Coyote Blog

15 Comments

1. SamWah:

   Ants was weak. A Bug's Life was very well done. My opinion, YMMV. Slightly higher west of the Mississippi.

   April 27, 2013, 8:48 am

2. mesaeconoguy:

   The real failure of Hollywood is basing movies on video games.

   Completely devoid of original thought and creativity.

   April 27, 2013, 12:40 pm

3. Rusty Bill:

   Hmm... Of the fifty movies listed, I have seen exactly... three. Top Gun, Iron Eagle, The Abyss. Of the remaining forty-seven, there are possibly six that I might watch. Someday. Maybe...

   April 27, 2013, 4:46 pm

4. jdgalt:

   The real failure of Hollywood is that they keep remaking their old material, not as well as the original.

   April 27, 2013, 6:42 pm

5. John O.:

   This phenomenon was touched upon in the web series Everything is a Remix. It has less to do with Hollywood stealing each others ideas, but on the fact that they rely on memes leading to spontaneous gravitation towards movies to share the same central concepts. These examples can be further explored in fields outside of film as well. The invention of the telephone was famously filed on the same day by two different inventors, Alexander Graham Bell becoming the victor in the dispute between the two of who invented the device first. Some memes are large concepts that are easily recognized and others are subtle that are noticed only by people with attention to detail.

   April 27, 2013, 9:37 pm

6. wolfwalker:

   First of all, the linked article is drastic overreach in at least 2 different ways: many of the movies shown weren't actually released at the same time; and many of the movies shown actually share very little beyond the movie posters.

   Second, and in all seriousness -- when has Hollywood ever been original? Look at the greatest classics of Hollywood history. How many are NOT based on either a real-life event or a story told first in some other medium? I can list a few, I'm sure you can list a few more -- but very very few compared to all the ones that are.

   April 28, 2013, 7:27 am

7. Matthew Slyfield:

   The real failure of Hollywood is Hollywood.

   April 28, 2013, 11:21 am

8. Regan:

   It goes all the way back to Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe. If it were not for one being a comedy and the other a drama, these two would be practically the same movie.

   April 29, 2013, 8:16 am

9. marque2:

   Hollywood gets their ideas from Modern books, which take their ideas from Shakespeare, who took many of his ideas from Virgil ...

   It is nothing new. If it is a good movie, enjoy it, don't anguish that it is not the most innovative.

   I think this is a poor argument. Remember Star Wars - it was a monumental film, and yet folks decried, it is just a cowboy movie in space, with poor acting. They might have a point, but it doesn't detract from Star Wars being an entertaining movie, that is worth watching.

   April 29, 2013, 9:14 am

10. marque2:

    I know I saw Ants, but I remember very little of it. Bugs life was cute.

    April 29, 2013, 9:19 am

11. marque2:

    Exactly Hollywood frequently takes from Modern authors, who copied themes from older authors - especially Shakespeare, who copied a lot of his stuff from Virgil.

    If the movie is entertaining, enjoy it. Even if they put in mandatory foreshadowing, and irony and stuff that makes the movie totally predictable.

    April 29, 2013, 11:55 am

12. marque2:

    Was it Ant Bully? I saw that movie, and recall very little of it. Bug's life was fun.

    April 29, 2013, 11:55 am

13. wolfwalker:

    That's true, marque2, but it's not quite what I meant. Look at AFI's list of the top 100 movies of all time. Of the top twenty, only three -- "Citizen Kane," "Casablanca," and "Singin' in the Rain" -- are not based on either an actual event or a _published_ work in some other medium (novel, short story, older film, theatrical play). That ratio more or less holds throughout the list: at least four out of five of these "classics" are based on works in some other medium.

    April 30, 2013, 5:31 am

14. bigmaq1980:

    There is skill and art in making a truly entertaining film, or music, etc.. It never has to be completely "original" to be "good" or "great".

    However, it also seems that there is a moving definition of what is good/great.

    For instance, much is made of the remixing done with today's music, often taking snippets of hit songs from the 70s, 80s and so on, throwing on an over processed heavy beat, and repeating those snippets along with one or two phrases of new lyrics, perhaps with some forced rhyme, ad nauseum.

    Incredibly, these songs are starting to show up on "All Time Greatest" charts.

    IMHO, I don't see much talent here - a key ingredient in making truly great music.

    I must be getting old, as I am sounding like my parents did when they called out to "turn down that crap"!

    April 30, 2013, 10:15 am

15. SamWah:

    Antz was not really funny.

    May 1, 2013, 7:15 am