Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

theculturenewspaper.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 565 posts

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#281

Post by boca_honey »

bdz wrote: post #134

I watch a film every single day since Covid. There are great films everywhere every year. I'm not american but the sooner you ignore the american cultural imperialism is the better (or at least the films that don't premiere at competition festivals). There is a whole world outside of America.

When compared to the nascent asian cultural imperialism, I'd rather have american media, to be honest. Over here in the global south, Hollywood was a pretty good influence compared with what I see around the anime/Kpop crew.

There is a whole world inside America. You can say that about every single country on Earth, but not every country on Earth produced The Godfather, Citizen Kane and Toy Story 2.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#282

Post by symfoniq »

ozim wrote: post #227
tyjen wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last movie we attended people were incredibly disruptive throughout the film, to the point that it was difficult to focus on the film. Some people enjoy screaming, laughing, and talking as part of the experience, but it's apparently been normalized beyond my tolerance threshold. Add in the cost and overall movie quality decrease of Hollywood productions, and it's difficult to justify. Presently, we watch foreign…

With current TV setups or projector technology I basically have cinema in my living room. As a kid who grew up in 90’s I would say it is easily better than what cinema had back then. I don’t have that high expectations of sound/video as many people will point out that streaming kills the quality but for all its worth still much better than what I need to enjoy a movie.

As a huge film buff, I sadly agree. And theaters in my area aren’t doing a good job keeping their projection technology current. When we went to see “Wicked”, my wife leaned over and whispered that it would probably look better on our 77” OLED, and she was absolutely right. The theater image was dark and lacked vibrant color.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#284

Post by bloomingeek »

tyjen wrote: post #157
WarmWash wrote: post #96

My fiance mentioned we haven't gone to see a movie in theaters in years and it would be fun to go. I checked what was playing and: 2 tickets, 2 sodas, 1 popcorn. $86 dollars. Don't know if I'll ever go to a conventional movie theater again.

The last movie we attended people were incredibly disruptive throughout the film, to the point that it was difficult to focus on the film. Some people enjoy screaming, laughing, and talking as part of the experience, but it's apparently been normalized beyond my tolerance threshold. Add in the cost and overall movie quality decrease of Hollywood productions, and it's difficult to justify. Presently, we watch foreign…

Sort of off topic, but almost the same can be said for music concerts. During slower or softer songs, people can be heard talking and laughing loudly. I get it, they paid their money, same as us, but we didn't pay to hear them.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#285

Post by msabalau »

dredmorbius wrote: post #164
jimbo808 wrote: post #86

Maybe I'm insane or it's my age, but I can't watch new movies/shows without just seeing propaganda agendas at every turn. Really kills it for me.

To be fair, there's plenty of that in older films and TV series as well, particularly "golden age" material from the 1940s -- 1970s, which played strongly off WWII, Cold War, and pro-business themes, with occasional ventures into counterculture works for the latter. The original Top Gun (1986) was describe at the time as the US Navy's most successful recruiting campaign ever, noted in this 2004 account citing 1990 co…

That's certainly why the Navy supported Top Gun.

At the same time, you certainly could reasonably read the film as being very dubious about the military. It opens with the psychological collapse of Maverick's wingman when a MiG locks on to him, Cruise's character has to defy orders to save him, and gets chewed out for doing so.

Maverick's original motivation is clearing his father name, not patriotism. Goose dies in a pointless accident. The final dogfight is random "rescue mission" against an unnamed foe in "hostile waters" in the Indian ocean, and Cruise's character almost abandons the fight due to PTSD.

Yeah, the almost pornographic love the camera shows to the jets probably made the actual story all be irrelevant to the Navy's recruiting success. But it's easy to imagine all the whining from the Fox news personality cosplaying as Secretary of "War" about such a film if it were made today.

Cheney was sensible enough to take the win.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#286

Post by tombert »

freedomben wrote: post #272
tombert wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning doesn't particularly matter to me, honestly. Whether or not it they need to charge a second mortgage to cover the cost of the theater isn't really my problem; these are for-profit companies, I don't need to do them any favor. Popcorn cost basically nothing to make at home, especially if you buy the raw kernels and pop them yourself, and I can rent a 4k version of a movie for like three dollars on Amazon…

I've had the same thoughts, also I sure don't miss the theater experience of having your shoes sticky with soda. God forbid you drop something on the floor like your phone, and have to feel around for it in the dark. The last time I went to a theater, I went to the first showing of the movie for the day. We were the only people in the theater. 30 minutes into the movie, the projection suddenly shut off and all the li…

I remember when I was watching Kick-Ass in the theater, there were some teenagers trying to be funny the entire time.

I initially very politely asked them if they could stop talking because we're trying to watch the movie, but they didn't take that very seriously.

After another ten minutes of their commentary I yell very loudly "SHUT THE FUCK UP!". Extremely loud, I suspect everyone in the theater heard me pretty clearly. I'm a pretty big guy and I have a very loud and deep voice, and of course the theater is dark, so they might have assumed I was more threatening than I actually am. The teenagers shut up for the rest of the movie.

The thing is, though, it kind of ruined the rest of the movie for me. The entire time I'm sitting there, kind of worked up and annoyed that I had to yell at some kids and ruin their Friday night.

I've certainly had good times in theaters too, I like movies, but I've grown a bit tired of it. Now generally the only time I go to the theater is the live showings of The Room.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#287

Post by like_any_other »

wat10000 wrote: post #229
longislandguido wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most if not all the ticket price goes directly into the studio's pockets. So the theatres stay alive by selling concessions. I'd wager everyone here complaining about prices would also wax poetic about how theatres don't "pay a living wage" to the kids scooping popcorn and would immediately drive home in their $100k Rivians or Teslas so they can give a one star review on Yelp or complain on Reddit about the bathrooms…

Why can’t I have it both ways? If all of those things are true, then the conclusion is that theaters can’t operate in a way that wins my business. That would be unfortunate, but it’s not contradictory. It also seems to be that pretty much true, as I see a movie in a theater maybe once a year.

> the conclusion is that theaters can’t operate in a way that wins my business

They can, if studios gave them a better deal: "Most if not all the ticket price goes directly into the studio's pockets."

That is not a fact of nature, but the studio's whim. If they want to drive theaters out of business and send all their customers to the pirate bay, they are more than welcome to.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#288

Post by [deleted] »

delichon wrote: post #70

The little dinosaurs are ignoring the great big elephants in the room: gaming. The article doesn't mention it. The market for video games in 2024 was around $225B, compared to movies at around $33B. Hollywood has worked very hard not to realize that their industry has become niche and have succeeded. My last week may be an indicator. I've watched zero TV or movies but have spent about 40 hours helping a small colony…

[deleted]

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#289

Post by underlipton »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #84
marcosdumay wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may want to watch again the movies that created the franchise. All the successful Marvel movies are completely based on the characters.

A lot of the best Marvel movies are really other genres wearing a marvel skin Look at Captain America: The First Avenger. It's a pulpy world war 2 film, really. If you took Captain America out it would still be a fun film. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a spy thriller Ant Man is a heist movie, like Oceans 11. Guardians is a sci fi comedy. After a while they started to all just become "Marvel Movies" and that'…

A lot of them are only "Marvel Movies" in their final act, which still leaves a lot of room for fun genre-surfing and -bending, before they have to get back to the business of, "This is part of a franchise." But even on that note, I don't think they get enough credit. Phases 1-3, Marvel et al. managed to wrangle a dozen films of varying genres, working through the stories of just as many main characters, into a single series with a coherent, overarching narrative. It was the biggest spectacle ever created in the Spectacle Industry, yet with a handful of examples of genuine cinematic sublimity (if not entire films, at least a few scenes), to boot.

And people would rather hate than just ride the wave.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#290

Post by bryan0 »

The only reason I like going to the theater now is to see movies in "4dx". It's a ridiculous format where the seats move and there are other special effects including air, water, and smoke which are custom edited for each chosen movie. It's like a combination between a movie and one of those amusement park rides. I think most people hate it, but my kids and I enjoy it. Tickets are ~$30 each though.

Otherwise I would just rather watch a movie on the couch at home. They come to streaming so quickly there's no problem waiting for it.

Post reply on HN