What makes a good movie?

[maartendc]

Hey dudes,

I've been thinking... What makes a movie a good movie?
What makes some movies crap, and other unforgettable?

For me, movies like fight club, se7en, devil's advocate are unforgettable.
I think its because they create a devilish story, that has a realistic feel to it... I especially like fight club. At first, it just seems a fight and action movie, but it turns out to be so much more than that.. Brilliant!

Whats your opinion?

Greetz

[broadwayrock]

Nudity, violence and drugs?

Nah

A good screenplay/script is vital for a good movie. Followed by a good director. Actors are secondary.

Alot of movies today seem to be expensive adverts for merchandise.

I find alot of films coming from hollywood at the moment are just dull, unoriginal, dumb pap.

Films with an independent approach tend to be better.

[vipp]

Movies that reach into your mind, and make you REALLY think about it are the ones that are good for me. Those and B horror movies. Heh.

[cheapprick]

Here (http://www.zeropaid.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10434&highlight=donkey+porn) is a post about a "research team" that came up with a formula for the perfect movie. This perfect movie includes"

*action 30%
*comedy 17%
*good v evil 13%
*love/sex/romance 12%
*special effects 10%
*plot 10%
*music 8%


As you can read in that thread, some felt the equation was missing the obligatory Hardcore Donkey Porn.

[Undermind]

i'm gonna step out on a limb here and say good actors, but after that it's good actors (women) showing their goodies, LOL

[Wolfie]

I have to go for original stories that you won't be able to predict the ending 1/3 of the way in the movie.

[Winphuk]

I would say that a good movie rests of in the hands of the director, because I've seen lots of shitty movies with top rate actors, but if you get great directors like the Warshowski brothers, you can make a great movie with someone like Keanu Reeves.

[method77]

*action 30% *comedy 17% *good v evil 13% *love/sex/romance 12% *special effects 10% *plot 10% *music 8% for me it's exactly the other way around. Maybe I would put romance more to the bottom but music and plot are on top.

[Siskabush]

28 days later.

The producers/Directors of that movie could teach Hollywood that good movies arent all about sex, beer, hot babes, and drugs.

28 days later has to be the best show I have seen since Final fantasy

[NovaP2P]

Id say the director and script contribute to about 90% of the success of a movie.

[Wings_of_Azrael]

An obscured, ironic, and grim plot. One that hardly no one grasps until it's explained to them. Yeah, that gets my rocks off.

[FileHoover]

Art is subjective. What you like is based on so many factors like: What your parents told you to like when you were a kid, your experiences growing up, what peer pressure tells you to like, what your hormones tell you is beautiful, what you associate with good times and bad times, the inner blackness of your personality etc etc.

But mostly, people are such mindless blobs, what they like is what is put in front of them. For music, whatever gets put on the radio they will like eventually. We will soon have burping, farting and the sounds of people being killed with a drum beat and that will be music. For video, whatever they get programmed to like by television, is what they will like. There are musicians out there that are so skilled they could hear an hour song and play it back note for note, but they are going broke while idiots who can't sing or play a musical instrument get rich.

The animation of South Park and Beavis and Butthead is so unskilled it looks like kindergarteners made it, but lots of people like it. Go figger.

There is no such thing as a good movie or a bad movie. It's all in your head.

People watch crap like Rocky Horror and think its the greatest movie of all time.

I'm not saying I'm better than anyone. I like a lot of the unskilled stuff too. I'm just saying, it's all subjective. You cannot make a good piece of art. The value of the art is determined by what the public thinks, and the public is controlled by marketing, not appreciation of skill and talent.

[maartendc]

Offcourse you're not saying you're better than anyone, but I dissagree very much with your statements:

I simply love South park and beavis and butthead. The power of beavis and butthead and southpark isn't in the animations, its in the content. When you look beyond the obvious 'fart humor', you see a much deeper humor too. (whith south park anyway, I'm not sure about beavis and butthead)

I do agree with you on the music thing. There are a lot of very skilled artists than don't get a chance, while fucking Britney Spears and so on get a contract in a jiffy. All you need is a good body and.... no wait, thats it. All you need is a good boy. period. It's a shame.

And I don't believe in what you're saying about liking stuff either.
People don't like what is put in front of them, nor what their parents tell them. My parents detest humor like jackass, south park (if you call it humor), while I love it. And there's a lot of crap on tv and radio that I don't buy, simply because it sucks... You seem a little negative-minded there!

And believe me, there is such a thing as a good and bad movie!
Ever seen 'I know what you did last summer'? (the first one)? Now that was a baaaaaaaaaad movie. I heard people here saying you only need a good director, not good actors... WRONG! Those actors in ikwydls where HORRIBLE. Even a good director couldn't let them make a good movie.

Thanx for all of you sharing your insights
Greetz

[broadwayrock]

Alfred Hitchcock once said that actors should be treated like cattle.

His films have great storys and great direction. A good director can make a good performance from a average actor.

Re: I know what you didi last summer.

I didnt think that the first one was so bad. It wasnt that good either, just an average teen horror flick.

But the second one was........ugh!

What about the scream trilogy?

All directed by Wes Craven. But why is the third one not scary and interesting?

It could be that the screenwriter of the first two (Kevin Williamson), Only produced the third. Yet a good screenplay does not necessarily make good scares .

Maybe the third one didnt put any real spin on situations that could be scary.

Mind you one of Kevin Williamson's cast offs was 'I know what you didi last summer'.

[maartendc]

Never heard of that movie...;
but maybe the guy just had a heart-attack apart from the movie....
Maybe :shy

[CTC Command]

Good movies are like good history teachers. Both movies and history consist of a story. Some can tell it in an entertaining or unique way (many ways to do that) while others fall flat and put everyone to sleep.

I think alot of movies, their dirsctos, and thier actors can sometimes lose sight of the story-telling aspect. It's the interaction of all those "research formula factors" that make a movie good. Character driven movies are good, and the plot has to be unpredictable enough that I can't generally guess what is going to happen next. Kind of like life--and history. History is not built on hindsight; the people living it had no idea how it was going to turn out--only we have a sense of destiny and inevitability about events past because we have the advantage of knowing how it turned out. But I can sit through a good remake better than a movie that is portending to be a great original idea and its just like the last six movies I watched.

Steve Buscemi. What about him?

And FileHoover, some movies are SUPPOSED to be stupid. Southpark, Beavis and Butthead are deliberately designed to be. It wasn't Mel Brooks there, or Martin Scorcese--they are supposed to LCD humor. But other movies of a similar vein, like the Jerky Boys movie, fell flat because they tried too hard to do and be something thay are not, and most of all, the story really sucked. Gotta tell the story!

[maartendc]

Yeah, story is very important indeed!

[PiRaNeTuS]

A good movie is one that keeps you entertained long enough to finish off your popcorn and coke.


A great movie, on the other hand, is much like a great book. It should reveal something about life to you, and make you appreciate things more. It should challenge your thinking and should be uncomfortable to you. It should stir you up to become a better person and a better part of society.

If you just watch a movie simply for the special effects or hot babe scenes, or fast cars, then you are one of the mindless millions that watch that garbage.

Movies that have enlightened me would be works of art such as Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile, Fight Club, Braveheart, and of course American Pie. lol

[Dman212]

In my opinion a good movie involves lots of comedy, sex and violence. I enjoy comedies and action movies alot. I also think that all this crap about comparing movies to books is bullshit. If more movies started to take after books then movies would be boring as hell seeing as how books are boring as hell too. I'm more of a hands-on, visual image type person rather than a text on paper kind of person. I hate books. I do think that a good storyline is important too but it should fit into the context of the type of movie. I hate all those movies which make you "think" alot like all those stupid ass drama movies. I disagree with the notion that movies involving fast cars and half naked women are mindless garbage. Movies are made for watching more than they are for thinking about. Some good examples are Scary Movie 2, Head of State, Not Another Teen Movie and Blade 2.

Here's my percentage breakdown of what a classic movie should include...

Violence-30%
Sex-30%
Comedy-30%
Dramatic, Philosophical shit-10%(A very small 10 percent)

[FileHoover]

Originally posted by maartendc
Offcourse you're not saying you're better than anyone, but I dissagree very much with your statements:

I simply love South park and beavis and butthead. The power of beavis and butthead and southpark isn't in the animations, its in the content. When you look beyond the obvious 'fart humor', you see a much deeper humor too. (whith south park anyway, I'm not sure about beavis and butthead)

I do agree with you on the music thing. There are a lot of very skilled artists than don't get a chance, while fucking Britney Spears and so on get a contract in a jiffy. All you need is a good body and.... no wait, thats it. All you need is a good boy. period. It's a shame.

And I don't believe in what you're saying about liking stuff either.
People don't like what is put in front of them, nor what their parents tell them. My parents detest humor like jackass, south park (if you call it humor), while I love it. And there's a lot of crap on tv and radio that I don't buy, simply because it sucks... You seem a little negative-minded there!

And believe me, there is such a thing as a good and bad movie!
Ever seen 'I know what you did last summer'? (the first one)? Now that was a baaaaaaaaaad movie. I heard people here saying you only need a good director, not good actors... WRONG! Those actors in ikwydls where HORRIBLE. Even a good director couldn't let them make a good movie.

Thanx for all of you sharing your insights
Greetz
You could disagree with me, but you'd be wrong :)

Movies are the easiest to prove. Just go to http://imdb.com and look up ratings. over 50% of the people rated I Know What You Did Last Summer at a 6 or above, meaning, over 50% thought it was a good movie!!!! Even Battlefield Earth, which is in the bottom 100 movies of all time had about 10% thinking it rated 6 or better, so, I'd have to say there is no such thing as a good or bad movie if you ask people around the world. John Waters made some of the grossest movies of all time, yet there are some people that are rating them at 10. 32% rated Pink Flamingos as a 10!!! This movie has such stuff as a lady eating a dog turd, and it was for real!

As far as what affects your parents have on you? Do you feel comfortable eating the foods you were raised with (your choice of foods is an aesthetic judgement). How about the religion you were raised as (religion is an aesthetic). How about the culture you consider cool (your parents brought you into their culture). Do you listen mostly to Music from India? From China? From Japan? From Africa? From Kazakstan? Probably not. You listen mostly to the music you were exposed to in your culture. What I'm saying is, if you think your artistic ideas are universal, you have a very closed idea of how much variety of stuff is out there in the world.

Anyway, I hate being right so you can strike me down with rebuttal if you want.

[FileHoover]

Originally posted by CTC Command
Good movies are like good history teachers. Both movies and history consist of a story. Some can tell it in an entertaining or unique way (many ways to do that) while others fall flat and put everyone to sleep.

I think alot of movies, their dirsctos, and thier actors can sometimes lose sight of the story-telling aspect. It's the interaction of all those "research formula factors" that make a movie good. Character driven movies are good, and the plot has to be unpredictable enough that I can't generally guess what is going to happen next. Kind of like life--and history. History is not built on hindsight; the people living it had no idea how it was going to turn out--only we have a sense of destiny and inevitability about events past because we have the advantage of knowing how it turned out. But I can sit through a good remake better than a movie that is portending to be a great original idea and its just like the last six movies I watched.

Steve Buscemi. What about him?

And FileHoover, some movies are SUPPOSED to be stupid. Southpark, Beavis and Butthead are deliberately designed to be. It wasn't Mel Brooks there, or Martin Scorcese--they are supposed to LCD humor. But other movies of a similar vein, like the Jerky Boys movie, fell flat because they tried too hard to do and be something thay are not, and most of all, the story really sucked. Gotta tell the story!
The discussion was about what makes a movie good, not whether it is stupid or not. Stupid might be good, I'm not arguing about that.