"Generational" is the key to this entire newsletter. But unfortunately the generation being pandered too with these classic genre movies never put in the time to understand WHY THEY ENDED UP CLASSIC GENRE MOVIES. look at the star wars debacle, those films were written for what amounts to the Nuevo generation of fans that pretend to but have little to no grasp of what's happened with that particular phenom over the last 40 odd years. Remember when you would get beat up for being a scifi or comic nerd on the playground? They don't. They came avmcross something new and unique and grabbed it then made demands without putting in the time to be a part of it. It's that simple. It's a 15 minute culture at this point and it's only going to get worse and destroy more ips. Ask yourself this question what New ip will be this generations star wars? Or even the matrix? Or say Jaws? While we must concede the fact that time marches on I just don't see time marching in a particularly creative or even sustainable direction with the current generation of movie goers at the helm.
Apparently TENET is now playing at Los Angeles drive-ins, so I may catch that this weekend. I've been wanting to try out a drive-in, so this is a good opportunity.
I haven't read through the Best Picture eligibility requirements for the Oscars in detail, but judging from what POC industry have said about them on Twitter and such, they don't seem to be much of the big "creativity-stifling" world-ending cataclysm that some make it out to be on reddit. I roll my eyes every time I see a comment along the lines of "a Best Picture movie should be the best movie" or "it should be about the quality of talent, not race, sexual orientation, etc". Talk about being privileged!
I'm sure DUNE will be good, and it remains one of my most anticipated films of the year (or next year, or the year after that) but I'm not the biggest fan of the color schemes. Its gunmetal look just feels like "Rogue One" sapped of its bright colors.
I'm not going to lie, I got chills watch the Dune trailer for the first time, but then I realized it's release date would probably be pushed back. Now that WW84 is moving to December, that move looks all the more likely.
On a related note Warner Bros's inability to grasp the kind of situation we are in has become increasingly rage inducing. This has gone beyond trying to please Christopher Nolan. I miss going to to the movies, but their idea of preserving the cinematic experience likely to kill it stone dead along with a bunch on innocent people.
I hope you are right about change happening Drew. I sometimes think back on the book Pictures at a Revolution where described the Hollywood system becoming sick of itself by the mid to late 60s. I thought that we might be turning a corner for the better after Parasite won best picture, but now it's so damn hard to be optimistic.
Lots of great points in this newsletter, Drew. It might be generational (I’m pushing 40), but I don’t get the point of trailer reaction videos at all. I get why other people may enjoy watching spontaneous emotional reactions to things, but I feel like doing this for trailers is just about pushing a pre-determined narrative. That could be a marketing narrative (of course), a fan narrative (as with Dune) or an anti-fan narrative (such as the growing toxic communities obsessed with bemoaning the current Star Trek series). I also thank Harry Shearer for the term “anticipointment” - which he used in an interview to describe managing audience expectations for The Simpsons Movie - because it sums up so much about fan culture since The Phantom Menace. I wish more people knew the term, and gave thought to keeping their expectations in check.
Amen on the Oscar stuff as well. While having explicit criteria seems to be ruling people up, anyone with any understanding of the history of the Academy (or awards bodies as a whole) will realise that there’s been *implicit* creative criteria since the awards began. Some was certainly overt, some of it driven by unconscious bias, and some a mixture of the two, but it was always there. Kirstie Alley is probably sore because the last thing she was in that even *remotely* aimed at awards consideration was David O. Russell’s NAILED, and we all know how that turned out, as “Stephen Greene’s” ACCIDENTAL LOVE.
I mean, I have no connection to DUNE, but I trust Villeneuve. Even if that trailer is a generic by-the-numbers trailer with all the ingredients, including of course dramatic voice-over, a sad indie version of a classic song, and some BWAAAPS.
"Generational" is the key to this entire newsletter. But unfortunately the generation being pandered too with these classic genre movies never put in the time to understand WHY THEY ENDED UP CLASSIC GENRE MOVIES. look at the star wars debacle, those films were written for what amounts to the Nuevo generation of fans that pretend to but have little to no grasp of what's happened with that particular phenom over the last 40 odd years. Remember when you would get beat up for being a scifi or comic nerd on the playground? They don't. They came avmcross something new and unique and grabbed it then made demands without putting in the time to be a part of it. It's that simple. It's a 15 minute culture at this point and it's only going to get worse and destroy more ips. Ask yourself this question what New ip will be this generations star wars? Or even the matrix? Or say Jaws? While we must concede the fact that time marches on I just don't see time marching in a particularly creative or even sustainable direction with the current generation of movie goers at the helm.
Apparently TENET is now playing at Los Angeles drive-ins, so I may catch that this weekend. I've been wanting to try out a drive-in, so this is a good opportunity.
I haven't read through the Best Picture eligibility requirements for the Oscars in detail, but judging from what POC industry have said about them on Twitter and such, they don't seem to be much of the big "creativity-stifling" world-ending cataclysm that some make it out to be on reddit. I roll my eyes every time I see a comment along the lines of "a Best Picture movie should be the best movie" or "it should be about the quality of talent, not race, sexual orientation, etc". Talk about being privileged!
I'm sure DUNE will be good, and it remains one of my most anticipated films of the year (or next year, or the year after that) but I'm not the biggest fan of the color schemes. Its gunmetal look just feels like "Rogue One" sapped of its bright colors.
I'm not going to lie, I got chills watch the Dune trailer for the first time, but then I realized it's release date would probably be pushed back. Now that WW84 is moving to December, that move looks all the more likely.
On a related note Warner Bros's inability to grasp the kind of situation we are in has become increasingly rage inducing. This has gone beyond trying to please Christopher Nolan. I miss going to to the movies, but their idea of preserving the cinematic experience likely to kill it stone dead along with a bunch on innocent people.
I hope you are right about change happening Drew. I sometimes think back on the book Pictures at a Revolution where described the Hollywood system becoming sick of itself by the mid to late 60s. I thought that we might be turning a corner for the better after Parasite won best picture, but now it's so damn hard to be optimistic.
Lots of great points in this newsletter, Drew. It might be generational (I’m pushing 40), but I don’t get the point of trailer reaction videos at all. I get why other people may enjoy watching spontaneous emotional reactions to things, but I feel like doing this for trailers is just about pushing a pre-determined narrative. That could be a marketing narrative (of course), a fan narrative (as with Dune) or an anti-fan narrative (such as the growing toxic communities obsessed with bemoaning the current Star Trek series). I also thank Harry Shearer for the term “anticipointment” - which he used in an interview to describe managing audience expectations for The Simpsons Movie - because it sums up so much about fan culture since The Phantom Menace. I wish more people knew the term, and gave thought to keeping their expectations in check.
Amen on the Oscar stuff as well. While having explicit criteria seems to be ruling people up, anyone with any understanding of the history of the Academy (or awards bodies as a whole) will realise that there’s been *implicit* creative criteria since the awards began. Some was certainly overt, some of it driven by unconscious bias, and some a mixture of the two, but it was always there. Kirstie Alley is probably sore because the last thing she was in that even *remotely* aimed at awards consideration was David O. Russell’s NAILED, and we all know how that turned out, as “Stephen Greene’s” ACCIDENTAL LOVE.
I mean, I have no connection to DUNE, but I trust Villeneuve. Even if that trailer is a generic by-the-numbers trailer with all the ingredients, including of course dramatic voice-over, a sad indie version of a classic song, and some BWAAAPS.