Movies starting to get economic/political?

[badger]

For my argument, I would like to direct the jury to observe:

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In a nutshell, this Justin Timberlake flick shows how the rich get to live forever and the poor struggle day to day (literally) because once you hit 25 years old, you stop aging and only have a year to live unless you earn/inherit/??? more time.

In this next example:

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Ben Stiller gets his pension stolen (along with other workers at a pristine rich people high rise) by a billionaire and their idea is to steal the billionaire's $20 million safety net.

I am not sure I like the direction Hollywood is going... but I have a feeling these movies will strike a nerve with viewers.

Thoughts?

[KantoSooner]

Whether or not they are motivated by a particular agenda, they were selected for release in this season because of current events and the electoral calendar. That's just marketing.

[Ton Loc]

I think something set you off before you saw those movie trailers and that's what struck a nerve. The two movies you use as an example have been previously made at least 10-15 different times over the years. Rich guys are often/always the bad guys in movies. Hollywood has no ideas left. They take the same 5 premises, insert new actors, change three pieces of the plot, change the setting, make a new movie poster, and ta-da ----another piece of easily consumable entertainment garbage.

[soonercruiser]

Occupy Hollywood, where are you????
:ambivalence:

[yermom]

So what you are saying is that you haven't been watching movies long :biggrin:

[AlboSooner]

This is definitely a new direction in Hollywood.

[badger]

Perhaps what I am noticing is how they are marketing these films during these economic/political times. I know they've done "rob the evil rich dude" movies before, or "fight the evil government controllers" movies before. However, the marketing (these trailers) seems to be directly aimed at people that hate rich and powerful and cheering on the little guys that have nothing left to lose or whatever. Before when they advertised these movies, they might mention that part in two words, then fill your advertisement breaks with explosions, guns and high speed car chases.

[NormanPride]

In Time or whatever is a bastardization of Logan's Run. :(

[jumperstop]

The Justin Timberlake one looks interesting and good be one of the most badass movies I've seen in a long time.....if it didn't star Justin Timberlake and wasn't going to be ****tyly written. Very cool idea for the plot though, I just don't see it being that good.

And government control or rich guy control is nothing new. Farenhite 451, V for vendetta, ET? All have some theme of governmental control in them. What was that one a few years ago with Clive Owen and the last baby or something, no new young people. Reminds me a lot of this new JT movie but just a different plot. The movie sucked btw and at the end I was like "That's it?" Can't believe I saw that in theaters.

[cleller]

There's also Margin Call, which I gather is about 24 hours in the life of a big bank during the crisis.

I just hope we'd don't have to see Brad Pitt in an action-thriller about Occupy Wall Street.

[badger]

V for vendetta, ET? All have some theme of governmental control in them.

You might recall that they promoted V for Vendetta by having that scene near the end where the twin sais are flying in slow mo killing every government official in site as well as other fight scenes, to make it look like a Matrix-like thing (also promo'd as "from the writers/directors of the Matrix" or whatever)

I wonder what would happen if it were released today? Probably a lot more fight-the-government stuff, not the fight scenes.

[GottaHavePride]

The Ben Stiller movie is just Oceans Eleven with lower quality actors.

[jumperstop]

The Ben Stiller movie is just Oceans Eleven with lower quality actors.

It's a heist movie yes, but I think that's where the comparisons end. Ocean's Eleven is one of my favorite movies of all time. This looks more like a washed-up comedian heist movie. Think Road Hogs or whatever that movie was called plus a hiest plan.