Terminator Is Out There

[luka]

It's striking partly because the 70s is full of proper grown-up films. Explain the reason for this.

 

[luka]

Craner says it's because the CIA commandeers Hollywood and uses it as part of the war effort.

 

[craner]

All films in the eighties are children's films and all films in the eighties are advertisements.

Morning in America. Second Childhood.

Spielberg and Lucas were our kings.

I caught a bit of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on the weekend and it's amazing how much those big, brassy John Williams orchestral scores evoke being a child in the 1980s.

 

[craner]

Also, in regard to Ferris Bueller, John Hughes reinvented the teenager for the new decade.

We probably underestimate now the size of the role that Kurt Cobain played in ending the dominance of this entertainment complex in America (and therefore the world).

 

[luka]

I appreciate your Great Men of History readings Oliver. Good counterweight to prevailing orthodoxies.

 

[craner]

We no longer have the Great Men of History, we are left with Thought Leaders and Change Makers. Scraps left over from the orgy.

 

[luka]

Was Eminem a Great Man of History Oliver?

 

[craner]

Was Eminem a Great Man of History Oliver?

He would have been if there had been no Vanilla Ice.

 

[luka]

In the 00s you get more young adult/pretentious teen movies. Not adult with adult themes, but sort of clever and pleased with themselves.

 

[craner]

You do. This is the thing I was talking about earlier in the thread, how True Lies took the principle of "I let him go" and applied it to the action movie as a whole. In the 90s you get this confluence of post-modernism, irony, retromania, pulp gratuity, CGI technology and the Blockbuster production model basically hijacking style and creativity. Even the themes and sentiments, although they are still there, are confused and undermined. The movie is watching its audience more attentively than the audience is watching the movie.

 

[luka]

Watching the film last night I remembered how I would get travel brochures on Florida and California from Thomas Cook and pore over them. Other children talked about Disneyland and Disneyworld. Like the films I never watched or the McDonald's I never ate at it was all part of this other life I was locked out of and didn't really understand.

 

[woops]

the story goes that the balance of power shifted to the directors in the 70s away from the studios doesn't it? finance-wise. dunno why that happened though

 

[craner]

Watching the film last night I remembered how I would get travel brochures on Florida and California from Thomas Cook and pore over them. Other children talked about Disneyland and Disneyworld. Like the films I never watched or the McDonald's I never ate at it was all part of this other life I was locked out of and didn't really understand.

Is this because your mum worked with nuns in Plaistow?

 

[luka]

they were Friars and that came much later. She was raised as an atheist. She became Christian to annoy my dad post divorce.

 

[luka]

the story goes that the balance of power shifted to the directors in the 70s away from the studios doesn't it? finance-wise. dunno why that happened though

Dunno either.

 

[craner]

they were Friars and that came much later. She was raised as an atheist. She became Christian to annoy my dad post divorce.

So was it a puritanical hippy thing? No movies, no rollercoasters, no American hamburgers.

 

[luka]

That's right.

 

[craner]

I can't believe you missed out on the 1980s.

 

[luka]

That's why I'm watching these films now.

 

[craner]

Were you allowed to watch things like The A-Team and Knight Rider?