Via Insty, here’s another piece about how today’s movies suck, from a sound perspective. (The article is only listed as “Updated Sep 22, 2022”, so it may actually be a rewrite — and a lot of it seems familiar.)
I was going to comment on it in a post, but a lot of what I planned to write seemed awfully familiar to me. And somewhere in my broken memory, I remembered that I’d already done just that, in Mumbles In The Darkness earlier in June of this year.
So that’s my comment.
Which leads me to a tangential thought. In looking to see whether I had written on the topic earlier, I used the “Search” function on this very web site, to the right of the page, just under the header.
All I did was type “movie” in the search bar, and a veritable timeline of my writings on the topic followed.
And I found myself wasting spending the next hour or so re-reading some of my old posts, and apart from anything else, I was amazed at how little my opinions have changed (not too surprising, considering the writer, but still).
Here’s a thought. If ever you’re horribly bored with life, are sick of playing on the Internet but couldn’t be bothered to get out of your chair, type in a random topic (e.g. “rifle”, “travel”, “Colt” or “socialist” and so on), and go back in time to see what I’ve written on the topic.
As journeys go, it’s cheaper than driving or going to the range (!!!!!!). As to how much you might enjoy it, I make no comment.
Every now and then I get suckered into watching a “new” movie and every time I am sorry afterward. The last time was a couple weeks ago, a movie my wife wanted to watch, and I found it disappointing and I don’t even remember the name now.
Modern movies lack quality stories & have poor acting. Which results in thousands of microscopic edits and a jumping around effect that makes it impossible to follow whatever the storyline is. And then there is the HUGE up close shots of peoples heads, the very dark lighting especially in places where bright light is required (laboratories and other scientific places), and the constant whispering causing the viewer to crank the volume to 11. Frankly, it wears me out and I am no longer willing to invest so much of myself to get out of the thing what it should be delivering. I am not getting paid to make their shitty movie!
It’s a bit of a stretch, but the mushmouthing might be considered a benefit, in that it encourages viewers to ignore what’s being said and concentrate on what’s being done.
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I prefer the classics for movies. I’m sick of the volume discrepancy as mentioned. It gets so quiet so I turn up the volume then something comes on that they make unnecessarily loud and the volume is way too high. Some of the TV streaming is like that too. You’ve hit the nail on the head, the plots and acting are typically poor. I find that if I can enjoy a character that I lose interest very quickly and find something else to do.
JQ
This was made very plain to me a few years ago when I came in on my wife watching reruns of The Rifleman and Wonder Woman. I could understand every word that was said. Delivery was clear and precise and the sound quality of the voices seemed better than real life. I’d never thought about it before but the contrast to contemporary movies and TV shows was astounding. I was beginning to think my hearing had deteriorated faster than I though possible. Glad to know it has not.