Why Do Hollywood Movies Have To Be So Damn Noisy?

[B_gagger]

Luckily a new 16-plex opened near my neighborhood. Lucky b/c the nearby existing 8-plex was converted into an art house theater. Now instead of my seeing about one good movie a month, it's one-a-week. My favorites recently have been Tsotsi and Hidden Dagger (Hard Candy was good also but a bit disturbing). Why can't Hollywood let the sounds of a Japanese countryside or the squalor of a S. African ghetto be heard and felt w/out "music" and "effects" blaring into my ears (and eyes for that matter)?

 

[2265]

A mainstream hollywood movie comes up now and again that's got a really good score. On the other hand, I recently saw the sequel to Pirates of the Carribbean. The entire two and a half hours consisted of the same theme over and over again with a few different rhythmic variations, and by the end of it I wanted to scream.

The Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds is the only major motion picture I know of with no score or background music whatsoever, and the lack of a music track is actually very effective; the eerie quiet is more dramatic than an elaborate score would have been, but I don't think that would have worked in too many other cases.

Two other Hitchcock flicks, (and two of my favourite films,) Psycho and North by Northwest, have excellent scores by Bernard Hermann.

Basil Poledouris has also done some cool stuff, with Free Willy and The Hunt for Red October.

I am a fan of Danny Elfman, although a lot of his stuff tends to sound the same after a while.

Anyhow, my main point was about The Birds, so I guess I'll stop rambling.

 

[B_Stronzo]

I sense we've become a very tactile society. It's the reason the human attention span is so short. Most need incessant sensory stimulation and that can only be provided in the most rudimentary sorts of ways.

It's one of the reasons I rarely go to see movies in a theater.

 

[Heather LouAnna]

You guys are watching the wrong movies, man.

Most movies are crap. You don't have to watch them. It's like you're turning on the radio and bitching that you don't want to hear Britney Spears. You are allowed to filter through the shit and watch only what you like.

Books are better anyway. Throw on some background music and you've just created your own score.

 

[jakeatolla]

I recently took my two young children (3 and 22 months) to
see Over The Hedge. The volume of the previews and commercials
was so loud my wife had to take our youngest out to the lobby.
The Movie itself was almost as loud, to the point where it wasn't
enjoyably for us or our kids.

The only time I've ever heard of a theatre turning down the volume
was at day showings for mothers with babies.