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'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

variety.com

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Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#91

Post by altairprime »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #45
altairprime wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A darkened theater with a glowing screen is precisely the sort of liminal space that is the topic of the movie. $20 to fall through the skin of the world for a couple hours? Seems like a no-brainer to me, given how rare and precious any liminal feeling at all is these days. And, if I go support this, maybe they’ll finally make a House of Leaves movie. One can dream.

I’d hardly consider a movie theater a liminal space. To me a theater is a destination, not a transitional area. That said I do like your description of “falling through the skin of the world.” A+.

Try seeing the movie using https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48018066 and sit in the center back row so that you can see the entire empty room as you watch it. Obviously this doesn’t work if everyone does it their first time (though I see some empty seats just a half hour away, so for evening Sunday showings it might be solidly reliable); I bet it hits different the second time too :)

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#92

Post by redwall_hp »

lmm wrote: post #76
arusahni wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "Steam for Movies" service (as expressed in an ancestor comment) is basically that, though. One doesn't own their Steam games.

But you can run Steam on Linux. You don't have to worry about whether they're going to discontinue the cheap Steam Box you were relying on. And they have built up credibility from decades of not pulling the rug, in a way that Apple hasn't and probably can't.

Apple has been running the iTunes Store without "pulling the rug" for about as many years as Steam has existed.

Hell, they ditched DRM on music in that time period too and will sell you lossless ALAC as well as MP4 audio. (They obviously weren't able to talk Hollywood into that.) Steam is DRM that ensures the capability to pull rugs.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#93

Post by redwall_hp »

extra88 wrote: post #58
righthand wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you use the app you’re only streaming from Apple servers. That Apple server copy can be revoked at any time. And 60% is not 100%, my point stands you need an expensive device just to purchase and watch it. Probably multiple expensive devices if you want to actually watch it on your TV. When can I download my movie onto my Linux laptop and play it through an HDMI cable?

You're moving goalposts and ignoring what I wrote. An Apple TV box is not expensive and you can use even cheaper streaming devices to buy and watch instead.

I buy/rent films on my phone, and play them through the Apple TV Roku app. (Roku sucks for its own reasons, but most TV platforms have Apple TV apps.)

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#94

Post by redwall_hp »

anamax wrote: post #61
darth_avocado wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Damon talked about this somewhere. The risk aversion stems from the move away from DVD sales. Historically a lot of low and mid budget movies relied on DVD sales to recoup costs even if theater releases didn’t get you as much money as you expected. With the safety net gone, studios don’t want to take the risk. They make big budget movies with massive marketing budgets that rely on known IP and established fan ba…

> Matt Damon talked about this somewhere. The risk aversion stems from the move away from DVD sales. DVDs and even video tape are relatively recent. Hollywood was a lot less risk averse before DVDs and video tape. Heck, Hollywood was less risk averse before TV became mainstream.

There was a lot more competition in the industry back then, before decades of consolidation. And less entertainment options competing for customers' attention.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#95

Post by ip26 »

jtokoph wrote: post #87
Triphibian wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a Youtuber recently make a compelling argument that one of the features Hollywood has been missing is the pipeline of young, imaginative talent that music video direction used to provide. Backrooms, Iron Lung, etc. make a good case that YouTube can be that new pipeline.

My first thought is that it would be the very successful YouTubers that get approached by hollywood. And those people are already doing well for themselves independently and would most likely not want to move to the corporate culture without creative control.

That's the exactly the role talent scouts fill - spot the ones that show glimmers of promise before it's obvious, and offer them opportunity.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#97

Post by smithcoin »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #60
altairprime wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A darkened theater with a glowing screen is precisely the sort of liminal space that is the topic of the movie. $20 to fall through the skin of the world for a couple hours? Seems like a no-brainer to me, given how rare and precious any liminal feeling at all is these days. And, if I go support this, maybe they’ll finally make a House of Leaves movie. One can dream.

I'm 150 pages away from the end of my current book. At which point House of Leaves shall become my current book. I'm looking forward to the experience.

The faster you read House of Leaves the better the meta-experience.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#98

Post by combyn8tor »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #31

All they had to do was simply hire a talented person who knows how to make compelling narrative art. This is lost on the movie industry, though Hollywood has been treading water for over a decade now, failing to examine its failures and coasting on inertia. In general, there is sooo much free money on the ground for large, hierarchical American corporations to do the following 1. Give young talented people resources…

I think that holds true for any industry where the consequences of failure are no more than loss of money.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#99

Post by chillfox »

radley wrote: post #69
righthand wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you use the app you’re only streaming from Apple servers. That Apple server copy can be revoked at any time. And 60% is not 100%, my point stands you need an expensive device just to purchase and watch it. Probably multiple expensive devices if you want to actually watch it on your TV. When can I download my movie onto my Linux laptop and play it through an HDMI cable?

> When can I download my movie onto my Linux laptop and play it through an HDMI cable? Probably because the Linux market is too small to support an iTunes for Linux. By my understanding, the Linux market prefers free, open source, community effort. So essentially the real question is: why aren't you making movies yourself and sharing them free with your Linux peers?

And yet, Steam is on Linux.

If the Linux market is large enough for steam to support it, then it should be big enough for a movie store to support.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#100

Post by smithcoin »

altairprime wrote: post #33
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #17

The what? Horror something? ....started on 4chan? Yeah, immediate aboutface here. And reading wiki articles about it that throw around words like "creepypasta" like that's widely understood? Liminal spaces I get. Reminds of Severance . And anyways, how is this worth going to a theater for? A24 has done well. Is 81M considered breaching 'mainstream'? Because these niche horror things being portrayed as part of the gre…

A darkened theater with a glowing screen is precisely the sort of liminal space that is the topic of the movie. $20 to fall through the skin of the world for a couple hours? Seems like a no-brainer to me, given how rare and precious any liminal feeling at all is these days. And, if I go support this, maybe they’ll finally make a House of Leaves movie. One can dream.

Another comment reminded me that there is a similar one called You Should Have Left.
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