I don’t have to tell you it’s been a great year at the movies — our 25 Best Films Of 2016 will do that for me — but needless to say, as 2016 winds down, you have a bounty of great choices at the multiplex and arthouse (not to mention all films from the previous 11 months that are now streaming or on home video). And yet, it seems veteran directors are pretty cool on the current state of cinema. Martin Scorsese recently explained why new movies just don’t cut it for him, and now Pedro Almodóvar — who reveals he enjoyed both “Silence” and “Manchester By The Sea” — also says that contemporary pictures leave a lot to be desired.
“It’s very difficult for me to go to the theater and find movies that I love — much more difficult than before. Maybe I’m getting old. Either that or I find it more difficult for a story to surprise me. I think that film right now is worse than it used to be. For example, I don’t think that you see the kinds of films you saw in the ’60s or the ’70s,” he told Variety.
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“I have no real interest in films that have to do with superheroes and sequels, prequels, reboots — all this kind of business,” he added. “Ironically, on some level, the fact that movies are so technically proficient works against them. I used to be interested in the adventure film or any chase film before the effects were so perfect. The digital, the synthetic aspect of the image, has taken some of that away from me. There was a sense of danger that was exciting.”
Essentially, it sounds like Almodóvar is a bit turned off by the highly manufactured, big-budget movies that are dominating the landscape, and that’s fair. However, it is a shame he can’t appreciate what new technology has allowed filmmakers to achieve in terms of big sequences or setpieces.
Thoughts? If you had to choose one blockbuster to force Almodóvar to sit down and watch, what would it be?
The director’s latest, “Julieta,” opens on December 21st.