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Deleted member 40133

User requested account closure
Banned
Feb 19, 2018
6,095
like what makes the action classics of those guys better than MCU

like what makes Terminator 2 better than Black Panther.. Black Panther has richer themes and more depth

what makes Jurassic Park better than Winter Soldier etc. etc.

Black panther is horribly paced, I almost fell asleep in the damn theater, no joke. You're comparing black panther favourably to terminator 2? Geez
 

Acorn

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,972
Scotland
I don't understand why people got so pissed, you don't need to agree with him. His opinion does not override your own.
 

spam musubi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,380
I respect Marty but the more he opens his mouth on this the more he will make room for himself to say something silly. For example:

'Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn't the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.'

If you don't think Guardians of the Galaxy 2 doesn't convey emotional and psychological experiences then I don't think you're being fair to the movie. Sure, it's a big dumb blockbuster, but it can also have heart and convey a deep internal pain. In fact, by appealing to a large audience, it can share more of that than a smaller movie that less people will see.



I'm not a huge Marvel fanboy, and I do agree with part of his point, but there's no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Also the directors he cites are directors of big dumb action blockbusters.
 

Aadiboy

Member
Nov 4, 2017
3,637
I think he's saying that everyone is trying to emulate those directors, which is kind of true.
 

mjp2417

Member
Nov 2, 2017
9,363
(a) Scorsese's obviously going to bat for his cynical baby boomer buddies here (A.I. still god tier though)
(b) Stanning for Marvel movies on video game forums is the actual incarnation of the capitalist dystopia

No one comes out looking good here lol
 

Lakeside

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,210
To go to the theater today with drink, snack etc. is close to $30 a person in my area. You can bet your ass at that sort of investment that I am only going to be going for those mass market blockbusters. Maybe on a streaming service eventually I will watch the more experimental films etc.

This is where I'm at. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that I'm going to a theater to see anything that isn't a "theme park ride" as he puts it.

Anything else I can watch at home.
 

ps3ud0

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,906
I've always thought the Marvel films were popcorn movies and there is nothing wrong with that. I am tired of what feels like them saturating the market though and the likelihood of other films not being made because of that.

I'll ignore his last comment as no doubt in posterity some of the Marvel films will be compared equally to those directors' contributions...

ps3ud0 8)
 

ThousandEyes

Banned
Sep 3, 2019
1,388
I love Marty but he simplifies cinema it seems

what stops people, like i mentioned earlier, from saying Scorsese's films are just "violent white men with guns"
 

Jarmel

The Jackrabbit Always Wins
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,296
New York
I love Marty but he simplifies cinema it seems

what stops people, like i mentioned earlier, from saying Scorsese's films are just "violent white men with guns"
What stops people from saying his films are violent white men with guns? You mean films like King of Comedy, Wolf of Wall Street, Gangs of New York, and Raging Bull? Those films?
 
Oct 27, 2017
5,618
Spain
In for another 20page thread of unchecked ageism, downplaying of Scorsese's films, and bafflingly propping up cookie cutter MCU films (like Captain Marvel) as stirring, prime examples of the art form at its peak
And completely missing the point of what Scorsese says.

30 years ago, studios were always looking for the next big movie and would welcome new ideas and young directors. Now... It's cookie cutter nonsense, all the innovation is in TV.
 
OP
OP
Scullibundo

Scullibundo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,677
It seems odd to slam Marvel for making 'theme park' movies, then to immediately praise James Cameron - who made the biggest movie of all time by making a three-hour amusement park ride.
But Cameron had also made other films and his films on the whole have a lot more thematic and character depth, whilst pushing the medium as a whole forward technologically.
If you think about Scorsese's love of a guy like Méliès, you can understand his appreciation for what Cameron does.
 

ThousandEyes

Banned
Sep 3, 2019
1,388
my point with that is that saying his movies are just about violent white men would be a surface level criticism without looking deeper into the films. Which i feel like he is doing with the MCU, I wasn't trying to say its a valid critique of his films
 

Xiaomi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,237
He's right again. Star Wars haters gonna latch onto his Lucas quote with "but Lucas made some bad films!" and it's like, so what? So has Spielberg, Coppola, Ang Lee, any number of good, important directors.
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,109
And completely missing the point of what Scorsese says.

30 years ago, studios were always looking for the next big movie and would welcome new ideas and young directors. Now... It's cookie cutter nonsense, all the innovation is in TV.

30 years ago the highest grossing movies were Batman and a third Indiana Jones.

I mean I get your point but...
 

Jarmel

The Jackrabbit Always Wins
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,296
New York
I know, i know

its just a criticism i have seen on Scorsese on twitter by couple people since this whole thing
Even stuff like The Departed, which primarily involves white guys with guns, deals with themes such as the incompetency of bureaucracy, patriarchy, loyalty, honor, and more specifically the stress of undercover police work.
 

Halbrand

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,615
Wasn't it Spielberg who created the summer blockbuster?
source.gif
 

ThousandEyes

Banned
Sep 3, 2019
1,388
And completely missing the point of what Scorsese says.

30 years ago, studios were always looking for the next big movie and would welcome new ideas and young directors. Now... It's cookie cutter nonsense, all the innovation is in TV.
interesting, if somewhat agree

I think many could say something like Breaking Bad was a bigger pop culture event than a lot of movies of the 21st century
 

Deleted member 25600

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
5,701
The movie landscape has changed and will change again. Musicals were popular in the '50s, auteur films were popular in the '60s, the '70s gave birth to blockbusters.
 

Tap In

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,034
Gilbert AZ
Interesting take by Marvel fan and columnist for Hollywood Reporter NBA legend, Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Scorsese Isn't Wrong About Marvel (He Isn't Right, Either)

Director Martin Scorsese's claim to Empire magazine that Marvel films aren't "cinema" is like saying the novel Fifty Shades of Grey isn't "literature." He's technically wrong — but he's culturally right. And all the outraged defenders of Marvel films know he's right. I include myself among Marvel's defenders as both an enthusiastic fan and recent Marvel comics author. I've seen the entire Marvel Comic Universe pantheon multiple times. Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok are two of the most addictive movies ever made. If I'm channel surfing and even catch a glimpse of them, I'm riveted. At the same time, several of Scorsese's films (Taxi Driver, Goodfellas) are among my all-time favorites for their emotional power and thematic depth.

I'm aware that the international popularity of Marvel films makes them very influential in positively adjusting social attitudes about race, gender and sexual orientation. Every time I see Black Panther, I feel a rising swell of pride because we finally have a popular black superhero and he's not just powerful, but also kind and compassionate. Captain Marvel, Black Widow and Wonder Woman (DC) are definite improvements from Barbie as role models for young girls. But influence, even for the betterment of society, isn't the issue.
Scorsese wasn't denigrating Marvel films so much as making a distinction between High Art (an accurate but cringe-worthy term) that we might see in a museum or featured on NPR, and regular everyday art that we might see on our T-shirts and tattoos.

:....more at link
 

mjp2417

Member
Nov 2, 2017
9,363
And completely missing the point of what Scorsese says.

30 years ago, studios were always looking for the next big movie and would welcome new ideas and young directors. Now... It's cookie cutter nonsense, all the innovation is in TV.
it's not, unless TV = Twin Peaks and literally nothing else and Movies = MCU and literally nothing else
 

Jarmel

The Jackrabbit Always Wins
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,296
New York
I get what Scorsese is going for but I think it's somewhat misguided. All the directors he mentioned get to largely control their own works. The MCU by its very nature is more producer driven. I would be all for more directorial influence/control inside the MCU and some of these larger franchise movies but it of course runs the increased risk of a director going 'out of control' and releasing a 150 million+ dud.
 

Seesaw15

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,809
Black panther is horribly paced, I almost fell asleep in the damn theater, no joke. You're comparing black panther favourably to terminator 2? Geez
Its pretty easy to do with a subjective media like film. Besides Joe Morton I find most of the acting in T2 to be either really wooden or distractedly bad ( looking at you Edward Furlong). The script is just serviceable enough for Camerons amazing effects and stunt work. The argument could be made that T2 is just a really expensive Universal Studios stunt show and not 'cinema' if gatekeepers want to get pedantic with the medium.

Black Panther has TERRIBLE special effects but Coogler is a better director with actors than Cameron so in that regard I find BP more compelling than T2.
 

Alexandros

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,799
He refuses to face reality. People prefer to watch movies in the comfort of their own home nowadays and big 'theme park' movies are keeping the theater experience alive by bringing in the crowds and essentially subsidizing smaller films for theater chains. If 'theme park' movies disappeared tomorrow, the theater experiences itself would be done. It's not the 80s anymore, people have moved on.
 

Poimandres

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,855
I don't know why Marvel fans took this as some great insult to the most popular media franchise on planet Earth and why film snobs took this as some validation of Marvel as commercial dreck.

There are plenty on this forum who truly believed that films like Black Panther, Infinity War and End Game deserved best picture wins. People talking about crying multiple times in these films etc. That's all fine and normal (some of my favourite entertainment is divisive to say the least) but when you are super invested alternative views can be confrontational.

But yeah, I don't think comparing blockbuster films to amusement park rides is off base, but he does come across as unnecessarily bitter because there's plenty of avenues for independent film makers etc these days.
 

Ushojax

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,927
Marvel movies can be fun but most of them are just the cinematic equivalent of a kid smashing their action figures together for two hours. They are mostly brightly coloured noise. They are like theme park rides.

I don't agree with Scorsese's attitude, though. I'm sure in 1977 there were some crusty directors who thought Star Wars was not real cinema. A good film is a good film, it just so happens that most modern comic book films are not very good.
 

Daphne

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
3,686
This is really just embarrasing for Scorsese at this point. I don't know what's worse: that he's foolish enough to genuinely believe what he's saying or he's trolling for marketing purposes. I've lost a lot of respect for him either way.

Although, to be fair, I already did that when he defended Polanski.
 
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Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,109
There are plenty on this forum who truly believed that films like Black Panther, Infinity War and End Game deserved best picture wins. People talking about crying multiple times in these films etc. That's all fine and normal (some of my favourite entertainment is divisive to say the least) but when you are super invested alternative views can be confrontational.

But yeah, I don't think comparing blockbuster films to amusement park rides is off base, but he does come across as unnecessarily bitter because there's plenty of avenues for independent film makers etc these days.

I used to drink the Marvel kool-aid a bit heavier and maybe like 2 years ago I would have taken more offense to this but nowadays it's just like... who cares, Endgame is literally the highest grossing movie ever, people clearly love these movies, Scorcese voicing his (frankly mild) criticism doesn't change that.

If someone's friend came up to them and said "Marvel movies are theme park rides," what are you gonna do, run him out of town? It's not a big deal.
 

TDLink

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,411
He's 100% right.

For the people missing the point and going "lol Lucas cuz the prequels" or w/e, he's talking about how Spielberg, Lucas, and Cameron were/are visionaries and all around outstanding Directors when it comes to blockbuster film. Lucas being a shit writer doesn't negate that. And he's right about it.

Every single one of the Marvel movies are plug basically plug and play with the Directors. Not to say they don't have any influence, but it's mostly a ship being "Showrun" by a creative executive (Kevin Feige) in a very similar way to Television. Ie, the showrunner decides what really happens and the director's color in those lines. To the point that these films are planned out far in advance of even finding directors and action sequences are pre-vised before a camera has even started rolling. At that point they literally just can get whatever random person regardless of skill level (and often do) and plug them into the system, and get a pretty decent blockbuster out of it.

James Gunn is probably the one exception to this in that he at least tries to have a flavor of his own, and is allowed to -- and even then, he doesn't really go against anything I just said in the prior paragraph. Ultimately these are all Marvel Studios' movies. This is in stark contrast to Spielberg, Lucas, and Cameron who all have made exactly the movies they wanted to throughout their careers.

Before crazy Marvel fans jump down my throat, please note: I actually like the MCU and most of the films that have come out of it -- but this is a legitimate complaint with them and why they will never hold a candle to the work of the 3 aforementioned Directors, and why Scorsese is pointing them out specifically.
 
Oct 27, 2017
5,618
Spain
30 years ago the highest grossing movies were Batman and a third Indiana Jones.

I mean I get your point but...
Yeah, but studios were looking for the next Indiana Jones, the next Star Wars, the next (Insert here) and in the process they created lots and lots and lots of new franchises and allowed lots and lots and lots of young creators with ideas to get their shot at greatness.

Just look at Lucas, or Spielberg, ffs Spielberg was a nobody when he got a triple-A budget to film Jaws.
 

Tap In

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,034
Gilbert AZ
This was the take for a lot of people but they ended up just being called snobs or being told that the idea of high art is classist

Yes, here is his explanation of high art from his article... Which boils it done simply

Here's why: High Art is basic training for teaching us to be more observant and insightful in our personal lives. People don't always do or say directly what they mean, so sometimes we have to interpret their actions and words to avoid being manipulated. We learn through unreliable narrators the excuses and justifications people make to hinder their own happiness. When we see them doing it, we can often recognize it in others — and ourselves. Great art heightens our ability to see more by widening our perspective on the world until those meanings are no longer hidden, but obvious. Popular art may thrill us, entertain us and bring us joy, but it rarely furthers our insights or understanding of ourselves or illuminates our path to greater happiness. They are shiny artifacts of our culture, but they don't define who we are.
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,109
He's 100% right.

For the people missing the point and going "lol Lucas cuz the prequels" or w/e, he's talking about how Spielberg, Lucas, and Cameron were/are visionaries and all around outstanding Directors when it comes to blockbuster film. Lucas being a shit writer doesn't negate that. And he's right about it.

Every single one of the Marvel movies are plug basically plug and play with the Directors. Not to say they don't have any influence, but it's mostly a ship being "Showrun" by a creative executive (Kevin Feige) in a very similar way to Television. Ie, the showrunner decides what really happens and the director's color in those lines. To the point that these films are planned out far in advance of even finding directors and action sequences are pre-vised before a camera has even started rolling. At that point they literally just can get whatever random person regardless of skill level (and often do) and plug them into the system, and get a pretty decent blockbuster out of it.

James Gunn is probably the one exception to this in that he at least tries to have a flavor of his own, and is allowed to -- and even then, he doesn't really go against anything I just said in the prior paragraph. Ultimately these are all Marvel Studios' movies. This is in stark contrast to Spielberg, Lucas, and Cameron who all have made exactly the movies they wanted to throughout their careers.

Before crazy Marvel fans jump down my throat, please note: I actually like the MCU and most of the films that have come out of it -- but this is a legitimate complaint with them and why they will never hold a candle to the work of the 3 aforementioned Directors, and why Scorsese is pointing them out specifically.

You're right, but I feel like we should understand that it's not necessarily worse, just different. The MCU is basically a longform, big budget TV series. And that's okay. It's not the death of cinema that this studio is trying something different that works for them.

The fact that other studios are trying this approach and not understanding why it works for Marvel is a bigger problem imo.
 

Laser Man

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,683
Maybe he, like many of his colleagues, is just frustrated at the money trumps everything reality that he used to thrive in himself (and still does to a lesser extend). The money and production machine went somewhere he is not really all that comfortable at, he used to think that he was making stuff that mattered to the world, spotlight center and the money was the confirmation because it's the metric of hollywood. Now his world is not the same anymore as it used to be.
 

mjp2417

Member
Nov 2, 2017
9,363
I have some minor quibbles with KAJ there, but that is a much better defense of Marty's position than anything Marty has said tbh