site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7hr ago (text post)   400 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 1, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Honestly, I struggle to watch films made before the 1980-90s. Comedies tend not to age well for reasons of cultural change (with notable exceptions, e.g. the Python films or Airplane!) and dramas need to have a really compelling script to allow me to forgive the fact that filmmaking was just worse back then. Maybe part of it may be my ruined modern attention span, but I think filmmaking has genuinely improved.

For me, I think this mostly just applies to movies made in the late 60s-70s. It's dated now, but I find that a lot of movies before that period don't have the same problem with filmmaking that the 1970s stuff did - for example Hitchcock's oeuvre for the most part feels like the work of an extremely competent and confident filmmaker with a large amount of control over the medium. Even as late as 1966, I find many films to be eminently watchable (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, for example).

It was when New Hollywood started really exploding in popularity that I truly find films start appearing very overly indulgent; apart from a select few movies that are classics, there's an almost intolerable amount of sloppy poorly-framed low-budget guerrilla cinematography passed off as grittiness, horrible audio mixing that renders the voices barely audible, bloated pacing that includes extraneous shots of lazy improvisation and oceans of irrelevant dialogue that are kept for "authenticity's sake", and other such elements that make them difficult to watch. Say what you want about the studio control of the Golden Age and how it Stifled Revolutionaries, I think that era reined in the worst impulses of auteurs and forced them to become a bit more economical and deliberate with their filmmaking.

That being said, nothing is worse than the overly-saturated, uniformly-lit, plastic CGI look that modern Hollywood specialises in.

It was when New Hollywood started really exploding in popularity that I truly find films start appearing very overly indulgent; apart from a select few movies that are classics, there's an almost intolerable amount of sloppy poorly-framed low-budget guerrilla cinematography passed off as grittiness, horrible audio mixing that renders the voices barely audible, bloated pacing that includes extraneous shots of lazy improvisation and oceans of irrelevant dialogue that are kept for "authenticity's sake", and other such elements that make them difficult to watch.

What are some of the offending films you have in mind here?

In spite of its critical and commercial success I think The French Connection (1971) epitomises a bunch of the worst tendencies of film of this era, I have never been able to get into it. The extremely shaky, low-quality and chaotic filmography is relentless, and gets tiring to look at after five minutes; in similar fashion the audio is very crunchy. Pacing and plot-wise, it's an otherwise uneventful police procedural that's often disjointed, drags unnecessarily and is saved every now and then by brief spurts of action (I did not actually make it to the famous car chase scene, because I was so underwhelmed by the rest of it). I'm sure this film has its lovers here, but so much of the filming and pacing felt so undercurated that it came off almost like a B-movie at some points.

You can even see some of these tendencies show up in blockbuster crowdpleasers of the era like The Sting (1973). It's not nearly as bad technically and definitely is paced far better, costuming and set dressing is nice, but there's a sort of 1970s stink to it still: it generally feels like it lacks a huge amount of intentionality in the staging department, it's packed full of dialogue that - in its attempts to be authentic/gritty - falls into a middle ground that's neither realistic enough to be believable or dramatic enough to be charming, and just feels like a rather simple caper movie that moves a good bit slower than it should. I am sure time has hurt both of these movies, and I am sure someone else here enjoys these for the very reasons I don't. But referring back to my previous example of Hitchcock, Psycho is old and cheesy as hell, and yet I still find myself thinking "That's some nice framing and presentation" at multiple points during the film (e.g. the shot of the water swirling down the shower drain, which fades into Marion's lifeless eye staring at the viewer while the camera twirls). Also, the man knew how to fucking block a scene. 1970s movies, on the other hand, are just lacking in this same kind of deliberateness.

It's obvious that films of the era were trying to incorporate more subversive elements and experiment with innovative approaches to filmmaking. But there's a fundamental identity crisis at its core, where much of it maintains the quality of trying to be viscerally crowdpleasing while at the same time incorporating some superficial aspects of art cinema into it (slow pacing, lingering shots focusing on small details, irresolution and nonlinearity) without the precise, fine-tuned control and stubborn commitment to a deeply individual aesthetic vision that makes art cinema fascinating even if you end up bouncing off the film. A lot of it is just a very unhappy middle ground for me.

I actually agree about The French Connection. The wife and I couldn't get past about 30 minutes of it since there was basically nothing going on.

There's definitely some gems among 70s films nevertheless, like The Conversation which feels excellently paced and realistically characterized.

As a confirmed Breaking Bad hater, I have read the AV Club's "The case against Breaking Bad" article many times, as it articulated almost everything that I disliked about the show, including its cinematography. Even fans of the show have acknowledged how silly the "Mexico is yellow" thing is, but this was the only source I've seen that criticised the overuse of jitter cam, something I found really annoying and distracting:

But even in the look of the show, clichés abound. In Breaking Bad, the sky over Mexico is always yellow. Much of the show, including its quietest moments, is afflicted with an unmotivated camera shudder that will date the show as badly as the excessive use of zooms dates many films from the early '70s.

Once this was pointed out to me it became hard to unsee. Last October I compiled a list of "classic" horror films I'd never got around to seeing, including Black Christmas. I did enjoy it (if for no other reason than my enormous crush on the young Olivia Hussey – my word, just look at her), but that specific thing where a character delivers a line of dialogue accompanied by an extremely slow zoom-in on their face is such a 70s trope, and almost always comes off as incredibly corny and immersion-breaking. You rarely see it in movies made before or after the 70s.

Check out a couple of clips of The Shield on Youtube for the most relentless and egregious use of camera movement. It's almost unwatchable.

I will never understand people who say that Nolan is a competent director of action films. Nauseating disorientation =/= excitement. Paul Greengrass has a lot to answer for.

The action parts of Nolan's films are by far the worst parts. The snow battle scene in Inception drags the film to a total halt. I was bored senseless during the tunnel/truck chase scene in The Dark Knight. It's almost impressive how his action scenes can be so dull.

Don't get me started on the zoom-ins of the 70s, one of the corniest filmmaking devices employed in that era. Jittery handheld style is all over many films of that era as well, for what it's worth, especially those who wanted to emulate the new wave feel.

I liked Breaking Bad enough but the cinematography was not the strong point. Some of the filmography on Gilligan's new project Pluribus possibly surpasses the lows of Breaking Bad, this scene in particular where Carol is on the rooftop reminds me of The Room; the green screen is executed so sloppily that Carol outright does not have a shadow. Then there is this, which is somehow even worse. The per episode budget was $15 million.

Some of the filmography on Gilligan's new project Pluribus possibly surpasses the lows of Breaking Bad, this scene in particular where Carol is on the rooftop reminds me of The Room; the green screen is executed so sloppily that Carol outright does not have a shadow. Then there is this, which is somehow even worse.

Jesus Christ, you weren't kidding. I have seen AI slop which looked more convincing than the latter clip.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats