My wife and I sat down and watched Planes Trains and Automobiles the other night. We have started our fall movie watching and even though there is a lot of snow in this movie it is still about Thanksgiving. As I was watching it I really fell in love with it all over again. I started thinking to myself, why do I always drift towards 80's movies when I want a "feel good movie?" I know many of you will agree that there are so many great ones from the 80's but why is that? Is it because the movies were from our youth and they take us back to that time? Are there truely more quality feel good movies from the 80's?
I'd like to hear everyone's opinion on this.
Posted by P a u l (Member # 1022) on :
OK - my $0.02....
I think there are several reasons - not least the one you mention about being the movies from our youth, and the nostalgia kick this will always bring. But it's more than that.
A lot of it is to do with movies from today. Most of the movies you'd consider 'feel good' for the last, say 15 years have been rom-com chick-flicks on the whole. That doesn't make them bad movies, but it does place them very much into a defined genre. Outside of this, there's a distinct lack of 'family funny' films that are any good. Evidence for this opinion is simple: back in the 1980s, they would never have made Daddy Day Care, Cheaper By The Dozen or Are We There Yet. Comedies tend to be of the "Rush Hour" action-comedy or "American Pie" sex-comedy types.
However, this wasn't the case in the 80s. Oh sure, there were movies like Porkys and such, but they were very much the exception rather than the rule. And most of them were strictly B-movies from the get-go. But mainstream? So many movies you could just sit down and the entire family would enjoy Movies like The Princess Bride. Movies like Ferris Beuller's Day Off. Movies like Footloose, or The Goonies, or Flight Of The Navigator, and I'll stop or I'll run out of page.
Basically, for every movie these days that I would consider a feel-good, family movie, I can think of twenty from the eighties.
Movie tastes have changed, and for us, they have changed in a way that makes us appreciate the movies from our youth even more today than we did when we were young.
Posted by gordongecko (Member # 4685) on :
Great Post!
Ya I think you are right on. There has to be all kinds of action or explosions in movies these days or "people lose interest." I believe in the 80's it was more about character development and the plot then gimicks to keep people interested.
I love a good simple movie! There is nothing better. You can watch it over and over again and enjoy it more every time! I wonder if we'll ever get back to that time and place where the simple movie will rule again!
Posted by P a u l (Member # 1022) on :
quote:Originally posted by gordongecko: I believe in the 80's it was more about character development and the plot than gimicks to keep people interested.
Another movie that probably wouldn't get made today: The Breakfast Club. Nobody dies or gets blown up, and there are no aliens in it.
If they made it today, Meryl Streep would have to get a role. That says it all.
Posted by oneyedwilly (Member # 8730) on :
why do I always drift towards 80's movies when I want a "feel good movie?" I know many of you will agree that there are so many great ones from the 80's but why is that? Is it because the movies were from our youth and they take us back to that time?
There was a thread you should read which will shed some light on these questions (which i dont know how to bump)and many people posted some excellent thoughts and feelings on this...particularly Logan.
movie tastes have changed
Not in agreement with this totally...cinematography has evolved, the whole industry (and i know nothing about it)of course has evolved as times have changed. We all love revisiting the same movies again and again and maybe one influential factor in all of this, is that our movie taste has not changed really.
Our minds are most certainly more influenced by media now more than ever as its almost impossible to get away from advertisement, messaging and social pressures what with everything at our fingertips. Look at the original Halloween compared to lets say saw movies and hostel...we are slowley becoming immune to bllod and gore yet 30 yrs ago were horrified at a guy in a mask lurking in a corridor. Its just all too easy to put on an 80s flick and escape. Easy, simple lines, great characters and simple plots eg breakfast club.
If they made it today, Meryl Streep would have to get a role
oh god i hope not...but point taken Paul.
[ 18. October 2010, 08:57: Message edited by: oneyedwilly ]
