Blockbuster or Indie?

dustycanyon5 said:I mean, what kind of deep message are you even pulling out of Jurassic Park or Star Wars? Even if there is some sort of subtext there, that’s usually just whatever the audience decides to see, not necessarily what the director was aiming for. Let's be real... those movies were made to entertain the masses and rake in the cash at the box office, not to win awards for high art...

Don't play God. Nature is the ultimate force—it doesn't care about our little plans. Goldblum’s character hits the nail on the head with that golden rule... life finds a way. 🤷 Just because some people write them off as shallow popcorn flicks doesn't mean they aren't deeper than they look. Sometimes even those high-brow indie films are just pretentious nonsense masquerading as "art"...

briskhound2 said:Don't play God. Nature is the ultimate force—it doesn't care about our little plans. Goldblum’s character hits the nail on the head with that golden rule... life finds a way. 🤷 Just because some people write them off as shallow popcorn flicks doesn't mean they aren't deeper than they look. Sometimes even those high-brow indie films are just pretentious nonsense masquerading as "art"...

Or maybe people just don't get them... 😉

dustycanyon5 said:Or maybe people just don't get them... 😉

Right. Commercial stuff is always garbage, but art is art even when it's just being a total pain in the ass, huh?

briskhound2 said:Right. Commercial stuff is always garbage, but art is art even when it's just being a total pain in the ass, huh?

I wouldn't say commercial movies are always trash, though they definitely fall short about 80% of the time... But then you've got top-tier directors like Tarantino or Nolan who prove you can make big-budget stuff that actually matters. And as for "Art," it's not just random junk; it's more that people often struggle to wrap their heads around those abstract flicks by guys like Bunuel or Lynch...

To be honest, I don't always get them either, but man, I still have so much respect for that kind of genius...

dustycanyon5 said:I wouldn't say commercial movies are always trash, though they definitely fall short about 80% of the time... But then you've got top-tier directors like Tarantino or Nolan who prove you can make big-budget stuff that actually matters. And as for "Art," it's not just random junk; it's more that people often struggle to wrap their heads around those abstract flicks by guys like Bunuel or Lynch...

To be honest, I don't always get them either, but man, I still have so much respect for that kind of genius...

Well, there you go—you basically just proved my point. Mainstream movies are almost always a bust, while true Art? That's always perfect... even when it's just someone being weird for the sake of it...

I mean, half the time I don't even get them myself, if I'm being honest, but man... I can't help but respect the sheer genius behind it.

What are you gonna tell me about The Room then? Some misunderstood masterpiece?

I haven't actually sat down to watch The Room yet. Once I finally get around to it, I'll let you know what my take is...

Jessica Morris6 said:The room isn't "art"—they dropped six million bucks on it, for crying out loud. It’s just a straight-up blockbuster... ☕

Honestly, it doesn't matter how much cash they throw at it, it's what the creator is actually trying to say that counts...

dustycanyon5 said:Honestly, it doesn't matter how much cash they throw at it, it's what the creator is actually trying to say that counts...

The problem is, most people don't give a damn about that. Movies, just like any other form of art, have a responsibility to be entertaining. If cinema were strictly "art," then only hipsters and wannabe film snobs would ever bother watching anything... and we’d all be stuck watching some transcendental nonsense, listening to those Japanese scream artists, and instead of watching a good stand-up special, we’d be staring at Marina Abramović while she glares at the audience and carves a pentagram into her stomach.

And regarding this whole "message" thing, as a few others have pointed out, everything carries a message—even *The Room*. The only difference is whether that message comes from an arthouse flick, an action blockbuster, or some old Soviet musical. Films by Steven Spielberg carry a very clear message that American idealism is beautiful...

Buddy cop movies tell us it’s not worth being a villain because honest cops will eventually take you down; *Terminator* warns us not to mess too much with technology; *Lady Vanishes* tells us fascists are evil, and *Salò* does the same...
Your Bunuel? He shows how jealousy can destroy a man, or how *Los Olvidados* demonstrates that the poor are human beings too, though for most of them, there’s no saving them... I forget what *Le Fantôme de la liberté* and *La Voie lactée* are trying to say, I think it was something religious, but I never quite caught their drift...
So, sending a message isn't strictly tied to "high art," because even non-artistic works can theoretically deliver a more powerful message; it really all just comes down to the quality of the film itself...

Look, there are definitely art films out there that don't have a message. Branded to Kill (1967) is basically nonsensical, but I guess it's crafted so brilliantly that IMO it totally outclasses most of those "meaningful" movies trying too hard to make a point. 😁Honestly, I'd probably put it among the best films ever made. Maybe Suspiria (1977) belongs in this same category of message-free art cinema, assuming you even count it as an avant-garde film.

dustycanyon5 said:I mean, what kind of deep message are you even pulling out of Jurassic Park or Star Wars? Even if there is some sort of subtext there, that’s usually just whatever the audience decides to see, not necessarily what the director was aiming for. Let's be real... those movies were made to entertain the masses and rake in the cash at the box office, not to win awards for high art...

But then what are we supposed to do with films like American Beauty, The Green Mile, Million Dollar Baby, No Country for Old Men, or Fargo...?

dustycanyon5 said:Honestly, it doesn't matter how much cash they throw at it, it's what the creator is actually trying to say that counts...

Honestly, you just answered your own question about the difference between Hollywood blockbusters and actual art.

Jacob Cooper5 said:But then what are we supposed to do with films like American Beauty, The Green Mile, Million Dollar Baby, No Country for Old Men, or Fargo...?

Honestly, I thought No Country for Old Men was kind of dumb and just... meh. American Beauty and The Green Mile are classics, sure, but I wouldn't really call them mainstream blockbusters. I haven't actually sat down to watch Million Dollar Baby or Fargo yet, so I can't really weigh in on those two...

dustycanyon5 said:Honestly, I thought No Country for Old Men was kind of dumb and just... meh. American Beauty and The Green Mile are classics, sure, but I wouldn't really call them mainstream blockbusters. I haven't actually sat down to watch Million Dollar Baby or Fargo yet, so I can't really weigh in on those two...

American Beauty, domestic US box office alone - $130,096,601
The Green Mile, domestic US box office alone - $136,801,374

When we talk about something being "commercial," we’re really talking about how much money a product pulls in. In other words—did it actually become a blockbuster?

Look, money isn't the whole story here. I mean, how many movies get labeled as "Art" but end up pulling in massive numbers at the AMC or Regal theaters? Does a big paycheck suddenly strip them of their soul? Not really. To me, a real commercial flick is something made specifically to distract the masses, rake in the cash, and offer absolutely zero artistic substance...

There was a stretch in my life where I listened to nothing but Bruce Springsteen. Just him. That lasted a few months. Then I’d pivot to someone else and listen exclusively to them for the next few months.

I suspect this thread title is poorly chosen, and frankly, the whole topic lacks any real purpose.

dustycanyon5 said:Honestly, I thought No Country for Old Men was kind of dumb and just... meh. American Beauty and The Green Mile are classics, sure, but I wouldn't really call them mainstream blockbusters. I haven't actually sat down to watch Million Dollar Baby or Fargo yet, so I can't really weigh in on those two...

Ah, so I see. In your book, if a movie is actually good, it magically stops being "commercial," even though they clearly are.

dustycanyon5 said:Look, money isn't the whole story here. I mean, how many movies get labeled as "Art" but end up pulling in massive numbers at the AMC or Regal theaters? Does a big paycheck suddenly strip them of their soul? Not really. To me, a real commercial flick is something made specifically to distract the masses, rake in the cash, and offer absolutely zero artistic substance...

How is revenue irrelevant? By what metric? If profit isn't the benchmark, what defines a commercial film? If an art film makes a ton of money, it's still a commercial success by definition.

Go ahead—name these high-earning art films you're implying are everywhere.

American Beauty and The Green Mile definitely aren't "art house" flicks. They're pure mainstream hits—not just because they made bank, but because everyone knows them. And honestly, the sentimentality in The Green Mile is over the top, even if it's a solid movie. 😵

dustycanyon5 said:Look, money isn't the whole story here. I mean, how many movies get labeled as "Art" but end up pulling in massive numbers at the AMC or Regal theaters? Does a big paycheck suddenly strip them of their soul? Not really. To me, a real commercial flick is something made specifically to distract the masses, rake in the cash, and offer absolutely zero artistic substance...

Look, I get why you’re linking "commercial" to cheap, mindless entertainment.
That association mostly stems from how the music industry used to work back in the day.
Our friend here, Amanda Robinson4, put it pretty well. Some of us spent our teenage years in the 80s and 90s living in those specific musical subcultures—punks, metalheads, goths, you name it. Back then, there was a direct correlation between being commercial and being a band because the industry was way more selective about what was actually profitable. Big money only flowed toward acts that were tailor-made for the mainstream crowd. Everything else stayed with the small indie labels and their rebellious, fringe audiences.
If you were a punk or a goth back then, you were marginalized by default—so naturally, you saw everything else as just "commercial" garbage.

But, times changed. Eventually, you couldn't just ignore the influence those genres had on the mainstream anymore, nor could you ignore the sheer, growing number of fans they pulled in. The industry caught on and started throwing money at the very outcasts they used to dismiss. That's how we ended up with these "newly old" commercial icons like Nirvana, Soundgarden, The Cure, The Ramones, Metallica, Guns N' Roses, and the like...
That’s where the link between commercialism and "cheap entertainment" finally snapped.
Or, to put it more bluntly, quality and quantity became one and the same. It all turned into a game of numbers and revenue.
As for film itself, I'm not sure if that same association even applies. Even though there were always attempts in America to censor certain expressions, filmmakers always found a way to convey their message without hitting those forbidden walls.
I was never really a fan of those old black-and-white classics, but even my brief, superficial dive into that era was enough to give me a pleasant shock—the sheer depth and breadth of the themes they tackled compared to the state of things today...

briskhound2 said:Well, there you go—you basically just proved my point. Mainstream movies are almost always a bust, while true Art? That's always perfect... even when it's just someone being weird for the sake of it...

I mean, half the time I don't even get them myself, if I'm being honest, but man... I can't help but respect the sheer genius behind it.

What are you gonna tell me about The Room then? Some misunderstood masterpiece?

Honestly, you just have to watch this one 😬 To me, *The Room* is pure art because the director—due to his own lack of experience and all those other production hiccups—totally missed the mark on basically every technical aspect of filmmaking. And hey, that gave it enough of a buzz that everyone started watching it specifically as a "so bad it's good" example.

I mean, what really defines art if not the audience it connects with? In the case of *The Room*, everything that was supposed to make it a standard movie (like a drama centered on a super cliché love triangle) completely backfired... creating something that communicates something totally different than what was intended!

Basically, it turned a mediocre drama into an accidental comedy, which eventually earned it cult status. The sheer scale of how much this movie failed is an art form in its own right...

That dustycanyon5 guy has basically 🤣

Here is what they have to say... The Lexicographical Institute... it’s one of those institutions that just feels like it exists in its own vacuum, much like the National Archives or some of those heavy-duty research libraries you find in D.C. It carries this weight of academic prestige, attempting to catalog everything under the sun, yet you can't help but wonder if all that meticulous documentation actually keeps pace with the sheer velocity of modern information... though I suppose that's the nature of such massive, sprawling scholarly endeavors...H. Turković is out here claiming that when you're making an art film, you shouldn't have a single thought about the bottom line while you're on set... It’s that same old, tired argument that true creativity can only exist in a vacuum, completely detached from the reality of budgets or how people actually pay for movies to be made...
Forgive me if I've gone on a bit too long with this quote...

I’ve been sitting here thinking about this whole concept of "art house cinema" lately, and honestly, it feels like we’re losing the thread... It’s one thing to appreciate a slow burn or a director with a specific vision, but there’s a fine line between a profound cinematic experience and just watching paint dry for two hours while pretending you're being intellectual... I find myself increasingly frustrated by the way certain critics try to pass off pretension as depth, acting as if a lack of narrative structure is somehow a substitute for actual storytelling... It makes me wonder if we've forgotten what it means to actually connect with a film on an emotional level rather than just checking boxes on a list of avant-garde tropes... maybe it's just me, but the more I see these "masterpieces" that feel like they were designed specifically to alienate anyone who isn't part of some tiny, elitist circle, the more I miss when movies actually had something to say without needing a PhD to decode them...When we look at cinema through a critical lens, there's this distinct divide that defines how we categorize what ends up on the screen. First, you have those films that position themselves in direct opposition to the massive, populist blockbusters—the kind of high-octane commercial fluff designed for mass consumption. These works strive for the status of "high art," aiming to secure prestige within elite cultural circles rather than just chasing a weekend box office record. We’ve seen this manifest historically as specific production niches, like the early experimental movements or the rise of auteur theory and the New Wave era... It’s a bit of a paradox because, even though modernism pushed the entire medium toward being recognized as a legitimate art form, the sheer dominance of the Hollywood studio system and its massive distribution networks means that "artistic" films essentially have to exist in their own separate ecosystem. They end up relegated to specialized non-commercial circuits and boutique art-house theaters just to find an audience that actually wants to engage with them... Then, there is the second way we slice the medium, which focuses more on the actual mode of storytelling. On one hand, you have the purely imaginative branch—films that prioritize the sensory experience and the cultivation of imagery, such as expressionist cinema, poetic documentaries, or animation. On the other hand, you have the more pragmatic, discursive side of filmmaking, where the goal isn't necessarily to transport you to another world, but to inform or instruct through educational films, scientific documentaries, newsreels, or utilitarian corporate media... It really comes down to whether the filmmaker is trying to stir the soul or simply deliver information...

It’s just another populist piece of cinema, isn't it... designed specifically to pull at the most basic emotional levers of the masses without offering a single shred of intellectual substance or nuance...Cinema is such an interesting beast when you start looking at how certain categories function... there's this specific class of movies designed specifically to appeal to the broadest possible demographic—you know, the "mass market" crowd—and because they have to capture everyone's attention, they tend to lean heavily on these tried-and-true, highly attractive themes and polished presentation styles. Since these types of productions are practically engineered to guarantee a massive box office return, people often dismissively label them as nothing more than "commercial cinema," whereas their complete opposite is usually branded as "art house" or, if you want to get cynical about it, "elitist filmmaking"... it's a constant tug-of-war between what sells and what is considered pure art...

I’ve been sitting here staring at this latest commercial, and honestly, I can’t help but feel a certain level of exhaustion setting in... It’s just one of those polished, overly produced pieces that feels like it was engineered in a lab to trigger a specific emotional response rather than actually saying anything meaningful. You watch these high-budget spots, all those sweeping cinematic shots and that perfectly curated soundtrack, and you realize they aren't selling a product so much as they're selling an idealized version of a life that none of us actually lead. It’s all very calculated, very deliberate, and frankly, a little bit soul-crushing when you think about the sheer amount of capital being poured into these glossy illusions instead of, well, something substantive...When you look at cinema through this specific lens, you’re really just looking at the category of commercial filmmaking—movies built from the ground up on the foundational principle of turning a profit. At its core, being commercially viable, or having the ability to sustain itself within the market, was the absolute prerequisite for the very existence and survival of the entire Hollywood industry. Its direct opposite would be non-commercial film, which many people tend to lump together with the concept of populist cinema...

It’s just another one of those non-commercial films... you know the type, where the director is more interested in their own obscure artistic vision than actually engaging an audience or following any kind of narrative structure that makes sense to a normal person... they spend two hours on slow pans of empty landscapes and shots of people staring blankly into the distance, all while pretending it's "deep" or "subversive"... it’s really just a vanity project disguised as cinema, lacking any real commercial appeal or even the basic decency to be entertaining...When you look at cinema through a certain lens, there’s an entire category of filmmaking that exists entirely outside the crushing weight of commercial pressure and the desperate need to turn a quick profit... It’s a realm where the art isn't being squeezed by studio executives or quarterly earnings reports. You typically see this kind of purity in experimental works, indie features, and amateur projects, though a massive chunk of it lives within documentaries, educational pieces, and scientific films. It stands in total opposition to what we call "commercial cinema"... which is really just another word for mass-marketed product.

Experimental cinema... there’s just something about it that refuses to sit still, doesn't it? It’s not like those polished, cookie-cutter Hollywood blockbusters where you can predict every beat from the opening credits. No, true experimental film is more of an experience—an assault on the senses, really—that challenges everything we think we know about structure, narrative, and even the very concept of what a "movie" is supposed to be... It pushes boundaries, tearing up the rulebook to find something raw and unfiltered underneath all that commercial gloss... Experimental cinema—or what some might call avant-garde or alternative film—is really a genre defined by its refusal to play by the rules... it’s all about experimenting with techniques and visual effects that push back against the standard Hollywood way of doing things, opting instead for associative and rhythmic editing in a desperate attempt to uncover these untapped sensory and social potentials within the medium itself. You see this first wave of the avant-garde emerging back in the 1920s, primarily under that "avant-garde" label in places like France and Germany, driven by figures such as Luis Buñuel, Jean Clair, Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Hans Richter, and Walter Ruttman. Once that initial movement started to fade out during the 1930s and through the late 1950s, a second wave of the avant-garde began to take root across the United States, Austria, Great Britain, and Poland, led by visionaries like Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Paul Brakhage, and others who pushed the boundaries further... then, by the 1970s, the evolution shifted toward a video-based approach known as video art, pioneered by names like Nam June Paik, the Vasulkas, Bill Viola, and Steina Vasulka. When you look at the established subgenres of experimental film, you're really looking at abstract, surrealist, structural, and conceptualist works...

amateur film (also referred to as non-professional filmmaking). 1. Any production that doesn't emerge from a professional setting or involve professional obligations, regardless of how much technical skill might actually be on display. – 2. The broader social sphere encompassing non-professional film and video creation and its associated organizations. A. Amateur work is typically, though not exclusively, tied to what we call "narrow format" techniques (think 8mm film, for instance) or, more recently, consumer video technology. These enthusiasts often band together in film clubs, host their own festivals, and essentially form a distinct branch of cinema...

documentary film, a genre defined by the attempt to bear witness to perceived events through the use of the cinematic possibilities of recording, imagery, and sound. Unlike narrative fiction, documentary claims to present actual events—things that truly happened—so the question of authenticity is frequently raised as a vital element in how these works are experienced and judged. The very first moving images captured were documentaries (think of those early Lumière brothers capturing spontaneous scenes on the streets of Paris). In the 1920s, Robert Flaherty introduced principles of narrative structuring to the genre (what we call narrative documentary) alongside truthful reconstructions of typical real-life situations (reconstructive documentary). Avant-garde creators (like Luis Buñuel, Jean Epstein, Walter Ruttmann, Dziga Vertov, and Jean Vigo) viewed documentary as an expression of their own (poetic) perception of reality (symphonic or poetic documentary), while the drive to capture events in their unique, unrepeatable flow fueled movements like Cinéma Vérité (observational, testimonial film, such as the work of Jean Rouch), Direct Cinema (pioneered by Frederick Wiseman), and eventually the hidden camera techniques that became so ubiquitous on American television. Since the 1960s, television has taken the lead in capturing and broadcasting documentaries, though the advent of video in the 1980s and the digital revolution of the 1990s have certainly helped the explosion of independent documentary productions...

educational film (also known as instructional, enlightening, or pedagogical film), a genre consisting of films intended to spread or acquire culturally standardized knowledge for a specific target audience (leading into purposeful filmmaking). Its foundation is primarily conceptual and descriptive, though it occasionally tries to boost engagement by using framing devices or occasional narrative and poetic presentation strategies. Common subcategories include: (a) instructional films, created specifically for use within a classroom setting following established curricula (such as educational shorts used in schools), (b) general educational films, aimed mostly at adult education or any interested general audience, (c) training or vocational films, made with the goal of teaching a viewer how to perform a task through demonstration and verbal instruction, and (d) popular science films, which convey scientific discoveries to a broader audience in an accessible way. Educational films are often further categorized by the subject matter they cover (for example, historical films, medical films, geography films, or natural science films)...