Topic: State of the Cinema Rant and The Bride!

This week Topher Mac rants about the shortcomings of the cinema business and shares some thoughts about how it could improve.  He also briefly discusses The Bride! and weighs in on the Warner Bros merger with either Netflix or Paramount. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Hello, hello, hello! Did you know that it was 1878? That's where we trace the quote unquote beginning of s of of motion pictures. Of course, cinema really started uh with uh the Lumiere brothers in France. We'll get into all that stuff down the road, but I just want to give you a little tidbit of it was the the horse running, and if you saw nope, then you know what I'm talking about, because that was the very first motion picture. Now, I have seen people claim that it was round hey, garden scene, 1888, which I have seen, um, but that is not the first, because obviously the first was the horse in motion. It's a three-second film, and it predates the other film by 10 years. Okay. So, hey, there you go. Alright, um, welcome everybody to Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast. I'm Topher Mack, I am your host, and I am here all by myself today. And what are we going to do? What are we going to talk about? You know, what I wanted to talk about this week was the bride. There's plenty to talk about because I saw the bride. There's plenty to talk about because the bride, um, well, how do I put this politely? Bombed. It's super bombed. There was like nobody there when I went to see it at the opening, so I knew it was gonna bomb at that point, and I was kind of surprised because it's a cool movie. Like it's weird, it's very opinionated, but it was a cool movie. That's what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to spend the whole episode on that. However, we're gonna actually talk about something else. Uh, for a little bit I've been thinking about doing a state of the cinema address. Um, I'm not gonna do that right now because my personal life has not given me the time I need to be able to pull out all the facts and the figures. So instead, we're gonna do a state of the cinema rant. That's right, I'm about to rant for a little bit. I'm about to let my frustration out. I am upset. I am angry. I'm sad. I'm just I'm a sad boy. That's what I am. I'm so sad. And I'm going to um well let you guys in on some of my thoughts. There have been people that have been approaching me and asking me, sending me messages, asking me about the uh Warner Brothers merger. I'm gonna comment on that today. Um, what I have not been asked about so much, but I personally have a passion for, is the cinema business itself, where it's at and what I think it needs to be done. And I'm gonna rant on that issue right now. Well, in a few minutes. And um, straight up it is because I think it needs to be talked about. And I uh, you know, I could sit here and I could put all facts and figures together. I don't have time for it. Hey man, we're in the like midnight hour right before I have to release this thing, and I I need to get uh this done. And so expect a special episode down the road for that. Speaking of special episodes, we're going to have John Paul Edmondson joining us Friday because it's Friday the 13th, so we're gonna cover Friday the 13th, part two, because it's our second Friday the 13th. It also marks the one month anniversary of Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast. And I'm looking forward to you guys hearing that. That's already in the can, it's ready to be sent out to you, you guys, and we're gonna do that for you. Um, I'm gonna take a short little break, and then we're gonna come back with the box office. After the box office, get ready to hear my thoughts. Oh, I'm gonna be going on. This is not gonna be humdrummady. I'm angry, like I there's gonna be some emotions. There might be some jokes, but there's definitely gonna be some emotions, cuz I'm not happy. Cinema, what are you doing? That's coming to you. Alright, break begins. But like you guys will end up hearing me like immediately after. Why am I even talking about this? And box office. Alright, there we are, ladies and gentlemen. Box office is queued up and we're ready to talk about it. Before we do, I don't want to forget to do this, so I have to do this right now. Um last week during the Scream episode, thank you guys for downloading that. That is um now the second most downloaded episode. The um the uh highest downloaded episode is the Friday 13th episode. So hey guys, maybe maybe give me that gift again on Friday, or maybe make this the most highest. Uh I don't know, and and let me know that you want to hear about it. But that's neither here nor there. Uh, I did not get a chance to mention that. I watched Scream the Thursday before it opened, and I watched it in a packed IMAX auditorium, and I didn't get a chance to mention the fact that there were a ridonculous amount of children in that theater. There were so many children in that theater. It was crazy how many not teenagers, children were in a rated R horror film known as Scream to watch murder and mayhem happen. Um, I mean, at least that's not a very like sexual horror film, so like I guess like in the the uh big picture of things, it's not the worst thing that you can put in front of your kid. Um it's a strange choice because I was sitting right beside what had to been a seven or eight-year-old on one side, and flanking me on the other side was a high school. Um, I hope it was a senior. He looked like he came out of the daggone uh uh screen TV series. I mean, it was just like, what what are you doing? Like auditioning for the next one and you're just getting ready for it. Oi, um had a great time though, because those kids actually, funny enough, they were enthusiastic. They were a great audience to watch, they didn't talk through it, they they had manners. Oh my gosh. If that's what kids are gonna be like in a theater, then hey, ladies and gentlemen, bring those kids. Just don't bring the schmucks that talk. Alright, that being said, box office results, we are of course talking about the box office results for the weekend of March 6th to March 8th. Uh, which also of course includes Thursday, March 5th. And uh you're asking yourself, who won? Did Scream 7 return? Did the bride come out and and and conquer? You know, no, is the answer to that. No, to both of those. Uh Hoppers, the new Walt Disney Motion Pictures release, made 45.3 million dollars on opening weekend. So far, as of right, uh as of this recording, it's made 48 million dollars domestically, 42 million dollars internationally for a $90 million total box office thus far. But at opening weekend, $45.3 million. I saw a meme, and the meme was talking about how Scream 7 uh dropped because not because Scream 7 was um this like awful thing that nobody wants to see, but because uh all the kids went to see Hoppers this week, and so they weren't there to pad the audience. I don't know, it just made me laugh, and obviously I had that experience. Um alright, so who got second place? That'd be Scream 7 added another 17 million dollars over the weekend. That's a Paramount Pictures International release. 94.3 million dollars total thus far. 56.1 I said total, I'm sorry, that's 94.3 million domestic total so far. 56.1 international for a total of 150 million dollars worldwide. That's Scream 7 asking you what's your favorite scary movie? And yes, that was a really bad Jack Nicholson meets Ghost Face. It was so bad, it was so bad. Let's take a moment and think about how awful it was that I did that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, look, hey, live to tape, baby. Live to tape. You don't know what you're gonna get when when this is here. That's part of the fun of this, is we're not sitting here cutting out every um, we're not cutting out every uh uh extra breath. If I fart, guess what, guys? You're gonna hear me fart. And you deserve it because you're sitting on the toilet listening. I know you, I know you're sitting on the toilet listening. Nah, you're probably in the car, let's be honest. That's when I listen to my podcast. On long walks or in the car. Um, you know what? When do you listen to the pod? Let me know. Let us know at uh at Shadows That Shine on Instagram. We're also on Facebook now. Um we don't have like a uh fancy way to catch that, but if you look up Shadows That Shine, you'll find us in the search bar um until I figure out how to have a fancy URL with that. And with that being said, who got third place? Will that be The Bride? Oh man, as I mentioned earlier in this episode, The Bride is a movie that I saw that I wanted to talk about. It's weird. So I'm not totally surprised that it only made 7.1 million dollars against an $80 million budget. Made 7.00 over the weekend. Now it is listed on Box Office Mojo as an IMAX release, but it's actually a Warner Bros. release. I think IMAX and Warner Brothers have like a split bill, and that's why it's listed that way. Anywho, uh bringing you up to right now, 7.5 million domestic gross uh gross, 6.3 million international gross for 13.8 million dollars total. Oh no, that poor thing. Look, you know, maybe I do need to at least mention that the bride is worth seeing. I think the bride is worth seeing. It's is very feminist, okay? So that might not be your thing. Alright, it made me uncomfortable in a few places, um, but more than that, it is a film that has vision and something to say. And it's other than a few moments in the film, it's not the whole time going, you need to think what I think. It's presenting a story, it's presenting an idea, and it's doing it in a cool way. It's Bride of Frankenstein meets Bonnie and Clyde, okay, and it's it also, you know, those things meet an art house film. I like it. Fantastic performances throughout that film. Most of those actors gave uh, if not career performances, honorable mention performances for their careers. Um, I think everyone that worked on that film should be very proud of it. Uh I'm sad that it's not uh gonna succeed. And maybe at some point, maybe when they release the um physical media of it, we can delve into that. I can bring somebody in and we can talk about that. Alright. Number four, Goat may managed to bring in another 6.5 million dollars. That's a Sony Pictures release, bringing its totals up to this point, $84.1 million domestic, $62.5 million. Uh that would be the international number, bringing your total to $146.6 million. Now, if you were paying attention earlier, and I'm sure you were, if you were I don't know, maybe you maybe not. I don't fuck. The point is, GOAT sounds like hey man, that's gotta be one of the hottest films of the year. It's the third place film of um of all films excluding Chinese cinema. And uh Scream 7 has actually performed uh better, even though Goat has been out longer. Scream 7, in fact, it's worth mentioning, is now officially a billion-dollar franchise. And the second highest performing film of the year, if you exclude Chinese releases, because China, uh China's box office is on fire. And I guess at some point we're gonna have to cover that, but I'm gonna keep kicking that can down the road because I don't want to talk about it. Um Wuthering Heights came in at fifth place, added another 3.7 million dollars to its box office. That's a Warner Bros. film, $79 million uh so far domestically, $135 million internationally for a total of $214 million, making it the highest grossing film thus far of the year, once again, excluding those Chinese powerhouse films uh that are are really performing. So there you go. The weekend totals, the entire box office altogether, uh $94.4 million. That's what we got. $94.4 million dollars. You know, I I mentioned earlier that I'm upset. Reading these reading the okay. Reading these box office results every week is kind of heartbreaking because I took a few years off of obsessing about box office. But in 2019, um which was the last year that I spent all of my time in a movie theater, uh, I was watching three movies a week in 2019. And I was watching the box office religiously. And weekend totals are you know like what your third place movie was doing that year. It's it's just crazy to me how low all of these numbers are. I mean, Hoppers premiered with four forty-five point three million dollars. This this worries me. You know, they say that the cinema is building back up. Well. Well, let's get into that in just a few moments. Uh before we do, we're gonna take a little short break.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

This is the break right here. This is the break right here. When's he gonna come back? I don't know. I fear he may never come back, Topher Mack. Oh, wait. As a matter of fact, he's back. It's Topher Mac.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

You listen to Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast. And again, I'm Topher Mack. How many times can I say my name, Topher Mac? Um, I'm a stand-up comedian, and uh, as you'll uh hear me talk about on the special episode re-release Friday, uh, you can see me perform this coming week uh or St. uh uh you know next week, St. Patrick's Day. Uh I will be a leprechaun at Patty's Irish Pub in Fayetteville, North Carolina. They have asked me to come in and I have obliged. Uh I won't be using that voice because that's I don't know what the I don't know what that was. Okay. So, recently viewed. I like to cover recently viewed after the box office. I saw three movies this week that are worth mentioning. The Bride, as I said. Uh great, great little uh arthouse piece. Maggie Jillen Hall uh has wowed me as a director. I thought the beginning of the movie was a little weird and off-putting, and I get why people wanted to give up on it right there, but I have a 15-minute rule, and by the 15-minute mark, I said, okay, I'll feel this. This is some good stuff. I mean you got Christian Bell. How do you Christian Bell's an incredible talent? And and he did a very good job, and he wasn't even the best performer in this movie. That would be the lead actress who I thought was Maggie Gyllen Hall the entire movie until the credits hit. And wouldn't you know it's not. It's not. It's the person who I understand is up for an Oscar, if I'm not mistaken. Uh her name is Jessie Buckley, and she's a fantastic actress, and she did such a good job that I kind of want to watch Hammond now. Um, speaking of the Oscars, the Oscars are this weekend. I no longer care about the Oscars. I used to care a lot about them. They uh tinkered with the rules, and I don't I just kinda don't think that they really represent what's really best and not best. Um I they have in they have always been controversial when it comes to what's actually good and what's not good. Uh declaring best picture of the year to films that just weren't. Maybe we'll deep dive into that one. Uh not too far down the road. Um, but I'm not gonna do an episode on it. I might uh mention winners next week. I might not. I don't know yet. I haven't made up my mind. Um I'm sure if you're watching this, you have some other source that you're gonna go to. You'll Google it. Uh, because we all know nobody watches the program anymore. I haven't watched it since the pandemic. Um I just don't think that it's a uh proper representation of the movie business anymore. And that makes me sad because I loved the Oscars for a very long time. Uh but we'll get into all that, I don't know, way down the road. Let me kick that can too. Hey, I saw for the first time ever Sophia Coppola's first film, The Virgin Suicides. I also saw John Carpenter's first film, which is called Dark Star. I was on a I was on a roll watching first films. Um Virgin Suicides is incredible. I'm uh I don't know if you know this. I assume if you're listening to this, you're either a friend of mine or you're a movie nerd. Um, and if you're a movie nerd, I'm sure that you've seen this and you're going, are you serious? You've only just now watched this. And to that I say, Yeah, give me a break, okay? There's a lot of movies out there, alright? Alright? Like, we can't watch all of them. It's not like it's the dark night. You know what I mean? Like, I would I would go s uh anybody over the age of 30 that hasn't seen The Dark Knight, you know, because that was a massive movie. Okay, I don't think I'd even do that at this point. Anyways, blah blah blah. The point is The Virgin Suicides is fantastic and you should watch it, and it's fucking depressing. It's fucking depressing. Uh so much so that the next movie I watched after that is now officially uh my new favorite movie, Hot Fuzz. Hot Fuzz is a movie I've loved for many years. I watch it more than once a year. It finally, for the first time in my life, has officially taken uh its place as favorite film currently. Uh the writing in that film is immaculate. The delivery, uh, the performances, immaculate, the casting, immaculate, the shot choices, immaculate. Like everything about that film is Chefskis. I gotta tell you, it's a shadow that shines. Ooh, ooh, did you hear that? A shadow that shines. Ooh, I think I'm gonna yeah, yeah. I gotta admit though, I already said that about the bride on my Instagram, on on our Instagram, on the shadows that shines Instagram, which, just so you know, is gonna start uh its more detailed content coming up soon. We're gonna be a film aggregate, uh, film news aggregate. So we're going to try to keep you updated on news there. I'll mention the big, big, big things here, but that'll be where you're gonna wanna go to ta uh t if you're wondering, hey, what's coming out next year? Hey, um Wait, weird thing was said. What do you mean, Timothy uh Timothy Shalam Shamalamaninglong uh Charlemagne said that opera uh was a relic of the past. Tovy, don't you have an opinion about that? Didn't you used to work at the Metch Parks and Opera House? I do have an opinion about that, and I'm gonna keep it to myself. Unless you subscribe to my social medias and you hound me. Hound me and let me know that you want to know what I think about ballet. Hound me and let me know that you want to know my opinion on Opera. Opera! Take that eardrums. Alright. What do you say? Oh, by the way, uh Darkstar was extremely difficult to watch. Uh, if I wasn't as big of a movie nerd as I was and very interested in seeing it because of comments that were made on Quentin Tarantino's first episode of his podcast uh a long time ago, uh, before I got mad at Quentin Tarantino. Um Well, I don't think I would have watched it to the its end. It was interesting, it's campy, it's it's got some good in it, but other than that, it's it's it's rough. It's very, very rough. It is a student film and you can tell. But it's cool what they pulled off, especially for the time. I mean, this is pre-Halloween John Carpenter. Um, so you know, if you want a super duper nerd, just be patient because it's hard to hear and it's hard to see, and you know, I it's hard to watch until you get into the middle of the movie, and then it's hard to watch by the time you're at the end of the movie. In the middle, there's some actually interesting stuff. So. Alright, that's my recently viewed portion. Um, we're not even gonna stop. We're just gonna roll straight into the deep dive. This week's deep dive, as I mentioned, is going to be a cinema rant. So let me put down my phone. Let me f let me let me take that phone, sell your telephone device. Let me let me make sure that nobody's going to contact me. Oh, there we are in the oh, nope, that's the wrong button. Airplane mode. There you go. Because, ladies and gentlemen, what happened was I I used to go to the movie theater a lot, and then the pandemic happened, and then I still was going to the theater as much as I could once the movie theaters opened back up, but it was a weird experience at that time to go. But I, you know, I kind of stuck with it. But at that point I started cherry-picking what I was gonna watch, and then uh personal setbacks in my life made it where going to the movie theater became a financial uh financially a very stupid thing to do. And I wasn't ready to sign up for the A-list because they weren't offering enough movies worth watching to justify paying that much because I knew I wasn't gonna actually go and watch all the movies that were coming out. And my dad kept wanting me to go to see movies. So for the last three years, I've really only gone to the movie theaters either to see a movie with my dad to go on a date, uh, and that was just for the wicked movie. Um and uh a good buddy of mine who will be a uh guest on this pod not too far down the road. Uh we have gone and seen a few movies as well, uh, as a group of friends, which is strange because I did that once when I was a kid and then I didn't do it again for 20 years. And now I'm doing it, you know, three or four times a year. Now, because of this podcast, I bought the A-list. Why did I say all that? It's because once I bought the A-list, it's the first time I'm returning to the cinema for only the purpose of I'm going to sit down and watch, not just not like when I went to see Oppenheimer and Barbie because I really wanted to see those movies. I'm watching movie theaters now as it is uh a ritual of mine. I go to see th whatever movie each week that I want to go and check out. And I gotta tell ya the process sitting in a cinema now kinda um sucks relative to what it used to. It is the theater in the town that I'm currently residing is not up to snuff. It's it's not um you can tell it's aging, and they just remodeled it, so I don't understand why I'm I'm looking at a less than stellar venue. Considering they just remodeled one of the rooms for um Dolby Vision. Uh the IMAX screen has been the IMAX screen forever, so I'm not gonna hate on that because it's been over ten years that it's been on IMAX. I don't think that they've remodeled that. Um and it's not the worst place in the world to sit and watch the theater, but I do prefer the recliners in the other parts of the theater that that exist. Um which they've started putting in the other parts of the the uh of the cinema. Uh these recliner seats, which is the great way to watch if you get the chance, if you're at a uh place that has those kinds of seating possibilities. I get why IMAX is set up the way that it is, and for those kinds of seats, they are a lot more comfortable than the old school uh basically they're theater seats. Like if you still go to see a Broadway show, they have almost the exact same kind of seat in the Broadway theaters that they used to have in the movie theaters in my town. Um so all that to say, like it's nice that the seating is getting more comfortable, but it still feels a little like it's getting a little dingy, which makes me wonder how often should you be remodeling your theaters to make sure that they are fresh and that they don't have a weird smell to them, or that the lighting is what the lighting needs to be. Um this is like the smallest complaint I have. I'm just I'm I'm like sort of idling before I f I fucking lose my mind about what really is bothering me. Here's what's really bothering me. The process of going to the cinema and watching a movie punishes people who go to the theater all the time. Showing movie trailers over and over and over again at every single movie, I'm watching the same movie trailers, and the first time I see it, I'll be like, I want to watch that movie, and the second time I see it, I go, I kinda wanna watch that movie. And then the third time I watch that trailer, I'm like, you know what? Like, if I miss it, it's not the end of the world because the way that they make movie trailers, I've already seen the fucking movie. Alright, what I'm getting at is, hey, movie industry, the way you market your films is stupid and outdated. This isn't 1980, okay, buddy? Do you hear me, Mr. Cinema Man? Miss Miss Cinema Woman? Let's face it, that is a sexist industry, and way more men are running things than women. Maybe that's part of the problem. I don't fucking know. Like, who am I? Maybe it's not. I don't know. Look, I don't know. I'm just saying shit now. But you know what's not saying shit is that nobody should have to sit there and watch movie trailers like this is the like it's 1987 and it's MTV uh and you're watching uh music videos. What what do I mean by that? I mean that the reason why MTV died is because it outlived its purpose. You don't need to turn on a television channel to see a music video. You turn on YouTube or you turn on some other um let's face it, everyone uses YouTube. You turn on YouTube, you watch a music video that way. Or maybe they have them on TikTok. I don't know, because I don't have TikTok. Um, I don't consume through TikTok. But the but if I want to watch a movie trailer, all of my social media will give me access to movie trailers. So why are we watching movie trailers before a movie starts? Does it really make you want to watch a movie? Like, I'm this is not a hypothetical this is not a hypothetical question. Does it really make you want to watch a movie sitting in a movie theater? And by the way, they don't bring the lights all the way down anymore. They used to during the trailers, not the first two or three trailers, but like the last two or three trailers, they used to, hey, let's bring it down, let's get everyone settled into the better sound and the better light, and then show them what it's gonna be. And oh, here's a taste of how pretty it's gonna be on the big screen. They don't do that anymore. They got house lights on, so you're watching a degraded image being projected on a screen, and then that's them trying to entice you to come and see it, and the trailers are bad. Almost every movie trailer that I have seen for a long time now sucks. Teaser trailers I don't feel that way about, but movie trailers I do. What's the difference between a teaser trailer and a movie trailer? Well, uh, the size. Um, this is one of those few times in life where uh smaller is better. Ha ha. See what I did there? Um the movie trailer it is basically a short film version of the movie. It says this is exactly what you're gonna get. The movie teaser is sort of uh, hey, let me try to hook you in this moment. We're gonna give you a little taste of something. So, like the teaser trailer for Scream 7 is we're gonna show you stuff from the beginning of the movie and then the app maybe like the shortest little moments of what comes later, just so you know that there are other people in the movie. Alright? But all we want to do is just let you know, hey, we're coming back. Now that's pretty cool. But then you get into the trailer, and I remember watching the trailer, which they for some reason showed before the fucking movie. It was uh a fan release, which is like a special thing. They like uh had a bunch of special uh interviews before the movie, and I I would have thought that was cool, except that they had spoiler stuff in there, and and I'm extreme with my spoilers. Like, if you give me any information about a movie, I'm gonna be able to figure it out. If I don't figure it out before the movie starts, I will have figured it out within 25 minutes of that film because everything is so formulaic in the way that they make movies, that if you just give a little bit of information, boom. So what the fuck am I there for? Let me experience my art, please. Just like give it to me. Say, hey, we're gonna do a movie, it's gonna be um it's uh another screen movie, so if you liked the other screen movies, you're gonna like this one, but you're especially gonna like this one if you like scream one through three, because this is sort of trying to be scream one through three uh again after we had tr uh gone very far away from it. Alright. Why can't we present the information in a different way? This is a world where video essays uh do incredible business, alright? Truth is, I tried to buy a movie theater last year. Oh no, it's been a little over a year now. I tried to uh a year and a half, I tried to buy a movie theater. Um They used me to leverage a deal to with somebody else, and and so I wasn't able to get that theater. And by the time that that fell through and I got reapproached, all of my funding that I had pulled together had dissipated, so there was gonna be no movie theater. I still want to own a cinema, but guess what? I'm poor. Alright, hey, there you go. A podcast host admitting that he's not Mr. Money. Alright, I'm a poor person, so I'm not gonna get to open up a cinema. So if you are an owner of a cinema, let me tell you what I would do. And fucking copy my notes because I just want the business to be better. I just want there to be cinema. I want movies to succeed, please, and thank you. Alright? First of all, movies need to change uh cinemas need to change their marketing strategies. Movies need to change their marketing strategies. This is not 1980. If anything, it's 1984. Stay out of politics, Topher. Why are you copying Ryan George, uh, Topher? Um man, there's a lot of deep cuts in that series of weird joke tangents. Alright, um, but it's not 1980, okay? Why are we presenting the industry the way that we did when malls were a thing that mattered? Why are we presenting the this in a world where they're marketing films the same way they did before the internet? It doesn't make any sense at all. They need to completely stop doing what they used to do and reinvent the wheel because the will doesn't work for the machine that you have. If you have flying cars, why are you putting on rubber wheels? The fire that's beside the rubber wheel is is gonna catch the wheel on fire and now the whole fucking thing's gonna come crashing down. That's a weird metaphor, but you get what I'm saying. Alright. Cinemas need to stop marketing movies and start marketing themselves. The reality is going to a movie theater should be an experience. It should be uh they need to update the venues to feel like a place you want to be in. They they it should be a you know what, maybe I should leave the house. Because I love cinema, but let's face it, it kind of at this point in the game, there's a lot of better sitting at home and watching it at home. Alright? Yeah, the image is better on a big screen. The shared experience really is the the chef's kiss of the whole thing. The community aspect is the reason to watch movies in cinema, and it's why I believe in it so much, and it's why I love it so much. So lean into that. Create social um interactions around the movies. Don't make it just we're gonna fucking show a movie and then you're gonna go home. You know, uh the best movie experiences I've had in the last five years have been road shows where there were talkbacks with directors. You know, I got to ask Kevin Smith. Uh well, I didn't ask Kevin Smith the question at that. I asked him something another time. Um, but I did get to ask Taiki Waikiki uh question when when I went to see um uh what was it? Jojo Rabbit. I'm gonna sh I'm gonna have that memory for the rest of my life. And it was just he just popped into the movie theater on a random, I think it was like a Saturday afternoon. First showing of the day, as a matter of fact. And he just came by and then he was like, yo, anyone want to ask me some questions? Stood in the front of the the auditorium. It was awesome. It became an experience at that point. Now I would have seen the movie anyways because it's it was it looked like it was gonna be good. It was good, by the way. If you haven't seen JoJo Rabbit, it is before Taiki Waikiki lost his mind and started making trash. Um that's not fair to Taiki Waikiki, but you get what I'm saying. His the quality of films have dropped. Cinema should be an experience, and we need to stop marketing movies because you're never gonna beat Netflix. Because Netflix can just put the movie into their household. They don't have to leave, they don't have to pay gas, they don't have to pay for outrageous prices on concessions, which I believe, I believe if it's not too outrageous, it's okay that popcorn costs three fifty. For for a thing of uh it's okay that candy costs four dollars. But if candy costs six dollars, like the theater that I go to tries to charge, I'm not gonna buy candy from you. You know, like I'm not. I know why you do it. You do it because you have to do it, because you have to you're not making your money on ticket sales. You know, let's face it, that's not the way that industry works. They make their money in other ways. Well, hey, cinema owners, embrace that. Make your money by being a destination. Either market to families and and have uh bring arcades back and bring um, you know, like Chuck E. Cheese like experiences. Uh, not in the cinema, but right immediately next door. So then it's like a paired thing. We have a local cinema in my hometown, uh, and they have that. They have uh this like little arcade next door to their uh multiplex. So if you got a family, you can make a whole day out of going to the movies. Some Saturday or Sunday, you can go watch the new Pixar movie. Because let's face it, you're not watching anything Disney's doing anymore, because they're not really making great stuff these days. Pixar is barely uh what it used to be, but you know, obviously, enough people want to see Hoppers that I'm apparently wrong. Um not right about everything? No. Well I am right about this. Cinema needs to be an experience. Come on, give me a break. Um I also think that there should be an adult equivalent to that. There should be cinemas that are marketing themselves and pairing with bars and restaurants, and um, you know, I'll never forget going to watch movie theater um in Universal City, which is like in LA. LA. Oh my god, LA. I used to live in LA over by Hollywood. Um The movie theater right there connected to Universal had a uh bar inside of it, like an actual bar, like uh I'm gonna sit there and drink for four hours and talk to interesting people bar. And it was one of the coolest experiences I ever had, and I crave that all the time. It's not like when you go to get a drink at theaters here now, where they had this like eitty little like little like nook off to the side of the concessions, and they're like, We'll sell you a drink, but you can't bring it into the cinema. You gotta drink it here, you know, which is laws, whatever. But it's not the same thing. Like, you need to have an actual bar. Maybe you go up and do karaoke, maybe you do movie trivia night, but you know, I don't know. If I had money, I'd figure that stuff out and I would be marketing it that way. I'd have a cafe so that in the morning you go and you, you know, you go and you get your coffee so that you have the energy to get through the three-hour Nolan movie because you just know the Odyssey is gonna be three hours. Like you just know that that's what it's gonna be, and you know you're gonna need a car. I don't drink coffee, but I'm gonna need something to get me through that movie. Because he's a brilliant filmmaker, but three hours is three hours, that's a lot of focus for a man that's got ADHD. And I'm willing to do it for a Chris Renolan because he's earned it. As long as, you know, speaking of Scream 7, again, that was a complaint a lot of people had. They felt like it was too long. I didn't because it's the seventh in the series, so I'm like, you've earned maybe it could have been 10 minutes shorter, but you know, honestly, I don't know what you would have cut without losing something. Uh maybe it should have been a little bit faster, like the pacing should have been a little faster, and that could have given you your five to ten minutes. I don't know. Um what do I look like? A filmmaker? Ha ha ha ha, shut up. Uh speaking of which, uh, Topher House on YouTube. That's where you can see the things that I've done. You know, because nothing will make you believe, in my opinions, like watching the short films I've made. It's not that they're bad, they're just not good. I will make a good movie though. Like, before I die, um, you know, unless I die prematurely, like, I will make a movie and it's gonna be a banger, and people are gonna be like, you know, that tofu's not so bad. Thank you for thank you guys for listening, by the way. We're ranting about cinema. It's Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast. And I I think that we're in deep, deep, deep trouble as an industry. And the biggest and most evid uh like pressing issue with that is this Warner Brothers merger. I have been asked about my opinions on it. And I'm not gonna share all of my opinions at this time, but what I will say is this if Netflix would have been allowed to buy um Warner Brothers, it would have created a streaming monopoly, and cinemas would have suffered severely. But the movie industry would not necessarily have suffered as badly. They might have lost like a quarter of the staff over at Warner Brothers for that, you know, with redundancies because of the crossover stuff. But there's a lot of stuff at Warner Brothers that they're doing that they're just not doing at Netflix. So they wouldn't have to fire everybody. Um and, you know, if they actually did keep the model going, which is the smartest thing they could ever do, because let's face it, streaming's streaming is move uh is television. And before television it was radio, and it is less than cinema. It just is. I know that I said uh in in this whole discussion that I would sit down and I would um I would prefer to watch a movie at home, but it's still less than watching a great movie on a great uh format screen, like IMAX or uh my preferred method, which is Dolby uh Dolby uh Atmos. Um you know, it's just cooler to watch it that way and with people. You can't do it all the time, but but when you have the opportunity to do it, it makes the experience better. There's there's stuff you're gonna miss that maybe the people in the audience like better. I went to see a freaking anime- I don't like anime, and I went to see the um uh Demon's Demon Slayer, I think it's called, uh, last year, and everyone around me was having such a good time that it elevated my experience. If I would have watched that exact same thing at home on the small screen, I would not have liked it. But I did like it on the big screen where it was beautiful, and I was more interested in the story here because there were there was this soundtrack of human beings around me and soundtrack of community that elevated it. Now, Netflix, if they were smart, would start doing theatrical releases and become a proper studio because it would add value to some of their movies. Should they release all of their movies that way? No! There should be Netflix exclusives and there should be um Netflix theatrical releases. That's something that they should do, whether they buy Warner Brothers or not. It would be best for their business because it adds a prestige factor. I'm sorry, I watched The Irishman in a theater, and it's so much better in a movie theater than it is. And yes, I know it's a three and a half hour movie. I think it's three and a half hours, it fucking felt like it. Um but it was brilliant, and I saw it in a Broadway theater, and I loved every every single moment of it. Uh, except for you know that point where you gotta go to the bathroom. Whatever happened to intermissions, guys, if you're gonna make a movie three hours long, where's your intermission? Whatever. Um I at I'm at a uh Oh, the merger. So it would have been bad for them to merge, and it would have created a version of a monopoly. It would have been bad, but it would not have been nearly bad as what is going to happen because now Paramount Pictures is going to buy Warner Brothers. Toofer, why is that bad? They've promised that they're gonna continue to yet no, they're not. No, they're not. These are the people that uh tried to get net uh South Park uh off the air, like they meddled with South Park, and then they turned around and they successfully are taking off Stephen Colbert, who, you know, it's not my cup of tea. I haven't liked him since Colbert rapport. I tried to like him when he moved over to this new format, but I don't think it suits him as well as the satire uh did. But there are people that like that a lot, and he served an audience, and they got rid of it because they were like, well, you know. One is that they don't understand the idea of uh I forgot what it's called, but it's like basically a tent pole structure of the nighttime hosts, anchor. It's it's an anchor program. Like Saturday Night Live for NBC is an anchor program. The Tonight Show for NBC is an anchor program. Good morning America for I think it's ABC is an anchor program. Um, these are shows that you watch, and because you watch that show on there, you're more likely to watch more shows on that network because it brought you in. It doesn't matter if it's a lost lead, it's a lost leader, because it's gonna make you the money by existing because people are paying attention to it. And because people are paying attention to it, there's a prestige factor. Alright, Netflix, the way that they do things, there's no prestige factor to it because they're operating off of the old model, which doesn't work anymore because there is no such, you know, the idea of a movie star is dissipating. Very few actors are real movie stars the way that movie stars existed when I was younger and even before that. Um movie directors, who I love dearly, uh, will only get you so far because you also know that they're being filtered through the Netflix model. We're gonna regurgitate the plot over and over again because uh at Netflix we believe that we shouldn't be your primary focus, we should be your secondary focus. We're just you know, we're just happy to be in the room. What kind of beta bullshit, bitch ass way of being is that? Huh? It's ridiculous. Second screen? You should be the fucking focus in the room. You should be trying to figure out how to be what people are paying attention to. Now it's cool to produce programming like that. That's what reality TV exists for, and that's what uh comfort uh series are for. I there's a reason I watch The Office every year, at least once a year, and Parks and Wreck. And uh How I Met Your Mother, which is actually probably my favorite um sitcom. Not that you asked, but now you know. Where are we at on time? Um by the way, thank you guys for listening. Because if you made it in this far, you the real ones. You the real ones, okay? So Paramount wants to buy, and the that is um not a monopoly in the traditional sense of that they would have market dominance, but it would have a significant impact on the industry. What you have is a company that was just purchased by a nobody studio, who is the fifth place studio, who is gonna buy the second place studio, who is one of the smallest streamers who is going to buy the second place streaming service. They're going to decimate the job market in the already dying Hollywood system. They will destroy traditional Hollywood if this merger happens. And I'm I'm not exaggerating. Like, we saw what happened with Fox. Disney promised, well, we're gonna still produce just as many movies as Fox was before, and that's the way it's gonna No, they didn't. They they they really slowed down how many movies are coming out. Why do you think so many second-run films have started showing up? It's not just because nostalgia dominates, and it does, for my generation, and it does because a lot of the new movies just aren't as good as the old movies. That's right, I'm one of those people. Get off my lawn, kids! I've got old movies to watch, they're better than your movies. Not always, but you know, enough of the time for that to be said. Paramount is going to kill the industry. You don't let the people who can't even climb out of fifth place run the industry. Because Disney is only where it is because of its um because it's still cashing in off of nostalgia. If you took away sequels, it wouldn't be in first place. If if we're talking about who's bringing something new to the table, Disney does not rank at first. They're only there because they're the kings of fucking um milk every last morsel out of a product. Movies are products to them. And I say that because, you know, there's only been a handful of of good Marvel movies since Endgame. And I say that because the quote-unquote new Star Wars trilogy was trash. I liked episode seven, but eight uh eight was uh eight was so bad that it made me stop liking Star Wars. You know how bad you have to be to make me stop liking one of the most important films of all time? Like it it made the other movies that came before it worse than they were before. Somehow it made the prequels better. But the prequels were not exactly one, you know, if you take away nostalgia and you're just treating it as a movie critic, and you look at the first two movies in that it's they're rough. They're they're at some point I'll talk about how important Marsha Lucas was to the original trilogy, and you wish that she would have been around or someone like her would have been around during the trilogy because George has good ideas when they're being uh put through filters, but when it's all George's and George is in complete control, he his ideas don't work. They just don't. He's too out there, especially with that now. His early stuff, if you ever get a chance to watch a George Lucas short film, they're very, very, very interesting. He was an incredible filmmaker until he became a franchise maker. And then he just I mean, come on, this is the guy who who gave us Howard the Duck. He didn't direct it, but he gave us Howard the Duck. That's that's on him. Not that how I mean Howard the Duck is whatever. I'm I'm definitely being the grouchy old man right now, aren't I? Am I not? Am I not? Well, here's the hill I'll die on. Paramount pictures should not be allowed to buy Warner Brothers. And honestly, the that piece of absolute dog shit that is David Zaslov, had no business being in the position he's in, and ran Warner Brothers down into the dirt. Warner Brothers could have been the number one company by now. Because Disney made enough mistakes as a film studio. They made enough mistakes in the last five years that if Warner Brothers hadn't been making so many um god-awful decisions, including one that is part of why cinemas are dying, and that would be the same day release. Um, you know. And oh, by the way, that brings me back. That brings me back to the fucking cinema rant because we should not be releasing movies on the streaming services four weeks after they're out. There have been movies I wanted to see that I don't think about watching, or I don't have the ability to watch right away. So it'll be six weeks after it came out, and I'll be like, I really want to see that on the big screen. And it's gone. It's absolutely gone, and there's no way to watch it because of this new model. Titanic is one of the highest-grossing films of all time. If it would have only been in theaters for four weeks, it wouldn't even be in the top 40. It made all of its money over the course of over a year. Why have we changed the way that we're doing things? It was not broken, we didn't have to fix it. But everyone went to follow these techrocat uh techrocrats. Or however, however you say, I don't care. And and they're not the people to follow. They're not like it's cool that they come up with these interesting inventions, and I loved Netflix when it first came out. But if I would have known that Netflix would have been the end of physical media, physical media still sells and they're pulling it off the shelf. That doesn't make any sense. They want everything to be conventional and everything to be uh subscription-based. And that's just not the way to do things. I'm sorry. And you know, here we are an hour-ish into this podcast, and I have been ranting and raving, and the Paramount decision, I've only just briefly touched on or not the Paramount decision, but the Paramount merger with Warner Bros. Um, you know, the truth of the matter is that they shouldn't be allowed to buy Warner Bros. Warner Brothers should be bought up by another company, and if they were smart, AMC would buy them. I mean, they can't afford to. But, you know, I did mention the Paramount decision a second ago accidentally, and it was a Freudian slip because there's this thing called the Paramount Decision that was made um in the 40s, I believe it was. 40s or 50s, and what that did was made it where the studios were not allowed to own the exhibition model, so they were not allowed to own movie theaters explicitly, it was against the law all the way up until 2020. And in 2020, or maybe it was 2021, the Paramount decision happened and that overturned all that, and now studios can buy cinemas again. And you know what? That might be what it takes. Why don't you do a Hulu style company that buys AMC or Regal and then have the studios have direct access to it so that they can make the changes that need to be made for them to be able to survive? And you know, it wouldn't be one studio or another. I don't know. That'd be really bad for independent cinema. But at this point, everything is bad for cinema. So I feel like it's the like cinema itself is gonna die. AMC can't keep doing what it's doing, it's hemorrhaging money. It's been hemorrhaging money for a while. I'm amazed that people don't do the A list. But then when you sit there and you think about it, of course they don't do the A-list. Because, you know, how many movies are worth watching? And also, like, like I said before, you get punished for going to the movie theater too often because you're having to re-watch the same tired ass fucking uh movie trailers. Instead of movie trailers at the beginning, put the movie trailers at the end for the people that want to watch them in a movie theater after the credits roll, and have like only two or three of them per movie, and at the beginning, before the movie plays, let's go back to how it used to be. Show short films, show uh and make the short films exclusive to certain movies, and then on top of that, show cartoons like they used to do, and then have a program that's like 10 minutes long, like a uh uh it could be as cheaply made as a YouTube program where they go, hey guys, these are the movies that are about to come out. Hey, gee, here the bride's coming, it's gonna be exciting, and this is why. Let's show you a little clip and a teaser, ha ha ha ha, instead of a movie trailer, or you know, sell the film in a different way, in a way that encourages you to go to a movie theater and does not discourage. Because just showing me the trailer, you might sell me on watching a movie, but you haven't sold me on watching it in a movie theater. So why are you marketing it that way? And let's all be really fucking honest. Once they took away physical media, the only real way that a move an individual movie can make real money is in the cinema. That's why cinemas are important. So I'm talking against a wall. Maybe you've heard me through this whole thing, maybe you haven't. I hope you don't feel like I've wasted your time. Uh I'm obviously very passionate about this subject. Um, I really love and appreciate the support that y'all have been giving me. Um, I thought by now my listenership would have dropped. It is growing, and I appreciate you for it, and I hope that trend continues. Friday, we're gonna be doing the Friday 13th episode with John Paul Edmondson rejoining me. Next week, we have another special episode planned. It's not guaranteed yet, but there is something that I'm hoping to be able to do next week where there will be a guest for that if everything goes the way it needs to go. So, you know, you there won't be one of these solo acts for a little while because I have stuff lined up. Um, I got big plans, um, and I'm also gonna start being more active on social media not immediately, but in the very near future. So you do want to subscribe, uh, you do want to follow us on social media. Um Links are on our podcast website. And that'll about do it for today. Um I tried to look and see if there's anything worth watching this coming weekend, but look, honestly, if you haven't seen The Bride yet, go watch the bride. That's my take. Like that's the one I'm gonna send you to. Go watch the bride and let me know what you thought of it. I thought it was fucking weird, but I thought it was worth my time. Some of the stuff I didn't like about it, but I thought it was worth my time. I didn't like some of the stuff about Barbie, but I thought it was worth my time. I wasn't the target demo for that one. But I think I am the target a lot of the target demo for the bride because I love horror films and I love crime films, and these are both of those, and I love art house films. So everything's there for me. It was well acted, there were interesting characters. Go watch the bride.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

You know, here comes the bride. Back from the dead. I don't have anything to rhyme with that except, of course, the color red. Red Dead Redemption was a video game. Why am I still talking?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:47

I'm fired. I just fired myself for my own podcast. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, please rehire me. Only if I go, okay. I've been Tover Mac. This is Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast. Bye.