Often, in discussions about old movies, someone will say, "That movie couldn't be made today.", and inevitably someone else will disagree.

top 100 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[+] 145 points 6 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 66 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    EVERYthing made by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Keaton

    We've got laws, now, against the insane shit they did on-set, back then..

    Lives were too-cheap, back then..

    _ /\ _

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 64 points 6 months ago (10 children)

    Blazing Saddles.

    Probably the Blue Brothers, but for different reasons. I feel like most of the blues legends are gone.

  • source
  • hideshow 10 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Blazing saddles was (loosely) remade in 2022 as paws of fury

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Sorry about the "up yours, slobber face." You will of course have the decency not to tell anyone I talked to you?

    Idk. It would have to be a REALLY loose adaptation.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I watched this recently. I agree it couldn't be made the same, but it amazes me how many people miss the point. The racists were the ones we were supposed to laughing at, not with.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 26 points 6 months ago (8 children)

    Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, TMNT ‘89, Lord of the Rings.

    Whatever the JP franchise is now, it will never go back to full scale animatronics, and without Stan Winston’s magic, it’ll never be quite what the first (and a bit of the second) were.

    Cameron himself can’t recreate the magic of T2 even if his films make billions. He never risks having to “nail this in one shot” stunts.

    As for TMNT. Nobody gives a shit they’re suits, we could suspend our disbelief and watched mindblowing performances by great stuntmen in some of the most advanced animatronics ever. Michael Bay can’t even fathom how much better that is.

    The Hobbit was plagued by a lot of problems, but I don’t know if even Jackson could pull off the practical effects with digital overlay magic that was the first trilogy if he tried.

    That era of Hollywood, practical first, digital to enhance (sparingly) is gone it seems. It’s sad Hollywood has forgotten that that boundary pushing era was what made those films iconic. Rexy had weight, she literally tore a car apart. You can see the chaos of the semi landing in the canal. The turtles hit. The Riders of Théoden truly rode for ruin. Tell me you don’t get giddy when you know that scene is about to hit.

  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 17 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Project Hail Mary was practical first. Real sets, real puppet, with digital enhancements. There is a scene that was filmed with loads of LEDs on wires to cover the shot in blinking red lights. I think it pays off hugely and the film is better for it all.

    At the moment I think it's an outlier and most films will continue to just film green screens and tennis balls but it might herald the return of practical, maybe even full-scale animatronics! I can only hope.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago

    I hope that film wins awards, genuinly good sci-fi made by people who understand movies and dont just fix it in post. It fealt real, the sinple trick of not having sound if the camera is not in a place with atmosphere is one of the most important little details. 2001 gets it right, Firefly gets it right, but if you can hear lazers in space, your just bring a wizard in 0g.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    Jurassic Park used CGI for many of its dinosaur scenes, they weren’t all animatronic.

    What animatronics were used in LOTR? Gollum was CGI.

    I’m not saying you’re wrong but some of your examples don’t seem right.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    As I said, practical first, digital secondary or to enhance seems to be the secret sauce of creating something stunning. Most of the intimate shots with Rexy and the kids are practical. When she busts through the sunroof and tries to eat them… terrifyingly real because there’s a “real” thing attacking them. LOTR is real for a different reason- physical armor, cast of thousands. Compare the Rohirrim and armies of Mordor in that movie to the unified CGI mess that is the Battle of Five Armies in the Hobbit. Even using physical miniature sets for the big locations like Minas Tirith gives them weight.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago

    You know I was just thinking about this the other day. Netflix will put out their standard 10 hour "epic" and the world still manages to feel a tenth the size, and there will be a tenth of the action as any one of the three hour LOTR movies. It really makes me appreciate just how masterful those movies were, and how every artistic license they took with the original material feels more than justified.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 23 points 6 months ago (7 children)

    Tiptoes. Gary Oldman was on his knees the entire time. I can't believe this was even made in 2003.

  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    “In the role of a lifetime”

    Looks a mildly interesting film. But no way is that Oldmans “role of a lifetime”

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    The list time I saw this posted somewhere, it was an extended version. I believe McConaghy and Beckinsale did have a dwarf baby and Matthew was the one that couldn't deal with it. Can't remember if Kate ended up marrying Oldman.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 41 points 6 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] [S] 15 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    Eh. I think a comedy could still get away with black-face today.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 17 points 6 months ago* (3 children)

    any black-face media has been systematically removed from the internet. you can't stream any episode of any show that has it. you can typically only watch that content on DVD.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] [S] 13 points 6 months ago*

    Hmm. Okay, I haven't paid much attention to that. Although Tropic Thunder does seem to be available for streaming on several major platforms at the moment. Paramount, Amazon, Apple, Tubi, to name a few.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    It really isn't blackface though, in the sense that blackface is meant to be a caricature which diminishes black culture and behavior. The RDJ character was written as kind of the opposite - the "blackface" character is shown to be sane, courageous and even wise, while the actor playing the character is shown to be an out of touch Hollywood twat.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 18 points 6 months ago

    Famously, you couldn't make Blazing Saddles today because they already made that move in the 70s

  • source
  • [–] 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Look up all the stunts Buster Keaton did, and shiver. Or The Little Rascals or Hal Roach’s Rascals, whatever they were called.

    Or the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet - while probably one of the best versions ever, nobody today would dare to think doing a movie like that today - it would be criminal.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    That doesn't mean they couldn't do it today, it would just be a weurd cgi mess wuth marvel level cutaways

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Well, the Rascals would be 100% cgi, not just because of the sometimes dangerous things the kids did, but also because they would not be allowed to be 12+ hours a day on set... at that age, they can only be on set for two hours a day IIRC, so filming this today with real actors would be horribly expensive.

    And don't even think about topless bedscenes with a 13 or 14 year old actress...

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 36 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

    American History X, easily. In fact, that movie had a troubled production during the time it came out, but it would be censored to hell and back were it made today.

    The original Robocop as well because Hollywood is too scared of violence nowadays, fun fact, the original Robocop almost got an NC-17 (then X) rating for violence alone and had to be edited 13 times to get downgraded to a hard R* rating.

    *Hard R in the movie rating sense, is when an R-rated movie truly earns that R rating through having a lot of violence, gore, swearing, explicit content, or a combination of those factors. It's when an R-rated movie is teetering on the edge of getting upgraded to NC-17, basically. This old AVPGalaxy post should go more into what the hard R rating entails. The original Robocop got downgraded to this from the NC-17 rating it almost got (X when that movie was in production) after 13 edits like I said.

    Here's an archived version of the Bloody Disgusting article referenced in that AVPGalaxy post since that reference is a dead link.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 17 points 6 months ago* (2 children)

    Scream.

    The killer would try to call the girl in the first scene and she would just be like "Ew, who actually calls on the phone?" and hit cancel. Roll credits.

    Alternatively the scariest movie the girl ever saw would be Five Nights at Freddie's.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 17 points 6 months ago* (12 children)
  • [–] 22 points 6 months ago* (8 children)

    I showed this to my 16 year old nephew and he was legit upset/offended and I had to turn it off.

    He was shocked they could say 'those bad words' in a movie. I don't dare show him Pulp Fiction.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 13 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Wait what because of the bad words? I. What?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    If you've grown up as a kid only having access to the internet in the last 6 years or so, yeah I could see how Idiocracy might be shocking. The dialog in that movie is the antithesis of the status quo nowadays. For a kid without context about the satirical and parodical nature of the film, they might think that the movie was endorsing that kind of language.

    It would take some guidance from a guardian on what it means, why its relevant, and why its actually become important over time.

    Its a required watch in my mind.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago*

    That's nuts. I remember being 11 years old and one of our friends snuck a copy of South Park's Bigger, Longer, and Uncut they stole from their older brother over to my place, and when they started singing the "Uncle Fucker" song, we lost our minds laughing, fumbling for the remote to turn down the volume before the neighbor ladies overheard and got us in trouble lol

    It's crazy how much Tiktok has normalized censorship for this generation

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 16 points 6 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. No way would a studio agree to do that much hand-crafted work. They'd just have the stars reacting to a bunch of tennis balls and "fix it in post."

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago (9 children)

    Trading Places. It should be a Christmas classic but...

  • source
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I put it on last Christmas for my kids, not realizing the version I'd always seen on TV was heavily edited. Had to turn that off pretty fast.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    This and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation have been our family Christmas movies for decades!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 14 points 6 months ago

    Any 80s fantasy movie. The vibe is gone. And it's not just CGI.

  • source
  • [–] 14 points 6 months ago

    Any of the stunts Buster Keaton pulled.

  • source
  • [–] 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Ace Ventura. I love the shower scene, it's hilarious, but today it's unthinkable to make a scene like this.

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Honestly, I think the shower scene isn't the problem. It's pretty much in character. But I never understood everyone puking at the end. Never made sense to me.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Silent films using tens of thousands of performers and large-scale stage sets will probably never be made again.

    This is because modern audiences take sound in films for granted, making it impossible to expect box office returns that match such an investment.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Short Circuit. I always thought that guy was Indian.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 11 points 6 months ago

    In 2021 my friend's roommate said you couldn't make a movie like Borat these days. I immediately pointed out they made a Borat movie the year before.

    I didn't point this out, but he claimed to be 6'2" while being a few inches shorter than me, and I'm 5'11".

  • source
  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Big Trouble in Little China

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 19 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    Team America. From the minds of South Park's, Matt Stone and Trey Parker 😁.

    I think y'all know why.

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 9 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    Because of the puppet sex scene...?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Heck yeah, the unedited or "Not Rated" DVD version had the uncut scene where she defecates on his chest! Quite funny at the time, but I cannot imagine then doing something like that now, nor all the 9/11 jokes. Plus making fun of NK's Jim Jong Il. I feel like you couldn't really do that without stirring the pot at least a little bit.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 14 points 6 months ago

    Big disagree. It was outrageous then and it would be outrageous now. The southpark movie was fucking mindblowing when I saw it in the theater. Parker and Stone push boundaries, and it works for them every time. Theyre kind of American heroes in my book.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments
    view more: next ›