As someone from a country that has A LOT of piracy, we pirate because we don't have access. The loss is zero because there is no release in the country. But the streaming generation cant download a torrent to save their lives so def not a suspect.
mubi subcription is heavy toll on my monthly budget since i was only making 250 american dollar so i will continue to pirate movie. But since going to cinema is cheap in my country, around 2 american dollar, i always try to watch new movie on the big screen.
Also, I have a personal beef with Amazon, because they once charged me for an Audible subscription I had canceled two months prior. I had had a month with no charge from them, post cancelation, then, suddenly, a charge the next month. So I deleted my Amazon account, and will never willingly pay them another cent. So, anything on Amazon Prime is free game, as far as I'm concerned, matey
I also think the piracy "problem" is blown up. I say this because in a lot of countries there is no other way to watch a certain movie, sometimes it gets no theaters release, it is not in your country in any streaming service and sometimes not even for online rental for your country too (or it is expensive to the point that even if you didn't pirate you wouldn't spend money with it anyway), most people still spend money for the legal experience if they have the means to
I think currently the piracy problem is a marginal issue. However with Warner and Disney starting to burry their own movies and shows leaving us with no legal options to watch them, it is likely to grow into a bigger issue.
Online piracy has never been the big issue that scaremongers made it out to be. It is by definition a legally questionable activity, mostly underground, requiring a degree of technical knowledge and savvy to do properly, and overall a bit of a hassle. The average consumer will never want to keep up with which torrent trackers are up or down, which have been replaced by low-quality clones, how to download files that are compatible with your media player or smart TV, importing separate subtitle files, setting up dedicated storage, moving files around on flash drives, etc. I would never bother pirating a movie that I could easily access through an affordable rental, or in the library of a reasonably priced streaming service.
The biggest influence piracy has had in film and other media has never been how it's affected the numbers, but how greedy execs have tried to fight back, and thereby create a worse situation for everyone in the process. I'd say the move to streaming was at least partly pushed by the notion of execs wanting to fight fire with fire against P2P and unofficial streaming platforms like Popcorn Time and the likes. Spotify, DRM madness, online stores, permanently online games, etc. all seemed at least partially influenced by the "war on piracy" and so on as well.
@@tomleonard830that still wouldn’t make piracy the problem: if the movie is buried and unavailable, then there’s no way for the studio to get your money for that movie, so they can’t complain that they aren’t receiving your money if you watch it.
I think your last sentence is the key one: «Most people still spend money for the legal experience if they have the means to.» Will there always be people who don’t consider the ramifications of their actions, or selfishly don’t care, or are cheapskates? Of course. And platforms like Disney+ and Spotify have been training people to expect complete access to “everything” for unsustainably low prices. Which will inevitably lead to more people feeling like whatever amount they’re paying, and no matter to whom, “covers” whatever movies/TV they want to watch. But I’m willing to bet that, much like with music piracy (which we have pretty solid data on), pirated viewings are mostly not lost sales. If the pirate’s only options were “pay and watch” or “don’t pay and don’t watch”, they wouldn’t pay for it. Period. Because it’s not important enough to them or not as important as other things or because they can’t afford it at all. So piracy represents people watching movies without paying for them, yes, but it doesn’t represent the movie studio (or online platform, or whoever) getting less money than if individual movie piracy didn’t exist.
Going to the movies alone is liberating. I get to connect with the film directly. No looking at my friends to see if they're having fun, no one bothering me to pass the Twizzlers, no banter from the people who came as clingers-on and don't care about the experience. Just me, the screen, a comfy chair, and some popcorn. I get to experience all the emotions the filmmakers want me to experience and no one will judge me for normal reactions like crying or laughing.
THIS. Particularly for the talking and asking. I swear that everytime people ask me things like "Is this the bad guy"... Im also watching this for the first time, LETS FIND OUT WATCHING THE MOVIE.
I once saw a talk by John Clease. He said "directors are not that important to the creative process of a film." I was thinking "maybe not YOUR films..." He tended to do films that relied heavily on writing. The direction was often not the most creative part.
A while back someone posted a clip from an 80s movie with a very long shot from a movie with no cuts. Most of the replies were impressed but Cleese tweeted that he prefers it when directors DON'T call attention to themselves!
@@Mokkari77 I was a college freshman and considering possibly being a director. I wasn't all that serious about it, but it was still frustrating to hear.
I think the question about RUclips is actually identifying the symptom of a larger truth: that people tend to follow the path of least resistance. I love movies and tend to watch 2-3 movies a week. But, at the same time, I hardly ever go to the movie theater anymore. Furthermore, those 2-3 movies that I do watch I have to basically force myself to press play on. Why? Because a lot of the time I'm tired (either physically or emotionally) and don't feel like emotionally investing in a 2 hour cinematic experience. That's why a lot of the time I'd rather default to watching "cheap" RUclips videos or Twitch streams instead (not to downplay the effort and dedication that it takes to make engaging RUclips videos or Twitch streams, by the way, it's just that they feel less consequential than movies do, at least to me). So I think one of the reasons that cinema seems to be dying is the ease of access of non-traditional media and disposable streaming content such that people follow the path of least resistance and just put on something easily digestible on their TV at home. BIg event movies and safe IP franchises get people to make the effort to go to the movie theater, but otherwise they'd rather just sit on the couch after a hard day's work and put on Netflix/RUclips/Twitch and chill.
I’m the same, I love movies and tv but most of my time is spent on RUclips. I think this extends to tv as well since so many families used to spend their evenings watching sitcoms or whatever random crime show was on CBS. Those shows are dying FAST because “disposable” content on RUclips is replacing all of that. I think the place for (adult-oriented) movies and tv is going to be much more mature, thoughtful, and artistic because people clearly still have an appetite for good art, but the idea of going to the theater for a dumb, forgettable comedy is long gone and the same is almost true for watching that same thing at home. There are just so many better things to do.
Question timestamps: [RUclips] 1:47 "Why wasn't COVID/Capitalism/Audiences a suspect?" 3:01 "Are YOU killing cinema?" 4:12 "Roger Rabbit popularized multiverses before Marvel did." 5:42 "People have realized that movie watching is pointless." 6:29 "Movies take conveying their messages more seriously than being entertaining, which is leading to their demise." 8:39 "While actors as stars have diminished, writers and directors have increased their draw." 11:32 "Regarding comedies, SNL no longer turns its cast into stars like it used to." 13:51 "Any advice for someone who wants to go to theatres but doesn't want to go alone?" 16:43 "Denziel Washington is a movie star." 17:21 "I caught two Batman references in the script." 17:42 Two comments saying whether or not they watched the Halo TV series. 18:20 "The magic is gone." 19:14 "Who is Raven Thigpen?" 19:51 "Audiences have infantilized, the market is oversaturated, and the young are ignorant." 20:20 "Please lay your hands flat on the table." 21:18 "When will Video Games be considered traditional media?" 22:46 "What about internet piracy?" 26:42 "There were good comedies this year." [Discord] 28:17 "Has 'Everything, Everywhere, All At Once' taught studios to greenlight maximalism, or multiverses? And has modern cinematic storytelling reached a ceiling?" 33:08 "Whom are you predicting to be the next wave of movie stars?" 34:40 "The pandemic should have been a suspect." This question was later edited to say that the pandemic should not have been a suspect. 36:45 "Prestige TV is killing cinema, and it isn't a bad replacement at that." 39:09 "Wouldn't streaming be less of a problem with a rental model instead of a subscription model?" 41:55 "Is there a movie or TV show you think slipped under the radar?" 43:42 "Roger Rabbit is a serious culprit." 45:03 "Is superhero fatigue related to a decrease in quality, and if there is such a decrease is it a coincidence or related to the factors mentioned in your video?" 47:56 "Big movies are still being made." 51:13 "Not just cinema, but art industries in general are dying." 54:54 "Imagine if cinema had modern trends in the 1970's." 56:09 "I loved 'Crimson Tide' and barely remember 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage.'" 57:53 "Prestige TV is killing cinema because TV gives auteurs creative freedom." 59:35 "What guided your moustache choice?" 1:02:12 "How did Roger Rabbit affect the evolution of cinema? And was Poirot chosen to hint that every culprit was guilty?" 1:04:17 "Who will be the next big star?" 1:07:21 "Didn't the pandemic actually help cinema?" 1:11:46 "What if infrastructure is killkng cinema?" 1:14:08 "How has streaming and social media affected the way in which movies are marketed?" 1:15:46 "Will Netflix eventually give their movies theatrical releases?" 1:17:21 "Will second-run theatres ever be viable again?" 1:18:48 "Are characters an alternative for movie stars? Also, what is your movie-watching schedule?" 1:21:31 "As someone who works at a theatre, I often hear the director cited as a reason to see a new release." 1:23:16 "We are, in fact, seeing the resurgance of the movie star." 1:25:07 "Why the shift in storytelling from scifi-comedy to office sitcom?" 1:27:38 "What exists beyond the binary of auteur theory vs. corporate mandates?" 1:31:10 Conclusion/ P.O. Box
I wholeheartedly support going to the movies alone. You don't have to figure out which of your friends would be interested in seeing what you want to see and then deal with the logistics. It's just you and whatever is on the big screen.
I once tripled down on this and went to a foreign country to spend a week at a film festival. Highly recommend it to anybody who can get the money together, it’s an amazing experience.
In think the rationale for why it’s a common thing is so that you have someone with you to talk about the movie with after. But I do echo the sentiment of going alone is great too, Ben doing it a lot more the past couple years
On top of the IP boom connection, Roger Rabbit also led to a resurgence of interest in animation RIGHT before the Disney Renaissance, which helped turn Disney into a major studio again, capable of buying out other companies. In fact, Iger’s run of purchases started when he realized Pixar characters were garnering more interest than Disney characters proper in Disney theme parks, so he bought the studio outright. The success of this purchase would lead to the purchases of Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Fox. Roger Rabbit IS the killer.
I don't work Mondays so almost every week after dropping my kid at school I try to catch an early showing if something. There's rarely ever more than 3 people there, each of them alone. And I kind of love it that way. It's not as great for comedies where the laughter of people around you add to the atmosphere, but for dramas like Oppenheimer it's perfect. I had an IMAX screening all to myself.
21:14 Video games were not always looked at as art, but I think it has a lot more to do with their young demographics. Video games have always been art, but they didn't really start to garner respect until the late 90s, because of cinematic games like Myst, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, and Kojima's games. They're not traditional media, because they're interactive media, but especially now, calling video games art is a forgone conclusion. I feel like there was a lot more expression in video games 20 years ago than there is now, at least from the big studios. "Who Is Killing Cinema?" is a question that could justify extending to games, but I don't think that the gaming community has yet developed their understanding of the science behind the art to see that these corporations aren't just problematic but actually a great hazard to gaming as a whole, in much the same way that the studios' greed that rips the art out of the film. It's a product to them, not art. But it's art to us, and to the developers.
In my head there's a hierarchy of mediums, and I feel that each has a minimum level of investment that is required to really engage with it. Cinema for me at least is probably one of the more costly in terms of now much attention it requires and for the length of time. As someone suspected of having ADHD, focusing for that long and the attention monopoly I feel cinema deserves, really takes effort while feature length videos on RUclips can be easily consumed while doing something else. As TV gets more cinematic, I've noticed myself watching less and less TV over time as the attention investment goes up, whereas I can binge watch Voyager vs having to concentrate for Discovery.
And near the bottom of the hierarchy are things like TikTok and its clones, where you can easily get sucked in to an endless stream of videos each clocking in at less than a minute, without having to do any thinking about it at all.
Solo movie-going is a thing I've also had to do more often since our kids were born if I want to see films in theatre, so consider this enthusiastic support for you. It can feel a little weird sitting in the theatre alone while waiting for the film to start, but once the lights go down you probably won't even notice. Good luck!
in defense of _Who Framed Roger Rabbit,_ I'd say the whole crossover/cinematic universe thing started with Universal's 1943 _Frankenstein meets The Wolfman._ They made a few crossovers ( _House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein_ ) and then made like six parody films with _Abbott and Costello meet..._ whatever monster. This in turn inspired _King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)_ and _King Kong Escapes (1967)._ Famous studio Toho also made _Frankenstein vs. Baragon (Frankenstein Conquers the World) (1965)._ This all culminated in _Destroy All Monsters (1968)_ and _All Monsters Attack (1969),_ where they put all their kaiju into a battle royale. Including Baragon, so that means Frankenstein is canonically part of the Godzilla Cinematic Universe. Some other Kaiju had or got their own spin-off movies, like _Rodan (1956)_ and _Mothra (1961)._ With well over 40 movies the GCU still quite ahead of Marvel LOL So yea, Gothic Monsters and Kaiju Suitmation. I saw _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_ in theatre when I was a kid. The promotion of the movie included a behind the scenes documentary and that was, and still is, *movie magic* to me. The whole crossover IP franchise stuff, at twelve I didn't care. They we're all cartoon characters. To see them interact so seamlessly with real people, that was the magic trick. That's what all good movies are. Really long magic tricks that keep you mesmerized throughout. That's my biggest gripe with CGI as a main element and not just a tool. You know, giant green screens and "add it in post." Seeing the same magic trick over and over again gets tired and boring real fast.
A magic trick is a good analogy. I think with CGI it's that they use so much of it they don't always have time to render and make the visuals very good. That's not the effects artist's fault, it's the studio demanding more from them than is really feasible. As a result we can all tell it's fake, it doesn't look quite right, and the magic is ruined because we can see exactly where the seams are.
Just a thought: if you've banned the past tense of "wake", there may be folks who get auto-banned using it in its more ordinary sense. As in: "I w0ke up this morning and watched your video" or "In that scene, Tom Cruise w0ke up to his alarm".
I was assuming he was joking, but it really didn't seem like he was. Which is silly, because the W0ke criticism (at least the actual real basis of it) is not that the Little Mermaid is Black, it's that studios are making creative decisions ONLY for the sake of trying to appeal to different demographics or try to seem more diverse. So, it is kind of just the capitalism argument, but still. Worth noting.
@@evanwakelin7944 There definitely is an issue of studios doing tick box representation, but the people criticising that aren't the people crying w0ke. People complaining about w0keness do so after watching a trailer and claim the film will be terrible _because_ the Little Mermaid is Black or they play a video game and claim it was ruined by the existence of a well written trans character who had no bearing on the plot.
Yeah banning a word as simple as that is pretty silly especially when it is certainly a part of the conversation. Patrick is right that it is 100% silly to discuss it but in the end, audiences can be pretty silly. Half the US population believes in the w word boogieman and they definitely have an impact on the commercial success of a film domestically within the United States. S*und of Fr**dom (I don't know if he's gonna black list this now either) is sitting at 10th for the 2023 domestic box office above Indiana Jones, Mission: Impossible, Transformers and Fast and the Furious (and I know about the empty theatres but $ are $ and Hollywood accounting has always been fickle). Politics has always mattered within the film market especially during the Cold War and it really has not changed. Patrick is right about these people being misguided and wrong but he is just shutting down conversation as opposed to providing real examples as to why "go w go broke" is a straight up lie with the likes of Across the Spiderverse and Barbie (which weirdly enough has been co-opted by some conservative pundits who completely misunderstand the film). Censorship sends these people back into the dark corners of the internet they came from instead making an honest effort to show why they are wrong.
I don’t understand Patrick’s reasoning here. Just because *we* may think the term/ concept [insert word we are not allowed to use] is silly and not a thing, does not mean that other people can’t think the opposite. Just because we think it’s dumb to complain about Ariel being reimagined as black or whatever, doesn’t mean that other people do. If these people didn’t exist, Patrick would not be blocking them. Disney and other studios have objectively and explicitly been changing the way they’ve been making movies based on diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s explicitly part of their new policies that they have adopted since a number of years. And Disney has been very outspoken about it etc. That’s just an obvious fact. Just because *we* think that this is a good thing and that it is silly to criticize it and silly to call it [insert word we are not allowed to say], does not mean that there aren’t a lot of people who *don’t* like it, who *do* criticize it and who *do* use the word [insert word that will get you banned if you use it] and who *do* think [insert forbidden word]ness is very real. I mean, about half the US voted for Trump and the Republicans who use the same rhetorics and Trump may very well be re-elected; worldwide overall radical right wing populism is on the rise; the US is very polarized. So then why could that not also (at least somewhat) influence half of the country’s decisions of which movies they go see and which they skip, take or not to take their families too etc.? And maybe skip quite a lot more than before. I mean, you might argue polarization/ ideology *is* or you might argue it is *not* an influence, whatever, but to just brush the whole issue aside with “[insert word you shall not use]ness is not a thing and to complain Ariel is black is silly” and blocking a word, is just going around the issue. It’s more of an emotional reaction than the reaction of a detective searching for the truth.
Tom and Jerry and Willy Wonka is crazy because it's basically a 100% straight retelling of the Gene Wilder movie, and just sort of says "this stuff was going on with the cat and mouse off to the side." And they somehow made the boat ride scene EVEN CRAZIER.
@35:35 I very much had the same thought when that question was brought up. It's a very anecdotal thing, but the last theater that did second runs of anything in my hometown shut down in 2004; even by that point it was a very old theater with dirt & grime everywhere that it was on its last legs for years. I live near a big 500k+ metro as well and they don't have those types of things. I think those kinds of discount theaters got killed off years ago when physical releases got shorter and when major theater chains started having their own second-run or repertory screenings of older films so the demand was met.
My partner and I watched the Witches of Eastwick recently, and it really put me in mind of Patrick's comments on the original video. Here was a kind of supernatural sex comedy that was also a mainstream release, starring four fairly A list actors (Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jack Nicholson) who were largely independent of each other - i.e. not cast together in a franchise - with fairly extensive sets and effects, and some early CGI. Made almost 3 times its $22 million budget at box office. Something like that as a mainstream release feels like a rarity if not an impossibility now. Maybe something like Barbie comes close, but that to me feels more like a family film, which is the same that can be said of your MCU, Disney etc.
Ooo! I have an answer to the video game question! I think what he's asking is when video games will be considered art, not just a toy or product, and I have some historical stuff I just learned about this to back it up! Video games are still a very new medium. It takes a long time for a new medium of artistic and storytelling expression to be accepted. Novels were even trashed as a novelty product (and a bad one) for a while! Poetry was the only acceptable written form of art when novels debuted. But as for timing, here is the timeline of movies. The first moving picture was made in 1895. It became a commercial product almost immediately, as a sideshow novelty. Twenty years later, in 1915, the US Supreme Court issued that movies were only a commercial product and not art, so they were not protected by the First Amendment. This was not overturned until 1952, when movies were 57 years old. The first video game was invented in 1958. (Tennis for Two). It took a little longer for video games to become a commercial product than movies. They were mostly fun projects in college engineering departments. But the first arcade games were released in the early 1970s (Pong came out in 1971). So twenty years after video games debuted in the commercial space would be 1991. That would be when games would be seen as just a product, not art (even though, like with film, some interesting stuff was already being made) 57 years after 1971 would be 2028. Even if you calculate back earlier to allow for the college engineering boom, I think it's safe to say that widespread acceptance of video games as art (and not just a commercial product) is going to happen within the decade. It's already starting to happen. I think The Last of Us TV show validated video games in a way that nothing has before, in that it became part of a mainstream cultural media landscape that went back to look at the game with a lot more respect. My husband is a game developer, and in the decade since he finished up his thesis (which was focused on video games) there's already been a huge shift in the cultural acceptance of video games by the academy. So it's coming or has just arrived!
This is fascinating! I can agree with a lot of this, but I also wonder how the recent rise of works based on video game theory or its unique storytelling mechanics affects the perception of video games as an art form. Within a relatively short time, we've seen the rise in RUclips channels and books on the theory behind video game storytelling and video game mechanics from well-respected figures in the field (such as Masahiro Sakurai and Hideo Kojima.) I want to compare that with the literature about film or dramatic theory that was around before film became accepted as an art form.
@@MichaelSavidgeStoryteller You're probably right in the criticism world. RUclips is tricky because it's rather self-selecting, but I'm sure that academia in general has delved a lot more into video game criticism than it had ten years ago. Then again, we learned a lot from the OG Extra Credits videos. I'm a novelist, and those videos went a long way for my husband and I building a shared language of video game artistic criticism and creation. He also makes RUclips videos for his local Game Dev group where he does artistic criticisms of games to demonstrate the subtleties of game design, how it can enhance a story or the game play experience. The audience is pretty small, but it's been a good exercise for him and some members of the community. People who want to learn have a lot of good critical resources on RUclips, for sure.
In this regard I feel like to paraphrase a line from a video game critic I like (Austin Walker) said it best that the moment you try to argue for video games' "legitimacy" as art, you already lost the debate because by default it's buying into a narrative that films or novels are more legitimate than games. It's a narrative pushed by mostly older academics who did not grow up with these things or if they did it was during the era where narrative & games couldn't technologically exist like Tetris or Pac-Man. Unfortunately these folks set the standards in academic settings or even in paid spaces where media studies are published this cohort still makes the decision on what is considered legitimate art. Most of us understand that even within the realms of movies there is an implicit hierarchy of legitimacy given by critics & academics. A Minions movie is not going to be talked about in the same conversation as an Oppenheimer or Asteroid City. Even in games that hierarchy exists between something like a Spiritfarer vs a Call of Duty. It's not a hierarchy that we individually created or even think should be legitimate, but nevertheless we know it's there just by observing how game critics talk about them vs a general audience. I think for it to shift in a way where you don't even need to ask the question "are video games art?", that it's just accepted by default, I agree in a sense that it'll take time for things to adjust but I think only in the realm that the academics & critics who uphold that implicit narrative will die out to make way for the next grouping who did grow up with narrative gameplay. When people gave shit for Roger Ebert dismissing games as art, folks need to remember that by the time he was 30 in 1972 when his professional career was in full swing , Pong hadn't even hit wide release yet so of course he wouldn't have appreciated games the way we do now.
I also think something that has not been considered on that end is story telling. In gaming outside of RPGs storytelling is relatively new especially stories that have "depth" per say as an example in early 2000s late 90s games like need for speed, crazy taxi, call of duty battlefield and so on where the popular games. Games that I would argue that had little to no story as time decade goes on games like fallout 3 and New Vegas, uncharted, half life, Rockstar (the people behind grand theft auto) first push into game storytelling and so on. Storytelling while not new to gaming is new in the way that they now have long stories to tell that rival books and films.
Patrick: you are on a desert and you have no water. You find a turtle on its back over the sand. What do you do? Keep your hands flat on the table, please.
in terms of going to see movies alone, the social aspect for me that feels missing is debriefing after the movie is over- and my fave thing to do when I go alone is to listen to a podcast about the movie after I see it. My podcast of choice is the Big Picture from the Ringer podcast network, or Blank Check if it's a movie they're covering, but any movie podcast will work- it provides a version of that conversational debrief!
Definitely agree with the infrastructure point. I don't have a car and it would take an hour and a half walk or 20 min drive to get to the nearest theatre. And as a young American with college debt, I simply don't have 10-20 bucks to spend every few weeks on seeing all the films I'd like to
the "due to social media, we now know how movies are made" comment has the same vibes as Ed Helms' character in They Came Together explaining that he doesn't like fiction books because he learned that they didn't really happen
I had the thought recently that the MCU was fundamentally built around Tony Stark, and by killing him off completely alongside Steve Rogers they kind of removed two big anchor characters without having anyone in place to replace them. Captain Marvel and The Falcon hadn't built enough cache to take over as draws, and they've always been very hesitant with Spider-Man because of the Sony situation.
I've largely stopped going to the movies as a result of fellow audience members, and our contrasting expectations of a theater-going experience. My preferred experience involves people not looking at their phones, not engaging in conversations, and generally not disrupting my movie watching. Unfortunately I find that this expectation is not shared by many others, and when confronted they tend to get very confrontational. I myself am a very confrontational man, and things have escalated almost to the point of violence over these disagreements. As I get older, my willingness to fight assholes in a theater is diminishing. So fuck it - let them have the theater. I'll watch at home where the only assholes I need to worry about are my cats and where I don't have to sit through 20+ minutes of commercials before watching a movie.
In the movie prestige. 19:14 bale's character says ( little interplotted ) once they know how it's done they will not respect you. the thing with movies was the magic of ' how it was done ' The aww of it That's why Avatar 2 worked it was the aww even the cinephile circle knows how magnificent it was Tho most people still don't know how 'truly' movies are made. Maybe a valid point
18:21 No clue what that guy’s on about. I’ve been watching a series about the production history of Godzilla movies and it only makes me love them even more.
I started seeing movies by my self in highschool when none of my friends wanted to see the movies I did. I still tried to go with groups but now I see almost every movie alone. Nothing beats going solo to a movie on a Wednesday night and being one of 10 people in the theatre
I've been going to movies alone for years and have never thought twice about it, I don't know how you can feel self conscious about being alone at an event where you're supposed to sit in silence. If I want to socialize, there are street festivals, music shows, parties, trivia nights, etc...
Outside of the super hero movies, we've had nearly two decades of 1970s style, subverting expecations, depressive film making. We need to enter a 1980s style imaginative and inspiring film making that can spread wonder and hope again. Life is hard, we dont need our entertainment to be.
Feedback: I really enjoyed the pandemic talk show season, so I'm glad you're sticking to that for now. The Little Women episode is still one of my favourites.
There is a 100% chance I will be seeing Dune 2 in theaters by myself. Im a 37 yr old single dad with split custody of my kid. All my friends are either too busy with their own young families or dont care enough about the Dune franchise to set aside 4 hours on a weekend and pay $20+ a ticket when it will eventually be on streaming for under $4. I think this is peak adulthood.
Also libraries are a good alternative for renting, streaming and pirating! I use the library a lot when I wanna watch a movie that isn't on the streaming service I have at the moment.
As a non-cinephile viewer, I can 100% report that RUclips holds me more than movies. I need a very strong recommendation to watch a movie. But I’ll watch any ol’ RUclips video in a heartbeat.
Patrick you said on the video for the cinema dying that a solution should be more comedies. Comedies more recent like Tropic Thunder,40 year old Virgin and so many other 80s and 90s classics would have been made under the current political trend? Everything is found offensive and unsafe nowadays
Marvel letting the director have more of their style is why I gravitated towards the ones James Gunn and Taika Waititi directed. I loved the 2nd Doctor Strange movie because it felt like a Sam Raimi movie. As for the multiverse and what to do with Kang with the Fantastic Four coming up, they can use Doom instead as the big overarching villain. As they incorporated multiverse and when they announced “Secret Wars” as an upcoming movie, I theorized that they’re going to use the Multiverse to bring back characters that were killed off and recast them, as a way to soft reboot elements of the MCU without sacrificing the previous storyline. Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars event with Marvel in the comics about 10 years ago involved multiverses and Doctor Doom and ended with the multiverse killed off and certain characters from other universes stay in the main universe. It’s how Miles Morales ended up in the main Marvel universe instead of the Ultimate Universe
One thing I don't hear being brought up in the Who Killed Cinema conversation, is how much better the home viewing experience is for most people these days, compared to not that many years ago. I'm not saying that my 60" tv and surround sound system is the Same as a movie theater, but it's pretty good. It's a quality viewing experience and can be really immersive. Not long ago, you had to go to a theater to get that, and it's just not the case anymore. The gap between home viewing and theater viewing as an experience is less than it ever was before.
If the film wasn't specifically shot with IMAX in mind, and the theater lacks advanced surveillance to deter troublemakers, there's little justification for heading out.
the idea that you're seen as a loser for doing things alone is so strange to me. i've mentioned before to coworkers that i go to movies and concerts and restaurants alone all the time, and most of the people i've talked to think it's a fairly cool thing to do; they comment that they wish they had the confidence.
The banned word being used as a verb like a normal person could be an issue. It's common for people to post say "(stopped being asleep) up, new video, good day" or something along those lines. Kinda sucks the net will catch that too. Not really sure what to do there.
55:55 some people say that it was in the 70s and 80s that the general public started to have a positive image of sequels. For decades the rule of thumb in regards to sequels was the "dimishing returns", each sequel will be less good than the one before it so they will make less money so the studios will invest less money into the next one so it will be even less good so it will make even less money and so on and so for (at a point they even change the names of foreign movies to hide the fact that they were sequels, even when the originals had an U.S. release). Then slowly it would become a trend for sequels to be of equal quality as their predessessors (and better in some rare occasions) and that would change the people's perception of sequels. It was an slow trend, _The Godfather Par II_ and _The Empire Strike Back_ gather critical acclaim while _Rocky 2, Rambo: First Blood Part 2, Jaws 2,_ etc. while no really considered "better" than the originals still show that sequels *didn't need to suck* ... the next big step was probably 20 years later with _The Lord of the Rings_ and _Harry Potter_ that did two important things for the public: *1- show that the quallity of a saga of movies can remain consistent all the way throught. And 2- that sequels can continue and expand an story instead of being just "and this is other thing that happened to the main characters"*
Why I think the "argument that wont be named" IS an issue whether they are objectively right or wrong is if there is enough people that fall on that side of the argument it doesn't really matter if they are right or wrong, and it will hurt the industry. I am not saying that movies should only be made if the align with the social norms of the times, however, you can't create content that goes against a large group of the population, then also wonder why those don't make any money. The morals of right and wrong don't matter... you rely on the masses to buy your stuff, deliver your message or make money might have to be a choice you make, even if your message is the "right" one. So I think the "argument that wont be named" can be a valid reason some movies aren't making money...even if you don't like that people think/act/spend that way.
Blanketing them all under the Little Mermaid criticism was especially disappointing. Some people just want entertaining escapism, not preachy, divisive politics in their movies.
One of the replies in the vid (already watched on Nebula!) made me think of what might be another contributing culprit, although more means of a pre-existing one, Studio Release Calendaring: With humans being pattern recognizing monkeys, the Hollywood release schedule may have trained the general public what to expect from when a film releases, whether it will be good and to your tastes, and if worth seeing in theaters. Summer release? Big budget blockbuster that all your friends will have seen and thus mandatory viewing for cultural zeitgeist. Autumn release? Summer's leftovers and horror films. Winter release? Apart from the Thanksgiving/Christmas blockbusters, usually "Oscar Bait" prestige films that you can wait until March to find out which is worth watching. Spring release? Nothing of value until the early summer blockbusters arrive.
That dude who was mad about "knowing how its done" makes no sense to me! How can you watch a behind the scenes for how a movie is made, see the hundreds of people all working together to create a single unified vision, and not be hugely inspired by that? Heck, even one "simple" special effect like someone being pulled up on wires in a Kung Fu movie, you've got one person putting their life in the hands of the bunch of folks pulling the cables and everyone who set the system up in the first place, just to make someone fly across the room when they get punched really hard, and I think thats just wonderful. :)
He was mad about the movies created by committee and shat out by hurting people so that a suit could make a few measly bucks. Not... The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
I think he didn't realise that DVDs and Blu Rays always had bonus disks including Behind the Scenes. There was never an age where we didn't know how they made movies. Or, he could be mentioning the prevelance of social media and how movie stars are fairly active there. They feel like normal people now (not that they weren't before), but it feels like these celebrities are always around so there is no reason to go out of your way to watch a movie. I also disagree with this, but it could be what he meant.
I think the availability of watching old media has helped promote sequels/prequels and general IP movies being box office juggernauts. Until vhs and HBO were common, things came and were watched and then faded. It’s harder to garner interest in sequels if no one has watched the original in over a decade. Now you can make a sequel to movies made forty years ago and people are as excited as can be.
re: EEAAO meaning more multiverse movies - we will get more, but not because of that movie. It was already happening before that. It's specifically because it allows properties with a lot of versions of their stories (anything comic book, especially) to get more mileage without doing a full reboot. EEAAO was special because it was a multiverse of things the viewer had no prior attachment to (yes there are some pop culture references), but by the end we care about multiple versions of multiple characters. It's very possible someone with studio power's takeaway is that "people like multiverse," and that's it. I have loved a lot of multiverse-related stuff but I think even the people who can handle a heroic dose of comic book bullshit are tired of it.
I like going to the movies with people so I have someone to talk to about the movie afterward. That's the social aspect. Nothing wrong with going alone, but that's why it is social. My first date with my wife, we watched Life is Beautiful. But she was at my place early... so before that movie started, we watched Before Sunrise. Double feature. Obviously I needed to marry that girl.
I'm not a Patron, not on Nebula, etc. But having watched the original "Who Killed Cinema" and this follow-up - I would suggest this concept get a revisit in 1, 2 or 5 years. Has cinema rebounded? Is there more information/evidence to point to or away from usual suspects. Are there new suspects? Personally, I still think there is greater audience participation in this killing, given the number of comments read regarding this... and the way YOU watch movies, TV, etc., can not be broadened. Lots of different people in different cities view movies, TV and RUclips differently from you. So, maybe, person-on-the-street polling may tell you more about the subject.
I suspect the "not just bikes" crossover reference was fully a joke, but i would be 100% here for a love letter to the depiction of planes, trains and automobiles (and streetcars and monorails and bikes, ect) in movies 😂
First "replies" video I watch but I personally don't enjoy that much the comments from obviously just mad people or ones just not really bringing anything new from the discussion. Still loved the added commentary for your latest video I loved but yea, would probably take a more condensed version taking the comments from people that are here for the right reeson I guess! But I also understand it can be funny to hate on the nonsensical comments.
Something that I think you missed as a suspect-and something that I'm sad to say most people don't see to realize is TERRIBLE for movies-is the way that movie theaters are obsessed with installing giant recliners that cut back on the number of seats in an auditorium and instituting reserved seating. These practices are destroying the communal movie-going experience, pricing families out of seeing movies together, and making it incredibly difficult for going to the movies to be an impromptu, last-minute activity. I believe that all of these things have helped push general audiences towards mostly only seeing giant tentpoles. The obsession with turning every movie-going experience into a premium event with giant armchairs has driven up ticket prices and made it less feasible for families and young people to see movies in theaters. People don't want to spend 50 bucks to take their kids to the movies unless it's the biggest event in the world. Young people are the biggest movie-going audience but with limited budgets are likely to gravitate towards bigger films. Having a third as many seats in theaters because you replaced them with giant recliners makes it feel like there aren't people in front of you or behind you, destroying the communal experience of seeing a movie with an audience, which has trained people to think watching movies at home is just as good. Having drastically fewer seats ALSO means that big movies need to be on more screens, which limits the space available to smaller films. And not only are there fewer seats, there are FAR fewer GOOD seats, which means... The reserved seating crap that comes along with these stupid recliners also means that you have to plan ahead to get good seats. It used to be that unless it was the opening day of a MASSIVE movie, showing up 10 to 15 minutes early was all you needed to do to get a good seat. And there were LOTS of good seats. Even middle-middle snobs like me can deal with being a row or two behind my ideal spot and a seat or two off center. With giant recliners and half as many rows, there are lots of theaters were there are really only 4-8 truly GOOD seats in the theater. Who wants to pay 15 bucks for a terrible seat to watch an indie film? I'm convinced all of this has made people see fewer movies per year and prioritize blockbusters. I think the way to save theaters is to go back to more traditional seating arrangements, abolish reserved seating, and lower prices. All we need is a dark room, a big screen, and good sound. If movie tickets were all like 5-8 bucks, I think people would go more often and the theaters would actually do better, especially since they'd sell more concessions.
That reserved seating thing is interesting cultural difference, because I have never been to a movie where there weren't reserved seats. And even when buying tickets just before starting, there have only been one or two times, when the seats were less than good.
@@sonjaimmonen6610 How old are you and how long have you been going to the movies? And in what country? I'm 33, and as far as I'm aware outside of perhaps very specialty stuff like Imax, reserved seating wasn't a thing anywhere in America in the 90s and early 2000s. I don't think the trend really started until the 2010s. Any theater with reserved seating I've ever been to will usually have at least the entire middle strip sold out at least a day in advance for almost everything but the smallest/oldest movies at the latest/earliest weekday showings.
@@BuckTheSystem I've been going to the movies like 25 years. And in Finland, hence the cultural difference. But I did forget that the small old theatre in my current hometown doesn't have reserved seating. I've only been twice, so I forgot about it. But yeah, when reserved seating is the norm, people have adjusted to it. Changing the norm will always be a challenge.
the thing about Zendaya and Timothee, they have Challengers and Wonka coming up, which are VERY different movies, it's like they did a genre switch - Spiderman to Challengers and Bones And All to Wonka (Luca being involved with the dramas lol) - it's going to be very interesting how that pans out for them and what that means for their actor statuses.
On the piracy comment, I think another factor there is that (obviously this is a guess, but an educated one) a majority of the people who pirate a movie instead of buying it on physical media, subscribing to whatever streaming service, or going to the theater to see it would not or could not have done those things regardless of whether or not they had the ability to pirate it. So that 'audience' was not going to be bringing in money to begin with.
The availability to online rental is region dependant. When I wanted to watch the original Grudge, but literally the only way that I could do that legally in Australia was to buy a physical DVD. I didn't own anything that could play a DVD... This actually ties into another point; I actually ended up getting an external DVD drive for my computer because I've started to get a level of anxiety around one day just losing access to a beloved film or show either that I've "bought" off Google or that has always been on a streaming service because the licensing that allows access in Australia has been renegotiated...
I’m so thrilled with this video. It seems like a lot of people are approaching the debate from a plethora of thoughtful avenues. (I’m leaving out the reductive, broad-strokes, “well, obviously” comments. Obviously.) I love that a bunch of cinephiles are getting on board with this discussion and theorizing the causes as well as potential solutions. As much as money makes the world go ‘round, people choosing what to do with their time is equally as important. If enough conscientious consumers vote with their dollar, cinema will never truly die.
Thank you so much for doing this addendum piece to _WHO KILLED CINEMA_ The fact that you took time to read...well, _any_ RUclips comments, shows a true dedication to your craft. Subscribed.
My problem with streaming services in particular is that for their "original" movies they produce, there is no other way to watch them other than subscribing. Netflix as a whole is not worth it for me at the current pricing, but they do release interesting movies that I would like to watch. However, I am not willing to subscribe with a monthly cost. I only want to watch the specific movie I am interested in and not have access to all the other stuff. Streaming services sadly do not provide that option of buying/owning their original movies. This is coming from someone who tries to own their media in a hard copy format like blu ray. I feel like streaming is kind of killing the personal movie collection, which is kinda sad.
Denzel only gets people to show up if he's acting. A Journal for Jordan, which he directed, made under $7 million. Granted, this was 2021, but it was December. Pandemic was largely dealt with.
3:32 "Are people choosing to watch RUclips instead of movies?" I am at least! Don't get me wrong, I love movies. But I've grown to appreciate the format RUclips offers, which compared to cinema, is more intimate if only because there's less people working behind the scenes. There's real auteur stuff out here and it's fascinating to just get a direct window into their heads (or at least, get their thoughts in a way that feels more direct. There's still the layer of artifice separating the creator from the audience). It's like reading a column in a newspaper, only its a video and there's autoplay.
Top 1 reason - Theatrical movies being released to streaming sites after one to three months after day one on cinemas. Before the pandemic, seven to nine months shall pass after first day of Theatrical release before a movie is avaialble at home video media and streaming sites.
Patrick at 1:08:00 :"If you catch an editing, or continuity error in a video..." Me: He's gonna say a wizard did it! 😃 Patrick: "I already know." Me: Oh. 😕
The reason I always perceived going to the movies as a social activity was for the discussion after the movie. Sure during the movie you're supposed to shut up and watch, but after the movie it's really fun to talk about it when it's still so fresh in your head
Speaking as someone who's never had any qualms about going to the cinema or theatre on my own ... It's fun to watch a movie with friends, because then you can discuss the movie afterwards. It's more fun when the movie gives you more to think about, because that provokes better conversation.
I'll say about discount second run theatres, the one in my hometown closed down 20 years ago. I don't know how many are where I am now in the western suburbs of Chicago (or were), but that second run theatre used to be a first run theatre until maybe the late 90s. So, I just don't know how viable they remained into even the last decade. The last time I hit up a film late into its run was A Walk Among The Tombstones back in 2014. It was a September release, but I rushed out to see it again in late December (being projected on film, of all things) to re-assess it when I still did Best of the year lists. Said theatre in Joliet, Illinois also no longer exists.
It seems like something that really needs a local champion. My hometown is a mid-sized city with a college and university and big arts scene. A lot of the second-run theatres closed 25-30 years ago. There have recently been a few attempts to revive them in the past decade, not always successfully, but there are about 2 or 3 running now, mostly because they're the passion projects of people with deep pockets or a lot of community support. Meanwhile, about a half-hour drive away, another small college town less than a fifth the size of my hometown as just as many second-run theatres, but they're all owned by one guy who's a fixture in the community. Granted, this is in central Canada where one theatre chain has an effective monopoly over theatrical distribution (many second-run theatre owners have been vocal about this) and has been linked in a co-promotional loyalty program with one of the five national banks (one of the failed owners in my hometown would complain on his blog that "my bank that holds my business loan is in bed with my main competition" before he folded). And this was before Disney--notorious for not renting out prints of its older films to second-run theatres--acquired 20th Century Fox's catalogue and pulled most of those from rentals too.
16:02 - Not that this retracts from the fact that, yes, it's totally fine to go to the movies solo but: A movie is social experience because of the social experiences it is attached to. Rarely do folks go on just movie dates, they go on movie+meal dates. And the movie gives you the perfect icebreaker topic of discussion and helps you learn stuff about the other person that is revealed through their perspective on the film.
20:17 I think the ALL CAPS comment is from a disabled person who is not able to use a keyboard and has to use some other device which translates speech into typed message. I’ve seen couple of those kinds of comments online.
I think movies are considered a social thing because they give you something to talk about afterward. You don't need to come up with a topic. And there is a stigma around spending money on solo activities; movies, skiing, fancy restaurants, etc.
1:12:00 It also might be less because of infrastructure, and more because of culture. If you go to the Netherlands or Denmark, people just sort of walk around and chill. Most aren't in a rush. Much more of a "stop and smell the roses" vibe. It makes sense they'd be much more likely to say "hey, let's go watch a movie". Obviously, no culture is uniform, but if you go there, you really can feel the difference.
I laughed out loud at the image of you keeping your hands locked palm down on the desk in front of you. Definitely should use this and Ricky Bobby’s“I don’t know what to do with my hands” as the basis of a joke in your next video.
I understand the impulse to delete the w00ke comments. My eyes roll over every time I see that being blamed for the recent state of cinema. Like we could be having other much deeper discussions but here you are backtracking to defend the existance of non white male protagonists in movies.
The w00ke argument is often straw-manned as being just racist, misogynist, and homophobic - and I’m not denying that those screeds exist. But there is an element of leftist ideological homogeneity that exists in the creative class in Hollywood that increasingly is putting out shows that are alienating a large segment of the potential audience.
@@benjamindover4337 It was obviously not arbitrary. Every community can have its own rules. Comments moderation could be a full-time job. Using technology to allow Emma do something more meaningful is a smart move. You can find plenty of communities that keep complaining a meaningless buzzword.
18:30 that guy is 100% right an it’s kind of cowardly that you didn’t address it at all. Fandom and entertainment journalists farm clicks and reactions from meta reading into movies. The algorithm gets flooded. This informs studios and actors to a degree as it works as free publicity. Writers use pop culture references not as inter-textual allusions, but for audience brownie points. The social panopticon has ruined cinema as much as capitalism has.
I used to see two five movies at a time I was an event. At some point my nearest AMC decided that what movie theaters needed was more lines. I like to print and keep ticket stubs, they go back to 1997. (I started in 1995--Braveheart-- but lost them in a move). So, I stand in line to get the ticket, get the ticket ripped, stand in line for popcorn and soda, stand in to butter popcorn, stand in line to get soda, and then stand in line to enter thetheater.
23:30 as Valve's Gabe Newell famously, succinctly, put it: Piracy is an accessibility problem. I wouldn't pirate Allan Moyle's 1990 analog-punk masterpiece _Pump Up the Volume_ if it was available on *literally any streaming service* but tracking down an old DVD on eBay wouldn't be supporting the people who made the film either; it's in the wind now. For ethics purposes, it could arguably considered part of the Public Domain.
3:05 There's some truth to that. Not killing cinema, but killing TV. And not only does old media have to compete with new media. It has to compete with past media. Nowadays everyone has the cinema of the past at their fingertips at all times. And if new cinema is inferior, people can just watch all of the greats of the past. Even young people are starting to opt out of new movies and discover that they prefer older films.
You are right about directors and the public. Two of my mother's favourite Films of all time, are The African Queen and The Elephant Man. She does not know who either John Huston or David Lynch are.
46:47 Thank you. It seems everybody acts like before phase 4 the MCU was mostly great movies with only a couple of duds, but there's always been a lot of ok and mediocre films (and I'm a fan of those, too). The funny thing is, if you go back you can see the same people bashing on a lot of movies they now seem to consider "classics". So I'm always confused when I see this attitude of "OMG, it used to be so great, now it's all crap". I do think overall quality control has dropped, but not that much. I agree with you that regarding superhero movies, and Marvel in particular, the main culprit is the sheer amount releasead each year (even though I don't mind that myself), and that diminishes excitement for each installment -- coupled with the fact that everything will be on D+ in a little while, so why bother going to the theaters -- which, in turn, diminishes box-office results and fuels the notion (and hot-takes ont the web) that the movies are now much worse, so much so that many people won't even bother to watch them at all, even when they hit D+.
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Long time watcher, first time commenter. I have to say that i need the coconut video. I really do need you to make it. I'm giving it a preemptive like
An around the 1:13:00 mark, "I think I recently stumbled upon a RUclips channel that talks a lot about this, what was it called?" Patrick: ....Not just bikes.... Me: That one
I think going to the theater is a "social" experience because you share a common experience. You bond by taking in a narrative that you can comment on later.
So in the topic of piracy specifically. And totally not talking about myself here of course for legal reasons, and I am well aware this is not the typical way people pirate stuff, but the way I *would* do it (but totally don't) is that when a movie I like is taken off a streaming platform I use, that would be when I might pirate it so I could keep having access to it in the future as well. My absolute favorites I still try to get on DVD or BluRay of course if that is easily achievable without unreasonable cost or effort.
As someone from a country that has A LOT of piracy, we pirate because we don't have access. The loss is zero because there is no release in the country. But the streaming generation cant download a torrent to save their lives so def not a suspect.
In my youth piracy mostly came from people burning CDs And DVDs. We still have tons od discs at parents house
I've been pirating since the beginning of Napster. I have never pirated a movie I wanted (and could) see in theatres.
mubi subcription is heavy toll on my monthly budget since i was only making 250 american dollar so i will continue to pirate movie. But since going to cinema is cheap in my country, around 2 american dollar, i always try to watch new movie on the big screen.
Also, I have a personal beef with Amazon, because they once charged me for an Audible subscription I had canceled two months prior. I had had a month with no charge from them, post cancelation, then, suddenly, a charge the next month. So I deleted my Amazon account, and will never willingly pay them another cent. So, anything on Amazon Prime is free game, as far as I'm concerned, matey
Really appreciate Patrick for clearing up the political controversies and explaining that Emma is Pro-Stache
I also think the piracy "problem" is blown up. I say this because in a lot of countries there is no other way to watch a certain movie, sometimes it gets no theaters release, it is not in your country in any streaming service and sometimes not even for online rental for your country too (or it is expensive to the point that even if you didn't pirate you wouldn't spend money with it anyway), most people still spend money for the legal experience if they have the means to
I think currently the piracy problem is a marginal issue. However with Warner and Disney starting to burry their own movies and shows leaving us with no legal options to watch them, it is likely to grow into a bigger issue.
Online piracy has never been the big issue that scaremongers made it out to be. It is by definition a legally questionable activity, mostly underground, requiring a degree of technical knowledge and savvy to do properly, and overall a bit of a hassle. The average consumer will never want to keep up with which torrent trackers are up or down, which have been replaced by low-quality clones, how to download files that are compatible with your media player or smart TV, importing separate subtitle files, setting up dedicated storage, moving files around on flash drives, etc. I would never bother pirating a movie that I could easily access through an affordable rental, or in the library of a reasonably priced streaming service.
The biggest influence piracy has had in film and other media has never been how it's affected the numbers, but how greedy execs have tried to fight back, and thereby create a worse situation for everyone in the process. I'd say the move to streaming was at least partly pushed by the notion of execs wanting to fight fire with fire against P2P and unofficial streaming platforms like Popcorn Time and the likes. Spotify, DRM madness, online stores, permanently online games, etc. all seemed at least partially influenced by the "war on piracy" and so on as well.
@@tomleonard830that still wouldn’t make piracy the problem: if the movie is buried and unavailable, then there’s no way for the studio to get your money for that movie, so they can’t complain that they aren’t receiving your money if you watch it.
I think your last sentence is the key one: «Most people still spend money for the legal experience if they have the means to.»
Will there always be people who don’t consider the ramifications of their actions, or selfishly don’t care, or are cheapskates? Of course.
And platforms like Disney+ and Spotify have been training people to expect complete access to “everything” for unsustainably low prices. Which will inevitably lead to more people feeling like whatever amount they’re paying, and no matter to whom, “covers” whatever movies/TV they want to watch.
But I’m willing to bet that, much like with music piracy (which we have pretty solid data on), pirated viewings are mostly not lost sales. If the pirate’s only options were “pay and watch” or “don’t pay and don’t watch”, they wouldn’t pay for it. Period. Because it’s not important enough to them or not as important as other things or because they can’t afford it at all.
So piracy represents people watching movies without paying for them, yes, but it doesn’t represent the movie studio (or online platform, or whoever) getting less money than if individual movie piracy didn’t exist.
Going to the movies alone is liberating. I get to connect with the film directly. No looking at my friends to see if they're having fun, no one bothering me to pass the Twizzlers, no banter from the people who came as clingers-on and don't care about the experience. Just me, the screen, a comfy chair, and some popcorn. I get to experience all the emotions the filmmakers want me to experience and no one will judge me for normal reactions like crying or laughing.
I relate to that so badly
Agreed, and once you're an adult, the social embarrassment factor pretty much goes away.
THIS. Particularly for the talking and asking. I swear that everytime people ask me things like "Is this the bad guy"... Im also watching this for the first time, LETS FIND OUT WATCHING THE MOVIE.
Or farting.
You sir, are a true cinephile
I once saw a talk by John Clease. He said "directors are not that important to the creative process of a film."
I was thinking "maybe not YOUR films..." He tended to do films that relied heavily on writing. The direction was often not the most creative part.
A while back someone posted a clip from an 80s movie with a very long shot from a movie with no cuts. Most of the replies were impressed but Cleese tweeted that he prefers it when directors DON'T call attention to themselves!
@@Mokkari77 I was a college freshman and considering possibly being a director. I wasn't all that serious about it, but it was still frustrating to hear.
@@Mokkari77 Only cinephiles and movie people are 'called to attention" by those scenes tho. Regular people are just... sucked in to a good movie.
I think the question about RUclips is actually identifying the symptom of a larger truth: that people tend to follow the path of least resistance. I love movies and tend to watch 2-3 movies a week. But, at the same time, I hardly ever go to the movie theater anymore. Furthermore, those 2-3 movies that I do watch I have to basically force myself to press play on. Why? Because a lot of the time I'm tired (either physically or emotionally) and don't feel like emotionally investing in a 2 hour cinematic experience. That's why a lot of the time I'd rather default to watching "cheap" RUclips videos or Twitch streams instead (not to downplay the effort and dedication that it takes to make engaging RUclips videos or Twitch streams, by the way, it's just that they feel less consequential than movies do, at least to me). So I think one of the reasons that cinema seems to be dying is the ease of access of non-traditional media and disposable streaming content such that people follow the path of least resistance and just put on something easily digestible on their TV at home. BIg event movies and safe IP franchises get people to make the effort to go to the movie theater, but otherwise they'd rather just sit on the couch after a hard day's work and put on Netflix/RUclips/Twitch and chill.
I’m the same, I love movies and tv but most of my time is spent on RUclips. I think this extends to tv as well since so many families used to spend their evenings watching sitcoms or whatever random crime show was on CBS. Those shows are dying FAST because “disposable” content on RUclips is replacing all of that. I think the place for (adult-oriented) movies and tv is going to be much more mature, thoughtful, and artistic because people clearly still have an appetite for good art, but the idea of going to the theater for a dumb, forgettable comedy is long gone and the same is almost true for watching that same thing at home. There are just so many better things to do.
I'm honored to have my question be one of the first serious ones answered!
Thank you, Emma!
Question timestamps:
[RUclips]
1:47 "Why wasn't COVID/Capitalism/Audiences a suspect?"
3:01 "Are YOU killing cinema?"
4:12 "Roger Rabbit popularized multiverses before Marvel did."
5:42 "People have realized that movie watching is pointless."
6:29 "Movies take conveying their messages more seriously than being entertaining, which is leading to their demise."
8:39 "While actors as stars have diminished, writers and directors have increased their draw."
11:32 "Regarding comedies, SNL no longer turns its cast into stars like it used to."
13:51 "Any advice for someone who wants to go to theatres but doesn't want to go alone?"
16:43 "Denziel Washington is a movie star."
17:21 "I caught two Batman references in the script."
17:42 Two comments saying whether or not they watched the Halo TV series.
18:20 "The magic is gone."
19:14 "Who is Raven Thigpen?"
19:51 "Audiences have infantilized, the market is oversaturated, and the young are ignorant."
20:20 "Please lay your hands flat on the table."
21:18 "When will Video Games be considered traditional media?"
22:46 "What about internet piracy?"
26:42 "There were good comedies this year."
[Discord]
28:17 "Has 'Everything, Everywhere, All At Once' taught studios to greenlight maximalism, or multiverses? And has modern cinematic storytelling reached a ceiling?"
33:08 "Whom are you predicting to be the next wave of movie stars?"
34:40 "The pandemic should have been a suspect." This question was later edited to say that the pandemic should not have been a suspect.
36:45 "Prestige TV is killing cinema, and it isn't a bad replacement at that."
39:09 "Wouldn't streaming be less of a problem with a rental model instead of a subscription model?"
41:55 "Is there a movie or TV show you think slipped under the radar?"
43:42 "Roger Rabbit is a serious culprit."
45:03 "Is superhero fatigue related to a decrease in quality, and if there is such a decrease is it a coincidence or related to the factors mentioned in your video?"
47:56 "Big movies are still being made."
51:13 "Not just cinema, but art industries in general are dying."
54:54 "Imagine if cinema had modern trends in the 1970's."
56:09 "I loved 'Crimson Tide' and barely remember 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage.'"
57:53 "Prestige TV is killing cinema because TV gives auteurs creative freedom."
59:35 "What guided your moustache choice?"
1:02:12 "How did Roger Rabbit affect the evolution of cinema? And was Poirot chosen to hint that every culprit was guilty?"
1:04:17 "Who will be the next big star?"
1:07:21 "Didn't the pandemic actually help cinema?"
1:11:46 "What if infrastructure is killkng cinema?"
1:14:08 "How has streaming and social media affected the way in which movies are marketed?"
1:15:46 "Will Netflix eventually give their movies theatrical releases?"
1:17:21 "Will second-run theatres ever be viable again?"
1:18:48 "Are characters an alternative for movie stars? Also, what is your movie-watching schedule?"
1:21:31 "As someone who works at a theatre, I often hear the director cited as a reason to see a new release."
1:23:16 "We are, in fact, seeing the resurgance of the movie star."
1:25:07 "Why the shift in storytelling from scifi-comedy to office sitcom?"
1:27:38 "What exists beyond the binary of auteur theory vs. corporate mandates?"
1:31:10 Conclusion/ P.O. Box
Just a reminder to the younger among us, movie sequels pre-date the 1970s. The wonderful Thin Man (1934) film had five sequels.
Heck, back in toe 30s and 40s they had film serials, which were entire franchises made of short films.
Yeah but I don't think anybody is claiming that sequels didn't exist before the 1970s.
I wholeheartedly support going to the movies alone. You don't have to figure out which of your friends would be interested in seeing what you want to see and then deal with the logistics. It's just you and whatever is on the big screen.
I once tripled down on this and went to a foreign country to spend a week at a film festival. Highly recommend it to anybody who can get the money together, it’s an amazing experience.
In think the rationale for why it’s a common thing is so that you have someone with you to talk about the movie with after. But I do echo the sentiment of going alone is great too, Ben doing it a lot more the past couple years
On top of the IP boom connection, Roger Rabbit also led to a resurgence of interest in animation RIGHT before the Disney Renaissance, which helped turn Disney into a major studio again, capable of buying out other companies. In fact, Iger’s run of purchases started when he realized Pixar characters were garnering more interest than Disney characters proper in Disney theme parks, so he bought the studio outright. The success of this purchase would lead to the purchases of Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Fox. Roger Rabbit IS the killer.
I don't work Mondays so almost every week after dropping my kid at school I try to catch an early showing if something. There's rarely ever more than 3 people there, each of them alone. And I kind of love it that way. It's not as great for comedies where the laughter of people around you add to the atmosphere, but for dramas like Oppenheimer it's perfect. I had an IMAX screening all to myself.
21:14 Video games were not always looked at as art, but I think it has a lot more to do with their young demographics. Video games have always been art, but they didn't really start to garner respect until the late 90s, because of cinematic games like Myst, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, and Kojima's games. They're not traditional media, because they're interactive media, but especially now, calling video games art is a forgone conclusion. I feel like there was a lot more expression in video games 20 years ago than there is now, at least from the big studios. "Who Is Killing Cinema?" is a question that could justify extending to games, but I don't think that the gaming community has yet developed their understanding of the science behind the art to see that these corporations aren't just problematic but actually a great hazard to gaming as a whole, in much the same way that the studios' greed that rips the art out of the film. It's a product to them, not art. But it's art to us, and to the developers.
In my head there's a hierarchy of mediums, and I feel that each has a minimum level of investment that is required to really engage with it.
Cinema for me at least is probably one of the more costly in terms of now much attention it requires and for the length of time. As someone suspected of having ADHD, focusing for that long and the attention monopoly I feel cinema deserves, really takes effort while feature length videos on RUclips can be easily consumed while doing something else.
As TV gets more cinematic, I've noticed myself watching less and less TV over time as the attention investment goes up, whereas I can binge watch Voyager vs having to concentrate for Discovery.
And near the bottom of the hierarchy are things like TikTok and its clones, where you can easily get sucked in to an endless stream of videos each clocking in at less than a minute, without having to do any thinking about it at all.
Thank you for the thoughtful response to my rambly comment/question! I'm psyching myself up to go to the theater this week, with or without a buddy.
Solo movie-going is a thing I've also had to do more often since our kids were born if I want to see films in theatre, so consider this enthusiastic support for you. It can feel a little weird sitting in the theatre alone while waiting for the film to start, but once the lights go down you probably won't even notice. Good luck!
in defense of _Who Framed Roger Rabbit,_ I'd say the whole crossover/cinematic universe thing started with Universal's 1943 _Frankenstein meets The Wolfman._ They made a few crossovers ( _House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein_ ) and then made like six parody films with _Abbott and Costello meet..._ whatever monster.
This in turn inspired _King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)_ and _King Kong Escapes (1967)._ Famous studio Toho also made _Frankenstein vs. Baragon (Frankenstein Conquers the World) (1965)._ This all culminated in _Destroy All Monsters (1968)_ and _All Monsters Attack (1969),_ where they put all their kaiju into a battle royale. Including Baragon, so that means Frankenstein is canonically part of the Godzilla Cinematic Universe. Some other Kaiju had or got their own spin-off movies, like _Rodan (1956)_ and _Mothra (1961)._
With well over 40 movies the GCU still quite ahead of Marvel LOL
So yea, Gothic Monsters and Kaiju Suitmation.
I saw _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_ in theatre when I was a kid. The promotion of the movie included a behind the scenes documentary and that was, and still is, *movie magic* to me. The whole crossover IP franchise stuff, at twelve I didn't care. They we're all cartoon characters. To see them interact so seamlessly with real people, that was the magic trick.
That's what all good movies are. Really long magic tricks that keep you mesmerized throughout.
That's my biggest gripe with CGI as a main element and not just a tool. You know, giant green screens and "add it in post." Seeing the same magic trick over and over again gets tired and boring real fast.
Yes, good post 👍
A magic trick is a good analogy. I think with CGI it's that they use so much of it they don't always have time to render and make the visuals very good. That's not the effects artist's fault, it's the studio demanding more from them than is really feasible. As a result we can all tell it's fake, it doesn't look quite right, and the magic is ruined because we can see exactly where the seams are.
Just a thought: if you've banned the past tense of "wake", there may be folks who get auto-banned using it in its more ordinary sense. As in: "I w0ke up this morning and watched your video" or "In that scene, Tom Cruise w0ke up to his alarm".
I had the same thought. No reason to do a ban of such a common word.
I was assuming he was joking, but it really didn't seem like he was.
Which is silly, because the W0ke criticism (at least the actual real basis of it) is not that the Little Mermaid is Black, it's that studios are making creative decisions ONLY for the sake of trying to appeal to different demographics or try to seem more diverse. So, it is kind of just the capitalism argument, but still. Worth noting.
@@evanwakelin7944 There definitely is an issue of studios doing tick box representation, but the people criticising that aren't the people crying w0ke. People complaining about w0keness do so after watching a trailer and claim the film will be terrible _because_ the Little Mermaid is Black or they play a video game and claim it was ruined by the existence of a well written trans character who had no bearing on the plot.
Yeah banning a word as simple as that is pretty silly especially when it is certainly a part of the conversation. Patrick is right that it is 100% silly to discuss it but in the end, audiences can be pretty silly.
Half the US population believes in the w word boogieman and they definitely have an impact on the commercial success of a film domestically within the United States. S*und of Fr**dom (I don't know if he's gonna black list this now either) is sitting at 10th for the 2023 domestic box office above Indiana Jones, Mission: Impossible, Transformers and Fast and the Furious (and I know about the empty theatres but $ are $ and Hollywood accounting has always been fickle). Politics has always mattered within the film market especially during the Cold War and it really has not changed. Patrick is right about these people being misguided and wrong but he is just shutting down conversation as opposed to providing real examples as to why "go w go broke" is a straight up lie with the likes of Across the Spiderverse and Barbie (which weirdly enough has been co-opted by some conservative pundits who completely misunderstand the film).
Censorship sends these people back into the dark corners of the internet they came from instead making an honest effort to show why they are wrong.
I don’t understand Patrick’s reasoning here. Just because *we* may think the term/ concept [insert word we are not allowed to use] is silly and not a thing, does not mean that other people can’t think the opposite. Just because we think it’s dumb to complain about Ariel being reimagined as black or whatever, doesn’t mean that other people do. If these people didn’t exist, Patrick would not be blocking them.
Disney and other studios have objectively and explicitly been changing the way they’ve been making movies based on diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s explicitly part of their new policies that they have adopted since a number of years. And Disney has been very outspoken about it etc. That’s just an obvious fact. Just because *we* think that this is a good thing and that it is silly to criticize it and silly to call it [insert word we are not allowed to say], does not mean that there aren’t a lot of people who *don’t* like it, who *do* criticize it and who *do* use the word [insert word that will get you banned if you use it] and who *do* think [insert forbidden word]ness is very real. I mean, about half the US voted for Trump and the Republicans who use the same rhetorics and Trump may very well be re-elected; worldwide overall radical right wing populism is on the rise; the US is very polarized.
So then why could that not also (at least somewhat) influence half of the country’s decisions of which movies they go see and which they skip, take or not to take their families too etc.? And maybe skip quite a lot more than before.
I mean, you might argue polarization/ ideology *is* or you might argue it is *not* an influence, whatever, but to just brush the whole issue aside with “[insert word you shall not use]ness is not a thing and to complain Ariel is black is silly” and blocking a word, is just going around the issue. It’s more of an emotional reaction than the reaction of a detective searching for the truth.
Tom and Jerry and Willy Wonka is crazy because it's basically a 100% straight retelling of the Gene Wilder movie, and just sort of says "this stuff was going on with the cat and mouse off to the side."
And they somehow made the boat ride scene EVEN CRAZIER.
@35:35 I very much had the same thought when that question was brought up. It's a very anecdotal thing, but the last theater that did second runs of anything in my hometown shut down in 2004; even by that point it was a very old theater with dirt & grime everywhere that it was on its last legs for years. I live near a big 500k+ metro as well and they don't have those types of things.
I think those kinds of discount theaters got killed off years ago when physical releases got shorter and when major theater chains started having their own second-run or repertory screenings of older films so the demand was met.
My partner and I watched the Witches of Eastwick recently, and it really put me in mind of Patrick's comments on the original video. Here was a kind of supernatural sex comedy that was also a mainstream release, starring four fairly A list actors (Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jack Nicholson) who were largely independent of each other - i.e. not cast together in a franchise - with fairly extensive sets and effects, and some early CGI. Made almost 3 times its $22 million budget at box office.
Something like that as a mainstream release feels like a rarity if not an impossibility now. Maybe something like Barbie comes close, but that to me feels more like a family film, which is the same that can be said of your MCU, Disney etc.
Ooo! I have an answer to the video game question! I think what he's asking is when video games will be considered art, not just a toy or product, and I have some historical stuff I just learned about this to back it up!
Video games are still a very new medium. It takes a long time for a new medium of artistic and storytelling expression to be accepted. Novels were even trashed as a novelty product (and a bad one) for a while! Poetry was the only acceptable written form of art when novels debuted. But as for timing, here is the timeline of movies.
The first moving picture was made in 1895. It became a commercial product almost immediately, as a sideshow novelty. Twenty years later, in 1915, the US Supreme Court issued that movies were only a commercial product and not art, so they were not protected by the First Amendment. This was not overturned until 1952, when movies were 57 years old.
The first video game was invented in 1958. (Tennis for Two). It took a little longer for video games to become a commercial product than movies. They were mostly fun projects in college engineering departments. But the first arcade games were released in the early 1970s (Pong came out in 1971). So twenty years after video games debuted in the commercial space would be 1991. That would be when games would be seen as just a product, not art (even though, like with film, some interesting stuff was already being made) 57 years after 1971 would be 2028. Even if you calculate back earlier to allow for the college engineering boom, I think it's safe to say that widespread acceptance of video games as art (and not just a commercial product) is going to happen within the decade. It's already starting to happen. I think The Last of Us TV show validated video games in a way that nothing has before, in that it became part of a mainstream cultural media landscape that went back to look at the game with a lot more respect.
My husband is a game developer, and in the decade since he finished up his thesis (which was focused on video games) there's already been a huge shift in the cultural acceptance of video games by the academy. So it's coming or has just arrived!
This is fascinating! I can agree with a lot of this, but I also wonder how the recent rise of works based on video game theory or its unique storytelling mechanics affects the perception of video games as an art form.
Within a relatively short time, we've seen the rise in RUclips channels and books on the theory behind video game storytelling and video game mechanics from well-respected figures in the field (such as Masahiro Sakurai and Hideo Kojima.)
I want to compare that with the literature about film or dramatic theory that was around before film became accepted as an art form.
@@MichaelSavidgeStoryteller You're probably right in the criticism world. RUclips is tricky because it's rather self-selecting, but I'm sure that academia in general has delved a lot more into video game criticism than it had ten years ago. Then again, we learned a lot from the OG Extra Credits videos. I'm a novelist, and those videos went a long way for my husband and I building a shared language of video game artistic criticism and creation. He also makes RUclips videos for his local Game Dev group where he does artistic criticisms of games to demonstrate the subtleties of game design, how it can enhance a story or the game play experience. The audience is pretty small, but it's been a good exercise for him and some members of the community. People who want to learn have a lot of good critical resources on RUclips, for sure.
In this regard I feel like to paraphrase a line from a video game critic I like (Austin Walker) said it best that the moment you try to argue for video games' "legitimacy" as art, you already lost the debate because by default it's buying into a narrative that films or novels are more legitimate than games. It's a narrative pushed by mostly older academics who did not grow up with these things or if they did it was during the era where narrative & games couldn't technologically exist like Tetris or Pac-Man. Unfortunately these folks set the standards in academic settings or even in paid spaces where media studies are published this cohort still makes the decision on what is considered legitimate art.
Most of us understand that even within the realms of movies there is an implicit hierarchy of legitimacy given by critics & academics. A Minions movie is not going to be talked about in the same conversation as an Oppenheimer or Asteroid City. Even in games that hierarchy exists between something like a Spiritfarer vs a Call of Duty. It's not a hierarchy that we individually created or even think should be legitimate, but nevertheless we know it's there just by observing how game critics talk about them vs a general audience.
I think for it to shift in a way where you don't even need to ask the question "are video games art?", that it's just accepted by default, I agree in a sense that it'll take time for things to adjust but I think only in the realm that the academics & critics who uphold that implicit narrative will die out to make way for the next grouping who did grow up with narrative gameplay. When people gave shit for Roger Ebert dismissing games as art, folks need to remember that by the time he was 30 in 1972 when his professional career was in full swing , Pong hadn't even hit wide release yet so of course he wouldn't have appreciated games the way we do now.
I also think something that has not been considered on that end is story telling. In gaming outside of RPGs storytelling is relatively new especially stories that have "depth" per say as an example in early 2000s late 90s games like need for speed, crazy taxi, call of duty battlefield and so on where the popular games. Games that I would argue that had little to no story as time decade goes on games like fallout 3 and New Vegas, uncharted, half life, Rockstar (the people behind grand theft auto) first push into game storytelling and so on. Storytelling while not new to gaming is new in the way that they now have long stories to tell that rival books and films.
I went and subscribed to Mubi and have been checking out lots of great films since your video. No, you are not killing cinema.
“Emma’s really into magnolia right now “ translation=she watched it like 6 times in a single week
Patrick: you are on a desert and you have no water. You find a turtle on its back over the sand. What do you do? Keep your hands flat on the table, please.
in terms of going to see movies alone, the social aspect for me that feels missing is debriefing after the movie is over- and my fave thing to do when I go alone is to listen to a podcast about the movie after I see it. My podcast of choice is the Big Picture from the Ringer podcast network, or Blank Check if it's a movie they're covering, but any movie podcast will work- it provides a version of that conversational debrief!
Definitely agree with the infrastructure point. I don't have a car and it would take an hour and a half walk or 20 min drive to get to the nearest theatre. And as a young American with college debt, I simply don't have 10-20 bucks to spend every few weeks on seeing all the films I'd like to
the "due to social media, we now know how movies are made" comment has the same vibes as Ed Helms' character in They Came Together explaining that he doesn't like fiction books because he learned that they didn't really happen
Not liking a movie cuz it was made by treating people badly
... is not the same as not liking a book because it didn't really happen.
I had the thought recently that the MCU was fundamentally built around Tony Stark, and by killing him off completely alongside Steve Rogers they kind of removed two big anchor characters without having anyone in place to replace them. Captain Marvel and The Falcon hadn't built enough cache to take over as draws, and they've always been very hesitant with Spider-Man because of the Sony situation.
I've largely stopped going to the movies as a result of fellow audience members, and our contrasting expectations of a theater-going experience. My preferred experience involves people not looking at their phones, not engaging in conversations, and generally not disrupting my movie watching. Unfortunately I find that this expectation is not shared by many others, and when confronted they tend to get very confrontational. I myself am a very confrontational man, and things have escalated almost to the point of violence over these disagreements.
As I get older, my willingness to fight assholes in a theater is diminishing. So fuck it - let them have the theater. I'll watch at home where the only assholes I need to worry about are my cats and where I don't have to sit through 20+ minutes of commercials before watching a movie.
In the movie prestige. 19:14
bale's character says ( little interplotted ) once they know how it's done they will not respect you.
the thing with movies was the magic of ' how it was done '
The aww of it
That's why Avatar 2 worked it was the aww even the cinephile circle knows how magnificent it was
Tho most people still don't know how 'truly' movies are made.
Maybe a valid point
18:21 No clue what that guy’s on about. I’ve been watching a series about the production history of Godzilla movies and it only makes me love them even more.
I started seeing movies by my self in highschool when none of my friends wanted to see the movies I did. I still tried to go with groups but now I see almost every movie alone. Nothing beats going solo to a movie on a Wednesday night and being one of 10 people in the theatre
I've been going to movies alone for years and have never thought twice about it, I don't know how you can feel self conscious about being alone at an event where you're supposed to sit in silence. If I want to socialize, there are street festivals, music shows, parties, trivia nights, etc...
Outside of the super hero movies, we've had nearly two decades of 1970s style, subverting expecations, depressive film making. We need to enter a 1980s style imaginative and inspiring film making that can spread wonder and hope again. Life is hard, we dont need our entertainment to be.
Feedback: I really enjoyed the pandemic talk show season, so I'm glad you're sticking to that for now. The Little Women episode is still one of my favourites.
I go to the movies alone because it is my time away from work and family. It is my moments of tranquility.
There is a 100% chance I will be seeing Dune 2 in theaters by myself. Im a 37 yr old single dad with split custody of my kid. All my friends are either too busy with their own young families or dont care enough about the Dune franchise to set aside 4 hours on a weekend and pay $20+ a ticket when it will eventually be on streaming for under $4. I think this is peak adulthood.
Also libraries are a good alternative for renting, streaming and pirating! I use the library a lot when I wanna watch a movie that isn't on the streaming service I have at the moment.
Proviledged people thinking libraries in all countries have movies
My apologies for forgetting to add: If that is available in your area. Some people may forget that it may be available to them.
Agreed. So many movies you can borrow for free. Lots of older stuff that came out on dvd but fell through the cracks of streaming.
A Patrick Replies video that’s as long as a feature film? Count me in.
As a non-cinephile viewer, I can 100% report that RUclips holds me more than movies. I need a very strong recommendation to watch a movie. But I’ll watch any ol’ RUclips video in a heartbeat.
It's the attention investment for me. It's rare that I need to pay attention to a RUclips video in the same way I do a film or a TV episode.
Patrick you said on the video for the cinema dying that a solution should be more comedies.
Comedies more recent like Tropic Thunder,40 year old Virgin and so many other 80s and 90s classics would have been made under the current political trend?
Everything is found offensive and unsafe nowadays
Marvel letting the director have more of their style is why I gravitated towards the ones James Gunn and Taika Waititi directed. I loved the 2nd Doctor Strange movie because it felt like a Sam Raimi movie. As for the multiverse and what to do with Kang with the Fantastic Four coming up, they can use Doom instead as the big overarching villain. As they incorporated multiverse and when they announced “Secret Wars” as an upcoming movie, I theorized that they’re going to use the Multiverse to bring back characters that were killed off and recast them, as a way to soft reboot elements of the MCU without sacrificing the previous storyline. Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars event with Marvel in the comics about 10 years ago involved multiverses and Doctor Doom and ended with the multiverse killed off and certain characters from other universes stay in the main universe. It’s how Miles Morales ended up in the main Marvel universe instead of the Ultimate Universe
Always good when the video length is exactly an aspect ratio!
One thing I don't hear being brought up in the Who Killed Cinema conversation, is how much better the home viewing experience is for most people these days, compared to not that many years ago. I'm not saying that my 60" tv and surround sound system is the Same as a movie theater, but it's pretty good. It's a quality viewing experience and can be really immersive. Not long ago, you had to go to a theater to get that, and it's just not the case anymore.
The gap between home viewing and theater viewing as an experience is less than it ever was before.
If the film wasn't specifically shot with IMAX in mind, and the theater lacks advanced surveillance to deter troublemakers, there's little justification for heading out.
the idea that you're seen as a loser for doing things alone is so strange to me. i've mentioned before to coworkers that i go to movies and concerts and restaurants alone all the time, and most of the people i've talked to think it's a fairly cool thing to do; they comment that they wish they had the confidence.
The banned word being used as a verb like a normal person could be an issue. It's common for people to post say "(stopped being asleep) up, new video, good day" or something along those lines. Kinda sucks the net will catch that too. Not really sure what to do there.
what if somebody will mention waking up(past tense) ? will that person get mistakenly banned?
55:55 some people say that it was in the 70s and 80s that the general public started to have a positive image of sequels. For decades the rule of thumb in regards to sequels was the "dimishing returns", each sequel will be less good than the one before it so they will make less money so the studios will invest less money into the next one so it will be even less good so it will make even less money and so on and so for (at a point they even change the names of foreign movies to hide the fact that they were sequels, even when the originals had an U.S. release). Then slowly it would become a trend for sequels to be of equal quality as their predessessors (and better in some rare occasions) and that would change the people's perception of sequels. It was an slow trend, _The Godfather Par II_ and _The Empire Strike Back_ gather critical acclaim while _Rocky 2, Rambo: First Blood Part 2, Jaws 2,_ etc. while no really considered "better" than the originals still show that sequels *didn't need to suck* ... the next big step was probably 20 years later with _The Lord of the Rings_ and _Harry Potter_ that did two important things for the public: *1- show that the quallity of a saga of movies can remain consistent all the way throught. And 2- that sequels can continue and expand an story instead of being just "and this is other thing that happened to the main characters"*
The greatest trick the toon ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist...
Why I think the "argument that wont be named" IS an issue whether they are objectively right or wrong is if there is enough people that fall on that side of the argument it doesn't really matter if they are right or wrong, and it will hurt the industry. I am not saying that movies should only be made if the align with the social norms of the times, however, you can't create content that goes against a large group of the population, then also wonder why those don't make any money. The morals of right and wrong don't matter... you rely on the masses to buy your stuff, deliver your message or make money might have to be a choice you make, even if your message is the "right" one.
So I think the "argument that wont be named" can be a valid reason some movies aren't making money...even if you don't like that people think/act/spend that way.
Yeah I find Patrick’s reaction on the issue disappointing and unprofessional. He just evades the actual issue.
@@mabusestestament same he lost a viewer because of it
Blanketing them all under the Little Mermaid criticism was especially disappointing. Some people just want entertaining escapism, not preachy, divisive politics in their movies.
One of the replies in the vid (already watched on Nebula!) made me think of what might be another contributing culprit, although more means of a pre-existing one, Studio Release Calendaring: With humans being pattern recognizing monkeys, the Hollywood release schedule may have trained the general public what to expect from when a film releases, whether it will be good and to your tastes, and if worth seeing in theaters.
Summer release? Big budget blockbuster that all your friends will have seen and thus mandatory viewing for cultural zeitgeist. Autumn release? Summer's leftovers and horror films. Winter release? Apart from the Thanksgiving/Christmas blockbusters, usually "Oscar Bait" prestige films that you can wait until March to find out which is worth watching. Spring release? Nothing of value until the early summer blockbusters arrive.
That dude who was mad about "knowing how its done" makes no sense to me! How can you watch a behind the scenes for how a movie is made, see the hundreds of people all working together to create a single unified vision, and not be hugely inspired by that? Heck, even one "simple" special effect like someone being pulled up on wires in a Kung Fu movie, you've got one person putting their life in the hands of the bunch of folks pulling the cables and everyone who set the system up in the first place, just to make someone fly across the room when they get punched really hard, and I think thats just wonderful. :)
He was mad about the movies created by committee and shat out by hurting people so that a suit could make a few measly bucks.
Not... The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
I think he didn't realise that DVDs and Blu Rays always had bonus disks including Behind the Scenes. There was never an age where we didn't know how they made movies.
Or, he could be mentioning the prevelance of social media and how movie stars are fairly active there. They feel like normal people now (not that they weren't before), but it feels like these celebrities are always around so there is no reason to go out of your way to watch a movie. I also disagree with this, but it could be what he meant.
I think the availability of watching old media has helped promote sequels/prequels and general IP movies being box office juggernauts.
Until vhs and HBO were common, things came and were watched and then faded. It’s harder to garner interest in sequels if no one has watched the original in over a decade. Now you can make a sequel to movies made forty years ago and people are as excited as can be.
7:30 so much for freedom
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
I'd much rather watch an almost 2hr Patrick Willems youtube vid than most films coming out in the movie theater
re: EEAAO meaning more multiverse movies - we will get more, but not because of that movie. It was already happening before that. It's specifically because it allows properties with a lot of versions of their stories (anything comic book, especially) to get more mileage without doing a full reboot.
EEAAO was special because it was a multiverse of things the viewer had no prior attachment to (yes there are some pop culture references), but by the end we care about multiple versions of multiple characters. It's very possible someone with studio power's takeaway is that "people like multiverse," and that's it.
I have loved a lot of multiverse-related stuff but I think even the people who can handle a heroic dose of comic book bullshit are tired of it.
I like going to the movies with people so I have someone to talk to about the movie afterward. That's the social aspect. Nothing wrong with going alone, but that's why it is social.
My first date with my wife, we watched Life is Beautiful. But she was at my place early... so before that movie started, we watched Before Sunrise. Double feature. Obviously I needed to marry that girl.
3:12 this fellow really hit the spot for me, nowadays i rarely watch actual movies, i almost only watch videos about them
I'm not a Patron, not on Nebula, etc. But having watched the original "Who Killed Cinema" and this follow-up - I would suggest this concept get a revisit in 1, 2 or 5 years. Has cinema rebounded? Is there more information/evidence to point to or away from usual suspects. Are there new suspects?
Personally, I still think there is greater audience participation in this killing, given the number of comments read regarding this... and the way YOU watch movies, TV, etc., can not be broadened. Lots of different people in different cities view movies, TV and RUclips differently from you. So, maybe, person-on-the-street polling may tell you more about the subject.
Except this video is based on the last 1, 2 and 5 years. "Things might be better later!" isn't really... relevant.
I suspect the "not just bikes" crossover reference was fully a joke, but i would be 100% here for a love letter to the depiction of planes, trains and automobiles (and streetcars and monorails and bikes, ect) in movies 😂
First "replies" video I watch but I personally don't enjoy that much the comments from obviously just mad people or ones just not really bringing anything new from the discussion. Still loved the added commentary for your latest video I loved but yea, would probably take a more condensed version taking the comments from people that are here for the right reeson I guess! But I also understand it can be funny to hate on the nonsensical comments.
Something that I think you missed as a suspect-and something that I'm sad to say most people don't see to realize is TERRIBLE for movies-is the way that movie theaters are obsessed with installing giant recliners that cut back on the number of seats in an auditorium and instituting reserved seating. These practices are destroying the communal movie-going experience, pricing families out of seeing movies together, and making it incredibly difficult for going to the movies to be an impromptu, last-minute activity. I believe that all of these things have helped push general audiences towards mostly only seeing giant tentpoles. The obsession with turning every movie-going experience into a premium event with giant armchairs has driven up ticket prices and made it less feasible for families and young people to see movies in theaters.
People don't want to spend 50 bucks to take their kids to the movies unless it's the biggest event in the world. Young people are the biggest movie-going audience but with limited budgets are likely to gravitate towards bigger films. Having a third as many seats in theaters because you replaced them with giant recliners makes it feel like there aren't people in front of you or behind you, destroying the communal experience of seeing a movie with an audience, which has trained people to think watching movies at home is just as good. Having drastically fewer seats ALSO means that big movies need to be on more screens, which limits the space available to smaller films. And not only are there fewer seats, there are FAR fewer GOOD seats, which means...
The reserved seating crap that comes along with these stupid recliners also means that you have to plan ahead to get good seats. It used to be that unless it was the opening day of a MASSIVE movie, showing up 10 to 15 minutes early was all you needed to do to get a good seat. And there were LOTS of good seats. Even middle-middle snobs like me can deal with being a row or two behind my ideal spot and a seat or two off center. With giant recliners and half as many rows, there are lots of theaters were there are really only 4-8 truly GOOD seats in the theater. Who wants to pay 15 bucks for a terrible seat to watch an indie film?
I'm convinced all of this has made people see fewer movies per year and prioritize blockbusters. I think the way to save theaters is to go back to more traditional seating arrangements, abolish reserved seating, and lower prices. All we need is a dark room, a big screen, and good sound. If movie tickets were all like 5-8 bucks, I think people would go more often and the theaters would actually do better, especially since they'd sell more concessions.
That reserved seating thing is interesting cultural difference, because I have never been to a movie where there weren't reserved seats. And even when buying tickets just before starting, there have only been one or two times, when the seats were less than good.
@@sonjaimmonen6610 How old are you and how long have you been going to the movies? And in what country? I'm 33, and as far as I'm aware outside of perhaps very specialty stuff like Imax, reserved seating wasn't a thing anywhere in America in the 90s and early 2000s. I don't think the trend really started until the 2010s. Any theater with reserved seating I've ever been to will usually have at least the entire middle strip sold out at least a day in advance for almost everything but the smallest/oldest movies at the latest/earliest weekday showings.
@@BuckTheSystem I've been going to the movies like 25 years. And in Finland, hence the cultural difference. But I did forget that the small old theatre in my current hometown doesn't have reserved seating. I've only been twice, so I forgot about it.
But yeah, when reserved seating is the norm, people have adjusted to it. Changing the norm will always be a challenge.
@@sonjaimmonen6610 I figured you must be in a different country, thanks for the clarification!
the thing about Zendaya and Timothee, they have Challengers and Wonka coming up, which are VERY different movies, it's like they did a genre switch - Spiderman to Challengers and Bones And All to Wonka (Luca being involved with the dramas lol) - it's going to be very interesting how that pans out for them and what that means for their actor statuses.
On the piracy comment, I think another factor there is that (obviously this is a guess, but an educated one) a majority of the people who pirate a movie instead of buying it on physical media, subscribing to whatever streaming service, or going to the theater to see it would not or could not have done those things regardless of whether or not they had the ability to pirate it. So that 'audience' was not going to be bringing in money to begin with.
The availability to online rental is region dependant. When I wanted to watch the original Grudge, but literally the only way that I could do that legally in Australia was to buy a physical DVD. I didn't own anything that could play a DVD...
This actually ties into another point; I actually ended up getting an external DVD drive for my computer because I've started to get a level of anxiety around one day just losing access to a beloved film or show either that I've "bought" off Google or that has always been on a streaming service because the licensing that allows access in Australia has been renegotiated...
I’m so thrilled with this video. It seems like a lot of people are approaching the debate from a plethora of thoughtful avenues. (I’m leaving out the reductive, broad-strokes, “well, obviously” comments. Obviously.)
I love that a bunch of cinephiles are getting on board with this discussion and theorizing the causes as well as potential solutions. As much as money makes the world go ‘round, people choosing what to do with their time is equally as important. If enough conscientious consumers vote with their dollar, cinema will never truly die.
Thank you so much for doing this addendum piece to _WHO KILLED CINEMA_
The fact that you took time to read...well, _any_ RUclips comments, shows a true dedication to your craft.
Subscribed.
My problem with streaming services in particular is that for their "original" movies they produce, there is no other way to watch them other than subscribing. Netflix as a whole is not worth it for me at the current pricing, but they do release interesting movies that I would like to watch. However, I am not willing to subscribe with a monthly cost. I only want to watch the specific movie I am interested in and not have access to all the other stuff. Streaming services sadly do not provide that option of buying/owning their original movies. This is coming from someone who tries to own their media in a hard copy format like blu ray. I feel like streaming is kind of killing the personal movie collection, which is kinda sad.
Denzel only gets people to show up if he's acting. A Journal for Jordan, which he directed, made under $7 million. Granted, this was 2021, but it was December. Pandemic was largely dealt with.
3:32 "Are people choosing to watch RUclips instead of movies?"
I am at least! Don't get me wrong, I love movies. But I've grown to appreciate the format RUclips offers, which compared to cinema, is more intimate if only because there's less people working behind the scenes. There's real auteur stuff out here and it's fascinating to just get a direct window into their heads (or at least, get their thoughts in a way that feels more direct. There's still the layer of artifice separating the creator from the audience). It's like reading a column in a newspaper, only its a video and there's autoplay.
Top 1 reason - Theatrical movies being released to streaming sites after one to three months after day one on cinemas. Before the pandemic, seven to nine months shall pass after first day of Theatrical release before a movie is avaialble at home video media and streaming sites.
RUclips isn't killing cinema. It's killing television
No streaming is killing television, RUclips is killing reality tv.
Patrick at 1:08:00 :"If you catch an editing, or continuity error in a video..."
Me: He's gonna say a wizard did it! 😃
Patrick: "I already know."
Me: Oh. 😕
The reason I always perceived going to the movies as a social activity was for the discussion after the movie. Sure during the movie you're supposed to shut up and watch, but after the movie it's really fun to talk about it when it's still so fresh in your head
That "it has to be realistic" BS is truly hurting movie quality because the studios keep listening to Cinema Sins
Speaking as someone who's never had any qualms about going to the cinema or theatre on my own ... It's fun to watch a movie with friends, because then you can discuss the movie afterwards. It's more fun when the movie gives you more to think about, because that provokes better conversation.
I'll say about discount second run theatres, the one in my hometown closed down 20 years ago. I don't know how many are where I am now in the western suburbs of Chicago (or were), but that second run theatre used to be a first run theatre until maybe the late 90s. So, I just don't know how viable they remained into even the last decade. The last time I hit up a film late into its run was A Walk Among The Tombstones back in 2014. It was a September release, but I rushed out to see it again in late December (being projected on film, of all things) to re-assess it when I still did Best of the year lists. Said theatre in Joliet, Illinois also no longer exists.
It seems like something that really needs a local champion. My hometown is a mid-sized city with a college and university and big arts scene. A lot of the second-run theatres closed 25-30 years ago. There have recently been a few attempts to revive them in the past decade, not always successfully, but there are about 2 or 3 running now, mostly because they're the passion projects of people with deep pockets or a lot of community support. Meanwhile, about a half-hour drive away, another small college town less than a fifth the size of my hometown as just as many second-run theatres, but they're all owned by one guy who's a fixture in the community.
Granted, this is in central Canada where one theatre chain has an effective monopoly over theatrical distribution (many second-run theatre owners have been vocal about this) and has been linked in a co-promotional loyalty program with one of the five national banks (one of the failed owners in my hometown would complain on his blog that "my bank that holds my business loan is in bed with my main competition" before he folded). And this was before Disney--notorious for not renting out prints of its older films to second-run theatres--acquired 20th Century Fox's catalogue and pulled most of those from rentals too.
16:02 - Not that this retracts from the fact that, yes, it's totally fine to go to the movies solo but: A movie is social experience because of the social experiences it is attached to. Rarely do folks go on just movie dates, they go on movie+meal dates. And the movie gives you the perfect icebreaker topic of discussion and helps you learn stuff about the other person that is revealed through their perspective on the film.
20:17 I think the ALL CAPS comment is from a disabled person who is not able to use a keyboard and has to use some other device which translates speech into typed message. I’ve seen couple of those kinds of comments online.
What's the reason for the software capitalizing it in 'all caps'?
I think movies are considered a social thing because they give you something to talk about afterward. You don't need to come up with a topic. And there is a stigma around spending money on solo activities; movies, skiing, fancy restaurants, etc.
1:12:00 It also might be less because of infrastructure, and more because of culture. If you go to the Netherlands or Denmark, people just sort of walk around and chill. Most aren't in a rush. Much more of a "stop and smell the roses" vibe. It makes sense they'd be much more likely to say "hey, let's go watch a movie". Obviously, no culture is uniform, but if you go there, you really can feel the difference.
I laughed out loud at the image of you keeping your hands locked palm down on the desk in front of you. Definitely should use this and Ricky Bobby’s“I don’t know what to do with my hands” as the basis of a joke in your next video.
LMAO!!! OMG I literally fell on the floor laughing over you w0ke rant! LOVE LOVE LOVE!
I understand the impulse to delete the w00ke comments. My eyes roll over every time I see that being blamed for the recent state of cinema. Like we could be having other much deeper discussions but here you are backtracking to defend the existance of non white male protagonists in movies.
The w00ke argument is often straw-manned as being just racist, misogynist, and homophobic - and I’m not denying that those screeds exist. But there is an element of leftist ideological homogeneity that exists in the creative class in Hollywood that increasingly is putting out shows that are alienating a large segment of the potential audience.
7:04 arbitrary censorship is a wonderful way to build a community
@@benjamindover4337I wouldn't want these anti-w00ke shlubs in my community either. It's his community and his channel, he makes the rules.
@@benjamindover4337 It was obviously not arbitrary. Every community can have its own rules. Comments moderation could be a full-time job. Using technology to allow Emma do something more meaningful is a smart move. You can find plenty of communities that keep complaining a meaningless buzzword.
@@benjamindover4337 something tells me you wouldn't write this sentence in response to book bans in schools.. but prove me wrong 🤔
Been waiting for this since watching your main video. By far my favorite video you've made, not including major bonuses for the Poirot references.
18:30 that guy is 100% right an it’s kind of cowardly that you didn’t address it at all. Fandom and entertainment journalists farm clicks and reactions from meta reading into movies. The algorithm gets flooded. This informs studios and actors to a degree as it works as free publicity. Writers use pop culture references not as inter-textual allusions, but for audience brownie points. The social panopticon has ruined cinema as much as capitalism has.
I need to go to more movies alone. The amount of times I've missed a movie in the theater
@1:35:47 I'm glad you liked it! I'm even more glad you got my name right! *phew*
I think streaming is what largely killed second-run movie theaters, even before the pandemic.
For me personally, you and deepfocuslens in particular have encouraged me to start watching movies again, after years and years of focusing on shows.
I used to see two five movies at a time I was an event. At some point my nearest AMC decided that what movie theaters needed was more lines. I like to print and keep ticket stubs, they go back to 1997. (I started in 1995--Braveheart-- but lost them in a move). So, I stand in line to get the ticket, get the ticket ripped, stand in line for popcorn and soda, stand in to butter popcorn, stand in line to get soda, and then stand in line to enter thetheater.
Perfect timing, I just rewatched the original video last night.
23:30 as Valve's Gabe Newell famously, succinctly, put it:
Piracy is an accessibility problem.
I wouldn't pirate Allan Moyle's 1990 analog-punk masterpiece _Pump Up the Volume_ if it was available on *literally any streaming service* but tracking down an old DVD on eBay wouldn't be supporting the people who made the film either; it's in the wind now. For ethics purposes, it could arguably considered part of the Public Domain.
3:05 There's some truth to that. Not killing cinema, but killing TV. And not only does old media have to compete with new media. It has to compete with past media. Nowadays everyone has the cinema of the past at their fingertips at all times. And if new cinema is inferior, people can just watch all of the greats of the past. Even young people are starting to opt out of new movies and discover that they prefer older films.
You are right about directors and the public. Two of my mother's favourite Films of all time, are The African Queen and The Elephant Man. She does not know who either John Huston or David Lynch are.
46:47 Thank you. It seems everybody acts like before phase 4 the MCU was mostly great movies with only a couple of duds, but there's always been a lot of ok and mediocre films (and I'm a fan of those, too). The funny thing is, if you go back you can see the same people bashing on a lot of movies they now seem to consider "classics". So I'm always confused when I see this attitude of "OMG, it used to be so great, now it's all crap". I do think overall quality control has dropped, but not that much.
I agree with you that regarding superhero movies, and Marvel in particular, the main culprit is the sheer amount releasead each year (even though I don't mind that myself), and that diminishes excitement for each installment -- coupled with the fact that everything will be on D+ in a little while, so why bother going to the theaters -- which, in turn, diminishes box-office results and fuels the notion (and hot-takes ont the web) that the movies are now much worse, so much so that many people won't even bother to watch them at all, even when they hit D+.
Long time watcher, first time commenter. I have to say that i need the coconut video. I really do need you to make it. I'm giving it a preemptive like
An around the 1:13:00 mark, "I think I recently stumbled upon a RUclips channel that talks a lot about this, what was it called?"
Patrick: ....Not just bikes....
Me: That one
I think going to the theater is a "social" experience because you share a common experience. You bond by taking in a narrative that you can comment on later.
So in the topic of piracy specifically. And totally not talking about myself here of course for legal reasons, and I am well aware this is not the typical way people pirate stuff, but the way I *would* do it (but totally don't) is that when a movie I like is taken off a streaming platform I use, that would be when I might pirate it so I could keep having access to it in the future as well. My absolute favorites I still try to get on DVD or BluRay of course if that is easily achievable without unreasonable cost or effort.