I find most hollywood movies are to far fetch myself, First you got the action scenes that are just not realistic (The hero jumping from one car to another car while traveling at 80mph or jumping out of the way of bullets or fighting 5 guys and winning etc).

Then you got the main characters, The guy is always a hunk and the woman always beautiful who can never do anything wrong (protecting the world from evil and terrorist etc).  Most tend not to have a good story but do have lots of action and effects in them.  Im not saying their all like this but the big movies are.  I watched a bit of 'Wanted' starring Angelina Jolie other night and i finding these types of movies now just don't appeal to me anymore.

Tonight I just watched a film called 'CHE - A Revolutionary Life' part 1 (based on the life of Che Guevara during the cuban revolution).  This film is a independent movie and all the action is realistic, no heroes, main characters are not hunks and the film is slow but tells a really good story and even CHE doesn't run in there guns blazing but most of time he takes a back seat when the fighting takes place.

Another film I have watched sometime ago is 'DAS BOOT', its german film set on board a german submarine.  Again the actors look like normal people you see in the street and the film does have a realistic feel to it.  Remember a film called 'Crash' starring Sandra Bullock, it was set in L.A but it was not a hollywood movie.

Maybe Hollywood/Independent films is the wrong title to choose for this thread, but Im finding most holloywood movies going down the same route of pure action and specal effects.  Maybe its just my age, but I do like my movies to have a realistic feel to them, to have depth and not just be all action and fast paced.

So you name one genre of movies, and then complain that they're not realistic. Well of course they aren't. If I wanted realistic, I'd just sit in my house eating Orange Chicken like I'm doing right now.

Mmm, this stuff is great!

But really, your argument is based on a set of action movies (only one type of film), and what they usually consist of. What about comedies, dramas, horror movies, etc.? The independent movies you named sounded REALLY boring. The first one sounds alright, I suppose, but the second one? An entire movie set in a submarine?

I watch movies for entertainment. I don't care if they're unrealistic or stupid, so long as they're enjoyable. Independent films will never be as good as the ones Hollywood produces.

neither and both, depends what you enjoy, i like some of both.

It's not Hollywood vs. Independent. It's good movie vs. bad movie. And there are good Hollywood films and bad ones, and good and bad Independents, too.

There are some people who only watch one general group or another, but the people who do that are missing out. Last year, for instance, Iron Man was excellent as was Slumdog Millionaire. IMO, it's best to be the kind of person who can appreciate both.

I don't mind the dumb entertainment so long as I still get 2001, Blue Velvet, There Will be Blood, Goodfellas, etc. as well.

If I had to chose then I'd take 2001, etc as in the end (much as I actually like a big dumb movie) I'd take artistic films over entertainment movies.

I could do without movies getting as bad for story, coherence, etc. as Transformers 2 though - I've actually come to the conclusion it can't be viewed as a movie at all, instead I see it as a series of loosely connected sketches that form no actual whole.

Oh and Montana, Da Boot is fantastic - both artistic and entertaining. And 100% critical approval too!

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/das_boot/

Mind you the Directors cut (and best version) is just a tad under 5 hours if I remember correctly, so maybe not one for a Friday night with popcorn.

To quote Maddox:

Only James Bond—the secret agent who foiled a plot to destroy London with nuclear missiles—can make water more affordable for Bolivians! This is easily the stupidest James Bond movie since the last one. I don't know what Hollywood's obsession is with making jerk-off movies where the bad guys are "realistic." You know what's another word for realistic? Boring. If I wanted realism, I'd walk down the street to get Mexican food, and maybe stop by a Borders and pick up some magazines. You know why they don't make movies about me shopping for magazines? That's because nobody gives a shit. And that's what Quantum of Solace is: me shopping for magazines, with no Mexican food. I don't see movies for realism, and if I did, I sure as hell wouldn't watch one made by some asshole who thinks "reality" can best be represented with the aid of 219 special effects artists. Which leads me to this movie's biggest problem:

Marc Forster is an idiot.

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Not the most succinct of quotes. But, still. Article here: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=quantum_of_phallus

I really liked Blair Witch Project..it was so different from other movies!

btw Iam german and never saw "Das Boot"...but the whole world say

it's a damn f***n good movie! ;)

anyone saw "Run Lola Run"? this is one of my german favorites!

Those categories are way too broad to make any kind of useful conclusions with. And these days many "independent" films are financed by Hollywood one way or the other.

Che and Crash are dramas and both are not independent movies in my opinion (Soderbergh, del Toro, Haggis, Dillon, Bullock, Cheadle involved - these established Hollywood names definitely helped funding the movies). "Das Boot" is definitely not an independent movie, 28 years after its release it's most probably still one of the highest budgeted German movies ever made. But what are real independent movies anyway? Troma's movies definitely, Roger Coman's maybe...

@canch: Don't you think you meant pure popcorn action movies vs. drama movies with some action? Or generally superficial vs. more realistic?

Regarding action movies, I can tell you that lots of movies in this genre from the 60s/70s, even some of the 80s have more depth (due to better screenplays) than most of today's. In my opinion, at least. These were the last decades action movies were called thrillers, then priorities changed...

Some recommendations: Bullitt, The Getaway, Point Blank, Assault On Precinct 13, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Marathon Man, The Parallax View, All The President’s Men, Three Days of the Condor, The French Connection I & II (both are excellent), Charley Varrick... the list of great, more realistic Hollywood thrillers/action movies could go on forever and then there's this once great movie nation called France (Le Clan des Siciliens/The Siciiian Clan, Le Cercle rouge/The Red Circle, Le Samouraï/The Samourai, A Bout de Souffle/Breathless...).

A special recommendation from the 80s: William Friedkin's brilliant, dark cop thriller "To Live and Die in L.A." from 1985 starring young William "CSI" Peterson and Willem Dafoe. It's a Hollywood movie, by the way.

These were just some great, more realistic movies from the action/thriller/crime drama genre. If you want, you'll find hundreds of more realistic, deeper movies in all genres, from both, inside and outside Hollywood.

Most Hollywood is crap, but there are some great movies. Independent movies Ive watched are almost always better and deeper, but I havent watched much since the independent movies we generally watch are the ones that excell.