Wonderful post by rocket, especially the Jaws part. This pretty much sums up my opinion on yesterday's vs. today's blockbusters.

In the 70s and 80s, even most of the blockbusters were made by talented directors who knew how to tell a story with pictures/editing and screenwriters still knew how to write great stories, sometimes even great dialogues. Today most big budget movies are made by people with just technical skills and every screenwriter is quoting pop culture to death (the biggest curse of today's culture imo - quoting is even worse in music industry than in movie industry). Only few have the talent to create something new.

Don't let me get started about the use of music and sound in movies. Watch Goodfellas, for example, or the first 10 minutes of his (otherwise failed) Gangs of New York and you realize that Martin Scorsese (age 65) is one of the few remaining directors who knows how to use music and sound in a subtle way. Most modern big budget movies make my ears bleed.

On topic: In my opinion no movie will ever top Titanic in unadjusted or Gone by the Wind in adjusted boxoffice. Cinema as we know it is in a slow decline, the whole industry will change during the next decade(s). Furthermore - and mainly due to the internet - societies are way more fragmented today than back in the days when everybody was watching Dallas on TV or Star Wars on big screen.

"Watch Goodfellas, for example, or the first 10 minutes of his (otherwise failed) Gangs of New York and you realize that Martin Scorsese (age 65) is one of the few remaining directors who knows how to use music and sound in a subtle way."

The use of "Comfortably Numb" in The Departed during the sex scene was friggin' brilliant. Love that scene.

Two other directors who use music brilliantly are PT Anderson (I've watched the "Goodbye Stranger" steadycam scene in Magnolia at least 100 times... sigh...) and Richard Kelly (the Justin Timberlake "All These Things That I've Done" scene in Southland Tales is so just much damned fun that I fell in love with it instantly).

Southland Tales "All These Things That I've Done":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zePfScJNdwo

The Departed "Comfortably Numb":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYjktTP8qYI&feature=related

I can't find the Goodbye Stranger scene from Magnolia. Too bad.

Goodfellas, last part of "Layla" by Derek & the Dominos brilliantly used in this scene (music starts at 2:40):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrVG92142QM

Gangs of New York, first 10 minutes (music starts at 1:06):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5IGIgXISPU&feature=related

Ah, yes, the infamous Layla scene. Good stuff.

And you're right, PT Anderson is one of the young directors who knows how to use music brilliantly and I'll always be thankful that he revived Aimee Mann's career.

Richard Kelly impressed me with Donnie Darko as well (not so much with how he used the music, but which music he used). Haven't seen Southland Tales yet.

I wish we had more talented young directors in Europe, but European cinema is in a state of agony ever since Italy and especially France were the last countries to slowly lose their momentum sometime in the early 80s.

Ironically, many self-proclaimed cineasts among my friends are still arrogant and think all shit comes from NA and all quality comes from Europe. I keep telling them: Along with Asia, NA produces the main part of shit movies but also the main part of quality movies since the 90s until today.

Europe, on the other hand, gave up quality movies - i.e. good movies which you actually WANT to watch - years ago. Only a few directors, such as Spain's brilliant Pedro Almodóvar or UK's Ken Loach, are an exception to that rule.

How Richard Kelly uses music is actually really interesting once you watch his films a few times... You realize that he actually writes the scene around the music and lyrics. He does it several times in Donnie Darko (only really noticable in the Director's Cut after he moved around some songs and added more to fit his original vision) and to a lesser extent in Southland Tales (a real "love it or hate it" movie). If you have the director's cut of DD, watch the opening bicycle scene and listen to the lyrics... It's an interesting take on how to incorporate music into a film. It comes off as too literary at times, but it has a fun effect at others.

I agree on Euro films. I used to love them but find myself watching less and less of them as time passes. On the upside, it's interesting to see how some of them have adapted to moving to Hollywood and working on English-speaking films (Tom Tykwer, for example). The English film business has really taken off with Guy Ritchie, Matthew Vaughn, and a few others so that's a real plus (just watched L4yer Cake last night, OMG at the "Ordinary World" scene in the diner).

Oh, and yeah, big props to PT Anderson for reviving Aimee Mann... I've been a fan of hers for years (from her Whatever and I'm With Stupid days).

And she's nearly fifty and still smoking hot. Amazing.

I was just checking in to make sure someone pointed out that Gone With the Wind is, and most likely will always be, the box office king.

I admit that I keep an eye on box office gross, but just because it's the only readily accessible way to feed my numbers fetish. But still, inflation really ruins the whole thing for me. What's interesting is that when you look at the chart of movies adjusted for inflation...take a look at The Phantom Menace. It was released in 1999, less than 10 years ago. Adjusting for inflation, that would ALREADY bump it's gross up 170 million! In 10 frikkin years...that's why box office gross is such a poor way to judge how well a film is doing compared to others.

We all heard the news about The Dark Knight breaking the opening weekend record, but if I'm not mistaken, I read that it didn't even sell more tickets in it's opening weekend than one of the Spider-Man or Pirates of the Caribbean movies(forget which one). Again, inflation makes box office gross almost meaningless.

About Titanic: what makes it so amazing is that it had massive legs during it's run. Very Brain Age-esque. Incredibly, Titanic only opened with 28 million in it's first weekend.

On topic:

Life will move on. Just like when Titanic passed Star Wars.