The most interesting parts of the early Marvel movies weren't the super powers or special effects, it was the little notes they gave to their protagonists to humanize them -- Tony Stark as a selfish alcoholic, Thor as a cheerfully oblivious fish out of water, Captain America as earnest but painfully naïve. They seemed to be opening up the possibility of superhero stories that were also human stories, rather than just the kind of juvenile power fantasies Moore is decrying here. But each movie would eventually put that stuff aside and build to yet another Epic Battle as climax, which was disappointing.
In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that the stuff that I found appealing was the result of Marvel, still finding its feet, allowing its filmmakers to doodle in the margins of their studio-approved blueprint a bit. Once the movies took off and the Marvel Formula was proven, they no longer needed to allow space for such divergence from the formula. So we get movies like the Avengers entries, where the entire story is just moving chess pieces around to get them into place for the inevitable Epic Battle.
The Marvel movie I always wanted to see was one that put the Epic Battles aside completely, and focused 100% on telling a character-driven story. Something like the Matt Fraction Hawkeye comics, where the point of the story is deepening our understanding of this one character, grounding him in the context of the brownstone he lives in, the ways he interacts with his neighbors, and their common problem of potentially losing their homes to an aggressive developer. Human-scale stories about human beings.
In other words, I didn't want Avengers: Endgame, I wanted My Dinner with Ultron. But once the Marvel juggernaut picked up enough steam, that was exactly the movie I was never going to get.
It kinda sounds like what you dislike most about superhero movies is the superpowered heroes.
The more interesting ramifications/consequences are often only footnotes. Not every problem can be solved with super strength - Show those.
That story is about Superman basically becoming overexposed to sunlight in a way that makes him progressively more powerful (than Superman was already), but it is also going to kill him.
It is about what a man like that might do when he knows he is going to die and a lot of it is Superman's connection with people.
Will be interesting how the forthcoming Disney+ series based on his run turns out.
obnoxious narcissists making the world worse, one deed at a time.
It's important to specify in mainstream cinema, if one wants to make this critique.
Although it's a different context, one hears with some frequence the same about videogames, but always omitting the fact that the creative product of modern indepedent studios is evergreen (very simply, due to the considerably lower entry barriers than 20/30 years ago).
Just take the opening scene in Endgame, for example. Tony Stark, stranded in space many light years from Earth, with mere minutes left of breathable oxygen. Captain Marvel conveniently appears out of nowhere and escorts him back to Earth and Tony makes a full recovery. That's lazy writing.
How about how Tony Stark conveniently invents time travel? Another example of poor writing and lame plot devices to move the story along.
The recent Stars Wars films are even worse.
Still, it's a fair criticism of superhero movies, and Star Wars.
Time travel was also mentioned in the Ant-Man and the Wasp stinger, so it didn't completely come out of nowhere. Stark didn't invent it, he invented a navigation system.
I've watched almost all Marvel and DC movies, and I quite enjoy them. They're a creative endeavor and they're pretty cool. But I sometimes side with Ian McKellen griping about greenscreens on The Hobbit set. Getting your emotions out to a blank space with no feedback must be quite a challenge.
Iron Man 3 is all about PTSD. Black Panther has a atrong theme about the damage done to children when they are abandoned. Captain Marvel is about the way women are taught to keep their strengths in check. Endgame has Thor's whole plot being about dealing with dismal failure and depression, and how this doesn't have to define you as a person.
I mean, sure, they aren't incredibly deep approaches to these topics. But there is definitely a thread of emotional, psychological experiences running through the Marvel movies.
Just check say its IMDB or iTunes or Google Play or the back of the DVD is all about "a powerful enemy reappears putting the world at risk". Even the foe himself states its reason as a revenge for how blacks are/were treated around the world and he needs Wakanda's tech and weapon.
Hey, don't get me wrong. Black Panther is a good movie, and an actual good story. But check some of Scorcese's movies description or blurbs or reviews, or trailers. I think Black Panther's story is secondary to the spectacle. And that's fine! It doesn't go as far as Transformers into the abyss :)
That comes across the same way as if I said "all romance movies end up with a couple, who don't get along, and there's some obstacle in their romance, and then they discover love, and end with smooching- end credits with some sappy music."
Yes, the elements you pointed out are a predictable part of (many, but not all) super hero movies- but there's plenty of variation if you dig just a little bit deeper. Iron Man 2 has themes of substance abuse and trust, Black Panther questioned the roles of loyalty and honor in running a country... the recent Spiderman had themes of responsibility and whether it's okay to abdicate it...
> To my mind, there's little true creativity to movies anymore
And this sounds a lot like the patent office commissioner who said, about a century ago, "we should shut down the patent office, everything that can be invented already has been."
Yes, there's a lot of unoriginality in cinema, and also a lot of originality, and both of those statements have been true for about a century. Maybe you just need to take a break from cinema for a while, you're sounding burned out.
I find this to be a very good comparison. Most superhero movies and most romance movies follow a pretty strict template from which they don't deviate, so that you can usually very easily predict plot points and in fact can get frustrated if they deviate from the template, even if briefly. These genres of movies are (by the most part) made in a way you can get up, go outside to use the restroom or to buy more popcorn, come back and instantly understand the point of the movie you're at and resume your enjoyment.
This makes for very formulaic, predictable and (to me) boring cinema. Other people enjoy it and in fact get upset in the rare cases where this template gets subverted. (And thankfully, very occasionally it does get subverted)
If we define cinema to exclude boring and predictable, then a lot of US cinema stops being so, super hero movie or not. The same goes for most Hollywood comedies and tons and tons of love stories. Guess it is time to switch to French arthouse.
Guess my point is, whether a movie is considered cinema or not has little to do with whether it is a super hero movie.
Old Boy.
But you're right, there are a lot of great Korean movies. A few more of my favourites are: - New World - Welcome to Dongmakgol
Ehh, when I see people who say this (or say they don't make good music anymore), I just assume they don't actually listen/watch anything new anymore.
There are obviously issues in the movie industry between viewer expectations, publisher resource allocation, and competition with streaming services, it's kind of one big crap shoot. But there are plenty of amazing movies coming out every year from both big and small productions. Scorsese himself listed plenty of good examples in his piece (Ari Aster being a personal favorite of mine), but there is plenty of other directors out there doing great work. As a big fan of horror films, I honestly think there has never been a better time for horror movies. Outside of horror, there is plenty of other great stuff too. If you are really looking for creative films, I am a big fan of basically any A24 published movie - they really do a good job of finding and supporting creative teams.
You re-watched a movie which you found again enjoyable despite being a predictable experience now.
There are other metrics on which do judge entertainment or even art.
I watch GalaxyQuest, Terminator, Jurassic Park, Robocop, Fight Club, and other films almost every year. They're predictable to me but I still find them to be fantastic films with a lot to say and they help remind me to look outside of myself.
This is probably why the parent was getting downvoted. I blew right past that and conflated surprise with unpredictability when they're, arguably, not the same thing.
Scorsese doesn't understand this because he likes mafia movies; not the type of universe you want to live in. Mafia movies are about taking a peak into a grimy sort of world that we all know exists to some degree but don't want to be part of ourselves.
This sounds like a theme park to me, which was exactly Scorsese's point.
this is a laughably bad example. successful art at its best can reveal something new about yourself or the human condition; it can make you feel emotions that you don't even have words for.
overcoming self-doubt is something we teach children.
With that said, my counter point was mainly to point out that you boxing in Scorsese as the "mob" guy is really bizarre. He has plenty of other kind's of movies, some of which you might find uplifting. The Aviator, Silence, or Hugo might fall into the uplifting category, but I feel a lot of his work (and the work of good artists) ends up being more nuanced to the point where associating one emotion to it is kind of diminishing the work.
They did that once or twice in a spin-off series.
But Star Wars already did it in the 70's come to think of it.
If I'm being fair, this predictability problem is pretty rampant in Hollywood. I rewatched Pulp Fiction recently and I remember seeing it for the first time and being blown away. It was anything but predictable. It was hilarious and disturbing at the same time but, most of all, it was creative. To my mind, there's little true creativity to movies anymore.