Hollywood has been going through a similar cultural problem that gaming has. They have been extremely woke, and I'm sorry that people won't like that, and they have made movies to make far left critics happy instead of audiences. Not all are like this but this has dominated the industry. There have been some big moneymakers in recent years an the industry could try to make movies for audiences again but they have gotten into this space where they have to make the Academy happy. There was those Danish filmmakers at a press conference talking about their movie set in the 1700s, or something like that, and the press were whining about the lack of diversity in a historical Nordic film. I think if they decide to make movies people want to see and stop using Millennial vernacular in all script writing, they will see people wanting to watch movies again.
Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
391–400 of 565 posts
Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
#392Earlier 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…
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 am with you on everything but the TV speakers. They are awful because TVs are so thin. They are running into pure physics. Get a nice soundbar, and it's a huge upgrade. Get one with separate rear speakers and a sub, and it's pretty great.
But the experience is way better than when we were kids. Watching Jurassic Park on a 19-inch CRT with mono audio was nothing like going to the theater. The delta between home and cinema was massive. Now I have a 77-inch OLED with 4K HDR and an Atmos sound setup. I'd take my home setup over a generic cinema screen. Only the premium large format is a noticeable upgrade. It's hard to justify shelling out a ton of money for the movie and snacks for similar audio/visual quality to home, and the risk that the person next to me is checking their phone the entire time (happened a year ago, and it's super distracting in a dark theater).
I buy popcorn kernels in bulk at my local grocery store, and we go through a lot of popcorn. It might cost $10 a year in kernels to regularly eat popcorn at home when you pop it yourself.
Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
#393Earlier 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…
Everyone I know with an Espresso machine still goes to coffee shops. Beer is cheaper from a super market but everyone I know prefers pubs. For some reason this does not hold with cinemas. I way prefer the escapism of the cinema to sitting in my house surrounded by my usual ambient domestic Todo list. Sure I have a very good oled, amazing surround sound, but I'd take the cinema every time. But I can't due to kids. How…
I would generally agree with you except for three points: 1) the price of going to the cinema has surged so much that you have to budget for it in a way you didn't before. 2) I can pause a movie at any time and go to the bathroom or get a new drink. The lack of intermission during longer movies at the theater is rough. 3) The behavior of moviegoers continues to decline. In particular, people with untreated ADHD constantly checking their phones is really distracting. A phone screen really pops in a dark movie theater. And when I watch these people check their phones, they aren't doing anything other than habitually dicking around.
I can go to the movie and there is a decent chance people will talk through the movie or will be on their phones, etc. Or I could watch at home and be guaranteed a great experience.
Movie theaters have to upgrade the experience. They need to police patrons like they used to. They need to sell better food and drinks. And they need to get the pricing model under control.
Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate this. Like the ticket is not expensive already, they also feel like feeding you ads. And then wonder why people don't go to the cinema and wonder if they can increase the amount of ads to compensate...
Ticket sales typically go to the distributor, those ads are how the theater makes money
As a customer, though, I don't really care about the theater's pricing structure. If I'm paying for a pricey ticket, I don't expect to be advertised to. If the theater experience is lousy, I won't go to the theater.
Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe one could reasonably blame on-line video and or video games if this were a global phenomenon. But it isn't. China and India are going gangbusters. Japan is thriving and doing strong work. Nigerian cinema is projected to hit 3 million ticket sales for the first time this year. The UK--is at least stealing work from Hollywood with tax breaks. Korea had a rough patch, which they turned around by doing more mid-mar…
Everytime I see a trailer for an american film I feel like it's the same crap just re-hashed with different actors and the same plots over and over again. Give me something original. Something from Japan, Turkey, India, someone with a new idea. The Koreans? Yup, they push the boundaries of story telling. For example the School Nurse Files, that was either one of the best or the worse series I've ever seen. I'm still…
It's funny that you mention Japan, because I live here and I swear 90% of Japanese movies/dramas/animes are just rehashes of the same ideas over and over again. I guess only the good stuff gets exported.
Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't need "sound experience" to enjoy a movie. Unfortunately, most cinema movies are not properly remastered in their audio tracks, but keep the original cinema mix. That results in very silent dialogue (which is not a problem in a cinema, at least as long as people behave and don't yap around all the time) and very loud sequences particularly in action shots. When you now give such a movie to your usual home th…
Thanks for clarifying that. I always thinking it was due to my bad hearing or lack of fluency! English is my second language, and without subtitles, I'm having trouble to understand the dialogues without increasing the volume until I reach a level where I also got disturbed from the sound effects, bg music etc. It's a bigger issue with movies, not only due to what you explained about sound mixing, but also error corr…
Watch out for any show with Christopher Nolan as director. He is notorious for terrible audio mixing, and having actor mumble and otherwise dictate horribly.
As an american and English as my only human language, even I need subtitles.
And the movie "Tenet" was so bad that I ragequit 30 minutes in. Horrible horrible audio.
Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
#397Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where is that? Tickets here are only $7-10 each (except maybe some IMAX or similar showings) and two drinks and popcorn would be $15-25 for two people (size dependent). This is in Colorado. EDIT: I was going off of memory, but matinee/child/senior pricing is apparently $9.75 at the theater I usually go to, evening is $13.25 (I never go in the evening, had forgotten what that price was). They have a two drink and popc…
I thought tickets had more standard pricing across markets. For a standard ticket here in SF -- (I know we're comparing probably the highest end to the lowset end here) -- its $22. For IMAX its about $30, at your standard AMC. Indie theatres are not cheaper and are often more expensive. 7 dollar tickets I haven't seen since elementary school
Other side of the pond here (western Europe), but I pay 6 in an indie cinema, 12 if I went to IMAX and similar (which I never do because most of those are dubbed).
Popcorn and drinks is usually roughly the same price as the ticket, though the smaller ones frequently forbid it - they claim for the experience, I wonder if it's that or not wanting to clean between passes.
I go weekly, though rarely American movies.
Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don't productize something you won't make money and then you'll starve and die.
Then UBI. This is a failure of our economy, which creates perverse incentives. Clean air, clean water, good food, plentiful housing, and opportunities for sport, contemplation and art are the things we need, but our economy incentivizes people to pollute, sell slop, restrict housing, and exploit ourselves and others.
We’re not going to pay you to sit at home and wank while the rest of us keep the lights on. It’s not happening.
The day people like you can do that is the day society collapses.
Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
#400My 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.
I stopped going sometime mid-2000s, not because of the cost or the quality of movies, but because of the quality of my fellow movie watchers, who were pretty awful to be honest (at least in Silicon Valley at the time):
- Lord of the Rings: a family came in after the movie started with a cluster of helium balloons, each of which eventually got loose and floated around the theatre. A small balloon creates an outsized shadow on the screen when it floats in front of the projector (e.g., sometimes a third of the picture would disappear).
- A Beautiful Mind: Several guys, in different spots in the theatre, would wait for a quiet moment in the movie and say loudly "Oh my beautiful mind". One guy had a squeaky seat, so each time he said his bit, he would squeak his chair 5 times.
- Panic Room: Two people directly behind us just laughed hysterically at seemingly every line in the movie.
Also, the advertisements went on too long (20 minutes maybe?) and were also rock-concert loud.
Last night, I watched Wolfs (Apple TV) in my living room with my spouse and we enjoyed it. It's not a great movie, but it's good, there are no ear-splitting advertisements, and the audience is well behaved.
Edit: Later in the 2000s I did see a few Coen brothers films in the theatre, and those were good experiences, but I still avoided the theatre for the most part.