tom -- no way, not when they came out. they played in cinemas, not art galleries.
The E in the R is HBO as the new studio system, 8 pages on the Sopranos in the NYRB, hi-def tvs larger than many minor multiplex screens etc etc etc.
Apatow is just fine, but he's never going to be involved in anything as good as 'Freaks & Geeks' unless he goes back to telly...
-- Stevie T, Thursday, September 13, 2007 2:50 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
for the true believers multiplex screens and tv screens just don't compare with the big screen. they also have a thing for the communal experience, etc.
it isn't just about quality of transferable "content."
but the ending of 'the sopranos' and 'the wire' within 12 months of each other is a bit of a marker too.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:06 (5 years ago) Permalink
Oh, Enrique, btw, you still haven't explained to me why Repulsion isn't shit.
― Just got offed, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:07 (5 years ago) Permalink
try explaining to us why it IS, goofus.
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:08 (5 years ago) Permalink
I don't believe "the big screen communal experience" is coming back as anything other than charming nostalgia outdoor summer screenings etc.
― Stevie T, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:11 (5 years ago) Permalink
except more people are going to the cinema than ever before. so what exactly do you base that on
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:12 (5 years ago) Permalink
no, i agree. but that's one reason why people think the thing is dying.
xpost
s1ocki that's not true. or, not within the west. people went to the cinema habitually once or twice a week up to the '40s.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:13 (5 years ago) Permalink
more people are going to the cinema and acting like they're in their living room than ever before.
re the Dargis article in the TIFF thread, the problem of cinephilia gaining sustenance from the likes of Inland Empire is that it's marginalized. Culturally discerning [sic?] 25-year-olds who would've seen and discussed every Godard film in the mid '60s now reserve their passion for Knocked Up.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:14 (5 years ago) Permalink
ya but that's because they all worked there. xp
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:14 (5 years ago) Permalink
-- Dr Morbius, Thursday, September 13, 2007 2:14 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Link
what is the evidence for this exactly
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:15 (5 years ago) Permalink
I did, on that London movies thread.
― Just got offed, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:15 (5 years ago) Permalink
Get fifty friends, or (fifty facebook people - social networking possibly being the cornerstone of this idea) who want to see a film, any film avilible for digital projection, go see the film in a cinema. Hopefully a clever inner city cinema (with a good bar) will toy with this suggestion, as it strikes me that there is plenty of money in them thar hills (particularly money over the bar which is pretty much pure profit in a good cinema).
had a similar idea a while back but more based around small indie cinemas AND a range of viewable material not constrained to films (think TV, live sport/events).
― blueski, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:16 (5 years ago) Permalink
Why not just invited your mates round to your house and bring yr own booze?!
― Stevie T, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:19 (5 years ago) Permalink
but morbs those godard fans were also the first-gen auteurists, going to hawks and hitchcock retrospectives. i don't see that as any more mature or whatever than digging on 'knocked up' (a far more mature, if less formally interesting, film than anything lunatic maoist godard has done).
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:19 (5 years ago) Permalink
houses and screens/systems in houses are not as big. not so much '50 friends' anyway but '50 people who want to see this', as it is now. essentially what has already been happening for years with some bars showing a film in the back room.
― blueski, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:22 (5 years ago) Permalink
i saw Vanilla Sky in some bar in Brighton with about 20 people. it was a cool experience.
― blueski, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:24 (5 years ago) Permalink
watching vanilla sky could never be a cool experience.
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:25 (5 years ago) Permalink
predictable ;)
and there's those guys in NYC who showed films on a projector on a building roof in Summertime. nice.
― blueski, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:26 (5 years ago) Permalink
ya, rooftop films? i saw their mtl show.
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:26 (5 years ago) Permalink
i have done lots of public screenings in bars/show venues/etc. mostly of my own stuff tho, i guess that's diff.
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:27 (5 years ago) Permalink
democratisation of viewing films as well as making films
― blueski, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:27 (5 years ago) Permalink
(Funnily enough, I spoke to Lynch about all this stuff when he was in town earlier this year, and though he very much still thought of cinema as the big screen in the dark room, he thought that more and more this was likely to be in the form of home/private projection or large screen entertainment systems...)
― Stevie T, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:27 (5 years ago) Permalink
Lynch would never make a film for outdoor big screen heh
― blueski, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:29 (5 years ago) Permalink
'knocked up' (a far more mature, if less formally interesting, film than anything lunatic maoist godard has done)
If mature equals boring, sure.
― Eric H., Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:29 (5 years ago) Permalink
ILX
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:31 (5 years ago) Permalink
Yeah the key is that you'll know 15 of the 50 ppl so if the other 35 are twats you'll still have as good a time as just going to the cinema w/friends, BUT if they're not you know you've got at least 1 thing in common and you've got a readmade conduit for meeting and chatting - it's a good idea and someone not wasting their time on ILX might make a bit of fake dotcom money out of it. (xpost)
― Groke, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:31 (5 years ago) Permalink
ILX is not cinephilia, tho, or do the stats at ILF mean nothing?
― Eric H., Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:31 (5 years ago) Permalink
ILX has 'ruined' Comedy for me because ILX can be as funny as/funnier than anything else out there. As long as I don't start reading THIS IS MY VLOG on a cinema-sized screen, film will prevail.
― blueski, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:32 (5 years ago) Permalink
oh, I wasn't saying the Apatow monks of ILX were cinephiles. They might've been in a different cultural moment.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:33 (5 years ago) Permalink
where's Southy with the 'it HAS to be grainy, you cannot watch it on cellphone' rockismo
― blueski, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:34 (5 years ago) Permalink
Ooooooohhhhhh, bitch! (xp)
― Tom D., Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:34 (5 years ago) Permalink
-- blueski, Thursday, September 13, 2007 3:34 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link
haha indeed.
fwiw i will chip in with: CRT televisions >>>> pwn the shit out of >>>> digital bullshit.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:37 (5 years ago) Permalink
well cinema may be dead, but so is the novel, poetry, the fine arts, classical music.....or maybe it's just dispersing itself into smaller and smaller audiences, all part of the inevitable march of modernity surely?
what sight and sound and the like seem to be yearning for is a whitman-esque "return to the common people" aesthetic that will find some way of bridging the increasing distance we all feel between each other and our values and experiences. a super film that will unite us all!
whitman aside, this is not a new desire, and it's always been utopian.
― ryan, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:37 (5 years ago) Permalink
and like all utopian desires it projects itself into the past as much as the future.
― ryan, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:39 (5 years ago) Permalink
i don't get morbs on this score. the "original cinephiles", the parisians in the 50s, were crazy for uncomplicated, populist filmmaking.
no sight and sound don't think the golden age can return. it's not a new lament, but it's not that old either. your line of thinking tends to say nothing ever changes, but of course it does.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:40 (5 years ago) Permalink
What was "uncomplicated, populist filmmaking" in the heyday of French cinephilia was also filled with solid formalism that is basically not even in the equation w.r.t Apatow.
― Eric H., Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:43 (5 years ago) Permalink
yeees, i.e. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?is a superior example of uncomplicated, p*pulist (GODDAMN YOU) filmmaking, and that Napoleon Dynamite is a horrid one.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:44 (5 years ago) Permalink
there were bad movies lots of ppl liked in the old days too dude
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:45 (5 years ago) Permalink
not that knocked up is even bad
i hate 'napoleon dynamite' and it isn't populist. but both of you are mental to think late '50s hollywood was particularly golden, it's sheer cineaste myth-making.
i like 'knocked up' a lot.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:46 (5 years ago) Permalink
me too it's great
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:47 (5 years ago) Permalink
We noticed
― Tom D., Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:47 (5 years ago) Permalink
(I used ND as I haven't seen any Apatow films, but substantial critics who've liked his stuff have generally said "well, this isn't cinema")
Was there popular trash in the '50s? Of course. Was there a higher % of watchable studio films? Fuck yes.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:50 (5 years ago) Permalink
substantial critics who've liked his stuff have generally said "well, this isn't cinema"
name names
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:50 (5 years ago) Permalink
sigh
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:50 (5 years ago) Permalink
you might want to try actually watching movies sometime morbius.
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:51 (5 years ago) Permalink
but both of you are mental to think late '50s hollywood was particularly golden
Who is arguing that? Nobody's claiming every last studio film between 1953-1958 was blindly accepted as an artistic breakthrough.
― Eric H., Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:51 (5 years ago) Permalink
As this thread proves, the real problem with cinema is that cinephilia refuses to fucking die.
― Eric H., Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:52 (5 years ago) Permalink
this is an interesting discussion and i'm sorry to say i don't have much to add to it, except that whenever e.g. godard pops his head out of his hole to proclaim the d"eath of cinema" every two years or so my kneejerk reaction is usually "stfu"
― impudent harlot, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:53 (5 years ago) Permalink
what do you call cinephilia when it doesn't actually involve watching the movies you're talking about
― s1ocki, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:53 (5 years ago) Permalink
'napoleon dynamite' isn't populist
Yeah, that's why I see VOTE FOR PEDRO tees on the street
I will watch Knocked Up when it hits DVD shortly. Given the track record of people who love it, I'll send the universal $11 cost of a NYC film ticket to my creditors instead, thanks.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:53 (5 years ago) Permalink
Just noticed that our Landmark franchise here--which resides in perhaps Houston's last movie palace that actually still shows movies--has gone all digital for new releases.
― 50 Shades of Greil (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 10 October 2012 19:55 (7 months ago) Permalink
Hungry Hungry Hippos, which debuted in 1978, is a game in which players compete with plastic hippos to swallow marbles off of a board.
shit i've been playing it wrong
― thread lock holiday (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 10 October 2012 19:55 (7 months ago) Permalink
ha
― Number None, Wednesday, 10 October 2012 19:56 (7 months ago) Permalink
My twitter feed these days has basically become a daily report of digital/DLP critics' screenings gone awry.
― Ham Lushbaugh (Eric H.), Wednesday, 10 October 2012 19:57 (7 months ago) Permalink
do tell!
― stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 10 October 2012 19:58 (7 months ago) Permalink
Every day, digital/DLP critics' screenings go awry.
― Ham Lushbaugh (Eric H.), Wednesday, 10 October 2012 19:58 (7 months ago) Permalink
haha
― there is no dana, only (goole), Wednesday, 10 October 2012 20:07 (7 months ago) Permalink
great story
― stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 10 October 2012 20:10 (7 months ago) Permalink
It's even better in yfrog form.
― Ham Lushbaugh (Eric H.), Wednesday, 10 October 2012 20:12 (7 months ago) Permalink
"Old" movies to look like video forevermore....
In June, director Martin Scorsese tried to show his 1993 film The Age of Innocence at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese's editor for the past 40 years and a three-time Oscar winner, called Grover Crisp, the senior VP of asset management at Sony, for a 35mm print. But Sony not only didn't have a print, it couldn't even make one.
"He told me that they can't print it anymore because Technicolor in Los Angeles no longer prints film," Schoonmaker recalled. "Which means a film we made 20 years ago can no longer be printed, unless we move it to another lab—one of the few labs still making prints."
..."I was used to hearing, oh well, maybe films made in the '40s or '50s, but our film?" Schoonmaker said, referring to titles that have become unavailable. "And it's not the only one of our films that is in this situation. What really worries me are the lesser-known movies."
And film buffs are worried not just about the lack of digitized titles, but how they are being converted. Schoonmaker for one has been appalled by some of the digital "restorations" she's screened.
"I saw a digitized version of a film that David Lean made during World War II, and it looked just like a TV commercial that was shot yesterday," she said. "It was wrong, the balance was completely off. Originally it had a slightly muted look, and now here were all these insanely bright blues."
Schoonmaker believes that the colorists who have been trained in the last 10 or 15 years "have no idea what these movies should look like anymore."
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/11/with-35mm-film-dead-will-classic-movies-ever-look-the-same-again/265184/
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Monday, 26 November 2012 16:00 (5 months ago) Permalink
I don't want the endless stream of those articles over the years to get me down, but boy do they get me down.
― Gukbe, Monday, 26 November 2012 16:11 (5 months ago) Permalink
Countdown to the death of "the death of Cinema" articles.
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Monday, 26 November 2012 16:20 (5 months ago) Permalink