Film Martin Scorsese - Marvel movies are 'not cinema'
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Mafia Cinematic Universe. 
I watched “Taxi Driver” the other night for the first time in over 20:years and and it was just incredible. The awkwardness of the main character brilliantly portayed by de Niro, the dream-like cinematography, Hermann’s final film score….. So while not all films in the late 70s were that good and not all of Marty’s films are that good, he’s earned the right to call out puerile CGI trash.
The cinemas in the Odyssey and Victoria Square are both showing Lightyear, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Top Gun Maverick, and Doctor Strange 2 in the Multiverse of Madness this weekend.
Plenty of choice.
The problem with this is there's no breaks in a lot of cinemas. At least there aren't anymore. We used to have breaks here in Leeuwarden but then Pathé took over the local cinemas a few years ago and the first thing they did was cut the breaks. So now what happens when you do have to go pee is you miss a few minutes of the film and people get annoyed with you.
Reminds me, I have a longstanding belief that people prefer TV shows to movies because they aren't aware of how long they take to watch.
The idea goes something like, because TV shows are seen as 45 minutes each episode they appear to require less effort, when in actuality they require more effort as you can easily spend 3/4 hours watching a TV show in a single sitting.*
The idea moves onto something like there being a gap between people's perception of time* and how much attention span they believe they have. I haven't formulated it further but I'm sure God King Cameron agrees.
*Edit - By this I mean how much time they perceive to have availability.
The idea goes something like, because TV shows are seen as 45 minutes each episode they appear to require less effort, when in actuality they require more effort as you can easily spend 3/4 hours watching a TV show in a single sitting.*
The idea moves onto something like there being a gap between people's perception of time* and how much attention span they believe they have. I haven't formulated it further but I'm sure God King Cameron agrees.
*Edit - By this I mean how much time they perceive to have availability.
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Why would it be a bad thing to have more available to watch of something you enjoy watching?
Though I can see why someone would hope that most current films go by as quickly as possible.
I wonder if that was a way of saving on labour costs ? Less breaks, the less you have to pay the workers. Tbh the experience in most cinemas now are just dog shit.
Really great point.
The level of mental engagement required by the audience in a standard tv show like Hells Kitchens or even something like Strange Things is just lower than a good film. People can rattle off 3+ hours because the human brain is on low battery mode. Although I’m not sure this is a positive point for the Cameron new film.
It's a bit ironic to make that comparison in the Marvel thread.
I could make the same comparison between a random Marvel movie and some quality TV show and arrive at the opposite conclusion, that a quality show gets to take the time expand it's story telling in a way that's simply not possible in a movie.
I hope God King Cameron realises i'm going to wait for his movie to get released to watch at home. Then i'll pause it randomly every 20 mins to make a cup of tea or have a phone call, maybe watch it in 45 minute chunks over the course of 5 weeks. I'm sure it wont hurt the pacing at all and it'll work in whatever form I choose to watch it in.
Tbh there’s only one good tv show and it’s Twin Peaks season 3. Everything else is rubbish, including that one tv show about the depressed Italian guy.
Oh I didn't necessarily mean it in a bad way. More a reflection on conversations I've had with people who say they're "too busy" to watch movies but will spend more time watching TV shows.
It does irk me a little but only because I prefer movies to TV shows, which is a selfish point I know.
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Doesn't sound unreasonable to me to say that you (initially) only want to commit to one hour at a time and therefore you're more inclined to watch a whole episode rather than half a movie.
It's not unreasonable at all but if you then watch multiple episodes it was never about how much time you actually had, rather how much effort you thought you needed to put in.
It's the same with social media where people can unintentionally watch hours of short-form content, probably without realising how much of a time sink it was going to be.
What I'm saying is that I think we've been conditioned to believe we have shorter attention spans than we actually have, which I think is an interesting phenomenon.
It's Cameron's point too seemingly - that people have this perception movies are long when other activities they do are just as long, and in the case of TV sometimes even longer.
Edit - Of course if you do only watch an hour of a TV show then my point falls apart.
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I wouldn't make this about effort or attention at all. For me it's often about "what I should do" vs "what I actually will do", e.g. it's 10 PM you want to watch something and then go to bed at 11 PM, because you have to get up early the next day. Would you put on a movie, knowing it's guaranteed to finish long past your intended bed time? No, you'd pick a TV show that fits your intended timeline and then, because you're a degenerate, you'll "okay, maybe one more" yourself through to 2am.
Fair enough
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Cinemas need to rethink their model. 90% of film releases i'd just rather watch at home.
I feel like you could run something giving a screen or two to new releases and a screen or two to random other movies. Like Hitchcock films or Kubrick films or Horror Festivals around Holloween - seeing some John Carpenter movies on the big screen would get me into a cinema. But if they're going to fill 10 screens with the same Doctor Strange movie then they're dead in the water. They need to exert some independence from hollywood. Unionise and leave Disney out in the cold for a year if they insist on monopolising screen space.
Their death spiral is depressing but it feels like they're walking to their grave willingly so its hard for me to feel too sorry for them.
Most cinemas (or atleast the ones around me) show classic films every week. They also show world cinema films and there's always a Bollywood film or two available too. The film's are there, but unless you're actually into going to the cinema you're not going to look.
There's this train of thought that cinemas showing the latest blockbusters on multiple screens is bad for business. They literally do this to make as much money as possible. It's supply and demand. But they still leave screens open for other films.
People literally just don't look because they're not arsed about going to the cinema, and then complain when theatres want to make as much money as possible of blockbusters.
Theres small independent cinemas doing the same elsewhere. The bigger ones aren't just showing the latest blockbuster on multiple screens - they're filling 8 of their 10 screens with one movie. The remaining two will be playing last weeks blockbuster.
Wait, Prey is related to the Predator movies ? How did I not notice this.
It's just not true though is it?
My local Cineworld tomorrow is showing
Malanyankunju, where the crawdads sing, thank you, bajra da sorta, amongst all the actual blockbusters. They have a screening of robo cop next week.
My local vue tomorrow is screening two Sundance festival films, a classic James bond and chicken run, amongst all the other blockbusters.
The local odeon? The black phone (supposedly excellent btw), a Sundance film, 2 Bollywood films, a documentary on mcenroe, and a French cinema film.
You say 90% of the film's released you'd rather watch home, but you don't actually look at what's on offer. You're probably only aware of about 20% of the film's out in cinema at any one time. You say things like horror festivals around Halloween, this is already a thing. You just need to look.
Pretty much. There's still good movies playing even if they aren't on as much as the AAA ones.
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Maybe my local cinemas just suck. Mine is getting Minions, Thor and Where the Crawdads Sing with 10+ showings a piece. Then 1 showing for Top Gun, Sonic 2, Jarassic World and Lightyear. They have a screening of a kids movie on friday and nothing else (i dont even think they do that anymore tbh)
The IFI in Dublin does a lot of them kind of screenings and theres other smaller places most of which closed during covid. Cineworld in Jervis Street is pretty good to be fair. But they have 20 screens or something and the more interesting stuff is shown on smaller screens so its not much of a big screen experience.
Most of them films aren't improved much by the big screen experience or the massive speakers and i find the sound mixing in most modern movies a bit shit to be honest. More importantly the home cinema experience is just a hell of a lot better than it used to be and the gap is pretty small at this point.
I'll go to the cinema to see Dune or Alien Covenant. Sundance film i probably wont bother, with the distance from screen vs screen size i'm likely to see it on its probably much of a muchness. Bollywood films, documentaries, French films - are any of these really improved by watching on a massive screen? Does it make up for being sat behind a 10ft tall dude, with a 5 year old kid next to you bored out of his mind and half the people in the row in front on their phones with brightness turned up full for the entire movie?
So we question whether seeing world film/Bollywood/documentaries is worth watching on the big screen, but old Hitchcock/kubrick/carpenter films in cinema would entice you? Cool.
I think i'm having an aimless rant mostly. By and large i'd go to the cinema showing all of the above more than the alternative. But really it depends, if its a documentary featuring talking heads for 2 hours I'm probably not pushed, if its Baraka its another matter. I'm selective with what i go to I suppose and it'd be nice to have a selection. My local doesn't really or at least the selection when i walk past tends to suck. The above listing is probably a good day to be honest. Your doing well to get anything other than a kids movie or marvel superhero thing. Its not like they're even short of screens.
The dentist is a real human being
You might be right. I just checked out the offerings at the Lighthouse Cinema - which seems like Dublin's most independent one - and a lot of the movies are a bit shit.
https://www.lighthousecinema.ie/films/
No idea why they're curating a season devoted to 90s high school movies - you can watch most of those at home.
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Great article.
" A thing to remember, too, is it’s an elitist notion to be able to go to a theater."
That ones hit and miss. But sometimes good for fans of random obscure stuff. Like 90's high school movies.
Theres a lot of smaller cinemas in dubln doing different things with a good selection across them usually. But a lot of them independent cinemas dont have great screen sizes. And a lot closed during covid so its a bit thin on the ground at the moment. Hopefully a few come back.
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