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The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

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231 points frogulis | 2 comments | 15 Jul 25 03:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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Duanemclemore ◴[15 Jul 25 04:32 UTC] No.44567845[source]▶
I don't know if calling it a "New Literalism" is helpful. I just don't know that a penchant for literalism ever went away.

Now, what IS relatively new is the "ruined punchline" phenomena that they identify (without naming) on the movie recap podcast Kill James Bond, which is that contemporary movies always ruin jokes by telling one, say... "x" and then having another character chime in with "Did you just say 'x' !?"

I think there's a fear of losing attention because you're asking people to think about something other than the eyewash happening right in front of them by inviting them to have to -think- about a movie.

Anyway, to close: "No one in this world ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people..."

- HL Mencken

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justanotherjoe ◴[15 Jul 25 05:02 UTC] No.44567959[source]▶
Can you describe more about the "ruined punchline" thing? Cause that sounds natural to me. Like in Jurassic Park, Alan Grant hears "We clocked the t-rex at 32 mph" and he goes "Did you just say 't-rex'?". Actually they repeat it like 3 times more to really lean into it.

And I guess my point is that Jurassic Park doesn't feel modern or clumsy in this particular execution.

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Duanemclemore ◴[15 Jul 25 05:14 UTC] No.44568020[source]▶
Having never seen Jurassic Park (yeah, right?) I'm guessing the preposterousness to an unaware onlooker is played for effect.

This is a more recent phenomenon. This is literally just repeating a punchline so that it tells the audience - "that was the punchline, you can laugh now."

I've seen plenty but I can't give any specific examples. I mention Kill James Bond [0] because they specifically point it out in the movies they watch. Although they don't watch any Whedon movies, in talking about it in movies where it happens a lot they cite Whedon as particularly guilty of this.

[0] https://killjamesbond.com/

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emsy ◴[15 Jul 25 05:36 UTC] No.44568128[source]▶
The T-Rex bit is not a joke, the line is said seriously. Also, watch Jurassic Park. Good movie.
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Duanemclemore ◴[15 Jul 25 06:05 UTC] No.44568278[source]▶
I actually have less than zero excuse. I was a 13 year old nerd when it came out - PRIME market.

But I think even then I was allergic to hype. Same reason I've never seen a vast number of well loved movies. Like Titanic. ... just a contrarian LOL.

We didn't have the money to go to movies. So I think the exposure to entire cohort of my fellow nerds having seen it three times over opening weekend, wearing the t-shirt every day, and talking endlessly about it for weeks made it easy for me to just nope out by the time it came out on video. That and I was really hitting the "girls and rock and roll" part of puberty and probably ran as far and as fast as I could from stuff that reminded me of being younger. Enough biography. LOL

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1. BobaFloutist ◴[15 Jul 25 17:20 UTC] No.44573580{5}[source]▶
I've managed to partially short-circuit my allergy to hype by telling myself that if I wait until after something is established, I successfully avoided the downsides of hype (buying into something site-unseen that might not even be that good) and intelligently waited for something to come out and get properly evaluated. Also I'm being unique and independent by getting into things well after everyone else.

This has given me a license to come back and check out beloved works whenever I realize I was just being contrarian and stubborn, which is a delight. Also still lets me say "I knew it!" when super popular things become less than beloved in retrospect.

Plus old stuff is often cheaper. It's often a fun adventure to go "Ok, let's see what all the fuss is about," even if it doesn't become an instant new favorite. Example: Twilight, while I wouldn't call it "good", is very funny and very fun to watch, especially if you get a mixed crowd of people that loved it at the time but recognize it's dumb, people that were allergic at the time but have since watched it and can acknowledge the fun, and new watchers.

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2. Duanemclemore ◴[15 Jul 25 17:55 UTC] No.44573978[source]▶
That's all really insightful! I agree. I'm also much better now - not willfully disregarding things because just they're popular. I was a punk and indie rocker in the early 00's, so I was able to get that out of my system. (and boy did we) Now, my tastes are just generally extremely non-mainstream. So I avoid it by default.

It's pretty straightforward really - for example I saw Fruitvale Station as a movie fan. I thought it was great and so Coogler was on my radar. I thought the Rocky franchise was ripe for a reboot, so when I heard he was doing it I was in. And the movie was fine. As was Black Panther (considering Marvel flicks for what they are, no judgment either way). So OF COURSE I was downright excited for Sinners. With no assumption that it had to be the best thing ever - and I had a blast.

Another good example is that I'm currently watching the John Wick series for the first time. I didn't know anything about them, but had heard them positively referenced on Kill James Bond. Well, if you meet it where it is and realize it's just "what if you made a comic book into a movie?" and don't expect more of it, you can appreciate it for whether it does that well or not.