I love films, I really do. I love the movies just as much. There’s nothing like being packed into an auditorium watching films like The Odyssey or Obsession. The intense silence, the laughter, the screaming, that bit when someone screams in a theatre but no one else does, and then everyone laughs at them. The way, when you watch a film, there’s a moment of collective laughter or screaming, and then from that point on everyone reacts audibly instead of stifling themselves.
I love good films, I LOVE bad films. Every film is a fresh start. I remember reading/hearing on a podcast that every film is someone’s favorite. That always stuck with me.
Which means Jurassic Park: Rebirth is someone’s favorite film! If that’s you write in.
I love the anticipation before every first-time watch, this could be my new favorite or most hated film. There’s nothing like wanting a film to be great, and it lives up to the expectation, and there’s nothing like the feeling of having no expectations and then being blown away. I love the way a movie can make you feel seen, or help process a moment in your life, a feeling, an emotion.
As of Wednesday 5th August at 8:18 AM, I have watched 430 films in 2026, for a total of 800.9 hours (33.37 days). I don’t regret a single minute of the time I spent watching. Not even the final 60 minutes of Iron Lung, which is the only time this year I wanted to leave the cinema.
I say all this to say that sometimes, films and the film industry can really piss me off. So I’ve decided to set up a safe space, like one of those demolition rooms you can find a Groupon voucher for, and excoriate some things that have really annoyed me this year so I can get back to doing what I do best, which is enjoying what I believe to be the best form of human expression we have.
If you have something you’d like to get off your chest, get in the comments, have a vent, it’s a safe space.
“Jim, James, Jimothy. To be fair Jimothy... that sounds weird, are you okay with being called Jim?”
Can we get back to making the cool stuff now Jim? In 13 years James Cameron went on this run: The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997).
Then between 1998 and 2026: Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Avatar: Fire and Ash.
This is one of our greatest living filmmakers, one of our best creators of original ideas, someone who has pushed the technology of filmmaking forward beyond what we thought previously possible.
This isn’t an anti-Avatar rant. It’s a hostage negotiation.
James, you’ve made your point. The technology is incredible. Pandora is beautiful. The whales are lovely.
But between The Terminator and Titanic, you gave us seven completely different films in thirteen years. Since then, we’ve had twenty-eight years of blue people. Somewhere out there is the James Cameron horror film we never got. The James Cameron western. The James Cameron detective thriller.
I don’t resent the Avatar films. I resent all the James Cameron films that only exist in the universe where he only got distracted by Pandora for a weekend.
Photo Credit: Amazon MGM StudiosThe Prometheus trailer caused me so much emotional trauma that I swore off film trailers forever. Never have I been more excited for a film, only for the eventual disappointment (I’ve softened on it over the years) it left a scar that affects me 14 years later.
I’ll watch a teaser. Teasers are great. Thirty seconds of vibes? Lovely. Trailers? Absolutely not (Unless it’s Dune: Part Three).
I’ll arrive late to the cinema whenever possible, and if I’m in my seat and a trailer for something I’m genuinely excited about comes on, I’ll close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears until it’s over.
Once you’ve seen enough films, trailers start becoming plot summaries. You know roughly where the first act ends, you know who survives until the finale, you know which two characters end up together, and you can ALWAYS work out who is going to be revealed to be the villain based on the casting and their haircut.
And then there’s Project Hail Mary.
The original trailer doesn’t just give away the existence of Rocky. It gives away the fact that Rocky is awesome, and an engineer, and not scary, and that the film is about two completely different species learning how to communicate and becoming unlikely friends. It’s the type of idea that makes you fall in love with science fiction. But it could have been one of the truly great modern blockbuster twists. Gone Girl style “oh my word”.
Imagine going into that completely blind. Imagine the word of mouth.
Then compare that with the trailer for Disclosure Day. The trailer doesn’t show any third-act shots (later trailers did in fact show third act shots). It tells you almost nothing. Is it aliens? Is it first contact? Is Spielberg secretly making a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind? I haven’t got a clue what’s happening. Perfect.
I had a whole blog planned as a victory lap. Project Hail Mary would open modestly, no one would want to see it repeatedly because the film was already spoiled before they went in. Disclosure Day would smash expectations, Hollywood would collectively realise audiences actually like surprises, and we’d usher in a glorious new era where trailers remembered they’re supposed to tease films.
Then the opening weekend numbers came in:
Project Hail Mary: $140.9 million ($684m worldwide total).
Disclosure Day: $92.9 million ($239m worldwide total).
The tried and tested, slightly cynical marketing campaign won out. I know it’s not a perfect comparison. They’re different films, made by different filmmakers, with different budgets. Ryan Gosling is a bigger box office draw than Josh O’Connor. The likely lesson Hollywood will take away is, “Show them everything.” And that’s depressing.
A great trailer shouldn’t make me feel like I’ve already seen the film. It should make me desperate to find out what it doesn’t show me.
Also, whatever happened to the “IN A WORLD” guy?
It is unfortunately a tale as old as time.
You like a film. Turns out it’s based on a book. You go online to read more about it. Suddenly you’re reading comments from a bunch of chuds telling you the book is better, the film completely misunderstands the characters, they’ve changed the entire meaning of the story, and if you enjoyed this watered-down adaptation then you’re an idiot.
Dude. I was just enjoying a film. Leave me alone.
Then you grow up.
You read some great books. Really great books.
You recommend them to people. They love them. You get that warm fuzzy feeling. You read more books.
Then one day one of your favourites gets announced as a film.
The director loves the source material. The cast loves the source material. The author is involved. Everyone keeps saying they’re determined to honour the book.
“My favourite book... as a movie? For two whole hours? Gee whiz, mister, yes please.”
You spend three years getting excited.
Release day arrives.
Everyone comes out saying it’s incredible.
“OH MY GOD.”
Then you sit down to watch it.
Wait...
They’ve changed the intro.
The stakes are different.
That isn’t what that should look like.
They barely explained the astrophage.
Now people won’t understand why any of this matters later.
Why did they change that line?
That line is important.
Wait... they’ve changed the ending?
Why?
The film means something different now.
Why would they do this to me?
Then you find yourself opening your laptop.
Your fingers hover over the keyboard.
You hear a voice you haven’t heard before.
“Project Hail Mary SUCKS..
...and the book is better.”
And just like that...
...you’ve become the guy you always hated.
Photo credit: Disney (These films are getting increasingly ugly)
We need to end the shared universes before any further damage is done.
Yes, it’s awesome when Spider-Man, Hulk and Punisher are on screen at the same time. But the more we shoehorn these characters into pre-existing worlds, the more we sand off what made them unique in the first place.
By combining everything, we raise the floor while lowering the ceiling.
Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange benefit enormously from existing inside the MCU. They can borrow goodwill, characters and stakes from the wider universe. But the trade-off is that every Spider-Man film now has to carry the weight of that same universe. Spider-Man can’t just be Spider-Man anymore. He’s got to reference three times an event from a Disney+ show I didn’t watch.
Can we just go back to enjoying a Spider-Man film without needing homework?
We live in a world where The Batman and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse proved you can let a director tell a self-contained story without worrying about how it connects to fourteen other projects.
Not every film needs to be a trailer for the next one.
I don’t want a cinematic universe. I just want a good movie.
Photo by Working Title Pictures
“We stopped working because we couldn’t work (Covid), we took on separate projects once we could work again, and our schedules haven’t lined up in a while.”
Huh?
What do you mean your schedules haven’t lined up? You’re the Coen Brothers.
Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, True Grit, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail, Caesar! and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
Then, separately:
Joel: The Tragedy of Macbeth
Ethan: Drive-Away Dolls and Honey Don’t!
What are we even doing here, my dudes? Please. Just sort it out and get back together for the kids (me).
This isn’t me saying they can’t make good films apart. It’s me saying that cinema is objectively more fun when the words “Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen” appear together. Some duos just make sense. Lennon and McCartney. Mac and Cheese. Wallace and Gromit. Joel and Ethan Coen.
Family relationships are hard. I certainly wouldn’t make a film with my sister. But I don’t care whose diary is full. Cancel brunch. Send a calendar invite. Figure it out.
It’s been 10 years since the last Coen Brothers cinema release.
(Except Whistle because my wife and I had the absolute best time watching this car crash. Bad movies can be great. This is an all-time great bad movie.)
I’ll get down with Wim Wenders and Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Hirokazu Kore-eda like the best of them. But let’s just call an end to calling each other cinephiles.
Ok rant over. I feel much better, and it’s cheaper than an hour with a therapist.
This won’t be a common thing, as much as a “What Grinds My Gears” segment would be a fun and cathartic way to spend my week.
What are your cinema rants that you need to get off your chest?
If you want to read more of my work, check these out:
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.