Francis Ford Coppola: Marvel movies are despicable

Any film director would back Scorsese. There are plenty of talented filmmakers to make Marvel films which are essentially comic books like their source material. They are not literature, an art form like cinema.

Lol bump

Marvel films, especially the MCU films, are basically just another version of Saturday morning superhero cartoons. They are just as skin deep and meaningless, made to feel like they come from the same assembly line. They are technically extremely well made and are enjoyable to watch. I used to joke that I love watching an MCU film but totally forget what had happened in it an hour after. This really isn't very far from the truth.

However the reality is that I'd more likely choose an MCU film to watch while having a pizza because they are such light entertainment. I haven't wanted to see any new films coming from Scorsese for like over two decades and the last one I remember from Coppola is Godfather III.

Marvel is more than just cartoons or comic books. They are the Walmart of movies.

They are the Kardashians of the movie world. They all look alike , devoid of any entertainment value and literally useless.

He is completely right.

Talk about liberals being divisive and elitist. Audiences enjoy both big budget, effects laden “popcorn” movies and the violent, high-brow, pretensions of Scorsese and Coppola. They have no problem chatting joyfully about the b westerns and gangster flicks they grew up on. It’s just old man sour grapes because comic book heroes get enormous budgets, which they continue to recoup while their expensive personal indulgences have to be fought for.

That’s why we can’t have nice things.

These two old farts haven't made a single decent film between them in the last 30 years or so. The best way of fighting those crappy comic book films would be to make great films for the adults, the kind of films that would really challenge the viewers intellect, but these two lost their touch aeons ago so we obviously can't expect that from them. The only challenge the viewers of recent Scorsese films face is trying to hold their urine in for 3+ hours.

I’ll take a Marvel movie any day over Scorsese’s 3 hour epic that celebrates the life of a Wall Street crook.

Then you’ll love his three hour epic that celebrates the life of a hitman.

They can call Marvel movies bad films if they want but to say they are not films is wrong. They have every right to be “movies” and “cinema”. It’s like saying Two Broke Girls is not a TV show just because it’s crass. Of course it’s still a TV show.

When I was younger I was a snobbish little shit and wouldn't be caught dead watching something like a superhero movie. Now all I want is distraction from my own life for an hour, and Marvel movies fit the bill.

I find it interesting that the marvel movies are derided as comic books while "graphic novels" increasingly become more reputable.

I do have to admit that I will sometimes rewatch the action sequences I enjoy from marvel and the like. But when I broke out Blue Velvet the other day, it was a start to finish affair. Same for apocalypse now last year.

Different genres.

Yes Francis, tell us more about despicable things in movies. While not brilliant art, they are meant to entertain - they make little pretense of being brilliant.

Oh, but tell us more about cash grabs and bad movies:

[quote]"Surprisingly, the latter (Coppola) likely made the movie ("Supernova") even worse, cutting out most of special effects, adding a second zero-gravity sex scene and leaving something of an awkward Franken-film as the result. Watching it is such a joyless experience that it doesn’t even qualify for so-bad-it’s-good status.

[quote]That’s likely because the latter ("Godfather") is a masterpiece and the former ("Jack") is terrible. And deceivingly terrible at that. If you recall, the plot centers on Jack (Robin Williams), who is born with an extreme version of Werner syndrome that causes him to age four times faster than the average person.

[quote]The 2012 horror film “Twixt” doesn’t fall betwixt being a good and bad film, it’s just bad. Despite boasting familiar names like Val Kilmer, Bruce Dern and Elle Fanning—as well as being written, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola—critics deemed “Twixt” not scary, they said Coppola’s direction was uninspired and some even called the film frustratingly unwatchable. Despite “Twixt” possessing some creepy imagery, horror fans, like us, were even less kind.

Yeah, he's such a great auteur with integrity because casting your daughter was considered brilliant by all.

The thing about people like Coppola and Scorsese deriding comic book films as popcorn junk is that many of the films championed by their generation of directors were viewed in their time as popcorn junk as well. All those spaghetti westerns they salivate over - in the era of those films' release nobody thought they had any artistic merit, they were pure trash entertainment. The thing about popular, mainstream entertainment is that it's often only with time that its quality becomes clear. In his era, nobody thought of Charles Dickens as this epic classic writer - he was a popular mainstream bestseller. All of those vocal group records from the 50s and 60s - doo wop and girl groups - nobody at the time thought that was classic music-making. They were fun, disposable pop songs. It's only in later years that the quality of the production, songwriting and performance has been appreciated to the fullest. Time will separate the wheat from the chaff as far as the comic book films go, too, just as it has done with Coppola's own artistic output.

R16 It’s the chaff we are concerned about. There’s too much of it, we can’t get to the wheat. We are starving.

This coming from the guy that directed Dracula.

Francish ashked me to play Kurtzsh, but I wouldn't szshave my head!

[quote]This coming from the guy that directed Dracula.

Shush Sweetie. Just shush.

[quote]The best way of fighting those crappy comic book films would be to make great films for the adults, the kind of films that would really challenge the viewers intellect

The thing is, the movie industry focuses so intensely on the comic book movies (because they make money) that it doesn't bother to cultivate new moviemakers who would make films for adults, because those films only earn modest revenue by comparison. I'm sure there are potentially great moviemakers out there, but they're not getting the support they need from the industry, so they disappear.

The same thing has happened in the music industry. The businessmen have taken over with their short-term perspective and they don't bother cultivating talent for the long term.

It’s like a starbucks and a red lobster on every block. Crowds out everything else.

[quote]It’s like a starbucks and a red lobster on every block. Crowds out everything else.

Tell me more!

In the 1950s, the films of Douglas Sirk - Magnificent Obsession; All That Heaven Allows; Written on the Wind; Imitation of Life, etc. - were derided as trashy melodramas barely deserving of respect that nevertheless made a ton of money; now they are correctly recognized not only for their exquisite visual stylization but also for their incisive critiques of American culture.

The Marvel movies will never be reevaluated like Sirk or Leone though. They're indistinguishable product off a line, every one telling the same endless story, looking exactly the same. They have no individual character, no point of view, no auteur. There are tons of Westerns that weren't John Ford, the Marvel movies are those.

There is an auteur behind the Marvel movies - Kevin Feige. I suspect the fact that its the producer who has the primary vision rather than the director is partly why it's so galling to Scorsese and Coppola.

[quote]The Marvel movies will never be reevaluated like Sirk or Leone though. They're indistinguishable product off a line, every one telling the same endless story, looking exactly the same. They have no individual character, no point of view, no auteur. There are tons of Westerns that weren't John Ford, the Marvel movies are those.

To be fair we have no way of knowing what happens in 30 years. It's very well possible movies are so vastly different then that the MCU films stand out positively. Or not. The reality is obviously that there are so many fx-filled blockbusters made these days that nothing in the MCU films truly stands out. This is actually why I've always loved Bryan Singer's X-Men films (not counting Apocalypse). They have a very special mood in them the MCU films can only dream of. Without Singer's sex scandals he might've ended up creating gorgeous movies for Disney/Marvel.

[quote]The Marvel movies will never be reevaluated like Sirk or Leone though. They're indistinguishable product off a line, every one telling the same endless story, looking exactly the same. They have no individual character, no point of view, no auteur. There are tons of Westerns that weren't John Ford, the Marvel movies are those.

I'm not even much of a follower of the MCU movies, but even I can see what an accomplishment Avengers: Endgame was, a culmination of years of characters and story buildup that was very meaningful to its audience. It's very easy - and common - to dismiss anything sci-fi/fantasy as being all about special effects, or childish, or devoid of genuine characterization. The late Christopher Lee once said that the reason he did so many sci-fi/fantasy roles was because he viewed them as the modern world's version of the stories told for centuries around campfires, like Scandinavian sagas or Arthurian legends. And I think there's something to that. People were sobbing in the theaters when the Endgame credits rolled. If it doesn't speak to us, it doesn't, but what about the people who DO connect with it? There certainly are a lot of them. Are they all wrong, attracted to something vapid and empty? Or is there more there that maybe others aren't seeing?

r28, the MCU became my replacement for the loss of daytime soaps; Kevin Feige managed the MCU like Douglas Marland at ATWT in the late 80s, everything built upon each other to the climax that was Endgame. (And soaps, when they're at their best, are merely an extension of those serialized stories that Dickens wrote and that Scheherazade told.)

Religious scholar Jonathan Pageau provides a long but fascinating examination of the narrative thread and symbolism in the MCU. (Obviously, spoilers if you've not seen the film.)

I hate Marvel movies...really hate them. Of course, I have only watched one.

I remember when Robert Downey Jr. was an actor.

Action films bore the shot out of me. They are just the same thing over and over again.

Say all you want about Harvey Weinstein but he delayed this idiocy of superhero by 15 years.

Adult men wearing spandex fighting crime is the apex of cultural stupidity.

[quote]I remember when Robert Downey Jr. was an actor.

Does [italic]he[/italic]?!

[quote]Adult men wearing spandex fighting crime is the apex of cultural stupidity.

Have you seen the other shit humans do? Please, point us to the most refined of human activities please, so that we may rise up out of the ooze and join you... where, the croquet court?

I'd rather watch indie horror films as my popcorn entertainment. They're usually clever still manage to have some social commentary and don't feature adult men and woman wearing stupid outfits to do the bidding of the elite. Why any adult doesn't laugh at the absurdities of superheroes is beyond me.

The only two fms I managed to like was Shazam which was geared towards teens so it own it and guardians of the Galaxy which still managed to be ridiculous. I've watched them with my 13 year old nephews

Adult men wearing spandex, doing line kicks and singing is the apex of culture.

Except superhero films are not really scifi or good fantasy they're stupid juvenile shallow trite.

[quote]Adult men wearing spandex, doing line kicks and singing is the apex of culture.

Oh shit. Broadway's the gay Avengers! Maybe if they swapped capes for feather boas you queens would like Marvel movies, you goddamn hypocrites! And if you think that was homophobic, imagine me typing it out with my left hand while my right jerks it to Paul Bettany oh yeah, take me Vision, penetrate me with your yellow forehead beam, transcendent daddy!

[quote]Except superhero films are not really scifi or good fantasy they're stupid juvenile shallow trite.

Not all of them. There are plenty of sci-fi and fantasy films that are also juvenile trite. There are prestige dramas that win best picture that are juvenile trite. The genre's not the issue, but what you do with it. It's been that way across time. I'd expect cultured gays to know how narratives work by now.

Stupid, juvenile, tripe that drives the biggest US industry. How many jobs did Coppola create last year?

I said trite, but should have said tripe.

[quote]How many jobs did Coppola create last year?

That's actually a good question, but it can actually be answered in that he owns his own vineyard right? He likely keeps people employed, though not cinematically. Also, I'm sure he's probably producing things here and there behind the scenes. There's no way the man who made The Godfather, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now isn't involved in some way. Also, his daughter's still making movies. The man [italic]is[/italic] cinema. He doesn't really have to do anything, and it could be argued that so much of modern storytelling, including the MCU, is attributed to his contributions to the art.

The man used to be cinema. D.W. Griffith used to be cinema, too but that doesn’t really feed many families these days.

Well if you're talking to me I hate musicals and camp so I guess at least I'm coherent with my taste.

[quote]This coming from the guy that directed Dracula.

But at least it was proof Americans could do British accents.

[quote]The man used to be cinema. D.W. Griffith used to be cinema, too but that doesn’t really feed many families these days.

Feeding families is a separate discussion from the quality of these films. Who cares if the MCU's keeping people employed? Fucking slavery keeps people employed? What's the point?

[quote]Well if you're talking to me I hate musicals and camp so I guess at least I'm coherent with my taste.

I'm sure there's some shitty piece of art you like.

The latest...

Nope, barely made it thru the 2:44 minute trailer.

I'm there for Oscar-nominees Pugh and Johansson.

Not a lot of buzz around Black Widow. I've seen comments wondering what's the point of the film after Avengers: Endgame. I've actually liked Johansson's Black Widow in Avengers but I couldn't give a shit about her Russian family.