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What movies are all style and no substance? Discussion (piefed.social)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/movies@piefed.social
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[+] -22 points 8 months ago (19 children)

Ghostbusters (1984)
Ultraviolet (2006)
Torque (2004)
Sin City (2005)
Drive (2011)
The Lighthouse (2019)

I'll probably come back to add more.

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  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago (11 children)

    Ghostbusters (1984)

    I could understand that if you're coming at it as a younger person who's not impressed with the franchise and/or feels that it hasn't aged well. But, man-- that thing was a tonne of fun back in the day, even if it wasn't some kind of cinematic classic.

    I'd argue that it was also seriously innovative, coming up with a bunch of novel tech, storytelling and plot points for that genre of movie. Lots of good acting, memorable scenes, and a truly inventive comedy adventure made for plenty of substance IMO.

    Sin City (2005)

    I'll agree with that one. They did a very good job literally recreating scenes from the GN, but there was a surprising flatness to the film that really brought down the interest level for me. 2D characters might work perfectly well for comics, but when you bring in real human actors, it's kind of a step backwards to play them the same way, I think.

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  • [–] 20 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Ghostbusters 1984 had a lot of substance to it.

    I mean, Dan Aykroyd was one of the writers, and he actually has a background in paranormal investigation, so even though the entire concept is lampooning paranormal investigators, like, for the time it was groundbreaking, it's still entertaining.

    I can't understand why somebody would say there's no substance to the movie.

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  • [+] -9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

    Aykroyd being able to accurately lampoon his own interest isn't substance.

    What's the movie saying about people, life & death, NYC politics even? What's the message or meaning of the movie? That's what substance is. Ghostbusters is great! Classic cinema, no question. But it absolutely has no meaningful statements, or questions about anything. It's pure fun, for it's own sake.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    No it isn't. It's entirely subjective whether a movie has substance.

    You're arguing that other people who found substance in their viewing of a movie are wrong because for you it had no substance for you. What's the point? What drives you to be validated here at the cost of invalidating others?

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)

    My larger point is that people often insist substance is good, style is bad. I disagree with endowing a value judgment on either. A movie with great substance can still be a terrible movie. Movies nothing going for them but style can be fantastic. And most try to balance the two, to wonderful or horrible effect.

    I'm not saying people finding substance in a movie are wrong in their opinion. They're wrong in their definitions. I chose my list specifically to spark discussion about what does it even mean to say a movie has substance. What is style?

    Movies aren't substantive because people like them. For the word "Substance" to be useful, it must mean something else.

    One of the writers knowing the subject on which they're writing isn't substance. What is Aykroid saying about real paranormal investigations? That would be substance.

    You can enjoy Ghostbusters without answering that question. I certainly do. I can't count how many times I've enjoyed watching it. Our enjoyment isn't trivialized or wrong if it's not a substantive movie.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Ghostbusters are probably like Beetlejuice back in the day. I did watch Ghostbusters when I was young, but only this year watched Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice is weird movie with a simple premise that somehow got a traction with children. Same as Ghostbusters I guess. They both have this weird charm that grabs your attention while having "no message"

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (4 children)

    I'm 45, and a massive Ghostbusters fan. But all it is, is a super fun zany romp. There's nothing else of any meaningful substance. No major character arch's or touching moments of humanity. Nobody reflecting on the nature of "living" vs "dead" if it's all just different states of being. And the movie is certainly no worse off for the lack of it. In fact adding more meaningful scenes or concepts to it would probably make it worse.

    A lot of people seem to believe a "low substance" movie is synonymous with being a bad movie. It's not.
    In my mind "Style" is entertaining and "Substance" is meaning. Ghostbusters and the rest of the movies I listed are all about only being some form of interesting entertainment. They're lacking in any other real message, meaning, or point. (Or making it so unintelligible as to be meaningless) Some of them are very popular movies. Movies people don't realize have no actual meaningful substance. Others are not. I would argue they're all good at being the movies they want to be, and recognizing that sometimes substance isn't actually worth anything.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I’m 45

    So yes indeed, coming at it as a younger person? 🙂 You would have been like 3yo when it came out, right?

    No major character arch’s or touching moments of humanity.

    In terms of the former, you'd be looking for something that's rarely there in that genre of film, so... of course not? As for the latter, I think there were some memorable humanistic moments, primarily driven by Bill Murray, and really, all the better for the movie avoiding dipping in to maudlin sentimentality and whatnot, the way other comedy-type films have done, past and since.

    In my mind “Style” is entertaining and “Substance” is meaning.

    Yeah, I see what you're saying with that. GB was certainly not about meaning, per se. But where I depart from you is that I take substance as being other things as well, such as the innovation I mentioned above. The film did fall in to a certain, fairly shallow type of entertainment, yet was still outrageously novel, interesting and even ground-breaking. That's certainly "substance" to me.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago* (6 children)

    Agree fully on Drive even though I love everything about it.

    But ghostbusters? Shit was a pretty unique movie when it came out, and still holds up, plenty of substance. Weird item on that list.

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  • [–] -4 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Exactly what substance?
    It's fun. It's entertaining. It's a fantastic movie. But what the point of it? What's it's message? What's it's meaning?

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

    Substance to me doesn't mean it has a message or meaning, but contains a lot more story than run and gun. It's got backstory, great characters (pro and antagonists), funny and/or hidden jokes, great writing, relatable maybe. It's not a run of the mill boring shoot em up or racing movie. Actual effort was put into it.

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  • [+] -8 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    In short, it sounds like you use substance to mean it's a good movie.
    That seems a poor use for a word, to simply replace another perfectly good word with no additional context or nuance.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    That's not remotely what I said. There are very deep movies with substance that I just don't care about or can't get into.

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Now it seems like you're assuming a good movie simply means a movie you like.
    Which also isn't great. I know there are lots of good movies that just aren't for me, and I don't enjoy all the much. But I'll absolutely defend their quality.

    But if I'm totally off base here, I'd appreciate more clarification.

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