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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2194 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 5, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Do you normally watch movies in one sitting? I'm not really into cinema overall, but I watched The Northman the other day and it took me several sittings even though I liked it, especially the last third or so. Today I started watching Princess Mononoke and I decided to do something else half-way through and finish it tomorrow, even though it's not like I ran out of free time or anything like that. Can't imagine paying for watching either movie in a theater only to get robbed of my Rewind and Pause buttons. I think I'm fairly normal psychologically. I guess it's just a zoomer thing

No, but that's mostly down to interruptions IRL.

Usually in one sitting, but it's not rare for me to stop watching if it's getting late and finish it another day. I don't feel like it ruins the experience.

If a movie isn't holding my attention enough to finish it in one sitting, that's usually a sign it's not worth finishing at all. Were you enjoying the movies but somehow ran out of attention span or something? Do you mind saying what generation you are?

Were you enjoying the movies but somehow ran out of attention span or something?

How do I put it, watching things does requires attention and it's kind feels like work to do it for so long unless it's something super interesting. And even staying put for 2+ hours is not something I would rather do, so I go stretch my legs, make a cup of tea, etc. and by then I figure I would rather do one of the tasks I planned for the day or check Twitter or something.

Do you mind saying what generation you are?

I as good as admitted it at the end there. I'm in my mid-20s.

Same, I can only binge shows. If the show doesn't drive me to binge it, then it wasn't worth watching the first place.

I like to watch movies all in one sitting, though my family tends to interrupt, so I don't watch all that many movies at all lately.

If it's a movie I haven't seen before, I have to watch it in one sitting or else the experience is ruined. Movies are very subtle. You don't know what information from the first act will be important in the second and third acts. The only way to ensure you don't forget something is to watch it in one continuous screening. That is how they films are designed and edited.

If I'm watching at home by myself, I'll usually watch a movie in 2 or 3 sittings. I don't have a problem watching a whole movie at once in a theater though. I suppose that's more likely to be planned out or going with other people though.

I suppose I'm more likely to watch in 1 sitting or make the breaks short if the movie is actually really good, which not that many are. Or, another way to look at things could be that I watch more movies than otherwise because it's acceptable to watch in multiple sittings rather than having to wait until I am ready to devote a solid 2h+ block to it. Which also means that I'm more willing to take a chance on something that I don't know much about and might not be that good, rather than only watching things I have high confidence that I'll enjoy. If it's really awesome and would actually benefit from watching the whole way through in one sitting, I can always watch it again when I am prepared to do that.

I'll usually get up and move around if the movie is over 2 hours. It's just nice to stretch a bit, gives a chance to get more snacks or use the restroom.

Mostly I just don't watch movies though, they are somehow both too long and too short at the same time. When it comes to entertaining devoting nearly 3 hours to watching a movie feels like it takes up all the time I have to visit with people. TV shows work better since you can still grab a bite to eat, cook something, watch an episode, then socialize more after or just watch another.

At the same time with a book series or a tv series you can get far more into the characters and world because they last a lot longer than a movie. So when it comes to my own solo entertainment I prefer books > video games > tv shows > movies.

OK, I'm going to be a boomer about this one - needing a break, needing captions, needing to pause and rewind, these are all signs that your attention span is broken. Rather than avoiding the discomfort of having to pay attention for two consecutive hours without getting to roll something back, you should lean into it, embrace the discomfort, and see the ability to just be present as a new power to develop.

Totally agree that people should work on their attention span and ability to be present - but using captions is not really part of this problem. They're often necessary for ESL people and even for native speakers when watching the many movies with bad sound design, unless you want to miss details.

What’s wrong with captions?

They take the viewer's eyes off of the actual visual content of a scene and diminish the need to listen closely to dialogue that is intended to be listened to closely. Try it out with a scene where the actors are speaking in hushed tones - if you turn on captions, do you tend to just read them without changing the way you're listening? If you turn off captions, do you tend to tune your listening to the sort of secretive tones that you would in real life? Different types of immersion impact the experience of content in a meaningful way.

I'm not saying everything needs to be engaged with this way. If I'm flying, the audio quality is going to suck anyway, the visual content is on an iPad, and I just want some entertainment to kill a couple hours, so I'm going to turn captions on. Nonetheless, I think it's a bad habit to get into more generally and feeds into the inclination to divert attention to multiple things instead of just paying attention to one thing.

If you turn off captions, do you tend to tune your listening to the sort of secretive tones that you would in real life?

No, I just end up not understanding what they’re saying and missing key plot points, replacing my immersion with confusion.

Sorry, it's not my problem that modern movie-makers increasingly have a skill issue about making their movies intelligible. There's also a problem with viewing foreign media - I mentioned Princess Mononoke and I surely ain't watching that with original voice track alone, and dubs are generally bad idea or simply low quality.

Though I acknowledge the problems you raise and will say: let the movie prove itself that it deserves a second viewing so I could appreciate it from a new angle using my memory instead of subtitles.

Sorry, it's not my problem that modern movie-makers increasingly have a skill issue about making their movies intelligible.

Love this video, thanks for linking it.

I don't think this is inconsistent with what I wrote though - if you're somewhere that the audio is literally unintelligible (for any reason), captions are the obvious solution. Personally, I would rather try it out as intended by the creator rather than immediately going to the written form. Perhaps Nolan's choices are so extreme that this pretty much means you need to be in a top-end theater - sure, fair enough.

Yeah I'm with you on this - I pretty much have to have subtitles these days because my hearing is shot, but I think it's undeniable that I am missing part of the experience. That said, I don't know if it's just growing up watching a lot of stuff with subtitles (when I first moved to Australia as a kid we lived in a semi-rural area and the only channels we could get were the ABC and SBS, and SBS primarily played foreign language content) but they don't take me out of the film or show at all. I know they are intellectually, they must be, but I don't feel any detraction.

Actually, thinking about it, it's probably more accurate to say that they are less detrimental to my experience than the feeling of frustration and confusion I get when I can't hear half the script.

I don't know. I don't feel more immersed in Swedish or English language content that I consume effortlessly without subtitles than content in other languages where I have to use subtitles. Maybe it's just a skill issue on the part of people unused to subtitles? Perhaps it depends on how fast one reads? If you can read a sentence at a glance then you're not really "looking away" for any appreciable amount of time.

I'm annoyed if my viewing experience is interrupted unless there's a built-in intermission. Thus, the longer the movie length, the more critical I am of it. Anything beyond two and a half hours better be movie of the year.

If it's a good movie, I would imagine I'm compelled to. If I start fidgeting or feel like doing something else, well, it's either because I have to watch >0 romcoms a year to keep the girl happy, or I feel like my time is being wasted.

It depends. I think modern movies are often too long and I occasionally take a break and watch it over multiple sittings.

I wouldn't split up a 90 minute movie though, those are usually pretty tight and if it loses my attention i won't go back to it.

I don't see the point in watching a movie in more than one sitting, although that being said I do get put off when I hear about a movie with an unusually long runtime. Looking at you, Scorsese.

I thought The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon were an hour too long.

Some films are too long due to laziness or self-indulgence, and others are too long because the story doesn't fit the medium.

I feel like a lot of Scorsese films are a little long, but his best films remain engaging through their entire runtime. Those films were both 3 hours, which is a lot.

Yes. A good film is like a good song. Part of the experience is the tempo - how it flows and how it carries a feeling throughout. If you drop it and come back later, the continuity is lost the same way your favourite song is ruined if you keep pausing it every 30 seconds.

Example: Uncut Gems is a tense movie! It's stressful! It doesn't let up for two hours straight, and then when you finally get to the end, the last scene very much cashes in on it having taken you for that exhausting ride.

Uncut Gems is a miracle of writing, directing, and acting.

Even in films that are well written, it's pretty common for me to sort of detach and think, "Oh, this is the redemptive scene. This is the contemplation scene. This is the remorse scene." And I'm not a very talented cinephile. I think it's just incredibly difficult for a director to utterly absorb the audience for 2+ hrs straight.

But Uncut Gems! I can't imagine how much attention had to be paid to every line of the script both in writing it and then acting it out on screen. It's like a swiss watch in terms of complex integration yet almost no extraneous material.

People look at me funny when I claim that Adam Sandler is one of the most talented actors/filmmakers of our generation, but his "dumb comedies" are pretty much the platonic ideal of "dumb comedy" and that one time he does do a "serious" movie we get movies like Punch Drunk Love and Uncut Gems.

Adam Sandler is the Steven King of movies. Follow me here...

Sure, there's the obvious "high brow" vs "low brow" argument for each. For Sandler, Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore dick jokes aren't en vogue for the thinking man. He laughs at the laconic wit of Fargo and thinks everything by Wes Anderson is what the children (der kinder!) ought to be watching. Same thing with King - paperback horror? Oh, goodness! Why not spend your time reading the claaaaaaasics Stoker, Shelley, perhaps some Lovecraft?

Pure cultural classism, to be sure. But there's a deeper element - doing the basic things right.

Sandler makes you laugh with a good joke that's straightforward with an easy, but well delivered, punchline. Steve King writes a good story. Plot. Characters. Scenes crafted with a mood that's spooky.

I think that so many of their detractors are envious that they can't do the damn basics right, but think they have the "higher level" stuff mastered. This should be expected from a society (the PMCs) that values a sort of personal branding and individuation highly, and often is involved in careers where objective measurements of common factors of performance are rare or impossible. Sandler and King are basic and non-esoteric, so they have to deliver on the meat and potatoes level. Sandler; you laughed. King; you got spooked. There is no avenue for them to appeal to some sort of abstract rubric of "inventive, thoughtful insight." They're playing an old game with defined rules that's been done a lot before. They're not standing on the shoulders of giants, they're being compared to them.

Sandler is good (and King) because they've been in the arena on purpose for a long time. Anybody who's putting a straightforward product out like that again and again over decades has my respect.

I think you might be legitimately on to something here and would encourage you to expand upon it.

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