Well, hell. I've seen two of the three, and humanity wouldn't be any poorer if they both disappeared without trace, but the story-telling conventions are nothing new or particularly depraved. You can find the same nonsense in medieval epics and Old English and Norse sagas. Or go back to very beginning: Gilgamesh.

You could say Hollywood takes it to a brain-dead extreme, but the opposite pole, "naturalism", a ruling convention of American independent films and the Sundance Institute, is just as bankrupt and mindless.

Mass-entertainment is mass-entertainment.....

And Tony Soprano, among others. Traditional heroism isn't possible when people no longer believe in the intrinsic value and nobility of inherited status (like monarchy). Same with tragedy. It was the movies which created working-class heroes, but they're no longer plausible either.

The best we can do these days are people who defy societal norms, which usually means criminals. Since everyone recognizes that the official order is also criminal, and that only the powerless obey the law, being a murderer and thief doesn't disqualify anyone.

Heroes gone bad, some recent big budj flicks came to mind:

• France - A prophet / jail "education" (a must see)
• France | Canada - Mesrine I & II / french scarface (Vincent Cassel shines)
• Argentina - Carancho / making money out of traffic accidents (very interesting and intricate thriller, plus has Darin)
• Argentina | Spain | France - El Aura
• Philippines - On the Job / assassins which not free (about using prisoners as killers)
• USA - The Counselor / Drugs world (very strange film, the dialogs are pretty interesting though, mix of senile and genius)
• USA - Rampart / crooked cop (Harrelson!!)
• Netherlands | Belgium - Borgman (this is about a true hero :P)
• UK - Ill Manors / London's suburbs lumpen (add wonderful OST)
• Denmark - Pusher trilogy (the deep shit)
• UK - Trainspotting / hero-in

What about documentaries ie real-life heroes? Buck, Garbage Warrior, Man on Wire...

Also to this shit you can freely add

As I mentioned in another post....Nebraska takes the cake for the narrative film with absolutely no sympathetic characters in the whole film. Sadly it is the film that is more accurate about the society from which it comes. Meanness pervades ! I'd guess the son buying his dad a used pickup and an air compressor was supposed to compensate for real human tenderness !

And i'd agree with Vitaliy about Dallas Buyers Club. Who among us can say we're perfect ? But who among us achieves that level of growth during their short span of time on this earth ? Few I'm certain !

And you obviously have a problem following a thread. In an effort to be the intellectual contrarian you just sent me a link explaining the point I was trying to make to Vitaliy. Congratulations.

There is a lot to be said for looking beyond the American tradition, to go back to VK's original rejoinder.

For brief periods, national cinemas do seem capable of accessing more vital human material, though that window doesn't remain open for very long. I'm thinking of underground Chinese cinema -- films like "The Orphan of Anyang" or "Seafood" ("Haixian"), made for minimal money, which do seem to access a truer human response from the viewer, not based on phony heroism, identifying with the characters in self-glorifying ways, etc. And of course there's Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep", to return home. It's rare, but it happens, and always outside commercial traditions.

Once it gets institutionalized or monetarized, it's finished. But of course you can't continue to make movies without bringing those institutions to bear. Just look at the sad career of Martin Scorsese.....

Raise your hand if you didn't appreciate Pulp Fiction

Get my hand. Absolutely do not like Pulp Fiction and most of Tarantino films.

because I see a crisis in narrative films in general. They simply have nothing more to offer. No more new stories. No more new characters.

That's largely true of mass-market commercial cinema, but consider the "culture" of screenwriting, with all the "plot point", "character arc" and "three-act structure" nonsense. How many original screenplays have the density, conviction and narrative "bones" of film adaptations of novels (e.g., everything from Dracula and Double Indemnity to The Conformist, Satantango, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Stalker, The Third Man, 2001, Vertigo, etc.) or material based on "real life" (Citizen Kane, Goodfellas; Raging Bull; Donnie Brasco)?

When you have "screenwriters", many of whom aren't really writers, creating material for the approval of MBAs and the marketing department, it's no wonder the medium feels exhausted.

And in countries, like the U.S., without public film funding, the so-called "independent" scene will be just as bankrupt, because no matter how cheap the equipment gets, filmmaking remains expensive and revolves more around fund-raising and managerial effectiveness than conceiving and writing.....

Analyzing films, industry norms and market trends is useful to filmmakers. There are many filmmakers at PV.

@Mimirsan

On a side note VK liked that St Trinians remake. I cant gauge the quality meter hes using! :-D

LOL. St'Trinians is good and fun film. All of the above is just real crap, sometimes full of good camera work and computer effects. But it is personal thing, if you like some of them, nothing is wrong.