He makes some good points, but only some. A lot of his overproduced personality-injected ninety minute "argument" is undercut by the (well articulated, but obvious) chip on his shoulder about "the...
Exemplary
He makes some good points, but only some. A lot of his overproduced personality-injected ninety minute "argument" is undercut by the (well articulated, but obvious) chip on his shoulder about "the cinema experience." It's ever-present throughout the entire essay. Fortunately, that chip is balanced by the one on his other shoulder which is anti-populist. And both of those seem to keep him from being able to more clearly evaluate some of the good points he makes in his rush to insist the main solution is to force people to sit in theaters watching non-blockbusters.
He's right that movie stars don't exist anymore, that they aren't breaking out of the ranks of their fellow rising actors to take up their spots on the A list. Which is steadily pushing into AARP territory. He's also correct that movie studios have become Businesses with a B which have attracted buttoned up non-creatives which the financial world loves to see in the Big Chairs to head up creative companies.
When he says you went to see the latest Tom Cruise or Jack Nicholson movie because it was a TC or JN movie, he's right. Movies stars want star salaries though, and have star demands. He never addresses this however, choosing instead to focus on how mid-budget non-blockbusters aren't made for the theater, and deciding that's why the last two generations of actors haven't seen the same numbers of stars arising.
But I think there are other factors. For one, I think studios moved away from wanting to nurture stars because of how difficult and expensive the grown-up result of that baby movie star often becomes. I don't think studios actively decided "we have a franchise; so who gives a fuck about the cast" as he proposed. I just think the studios went looking for manageable pretty faces more than people with charisma.
The reason they did this is likely due to the the social media and "influencer" era. The people who "break out" on those "platforms" aren't the charismatic magnets that become movie stars; they're just people who are (a) pretty, (b) good video editors, and (c) able to rapidly ride the algorithm waves to the top, and (d) lucky.
None of those things have much to do with being a movie star, not even pretty; charisma and magnetic charm that draws you to want to see their next project is the key quality of a "movie star" and that's something a lot of the generations following Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson don't focus on as much.
You cast the star because their charm will pull people in, and the thinking is the influencers will do the same by tweeting and plugging their role to their legions of followers who will rush to consume the movie. While costing less than a Movie Star. MBA logic.
Except ... Movie Stars, for all that their key quality is magnetic charm, are still actors who can act. I've run into a number of under 20s who don't seem to understand that Tom Cruise is a fucking actor who has three acting Oscar nominations. To them, he's just "that old guy who runs in the Mission Impossible films." Meanwhile, there's this parade of talentless pretty faces coasting through the twenty-something roles building their follower counts without being good actors, much less charismatic, and thus we aren't replacing our aging movie stars anymore.
Regarding movie studios, they're businesses. And a bunch of shitty non-creatives are in charge. Billy Crystal, in American Sweethearts, as Seth Green absolutely doesn't understand a reference to Breakfast at Tiffany's, and after a very pregnant moment of disbelief, tells him "don't tell anyone you're in the movie business, okay?" That's how I, Patrick, and a lot of people feel, or should feel, toward who's in charge funding movies these days. They're all business types, and none of them should be in the movie business unless who they report to is someone who loves movies more than spreadsheets.
I've posted a few times over the years about Pixar, which he brought up. Except he blamed Pixar's fall on streaming, deciding that Pixar movies being present on streaming means the films suck and that's why Pixar's luster has fallen. Pixar's luster came from, wait for it, creative people who were in charge. The Pixar "Brain Trust" as they were titled.
To get a project made at Pixar, you had to have the Brain Trust on board, and they were gatekeeping based on story and creative vision rather than expected box office and merchandising value. The Brain Trust knew (correctly in spades, as history has repeatedly borne out) that a good story will attract an audience. Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars, Inside Out ... they had soul and that brought the cash. You can't find creativity on a spreadsheet, no matter how many times you run the numbers.
Those folks from the Brain Trust are basically all gone now. The desks at Pixar, like those at all the major movie studios, have been taken over by financial MBA types. Those desks became valuable to sit behind, and eager ladder climbers who have always played the boring corporate politics game better than starry eyed creatives made sure they got the chairs at those desks when the openings came. And like all the big studios, decisions that should be a creative's aren't, and the appeal correspondingly drops for the audience who wants, wait for it, creative stories to watch.
It's ironic in his wrapup, his "solutions", as he talks about how audiences need to be given "a variety of options again" in the same paragraph where he's insisting audiences need to be forced back to the theater. The issue isn't where people watch their movies; the issue is what movies are available to watch. Waving a wand and either nuking all the streaming services, or passing a law that says no original content can be made for streaming won't fix his complaints. It'll just worsen them.
He spends some time dumping on Netflix and its focus on non-cinema. He even specifically singles out and trashes Netflix's Ted Sarandos for daring to have evolved an "at home" viewing habit from childhood.
Hey Patrick ... I love movies. They're my favorite thing, and some of my most cherished memories in life revolve around movies. But I grew up suburban poor, where we had cable and HBO but I never had money and my parents never took us out except maybe a couple of times per year. My love of movies came from HBO, because without that channel I would've seen far, far, far fewer of them.
Even after I grew up and had my own money, and would often go to the theater three to five times a month (seriously; I saw a lot of movies in the theater in my twenties) I still stocked my shelves with DVDs and watched a dozen or more each week at home. Am I a lesser movie fan for having seen Aliens for the first time on a TV instead of "in the cinema?" For enjoying movies equally whether they require me to sit smooshed into a crowd or in my own chair at home while watching?
Netflix has been the only major source of that often lamented loss of moviephiles everywhere; the mid-budget drama. Except to Patrick, the fact that these dramas debut on Netflix rather than in the theater means they suck. Marriage Story (to pick one example he did) was a solid drama and the fact that it didn't have a three month run in theaters doesn't make it shit.
That's really the biggest thing I kept puzzling over as I listened to his essay. I shook my head at his hatred of not-being-at-the-theater, and rolled my eyes at his childish dumping on blockbusters ... but Netflix is who's been making his kind of films. Sure I first noticed Adam Driver in The Force Awakens, but Marriage Story is what put him on my personal "keep an eye on" list. He was great in that film (so was Johansson).
In fact, it could be argued that (presumably in an effort to chase headlines) Netflix's major stumble in the past six to eight years has been deciding to start making big-budget projects. Gray Man and Red Notice (among others) were two movies that could've been ten to fifteen mid-budget movies instead.
I did notice he was okay with Netflix having given Martin Scorsese $160mil for The Irishman, though he wasn't okay with it being on Netflix instead of in a theater. Which leads into further puzzlement over his anti-blockbuster chip. Because he brought up Barbie and Oppenheimer. Both of those are big budget films. It's just they weren't, as he mentioned several times, "made for fourteen year old boys." Or, in other words, they weren't populist but instead made by "auteurs for an auteur audience." The fact that these art house films got handed nine-digit checks to pay for production is just deserved apparently, because they're Serious Movies as opposed to "trash."
Hey, I think the FF and Transformers movies are shit too. They're vapid, low brow, and lack any redeeming storytelling qualities to appreciate. So ... I just don't watch them. I do keep an eye on movie news though, and when films pop up on my radar that seem interesting ... I watch those.
Should studios let creatives be in charge of Creative? Yes. Do we need Movie Stars back? Yes. Should more dramas and comedies be made? Yes. Does everything have to be a franchise? No.
Movies don't need to be in a theater to be good. Or to be appreciated. Sitting in an audience doesn't make the experience better; it just injects random distractions. When he insisted comedies need to be in a theater with an audience so he could enjoy experiencing "the audience losing their minds at a really funny movie" he completely lost me.
As someone who loves movies deeply, he needs to let those chips he's staggering aroudn with down and focus on enjoying movies. Times change. Things evolve. The problem with movies is MBA types not letting creatives have any chances to make something magical. Which is pretty much the same problem as most of the big problems in today's life; corporations and corporate influence. Which comes from MBA types.
So as usual, as ever, greed is what's fucking things up. In movies, it's executive greed. You can rail against what you have no ability to change, or you can find the good stuff that still exists and focus on that instead. I watch movies to escape the world that doesn't measure up to my standards. In the movies, good guys still win and evil is punished. In reality, not so much.
So I watch movies because they make me feel better. Watch some movies Patrick. You'll feel better.
As a general rule, I stopped watching videos with a title that sounds like "old man yells at cloud", but I wanted to give this a chance. I got to "[cinema is] humanities greatest art form" and...
As a general rule, I stopped watching videos with a title that sounds like "old man yells at cloud", but I wanted to give this a chance. I got to "[cinema is] humanities greatest art form" and that was it for me. (I already barely got over opening with examples of doom and gloom for cinema only to turn around and say without any self awareness that "this time it's different").
A shame, I was curious how he fits EEAAO in his doom theory.
There's also the question of what the "theater experience" even really is. For most movies, that aren't comedies or horror movies where the experience is enhanced by the emotional energy of the...
There's also the question of what the "theater experience" even really is. For most movies, that aren't comedies or horror movies where the experience is enhanced by the emotional energy of the rest of the audience, it's a big picture, with big sound, in a dark and otherwise quiet room.
You can get all of that at home these days, and it's never been more affordable. You can't get as big on the picture (even relative to field of view) as a good theater, but some of those shitty multiplexes have screens that are comparably tiny. And if you have access to a VR headset, even that's not really true anymore.
I personally don't care about movie stars. I have a coworker who I talk to all the time about movies and she's constantly bringing up names of big famous names and all of the time I'm just saying,...
I personally don't care about movie stars. I have a coworker who I talk to all the time about movies and she's constantly bringing up names of big famous names and all of the time I'm just saying, "who?"
I very seriously don't care about who is in the role anywhere nearly as much as I do how well they portray the character. I've always been the guy who cares more about what the movie has to say rather than who is saying it. I'm more likely to watch a movie because of the writer or the director than an actor. And even then, it's going to take a good concept to get me to move.
I've mentioned this before, but I think one of the biggest problems with movies today is promotion and reach. We only ever hear about the big releases these days, and when you go to the theater those releases tend to be all they have. If the theater does show those smaller films, it's usually a very limited engagement, so if you can't see it that weekend you probably won't. But even if they did show them and for a reasonable timeframe, would people still see them when they are charging the same admission price for those movies as they do the big blockbusters? Economically, there is a greater risk to the consumer that they won't like those movies, which discourages them from watching them.
(The pandemic was probably worse for independent studios than it were for the big guys, now that I think about it)
Personally speaking, I've kind of given up on movies and I'm investing in theatre instead. I've seen two shows in the past two months and they've been mindblowingly fantastic. A theater ticket is much more than a movie ticket, sure, but the productions have that magic that movies have lost over the past few decades, and in greater concentration. I'm in a lucky spot where I probably have some of the greatest collection of high budget shows outside of New York city, but theatre exists in all scales so I would urge anyone else who is looking for that movie hook to check out their local community theater or college theater programs.
MoviePass was amazing because it helped counter the majority of the points. It put the focus on theaters (over other options), made it a financially viable option, made the movies social again by...
MoviePass was amazing because it helped counter the majority of the points. It put the focus on theaters (over other options), made it a financially viable option, made the movies social again by being a thing you do with friends that also had it, and made going to the movies a low commitment kind of thing since you could just go whenever
Obviously wasn’t sustainable but I really miss it. I was never a big theater guy to begin with but it really made me enjoy going. Was going to the theaters once every 1-2 weeks when I had it, now have only been a couple times total since I cancelled ~5 years ago
Moviepass exists again. It is much more restricted than it used to be, but they are at least reasonable restrictions. I used moviepass when it was $10/month for fully unlimited, and I quit when...
Moviepass exists again. It is much more restricted than it used to be, but they are at least reasonable restrictions. I used moviepass when it was $10/month for fully unlimited, and I quit when they started restricting everyone to one single movie each day. The new model is credits you accrue. The more busy showtimes cost more credits. But $10/month gives you enough credits to watch at least one movie each month, even if it is really high credit cost. And where I live, there are no movie tickets that cost less than $10. So I treat it as one movie a month, and sometimes 2-3 extra free movies.
Where do you live? If it’s in the US, there’s a good chance that AMC or Regal have locations near you, and both offer subscriptions at the moment. AMC’s is better in my experience, and both are...
Where do you live? If it’s in the US, there’s a good chance that AMC or Regal have locations near you, and both offer subscriptions at the moment. AMC’s is better in my experience, and both are more expensive than MoviePass, but still much cheaper than buying individual tickets if you go often enough.
I go about once a month, and it’s very worth it for me to have the Cinemark program. Everyone complains about movie prices and I’m paying like $10 a ticket, sometimes getting a free one, and they...
I go about once a month, and it’s very worth it for me to have the Cinemark program. Everyone complains about movie prices and I’m paying like $10 a ticket, sometimes getting a free one, and they even have $6 20oz beers there. Pretty fair pricing IMO.
As for ads, just arrive 20 minutes late. Seats are assigned so that solves the problem.
I love my AMC A-List subscription. The thing I hate about AMC though is that they buy up old movie theatres and rebrand them as “classic” as a way to avoid remodeling them. The one in my town is a...
I love my AMC A-List subscription. The thing I hate about AMC though is that they buy up old movie theatres and rebrand them as “classic” as a way to avoid remodeling them. The one in my town is a classic and it has the same seats that have been in there since it was built in the 90s to replace the other movie theatre in town. They’ve probably replaced the cushions, but the seats are uncomfy af. If I want to go to an AMC with nice recliner seating I have to go 20min away to the only non-AMC classic within a 100mi radius.
In no particular order: Cost Poor Audience Experience Increased Entertainment Options Movies used to be a casual financial decision. A couple of bucks got you in to an afternoon showing a few more...
In no particular order:
Cost
Poor Audience Experience
Increased Entertainment Options
Movies used to be a casual financial decision. A couple of bucks got you in to an afternoon showing a few more on top of that got a night ticket. Today, for most people it's not the "yeah, sure, fuck it" kind of money decision it used to be. Now heading to the movies puts a real dent in your week for a lot of folks.
In the era of linear TV and Video Rental stores, what you could get from a movie could be A Big Deal. James Bond is kind of a good example. Not only were they offering spectacle, but the films gave you a look into exotic locales and/or exotic activities. Lots of movies traded on that card; that of showing the audience somewhere they weren't and probably would never be. A lot of movies got made because of it.
That card doesn't have much pull in an era of high def Youtube and the wealth of different activities people can fill their lives with today.
Then there's the audiences. I might cut down on movie going due to cost, and be more selective because I've got a lot of movies and content at my fingertips, but audiences are the reason there's literally nothing on the foreseeable cinema horizon I'm willing to go to a theater to see.
I could give examples, but we know what they are. If I'm paying for a ticket, and don't have control over the audience, then if I can't rely on them sitting quietly, without disruption, and watching the movie ... I'm not paying for a ticket. It's really that simple. I'll just wait. Since I can't trust that I won't have my movie ruined by people, I keep my media server stocked and feed my movie habit at home.
Alamo isn't near me. I really wish they were. A company that focuses on the experience as their selling point. If the other chains want to win me back, they need to implement similar policies. Control the audience. It didn't used to be so hard, but today's audiences have lost any sense of decorum or politeness.
1hr 30min video that covers a lot of ground, so apologies for the tag spam. I was writing the tags as I watched, and tried to pare it down at the end, but still ended up with a lot of them. :P
1hr 30min video that covers a lot of ground, so apologies for the tag spam. I was writing the tags as I watched, and tried to pare it down at the end, but still ended up with a lot of them. :P
I'll reply to you here because I don't want to derail potential discussion above. Your comment was excellent, very interesting and had tonnes of interesting perspectives. Thanks for breaking down...
I'll reply to you here because I don't want to derail potential discussion above. Your comment was excellent, very interesting and had tonnes of interesting perspectives. Thanks for breaking down the movie. It's an area I'm only peripherally interested in, so I wouldn't watch the whole video and honestly I was just going to skim this thread, but your comment drew me in as an outsider and caught my attention so much that I read everyone else's comments for more information. My partner and I go to the cinema maybe three times a year, mostly because of the cost, but also there are some soulless movies out there that I'm just not ready to pay €15 to watch.
Urk, you're right, sorry. I got the "Exemplary" tag mixed up with that account being the OP. Sorry, I'm still pretty new around here. Thanks for tagging DW, hopefully the message gets through in...
Urk, you're right, sorry. I got the "Exemplary" tag mixed up with that account being the OP. Sorry, I'm still pretty new around here. Thanks for tagging DW, hopefully the message gets through in the end!
Perhaps "The Cinema" is dying but film creation and accessibility is higher than ever. And I consider that a net win. I'm a big fan of Joel Haver on Youtube and this is essentially his soapbox:...
Perhaps "The Cinema" is dying but film creation and accessibility is higher than ever. And I consider that a net win. I'm a big fan of Joel Haver on Youtube and this is essentially his soapbox: anyone can create something and distribute it now. Further I don't need to look far to watch nearly any film that comes across my recommendations. I watched Mad God this weekend (70k to produce, 150k box office, launch weekend was 2 theaters in 2021) and I have a hard time imagining any large theater chain dedicating a screen to such a film.
Others in the thread have pointed to all the economic factors that keep Millennials and younger out of theaters. I am fortunate to have a high quality independent theater in my town and the difference between that theater and the big chains is markedly different. The big chains are dirty, impersonal movie warehouses. Versus our local independent theater is a cultural institution, our town raised money to buy them land and build the theater when their previous lease expired. They run outdoor music events, display local artists, and provide a space for community activities. This is the type of experience that needs to be provided to compete with at-home viewing.
People have options and getting comfy at home with minimal distractions and no commute for half the price is what theaters are competing with. They need to be better if they want to survive.
The video is way too long for me to get through. I could watch a film in that time. I don't think "cinema" is necessarily dead, but the cinemas may well be. They were important before the...
The video is way too long for me to get through. I could watch a film in that time. I don't think "cinema" is necessarily dead, but the cinemas may well be. They were important before the internet, but now people have more options (streaming, etc) and less disposable income. Why would you endure the present-day experience when you can watch something in the comfort of your own home?
I'm 37 and I watched wuite a few movies in cinema over the last 20 years. I don't go to cibema much nowadays. A few poibts of thought: if one ticket wes not more expensive than blu ray of the same...
I'm 37 and I watched wuite a few movies in cinema over the last 20 years. I don't go to cibema much nowadays. A few poibts of thought:
if one ticket wes not more expensive than blu ray of the same movie a year later, I might consider going, if you want to go with your partner, you could buy the UHD version for the pice of tickets
popcorn and cola costs as much as full meal in good restaurant
cinema = complex of a few halls of different sizes (say 50 to 300 people), no character, fastfood of movie industry
I know movies are bussiness. I know they cost tens to hundreds of millions. Yet many of them under-deliver for me. If I have time and I want to go to cinema I can hardly pick some movie... There are some comic based, some animated ones, maybe one of my native language and probably some kind of (wannabe) comedy. There's not much movies that I really good, they still exist though.
To summarize a bit: Movie must be really good for.me to spend money on ticket. I have to have somebody to go with me on said movie (partner often has other preferences). If I want to see the movie and I don't have someone to go with me, I buy blu ray sometime down the road. That way I can watch it ehenever I want how many times I want for the same (or actually lower) price. Yes, I miss the cinema experience, but that really is just big picture and good sound, because as I said, cinema here is as sterile as a few boxes filled with seats.
He makes some good points, but only some. A lot of his overproduced personality-injected ninety minute "argument" is undercut by the (well articulated, but obvious) chip on his shoulder about "the cinema experience." It's ever-present throughout the entire essay. Fortunately, that chip is balanced by the one on his other shoulder which is anti-populist. And both of those seem to keep him from being able to more clearly evaluate some of the good points he makes in his rush to insist the main solution is to force people to sit in theaters watching non-blockbusters.
He's right that movie stars don't exist anymore, that they aren't breaking out of the ranks of their fellow rising actors to take up their spots on the A list. Which is steadily pushing into AARP territory. He's also correct that movie studios have become Businesses with a B which have attracted buttoned up non-creatives which the financial world loves to see in the Big Chairs to head up creative companies.
When he says you went to see the latest Tom Cruise or Jack Nicholson movie because it was a TC or JN movie, he's right. Movies stars want star salaries though, and have star demands. He never addresses this however, choosing instead to focus on how mid-budget non-blockbusters aren't made for the theater, and deciding that's why the last two generations of actors haven't seen the same numbers of stars arising.
But I think there are other factors. For one, I think studios moved away from wanting to nurture stars because of how difficult and expensive the grown-up result of that baby movie star often becomes. I don't think studios actively decided "we have a franchise; so who gives a fuck about the cast" as he proposed. I just think the studios went looking for manageable pretty faces more than people with charisma.
The reason they did this is likely due to the the social media and "influencer" era. The people who "break out" on those "platforms" aren't the charismatic magnets that become movie stars; they're just people who are (a) pretty, (b) good video editors, and (c) able to rapidly ride the algorithm waves to the top, and (d) lucky.
None of those things have much to do with being a movie star, not even pretty; charisma and magnetic charm that draws you to want to see their next project is the key quality of a "movie star" and that's something a lot of the generations following Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson don't focus on as much.
You cast the star because their charm will pull people in, and the thinking is the influencers will do the same by tweeting and plugging their role to their legions of followers who will rush to consume the movie. While costing less than a Movie Star. MBA logic.
Except ... Movie Stars, for all that their key quality is magnetic charm, are still actors who can act. I've run into a number of under 20s who don't seem to understand that Tom Cruise is a fucking actor who has three acting Oscar nominations. To them, he's just "that old guy who runs in the Mission Impossible films." Meanwhile, there's this parade of talentless pretty faces coasting through the twenty-something roles building their follower counts without being good actors, much less charismatic, and thus we aren't replacing our aging movie stars anymore.
Regarding movie studios, they're businesses. And a bunch of shitty non-creatives are in charge. Billy Crystal, in American Sweethearts, as Seth Green absolutely doesn't understand a reference to Breakfast at Tiffany's, and after a very pregnant moment of disbelief, tells him "don't tell anyone you're in the movie business, okay?" That's how I, Patrick, and a lot of people feel, or should feel, toward who's in charge funding movies these days. They're all business types, and none of them should be in the movie business unless who they report to is someone who loves movies more than spreadsheets.
I've posted a few times over the years about Pixar, which he brought up. Except he blamed Pixar's fall on streaming, deciding that Pixar movies being present on streaming means the films suck and that's why Pixar's luster has fallen. Pixar's luster came from, wait for it, creative people who were in charge. The Pixar "Brain Trust" as they were titled.
To get a project made at Pixar, you had to have the Brain Trust on board, and they were gatekeeping based on story and creative vision rather than expected box office and merchandising value. The Brain Trust knew (correctly in spades, as history has repeatedly borne out) that a good story will attract an audience. Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars, Inside Out ... they had soul and that brought the cash. You can't find creativity on a spreadsheet, no matter how many times you run the numbers.
Those folks from the Brain Trust are basically all gone now. The desks at Pixar, like those at all the major movie studios, have been taken over by financial MBA types. Those desks became valuable to sit behind, and eager ladder climbers who have always played the boring corporate politics game better than starry eyed creatives made sure they got the chairs at those desks when the openings came. And like all the big studios, decisions that should be a creative's aren't, and the appeal correspondingly drops for the audience who wants, wait for it, creative stories to watch.
It's ironic in his wrapup, his "solutions", as he talks about how audiences need to be given "a variety of options again" in the same paragraph where he's insisting audiences need to be forced back to the theater. The issue isn't where people watch their movies; the issue is what movies are available to watch. Waving a wand and either nuking all the streaming services, or passing a law that says no original content can be made for streaming won't fix his complaints. It'll just worsen them.
He spends some time dumping on Netflix and its focus on non-cinema. He even specifically singles out and trashes Netflix's Ted Sarandos for daring to have evolved an "at home" viewing habit from childhood.
Hey Patrick ... I love movies. They're my favorite thing, and some of my most cherished memories in life revolve around movies. But I grew up suburban poor, where we had cable and HBO but I never had money and my parents never took us out except maybe a couple of times per year. My love of movies came from HBO, because without that channel I would've seen far, far, far fewer of them.
Even after I grew up and had my own money, and would often go to the theater three to five times a month (seriously; I saw a lot of movies in the theater in my twenties) I still stocked my shelves with DVDs and watched a dozen or more each week at home. Am I a lesser movie fan for having seen Aliens for the first time on a TV instead of "in the cinema?" For enjoying movies equally whether they require me to sit smooshed into a crowd or in my own chair at home while watching?
Netflix has been the only major source of that often lamented loss of moviephiles everywhere; the mid-budget drama. Except to Patrick, the fact that these dramas debut on Netflix rather than in the theater means they suck. Marriage Story (to pick one example he did) was a solid drama and the fact that it didn't have a three month run in theaters doesn't make it shit.
That's really the biggest thing I kept puzzling over as I listened to his essay. I shook my head at his hatred of not-being-at-the-theater, and rolled my eyes at his childish dumping on blockbusters ... but Netflix is who's been making his kind of films. Sure I first noticed Adam Driver in The Force Awakens, but Marriage Story is what put him on my personal "keep an eye on" list. He was great in that film (so was Johansson).
In fact, it could be argued that (presumably in an effort to chase headlines) Netflix's major stumble in the past six to eight years has been deciding to start making big-budget projects. Gray Man and Red Notice (among others) were two movies that could've been ten to fifteen mid-budget movies instead.
I did notice he was okay with Netflix having given Martin Scorsese $160mil for The Irishman, though he wasn't okay with it being on Netflix instead of in a theater. Which leads into further puzzlement over his anti-blockbuster chip. Because he brought up Barbie and Oppenheimer. Both of those are big budget films. It's just they weren't, as he mentioned several times, "made for fourteen year old boys." Or, in other words, they weren't populist but instead made by "auteurs for an auteur audience." The fact that these art house films got handed nine-digit checks to pay for production is just deserved apparently, because they're Serious Movies as opposed to "trash."
Hey, I think the FF and Transformers movies are shit too. They're vapid, low brow, and lack any redeeming storytelling qualities to appreciate. So ... I just don't watch them. I do keep an eye on movie news though, and when films pop up on my radar that seem interesting ... I watch those.
Should studios let creatives be in charge of Creative? Yes. Do we need Movie Stars back? Yes. Should more dramas and comedies be made? Yes. Does everything have to be a franchise? No.
Movies don't need to be in a theater to be good. Or to be appreciated. Sitting in an audience doesn't make the experience better; it just injects random distractions. When he insisted comedies need to be in a theater with an audience so he could enjoy experiencing "the audience losing their minds at a really funny movie" he completely lost me.
As someone who loves movies deeply, he needs to let those chips he's staggering aroudn with down and focus on enjoying movies. Times change. Things evolve. The problem with movies is MBA types not letting creatives have any chances to make something magical. Which is pretty much the same problem as most of the big problems in today's life; corporations and corporate influence. Which comes from MBA types.
So as usual, as ever, greed is what's fucking things up. In movies, it's executive greed. You can rail against what you have no ability to change, or you can find the good stuff that still exists and focus on that instead. I watch movies to escape the world that doesn't measure up to my standards. In the movies, good guys still win and evil is punished. In reality, not so much.
So I watch movies because they make me feel better. Watch some movies Patrick. You'll feel better.
As a general rule, I stopped watching videos with a title that sounds like "old man yells at cloud", but I wanted to give this a chance. I got to "[cinema is] humanities greatest art form" and that was it for me. (I already barely got over opening with examples of doom and gloom for cinema only to turn around and say without any self awareness that "this time it's different").
A shame, I was curious how he fits EEAAO in his doom theory.
There's also the question of what the "theater experience" even really is. For most movies, that aren't comedies or horror movies where the experience is enhanced by the emotional energy of the rest of the audience, it's a big picture, with big sound, in a dark and otherwise quiet room.
You can get all of that at home these days, and it's never been more affordable. You can't get as big on the picture (even relative to field of view) as a good theater, but some of those shitty multiplexes have screens that are comparably tiny. And if you have access to a VR headset, even that's not really true anymore.
I personally don't care about movie stars. I have a coworker who I talk to all the time about movies and she's constantly bringing up names of big famous names and all of the time I'm just saying, "who?"
I very seriously don't care about who is in the role anywhere nearly as much as I do how well they portray the character. I've always been the guy who cares more about what the movie has to say rather than who is saying it. I'm more likely to watch a movie because of the writer or the director than an actor. And even then, it's going to take a good concept to get me to move.
I've mentioned this before, but I think one of the biggest problems with movies today is promotion and reach. We only ever hear about the big releases these days, and when you go to the theater those releases tend to be all they have. If the theater does show those smaller films, it's usually a very limited engagement, so if you can't see it that weekend you probably won't. But even if they did show them and for a reasonable timeframe, would people still see them when they are charging the same admission price for those movies as they do the big blockbusters? Economically, there is a greater risk to the consumer that they won't like those movies, which discourages them from watching them.
(The pandemic was probably worse for independent studios than it were for the big guys, now that I think about it)
Personally speaking, I've kind of given up on movies and I'm investing in theatre instead. I've seen two shows in the past two months and they've been mindblowingly fantastic. A theater ticket is much more than a movie ticket, sure, but the productions have that magic that movies have lost over the past few decades, and in greater concentration. I'm in a lucky spot where I probably have some of the greatest collection of high budget shows outside of New York city, but theatre exists in all scales so I would urge anyone else who is looking for that movie hook to check out their local community theater or college theater programs.
MoviePass was amazing because it helped counter the majority of the points. It put the focus on theaters (over other options), made it a financially viable option, made the movies social again by being a thing you do with friends that also had it, and made going to the movies a low commitment kind of thing since you could just go whenever
Obviously wasn’t sustainable but I really miss it. I was never a big theater guy to begin with but it really made me enjoy going. Was going to the theaters once every 1-2 weeks when I had it, now have only been a couple times total since I cancelled ~5 years ago
Moviepass exists again. It is much more restricted than it used to be, but they are at least reasonable restrictions. I used moviepass when it was $10/month for fully unlimited, and I quit when they started restricting everyone to one single movie each day. The new model is credits you accrue. The more busy showtimes cost more credits. But $10/month gives you enough credits to watch at least one movie each month, even if it is really high credit cost. And where I live, there are no movie tickets that cost less than $10. So I treat it as one movie a month, and sometimes 2-3 extra free movies.
Where do you live? If it’s in the US, there’s a good chance that AMC or Regal have locations near you, and both offer subscriptions at the moment. AMC’s is better in my experience, and both are more expensive than MoviePass, but still much cheaper than buying individual tickets if you go often enough.
I go about once a month, and it’s very worth it for me to have the Cinemark program. Everyone complains about movie prices and I’m paying like $10 a ticket, sometimes getting a free one, and they even have $6 20oz beers there. Pretty fair pricing IMO.
As for ads, just arrive 20 minutes late. Seats are assigned so that solves the problem.
I love my AMC A-List subscription. The thing I hate about AMC though is that they buy up old movie theatres and rebrand them as “classic” as a way to avoid remodeling them. The one in my town is a classic and it has the same seats that have been in there since it was built in the 90s to replace the other movie theatre in town. They’ve probably replaced the cushions, but the seats are uncomfy af. If I want to go to an AMC with nice recliner seating I have to go 20min away to the only non-AMC classic within a 100mi radius.
Part of me enjoys that classic aspect with the basic seats, sticky floors, gaudy curtains, etc. Takes me back to my childhood!
I also enjoy not listening to the whirring of the recliners all movie long.
In no particular order:
Movies used to be a casual financial decision. A couple of bucks got you in to an afternoon showing a few more on top of that got a night ticket. Today, for most people it's not the "yeah, sure, fuck it" kind of money decision it used to be. Now heading to the movies puts a real dent in your week for a lot of folks.
In the era of linear TV and Video Rental stores, what you could get from a movie could be A Big Deal. James Bond is kind of a good example. Not only were they offering spectacle, but the films gave you a look into exotic locales and/or exotic activities. Lots of movies traded on that card; that of showing the audience somewhere they weren't and probably would never be. A lot of movies got made because of it.
That card doesn't have much pull in an era of high def Youtube and the wealth of different activities people can fill their lives with today.
Then there's the audiences. I might cut down on movie going due to cost, and be more selective because I've got a lot of movies and content at my fingertips, but audiences are the reason there's literally nothing on the foreseeable cinema horizon I'm willing to go to a theater to see.
I could give examples, but we know what they are. If I'm paying for a ticket, and don't have control over the audience, then if I can't rely on them sitting quietly, without disruption, and watching the movie ... I'm not paying for a ticket. It's really that simple. I'll just wait. Since I can't trust that I won't have my movie ruined by people, I keep my media server stocked and feed my movie habit at home.
Alamo isn't near me. I really wish they were. A company that focuses on the experience as their selling point. If the other chains want to win me back, they need to implement similar policies. Control the audience. It didn't used to be so hard, but today's audiences have lost any sense of decorum or politeness.
1hr 30min video that covers a lot of ground, so apologies for the tag spam. I was writing the tags as I watched, and tried to pare it down at the end, but still ended up with a lot of them. :P
I'll reply to you here because I don't want to derail potential discussion above. Your comment was excellent, very interesting and had tonnes of interesting perspectives. Thanks for breaking down the movie. It's an area I'm only peripherally interested in, so I wouldn't watch the whole video and honestly I was just going to skim this thread, but your comment drew me in as an outsider and caught my attention so much that I read everyone else's comments for more information. My partner and I go to the cinema maybe three times a year, mostly because of the cost, but also there are some soulless movies out there that I'm just not ready to pay €15 to watch.
I think you meant to reply to @DavesWorld, not me? I didn't make any other comments in this topic.
Urk, you're right, sorry. I got the "Exemplary" tag mixed up with that account being the OP. Sorry, I'm still pretty new around here. Thanks for tagging DW, hopefully the message gets through in the end!
No worries. And yeah, my tagging them should have made them aware of your comment, which is why I did it. :P
Perhaps "The Cinema" is dying but film creation and accessibility is higher than ever. And I consider that a net win. I'm a big fan of Joel Haver on Youtube and this is essentially his soapbox: anyone can create something and distribute it now. Further I don't need to look far to watch nearly any film that comes across my recommendations. I watched Mad God this weekend (70k to produce, 150k box office, launch weekend was 2 theaters in 2021) and I have a hard time imagining any large theater chain dedicating a screen to such a film.
Others in the thread have pointed to all the economic factors that keep Millennials and younger out of theaters. I am fortunate to have a high quality independent theater in my town and the difference between that theater and the big chains is markedly different. The big chains are dirty, impersonal movie warehouses. Versus our local independent theater is a cultural institution, our town raised money to buy them land and build the theater when their previous lease expired. They run outdoor music events, display local artists, and provide a space for community activities. This is the type of experience that needs to be provided to compete with at-home viewing.
People have options and getting comfy at home with minimal distractions and no commute for half the price is what theaters are competing with. They need to be better if they want to survive.
The video is way too long for me to get through. I could watch a film in that time. I don't think "cinema" is necessarily dead, but the cinemas may well be. They were important before the internet, but now people have more options (streaming, etc) and less disposable income. Why would you endure the present-day experience when you can watch something in the comfort of your own home?
Community, big ass screens, sound you can't really get at home without a huge amount of money.
I have mental health issues that prevent me from socializing, and I always wear a headset and have a nice large screen for my PC to watch movies on.
That's just you though.
No, it's not just me. I know plenty of people who feel the same way.
I'm 37 and I watched wuite a few movies in cinema over the last 20 years. I don't go to cibema much nowadays. A few poibts of thought:
I know movies are bussiness. I know they cost tens to hundreds of millions. Yet many of them under-deliver for me. If I have time and I want to go to cinema I can hardly pick some movie... There are some comic based, some animated ones, maybe one of my native language and probably some kind of (wannabe) comedy. There's not much movies that I really good, they still exist though.
To summarize a bit: Movie must be really good for.me to spend money on ticket. I have to have somebody to go with me on said movie (partner often has other preferences). If I want to see the movie and I don't have someone to go with me, I buy blu ray sometime down the road. That way I can watch it ehenever I want how many times I want for the same (or actually lower) price. Yes, I miss the cinema experience, but that really is just big picture and good sound, because as I said, cinema here is as sterile as a few boxes filled with seats.