Posted on 02/26/2013 4:47:51 AM PST by expat1000
I haven’t been to a movie theater in many years. Most movies seem targeted for the low-information voter types anyway.
I remember Jim Rogers (commodity investor) predicted the rise of China in the late 1990’s due to trade surplus, high savings rate while the US borrow and spend. He predicted China will rise and the US will be unable to contain it economically and financially. The US military can ring China’s military but it is not design to stop Chinese influence via money. US has none to counter China’s cash reserves. I remember Rogers saying that as China rises Americans may not like the world China imposes on us. Censoring our MSM and pop culture may be one of them.
In the 1800’s China wanted to be left alone. The West and US said no, and used military force to open her markets, set China’s tariffs and occupied her cities with troops and gunboats. If the US and the West had left China alone, we would not be in this predicament. Our founding fathers were correct, foreign policy should be based on willing trade, not coercion, and if US resources were used to build the shining New World for all of the world to witness and let them decide if they want to copy all or some of it, we would not be the hated world power like Britain became in the 1800’s thru 1900’s prior to WW2. We would achieve the same prosperity thru wealth (thus military strength) without all the blood, treasure and goodwill destroyed thru empire. Instead we chose Spanish American War, China Trade (Opium) and Wilsonian redefinition of US as leader of the free world. At that point the fate of our treasury was doomed.
No mention of political correctness religion, which has stifled creativity.
Good points made in the article.
I would only add this.
A movie that is long on characters and dialog and writing - you don’t need to go to a big screen to see it and appreciate it. You can watch it on netflix.
To get fannies in the seats you need the effects that can not be duplicated well on the home screen. Bigger, louder, 3D, etc. etc.
When it’s all said and done they still need to sell tickets so they get their $10 or more a pop and the theatre owners get to sell overpriced popcorn and drinks.
That’s a good bit of the business model.
Like that POS movie “Prometheus”.
It borrowed from every space alien movie of the 80’s.
Lame.azz. movie and I should demand my money back.
They left the ending fer an obvious sequel but, they should skip it and do something more interesting....
Crap movie...
” The 31 days of Oscar is the period when he switches to the NCIS channel or the Food Network. He really doesn’t care for many movies made after 1950. The older, the better.”
***
That’s too bad because 31 Days of Oscar does include a significant number of old classics. For example, while the president was blathering during the SOTU speech, I watched Citizen Kane.
There was a time when remakes of old movies were better than the original. The Three Godfathers comes to mind. Three productions over 25 years or so and each was better than the prior one.
Today, remakes suck and “original” movies are even worse.
Thank God of TCM and to a lesser degree The Encore Channels.
I love stunts in movies. I'll get flamed on this thread for saying so, but the James Bond movies with Roger Moore are some of my favorites. NOT because of the deep plots and witty dialogue, but because they have some of the best stunts ever put to film.
Now? It's all CGI. Hard to get worked up over a bunch of pixels simulating a person.
I'm a completionist. I've seen all of the "Alien" franchise...even that stinker with Winona Ryner (was it Resurrection?).
I picked up Prometheus at the RedBox, and wanted my dollar back afterwards. Great premise, Great ideas, neat technology .... and the movie just plain stunk. Talk about overpromise and underdeliver.
He should pay attention to something other than the dozen or so tent pole movies. While they get all the press and make tons of money the fact is the majority of the Hollywood release schedule, about 150 movies a year, are exactly the movies he says don’t get made anymore. Just look at the movies that won Oscars two days ago, none of what he says is all they do.
Dunno.
There is lots of potential out there if they’d exploit it. Problem is the lack of the imagination.
Wanna make FU money? Get the rights to Larry Corriea’s “Monster Hunters International” and make a good MHI movie (or several movies - it is a long book) that is true to the book. Just the first part where the hero kills his a-hole boss (who has turned into a werewolf) will have people out of their seats and cheering.
Another think I’d like to see would be some of the old air epics remade. I recently saw a WWI movie using CGI, it was enjoyable, but laughable (IIRC the rotary engines in their aircraft - didn’t!). I liked “The Blue Max” with George Peppard, but it wasn’t true to the book (which was MUCH better). Making the entire series (The Blue Max, The Blood Order, and The Tin Cravat) would cater to a good niche market and even have play in Europe.
The talent is there (sort of), the resources are there, the technology is there, the only things lacking aer imagination and leadership.
“After a Chinese company bought the AMC theater chain last year, you can forget about any movie being made with ChiCom bad guys, or which in any way displeases the Chinese.”
I disagree. I think you will still have plenty of non stereotypical, individual chinese as the bad guys.
You will not see a stereotypical (fu man chu types) as the bad guy and you will not see the Chinese nation as a whole being the bad guy.
However, when I see a hollywood movie, except for Jackie Chan, I have NEVER SEEN A CHINESE BE THE HERO FOR THE LAST 50 YEARS.
So in a way, it kind of evens out.
What really kills me these days are shows like “the big bang theory” where Orientals have been completely eradicated from the physics dept. What is that about ? You don’t even see them strolling down the hallways or in the cafeteria. It is like a chinese specific neutron bomb went off where all the chinese got killed and left everyone else.
“as China rises Americans may not like the world China imposes on us. Censoring our MSM and pop culture may be one of them.”
Frankly, I would like to censor our MSM and pop culture.
Yep...Good old TCM and AMC.
My Teenage Girl students are passionate about about two movies made in the late 30’s...Gone With The Wind, and the Wizard of Oz!
Being a “Stunt Man or Woman” used to be a heroic profession!
Two things I remember about the original Red Dawn, Ben Johnson’s character told the boys that the Cubans/Ruskies went to all the hardware/sporting good stores that sold weapons and got lists of people who bought weapons and had them rounded up. The other thing was that Powers Boothe’s character told them that the Cuban special forces infiltrated into the U.S. sneaking across the southern border disguised as illegal immigrants. You knew you wouldn’t see those politically incorrect statements in the latest movie.
I loved the original Red Dawn.....
My wife and I watched Ben Hur the other night, and a couple of old Jimmy Stewart movies. I told her that hollyweird could no longer make movies like Hur because there were NO actors that could pull off those type movies any more. No more John Wayne’s, Jimmy Stewart’s, Hestons, etc. Just no real actors any more. Mostly a bunch of scummy idiots calling themselves movie stars. Stars in their own minds. Hollyweird is nothing but a homo supporting bunch of communists.
Red Dawn had many memorable lines, among them:
“Well, who is on our side?”
“Six hundred million screaming Chinamen.”
“Last I heard there were a billion screaming Chinamen.”
“There were.... “(fireball erupts from campfire)
Forget the Chinese & the Russians & even the illegal Hispanics. The muzzies are the real threat and this regime has made them a protected species. Although here in the South they keep fairly quiet. Must be all us Biblethumping gun toting rednecks.
;^)
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