Film Courage: Would you say that 99 percent of all movies today are garbage?
Chris Gore, Founder/Owner of FilmThreat/Author/Filmmaker:
In an age where most movies are referred to as content, I would say that 99 percent of those
movies are pretty…bad. I always try…when I say 99 percent I mean of mainstream. When you look at
(and I think one of the best examples of this is the sort of Zack Snyder's Justice League)
and how that was bungled. How that was bungled, how the Star Wars franchise was bungled,
how they could not…I mean to me I’m the studio executive in charge of Star wars and we're making
a new star wars movie and the first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to put Han, Luke and
Leia in a scene together and the fact that that moment we will never be able to have that moment
in cinema when Carrie Fisher was alive, that to me is I mean that's that's malpractice, that's studio
malpractice. The fact that they had with Zack Snyder's vision what he was building up to be,
I think seeing the four-hour final product of what Zack Snyder's Justice League turned out
to be and that they made this garbage thing Joss Whedon I mean it's disheartening to me to see that
I will say on an indie level tend to take like a glass half full view and I tend to always look for
the positive when it comes to indie films because you cannot compare the…you can't compare an indie
movie shot in 12 days for $10,000 dollars to Justice League whichever version you're
talking about you can't compare because in my mind there is no excuse for a studio to fail
when they put out a blockbuster movie you have no excuse. Your job is to entertain me, not lecture
me. Not lecture me, your job is to entertain me. Unfortunately we live in a time you know back
in the day when Star Wars was first made I feel like they were checking one box it was called fun
and now there's not only there's a million boxes that must be checked. There are all sorts of
noting and committees and this thing and this is where you end up with…you know
that last Star Wars movie by J.J. Abrams is unwatchable. I mean it's garbage. It's exactly
it informs exactly everything wrong with the studio system. It's terrible. So I look at
like the Justice League debacle, the Star Wars franchise and how that has been was mishandled
and I look at that and I just think how could that have been done? Where were the…
where was the…we they ever like looking at the fans and what they think? What do the fans think
of this stuff? Are they satisfying the fans? Most normal people don't care. Is it entertaining?
Taking my family especially how expensive it is to the movie theater experience which is is going
away right? The theatrical experience of seeing a movie is going away. You had better entertain me.
and I think that whether Hollywood notices it or not, I think that people don't really
like politics woven into fairly mainstream (which should be mainstream) entertainment experiences.
And I think we're seeing that more and more. It's unbelievable to me. I think you're leaving
money on the table for not giving what the customer is looking for in that experience.
In my mind, studios there's no excuse to fail. You have the best people in marketing.
You have the most talented actors, craftsmen. When it comes to special effects and cinematography,
music - there's no excuse for that to fail and I think part of the failing of Hollywood
is that the marketing is so good. Sometimes I’ve argued with friends sometimes that I believe that
there should be a key art…I mean there are key art awards you know for key movie poster art.
I’m a fan of movie poster art. There's a really good documentary about movie poster art called
24x36: A Movie About Movie Posters [Director Kevin Burke]. Check out that documentary. But
you know there should almost a marketing award and here's the problem, the conundrum, the marketing
for some for these movies is so good, the product doesn't live up to the marketing.
I got chills watching the trailers for The Rise of Skywalker. I was so excited to see that movie.
The ninth I mean, I was a kid when I saw Star Wars. I’m seeing the ninth movie in this saga.
I cannot believe how horrible it turned out. It’s really to me, it's malpractice. What happened
to that franchise and how it's divided fandom? Fighting over things that are really irrelevant? I
think it's well not entirely irrelevant, the fact that they're just like you're seeing people from
within that company attack the fans, it's just like it’s…I hate to see it because I’m like
nerds are my people I go to San Diego Comic-Con every year. I have since the 90’s gone to San
Diego Comic-Con and so to see people fractured over this is really disheartening. But when it
comes to studio movies there's no excuse not to fail. Now when it comes to small indie movies,
to make a good movie under those circumstances without the resources, without the money,
without the great people in marketing without the budget, without all of the best of circumstances,
to make an indie movie that like actually can you can be touched and moved by that is something to
be said. Which is why i've always gravitated toward indie film. It's a miracle when you see
something that's watchable out of a studio. But I don't know like where the executives, I mean other
than like maybe coming to mind like a kevin frose which you know maybe his best days are behind him,
you know I can't think of a studio executive that is a visionary these days.
Film Courage: Are those the jocks? The nerds are the consumers?
Chris: Yeah the jocks. I mean when we look at like the era the 70’s being the
last great era of American filmmaking, we really are
losing that American identity because we’ve become so fractured as a culture and I think that
where's the movie that we all love without debate? That we've all loved
exactly? I don't know that there is one and and that's really, I really at the end of the day
I miss loving Star Wars. I miss loving it. I used to love it and now i'm saddened by that franchise.
I’m using that as like the best example. There's a lot of other examples we could talk about The
Terminator franchise, we could talk about Star Trek, we can talk about these these sort of dead
franchises that have sort of lost their way. But when you look at like I just saw a documentary
called Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies [Director Amanda Ladd Jones] about Alan Ladd,
the visionary studio executive who basically green lit Star Wars and protected George Lucas,
I’m just afraid we're never going to see another George Lucas right? We're never going to see
another real creative visionary that changes the industry because
everything is so corporate. You know it's like what did Francis Ford Coppola say,
factory filmmaking. That's the age in which we live. There's factory filmmaking
which is a product and content and then there's up-and-coming indie filmmakers
and when I talked about checking those boxes earlier a lot of it is like is it going to appeal
international? I mean let's be honest, the box office internationally and especially in China is
much bigger than the United States. That market, those dollars…so you can't make a movie for the
United States anymore. You have to make a movie for the world which is fine but I think in a way
that's sort of diluting our identity as a people, as Americans, as we’ve become more fractured and
it's distressing to see. You see it when it's like I was having a conversation with a friend
because of course the movies are always an ongoing conversation with friends. If you're in my circle,
it will come up and it's like when you look at like when certain decisions are organic or when
you see when it's shoe horned in right? When when certain things are shoe horned in like
say the trope that's become a trope now, the strong female lead it's just
Ripley [actress Sigourney Weaver in Alien] was a great character. Just write a great character,
not try to shoehorn in a type right? You kind of know it when you see it. You go
“Oh this is cliche!” You're trying to shoehorn in a type rather than like that's just a great
character. You're also talking to a guy when I ever play a video game I always choose a female
character. I don't know why I just do that as someone who has watched so many movies,
as someone who has made their own films, why do you think there's so many bad films that are made?
Well I look, the reason there's so many bad films these days is I think
1) the barrier to entry is much easier, but I also think that you're there on an indie level
I see bad indie films too right? I usually want to want to help them and say “This was your lesson,
okay you'll make a better movie in your second movie if you don't quit.”
But when it comes to studio films there's just too many notes. There are too many people that it's
sort of you know the modern day ball player right? Just like it's not about the passion for playing
the game. I don't have a passion of hitting the ball and hearing the roar of the crowd. It's
the licensing deals and it's this and the sales of that and the tv commercials and whatnot. It's
when I look back at the movie The Player which came out when I first moved to Los Angeles
Robert Altman's The Player [1992] things haven't changed. The subject has changed. I mean that was
sort of, it was erotic thrillers and it was Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis were being cast in every
movie that was pitched in that film. Now it's superhero movies, but it's really too many cooks
and I feel like the people being elevated to these positions are good executives but they're not
people that know the material. The heart of the material and when you look at the history of
creatives who really created something like a George Lucas or a Gene Roddenberry things begin
to lose their way when they get sidelined right? You really need those. I just feel like the modern
day Hollywood now and especially with streaming changing the game, theaters,
the survival of theaters being in doubt. Really we may live at a time where maybe the billion
dollar blockbuster may not be back for a long time and that may end up being a good thing
right? Like let's make…I’ll joke with a friend and I’ll say my favorite Spider-Man movie is
the one where Mary Jane is in peril at the end which is pretty much all the Spider-Man
movies or my favorite science fiction movie is the movie where that thing blows up at the end
that's every science fiction movie right? Which is why and The Empire Strikes Back
with such a because it wasn't about “we got to do and blow up the thing.” That's boring.
It’s just creatively bankrupt which is why Empire Strikes back holds up everybody says “Oh it's the
best Star Wars movie.” I mean you could argue it but it's yeah because it didn't do that thing that
happened in all the other movies and so trying to go against doing that thing or fighting a blue
light, there's a lot of fighting a blue light that happens in films. Fighting a blue light,
saving the person at the end, the thing that blows up at the end and I say defy those cliches
at all costs. It’s funny because you know there's still people that are able to work within studio
system and deliver worthwhile films, Christopher Nolan being among them. I’ve quite admired his
work although he has a tendency to make things a little overly complex for no reason just to brag
about how smart he is but there's always a point in his films and you'll notice it once I pointed
out where a character in a Christopher Nolan movie will say “We have to go down the thing and grab
the thing to do this and shoot this.” It's Captain Narrative right? It's the person that stops the
movie to tell you what's happening in the movie to explain what's going to happen so the audience
(the dumb audience) understands and to me so you got that studio note and he compromises in
a way that doesn't completely destroy what he's trying to achieve as a filmmaker. So he's willing
to play ball but I just see and I think the most recent example being Zack Snyder's Justice
League and the fact that that universe will remain unexplored unfortunately which is disheartening.
You look at that and i think part of the reason that Zack Snyder's Justice League was suppressed
was because once it came out and you see these are the choices the studio executives made, they
decided to hire Joss Whedon, they decided to change everything about it in exchange for this
like it makes them look bad right because what Zack Snyder was trying to do is much much better
clearly whether you enjoy it personally or not, it was objectively much better than what Joss Whedon
ended up coming up with which was effectively a dumb cartoon, a live action dumb cartoon.
Film Courage: So what about adaptations? Do you think that's has that always been around or?
Chris: Adaptations of what?
Film Courage: Adaptations of popular books.
Chris: Not necessarily, doesn't have to be a franchise but think about,
it's here's what's dead is originality. I mean people forget what George Lucas created
in Star Wars was something completely original. I mean yes it was influenced by so many things,
westerns, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials and whatnot but almost nothing that you see isn't
(nothing that you see in the studio realm) it's all based on something, pre-existing material.
It's a book, a graphic novel, a comic book, a thing that kind of proved the concept right and
then…or a franchise right? It's a thing that you know whether it's Star Wars, Star Trek whatever,
comic book characters that have been around for years, it's very rare that there'll be something
that's a wholly original concept. It would really be interesting if studios rolled the dice more
to get something like a Joker. What Todd Phillips did with The Joker right? That
Joker film which was a low-budget movie right? I chatted with him about it. I’m sure you can
look up quotes Todd Phillips talking about how he pitched them doing some sort of DC Black Series.
It would be these sort of one-off films that would be stories that didn't really fit with any
sort of larger continuity that were like smaller movies we could explore a part of that universe
and the fact that movie did so well from being praised from in terms of at award season I think
proves his concept was the right way to go and people forget Todd Phillips came
from independent film. I knew him back in the day when he was making documentaries. He famously has
that frat house documentary [Frat House directed byTodd Phillips Andrew Gurland, 1998] that played
Sundance and then never was released. I think you can find it on Youtube.
Film Courage: What about Mank?
Chris: What about Mank? Yeah I don't know. How you make a Mank? Here's the thing I look at Mank
and I’m like I love Mank but I went to film school and I’ve seen Citizen Kane 100 times and I’ve read
books about Citizen Kane and one of my favorite dvd commentaries is the one that Roger Ebert did
for Citizen Kane. I know a lot of the backstory and I feel like it's almost impossible to watch
Mank. You have to watch Citizen Kane. Maybe watch Citizen Kane first and then watch Mank
and then re-watch Citizen Kane. I think Mank is incredible. But i think Mank is for film nerds.
I think it's brilliant that David Fincher was able to get that film made in the way that he made.
It's sort of a story about the genre made within the style of the old school genre
but with modern tools and then sort of laced with political commentary maybe a bit too heavy-handed
at times. But I really enjoyed Mank. But that's not a mainstream audience movie
so kudos to Netflix for that. But yeah most of, I wouldn't say that. No, I like to be an
optimist so I don't know that 99 percent of the studio movies are bad. Maybe it's more like 97.
We can quibble about the percentages but you know stuff leaks through.
Chris:
That was a rant by the way.
Film Courage: No that's good. That's what you want,
that's fantastic. I was going to add to it with Game of Thrones but that's good. We'll stop.
Question For The Viewers: What do you disagree with?