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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

Or we could fall back to watching movies made from the ‘30s to the ‘50s, that’s what I have been doing for more than half a year now and it has been wonderful for my mental well-being (they really knew how to make comedies back then, even after the Hayes code).

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I've just made this comment myself. It's amazing how much casual violence there is in modern films that you just don't notice because it's everywhere.

I've watched more black and white classics in the last 15 months than I have in the last 20 years. Particularly the old sci-fi, horror, and slapstick films. Harold Lloyd, The Three Stooges, and Chaplin. Plus all the old St Trinians, and Sherlock Holmes. Abbot and Costello and so on. So pleasant to watch.

oh yah, my family totally dropped out of modern media, and man whenever we go to visit extended family and other stuff and they happen to be watching something on TV or a movie or whatever holy smokes it's pretty incredible how resensitized we have become to that violence. I can't stomach it. Probably took several years to happen quietly in the background, not even doing anything particular other than not consuming such media.

Now that I think about it, I've come to realize that a large fraction of entertainment operates at the extrema of human experience, otherwise it would be too mundane and unentertaining. But if most of those so called entertaining things took place in front of you they'd be crazy intense, too intense for daily living. Even something ordinary like a makeup commercial, if you had women staring at you like they do in those shoots that be pretty out of the ordinary. In that regard everything is sort of exaggerated.

Almost every episode of every show now has somebody vomit. Watch for it, it cannot be unseen, you wouldn’t notice it until you can’t stop noticing it

Certainly no violence in the 3 Stooges. Lol, every episode would be considered a documentary of domestic abuse today.

Reminds me of "breaking bread with the dead" by turning away from the constant deluge of content and looking at works of the past.

https://harpers.org/archive/2020/10/no-time-but-the-present-...

Our whole family has been doing that this year. Watching older movies and TV shows is much more pleasant all around.

This was tougher growing up when kids all watched the same shows and talked about them, but with content so all over the place now that common thread seems to be mostly gone at school (outside of internet video stuff).

Same here, but we haven't gone as far back as the 50s. Mostly we've been enjoying family movies from the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, back when sets were elaborate and most effects were practical. Many of these older movies have really stood the test of time. Hook, The Goonies, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Muppets movies, Ernest Scared Stoopid, Willy Wonka, etc are all family favorites.

Yep. Agreed completely. Even early 2000’s shows like Smallville and The Flash have been pretty safe and fun.

I’m being pedantic, but the 2 Flash series ran during the 90s and mid-2010 :)

It's a comic book adaptation. Nerds being pedantic about it is part of the deal ;)

> Watching older movies and TV shows is much more pleasant all around.

My girlfriend somehow grew up completely unaware of Star Trek, so I introduced her to The Next Generation last year and we've been watching it (rewatching in my case, but for the first time in over two decades) one episode a day.

It's so relaxing, in a way that almost no modern TV is. No end-of-episode cliffhangers or other mechanisms trying to make you binge-watch. We can just watch one episode to unwind, discuss it a bit if it's one of the better thought-provoking ones, and then go to bed.

I feel the same way! My partner also hadn't watched much Star Trek before. During the pandemic, we watched all of Enterprise, Voyager, and now into DS9 (I had watched TNG so much when I was younger I wanted to start with my less-watched series). The episodes are calm, and the competence of the characters is refreshing as well.

Try the Stargate franchise, same era. Also Farscape (very good).

> My girlfriend somehow grew up completely unaware of Star Trek, so I introduced her to The Next Generation

> It's so relaxing, in a way that almost no modern TV is. No end-of-episode cliffhangers

That is not how I would describe Star Trek: the Next Generation. Every season ends with a cliffhanger.

Are you somehow forgetting that this is merely one out of the 26 episodes that make up a season, or are you cherry-picking?

I'm saying that cliffhangers are a major element of TNG and constitute a very deliberate part of its "house style". They are a small percentage of episodes, but if you made a list of what made TNG distinctive, "seasonal cliffhangers" would be on that list. As such, it's strange to remark on how the show lacks cliffhangers. It's notable for having them!

Words derive meaning from their context, and you're pulling mine out of theirs. The full sentence is:

> No end-of-episode cliffhangers or other mechanisms trying to make you binge-watch.

I'm talking about mechanisms that modern TV uses to trick people into watching a series many episodes at a time until they're too tired to go on. An end-of-season cliffhanger that was designed to ensure people would come back when the series returned next season after a long break from their weekly Star Trek watching habit is not at all the same thing. Nothing about TNG is attempting to make me, the viewer, binge-watch it.

In the case of me and my GF, since we know exactly when we are about to watch an end-of-season episode we just plan an extra hour for it that evening. That's it.

>No end-of-episode cliffhangers

There are a handful of those in TNG. But only a handful.

> No end-of-episode cliffhangers

Well, except for the season finale/openers from Season 3 on; but, yes, TV in general (even before streaming, DS9-VOY-ENT all show this trend within thr Trek franchise) has become less episodic since the TNG era.

I believe you mean more serialized. Episodic, defined as "containing or consisting of a series of loosely connected parts or events", is the opposite of what you mean.

> I believe you mean more serialized.

Yeah (I think the actual intent was “less episodic”, and I’ve corrected it to that, but same thing.)

I love old movies, especially around the 50's-70's, but I'll admit that you're not gonna see a whole lot of diversity in that era. I'm not meaning to moralize. It's just hard to find movies that say, have an Asian character that isn't a horrible racist caricature.

Awe yes diversity. Can't go a day with out reading this ever lasting buzzword.

Is that really your determining factor while deciding to watch a movie? It isn't mine. I watch a movie because its a good movie, I don't go searching for diversity, I like watching a movie because of its entertainment value. You should try it.

If you're a minority, it's nice having a relatable positive role model in the media you consume.

Or, at a minimum, to not have a negative role model.

Yeah I'd just settle for not-racist-caricature, looking at you Mickey Rooney

Or Bugs Bunny for that matter.

Forced diversity is one of the big issues with modern media. Instead of making an actually diverse character, yano, with human thoughts and feelings, they just tick some skin and gender boxes and leave it at that. It's just another form of stereotyping.

There are lots of awesome asian movies in that period.

Not enough is said about this. The amount of TV available for free (with an internet connection) these days is mind-boggling, and the vast majority of people ignore these options altogether.

People are social.

I don't only watch a movie or a TV show for the intrinsic entertainment quality, I also do it so that I can talk about what I watch with others.

That artsy Swiss movie from 1929 is not as popular a theme as the latest episode of Ozark.

I get your point but I don't think not having friends to talk to about a piece of media with is necessarily a good reason not to engage with it.

Time is limited.

We've had a regular "bad movie night" throughout the pandemic, and there are a lot of these that are available to pirate up to about the 90s on Youtube (or occasionally dailymotion) simply because their distributors no longer care about them.

I do the "bad movie night" with family too. I suggest Titanic 2 on Tubi. It's amazing in sheer awfulness.

Why do you spend time watching bad movies?

I find humour in very bad movies. Not like run of the mill garbage, like "so bad it's good" stuff.

Have you ever watched MST3K? I think I have several dozen MST3K movies in my collection.

Yes. Used to watch with my father when it ran on scifi channel.

Movies from the 30s to the 50s are still mostly captured under copyright now. It's directly movies from the 30s to 50s that are possibly one of the biggest reasons to oppose Amazon buying MGM, because it is one of the larger 30s to 50s back catalogs in general, but especially it was one of the larger 30s to 50s back catalogs not directly associated with a specific VOD streaming service and so open to and optioned by many of them. Amazon consolidating that to Amazon Prime will potentially be a huge blow to the general availability of older films.

I've seen a few myself. They probably don't hit as hard as when they were new, but certainly a few still hold up acceptably. Especially compared to some mass produced content today which is cringey and predictable.

Or just watch whatever one service provides. My queue on any service is always way longer than what I can get thru.

YouTube & others provide a large library for free (with ads). I assume most here are Amazon Prime members anyway, so that vast library is practically free. Apple TV always has some good $5 movies.

As I get older, the less I care about seeing the latest stuff - as there's always more I want to watch than I can get to.

(And if there really isn't enough for you to watch, you really need be doing something else.)

Any recommendations?

Some Like it Hot is hilarious.

The intruder with William Shatner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci4dQ2QzBhE

The story depicts the machinations of a racist named Adam Cramer (Shatner), who arrives in the fictitious small Southern town of Caxton in order to incite white townspeople to racial violence against black townspeople and court-ordered school integration.

Shatner doesn't get his due. That guy's got chops.

Anything Marx Brothers is hilarious

Word of warning that Day at the Races has a "minstrel show" scene that's pretty offensive even by 30s standards. Other than that, the Marx Brothers are easily the greatest comedy troupe in American history, and their films are still some of the funniest ever made

The best comedy I know!

Arsenic and Old Lace

A thousand times this. Best screwball comedy ever.

Also You Can't Take It With You. Now you've seen one Cary Grant and one Jimmy Stewart. To finish up you can get both of them with Catherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story.

Gregory Peck made a lot of great movies. Charade and North by Northwest are both very good.

I'm surprised how well NbNW holds up.

The Naked City by Jules Dassin is a really good police procedural. If you like stuff like Law & Order, this is the progenitor.

The Third Man is classic, classic noir. Between the on location shooting in Vienna, fantastic performances by Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, and really distinctive cinematography, it's just stunning.

A Man Escaped. To quote Godard, "He is the French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is German music". If you like simple, but beautiful films, watch Bresson. A Man Escaped makes all other prison break films, with their endless plot twists and convolutions, seem utterly pointless. Instead Bresson focuses on the character, the drama and the methodical process of breaking out.

Dr Strangelove, All About Eve, Singing in the Rain

Casablanca

Dead of Night

Modern times

The third man

HIS GIRL FRIDAY, THE AWFUL TRUTH, the SHERLOCK HOLMES series with Basil Rathbone

'desk set' holds up remarkably well. some great performances and dialogue.

Buster Keaton is a favorite of mine

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