Classics still better than modern movies

 Love stories have been shaped differently in various ways through movies, ranging from chick flicks to the stereotypical running through the pouring rain down an empty street in the melodramatic films. Movies have altered considerably since the classics, with love triangles rising in popularity and cliche plots hiding beneath a werewolf’s unrequited love.

“Gone With The Wind”, which came out in 1939, tells the story of two lovers in a complicated relationship who string out confessing to each other over the course of a few years. Comparatively, the infamous “Twilight,” which was released in 2009, is a “complicated” story in which a girl helplessly falls in love with a sparkling, mysterious vampire in her classroom.

Relationships portrayed through movies have changed drastically as decades pass, not always necessarily for the better. Occasionally the directors consider remaking and usually completely revamping the plot and characters of classic relationships.

Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” originally made into a film in 1936, has been the subject of two remakes with a third coming out in the fall. The first remake, done in 1968 and directed Franco Zeffirelli, involved sudden confessions and dramatically scaling the sides of stone fences.

Although simple and considerably similar to the original play, the 1996 version, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, beats the first remake in originality, taking place in a “modern Verona.” Using far-fetched slang and climatic car scenes, this version is nothing more than a few too many quick zoom-ins on random ambulances and Leonardo DiCaprio’s pensive walks along a beach featuring a beautiful sunset.

Today’s movie industry seems to believe that high quality shots and unexpected deaths will help benefit the movie’s future ratings. While Disney is known for its classic animations and unique love stories, Hollywood consistently takes these and recreates multiple of Disney’s movies among other early 1900 animations in order to bring a modern and more realistic twist to it.

The first “Beauty and the Beast” was released in 1991 and was recreated in 2011 with “Beastly”. The biggest difference between the movies, quite obviously, is that the original is animated while “Beastly” stars Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer, using special effects to make the latter appear to have deep scars and tattoos covering his face. “Beastly” is set in modern day, a high schooler being the alternate to the Beast of Disney’s movie.

A trend in movies these days is to set the timing and location in a high school, attempt to portraying modern high schools and include sarcastic yet light hearted humor here and there in between the dramatic love lines. Some movies pull this off well, receiving good reviews and occasionally nominations for various award shows, like “Crazy, Stupid, Love” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”

However, some movies don’t meet any standards and rather prove that maybe Valentine’s Day should be spent watching the classics rather than all those movies conveniently being released on February 14. A night in could be enjoyable with “The Breakfast Club” where five high school students get along in detention or “Ghost,” a movie where a murdered man is able to watch over his true love as a ghost.

As music styles change through generations, movies begin to incorporate new soundtracks and even attempt musicals set in modern day. “High School Musical,” which began on Disney Channel then moved to the big screen for its third movie, is famous for its songs depicting Troy and Gabriella’s relationship through high school and before college starts.

“High School Musical” never stuck to their actors to supply their singing voices, however. The “West Side Story,” released in 1961, is similar in the terms of randomly breaking out into singing, whether at basketball practice or in the middle of fights between gang leaders.

However, the “West Side Story,” famous for being a classic musical because of its originality, is an amusing romance with hints of comedy throughout the well strungout movie.

Though some romance movies these days live up to the high expectations that classics have set for them, there’s a long road ahead to meet the standards of being considered a classic. While some movies do meet these standards, watching oldies like “Casablanca” and “Sleeping in Seattle” can never get old.

Although the movie scene is advancing rapidly and high tech weapons of editing are able to create vicious monsters and destructive machines who can cut buildings in half, the older movies always seem to be a bit more special. Watching “Jaws” and the mechanical and deathly shark chomp at a fishing boat is always more entertaining than the slightly scary and realistic machines of “Transformers”.

Classic movies will always have that little touch of magic that modern movies can never match. Even the cheesy rain pour scene of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” can beat out the movies that are spilling out every other second these days.