THE IRISHMAN, A Martin Scorsese Picture with de Niro, Pacino, Pesci, Keitel

I think the MCU's "quality control" policy just smooths everything out and makes it so punishingly bland, obviously this is better/safer business than rolling the dice (like Hollywood did for a century), but if you can't hit the lows of idk, 2005 Fantastic Four or 2003 Hulk (not that bad imo), then you can't make a Spider-Man 2 or X2.

there's a really good book by Ben Fritz called The Big Picture about all this stuff

Even arguing about this narcissism of Marvel differences means "they" have won.

yup, goalposts successfully moved

the Spider-Man and X-Men trilogies were not made by Marvel

scorsese is 100 percent otm, if anything he wasn't mean enough

the Spider-Man and X-Men trilogies were not made by Marvel

― flappy bird, Friday, October 4, 2019

does it matter?

I like the 2004 Spider-Man and the first two X-Men, and lord knows the thousands of genre films I've watched in my life boast inventive performances, unusual inversions of expectations, thrilling action sequences, and so on; but if you're still a working critic in 2019 the pressure to review these things from publicists depresses me, as is the Box Office Mojo ethos of constantly discussing grosses (even my students taking my elective film class chat about grosses like Madison did John Locke). I got six emails wondering why the hell I wasn't interested in attending the preview for Joker. I told the publicist, whom I know well, "Traffic is more fun."

imagine dedicating your life to movies, spending all your time either making them yourself or trying to preserve and promote them, and suddenly it's 2019 and the only movies anyone wants to talk about or spend money on involve cgi raccoons or "edgy" takes on the clown who fights batman

I'm skanky enough to think, "What's the difference between devoting a couple years to 'developing' a Howard Hughes biopic and developing a Joker film?" I gotta say.

the Spider-Man and X-Men trilogies were not made by Marvel

― flappy bird, Friday, October 4, 2019

does it matter?

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, October 4, 2019 2:03 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Marvel Studios has a completely different operating philosophy with a built-in fanbase that will see whatever they release no matter what. the MCU is a decades spanning project with every film relating to and effecting the others. no middlemen, no risks, no bombs like Daredevil. that sort of quality control just fuckin' smooths it all out into a paste. Sony taking on Marvel's IP and rolling the dice with is an entirely different situation.

I'm not doing it justice but all of this is covered in The Big Picture & everyone sad/mad/madsad about Marvel occupying cinemas 24/7 should read Ben Fritz' excellent book.

What 'risks' are you looking for? Spiderman 2 and X2 are solid films but they're no less superhero movies than the MCU. X2 took on social themes but what risks or deviation from the superhero formula did S2 take?

The reason Daredevil stunk isn't because it "swung for the fences"

Also lol at the zero sum idea that MCU fans don't see art films. Sure, maybe most of that fanbase didn't, but it isn't as if these people were seeing them prior to the MCU coming around. Might not have been moviegoers at all.

ok, that's it, back to Scorsese or I'm siccing Black Panther on all of you

I'm not doing Fritz's book justice but really what changed the dynamic and what gets bankrolled & what doesn't was Hollywood opening up distribution to Russia and China at the beginning of the decade. Marvel isn't to blame for what plays worldwide.

Also lol at the zero sum idea that MCU fans don't see art films. Sure, maybe most of that fanbase didn't, but it isn't as if these people were seeing them prior to the MCU coming around. Might not have been moviegoers at all.

― When I am afraid, I put my toast in you (Neanderthal), Friday, October 4, 2019 2:41 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

What movies play in movie theaters is literally a zero sum game

that's also not the point that me or Marty were making. I never said anything about art house cinema, Jaws is an awesome movie. Spielberg's War of the Worlds too. the lack of humanity he's talking about imo has a lot to do with the abundance and reliance on CGI. there were more sets and practical effects in 2002, and obviously in 1975 with Jaws. the MCU and recent DC movies I've seen are frustratingly flat visually, stuck in a bizarre space that isn't so much uncanny valley as screensaver. this is true too of something like the "(x) Has Fallen" series. I think it's important to expand the critique beyond comic book movies because their fans and those studios really are not to blame and they're not doing anything wrong.

I also haven't seen enough of the MCU to say whether or not it's "cinema." Marvel is serving a happy fanbase and cleaning up. That doesn't seem like a death or a loss to me.

Disney is the only real enemy of the cinema. There is no life in something like The Jungle Book remake, or The Lion King. watching those movies is the only time I feel like I'm hooked up to life support.

Scorsese's not wrong, but when he was making Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and The King of Comedy, I don't remember him spending a lot of time criticizing what else was in theatres (there was garbage then, too). He was too busy making Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and Then King of Comedy. Cronenberg went through that too, around the time of Madame Butterfly and Naked Lunch.

Someone asked him about comic book movies in an interview, he didn't exactly go out of his way

I also haven't seen enough of the MCU to say whether or not it's "cinema." Marvel is serving a happy fanbase and cleaning up. That doesn't seem like a death or a loss to me.

I tend to look at it as the final, inevitable triumph of market efficiency. It's a formula for minimal risk and maximum potential profit. Hence why people defending MCU movies with a kind of shrug and "they're fine" is exactly the point of the likes of Scorsese. The point of those movies is to be "fine," to create as smooth and efficient a means as possible to deliver entertainment to as wide a group of people as possible. This is nothing new of course but the extension of branding accomplished via a "universe" of interconnected movies is--it's like looking at toothpaste in the store...there's nothing beyond superficial differences because to risk communicating something "human" as scorsese puts it is to risk, inevitably, turning some people off.

Secondly, the whole "they're fine" thing is pernicious because it confirms my suspicion that movies predicated on pure frictionless enjoyment actually are not really *enjoyed* by anyone...they're not even meant to be enjoyed, merely anticipated...and the whole wildly defensive posture the "fans" take are worthy of some more sophisticated psychoanalysis than I can muster right now.

I think plenty of comic book fans genuinely love the MCU. your description is 100% OTM of the Disney remakes.

the vast majority of people that see MCU movies are not comic book fans, judging by the actual sales of comic books

I think plenty of comic book fans genuinely love the MCU.

unfortunately I am doing that infuriating thing where I'm telling them that their understanding of their own experience is wrong!

whoever their fanbase consists of, I see a lot less mishegoss over Avengers and Spider-Man than the completely insane Star Wars community.

It does seem likely to me--for a variety of reasons, if none more persuasive than sheer novelty--that this bubble will burst.

the vast majority of people that see MCU movies are not comic book fans, judging by the actual sales of comic books

― Οὖτις, Friday, October 4, 2019 12:52 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

nobody is a fan of comic books because the comic book product is woefully undesirable and unavailable outside of specialty retailers

stooooooooooooop

fwiw I am excited to see the Irishman

Me too

loooool

Martin Scorsese is one of my 5 favorite living filmmakers. I was outraged when people picketed The Last Temptation of Christ without having seen the film. I’m saddened that he’s now judging my films in the same way. https://t.co/hzHp8x4Aj8

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) October 4, 2019

lmao

let us ponder the deep spiritual and personal issues explored in GOTG (a film I could not finish it was so atrocious)

ugh he never said he hadn't seen them, he in fact "tried" which says something abt his optimism as a film lover.

James Gunn unleashing a Tony Stark eyeroll gif on **Martin Scorsese** lmao

Not really Scorsese's fault that you made poor life decisions Mr Gunn

Guardians of the Bronx

Scorsese films >>>>> Marvel films

But he is still so wrong on so many levels here. Cinema literally began as fairground attractions, so saying films that feel like 'theme parks' aren't cinema is... just wrong. And also, part of why films like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull are good is because they feel like theme park rides gone very wrong. The best superhero films are the ones that are most purely theme park films, the ones that goes for psychology, Logan, Joker, aren't in any way an improvement. And First Reformed is just a simulacra of better art anyway, there's no difference.

All in all, so so annoying.

maybe Marty just saw Thor 2 or something

Thor 3 > Shutter Island. But that's as far as it goes, I think :)

What movies play in movie theaters is literally a zero sum game

― flappy bird, Friday, October 4, 2019 3:21 PM bookmarkflaglink

Literally two whopping theatres in my town regularly showed anything approximating art or indie films prior to the MCU. And they still do. The spaces the MCU takes just went to Apatow movies or whatever shit was hot

lets start talking about apatow movies and how whether they are more or less art than MCU shit to really get morbsy's goat

I really do wanna see The Irishman tho

i do also

being a huge fan of de-aging cgi as used in such movies as MARVEL'S Guardians of the Galaxy 2

What movies play in movie theaters is literally a zero sum game

― flappy bird, Friday, October 4, 2019 3:21 PM bookmarkflaglink

Literally two whopping theatres in my town regularly showed anything approximating art or indie films prior to the MCU. And they still do. The spaces the MCU takes just went to Apatow movies or whatever shit was hot

― When I am afraid, I put my toast in you (Neanderthal), Friday, October 4, 2019 6:48 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Never mentioned art house cinema. I'm talking about stuff like this: https://www.flavorwire.com/492985/how-the-death-of-mid-budget-cinema-left-a-generation-of-iconic-filmmakers-mia

Superhero movies are for 12 year olds

if only

Some trenchant-ass social commentary itt!

What movies play in movie theaters is literally a zero sum game

― flappy bird, Friday, October 4, 2019

i've already said my piece on this elsewhere but if you think Marvel pix are squeezing out "cinema" you haven't been to the movies since idk 1975.

smdh that anyone has time to complain about marvel anything when roland emmerich's still around

Never mentioned art house cinema. I'm talking about stuff like this: https://www.flavorwire.com/492985/how-the-death-of-mid-budget-cinema-left-a-generation-of-iconic-filmmakers-mia

― flappy bird, Friday, October 4, 2019

kudos to the author in the sense that citing toback as a credible source (in the #metoo era, even!) and Exhibit A of what we've lost is kinda, uh, man maybe this MCU stuff isn't so bad after all.