Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis • Hacker News Board

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#411

Post by washadjeffmad » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:35 AM UTC

pwthornton wrote: post #393

pipes wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 const…

>Movie theaters have to upgrade the experience

Or cheapen it. We've got two draft house style theaters that are social experiences that show older reels, things from the public domain, and local and independent film. Door policies vary, but until the set feature time, it's just like a pub with an extra big screen in the back.

It's also cheaper to operate without box office staff and doesn't degrade the experience. People could be always be better, but I'd say big theater chains and Hollywood are really what are out of touch.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#412

Post by shiroiuma » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:40 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #335

bloomingeek wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I went with my daughter to see Taylor Swift in Tokyo. It was an amazing experiences. Swift fans prefer recording Tokyo performances because fangs don’t sing along to the music or talk during the performance.

I saw Avatar 3 here in Tokyo where I live. It was great! I saw the Dolby 3D version. Popcorn was pretty cheap, tickets were reasonably priced, the audience was as quiet as the dead.

I've seen several other movies (normal ones, not 3D/IMAX/etc.) here since I moved here, and they were all the same. Audiences here have excellent behavior.

We're planning to see Project Hail Mary this weekend when it comes out, this time on IMAX.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#413

Post by dyauspitr » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:42 AM UTC

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #342

dyauspitr wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the cheese will be local and artisan, and the bread will be local and artisan, and it’ll be pretty freaking good, and remind you that you can make incredible food with simple ingredients. Simple ingredients should be cheap. It’s fucking cheese and bread, stop trying to normalize $15 for it. The raw ingredients are milk and wheat, both of which are incredible cheap.

You’re disregarding training, labor, and the intangibles of culture and tradition. Those things should be cheaper, but in America we’ve basically all but destroyed bakery artisanship at the altar of capitalist efficiency, so its rarity has now made its products more expensive. Cheese is in a slightly better position, but only barely, and very regionally-dependent (Wisconsin and Oregon, for example). So yeah, I don’t…

The difference between wonder bread and home bread isn’t rocket science. They use refined enriched wheat with a bunch of additives for shelf life whereas homemade bread is just wheat, water, yeast and salt. The raw materials for homemade bread are vastly cheaper. They make tons of factory processed bread that are dirt cheap and are indistinguishable from some artisanal baker making it.

Cheese has more nuance to it and I agree the difference between Kraft singles and an aged cheese are vastly different especially in time and labor. For instance Gruyère ages for a minimum of 5 months. All of that being said, your artisanal food truck isn’t making the Gruyère and only about $1.50 worth of cheese goes into it (compared to $0.35 if you used kraft singles).

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#414

Post by shiroiuma » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:44 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #343

ozim wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do live in an apartment and I am far from a millionaire. I don't have any of the problem - but I don't have "cinema sound system" as I mentioned whatever I have must have just clear sound and clear doesn't mean loud. I don't need "sound experience" to enjoy a movie.

> 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…

>you have to turn up the volume enough so you can understand the dialogue and either constantly turn it down whenever it gets heated or live with neighbors complaining.

It doesn't help that many actors these days have become students of the "mumble acting" school of acting. It's amazing watching some 50-year-old movie from the 70s and the dialog is crystal-clear and perfectly understandable.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#415

Post by groundzeros2015 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:49 AM UTC

awongh wrote: post #10

The cultural relevance of movies, and American made movies isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but I think the economics of streaming is finally playing out in the loss of the geographical concentration of power in Hollywood and California. This is the endgame of the feedback loop of streamers causing industry consolidation... the direct connection of dollars people spend to sit in a theatre seat was slowly declining,…

> The cultural relevance of movies, and American made movies isn't going anywhere

It already has. People under 20 do not have the connection to movies. They don’t have a share experience around it - maybe picking up a handful of family movies and the occasional marvel or spiderman.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#416

Post by raydev » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:49 AM UTC

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.

I remember my parents complaining about how expensive concessions were when I was a kid in the 90s too, and sometimes we would hit the gas station first and stuff snacks in my mom's bag to sneak them in to the theater. They also complained about prices if we couldn't do the Tuesday matinee.

Not sure anything's changed. The movie theater experience has always been expensive and I think your bill is pretty much in line with inflation.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#417

Post by theage » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:51 AM UTC

thefounder wrote: post #6

The main issue was the content the movie industry produced which looked like a lot like some AI slop. I think the DEI lecturing was another nail in the coffin. Unless that changes and they magically add something new to the cinema experience I think they will keep diving into irrelevance because now everybody can produce AI slop.

Do people even want their culture democratized with just anyone being able to produce high entertainment? The recent popularity of "Harry Potter by Balenciaga (2026)" AI fashion parody retelling shows we might actually be stuck in this cultural rut forever with or without AI help.

https://youtu.be/gtnt84CDP-s

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#418

Post by groundzeros2015 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:51 AM UTC

closewith wrote: post #125

awongh wrote: post #10

The cultural relevance of movies, and American made movies isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but I think the economics of streaming is finally playing out in the loss of the geographical concentration of power in Hollywood and California. This is the endgame of the feedback loop of streamers causing industry consolidation... the direct connection of dollars people spend to sit in a theatre seat was slowly declining,…

The cultural relevance of all kinds of American media has been declining as the U.S. is not cool or aspirational anymore.

They want to not care but they do. I’ll know when I stop seeing guys in Czech Republic talking about Idaho politics.

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#419

Post by sph » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:52 AM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #347

lazystar wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

games are global - NFL is solely american.

They do show the Super Bowl internationally however. I had a client in Brisbane who talked to me about it, as he had been watching it. The international audiences don't have to be fans of American football to take an interest in it for social reasons (the same way people watch sports they don't care about during the Olympics)

Four decades on this planet and I still don’t know a single person that watches or has ever watched it. (europe)

Hell, I don’t even know if it’s football or baseball, and I never cared to know. (Ah, your comment says it’s football, I’m sure I will remember — funny enough I have never watched a full game of American football in my life)

Re: Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis

#420

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:53 AM UTC

raydev wrote: post #416

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.

I remember my parents complaining about how expensive concessions were when I was a kid in the 90s too, and sometimes we would hit the gas station first and stuff snacks in my mom's bag to sneak them in to the theater. They also complained about prices if we couldn't do the Tuesday matinee. Not sure anything's changed. The movie theater experience has always been expensive and I think your bill is pretty much in line…

> The movie theater experience has always been expensive.

I don't think they were that expensive in the 1930s and 40s, maybe into the 50s. Supposedly, in the 1930s, they were around 25 cents, which $5 in today's money.

We've just seriously gone of the rails on pricing for some reason, but it probably started before I was born (in 75) and has just gotten a lot worse over time (so in the 90s, they were expensive, but are even more expensive today).