Movies of 2010: Great Performances and Directing, But Terrible, Uninteresting Stories

[Yavin4]

I have not seen the King's Speech, but I have seen Black Swan, the Fighter, Inception, and The Social Network, and my general feeling about these movies is that we're seeing outstanding individual acting and directing performances, but we have terrible story telling. The stories behind these films are very underwhelming.

Take The Fighter. We've seen these themes over and over again in movies from On the Waterfront to Rocky and beyond. What saved this movie from the cliche pile were the performances of Christian Bale and Melissa Leo. Take them out of the film, and no one would even notice the movie.

Same holds for Black Swan. Yes, Natalie Portman was good in it, and Darren Aronofsky's direction was excellent. But this movie was almost designed to win the Oscar for Natatlie. The overall story of the film was meh.

Great movies should have great stories. Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, Godfathers I and II, Chinatown, all of these films had great stories as well as performances and direction.

Movies today have become so concerned with ROI that they really do not care about the story any more. The priority is make something that will sell, and making great art is an afterthought.

Really creative and inventive writers would rather write for HBO than do yet another superhero movie. The movie, "Jack", a film about Dr. Jack Kervorkian should have been released in the theater, but it was on HBO instead. The movie, "Temple Graydon", was also an HBO film as well.

[HopeHoops]

1. Oh. My bad. I thought your OP was a SUMMARY of 2010 movies.

[Bucky]

2. What's R.O.I.?

I'll bet the O stands for "of"

[Yavin4]

3. Return on Investment

Hollywood is more concerned about making a profit on their films.

[JCMach1]

4. True Grit was a fantastic re-telling of a novel! I think it lost beause they weren't about to give

the brothers another best picture after No Country.

I liked True Grit more than No Country... go figure.

I would disagree with the OP's premise that you have to always have great narrativity to have a great film.

Gladiator was a great story, but poor art. Ditto for Titanic, and host of other Oscar winners. Dances with Wolves anyone?

I still can't believe The Hurt Locker won last year (gee that stood the test of time). Seriously, the Oscars are beginning to flirt with the level of the Grammies!

Or take 2001 where The Fellowship of the Ring (it was the best movie of the series) or Moulin Rouge should have won over A Beautiful Mind... seriously :wtf:

Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction! Why I outta!


Crash seems a perfect Oscar winner as the name generally describes the whole damn thing!