As we spend a lot of time on YouTube, we see a lot of movie feedback videos from the global community. This has always been a big part of watching films for us, we always want to get a lot of different takes on a media text.

However, we have noticed a consistent theme in some videos.

Critics who have, essentially, become professional whiners, pining over “the good old days” and claiming all (quite literally, all of them) modern films are crap. Is this the case? We discuss the matter… WITH A BRITISH ACCENT!

Modern Cinema and THE CURSE of THE WOKE MOB!!!

There’s a point in anyone’s life where we may feel a little cynical and jaded, which can lead to pining over the past. “The good old days”, when REAL films were made by REAL MEN and everything was just MUCH better.

It can especially happen as you begin to age and get irritated by all these new-fangled things that emerge. Like kids these days and they’re STUPID new hairdos! Because hairdos back in my day WEREN’T stupid.

Not even the ’80s mullet!

With a negative state of mind, convinced it was better in the good old days, you can cherry pick famous films and complain. But we’ve got a quote for you here from a famous clever clogs.

“Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.”

Bertrand Russell, How to Grow Old

That’s from Russell’s (1872-1970) essay, which he wrote when he was 81. It was published in his work Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956). He lived to be 97, by the way.

He’s on about personal growth and self-centredness. The former is something we feel people may abandon as they get older, as if they feel they’re already complete as a human being. And that can lead to some pretty jaded opinions.

It’s something (at 39) we’re determined to avoid lapsing into as we get older.

But to put our point into perspective, here are just a handful of critiques of modern movies we’ve seen around the internet over the last few years:

• There hasn’t been a single good movie since 1999.
  • This was in a The Guardian feature comment section and the person appeared sincere.
• 99% of modern films are rubbish (a YouTube video).
• Modern cinema is terrible compared to the past (lots of complaining about this).
• Feminism has ruined modern cinema.
  • An example being with the recent Star Wars films, which apparently have a feminist agenda. But this point about feminist thought is a constant and seems to rule a lot of male-driven opinions on modern movies.
• The woke mob has ruined modern cinema.

We feel the need to finally address this after a recent 2023 film summary on Kermode & Mayo’s Take (our film podcast of choice).

Even in the comments section to this video there are people complaining modern films are “terrible”. But we do agree with Dr. Kermode’s stance here.

Previously, he was famous for his Kermodian Rants about specific films he hated.

These days, as he’s become older, he’s restructured his approach and is more contemplative and considered in his reactions. Which we think is a great thing, as opposed to lapsing into the predictability of pining over the past.

Along with our feature here, we’ll also nod to the excellent You’re Wrong About podcast regarding cancel culture and the moral panic about that issue.

That strikes an important response to the issues people have with the alleged woke mob crisis. One we think both sides of the argument should listen to, although we fear one sect would simply refuse to even consider it.

Case Study: A Standard Modern Cinematic Complaint

Okay, we used a few examples in the podcast of what we’re on about. One of them is for the third Evil Dead film—Army of Darkness (1992). As you can see above.

One bloke in the comments section complains you can’t make stuff like that anymore because people get offended. That comment is upvoted over 100 times and has many people agreeing with him.

All whilst conveniently ignoring how there were three series of Ash vs Evil Dead between 2015-2018 with 30 full episodes.

It featured some blitzingly rude and hilarious scenes, notably with one in a morgue and another in a sperm bank.

A lot of this feature is stating the obvious, really, but the point of it is to highlight the level of agenda pursuing going on from this flawed argument.

The idea people get too “offended” and so there’s nothing interesting to watch. As everything gets cancelled, apparently. Is that true?

We mean, we’re still pretty fresh off Game of Thrones ending five years ago (and its subsequent prequel running from 2022). All eight seasons of it. A show legendary for its extreme violence, nudity, sex, and all 73 feature length episodes of that.

We guess that one slipped through the woke mob net.

Points of View: The 20th Century and Modest British Values

All of which leads us to the nature of hard-line social conservatism’s impact on culture over the last 100+ years. Which, for some reason, a big sect of society has chosen to ignore amongst the accusations of leftist cancel culture.

Here in England we had conservative activist Mary Whitehouse (1910-2001) for much of her life actively seeking to ban anything she didn’t like.

A controversial figure, and rather divisive, you can either view her as an upholder of British moral virtues. Or an ultra-censorious bigot who didn’t like the concept of social progress (to note, she did once say, “AIDS is a judgement we have brought upon ourselves.”).

Whitehouse was instrumental in introducing The Video Recordings Act 1984 after she became an ally to Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government. Her goal was to ban “video nasties” (she coined that widely-used term). What was No.1 on her banning list?

The very first Evil Dead film!

As noted in The Guardian’s 2002 feature Let there be blood (a tribute to horror films of the 1980s).

“The Daily Mail positively loathed the films, and opportunistic solicitors made sure they contributed to the cause of every crime of the age. Things came to a head in 1984 when the powers of the BBFC were extended under the Video Recordings Act, giving the board the power to classify and cut video releases. All videos had to be resubmitted for a certificate. In the meantime, the Director of Public Prosecutions drew up a list of banned films, which included The Evil Dead.”

Andrew Holmes

It’s now The Daily Mail leading the charge against the woke mob, by the way, running various fuming front-pages to work up a furore about the “attack” on freedom of speech.

It was Thatcher who also introduced Section 28 in 1988, a deeply bigoted piece of legislation that sought to prohibit “promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”

This came about (in part) due to a 1983 book for kids called Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin by Susanne Bösche. That terrifying picture-book was enough for the Conservatives to try and block gay rights. Thatcher said this.

“Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay. All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life.”

Margaret Thatcher

Interesting that “traditional moral values” can be roughly translated into coherent English as “delusional bigotry enablement”.

Sadly, we’re on a few forums online right now where we see people touting what society needs is more “traditional” values (coinciding with 13 straight years of catastrophically incompetent Tory rule).

By the way, there were left-wing anti-Section 28 marches here in Manchester that helped to quell the severity of the Tory vision. In 2000, Section 28 was finally shoved out of the way.

But we must note Thatcher was a prickly soul and easily offended. Almost like she was a bit of a snowflake, or something.

For example, after seeing Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus she was furious about the scatological portrayal of Mozart. And refused to accept the play could have been an accurate depiction of the man (she must have loved the film, then).

She scolded the play’s director, Peter Hall, about it. He later said this.

“I said that Mozart’s letters proved he was just that: he had an extraordinarily infantile sense of humour … ‘I don’t think you heard what I said’, replied the Prime Minister. ‘He couldn’t have been like that.’ I offered (and sent) a copy of Mozart’s letters to Number Ten the next day; I was even thanked by the appropriate Private Secretary. But it was useless: the Prime Minister said I was wrong, so wrong I was.”

Peter Hall

Good old-fashioned denial, there! Always works a treat when you don’t want to challenge your prevailing mindset.

A Selection of Great Films From the Last Decade (and a bit)

Okay, let’s end on a beaming note. As we’re here to celebrate cinema alongside the other stuff.

We had a think and here’s an assortment of fantastic films we’ve seen in modern times. Since 2010, which we’re loosely considering modern cinema:

• Past Lives (2023)
• The Boy and the Heron (2023)
• Society of the Snow (2023)
• Oppenheimer (2023)
• Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2023)
• Villeneuve Pironi (2023)
• Thirteen Lives (2022)
• The Tinder Swindler (2022)
• Mass (2021)
• Queen of Speed (2021)
• The Father (2020)
• Pig (2019)
• Sound of Metal (2019)
• The Lighthouse (2019)
• Free Solo (2019)
• The Favourite (2018)
• Leave No Trace (2018)
• Isle of Dogs (2018)
• Mandy (2018)
• They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
• Dunkirk (2017)
• Trainspotting 2 (2017)
• The Death of Stalin (2017)
• Get Out (2017)
• Son of Saul (2016)
• Christine (2016)
• Raw (2016)
• Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
• Sicario (2015)
• Boyhood (2014)
• Frank (2014)
• Whiplash (2014)
• The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
• Interstellar (2013)
• The Kings of Summer (2013)
• 12 Years a Slave (2012)
• Searching for Sugar Man (2012)
• Tyrannosaur (2011)
• Inception (2010)
• Senna (2010)

That’s cutting the list very short. And, okay, we’ve put our point across and there’s no need to drone on about it now. But that’s our stance.

And 2024 has yet more on the way with Dune Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Stopmotion, The Holdovers, Poor Things, The Zone of Interest, Dream Scenario, and many more on our watchlist.