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The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

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Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#291

Post by mrandish »

nilamo wrote: post #223
x0x0 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I know this sounds like get off my lawn, but people behaved better. Or maybe they didn't didn't, but the penetration of flashlights kept in people's pockets wasn't 100%. Which is pretty annoying now that a movie for two is like a $75 experience with popcorn.

> a movie for two is like a $75 experience with popcorn A ticket is less than $15 during the expensive times, and $10 off peak. Where in the world are you seeing movies? I get it, I don't go to the theater anywhere near what I used to, but the nice one near me with a bar and a player piano in the lobby is still nowhere near $75 for two tickets.

Went to see the F1 movie a couple weeks ago in suburban Northern California on a local theater's "LieMax" screen (ie not one of the ~30 real IMAX 15-perf film theaters in the world but just a slightly larger mall theater screen that (probably) has a newer bulb and more recently calibrated speakers). It cost just over $75 for two adults + a large popcorn, soda and bottle of water.

I was a bit surprised at the price too. Seems maybe 15-20% more than my last theater outing last Summer. We don't go often because we have a dedicated home theater room that's fully sound proof with total light control and 9 custom theater loungers on two levels facing a 150-inch screen with 4K HDR10+ calibrated digital laser projector and built-in 7.4.2 surround THX-rated speakers. While there was nothing wrong with the "LieMax" theater, the picture, sound, seating and overall experience at home are meaningfully better - even when everything works at the cinema and no one is annoying. And I say that as someone with fairly significant professional video engineering experience. Of course, one of the ~30 real IMAX screens is objectively better (when showing 15-perf 70mm film, which they don't always do) but the nearest one is nearly an hour drive, costs even more and has $15 in parking on top. The last time I went was for Oppenheimer two years ago. But short of going there, it's hard to see much reason to go to a local cinema if you have a high-end home theater rig (other than just having a night out).

There's not even an advantage to the claimed "big screen" at the LieMax. While I prefer a slightly larger theatrical field of view than most people (around 45 degrees), my FOV at home is 46 degrees sitting 12.5 feet from the floor-to-ceiling screen (https://acousticfrontiers.com/blogs/Articles/Home-theater-vi...).

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#292

Post by bitwize »

aydyn wrote: post #200
adrianN wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anime is such a broad genre that it is completely normal to dislike most of it.

Please, anime today is purely for children and teenagers. The golden age of serious anime is long over.

Your Name is a title that for me reminded me why I became an anime fan many years ago. In 2016 when it came out, anime as a whole was well into its slop era, but Your Name has near Ghibli tier animation and powerful emotional themes rooted in both traditional and modern Japanese culture. It was the exception that proved the rule about anime slop.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#293

Post by petters »

Cpoll wrote: post #217
rightbyte wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you bring up 4:3 as a bad property? Honestly I find watching 4:3 easier on the eyes and mind since you know where to look.

You might be an outlier. Our FOV is wide, so it's a better match. Furthermore, the 4:3 version of a movie is almost always a crop from the intended ratio, so information and intent is lost.

> Our FOV is wide, so it's a better match.

It's pretty big vertically as well. IMAX is close to 4:3

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#294

Post by bnjms »

mejutoco wrote: post #141
pjc50 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes no sense to me why should the service care at how popular any single title is as long as we are subscribed to their service I suspect that, like google's notorious killing of products with "only" tens of millions of users, this is a problem of internal structure. I bet that ranking of who gets into that row is a reflection of the social hierarchy between producers at Netflix whose compensation depends on i…

> At some point Netflix really focused on this, then like google throwing away search, they lost it. I believe Netflix had a big catalog when people signing their rights thought it was not going to work. Once the model was proven everyone created their platform and stopped licensing to Netflix. Then Netflix had to get closer to making their own shows, and their "discoverability" features centered around hiding how fe…

I’m sure this is the majority of it but it’s an incomplete analysis. Netflix is hampering discovery of even what they do have. I can go to a friends and they can pull up their Netflix with things I had no idea were currently on offer.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#295

Post by merelysounds »

somenameforme wrote: post #17

Fun fact: movie sales, in terms of tickets sold, peaked in 2002. [1] All the 'box office records' since then are the result of charging way more to a continually plummeting audience size. 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 m…

> 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.

This looks incorrect, at least according to Wikipedia; its list of films by box office admissions[1] includes a few Chinese movies from the 1980s with higher numbers.

Unless the 80s don’t count as modern times - but I’d say it’s not that far from the 90s.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_by_box_office_...

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#296

Post by JeremyNT »

privatelypublic wrote: post #272
zamadatix wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2002, watching a movie at home for most people meant flinging a low quality VHS or DVD onto a ~27" tube TV (with a resolution so worthless it might as well be labeled "new years") using a 4:3 aspect ratio pan & scan of the actual movie. Getting anything recent meant going out to the Blockbuster anyways. In 2022, watching a movie meant streaming something on your 50+" 16:9 4k smart TV by pressing a button from your…

This doesn't account for the decline starting in 2002. I'd like to see piracy numbers though- particularly the "official" mppa and riaa numbers

Back in the year 2002...

Internet access was widely available.

Blockbuster video was a thing in almost every town.

Netflix mail service was getting big, making huge back catalogs available.

DVD players often included S/PDIF out for surround sound, which was becoming a more common part of home theaters.

Plasma TVs were becoming far more common, dramatically improving picture quality and size versus CRTs.

HBO and other premium channels had already gone digital with set top boxes (that also often supported surround sound), and the death of analog broadcast TV was (theoretically) scheduled for 2006.

So while I probably couldn't find any single specific reason for a peak in 2002, we had a whole series of tech improvements in place that were slowly chipping away at the edges in quality and content availability.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#297

Post by Doxin »

watwut wrote: post #190
Doxin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People just don't have any media literacy anymore it seems. Every now and then you get some indie project that doesn't treat the audience as stupid, but then the discourse around it demonstrates that the audience in fact may very well be stupid. A recentish example I've run into is a song from Hazbin Hotel: Poison. They lyrics go on about how bad it is: > 'Cause I know you're poison > You're feedin' me poison > Addic…

The majority of music communication is not in lyrics, but in sound and tone of voice. All good artists know that and intentionally manipulate that. This song makes you, unambiguously, feel good. From lyrics alone, I would assume the protagonist is voluntarily part of abusive relationships. As in, they make choice to stay, despite knowing this is bad for them. I did not found sexual assault visuals, only abstract vide…

> The majority of music communication is not in lyrics, but in sound and tone of voice.

That could maybe be argued for music which is released as music. This song isn't stand-alone, it's part of a musical. You can't take it out of its context and then complain it doesn't make sense.

> This song makes you, unambiguously, feel good.

Maybe it makes you feel good. It makes me feel conflicted.

> From lyrics alone, I would assume the protagonist is voluntarily part of abusive relationships.

I mean that's part of the point. Angel thinks they themselves are to blame for the situation they find themselves in. Which isn't true of course, but that's how it goes with abuse.

> I did not found sexual assault visuals

Well look closer then. Angels whole thing is that he puts on an act of liking all the shit happening to him. But it's pretty clearly an act in the video.

> They are about wanting this bad thing to happen, despite it being bad thing.

Part of angel DOES want some of those things to happen. There's clearly an element of glamour he likes about it. That doesn't make the relationship any less abusive.

> I do not mean it as kind of major criticism or the song ... but it is kids gloves song about abuse and feelings that make someone stay in such relationship.

I agree it's a song about why someone would stay in an abusive relationship. That doesn't mean it's glamorizing abusive relationships though. I don't really care if people dislike the song, it's parsing the song as somehow being pro-abuse where I get annoyed, because it clearly isn't. It's a realistic portrayal of how some abusive relationships work. Obviously people in them feel like they want or need to stay in them or... they wouldn't.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#298

Post by ghaff »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #248
nozzlegear wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to make this point myself. I think my wife and I have seen maybe three or four movies in a theater since COVID. Our theater didn't even close during COVID (they started marathoning older movies like Harry Potter), but once the big companies started releasing new movies directly on streaming services, we realized how much better seeing a new movie in the comfort of our own home can be. So now we just wait…

> once the big companies started releasing new movies directly on streaming services, we realized how much better seeing a new movie in the comfort of our own home can be As someone who is blessed to live in a city where multiple cinemas screen old movies and therefore go to the cinema very often, I must say I can’t disagree more. The experience of watching a movie in a cinema is to me incomparable to watching on a t…

Tastes vary. I was on the executive committee of my college film group yers ago and going to weekend films was a lot of fun.

These days? Maybe an Imax film is a once a year experience.

I keep in touch with a lot of people I was on the film committee with and I'd say the opinion is pretty much split between people who still go to the theater a lot and those who basically never do like myself.

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#299

Post by nozzlegear »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #248
nozzlegear wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to make this point myself. I think my wife and I have seen maybe three or four movies in a theater since COVID. Our theater didn't even close during COVID (they started marathoning older movies like Harry Potter), but once the big companies started releasing new movies directly on streaming services, we realized how much better seeing a new movie in the comfort of our own home can be. So now we just wait…

> once the big companies started releasing new movies directly on streaming services, we realized how much better seeing a new movie in the comfort of our own home can be As someone who is blessed to live in a city where multiple cinemas screen old movies and therefore go to the cinema very often, I must say I can’t disagree more. The experience of watching a movie in a cinema is to me incomparable to watching on a t…

> It’s not only the bigger screen and better sound system. The act of sitting yourself in the cinema with other people to actively engage with a movie transforms the experience.

I think I understand that, it's just not for me. I've never felt that other people do anything but subtract from my experience in watching a movie. And I'm not saying that to be cynical or because I dislike social experiences – I'm an outgoing person and enjoy being around other people; I just don't want to watch a movie with them.

Plus I'm lost without subtitles, even if the dialog is crystal clear!

Re: The new literalism plaguing today’s movies

#300

Post by Doxin »

anal_reactor wrote: post #60
Doxin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People just don't have any media literacy anymore it seems. Every now and then you get some indie project that doesn't treat the audience as stupid, but then the discourse around it demonstrates that the audience in fact may very well be stupid. A recentish example I've run into is a song from Hazbin Hotel: Poison. They lyrics go on about how bad it is: > 'Cause I know you're poison > You're feedin' me poison > Addic…

1. People are indeed stupid. I don't understand why there's so much belief in human intelligence while there's so much proof of the contrary 2. Sometimes intelligent people don't want to engage with the media. Attention is a finite resource, and when I'm tired after 8 hours of work, 30 minutes of recommended daily exercise, two hours of house chores and one hour of depressive thoughts, I just don't have the energy to…

Finding media to be not to your liking is fine. Only half engaging with it and then calling out the authors as being in favor of sexual assault because you misread what's going on is absurd. That's the behavior I am complaining about.
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