Is it just me, or the late 2000s/early 2010s were the worst years for Hollywood movies ever?

[Chen G. 3,944]

Oh, its very, very good.

 

But not quite there, as far as I'm concerned.

[Quintus 5,399]

2 hours ago, Þekþiþm said:

 

See, Edwards' flick never seems sure of itself, almost as if it's embarrassed that it's a Godzilla movie. But Dougherty's film, as schlocky and imperfect as the script is, just confidently and exuberantly revels in its own distinct identity. One of the few films that delivered on what the trailers promised. So good in fact, I'm afraid Godzilla vs Kong will struggle and ultimately fail to meet its standard.

 

What standard though? Godzilla as a franchise is terrible.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

There are always good movies, great movies, bad movies. Social media and the internet give more people an avenue to voice their opinions.  As to the term Hollywood film what does that mean anymore?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

25 minutes ago, Quintus said:

 

What standard though? Godzilla as a franchise is terrible.

 

It's actually better than everything.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Godzilla = bad films 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

You people are mad. They're magnificent!

[A24 4,327]

We also got bad sci-fi:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Et cetera ...

[Quintus 5,399]

5 minutes ago, Alexcremers said:

 

 

 

Green sci-fi.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

But much of scifi is bad from any decade. Same with fantasy.

[Edmilson 7,398]

Ad Astra certainly does not belong with all the crap above, specially the horrid Jupiter Ascending.

[KK 3,307]

Ad Astra might not be as obviously bad as those other films. But it's not very good either. Which might be worse, for a film with such lofty ambitions.

[A24 4,327]

My thoughts exactly!

[Brundlefly 2,385]

8 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Again, maybe I'm misplacing some film or another.

Indeed.

 

7 hours ago, publicist said:

Blockbusters got worse.

Not compared to the 90s (aka Godzilla, Independence Day, Twister etc.).

 

@Alexcremers, from what planet are you that Valerian is considered bad sci-fi?! It's the best thing the genre had to offer in a couple of years.

[Fabulin 3,510]

.

[Edmilson 7,398]

ID4 is pretty bad indeed, but I have a soft spot for Twister. I used to watch it a lot when I was a kid, and I became fascinated with photographies and videos of tornadoes and storms since then. 

 

And we don't have tornadoes here where I live (although the rains did some serious damage to my city over the last few weeks), so I always found them fascinating.

[A24 4,327]

44 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

 

@Alexcremers, from what planet are you that Valerian is considered bad sci-fi?! 

 

From planet Rotten Tomatoes.

 

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/valerian_and_the_city_of_a_thousand_planets

 

 

[publicist 4,643]

This ran on Amazon Prime but i don't remember a thing about it. The Desplat isn't great but still the most entertaining element.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

It greatly contradicts many sci-fi paradigm that have established in Hollywood for decades. Nonchalant and refreshingly European cinema.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

56 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

It greatly contradicts many sci-fi paradigm that have established in Hollywood for decades. Nonchalant and refreshingly European cinema.

 

 

[A24 4,327]

12 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

It greatly contradicts many sci-fi paradigm that have established in Hollywood for decades. Nonchalant and refreshingly European cinema.

 

It's more or less the follow-up to Besson's The Fifth Element, but to be honest, I wasn't a fan of that one either. It's all a bit too excessive and in-your-face with non-stop absurd action and dialog that leaves much to be desired. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I thought it was boring, and Cara Delavinge and that surfer dude were fucking awful.

[Thor 7,478]

No, I disagree with the premise. Plenty of great Hollywood movies in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Using 2009-2014, as Edmilson did in the first post, these are some great ones off the top of my head: 

 

2009: INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, AVATAR, THE HURT LOCKER, 2012, UP, DISTRICT 9 (if that counts as "Hollywood", being a joint production with South Africa)

2010: THE ROAD, INCEPTION, ROBIN HOOD, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, PREDATORS, THE EXPENDABLES, TOY STORY 3, KICK-ASS, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

2011: HANNA, THE RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, JANE EYRE, THE THING, TINTIN, SOURCE CODE, SUPER 8, RANGO

2012: PROMETHEUS (it's brilliant, screw the naysayers!), HOBBIT, LOOPER, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, DARK SHADOWS, WAR HORSE, SAVAGES, EXPENDABLES 2, TOTAL RECALL, THE GREY, LIFE OF PI

2013: GRAVITY, PAIN & GAIN, HOBBIT 2, DJANGO UNCHAINED, LINCOLN, OBLIVION, RIDDICK, MAN OF STEEL, WORLD WAR Z, ZERO DARK THIRTY

2014: INTERSTELLAR, LUCY (again a co-production, though), GODZILLA, EXODUS, ALL IS LOST, EDGE OF TOMORROW, DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, GONE GIRL, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, NOAH, POMPEII.

 

Plenty more too. I find it to be a vibrant period for Hollywood films. In fact, every single year -- both then and now -- has a neat selection of wonderful Hollywood films that I have no problem putting inbetween and next to all the great indie/arthouse films of the year, when I do my top lists.

 

[A24 4,327]

Most of Thor's titles can be used to make a case for the OP, IMO.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

9 minutes ago, Thor said:

2009: INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, AVATAR, THE HURT LOCKER, 2012, UP, DISTRICT 9 (if that counts as "Hollywood", being a joint production with South Africa)

2010: THE ROAD, INCEPTION, ROBIN HOOD, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, PREDATORS, THE EXPENDABLES, TOY STORY 3, KICK-ASS, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

2011: HANNA, THE RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, JANE EYRE, THE THING, TINTIN, SOURCE CODE, SUPER 8, RANGO

2012: PROMETHEUS (it's brilliant, screw the naysayers!), HOBBIT, LOOPER, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, DARK SHADOWS, WAR HORSE, SAVAGES, EXPENDABLES 2, TOTAL RECALL, THE GREY, LIFE OF PI

2013: GRAVITY, PAIN & GAIN, HOBBIT 2, DJANGO UNCHAINED, LINCOLN, OBLIVION, RIDDICK, MAN OF STEEL, WORLD WAR Z, ZERO DARK THIRTY

2014: INTERSTELLAR, LUCY (again a co-production, though), GODZILLA, EXODUS, ALL IS LOST, EDGE OF TOMORROW, DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, GONE GIRL, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, NOAH, POMPEII.

 

Talk about a pile of crap!

[A24 4,327]

Is Thor a troll?

[Thor 7,478]

No, just a reasonable guy who doesn't let rampant cynicism completely cloud my judgement.

[Holko 9,499]

There's a difference between not saying everything is shit, and saying everything, even shit, is "great".

[Jurassic Shark 12,033]

You forgot to put it in italic.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I love Batman & Robin, so what do I know?

[Edmilson 7,398]

I don't know, I guess that, comparing everything, there were still more crap than good. But anyway, Hollywood usually produces more crap than decent stuff every year since its beginning, specially amongst big budget flicks. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

It's only good if it's in Dolby Atmos.

[Thor 7,478]

1 hour ago, Holko said:

There's a difference between not saying everything is shit, and saying everything, even shit, is "great".

 

Where did I say 'everything'? You are the guys dealing in absolutes and blanket dismissals here. The titles I mentioned above are just some of the great ones in the period. There are more. Just as there is a whole bunch of bad stuff too.

 

That's why premises such as these don't make sense. Packing up a whole bunch of years, and claiming that an entire industry's output in the period have been less or more than before or after. It un-nuanced at best, stupid at worst. There are great and bad movies coming out of Hollywood every year, just as with any other film industry.

[Edmilson 7,398]

3 minutes ago, Thor said:

It un-nuanced at best, stupid at worst.

 

Wow, thanks for the gratuitous jab. I guess I'll try to improve my IQ and get an Oxford diplomma and then come back to JWFan, the forum on which you can only express a opinion if you have a phD.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

54 minutes ago, Þekþiþm said:

I love Batman & Robin, so what do I know?

But that film doesn't fit the time line.

20 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Ad Astra certainly does not belong with all the crap above, specially the horrid Jupiter Ascending.

Yes it does.

Avatar isn't a Hollywood film.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Is it Canadian?

[Bayesian 1,359]

I may not always agree with @Thor, but he’s spot-on here. In fact, I’m completely surprised to see the OP going over in this thread as well as it has so far. The pick-and-choose approach to dismissing half a decade of popular filmmaking is as ripe for merciless dismissal as anything I’ve ever read here— and yet almost everyone’s bought into it. 
 

Well, not Thor, at least, and not me. Many of his counterargument examples I agree with.

[Thor 7,478]

 

21 minutes ago, Bayesian said:

I may not always agree with @Thor, but he’s spot-on here. In fact, I’m completely surprised to see the OP going over in this thread as well as it has so far. The pick-and-choose approach to dismissing half a decade of popular filmmaking is as ripe for merciless dismissal as anything I’ve ever read here— and yet almost everyone’s bought into it. 

 

Yes, it's a fairly common rhetorical fallacy usually nicknamed 'cherry-picking', or 'confirmation bias'. Although one can always disagree about the merits of a film, assessing the period in question based on most of the titles in the first post, is obviously not a balanced or nuanced assessment. 

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Remember Thor the character is arrogant. To assume his identity would require some too. Doesn't mean our thor is in error.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Doesn't Thor regularly receive invitations from studios to attend movie premieres? Figures.

[A24 4,327]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

 

Where did I say 'everything'? You are the guys dealing in absolutes and blanket dismissals here. The titles I mentioned above are just some of the great ones in the period. There are more. Just as there is a whole bunch of bad stuff too.

 

 

 

We're not dealing in absolutes at all. So many movies fall between the bad and the great. However, when you put Robin Hood, Exodus: Gods And Kings, Pompeii, Expendables 2, The Thing Remake, Prometheus (screw the yea-sayers), Predators, ... into 'the great' category, it really isn't any wonder that people think you love everything (or almost everything).

[Thor 7,478]

57 minutes ago, Alexcremers said:

 

We're not dealing in absolutes at all. So many movies fall between the bad and the great. However, when you put Robin Hood, Exodus: Gods And Kings, Pompeii, Expendables 2, The Thing Remake, Prometheus (screw the yea-sayers), Predators, ... into 'the great' category, it really isn't any wonder that people think you love everything (or almost everything).

 

Not at all. One of the most common diseases in 'fan communities' is the inability to judge a work on its own terms; or the inability to see what the film's project really is. I don't go into a film like, say, PREDATORS, expecting Ingmar Bergman (or quality criteria thereof). Rather, it's a great, tight monster movie that ticks off all the boxes that makes this particular genre film successful; visceral, intense, claustophobic and with gorgeous, "earthly" cinematography. Vice versa, the more recent THE PREDATOR (2018) was a terrible affair, but I'm again using the same applicable criteria.

 

I don't like everything. I like good films IN everything, whether it's bizarre arthouse cinema or fluffy Hollywood genre material. Ultimately, what matters is how well it succeeds in what it is.

 

I could just as easily have rattled off a great many Hollywood films from this particular era that were BAD, but Edmilson seems to have mentioned several of those already. Plus, one can always argue about the merits of individual films. My point is rather that you can't make sweeping 'period generalizations' like this. It's a fallacy and dishonest. There is good and bad stuff every year, and within every period.

[Edmilson 7,398]

This is a subjective post. As I stated on the first post of this thread, I said this is personal for me, and that many people wouldn't agree. 

 

I personally think that these were horrid times for blockbusters. Are we better these days? Perhaps not. But that doesn't mean the truckload of shit that we got a decade ago was brilliant cinema, or so.

 

But again, this is just me. If I have time and interest, I can conduct a more objective analysys, based not only on my personal preferences (and, as Thor so politely said, my own stupidity), but on movie critics, and post here.

[Thor 7,478]

Well, Edmilson, if you don't like any, or few of the films produced by Hollywood between 2009-2014, that's your right. But the way you posited your headline and post, and by selectively choosing titles that are (for the most part) unanimously dismissed as duds -- and conveniently ignoring a great many titles that were critically praised -- you're constructing an elaborate argument based on a rhetorical fallacy, you're not just saying "I don't like the movies that were produced in this period". There's a big difference, and that's why I react.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

There are bad movies and there are movies I dislike that I recognize as good films. There has never been a year I didn't enjoy a film There are years I feel there were no masterpieces  but masterpieces are not released on a time schedule. 

[Chen G. 3,944]

2 hours ago, Thor said:

One of the most common diseases in 'fan communities' is the inability to judge a work on its own terms; or the inability to see what the film's project really is.

 

I kind of agree with that, and kind of not. I would rather say that "people's expectations of a movie can get in the way of their enjoyment." If they decide what a film ought to be for themselves long before it comes out, then the chance of disappointment increases. Rather, they really to let the film (particularly, its opening) set the expectations.

 

That being said, if we take this arguement to the extreme, we reduce the entire act of critically evaluating movies to an exercise in supervising consistentcy. i.e. the film sets its own rules, and it can only ever be bad if it deviates from them; which, to me, kind of feels like a low critical bar. Surely, if a film decides to be trash and is consistently trash, that doesn't make it good just because one ought to "judge it on its own terms."

 

So yeah, I'm in two minds on this.

[Thor 7,478]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

I kind of agree with that, and kind of not. I would rather say that "people's expectations of a movie can get in the way of their enjoyment." If they decide what a film ought to be for themselves long before it comes out, then the chance of disappointment increases. Rather, they really to let the film (particularly, its opening) set the expectations.

 

Oh yeah, sure, expectations are also part of the equation.

 

Quote

 

That being said, if we take this arguement to the extreme, we reduce the entire act of critically evaluating movies to an exercise in supervising consistentcy. i.e. the film sets its own rules, and it can only ever be bad if it deviates from them; which, to me, kind of feels like a low critical bar. Surely, if a film decides to be trash and is consistently trash, that doesn't make it good just because one ought to "judge it on its own terms."/

 

Depends. John Waters actually makes comments through a trashy or campy lens. STARSHIP TROOPERS is, on surface level, a trashy genre flick, but has deepfounded satire beneath. A film like PREDATORS, as mentioned earlier (or EXPENDABLES, for that matter) are clearly molded on an 80s 'gung ho' action aesthetic, and is wallowing in references; a kind of "celebration" of that particular trash/violence aestethic. Without having this in mind, one would be losing out on half the film's value. What I'm saying is that one needs to understand a film, and ask 'what is this film's project'? From there, one can evaluate whether it succeeds or not.

[gkgyver 1,645]

On 3/2/2020 at 3:57 PM, JoeinAR said:

Godzilla = bad films 

 

Joe = bad posts

[JoeinAR 1,949]

2 hours ago, gkgyver said:

 

Joe = bad posts

How kind of you. 

 

Joe clears throat making gutteral sound gkgyver

Spits out phlem.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Anyone else like The Last Airbender?

[Manakin Skywalker 4,891]

I wouldn't say the 2000's were too bad. The 2010's however clearly were the worst decade for movies. Basically everything was a flop minus a few blockbusters here and there.