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Film reviews that are real, introspective and fun!
Hey, everyone. I'm Shakyra Mabone.
Jack:And I'm Jack Williams.
Shakyra:Welcome to Reeling It In, the podcast where we take a moment to reel in the best and worst film moments while keeping our commentary a % real.
Jack:And today, we're we're a little over the all over the place today. Today, we're gonna be talking about
Shakyra:Yeah. Blame me.
Jack:We're gonna be talking about movie run times. We're gonna be talking about attention spans, all that kind of great great
Shakyra:stuff, modern It works, though, because it just shows that, you know, I have a short attention span.
Jack:Exactly. Yeah. That's a great way to do it. And if you think you're having deja vu, you're not. Because today we have Matt Williams, my brother.
Jack:Hello. Who was on last week's episode. He's back in the studio because we were talking last week and he was like, I want to talk about movies. Because if you remember last week, we talked a lot about the work that he's done. And he was like, Well, I want to talk about other people's work because this is the guy that got me into movies.
Jack:I would not be here without my brother. So yeah, let's grab your popcorn and reel it in. The first thing I wanted to talk about in this week's episode, I rewatched five hundred Days of Summer in the last week. And I initially wasn't going to talk about it, but then I was in the library and I ran into a mutual friend and she was telling me about how she watched it. And one of the funny things, I think, whenever people talk about that movie, or from what I've heard is, I have a friend who calls it a horror movie, know, because in a way, I mean, it kind of is.
Jack:They say
Matt:Really?
Jack:Yeah. I think it's pretty scary if you're if you know anything about I don't know. Yeah. I get you. I mean, they say multiple times that this isn't a romance movie.
Shakyra:Then why is it labeled as a rom com?
Jack:I think, I mean, I think by definite, yeah, like it's a romance movie, it's about romance.
Shakyra:But in reality, it's just like, wait a minute, this is not romantic at all.
Jack:Yeah, exactly. And that's I think
Shakyra:we're Oh, yeah. Funny movies
Jack:like that. A horror movie. It's because it's very
Shakyra:Whatever you do, don't watch Love and Basketball. It's very prominent in the black community. That is not a love movie. That's not romance. I don't care.
Shakyra:Argue with your mama. That's not
Jack:no. Is it the same kind of thing?
Shakyra:Same thing. Yeah.
Jack:I'll have to check that out. But yeah, five hundred Days of Summer. I rewatched it. Initially, I was like, am I gonna catch anything else when I rewatch this movie? Because I think I was in high school when I watched it.
Jack:When you're in high school, you don't pick up as much stuff as you might think you did. No, I didn't pick up much of anything else, other than the fact that I think I realized I kind of dressed like Tom. I realized that, and that's completely unintentional. But other than that, great movie. I just thought I'd throw it out there because it's been on my
Shakyra:mind. Honestly, I haven't watched that movie in so long. So the only film that I can pull out from that scene or that movie is when he was like dancing.
Matt:Oh, yeah.
Shakyra:Yeah, that whole it was kinda weird, but you know.
Jack:I think when I hear people talk about it now, it's always the who was right and who was wrong debate, which, you know, obviously, I think we're missing the entire point for having that kind of debate.
Shakyra:I'm surprised we didn't talk about this.
Jack:In our rom com. Yeah. Our rom com episode. We did not we did not talk about it.
Shakyra:Well, it's not a rom thought was rom com. So
Jack:I mean, we did get we were kinda all over mean, because we talked about rom coms, we talked about rom drum dramas?
Shakyra:Different formats, like forms of romance, I guess. Yeah.
Jack:Yeah. But, yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there. Great movie just to get you guys thinking about it. You guys watching that.
Shakyra:You didn't really pick up like, as much as you watched it when you was back in high school. So, like, what's what was different when you watched it again, like, specifically?
Jack:I don't I think it's just when, like, when you're in high school and you watch romance movies or really any kind of drama that is about adults, you're you're not you're Not really in
Shakyra:the movies.
Jack:You're not gonna pick up a lot of things. Yeah. And so I always like to go back I I I didn't really wasn't with that genre when I was in high school or when I was younger. Wasn't really watching too many romance movies as much as do now, I feel But I think when you are in high school, especially a lot of young men, it's easy to be like, oh, it's Summer's fault. It's all hers.
Jack:Guy, Tom was just trying to show her love, she rejected that. And then I think, yeah, upon rewatching it, you kind of get the, Okay, well, she was she did kind of tell him at the start, this isn't what I'm looking for. And he was just like, he kept looking for that. So I think that's definitely what you notice is that they were both in the wrong.
Matt:Yeah. And I think a guy who throws plates on the ground after getting broken up with the best role model.
Jack:Right, yeah. Or that scene where he screams on the bus. I hate that song. I
Matt:will say one thing, and it's been a while since I've seen it, granted, but one of the things that I do like about it is kind of thinking about, I think it's David Fincher who had a quote where he said his favorite kind of movie characters or his favorite kind of protagonists are the ones who don't change, the ones who kind of stay the same. Stagnant. Yeah, stagnant. And I think Tom is a really great kind of example of that. You get to the end of the movie and, not to spoil it, but you can kind of tell that he's about to go through the exact same thing like he didn't really learn anything from that experience.
Shakyra:Oh man.
Jack:I actually I read it that he had changed.
Matt:Really? Yeah.
Jack:I mean because I mean her name I mean her name's Autumn, right? Which you know, I just Gotta get Summer before he gets to Autumn, you know? But I I had seen it as he had changed with the seasons, you know?
Matt:That makes Not in
Jack:a bad way, though.
Matt:Yeah. Right.
Jack:He wasn't getting into that relationship having not learned anything. Know, he had spent the five hundred days or something. He had spent the five hundred days sort of going through that relationship and also processing it. And then I think by the time he kind of meets Autumn in the end, it's when the clock resets. It's not meant to imply that he hadn't learned anything, but he actually had.
Jack:And he was actually ready to get back into this relationship.
Matt:I read it totally differently. That's interesting. I took it as like, all right, here we go again, you know what I mean?
Jack:Maybe that is a way of reading it.
Shakyra:Maybe it's not both ways.
Jack:It just depends how you're could be honestly up
Matt:to I guess I'm just not that optimistic. I was like, Oh boy, here we go again.
Jack:But that is interesting because I I didn't really read it as an ambiguous ending, but now that you mentioned that, think maybe, yeah, maybe it is ambiguous. And I think when there are ambiguous endings in movies, it's usually meant to be that Yeah.
Matt:And to be fair, I haven't seen it in a while, so the way you're reading it might be totally correct.
Jack:No, I think that could actually be a I didn't really thought of that as much.
Shakyra:I love having those debates like,
Matt:no, I think this is how it's supposed to be
Shakyra:picked up. No, actually, no, I got this way. That's how you know, in my opinion, it might be a hot take to some people. That's how you know the director did a great job or the producer, writer, whatever, did a great job making this film, you know? When you just like, when those type of debates just sparks, honestly.
Jack:Yeah. And I think when endings are super ambigueand I might have talked about this before, but I always hate when people talk likewhen it's very clearly deliberately ambiguous, then people will be like, Well, it was this and no, was that. It's like, Well, really? If it was that ambiguous, maybe the point is that we're not supposed to debate one way or the other. We're supposed to kind oflike the ambiguity is in itself the point.
Jack:Right. But with five hundred Days of Summer, never thought of it as that being the point, the ambiguity being the point. But now I'm maybe considering that maybe it is that way. Because I had always seen it as, you know, he gets past summer and he's ready go into autumn. You know, he's ready to kind of start new.
Jack:But now that you mentioned that,
Matt:that's very I just think Tom was always caused. That's kind of the way I read it.
Jack:Yeah. That's a great way of interpreting it. So if you haven't seen five hundred Days of Summer, go out there, watch five hundred Days of Summer, email in jack. Williamsstatenews dot com. Let me know your thoughts because I am interested in hearing from you guys.
Matt:Please email this man.
Jack:Please email me.
Matt:I'm looking a little dry
Jack:right now. My inbox is looking very dry right now. I need our listeners to email in and tell us your thoughts on any movie, not just five hundred Days of Summer, anything we talk about. And we will talk about it on the show. We will read your review or thoughts and we will talk about them.
Jack:But anyway, we are currently here to talk about runtimes, runtimes in movies. And I think we're in an era where we have short attention spans, especially our generation, Gen Z. I feel like we're always seeing research saying Gen Z can't pay attention. They can't read. They can't sit down for more than a blank amount of minutes.
Jack:And part of this is due to TikTok, Instagram, whatever. And yet, in spite of this, movies are actually getting longer. Movies arethe movies winning Academy Awards, I think, are longer. Might get that backwards. But I do know there is research supportingI think it was maybe a Vox article where they talked about how movies are getting longer.
Jack:What do you guys make of that? Are you in support of longer movies? Or do we wish to return to a time when movies were more short and to the point?
Shakyra:Honestly, I personally feel like well, it just depends on, like, what's the story, honestly. Mhmm. You know? But I also feel like I I just can't with a three hour movie, I I just feel like there is some way somehow where you can wrap up the whole point, the whole plot of the story. It should not be that long.
Jack:There a three hour movie you have in mind that comes to mind?
Shakyra:What is a three hour movie? Yes, so. I can't even think of it now because that's the point.
Jack:I mean, the big one I think that people were talking about somewhat recently, The Brutalist, was obviously very long. And that was another movie that kind of brought back this maybe older thing in old Hollywood, the idea of an intermission. There aren't many movies, I feel like, nowadays that of bring in the intermission, but I feel like we're kind of approaching an era where we're bringing that back. I remember back when Endgame came out, a lot of peoplethere was talks of an intermission going around, but it never happened. But I think it did go to show that people were actually kind of that was something people wanted, you know?
Shakyra:Yeah.
Matt:Mean, personally, I love longer movies.
Jack:Of
Matt:course. Yeah. I think the longer the better in most cases. Have to earn it. Have to really work for that to keep audiences kind of seated.
Matt:And, yeah, that's definitely something I noticed. Looking over the past even year or so, I think Dune was pretty long. The Batman a couple years ago, that was pretty long. People
Jack:It's funny being that because we actually watched this movie together. But I remember I was talking with a friend some time ago. We were talking about Zack Snyder's Justice League. And I was like, Yeah, you know, I liked it. I thought it was cool.
Jack:I thought it kind of redid a lot of the stuff that went wrong with that original release. And he was like, Well, I mean, if you give anyone four hours to make a movie, of course it's going to be good. And I was like, Well, I don't know if that's true. Think maybe, like you just said, you have to earn it. You have to earn people's attention.
Jack:You have to earnand I think in a lot of ways it might even be harder to take a movie and fill it with four hours of That's
Matt:what I said.
Shakyra:I just think it just goes back to the writing. If you know you're a great writer and a great visual, you know, director, you could possibly make it work. But me personally, I I I just would not. Like, that's just not my thing.
Jack:Sure.
Shakyra:Yeah. Again, I feel like you can creatively just like wrap it up into like an hour personally. But that's just me though.
Jack:Yeah. I mean, Matt, one of your, I feel like all time favorite movies is Lawrence of Arabia. Right? And that's what? Almost four Yeah.
Jack:You've seen, what's that? It's like a seven hour movie, right, didn't you?
Matt:Oh, yeah. Santentango, I think is
Jack:how it Yeah, yeah.
Matt:It was like seven hours.
Jack:Yeah, I'm curious. Was that viewing experience? The seven hour?
Matt:Well, broke it up. Didn't watch it. Sure. Which I don't know if that's what the director would have wanted, but I mean, you know, I just, I mean, for me, there's, I just love being engrossed in a story. Engrossed in a story.
Matt:Like, it's something I actively look for. Like, give me a reason to be invested. You know, I've always gone to the movies to escape, to enter a different world for a little bit. And the longer that I can stay in that world, the better. Better.
Matt:If you can do that in a compelling way and you can keep me seated and I don't get too restless, then I don't have an issue. I actively seek out movies like that.
Jack:Sure, yeah. Because you brought up director's intention. I'm curious what you think about, I think it was when The Irishman came out. There were a lot of people who were like, I'm going to watch, because that was, again, a rather long movie, there were lot of people who were like, I'm going to watch it in segments. Because I think the movie itself was actually kind of divided up in segments.
Jack:Maybe I'm wrong about that. And maybe there was even talks of some streaming platform that was going to actually make it into a miniseries when they released it. And I think a lot of the responses that got was people being like, oh, this isn't how the director intended it. Scorsese intended you to sit down for four hours or however long and watch it. I'm curious what you think of that, people enjoying or watching a film how they want to, as opposed to maybe a director just throwing out a four hour movie.
Matt:Yeah, I mean, Quint Terns, I'm gonna keep bringing up quotes from directors, but Quint Terns, he tells film students all the time, make the film you want to see. So for me, the director saying this is how I intended it to be seen, well, that almost translates to me as like, this is how you wanna watch it. Like, if you're if you're saying like, I intend this to be seen for four hours nonstop, no bathroom. No bathroom break. It's like, okay, That's cool.
Matt:But like, for me, that's almost like you saying how you want to watch it. And that's great. But you have to realize people have, they have jobs,
Jack:they have lives. People engage with art in different ways.
Matt:Yes. And they engage with art in different ways. And if someone, if you have a single parent taking care of kids or whatever who still loves movies and loves to sit down and watch a movie but they can't necessarily do it in four hours, it's like, are you gonna get upset about that? It's like people, you know, as long as people are willing to give it a try and to, you know, like engage with it in a meaningful way, I think that's all you can hope for as a filmmaker.
Jack:And that obviously reminds me of David Lynch, the late David Lynch, may God rest his soul. I think
Matt:she was gonna say something. No. I
Shakyra:I was just gonna say that just, again, just go back to, I think we talked we touched on this before you know it basically is intended for like the artist to produce his you know art and things like that it's not really for you if that makes sense but yeah.
Jack:So do you do you you should watch it as it was intended? Or I mean,
Shakyra:I just personally feel like however you just, like, interpret a film that's on you personally, but it's kind of tricky. It's kind of like a gray line in my opinion.
Jack:Yeah, sure.
Matt:I will say if Bela Tar from Hungary wants me to I think Hungary is the country he's from. Yes. Yeah. But if if he wants me to sit down and watch San Antonio for seven hours and and like that's the way it's intended.
Jack:It's not happening.
Matt:Sorry, man. No.
Jack:That's not happening. We're say David Lynch, how he says, you can't watch a movie on your telephone.
Matt:Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can. I will. Makes for a good meme and it's really funny. Yeah.
Matt:But, you know, like Roger Deakins or whoever it was, cinematographer said something like, oh yeah, I like just like download movies on my phone to watch whenever I get the chance. Like, okay. And that's like the greatest living sort of Harvard.
Shakyra:What he's trying to get at, though, I may be looking at this deep. I think he's saying, like, it's it won't be the same, basically. Like, you have to go into a theater or, like, maybe even sit at your home in your own sanctuary and just, like, soak in what the writers was like, you know, trying to like put at for you and things like that. Mhmm. Versus a phone is just like, yeah, you know, you're watching it on your phone, you're watching it on your laptop, but that's where all the distractions come and things like that.
Shakyra:That's just how I look at it. I don't know if you guys kind of feel the same.
Jack:Yeah, I see that. Obviously when you're watching on your phone, you get a notification on Instagram and you click off or whatever. Do. But going back and I see validity in that. Obviously watching it on your phone is going be different from when it's 100 feet in front of you.
Jack:But to Matt's point of not everyone has access to theater. Time. Exactly. That doesn't
Shakyra:make sense.
Matt:On that note, don't think it's theaters that arebecause I think there's this ongoing debate with filmmakers and movie lovers about why aren't people going to the theater and all that. But don't think the theater is the issue. I mean, have you ever spoken? Mean, obviously, there's people who maybe don't have the best experience in theater, especially if they're sensitive to loud noises or whatever. Right.
Matt:And age is definitely a factor in that. But I think if you talk to most people, they'll never talk badly about the theater experience. Even if they watch a bad movie, they generally tend to like that. So I don't think it has anything to do with theater or The location
Shakyra:and, right,
Jack:other than Yeah.
Matt:I think it's mostly the existence of streaming services are making it really convenient to say, No, thank you. I'll just stay home. So it's kind of, Yeah.
Jack:That actually is a great segue into streaming services and attention spans because that's what we're talking about today. But the rise ofwe're in a new era of TV. TV is so much different because back in the day it was broadcast. You had to catch your favorite show as it was happening, or you had to record it. Exactly.
Jack:And if you didn't, then find it somewhere else. Like, whoops, missed it. And now we've streaming services. We have shows that you can release an entire season. It's up to the production company now, honestly, if you want to release it weekly.
Jack:We still see that happening, but also we see shows being dropped in seasons. And I think part of what that creates is kind of this thisthe death of the pilot episode, I think, is kind of what people talk about. Back in the day, if you were airing a show on television, you had to kind of do this pilot episode to get people engaged and you had to kick the story off in that first episode otherwise.
Shakyra:It's like a tester, too.
Jack:Exactly. People were like, oh, I like it. You needed to have something to happen. Otherwise, people were going to be disengaged with it. And I think nowadays, if you release a whole season of a show on Netflix, the inciting incident does not need to happen until episode three or four.
Shakyra:And that's when they scrap the whole show altogether. Exactly,
Jack:yeah. And then it gets bad reviews. They have to scrap it.
Shakyra:Me personally, yeah, let's just reread Palettes because the whole idea of releasing a whole season, first of all, well, it depends on the budget but that's still money. I wouldn't want to throw all that money into, a production just for it not to, you know, resume and things like that. Like, that sucks, for one. And for two, it's just like not everybody disliked the show. Well, according to data, probably, yeah.
Shakyra:But I don't know. For me, I think that's a soft spot for me. It's really hard because you cannot tell me there's so many series on Netflix that got canceled and it was just like, why? It was a great show. I don't never understand that.
Matt:Exactly, yeah.
Jack:How I felt about the recent Star Wars show, The Accolade.
Shakyra:Oh, yeah.
Jack:It was a good I mean, had a pretty good pilot episode or first episode or whatever. It was a good show and it just kind of died, which I think, I don't know, I think that was just kind of due to poor feedback. But I mean, personally, I enjoyed the accolade. I thought it was great. I thought what they were doing was really cool.
Matt:I mean, think that's you guys talking about how shows will seemingly just get cut due to reviews or whatever like that. And it seems so easy now. They just get rid
Jack:of it.
Matt:And I think the crux of that issue is because there's a lack of, they don't want to do pilots anymore. Now production companies are just ordering whole series. And so, you know, now, you know, they don't really care that much about cutting shows anymore that are doing poorly because now you just have an entire season on the back burner of some new show. Like, you you have that ready to go. So if if a show kind of shows signs that it's maybe gonna do poorly and, you know, people aren't gonna like it as much, they don't hesitate anymore because they've already ordered like three or four new shows that they can just kind of replace
Jack:it with. Fair value. Yeah. Show, new show.
Matt:And it's like, you know, it's upsetting, because when you mentioned the acolyte, you know, fan reception was actually quite good to that.
Jack:I didn't, yeah, to the point where there were like whole GoFundMe, or not GoFundMe's, but additions, you know, certain Hashtag on X. There was like a change.org being like, let's get the show back like we liked it, you know?
Matt:Yeah, but, you know, Disney is, you know, they've got, because they've ordered all these new shows and, you know, for them, it's just I think it's a matter of efficiency. You know, why, you know, get a pilot going when you can just get the whole thing and then you'll have that ready to go when you need it.
Jack:Which is, I think, just speaks to this wider, like, and you see it, I think, especially with, like, a lot of the new Marvel movies where it's just, I mean, you're talking about efficiency. It's like, when we start treating movies like that or shows or whatever, whatever it is like that, the whole thing just becomes like what's the next best thing we can do? What's the next big thing we can do? And I think when we look at Marvel movies specifically, it's like what can we put in this movie to get people here? And I think we talked about that when we talked about Captain America.
Jack:You see that in the trailers, too. It's like, can we throw this thing in here that maybe is like a kind of a spoiler. Maybe back in the day, they wouldn't have thrown the the, like, example, in the new Captain America, like, Red Hulk. Maybe they wouldn't have put that in the trailer, like, years ago.
Shakyra:Yeah. And I think we talked about this with Shark five, you know. Mhmm. A lot of people was, like, scared that it wasn't gonna be, like, as funny as, like, the originals because they're, like, too focused on, like, grabbing, I guess, Gen Z, Gen Alpha's attention with basically, like, pulling a cash grab in a way. Like, you had to put the cringeworthy, you know, memes or, like, pop culture y, you know, references in there and things like that.
Shakyra:But I just feel like, spoilingly the plot in the trailers it's just not great that's how you get lower ratings in my opinion
Jack:of I
Matt:don't know if you guys have seen this but like for a while now trailers have been doing this thing where they'll do a five second clip of the trailer before they show the trailer.
Jack:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt:It's like a pre trailer.
Jack:It'll be like a little mini TikTok kind of thing.
Matt:It'll be like the trailer's starting It's like And
Jack:then it'll start the trailer.
Matt:Yeah. You don't need to tell me, like, I'm here to watch.
Jack:I should clearly click on the video. You have to watch the video, like show me the video.
Shakyra:They're just trying to like basically get the, you know, sorry I'm blanking out. They're just basically trying to get the viewership before getting the viewership that makes sense like seriously.
Jack:And yeah, I think what we talked about in the Captain America episode was like how can we get people excited for the next best thing and then that's just every movie? And then it's like, Okay, if every movie is just getting us ready for the next big thing and then the big thing doesn't ever happen, then it's like, well, you know?
Shakyra:Let's bring back having climax, you know?
Jack:All about
Matt:horror and hype moments. No one wants good writing anymore. Exactly.
Jack:It's all
Shakyra:about You're actually losing a lot here, but you know.
Jack:Exactly. And yeah, we're seeing a lot of that today. I think we see it in TV, we see it in the Marvel movies. And like you said, we can just if if if one thing doesn't work out, it's just off with that. Forget about it.
Jack:You know, if this movie flops, if this show flops, let's forget about it. And I think there's even the South Park episode where they try to they're trying to get their superhero show on Netflix, and they call it Netflix.
Shakyra:The show was still going, to be honest.
Jack:Yeah. Actually, that's actually great. I I didn't even think new season coming out. I have not watched the trailer yet, but I don't know, South Park is always topical. I feel like it's maybe a little less funny than it was ten years ago, know.
Shakyra:I don't how to it. You think they're trying to be relatable to pop culture? I
Jack:think the formula for South Park works very well, and it will never stop working just because it's always just whatever's happening, they're just satirizing whatever's happening. I think it wasn't always that, but then it slowly kind of became that. I think they might have realized, hey, if we actually just do whatever's I think Diddy's in the new season. So it's like, we can just kind of do whatever's popular or whatever's happening politically, it'll work. We don't ever have to of divert from Yeah.
Shakyra:Yeah, so going back to short form storytelling though, do you enjoy shorter content in general? Sorry. Mean, either or,
Jack:it's fine Honestly, it's always going to depend on the mood I'm I do feel like a lot of those older blockbusters were always a lot shorter. Whenever I go back to the '70s or '60s, '80s, it's like, Oh,
Shakyra:that's really a sensation film.
Jack:You're not going to find many movies that are more than two hours. And usually it's around that hour and a half kind of mark. But yeah, really does. Like you were speaking to, it's like, yeah, if I have to be up tomorrow at 8AM or 7AM and it's nine, ten o'clock, I'm not going to sit down and watch the two and a half, three hour movie. I'm going to opt for something a little shorter.
Jack:But I have no objections to watching a longer movie, if I have the time for it. Me, personally, I don't like splitting movies up. That's just how my brain works. Like, If I want to watch a movie, I want to watch it in one sitting.
Matt:But yeah. When you say short form content, are you also talking about Instagram and TikTok reels? Mean,
Shakyra:not necessarily. I feel like that does play a factor into the rise of short form telling or storytelling. Sorry. I don't know why. I'm so drama work today.
Shakyra:But yeah, I feel like that really does plays into it. But I'm just talking about strictly TV and film. Gotcha.
Matt:Yeah. Can you tell a good story? I feel like that's really the bottom line. Yeah. For me, anyway.
Matt:Can you tell a good story? There's movies that are three hours long that probably shouldn't be. And then there's movies that are an hour and a half that I'm like, give
Jack:me more. Give me Where's the rest
Shakyra:of So it's just like, you just really got to find that balance as a writer, in my opinion.
Jack:But on that note of social media or short form content in the form of social media, I feel like a lot of the youth who are on TikTok, on Instagram, how consume art is largely based on stuff they see on Instagram. It's kind of an interesting phenomenon. It's like, can you make a movie seem appealing in like a twenty second edit? And I think that's where like how a lot of peopleyou always see those TikToks or those Instagram reels, where it's like, I've seen over a thousand movies. Here's my 20 favorite movies.
Jack:And it's like you have to make those movies seem cool. And I think that's how a lot of people, a lot of younger people kind of find their media, you know? It's through other people on Instagram, which, you know, I think is a good thing. Know, it's like we're sharing art and stuff like that.
Matt:It's like the new Roger Ebert is just some guy on Instagram with 10 thousand He's telling you what movie he's front
Jack:of a green screen, like waving his finger, like, you need to watch this movie. Yeah, no, that is the new. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I don't know many people my age who do read New York Times movie reviews or New Yorker movie review.
Matt:That's the last form,
Shakyra:honestly.
Jack:If I hear people talking about movie reviews, it's usually stuff they found on Instagram, Twitter, Letterboxd, which is fun, because those are just people. You don't need to be Roger Ebert. You don't need to be a writer at The New York Times in order to give people, a big audience, your thoughts.
Matt:I mean, at the same time, as great as Letterboxd is and how accessible it's made, film criticism, I think, it's like any kind of creative writing, right? It is an form. And, you know, you can talk about whether you agree or disagree with whatever film critic is, whatever they're saying. But it isit islike, there are some really, really, really good movie reviews that I've read. And, it does kind of disappoint me sometimes that when I open a movie on Letterboxd, I see the top comments.
Matt:I'm like,
Jack:really? No, it does. You're right. Movie reviewers who work for big publications, they are journalists as much as any other journalist. It does suck that people aren't maybe ingesting that as much as in the past.
Jack:Because, yeah, you're right, it is an art form in itself. You have to write your review as eloquently as the movie was, you know, and you have to be able to express your thoughts in, like, an eloquent way. So, yeah, I do wish people would appreciate the movie reviews.
Matt:That's why we started this podcast, so that's
Shakyra:why it's important for y'all to watch it.
Jack:Exactly. Yeah. Because the state news does not do movie reviews. I wish we did, but that's why we're here.
Shakyra:Exactly. Exactly.
Jack:We have the supplement.
Shakyra:I don't know. Sorry. I'm just, like, backtracking. But, like, even with, you know, shorter film running times and things like that, it could be because, you know, budget reasons too. Like, I know I just talked about, like, I wouldn't put a lot of money towards a project that's not going to be successful and things like that.
Shakyra:But, yeah, what are you guys' take on that?
Matt:Well, yeah, I think that's definitely a concern. But, mean, I think, you know, back in the day when, you know, every second of film you're running costs you money, I think, you know, as opposed to that, nowadays, it's like you can rent, you know, you rent a generator, you can rent film equipment for Big IMAX camera. Yeah. Maybe not that, you can rent for a fee and you can budget exactly, you know, like, okay, if we film for this long, we film on these days, blah blah blah blah, we're gonna pay this much. And I think, you know, on shoot days, you're getting hours and hours and hours of footage.
Matt:Think there's really I don't think it really matters as much as it used to you can kind of I think you can sort of predict and accurately sort of you have an idea of what you're going to pay. And I know that they did back then, too. But what I'm trying to say is back then, you know, it didn't really matter. I think they had an incentive to or to keep their films on the shorter side of things because they were spending so much money eating up so much cost every second that they were on set. Nowadays, that's still a factor but it's, I think, so much cheaper to make a film now.
Matt:It is so much cheaper. Like, you can do it with your iPhone. You know.
Jack:Then bigger budgets, of course, will lead to, you know, now we can do more. Yes.
Matt:Yeah. And I mean, and nowadays, there's really no excuse. And, you know, if you want to make a three hour movie on your iPhone, I think that's still infinitely more feasible than making a, like, sixty minute movie on film way back in
Jack:the day. And I think there's also a component ofand this is part of the consensus of movies are getting longeris audiences want it. They want longer movies. And I think there is a reading of that, kind of like how you were talking about earlier. Movies is an escape.
Jack:And we're living in a really hectic world. People like escapes, I think. And I think there are people whoyeah, like you were talking about earlier, if you have the chance to be in another world for a longer period of time and get more connected with characters for a longer period of time, people like that. And people are willing to do that.
Shakyra:Maybe I should get diagnosed for ADHD. I don't know.
Jack:Yeah. That could be a you could look into that.
Shakyra:That could be a factor, you know? Yeah.
Jack:That could be a factor.
Shakyra:It's not like I don't like long form films. It's just that if it's dragging and I'm not really being entertained by it, then it's just not I don't know. I just don't really connect with it. Like, even if I do connect with some of the characters in the film, if the story is just dragging it, I just can't, you know?
Jack:Yeah. I'm done. Yeah, and I get that. I think that's valid. And that goes back to the director's responsibility.
Jack:They're responsible for your three hours. And yet, they can't keep your attention, that's what makes or breaks a movie.
Matt:I mean, that's kind of why the whole intended, like, the director's intention, how they intend it to be viewed, it's great. But also, you're on my time. Like, I'm giving you my time right now.
Jack:Have to convince me why I should care
Matt:about this If you're gonna sit here and tell me how I should be watching the movie, that's less incentive for Right,
Jack:you can't tell me, like, you need to care about these characters for three hours straight. You have to show me that I should be. Have to actually give me a convincing reason to do that. Yeah. Yeah.
Jack:Yeah. Yeah, great conversations today all around.
Shakyra:Sorry. My throat is just like, I I don't know if
Jack:I just felt like acidic or very weird
Shakyra:lately Hopefully not.
Jack:Yeah. I really hope I'm not sick. I hope it's just the weather. It's been really hot and cold lately.
Shakyra:So, I'm sorry, this is like a sidebar. So like what films are you guys are interested that's coming out?
Jack:Coming out soon. Gosh. Cronenberg movie just
Matt:got, I think, release Yeah.
Jack:Or late April, I think, for the new Cronenberg film, which actually premiered at TIFF this year, which I was there. I unfortunately did not get to see it. I saw Bird, O Canada, and The Shadow Strays. But yeah, I am excited for the new Cronenberg movie. It's called The Shrouds.
Jack:I don't really know what it's about. But if there's anything I know about Cronenberg, it's that he can always keep me entertained. So I don't think I've seen a movie that I dislike.
Matt:Right. Yeah, I mean, I unfortunately need to brush up on new releases, but, you know, I I haven't had much time to watch movies recently. Make your own. So
Jack:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Matt:Well, but, you know, I I love movies. There was a time a couple years ago I was watching or trying to watch one every day, now it's like one every month.
Jack:I'm able to do that every There's certain months where I won't be able to pull off the one every day, certain months it's like it'll be like four in the whole month.
Matt:Yeah. So I'm trying I'm just trying I'm catching up on my watch list,
Jack:you know what mean? But Have you seen the Minecraft movie?
Matt:I haven't.
Jack:Stay No, we have not yet. But stay tuned because I am planning on seeing it this week. Was supposed to see it Sunday, I ended up not. There's a whole thing, but I am planning on seeing it this week. So stay tuned for next week.
Jack:We probably will be talking about the Minecraft movie because I want to talk about it. It looks fun.
Shakyra:We've been
Matt:talking about this ever since it was planning to come out.
Jack:We're like, we have to talk about the Minecraft movie.
Matt:So silly, but I guess.
Jack:So maybe next week's I have a fair bit to talk about when it comes to kids movies and how people talk about them and how we perceive them. So maybe that'll be the subject for next week's episode. Oh, for sure. Yeah.
Shakyra:That's fine.
Matt:I love kids movie. I love animation, even though
Jack:As a kid, I loved kids movies. As an adult, I sometimes like kids movies, depends on my mood. I'll go three for
Matt:three on reeling it in appearances. Stay tuned. Well, see if they can get somebody else in time.
Jack:Stay tuned to see if Matt Williams will be on next week. Until then, this has been reeling it in. Thank you so much for listening in. Thank you so much to our guest, Matt, for the second time for coming in. And thank you so much to our podcast coordinator, Taylor.
Jack:Yeah. We have a great time around here. I hope you all have a good time listening, but until next week. Bye.