Profit rights through digital media haven’t quite been figured out the same way. Not how to make money online or a fair way to distribute that money to everyone involved. Especially the content creators!
We used to have a curated selection with limited choices. Studios and publishers could ensure if you wanted something, this was the nearest available big release. Think of the limited slate at a theater, or the table of featured releases at a bookstore. Someone decided those would be your options.
But now there’s so much content available digitally that media outlets need things like theaters in order to funnel audiences into a resource-scarce experience. Ten years ago, you could exploit a couple of advertising channels and virtually guarantee a book would hit the USAToday or NYTBestseller list. Now it’s like okay, time to get out half a dozen books or movies that will make a fractured profit hopefully equal to what one release used to pull in. You have to embrace the long tail of fractured profit and just hope one of your releases hits the lottery at some point.
One of those lotteries can be when you’re brought in to helm a blockbuster. Make money (and if you can, make the movie good) and you go into the Chris Nolan lane (which will now be dominated by Chloé Zhao). Make one insanely profitable comic book movie every four years and the studio will fund your more artistic ventures knowing they will be lucky to break even. But in a sense, those niche releases serve as the prestige marketing for the blockbuster money makers you know your horse will deliver next time.
Speaking of Marvel, I read that Marvel is going to film their movies in Australia for at least the next five years because of COVID. So thanks, Governor Kemp and Republicans, you just fucked our state out of gajillions of dollars and made it harder for lots of people to find work.
Not disagreeing with your post but I just wanted to point out that the streaming platforms definitely still have this ability to make a lot of people watch whatever they choose to advertise at a given time.
(And btw I don’t understand why e.g. netflix webpage is so painful when you’re trying to browse through their catalog.They have infinite money to make it better so this must be calculated somehow but I don’t get how…)
Ok I see. I guess once they decided that the killer cops are heroes for which we should feel bad, they had to go that route…but of course that’s not great politically. (And it would have certainly been a more interesting movie if they had shown the shooting the way you describe!)
A good Q about the Netflix UI. I think they do that to promote discovery. They’re selling subscriptions. The content is sort of secondary, even if it’s a sincere pursuit for the company.
Re Netflix interface. I think most people prefer something simple that gives them something they want to watch very quickly, and with little interaction needed.
Also, if the primary interaction style is letting people search it comprehensively easily then the expectation is that it should have whatever you decide to look for. Which it won’t, so then it starts disappointing you. Whereas the Netflix interface style is very much: this is what we have, why not watch something? Your expectation is then to find something to satisfy you.
(I don’t defend it against the criticism really, just say why I think it’s like it is. It really pisses me off too.)
Connecting to the Netflix interface hate above, I went to the website today to see that The Dark Knight is now available. Or at least I think it’s a new thing, I haven’t seen it in any of my browsing recently. For some reason though it hasn’t been showing up in the “New & Popular” screen either, where they purport to show what’s coming this week, next week, etc.
I drill down a little further and find that Batman Begins is also in there, but same as above, there was no previous indication anywhere that it was coming.
So that’s my main beef with Netflix, it’s too unpredictable. Movies appear without warning, then they also disappear without warning. Super aggravating, to me at least.
I use flixable.com which lists the new arrivals to streaming services by date, I think it also has what is leaving soon. But yeah it’s silly having to go to an outside website for that.
They give a warning 30 days in advance that a show or movie is leaving but only if you click on them. There are a bunch of sites that aggregate what’s running and leaving Netflix but I doubt they are perfect because of how difficult Netflix makes it to get the information. I use flixboss.com
I have a question about Stranger Than Fiction. … It’s 15 years old but I’ll blur anyway …
After Harold wakes up in the hospital, he tells Ana he saved the little kid by pushing him out of the way of the bus. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Next scene, Karen Eiffel tells Jules Hilbert she saved Harold because her story had been about a man who was about to die and didn’t know it. "But if the man does know he’s about to die and dies anyway, dies willingly, knowing he could stop it, isn’t that the type of man you wan to keep alive?
He’s not saying he literally didn’t have a choice. It’s a statement of ethics. He couldn’t live with himself if he knew the little boy would die but he could have sacrificed himself to stop it.
That seems like the same thing … The two lines are so polar and right next to one another that I can’t imagine the audience isn’t supposed to really think about them.
So here is “God” saying Harold had a choice, and Man saying he had no choice
I dunno about this “good” and “bad” person stuff. Just programming, beliefs, experiences, that lead us to a “choice.” But I am not convinced we actually make choices.
Fake ones allowed ? If so this one might be appropriate for this message board :
“Punishment park” (watkins 1971)
In the Nixon presidency, leftist activists are given the choice between long prison terms or surviving a few days in the desert while being hunted down by police. A camera crew documents the trials and desert hunt.
Fiction of course, but features non professional actors voicing their actual opinions (on both sides).
For me (non american) it was in part interesting because it helps relativise claims such as “america has never been as polarized as today” (although at the time the divide may have been more generational which might have seemed less hopeless).
Watched Raya and the Last Dragon last night with my wife and almost 4-year-old. It was delightful, in my opinion. Formulaic in the way that all Disney movies are, but with beautiful CGI, rich cultures, endearing characters, and plenty of positive messages for the kiddos. Highly recommended for anyone with kids.
ETA: We watched it at home. No theatre pozzes for us.
You might enjoy his One From The Heart from the same era - commercially a flop which broke him financially after mixed critical reactions, and unusually, lit throughout using neon lighting iirc.
We just watched it today and they liked it a lot (as far as i can tell…). I loved it as well, a perfect mix between relaxed and depressed. Thanks for the recommendation !
