Hacker Cinema
Tarantino
2020 · Film · short · 3 min
Directed by Simos Kakalas
The wonderful digital world is not just about colors and fancy ringtones; it is also a space for thoughtful discussions, as well as a chance for us to become better people, leaving the past behind and, with science’s help, creating the future that we deserve.
2 positive1 negative8 neutralfrom 11 commenters
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11 comments on Hacker News
I didn't say I went looking for a Tarantino movie!
Tarantino isn't exactly an obscure persona. But in general, perhaps your obscure stuff is known to the streaming platforms.
Was coincidentally just talking about this last weekend with some people. A lot of regional indie movies that we remember from youth are not available for streaming anywhere at any price. Movies that reached the theaters but only locally (one city or a few neighboring cities).
At the local video club places there used to be a whole rack dedicated to these local movies. Now, they're gone forever.
Occasionally someone finds an old VHS in a storage box and takes the time to upload it to youtube and things resurface, but that's the only hope.
I have no problems with Villeneuve... he's more than competent, definitely interesting. But (to me anyways) directors like this aren't the same league as the giants that came before them. I'd trust him enough not to mess up an interesting picture, but he's not really pushing the envelope as much as before. I'll take another Tarantino or Rodriguez, and I doubt we'll see the likes of Kubrick, Welles, Fellini, Tartovsky, Leone, etc. ever again. Heck I'd settle for another Spielberg, he may be a bit saccharin, but he has a killer instinct for the art based on his mastery every single aspect of filmmaking.
> I think the reason these directors are all in their 50s is that studios aren't willing to trust younger directors as much
That's sort of my point... Until recently, every generation had it's great young directors. Seems that is no longer the case. Now you have to play the studio game before they give you a film, and by the time they do you're such a predictable and "safe" player that you can't make (or don't want to make) an edgy / important / risk-taking statement-making kind of film.
Sort of like punk rock, it takes a young and angsty person to take the kind of risks needed to push the envelope in interesting or artistically important ways. Once a director grows up, has kids and hits middle age, well they get a bit more boring, and it comes across in the toned down films they deliver. Lucas and Ridley Scott come to mind as two very capable directors that have "matured" enough to see that what matters is popular appeal and profitability. They start out as artists and end up as producers.
> but that just means there ARE up and coming directors in their 20s and 30s who are making low-budget short/art films, who have not yet found public appeal.
Absolutely! A24 films come to mind of course. They are about all that remains of the old way of making movies. Guys like Ari Aster come to mind. The sad part is I doubt we'll ever get a "mainstream" picture out of him. Hollywood and the masses have moved on from this kind of storytelling. So the "old way" of doing things has been relegated into some niche corner of limited commercial appeal.
Honestly I'm not quite sure how A24 manages to stay in business. They take a lot of chances for the limited budgets they are working with. Not all of their films are great, but all of their misses are interesting. At the end of the day what matters are they making enough money to keep going?
I don't understand how is A24 delivering the kind of high quality pictures that they are, while studios like Band/Empire/FullMoon (which seem to be in the same league, same small/mid budget arena, also seem to be taking the same kind of risks that have limited commercial appeal) can't deliver anything beyond direct-to-video and MST3K quality films? I mean is A24 really profitable? Or is this a labor of love for them? If A24 was profitable you'd think someone in Hollywood would take notice.
Thank god for A24! Any film they produce is an automatic "goes on my watchlist".
Lastly, Jordan Peele is another name that comes to mind. I'm not quite sure how he's crossed over to more mainstream appeal, but I'm glad it's there, his films are great.
Anyhow my 2 cents, I understand this is all a matter of opinion.
I have never heard this in my life. Either people treat words as magic or they don't.
There's a difference between "you'll never hear me say that word, just all other words" and trying to censor.
I won't say the n word, but I'll watch a Tarantino movie.
>> It's just a cultural artifact of the west's love and expectation of violent solutions
> I don't think this really has anything to do with the west.
I grew up (in the West) watching HK action films and samurai movies, so I hear you.
It's exasperating to have to continually point out that fantasy and reality are different things when others stubbornly refuse to accept that. Exemplified by Tarantino losing it after probably the millionth time he was grilled about violence in media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7k4GQSGvx8
Tarantino is literally the only director and when his movies are talked about, they're elevated above their respective genres exactly the same way horror movies are as discussed in this article we're commenting about...
Movie rights for distribution in Tonga might just be cheap.
Maybe Netflix only has licensed to 640 movies with no sex, gay people or drug use? Or maybe movie studios don't want to license their content that might make them look sleazy to Arab nations? Just guessing.
Or maybe it's very lucrative to sell exclusive movie licenses directly to the Emirates?
Edit: Looks like the current Tarantino movie is playing in Dubai, so probably not a content thing.
>Now the cast and crew are contractors, producers, studios, and theaters are separate entities with each one having to grow 10% annually. The last movie I watched had 10 minutes of end credits. Movies have gotten far more complex in production and there are a lot of hands in the pot now.
Still much worse cinematography and script-wise than older stuff, from Hitchcock and Capra to Pekinpah and Copolla.
With a few exceptions, like Tarantino, 90% of the stuff coming out are aimed at teenagers with ADD (including 20 somethings that still play GTA). And the more "serious" stuff is usually some bad formulaic (as opposed to good formulaic) melodrama BS.
Except YouTube hasn't solved the content problem. Monetization is a complete afterthought here. Tarantino doesn't sit down and write a movie with the goal of maximizing revenue. If you have great content, the money will follow.
The problem with YouTube's content is almost all of it is either completely forgettable, not brand safe, or just plain crappy. Ask yourself if you would pay $5/mo for access to YouTube's content. The big brands hardly want to be seen next to "cute cat videos" which is exactly why YouTube is heavily moving to have more premium content. Which connects back to the OP, its not solely about the technology - its about creating great narratives using this new medium.
Hollywood isn't about raw attention. Facebook, Google Search, News, Banner Ads, and Billboards are all about selling ads through raw attention. At the end of the day however, you wouldn't pay to use Facebook, you wouldn't pay to look at Billboards, and as we have found recently, people don't want to pay for news. Hollywood and Premium Content are about engagement. Its about creating an itch, and generating hype. You "need" to watch the next episode, you "need" to watch that next Spielberg film, you "need" to see Scarlett Johansson. That is the biggest difference Hollywood and YouTube. No one is tripping over themselves, or camping out to watch a YouTube video.
Lastly, you can now see how this problem cannot be solved solely with technology. How do you quantify the difference between a Spielberg film and a cat video?
Funny you mention Tarantino, who built his whole career by cut-and-pasting tropes, beats, and clips from classic Asian movies. Or as Tarantino calls it, "homage"
So not liking Pixar means I'm like this "Armand White" guy that doesn't like anything? Did you even notice that I gave TWO examples of things I consider better (old Disney, Nightmare before Xmas)?
The rest of your argument I find no much logic in it: "Our human brains are puny and weird, and programmed to only enjoy one kind of story. Or rather, it's pretty weird that we enjoy any kind of story at all; why would we want to waste our time hearing about made-up stuff that never happened? But we do enjoy it... though only for a fairly narrow range of stories with a fairly narrow range of structures"
WHere did you got that impression from? We like a great variety of storytelling modes and stories. Only the more naive like just bland, cookie cutter repetitions of the same narrow range of stories and structures (action blockbuster crap, the nth romantic comedy, etc).
In film, for example, we dont just have heroic/feel good/suggary Spielberg movies (the real movie Pixar equivalent if there ever was one). We have people from Scotchese and Copolla to Fincher and Riddley Scott, to Burton and Woody Allen, to Tarantino and Waters and Jarmoush...