The vast majority of people seem to prefer Avengers 17 over any cinematic masterpiece, the latest drake song would be better rated than a Tchaikovsky... We should let them play and worship chat gpt if that's what they want to waste their time on
People might find “serious” art meaningful and it might spark feelings in them, but that’s not the same as getting an adrenaline rush from exploding cars in an action scene.
Of course there are also cases where the boundary between “fun” and “serious art” is not so clear, there are always exceptions to any attempt to define what makes something “serious art”. Art can also be subversive and run counter to traditional expectations of what art “should” be. But I don’t think the Avengers is an example of that.
On the other hand a lot of other stuff can be broadly analyzed in terms of making people feel something. Painkillers, excuses, hugs, titles.
So it seems your generalization is neither necessary nor sufficient for "human arts".
You're reading way too much into my comment. Any block buster from the 80/90s absolutely shits on 90% of block busters released today. I'm not talking about obscure 1950s czechoslovak cinema here...
> ignore the sheet manpower that goes into making a movie like that.
A lot of work doesn't make something good, especially when cgi quality actually gets worse year after year. FYI the entire LOTR trilogy had 30% less budget and 4x the runtime of the last avenger movie... And they actually filmed things outside of a Hollywood studio
The only lazy thing here are the scenarists and the directors shitting out the blandest movies ever. But then again if all we care about is raw entertainment then sure, it's perfect, very easy to digest, lots of colors and not too much to think about, the cinematic equivalent of fast food. You can even buy avengers branded toilet paper and bottle water, that really shows how much they care about movies!
There have been great films made in every era, but the trend towards tighter writing, more legible and compelling action, and emotionally impactful story telling is strongly trending upwards overall.
And nothing will ever top the merchandising mania of the 80s!
I don't get why people having this narrowminded view of literature/movies, you don't see it that much in culinary conversations
This reminded me so much of Spaceballs! And the yogurt merchandise towards the end! Such a great movie that has so many obvious "flaws" like the mirror under the speeder on the desert planet when they comb the desert. And yet I've actually watched that movie more often than even the actual real Star Wars movies (meaning the first three made - all of which are timeless awesomeness)
You sure it's not survival bias, as in, you only are thinking and remembering the good ones over a two-decade period and comparing them against what movies came out this year. When in reality, there might be tons of blockbusters in those era that were just as bad as your average one today?
The nuance is that movies today is not where the most creative talent is directed anymore. The shift started with prestige TV taking off in the 2000s, and episodic content on streaming services surpassing film as a mass-market artform in the 2010s, with the pandemic driving the nail in the coffin.
I loved the late 2000s / early 2010s superhero movies. Spiderman, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, etc. These were great films. Today, the MCU is just eating its own tail with the most bland, repetitive crap. It's all designed to incentivize the same die hard fans to keep forking over their hard-earned cash with all the cross-film teasers and the need to watch every film to understand all the references and moving parts. I understand the business model—it's actually the same as comic books now—because people don't casually go in to see random movies anymore, they do that at home on Netflix, so they have to target the repeat viewers. It's visually impressive, and the acting is good enough to keep a relatively large subset of the population coming back, but for someone like me who wants at least a little bit of novelty or creativity in the plot or characters, it's just so become so mind-bogglingly boring.
In your opinion, perhaps. Other films are made to be provocative-- to make you think or reflect. Certainly, a lot of the "arthouse cinematic masterpieces" aim for that as a goal rather than purely entertainment.
You're arguing against a strawman here... nobody is saying making an avengers movie is low effort. Certain aspects of an avengers movie though require less effort.
_____________
[1] Don't look it up if you don't know what that is.
If you're referring to the italian film, the original title is in italian :D
Oedipus Rex, also known by its Greek title, Oedipus Tyrannus (Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, pronounced [oidípuːs týrannos]), or Oedipus the King, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_Rex
And I'm perfectly aware that you're trying, hard, to make some sarcastic point, but that's what everybody in the English-speaking world calls it. Or did you want to talk about it in Greek? I'm fine with that. After all, it was in Greek that I've watched it, as a child, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Theatre_of_Epidaurus
Did you think that I'm just name-dropping a Greek tragedy to appear erudite and culturrred? Again: I'm Greek. I grew up with that stuff. They even teach us some of it in school (Antigone, for one).
Βάτραχοι ?
( Also not cultured )
I have an almost lifelong itch, which I couldn't successfully scratch so far.
It's about the meaning of this surename: Κούβελας
Usually it is transcribed in English as Kouvelas, in German as Kouwelas, and in French it can be Couvelas, and AFAIK it is pronounced something like Koo-well-as(s) in Greek.
Does it have any 'speaking'/describing meaning, like Miller, Carpenter, Fisher, Baker and so on, or is it something like 'from a place called this', maybe distorted over generations?
I only get nothing from sites like this https://forebears.io/surnames/kouvelas , and the few people with Greek heritage I knew couldn't tell me either, so far.
Can/would you, If it doesn't bother you?
Unless they're thinking of some Korean or Japanese New Wave productions such as Oldboy or Funeral Parade of Roses.
I was listening to Schoenberg's "Suite for Piano" the other day. Did he make it to be entertaining? I don't know, interesting maybe. I wouldn't put it on at a party.
It's true that snobbery is off-putting, but if you're looking for artistic merit, then some works last longer than others. If you're looking for something to enjoy with your popcorn, then there's that too.
Maybe critics are art, too. Like Lipton's "Inside the Actor's Studio" (Detroit). That's art.
"It's not art it's ari. You want to make an art film? You take it to Sundance, you take it to Telluride, you take it to Cannes."