Boomer brainrot movies - How do you do, fellow kids?

[BrunoMattei]

In honor of Megalopolis, I thought it would be fun to bring up horribly out of touch movies made by boomers that are trying to relate to a younger audience.

Megalopolis by Francis Ford Coppola (the director of Godfather and Apocalypse Now) inspired me to make this thread:

George Romero's 2nd Dead Trilogy is equally as bad.

"They're just looking for a new home, just like us." Fuck you, George.

Another one I return to a lot is Toys (1992):

This one, from the director of Rain Man, honestly has some things of interest but it's more or less remembered as a fascinating failure. It was grossly mismarketed as a kids or family movie when it isn't. The production design and overall idea of using toys in warfare (essentially predicting the use of drones) is interesting. Scenes like this are great:

But the tone is all over the place and the movie promotes the confusing and extremely simple message of "War toys and things made for children that are violent are bad and will make kids into mindless killing machines" is woefully out of touch. I grew up watching G.I. Joe, ultra-violent Schwarzenegger and Stallone flicks (not to mention horror, of course), and had a realistic toy machine gun and Rambo knife and never had the desire to kill Brown people until only after I discovered my own racism and how shithole 3rd world cultures truly are in a lot of cases. As you do.

 

[PaulBearer]

I'm sorry to have to stick up for Romero's 'other' zombie trilogy but only one could be accused of trying to appeal to a younger audience, Land was the other half of Day and therefor not bad and Survival was appealing to old men...if anyone.

To add to the thread, I've not seen it cause reasons but I bet John Woo's remake of his own The Killer is dogshit and a product of senility.

What about that was 'political sperging'? lol

 

[Iron Father]

To add to the thread, I've not seen it cause reasons but I bet John Woo's remake of his own The Killer is dogshit and a product of senility.

It is. It's insanely sterile and mundane, which is infinitely more offensive than if it was a dumpster fire which might at least provide some 'so good it's bad' entertainment value.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

But the tone is all over the place and the movie promotes the confusing and extremely simple message of "War toys and things made for children that are violent are bad and will make kids into mindless killing machines" is woefully out of touch.

I've seen the movie and never took away that message, I remember it as a jarhead vs. Willy Wonka type conflict without any distinct subtext or message to peddle. It was a pretty unique movie at least, you can't accuse it of being bland.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I've seen the movie and never took away that message, I remember it as a jarhead vs. Willy Wonka type conflict without any distinct subtext or message to peddle. It was a pretty unique movie at least, you can't accuse it of being bland.

Interesting take and I don't 100% disagree with that assertion but I think this scene spells out the message pretty clearly:

Plus there's the scene with Robin Williams watching the kids play the games and seeing a kid blow up tanks to make it even more obvious. But like I said, the message is confused so I think what you're saying is at least partly true but I think the overall intent was the boomer generation ranting about war toys and violence being sold to kids.

Edit: I saw Toys in the theater as a kid because even though I hated kids movies I still liked Robin Williams a lot and the film has stuck with me. I think "fascinating failure" defines it pretty well. Because like you said, there are aspects of it that work.

 

[Product Placement]

This is pretty much all of Kevin Smith's movies, just worked when he was young because he was also in that age group.

Ready Player One by Steven Spielberg, you just feel him cash out with that movie. His last few big movies flopped, so he takes a shit book but one that just "remember that ip" and he made slop who's whole value was "don't you kids and man children love all these ips". Only good thing you can say about the movie' it's better than the book.

Tim Burton - All his Disney movies, he became a brand to sell shit at Hot Topic. Most of his movies, had to fix that box. From what he is said about Disney, I don't even think he liked or cared about that group of people, but money is money. Would say Beetlejuice 2 also somewhat fits this theme for him, but least can tell he had fun making that one unlike with Alice in Wonderland or Dumbo.

George Lucas with Strange Magic - He didn't direct this one, but did come up with the story and clearly a passion project for him. He saw Disney movies doing well again, and thought to himself "I want to make one where a ugly dude and a midget hooks up with two sexy fairies, good message for the kids". Movie also has random covers of songs, but most of them are from the 60s and 70s, so really not for the target group range.

 

[Battlefield2142EU]

If we want to count television Boomer Brain rot. The best example of boomer brain rot is Law and Order SVU. Dick Wolf is the poster child of an aging hippie douchebag that badly wants to fit in with the Woke niggers. It's comical. Law and Order SVU tries to get baby boomers to get behind pronouns, BLM, de-funding the police, transgender surgery for kids and #MEtoo. After Hamas attacked Israel, Dick Wolf became desperate to roll back shit like BLM pro-De-funding the police propaganda. After BLM and Antifa both openly praising Hamas and Palestine. SVU even had an anti-BLM episode. After how badly Kamala got BTFO by Trump. I wouldn't be shocked if Dick Wolf would try to roll back tranny propaganda.

 

[BrunoMattei]

This is pretty much all of Kevin Smith's movies, just worked when he was young because he was also in that age group.

Clerks 3 is an abomination. This review sums up everything wrong with it.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Interesting take and I don't 100% disagree with that assertion but I think this scene spells out the message pretty clearly:

Plus there's the scene with Robin Williams watching the kids play the games and seeing a kid blow up tanks to make it even more obvious. But like I said, the message is confused so I think what you're saying is at least partly true but I think the overall intent was the boomer generation ranting about war toys and violence being sold to kids.

Edit: I saw Toys in the theater as a kid because even though I hated kids movies I still liked Robin Williams a lot and the film has stuck with me. I think "fascinating failure" defines it pretty well. Because like you said, there are aspects of it that work.

Rewatching the scene and he's talking about actually using kids as child soldiers by using drones under the pretenses of it being videogame. I kind of see what you're describing but the text seems too literal & too divorced from any intended subtext. His plan is perfectly logical from a purely callous point of view & sounds like something a government spook would suggest in real life.

If I were to write a movie around the premise of "war toys make murderers" I would do the typical Boomer thing & center it on a teenager playing vidya leading to a school shooting and not a drone strike military program. Bonus points if the school shooter listens to noisy and aggressive counter-cultural music.

By the way, good thread idea.

 

[BrunoMattei]

If I were to write a movie around the premise of "war toys make murderers" I would do the typical Boomer thing & center it on a teenager playing vidya leading to a school shooting and not a drone strike military program. Bonus points if the school shooter listens to noisy and aggressive counter-cultural music.

Wait for the rebootquel of Toys.

 

[Pedophobe]

I was thinking about Coppola and how he built this amazing reputation as a genius auteur off the back of Apocalypse Now and the Godfather then proceeded to faff around for decades making flops, failures and a few successful mainstream workman films based on other people's ideas while constantly bitching about how the System was keeping him down.

Like what if Coppola is actually a shit filmmaker and the reason Apocalypse Now was so good is because the writers, producers, actors, designers, cinematographers, production managers, assistant directors, special effects (pyrotechnics) guys, sound guys etc etc and especially the editors and musicians were all so good at their jobs that they made up for it? We've probably all worked in a situation where the team is really good and manages to get the job done despite the boss being a clueless asshole, who's to say that doesn't happen in movies too?

 

[Fastest Hand In The East]

I'm sorry to have to stick up for Romero's 'other' zombie trilogy but only one could be accused of trying to appeal to a younger audience, Land was the other half of Day and therefor not bad and Survival was appealing to old men...if anyone.

Last thing he made I watched was Diary of the Dead was so terrible I even forgot it was by Romero. He might've honestly tried to proccess the digital age and make a comment on it, but he was too out of touch, too old by then. It's more sad than repulsive and it has some good visuals.
Im my opinion it would've been better if he did it like the into and the promotional videos to Day of the Dead remake- like you are watching tv/youtube during the early stage of appocalypse, like a variety show- we have frantic news ancors losing their nerve as they read the list of shelters that were overran, then switching to cameo by the great Tom Savini in police uniform, telling reporter how their Police Department is burning the dead, then comedically pointing to one of the bodies and saying "I think I boned her once, yeah, I think I did, a decade ago or so", switching again to the reporter filming in the hospital, as confused and scared people with bite wouds keep showing up, great stuff.

 

[Juan But Not Forgotten]

I was thinking about Coppola and how he built this amazing reputation as a genius auteur off the back of Apocalypse Now and the Godfather then proceeded to faff around for decades making flops, failure and a few successful mainstream workman films based on other people's ideas while constantly bitching about how the System was keeping him down.

Like what if Coppola is actually a shit filmmaker and the reason Apocalypse Now was so good us because the writers, producers, actors, designers, cinematographers, production managers, assistant directors, sound guys etc etc and especially the editors and musicians were all so good at their jobs that they made up for it? We've probably all worked in a situation where the team is really good and manages to get the job done despite the boss being a clueless assholes, who's to say that doesn't happen in movies too?

Unlikely. "Bad acting - bad directing" He was lucky though, since he stretched the budgets of Godfather and Apocalypse Now, but still those movies were successful. Then he did it with One from the heart and it flopped so hard that he had to shoot movies for the next decade only to pay debts he had gotten from it.

I am not sure he made Megalopolis to pander to youngsters though since he had this idea since 90s. I'd say it is more like Heaven's Gate for Michael Chimino - the movie that is good only as a dream project and a failure in every other aspect. Maybe in 20 years it's gonna be revisioned and maybe it's gonna be remembered as a failed dream project of a crazy old director, who knows.

 

[Battlefield2142EU]

Clerks 3 is abomination.

Believe it or not. 4:30 makes Clerks 3 look good. Kevin Smith made a PG-13(Still gotten an R for one masturbating joke anyways) semi-biopic about his life that was written for zoomers who like Stranger Things and Cobra Kai.

 

[Merton J. Dingle]

Clerks 3 bad? It looks like the first two Clerks in comparison to the abomination that was Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Like what if Coppola is actually a shit filmmaker and the reason Apocalypse Now was so good us because the writers, producers, actors, designers, cinematographers, production managers, assistant directors, special effects (pyrotechnics) guys, sound guys etc etc and especially the editors and musicians were all so good at their jobs that they made up for it? We've probably all worked in a situation where the team is really good and manages to get the job done despite the boss being a clueless assholes, who's to say that doesn't happen in movies too?

Not to mention that Apocalypse Now is just an adaptation of Heart of Darkness.

 

[urr13 account]

Clerks 3 bad? It looks like the first two Clerks in comparison to the abomination that was Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

more than 1 thing can suck, for example most kevin smith movies released since the 90s

 

[R00T]

George Lucas with Strange Magic - He didn't direct this one, but did come up with the story and clearly a passion project for him. He saw Disney movies doing well again, and thought to himself "I want to make one where an ugly dude and a midget hooks up with two sexy fairies, good message for the kids". Movie also has random covers of songs, but most of them are from the 60s and 70s, so really not for the target group range.

He planned for it to be “Star Wars for Little Girls.” Imagine if it got a trilogy.

And Megalopolis was the best movie of the year. More directors need to booze up and spend the vineyard money and have their wife die so they can grope and molest extras on set. Cinema happens when it’s created.

 

[Product Placement]

Clerks 3 bad? It looks like the first two Clerks in comparison to the abomination that was Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

It's better than Reboot, but that is not saying much.

 

[BrunoMattei]

And Megalopolis was the best movie of the year. More directors need to booze up and spend the vineyard money and have their wife die so they can grope and molest extras on set. Cinema happens when it’s created.

Make a Root Review (tm) fucker so we can laugh at it.

I was thinking about Coppola and how he built this amazing reputation as a genius auteur off the back of Apocalypse Now and the Godfather then proceeded to faff around for decades making flops, failures and a few successful mainstream workman films based on other people's ideas while constantly bitching about how the System was keeping him down.

I'd argue his final great film was Bram Stoker's Dracula. For all it's flaws (mostly relating to the acting of Keanu) it's still a fantastic horror spectacle and debatably the best Dracula adaptation excluding Nosferatu which is a different beast entirely.