? Probably not.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
no i think that's that time has come and gone sadly um and it's just it's brand destruction and there's certain um there's certain bits of damage that you can't undo and i think this is one you had a tweet i think this is four or five years old now but how to be a hollywood
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Yeah, that's pretty much it. And wow, they just do not learn from their mistakes on that one.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Every time something new about George R.R. Martin comes out, he'll just post the number of days since the last book. George R.R. Martin will do anything to avoid writing that book. And I think we all know why. He doesn't know how to end it. He doesn't know how to...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Loki as a show, the concepts were interesting but I hated how it absolutely cucked him as a character. Loki at his best is actually a really intimidating character. They got him right when they did him in Avengers.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
continue this series is this the final one or is it the penultimate no so there's one more called dream sorry a dream of spring that's supposed to end the song of ice and fire realistically that's never going to happen in his lifetime he's already really old and fat and really unhealthy and if he even gets winds of winter done that'll be a miracle
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I mean, I don't know if he's named anyone, potentially named a successor. A health successor. I think so, because really, the publishing house must have some kind of plan in place to say, look, George is probably not going to finish this, and we need to have someone who can pick it up and carry it on. They'll probably talk to him about it. And I think maybe...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Some people have suggested that this is intentional on his part. He doesn't know how to finish it and he doesn't want to live with the backlash of it being a crap. So I'm going to open a cocktail bar instead. Yeah, well, he'll do anything. He'll produce five more TV shows and he can use that as an excuse to not be writing. Or he can say that it was a cloudy day and he felt sad.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Or Trump's in the White House and that made him distracted so he couldn't do anything this year.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
and like anything basically to avoid like writing the book um because if he passes away um and i'm not wishing that on him in the slightest i hope he lives for another 100 years but when he eventually happens uh he can go down as like well this this genius who never quite got to finish his creative vision and if the subsequent books come out they're not great well that's someone else's fault
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
the first avengers movie where he was actually kind of terrifying he's actually really physically powerful uh incredibly intelligent he's a schemer he's a manipulator that is the the core element of loki uh when they tried to do this tv show with him he's getting knocked out by people he's he's crying all the time he's emotionally vulnerable you know he comes up against a female version of himself who of course is better than him in every way because she has to be
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I mean, when you've got that creative drive going and it's in full swing, why interrupt it? I mean, it's great to see.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
There was a great Twitter thread. I don't know if you ever saw it, but it was some other author who offered their opinion on George and his work. And they said that his fundamental problem is that he is a lazy, nihilistic, sorry, liberal boomer.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
He comes from that baby boom generation, and his entire worldview is colored by this nihilistic view that there's no good or evil, that everything is just shades of gray, and that heroes can never really get the job done, and no one is... The people that you think of are evil are not. And it's like he conceived his entire storytelling philosophy as a direct response to people like J.R.R. Tolkien.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
He didn't want that clear delineation between good and evil and good ultimately triumphing. It was much more bleak and nihilistic than that. The problem is you ultimately end up hating your own creation because it is so depressing and it is so difficult to wrestle with as a creative.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I think ultimately it's going to come down to the execution because there is ways to make it work. But I think what you want to circle around to eventually is a redemption arc or an idea of there being clear lines between good and evil and that you just have to go through a bit of a torturous path to get to that. And I think that's what...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
George might have once had in mind for A Song of Ice and Fire that you've got all these characters squabbling over their petty political rivalries and all that crap. But meanwhile, you've got this big existential threat that's creeping up on you in the form of the White Walkers that are literally going to end the world.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And eventually, those characters have to put aside all their bullshit and all their politics and band together to actually defeat this much bigger threat. And actual heroes have to rise to take them on again.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
um he's just never quite gotten to that point i don't know if he has the ability now are you a severance fan this is something i haven't watched but increasingly i'm seeing break the internet yes so um i only started it relatively recently so i'm like four episodes in um season one yes season one yeah uh so i'm late to the party on this one but a very interesting show really cool premise um deals with some very interesting ideas from that premise
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
You know, if your personality is literally split into two people with two different memory sets, what do they do? How do they come into conflict with each other and can they interact in some way? So very, very interesting.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Hopefully it doesn't go down the bad road of mystery box storytelling where the answers are like super disappointing and you just think, Christ, I waited like five seasons for that. Lost. Yes, exactly. Hopefully they've learned some lessons for that. But yeah, man, like Apple TV... They don't make a lot of stuff, but they do generally make pretty good stuff. I will say that for them.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And all of those things diminish him as a character and they make him less interesting. In the same way that having Bond no longer be able to seduce women and have him be emotionally vulnerable diminishes the mystique of his character. He was always more interesting as an idea rather than a flesh and blood human. They did the same thing to Loki.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I mean, unless you're willing to sail the high seas, of course, that's the solution. Even just the, you know what would be useful is just like a search engine that encompasses all the streaming network.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
But yeah, I mean, we are in this weird scenario where there's all these different streaming networks. They don't really communicate with each other. And like, if you want to watch one thing, it's on one network. You want to watch something else, it's on another network. And it means lots of logins, lots of subscriptions, and it does really start to mount up.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And the ones that are ultimately going to stand the test of time and the ones that are going to be successful are the ones that have got some other business attached to them, right? So Amazon, right? It almost doesn't matter whether Amazon Prime Video is successful or not because they make a shit zillion dollars every day from their actual online website, of course.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
So this is just a vanity project. We can have fun with that. Same with Apple. It's a trillion dollar company. Who cares if people watch their stuff? but it allows them to finance it and do interesting things. So great. The ones that are in danger are things like Paramount Plus stuff, like the smaller networks, even Disney Plus, actually.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
They do have the theme park business attached to that, but it's still a smaller network that doesn't have a huge financial infrastructure to support it. And those are the ones that I think are eventually going to get swallowed up by other people.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
The more vulnerabilities you introduce to a character like that, the less interesting. interesting he becomes and the less menacing he becomes.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
So I have no idea what's happening in that movie. I don't know if they can even release it at this point. The public perception around it has got to be absolutely toxic.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I watched one episode of that out of pure morbid curiosity, and it's the Alec Baldwin equivalent of that Meghan Markle show. Thinly veiled PR.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
yeah that's all it is it's like hey let's all pretend like we're a happy family didn't happen let's all pretend that this didn't happen yeah and it's like well they do actually um they do reference rust and the court case and all that but it's like what they want to do is garner sympathy by showing that he's got like 12 kids or something ridiculous his wife is about 30 years younger than him um you
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And it's like, oh, well, you can't send this guy to jail because look how many people rely on him. And look at them having fun together. And it's like watching them do things that they've clearly never done in their entire lives, like try and bake a cake. Honestly, it would be like watching my pet dog trying to code a video game. Yeah, they've clearly got no experience of this whatsoever.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And yeah, it's just fake. It's all fake.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Uh, we've got some more movie projects in the works because I did a short film that we released last year. Um, we are doing, uh, more of that, that we're working on right now. And we're hoping that we're going to launch a Kickstarter, uh, in the near future to, to hopefully finance that. And, um, we, we want to branch out like rather than just doing one,
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
movie we want to do a slew of like smaller films and give people who back it an opportunity to get some of their projects made as well so uh it's like a little mini production studio that we're going to start to do where we can crowdfund uh movies and like let people vote on the things that they want to get made which we think is hopefully going to be quite an interesting idea unreal where should people go if they want to keep up to date with all of that stuff and everything you do
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
uh so yeah you can find my channel on youtube the critical drinker uh i also have a gaming channel called the critical gamer very imaginative and you can obviously find me on the usual places like x and so on okay dude i appreciate you until next time man thank you very much pleasure
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I mean, how many movies can we have where Thor needs to find his true purpose in life? He's done that about five times now, it seems. It's a permanent midlife. Well, I suppose if you live for a few thousand years, you get a couple of midlife crises.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I mean, a lot of these problems I would put down to Taika Waititi as a creative. And he was straight up saying, wouldn't it be funny if Thor goes through a midlife crisis? And that was as far as he got, essentially. And then he just based the movie around that. So it wouldn't be funny if he was like kind of useless and he didn't know where he wanted to be in life and he was just lost.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And now Amazon have got full creative control over the Bond franchise. And they are already talking about turning it into the next Marvel Cinematic Universe. Essentially, you're going to have the Bond Cinematic Universe. So what they want to do is spin-offs of Moneypenny. And, you know, can she shuffle files quickly enough to meet her deadlines and whatnot?
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And, you know, you think, OK, after everything he's been through, after saving literally the entire universe, you probably have found your purpose by that point. You can't keep resetting that clock. But that's what he tried to do and just turned him into a complete joke.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Oh, yeah, yeah. So I'm going to paraphrase here because I'm just dredging this up from my memory. But you've essentially got the early stages of the genre, right? So the trailblazers, the experimental movies that define it. Then you've got the... the classic era where they've nailed the formula, they've made it work, they know exactly what works with it.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Then you've got the revisionist era where the classic era no longer resonates with audiences. We've got to find a new angle. Well, let's look back now and try and reframe things. A good example would be the Western genre where in their late 80s, early 90s,
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
westerns had fallen out of favor uh you've got like movies like unforgiven uh which start to redefine it and re-examine it in a more um mature way uh and then when you get beyond that the final stage is parody that's where it's just like we've got nothing else to do dramatically classically uh you know in terms of mining new ideas we're just going to make fun of it now and that's when a
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, like, when your career is predicated on having mind-blowing twists that no one's going to see coming, you're always in a competition to one-up yourself and to try and do better next time. And you can only take that so far before everyone knows. Well, it's an M. Night Shyamalan movie, so of course there's going to be some crazy twists at the end. And that's it.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
You've pigeonholed yourself to the point where you can't do anything new at that point. So...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
um yeah he he definitely fell victim to that and yeah he just ended up you know putting out absolute sludge if you want to cast your daughter in a movie like you know what a lovely last hurrah yeah yeah he put himself in most of his movies in smaller roles and sometimes larger roles like i think lady in the water was the the most egregious one where he cast himself as a misunderstood genius who
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
was ultimately going to reshape humanity after his death. And I just thought, well, everyone thought this. Yeah, you're reaching quite a bit there, sir.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
you know bond the early years when he was a kid and uh you know we're probably going to have tv shows with all the other double agents you know with all them getting like their own little spin-offs and uh and then having big team-up events uh that's what they want to do it's about exploitation of the ip uh so that's where we're at now and it's not a good place to be sadly there's a reason that bond has endured as a franchise and as a character for the past what 60 years now uh and it's not because he was milked dry
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
It's already changed behind the scenes. That's the key takeaway here, right? What you see when you get movies that come out today, they were commissioned like two, three, even four years ago. So they were based around the cultural zeitgeist of the time four years ago, half a decade almost. And so... you know, there's always a delayed effect before these things actually come out.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And from what I've been told by various people within the industry, most of the executives at the big studios are very aware of the problem. They know that this stuff doesn't sell anymore. They know that the culture has shifted radically, especially over the past six months. Um, and, uh, they, they want to fix it.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
They want to change things, but they obviously have movies that are in the pipeline that were commissioned years ago and they're just coming out now. Uh, and so you're, you're kind of seeing the last remnants of it coming out now. Like that Mickey 17 movie that I just reviewed, uh,
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
a day or two ago is a good example of that where you've got mark ruffalo doing his worst possible trump impression it just it honestly felt like a movie that would have been cutting edge like 10 years ago now it's just absolutely stale and cringe and played out but that's the delayed effect that you get with hollywood movies they take a long time to get made unfortunately but uh yeah
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
I think we're going to see the demise of the superhero genre. We've kind of seen it already. There's a bunch of Marvel movies that are coming out this year. The first one has already flopped, Captain America. Thunderbolts is also probably, no one's going to be interested in that. The big test will be in July when we've got Superman and we've got,
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
what's it called uh the fantastic four coming out right two movies same month uh if they don't succeed that's it the genre's cooked because it's super expensive to make so um you probably will see after that a massive reduction in the budgets and the number of superhero movies there's probably going to be a switch more towards video game adaptations because that's probably the next big thing that's going to happen
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
There's a lot of money in that. The amount of money that is made by the video game industry dwarfs Hollywood. It is insane how much money changes hands there. And so if they can capitalize on that momentum and that fan base, it will be a new gold rush. It'll be like 10, 15 years ago with the superhero genre when that's really exploded. So I think there's that.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
And I think you're going to see a return to...
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
a bit of a swing more towards the center in terms of like the cultural impression that these movies want to make and the politics they want to push i think they're going to be a lot more neutral you're never going to get hollywood pushing conservative ideas it's just it's not in their dna at this point but they will probably be forced to concede defeat um and they know this stuff doesn't sell anymore so i think you're going to see a swing more towards politically neutral movies that are just about entertainment
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
It's so weird because to some extent, the general culture is insulated from video games a little bit. It doesn't have that sort of mainstream impact that you might think, but the amount of money that's actually changing hands in that industry is insane. The top-level video games have budgets that would almost embarrass Hollywood films at this point. What are they getting up to?
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
by a big money-hungry corporation.
Modern Wisdom
#918 - Critical Drinker - Why Do Modern Movies Suck So Much?
Some of them are up to $300 million, $400 million easily.