The Death of Cinema pt. 94

okay it's Yelp time people. i went to the Vue at the Westfield a few days ago with my boys, to see One Piece: Red. (they are One Piece megafans.) i've found Vue to have excellent picture and sound, and they are absolutely atrocious at everything else. just buying popcorn takes 20 minutes minimum, every time. so this time I popped my own microwave popcorn, bought three Fantas for £3.30 at the corner shop, and went in. the lights go down and the previews start. the sound is truly bone-rattling, but i love that. the subwoofers are SERIOUS in this place. by the time the second or third preview has come on, though, i'm noticing that it's just.... too fucking loud. like, REALLY loud. distractingly loud. hard to even focus on the screen visually for the noise. i'm lie "i'm going to go say something" and the kids convince me not to, that i'll get used to it. they could be right, who knows. the picture starts. it is EAR-SPLITTING. it doesn't help that the whole movie is insane, no intro, no lead-in, doesn't take place on the high seas, it all seems to be about a singing contest? anyway none of us can even think it's so loud, and the kids start complaining too, so i go off to find someone. i do, and she asks to come with me to see for herself. the second we open the door to the screening room she's like "whoah, yeah. that's crazy." she says she'll go find a manager. do i need to come with you? no no, we'll take care of it. 5, 10 minutes go by, it's still the same, i walk back down to the front of the cinema. she's not there. i ask where a manager is, he's pointed out to me, and i tell him the story. we can't change it, he says. what?? i convince him to come with me. he does, and of course it's a quieter section of the movie, and he says listen, we can't just change things because one person doesn't like it. nobody else has complained. this motherfucker. the kids are asking to leave now. we do, i ask for my money back, to his credit he does it. he tells me they have no control over anything locally. they have to call a phone number just to change the air conditioning.

anyway, first time i've ever had an issue with this (my hearing sucks - usually i think things are too quiet!) - however, the Picturehouse, the other local alternative to Vue, consistently screens their movies too dimly. (this is apparently very common - cinemas save ££ on electricity over the longrun, even though they're contractually obligated to screen at a certain luminance(

I mean, i really try to support my local cinemas. Even though I now have a shit-hot TV that makes everything look great. but if they're going to deliver such a subpar, fucked up experience (not to mention the wait times and prices for concessions) it really does deserve to die.

In other news, Rian Johnson had to fight with Netflix to get Glass Onion released in theatres, and they only agreed 1 week on 650 screens.

It's currently outselling Wakanda Forever on a per-screen basis.. If it had opened as widely as WF it would be grossing close to the mythical £100M mark for the first week

Did someone say something about the death of cinema?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UeGXB2NjR8

wtf is that sad ass nonsense

Next year:

Ant-Man 3, Creed 3, Shazam! 2, John Wick 4, Dungeons & Dragons, Super Mario Bros., Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Fast 10, Spider-verse 2, Transformers 7, The Flash, Indiana Jones 5, Mission: Impossible 7, Barbie, The Marvels, Dune 2, Hunger Games 5, Ghostbusters 5, Aquaman 2

i'm considering re-upping my membership at IFC for the upcoming year and camping out there

hey, don't lump Barbie in with that junk

Bring back the “Blondie” and “Andy Hardy” series you cowards.

spiderverse 2 will be good

but i mean, y’know

I will see 8 of those in the theater.

doing your part to keep the cinema alive!

John Wick will be good and Barbie might be but other than that... yikes

i will of course see MI

Raise your standards everyone.

...

...

... I will see Indiana Jones 5.

doing your part to keep the cinema alive!

I will see at least five of them but at least one of those I will swipe for another movie and go into the “wrong” theatre

also but: I will have seen 120 films in a cinema during 2022 (counting repeat viewings)

Don't know where else to put this: I recently read there was a 90s Disney film with Gérard Depardieu and Katherine Heigl. He plays her dad but he pretends to be her pimp boyfriend. I checked and this really does exist.

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/amc-theaters-to-change-ticket-prices-based-on-seat-location/

I've taken to chiding that movies/cinema are entering their "opera phase," in that it's moved from being a mass culture art form to a specialized taste.

Oof, let them at least be poetry or the novel before going straight to opera.

As I posted on a different thread, Searching for Mr. Rugoff (on the Criterion Channel, or $4 from YouTube) is a very good Death of Cinema film.

Bring back the “Blondie” and “Andy Hardy” series you cowards.

― Lord Pickles (Boring, Maryland), Friday, December 16, 2022 6:38 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Gritty reboots in 3...2...1...

https://postlmg.cc/zyC68HLk

Yeah Vue cinemas have been doing this in the UK for awhile. "Premium" seats in the middle that are wider, covered in leather, I think they cost £2 more per seat. Of course the cinema's hardly ever more than like a quarter full so you can just go sit up there on a normal ticket if you want. There's no premium seat police who come around checking tickets.

this is going to change the old canard to "aw, u can't pay your rent? maybe skip going to the movies"

The movie theater is and always has been a sacred democratic space for all and this new initiative by @AMCTheatres would essentially penalize people for lower income and reward for higher income.

— Elijah Wood (@elijahwood) February 6, 2023

last night i saw a movie at IFC and they have seat arms that lift and the house was mostly empty so i was able to make my own couch. i recommend it!

IFC is such a weird space, I don’t really like it

I have made it my main weird space for many years.

There is a theatre by us with wide reclining comfy chairs that also have heaters. Like they want me to fall asleep and miss the movie.

I think picking seats is such a PIA, period. Throw in price ranges and ... fuck that. How are they even going to enforce it?

The IPIC theater in Maryland has had some form of seat surcharges as long since it opened. I've never been there (for that and other reasons), so I can't say to what degree it works.

they enforce it for real at Nitehawk and Alamo but that's because they are selling you food

Saw this trailer yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tDrxxjumYA

The similarity to both The Fabelmans and Empire of Light in the "light becomes stories/stories become films" bit--a variation on scenes in the other two--jumped out. I'm sure there'll be more of these elegies-for-a-vanishing-art in the near future.

In an Oppenheimer pre-show that must have lasted 30 minutes, we had to put up with a bunch of those non-trailers where they interview cast members on the movie instead of an actual trailer. In two of them, people (David Harbour one of them) made the same point: how amazing and courageous it was because you think this thing that you're watching--car crash, explosion, whatever--is CGI, but it was real people doing real stunts.

Not actually depressing, but somewhere on that continuum. This is what amounts to the new Italian neo-realism: hey, it's real people, not CGI.

Yeah I'm sure that's not the first time I've seen that kind of thing used as a selling point.

Hence why I show up 15-20 minutes before start time. I don't wanna watch pre-shows or trailers -- gimme the movie.

lol AFTER start time

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/martin-scorsese-urges-filmmakers-fight-010914512.html

get 'em!

related, my 12 year old has tapped out on Marvel and Star Wars now (though we'll likely watch Andor S2 whenever that premieres, which is fine by me.) he was really into watching Hangover Square and M Hulot's Holiday recently, i think they really just worked for him as immersive and surprising viewing experiences. having been immersed in watching a lot of green screen films with dumb quips and slumming actors over the last few years, i hope this trend continues. we're gonna try to dig into some classic spookfests this month, maybe some Karloff/Lugosi classics, Hammer horror, etc.

I think the enemy is franchises in general and if people are genuinely sick of Marvel and DC superhero films I fear huge IP owners will just use whatever they own that is in different genres and maybe be very discreet about being Marvel, Disney films.
Huge IP owners and studios might give more creative freedom, maybe make some genuinely great films and then take away creative control when they think they can milk a formula or milk nostalgia for that time they made good films of Jonah Hex and Willie Lumpkin. Apparently big studios only let people try new things when the formulas stop working.

i'm trying to think of a franchise i'm not sick of, maybe Mission Impossible but I haven't seen #7 yet.

also probably the minority opinion here, by some distance, but after the last John Wick film i just wondered what the point of the whole thing was. the "world-building" didn't really add up to much in the end, just a lot of flourishes that were interesting but not a lot more, the style of the thing and the aesthetic was so impressive but i didn't feel anything except impressed. zero emotional attachment to any character, really. they just milked that first film for everything it was worth, created a new type of action genre in a way, all this creative talent largely for naught. i can't say i wasn't mostly entertained but the last one was as long as The Godfather and started to feel like it. i think this last one for whatever reason made me question the whole series and why i should bother watching movies along those lines with the limited time i've got.

(speaking of non-Marvel/SW stuff above)

I enjoyed the action scenes and that was mostly enough for me. Just like any other martial arts series I'm interested in. Of course filmmakers should aspire to more than that but 3 and 4 were still impressive feats to me in a genre I like that typically doesn't have amazing stories.

Universal Monsters and Hammer Horror are much the same: I come for certain things but I know I'm unlikely to get a full package.

it just seemed like diminishing returns after awhile to me, the first film is a masterpiece and the second is close, but it felt like they were padding them out in the last two and they felt emptier even as they drew to some kind of attempted emotional close. i think the best part of the last pair was the opening of #4, up to the point where the story arc of Rina Sawayama's arc finished (not counting the vv end.) i almost found the repetitiveness impressive after awhile but not enough.

i think though the Disney industrial complex stuff is worse in terms of dominating the industry and the conversations and the talent, though JW has a couple spinoffs and maybe yet another sequel. JW at least did not set out to please the crowds, it's a much more difficult and relentlessly creative and original thing, even if it started to feel empty.

I'm sure there will be a Funkopop movie. And then a coca cola movie about sentient coke bottles and cans. And a Ronald McDonald movie. Then a Kellogs movie about the evils of masturbation, wholesome cereals combating the urge, then a porn parody with people jizzing in their cornflakes.

Still amazes me that Fist Of The North Star has made more money than James Bond, but I'm told that's mostly due to pachinko machines.

It's not on the list anymore so maybe that wasn't so reliable, but there are still surprises on here if this thing is to be trusted
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media_franchises

I'm quite perturbed by the amount of YouTube videos of film commentary titled things like "audiences hate it when movies do these things", as if they can speak for everyone.

hmmm is this conversation not more "death of hollywood" really

not that other national cinemas are exempt from the lure of franchises but

there was already a Kellogg's movie, Matthew Broderick i wanna say... yeah Road to Wellness https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0111001/

I've seen a bit of it.

I did wonder if there's even the possibility that a different film industry could attract all the big American stars by saying "come over here, we'll treat you better"

It was a different situation, but obviously Europe did that for a number of folks from Hollywood during the era of blacklisting. Not that escaping franchise work is akin to that.

I have several friends who are either writers or directors or both, and one by one they've been sucked up into franchise work and for me it is a little bit depressing to see considering where they started. Much similar to how virtually everyone I know from the cinema program at my school wound up working in reality television. The latter is much more depressing I think though.