TV/Movies Megathread

[jimmy olsen]

I don't know what's up with this trend of making big action movies that are two hours and a half long... it's a chore to sit through most of them really.

I love long movies, the longer the better in my opinion. 

[Ideologue]

I think I would probably prefer a really long movie to a movie that is truncated.  Thing is, a lot of superhero movies wind up being both.

[Admiral Yi]

Having seen a bit more of Elysium last night I have to figure it's directed by the dude who did District 9.

Also the South African dude is notable as the very first post-post-Apartheid villain.

[dps]

It's not about the quantity, it's the quality.  I'd much rather sit through a 3-hour movie that's good than a 90-minute flick that's really bad.

[Eddie Teach]

I've seen a few 90 minute movies that felt like 3 hours.

[celedhring]

I only want a movie to last as long as it needs to tell its story. You don't need 30 minutes to tell that Krypton exploded and they exiliated some cunts before that.

[Ideologue]

Yeah, but Mark Shannon's skin looked great.

[Syt]

I think the last under 2 hour movie I've seen may be 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes which runs 105 min according to IMDB, and which did everything it needed to in this span, and did it pretty well.

[Eddie Teach]

I saw Gravity last week, it was only 90 minutes long. But it didn't have nearly as much "story" as RotPotA. It was mainly an exercise in building and maintaining tension for as long as possible(it did this quite well).

[Sheilbh]

It's not about the quantity, it's the quality.  I'd much rather sit through a 3-hour movie that's good than a 90-minute flick that's really bad.

No doubt. But there's a worrying attention inflation going on where every summer blockbuster seems to be over two hours regardless of quality which I find annoying.

I think the same's happening with TV. I get the whole TV is like a novel thing, but not every novel needs to be War and Peace. I'm not sure I've time in my life for many 15-20 episode, 5 series shows.

Maybe I'm getting curmudgeonly but it's made me appreciate perfect mini-series so much more

[crazy canuck]

RotPotA

Did you have a seizure?

[garbon]

Neighbors. So good!

[Savonarola]

The Blot (1921)

This was the final film of Lois Weber's production company.  Like most of her films it deals with a cause; this time middle class poverty.  Poor professor Griggs doesn't make enough to support his family.  Meanwhile his idle rich students live empty lives devoid of meaning.  Meanwhile the immigrant shoemaker next door have an abundance of material goods but lack virtue or refinement.  One of the students falls in love with Professor Griggs's daughter Amelia, but she catches cold due to not having adequate soles on her shoes.  Her family cannot afford the nourishing food Amelia needs.  This leads her mother to almost steal a chicken from their neighbors.  Then we all learn a valuable lesson.

One thing that's surprising in the film is it's nativist message.  It's clearly stated that the immigrants next door have more than they deserve; this is contrasted to the native born professor whose family lives in poverty.  It's interesting how many progressive causes are viewed by today's standards as either counter-productive (prohibition) or backwards (eugenics and nativism.)

Weber would direct a few more films, but her forte, message films, would be out of favor in the 1920s, and wouldn't return until the Great Depression.

[Ideologue]

Poor professor Griggs doesn't make enough to support his family.

A+

Anyway, was nativism ever really a progressive position?

[Admiral Yi]

Anyway, was nativism ever really a progressive position?

Prohibition definitely had an aspect of saving the dissolute immigrant from his own failings to it, and it's not a stretch to see the corruption of Tammany Hall as being tied to the uncivicmindedness of immigrants.