You want to re-calibrate from the constant barrage of content? Find a way to watch The Wrath of God its a good movie that opens with a series of 30 second set shots of water flowing. Its like anti-transformers level of stillness
i mean some of the movies film professors pick, i had trouble sitting through, uh, 20-30 years ago (that is not an estimate i was one of those students) so is this on the professors? what are the films?
Love that people complain about the length of movies while simultaneously happily siting through eight, hour+ long episodes of Stranger Things over two evenings.
Especially when many hours could have easily been left on the cutting room floor of most streaming shows, but they need to streeetch the runtime so that the writers can meet their contractual, or whatever other internal requirements.
My favorite is when they they say something like “it starts getting good in season 3”. Like I’m going to watch tens of hours of a show that kind of sucks just to see if it actually starts getting good or not?
Of course, the reality is that they aren’t really watching the show like I would - as in, they aren’t sitting down and giving it their undivided attention. The show is on, but they’re also on their phones the entire time, or it’s on in the background and they are doing something else, or whatever. Probably one of the reasons why the show feels like it’s full of filler - they need to make sure that someone that’s only sort of paying attention can still follow what’s going on.
I’m pretty sure that’s actually true.
Love that people complain about the length of movies while simultaneously happily siting through eight, hour+ long episodes of Stranger Things over two evenings.
Because a movie is a constant continuation, where as each episode has a hard end and you can stop and decide if you want to continue or stop.
Except that if you look at the stats, most Netflix viewers binge watch (88% here), and most engage in long binges (70% here reported 5 episodes or more at a time), binge watching is by all accounts ‘the norm’ for streaming service users.
So while you may be able to ‘decide if you want to continue or stop’ the statistics show that the vast majority of people end up watching much, much longer than a movie runtime - which was my point.
People tend to be more willing to do a lot of something if it’s broken up into smaller parts.
As an example, my great-grandmother used to always cut desserts and appetizers into smaller sizes if she noticed they weren’t being eaten. No one would take a large slice of cake but lots of people would take a small slice and then another small slice after. My grandmother took that advice from her and so did my mom, and it really does work very well. Same applies to movies and tv shows.
thumbnail of The Brutalist (4 hrs long) okay perhaps not the best example
And not exactly 4 hours of easy watching.
It’s not for the Marvel crowd but it’s an amazing movie wIth world class cinematography and it sucks you in.
It didn’t seem like 4 hours at all to me.
yeah i didn’t regard it as a particular difficult film at all.
but people are different and at different levels. tons of people in this thread seem to flip out at the notion some films aren’t for everyone. not everyone reads at the same grade level, but for some reason the idea of films being at different levels is very offensive to folks.
running a marathon is a lot harder than running a mile. and we have people who can’t run a mile telling us marathons are stupid and shouldn’t exist.
Thanks for explaining that different people like different movies. Truly groundbreaking stuff, right up there with the marathon metaphor.
Hey chadGPT, summarize this Fellini for me.
Great question, let’s dig into this! Federico Fellini’s 8½ is a sequel to his previous hit film Se7en, and its protagonists are a group of eight friends. One of the friends becomes a father, and his baby counts as the “½” in the title. The group gets into various crazy adventures, such as being a failed film director, fantasising about hot women, having mommy issues, and hating religion. The overall message may be summarised as: friendship is magic.
Do you have any further questions on French New Wave films?
Of course. Give them a camera. Their natural desire to be in control will take over.
Why pick a major you hate??
I don’t think the kids hate it, just that the attention span isn’t what it used to be.
But it also works for us imo, to a degree. I at least find the pacing of 80’s or 90’s tv much calmer. And I daresay a movie from the B&W era would be slower still.
And I don’t think there’s yet a professional short-form making masterclass so that’s where the kids end up
Ever watch 2001: A Space Odyssey? I love it, but man it’s slow.
Also it’s a movie that asks more questions than it answers, which annoys a lot of people.
I saw Terminator 3 in the theater. The first 20-30:minutes, with that crazy chase, I was like, is this going to be the whole film? Eventually it does show down and take a breath, but I still remember my initial reaction to that.
a lot of people are idiots if they are looking for ‘answers’ in entertainment products.
i don’t expect my car to tell me the purpose of life. i expect it to get me places.
and the purpose of film class is to teach you how films work as a medium and learn to analyze them as such. not to entertain you.
a lot of people are idiots if they are looking for ‘answers’ in entertainment products.
Yeah psshtt they can go to their mom to cry about “satisfying narratives” and “stories which make sense”.
A car is a mode of transport. That’s why it doesn’t tell you shit, but you can use it yo travel. However movies aren’t modes of transportation, and instead are media for stories.
Is this all honestly news to you? Have you hit your head? Want me to call an ambulance?
sorry, do you think all stories must be a certain way? or subscribe to a certain structure?
i mean, there are lots of different types of cars. a monster truck isn’t for travel, not is drag strip racer.
No, I’m just not a twat who threatens people with violence with they have a different perspective. Do you want to go beat the crap out of Stanley Kubrick because he didn’t make the movie you wanted him to make? Does it offend you that thinks you don’t like or enjoy, exist?
“A certain way” in much the same sense all cars need four+ wheels, a steering wheel and an accelerator and some breaks. If I get into the tiny details, having lights is also rather good.
What you were saying is that it’s unreasonable to expect stories to be… well, stories. You know, with a beginning, middle and end?
Unless you’re trying to tell me that two-wheeled chain driven transport with no steering wheel or motor is also “a car”, I think I’ve made my point.
i’m not aware of any definition of story that requires it have those elements, or they be presented in that order.
you have a very narrow definition of what a story is, and seem to think anything outside of that structure is bad or wrong.
i mean you can define a car however you want. doesn’t mean other people have to drive such cars or agree with you. definitions change. is a semi truck a car? it has all those qualities. but i wouldn’t call it a car and i’d considerate to have zero overlap with operating a car, hence why operating trucks often requires a CBD and not a regular drivers license.
I’m guessing you never took a college level film class? I took several. A lot of the movies we watched, and I’ve seen seen outside of class, don’t subscribe to your definition of story at all. I still very much enjoyed them and thought some of them were far superior to marvel movies.
Understood. You have no identity within reality, and thus everything is suspect to be artificial. Which is the state of Being within reality: non-belief (not merely as reality, but as a potentiality of reality).
One is drawn into a conclusion which is based upon the presupposition of non-reality. Which leads them deeper into their own suspicions, i.e, things and even critiques are not real, which means ‘I am Correct’, perpetually.
It seems complicated. Such a interesting state of being. Continue…
When movies become great again (MMGA) then we will watch them with rapture attention.
What we have now are filmmakers who are attempting to remake the magic of films from their childhood (when films represented a kind of currency, or surplus value) or else draw us into a retrospective continuation of filmia-as-philosophy. Like scripture vs. apologetics (if one can follow).
Late-medieval and European-rennaissance art was actually reactionary, prescriptive, imitative craftsmanship. What we often conceptualize as masterpiece is actually imitation (Roman classical-cum-Greek, Van Eyk, etc…), which falls far short of the truly revolutionary. We remember film as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle version of painting-as-art, when it was historically nothing more than coding (presentation).
Which means we have an artwork which is imitating an artwork, which was an imitation. Which is boring. And people who want a job in that industry are willing to observe the small number of instances in which true artistic innovation was evident, but don’t actually believe they will be permitted to engage in such exploration. Which is boring and trite.
