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Unrelated movie trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRqxyqjpOHs
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.
Eh, People on their phones can’t be bothered with following plot lines everything has to be telegraphed
> 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
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.
Most movies are pretty bad. Always have been. I feel like I got scammed for paying to see 28 Years Later.
F1 on the other hand was maybe the worst offender as far as literalism is concerned.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
(Counterexample: "Sorry, Baby", which literally just came out.)
Eh, People on their phones can’t be bothered with following plot lines everything has to be telegraphed
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.