Cinematic (and TV, What the Hell) Pet Peeves

[transmogrifier]

List the things you dislike (or are just completely sick of) in movies and TV on general principle.

For me:

1. Biopics about artists
2. Affluent adult children mope about selfish parents
3. That stuttery, streaky camera effect that Peter Jackson likes that I most recently saw in Better Call Saul
4. The Chosen One trope
5. Netflix focusing on original content rather than just collecting media
6. Negative reviews of popular movies being dismissed as "backlash"
7. The knee-jerk dismissal of that wonderful word "overrated"
8. Fucking teasers for trailers

[Irish]

- Directors who use the flat plane of the camera to pretend their characters don't have peripheral vision.
- That TV is still as dumb as it ever was. It just looks better because budgets are higher.
- Blockbusters that barely manage to squeeze one woman onto their main cast
- That CGI means never having to acknowledge gravity.
- The use of violence as pure spectacle.
- Everything is shot on steadicam and it leaves most movies looking like nobody bothered to compose or block.
- A culture that has become narrower and dumber in the ways it portrays both women and men.
- That everything is written and shot at a TV level, regardless of audience or intent.
- Four quadrant thinking.
- Weekly box office reports as a form of criticism.
- The lack of variety at the typical multiplex.
- The cynical way studios leverage progressive politics to repackage tired material.
- That Netflix is to movies what Amazon was to books: Pure poison.
- That Ridley Scott doesn't have the good sense to retire. Or die.

[Dead & Messed Up]

- Everything is shot on steadicam and it leaves most movies looking like nobody bothered to compose or block.

THIS A THOUSAND TIMES AND FOREVER.

[Ivan Drago]

1. Quirky-for-the-sake-of-quirk aesthetics (every shot at an oblique angle, vibrant colors, static camera. . .in other words, a Sundance crowdpleaser)
2. Teasers for trailers
3. The twist where the villain gets arrested but planned to be caught
4. Cartoonish portrayal of social media usage in movies
5. Conveyor-belt stalker/thrillers that rip off Fatal Attraction (eg. Obsessed, No Good Deed, When The Bough Breaks)
6. Teen Titans GO! literally being the only show on Cartoon Network during the day
7. Literally every company ever getting their own streaming service
8. Live action Disney remakes
9. Unambitious animation (films that are just made to hold kids' attention with pretty colors and annoying sound effects...eg. Smurfs: The Lost Village, everything from Illumination Entertainment)



- The cynical way studios leverage progressive politics to repackage tired material.

Examples?

[transmogrifier]

9. Unambitious animation (films that are just made to hold kids' attention with pretty colors and annoying sound effects...eg. Smurfs: The Lost Village, everything from Illumination Entertainment)


With these types of things, I'm sooo not the target audience, thus I don't really begrudge them their existence.....



7. Literally every company ever getting their own streaming service


This, on the other hand, will drive me to piracy.

[Watashi]

1. 80's nostalgia.

The 80's suck, guys. Move the fuck on.

[Dukefrukem]

7. Literally every company ever getting their own streaming service


Good one. I was about to say none of the things listed really bothers me and then I read this.

[Ezee E]

1. 80's nostalgia.

The 80's suck, guys. Move the fuck on.

It's transitioning to 90s nostalgia. We're good.

[transmogrifier]

It's transitioning to 90s nostalgia. We're good.

Not before a Quantum Leap movie. Come on, the one show that would actually make a pretty good movie in the right hands.

[Skitch]

This, on the other hand, will drive me to piracy.
Table for two, please.



2. Affluent adult children mope about selfish parents

I hate this shit so much.

[Gizmo]

- Sequels just because the first one made so much money, even if the story was told
- 0.25 second cuts during 3 minutes of action/fight causing me to have no idea what's even going on.
- All these goddamn remakes
- A 200 page book getting turned into a trilogy

[number8]

Flawed protagonists who are meant to be likeable because of their one true passion.

[megladon8]

As someone who works in retail - movie merchandise tie ins that make no sense.

No one wanted Star Wars oranges.

[Irish]

No one wanted Star Wars oranges.

Were they oranges shaped like Porgs? Because I'm pretty sure DaMU would buy them. #porglove

[Spinal]

"You can do anything you set your mind to."
"Don't ever stop chasing your dream."
"You were put on this earth for a purpose."

[Ezee E]

Alcoholic cops that have good intentions.

[Winston*]

Ambiguous endings for the sake of it.

[Spinal]

Ambiguous endings for the sake of it.

Curious about some examples of this.

[Ezee E]

One more cop one:

-Cops that are so obviously racist/evil/one-sided.

I'll get down with the ambiguous ending as well. I'll need to think of a good example, but sometimes I think they're put at a crossroads, or it ends ambiguously, simply because the filmmakers just don't know how to end it.

[Dead & Messed Up]

The Innocents pulled it off, but that's one.

[Skitch]

Curious about some examples of this.

I would say American Vandal was a good example of this. It was the only thing that kept me from giving it a full on A grade. I wanted a smoking gun/clear conclusion, and instead was left with vagaries and no resolution.

[Irish]

I wanted a smoking gun/clear conclusion, and instead was left with vagaries and no resolution.

That was part of the point they were trying to make. The characters come to realize that their project is exploitative and the film itself maintains that point of view.

If they had offered a clearer, "smoking gun" resolution, "American Vandal" would be an example of the very thing it attempted to criticize. The ending was one of the most artistically honest choices I've seen in a long, long time.

[Skitch]

I knooooooow.....but I have needs inside lol

[Irish]

lol you dork :D

[transmogrifier]

Not cinematic, but loud sneezers on public transport. Burning hatred for 10 seconds at a time.

[/currently on the subway]

[TGM]

Not cinematic, but loud sneezers on public transport. Burning hatred for 10 seconds at a time.

[/currently on the subway]

It can be cinematic, if they bring that shit into the theater. Though that's bound to go into an entirely different topic. :p

[baby doll]

Not cinematic, but loud sneezers on public transport. Burning hatred for 10 seconds at a time.

[/currently on the subway]You live in South Korea, right? I would've thought day drunk westerners sitting on the seats reserved for old people was the bigger annoyance.

Speaking of which, the westerners in South Korea are generally scum (at least in Busan; I can't speak to Seoul). If I went by one of my regular restaurants (i.e., ones with picture menus) and saw westerners inside I wouldn't go in because, even sitting on the other side of the restaurant, you can hear every word of their conversation.

[Grouchy]

Jesus, you guys are touchy. You find sneezes annoying?

[transmogrifier]

Jesus, you guys are touchy. You find sneezes annoying?

Loud ostentatious sneezes in public? Damn right they’re annoying.

[Grouchy]

...

[Dukefrukem]

You live in South Korea, right? I would've thought day drunk westerners sitting on the seats reserved for old people was the bigger annoyance.

Speaking of which, the westerners in South Korea are generally scum (at least in Busan; I can't speak to Seoul). If I went by one of my regular restaurants (i.e., ones with picture menus) and saw westerners inside I wouldn't go in because, even sitting on the other side of the restaurant, you can hear every word of their conversation.

Racist much?

Edit: I'm kidding' but this post reads very odd.

[Sycophant]

Not if you've spent a lot of time in (at least some part of) Asia.

[Dukefrukem]

Need more information.

[number8]

Here is an accurate depiction of the way white people behave in restaurants in Asia.


https://youtu.be/SfHus3qt6TM

[Dukefrukem]

http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/shaking_head_breaking_bad.gif

[Sycophant]

:thumbsup:

[Peng]

A demographic of travelers from certain places will be attracted to some destinations. Speaking from my experiences as a Bangkokian, thankfully western travelers vary a bit, but I will instantly evade the area (and especially if I'm in public transport; it's already hellish enough transporting here without the human factor, thanks) if I saw other travelers from a certain Asian country more than four gather, and especially if they are in a group tour.

[Grouchy]

Not sure if it's a pet peeve, but I find it hard to take seriously women who have tiny bottles of hand sanitizer hanging from their purses. I don't know if this is a thing in the US.

I also don't know how to relate to people who never drink anything alcoholic, specially if they insist that they don't "need to".

[Ezee E]

Ha. I've never heard of "talking too loud."

By the way, do Australians get looped in as "Westerners?"

[Skitch]

I don't know what you guys are talking about, Americans are loud obnoxious disgusting fuckers in American restaurants.

[Dukefrukem]

How did this turn into just a thread about pet peeves?

[Skitch]

Sorry. Back on track. I'm annoyed how colossally they fucked up the sequel to Silent Hill. The ending of the first so damn ripe for a kickass follow up. Weak "peeve", I know, but the sequel should have been essentially the second half of the story, ala Kill Bill 2.

[Irish]

Between Meg's one-off comment about single sneezes and trans' comment about annoying sneezes, we may need a dedicated sneezing thread.

Also a Porg mega-fan thread.
And a McNuggets recipe thread.

[Grouchy]

Meg's one-off comment about single sneezes
I don't remember if I commented on this, but it hit the nail on the head for me. I find it impossible to sneeze only once.

[Ezee E]

Ha. Babish does a McDonalds Szechuan Sauce recipe video and also shows how to make the McNuggets. So there you go!

[Dead & Messed Up]

We've talked about it before, but I hate nearly all fan theories online and think that if the filmmakers actually used any of them, fans would justifiably throw fits for their laziness.

As for cinematic pet peeves, I think we can all agree: Eric Balfour.

[baby doll]

By the way, do Australians get looped in as "Westerners?"Yes.

[baby doll]

I don't know what you guys are talking about, Americans are loud obnoxious disgusting fuckers in American restaurants.That's probably why they're so annoying in an Asian context. In America, it's just part of the general background noise, but in South Korea, it's like a bomb going off.

[baby doll]

Racist much?

Edit: I'm kidding' but this post reads very odd.Just to clarify, the American dude bros who infest Asian cities like pubic lice are people who would be complete fuck ups in an American context, but exploit the prestige associated with being a white person and a teacher to paper over how completely useless they are.

[Skitch]

That's probably why they're so annoying in an Asian context.

THEY'RE COMPLETELY ANNOYING IN AMERICAN CONTEXT.

[Winston*]

THEY'RE COMPLETELY ANNOYING IN AMERICAN CONTEXT.

I agree. All Americans are terrible.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I agree. All Americans are terrible.

Indeed. We even found a way to elect Trump.

[Irish]

It's nice that Ohio and Korea have something in common, though! :D

[number8]

We've probably had a debate about this before, but...

YOU: Ugh, I wanna see Babe Rubber but it's three and a half hours long. Nobody got time for that.

ALSO YOU: Just finished bingeing all eight hours of Stringy Thongs! I wish it was longer!

Fuck you.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I recognize what you're saying, but don't you figure there's a psychological element to it? Like the way a project at work or school can feel overwhelming until you break it apart into discrete chunks and attack those smaller pieces?

[number8]

I recognize what you're saying, but don't you figure there's a psychological element to it? Like the way a project at work or school can feel overwhelming until you break it apart into discrete chunks and attack those smaller pieces?

Someone should try to release Fanny and Alexander with fake credits inserted every 45 minutes. See if people find it easier to sit through.

[Sycophant]

When I've been very busy (grad school and so on), it's hard sometimes to sit down and say "I'm starting this movie at 7:30pm, when it ends it'll be 10:30pm." That can be a weird hurdle to jump through. But at the same time, I'm not a huge binger of TV these days. I tend to watch at max about 2 or 3 hours of a TV show at a time (and usually actually only one or two eps), and when that does happen, part of that is the knowledge that I can easily abandon ship at any given time, take a break to answer emails or something, or whatever.

But also, I don't like it when people complain about movies being too long (for the most part), unless it's after the fact and is rooted in a substantial critique about what the film actually did as opposed to an issue with how much time the film "took" from them. I think there's an irritating flattening of films and so on into units of content that are consumed by viewers that's going on here. People (like comedians Howard Kremer and Adam Conover) who complain about movies being too long tend to ground things in artless complaints about how they need to be more efficient in delivering "the story" to them, which is a despairingly anti-film thing to say. Wikipedia exists, you cretins.

The trend in Hollywood blockbusters routinely clocking in above two hours is interesting, though. Why's that happening? I'm not sure it's because people want more bang/time for their buck. Or is it?

[Dead & Messed Up]

When I've been very busy (grad school and so on), it's hard sometimes to sit down and say "I'm starting this movie at 7:30pm, when it ends it'll be 10:30pm." That can be a weird hurdle to jump through. But at the same time, I'm not a huge binger of TV these days. I tend to watch at max about 2 or 3 hours of a TV show at a time (and usually actually only one or two eps), and when that does happen, part of that is the knowledge that I can easily abandon ship at any given time, take a break to answer emails or something, or whatever.

This is the case for me too. I think the most I've binged in the past year was watching three episodes of Fargo on a Sunday because I knew I had a busy week. Otherwise it's typically an episode (two max) to a night.


But also, I don't like it when people complain about movies being too long (for the most part), unless it's after the fact and is rooted in a substantial critique about what the film actually did as opposed to an issue with how much time the film "took" from them. I think there's an irritating flattening of films and so on into units of content that are consumed by viewers that's going on here. People (like comedians Howard Kremer and Adam Conover) who complain about movies being too long tend to ground things in artless complaints about how they need to be more efficient in delivering "the story" to them, which is a despairingly anti-film thing to say. Wikipedia exists, you cretins.

Agreed.


The trend in Hollywood blockbusters routinely clocking in above two hours is interesting, though. Why's that happening? I'm not sure it's because people want more bang/time for their buck. Or is it?

I might be wrong, but I remember hearing that part of this is appealing to foreign markets that prefer longer movies.

[Sycophant]

I might be wrong, but I remember hearing that part of this is appealing to foreign markets that prefer longer movies.

This sounds familiar. Almost mentioned it in my post, but I wasn't sure if it was just my brain making it up. Makes a lot of sense, though.

[Irish]

Possibly relevant to your interests:

Roger Ebert in a 1995 interview talking about media, attention spans, and television:

http://siskelandebert.org/video/913BKGD2H34N/Roger-Ebert-on-One-on-One-1995

(The relevant bit starts around 14:50; the whole interview is 25 minutes)

[Dukefrukem]

We've probably had a debate about this before, but...

YOU: Ugh, I wanna see Babe Rubber but it's three and a half hours long. Nobody got time for that.

ALSO YOU: Just finished bingeing all eight hours of Stringy Thongs! I wish it was longer!

Fuck you.

Fuck you too.

[Skitch]

Agree with 8.

When I say "fuck its 3 hours long" its not because the movie itself is long, its because its probably too long for me to sneak in as a nooner before I have to pick the kids up from school. lol

[Irish]

Media outlets whose definition of "science fiction and fantasy" is so broad that it includes any remote spec fic --- unless it's horror. Eg: "The Punisher" and "The Flash" count but "Gerald's Game" and "It" do not.

FFS, I want to hear about "Star Trek" and "Electric Dreams." I don't wanna hear about CW's superhero shows.

[Spinal]

People who think they're schooling others on Japanese animation, but clearly are only familiar with Miyazaki films.

[D_Davis]

I'm kind of the opposite of those being complained about when it comes to length. These days, if I'm going to devote time to watching a movie, I want it to be a substantial amount of time. I want more movies over two hours. I want to sit and get completely absorbed in something epic.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I'm kind of the opposite of those being complained about when it comes to length. These days, if I'm going to devote time to watching a movie, I want it to be a substantial amount of time. I want more movies over two hours. I want to sit and get completely absorbed in something epic.

I'm not against a long length, I just don't like it when a film feels "stretched out" to accommodate the length. The Pirates movies are a good example, where they pile on the complexity and overall number of characters, but that makes the films feel busy instead of deep/meaningful.

[number8]

I haven't quite made up my mind on how I feel about it. I think usually we can just tell when something is long because of bloat rather than density of content, but that's obviously up for debate for any given movie.

I think one thing that I've been asking, though, is why we even need movies that are purely escapism to last over 2.5 hours. I feel like this is the point that's unsaid in a lot of the complaints, because they're most often directed at superhero/franchise movies.

[Dead & Messed Up]

People who think they're schooling others on Japanese animation, but clearly are only familiar with Miyazaki films.

Small sidebar: do you have others to recommend? Aside from Hiyao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, and Mamoru Hosoda (and Akira), I'm not as familiar with the genre.

[Spinal]

Small sidebar: do you have others to recommend? Aside from Hiyao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, and Mamoru Hosoda (and Akira), I'm not as familiar with the genre.

There's probably 20 different people who post here more qualified to answer this than I am.

[D_Davis]

Small sidebar: do you have others to recommend? Aside from Hiyao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, and Mamoru Hosoda (and Akira), I'm not as familiar with the genre.

Check out Mamoru Oshii's Patlabor films, especially the 2nd one.

[Irish]

I think one thing that I've been asking, though, is why we even need movies that are purely escapism to last over 2.5 hours.

For the perceived value.

Studio movies bloat when the movies are threatened by TV (cf: sword and sandal flicks in the 1950s). They can't really ask somebody to throw down $10-15 for a 90 minute experience. Not when the line between the two mediums gets thinner every year and TV is "free" or at least lower cost.

[Grouchy]

Yeah, I think it's because of what Irish said.

I agree that blockbusters lately feel very bloated. But it's very subjective. I didn't feel the lenght of BR2049 because I loved the experience - others felt it was too long for its plot.

Scorsese's filmography is a good example of movie lenght used for epicness. Casino or Wolf of Wall Street are three hours long and never once feel boring, even if a lot of scenes are just variations on the same scenarios.

[Irish]

James Magold (I think it was him?) said something interesting about this last year -- I wish I had kept the quote -- that blockbusters increasingly rely on elaborate set pieces to sell tickets, and the average blockbuster might have 3 set pieces that last 20-30 minutes each. That eats up at least an hour or more of screentime all by itself.

[number8]

But that's what I'm saying -- emphasis on escapism. I don't think anyone would argue that Blade Runner 2049 was made as a purely escapist exercise. Not in the way, say, Spider-Man was. The reason behind the money, I get. I'm asking why do we as consumers, and wholly as a culture, brook the existence of longer and longer spectacle flicks, almost as if 90 minute good guy vs bad guy fights don't cut it anymore?

I admit this is more of an existential question than anything...

[Irish]

I'm asking why do we as consumers, and wholly as a culture, brook the existence of longer and longer spectacle flicks, almost as if 90 minute good guy vs bad guy fights don't cut it anymore?

Because that's what there. It's not as if there's a lot of variety. The only movies I can think of that are regularly 90 minutes these days are horror films.

There's a whole slew of mid-century genre novels that are thin, maybe 200-250 pages in most print runs, and the only reason they were that length is because published demanded it --- they needed to fit as many books onto drugstore racks as they could.

In the 70s and 80s and beyond, all that stuff became bloated, too, because books weren't sold the same way. So we get 500+ page fantasy novels with plots that run into 3 book series because, again, that's what publishers demanded. Then they moved from cheap paperbacks to trade paperbacks, the price went up, and that changed the value proposition again. Few people are willing to spend $20 for a 150 page science fiction novel.

[Watashi]

Speaking of Stringy Thongs, I was a reminded of a major pet peeve when watching...

When teachers are about to start a new topic of discussion and then the bell rings and they're yelling over bustling students, "don't forget to read chapter 3! This will be on the test!"

It happens in every goddamn high school scene. No teacher ever teaches to the bell, let alone start up a new lesson before it. Stop with that nonsense.

[Grouchy]

In the 70s and 80s and beyond, all that stuff became bloated, too, because books weren't sold the same way. So we get 500+ page fantasy novels with plots that run into 3 book series because, again, that's what publishers demanded. Then they moved from cheap paperbacks to trade paperbacks, the price went up, and that changed the value proposition again. Few people are willing to spend $20 for a 150 page science fiction novel.
Absolutely true. My mother is a writer and she's constantly "encouraged" by her editors to make longer novels.

It's like selling literature by the pound.

[Grouchy]

On that vein I remember in the episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, the latter says that he looks for some sentences that are always said by characters in movies, like, for example, "secure the perimeter!" and "get some rest".

Ever since I watched that I chuckle everytime I hear "get some rest" in a movie. Most recently, in the New Mutants trailer.

[Irish]

Absolutely true. My mother is a writer and she's constantly "encouraged" by her editors to make longer novels.

It's like selling literature by the pound.

I'm fascinated how the basic economics -- like needing to shove as many paperbacks as possible into a drugstore display -- effect the art. I've heard, too, that publishers don't like novels to be over a certain length, like 750+ pages, because it requires a special binding that's more expensive.

ETA: Similar to epic films, which exhibitors don't like because it means less showings per day which means less money for them per week.

[Irish]

he looks for some sentences that are always said by characters in movies, like, for example, "secure the perimeter!" and "get some rest"

This shit drives me batty -- why do they bother having the character speak at all? (Especially since it's cheaper if extras don't speak.)

I always wanted somebody to do something in the vein of "What's Up Tiger Lilly?" --- but make an action movie where every line of dialogue is dubbed from other movies.

[D_Davis]

Few people are willing to spend $20 for a 150 page science fiction novel.

One of the few. :)

[Dead & Messed Up]

On that vein I remember in the episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, the latter says that he looks for some sentences that are always said by characters in movies, like, for example, "secure the perimeter!" and "get some rest".

Ever since I watched that I chuckle everytime I hear "get some rest" in a movie. Most recently, in the New Mutants trailer.

"What are you doing here?" and "Let's get out of here."

[Dead & Messed Up]

Speaking of Stringy Thongs, I was a reminded of a major pet peeve when watching...

When teachers are about to start a new topic of discussion and then the bell rings and they're yelling over bustling students, "don't forget to read chapter 3! This will be on the test!"

It happens in every goddamn high school scene. No teacher ever teaches to the bell, let alone start up a new lesson before it. Stop with that nonsense.

And they're always discussing a Thematically Relevant Subject.

I allow this only in Indiana Jones films, because those films are purposefully evoking B-pulp.

[And they're two hours a pop.]

[number8]

I'm trying to find the photo of it, but there's a whiteboard in the Workaholics writers room with a giant list of phrases that's banned from their scripts. Like "In English!" or "I just threw up in my mouth a little..."

[transmogrifier]

Speaking of Stringy Thongs, I was a reminded of a major pet peeve when watching...

When teachers are about to start a new topic of discussion and then the bell rings and they're yelling over bustling students, "don't forget to read chapter 3! This will be on the test!"

It happens in every goddamn high school scene. No teacher ever teaches to the bell, let alone start up a new lesson before it. Stop with that nonsense.

I just realized what I need to do when I go back to teaching high school.

[Dukefrukem]

Because that's what there. It's not as if there's a lot of variety. The only movies I can think of that are regularly 90 minutes these days are horror films.


There must be some research behind this. I'm willing to bet somewhere someone said, 90 minutes is the maximum running time that a general audience can withstand during a horror film. People leave these films exhausted and drained.

[Ezee E]

There must be some research behind this. I'm willing to bet somewhere someone said, 90 minutes is the maximum running time that a general audience can withstand during a horror film. People leave these films exhausted and drained.

The stories, set ups, etc are so simple. I'm not sure how one could drag those stories out.

I remember I was STILL looking at my watch at last year's Lights Out.

[baby doll]

Few people are willing to spend $20 for a 150 page science fiction novel.I try not to spend more than ten dollars (Canadian) on any book, period. I mean, why read new stuff when all of Jane Austen, the Brontës, William Faulkner, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James is in the public domain?

[TGM]

I mean, why read new stuff when all of Jane Austen, the Brontës, William Faulkner, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James is in the public domain?

Because new authors gotta make a living, too. <_<

[Grouchy]

And because thinking didn't go out of fashion in 1962, right? We cling to that hope.

[number8]

Also because new art is better than old art.

[Sycophant]

That reminds me of a pet peeve I have: The idea that newer is inherently better.

[amberlita]

When characters are at a restaurant, take one to two bites of their newly arrived food, and then someone says "we need to go" even though there's nothing to which they are actually going -- they leave 95% of their food on the table and walk out without paying.

edit: similar pet peeve for cigarettes. two puffs, then it's on the ground for no good reason. no self-respecting cigarette smoker would be that wasteful.

[baby doll]

Also because new art is better than old art.If you know of any contemporary novelists as consistently entertaining as Jane Austen, I'd be very happy to check their work out of the library.

[Grouchy]

Also because new art is better than old art.
What? That's a pretty ridiculous statement.

[megladon8]

That reminds me of a pet peeve I have: The idea that newer is inherently better.


I feel like with art the sentiment is often the reverse.

“They don’t make [insert art / media type] like they used to” feels way more common than “so much better than it ever was”.

[Irish]

Ehhhhhh... pretty sure 8 was joking.

My own tic: The way people overuse "art" so that it's become leeched of all meaning. Nowadays it describes anything created under any circumstance for any purpose. So that mass-produced pop-culture ephemera and blockbuster movies are automatically "art" and so are serial television and advertisements.

[baby doll]

I feel like with art the sentiment is often the reverse.

“They don’t make [insert art / media type] like they used to” feels way more common than “so much better than it ever was”.Some things were better in the past. Hollywood movies (and pre-1970 Japanese cinema), for instance--not because stuff from the past is automatically better than new stuff, but because of how the studio system was organized. After 1960, the studios made fewer, bigger movies, and are consequently more cautious about taking risks. Furthermore, staging became less elaborate and less varied (as David Bordwell persuasively argues in The Way Hollywood Tells It), and scripts have become less concise (The Seventh Victim is only 71 minutes long; Detour is 68). Maybe American TV is better in 2017 than it was in the past (which is not saying much), but I don't think anyone can seriously claim that there are studio films today comparable to Shanghai Express, Trouble in Paradise, Sylvia Scarlett, Make Way for Tomorrow, Swamp Water, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Notorious, Thieves' Highway, Duck Amuck, Johnny Guitar, The Tarnished Angels, or Rio Bravo just to name only the first dozen that come to mind.

[Grouchy]

I actually agree with baby doll here. As far as mainstream entertainment goes, Hollywood today can't hold a fucking candle to its glourious past. Hell, it can't hold a candle to the '80s.

[D_Davis]

One of the main reasons to support to new things being made today is to populate the public domain of the future.

So while lots of great old stuff is available in the PD today, that's only because those creators and works were deemed valuable in the past. So, too, should we support creators and works today, so that the PD is continually and abundantly refreshed and added to.

[number8]

There must be some research behind this. I'm willing to bet somewhere someone said, 90 minutes is the maximum running time that a general audience can withstand during a horror film. People leave these films exhausted and drained.

Btw, the highest grossing horror movie of all time is 2h 15m.

[Dukefrukem]

Btw, the highest grossing horror movie of all time is 2h 15m.

Exorcist?

[D_Davis]

It.

[Dukefrukem]

Just looked it up. It's Exorcist adjusted for inflation. (2 hours and 2 minutes btw)

[number8]

Ehhhhhh... pretty sure 8 was joking.

Not entirely. I do frequent new installations by contemporary artists at modern art museums more often than Im inclined to go visit renaissance or mid century exhibits. I go to various museums fairly often but like if you ask me which artist whose work I've gone to see most often of it's probably Kahinde Wiley or Kara Walker.

Also about 90% of the time when i go see concerts it's usually bands with like one (or in today's SoundCloud era, none) album.

Also when it comes to literature I think it's crucial to always question the canon.

[number8]

Just looked it up. It's Exorcist adjusted for inflation. (2 hours and 2 minutes btw)

Another of my cinematic pet peeve: adjusting BO for inflation like that's supposed to mean anything.

I was talking about It.

[Dukefrukem]

Another of my cinematic pet peeve: adjusting BO for inflation like that's supposed to mean anything.

I was talking about It.

Well isn't the whole point of Box Office results a measure of how many people go see the movie? With ticket prices being so high in 2017, if the same amount of people went and saw Exorcist in 1973 and It in 2017, obviously the 2017 number will be higher. Exorcist would have been a better example to use to counter my 'no one goes to see 2 hour horror movies' post.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Also when it comes to literature I think it's crucial to always question the canon.

Absolutely agreed with this and would extend that to all modes of art.

[Sycophant]

Not entirely. I do frequent new installations by contemporary artists at modern art museums more often than Im inclined to go visit renaissance or mid century exhibits. I go to various museums fairly often but like if you ask me which artist whose work I've gone to see most often of it's probably Kahinde Wiley or Kara Walker.

Also about 90% of the time when i go see concerts it's usually bands with like one (or in today's SoundCloud era, none) album.

Also when it comes to literature I think it's crucial to always question the canon.

There's nothing I disagree with here (apart from which things you claim to go see more often--it's not really my place to agree or disagree with what you do). I dig "New art is better than old art" as a glib reductive statement to counter anyone who might claim that all art/lit/film/music today is not worth bothering with. As a polemic I like it, though I don't think it's a really defensible position.

Canons should be challenged, interrogated, revised, expanded, and sometimes decimated, but I don't think that necessarily means the texts within them shouldn't continue to be read by at least some. I think an inclination to not examine the traditions and purported classics of artistic forms and genres has its pitfalls as does the stance of those who dig in their heels and refuse to engage with anything new.

[Sycophant]

Box office is a lousy measurement for discussions of popularity outside of a particular moment in time (and has its limitations in that moment, too) and I wish we'd gotten our shit together and just started counting attendance decades ago.

[baby doll]

Also when it comes to literature I think it's crucial to always question the canon.That goes without saying. But when it comes to choosing which novel to read in the first place, all things being equal, a book that's long been recognized as a classic is more likely to give pleasure than something that was published last week. Similarly, I'd wager that an exhibition of Renaissance or Baroque art is more likely to give pleasure than a contemporary exhibit, since most of the bad art from those periods hasn't been preserved.

[Grouchy]

Besides, new art is almost always engaging in conversation with old one. I don't know if the time for new subject matter is gone for good but it sure looks like it.

[D_Davis]

But when it comes to choosing which novel to read in the first place, all things being equal, a book that's long been recognized as a classic is more likely to give pleasure than something that was published last week.

This has not been my experience at all. I like to discover new stuff, most of the time. Not always. I did enjoy my read through the Hugo and Nebula winners a few years ago.

[number8]

That goes without saying. But when it comes to choosing which novel to read in the first place, all things being equal, a book that's long been recognized as a classic is more likely to give pleasure than something that was published last week. Similarly, I'd wager that an exhibition of Renaissance or Baroque art is more likely to give pleasure than a contemporary exhibit, since most of the bad art from those periods hasn't been preserved.

You've actually just gave the reason why I prefer new(er) art: the risk. When I read from the canon it's usually just a sense of me being a completionist. It doesn't give me nearly as much pleasure as not knowing anything about an author but supporting them when they need it and finding myself enjoying the work.

[number8]

Well isn't the whole point of Box Office results a measure of how many people go see the movie? With ticket prices being so high in 2017, if the same amount of people went and saw Exorcist in 1973 and It in 2017, obviously the 2017 number will be higher. Exorcist would have been a better example to use to counter my 'no one goes to see 2 hour horror movies' post.

If you're going to adjust to inflation as a way to level the comparison between current and past movies, why aren't we also adjusting the math to the change in number of theaters in the country, the way film distribution model has radically changed, the effect of the introduction of home viewing availabilities, the effect of competition from video games and television, and the arrival of multiple formats that readjusted theater pricing? Just adjusting to inflation is an incomplete metric that makes it even more unfair than just accepting that box office intakes have changed over the years and it's all just counting how much money a film makes in the end anyway.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Once you're comparing films separated by more than, like, five years, it becomes increasingly pointless.

[I hate the horse race element of box office, but as a wonk for numbers, I do find some of the statistics interesting, and it's encouraging to learn when certain movies do well, because that may incentivize studios to pursue similar projects.]

[Dukefrukem]

If you're going to adjust to inflation as a way to level the comparison between current and past movies, why aren't we also adjusting the math to the change in number of theaters in the country, the way film distribution model has radically changed, the effect of the introduction of home viewing availabilities, the effect of competition from video games and television, and the arrival of multiple formats that readjusted theater pricing? Just adjusting to inflation is an incomplete metric that makes it even more unfair than just accepting that box office intakes have changed over the years and it's all just counting how much money a film makes in the end anyway.

Too many variables. It's just supposed to give you a general idea.

[Grouchy]

If you're going to adjust to inflation as a way to level the comparison between current and past movies, why aren't we also adjusting the math to the change in number of theaters in the country, the way film distribution model has radically changed, the effect of the introduction of home viewing availabilities, the effect of competition from video games and television, and the arrival of multiple formats that readjusted theater pricing? Just adjusting to inflation is an incomplete metric that makes it even more unfair than just accepting that box office intakes have changed over the years and it's all just counting how much money a film makes in the end anyway.
Eh, because those variables are impossible to take fully into account. The BO adjustment for inflation is an estimate that can be accepted.

You are seemingly arguing that comparing box office numbers for different films is completely pointless and doesn't lead to any worthwhile conclusions.

[baby doll]

You've actually just gave the reason why I prefer new(er) art: the risk. When I read from the canon it's usually just a sense of me being a completionist. It doesn't give me nearly as much pleasure as not knowing anything about an author but supporting them when they need it and finding myself enjoying the work.I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, since I'm always looking for ways to minimize the risk of my wasting time on crappy art. Certainly I don't enjoy Bach's Brandenberg Concertos, Jane Eyre, or Play Time less because people before me said they were wonderful. Besides which it's impossible to "discover" anything anyway, since everything you see has been pre-selected for you by someone else, whether it's a curator organizing a show of recent work or a distributor promoting and releasing a particular film, to say nothing of the intermediary role of critics in conferring cultural prestige on certain offerings.

[Grouchy]

since I'm always looking for ways to minimize the risk of my wasting time on crappy art
Oh, what a terrible risk! Stay safe, baby doll!

I'm not usually a "middle of the road" kind of guy, but I find you and 8's viewpoints here way too extreme for me. Neither does modern art completely invalidate the classics nor going with a safe bet and watching/reading the canon is always the best idea.

[baby doll]

Oh, what a terrible risk! Stay safe, baby doll!

I'm not usually a "middle of the road" kind of guy, but I find you and 8's viewpoints here way too extreme for me. Neither does modern art completely invalidate the classics nor going with a safe beat and watching/reading the canon is always the best idea.What can I say? My time is valuable, so I prioritize things I think I'm likely to enjoy.

[number8]

Same. My time is too valuable to waste on the dead.

[Grouchy]

My time is not that valuable, to tell you the truth.

[Dukefrukem]

What can I say? My time is valuable, so I prioritize things I think I'm likely to enjoy.

I am leaning this way more and more.

Although, I did just watch the entire Hellraiser and Saw Franchise....

[D_Davis]

The easiest way to minimize risk when reading something new is to give it 50 pages. If you don't like it by 50 pages, put it down and start something else.

Quite early, quit often, and you'll read and enjoy more.

[Dukefrukem]

The easiest way to minimize risk when reading something new is to give it 50 pages. If you don't like it by 50 pages, put it down and start something else.

Quite early, quit often, and you'll read and enjoy more.

What do you do when you're in the middle of a series?

[transmogrifier]

What do you do when you're in the middle of a series?

I find quitting TV shows super easy.

[Skitch]

I find quitting TV shows super easy.

Me too.

[Dukefrukem]

Book series?

[transmogrifier]

Me too.

I just realized Duke is probably talking about book series.

Still, the "sample and quit" option is a good one, particularly in Netflix era where you are not paying by movie. I've only ever walked out of a movie once (because of sound issues), but I've quit watching a lot of movies. I've never understood those who criticize Mike D'Angelo, who has a habit of walking out after 20-40 minutes of things he doesn't like. Why not? Life is short.

[Dukefrukem]

I just realized Duke is probably talking about book series.

Still, the "sample and quit" option is a good one, particularly in Netflix era where you are not paying by movie. I've only ever walked out of a movie once (because of sound issues), but I've quit watching a lot of movies. I've never understood those who criticize Mike D'Angelo, who has a habit of walking out after 20-40 minutes of things he doesn't like. Why not? Life is short.

I've had a few experiences where the ending makes the movie for me.

And yes I was talking about book series.

I'm reading through the Dark Tower right now, Books 1-4 phenomenal. Book 5 was god awful that it took me more than a half of a year to finish. Now I'm on book 7 and it picks back up to the pace I loved. So do I quit Book 5 and stop reading the series? Or do I power through it to the end? I choose the latter. And it worked out.

[Skitch]

I assumed Duke meant book series. Those are much harder to quit.

I've quit movies based on the opening credit fonts.

[transmogrifier]

I've had a few experiences where the ending makes the movie for me.

But there comes a point at which the potential payoff of the hypothetical best possible ending is outweighed by the slog of getting there. Also, we’ve all watched enough movies by now to know when something is not in our wheelhouse.

[Dukefrukem]

But there comes a point at which the potential payoff of the hypothetical best possible ending is outweighed by the slog of getting there. Also, we’ve all watched enough movies by now to know when something is not in our wheelhouse.

Fair point. I personally like the feeling of completeness. It's how I play my video games too.

There's been 1 movie in my life I walked out of. Rep to the person who guesses it. (I will accept general franchise guesses; e.g. Star Wars if the movie was Attack of the Clones)

[Irish]

I've had a few experiences where the ending makes the movie for me.

I'm a little bit more interested in this -- which movies?

[Dukefrukem]

I'm a little bit more interested in this -- which movies?

Oh jeeze... Blair Witch Project, Certified Copy, Payback, Count of Monte Cristo.....

[transmogrifier]

Inspiration from another thread. The general presence of these actors are a pet peeve:

James McAvoy
Miles Teller
Emma Watson
Domhnall Gleeson
Jared Leto

[Skitch]

I understand 4 of those names, but McAvoy is a draw for me.

[number8]

At this point, I think Jared Leto is the main reason I still haven't seen Suicide Squad or Blade Runner 2049.

[D_Davis]

What do you do when you're in the middle of a series?

Stop reading and pick up something else.

This whole idea of sticking with a book you don't like, one that you're reading for your own pleasure, is insane

[D_Davis]

I'm reading through the Dark Tower right now, Books 1-4 phenomenal. Book 5 was god awful that it took me more than a half of a year to finish. Now I'm on book 7 and it picks back up to the pace I loved. So do I quit Book 5 and stop reading the series? Or do I power through it to the end? I choose the latter. And it worked out.

Book V is the best of the entire series, and the best single book King has ever written. Read it seven times now, and it gets better every time.

[Dukefrukem]

Book V is the best of the entire series, and the best single book King has ever written. Read it seven times now, and it gets better every time.

Yeh no to all that.

[D_Davis]

OK. You're right. Sorry.

[Grouchy]

At this point, I think Jared Leto is the main reason I still haven't seen Suicide Squad or Blade Runner 2049.
Hahah I was wondering where was your opinion on BR2049.

Natalie Portman used to famously annoy me like that, but I guess I just grew up (?).

[Mysterious Dude]

Just because you can make a CGI sunset, that doesn't mean you should.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9DhHQ9XgAY5Ll4.jpg

[Dukefrukem]

You're right. Let's sit around for a week so we can capture the perfect light we need for that shot.

[Grouchy]

You're right. Let's sit around for a week so we can capture the perfect light we need for that shot.
Well... Yeah?

[Dukefrukem]

Well... Yeah?

Time is money. And it's not even guaranteed you'll get the shot. So why bother?

[Grouchy]

Time is money. And it's not even guaranteed you'll get the shot. So why bother?
*sigh* Because real sunsets exist and can be beautiful and CGI is CGI.

Regardless, in this particular case, the entire movie is CGI so I sort of get doing it. I find it more offensive in something like After Earth where there's a lion scene with a CGI lion. That's just pointless.

This is a good video about justified use of CGI:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChWIFi8fOY

[Dukefrukem]

I guess i'm just confused on what the alternative would be if you're on a schedule or what your suggestion would be to address it, especially if you're shooting the majority in a studio. You're not going to send the entire cast and crew out to a mountain and wait for a sunset that may not even happen. Maybe that was the only option back in the 80s, but we don't really need to do that anymore.

Or are you suggesting they send a Assistant director out to film a REAL sunset and green-screen it in?

[Irish]

I guess i'm just confused on what the alternative would be

That they do something that isn't so visually hackneyed --- and ugly.

(Fakey looking CGI sunsets are a legit pet peeve in my book.)

[Sycophant]

Garish CG looks garish and that's a good enough reason to find another solution.

[number8]

LOL come on. Sunsets happen every day. Indie films with limited schedule and no money get magic hour scenes all the time. It's not Fitzcarraldo.

[Dukefrukem]

I'll start tweeting at directors to SCRUM in sunsets to their PMs.

[Sycophant]

If complaining about fakey looking CG sunsets isn't a legit pet peeve, there are no legit pet peeves.

[number8]

This isn't my pet peeve but I just remembered a memory from a few years ago of this guy who was an aspiring actor criticizing Angelina Jolie when she first got her tiger tattoo. He called it very unprofessional. When asked why, he said an actors' body should be a blank canvas that's ready to be molded into the role, so tattoos, piercings, and unique hairstyles make a director's job more difficult. That's why as a serious actor, he refused to get tattoos or have his hair be anything other than bland and medium length. I thought this was an absolutely hilarious thing to say. I wonder what he's doing now.

[Wryan]

http://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/quickfix/0/2/6/362026_v1.gif

[Sycophant]

This isn't my pet peeve but I just remembered a memory from a few years ago of this guy who was an aspiring actor criticizing Angelina Jolie when she first got her tiger tattoo. He called it very unprofessional. When asked why, he said an actors' body should be a blank canvas that's ready to be molded into the role, so tattoos, piercings, and unique hairstyles make a director's job more difficult. That's why as a serious actor, he refused to get tattoos or have his hair be anything other than bland and medium length. I thought this was an absolutely hilarious thing to say. I wonder what he's doing now.

This is hilarious. Admittedly, maybe a weird hairstyle or body mod might make you less likely to get a job from a director/casting director who can't imagine past the makeup/wigs/haircuts/prosthetics necessary to accomplish the image they have of the character. But, uh, those things do exist.

Not to mention, Angelina Jolie can do whatever the fuck she wants.

[Dukefrukem]

http://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/quickfix/0/2/6/362026_v1.gif

I know I've seen that before...

[number8]

Tom Hardy has to get his shitty arm tattoos covered up in pretty much every single movie he's in.

[Dead & Messed Up]

It's not that shooting a sunset is hard. It's that generating a sunset is both endlessly adjustable and controllable. This is a huge deal when you're a filmmaker. If you generate your own sunset, you don't have to think about weather anymore. You don't have to think about lighting. You don't have to organize your shoot around certain hours of the day. You also don't have to limit yourself to the footage you shot. You can keep trying different things until the day of release. Different kinds of clouds, different colors, different compositions.

That said, yes, they often look janky and annoying. I endorse this pet peeve on principle, while allowing that it's done for entirely sympathetic reasons.

[TGM]

This isn't my pet peeve but I just remembered a memory from a few years ago of this guy who was an aspiring actor criticizing Angelina Jolie when she first got her tiger tattoo. He called it very unprofessional. When asked why, he said an actors' body should be a blank canvas that's ready to be molded into the role, so tattoos, piercings, and unique hairstyles make a director's job more difficult. That's why as a serious actor, he refused to get tattoos or have his hair be anything other than bland and medium length. I thought this was an absolutely hilarious thing to say. I wonder what he's doing now.

That said, I do find it sorta silly how every single character The Rock has played just so happens to have precisely the same instantly identifiable tattoos. :p

[Skitch]

I know I've seen that before...

It was from that Justin Timberlake crap scifi movie from the director of the excellent Gattaca. I refuse to look it up.

[Dead & Messed Up]

That said, I do find it sorta silly how every single character The Rock has played just so happens to have precisely the same instantly identifiable tattoos. :p

And face!

[Dead & Messed Up]

It was from that Justin Timberlake crap scifi movie from the director of the excellent Gattaca. I refuse to look it up.

I believe it was called Timebackers.

[Skitch]

Maybe Rounders 2: Life Clock Fever?

[Dukefrukem]

I believe it was called Timebackers.

Timechasers?

I will also not look it up but I now know the movie.

[Grouchy]

A movie like Thor: Ragnarok is done entirely in CGI backgrounds anyway. They even changed a crucial scene's location (the Mjolnir-breaking) that was already featured in the first trailer from a street alley to an open field. Like DaMU says, filming everything on a green screen allows a director to do whatever he wants and keep changing stuff around even when post-production is already very advanced. Something similar happens with digital cinematography. It used to be that a DP had to decide what the movie would look like before the shooting started. Gordon Willis's very dark Godfather cinematography couldn't be lit in post-production, it was a bold artistic choice. Now most directors and DPs shoot everything as standard, de-saturated as possible and then the real choices are made in the editing room.

I'm not a caveman who's against CGI or technical progress but I think there's good, productive use of CGI and the rest. That's why I included that Fincher video. Zodiac's reconstruction of 1970s San Francisco would be impossible to do without CGI, so that's an example of a technical tool put to good use. Making a Pixar sunset background instead of filming one... I'm not so sure. Why not just become an animator, then? I'm not even that convinced it's a cheaper solution.

Regardless, like I said, it's not so jarring with Thor: Ragnarok because the entire movie is like that.

[Grouchy]

This isn't my pet peeve but I just remembered a memory from a few years ago of this guy who was an aspiring actor criticizing Angelina Jolie when she first got her tiger tattoo. He called it very unprofessional. When asked why, he said an actors' body should be a blank canvas that's ready to be molded into the role, so tattoos, piercings, and unique hairstyles make a director's job more difficult. That's why as a serious actor, he refused to get tattoos or have his hair be anything other than bland and medium length. I thought this was an absolutely hilarious thing to say. I wonder what he's doing now.
Every character played by Joaquin Phoenix has a harelip. Just saying.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I'm not even that convinced it's a cheaper solution.

I doubt it is.

[Neclord]

One thing I wonder is how much outdoors-set greenscreened scenes are actually filmed outside. I know there's simply an issue with replicating outdoor lighting in a studio, and since a lot of greenscreened stuff can just look so underlit and flat...

It's dumb, but I'd almost cite The Room's rooftop scenes as greenscreen done right. Granted, the set is of an absurd scale and looks cheap and the San Francisco skyline is real sketchy, but since they filmed it in an outdoor parking lot the way the actors are lit almost fools you into thinking it's a real place. So much of that set extension done in Fincher films follows the same idea and usually looks great. That guy with two M-16s in Thor looks like he's in a hotel room.

[Irish]

You bastards --- I had to look it up because that Timberlake movie sounded vaguely familiar.

It was called In Time (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/) and was directed by Andrew Niccol, who also did "Gattaca," "S1m0ne" (that shit AI movie with Al Pacino), and "The Host" (the adaption of Stephanie Meyer's shit sci-fi novel).

I watched about half of "In Time" because the trailer looked interesting but the movie was both ridiculous and incomprehensible.

[Skitch]

I watched it all with the hopes that the third act held some great revelation, because Gattaca is so good. It got far worse as it went.

[Wryan]

That gif I posted was just a light comment about how so much CGI can't do proper weight for shit, whether it's cars, people, monsters, whatever. Even high-budget stuff can get so dicey. As soon as it looks unnatural, I get yanked out of the moment. Probably has to do with them using CGI to replace more and more things, so we notice it more. Also, slow-mo tends to mask that issue, if a little.

Also, I got a big unintentional laugh during Ragnarok when Odin points to the cliff edge and says, "Just take a look at that stunning view," and we cut to a staggeringly obvious green screen effect. For fuck's sake...

[Irish]

That gif I posted was just a light comment about how so much CGI can't do proper weight for shit, whether it's cars, people, monsters, whatever. Even high-budget stuff can get so dicey. As soon as it looks unnatural, I get yanked out of the moment.

The weirdest viewing experience I had this year was going back and forth between films made before ~1980 and films made this decade, especially if the older movie involved car chases and practical stunts.

That's my pet peeve about superhero films and action movies these days---there's literally no weight to them.

[number8]

I'm thinking that part of it is that CGI emphasizes movement when they want to convey impact. Even something simple as a car hitting something, they make the car do a little bounce in the back, the whole body of it denting, little nuts and bolts flying off, and dust and smoke whirling around it. It's very influenced by animation, which has to do those things to contrast with the usually static background.

But I rewatched Jackie Chan's Police Story for the whatever-th time a couple of months ago. There's a pile-up scene in it where several dozen cars just comically keep ramming into a car mountain, and it struck me how real cars just stop dead on impact. Even when they fly into the air, when they hit the ground it just plops down rather than doing twirls.

[Wryan]

Thought Pacific Rim got the weight thing pretty right.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I think part of this too is that computer animation is interpolated between keyframes, so the motion often comes off as too-smooth or too-weightless because it's very hard to successfully simulate the hard stops, hitches, and hesitancies that you find in real-life motion when you say, "Here's point A and point Z, now the computer takes us from one to the other."

Motion-capture helps quite a bit, but that "swimmy" movement can still be there.

[Sycophant]

Thought Pacific Rim got the weight thing pretty right.

I think it can be done well, but it just usually isn't.

Completely different but not all that different: in the recent titiles in the Gundam anime superseries, you get giant robot animation that comes in two main different varieties: hand-drawn and computer-generated animation. The hand-drawn stuff builds on a half-century tradition of hand-drawn giant robot animation and has particular techniques for animating movement and weight.

Within the CG stuff, there's--I would say--two basic strategies. One really seeks to emulate the techniques cultivated in pre-digital Gundam series, including more static camera angles and less sweeping pans that emphasize the dimensionality and highlight the planarity of the 3D models. This can be seen in the Unicorn OVA series. In fact, Unicorn uses both hand-drawn and CG robots and there are times where the difference is almost seamless.

The other moves the 3D models for the giant robots snappily and fluidly, animated at a much higher frame rate, as seen in the recent THE ORIGIN OVA series. The effect, honestly, tends to look almost indistinguishable from a video game character. They also tend to pan and whip the virtual camera around the model fluidly and quickly. The framerate moves faster than the character animation. The models look weightless. For me, they leave me absolutely cold, with none of the affective response or technical marvel of the classic stuff. It pulls me out of it in much the same way as sore-thumb CG in a so-called live-action movie.

Anyway, this post was mostly for myself. Have a good day.

[Dukefrukem]

Thought Pacific Rim got the weight thing pretty right.

And pretty wrong as it looks in the sequel. They look like they move more like transformers.

[Dukefrukem]

Every new Spielberg film

[Philip J. Fry]

Or are you suggesting they send a Assistant director out to film a REAL sunset and green-screen it in?Well, if you pre plan the camera angle of your shot (or film the sunset from multiple angles) and adjust your lightning in front of the green screen accordingly, it could theoretically work.