5 Things That Would Make Modern Movies Better

Pretty self explanatory.

1. Comedies With Stories -I love to laugh as much as anybody, but, with few exceptions, the comedies I enjoy the most have an engaging story, not just a series of gags. This can go as highbrow as To Be Or Not To Be or Sullivan's Travels,  or as lowbrow as Three Amigos. Once in awhile now a movie like The Other Guys comes along and entertains me, and even a little less often we have a comedy like Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World I genuinely find to be a very good film. But, for the most part, I feel better comedy is being done today on television than in feature films.

2. More Judicious Use of 3D - I actually do quite enjoy 3D in certain films, namely Avatar and the Pixar movies. But, while post-production 3D conversion is getting better than it's Clash of the Titans nadir, it's still weak and frequently distracting. we should have one or two 3D movies in a year, and they should always be shot for 3D.

3.  More Time Taken on Sequels - As hard as it is for me to wait for the next Star Trek movie, I'm so glad J.J. Abrams and company are taking their time, the way Christopher Nolan does between Batman movies. This almost always leads to better sequels. The very best case scenario for a rush job sequel is a very entertaining but flawed movie like Iron Man 2. The worst is a train wreck like X-Men: The Last Stand.

4.  More Thought About Whether a Movie SHOULD Have a Sequel - What possible reason beyond money could there be for The Hangover Part II? It never has been this way, and it never will be, but sequels really should be reserved for movies that really lend themselves to either another story, or a continuation of the previous story. In the past decade we've had films like The Dark Knight or the Bourne sequels (ignoring the divisive shakeycam style for a moment and just looking at the story) that made things deeper and richer. But we've also had a lot of sequels that seemed to beat a dead horse.

5. Audiences Willing to Take a Chance - I do, in fact, blame an awful lot of what's wrong with movies right now on audiences. There are films being made that are not recycled 80s properties or brainless drivel, but audiences aren't supporting them. Even if we're not looking at highbrow fare like The Conspirator, which I concede don't offer the escape most audiences want from a movie,  we're seeing smart, quality films like Source Code doing less business in their entire run than something like Fast Five does in it's opening weekend. We complain that we want Hollywood to make good, original movies instead of just remakes and sequels, but most audiences don't seem to back that up. Humorist Dave Barry wrote of a restaurant concept called "Mr. Mediocre", which was essentially a thinly veiled McDonalds. "Mr. Mediocre" was based on the idea that people are afraid to take a risk that food could be really bad or really good, and they stay with safely mediocre. That's what movie audiences are doing today, in my opinion, and it's doing more damage to movies than anything Hollywood could come up with.