Tag: Movies vs. TV

2013: The Year the Movies Weren’t Cool

The movies are no longer the pinnacle of pop culture. How do we make them matter again?

When “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” came out in November, it accomplished something no other movie in 2013 has: it made an impact.

Prior to its release, I saw genuine excitement in my friends and in my social media feeds. Jennifer Lawrence began appearing on just about every late night talk show and proceeded to be generally awesome and meme worthy.

When it finally did come out, lo and behold, it was really good – better than the original by far and fully matching the hype. It even made more money than the original and set records for the November box office. Critics discussed it like it was important, and people talked about and saw it multiple times like it mattered. And it does matter.

Each year a few moments in popular culture seem to define the entire year. They set the world on fire for moments at a time and anyone who’s anyone knows about it and is talking about it.

Pinning down just how they define the year is a bit more intangible, and it’s up to the media to write year-end lists, columns and mashups that weave our culture together when box office receipts and viewership numbers don’t paint the whole picture.

2013 has been an exciting year, as are most years when we look back each December. This year gave us the finale to “Breaking Bad,” one that garnered as many parodies as it did live viewers. It gave us the hilarious and even groundbreaking antics of Kanye West and Miley Cyrus. “Homeland,” “The Walking Dead” and “Dexter” made waves with polarizing new seasons. Arcade Fire and Daft Punk turned heads with critically acclaimed smash hits and tour and marketing choices that were talked about as much as the music. “Grand Theft Auto V” and “Call of Duty: Ghosts” were blockbuster video games that made “Thor” look like an independent film. Jimmy Kimmel pranked the Internet. We learned what the Fox says.

And a few movies came out too.

In terms of quality alone, 2013 turned out to be a pretty great year for movies. You can read my Top 15 list here. Many were moving, original and game changers, and some felt like they could be all time classics.

And for the most part, these movies made money, they got good reviews, and they’ll be here to stay through Oscar season and beyond. People continue to see them, buy them, stream them, steal them, whatever.

But increasingly, they matter less.

No longer is film the pinnacle of pop culture. TV offers more opportunities for experimentation and narrative complexity, music continues to pose discussions about race, femininity and more beyond the music itself, video games demonstrate the greatest chance for growth as a blossoming art form, and all three continue to be infinitely accessible and open to critical discourse.

Film on the other hand can seem to be more selective, more homogenized and harder to access. Filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh and others are jumping ship to TV, the mass marketed movies are losing their zest, the important and groundbreaking films are not available nationwide or in the Netflix canon, and film’s innovations to the medium, namely digital and 3D cinematography, look gimmicky and defensive at worst.

No one is dismissing the work of great artists because there is other entertainment to be found elsewhere, but when everything is to some degree competing for attention, the ability to discuss films and share them widely is waning.

Movies aren’t worse; they just aren’t cool. Continue reading “2013: The Year the Movies Weren’t Cool”

Is Movie Culture an Endangered Species?

Did you know that “Zero Dark Thirty” is already dead in the water in the Oscar race?

It was news to me too, not only because it’s the new consensus title amongst critics as the best picture of the year, but mainly because it’s already January 1st and I still haven’t seen it!

Kathryn Bigelow’s film is in a peculiar place this year as the most talked about movie of the year that no one has watched yet. Controversy over being Obama propaganda and an advocate of using torture in interrogation, “ZDT” has stirred innumerable debate amongst critics, Academy voters and Hollywood insiders, but it doesn’t release wide until January 11.

“Zero Dark Thirty” is still a sure-fire Oscar nominee if not a guaranteed winner, but the wave of discussion may have peaked too soon. Because Oscar nominations come out the day before the movie is released, the press may already have moved on by the time “ZDT” hits the Midwest. The general public can’t help but be way behind the curve.

“Zero Dark Thirty” is just one example of how movie culture is limping beside TV and music. With a wave of great movies this fall, critics were quick to declare 2012 a terrific year for the movies while simultaneously penning columns that declared cinema itself dead.

It sounds like an oxymoron, and no can seem to figure out why these movies with such rich critical discourse are being forgotten about in place of cheesy family movies and gargantuan blockbusters.

They can’t figure it out because they’re part of the problem. Film criticism has remained exclusive while intelligent discussion about other forms of pop culture has been effortlessly provided to the masses. We’ve resigned to the belief that people who are deeply interested in the movies will come looking for criticism while the rest just read for recommendations. We’ve isolated ourselves from the national conversation.

People can now watch TV and listen to music like critics. I can immediately stream Frank Ocean’s “Channel Orange” on Spotify and read Pitchfork’s review all on the day it comes out. I can watch the new episode of “Parks and Recreation” and read Alan Sepinwall’s review the next morning, if not within hours. And if I’ve missed it, I can watch it the next day on Hulu. In both cases, I can be part of the critical discussion as soon as the paid critics are, and I can have just as loud of a voice on my blog and on Twitter. Continue reading “Is Movie Culture an Endangered Species?”

Movies vs. TV

I’m grappling with the idea that it’s cooler to be a TV fan than a movie buff.

Today’s most critically acclaimed TV shows are also the most buzzed about in circles that don’t revolve around Chuck Lorre sitcoms. “Breaking Bad,” “Mad Men,” “Downton Abbey” and “Community” are just some in the mix of what’s both cool and smart.

But movie critics are all jumping to see “The Turin Horse.” It’s the final film by the aging Hungarian master Bela Tarr. It’s slow, depressing, in black and white, has little dialogue and is bound to be this year’s art house masterpiece. It’s not exactly a blockbuster.

I love movies for their artistry, abstractness and technical wizardry. What’s frustrating to me is that people groomed on TV neglect those points because TV, much as I watch it, possesses none of these.

My goal now is to address these gaps without condemning TV as a whole.

TV is not a visual medium

The image of Luke Skywalker stepping outside to watch Tattooine’s two setting suns burns vividly in my mind. The wedding from “The Godfather” is there too, along with E.T. riding a bike in front of the moon or Lawrence of Arabia standing victoriously on a raided train.

I have fond memories of many of television’s finest moments, but I can hardly visualize any of them.

TV lacks iconic visual moments. A Google image search will prove me right. Search any good movie last year, even one you haven’t seen, and familiar images will still be there.

You may get Walter White standing in his underpants with a gun if you search a TV show, but you’ll mostly get cast photos and promos.

Many of these shows are gorgeous in HD with rich set dressing and costumes, but the nature of television requires cinematic simplicity and familiarity.

If one episode of a show looks too radically different from the next, people get wary. So directors develop patterns when shooting on a set, including reused establishing shots and lots of close up, over the shoulder conversations.

Rarely then do we stand back and marvel at the beauty or craft of an individual shot. Often film has the luxury of larger budgets and a longer shooting schedule, but there are dozens of indies that do away with HD cameras and are still more visually stimulating.

In fact, TV is not a visual medium. Its closest relative following World War II was radio, which likewise evolved TV into an art form that valued story over style.

TV is all about story

Any film school will tell you the three most important things a filmmaker can focus on are story, story, story.

Students then crank out a concept driven show like “Lost” with a million different narrative threads and an intricate web of clues that’ll add up by the season’s end.

But what that neglects are either shows with elegant, artistic simplicity or shows that are truly surreal.

And when something like “The Tree of Life” comes along and is a visual and emotional feast rather than a narrative one, people flip out.

“What does it all mean,” they cry, as if analyzing a string of lottery numbers that’ll key in the secret behind an island and smoke monster.

There’s a reason it’s called an “unconventional narrative.” Often, there’s not a complex answer to unravel because it’s anything but conventional. It’s art, beauty and expressionism for its own sake, and anyone who has seen the films of Bunuel, Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Tarr, Fellini, Malick and countless others would know that.

TV is never ending

If I ask to watch “Lawrence of Arabia,” you cringe at its length. But you won’t bat an eye at a TV marathon.

If I don’t get into a show it’s because I can watch a dozen movies in the time it takes to watch just one season on Netflix.

And if I get behind on a new, must-see TV show, the moment has already passed. There’s no catching up with so many other things to watch.

But TV thrives on its endless narratives. In fact, TV is the only art form that can actually change between episodes and seasons as people watch and debate.

This is so true that TV now encourages live discussions on Twitter through strategic hashtags, whereas doing so in a theater is plain rude.

If I was an old fashioned troll I could say that a work of art should stand alone with one artist behind it, and a TV series with a million contributors on social media is intrinsically not that.

TV is not film

Everything I’ve argued could also be a reason for why TV is so special.

The strength of TV is that it’s not film’s bastard child. In the last decade alone it has learned to tell stories in a way no other medium can and dispelled most rumors that TV is nothing but a trashy wasteland.

And there are even exceptions to my rules. “Louie” is a show that represents what television could be if it chose to follow that path. It’s a program that uses a serialized format to its advantage to create essentially short films. “Louie” is not only well made and often surreal, but individual episodes can stand alone as art. Not to mention, Louis C.K. is TV’s closest example to an auteur.

What we’re left with is a war between two completely different art forms and two sets of preferences. It’s black and white, but we’ve been comparing two shades of gray.

That’s why I’m scared when movie theaters are losing business to a digital age, episodic film franchises dominate the market and Netflix moves closer and closer to just being HBO.

Film is becoming the cultural dinosaur, and TV is thriving in a way that threatens to make interesting movies extinct.