The Six People You Meet In Movie Hell
A special guest and I break down the worst of the worst. I also find a way to save the theatrical experience.
There’s a book called The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. I read it in high school (or maybe middle school) and remember very little of it. I think it was good, but it just as easily could have been bad. The gist of it is that a guy dies and then comes across five people that had a profound impact on his life while in (the aforementioned) heaven.
Anyway, this is not that. This is essentially the six people you meet in hell…
[pause for effect]
Movie Hell
We all know these people and if we don’t know them, we are them. Jake Richards and I love to talk about movies, but what we really love to talk about is what we hate about movies, and this newsletter is as good a reason as any to get into the types of fans that truly irritate us.
Film Bro
The type of film bro I’m talking about is the kinda guy that assumes you haven’t seen Pulp Fiction despite it being one of the most popular movies of all time. The guy that thinks Wolf of Wall Street should be a central talking point of every conversation. I ran into this guy a lot more in college than I do now, but I will never forget his takes. In whatever form he presents himself he will be wearing a hoodie with a Jordan jersey over it and studying business. He misunderstood American Psycho pretty severely but you’re a little too uncomfortable to tell him. You’re not sure how long you’ve been trapped in this conversation but it feels like hours. Go get another drink. -J
Letterboxd/A24 Guy
Remember earlier when I said that there’s a chance that we could be one of these people? Well, as a masochist, the Letterboxd/A24 guy is me, and here’s what I hate about this person/me. When a movie ends and you walk out of a theater, what’s the first thing you do? A normal person might go to the bathroom or discuss where to get a meal after. What this jerk does is log the film on their app, add it to lists for the year and take it off of their watchlist. They’ve essentially gamified the entire process and turned it into a contest to get likes and show off how much they’ve seen. It’s hoarding in the digital age, and the more they see, the more they know. I haven’t done any research behind this, but there seems to be a direct correlation between A24 movies watched and time spent listing movies. There’s an artsy quality to both and a bit of arrogance; “I don’t just watch the mainstream stuff as I go above and beyond.” This is a direct critique of yours truly, but that won’t stop me from working on my lists. I need my lists. -G
Only Blockbusters
Recently, there has been a lot of pushback for this year’s Oscars—whether it be from Jimmy Kimmel or Kevin Smith or ¾ of Twitter—about the Academy essentially blanking Spider-Man: No Way Home and other Marvel fare. I have conflicted thoughts about this since I don’t think it’s a movie that deserves to be nominated (it’s fine at best), but it’s not like it isn’t better than Being the Ricardos or Don’t Look Up. The real problem is that there’s a large subsection of people that believes that these are the only pieces of culture that exist or matter. It’s the same person that uses Harry Potter references for everything. Someone’s bad, they’re Voldemort; someone’s secretly good, that’s very Snape of them. It’s the big-ticket items and the big-ticket items only: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and of course Marvel. There’s no exploration or thinking outside the box. It’s just the same pre-packaged content over and over again, and when these movies go for something different (ex: The Last Jedi), the once-satiated fan goes rabid because things aren’t the same. We get it, that guy was from a different movie in the same series. There’s no need to applaud. Expand your horizons. Please. -G
Animated for Kids
Obviously, a lot of animated stuff is for kids. I’m not trying to sell you on seeing the PAW Patrol movie or some shit like that, but pretending that something like Into the Spider-Verse doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously is annoying. If you show Grave of the Fireflies to a child you should have to pay for that child’s therapy. The entire country watches at least one comic book movie a year with a CGI raccoon. This is not a country full of adults. Enjoy Annie Hall, I’m gonna go watch Spider-Man throw a bagel at a scientist. -J
The Contrarian
I took this science-fiction film class in college. It was like a 45-minute walk from where I lived off-campus or a 20-minute bus ride, and it started at 9 am, which is early for a frequently-hungover student. I would make all this effort to hustle over there and sit down and state some opinions, and there was always this one guy (I don’t remember his name) that would just disagree. Not just with me, but with the entire class. You could say that you loved a specific scene and he would retort with why it’s garbage. Give the most anodyne take and he would find a way to twist it and try to look smart. This isn’t fun. It’s lame as hell. We all have a bit of the contrarian inside of us, as we should, but you can’t let it get the best of you. Sometimes, things that are popular are popular for a reason. Not everything needs to start a feud. Everyone hates the Devil’s Advocate guy—it could be a girl, but it’s usually a guy—in class, and they’re just as annoying in the real world. -G
They Don’t Make Good Movies Anymore
First of all, I’m not convinced we should call anything before 1960 a movie. Those things are like watching Bob Cousy play basketball. They were all on opium back then and they had no idea what they were doing. I like 2001: A Space Odyssey as much as the next guy but I find it hard to believe that a guy who couldn’t master not abusing actresses perfected the art form. Did you see The Nice Guys? That movie is better than Citizen Kane mainly because it isn’t about a sled. If you wanna argue that they don’t make sequels to good movies anymore I would hear you out because I have yet to see The Nice Guys 2. Please make another The Nice Guys, Ryan Gosling. I know you read this newsletter. -J
Breaking Things
Sometimes I feel like an old fuddy-duddy in this here newsletter. I’ll recommend foreign movies and indie flicks that haven’t been released yet or rail against a populist film (looking at you, The Blind Side). Just a few paragraphs earlier, I went on a rant against blockbuster movies, and I apologize for that.
I hope you’ll allow me to put that all behind us since my excitement for Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman is nearing catastrophic levels. Perhaps I’ll buy a searchlight adorned with the outline of a bat to light up the New York skyline to ensure that everyone and their parents—hopefully not leaving a theater through a dark alley—are aware of the cinematic marvel just weeks away.
Did you know that the upcoming Robert Pattinson vehicle is 2 hours and 55 minutes? Is this where my patented Breaking Things rant starts? Not yet.
I’m actually fine with that runtime. As long as it’s a good movie, it could be five hours for all I care. Over the last few years, I’ve seen all sorts of longer films from recent theatrical watches like Martin Scorsese’s mob epic The Irishman or the Japanese Oscar-nominated road movie Drive My Car to first-time classic viewings like Malcolm X or Heat or Barry Lyndon.
I’ve seen three-hour movies that have felt like seconds and 90-minute movies that went on for days. If a movie works, it works. What does irk me, however, is that I’m going to have to plan my day around this newest addition to the Batman saga. What I mean by that is that I’m going to have to hold off on drinking too much water (or anything else) before the previews start. 175 minutes is a ridiculous amount of time to expect a general audience to not need to go to the bathroom. What we need for movies this long is a small-but-critical intermission.
I wasn’t able to catch it in theaters, but Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 American Revisionist Western The Hateful Eight came with its own 12-minute intermission for select screenings. That’s perfect. Just enough time to go to the bathroom or refill your popcorn or prepare for what’s to come. I know this is a big ask, but it’s tough to really concentrate on The Riddler’s crime spree when your bladder is telling you that it’s time to go.
This will be my campaign promise, and I’ll win any election easily. Give us a small break to use the restrooms after 90 minutes before you subject us to another 90 minutes.
I was going to make a “this really pisses me off” joke, but I won’t subject you to that.