[HN Gopher] Literalism plaguing today's movies
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Literalism plaguing today's movies
Author : frogulis
Score : 200 points
Date : 2025-07-15 03:52 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| krukah wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ZVQvK
| AIorNot wrote:
| Eh, People on their phones can't be bothered with following plot
| lines everything has to be telegraphed
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| I think it is just as likely the other way around
|
| People are on their phones because the slop they are being
| served is so shallow and meaningless that they can't be
| bothered to pay attention to it
| brokencode wrote:
| If that were the case, people would watch classic movies,
| read novels, etc.
|
| No, I'm pretty sure social media has seriously hurt the
| average person's attention span.
|
| The idea of sitting down and watching a two hour movie is
| really quite daunting when you're used to videos that are at
| most 30 min and often less than one.
| decimalenough wrote:
| Observe somebody browsing Tiktok/Instagram/YouTube Shorts.
| People compulsively swipe on to the next reel if the one
| they're watching doesn't hook them in within the first
| _second_.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Right, because the much vaunted Tik-Tok algorithm starts
| a stopwatch when the clip begins in order to determine
| whether or not to serve you more content like it.
| Swizec wrote:
| > The idea of sitting down and watching a two hour movie is
| really quite daunting when you're used to videos that are
| at most 30 min and often less than one.
|
| Whenever I watch a modern Netflix/Hulu/etc show: I'm on my
| phone 2 minutes into the show. Half paying attention to
| both.
|
| Whenever I watch a modern BBC-ish (anything British really)
| show: I literally can't look away for more than 10 seconds
| because _I will_ miss something crucial. If someone
| distracts me, I rewind the show and rewatch the last few
| minutes.
|
| What's different? The Brits (at least the stuff that makes
| it into syndication) focus on content you're going to
| watch. The Americans focus on filling air between
| commercials.
|
| Product placement counts as commercials for the purpose of
| this comparison.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > attention span.
|
| This gets repeated ad nauseum, but IMHO people are short on
| patience, not attention.
|
| Parents probably understand this the most: try to find an
| 80s movie to show to your kids, you'll have a pass at it
| first to properly remember what it's about, and it will
| painfully slow.
|
| Not peaceful or measured, just slow. Scenes that don't need
| much explanation will be exposed for about for 10 min,
| dialogues that you digest in 2s get 2 min of lingering on.
|
| Most movies were targeted at a public that would need a lot
| of time to process info, and we're not that public anymore
| (despite this very TFA about how writers make their
| dialogues dumber)
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| Old movies are kind of slow but I'm much less frustrated
| because they are short: an hour, at most two. That's more
| than enough to tell a story. Modern movies are two hours
| at minimum with some crossing over three with absolutely
| nothing to tell (e.g Babylon 2022, completely pissed me
| off).
|
| I don't think the reason is "public needed time to
| process info", more likely both the length and the
| intensity (of changing sights, not of meaning) were
| ultimately determined by production costs. Filming two
| hours is more expensive than one hour. Filling an hour
| with 60 one-minute cuts is more expensive then 30 two-
| minute cuts because of all the setup and decorations.
|
| Production is now cheaper thanks to CGI, box offices are
| larger thanks to higher prices and the global market. You
| no longer have to be frugal when filming, the protection
| against sloppy overextended movies is now taste and not
| money. And taste is scarce.
| silisili wrote:
| I noticed this recently when I decided to watch
| Hitchcock's 'The Birds.'
|
| It was almost absurd to me not only how bland and drawn
| out most scenes were, but how absolutely poorly acted it
| was. If it were not famous(ie didn't exist), and updated
| to today's vernacular and shot scene for scene, it would
| absolutely get reamed by critics.
|
| Funny how much changes in just a generation or two.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > If that were the case, people would watch classic movies,
| read novels, etc.
|
| They literally do. Have you ever tried reaching out people
| NOT on social networks?
|
| > The idea of sitting down and watching a two hour movie is
| really quite daunting when you're used to videos that are
| at most 30 min and often less than one.
|
| Average movie length is increasing every year.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I don't think people know about classic movies, or know
| that they have access to classic movies (hint: libraries).
|
| This people though has been catching up on a century of
| classic films. There are plenty of lists around on the
| internet if you wanted to get started. The AFI Top 100 is a
| gentle introduction to the (American-only) classics. There
| are deeper cuts when you are ready to saddle up for "1001
| Movies" instead. (Warning, you could be starting down a
| journey that will involve the next eight years of your
| life.)
| jll29 wrote:
| Go to a restaurant and watch any "romantic" couple, what they
| do. Pay attention to each other, talk? Nah, stare at their
| own screens, and every two minutes or so show each other a
| cute cat video and go "awww!"; pathetic.
| anonymousab wrote:
| > everything has to be telegraphed
|
| Or, in the case of recent Netflix executive missives,
| everything happening must be literally spoken and explained
| aloud, moment to moment.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Not that I was lacking reasons to nit resubscribe to Netflix
| but wow...
| bawolff wrote:
| Or, people who want complex plots dont watch blockbuster films;
| they watch indie movies.
|
| The same way that if you want a literary novel, you aren't
| reading the latest YA best seller.
|
| The super mainstream stuff is always going to go for broad
| appeal. There is nothing wrong with that, but the people who
| want something different are going to have to step outside the
| bestseller box the way they always had to.
| icecreamscoop wrote:
| Fry: Clever things make people feel stupid, and unexpected
| things make them feel scared.
|
| Futurama nailed it.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| It's a shame, because in an era when _One Flew Over the
| Cuckoos Nest_ and _Annie Hall_ were winning Best Picture the
| blockbuster film and "indie" film were harder to
| differentiate.
| hosh wrote:
| I am confused by the use of the term, telegraphed or signpost.
| I am not even sure I understand what this literalism is about.
|
| Coming from a martial art background, telegraph means reading
| the subtle signs that comes before an action in order to
| anticipate, intercept, and counter it within the same tempo. It
| can also mean exaggeration of the signs, letting slip one's
| intentions as an error in execution, or deceiving someone by
| falsely telegraphing intentions. They all come before the
| action, whereas the examples in this article seems to talk
| about things coming after the action.
| phyzome wrote:
| "Telegraph" is a bit of an unfortunate word because when used
| metaphorically it has come to have two almost diametrically
| opposed meanings. I think that's what's tripping you up.
| hosh wrote:
| Ok, given that then I think the next thing that is tripping
| me up is that the author of the New Yorker article is
| writing in a way that is itself being very literalist.
|
| I read through the whole article looking for something that
| is insightful, but it feels as if the author is beating a
| dead horse the way the examples does the same. Maybe
| experiencing that is the point, but I can't help but
| thinking it was all a waste of time.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Most movies are pretty bad. Always have been. I feel like I got
| scammed for paying to see 28 Years Later.
| plantwallshoe wrote:
| The threequel zombie movie lacked too much subtlety for you?
| senectus1 wrote:
| Quadquel?
|
| There is another (and supposedly final) in January 2026.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| It's actually a sort of standing joke that trilogies are
| sometimes 4-fold. Trivial Pursuit used that answer as one
| of their copyright test questions (if your game replicates
| our bad answer, you stole our product).
| jowday wrote:
| Weird, I thought it was one of the best movies I've seen in the
| last few years. Wasn't at all what I expected to see, but was
| incredibly memorable and impactful.
|
| F1 on the other hand was maybe the worst offender as far as
| literalism is concerned.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > F1
|
| Let me guess, an old man Brad Pitt enters the movie screen
| and says something like: "I'm gonna, I'm gonna... I'm gonna
| WROOOM! I'm WROOMING!!"?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Yeah, F1 was extremely literal - characters would often
| describe what's going on in Brad Pitt's head while he's
| driving. On the other hand, it's a "big, dumb action movie"
| and at least it took itself seriously and didn't wink at the
| audience like so many modern blockbusters do.
| npteljes wrote:
| What did you expect from 28 Years Later, and what have you got?
| decimalenough wrote:
| I'm surprised they call out the Conclave as an example of a good
| movie. It's not a _bad_ movie, but the final twist (I 'm not
| going to spoil it) is way over the top and almost absurdly
| Hollywood.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I see few Americans in the credits. Did you mean absurdly
| following in the Hollywood style, or are the handful of
| Americans involved in that film enough to make it "Hollywood"?
| Genuinely asking. Is Hollywood a place, a process, or a result?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Very little of "Hollywood" is about the place today. Movies
| are often filmed outside of it for tax purposes. Referencing
| it is almost always about either the style or the clique of
| people who engender the style.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Without spoiling the twist, I question whether it's "over the
| top." The specific kind of anxiety alluded to by Conclave about
| popes is almost a thousand years old and has resurged several
| times.
| boredhedgehog wrote:
| The guy is actually way too _unspecific_ about the details
| there to make much sense of the canonical relevance, which
| renders the resulting anxiety rather comical.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| This spoiler-dogeing (pun intended) makes this comment too
| unspecific to respond to unfortunately, as it's not clear
| what you found unspecific. It's understood enough by the
| person he's telling it to, and it makes sense to be
| beating-around-bush about a topic that could get the person
| who's telling it in trouble.
| boredhedgehog wrote:
| Fine, Caesar 7 then for spoilers.
|
| Ilupalg pz buzwljpmpj hivba opz tlkpjhs jvukpapvu. Dl
| kvu'a slhyu dolaoly pa'z joyvtvzvths huk dolaoly opz
| vbaly nlupahsph hwwlhy uvyths. Npclu ovd shal pu spml ol
| optzlsm kpzjvclylk pa, dl jhu hzzbtl aoha aol ylza vm opz
| ivkf pz mbssf thsl, pu dopjo jhzl aolyl dvbsk ohcl illu
| uv pyylnbshypaf -- sla hsvul hu ptwlkptlua -- opuklypun
| opz vykpuhapvu av aol wyplzaovvk.
|
| Aol hbkplujl pz zbwwvzlk av mlls opz zavyf ohz obnl
| ptwspjhapvuz, dolu pa'z ylhssf uv tvyl ylslchua aohu opt
| ohcpun h aopyk rpkulf.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Great acting, great filming, awful ending.
| boredhedgehog wrote:
| It wasn't just the ending. Any time a priest casually breaks
| the seal of the confessional and nobody bats an eye, it creates
| this weird surreal effect where you can't even tell if the
| author is aware of what he's doing.
| timeon wrote:
| > absurdly Hollywood
|
| Happy-end with sequel hook?
| wnevets wrote:
| I'm convinced it has to do with the increased importance of the
| overseas markets, these movies now must make it past Chinese
| censors and make sense for people that don't natively speak
| English or understands its nuances. Showing a flashback scene and
| swapping in the government approved voice over is a better
| business decision than not releasing the movie in _insert country
| here_.
|
| Unrelated movie trailer
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRqxyqjpOHs
| eviks wrote:
| How are language/nuances relevant to the sword/trump tower
| label examples?
|
| And the second example makes it harder by referencing a bell
| and an exchange
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| The bean counters ruin everything with product placement,
| taking out bits that "offend" certain censors, and explaining
| jokes. Let them have their own edited versions that suck.
| mvieira38 wrote:
| Hard agree. In what other art forms are people expected to
| produce for "global appeal"? A lot of my enjoyment of books
| and music IS the fact that I "don't get it", and slowly
| learning the cultural references is fun and good for personal
| development
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Part of it is that modern mainstream movies are so
| _expensive_ to make. They need to be global to recoup their
| expenses.
|
| Much like videogames, the answer seems to be to look for
| indie and foreign works with less pressure on them to be
| easily consumable.
| lupire wrote:
| If they were good they wouldn't have to be so expensive.
| muglug wrote:
| Calling the literalism "new" implies it wasn't present in older
| pics. You can go back to 1997 when Good Will Hunting won 8
| Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
|
| Pretty much everything was telegraphed, and that's ok -- the
| story resonated with millions of moviegoers and made a lot of
| money.
|
| Other movies of the era (e.g. Being John Malkovich) didn't
| telegraph stuff. That movie didn't win any Oscars and sold
| roughly 10x fewer tickets.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| > Other movies of the era (e.g. Being John Malkovich) didn't
| telegraph stuff. That movie didn't win any Oscars and sold
| roughly 10x fewer tickets.
|
| 1999 was a bumper year for film in general. There were too many
| good picks that many had to be passed over. Eternal Sunshine of
| the Spotless Mind came out in 2004 to acclaim, and covered
| similar themes, so it can be done. The casting of Being John
| Malkovich also made it a long shot for awards, as all of the
| actors in it are fantastic, but there aren't any standout roles
| because everyone in it is so good already, and none of the
| characters are redeeming in any way, so it's a hard watch for
| most folks.
|
| Spike Jonze _did_ get an Oscar nomination for Being John
| Malkovich, and it was his feature film directing debut. The
| writer, also in his respective feature film debut (for
| writing), Charlie Kaufman, also wrote Eternal Sunshine of the
| Spotless Mind. Ticket sales are the wrong metric for artsy
| stuff like that, imo.
|
| Ebert said it best:
|
| > Roger Ebert awarded the film a full four stars, writing:
| "What an endlessly inventive movie this is! Charlie Kaufman,
| the writer of Being John Malkovich, supplies a dazzling stream
| of inventions, twists, and wicked paradoxes. And the director,
| Spike Jonze, doesn't pounce on each one like fresh prey, but
| unveils it slyly, as if there's more where that came from...
| The movie has ideas enough for half a dozen films, but Jonze
| and his cast handle them so surely that we never feel hard-
| pressed; we're enchanted by one development after the next". He
| concluded: "Every once in a long, long while a movie comes
| along that is unlike any other. A movie that creates a new
| world for us and uses it to produce wonderful things. Forrest
| Gump was a movie like that, and so in different ways were
| M*A*S*H, This Is Spinal Tap, After Hours, Babe and There's
| Something About Mary. What do such films have in common?
| Nothing. That's the point. Each one stakes out a completely new
| place and colonizes it with limitless imagination. Either Being
| John Malkovich gets nominated for best picture, or the members
| of the Academy need portals into their brains."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_John_Malkovich
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Malkovich, Malkovich. Malkovich!
| monkeyelite wrote:
| Being John Malkovich is film for film people.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| The only thing I remember from _Good Will Hunting_ was Elliot
| Smith 's soundtrack, ha ha.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Fun fact: movie sales, in terms of tickets sold, peaked in 2002.
| [1] All the 'box office records' since then are the result of
| charging way more to a continually plummeting audience size.
|
| And this is highly relevant for things like this. People often
| argue that if movies were so bad then people would stop watching
| them, unaware that people actually have stopped watching them!
|
| Even for individual movies. For all the men-in-spandex movies,
| the best selling movie (by tickets sold) in modern times is
| Titanic, 27 years ago.
|
| [1] - https://www.the-numbers.com/market/
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| I assumed those box office records were also dependent upon
| global ticket sales vs domestic.
|
| Still, surprising statistics.
| vasco wrote:
| Movies are still great, just not the main circuit. If you live
| in a large city most often you have access to indie movies or
| secondary rotation of festival movies instead of 3 marvels, one
| remake and one romantic like in the big box places.
| somenameforme wrote:
| I think they simply did what AAA video games did. They found
| what sold best at one moment in time and then obsessively
| tried to work to copy that.
|
| But the problem is that people don't want to play 40
| different Call of Duties, or watch 30 different Batmen. It's
| just that Batman or Call of Duty were the 'meet in the
| middle' of a variety of different tastes. But when those
| other tastes aren't accounted for, it becomes nauseating.
| It's like how most of everybody really likes cake icing, but
| eating nothing but cake icing is quite a repulsive concept.
|
| I think things like Dune, Interstellar, and other such films
| emphasize that there's a gaping hole in the market for things
| besides men in spandex, but it's just not being filled. And
| there's even extensive social commentary in Dune (as in the
| book) but it's done through metaphor rather than shoving it
| down your throat. And the movie is also rather slow paced
| with some 3 key events playing out in a 155 minute film, yet
| it continues to do extremely well. On the other hand those
| Fremen suits are kind of spandexy...
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Not sure that pointing out the success of sci fi franchises
| is proof audiences want diversity.
|
| The VAST majority of movies that have been made in the past
| (when the real indicator, % of population going to movies,
| peaked) deal with ordinary, realistic human stories.
| Murders are incredibly popular, of course, but so are
| fraught romances, coming-of-age, and grounded hero-quest
| movies (which even Bachelorette Party borrows from).
|
| But your point is otherwise completely valid. They found
| out everyone likes cake, and converted their buffet
| restaurant to all-cake all-day!
| vasco wrote:
| They didn't that was my point. But if people just go to
| the food court at the mall and complain there's 90% fast
| food...
|
| Go to a smaller movie theater, go to movie festivals that
| happen every year in most big cities, you'll see the
| majority of movies have nothing to do with the few major
| Hollywood block busters. And comparing Dune, a major
| block busters to other ones makes no sense when the point
| was that you need to go outside the main circuit.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| My take is that the movies you see at the arthouse cinema
| aren't any better than the big movies, they just have a
| smaller budget. They come out of the same system and
| would be just as self-indulgent if they had the resources
| to be.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| They don't come out of the same system. A nice chunk of
| them are self-funded and driven by a passion to tell the
| story.
| vasco wrote:
| It shows you don't watch them, you can obviously find
| Hollywood-without-the-budget cause the people that work
| in Hollywood come from somewhere, but you also have
| things that are completely outside. Some documentary
| about a Georgian truck driver who goes across the country
| side selling supplies from the city to the villages with
| long, no dialog shots that go for several minutes, has
| nothing to do with Hollywood productions and there's a
| million fractal things like this that would be way too
| "boring" for mass consumption.
| freejazz wrote:
| What on earth??
| watwut wrote:
| > Not sure that pointing out the success of sci fi
| franchises is proof audiences want diversity.
|
| The thing is, when AAA games or movie studios start to
| focus on that one thing that "sells best at one moment"
| everyone else checks out.
|
| I did checked out of games when I realized they are just
| not made for me anymore, that stuff I liked is looked
| down at in the industry and they focus on stuff I do not
| care about. It was similar process with major movies, at
| some point too little appealed to me, so I stopped caring
| entirely.
|
| > The VAST majority of movies that have been made in the
| past (when the real indicator, % of population going to
| movies, peaked) deal with ordinary, realistic human
| stories.
|
| Sure. I like to watch those and I do, on Netflix or
| whatever. I just do not expect realistic human story or
| something new from a major Hollywood movie. They are not
| about any of that.
| FredPret wrote:
| The mentality of "content creation" plus A/B testing is how
| we got to Spandex Man #500
| jajko wrote:
| > On the other hand those Fremen suits are kind of
| spandexy...
|
| Well stillsuits are supposed to collect and preserve
| moisture and shield from heat in extremely harsh
| environment. I would sort of expect that 8k years in the
| future some tech for that would be close to the skin,
| rather than waving thin layers like bedouins or touaregs
| use.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| This is a good point.
|
| Modern movies try to appeal to everyone. Can't be too edgy
| or too opinionated, don't want to sick rabid hordes of
| haters on themselves.
|
| And there's a huge segment of the Western population
| teetering on the edge of death or living in misery in
| various ways who are a literal matchbox waiting for a
| spark, no megaconglomerate film company wants to be
| responsible for setting them off, to the point where it's
| safer to sell mediocre and milquetoast movies rather than
| push an opinionated one and risk blowback.
|
| Look at the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice or the Craft 2. Both
| movies built on a previous proven winner, both original
| movies had something to say.
|
| Beetlejuice was not only a quirky romp through the
| afterlife but also a story about aboriginalism vs
| colonialism and whether it is right for the aboriginals to
| do horrible things to protect what is theirs, and also a
| story about how embracing change can help cross
| generational divides and how accepting people who are
| different from you can enrich your life.
|
| It was very opinionated and had a lot of great subcontext.
| Same with the Craft.
|
| The Craft was, on its cover, a story about what teenage
| girls would do if they got magical powers, which then
| turned into a series of biopics of the deep emotional
| damages caused by indifferent and hateful people. The movie
| dealt with racism, sexual assault, murder, mental illness,
| self esteem, and self acceptance all in the context of a
| teenybop horror movie.
|
| Then you look at their sequels.
|
| Beetlejuice Beetlejuice introduced 3 antagonists,
| Beetlejuice's wife, the boy, and Lydia's boyfriend.
|
| It started three potential plotlines, the soul sucker, the
| life swapper, and the gold digger, and brought Beetlejuice
| in to deal with all three of them.
|
| And then, 80% of the way through the movie, it threw all
| three of the antagonists and plot lines away and then
| rehashed the climax of the original movie with a slightly
| different set of clothes on.
|
| What deeper meaning did Beetlejuice Beetlejuice have? None.
| No one had any value or made any sense. No one in the
| entire plot was irreplaceable. No one learned any lessons
| or grew in any measurable way. Nothing actually happened.
| They all woke up like they had a bad dream after Lydia's
| father's funeral, the mother died, the gold digger died,
| and then the story was over. If the movie had not happened
| nothing would be different for the characters except that
| maybe the gold digger would have dug more gold or
| something.
|
| Then, the Craft 2. It's not a horror movie. It's a teenybop
| movie where girls get magic and do things with it. They
| have a trans person in it but she doesn't use her magic to
| address her transness in any way. There's only a tiny drop
| of racism, and no one has any real deep issues to resolve.
|
| So, instead, they get David Duchovny in to play as some guy
| who embodies toxic masculinity, but who is also ineffective
| and purposeless all the way to the very end of the movie,
| when all of a sudden he goes murder rapey and then gets
| easily beaten by the power of feminism and witchcraft.
|
| No one learned anything except GIRL POWER. Nothing really
| changed for anyone. There were no edges in the movie to
| explore. It was pointless.
|
| Either sequel could have been much more poignant by
| touching on real issues that people experience. The Craft 2
| could have touched on social media and the need to look
| like you have a perfect life. They could have touched on
| what a trans woman would do if she could remold her body
| with magic permanently or semi permanently like the girl
| did in the first movie. They could have made Nancy a bigger
| part of the movie and have her deal with David Duchovny
| instead of it being a girl power movie, and then Nancy
| could have taught the girls the things she knows being a
| former vessel of Manon with 25 years to learn and grow from
| the experience. It could have gone into a demonstration and
| discussion on how young women have so much to learn from
| women even 20 years their senior, and how working together
| and tearing down walls both of age differences but also
| gender differences can make the world a better place.
|
| Beetlejuice Beetlejuice could have made a really fun story
| out of any of the three protagonists and plot lines if it
| had picked and chose one of them to run with and made the
| others the sub plots. The gold digger plotline could have
| been about accepting what is different about you and not
| allowing others to convince you to mask your weirdness. The
| life swapper plot could have been about learning how to
| accept that you're a normal person who grew up in a weird
| household, and how that doesn't make you weird and that it
| is possible to make both sides work together as long as
| each side values the other. The soul sucker plotline could
| have been played for laughs as at the end we could have
| seen Beetlejuice about to win Lydia only to be thwarted by
| his actual wife and dragged off into the underworld by the
| leg by her (and end up happy in the end, maybe seeing him
| slowly reinflate after she sucked the soul out of him, he
| he sex joke). All of those options were thrown out of the
| window and instead we get a meandering pointless movie that
| would have been fine if it had never existed.
|
| Good movies have an opinion and something to say. Napoleon
| Dynamite is a perfect example of this. It's a bad movie in
| every measurable way. It's boring. It's slowly paced. It
| has no plot. It's like a 2 hour slice of life Jello movie.
| But then, the point of the movie gets driven in, that
| everyone has value.
|
| It's a simple message told in a long and occasionally
| humorous manner, but because they didn't try to piledrive
| the message into you when it hits it hits hard.
|
| Bad movies ramble even more than I do and never make a
| point for fear of popping a bubble. And media franchises
| know this and choose to make them anyway rather than be at
| risk of any blowback. After all, most movies released by a
| large franchise are profitable by default. The number of
| AAA movies that did not make their cost of production back
| in the last 10 years is vanishingly small, to the point
| where movies that only make 150% of their production costs
| are considered box office bombs and franchise killers.
| (Like the Golden Compass, that made $370+ million and won
| academy awards on a $180m production cost and was
| considered enough of a failure to end the entire series)
|
| They know how to make good movies. They know how to tell
| satisfying stories that keep people wanting more. They know
| how to make a lot of money doing it.
|
| So why do they keep not doing it?
|
| I believe it's 2 things.
|
| 1: Fear of offending people and having massive blowback
| because of it.
|
| The outrages over stupid things like the Little Mermaid
| being black is a good example of this. Who cares what color
| her skin is? She's a fish. If the story is good and told
| well then what does it matter?
|
| But I get it, you can't convince someone who wants to be
| upset and outraged as a distraction for their own personal
| problems to focus on their personal problems instead of
| screaming about DEI or whatever 4 letter flavor of the day
| they have to rage about. This much is understandable. But
| still, that's no excuse for making a bad movie, they could
| have far more easily found the rage points and dealt with
| them and left the rest of a good movie alone.
|
| But that brings me to my second point.
|
| 2: It's on purpose.
|
| I've been thinking about this for a while, but I'm starting
| to believe that megaconglomerate media companies are
| intentionally making unsatisfying movies that are highly
| titillating for the same reason that Doritos flavors their
| chips in just such a way that you never get satisfied of
| eating them, that final burst of zest and flavor that would
| put you over the edge always just out of reach.
|
| It's like the torture of Tantalus, satisfaction always
| being just outside of arms reach, but knowing that it's
| close, and occasionally actually satisfying the itch (like
| any good skinner box) keeps us diving in, spending money,
| buying merch, showing our love and support for the
| franchises that once scratched the itch for us in hopes
| that it will scratch it again next time.
|
| They're doing it on purpose because they know that if you
| didn't get what you wanted out of this movie, you'll go
| watch another, or a TV show, or read a book, or play a
| game, something, because you came to get satisfaction. And
| if they blue ball you just right, you'll keep spending
| money until you can't afford to spend any more in hopes
| that you'll finally get what you're looking for.
|
| I think it's on purpose and I think it will keep getting
| worse until it cannot get any worse, and then it will be
| replaced with something else that will be massively
| satisfying for a while at least.
| roger_ wrote:
| I feel the same way about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and
| Napoleon Dynamite, but just wanted to add that Michael
| Keaton's portrayal was still brilliant and I'm happy he
| could still pull it off.
|
| The plot and all the non-Beetlejuice scenes were a waste
| of time.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Drive-ins are nice in smaller towns
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The Drive-in will never die.
| boesboes wrote:
| Ok, what does this have to do with the comment you are
| replying to? I am genuinely curious how this has any relation
| to the remarks regarding box office numbers
| hinterlands wrote:
| > All the 'box office records' since then are the result of
| charging way more to a continually plummeting audience size.
|
| I don't think that going to the movies has gotten more
| expensive in real terms. It's just that the records are usually
| not adjusted for inflation, so a film with the same audience
| and the same inflation-adjusted admission price will appear to
| make 80% more at the box office compared to 2002.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| In fact... it looks like they've slightly dropped.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/14kznfv/movie_ti.
| ..
| xnorswap wrote:
| Dropped? You've produced a graph showing they've been on
| the increase for the past 30 years.
| alistairSH wrote:
| And where the heck can you get a movie ticket for $11? A
| discount matinee viewing at my local theaters is from $17
| to $20. $20-$23 if you go in the evening. The lowest
| price ticket, a Tuesday noon showing, is $12.
|
| I don't recall the last time I went to the movies with my
| wife and spent less than $60 (tickets, a shared soda, two
| snacks).
| hinterlands wrote:
| My local Cinemark has tickets for $5.50, $8.50... you're
| probably in a premium market.
| zamadatix wrote:
| $11 sounds about right to me. It's an average so some
| areas will be higher and others lower but $23 sounds
| awful.
| litter41 wrote:
| oh wow, Covid really spell the death of movie theaters, and
| it's never going to recover.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| ONLY because of streaming services. The industry exploded
| after the 1918 flu.
| ghssds wrote:
| Was it because of the flu of because of the war?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| In my pod we've got the theory that more people in the US like
| anime than domestic pop culture. All the time my son and I have
| random encounters with people who like _Goblin Slayer_ or _Solo
| Leveling_ or _Bocchi The Rock_ but never find anybody who is
| interested in new movies and TV shows. They say _Spongebob
| Squarepants_ has good ratings -- of course it has good ratings
| because it is on all the time. People mistake seeing ads for a
| movie for anyone being interested in the movie.
| api wrote:
| I don't like (most) Anime (I feel like it's one way I diverge
| from typical geek culture) but I do often like foreign movies
| and TV shows more than domestic ones. That's probably an
| effect too.
|
| On the flip side, I've heard the blandness of larger ticket
| domestic US films in terms of things like sexual, religious,
| or political themes attributable to global distribution. Many
| culture are much more sexually conservative, and most
| overseas cultures outside maybe Canada and some of Europe
| would not get (or care about) US politics.
| adrianN wrote:
| Anime is such a broad genre that it is completely normal to
| dislike most of it.
| mook wrote:
| Anime is more a medium than a genre; it's like saying one
| does not like claymation or live-action movies.
| aydyn wrote:
| Please, anime today is purely for children and teenagers.
| The golden age of serious anime is long over.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| Even then, the adult stuff was still appealing to me as a
| kid. Take me back to Cowboy Bebop on Toonami..
| bitwize wrote:
| _Your Name_ is a title that for me reminded me why I
| became an anime fan many years ago. In 2016 when it came
| out, anime as a whole was well into its slop era, but
| _Your Name_ has near Ghibli tier animation and powerful
| emotional themes rooted in both traditional and modern
| Japanese culture. It was the exception that proved the
| rule about anime slop.
| vunderba wrote:
| What in your mind was the golden age of serious anime?
| There's tons of trash today (cough 99% of isekai cough),
| but there was plenty of trash in almost any era of anime.
| How much god awful "harem anime" came out in the 90s/00s?
| aydyn wrote:
| The ratio of diamond to coal is the point. Of course you
| may always find an exception, but like you say there's
| tons of trash today.
|
| People consider the 80s to early 90s the golden age, not
| 90s/00s it isn't something I just made up. On average
| there is an undeniable drop in animation quality and
| story quality compared to past eras.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > more people in the US like anime than domestic pop culture
|
| Difficult to get viewing figures for that, but I find it hard
| to believe. That does feel like a bubble effect. And possibly
| a piracy bubble effect too.
|
| In fact the difficulty of getting meaningful viewing figures
| out of streamers is probably a big part of the problem.
| Nobody knows what's _actually_ popular. Even those supposed
| to be getting royalties had no idea (wasn 't there a strike
| over that?). And the streaming services themselves pay far
| too much attention to the first weeks, preventing sleeper
| hits or word of mouth being effective.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Part of the bubble is generational, what my parents watch,
| what I watch and what my kids watch are all very different.
| Aka the death of "four quadrant" entertainment.
|
| Even just saying "watch" feels off as so much of my kids
| time is spent with franchises in Roblox or other online
| games.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I don't tend to like generational analysis because it
| obscures the _Diffusion of innovations_ analysis:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
|
| People think of anime as "for young people" and maybe it
| is -- but I first saw _Star Blazers_ circa 1981 and
| thought it was the best thing I ever saw on TV, then
| about ten years later _Urusei Yatsura_ and _Ranma 1 /2_
| and _Tenchi Muyo_ and _Guyver_ and I still watch it.
| Anime is actually the center of a "media mix" that
| includes manga, light novels, visual novels, video games,
| web novels. streaming and other channels. In Japan there
| must be plenty of people my age who had the same
| experience starting with _Gundam_ or something like that.
|
| Granted I don't talk to a lot of Xers who like anime, but
| I sure see it in 20-somethings. (To be fair I see a lot
| of people who have an obvious squick reaction when they
| say "I don't care for anime")
|
| Another case where generational analysis goes wrong is in
| the analysis of TikTok vs YouTube. I'd argue that most of
| the cultural changes (personalization economy, filter
| bubbles, an environment where Zohran Mandami does well,
| ...) actually happened with YouTube but we didn't notice
| it because it had a broad base, happened slowly, and
| personalization is deceptive since you don't see what I
| see -- but TikTok seemed to come on so fast and was
| visible to people because it affected an "other".
| cgriswald wrote:
| I'm a Gen Xer. Voltron and Robotech were the big ones for
| me and my friends but these Americanized shows didn't
| lead us to anime in general. We weren't really exposed to
| real anime and to the degree we were (Akira comes to
| mind) we couldn't get our hands on it. Even as a teen
| when I could finally buy it on VHS selection and
| availability were very limited. (Manga was somewhat more
| available.) It's not surprising to me most of our peers
| don't watch it. I still watch it now and almost have the
| same problem from the opposite angle: There's so much
| available finding the good stuff that isn't just yet-
| another mediocre shonen or isekai, or is cringey soft
| porn is difficult.
| detourdog wrote:
| Riffing on your SpongeBob comments.
|
| It drives me crazy that all the streaming services seem to
| only push about 20 different choices from there catalog.
|
| Each row of choices contains the same titles as the previous
| row. It makes no sense to me why should the service care at
| how popular any single title is as long as we are subscribed
| to their service.
|
| They are hampering discoverability.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > It makes no sense to me why should the service care at
| how popular any single title is as long as we are
| subscribed to their service
|
| I suspect that, like google's notorious killing of products
| with "only" tens of millions of users, this is a problem of
| internal structure. I bet that ranking of who gets into
| that row is a reflection of the social hierarchy between
| producers at Netflix whose compensation depends on it.
|
| > They are hampering discoverability.
|
| At some point Netflix really focused on this, then like
| google throwing away search, they lost it.
| mejutoco wrote:
| > At some point Netflix really focused on this, then like
| google throwing away search, they lost it.
|
| I believe Netflix had a big catalog when people signing
| their rights thought it was not going to work. Once the
| model was proven everyone created their platform and
| stopped licensing to Netflix. Then Netflix had to get
| closer to making their own shows, and their
| "discoverability" features centered around hiding how few
| movies they have.
| bnjms wrote:
| I'm sure this is the majority of it but it's an
| incomplete analysis. Netflix is hampering discovery of
| even what they do have. I can go to a friends and they
| can pull up their Netflix with things I had no idea were
| currently on offer.
| askafriend wrote:
| Well also SpongeBob is excellent and one of the greatest
| shows ever made.
| raincole wrote:
| I don't know if it's really anime eating movies' cake. But
| anime is generally FAR more on board with literalism than
| movies. If anime is really eating movies' market share, the
| lesson movie makers need to learn is to be more on the nose,
| not less.
| fouc wrote:
| is it true that anime is more literalist than cinema?
| assuming we're looking at anime with an older target market
| than kids
| gilbetron wrote:
| Anime is the US is about a $2.5B industry, whereas just
| movies and just box office revenue in the US is about a three
| times that at around $7.5B. Anime is doing great here and
| growing fast, but I think you are in a bit of a bubble as far
| as anime. It tends to be a "bubbly" subculture, so not
| surprising.
| asdff wrote:
| Anime is going to explode. Just did some google fu and
| apparently 50% of millenials and gen z watch anime weekly.
| Boomers probably watch almost zero anime so once the
| demographics shift in 30-40 years, you might expect half of
| all americans to watch anime weekly by these trends. And
| this is just considering present rates not the fact that
| these rates have been increasing over time.
| corimaith wrote:
| Well domestic pop culture is shadow of what it was back in
| 2012. And the 2012 otaku culture itself was alot more
| unrestrained than it is today. If anything, anime has
| generally gotten alot more sanitized and homogenous which has
| contributed to it's acceptance to the larger mainstream
| community. Tolerate it or not after all, lolicon was a major
| part of that preceding era, but it's far more controversial
| today than it was back then with modern audiences. Alot of
| what was achieved back then is literally not possible today.
| It's just that mainstream pop culture has declined even worse
| that people are moving to the former.
| busterarm wrote:
| Anime has the same discoverability problem as film and other
| media.
|
| The anime that you mentioned are things that are popular
| _right now_. There are a few shows from a decade or so ago
| that people are told to go watch and do but only a few.
|
| How many newly minted anime fans do you know that are going
| and digging through the 80s and 90s OVA trash that really
| defined the medium? (and for every one of those there are 50
| more who will complain to you about the animation quality
| because they were raised on nothing but full CG animation...)
|
| That's just as niche as being a cinephile is today.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| My social circle is into afrobeats and amapiano and, to a
| much lesser extent, american film. I think people just
| gravitate towards their niche.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| When movies are made for entertainments sake, they can still do
| well. ( Top Gun 2, for example ).
|
| I'm really looking forward to the Space Balls sequel. I have
| hopes that one will be good.
| fbrchps wrote:
| Unfortunately, Top Gun 2 was not "for entertainment's sake"
| it was another round of US military advertising/propaganda,
| just like the first one.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| If it wasn't sufficiently entertaining, it would be
| ineffective as propaganda.
| timeon wrote:
| If movie needs number to be distinguishable then it is
| probably not good.
| allturtles wrote:
| Good thing it was called Top Gun: Maverick, then! No number
| necessary. :-)
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I don't know that I agree "Does the sequel dramatically
| change the naming convention" is a particularly powerful
| marker of quality.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| The main driver IMO is the death of the tight 90 minute, 80
| Million decently acted thriller / action / comedy film.
| Everything is too big, too epic, too simplistic, and too long.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I'd be fine with the length if they actually used the time
| for something good.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If I understand movie theater economics correctly, the
| studio gets 80 to 95% of the ticket sales, depending on how
| "first run" the movie is. The theaters actually make their
| money on selling concessions.
|
| Well, the longer the movie, the more people feel the need
| of snacks to get through it. So maybe the theaters are
| pushing longer movies rather than shorter, because they
| make more money that way.
|
| Just an off-the-cuff hypothesis...
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Bit of a tight line to walk. Longer movies mean fewer
| showings per day. When I saw that Oppenheimer was three
| hours long -I want to watch that at home so I can take a
| bathroom break/snacks so a personal pause button is an
| improvement on the theater.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| If movies are regularly going to be 3 hours long, movie
| theatres need to bring back intermission breaks.
| frameset wrote:
| I've always thought this would make sense.
|
| Often during a three hour film I've ran out of
| refreshments and would like to buy a drink or something
| for the last hour.
| ghaff wrote:
| It used to be fairly common with the big "epic" films.
| And probably no live theater production is going to go
| much over 90 minutes without an intermission.
| morkalork wrote:
| What about all the lower budget 1-5M contemporary films from
| the 90s? There's no new directors like Kevin Smith / Quinten
| Tarantino anymore.
| isodev wrote:
| I sometimes wonder if we're using the correct metrics to
| measure all that. Today, it's a lot easier to access film and
| series - streaming, local indie cinemas, YouTube. There is A
| LOT of movies and yet commentary and awards are always limited
| to AAA titles and artists. Just the other day, I saw this short
| on YT and it gave me all kinds of feels and thoughts but even
| IMDb wouldn't list it.
|
| So maybe, cinema is no longer an exclusive medium for this kind
| of content and box office numbers (just like revenue for big
| tech) aren't supposed to always go "up".
| RationPhantoms wrote:
| What was the short?
| schnable wrote:
| Yes, and "prestige tv" took off, shifting a lot of viewing to
| 100 hour TV series.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| 2002 was also when broadband internet and movie piracy became
| more prolific - DivX was just out, DVD burners became a thing,
| etc. Streaming video was in its infancy, with TiVo and VOD
| slowly becoming a thing (although that only reached mainstream
| in 2007 when Netflix launched). DVDs and DVD players became
| mainstream, as well as flat TVs, HD video, etc.
|
| Anyway. The tech in the movie theaters did improve by a lot
| since then, 3D was a fad but we get 4K, imax, Dolby Atmos, etc
| nowadays. But it's not as popular as back then, cost and
| convenience probably being important factors, but the lack of
| long exclusivity (it's now only weeks sometimes until a film is
| out on streaming) and the overflow of media nowadays isn't
| helping either. The last really popular film was the Marvel
| films and the last Avatar film, other than that it feels all a
| bit mediocre or unremarkable.
|
| I wonder if that's the other factor. The 90's and early 2000s
| were for many people the highlight of filmmaking - this may be
| a generational thing. But there were years where multiple films
| would come out that were still remembered fondly for years or
| decades after.
|
| Meanwhile, I couldn't name you a single good or standout film
| from the past year or years. Nothing I remember anyway. I think
| the combination of the LotR trilogy and the Star Wars prequels
| ruined films forever for a lot of people, in a good way for the
| former and a bad, cynical one in the latter, lol.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| There is no evidence as to piracy even being a cause for the
| decline, I say this not as a supporter (I do not pirate) but
| to correct a misconception.
|
| 2002 is when tvs got larger, fidelity with cable tv improved,
| dvds were readily available, etc. it was also an era where
| more people started gaming (the industry took off around this
| time), so people were shifting away from movie theaters as a
| social activity.
|
| The rise of literalism (as in the article) is probably a
| partial response to increasingly shorter attention spans.
|
| Songs are shorter (<3 minutes) and lyrics simpler as a
| result. People don't want to _think_ anymore.
| pickledoyster wrote:
| > People don't want to think anymore.
|
| Or the bean counters in charge target the largest common
| denominator, shaving off the long tail of above-average
| sophistication with every mediocre release.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| It's far more this, plus a combo of not only targeting
| the largest common denominator, but having to do that
| _internationally_ which obliterates any script 's ability
| to tie into cultural knowledge or norms, or the "vibes"
| of any given population. Not to mention nothing ever goes
| to screen that can't be quickly scooped out to appease
| the Chinese censors, lest they lose the largest audience
| on earth right out of the gate.
|
| And I don't think you can totally disregard that movies
| cost more than they ever have to make while also _looking
| worse_ than they ever have. The special effects in
| Pirates of the Caribbean utterly trounce newer
| productions that cost far more to make just for everyone
| to bounce around green screen stages in motion capture
| pajamas, and to be clear, this is not industry
| professionals costing too much or being bad at their
| jobs, it 's almost solely down to the studios wanting the
| ability to hysterically tinker with films until the 11th
| hour to ensure maximum market reach.
|
| The industry should be ashamed of itself.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| or the least common denominator is decreasing, as people
| increasingly will scroll on their phone as they watch a
| film at home - just like most daily activities.
| whoisyc wrote:
| > Songs are shorter (<3 minutes) and lyrics simpler as a
| result. People don't want to think anymore.
|
| Beatles songs are around 164 seconds long on average.
|
| https://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/uploads/6/5/4/3/6543054/dura
| t...
|
| An 2005 compilation of Johnny Cash's greatest songs
| averages just a little over three minutes per song.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Johnny_Cash
|
| Gerry and The Pacemakers did not have long songs either.
|
| https://www.discogs.com/master/369149-Gerry-And-The-
| Pacemake...
|
| Neither did the Kingston Trio.
|
| https://www.discogs.com/release/666498-Kingston-Trio-The-
| Kin...
|
| Before recording, popular forms of folk music typically has
| just one fairly short melody. You can repeat it over and
| over with different lyrics but the "core" is simple and
| short . Sing "Oh Susana" or "Kalinka" or "Scarborough fair"
| to yourself and count the seconds before you the melody
| repeats.
|
| Frankly, "popular songs being over three minutes long" is
| likely an anomaly in the history of humanity. What we are
| seeing with shorter songs is probably just a regression to
| the mean.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| I've noticed on outings that some songs I hear on the PA
| system now will slow themselves down momentarily for what
| I'm sure is a "tiktok soundbyte". I'd be curious to see
| how music discovery works via that avenue
| BizarroLand wrote:
| All of media, art, and majesty have been an attempt to
| stave off boredom, be it through glory, or splendor, or
| sex.
|
| We have more boredom today than ever before in the past,
| and the richnesses of our lives are gutted with the
| continuous striving against the specter of boredom.
|
| It's all been bread and circuses since before the fall of
| Rome. We only strive to make something happen until we
| reach the point where we have everything we ever wanted,
| and then we don't have the first clue what to do with it.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Netflix wasn't launched in 2007. The streaming service was
| launched in 2007. Netflix as a company was founded in 97 and
| was ubiquitous by 2002. Why go to the movies and pay $100+
| for a family when you could wait 4-6 months for the home
| release and get the movie mailed to your home? You could go
| out and buy a box of microwavable popcorn and a few bags of
| candy and still save 80 bucks.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I wonder how much of that is because the movies themselves
| changed vs everything else that has changed. Back in 2002 most
| people still watched tv on CRT that were very small by today's
| standard and had very low resolution. You either had to go out
| and rent a movie, rewatch something you had recorded or bought
| or watch whatever was on and enjoy the ads. Now we have a huge
| choice of movies and tv shows at our finger tips any time. Yes,
| the screen is still much smaller than in the cinema but I also
| sit much closer. I can pause the movie when I need a bathroom
| break. I can eat and drink what I want. A movie has to be
| really good for me to want to spend $40-$50 on going to see a
| movie with my wife. No travel required, no sitting through ads,
| no risk of someone in the audience being obnoxious.
|
| I used to go to the cinema quite a bit. Now I only go once
| every 1-2 years to see something on IMAX that I hope will
| really benefit from it. In recent years that was just the two
| Dune movies and most recently the F1 movie. Unfortunately, even
| the biggest IMAX theater in my area is still not what I'd
| consider a proper IMAX like the Metreon in SF so I'm always
| underwhelmed. Not sure if that's because this IMAX is too small
| or because even IMAX stopped being amazing due to growth and
| improvement of other screens.
|
| I used to watch a lot of smaller movies in the cinema. That's
| stopped entirely. With any movie the question now is how long
| till we just can watch it at home. Smaller movies which I'd be
| more willing to support frequently even seem to skip the few
| months where you have to rent them and go straight to
| streaming. So unfortunately even less incentive to go to the
| cinema.
|
| Culture around it doesn't help either. Friends used to
| recommend movies that they watched in the cinema. I can't even
| recall when that happened last.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| > Yes the screen is still much smaller than in the cinema
|
| I recently got a a pair of XR glasses (ray neo 3). Pretty
| much replicates the full cinema experience. Only downside is
| it isn't a shared experience.
| FredPret wrote:
| Can you read text for long periods on those?
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| I won't recommend it for doing any kind of coding. its
| workable but far from ergonomic. That said, my pair is
| perfect for streaming shows and playing video games. Im
| going to wait till a system with true spatial anchoring
| and 4k come to market. I think at that point, Id be
| willing to use it as a virtual monitor.
| FredPret wrote:
| Noted.
|
| > Im going to wait till a system with true spatial
| anchoring and 4k come to market.
|
| On that day, I'm taking my iPhone, a keyboard, and those
| future glasses and will work from under a tree.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Not sure if that's because this IMAX is too small or
| because even IMAX stopped being amazing due to growth and
| improvement of other screens.
|
| IMAX broadened the licensing about 10-15 years ago. I'm not
| an IMAX person, but people who are complained a lot about it
| at the time.
| qoez wrote:
| I genuinely without rose colored glasses think the obvious
| explanations is true which is that movies simply became worse
| since 2002 vs now. Look at the movies released 1999 vs 2024
| and the reason fewer people go out to watch them is obvious
| satyrun wrote:
| I was going to say, were movies really that good in 2002?
|
| Catch Me If You Can
|
| Gangs of New York
|
| The Pianist
|
| City of God
|
| Yes, yes they were lol. It is almost hard to believe those
| all came out in the same year.
|
| Imagine in 2025 having to pick if you want to see The
| Pianist or City of God? It is just so unthinkable
| JohnFen wrote:
| That's roughly when I largely stopped going to see movies. I
| stopped because movies started sucking too much. Sure, there is
| still the occasional wheat kernel, but there's so much chaff
| that it's no longer worth just taking a chance on a new movie.
| zamadatix wrote:
| In 2002, watching a movie at home for most people meant
| flinging a low quality VHS or DVD onto a ~27" tube TV (with a
| resolution so worthless it might as well be labeled "new
| years") using a 4:3 aspect ratio pan & scan of the actual
| movie. Getting anything recent meant going out to the
| Blockbuster anyways. In 2022, watching a movie meant streaming
| something on your 50+" 16:9 4k smart TV by pressing a button
| from your couch.
|
| Box office ticket sales say people go to the theatre less
| often, not that people watch movies less often. Unless you
| specifically want "the movie theater experience" or you
| absolutely have to see a certain movie at launch you're not
| going to the theatre to watch a movie. The number of movie
| views per person may well be down (or up), but box office
| ticket sale counts don't really answer that question.
| ghaff wrote:
| And probably add to the fact that streaming TV has become
| vastly more ubiquitous, popular, and high quality.
|
| When I was an undergrad ages ago, going to the on-campus
| movies were a non-trivial part of the weekend experience. My
| understanding is that they're mostly dead at this point.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > And probably add to the fact that streaming TV has become
| vastly more ubiquitous, popular, and high quality.
|
| The first two I agree with, the third one is a stretch. The
| quality of programming that HBO was putting out in the mid
| 90s and 00s is far higher than any streaming series that
| has ever been released.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I was going to make this point myself. I think my wife and I
| have seen maybe three or four movies in a theater since
| COVID. Our theater didn't even close during COVID (they
| started marathoning older movies like Harry Potter), but once
| the big companies started releasing new movies directly on
| streaming services, we realized how much better seeing a new
| movie in the comfort of our own home can be.
|
| So now we just wait for a movie we want to see to become
| available on Apple TV, and then we rent it.
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| > once the big companies started releasing new movies
| directly on streaming services, we realized how much better
| seeing a new movie in the comfort of our own home can be
|
| As someone who is blessed to live in a city where multiple
| cinemas screen old movies and therefore go to the cinema
| very often, I must say I can't disagree more. The
| experience of watching a movie in a cinema is to me
| incomparable to watching on a tv.
|
| It's not only the bigger screen and better sound system.
| The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with other people
| to actively engage with a movie transforms the experience.
|
| Sadly, I have to say I agree with the article however in
| that 95% of the movies produced in the USA during the past
| two decades could as well not exist. Thankfully, the rest
| of the world still exist.
| briliantbrandon wrote:
| > The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with other
| people to actively engage with a movie transforms the
| experience.
|
| I very much agree with this sentiment, unfortunately
| post-COVID that transformation has often been a negative
| one in my personal experience. This is entirely
| anecdotal, but I feel like there is an increase in the
| frequency with which I have had a public movie experience
| ruined by people on cell phones, talking to each other,
| or even yelling in response to the events on screen.
|
| I feel like when a movie comes out now that I want to
| see, I am in a constant tension between dealing with a
| potentially rowdy or obnoxious public, or a less ideal
| viewing experience at home.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > the frequency with which I have had a public movie
| experience ruined by people on cell phones, talking to
| each other, or even yelling in response to the events on
| screen.
|
| I will not go to a theater that does not have a well
| established policy of not tolerating this. For me, that's
| Alamo Drafthouse.
| ghaff wrote:
| Tastes vary. I was on the executive committee of my
| college film group yers ago and going to weekend films
| was a lot of fun.
|
| These days? Maybe an Imax film is a once a year
| experience.
|
| I keep in touch with a lot of people I was on the film
| committee with and I'd say the opinion is pretty much
| split between people who still go to the theater a lot
| and those who basically never do like myself.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I much prefer going to the museum with an IMAX to see
| that content vs the next superhero tights wearing flick
| in IMAX
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > It's not only the bigger screen and better sound
| system. The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with
| other people to actively engage with a movie transforms
| the experience.
|
| I think I understand that, it's just not for me. I've
| never felt that other people do anything but subtract
| from my experience in watching a movie. And I'm not
| saying that to be cynical or because I dislike social
| experiences - I'm an outgoing person and enjoy being
| around other people; I just don't want to watch a movie
| with them.
|
| Plus I'm lost without subtitles, even if the dialog is
| crystal clear!
| busterarm wrote:
| I will agree with you up to a point. Some cinema-going
| experiences are without parallel.
|
| I saw a screener of The Matrix two months ahead of
| release at a theater in Harlem. It was the best movie-
| going experience of my life and nothing has come close to
| capturing that.
|
| The problem is that was only possible one time. There are
| so few movies made anymore that really capture that kind
| of mass-audience wow factor that make going to the cinema
| worth it.
|
| The great films that I've seen since aren't diminished by
| me seeing them at home. Sometimes it's a question of
| format where there are only a few screens in the country
| where you can really see a film unmolested but you have
| to be lucky enough to live there and those films still
| only come around once a decade.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with other
| people to actively engage with a movie transforms the
| experience.
|
| To share an anecdote to counter this, a group of ~10
| people gathered at a friends house to watch a movie none
| of us had seen. At the end of the movie, we all got up in
| a similar state and we then spent quite a bit of time
| talking about that shared experience. It was probably one
| of the coolest group movie watching experiences to date.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The thing that attracts me to a theater is the sound system
| that I'll never have at home. However, on the last couple
| of ventures to the theater, the sound was _too_ loud. I don
| 't think it was the mix of the audio, but just the
| theater's volume knob turned to an 11. Would it have been
| different if the theater was full vs the half empty? I
| doubt it. It was just too loud. I no longer return to that
| specific theater
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah, I don't want to sound like an old man yelling at a
| cloud, but I've found myself wanting earplugs, especially
| with showings in Imax. Much much too loud, so loud it
| hurts. Who wants that?
| pipes wrote:
| Ask to turn it down. I've done this, I was with my
| daughter, it was hurting both of us. The cinema staff
| were totally fine with it, and not surprised.
| pipes wrote:
| I can make good coffee at home, but I still love going to
| coffee shops. It's the same for going to the cinema for me.
| It's an event. Something about being out in public. Also my
| local cinema serves beer. I haven't been in ages due to
| having kids. But I really miss it.
| longfingers wrote:
| It's an event but one to put off for later.. Something
| good enough for right now where there's not much
| planning, anticipation or potential buyer's remorse is
| the kind of thing that is routine to do instead of
| consider.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| ^ All of that, and the COST. The last time the wife and I did
| a movie night for a big new flick we were excited about, we
| spent almost $80 when all was said and done for tickets and
| snacks for the TWO OF US!
|
| Fucking absurd.
| x0x0 wrote:
| Also, I know this sounds like get off my lawn, but people
| behaved better. Or maybe they didn't didn't, but the
| penetration of flashlights kept in people's pockets wasn't
| 100%. Which is pretty annoying now that a movie for two is
| like a $75 experience with popcorn.
| nilamo wrote:
| > a movie for two is like a $75 experience with popcorn
|
| A ticket is less than $15 during the expensive times, and
| $10 off peak. Where in the world are you seeing movies?
|
| I get it, I don't go to the theater anywhere near what I
| used to, but the nice one near me with a bar and a player
| piano in the lobby is still nowhere near $75 for two
| tickets.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| I know there are smarter ways to invest your cinema
| money, but I checked how much I could spend in a fancy
| cinema in Munich, Germany for the OPs experience and came
| up with 19EUR per ticket (balcony plus a popular
| superhero movie), plus 16EUR for a (big) popcorn and two
| drinks, for a total of 54EUR or ~USD 63.
|
| I agree that the average experience could easily cost
| half that, but the point of how expensive cinema can be
| (imagine adding a second popcorn or, God forbid, nachos!)
| is a good one.
| Finnucane wrote:
| $40 for popcorn.
| xoxxala wrote:
| Pricing greatly depends on location. Full-price tickets
| are $28.99 in New York for non-IMAX or special showing.
| Los Angeles is $22-24. My local theater in a small
| Arizona town is $10 full-price and $5 off peak.
|
| We just saw Superman in a Las Vegas IMAX and it was $85
| including fees for three tickets. $75 for two seems
| perfectly reasonable in LA, SF or NY once you include
| concessions.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| >$75 for two seems perfectly reasonable in LA, SF or NY
| once you include concessions.
|
| Perhaps it's reasonable for a very occasional and special
| event, but it's not actually that expensive for anyone
| that cares about seeing movies in theaters. I'm paying
| $27/mo for effectively all-I-can-watch[1] movies via a
| subscription in SF, and includes IMAX. When I travel to
| LA I can use it there too, and it's available in NYC. I
| saw Superman for the cost of popcorn because I saw Elio
| earlier this month, it's a great deal.
|
| If one doesn't go to theaters that often or cares for
| IMAX, there's other chains that offer 1 2D-only movie for
| $12/month and the tickets roll over.
|
| [1] 4x movies/week, which is indeed more than I have time
| for.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| It was a fancier theatre, but I saw Elio a few weeks back
| and each ticket at a Burbank AMC was $22 (this was on a
| Wednesday Night). That's just California for you.
|
| the local theatre I normally go to is $12 off-times and
| $20 on-time. A nice special kick to the head that they
| need to separately specify a $2 "convinience fee" for
| saving their time and ordering online.
| x0x0 wrote:
| Each non-imax ticket at my local theater is $20.74. I
| just punched in the 2 tix, 1 popcorn, and 2x sodas:
| $61.08 + tax. And that's w/ no candy, and I love sour
| candy.
| mrandish wrote:
| Went to see the F1 movie a couple weeks ago in suburban
| Northern California on a local theater's "LieMax" screen
| (ie not one of the ~30 real IMAX 15-perf film theaters in
| the world but just a slightly larger mall theater screen
| that (probably) has a newer bulb and more recently
| calibrated speakers). It cost just over $75 for two
| adults + a large popcorn, soda and bottle of water.
|
| I was a bit surprised at the price too. Seems maybe
| 15-20% more than my last theater outing last Summer. We
| don't go often because we have a dedicated home theater
| room that's fully sound proof with total light control
| and 9 custom theater loungers on two levels facing a
| 150-inch screen with 4K HDR10+ calibrated digital laser
| projector and built-in 7.4.2 surround THX-rated speakers.
| While there was nothing wrong with the "LieMax" theater,
| the picture, sound, seating and overall experience at
| home are meaningfully better - even when everything works
| at the cinema and no one is annoying. And I say that as
| someone with fairly significant professional video
| engineering experience. Of course, one of the ~30 real
| IMAX screens is objectively better (when showing 15-perf
| 70mm film, which they don't always do) but the nearest
| one is nearly an hour drive, costs even more and has $15
| in parking on top. The last time I went was for
| Oppenheimer two years ago. But short of going there, it's
| hard to see much reason to go to a local cinema if you
| have a high-end home theater rig (other than just having
| a night out).
|
| There's not even an advantage to the claimed "big screen"
| at the LieMax. While I prefer a slightly larger
| theatrical field of view than most people (around 45
| degrees), my FOV at home is 46 degrees sitting 12.5 feet
| from the floor-to-ceiling screen
| (https://acousticfrontiers.com/blogs/Articles/Home-
| theater-vi...).
| rurban wrote:
| I watch about 3 movies a week with my wife. The cheap
| ticket is 6.50EUR (Mondays), the normal is 8.50EUR.
|
| Dresden, Germany
|
| We don't watch streams, as my wife constantly talks over
| it. Which she cannot in the movies
| rightbyte wrote:
| Why do you bring up 4:3 as a bad property? Honestly I find
| watching 4:3 easier on the eyes and mind since you know where
| to look.
| Cpoll wrote:
| You might be an outlier. Our FOV is wide, so it's a better
| match. Furthermore, the 4:3 version of a movie is almost
| always a crop from the intended ratio, so information and
| intent is lost.
| ogurechny wrote:
| > almost always
|
| Well, you've just revealed which kind of "content" you
| watch (by revealing which kind you don't). A lot of well
| known films were shot on full frame, and never had any
| other variant.
|
| Frankly, seeing them in theatres "as intended" would
| require inventing a time machine, or not missing some
| special film screening event, as they were made quite
| some time ago.
|
| Also, back then, when they still had to make film prints
| for distribution, and had to deal with wide screen
| theatres and regular screen theatres (you couldn't just
| ignore the other half, and lose a potentially significant
| share of income), both filming and editing took that into
| account. Shots in one aspect ratio were usually composed
| to look god when cut to the other, and professional
| cameramen (working with both types) constantly kept that
| in mind anyway. Same for possible TV screening versions
| later.
|
| Now compare that to the modern nameless editors working
| for giant corporations which pretend that it's an
| impossible task that has never been done, and either crop
| automatically, or let the "smart computer" toss a coin to
| shift responsibility.
|
| Edit: By "theatres" I've meant types of film projectors
| installed in their halls. Some had multiple, switchable
| lenses, etc., some had only one. Keep in mind that to
| show a multi-reel movie without pauses you need at least
| two projectors (or a special feeding system for spliced
| together film if the number of screenings is worth the
| work), and a third one is often added for redundancy and
| required maintenance work, so there's a lot of investment
| to make already.
| petters wrote:
| > Our FOV is wide, so it's a better match.
|
| It's pretty big vertically as well. IMAX is close to 4:3
| dylan604 wrote:
| I've wondered why they haven't done an anamorphic IMAX to
| use the full screen instead of cutting back and forth
| from wide to square.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye I think my FOV is fine I did tests for my driving
| license. I feel it has more to do with me being
| distracted by things in the peripherals.
|
| And ye cropped is bad. Think STNG.
| zamadatix wrote:
| It's less about whether one considers option A better than
| option B and more about whether the movie was shot for one
| option or "edited down" (pan and scan) to TV. If cinemas of
| the 90s had been 4:3 and TVs of the time 16:9, requiring
| crops to fill the screen properly, I'd have made the
| opposite statement.
| phire wrote:
| The TV might have been 4:3, but most DVD movie releases
| were widescreen by 2002. So you lost upto 40% of that 27"
| CRT to letterboxing.
|
| The pan-and-scan DVDs seemed to die out long before
| everyone had 16:9 TVs. Consumers seemed to decide they
| preferred letterboxing over cropping.
| owlninja wrote:
| Plus the 30 minutes of previews and messages from the
| theater.
| waltbosz wrote:
| That's now part of "the movie theater experience".
|
| I miss the days of the slideshows that would play while
| people where getting seated for the film. I loved the
| occasional trivia slides.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| This is so frustrating for me. By the time the movie
| actually starts I'm exhausted and ready to leave. It's also
| the same commercials over and over. The previews are rarely
| something I want to see too.
| jimbokun wrote:
| A local non chain theater has no commercials before movies.
| Just the trailers.
|
| Makes me want to only go to that theater.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Also it doesn't take skipping many movies now to be able to
| put a decent sound system with your 50"+ TV.
|
| There are still some fun things to do at particular theaters,
| like Twisters in 4dx. But there is little compelling reason
| to otherwise.
| privatelypublic wrote:
| This doesn't account for the decline starting in 2002. I'd
| like to see piracy numbers though- particularly the
| "official" mppa and riaa numbers
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Back in the year 2002...
|
| Internet access was widely available.
|
| Blockbuster video was a thing in almost every town.
|
| Netflix mail service was getting big, making huge back
| catalogs available.
|
| DVD players often included S/PDIF out for surround sound,
| which was becoming a more common part of home theaters.
|
| Plasma TVs were becoming far more common, dramatically
| improving picture quality and size versus CRTs.
|
| HBO and other premium channels had already gone digital
| with set top boxes (that also often supported surround
| sound), and the death of analog broadcast TV was
| (theoretically) scheduled for 2006.
|
| So while I probably couldn't find any single specific
| reason for a peak in 2002, we had a whole series of tech
| improvements in place that were slowly chipping away at the
| edges in quality and content availability.
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| Nah, I don't buy this. In 2002 your "low quality DVD" was
| peak quality for us. Same way the blocky renders of PS1 was
| peak video-gaming for us. It only looks low quality when
| compared with today. For us at the time, it was magnificent.
| gretch wrote:
| > For us at the time, it was magnificent.
|
| At the time, did you think the quality of that DVD was
| about the same as the experience you got in the theater?
|
| The parent post is arguing that the gap in experience
| between home theaters and theater theaters has shrunk
| immensely. Right now I have a 85" wide OLED in my living
| room - That's not a thing that existed in 2002
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| No, but it was good enough for most movies. The person
| you replied to is correct: It was glorious at the time.
| We were all amazed by graphics, even on those old tvs.
| The "movie theater experience" wasn't worth the hassle
| for anything but movies with good action and graphics -
| things like comedies didn't get uniquely better at the
| theater.
|
| It didn't need to be about the same or better, it just
| needed to be good enough to appreciate that you weren't
| dealing with the downsides. The theaters weren't that
| good back in the late 90's (in fact, most of the ones I
| visited in my teens have renovated to be more current
| sometime around 2010 or something). All people needed was
| more realistic alternatives. More and more folks were
| getting cable, DVD players were more affordable, and
| places like walmart sold DVDs for a cheaper price than
| you'd pay for a full price movie. Netflix started in the
| late 90s too.
|
| Yes, I know folks could rent videos before this. I
| remember walking down to rent NES games when I was young
| - right next to the movies at the grocery store. This was
| a far cry from the stores of the late 90s, though. They
| got better (and worse).
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _No, but it was good enough for most movies. The person
| you replied to is correct: It was glorious at the time.
| We were all amazed by graphics, even on those old tvs._
|
| I genuinely don't know what you're talking about. No it
| wasn't.
|
| Movies on TV weren't glorious at all. They weren't
| "amazing." They were what you made do with. And when a
| classic movie played at your local arthouse theater you
| grabbed a ticket because it was _so much better_. The
| image quality. The sound. Seeing _the whole image_ rather
| than a bunch of it hacked off.
|
| That's why we _went_ to the theater. Not just for action.
| _For comedies too._ Which is why comedies made tons of
| money at the theater!
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| > At the time, did you think the quality of that DVD was
| about the same as the experience you got in the theater?
|
| No, I didn't. I don't think it either today, with my
| pretty big TV. The experience still pales in comparison.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Are you saying you'd order raw quality differently than:
| 2002 TV setup < 2022 TV setup < movie theater
|
| Or are you just saying that a home TV setup is still not
| as good as a movie theater? The point for the latter was
| the delta between home and theater used to be much
| larger, not that the delta is now 0, hence a decrease in
| theater ticket sales would make sense even if people were
| watching more movies. If the former, what order do you
| see it and what leads you to order them in the way you
| do?
| asdff wrote:
| The big difference maker imo in movie theater experience
| is size and sound. You still need to drop about the same
| few thousand dollars you had to drop in 2002 to buy a
| proper projector and sound system today. 85 inch low
| pixel density screen and a sound bar ain't it, but if it
| is it for you, you are probably no discerning audiophile
| who would have probably have been fine with whatever was
| sold in a comparable market segment in 2002 (refrigerator
| width crt displays were in fact all the rage and very
| desirable at one point).
| crazygringo wrote:
| You can drop about $800 on a great 1080p projector,
| screen, and a pair of AirPods that will give you better
| surround sound than most speaker systems will give you.
|
| My projector screen takes up more of my vision than any
| movie theater screen I've ever seen except IMAX.
| reactordev wrote:
| I'll chime in as a grey beard. Did we think the DVD was
| the same as being at the theater? It really depends on
| who your friends were. Some of us kids had techie parents
| that had things like VGA projectors for presentations. We
| would take these and play DVD's off our full-tower
| Pentium 3's at movie theater-like experiences. I fondly
| remember watching the Matrix bonus content with my
| friends over a giant 100ft wall.
|
| Fight Club as well.
|
| It was no IMAX but at 1024x1024 we didn't care.
| busterarm wrote:
| I put almost $20k into a home theater setup. And with what I
| bought and how I set it up it punches way above its weight. I
| only have to wait 3 weeks to 3 months to be able to watch a
| movie at home now. Why would I go to a theater!?
|
| I used to make exceptions for independent films when I lived
| near an IFC theater, but streaming/vod services now have me
| covered there too and I don't live near one anymore.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Now you should sell tickets to people to come watch movies
| at your house.
| freejazz wrote:
| Okay, what happened in 2003 then?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Movies had a century as one of the main stages for global
| culture.
|
| That era is ending, and other things are replacing them, mostly
| based on computers and internet.
|
| If you love movies this is sad, but movies once replaced other
| beloved things.
|
| The world spins on and nothing is forever. Enjoy the ride!
| mjd wrote:
| Eben Moglen observed that at one time people were building
| giant stone pyramids, then the social and technological
| conditions changed, and people stopped making new ones.
| That's OK, it's not a sad thing that there are no new
| pyramids, we still have the old ones and people still find
| them awesome.
|
| And he says maybe big-budget movies are like that too,
| something that culture will do for a while and then move on
| to something different when the conditions change.
| lavelganzu wrote:
| I for one want new giant stone pyramids. :)
| morkalork wrote:
| Even within the medium there was a whole generation of
| beloved silent-film stars that didn't make the transition to
| talkies. Every era has a beginning and an end.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I think within the next 20 years we will see the rise of AI
| generated movies custom fit for your pleasure that will
| contain information to educate you, images to astound you, a
| story that will pluck at your heart strings and that you will
| be able to personally influence by your words and choices and
| reactions.
|
| They'll end up being more like video games than traditional
| movies, and no two playthroughs will be exactly the same, and
| eventually you will be able to stay in the movie world and
| advance the story for days or weeks at a time.
| isk517 wrote:
| A major contributor to Titanic being the best selling movie by
| tickets sold is the amount of people that went to watch it
| multiple times, and going to see a movie multiple times in
| 1997, while not common, was not unusual because it was 1997 so
| what else are you going to do?
| snozolli wrote:
| 1997 was an absolutely phenomenal year for movies. Life Is
| Beautiful, Boogie Nights, Jackie Brown, Titanic, Donnie
| Brasco, The Fifth Element, Good Will Hunting, As Good as It
| Gets, Austin Powers International Man of Mystery, Gattaca, LA
| Confidential, Men in Black, Liar Liar, Amistad, The Game, Con
| Air, Contact.
|
| There was a lot to do in 1997, just not as much to do without
| leaving home. We went to movies because they were affordable
| and great movies were being released.
|
| Also, that was the era where new multiplex theaters were
| being built with great sound systems, so it was worth going
| to a theater for the high-quality experience. While quality
| consumer electronics are more readily available today than
| ever before, I feel like the vast majority today only watch
| media with headphones, TV speakers, or maybe a 2.1 stereo+sub
| setup.
| asdff wrote:
| IMO actual quality components are still just as remote as
| 20 years ago. A proper setup is more or less the same
| technology as it has been for decades: good speakers, good
| amplifier, placed appropriately, and none of this has
| really seen any democratization. People buy sound bars and
| such but these are a far cry to what an actual sound system
| is like that you probably need to spend in the 4 figures to
| achieve. Buy enough sound bars that fall apart in a couple
| years for a couple hundred dollars and you could have
| bought a proper amplifier, speakers, in a setup that is
| actually modular, expandable, upgradeable, and serviceable.
| kgwgk wrote:
| > it was 1997 so what else are you going to do?
|
| Right, there are only so many walls to paint in a cave...
| ks2048 wrote:
| > because it was 1997 so what else are you going to do?
|
| I can't tell if this is sarcasm.
| hinkley wrote:
| Somewhere, Cameron admits he rereleased Avatar to theaters
| ahead of Avatar 2 so it would beat Endgame. He only needed 8
| million more to stay on top, he got 134.
| kldavis4 wrote:
| 2002 doesn't look like the interesting year to me. It seems
| like 2020 and the pandemic is where the most significant drop
| happened. So we're really looking at post pandemic recovery
| since that time. How much of the lower numbers are due to
| theater closures and / or high inflation since then?
| idoubtit wrote:
| > Fun fact: movie sales, in terms of tickets sold, peaked in
| 2002.
|
| Fun fact: this is completely wrong. The cinema theaters were
| much more popular in the 1920s and 1930s, with about 3 times
| more tickets sold in the USA (out of a smaller population).
|
| "In 1930 (the earliest year from which accurate and credible
| data exists), weekly cinema attendance was 80 million people,
| approximately 65% of the resident U.S. population (Koszarski
| 25, Finler 288, U.S. Statistical Abstract). However, in the
| year 2000, that figure was only 27.3 million people, which was
| a mere 9.7% of the U.S. population (MPAA, U.S. Statistical
| Abstract)." in Pautz, The Decline in Average Weekly Cinema
| Attendance, Issues in Political Economy, 2002, Vol. 11.
| https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=102...
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Everybody is talking how tv's got better and sound got better
| and streaming and dvds...
|
| It's still not the same as the cinema experience.
|
| But! Cinema tickets used to be cheap, you'd buy some drinks in
| a store to smuggle in, call a girl you liked, got cheap popcorn
| at the stand, and for very little money got a fun evening.
|
| Now tickets are expensive, popcorn is artificially ultra
| expensive, to make you buy a "menu" (drinks or sweets added)
| for just a bit more, better seats are even more expensive, and
| when you put it all together, it's cheaper to go for a proper
| dinner in a restaurant. Also, most of the movies suck.
| bityard wrote:
| I had an interesting experience taking my son to see the
| recent-ish Mario movie at the theatre that made me realize that
| the theatre business really is changing.
|
| It was the weekend. Sunday I think. Middle of the day. I hadn't
| been to this particular theatre before. I bought the tickets
| online, picked our seats, and then we drove to the theatre. It
| was in a strip mall on the outer fringes of town, I think they
| had around 12 screens. So not tiny but not huge.
|
| Anyway, we walk in and there is no check-in or ticket-buying
| counter. There were some signs with QR codes saying you could
| buy your tickets online, which I had already done. In fact,
| there really weren't many people around at all, either
| customers or employees. The first (and mostly only) thing you
| see is an elaborate concession stand with every kind of
| (expensive) snack you could want. I bought us a medium popcorn
| to share and then we wandered over to the hallway where the
| screens were. There was no desk or person anywhere to verify
| that we bought our tickets before entering the theater. I
| flagged down a cleaning person to ask who we showed our tickets
| to. He just asked which movie we were there to watch and then
| pointed us to the right screen.
|
| So I don't know if this was an unusual circumstance and they
| just weren't checking tickets that day, or if this is just how
| they run this particular theater. After the movie, on the drive
| home, my son asks out of the blue, "Wait, did we even really
| have to buy the tickets online if they don't make anyone check
| them?" We had a good discussion about that.
| bombcar wrote:
| Most still do cursorily check tickets (sometimes at the
| concession stand itself) but they'd probably almost prefer
| you buy popcorn and no ticket.
| duderific wrote:
| That's weird. Where I am, if you buy tickets online you get a
| QR code. At the theater, there's someone in front who scans
| your QR code and gives you a physical ticket. That ticket is
| not really checked, but there is always someone there paying
| attention to folks walking in.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Movie studios could care less if a billion people watch a movie
| or if 1 person sees it.
|
| They care how much profit they make and what the growth in
| their profit margin is, as that sets their multiple on their
| stock price.
|
| If it's a better strategy selling movie tickets to mostly
| single adult men at high prices than to families at lower
| prices, guess who movie studios are going to make movies for?
|
| Movies studios reached their TAM in the West a while ago. The
| only way to make more money is charging more per ticket in real
| terms, which means a reduction in TAM
| qoez wrote:
| It's an even worse curve if you'd account for the huge
| population growth since 2002.
| merelysounds wrote:
| > Even for individual movies. For all the men-in-spandex
| movies, the best selling movie (by tickets sold) in modern
| times is Titanic, 27 years ago.
|
| This looks incorrect, at least according to Wikipedia; its list
| of films by box office admissions[1] includes a few Chinese
| movies from the 1980s with higher numbers.
|
| Unless the 80s don't count as modern times - but I'd say it's
| not that far from the 90s.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_by_box_office_...
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| There's a lot of debate in this thread about the merits of
| watching movies in the theater vs home, but my overall movie
| watching is way down, regardless of venue. I'm sure I watch
| less than one movie per month. I used to watch tons when I was
| younger.
|
| Unrelated, I wish there were small screening theaters where
| small groups of people could watch films on-demand, drawing on
| a massive catalog.
| oDot wrote:
| There's a disconnect somewhere in the industry, because as I
| writer I can guarantee you one of the things readers get most
| annoyed with is on the nose dialogue.
|
| My screenplays are heavily influenced by Japanese Anime (which I
| have researched to a great degree[0]). Some animes have _a lot_
| of that kind of dialogue. Sometimes it's just bad writing, but
| other times it is actually extremely useful.
|
| The times where it is useful are crucial to make a film or show,
| especially live-action, feel like anime. Thought processes like
| those presented in the article make it seem like all on-the-nose
| dialogue is bad and in turn, make my job much harder.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igz7TmsE1Mk
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Readers actually enjoy "on the nose" dialogue...depending on
| the genre.
|
| A drama? Biography? Subtlety is desired.
|
| Action? Comedy? Streaming? On the nose dialog is not only
| enjoyed, but in many cases required. (For non-prestige shows
| and movies, Netflix strongly encourages the character dialog
| state the actions/emotions the actors are visually portraying
| on screen, with the understanding that much of their lower-tier
| content is watched in the background while people are doing
| something else.)
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| > watched in the background while people are doing something
| else.
|
| There are these devices called "radios"* and this stuff
| called "music."
|
| There's no point to "watching" a show if it's not being
| watched, it sort of ruins the whole purpose of it. Dividing
| attention lessens almost everything. It's like "reading" a
| book while moving your eyes over the words faster than you
| can read them. SMH. It's kind of like the cliche of the
| Banksy couple staring into their screens across from each
| other, or people who have intercourse while staring at their
| phones.
|
| * That have been replaced with apps like Spotify and Tidal.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's a bit odd to declare that there's no point in doing
| something a lot of people do, especially if it involves
| entertainment where the only possible point is the
| enjoyment of the person doing it, and not any sort of
| objective outcome.
| andelink wrote:
| > people who have intercourse while staring at their phones
|
| This can't be real. Surely no one does this. Do people do
| this?
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I doubt it. Though, amusingly, people notoriously put on
| Netflix with the intention of having sex. Though the
| general expectation is that they're focusing on the sex
| to the detriment of the Netflix, not the other way
| around.
| pixelfarmer wrote:
| The problem is that it permeates writing in so many places. For
| example, games get more and more littered with this sort of
| nonsense, too. And worse, it is often also used as a vehicle to
| convey all sorts of ideologies. Many people don't care about
| these ideologies, but they get annoyed fast if someone shouts
| them into their face like a zealot. Plus it feels just fake,
| completely artificial.
|
| The other problem with it: To me, as an adult, it feels like
| whoever wrote this made the assumption I'm stupid. This sort of
| writing is ok, up to a certain degree, for kids. But for
| adults? A lot of anime are aimed at the younger generations.
| Anime written for adults are done very differently.
|
| The Matrix is heavily influenced by manga / anime, which you
| see in quite a few scenes in how they are shot. But many of the
| explanations that are done are part of the development of Neo,
| so they never really feel out of place.
|
| Cyberpunk 2077, which does have on the nose dialogue here and
| there as part of random NPCs spouting stuff. But by and large
| it tells a story not just through dialogues but also visually.
| And the visual aspect is so strong that some reviewers
| completely failed at reviewing the game, they were unable to
| grasp it. Which is a huge issue, because we are talking about
| adults here.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Many people don't care about these ideologies, but they get
| annoyed fast if someone shouts them into their face like a
| zealot. Plus it feels just fake, completely artificial.
|
| Unfortunately this is a real problem even if you agree with
| the message. People won't let a pro-diversity story speak for
| itself, they have to fit in a PSA like the ones stuck on the
| end of He-Man episodes.
|
| Mind you, they feel they have to do that because of all the
| "wait, Superman is woke now?" commentary idiots.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| It reminds me of the classic tweet:
|
| 'Black Panther was a fine movie but its politics were a bit
| iffy. wouldve been way better if at the end the Black
| Panther turned to the camera & said "i am communist now" &
| then specified hes the exact kind of communist i am'
|
| Some writers are certainly taking cues from the criticisms
| that tweet was mocking. Or were the same people making
| those criticisms.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| I noticed American shows and movies demographically aimed
| primarily at kids often slip in cultural references and subtle
| dirty jokes aimed at keeping older people engaged. Was or is
| this still a thing in your domain?
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Some animes have _a lot_ of that kind of dialogue. Sometimes
| it's just bad writing, but other times it is actually extremely
| useful.
|
| I think this is going to need unpacking; anime has its sub-
| genres, many of which are marketed at children, hence the
| simpler writing. _When_ is it useful to be on the nose? How
| much speaking like a shonen protagonist do we really need?
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Frankly American superhero comics also have(/had) notoriously
| ex positive dialogue. I feel like it has its DNA in classic
| pulp books, which, like comics and shonen, are long form
| stories in a short form format, which can't rely on their
| readers having read the previous issue(s) (or sometimes just
| want to refresh memories because it's been a while).
|
| TV these days has recaps, I recently read the third book in a
| fantasy trilogy that tried a recap, but '"Ok, but what are we
| going to do about the dark lord?' The dark lord, Jathaniel,
| had turned out to be the actual murderer of Pomme, Gam's dad,
| who we had all thought committed suicide. He was seeking the
| crystals of wonder..." is still very common in modern books.
| Comics and cartoons are expected to have much less narration,
| so they tend to put refreshers like this in dialogue. Movies
| do that to make themselves feel like comics or cartoons. I'm
| not sure why non comic or cartoon movies do that.
| inky-solver wrote:
| Oh nooooooo sincerity bad. Got it.
|
| (Counterexample: "Sorry, Baby", which literally just came out.)
| icecreamscoop wrote:
| What do you mean by "sincerity"?
| npteljes wrote:
| I think literal meaning here is misinterpreted as sincerity
| by OP. Which is a misconception, literal things can be
| untruthful and abstract things can be truthful as well, being
| abstract, or going in a roundabout way is not necessarily
| about being dishonest.
| Duanemclemore wrote:
| I don't know if calling it a "New Literalism" is helpful. I just
| don't know that a penchant for literalism ever went away.
|
| Now, what IS relatively new is the "ruined punchline" phenomena
| that they identify (without naming) on the movie recap podcast
| Kill James Bond, which is that contemporary movies always ruin
| jokes by telling one, say... "x" and then having another
| character chime in with "Did you just say 'x' !?"
|
| I think there's a fear of losing attention because you're asking
| people to think about something other than the eyewash happening
| right in front of them by inviting them to have to -think- about
| a movie.
|
| Anyway, to close: "No one in this world ... has ever lost money
| by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the
| plain people..."
|
| - HL Mencken
| justanotherjoe wrote:
| Can you describe more about the "ruined punchline" thing? Cause
| that sounds natural to me. Like in Jurassic Park, Alan Grant
| hears "We clocked the t-rex at 32 mph" and he goes "Did you
| just say 't-rex'?". Actually they repeat it like 3 times more
| to really lean into it.
|
| And I guess my point is that Jurassic Park doesn't feel modern
| or clumsy in this particular execution.
| Duanemclemore wrote:
| Having never seen Jurassic Park (yeah, right?) I'm guessing
| the preposterousness to an unaware onlooker is played for
| effect.
|
| This is a more recent phenomenon. This is literally just
| repeating a punchline so that it tells the audience - "that
| was the punchline, you can laugh now."
|
| I've seen plenty but I can't give any specific examples. I
| mention Kill James Bond [0] because they specifically point
| it out in the movies they watch. Although they don't watch
| any Whedon movies, in talking about it in movies where it
| happens a lot they cite Whedon as particularly guilty of
| this.
|
| [0] https://killjamesbond.com/
| emsy wrote:
| The T-Rex bit is not a joke, the line is said seriously.
| Also, watch Jurassic Park. Good movie.
| Duanemclemore wrote:
| I actually have less than zero excuse. I was a 13 year
| old nerd when it came out - PRIME market.
|
| But I think even then I was allergic to hype. Same reason
| I've never seen a vast number of well loved movies. Like
| Titanic. ... just a contrarian LOL.
|
| We didn't have the money to go to movies. So I think the
| exposure to entire cohort of my fellow nerds having seen
| it three times over opening weekend, wearing the t-shirt
| every day, and talking endlessly about it for weeks made
| it easy for me to just nope out by the time it came out
| on video. That and I was really hitting the "girls and
| rock and roll" part of puberty and probably ran as far
| and as fast as I could from stuff that reminded me of
| being younger. Enough biography. LOL
| justanotherjoe wrote:
| I'd say, if you have a core memory at a zoo or a theme
| park, then you'll probably like it.
| beAbU wrote:
| Like others have said, go and watch it. It holds up
| exceptionally well. It's just a plain good movie. The
| tension, acting, the special effects, quotable moments,
| the dinosaurs, everything.
|
| Do it tonight and report back tomorrow please.
|
| I'm not gonna promise that it'll change your life - don't
| want to over hype it. But I am genuinely curious what an
| adult's initial reaction to it would be after watching it
| for the first time.
| kikokikokiko wrote:
| The special effects on that movie are superb. On the vast
| majority of big early 90s blockbusters really. Just
| enough CGI to make the animatronics feel perfect.
| Nowadays I can't watch any movie, they all look like I'm
| watching a bunch of PS2 cutscenes spliced together.
| lupire wrote:
| Jurassic Park is 2h7min.
|
| 9min of animatronic dinosaurs
|
| 6min of CGI dinosaurs.
| Duanemclemore wrote:
| I constantly wonder why no one's talking about the fact
| that almost every movie with cgi visual effects looks
| awful these days? I was on a plane recently. One person
| in front of me had Wicked on, another the live-action
| Snow White, another some recent Marvel movie. Each slid
| completely into the uncanny valley in their own way. It
| was really eye opening.
|
| The era you're talking about the balance was spot on. I'd
| say there was a golden age of effects from Star Wars
| through to Terminator 2. You're already suspending your
| disbelief and letting the filmmaker take you on a ride.
| Who cares if it's hyper-realistic? (or, in the case of
| contemporary movies, trying to be hyper-realistic and
| failing to the point that it makes it even more obvious.)
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I've managed to partially short-circuit my allergy to
| hype by telling myself that if I wait until after
| something is established, I successfully avoided the
| downsides of hype (buying into something site-unseen that
| might not even be that good) and intelligently waited for
| something to come out and get properly evaluated. Also
| I'm being unique and independent by getting into things
| well after everyone else.
|
| This has given me a license to come back and check out
| beloved works whenever I realize I was just being
| contrarian and stubborn, which is a delight. Also still
| lets me say "I knew it!" when super popular things become
| less than beloved in retrospect.
|
| Plus old stuff is often cheaper. It's often a fun
| adventure to go "Ok, let's see what all the fuss is
| about," even if it doesn't become an instant new
| favorite. Example: Twilight, while I wouldn't call it
| "good", is very funny and very fun to watch, especially
| if you get a mixed crowd of people that loved it at the
| time but recognize it's dumb, people that were allergic
| at the time but have since watched it and can acknowledge
| the fun, and new watchers.
| Duanemclemore wrote:
| That's all really insightful! I agree. I'm also much
| better now - not willfully disregarding things because
| just they're popular. I was a punk and indie rocker in
| the early 00's, so I was able to get that out of my
| system. (and boy did we) Now, my tastes are just
| generally extremely non-mainstream. So I avoid it by
| default.
|
| It's pretty straightforward really - for example I saw
| Fruitvale Station as a movie fan. I thought it was great
| and so Coogler was on my radar. I thought the Rocky
| franchise was ripe for a reboot, so when I heard he was
| doing it I was in. And the movie was fine. As was Black
| Panther (considering Marvel flicks for what they are, no
| judgment either way). So OF COURSE I was downright
| excited for Sinners. With no assumption that it had to be
| the best thing ever - and I had a blast.
|
| Another good example is that I'm currently watching the
| John Wick series for the first time. I didn't know
| anything about them, but had heard them positively
| referenced on Kill James Bond. Well, if you meet it where
| it is and realize it's just "what if you made a comic
| book into a movie?" and don't expect more of it, you can
| appreciate it for whether it does that well or not.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| One one level I really enjoy Steven Spielberg, but boy is he
| heavy handed.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, maybe the poster-boy even.
| beowulfey wrote:
| One might argue that it is the same thing, but that Jurassic
| Park comes from an era before that was common. It would be a
| different, though related, point in favor of the duplicative
| nature of media today to the one the author mentions.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Part of it is overexposure. The same thing happened to snappy
| "Joss Whedon" dialogue. This stuff _worked really well_ in
| Buffy and Firefly, but Whedon was good at writing dialogue
| like this _and_ he knew when not to use it. We 've now had
| 15+ years of various writers at Disney doing crappy Whedon
| impersonations and this style of dialogue has worn out its
| welcome for many.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, that's people repeating the line for confirmation in a
| scenario where communications weren't very reliable and the
| information was extraordinary.
|
| That's close to the way the conversation would happen in real
| life.
| Duanemclemore wrote:
| Sure! I would humbly suggest that we don't go to movies to
| see -real- real life situations re-presented back to us.
|
| I mean, unless you have two comedic geniuses who can really
| sell yelling down the stairs to ask the partner what they
| want for dinner, getting met with "HUH???" inching a little
| closer, and having repeat this three times until you
| finally just go down and ask in a normal voice. In the
| right hands that could be comedy gold on screen.
|
| But by in large, we don't consume media because it
| represents the banal reality of everyday life.
| watwut wrote:
| That does not mean some amount of banal reality is an
| infraction or something bad. It makes movie feel less
| artificial. The weird thing is when people are so used to
| artificial, that they reject banal reality as "overdone
| joke" rather then "scene where people talk normally move
| on".
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| That's not a punch line, it is Dr Grant babbling in disbelief
| that they actually created a T-rex
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| > the intelligence of the [..] masses
|
| George Carlin didn't emphasis this enough in retrospect. The
| idiots in-charge now appear to begging for educational
| percussive maintenance, albeit in hyperbolic, euphemistic form
| for legal reasons only.
| woolion wrote:
| >No one in this world ... has ever lost money by
| underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the
| plain people...
|
| I think you're disproving your own point. If you look the major
| flops in all industries (video-games, movies, ...) the general
| trend is contempt for the audience. This generally results in
| some form of uproar from the most involved fans, which is
| disregarded because of the assumption that the general public
| won't pick up on it. At the very least, I would say that for
| this to be true you need to have a very specific definition of
| intelligence that would exclude a lot of crowd behaviors.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > I would say that for this to be true you need to have a
| very specific definition of intelligence
|
| That phrase is about conning people...
| Duanemclemore wrote:
| I would suggest some shades of meaning on the Mencken quote.
| You're absolutely right that showing contempt for your
| audience will -absolutely- pave the road to losing money. In
| contrast if you -pander- to the lowest common denominator of
| intelligence required for engagement? Money printer go
| brrrrr.
| icecreamscoop wrote:
| I read the first three paragraphs and thought it was an homage to
| McSweeny's Internet Tendency. But apparently those are real
| scenes. While writing this reply I kept coming up with examples
| from decades past, but realized I was confusing obvious subtext
| with literalism. Hard to avoid. I'm willing to embrace this as a
| new art form challenge: how LITTLE metaphor can a writer use
| until the final composition it inverts itself and becomes
| something completely new? Like Dogme95 but for the text: no
| tense, no adjectives, no indirect objetcts. I mean, the writing
| is the equivalent of first-grade reading texts (See Jane Run),
| but can that many artists really avoid generating something
| meaningful behind the text? I'm drunkenly optimistic this
| evening.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I think there's a combination of causes for this: People looking
| at their phones and only half-watching most of the movie,
| "streamlining" the English in movies to make translator's lives
| easier, a big smile from Mr. 10tril AUM for making it accessible,
| and of course good-old "enshittification" (if everyone becomes
| accustomed to lazy plots, they won't notice as they get even
| lazier)
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Somewhat related, there have been cases where Netflix executives
| chastised their movie and show writers for "not being _second
| screen_ enough [0]; that is, since many people put on a show as
| essentially white noise in the background while they scroll on
| their phones, the content cannot be too cerebral and require
| dedicated attention.
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jan/17/not-
| sec...
| WalterBright wrote:
| I just wish they'd cease using the two-strip Technicolor orange-
| and-blue.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha, the real reason is that people can't get a joke. One
| classic I saw is that pg made some comment about philosophy and
| some other guy went "Looks like you had a bad philosophy class"
| to which pg replied "I've had many".
|
| Well, that's funny in a classic pub humour way. Except the guy
| didn't get it (and neither did many others) who went on to say
| "Many bad philosophy classes you mean"
|
| Like, dudes, what did you think that was? Except the whole
| internet is full of this. Even the slightest of puns needs a
| second character arriving afterwards who repeats the punch line
| but with some obviousness baked in.
|
| It's just that people aren't literate. And I've got to be honest,
| a lot of such casual wordplay is just beyond Americans (who are
| generally superior to the British in every other way). They kind
| of need to be looking at a guy with a microphone to pick up on
| the joke. Probably the Germanic influence.
| Doxin wrote:
| People just don't have any media literacy anymore it seems.
| Every now and then you get some indie project that doesn't
| treat the audience as stupid, but then the discourse around it
| demonstrates that the audience in fact may very well be stupid.
|
| A recentish example I've run into is a song from Hazbin Hotel:
| Poison. They lyrics go on about how bad it is:
|
| > 'Cause I know you're poison
|
| > You're feedin' me poison
|
| > Addicted to this feelin', I can't help but swallow
|
| > Up your poison
|
| The visuals are largely about the protagonist putting on a
| brave face under sexual assault. This song isn't putting on any
| kid gloves. But it's also a catchy pop song. The incongruity is
| the point. You're supposed to feel weird about liking this
| song.
|
| But I guess a lot of people can't separate format and content
| so the discussion in the fandom is about how messed up it is
| for the authors to "glamorize assault".
| anal_reactor wrote:
| 1. People are indeed stupid. I don't understand why there's
| so much belief in human intelligence while there's so much
| proof of the contrary
|
| 2. Sometimes intelligent people don't want to engage with the
| media. Attention is a finite resource, and when I'm tired
| after 8 hours of work, 30 minutes of recommended daily
| exercise, two hours of house chores and one hour of
| depressive thoughts, I just don't have the energy to engage
| with your song about a topic that's completely irrelevant to
| my daily life.
|
| 3. Quite often media that's supposed to be good is actually
| quite shitty. Good media should have layers: surface-level
| literal fun catches your attention, then you discover there's
| some depth to it, and then you start digging and you realize
| it's actually very complex and interesting. The problem is
| that lots of media either just grab my attention for nothing,
| or start right from the beginning with difficult topics, and
| then it's "woo the audience is stupid because they won't
| engage with my media" no bro, I just think your media is
| boring.
| Doxin wrote:
| Finding media to be not to your liking is fine. Only half
| engaging with it and then calling out the authors as being
| in favor of sexual assault because you misread what's going
| on is _absurd_. That 's the behavior I am complaining
| about.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Just look at how often political campaigns use songs that
| sound like upbeat patriotic anthems, but are the total
| opposite if you actually listen to the words. Using "Born in
| the USA" for a "woo America!" rally is rather awkward. And of
| course it's not a new thing; Reagan used that song four
| decades ago.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye it is strange how few seem to listen to the lyrics. But
| then again it means you can get a way with listen to really
| radical music in plain sight.
| watwut wrote:
| The majority of music communication is not in lyrics, but in
| sound and tone of voice. All good artists know that and
| intentionally manipulate that. This song makes you,
| unambiguously, feel good.
|
| From lyrics alone, I would assume the protagonist is
| voluntarily part of abusive relationships. As in, they make
| choice to stay, despite knowing this is bad for them. I did
| not found sexual assault visuals, only abstract video with
| words and pink colors. The lyrics do not come across to me as
| "not putting on any kid gloves", they are gentle. They are
| about wanting this bad thing to happen, despite it being bad
| thing.
|
| > You're supposed to feel weird about liking this song.
|
| There are songs that make me feel weird about liking them,
| but not this one. This one was intentionally made to make me
| like it.
|
| I do not mean it as kind of major criticism or the song ...
| but it is kids gloves song about abuse and feelings that make
| someone stay in such relationship.
| Doxin wrote:
| > The majority of music communication is not in lyrics, but
| in sound and tone of voice.
|
| That could maybe be argued for music which is released as
| music. This song isn't stand-alone, it's part of a musical.
| You can't take it out of its context and then complain it
| doesn't make sense.
|
| > This song makes you, unambiguously, feel good.
|
| Maybe it makes _you_ feel good. It makes _me_ feel
| conflicted.
|
| > From lyrics alone, I would assume the protagonist is
| voluntarily part of abusive relationships.
|
| I mean that's part of the point. Angel _thinks_ they
| themselves are to blame for the situation they find
| themselves in. Which isn 't true of course, but that's how
| it goes with abuse.
|
| > I did not found sexual assault visuals
|
| Well look closer then. Angels whole thing is that he puts
| on an act of liking all the shit happening to him. But it's
| pretty clearly an act in the video.
|
| > They are about wanting this bad thing to happen, despite
| it being bad thing.
|
| Part of angel DOES want some of those things to happen.
| There's clearly an element of glamour he likes about it.
| That doesn't make the relationship any less abusive.
|
| > I do not mean it as kind of major criticism or the song
| ... but it is kids gloves song about abuse and feelings
| that make someone stay in such relationship.
|
| I agree it's a song about why someone would stay in an
| abusive relationship. That doesn't mean it's glamorizing
| abusive relationships though. I don't really care if people
| _dislike_ the song, it 's parsing the song as somehow being
| pro-abuse where I get annoyed, because it clearly isn't.
| It's a realistic portrayal of how some abusive
| relationships work. Obviously people in them feel like they
| want or need to stay in them or... they wouldn't.
| watwut wrote:
| I did not said the song makes no sense. It makes perfect
| sense. And it is in fact released as a standalone song.
|
| > Well look closer then
|
| As I said, I did not found sexual assault visuals. Only
| abstract abstract video with words and pink colors.
|
| > There's clearly an element of glamour he likes about
| it.
|
| Sure, but there is nothing about song itself that would
| make one feel bad about it. Or even be aware it is sexual
| assault what is going on. You have to bring that out from
| somewhere else.
|
| > It's a realistic portrayal of how some abusive
| relationships work. Obviously people in them feel like
| they want or need to stay in them or... they wouldn't.
|
| I do not think it is realistic portrayal of such
| relationship. It is glamorous portrayal. It makes you
| feel the harmful part feels good and is worth it.
| Realistic portrayal would had more pain in it, it would
| had mix of negative emotions in it. It would show dark
| side and pain, not just rational realization "this is
| harmful but I want it".
|
| People in abusive relationship do not feel just the
| addiction and choice part. They do have fair amount of
| suffering, fear, feeling like they cant mixed in. They do
| not feel it is sweet. This song feels sweet.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| For the less enlightened of us, what is the joke?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| There doesn't have to be a joke. If you're rich enough people
| feel like they have to laugh at your jokes whether or not
| they are funny. That's the saddest thing about Elon Musk.
|
| I could never explain to NFT fanatics that I wouldn't make
| NFT art because I couldn't stand producing a product for
| people who had no taste and would like my worst output as
| much as my best.
| npteljes wrote:
| The way I read it, the joke is just owning the insult in a
| good way.
|
| It works here on multiple levels, because first, owning the
| insult is not expected, so that's already a surprise, which
| can work as a joke.
|
| Then, by actually admitting to the many bad classes, it
| signals that the author can actually tell good from bad,
| implying knowledge about the matter after all, refuting the
| argument in the insult (that he is bad in philosophy because
| he had bad philosophy classes).
|
| Third, it's a very short, snappy response, in vein of the
| insult, making the author look competent.
| zzbzq wrote:
| First guy says something about philosophy.
|
| Second guy says he's had a bad philosophy class, implying
| it's a bad, naive, amateur, or uninformed take on the
| philosophical subject at hand.
|
| First guy says he's had many, implying he's actually
| studied philosophy extensively, perhaps majored in it in
| college or obtained a degree, refuting the idea that the
| original take was amateur or uninformed.
| watwut wrote:
| But it is not funny. It is not a joke. It is just not
| engaging with the implied "you do not know what you talk
| about here" ... which is entirely valid, but not exactly a
| joke.
| npteljes wrote:
| We can't know if it was a joke or not, but comes across
| as someone trying to be funny.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I think the concept of "functional illiteracy" is key. Almost
| everybody we interact with these days (aside from small
| children) is technically literate. That is, they can be given
| words on a page and read them aloud, or they can hear spoken
| words and write them down. This is especially true online,
| where this is still pretty much a basic requirement for
| participating in discussions.
|
| Which it turns out is not the same thing as being given words
| on a page and understanding them, or turning thoughts into
| words which convey those thoughts to the reader. That is a
| substantially rarer skill, especially for anything with any
| complexity.
| riffraff wrote:
| Yesterday, I showed my kids the original Planet of the Apes. It
| literally ends with the main character going "oh no humanity you
| killed yourself may you be cursed for eternity".
|
| It's a fantastic movie, and it's as literal as it can be, so I'm
| not sure this complaints about movies being literal now makes
| much sense.
|
| We always had more literal and more abstract movies. To stick to
| classic SF: Barbarella, Quintet, Zardoz, 2001, They Live.. they
| all exist on the same "literal-abstract" continuum, they are just
| placed at different points.
| litter41 wrote:
| Well I think that movie is great for reasons other than being
| abstract.
| seydor wrote:
| Somewhere in the 2000s a lot was lost, after all the best selling
| movies at the time were literally children's tales.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I would put the downward trend beginning with _Raiders of the
| Lost Ark_.
| qgin wrote:
| It's kind of disingenuous to lead with an example from
| Megalopolis like it represents something about the culture.
| bentt wrote:
| I wonder how much of the problem is the massive influx of
| streaming platform money to occupy talented directors, writers,
| and other people who make films. Why risk a Hollywood release
| when you can get prepaid for your work?
| chrisweekly wrote:
| This. Also, long-form high-budget "tv" on streaming services is
| a better way to tell longer, more interesting stories. See eg
| "The Expanse" (based on the phenomenal novels by James SA
| Corey).
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Are the streaming films without "Literalism"?
| gooseus wrote:
| Gonna take this opportunity to recommend Sovereign.
|
| Imho it's the best of the movie of the year, and one big reason
| is because it is NOT this.
| ogurechny wrote:
| You don't really need a critic to see that it has spread
| everywhere. People not just adore, they demand to be given a
| three paragraph summary and a moral of the story for everything,
| no matter which era, which genre, or how much magnificent
| embroidery was presented to them. So-called Web 2.0 review
| platforms have succumbed under the weight of people complaining
| about not being given clear instructions by the authors, and
| people trying to invent those clear instructions on
| "understanding" the work themselves. It seems that the simple
| truth that the whole point of work of art is how it starts
| processes in your very own head is a secret which is well hidden
| from those who expect that others can do thinking in their stead,
| and just state the "results".
|
| Of course, from that perspective, modern society hasn't changed
| much for centuries, they just had different excuses back in the
| days. However, it doesn't happen by itself; the construct of the
| presumed movie-goer (or reader, or listener) affects the public.
| When author has high expectations of a recipient, many of them
| can find themselves growing to that level, when the lowest common
| denominator is targeted, everyone's average drops. Writing by
| committee and directing by committee inevitably results in
| watching by committee, when no one cares because there is enough
| ways to find out which opinion you "should" have about the movie,
| and the only thing left is to check the box for visiting the
| cinema (the obvious democratisation of an old cliche of rich
| nobles being bored at the opera).
|
| A lot of auxiliary apologetic nonsense is written about "pop
| culture" today -- its "consumers" need to be told how to look at
| themselves. A vaccine against that would be finding something so
| bright and delicate that it can't be stuffed into one of
| predefined expected reactions. A lot of much stronger criticism
| have already been written, too. One might point to such "hits" as
| Vladimir Nabokov's "Strong Opinions" and lectures on literature,
| although the suit of renowned writer and lecturer was perhaps a
| bit too bronzy, while in reviews read by a small circle of
| Russian-speaking emigrants in Europe (collected in "Think, Write,
| Speak...") or in satirical passages in fictional works he was a
| bit more open.
| jerf wrote:
| The industry should be so lucky as to be plagued with something
| as well-defined as "literalism". Right now the industry is
| plagued with writers who would fail Writing 101. Which I mean
| fully literally. Failing grade, please retake the class, no
| credit.
|
| And don't give me "oh, they know their craft so completely that
| they're breaking the rules they deeply understand". No. Hollywood
| is not putting out a whole bunch of Memento-caliber movies.
| They're putting out movies written by writers who would instantly
| experience a jump in quality if someone gave them an all-expenses
| paid trip to Los Angeles Community College for them to take
| Writing 101.
|
| That said, I don't entirely blame the writers. I do blame them,
| because they really are terrible. But the real blame lies at the
| executive level. For decades Hollywood executives have used the
| terrible metrics we all made fun of them for, like thinking all
| we care about is which actor is in a movie or thinking that we
| like a legitimately good film because it was full of explosions
| or something. But the executives tended to get away with it,
| because sitting under them, however uncomfortably, was a studio
| system that still respected talent, and good talent could get
| good movies out even so. The executives could say "Give us lots
| of explosions and use Will Smith!" and the talent could at least
| sometimes make good movies under those constraints.
|
| But the executives despised that system, failed to understand it,
| have now successfully disassembled that system, and what's left
| is disintegrating rapidly. It boggles my mind to see them pouring
| hundreds of millions of dollars into movies with catastrophically
| broken scripts, then pouring hundreds of millions more into
| reshoots, when any halfway decent TA grader from the
| aforementioned Writing 101 could have given a decent set of notes
| about the deficiencies of the original script. The execs seem to
| give no attention to the scripts, when they are by any measure
| one of the most foundational elements of a movie.
|
| It's not literalism. The writers aren't good enough to be
| pursuing "literalism". It's just _terrible writing_ , and
| executives too out-of-touch and ignorant to realize that's the
| problem, and if they did, too out-of-touch and ignorant to have
| any clue how to fix it.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| New Yorker is plagued by shallow snobbery. A kind of assumed
| elitism based on geographic location and a specific demographic.
| What makes their opinions so _correct_? Rich people agree with
| them.
|
| Of course, we have a term for this, luxury beliefs.
| mpalmer wrote:
| "I don't have to read or argue with this, it's automatically
| bad because uh elitism"
|
| Now that's what I call a luxury belief!
| antognini wrote:
| That's not exactly what is meant by luxury beliefs. Luxury
| beliefs aren't simply beliefs that rich people hold. It more
| refers to social opinions which would (allegedly) impose high
| costs on the poor, but from which the wealthy would be
| insulated from the consequences. Something like "defund the
| police" is usually pointed to as an example of a luxury belief.
| The poor, who live in high crime areas, would see crime go up
| and bear the brunt of the consequences. Whereas the rich, who
| live in pricey, low crime neighborhoods, wouldn't see much of a
| change and would be able to afford private security anyhow if
| they did.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| It's a luxury belief in the sense that they're in a position
| to have an impact on the zeitgeist. People have been
| complaining about bad movies for a while now but now _The New
| Yorker_ has an opinion. The rest of us proles can 't afford
| Broadway. We get what we're served.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I think some films, especially movies that aspire to win academy
| awards, are meant to be played to the _world wide_ lowest common
| denominator. Movies are made for USA and Chinese audiences first,
| but they are also made to be easily sold in Europe.
|
| This isn't to say that Hollywood thinks everyone is dumb, but
| they recognize that all these different people who grew up in
| different places aren't going to understand the same idioms, or
| may miss subtle, cultural clues. The director has to spell things
| out. This explains a lot of what the author coins _New
| Literalism_.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Not disagreeing with the economics behind it, but this movie-
| goer walked away decades ago when the "super hero" genre became
| Hollywood's focus.
|
| Even before that though otherwise decent movies were starting
| to play heavy handed and treating their audiences for children
| that need lecturing -- need "The Moral of the Story" spelled
| out for them. I disliked the "book-ending" that was popular
| when _Titanic_ , _Saving Private Ryan_ (and even _Schindler 's
| List_) were released.
|
| Music in film too has, for some time now, been telling us _how
| to feel_ much too often. In romps or swashbuckling films it 's
| probably an expected part of the genre. I just wish there were
| more quiet films where we are left to feel for ourselves.
|
| Billy's death in _The Last Picture Show_ (and as metaphor for
| the death of the town) is an excellent example of old-school
| film making where you just let the film do the talking. And
| then it is us, the viewers, who are left talking about it,
| thinking about it afterward.
|
| Maybe the biggest tragedy of heavy-handed film making is it
| leaves nothing to really even ponder afterward. I kind of like
| films that leave you thinking about them much, much later.
|
| While I remember seeing great films like _Cool Hand Luke_ ,
| _Summer of '42_ and _The Last Picture Show_ , working through
| the "1001 Movies to See Before You Die" has been a real eye-
| opener to how much film can be art and how far we fallen from
| anything close to that.
|
| Perhaps we'll get another "New Wave" of young filmmakers to
| break the corporate log-jam.
| parodysbird wrote:
| > movies that aspire to win academy awards, are meant to be
| played to the world wide lowest common denominator
|
| That's not the kind of films that tend to win the major Oscar
| awards. Those tend to be either a bit artsy (e.g. Anora this
| year) or "serious" biopics/history movies (e.g. Oppenheimer
| last year).
| boogieknite wrote:
| we made darn near the same comment. interesting Serpell
| called out Anora specifically
| boogieknite wrote:
| Anora, Oppenheimer, and Everything Everywhere All at Once are
| not lowest common denominator movies. the academy has many
| issues but i dont think its catering to mass appeal and dumbing
| down
|
| Serpell's interpretation of Anora is dismissive and shallow.
| the point is Disney infects the American mind and Baker's made
| that point across half his movies and in some cases incredibly
| blatantly. its implied and Serpell categorizing it under New
| Literalism goes to show they're probably right in many cases,
| but also use it as a convenient excuse to avoid analysis
| api wrote:
| Special case of bad writing, which is what really plagues today's
| movies. I often blame comic book films but I'm not sure that's
| the explanation. I don't know what the explanation is.
|
| Literalism is bad writing. A movie that feels like it's punching
| you in the face with its moral themes is bad writing. "Ruined by
| woke" where it feels like minority characters are shoehorned in
| is actually just bad writing. Plots that don't make sense or are
| full of holes are bad writing. And so on.
|
| I've been reading more books for the past several years. Of
| course books have the opposite problem to movies: oversupply.
| Writing a book is, like software or music, not capital-intensive,
| though doing it well is time-intensive. There's a lot of good
| books but they can be hard to find in the sea of mediocrity and
| now often AI-generated slop.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I suspect the writers are doing exactly what they're being paid
| to do.
| monkeyelite wrote:
| Most of this writers points are ideas recently circulating around
| twitter.
| phyzome wrote:
| It's almost as if when one person is reacting to a trend, other
| people are also reacting to it!
| monkeyelite wrote:
| Then one would hope they have a new point to make. I don't
| need them to read twitter for me
| aqme28 wrote:
| Is this "new" literalism, or just storytelling as it has always
| been in movies? I've been on a Billy Wilder kick lately, and
| there are still a lot of scenes in these 70 year old movies where
| the subtext gets spoken out loud.
| buildingsramen wrote:
| Hollywood has always been a little bit dumb, a little bit over-
| written. It's hard to have both artistic individualism and a
| reliable business. This is not a new trend.
|
| The examples are not very good. I would take Gladiator II, but
| Megalopolis was a self-funded project which is completely out of
| left field, and The Apprentice... I'm not sure what it's an
| example of. Many more titles are dismissed with a couple words.
| They really lose me when it comes to Anora. That's quite possibly
| the worst take I've heard about that film yet, and I've read some
| Letterboxd reviews.
|
| > What feels new is the expectation, on the part of both makers
| and audiences, that there is such a thing as knowing definitively
| what a work of art means or stands for, aesthetically and
| politically.
|
| Before rushing to judge today's movies, shall we remind ourselves
| what popular movies 20 years ago were? There were some real
| stinkers there, too, and they were not more smartly written in
| this regard. They just weren't.
|
| > The point is not to be lifelike or fact-based but familiar and
| formulaic--in a word, predictable.
|
| Has this person forgotten Titanic, one of the best-selling movies
| of all time? It's extremely formulaic, predictable, and
| intentionally so. It's basically opera, not really a new genre.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >but Megalopolis was a self-funded project which is completely
| out of left field
|
| sure, but it was self-funded and it was completely panned by
| the audiences which I think was undeserved, from a lot of
| people because they found it "weird" or incomprehensible. Which
| it wasn't in the grand scheme of things.
|
| I can't remember whose blog it was on but someone recently
| compared audience and critic ratings in the 70s/80s and today,
| and in the past there was a lot of overlap. Today completely
| divorced. And it's honestly because the audience, not the
| critics, just can't take anything unconventional. Creators that
| had mainstream appeal, Kubrick, Tarkovsky were out there by
| today's standard. You could not put the opening scene of 2001
| in front of a modern audience without half of the people
| playing subway surfers on their phones. Or take Lynch, he
| wasn't just niche, people made an effort to understand that
| stuff.
|
| I noticed this in other media too. I saw reviews for Kojima's
| Death Stranding 2 and every five seconds someone went _it 's so
| weird_ as if that's almost an offense, from the guy who made
| the Metal Gear universe. You make something like Evangelion
| today, the biggest mainstream anime franchise at the time,
| you'd probably have people on social media cancelling it for
| some of the more Freudian stuff in it, and complain because
| there's not enough plot in it.
| briangriffinfan wrote:
| I think people today, in general, would be unwilling to hold
| the idea in their heads that a movie might be good in a way
| that goes over their heads, or that they just don't
| understand. There's no curiosity that it might be more than
| what they saw it to be. And when everyone sees art as beneath
| them (or at least, certainly not above them), it loses that
| transcendent quality.
| dmonitor wrote:
| Many of Kubrick's movies were panned at release and only
| received merits upon reexamination. Even 2001 was initially
| met with a mixed reception.
|
| https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-
| news/hollywoo...
| rbanffy wrote:
| 2001 is one of those movies that get better with every
| rewatch. The only part that doesn't get much better is the
| stat gate sequence, which starts to get a bit long after a
| couple watches. Otherwise, every minute detail is
| masterfully crafted into the finished movie.
| boscillator wrote:
| I'm glad you bring up Kojima, because I think he's a master
| of this New Literalism. I just watched my partner play Death
| Stranding 2, and it feels like every other cut-scene has an
| NPC turn to camera and explain the themes of the game. And I
| love it! And it doesn't detract from the games ability to
| express those themes through metaphor and game-play.
|
| Obviously subtlety is good, but choosing to be very literal
| can be an interesting artistic take. I don't think Kojima was
| thinking about how to dumb-down his message for audiences. I
| think its a genuine artistic choice rooted in his style.
| While I didn't like it for other reasons, I think the same
| can be said for Megalopolis. I loved the scene were it's just
| a full screen interview with Catiline, even if it was kinda
| dumb.
|
| There's probably something interesting about how both the ten
| thousandth grey-CGI marvel movie and these more experimental
| artists are drawn to hyper-literalism in the now, probably
| with some thoughts about the social internet thrown in. I'll
| have to think about it.
| S0y wrote:
| >it was completely panned by the audiences which I think was
| undeserved, from a lot of people because they found it
| "weird" or incomprehensible.
|
| The biggest issue with the movie is that it's boring. I
| personally think the weirdness wasn't used to it's full
| potential.
|
| A very similar (and highly underrated) movie is Richard
| Kelly's Southland Tales which in my opinion is far superior
| and vastly more entertaining to watch. Which I guess does
| prove there is some merit to your point, since this movie was
| also panned by critics and audiences for being "way too
| weird".
| biophysboy wrote:
| The art house vs blockbuster dichotomy has existed for a
| while, but I do think the internet as a medium makes it hard
| to have truly individual opinions. The whole point of reviews
| is to surrender a bit of your judgment, but this is more
| dangerous when the reviewer is an aggregate group. Lots of
| dogpiling, etc.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >Has this person forgotten Titanic, one of the best-selling
| movies of all time? It's extremely formulaic, predictable,
|
| Wait... I've never seen it. Don't tell me the ship sinks!
| trosi wrote:
| Audiences are increasingly distracted when watching movies and TV
| shows: the scripts have to be literal.
| hanlonsrazor wrote:
| I have definitely noticed the same occurring in North American
| cinema, but I do not think this is a new phenomenon. Rather, it's
| just a symptom of the increased commercialization of indie cinema
| - commercialization requiring film for all to understand.
|
| If one is to broaden their horizons, overseas cinema is still
| devoid of this literalism. European cinema, Korean cinema, and
| the famously show not tell Japanese cinema still produce
| ambiguous stories that compete for awards - just look at recent
| pictures in Anatomy of a Fall, Zone of Interest, Drive my Car,
| Decision to Leave.
| mpol wrote:
| > a symptom of the increased commercialization
|
| If it's about what people want to see, could it be that people
| cannot deal with insecurity anymore? We cannot deal with not
| knowing. We have to know for sure, so we can feel secure.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I can't speak for others, but I have a pretty limited
| tolerance for very explicit, heavy depictions of violence,
| for bad things happening to animals, or for downer endings.
|
| I fully recognize that these don't make for bad cinema. I
| also recognize that they're often more effective as
| surprises. But they _are_ going to dramatically cut into how
| much I enjoy a movie. And movies aren 't like books, where if
| the tone isn't quite what you're in the mood for you just
| stop reading, they're more immediately confrontational, and
| backing out is a bigger deal (and almost a faux pas, walking
| out of a movie is seen as commentary on its quality).
| Previews are also going to avoid spoiling twists or dramatic
| moments, which, again, makes sense, but makes them poor tools
| for assessing tone. This means I'm often tempted to read the
| plot summary before watching, which feels silly, but if I
| want to challenge myself and watch things not quite to my
| taste and things that aren't just kid's movies without just
| sometimes paying for the pleasure of having a bad time, I'm
| not sure how else to approach it.
|
| It also feels like other people have almost the opposite
| perspective, where of a movie doesn't have something really
| emotionally heavy or challenging to watch they can't take it
| seriously. I'm not sure what makes sense here, and maybe my
| tastes are just the problem, but it feels bad to spend
| fifteen dollars and two hours of my time to be in a space
| that's too loud, has only very expensive food, and leave
| depressed by what feels to be to be an overly cynical or
| myopic message or an artistic vision obsessively depicting
| the many ways human beings can be physically harmed, in as
| much detail as possible. Again, I don't think it's bad or
| wrong, I certainly don't want it to be banned or require
| disclosure, I just struggle to decide where I fit in the
| market, and I worry that my purchasing patterns support a
| narrative that leads to less of what I want.
| PyWoody wrote:
| For other relatively recent movies I'd add: >
| Evil Does Not Exist > Godland > The Beast >
| The Worst Person in the World > Misericordia > The
| Banshees of Inisherin > Amanda [0] > Afire [1]
|
| [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18469872/
|
| [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26440619/
| jsbg wrote:
| are movies like Evil Does Not Exist as popular in Japan as
| the examples in the article though? there must be a lot of
| similar niche movies made in the US
| s28l wrote:
| I find this article rather underwhelming because it spends so
| much time calling out bad examples and so little time
| highlighting examples of subtlety (in any era). Without positive
| examples, I don't think they make the case that this is a new
| phenomenon or even a phenomenon at all: all the author has done
| is identify a lens to criticize through.
|
| It may be the case that this is a recent phenomenon (though some
| other commentators disagree), but without providing detail on
| what movies the author feels avoid this pattern, they make their
| argument impossible to refute or engage with. (It also insulates
| the author's tastes from criticism, which I suspect is part of
| the motivation)
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| It ends with one
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Yeah, I can see where the author is coming from, but it's kinda
| effortless to dismiss a ~2hr movie with a five sentence
| critique of a few scenes or lines of dialog. I'd much rather
| see the author go deep on one movie than shallowly take on a
| bunch.
| int_19h wrote:
| For Gladiator II specifically, you might enjoy this:
|
| https://acoup.blog/2024/12/06/collections-nitpicking-
| gladiat...
|
| https://acoup.blog/2024/12/13/collections-nitpicking-
| gladiat...
| istjohn wrote:
| A couple examples the author gave sounded plausible--though I
| hadn't seen the movies in question--but then I felt the author
| was beginning to reach.
|
| It's a bit of a humble brag to complain that movies are too
| obvious, isn't it? Serpell invites us to pat ourselves on the
| back for our sophistication as we turn up our noses at art that
| the uneducated rabble can comprehend.
|
| Yes, there is a tradition in the arts of weaving subtle
| elements into a work that will reward the savvy observer.
| Arguably, it began when scribes and storytellers became no
| longer satisfied to merely repeat ancient texts, and set out
| their own commentary and interpretation, no doubt with some
| frequency constructing theories that never were conscious in
| the mind of the long-dead author.
|
| This literary game is wonderful for arts colleges who happily
| charge young adults a handsome fee to play at this game that
| arose in a time when eligible aristocrats scrambled after every
| affectation that might provide an honest signal of their
| ponderous amounts of free time, wealth, and sexual fitness.
| Like tonsils, these vestigial organs have their defenders.
|
| No doubt Serpell holds the skills she honed first at Yale and
| then at Harvard in great esteem. I imagine she derives much
| satisfaction at her ability to write hundreds of pages
| expounding on the literary equivalent of atonal noise. But
| while I'm happy for her to share her preferences, I'm not sure
| why those preferences should hold any great weight when it
| comes to popular culture.
|
| Unsaid--and of course it is unsaid, it would be gauche to speak
| directly--is the claim that great art cannot be direct, clear,
| or obvious. The purpose of art is not to speak to us, but to
| sieve society into gradations of fineness. If any coarse,
| unimproved grit passes through the sieve, the sieve is
| defective. After all, if this rough grit can pass through the
| sieve, who will pay Serpell to laboriously grind the sediment
| into a fluffy, airy, rarefied powder at Harvard.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Yes, you are clearly also very educated. Impressive use of
| language!
|
| I think it's pretty normal that as people get deeper and more
| invested in any given artform, they tend to become more
| appreciative of works that are less immediately pleasing to
| lay-people. You mentioned literature and (atonal) music, but
| this just as readily applies to food, wine, videogames,
| Anime, fashion, anything you can think of.
|
| I'll agree that there's an unfortunate tendency for some
| people (again, in any artistic field) to get overly critical
| or dismissive of straightforwardly good work, especially if
| consuming, thinking about, and discussing the quality of work
| is their actual job and they're perhaps getting a bit bored
| of something they once loved. On the other hand, who better
| to recognize oversaturation of a given style or approach? I
| certainly wouldn't notice that wine producers are currently
| chasing the trend of dry whites, produced from heirloom
| European grapes to the detriment of all other kinds of wine!
| It's important to have at least some snobs, to push and goad
| artists away from currently oversaturated trends and continue
| the cycle of innovation and variety. And it's important to
| recognize that a critic complaining that a certain style is
| too popular doesn't mean they think it's a bad style or that
| you shouldn't enjoy it, just that they'd like to spend more
| of their life enjoying other things too.
| babypuncher wrote:
| To put it another way, today's avant-garde is tomorrow's
| mainstream.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Yup. Hence why we went from too much patriotism post-9/11
| to too dark after Nolan Batman to too quippy after the
| Marvel takeover.
|
| I remember first watching The Avengers and finding it
| _refreshing_. "This is fun! Why aren't more action
| movies fun? They're always so gritty and violent and
| serious, even though the protagonists are functionally
| superhuman, they're always so mean-spirited and the
| dialogue is is always so aggressively masculine and
| primitive and angry." And then that was everything for
| the next few decades.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Not quite. It'll first be masticated, digested, and
| excreted before a simplistic version of it becomes the
| next mainstream.
|
| Perhaps a more accurate (and less cruel) analogy would be
| that it will receive some scaffolding to sustain it - the
| leading edge is always unfinished. By the time it becomes
| mainstream, it's closer to a product than an idea.
| Flatcircle wrote:
| so true
| tomasphan wrote:
| I agree, its for the same reason that trailers now have little
| trailers in the beginning. I mean really, a trailer for a
| trailer? Apparently its required to keep retention up because
| even adults are now children that need to be spoon fed.
| immibis wrote:
| That sounds like a different issue. With low quality
| "information" thrust at people from all sides, you have to
| _immediately_ prove that you 're not just AI slop video #63547,
| because I'm seeing your video on a platform that mostly
| delivers AI slop that I will scroll past within 3 seconds.
|
| Why am I on a platform that mostly delivers slop? That's a
| trillion dollar question. The advertising industry won.
|
| Also because if I was on a non-slop platform, it wouldn't be
| showing me your ad because ads are slop.
| shayway wrote:
| Ah, a New Yorker article on media. I think I got bingo!
| - Identify some problem pervading modern pop media? Check -
| Cherry pick examples? Check - Misrepresent or misunderstand
| an example that actually supports the opposite claim? Check
| - Paint a vague picture of how much better it was before [trend],
| without making any real statement? Check - Don't use any
| actual data or evidence? Check - Draw a line from dumb
| blockbuster trends to Trump/Nazis/[insert hot-button political
| issue]? Check
|
| You either come into the article ready to believe movies are
| getting worse or you don't. You come away feeling vindicated, or
| angry. There is nothing of substance here.
| dkarl wrote:
| I think what this means is that the movies now care whether the
| least-common-denominator viewers get their "point."
|
| Because of this, they have to have a single easily articulated
| point, and they have to beat the audience over the head with it.
|
| Prior to this, I doubt whether directors, writers, or studios
| much cared if an unsophisticated viewer walked out of a movie
| with the "wrong" idea of what it "meant." The ability to attach
| multiple meanings, even multiple conflicting meanings, was seen
| as an inevitable aspect of art that should be embraced and
| engaged with. It was accepted that people would see a different
| movie depending on their background, their personal history, and
| their awareness of cinematic language. Supporting multiple
| readings was seen as a sign of depth and complexity, not
| necessarily a weakness.
|
| Now the movies take a pragmatic, engineered approach to
| delivering a message. Ambiguity must be squashed. Viewer
| differences must be made irrelevant. The message takes precedence
| over art.
|
| I think the interesting question is, why does the message now
| take precedence over everything else? What has changed? I see two
| possible answers.
|
| First possibility, the audience demands a message. If the least-
| common-denominator viewer demands a message, and you are in the
| business of servicing that demand, you have to make sure you
| avoid any possible mishaps or misunderstandings in the delivery.
|
| Second possibility, the makers of movies derive some personal
| satisfaction or social gain from broadcasting a message to the
| masses. They see the movies as propaganda rather than art. (Or
| perhaps a less active motivation: the makers of movies are afraid
| that there might be blowback from viewers attaching an unsavory
| meaning to a movie. They want to make sure that their movie
| doesn't become like Fight Club, a proudly embraced symbol of what
| it was meant to critique.)
|
| Either of these would explain why movies are now engineered to
| deliver a single, unmistakable message at the expense of art and
| enjoyability. Or maybe there's another explanation. I'm just
| spitballing. I'd love to read more by somebody close enough to
| actually know what they're talking about.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| One interesting example here is Joker. It seems like the
| filmmakers did not like the audience they attracted with the
| first film, nor the messages that this audience took away. So
| the sequel seems like it was intentionally designed to piss
| that audience off.
| slg wrote:
| The Matrix is an earlier and I think more impactful example
| of this. That is a movie made by two trans filmmakers and
| with hindsight it is clearly an exploration of their own
| identities. Yet somehow it has been co-opted by people with
| diametrically opposed political and gender ideologies[1].
| That has to be incredibly frustrating as an artist and I bet
| many people have seen that sort of reaction and go out of
| their way to make it more difficult for people to be that
| wrong about their art.
|
| [1] - https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-
| content/uploads/2...
| lupire wrote:
| The idea of living in a simulation was well imagined
| separate from trans identity.
|
| The people in the Matrix aren't trans -- they are the same
| people in the same bodies whether they are in or out of
| simulation.
|
| It's OK for a trans person to make a movie with no trans
| content that doesn't only make sense from a trans
| perspective.
| slg wrote:
| This is an ironic reply as like those fans of the Matrix,
| you appear to be reading something different in what I
| said than what I intended.
|
| I'm not saying the trans reading of The Matrix is the
| only valid reading of that movie. However, anti-trans
| folks and their ideologically peers reading the movie as
| supporting their worldview is objectively not the
| intended reading and therefore is likely incredibly
| frustrating to the trans creators. It is easy to imagine
| other authors seeing that and wanting to avoid that type
| of gross misreading of their work.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| I am 100% of the opinion that it's (2), in no small part
| because the writers themselves say as much frequently and
| vociferously at every opportunity. This isn't reading some
| hidden meaning, this is just listening to what they say when
| they're interviewed.
|
| The two most common themes I hear from writers are intense
| narcissism, feeling deeply their own personal experience is
| something anyone else should care about, and activism/social
| justice/messaging, where they're pushing a particular political
| narrative. It's why we've seen the death of truly morally
| ambiguous characters or even antiheroes - they threaten the
| clear and unambiguous message the writer wants to send. Stories
| aren't for the audience to interpret but for the writer to
| preach.
|
| And again this isn't inference. This is reading and watching
| interviews with writers, showrunners, producers, etc.
| lupire wrote:
| Audiences are intensely more political nowadays. They want
| that.
| ctoth wrote:
| Might it be as simple as: before, the LCD viewer who didn't get
| it had no platform, now they do? Responsiveness to Rotten
| Tomatoes instead of Roger Ebert?
| snozolli wrote:
| There are a lot of things that bother me in recent movies. I feel
| like there's a "yay, we're making a movie!" attitude, where
| people are more concerned with proving that they're part of a
| culture rather than simply doing their job to the best of their
| ability.
|
| The most egregious example is the amount of Wilhelm Screams I've
| heard, absolutely crammed into media. It's a proclamation of,
| "I'm a sound editor, and I'm in on the joke!" but all it does is
| pull me out of the story completely.
|
| Another sound editor example is the amount of ice clinking in
| glasses and sloshing sounds of drinks, as if the protagonist's
| long-neck beer bottle is a half-empty jug being jerked around.
|
| Impressive stunts are virtually non-existent now. Instead, they
| drive a custom-built, tubular-frame car, swerving wildly, while
| the camera jerks around on a crane. Everything is reskinned using
| CGI, and the end result is the desired car being driven by an
| apparent maniac who chooses a profoundly sub-optimal path through
| traffic.
|
| Writers have to point out their cleverness in order to announce
| to the audience how clever they're being. It reminds me of eye-
| rollingly clever newspaper headlines.
|
| Everything has been turned up to 11, but in the lamest way
| possible.
| cal85 wrote:
| > more concerned with proving that they're part of a culture
|
| So true! This feeling is everywhere in movies now.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Pretentious nonsense is plaguing the newyorker.
| dmix wrote:
| I found the thesis of this article difficult to nail down, the
| examples were all over the place.
| kikokikokiko wrote:
| It's a NewYorker article, what did you expect? I personally
| find anything writen there basically unreadable.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Mainstream films (or works of art writ large) rarely trust their
| audience. Artists imbue their work with a lot of handholding for
| the audience's sake; if it's a need or a want on the audience's
| part, conscious or unwitting, who can say.
|
| I don't particularly enjoy having my hand held through a
| narrative, but I know plenty of people who don't mind, don't
| care, or don't know. It's easier to "participate" as an audience
| by passively consuming the art than to engage with it actively,
| and no doubt such art is easier to produce.
|
| Many people seemingly desire a contract to be enforced between
| artist and audience, where the artist constructs a narrative that
| is sensible and palatable and neat and tidy. Look at the reviews
| for Birdman (2014), for example. Plenty of people couldn't
| tolerate the ending, even if it thematically and tonally made
| sense.
|
| _Gone with the Wind_ (Mitchell, 1936) upholds such a contract;
| _Light in August_ (Faulkner, 1932) does not. With no slight
| against the former, the latter could be used as an example of a
| work with a radical trust of its audience.
| kikokikokiko wrote:
| Birdman's ending is atrocious, but the main problem ain't even
| there. The movie is just a giant pile of pretentious
| nothingness, I can't even remember what was the point of it.
| Hollywood movies from the last 2 decades or so are just
| disposable.
| dartharva wrote:
| The kind of criticism this author is imposing, I honestly feel
| like it could be applied to every movie ever if you were nitpicky
| enough.
| the_af wrote:
| I agree with some of the sentiment in TFA, but I think the author
| goes way overboard and ends up disliking some of the movies "just
| because".
|
| I do agree that the dialogue from Gladiator II is awful, but what
| did we expect? The movie shouldn't have been made at all,
| Gladiator didn't need a sequel.
|
| As for literalism: it's always been there in mainstream movies, I
| think. That we got so many (non-auteur) movies that are _not_ so
| literal is surprising, actually.
| whycome wrote:
| Here's the thing. For all the movies that have tired tropes and
| blatant literalism, there's a new movie watcher that hasn't
| experienced it before. They have the same right to watching a new
| movie with a tired trop -- because to them, it's not yet tired.
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| Given these three things:
|
| - There really isn't anything like a united "popular culture"
| anymore except in the very ephemeral sense of the latest memes on
| social networks. The cycle here is faster than anything before.
| Strong meme fads can coalesce and dissipate within weeks or days.
|
| - Media production of all types continues to become cheaper, as
| far as the actual process of production. Visual effects,
| photography, and editing are all easier with modern tech and I
| would say cheaper as well.
|
| - Economic factors: The disposable income of average people
| continues to become less over time, and property rents where
| theaters and such exist continue to increase over time.
|
| it's not surprising that new movies and other corporate
| entertainment have to follow a quicker cycle, including making
| things easier to consume. Entertainment media is more disposable
| than it has ever been at any point.
|
| It will be interesting to see if social media bans for minors
| will have an impact on this and maybe slow it down a bit, but I
| don't think it'll alter the underlying economic factors mentioned
| above, so it'll be interesting.
|
| I don't know if theaters still receive hard drives of the movies
| they are playing, but it seems like something that could probably
| be replaced by a local storage solution and an Internet
| connection by now, so maybe in the next 10 years we'll see
| theaters show movies produced and released on quicker but lower-
| quality schedules. Something like TV shows - a new one each week
| for a low price. But at that point why even leave your house?
| Matthyze wrote:
| There are movie critics that go on a rollercoaster ride and then
| complain about a lack of subtext
| rezmason wrote:
| This phenomenon isn't exclusive to film or even fiction.
|
| A year or two ago, YouTube flicked a short at me where a Gen-Z
| fan of some personality shared their feelings of heartbreak after
| he announced his departure from the platform.
|
| A montage of the channel's videos had the fan's voiceover (I'm
| paraphrasing): "This YouTube channel has been a part of my life,
| my childhood, since I was like a little kid, and I never imagined
| one day it would end."
|
| And then, jarringly: "This is me right now." And a still photo of
| their tear-streaked face. "This is me right now," not in the
| emotional or confused tone of someone navigating a personal
| tragedy, but the straight conveyance of a sentiment that has
| social currency. A sentence they knew others would know how to
| digest. Because they've seen others use it enough times to be
| literate in whatever transaction it represents.
|
| I understand their choice to include their emotional reaction,
| and that shows some real vulnerability that I truly appreciate,
| but what is "This is me right now"? Maybe it springs from the
| social media they grew up in-- where the vast majority of posts
| and comments are either a status or a reaction, and discourse has
| been strained and reduced into signals of acknowledgement.
|
| That's what I think this "literalism" is. It's the misshapen
| MICR-font metadata stamped in cultural things, so that they can
| be parsed by a machine-- and the machine is the set of heuristics
| younger generations have adopted to sift through mountains of low
| signal-to-noise content that platforms are pushing on them.
| thiht wrote:
| > Buzzy films from "Anora" to "The Substance" are undone by a
| relentless signposting of meaning and intent.
|
| Can't read the article because of paywall, but citing The
| Substance here from all possible movies is... weird? I agree with
| the title, and although there's some literalism in The Substance,
| there's also tons of subtext in it, so that's a pretty terrible
| example. I'm guessing the rest of the article is extremely
| elitist, and no movie is good enough for the author except for
| obscure Eastern Europe movies from the 60s?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| It seems at least to me that they don't really make very good
| movies anymore. The last time I remember watching a movie and
| thinking "That was pretty good" was the Dune films. Before that I
| can't even remember. I watched Thunderbolts and remember I
| thought it was the first Marvel movie that wasn't just terrible
| since End Game and that was primarily due to the Russian guy as a
| comedy source.
| haunter wrote:
| >It seems at least to me that they don't really make very good
| movies anymore
|
| There are plenty of good films out there. Ignore Hollyood,
| broaden your horizon
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I'm open to suggestions...
| haunter wrote:
| So personally I like films that makes me feel something
| without that feeling being explicitly forced upon me. This
| is an incredible thing to achieve that only a select few
| directors can do. Not "baiting" the viewers into emotions
| but also not being cold at the same time. Just by showing
| and how do they show it. Like the case of "a picture is
| worth a thousand words". It's a razor thin line but that
| makes these films I enjoy special and sincere.
|
| (I'll only mentions stuff from the 21st century because
| otherwise I'd sit here for days)
|
| I love japanese cinema so I'm very biased towards films
| from there.
|
| - The Taste of Tea (2004) from Katsuhito Ishii
|
| - Nobody Knows (2004) from Hirokazu Kore-eda
|
| - Tony Takitani (2004) from Jun Ichikawa
|
| - Memories of Matsuko (2006) from Tetsuya Nakashima
|
| - Departures (2008) from Yojiro Takita
|
| - Still Walking (2008) from Hirokazu Kore-eda
|
| - Tokyo Sonata (2008) from Kiyoshi Kurosawa
|
| - One Million Yen Girl (2008) from Yuki Tanada
|
| - Haru's Journey (2010) from Masahiro Kobayashi
|
| - Story of Yonosuke (2013) from Shuichi Okita
|
| - Shoplifters (2018) from Hirokazu Kore-eda
|
| - Drive My Car (2021) from Ryusuke Hamaguchi
|
| Two korean film I've really liked
|
| - The Handmaiden (2016) from Park Chan-wook
|
| - Pieta (2012) from Kim Ki-duk
|
| A chinese film I've seen recently and it was pretty good
|
| - Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014) from Diao Yi-nan
|
| Iranian films are incredibly good and crazy what they could
| make despite the situation there
|
| - A Separation (2011) from Asghar Farhadi
|
| - Taxi (2015) from Jafar Panahi
|
| - The Salesman (2016) from Asghar Farhadi
|
| - There Is No Evil (2020) from Mohammad Rasoulof
|
| - My Favourite Cake (2024) from Maryam Moghaddam and
| Behtash Sanaeeha
|
| Some european films I've enjoyed
|
| - Enter the Void (2009) from Gaspar Noe
|
| - Leviathan (2014) from Andrey Zvyagintsev
|
| - Alcarras (2022) from Carla Simon
|
| - Fallen Leaves (2023) from Aki Kaurismaki
|
| And last but not least some actual Hollywood films that I
| think are pretty good
|
| - The Tree of Life (2011) from Terrence Malick
|
| - Cloud Atlas (2012) from Lilly Wachowski and Lana
| Wachowski
|
| - First Reformed (2017) from Paul Schrader
|
| - Nickel Boys (2024) from RaMell Ross
| Flatcircle wrote:
| That article felt eerily like AI writing. Lots of words and few
| ideas, and the ideas they had were poorly explained...
|
| Bizarre.
| watwut wrote:
| The most fascinating achievement of AI is that so many people
| became convinced that humans were flawless creators just 3
| years ago.
| Flatcircle wrote:
| This article is not professionally written. Somebody get this
| writer an editor
| Lerc wrote:
| The Wachowski's once commented that the Red Pill movement was a
| message to them telling them to never be subtle again.
|
| Another data point. Most people seem to think that replicants are
| detected because they are unemotional.
|
| I would prefer filmmakers not assume the least of their
| audiences, but I would also rather that audiences not give them
| reason to.
| smt88 wrote:
| The creator of The Boys has also said he needs to beat people
| over the head so he doesn't have a similar situation to Mad Men
| or Breaking Bad, where people think the main character is a
| hero to emulate
| Lerc wrote:
| Yeah, I guess The same problem exists with The Watchmen and
| Fight Club.
|
| I found it fascinating how the term snowflake was changed
| because the character that people admired told their proxies
| that they were not snowflakes. The meaning at the time was
| that they were homogenous and unremarkable. Snowflakes
| represented the opposite where each individual snowflake has
| a unique pattern. That viewpoint was not empowering so they
| took the metaphor to be about the fragility of snowflakes.
| rbanffy wrote:
| It was hilarious when the far-right noticed, IIRC on season 3
| of The Boys, that they were being mocked.
|
| And just look at all Star Wars fans cosplaying as
| stormtroopers. It even says "evil empire" in the first movie
| intro. You can't get much more obvious than George Lucas.
| jtwoodhouse wrote:
| This is nothing new. Critics wanna be challenged. Audiences
| don't.
| rpdillon wrote:
| > Rather than aiming for the unique, which might pierce our haze
| of distraction, art has succumbed to marketable generalities:
| stock music on Spotify, soporific streams of Netflix content.
| Fashion capitalizes on a long tail of generic looks: we all wear
| Doc Martens but no one is actually goth. Image generators churn
| out ersatz versions of da Vinci and van Gogh. And, in every case,
| banal commentary is slowly occluding the art, seeping into it in
| boldface titles or explainers that speak over the sound or cover
| the image.
|
| It's the degradation of our media, in the sense that it's
| factory-produced, which is in stark contrast to the media folks
| were consuming 40 years ago. I'm not dogmatic that it's
| fundamentally worse (despite my framing), but it does lack the
| depth of older media, IMO.
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