Leftist Politics Killed the Hollywood Drama
by S.T. KarnickEscape has been the theme for U.S. moviegoers in recent months, but audiences aren’t avoiding attending good, serious films; Hollywood is avoiding making them.
The newly released, highly derivative thriller Obsessed finished first at the U.S. office this past weekend, bringing in a surprising $28.5 million. That’s twice what industry analysts had expected and a good deal more than the film’s relatively low $20 million production budget.
It’s also emblematic of a central problem facing Hollywood today: the decline of serious drama.
First-weekend audiences for Obsessed were undoubtedly swelled by the presence of singer Beyonce and the prospect of a catfight between her and homewrecker Ali Larter (Heroes). Undoubtedly the film did not disappoint in that regard.
Also surely interesting for many viewers were the racial angles to the film, which add some small amount of flavor to an overripe story line. Critics and social advocates used to complain that black characters were too often shown as villains or subservient in media portrayals, which was true. Today the opposite habit is the fashion, and it is just as unthinking and stereotypical as its predecessor.
The previous week’s box-office champion, the lighthearted Zac Efron comedy 17 Again, finished second this time, while another genre film, Fighting, opened at number 3. The earnest Jamie Foxx drama The Soloist came in fourth, bringing in less than the studio would have hoped. That follows the lack of success of recent dramas such as State of Play and Duplicity.
Analysts have blamed these poor performances on audiences’ unwillingness to watch serious films, especially because people tend to want to escape from their problems during economic hard times.
I think that’s not the case at all. The reality is that Hollywood’s theatrical film wing has largely forgotten how to do good dramas, and the central problem is the ever-greater politicization of Tinseltown in recent years.
Comedies, action movies, and other genre films have been largely free of the incursion of left-wing politics, due both to their genre expectations and the audiences to which they’re pitched, especially the young, who are less energized by politics. And those films are doing very well.
Dramas, on the other hand, aimed as they are at more mature audiences, have been thoroughly overtaken by progressive politics. The poor box office performance of the numerous dreary and politically slanted antiwar films of the past few years exemplify this trend, as do the numerous tracts against bourgeois normality and for sexual radicalism and other outlier attitudes evident in Milk, The Reader, Transamerica, and other such filmic delights of the past couple of years.
The occasional Christian-oriented film such as Fireproof or nonpolitical drama such as The Pursuit of Happyness does very well at the box office, but Hollywood has largely killed serious drama by insisting on equating it with progressive politics.
Why? Flush with money from the nonpolitical genre fare, the studios are content to allow their big stars, directors, and other key players to establish their progressive artistic, political, and, yes, sexual bona fides for the progressive elites by making these politicized dramas audiences don’t want to watch.
That means these sorts of films will continue to be made as long as the studios continue to do well overall and the nation’s elites remain repugnantly leftist—but it doesn’t make it right.
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88 Comments
Liberals think they are smart making politically correct movies, but it is funny how quickly they become walking clichés. I feel embarrassed, as an Australian, just watching some of these actresses and actors, delivering talking points from Washington P.C. Good art challenges, or refuels old values, but so many of today’s movies are as graceful as giraffes on roller skates. Two words: Too Loud.
I think Hollywood knows that serious, conservative-oriented films do well, but they hate making them. Taken is a good example. That film was outstanding, Liam Neeson was brilliant in the film, but the themes in Taken (taking law into your own hands, not relying on law enforcement to protect your family, fighting violence with violence, torture to get information) were contrary to popular Hollywood thinking.
Hollywood will continue its slide until it gets it.
http://lonewolfarcher.blogspot.com
Amen on every point.
I didn't see Taken, so I don't know the context of your remarks, but I can't agree with them as written. Taking the law into your own hands is not a conservative value. Doing what needs to be done when all other options are closed to you…yeah, I can see that. But simply implying that all good conservatives take the law into their own hands as their first option is just plain false. I can't believe that's what you really meant to say.
And its not only the dramas; the sci-fi films too!
You hear about this one coming out recently called "Battle for Terra"? It's about these peaceful aliens (complete strangers to war!) getting invaded by evil humans who trashed their own planet and want another one. When one alien decides to help an injured human pilot, the two races realize that they're not so different. So they must learn to coexist…before it's too late.
I suppose it's some statement about the Age of Colonization and how eeeeevil the founding of America was. They even hail the invading humans as gods when they first arrive — so I'm guessing that humanity in this story is supposed to be the sci-fi equivalent of the Spanish conquistadores.
Whatever it is, I'll pass.
You read the "as their first option" into my comments. I never said that. But let me tell you, if someone breaks into my home and is threatening my wife and daughter, I will take the law into my own hands as opposed to waiting for the police to show up in 20 minutes. So yes it is a conservative value to take responsibility for your and your family's own safety as opposed to putting it into the hands of the overburdened law enforcement community.
My house was broken into a couple of years ago. My 150 lb Great Pyrenees chased the guy out before he made it through the window he had broken out to gain entrance. The officer that came to make the report told me that dogs and guns were our best defense against perps. Even they agree that you need to be willing to defend yourself, your family, and your property.
This article was able to put my feelings into a great blog. I agree with every point and also would like to add that Hollywood's left leaning studio elite has gone so far off balance that the huge money makers like "The Dark Knight," are denounced while studio bombs like "State of Play," are celebrated. Its really sad and terrible for business.
It'll be a great day when that commie drivel, "It's a Wonderful Life", is finally exorcised from the Christmas viewing tradition. This annual festival of reminding the poor and downtrodden that they deserve loans for homes they can't possibly afford has done more harm to this good country than Mr. Mac and Mrs. Mae could ever hope.
Karnick wrote:
"I think that’s not the case at all. The reality is that Hollywood’s theatrical film wing has largely forgotten how to do good dramas, and the central problem is the ever-greater politicization of Tinseltown in recent years."
Yeah, I agree. 'No Country For Old Men' was great until Anton pulled out that Naomi Klein book and read it to the people he killed.
Seriously, that's what you get out of "It's A Wonderful Life"??
Which leads to my question:
The wife and I watched Jackman/Kidman in "Australia" recently, and I would like to ask you your opinion, straight up, over it. Also, do you feel that "Holly weird" is oozing too much onto perceptions of other countries, as well?
Thanks.
Good article. There you have it. Most movie goers are just tired of the agenda drama. This is wearing us out and causes people to suspect motivations behind every dramatic theme. The biggest stars it seems can't do a movie that doesn't fit their political agenda and the liberal leftist America is baaad theme is so worn out. I avoid any movies with the elite lefties in a role.
Sounds like James Cameron's latest movie, "Avatar," in which humanity discovers a new planet and a paraplegic war veteran leads the indigenous natives against the humans who want to exploit it. For some odd reason I doubt I'll see either.
Let's all sit around and think of stuff to blame on the left. Bring it up at the next tea party.
also too, the regrettable remake of 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. Once again humans are destroying Gaia and Klaatu and Gort come here to wipe 'us' out… it was easily the worst remake of the best science fiction film ever. Hack work, and left wing hack work as well. One wonders if the choir will ever get tired of being preached to?
I agree with the thrust of this article. I think of "Unforgiven" and how it simply tells a powerful story. No politics, just a man riding on to his destiny.
Or it's often been the case aliens are far superior to us in every way and we're either easy fodder or lemmings to be manipulated at will. That's why I loved the tag line for the first Starship Troopers movie: "They Came to Our Planet, They destroyed our cities, But on November 7th, They'll learn, They messed, With the wrong species."
I wanted to see that movie for no other reason than the tagline. "Yes!" I thought. "Finally humans are not going to be portrayed as a bunch of wimps." It turned out that I liked the tagline more than the movie because of the caricature they made of the military and more conservative characters…
Why would they? I mean, reality hasn't been working out too well for them; why not stay stuck in fantasy land?
so true. so sad.
One of the hallmarks of fascism is the politicization of everything. It seems there is no aspect of life that is free of politics in this country anymore, at least as far as popular media is concerned. Disturbing.
Is a Great Pyrenees a good family dog? I have seriously been thinking of getting another dog. We have a little Beagle but all he does is slopper with kisses and bark at roaming WalMart bags…..
I want to be entertained, not lectured.
Message movies are a predictable bore. No matter what the message .
I seem remember a short-lived TV sitcom starring Woo-pee Goldberg. WOW what a fantastic snoozer that was. I could almost recite the lines before she spoke.
And one more thing to rant about: I know that RECYCLING is a religious practice in Hwood, but can we please get a new line up of actors. Really. Can we import some unknowns from another planet because I am sick of seeing the same tiny pool of so called stars in every movie.
By now, I must've read this same basic piece close to a hundred times here and at other political film sites. That's not necessarily a critique, just an observation. "Hollywood is losing money by forcing itself to make only 'liberal' dramas" is like the Pieta of the "conservative" film movement: Everybody does their version 20 or 30 times with miniscule variation.
And yet they all manage to miss the same point: It's very unlikely that it's the POLITICS keeping people away from serious drama, because MOST of this country is too dumb to actually engage in politics at any meaningful level. Less than 50% of us vote, slightly less than THAT regularly follow the news outside of weather and major disasters, you know this to be true. Somewhere along the line, we went from a society that valued exceptionalism to one that worshipped "the average man" and shortly thereafter took the logical next step DOWNWARD to openly lionizing ignorance as some kind of higher-understanding.
The message of the original TDESS was fairly leftist, one-world, aliens-saving-us-from-ourselves. But it was great to watch, and the message about blowing the world up if we weren't careful wasn't that far-fetched. But at least in the original, the aliens had the decency not to blow us up wholesale to make their point.
They could have advertised it as "Full-Metal Jacket–with Really Big Bugs–in Outer Space!" But at the bottom of it all, I am apparently one of the few who actually got a kick out of it, bad acting and all. How can one not like Doogie Houser as the human brain who defeats the big bug brain?
true. It's what attracted both Julian Blaustein and Robert Wise to the material. However, Rennie's
Klaatu spoke of their race 'being free to pursue more profitable enterprises' and that his 'resurrection' at the hands of Gort was not their power but the providence of 'the Almighty Spirit'- which was somewhat controversial even in those days… the military was accurately and respectfully portrayed. There was almost no violence- one .45 round and a short burst of.50 was it, and Gort's responses killed only two soldiers. so perhaps 'liberal' by 1951 standards really isn't very liberal…
Oh yes I agree 100% 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' was one of, if not the worst movie I ever saw, remake or not.
After the first 40 odd minutes I had a headache from being beaten around the head with their 'issues'. It made me sick but I had to finish it just to see if it could improve, it didn't. That movie was as subtle as a sledge hammer, I was rooting for the 'violent' army to destroy 'Neo' and that annoying kid too.
That might be a good comment, except that the people portrayed all had jobs, Jimmy Stewart ran a Savings & Loan which was using the customer's money, and there wasn't the intrusive arm of the federal government taking money from one group of citizens and giving to another. But other than that, it might have been good.
Paul Heinlein is considered a real right winger; Verhoven, who grew up in Nazi occupied Holland was attracted to what he saw as fascist imagery… the Doogie Houser nazi was a hoot. So, the film is a mixed bag that wants to be two things at once. Still, it didn't suck…
Would that we had more right thinking individuals in studios, as actors, directors or producers. I'd take a Foley artist or two! One day I believe this will happen, because the right is figuring out that leaving culture to leftists is dangerous to our country's soul. I also believe that once those of the different varieties on the right get into Hollywood they will not create agenda driven films. They won't have to. The great dramas of life told honestly always confirm a worldview found on the right side of the political, cultural and philosophical spectrum.
interesting points; well taken. Do not forget the propaganda value of Hollywood- it was the weapon most coveted by Uncle Joe Stalin, and his acolytes did their best to bring that to fruition. Which, of course, brought on the HUAC hearings and the so-called 'blacklist'. Since then there has been a reverse blacklist (ask John Milius) far more potent than anything that preceded it…
The screenwriters all suck right now… well at least most of them… I can't even remember the last 3 movies I watched in the Theaters let alone their plot line… Now ask me what the last 3 books I read and I can tell you what the characters are and what the plot line was as well as its theme's… There are tons of good books out there (at least according to my tastes) and even some good music… but why not a good drama… especially in the Historical genre…
I have taken to reading than to watching Tv or Movies… Why? Because the Characters and Stories are MUCH better.
Yes, I highly recommend them. Very loyal, great guard dogs, and most people that see them in your yard give your entire property berth.
Mostly Gort destroyed the weapons, not the people wielding them. And I don't have a problem with a message about thinking before you start blasting. But the real disturbing message, even in the original, is the idea of sentient beings turning the major decisions of life and death over to robots (or bureaucrats) to be made like some sort of mathematical equation.
I'm boycotting Hollywood completely because of its politics.
I will never give them my money again.
So far, it's been great and has enriched my life immensely.
Hasn't been bad for the wallet, either.
I started a group called "Opt-Out, " comprised of others who feel the same way.
We don't patronize any business that promotes leftism.
If a magazine features Obama, it gets canceled. TV shows or news that promote leftism, notched out of the channel line-up.
Whether part of our movement or not, others are doing the same. Despite the claims and excuses of the leftist media, it IS their politics that have put them out of business.
Remember this:
Even if Obama takes over the newspapers and the other outlets, and he will, he can't make us buy them.
At least, not yet.
Actually the message of the original movie was basically, "We don't care what you guys do to yourselves or your planet, but don't spread your BS to us, or else".
That's not leftist, it's actually a little on the conservative side. Just look at radical Islam. If they kept to blowing up themselves instead of spreading their BS to all corners of the globe I'd have no problem with them. but since they went full retard they needed to be dealt with, not appeased. THAT would be leftist.
Wow, I think you missed the point of that movie chief….
…and the Hollywood comedy, and the Hollywood thriller, etc.
Well, the "superior" aliens are justified in my opinion because your society has to be technologically advanced to make a trip across light-years of space.
I think you've hit upon something here. Most of the dramas nowadays try to make everything so complicated and full of twists. It tells me that some directors don't really have a story to tell, only the next scene with which to shock people in a vain attempt to be provocative. Unforgiven is a rarity now…..
Bailouts with taxdollars will be us buying them.
To be honest I've never seen anyone denounce Dark Knight. In fact I've only seen the opposite. But I see your point. It just seems so incredibly self-indulgent that these extremely left-leaning movies keep getting churned out one after the other.
No one wants to actually tell a story anymore, they just want to push an agenda……
Excellent point, MovieBob. I've always noticed that it doesn't matter exactly what politics is being preached within a movie; it stinks if the preaching is done at all.
And you make a damn good point about exceptionalism. Indeed, the idea that you can improve yourself implies that you're not good enough right now, but according to your post, "the average man" is treated as a being of higher understanding while the exceptional man is treated as conniving and slimy, so improving yourself becomes pointless at best and evil at worst. Thus, ignorance is boosted as good.
And politics means coercion, nothing voluntary.
I always though that Sixties radical slogan "the personal is the political" was sinister.
All movies made today are geared towards 12 year olds. Adult movies (not porn) are rare. There is another problem. Hollywood has no stars. Where are the Cary Grants and Clark Gables today? They don't exist.
The Hollywood of Grant, Gable and Jimmy Stewart was conservative. Movies were pro-America and supported our efforts in WW2. Gable and Stewart gave up Hollywood to join the military and fight. When is the last time one of these so-called movie stars from today gave up everything and went to Iraq to fight the war on terror? The answer is simple: never have, never will.
I wouldn't recognize a "star" today if she walked up and kissed me on the cheek. Without real stars, Hollywood no longer exists.
The progressives in Hollywood are Marxist in many ways (not when it comes to their own big monetary fortunes, but that's what makes their hypocrisy so much fun) and one thing Karl Marx heavily promoted was "socialist realism." That meant that the arts – novels, paintings, plays and anything else that could be stuffed under the umbrella of entertainment – be used to indoctrinate the masses into socialistic thinking. Constantly make movies with slanted viewpoints, and you'll get the public to vote for Democrats. There's also plenty of this garbage in both cable and network TV shows.
The difference is, in the US you aren't (yet) forced to watch and play along with the new government under Obama.
Politics, of any persuasion, has not killed the Hollywood drama.
What has killed the Hollywood movie is marketing departments.
In the 1940s and 1950s–probably up through the 70s, actually–the role of marketing was to promote a movie. Starting the 1980s, I believe, marketing began affecting casting and direction decisions. We now have design by committee, with every ounce of life sucked out of a project on the basis of test audience responses.
went and saw it with immediate family; the plan was knowing it would be awful we would return and immediately put in the nice re-mastered DVD of the original… worked well for us.
yeah, it was in the original Harry Bates novella 'Farewell to the Master'- they really amped it down for the film. We thought Rennie was the cat's meow as a kid, and even though Gort 'had absolute power of us' he still told him what's what…
watch out as the left is coming after talk radio. fight back ! http://www.freedomtolisten.org
I don't go to many movies these days. All it takes is a glance at a review or a summary and you usually know the story: it's villain is either a corporation of a businessman killing people right and left to protect their profits. Yawn. But then I guess that finding another sort of villain would cause too much brain strain among the "enlightened."
And having ruled out movies about zombies, vampires and serial killers, there isn't much left. It's enough to drive you back to books, but many of them are getting so politically correct these days that I'll have to take up sudoku.
But you know that the government's going to do when Hollywood finally collapses. Their bailout's coming, and if you don't watch their movies when they're government subsidized, your name will be taken down and you will be punished, just as it will be if you don't buy a car from Chrysler in the future.
I love this website… and I have referred many to BigHollywood. Thx for all the insight. When I read these editorials… and all the ensuing comments… my hope is restored.
Eagerly awaiting the New Hollywood…
It's funny how the fully-indoctrinated leftist can't see this. But I'm glad to know that I'm not alone in experiencing this problem. It's literally gotten to the point that I have to fully vet any movie before going to see it or renting it, after seeing tons of movies needlessly infected with left-wing politics.
When I mention this to lefties they have one of two responses: either denying such bias exists, or claiming that I'm too 'closed-minded' for not wanting to hear it. But the thing is, we hear it all the time. And it's not like it's well-presented or well-thought-out, it's always just cheap shots and rants – for a good example of this check "The Shooter", or the horrible remake of "The Manchurian Candidate". There's never an attempt to provide balance or present the other side of an issue. It's just straight childish dogma.
It's even worse on television, which is why I don't watch much TV. Heck, even 24 has gone the way of the statist. Sad times in which we live.
You're seriously going to use a modern attempt at film noir as your counter-argument? Nobody goes to see film noir.
I think Hollywood is not just expressing their own beliefs but trying to re-educate all of us out here in flyover land. They seem to think they are smarter and know better than all the people out here "clinging to guns and religion" (even though we are the ones they need to show up at the cinema with cash for tickets). They can't RESIST lecturing everyone, given the chance. I can't watch the Academy Awards anymore because it has become so politicized.
Vince wrote
"You can blame liberal Hollywood all your want, but your article can be chalked up to nothing more than misguided opinion. "
I agree. The films that make tons of money are geared to the audience that goes to the movies, young kids on dates or looking for a date. Wish I was still that age. Serious drama is more likely to be found in the art house and on HBO. Or it is the product of a respected filmmaker who gets his star studded cast to work for less than their usual fee. Blaming liberals for executive decisions based on market assumptions is a bunch of baloney.
I am someone who enjoys movie criticism better than I enjoy most movies. A previous commentator wrote that marketing was at fault for lesser box office returns, but I disagree. The repulsive behavior of some actors cause me not to be interested in those actors' movies. Other factors to blame are writing and directing and editing.. A good movie needs all of those things. I hate it when a good story is ruined by bad directing or a foul line which should have been deleted and that happens quite often. A case in point is a movie called 'The Electric Horseman' . It was a great movie until Willie Nelson's character utters the gratuitous vulgarity of "I'm going to find me a girl who can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch". Can anyone imagine a line like that in 'Gone With The Wind" or 'The Maltese Falcon'? No, because those movies had those essential requirements of good writing, directing, and editing. Marketing is important, but manure can only be marketed so much.
Worse, if we buy.
Then we'll be paying for it twice.
Obama's favorite ploy.
Nice! Thumbs up!
And really, there's something to the saying that all the good movies have been made.
How many original ideas do we see out of Hollywood?
Maybe one film every ten years?
I've got most of the films I care to see on DVD, or can check them out at the library.
It's not about saving money for me, though.
It's about denying them my money.
They've gotten this far using our cash to fund their destruction of America.
Choke the supply.
I loved Starship Troopers, it was good badfun.
Now having said that, I'd really love to see a faithful adaptation of the book, complete with all of the political lectures made too.
You're right! Paul Newman's passing reminded me of what a REAL Hollywood star actually looked like. Everyone knows who you are, even if they haven't seen one of your movies, and they aren't disgusted by your pathetic off screen antics.
I saw a commercial for some hollywood show and , I swear, I had no idea who these people were that they were gushing about. They looked like you basic mouth breathers to me! At least I can take comfort in knowing I'm not the only one that has just totally lost interest in anything coming out of hollywood. Maybe that's a good thing, It seems to me we put them way too high up on a pedestal over the past 10 or 15 years, and lost sight of the reality that these people are really just a bunch of Paid (Obama's Tax Breaks) Useful Idiots.
Paul, that movie is very similar to the Book of Job…that a commie story too?
If you put today's stars in a time machine and sent them back to 1942, do you think any of them would have joined the war effort? I don't think they would have the internal fortitude.
I haven't see The Electric Horseman but I don't believe just because a movie has foul language = bad movie. Maybe that line came out of nowhere or was out of character – I don't know. Obviously some films overdo it in those departments but a word here or line there doesn't ruin a movie for me. I agree that that sort of thing shouldn't be used IN PLACE OF good writing. Why come up with a clever pun or witty insult when "F—!" will do instead? I think Seth Rogen is funny but his constant use of the F word (I'm no prude by the way) gets a bit tiring. It's like, come on, get some new material!
But that's the thing. The writer of the article mentioned The Reader and the various sexual attitudes therein. Did the filmmakers wake up one morning and say, "We want to make a movie that glamorizes pedophilia so we can indoctrinate those people in the flyover states!" or did they simply want to make the best movie they could about a distasteful subject?
I think both sides are guilty of reading too much into certain things and assuming that, if a movie features X, then it must be (liberal/conservative/etc.) whether the filmmakers intended it or not. And X can = anything from a gay character to a morally ambiguous ending… anything.
As I mentioned in a previous comment, I don't believe just because a film features X (where X can = a gay character, drug addict, evil businessman, etc.), it doesn't necessarily mean it's liberal or conservative. I think both sides are guilty of reading too much into things and taking their own prejudices into account (which I suppose is only natural).
I blame studio execs for focusing almost exclusively on the 18-24 male demographic at the expense of everyone else. I also blame marketing lackeys for focusing on the "all important" opening weekend. I can't believe there was a time when movies actually played for months and months! (I guess Titanic is the closest thing to that for someone of my generation.)
I'm 26 and a film school grad, but I rarely go to movies simply because I have a nice HDTV and a PS3 and I can simply Netflix the movie three months later. My parents don't go to movies simply because there isn't anything that interests them. My mom watched the Sex and the City movie when it came on HBO and my dad wants me to Netflix Gran Torino when it comes out (next month).
And I'm the first one to smack my forehead when I read about a sequel/prequel/adaptation/re-imagining coming out. Seriously, we have to do another Wall Street movie? This has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with creativity and a lack of risk-taking. (And by risk-taking, I mean making a movie NOT based on an existing property.)
My friend and I are writing a spec comedy pilot. Yes, it has a couple of gay supporting characters. Are we trying to force our viewpoint on an unsuspecting public? No. We just wanted to have a gay character or two. No ulterior motive, no subterfuge. We also have a Christian supporting character (who I think is the sanest one on the show and I'm making the effort to do him justice because, as a secular Jew, I don't want to be accused of fakery.)
Feel free to ignore Paul_D.
Olivia says he's a pro-Obama troll.
I thought that Taken was a French film? Are we saying – the Lord help us if its true! – that the French have more testosterone than us these days?
I notice the word "progressive" gets used a lot here in reference to the Stalinists in Hollywood and America at large.
What's going to happen to Hollywood's standing, and the media outlets' standing, now that people are shunning them and getting their news and entertainment elsewhere?
They won't be able to gradually brainwash us into using their terms, like "progressive."
They won't be able to memory hole the past by shifting terms, like they've tried to do with "global warming" to "climate change."
Even using the term, "Marxist" is being too kind.
And what is "progressive" about pushing the same FAILED ideas, over and over again?
Today's Democrat is yesterday's Bolshevik or National Socialist.
The same kind of people who butchered millions for Lenin, Hitler and Stalin.
They're thugs, dreaming of fascist dictatorship over all those who, in their bigoted view, are unfit for party membership and must be re-educated or cremated.
In what way is that progressive?
I thought it was pretty good – most military films have the stereotypes that you can see the biases of the folks that made it, and if you ignore them or laugh them off, the story itself can be pretty entertaining. That was Starship Troopers. Plus, having read the book beforehand (which I liked), it was interesting to see where the film diverged from the book to reflect modern morality/filmmaker's biases, where it stuck to the story, and what was omitted.
What is an example of a "good" drama?
I'll admit, I'm not into drama much, not in good times or bad. I particularly don't want to go to a movie that is a downer or preaches. I really *don't* want to spend my spare time wallowing in someone elses misery… particularly fictional misery.
I thought that "The Soloist" looked interesting, but I'm still trying to decide if I should go to "Wolverine" or "Terminator" or *both* and if maybe I ought to go to the Trek movie in the theater as well. I'm already way over-budget. I did wonder, though, why the trailers seemed so quiet about Robert Downey Jr.?
The decline of the Drama is not due to "marketing" and it is not based on teen-only appealing movies. It's not based on even Left-Right politics since those don't really exist (rather Elite vs. Populist cultural battles of which politics is merely part of the struggle).
No, the decline of the Drama is based on the narrow elitism that is self-defeating among Hollywood's producers, writers, executives, directors, and stars. Most "art" movies are as tedious and predictable as an Al Gore on moralizing Global Warming, with the traditional helping of hypocrisy, since absent sexual promiscuity, Hollywood largely eschews various Art Movie themes of anti-Materialism, living amongst the "magical Third Worlders" etc. You don't see Hollywood bigshots living among Salvadoran immigrants for example.
There are not that many young people (birth dearth) so successful movies like Iron Man or Dark Knight draw from old/young, male/female. Just like they always do. "Marketing" is not that different than before and movies like "Milk" and "Gran Torino" and "the Reader" are hardly dreamed up in Marketing departments.
"And its not only the dramas; the sci-fi films too!"
That's why I'm not going to watch "Caprica", the prequel-series to "Battlestar Galactica". Outside of the spacewar main plotline, BSG was nonstop pc propaganda from start to finish. I was already hooked when I realized this, but the it's over now, & I'm not signing up for anymore….
I think part of the star problem is the entertainment media (Access Hollywood and their ilk) whose only concern is "Who's hot? Who's not?" and they elevate actors to A-list status who may not be ready yet (or who haven't earned it yet). I didn't see Twilight but do the kids in that film really belong on the A-list alongside Will Smith, Adam Sandler, and Denzel Washington?
And there are many actors who should be big movie stars but for one reason or another aren't. Matthew Fox (from Lost) and Nathan Fillion (Firefly) come to mind.
Thanks for responding. Will do some research on Great Pyrenees!
Its a wonderful life is "commie drivel"? Yeah?
Karnick? You nailed it.
I just finished watching 'The Invasion'. I nearly gagged. It wasn't a film, it was a leftist sermon that was as subtle as a hammer between my eyeballs. The low point – well, there were so many of them but this was the lowest point – was Kidman sermonizing at a dinner table that the only thing that redeemed mankind was the fact that feminism now existed in the world. I kid you not – play that film (on an empty stomach, of course) and you will hear it with your own ears. Dang! I loved the original 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' – even the remake was cool – but THIS? This just grabbed an awesome premise and clubbed it so mercilessly with the PC bat that there was blood on the walls. Literally, I sat in front of my TV set and watched what could have been an awesome film chainsawed in half and then set on fire by Hollywood's leftist hysteria.
Gag!
I watched it with a semi-liberal buddy of mine, and even he agreed that it was dreck. Damn thing might as well have had Obama's logo on the lower right hand corner of the film the whole time.
To top it all off, when we got back to my buddy's place, we watched the original TDTESS on Netflix, and it blew the remake completely out of the water!
I don't mind profanity if it fits, but sometimes it's completely out of left field, but even then instead of being offended I usually just go "Where did that come from?"
The one place where it definitely fits is military themed movies, when I was in High School and I saw "Hamburger Hill" I just laughed at the one character's description of coming home on leave and asking his mom to "please pass the motherf***ing potatoes." At the time I just thought it was a funny line. Now years later, I've done it without thinking (many) times myself. Not with potatoes as I recall, but once with turkey in front of my whole family, then it took me 10 seconds to wonder why everyone was staring at me catching flies.
Profanity as a crutch or giggle inducer in movies usually just makes me shake my head, but there are some situations where yeah people do talk like that, all the time.
Actually, the message Klaatu gave was that we humans can do whatever we want on our own world. However, if we start messing with other worlds, bringing aggression and war, we'll be fried to a crisp.
So they weren't saving us from ourselves. They didn't care if we blew ourselves up or not. They just won't put up with us trashing the neighborhood.
[...] Leftist Politics Killed the Hollywood Drama by S.T. Karnick [...]
…I blame studio execs for focusing almost exclusively on the 18-24 male demographic at the expense of everyone else…
My brief brush with possible Hollywood fame and fortune ran into this. A studio specializing in live action and animated shorts was looking to branch out into features. (Translation: low budget, no big name stars.) They liked my script about a hard-boiled P.I. looking for redemption. Except the characters needed to be younger. Leads in their mid30's to mid 40's? Too old, I was told. Okaaaay. Could they give me a little guidance on how to explain how a cast of 'High School Musical' types managed to gain the experience and knowledge to conceive and launch a plot to get a corrupt D.A. elected a State senator, and frame a disgraced PI for rape and murder? Especially when the chief conflict of the story to be resolved was how a middle-aged PI handles having reached the point in his life where he could decide to just phone it in the rest of his life, or rededicate himself to helping the needy and friendless?
I never heard from them after that.
yeah nice one, all the leads and creative direction was done by Australian nationals. But yet it was still Hollywood as if if came from the low down USA, or is it that slimy us dollars that makes it Hollywood? If the money came from the EAU would it still be… Hollywood?
I'm wondering… do you appreciate the irony that you hold up as an example "Gone With The Wind" which was LEGENDARY in it's day for including the line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" which was at the time – and for some time afterward – considered by the culture of the time to be as gratuitous a vulgarity as you consider your example to be?
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