I think David Sirota has a minor point here but runs too far with it when he argues that modern technology will make movies from the 80s and 90s seem too dated:
do you really believe a Google-addicted kid in 2032 won’t find it absurd that Ray and Egon have to spend lots of time going to libraries to physically dig through old books to find out the history of Gozer the Gozerian? And despite Phil Connors reminiscing about drunk sex on a Caribbean beach, will that same kid in 2032 not laugh out loud when he realizes the entire plot of “Groundhog Day” relies on Phil not having access to Mapquest or GPS and therefore not being able to plot an alternate route out of Punxsutawney, Pa? . . .
Likewise, Vincent Gambini would have been thrown out of court in the first five minutes of “My Cousin Vinny” had the court been able to use today’s instant Internet databases (and not a phone call to a slow bureaucracy) to discover that he wasn’t a licensed lawyer.
But this is silly. Just because we have cell phones doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the painful missed meeting of “An Affair to Remember.“ Just because we’ve seen footage of modern warfare doesn’t mean we can’t understand why the ships’ captains in “Master and Commander” don’t fire Exocet missiles at
the enemy. Movies from the 80s and 90s are going to seem horribly dated by 2032, but not because of any advances in technology.
P.S. — There’s also the issue of selective willing suspension of disbelief. Once you accept the premise of a movie, you have to go all-in. You can’t watch a film like “Men in Black” and accept for the fun of it the premise of aliens living among us in the U.S., super-gee-whizmo ray guns, etc.—but then complain that the scene where Will Smith takes his entrance exam is unrealistic because it wouldn’t have involved the use of pencils. . . .
(Or to use his example, you can’t accept the premise of “Ghostbusters,“ Stay-Puft Marshmallow man and all, but then complain that the library scene is too far-fetched. . . .)
I find old movies dated by the dialogue and the social mores, not the rotary-dial phones. . .
Reader Comments:
Great post! I’m just starting out in community management/marketing media and trying to learn how to do it well - resources like this article are incredibly helpful. As our company is based in the US, it’s all a bit new to us.
drink coasters
Me and my friend were arguing about an issue similar to this! Now I know that I was right. lol! Thanks for the information you post.
promotional products
Very easy to use. To be honest you cannot beat the services or the people that I have dealt with. I’m good to go.
promotional gift
Oh goodness, I just went back and read my previous post and it sounds a little, um, menacing. This short woman does not possess a handgun. Nice Nancy. Nonviolent Nancy…
montreal exotic massage
One thing I like about old movies is the everyday background scenes that show what life was like back then.
It’s like home movies. When you record your child’s first birthday it seems so recent and unimpressive but twenty or thirty years later precious, and you don’t want to see the birthday itself but the shots of the people and what the room looked like.
History has a timeless quality. ( ha ha )
todays yoot’s
What is a YOOT?!
I have to agree with the guy who wrote this article. I find contemporary movies far more compelling because, thru the use of computer generated special effects, they’re so much more realistic. Why, just yesterday I was attacked by a group of neo nazi terrorists while driving down 95, in reverse at 120mph in my vintage 66 GTO that I built from scratch the night before, when suddenly a gasoline tanker truck pulled alongside, so I climbed out the window, used my special ninja training to leap in the air, defy gravity for 300ft and land on the top of a telephone pole where I then turned and emptied all 30,000 rounds of ammo in my handgun into the truck as it passed the terrorists causing it to explode in a kickass fireball and kill them all as the driver of the truck lept out at the last minute and landed in a passing truck carrying a load of garbage bags filled with nothing that could possibly hurt a human if he were to slam into it going 60 mph.
Seriously, this guys premise would mean that todays yoot’s couldn’t relate to the Titanic because nobody thought to pull out the inflatable life rafts or call the Coast Guard and have some helicopters respond. Or even better, that the ship could sink after hitting an iceberg when everyone knows all the icebergs are gone because Oscar winner Al Gore said so…in a movie. So, I have to agree that this is silly.
Althogh I did have to show my nephew how to roll down the window in my truck once.
I watched a Tale of Two Cities in black and white. Talk about old school.
A good movie is still a good movie. My favorite black and white one that has not been colorized is the Ox Bow incident with
Henry Fonda. The script is basically the book, an anti-lynching novel set in the West.
Deja ju with this topic! Only this past Saturday I watched a cable movie “A Time to Kill”, from 1996 - Just 14 years ago. I remarked on the total absence of computers & cell phones. In fact, this absence led me to think the movie was mid-1980s. But, when I looked it up later (on the internet of course), I found this movie was from 1996!
Post Your Comments:
