I don't feel like people pay attention to what's actually out in theaters as much anymore and I think it's because whatever PR is done to promote films isn't as effective as reaching consumers. Not so long ago, nearly everyone had some popular TV program or programs they enjoyed watching that could only be seen by watching them on a scheduled broadcast on network or cable in which they also had to sit through a bunch of ads for upcoming shows or movies. Now a lot of that content is available through subscription services in which you have zero ads. I don't see much movie advertising on social media (I only use X), a little on You Tube, and none of the few news oriented websites I regularly visit. Perhaps its a bit like how people consume their politics where there are lots of little ecosystems that don't overlap much and entertainment advertising execs have not figured out how to penetrate many of them.
Accordingly, I had literally never heard of this movie until reading this post!
My significant other and I are big Ryan Gosling fans but found it kind of flat and trite and switched to something else after 15 minutes. Maybe we'll give it another try.
In the DVD era myself and Mrs Posture would have to compromise on what to buy. Likewise when we got a Netflix account (2014) the catalogue was pretty small and we usually agreed on what to watch.
Now we have multiple TVs and devices and two or three streaming accounts and rarely watch the same thing.
Content as a result seems much more stereotypical by genre.
Our kids go to the movies only for superhero or other franchise stuff.
The new medium of television, which became fairly universal in 1949, struck at the heart of Hollywood and ticket receipts dropped by half between 1949 and 1950. The old studio system began to collapse. Stars like Teresa Wright, part of the Goldwyn Studio, made about $250,000 a year on contract in the 40s. Released from her contract in 1949, she was lucky to make $25,000 per film. That's a radical market shock. Perhaps we are undergoing a shock today. Older folks don't like being out late at the movies and the birth dearth is not providing enough young customers. Many of the young prefer to play videogames anyways.
Regarding stuntmen, John Wayne rarely used one. In "Circus World", the Duke had a burning tent fall about him. All the scenes in "Hatari" with the Duke's animal collectors facing off against rhinos and the like, were performed by the actors- Wayne, Red Buttons, Hardy Kruger and the rest with the exception of Elsa Martinelli, who had a stuntwoman take her place. Wayne later said he was never more scared when having a rhino crash into the truck near where he was sitting.
Wayne had a stuntman for "Stagecoach" because of the danger level of the stunts was so high. The stuntman who performed for Wayne was the famed Yakima Canutt. It is Canutt, and not Wayne, who rides the team of horses to get the bridle that was flinging wildly among the horses. Canutt also is the Indian Wayne shoots dead from a horse and falls underneath the stagecoach. Canutt had carefully dug out a gulley to fall into.
I have a friend who told me, shortly after we met (as adults) that his father was killed by a rhino hitting his car (when he was young). I blurted out my first thought, which was that it sound like something they would make up to tell a kid so his father's death would at least seem kind of cool. I regret that.
Although I think the public policy response to the pandemic was panicked amateur hour crap, but I also think theaters were doomed by it even if the mayor of LA hadn't shut them down. At the height of it I would have told anyone over 50 not to go to a packed weekend night movie. Stick to afternoon's at the art house.
As Steve points out most people now have 'good enough' ways to watch movies at home. The closed caption option has become huge as the filmgoer demo has aged and movie dialogue has become less intelligible. Movie theater sound used to be better than what you could get at home, but lately my home theater sound has surpassed them. I saw Dune in a theater and could not understand about a third of the dialog. I watched it again at home, sans CC, and it went down to a tenth. Most people could duplicate this with a good set of headphones.
As a young man I went to movies all the time. Sometimes I would go to something that didn't;t even look promising; at least there would be theater popcorn. This evolved to only blockbusters and afternoon 'art films' (or independent films) when I was not working for the man. Then, like most people it changed to almost never.
I would have watched this movie in the 1980s. I don't know why but from the previews it doesn't appeal to me. I guess I've seen too many movies.
Also Burt Reynolds did a stuntman movie, Hooper, that I think was a hit.
I like your theory. Later that month Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga also released to ~30 million open weekend on a budget of ~150 million and generating less than 200 million in total box office. I am an outlier but I am pretty much done with any male-coded movie with a hint of girlboss.
I took my senior prom date to see High Road to China in 1983. It was a perfect date movie; heroes, villains, spectacular cinematography, the whole shooting match. Afterwards we got ice cream and ate it together under the stars. I’m actually getting a little choked-up remembering that night.
That was in the western suburbs of Philadelphia. You couldn’t pay me enough to go to a movie theater these days.
In 1991 in Reno, I went to see the Eddie Murphy/Halle Berry flick "Boomerang." In the mini- theater there was a black guy in his mid-40s, and he began yelling at the screen, "yeah Eddie, you tell 'em Eddie!" I said to him, "Sir, we didn't come to hear you." He gets up and says, "An goin'get mah gun." I followed him out to the parking lot, and he backed down. After that I never went to any theater outside of a deep-blue leafy suburb.
Movie theaters have suffered from the tragedy of the commons effect. They attempt to cater to all with 12 different movies playing at the same time. The prices are unreasonable at any fixed point. I miss the actual cinemas that ran a single movie on the cinemascope sized screens ( Robert E Lee in NOLA). No gimmicks like sensoround, 80's 3d, or even IMAX is going to save it. The national cultural touchstones are in a death spiral (remember discussing what the Fonz did at school the next day). The internet along with streaming has siloed off a large portion of society into echo chambers.
Forgive my ignorance, but don’t the multiplexes only play two or three „blockbusters“ catering to the 12 to 30 year old demographic on 10 of 12 screenings? You are lucky if even one good movie is playing on any given weekend.
Watching the trailer, it feels like I've already seen the movie and still don't know what it's about. Like the trailer for that Billy Eichner movie no one saw, it has to tell you everything that happens because no one thing is worth the ticket price
Appropriate that the clip of Bill Saito is from "Smokey & the Bandit", a beloved Hollywood movie written BY stuntmen, to showcase fun crazy rebel-yellin' car and truck stunts.
Okay, based on my respect for the Sailer Brand I sat down and watched almost 40 minutes of “The Fall Guy”.
I’m sorry, but this was not a good movie. My wife pulled out her phone and began scrolling after around 15 minutes. My golden retriever started loudly licking her privates instead of watching at around 20 minutes. I couldn’t finish.
We are trying the Dylan film in a theater tonight…several of our neighbors (all oldsters like us) have recommended it.
I don't feel like people pay attention to what's actually out in theaters as much anymore and I think it's because whatever PR is done to promote films isn't as effective as reaching consumers. Not so long ago, nearly everyone had some popular TV program or programs they enjoyed watching that could only be seen by watching them on a scheduled broadcast on network or cable in which they also had to sit through a bunch of ads for upcoming shows or movies. Now a lot of that content is available through subscription services in which you have zero ads. I don't see much movie advertising on social media (I only use X), a little on You Tube, and none of the few news oriented websites I regularly visit. Perhaps its a bit like how people consume their politics where there are lots of little ecosystems that don't overlap much and entertainment advertising execs have not figured out how to penetrate many of them.
Accordingly, I had literally never heard of this movie until reading this post!
Me too. I have an above-average interest in movies (I once worked in a video store) but hadn’t even heard of this.
I'm sorry, but I found the movie almost unwatchable.
I walked out. The price of the ticket was already a sunk cost. Life is too short.
My significant other and I are big Ryan Gosling fans but found it kind of flat and trite and switched to something else after 15 minutes. Maybe we'll give it another try.
In the DVD era myself and Mrs Posture would have to compromise on what to buy. Likewise when we got a Netflix account (2014) the catalogue was pretty small and we usually agreed on what to watch.
Now we have multiple TVs and devices and two or three streaming accounts and rarely watch the same thing.
Content as a result seems much more stereotypical by genre.
Our kids go to the movies only for superhero or other franchise stuff.
The new medium of television, which became fairly universal in 1949, struck at the heart of Hollywood and ticket receipts dropped by half between 1949 and 1950. The old studio system began to collapse. Stars like Teresa Wright, part of the Goldwyn Studio, made about $250,000 a year on contract in the 40s. Released from her contract in 1949, she was lucky to make $25,000 per film. That's a radical market shock. Perhaps we are undergoing a shock today. Older folks don't like being out late at the movies and the birth dearth is not providing enough young customers. Many of the young prefer to play videogames anyways.
Regarding stuntmen, John Wayne rarely used one. In "Circus World", the Duke had a burning tent fall about him. All the scenes in "Hatari" with the Duke's animal collectors facing off against rhinos and the like, were performed by the actors- Wayne, Red Buttons, Hardy Kruger and the rest with the exception of Elsa Martinelli, who had a stuntwoman take her place. Wayne later said he was never more scared when having a rhino crash into the truck near where he was sitting.
Wayne had a stuntman for "Stagecoach" because of the danger level of the stunts was so high. The stuntman who performed for Wayne was the famed Yakima Canutt. It is Canutt, and not Wayne, who rides the team of horses to get the bridle that was flinging wildly among the horses. Canutt also is the Indian Wayne shoots dead from a horse and falls underneath the stagecoach. Canutt had carefully dug out a gulley to fall into.
I have a friend who told me, shortly after we met (as adults) that his father was killed by a rhino hitting his car (when he was young). I blurted out my first thought, which was that it sound like something they would make up to tell a kid so his father's death would at least seem kind of cool. I regret that.
“Narrowcasting” efficiently must be the way to make a buck in today’s movie world. Pity, more cultural glue dried-up and gone.
I miss the days when so many of us would eagerly await release of the next Bond film (Connery version); alas, the true Beekman theater is history.
Although I think the public policy response to the pandemic was panicked amateur hour crap, but I also think theaters were doomed by it even if the mayor of LA hadn't shut them down. At the height of it I would have told anyone over 50 not to go to a packed weekend night movie. Stick to afternoon's at the art house.
As Steve points out most people now have 'good enough' ways to watch movies at home. The closed caption option has become huge as the filmgoer demo has aged and movie dialogue has become less intelligible. Movie theater sound used to be better than what you could get at home, but lately my home theater sound has surpassed them. I saw Dune in a theater and could not understand about a third of the dialog. I watched it again at home, sans CC, and it went down to a tenth. Most people could duplicate this with a good set of headphones.
As a young man I went to movies all the time. Sometimes I would go to something that didn't;t even look promising; at least there would be theater popcorn. This evolved to only blockbusters and afternoon 'art films' (or independent films) when I was not working for the man. Then, like most people it changed to almost never.
I would have watched this movie in the 1980s. I don't know why but from the previews it doesn't appeal to me. I guess I've seen too many movies.
Also Burt Reynolds did a stuntman movie, Hooper, that I think was a hit.
I like your theory. Later that month Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga also released to ~30 million open weekend on a budget of ~150 million and generating less than 200 million in total box office. I am an outlier but I am pretty much done with any male-coded movie with a hint of girlboss.
The problem was just a poor plot and sloppy acting.
The action sequences were very well executed.
"date movies that appealed to both men and women."
Like Kramer v. Kramer.
I took my senior prom date to see High Road to China in 1983. It was a perfect date movie; heroes, villains, spectacular cinematography, the whole shooting match. Afterwards we got ice cream and ate it together under the stars. I’m actually getting a little choked-up remembering that night.
That was in the western suburbs of Philadelphia. You couldn’t pay me enough to go to a movie theater these days.
In 1991 in Reno, I went to see the Eddie Murphy/Halle Berry flick "Boomerang." In the mini- theater there was a black guy in his mid-40s, and he began yelling at the screen, "yeah Eddie, you tell 'em Eddie!" I said to him, "Sir, we didn't come to hear you." He gets up and says, "An goin'get mah gun." I followed him out to the parking lot, and he backed down. After that I never went to any theater outside of a deep-blue leafy suburb.
Movie theaters have suffered from the tragedy of the commons effect. They attempt to cater to all with 12 different movies playing at the same time. The prices are unreasonable at any fixed point. I miss the actual cinemas that ran a single movie on the cinemascope sized screens ( Robert E Lee in NOLA). No gimmicks like sensoround, 80's 3d, or even IMAX is going to save it. The national cultural touchstones are in a death spiral (remember discussing what the Fonz did at school the next day). The internet along with streaming has siloed off a large portion of society into echo chambers.
Forgive my ignorance, but don’t the multiplexes only play two or three „blockbusters“ catering to the 12 to 30 year old demographic on 10 of 12 screenings? You are lucky if even one good movie is playing on any given weekend.
I was excited to see it opening weekend. Laughed maybe once. Brutally unfunny. You couldn’t have enjoyed this movie Steve. I refuse to believe that.
Watching the trailer, it feels like I've already seen the movie and still don't know what it's about. Like the trailer for that Billy Eichner movie no one saw, it has to tell you everything that happens because no one thing is worth the ticket price
Appropriate that the clip of Bill Saito is from "Smokey & the Bandit", a beloved Hollywood movie written BY stuntmen, to showcase fun crazy rebel-yellin' car and truck stunts.
Okay, based on my respect for the Sailer Brand I sat down and watched almost 40 minutes of “The Fall Guy”.
I’m sorry, but this was not a good movie. My wife pulled out her phone and began scrolling after around 15 minutes. My golden retriever started loudly licking her privates instead of watching at around 20 minutes. I couldn’t finish.
We are trying the Dylan film in a theater tonight…several of our neighbors (all oldsters like us) have recommended it.