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Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

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Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#261

Post by weeblewobble »

iNane9000 wrote: post #93
handrous wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I won't mourn movie theatres (though I hope places emulate the likes of Alamo Drafthouse and do dinner, drinks and let us make an evening out of watching a movie), but I do worry about things like movie financing. It feels the industry has split in two, either making super-expensive superhero blockbusters or super cheap indie films. I'm informed by my cinemaphile friend that exactly this phenomenon has been much re…

How do I find these movies? Amazon has some old, mostly low quality movies, but nothing good or recent. They got rid of the criterion collection years ago. Sincere question: How does one even find or acquire films today? I’d love to watch a movie, but literally don’t know how to go about it anymore. Netflix is not an answer as most of their content are not movies and basically spam to me.

I never understood this complaint. There are dozens and dozens of recent, popular (good is subjective) movies on the front page of Amazon, Netflix and HBO Max right now.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#262

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

mullingitover wrote: post #67

We're arguably repeating history, where 100 years ago film was the upstart (but rapidly growing) business and vaudeville was the established incumbent. Film offered far more creative possibilities and were dramatically more immersive than the entertainment it replaced. Today the film industry is the incumbent - profits have peaked, and the upstart video game business has already eclipsed it. Once again, video games h…

I'm an avid gamer, but video games are in no position to replace films. The mediums are fundamentally different. A film is a story being told. A videogame is a template to explore your own story, some more filled out than others.

If you want to merely argue that video games will win the battle for people's time I could see that. My guess is movies will be like books; maybe not the biggest kid on the block, but eternally popular. You can't say that for vaudeville.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#263

Post by MisterBastahrd »

Trying to shoehorn a meaningful story into 1.5 hours is not great for storytelling. The production costs for 8 hours of streaming television isn't that much different from 2 hours of movie filming when filming for the same genre in the same manner.

Try to get 1.5 hours of meaningful story out of the recent Netflix production of Shadow and Bone, or any of the Game of Thrones books, without sacrificing major parts of the story (that weren't already being sacrificed in their expanded versions).

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#264

Post by lostlogin »

wolverine876 wrote: post #255

Barry: Call me. I'll show you where you can find great art in movies, an order of magnitude more than what was available before. I'm a big believer in data and not personal anecdotes, but if I can do it, Barry can (and you can). I never imagined so much incredible art existed on video as what I've seen in the last 5+ years on streaming. The standard for what I will watch has risen dramatically - I don't have to compr…

> I rarely go to movie theaters because what is available on streaming is so much better, it's not a close call.

Better seats, better sound (for me this means not being deafened), better food, better drinks, better price (and no dick moves to get a few more $), no parking issues, less annoying lights/sounds etc from other patrons. I also haven’t seen a theatre with a wood burner.

It misses is the feeling of it being an occasion, but as a plus it also misses any Covid anxiety.

I completely agree with you.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#265

Post by post_break »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #118

Through my work, I have access to Placer.ai, which allows me to track foot traffic to any retail location or chain via visitors' cellphone GPS. Here's AMC's nationwide foot traffic from January 2017 through July 4, 2021. https://i.imgur.com/s3H7EYj.png

For kicks can we see home depot and cabelas? If not no worries.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#266

Post by johnchristopher »

jandrese wrote: post #230
johnchristopher wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only watched the first season of Westworld and I found it very formulaic and full of common trope but it's been too long now for me to discuss it. Last série I really appreciated: the OA.

Westworld tied itself in knots trying to "gotcha" the audience. At the end of the day I think a more straightforward storytelling method probably would have worked better.

Westworld was also more or less my serie fatigue point. I was not a big consumer of TV shows and certainly didn't ever binge but nonetheless it was a tipping point.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#267

Post by indigodaddy »

marnett wrote: post #248
iNane9000 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I find these movies? Amazon has some old, mostly low quality movies, but nothing good or recent. They got rid of the criterion collection years ago. Sincere question: How does one even find or acquire films today? I’d love to watch a movie, but literally don’t know how to go about it anymore. Netflix is not an answer as most of their content are not movies and basically spam to me.

Friendly plug for kanopy.com. Amazing, changing collection and likely free signup and streaming (monthly-refreshing limit) with your local library card (:

Also/or, your library may give you access to a similar service called Hoopla. I have access to both via my local library, and I find Kanopy’s selection (and picture quality) somewhat better, especially for foreign (non—USA) content.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#268

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

mumblemumble wrote: post #145
majormajor wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a broader cultural issue for all sorts of art today, not a movie specific thing. The depressed/angry mood has been building for a couple decades or more, and getting more widespread. Even something intentionally over the top like Fast and Furious or Marvel has more "serious issue" stuff in many of the installments from the last 5 years than previously. It's easier in the news to see all the bad stuff that used…

Tangentially, last night I half-listened to an interesting YouTube video that used the history of Robin Hood movies to describe this trend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=428ZxrW6jhk It's a slowly escalating 45-minute rant, but I think that this quote from toward the end summarizes it fairly well: "I'm admittedly a little tired of seeing heroes always surrounded by worlds of gray, because, if they're there long enou…

>> They were visually dark, sure, but that was Tim Burton's aesthetics, and it was a package deal that came together with at least a few glimmerings of that same twisted sense of humor that got him fired from Disney for making Frankenweenie.

Heh. Like in Batman Returns were the Penguin yells at Batman: "You're jealous, because I'm a genuine freak and you have to wear a mask!". I loved that bit :)

Danny DeVito, man. A comedian playing a deformed super-villain. That was cinema, once. That was even superhero movies, once.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#269

Post by Y_Y »

afavour wrote: post #156
mumblemumble wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially, last night I half-listened to an interesting YouTube video that used the history of Robin Hood movies to describe this trend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=428ZxrW6jhk It's a slowly escalating 45-minute rant, but I think that this quote from toward the end summarizes it fairly well: "I'm admittedly a little tired of seeing heroes always surrounded by worlds of gray, because, if they're there long enou…

I think the simple answer is that movies tend to reflect the world around them. Not to get too political on HN but I think no matter your political stripes we can agree that the general mood of the country has been not great since at least 2015 or so. You could argue that means we need more escapism, not less, but somehow that doesn't happen.

> The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#270

Post by wozniacki »

nineplay wrote: post #53
handrous wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I won't mourn movie theatres (though I hope places emulate the likes of Alamo Drafthouse and do dinner, drinks and let us make an evening out of watching a movie), but I do worry about things like movie financing. It feels the industry has split in two, either making super-expensive superhero blockbusters or super cheap indie films. I'm informed by my cinemaphile friend that exactly this phenomenon has been much re…

> People who complain that nothing good is made anymore must just be looking at what's advertised heavily I can't speak for everyone but I think it's hard to find anything 'fun'. The indie films inevitably seem to be deadly serious, whether it's terrible crimes or failing relationships or the inevitably of death. If a viewer wants 'fun' then they're stuck with formulaic superhero blockbusters. It feels different. Spi…

The last good American indie film I've watched was Hereditary (2018) [1] and before that 'Blue Ruin' (2013) [2].

They weren't exceptional but when you're awash in 'swords & sandals', 'comic book' crap and Adam Sandler formula-thons, even middling fare seem great.

On the TV front, True Detective Season 2 [3] is sorely underrated. Though fictional, it gives you a glimpse into the many possible dimensions of California graft and corruption that are all too close to real life developments surrounding the recent California High-Speed Rail mismanagement junket [4].

I agree with the sentiment expressed in this thread that well-financed, movies for adults with good casting and talented filmmakers have become very scarce.

[1] Hereditary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereditary_(film)

[2] Blue Ruin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ruin

[3] True Detective (season 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Detective_(season_2)

[4] California High-Speed Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

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