#perhaps instead i will watch some cinema (a godzilla)

[whifferdills]

i want to like A League Of Their Own but it has the same dialogue style as Our Flag Means Death, that like post-Whedon self-aware anachronistic whimsy that can’t stop patting itself on the back, which i can feel getting dated in an unenjoyably late 2010s/early 2020s way as it enters my earholes....idk it’s not like i don’t love dialogue that’s incredibly stilted/affected/stylized/cringy/etc but this i don’t think i can do anymore

[gossip-girl-of-middleearth]

Please tell us about the cinema, I beg you

Oh boy...that accursed night. If you think fanfic plots are chaotic, just wait for this story.

Story under the cut:

So, I just got this job at my small town’s local theatre. I genuinely enjoyed it, and was quite content with the way things were going—fun shifts, cool coworkers, and a nice boss. So I thought.

I was only two weeks in when the “incident” occurred.

At the theatre, we had to collect a walkie talkie radio at the start of every shift, and sign it in and out with a piece of paper in the office.

It was a little clunky and annoying when cleaning cinemas with vacuums, but nothing to cry over.

One night, I’m put to work with a new supervisor I hadn’t met before and some new coworkers (they’d all been there a while, but this was my first shift with them).

For a little context, I’m 19, and most of the other employees were like 15-17. So, I was basically being bossed around by pretentious, power-tripping kids. Fun.

King Kong vs Godzilla had just been released, so of course, the theatre was packed that night — 130 people per room.

Now, we usually have 20-30 minute intervals between sessions to clean the cinemas, but with the release of a new movie, it was cut down in half, sometimes less.

I was cleaning the most popular cinema that night, and was first told to take my time, as it needed to be spotless. Also, side note, can people please not throw popcorn everywhere? It’s a pain to clean. Then again, I don’t work there anymore nor ever will, so do what you want, I suppose.

My little coworker told me to take my radio off my belt and put it aside to get a good vacuum going through each aisle, as it apparently made it easier, as the cord would sometimes get wrapped around the radio stem.

Fair enough.

I did so, and left it on the wooden platform of the rows to begin vacuuming. He leaves and I get to work.

However, he comes rushing back a few minutes later and says, “what the hell are you still cleaning for?? We’ve got a hundred people waiting outside???”

I’m over it™️ at this point because I only took this job to see the behind the scenes of how a cinema works. I shrug and go, “okay”

I pack the vacuum up and try to leave hastily, as he’s being very antsy and pushy.

He gets frustrated and grabs the rest of my cleaning crap to leave, and tells me to hurry up behind him.

My hands are full and I can’t grab the radio, so I say, “what about the walkie talkie?”

I swear I hear him say, “leave it, there’s no time!”

I shrug and think it’s weird, but trust him to know better.

However, once I dump my crap and prepare to leave, as a hundred people are pushing in behind me, my intuition tells me to grab the walkie talkie.

I rush back in to where I left it, and find it missing

I have a brief moment of “oh shit”

However, I think to myself, “it’s okay, you only took this job for shits and giggles. If they fire you, you have your other job anyways. What’s the worst that can happen?”

If only I knew.

An hour goes by into my shift, and I’m cleaning another cinema with the same coworker. I’ve kind of shoved the walkie talkie thing to the back of my mind, because I was doing a closing shift that night and could probably get away with not facing my manager about the sign out sheet.

However, at one point the boy goes, “where’s your radio??”

Sheepishly, I say, “uh...I left it in cinema 3, like you told me to?”

He sort of pales and I think this little skinny high schooler is about to pass out.

He starts yelling at me and tells me that I need to get my flashlight and start checking every single row in there.

I go, “fuck no, the movie is still going? You want me to flash a torch in the peoples’ faces during King Kong?? The one cinema hosting the entirety of the sweaty balls side of reddit right now???”

He gets very shitty and says, “I’ll do it myself, wait here.”

By now I know I’m in the shit, but shrug and remember I can always escape through the vents if need be.

Now, there was this really fucking annoying 15 year old boy I was working with that night, who’s the definition of the “well aCtUaLlY” guy irl

He comes sprinting into the theatre I was cleaning, and starts literally interrogating me over this walkie talkie. Like, he thinks he’s the “bad cop” or some shit. Other coworkers closer to my age had already warned me about him before I even met him.

The other boy I was working with apparently couldn’t find it, and just didn’t want to deal with the consequences that night so much, that he called his mum to come pick him up early.

Weakling child.

It was at this point that I quietly arrived at the conclusion of “they think I stole it”

I didn’t understand why, it’s a fucking walkie talkie? What’s the big deal? Go get a Dora the Explorer one to replace it from Target??

I let my inner Mickey Milkovich come out, and play cool.

Him: you fucking stole it

Me:

This 15 year old Ben Shapiro-looking fucker starts grilling me, and literally places me under theatre arrest. I wasn’t allowed to leave the room I was cleaning, in other words.

He gets uncomfortably close—just me and this weird boy in this dark theatre—and goes, “I want you to be brutally honest with me...did you take the walkie talkie? I won’t tell the manager that you did.”

If you guys know me well enough from my blog, then you know this boy suffered a great deal of aggressive sarcasm in response.

He gets pissed (brown-noser), and tells me to continue cleaning, as he leaves the theatre.

Only ten minutes go by until he comes back, but this time with “good cop”.

I roll my eyes, and turn the vacuum off.

They stand at the bottom of the cinema blocking my entrance with their arms folded, and start interrogating me about stealing it.

I give them some more Mickey Milkovich sarcasm, as I had already explained to them a hundred times what happened.

They involve the manager (snitches) and now I’m really in trouble.

They force me to go into the cinema whilst the movie is still playing to look for it. Begrudgingly grabbing my flashlight, and preparing for rightfully angry people as I search their crotches in the middle of a highly anticipated movie, I head inside theatre 3.

Fuck doing that though, I watch the movie instead with the people and eat some popcorn.

Figuring a reasonable amount of time to search had gone by, I sadly leave the cool laser battle scene, and head back out.

Me: “I searched and couldn’t find it.”

Power-complex 15 year old with a punchable Ben Shapiro face: “Did you look everywhere in the cinema??”

Me: “Yeah, I shoved a flashlight up seat 33’s asshole and checked it myself.”

Some more pissy exchanges take place, and I’m told to go clean another cinema.

I’m having fun at this point, because I’ve worked enough jobs to know this situation was being dealt with incredibly immaturely by the other staff.

Regarding accidents like these in the workplace, and given how big the cinema chain is, they should know insurance covers a simple walkie talkie, and that assuming the new employee stole something which is misplaced is a bad way to integrate them into your company. It’s simply a bad look for your business.

I’m cleaning another cinema when all three come in, and tell me they’re going to put cinema 3 on lockdown when the movie ends, and check everyone’s bags.

I’m amused at this point, so I really just go “damn bro that’s wild”

They do exactly that, and it’s as awkward as you can imagine.

People are angry and annoyed—all 130 of them at 9:30pm huddled in a group, having their bags searched for a damn walkie talkie.

After discovering no one had actually stolen it, like I said, they start interrogating me again.

“Are you sure it was cinema 3??? Is your memory perhaps failing you???”

“If I say yes, will I go home sooner?” (my shift ended 15 minutes ago, and I wasn’t allowed to leave)

Naturally, I stayed another 40 minutes, and had to search the entire building. I’m talking arcade, toilets, offices—everywhere.

It is eventually deemed completely lost, and I basically end the night saying, “well, I ain’t about to strip nude for you all for a full body search, and although I’ve never had such a fun shift anywhere else, I’m not a fan of work environments that promote skepticism and cohort-wide distrust. I ain’t coming in next week, or the week after that, or the...well, I think you get the point.”

I leave my badge behind, and basically book it out of the cinema an hour after my shift was supposed to end. I worked illegally longer than I was supposed to, and wasn’t given the legal shift break.

I received text messages and emails from the head office shortly after, asking if I was coming back, and ignored them for a little while, as although I can handle irl confrontation, virtual ones spook me?

Anywho, the walkie talkie actually costs $1000, but as mentioned before, I, an adult, recognise insurance covers these sorts of things, especially in companies as big as these.

So, moral of the story, don’t leave 15 year olds in charge of adults, because most of the time, they’re too young to realise what insurance policies are :)

[movieswithkevin27]

Ready Player One

Ready Player One is an odd film. It has everything I hate about modern cinema - too many quips (here it is largely done via references), loud action instead of more restrained action so the film winds up being hunks of metal clashing against one another, and an unabashed love of pop culture to the point it distracts from whatever story the film is telling which was cliche and hokey anyways - yet it is also good. It is also a film in which an evil businessman wants to control a massive virtual reality game played by everyone on Earth in order to cover 80% of the screen with advertisements, all while the film itself is presented by blatant product placements bought by Pizza Hut, Doritos, and Twitch. In essence, a message of, “Ugh, all of these advertisements are the worst. Want to stream Twitch, order Pizza Hut, and snack on some Doritos instead?” Hell, even setting barely makes any sense. So there are “bandwidth riots” and some kind of war which have led to society living in “stacks” in 2045. That is fine, but then why do they have nostalgia for the 1980s? 1980s nostalgia films like Back to the Future and Peggy Sue Got Married worshipped at the altar of the 1950s. Even American Graffiti, from the 1970s, worshipped the same period. Modern nostalgia films like IT or the series Stranger Things worship 1980s films. Thus, would it not make sense for Ready Player One’s characters to worship 2000s/2010s movies like Avengers, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or something? There is one brief shot of Avatar, which makes sense, but perhaps the oddest bit of the film is how nostalgia did not change even though so much in society did change in the 30 years between now and the film’s setting. This perplexing film only comes together for a few reasons. Its ideas are quite well done, its adventure plot is greatly realized, its special effects are great, Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke are great, and it is directed by Steven Spielberg who keeps the lid on author Ernest Cline’s nostalgia porn of a story.

Ready Player One is pretty much known for its references to the films and video games that Cline himself loved, so it is natural that the film itself is full of references. Whether it is Freddy Krueger, Chucky, The Iron Giant, Back to the Future, The Shining, Goldeneye, old Atari games, King Kong, Godzilla, or the films of John Hughes, Ready Player One is almost always distracting. The bits of old songs (especially in the climactic battle) are distracting due to the dialogue or attention dedicated to them, while the references to Hughes (as well as Animal House and Fast Times at Ridgemont High) hardly help as the film seems to just spend as much time possible mentioning as many facts as it can in order to pander to lovers of those films or any of the aforementioned referenced films/songs/games. However, the references are not necessarily all bad. As they are contained within the Oasis, they do make sense as people who loves these games and movies would likely reference and incorporate them into a game they created. That said, they are as distracting as one would expect, especially when they are shoehorned in as with Parzival / Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) telling someone that they are “like Rosebud”, in an overt reference to Citizen Kane. However, when it comes to The Shining or King Kong or the old Atari game at the end, Spielberg and Ready Player One are quite smart. The inclusion of King Kong as the final boss for the first key or with The Shining as the setting for the showdown for the second key, the film can be incredibly fun and beyond the typical “yeah I get these references” way as Spielberg does not go merely for the reference or the homage. Instead, he utilizes them and plays with the characters abilities or the Overlook Hotel setting in a way that not just fits the film, but is a fun twist on them. In particular, The Shining sequence is a real standout for the film as the characters come face-to-face with threats from the film while it is blended with a reference to a game made by the creator of the Oasis James Halliday (Mark Rylance), while being thrilling and emotional in all the right ways.

This is what ultimately saves and elevates the film as, throughout, Ready Player One is definitely quintessential Spielberg in terms of the sense of adventure and the thrills. It is almost like a futuristic Indiana Jones in which the hero must find keys/artifacts, fight against some wicked group who wants to control or destroy the world, and winds up having a young Asian sidekick. The end result is a film that, for all of its references, can often stand on its own two feet. Telling the story of a game creator named Halliday who left control of his Oasis game to whoever can find the three keys he has hidden throughout the game, the film details the efforts of multiple factions racing towards the keys. Though he starts solo, Parzival eventually brings along his friend Aech (Lena Waithe), who brings along two friends of their own Sho (Philip Zhao) and Daito (Win Moriaski). While playing and trying to find the first key, Parzival falls into movie love with gamer Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), who luckily serves far more of a role than the cliche “love interest” character though she does slip into being a damsel in distress towards the end. Meanwhile, the comically evil bad guy is Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), who once interned for Halliday and now leads the biggest competitor to the Oasis. Thus, he desperately wants control of the Oasis in order to increase his power and profit. This is all, obviously, quite cliche. However, in the hands of Spielberg, it does work incredibly well. There are some inconsistencies such as the need for whoever wins to have all three keys in their possession, yet Nolan and his company continue to progress through the levels without any indication as to how they were able to get either the first or second keys. One could argue they learned how to complete the level from the “High Five” clan led by Parzival, but the film is also very clear that they told nobody but those in their close circle of friends about how to complete the levels. Thus, it makes very little sense that Sorrento’s company 101 could be in position to win. However, this issue is not particularly distracting as Ready Player One accomplishes its greatest goal: it is incredibly fun. This is a film that is fast-paced, moves through its 140 minutes with relative ease, and creates endearing and charming characters along the way that are anchored by terrific performances. This is not a film that will change the landscape of cinema for the next 40 years, but it will be a film that is fondly remembered and turn into nostalgia itself for those who do watch the film.

Spielberg’s direction of action has never been in question and that is certainly present here, as in the climactic battle sequence. Grand in scope and with brimming with brilliant special effects, the inventive additions of references and of advanced technology do bolster the scene considerably, making it both thrilling and wholly enjoyable. In this line, what the film further benefits from is not quite world building, rather it is world exploration as well as character development. For the former, as everyone tries to find the clues and keys, it brings the characters to consistently engaging and brilliantly designed areas of the Oasis that make the film consistently engaging to watch unfold. This is a world with considerable depth and creativity behind it and, luckily, the film’s plot brings the characters through this colorful and often quite bombastic world. This may be a film that possesses the problems of blockbuster cinema, but it also possesses what can make blockbusters so great to watch, which is creativity and an immense scale. Ready Player One possesses this in spades, making it a world that is fun to experience and will be fun to eventually return to on future rewatches. This world being brought to life with stunning visual effects and production design only further benefits the final product, as it is a film that uses modern technology to its great benefit as it is a film that demands to be seen on the big-screen, while utilizing that modern technology to help bring to life this futuristic world of Columbus.

What does hold back Ready Player One from being better, however, are its cliches, plot devices/contrivances, and Spielberg’s sentimentality. For the plot issues, beyond the logic issue that 101 is able to continue without ever getting the keys, Ready Player One tips its hand early on when Parzival is walking through a store and is told the “Cataclysm” would destroy the game and everything, so no one should ever buy it to prevent the destruction of the Oasis. This Chekov’s gun, naturally, comes back right at the climax, only to not actually do as promised. This is explained as being due to a plot convenience in which, despite not wanting it, Parzival accidentally had an “extra life” coin given to him by the curator of Halliday’s life records. These plot conveniences also show up when Art3mis/Samantha Cook is able to escape from 101 after her capture. Using the 101 war room to play in the Oasis and help Parzival/Wade, she winds up narrowly missing Nolan Sorrento who has been going through all of his employees and ripping off their masks to find Samantha. Not only is the timing perfect, but a commander comes over and tells her to go to the “re-spawn” room after she gets kicked out of the game, though the film has shown 101 gamers being kicked out of the game throughout the film with the commander never approaching any of them. Ready Player One also heavily relies upon foreshadowing, such as the password for Nolan’s rig (which is also convenient) being captured in a close-up while it just sits on the armrest, waiting for it to be stolen. Plot devices/contrivances further show up for the final key as Parzival plays an old Atari game. A 101 gamer had tried that game, but failed the challenge as he won the game instead of looking for the noted Easter Egg in the game. A girl working at 101 had suggested the game as a likely answer to the final clue, but was cut off before being able to explain that winning the game will not help them. Finally, Spielberg’s usage of the aforementioned cliches is only outdone by his typically tacky sentimentalism at the end of the film. As Parzival urges everyone in the game to come help him fight Nolan, nobody comes at first so Nolan smugly smirks and walks off before literally everyone in the game shows up to fight Nolan in a moment intended to be emotional and show the support that Parzival has in the game. Later, as the group celebrates their victory, Nolan is conveniently arrested while Wade declares he will not miss the chance on love like Halliday did as he wraps up Samantha for a kiss the film had been building up to throughout. This sentimental finale with the already cliche bad guy getting his “just desserts” in the most cliche and hokey way possible really takes the air out of the film right as it is set to end.

Thematically, as with many modern films, Ready Player One is definitively anti-corporation. This is, as per usual, quite ironic given the film’s own celebration of consumerism, its status as the product of a corporation, and its own aforementioned product placements. Nonetheless, Ready Player One is smart in how it is not necessarily fully anti-corporation, but rather it is pro-creative. The Oasis itself is a tool to be used by people in order to showcase their creativity and to create a world they find interesting. This is exactly what Halliday did in creating the game, hence the film loves him and celebrates all those who do create things. What it decries are the corporations who see the game or product and seek only to monetize it and help their bottom line even if it means ruining what people love about the game. This is a major problem with video games now and even with film as those in control of them seek to do whatever they can to maximize their pay-off with little concern for the product itself or the work put into it by the creatives. These same corporations also ignore that the game, such as the Oasis, is popular as is while being incredibly profitable for Halliday as it stood. Thus, why would one ruin it rather than just sit back and rake in the cash? This is the type of corporate strategy that Ready Player One takes full issue with, decrying the meddling of those who do not understand the product or consumer just because they think they can squeeze out a few more cents from a consumer. In this, as expected, Spielberg hails those who stand up and defend creativity or are creative in their own right. They are the ones who bring joy to millions and, as such, should be celebrated for being a benefit to society.

However, Ready Player One also urges limits. This is an especially important message given the target audience of a film styled like a video games with nostalgic references to games and films strewn throughout. One can love entertainment, but not at the expense of life. Halliday loved his games at the expense of living his life, winding up alone and watching the woman he loved marry his business partner and die of cancer from afar. His life was in the game he created and the movies he watched. His refusal to lead an actual existence beyond media proves to be his greatest regret and it plays a major role in the search for the keys, while Parzival eventually changes the Oasis so that it turns off for two days a week so that people will actually live life. Not only had Wade/Parzival cast aside his own life in favor of the Oasis, but he saw how his Aunt’s abusive boyfriend had done the same and even bet all of his savings on the game. The people in the “stacks” all play during the day, rather than finding a way to get out of their poverty. Thus, by focusing some effort on the real world, Wade is able to find love with Samantha and hopes that those who play his game will be able to do the same with the added emphasis on a life/play balance.

A thrilling, adventure-filled, and wholly entertaining romp through the nostalgia of Ernest Cline as directed by Steven Spielberg, Ready Player One is a better film than it has right to be in large part due to Spielberg and his leads. Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke continue to prove that they are two of the brightest young stars in Hollywood with their turns in this film, while also being a dynamite romantic pairing with great chemistry between them. Though the film is brought down by cliches, sentimentalism, and shoehorned references, Ready Player One nonetheless manages to be one of the better blockbusters in recent memory and serves as further proof that Spielberg knows how to entertain an audience unlike any other filmmaker.

[aion-rsa]

Black Widow Sticking with Movie Theaters Shows Flaws in HBO Max Model

https://ift.tt/3gG8sBG

You could practically hear the gasps of disappointment last night. Marvel fans around the world were so sure Disney’s call to investors would confirm what they wanted to hear—that Marvel Studios’ Black Widow is coming straight to Disney+. Instead they were forced to face Disney’s cold reality: It still doesn’t make much economic sense to release a potentially massive blockbuster like Black Widow on streaming without some type of theatrical window. At least not yet.

To be sure, Disney is not against experimenting with putting major films on their streaming service. This year alone they have (or will soon) release Hamilton, Mulan, and Pixar’s Soul, with one of those featuring a pricy $30 paywall for its first three months online. And during the Mouse House’s glitzy presentation to investors Thursday evening, they also revealed Walt Disney Animation Studios’ next event, Raya and the Last Dragon, will likewise be getting the “Premier Access” treatment that Mulan did.

Yet the company also reasserted its commitment to the theatrical experience when it made sense, such as Scarlett Johansson’s allegedly final bow as Natasha Romanoff. Black Widow is still coming to theaters on May 7, 2021. The Warner Bros. fire sale approach of everything must go (to HBO Max), this was not.

However, this non-news is a helpful reminder on the state of the industry and why proclamations of movie theaters’ death last week were premature. In fact, the strikingly different approaches Disney and Warner Bros. are taking to their 2021 output reveals as much about the state of their streaming services as it does the long-term viability of cinemas.

As Disney was right to crow about last night, Disney+ has amassed more than 86 million subscribers since its launch in November 2019. In that time, it’s been able to steadily increase and sustain viewership with a slow but zeitgeist-grabbing output of original content. Hamilton was of course a big get for Disney’s fledgling streaming service last Fourth of July, and that was a live-recording of the Broadway musical originally intended for theaters. However, much else of their relatively limited output, such as The Mandalorian, has dominated pop culture as the must watch watercooler series of the year.

At this rate, Disney+ is easily on track to reach the ceiling of its announced five-year goal—90 million subscribers—by some time early next year. They’re also on path to eventually challenge Netflix’s roughly 170 million global subscribers. With the Mouse’s current strategy working, there is little financial need to rock the boat in order to buoy Disney+.

By comparison WarnerMedia’s HBO Max has had a disappointingly rocky launch. Despite Christopher Nolan’s most uncharitable and inaccurate statements, HBO Max actually is a treasure trove of content for movie and premium cable fans: here is the best classic Hollywood library on any streaming service, international and independent gems through the Criterion Collection, and almost every HBO series ever produced. But it’s failed to catch on at large. In fact, most HBO subscribers appear unaware that they even have an HBO Max account, with only 8.6 million HBO Max accounts being activated—even though there are 34.5 million HBO subscribers, with an HBO Max account to them all.

That confusion among HBO subscribers, as well as an apparent reluctance to sign up to HBO Max in its first calendar year by everyone else, is incredibly troubling for WarnerMedia, which since being acquired by AT&T has pursued a strategy of putting all of its eggs in a streaming service basket.

Then WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey (who is now the CEO of AT&T) told The New York Times in 2018, “We need more hours a day [of people watching HBO programs]. It’s not hours a week, and it’s not hours a month. We need hours a day. You are competing with devices that sit in people’s hands that capture their attention every 15 minutes.”

He continued, “I want more hours of engagement. Why are hours of engagement important? Because you get the data and information about a customer that then allows you to do things like monetize through alternate models of advertising, as well as subscriptions.”

If you watched Disney’s four-hour lovefest yesterday, you’d know they had plenty to gush about in terms of mining data from subscribers. If you factor in their Hulu and ESPN+ subscribers, Disney is gathering data from 137 million subscribers worldwide. Unlike HBO Max, their services do not need an immediate shot in the arm.

Which brings us back to Black Widow. Disney’s endgame for a decade from now might very well be to release more or all of its content on a streaming service, but at the moment that doesn’t make financial sense for a movie like Marvel Studios’ next epic. While the budget on the film is currently unknown, it is probably safe to assume it is in the ballpark of some of Marvel’s smaller non-Avengers movies, especially with Johansson finally getting the lead role after a decade of supporting ones.

Ant-Man and the Wasp was on the lower end of the Marvel Studios budgetary output, and the movie cost between $160 and $190 million; Doctor Strange was closer to $200 million; and Spider-Man: Far From Home was over $160 million.

That is a large amount of money to be spent on a movie going to a streaming service. While Black Widow would certainly drive up subscriptions, it’s hard to say by how much when the most rabid Marvel fans, as well as the families these movies are made for, likely already have subscriptions. Clearly Disney’s own more sophisticated projections found a number that left the company wanting.

Read more

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Meanwhile in a healthy season, Black Widow in all likelihood would gross between $700 million and $1 billion worldwide. Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home, the two most recent “solo” MCU movies, both grossed $1.1 billion, and one of them didn’t even star a globally beloved character whom fans have been demanding get a movie for a decade.

While it seems unlikely theaters will be in a strong place to replicate that feat in May 2021, even with new COVID-19 vaccines promising a sunnier spring, they could theoretically still generate more revenue than Black Widow could on Disney+… especially if Disney decides to delay it again if the fall looks like it could be a return to relative normalcy. They have the resources to wait.

Further Disney would not have to undercut its exhibition partners around the world, or burn talent that is expecting profit participation and the big screen treatment just to subsidize their streaming service.

Indeed, Disney’s reluctance to do just that better underlines Nolan’s points from earlier in the week. While Nolan’s comments remain shockingly bitter for a man talking about the studio that’s been loyal to his visions for more than 15 years—even bankrolling his folly to open Tenet during a pandemic—Nolan’s point about WB’s “hybrid model” not making economic sense for the individual films (at least the biggest ones) is sound. Movies like Wonder Woman 1984, The Suicide Squad, and Godzilla vs. Kong are being written off as loss leaders to make HBO Max more enticing for those reluctant to join another streaming service (or unaware that they already have).

These movies are, in a way, sacrificial lambs which has earned the ire of not just exhibitors but the talent who made them. While Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot each were paid an undisclosed amount, with some speculating it was eight figures, to give up their profit participation on Wonder Woman 1984, WB did not immediately give the same deal or even a warning to talent and production partners on their 2021 film slate. And even Jenkins seems to have reservations about the ordeal.

In a recent conversation with Variety, the Wonder Woman director said, “When every single studio in town starts chasing the exact same thing, you’re like, Why doesn’t someone differentiate themselves? In this case, I think what’s going to happen is… some studio is going to be smart enough to be an outlier, and all the great filmmakers in town are going to go there, and the theaters are going to favor their movies. Because right now, if there are studios that announce that [releasing day-and-date on streaming] is what they’re going to start doing, every filmmaker’s going to head to the studio that promises they’re not going to.”

She went on to add she’s had “on her mind” doing what Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks did in 1919, which was to start their own talent-friendly studio, United Artists. One imagines Nolan would be open to that discussion.

It’s worth mentioning this in lieu of other news over the last several weeks. Jenkins, a proponent of classic cinema, reluctantly agreed to put Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max. However, last night she just revealed to the world she is going to helm the next Star Wars movie, Rogue Squadron, at Disney. And given she and Gadot also have Cleopatra on their docket in the next few years, it leaves the question of when Jenkins will find the time to do a Wonder Woman 3 wide open.

But then, if it ends up being another day-and-date release like Wonder Woman 1984, perhaps she’d be happier in the galaxy far, far away… and at a studio, even with its obsession with intellectual property, that all of a sudden seems friendlier to talent who wants to fly high and on the big screen.

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[s0022354a2-blog]

Collated Quotes

Subtopic 1: Is there a clear sense of authorship across Bong’s films?

“The expansive progress of Bong’s filmography through the Host and Snowpiercer has made it very clear that the Korean director has the imagination and technical chops to create a fantasy cinema on a level with anything from the Hollywood mainstream, but a sensibility with no taste for the blockbuster production line’s easy reassurance.”

“The bittersweet finale also flags up the challenges ahead in providing a harvest for the expanding world, so no platitudinous solutions here, just a movie that showcases Bong’s admirable flair for artfully unhinged spectacle, deftly undercut by a chastening reality check that never allows us to enjoy ourselves too much.”

“A repeated image shows the girl leaning into the pig’s floppy ear and whispering to calm her down. We never hear exactly what she’s whispering, but the tight closeups of Okja’s mesmerized eye show us that she’s listening intently and gets the gist—that the girl’s words matter and make sense even though they don’t speak the same language. The pig trusts her friend. All the film’s many threads ultimately come back to questions of trust: what it means to keep it or betray trust, and whether there are circumstances where betrayal is necessary, and whether the trust between human and human is more meaningful than the trust between human and animal. Mija would tell you there’s no difference.” 

“He’s also a filmmaker who finds great, unsettling dark comedy in violence, and once again the blood does run, if somewhat less generously than in “The Host” and his often brilliant “Memories of Murder.”

“Mr. Bong’s virtues as a filmmaker, including his snaking storytelling and refusal to overexplain actions and behaviors, can here feel like evasions or indulgences rather than fully thought-out choices. There’s a vagueness to the film that doesn’t feel organic — as if, having created a powerhouse central character, he didn’t exactly know what to do with her. That said, his visual style and the way he mixes eccentric types with the more banal, like a chemist preparing a combustible formula, are often sublime, as is Ms. Kim’s turn as the mother of all nightmarish mothers, a dreadful manifestation of a love so consuming it all but swallows the world.” 

“Okja is the Korean director’s most accessible film to global audiences to date, a near masterpiece that bends and twists genres and celebrates childhood even when it goes into some rather dark places along its still consistently childlike adventures.“

“Bong’s movies deny the easy satisfaction of an overarching victory, instead suggesting that you can’t save a world that may have already doomed itself.”

“I have admired Bong Joon-ho’s works for many reasons, and one of them is the unpredictability of his choices. He made me both laugh and cringe in a deadpan black comedy “Barking Dogs Never Bite” (2000), and then he played me like a piano in his great rural-set thriller film “Memories of Murder” (2003), and then he surprised me with monster film “The Host” (2006), and then he came back to another thriller set in the countryside in “Mother” (2009).”

“ …twisting suddenly from horror to pathos to comedy to action and back again…  “

“His films are never about straight good versus evil; there’s never a particular heroic sense of triumph to be found. Yet, neither is he a filmmaker who revels in pessimistic brutality. Even in the darkest of moments, there’s always a spark of hope to be found.”

“Even the characters I create, they aren’t clear-cut supervillains or superheroes, they’re all residing in the grey area. Maybe that’s why a certain amount of optimism or pessimism mixes into my films. I do feel, however, that’s more realistic and more reflective of how society is, and how life is. If everything is clear-cut and residing in one direction, it might feel a bit forced.”

“Because Netflix isn’t pursuing a theatrical release in France, the President of the esteemed film festival nearly pulled both Netflix films in competition (Okja and Noah Baumbach‘s The Meyerowitz Stories). Though they screened (and received some of the best reviews from the festival), the Jury held steadfast on the prediction that they would not reward any of the streaming service’s films. Despite this future-of-cinema conversation, the streaming distributor has offered Bong much more creative control than his English-language debut, Snowpiercer, where he had a constant battle with The Weinstein Company over the cut. Indeed, he’s quite pleased with his experience this go-round and that freedom will only make Netflix more enticing for filmmakers.“

“The Host begins with the American company just saying “dump everything down the drain”. This one is behind the scenes but it has very similar effect…it’s all this pageantry around it as if they’re doing something good when really they’re just dumping things down the drain, as well. Were you wanting to explore that idea in a different way?

BONG: This time I want to portray that idea via Tilda, who plays two roles. With Nancy Mirado, like in The Host, I wanted to be very explicit with the violence that she inflicts. Whereas Lucy Mirado, she tries to differ from Nancy. She thinks that she’s more elegant, more eco-friendly; she’s more obsessed with the marketing aspect of it and how it looks on the exterior. Nevertheless, the winner within the Mirando group is Nancy, not Lucy, and I think that reflects my concerns and fears about the reality of multinational companies within capitalist societies. The more ruthless people almost always seem to take over.”

“The traditional studios were a bit skeptical or a bit overly conscious about the radicalness of the script, and they weren’t on board,” he said. “From the get-go, it was guaranteed creative freedom [with Netflix]. They weren’t meddling with any part of the filmmaking whatsoever.”

Subtopic 2: Are Bong’s films personal to him?

“To their credit, the moviemakers signal right away that this isn’t a film that adults can use as an electronic babysitter. The dialogue is liberally peppered with F-words, and the more exaggerated jokes about corporate hypocrisy are reminiscent of non-child friendly satires like “Dr. Strangelove” and “Network” (upon learning that it will take ten years for the pigs to grow, a reporter moans, “Jesus Christ—I’ll be dead by then!”). There are also visual and thematic nods to cartoonist turned director Terry Gilliam, who made films that were childlike and sometimes childish but never strictly for kids—in particular the 1985 anti-fascist fable “Brazil,” which appears to have inspired the derring-do of ALF’s membership, chivalrous rebels who evade police by diving off bridges” 

“…Delightful, winning and deliriously wonderful story that unfolds is part E.T., part Bong Joon Ho, part Swiss Army Man (Seriously!), and ultimately one of the year’s most pleasant cinematic surprises.

“The movie’s underlying premise — child bonds with otherworldly beast and defends it from cruel adults — easily calls to mind “E.T.” or “Pete’s Dragon,” but Bong bends the formula into his own agenda.”

“It’s the recombinant offspring of all those science-fiction pictures of the 1950s and ‘60s in which exposure to atomic radiation (often referred to as both “atomic” and “radiation”) or hazardous chemicals (sometimes also radioactive) results in something very large and inhospitable: “Them!” (giant ants), “Tarantula” (giant spider), “Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People” (giant fungi), “The Amazing Colossal Man” (giant bald guy), “The Giant Behemoth” (giant behemoth – both giant and a behemoth, but more precisely a radioactive ocean-dwelling Godzilla clone), “Frankenstein Conquers the World” (giant Frankenstein’s monster atomically regenerated from the beating heart of the original monster after the A-bomb is dropped on Hiroshima), and so on.“

“Joon-Ho Bong implies that media and government are equally incompetent and untrustworthy. When you need saving from the maw of a mutant river beast, you’ve got nowhere to turn but your kin.”

“I think that films aren’t necessarily tools to change the world, a film is just a beautiful thing in itself. However, when someone is experiencing the beauty of a film, that itself is changing the world in some aspect.”

“I don’t expect the entire audience to convert to veganism after watching the film. I don’t have a problem with meat consumption itself, but I do want my audience to consider, at least once, where the food on their plate comes from. And, if one is to do that, I believe the level of meat consumption will gradually decline.”

“The South Korean director’s films, in the cinematic landscape, have never really been considered outright political missives, perhaps only because they hide under the guise of genre film.”

“However, although the super-pig phenomenon may be fiction at the moment, it’s very close to being a reality. In Canada, they already made some kind of GM salmon. It’s already gotten FDA approval. They are starting to very carefully distribute it in the market. In the process of researching the film, I met and interviewed a PhD student who is developing a GM pig. So, Okja is real. It’s actually happening. That’s why I rushed making Okja, because the real product is coming.”

“Even the characters I create, they aren’t clear-cut supervillains or superheroes, they’re all residing in the grey area. Maybe that’s why a certain amount of optimism or pessimism mixes into my films. I do feel, however, that’s more realistic and more reflective of how society is, and how life is. If everything is clear-cut and residing in one direction, it might feel a bit forced.”

“I was always a huge film buff. I was a child of the ’70s, so I didn’t have access to DVDs or VHS growing up. I didn’t go to the movies that often either. In many ways, TV was my cinema. I would open up the TV schedule and see what movies were playing each week. Although I was mostly watching films on TV, I could get through around ten a week. By the time I got to middle school, I was certain that I wanted to become a film director.“

“I majored in sociology in college. I knew that my parents would disapprove of me studying film.”

“For my next film, I’m going to try making what I’ve liked the most ever since I was a kid. So I naturally came up with a crime film, and as I was thinking that I should try and do it in a realistic and Korean-style method rather than imitating American genre films. I thought of the Hwaeseong murders, which I’d heard a lot about since I was young. But when I actually researched data on the Hwaeseong murders, it contained elements that were far more overwhelming and horrific than I had ever imagined.”

“I met with detectives who worked the case, Hwaeseong residents, and reporters from the Gyeongin Ilbo, which was the region’s newspaper.”

“I was very scared. I suffered a lot psychologically. Really, during that time period, I was very deeply absorbed in the murders, enough so that I had delusions that I might capture the real killer in the process of my research. I fell deeply into it emotionally, so I was exhausted as well.”

“I watched a lot of them, things like Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs. And also Imamura Shohei’s Vengeance Is Mine. Not only does that film clearly reveal hysteria in the Japanese society of the time, it has some unidentifiable, incredible strength to it. Of course, the work that influenced Memories of Murder directly was Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell. I was a bit disappointed with the Hughes brothers’ film of it.”

Subtopic 3: To what extent has Bong collaborated with the same people time and time again?

“Bong Joon Ho co-writes the film with British author/journalist Jon Ronson, a partnership that perfectly weaves together the director’s marvelous creature sensibilities, as previously experienced in The Host, with Ronson’s ability to convey a Brit-like humor and wit throughout the film that is intelligent, sensitive and, at times, quite darkly hilarious.”

“Zipping along to a vibrant soundtrack, Bong crafts lively, action-packed moments that find the hulkish Okja careening through public spaces while people scramble around her. This includes one of the most striking moments in Bong’s entire career — a slow-mo battle set to John Denver’s “You Fill Up My Senses,” which finds the ALF forming a wall of umbrellas to defend a cornered Okja while Mija cowers nearby.”

“Bong Joon-ho and his co-screenplay writer Kelly Masterson (he previously made an impressive debut with Sidney Lumet’s last work “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” (2007)) have made a darkly engaging SF thriller from their source.”

“Tilda Swinton gloriously embraces her despicable character with the attitude of mean British headmistress, and she is fearless as usual in throwing herself into the hammy side of her character.”

“But about the monster. Created by the San Francisco-based FX house, The Orphanage, it is a creature of scary amphibious loveliness, with greenish salamanderlike skin, froggy legs…“

“I first met Plan B a long time ago-2007 in LA-and they suggested a lot of original source material to me. It was a very light relationship. It was right after I was done with my film The Host and Jeremy and Brad Pitt from Plan B were fans. I also really admired their filmography. They do lots of cavalier films such as 12 Years a Slave. So it was a natural mix between Plan B and I. But even before Plan B came on board the casting casting and effects of the film were already packaged nicely through the Korean producers and the American producer, Dooho Choi. Plan B came slightly later on and because they had a good relationship with Netflix via War Machine, they introduced Netflix to the film and they were fully supportive of Okja. It was a very smooth transition all around so I am very happy.”

“The Host begins with the American company just saying “dump everything down the drain”. This one is behind the scenes but it has very similar effect…it’s all this pageantry around it as if they’re doing something good when really they’re just dumping things down the drain, as well. Were you wanting to explore that idea in a different way?

BONG: This time I want to portray that idea via Tilda, who plays two roles. With Nancy Mirado, like in The Host, I wanted to be very explicit with the violence that she inflicts. Whereas Lucy Mirado, she tries to differ from Nancy. She thinks that she’s more elegant, more eco-friendly; she’s more obsessed with the marketing aspect of it and how it looks on the exterior. Nevertheless, the winner within the Mirando group is Nancy, not Lucy, and I think that reflects my concerns and fears about the reality of multinational companies within capitalist societies. The more ruthless people almost always seem to take over.”

“After what we went through on the last one, it was very important to start the process knowing that we had control,” producer Dooho Choi said after a press event in Cannes on Sunday. “That was most appealing aspect of it — knowing that he could play, and that someone would not be looking over his shoulder constantly. It was a pretty smooth process in that regard.”