What We Learned This Week: March 31-April 6

LESSON #1: DIGITAL CHECKOUTS CAN BE LIKE THE OKLAHOMA LAND RUSH SOMETIMESAvengers: Endgame pre-sale tickets went on sale this past Tuesday and, of course, set records on sites like Fandango and broke others.  Some folks reported ease or even went the old fashioned route of walking up to the box office window in person (where there theaters were open early) while others were stuck in virtual traffic jams. The online rush, escalating wait times, and fast sellouts were not unlike when a highly sought after play or concert goes on sale only multiplied by every city in America.  If you survived, congratulations. Go sell your tickets on eBay like some others and make some coin on a sucker or two!

LESSON #2: DISNEY IS BIGGER THAN YOU REALIZE— Feelin’ Film host Aaron White posted this excellent little piece from Cartoon Brew showing everything Disney now owns after its acquisition of 21st Century Fox.  The visual infographic is astounding:

The organization and color-coding are fantastic and informative.  If the entertainment holdings and properties inside the shape weren’t already humongous, I look at all of the little single-circle corporations on the periphery and my eyes open even wider.  I don’t know whether to be fearful, impressed, or both.

LESSON #3: SUCCESSFUL MOVIES DESERVE THE FINANCIAL REWARDS THEY EARN— Well, it’s been a month since the trolls tried to badmouth and boycott Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel.  How did that turn out?  The movie soared past the billion dollar earnings mark this week.  So much for the haters holding people back.  In the March 15th edition of this column, I called this eventual success declaring “it seems like the louder they piss and moan, the larger the amount of success and love gathers in the other direction to put the ugly folks back in their place.” I’ll say it again.  With loyalty and support like this, all toxic fandom is ever going to win is comeuppance.

LESSON #4: SCREENWRITERS NEED TO CRAFT MORE CREATIVE ENDINGS— I really enjoyed this column from Cracked by Daniel Dockery.  He calls out a dumb, repetitive ending trope we’ve been seeing far too often for a long time.  He summarizes and defines that ending as “The overwhelming enemy force is instantly thwarted via a very obvious, easily-exploited weakness.”  Dockery is dead right.  Look at A Quiet Place, War of the Worlds, Independence Day, The Avengers, Edge of Tomorrow, Mars Attacks!, Signs, and just about every Star Wars movie.  I’m sure the list goes on.  I’m with the author.  Let’s get these endings right and better.  I’m looking at you, Avengers: Endgame.  

LESSON #5: TREAT YOURSELF TO A SCREWBALL COMEDY— With Shazam! yucking it up this weekend, might I suggest staying in the comedy genre with some old classics of the genre’s purest form.  Dig through your disc and screaming sources for these gems from the 1930s listed by Netflix’s blog site.  You deserve a treat, so indulge in a few with that checklist.

 


DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson and also on Medium.com for the MovieTime Guru publication.  As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle and a new member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over a year, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the special “Connecting with Classics” podcast program.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.

What We Learned This Week: September 23-29

LESSON #1: WE CAN THANK ETHAN HAWKE FOR BEING HONEST, BUT HE’S WRONG— In this column’s September absence until last week, First Reformed actor Ethan Hawke has twice pinched his nose at blockbuster filmmaking.  First, he comes off high-brow and still pretentious calling superhero films overrated and not worthy of higher class. Next, he revealed his personal story about turning down and throwing out Independence Day with an ardent and profane dismissal. Thanks for sharing, Ethan. Your opinion is welcome, but you’re still wrong though too.

LESSON #2: BRAD BIRD IS RIGHT TO LAMENT THE BUSINESS END OF MOVIES— I’m a little late to report this, but Incredibles 2 director Brad Bird sounded off mightily on Twitter at the end of August with a string of warnings directed at the sequel trend and the lack of backing for original works at the blockbuster level.  He praised Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk as a truly original tentpole and how size and ambition deserve support equal to big money sequels and franchise.  He added more to that in a second interview for Science Fiction. The hard part is the business is going to flock to where the money is being made.  That said, Bird sure ain’t wrong. Give a few original films a chance to become their own big business.

LESSON #3: FOLKS CAN TAKE OR LEAVE THE BIG SCREEN EXPERIENCE— If you haven’t been noticing, and I don’t know you haven’t, but the communal theater experience is trickling away with the greater availability of streaming options, their competitive price points, and the affordability of home theater equipment compared to generations past.  Dueling sensibilities came down on that slow shift recently. 12 Years a Slave and upcoming Widows director Steve McQueen stepped up in an interview with Uproxx to declare his love and intent to seek out and add to the big screen experience.  Citing the big emotions and thrills, he said there’s “no point looking at a movie on your laptop on your own at home.”  On the other side of the coin in an interview with Indiewire, Mandy actor Nicolas Cage has begun to see the VOD viewership numbers for his films and sees money and success to be had in that format.  I, for one, admit to being completely on the fence. For the right movie, nothing beats the big screen experience, but it gets expensive and I have to enjoy the buried treasure and convenience of the VOD and streaming markets.  This looks like a place to have that adorable “why not both” internet GIF.

LESSON #4: THE 1990S ARE BECOMING A TIME CAPSULE— This lesson is spurred from two places, Feelin’ Film host Aaron White’s recent rewatch of Varsity Blues and a recent Unilad piece citing Millennial reactions to watching American Pie.  When you look back at popular teen-centric films like those two titles and compare them to the likes of Eighth Grade or The Edge of Seventeen now, the sentiments and tones couldn’t feel more antiquated or out of place.  People are actually getting offended by the sexist and male horndog tones of those films.  I get it, but I also call that par for the course akin to watching Blazing Saddles and taking the pause to understand its place in time.  I can’t get mad at out-of-touch films from out-of-touch times because their context fits its background.  Are the 2000s next? How will this list of that decade’s best from the Washington Post age? 


DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson and also on Medium.com where he is one of the 50 “Top Writers” in the Movies category.  As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle and a new member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over a year, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the special “Connecting with Classics” podcast program.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.

Episode 116: Independence Day

Happy 4th of July! To celebrate this patriotic American holiday, we are finally getting around to discussing the beloved sci-fi adventure film, Independence Day. Josh from LSG Media’s Science Fiction Film Podcast joins us to as we try to figure out why so many love the cheesy nature of this film, but reject similar dialogue and plots in other movies. Spoiler alert, we definitely talk about “the speech” and even play it, too, so get ready to wipe your eyes and pump your fist!

What We’ve Been Up To – 0:01:30

(Aaron – Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Beirut)
(Patrick – The West Wing Weekly/Aaron Sorkin)
(Josh – Anthropoid, Mr. Nobody)

Independence Day Review – 0:19:06

The Connecting Point – 1:17:39


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