Hi all,
I just got back from El Paso after attending the Plaza Classic Film Fest, which was lots of fun. Seeing classic films with good audiences made me think that a classic film fest in Dallas might be a good idea someday.
I did some intros to some great films, but the one that resonated the most was a lecture and showing of “All the Presidents’ Men.” It gave me hope that journalists can change history. And we need great journalism now.
We are doing the 24-hour Video Race in the fall, so get your team together, and we have Cat Fest coming to the Texas Theatre on Thursday, August 6. If you have some great and cute cat videos, we can add them to the show. Send them to me bart@videofest.org.
Last week I wrote about the technology and where to see “The Odyssey.” Before even talking about the film itself, I am so glad it exists. In a media landscape shaped by smaller and smaller screens, it is a film that is larger than life in both its format and its storytelling. It seems like films like this have not been made in a while. My hope is that, with all the mergers looking to shorten theatrical windows, they will fund and promote work that will bring people to theaters the way “The Odyssey” did. Every theater showing this is seeing strong ticket and popcorn sales, which will allow them to pursue bolder programming that might not bring in the masses but will extend our sense of what cinema can be, giving us a different perspective on the real world we live in.
As for the film itself, it is inspiring. The diverse casting helps us see these characters we have read since high school in a new light. Before seeing the film, I was wondering how Christopher Nolan would handle some of the best-known visuals: the Cyclops, Whirlpool, and Pigs, and in each instance, it went beyond my imagination and worked really well.
We all have an image of the Trojan horse in our heads, but Christopher Nolan has forever changed it.
And of course, there is the Trojan Horse popcorn bucket.
Films speak to the time when the events happen and speak to the time the film was made. What hit me and has stayed with me was the sense of regret and remorse for the brutality of the war, and the burden that it put on Odysseus. In our current political context, where our Secretary of Defense is overly concerned about testosterone levels, and our president starts a war without any thought of its impact. I wish our current leadership would watch the film.
Ed wrote about a story in The Atlantic about the end of reading here. I found another troubling story closer to home that was also in the Atlantic. The headline is “The Film Students Who Can No Longer Sit Through Movies.” I could not believe that FILM STUDENTS will not sit through the end of a film. I taught for many years that students would stay for the end of even long films. I was in the room and did not see them going for their phones. That was only a few years ago.
I am about to go to a conference of film teachers, where people will present papers and panels (to help them get tenure). There needs to be some discussion on how to reverse this trend and discuss how to teach cinema in a world of AI, with fewer resources and fear of saying something that could get everyone in trouble.
It was in college that I acquired my love for cinema watching and making. Many great teachers inspired me. I hope we can get to a place where faculty can find a way to re-spark that love of cinema in a generation that has a very short attention span. Perhaps films like “The Odyssey” can move us in the right direction.
-Bart
Prompted by a recent tome in The Atlantic — “The End of Reading Is Here” — I’m going to go off course this week to talk about the printed word.
Are you still with me?
Actually, the article (which is lengthier than a typical short story) is more about the demise of long-form reading rather than “social media” snippets. We’re talking books, people. Or at least lengthy magazine articles from reputable publications.
As a kid, I read voraciously, and almost always in the sports book realm. Heavy reading of other fare was also required in high school and college. Even in the military with the Marine Corps, I kept the faith. Could that really be a snapshot of yours truly in uniform reclining in the field while reading “The Confessions of Nat Turner?”
But after that, during my many years as a TV reporter/critic for The Dallas Morning News, I started a gradual descent from the oft-wonderful world of books. There just wasn’t time, it seemed. Mainly because most of my waking hours were spent watching dramas and comedies for the purposes of writing newspaper columns about them.
Even in “retirement” — for the past half-dozen years or so — I initially “read” the often vacuous or incendiary content on Twitter/X and the like. Increasingly, what to believe or not to believe is up for grabs. It’s either AI-generated or posted as click bait by dolts in full pursuit of becoming “influencers”
Only in the past two years have I gone against the grain of “The End of Reading is Here.” Now a new book is always in hand, and the satisfaction of completing one only whets the appetite for starting another.
My current read is “Where the Music Had To Go: How Bob Dylan and The Beatles Changed Each Other — and the World.” It’s a requested Father’s Day gift from my daughter, who read to her son literally from the day he was born. Only a piddling 2% of parents now read to their kids, according to The Atlantic article. And her son, now 11, is showing the after-effects. He’s an avid reader, too, and his current fare is books in the “How To Train Your Dragon” series. My wife recently sent him several volumes. Heartwarming.
In my case, recent reads have included “The Bad and the Beautiful” (Hollywood in the 1950s); “Regime Change” (Trump’s imperial presidency); “Manhunt” (the twisting, turning search for Abraham Lincoln’s assassin); “She Kills” (a collection of Skip Hollandsworth’s oft-bizarre stories about real-life Texas murderers); “The Name of This Band is R.E.M.” (by former TV critic Peter Ames Carlin); “The Mosquito Bowl: (Buzz Bissinger’s haunting account of a World War II era football game between college stars serving in the military) and “Stranger to the Game” (the autobiography of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson).
Missing in action is a novel, and I need to address that. I haven’t devoured one since re-reading “A Catcher in the Rye” several years ago. Non-fiction just seems so much more relevant to me in these trying times. But I’m priming to soon read “Mr. Texas,” Pulitzer Prize-winning Lawrence Wright’s 2023 novel about Lone Star state politics. (I’m sure there’s a lot of truth in it.)
If you’ve gotten all the way through this, then you’re likely a book-reader as well. Happy to have you on the club I’ve re-joined. More members are very much needed in times when the perspective and wisdom gained from books of worth is in serious danger of running on empty.
-Ed
Howdy,
As every video streaming app is attempting to merge into one super-app that serves every single segment of its audience, companies are losing a lot of their segment differentiation. Disney+ announced a new series coming next fall called “Afterlife with Archie” based on the comic of the same name. It’s from the same team who made the CW hit teen drama “Riverdale,” also based on the classic Americana characters.
Anything dealing with the undead isn’t the brand image Disney has maintained over the past century. Their homepage advertising the service promotes their family-friendly musicals, colorful princesses, and the animated Mouse himself. Even when the app started throwbacks and remakes of their franchises were the key pillars of content. But even the Disney brand is willing to expand their wholly owned studios into R-rated territory with Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine.” The purchase of 20th Century Studios brought in films like “Alien” and my beloved Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” both for adults.
And as they’ve tried to compete with Netflix and Prime Video, which both offer shows and films that address the widest possible audience, Disney has added the option to add-on HBO Max and watch everything from “Game of Throne” to “True Blood” right in their app.
In the app interface, Disney manages categories with hubs like Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, ESPN, a bit of a franchise-specific approach. For now Hulu is its own hub too, although they claim they are getting rid of this at the end of the year. So where will shows like “Afterlife with Archie” live in the Disney app? Disney used to have the teen drama-focussed channel ABC Family (now Freeform) that would be the perfect home for a show like this. Maybe it’s just a matter of audiences not associating the company with cartoons for kids, but a media brand for everyone.
HBO and the steaming app was rebranded endlessly between HBO Max and MAX in an attempt to make audiences release that it was not just prestige TV, but also the home for reality slop like “Dr Pimple Popper” and family programming like Sesame Street.
Cable packages made the differentiation clear. Our local Fox affiliate KDFW on channel four, FX (which was once known as Fox Extended), FX Movies), Fox Sports and Fox News might all share a home, but it was clear what each one was for.
Everything apps like Netflix might consider splitting up its content into different sub-brands, especially as they continue to add in podcasts and creator videos from YouTube. Can Netflix be the same place that has Oscar-bait like “Jay Kelly,” kids shows like “The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants,” and also Buzzfeed Celebrity Puppy Interviews and the Stokes Twins (a YouTube duo with 142 million subscribers) who’s popular videos include hits like “I Spent 24 Hours With The World’s SHORTEST Woman” and “I Found 10 Lost Puppies in a Dumpster!”
This weekend at the Modern in Fort Worth we are showing “Couture” starring Angelina Jolie as a fashion designer on a journey of self-discovery. Check out the trailer below and have a great week.
-Elijah
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.