Watch, Watched, Watching: Mr and Mrs Smith and Other Famous Hits

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Ran said:

it just seems too early to have him spend all this time and effort and then look for a way out.

Mayhaps the Nolans were projecting their own feelings.

[briantw]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Good point. It's been awhile since I've watched all three, and I admit I forgot about that conversation in the third film. I think I always felt that aspect of Bruce/Batman felt misplaced to me in Nolan's films, it just seems too early to have him spend all this time and effort and then look for a way out.

Maybe so. I think the MCU films have largely been safe projects, outside of maybe the Taika Waititi Thor films, and I can't say any of them have been actively bad (but then, I haven't seen Black Widow or The Eternals, which I know critics didn't much car for), but mostly they have been so boringly the same and safe as films. Warner Bros. and their embrace of this "Elseworlds" kind of approach has given them a lot of visual freedom.

Marvel has been a bit more creative on the TV side.  Loki was unlike much else in the MCU.  The same is true of WandaVision, at least until the very end when it became a silly Marvel CGI clusterfuck.  Moon Knight is very different from anything else they’ve done as well. 

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, briantw said:

Marvel has been a bit more creative on the TV side.  Loki was unlike much else in the MCU.  The same is true of WandaVision, at least until the very end when it became a silly Marvel CGI clusterfuck.  Moon Knight is very different from anything else they’ve done as well. 

Yes, that's what I've heard. Haven't seen any of them myself, but they sound like they're more willing to experiment there.

[Isis]

20 hours ago, Heartofice said:

The monochrome / pissy orange visual look to every scene just makes me feel unpleasant, I really hate it in most movies. It's like a hold over from those early gritty days of digital movies where everything looked gritty and ugly. I thought a lot of this movie was kinda ugly because it was so dark and lit with an ugly yellow filter. I know , I know, it's Batman, it's meant to be dark innit, but what it reminded me of Crow 2 City of Angels.. one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but also one of the ugliest. That shit gives me nightmares and it's that visual look that creeps me out. Actually so much of the movie is just taking so heavily from the visual style of the late 90s thriller genre like Seven that I was pretty disappointed. 

I enjoyed the look and the ceaseless rain.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Netflix lost $54b in a single day. 

They're already talking about expanding to being an ad based service as well.

To be clear, Netflix' market capitalization is down $54 billion; and I think it was over two days. They actually had a very good quarter, making almost $1.6 billion in profit. 

They reported a loss of 200k subscribers and people freaked out. To put that into context, that's about 1/10th of the subscriber growth from the previous quarter and about 1/1000th of their total subs. However, their stock price has been based largely on steady subscriber growth, and this is the first loss they've had in years. They also projected an even larger subscriber decline for the next quarter, which contributed to the freak out. 

I think they should have gone to an ad model a long time ago. When you go to the movies you have to sit through about 20 minutes of commercials and previews before the film starts. If they placed a 60 second ad break at the beginning of a film or TV show, I don't think many people would mind. Just as long as they don't put commercial breaks in the middle of programs, or worse; do what Tubi does and have them every 15 minutes. 

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I wonder if in years to come there will be a whole new Marvel / DC fanboy war about who made the best movies. Right now it feels like it’s Marvel who are doing it right and WB/DC are screwing it up. But if you actually look at the recent output DC are really ahead ( that even discounting the turgid Sony Marvel efforts like Morbius)

It's amazing how WW84 has disappeared down the memory hole.

6 hours ago, briantw said:

Marvel has been a bit more creative on the TV side.  Loki was unlike much else in the MCU.  The same is true of WandaVision, at least until the very end when it became a silly Marvel CGI clusterfuck.  Moon Knight is very different from anything else they’ve done as well. 

I've seen some of the CW stuff but I'm not massively familiar with it. What I did see looked like a low budget tween soap opera with super powers and spangly costumes. Everything else I've seen suggests to me that the arrow verse is declining. Sure, the RT critics scores are all sky high, but those aggregates are incredibly thin and it's largely critics from the same 10-20 outlets that are reviewing them.

Nielsen ratings, RT audience scores, trailer views on Youtube are all trending down. And what little user generated content there is about these shows all seems centered on how bad or repetitive it's gotten. This is coming from fans, not haters; although there are a few of those as well. 

Even stuff like Superman & Lois or Doom Patrol, which I understand are well received, don't generate much in the way of buzz and don't even come close to the viewer numbers for the early seasons of Flash or Supergirl. Streaming has clouded this a bit but still.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

To be clear, Netflix' market capitalization is down $54 billion; and I think it was over two days. They actually had a very good quarter, making almost $1.6 billion in profit. 

They reported a loss of 200k subscribers and people freaked out. To put that into context, that's about 1/10th of the subscriber growth from the previous quarter and about 1/1000th of their total subs. However, their stock price has been based largely on steady subscriber growth, and this is the first loss they've had in years. They also projected an even larger subscriber decline for the next quarter, which contributed to the freak out. 

Technically correct, but I don't think anyone is going to care about that quarterly number given the loss. I also found it interesting that other companies with streaming services also took a hit that averaged something between 5-8%. 

Quote

I think they should have gone to an ad model a long time ago. When you go to the movies you have to sit through about 20 minutes of commercials and previews before the film starts. If they placed a 60 second ad break at the beginning of a film or TV show, I don't think many people would mind. Just as long as they don't put commercial breaks in the middle of programs, or worse; do what Tubi does and have them every 15 minutes. 

I'm not sure that's a great comparison. The previews before movies are traditionally part of the show, but that said, I also think people are getting sick of them having so many. 

As for Netflix, I'd be fine if they had a few ads at the start of each movie or next episode in a show, but I don't think that's what they'll do. From their perspective I'd be worried that people would just start whatever they want to watch and go do something else for a minute. It's more strategic to insert them throughout the movie/show. 

[briantw]

6 hours ago, Isis said:

I enjoyed the look and the ceaseless rain.

To me, The Batman has the absolute best portrayal of Gotham of any Batman adaptation.  It's oppressively bleak and perpetually rainy and hilariously corrupt.  Perfect for a noir detective story like the first two hours of the film were.

Gotham really felt like its own character, which definitely wasn't the case in the Nolan movies where it was just a generic city.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Technically correct, but I don't think anyone is going to care about that quarterly number given the loss. I also found it interesting that other companies with streaming services also took a hit that averaged something between 5-8%. 

You know what they say, "Short term voting machine. Long term weighing machine." I would not be surprised if Netflix recovered some in the coming weeks.

Disney's market cap is down ~35% (over $100 billion) in the last 12 months. A big part of that was declining D+ sub growth.

9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm not sure that's a great comparison. The previews before movies are traditionally part of the show, but that said, I also think people are getting sick of them having so many. 

 I'm not talking about trailers. Movie theaters in North America have been showing commercials along with previews for years. I've seen those goddamn Coca Cola polar bears so often I want to strangle them. 

6 minutes ago, briantw said:

To me, The Batman has the absolute best portrayal of Gotham of any Batman adaptation.  It's oppressively bleak and perpetually rainy and hilariously corrupt.  Perfect for a noir detective story like the first two hours of the film were.

Gotham really felt like its own character, which definitely wasn't the case in the Nolan movies where it was just a generic city.

I agree. with the first part.

The more I think about it, the more I think they really missed the mark by not ending the film... 

Spoiler

...with the meeting between Batman and Riddler at Arkham asylum.

An ambiguous ending that finishes on a cliffhanger and perfectly sets up a sequel. Brilliant. 

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the original ending and they tacked on the 20 minute big action set piece because, "superhero". This would explain why...

Spoiler

...the vans and sea wall come out of nowhere. Also the carpet gag was a bit random. 

What a shame.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

You know what they say, "Short term voting machine. Long term weighing machine." I would not be surprised if Netflix recovered some in the coming weeks.

Disney's market cap is down ~35% (over $100 billion) in the last 12 months. A big part of that was declining D+ sub growth.

It will to some degree, but I don't think their response to this is going to encourage the kind of growth they're hoping for. 

Quote

 I'm not talking about trailers. Movie theaters in North America have been showing commercials along with previews for years. I've seen those goddamn Coca Cola polar bears so often I want to strangle them. 

Why are you showing up that early? I haven't seen a commercial like that in theaters in a long time. Pay the extra cost to reserve your seats in advance. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Why are you showing up that early?

Because otherwise I might show up that late. 

[briantw]

32 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I agree. with the first part.

The more I think about it, the more I think they really missed the mark by not ending the film... 

  Hide contents

...with the meeting between Batman and Riddler at Arkham asylum.

An ambiguous ending that finishes on a cliffhanger and perfectly sets up a sequel. Brilliant. 

That's where I think the movie should have ended too.  And I agree the last act feels like it was tacked on as a studio request.  If they end it where you said, or shortly after, I think it's the best Batman movie ever made.  Instead, it's going to have to settle for third place.  The first two Nolan films are at the top of my list, and Burton's first Batman flick is fourth.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Because otherwise I might show up that late. 

Hence why you need deadlines.

3 minutes ago, briantw said:

That's where I think the movie should have ended too.  And I agree the last act feels like it was tacked on as a studio request.  If they end it where you said, or shortly after, I think it's the best Batman movie ever made.  Instead, it's going to have to settle for third place.  The first two Nolan films are at the top of my list, and Burton's first Batman flick is fourth.

Calm down sparky. Even if it ended there it still wouldn't have been better than TDK, and I say that as someone who just gave it 10/10. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

3 minutes ago, briantw said:

If they end it where you said, or shortly after, I think it's the best Batman movie ever made.

Yup. Without question. 

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hence why you need deadlines.

You're on thin ice, my friend.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

You're on thin ice, my friend.

You think thin ice is your ally, but you merely adopted it. I was born on it, formed by it. I didn't see the end of winter until I was already a man. And by then it was nothing to me but swamp ass. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

16 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You think thin ice is your ally, but you merely adopted it. I was born on it, formed by it. I didn't see the end of winter until I was already a man. And by then it was nothing to me but swamp ass. 

Oh yeah? Where I'm from the cold only makes sense if you force it to. Sakes alive, what we wouldn't give for some thin ice. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Oh yeah? Where I'm from the cold only makes sense if you force it to. Sakes alive, what we wouldn't give for some thin ice. 

Obligatory:

 

[Heartofice]

4 hours ago, briantw said:

That's where I think the movie should have ended too.  And I agree the last act feels like it was tacked on as a studio request.  If they end it where you said, or shortly after, I think it's the best Batman movie ever made.  Instead, it's going to have to settle for third place.  The first two Nolan films are at the top of my list, and Burton's first Batman flick is fourth.

Im actually going to disagree here. I’d seen comments like this before going into the movie and when it reached that point I considered whether I’d be happy for the movie to end there.

Honestly no I wouldn’t. It would have been pretty unsatisfactory. The reason being that the climax was so insignificant if that was what it was going to be. I’d probably walk out of the movie thinking ‘was that it??’ And I would have struggled to think about what had actually happened of note in the movie. 

That’s not to say I loved the big finale at the end, but I do think The Batman needed ‘something’ to build up to, otherwise there is no payoff for sitting through all the long drawn out silent EMO shots. 

[lacuna]

I wonder, is the decline in streaming subscriber numbers adjusted for service being suspended in Russia? Or are we only talking post-pandemic dropouts? (Or are they just a bit shit?)

[Derfel Cadarn]

47 minutes ago, lacuna said:

I wonder, is the decline in streaming subscriber numbers adjusted for service being suspended in Russia? Or are we only talking post-pandemic dropouts? (Or are they just a bit shit?)

Partly Russia, but I suspext people having to choose between eating or heating due to rising fuel/electricity/food prices is largely responsible