What We Learned This Week: June 27-July 12

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LESSON #1: HUBRIS, MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, COSTS MONEY— No studio executive in their right mind is going to intentionally lose money versus a genius’s hubris. Filmbro golden calf Christopher Nolan can say he’s not worried about his future Tenet box office performance (now bumped to August 12th), but I guarantee you the pearly bean counters are. They’re not leaving earning potential on the table just to appease a filmmaker, no matter how virtuoso he is. They’ll let him walk, and he can’t take his movie with him. Patience, Christopher, patience. Just wait and let your biggest nation of audience get healthy.

LESSON #2: PREMIUM VOD WILL EMERGE AS A VIABLE OPTION— Family fare like Trolls: World Tour and Scoob! have tested the VOD waters for family attention. The King of Staten Island and Irresistible have tempted adult crowds. The question becomes what happens when a popular title for the masses becomes available for a premium rental. Who bites? If enough do, just as this recent Hollywood Reporter column suggests, expect this premium option (PVOD) to become a new go-to or must for craving audiences. The key is price point and the opponent is piracy.

It’s a matter of time when the right big title and the right price gets the customers to come running for a rental.

LESSON #3: IT’S WALLET DESTRUCTION WEEK— Speaking of money, this week is going to destroy the mattress money, nest eggs, swear jars, and piggybanks of physical media fans and cinephiles with low will power. It’s Barnes & Noble’s semi-annual 50% off Criterion sale. At the same time, the Warner Archives has opened its 4 for $44 sale. If you are someone survived the recent Arrow, Kino Lorber, and Target sales this summer without subsidizing your home or pawning your car, you’re so screwed now.

LESSON #4: THE OSCARS CANNOT GET AHEAD— There’s good news outnumbered by bad news. The good news is diversity keeps notching wins and the Academy recently added 819 new members with 36% of them being POC. That’s an ongoing shift they have long needed and each year will continue to bring new blood. As soon as they do that, they take two steps back when the MPA announced they are allowing agents the right to vote for Oscars. That’s beyond stupid and out of touch. That immediately inserts favoritism and more selfish and showy campaigning and placating that the Oscar cycle already has too much of. Agents are not artists, period.. They are not on the same level of industry professionals who make the movies. They should be removed from this arena.

LESSON #5: ONCE AGAIN, THERE IS NO BETTER TIME TO EDUCATE YOURSELF— In a callback to my last regular WWTW, the educational opportunity for our time at a social-distancing home with a buffet of media choice at our fingertips continues. While parents and schools mull what it’s going to take to go back to school buildings, you parents can be a homeschooler of film. If you need a “curriculum,” let PBS, Martin Scorsese, and Film School Rejects curate your content starting here. For more, PBS has a “Crash Course Film History” series on YouTube and Film School Rejects has a new “Cinephile Summer Camp” column. Get you some education!

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson. His movie review work is also published on 25YL (25 Years Later) 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 member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over two years, 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 previous “Connecting with Classics” podcasts.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work. (#136)

What We Learned This Week: The New Future of Movie Theaters “Soapbox Special”

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SOAPBOX SPECIAL: The New Future of Movie Theaters

During this last month or so of our collective national and international quarantine, I’ve been holding the topic of re-opening movie theaters from my usual “What We Learned This Week” columns for a “Soapbox Special.” There have been so many articles, so many perspectives, and so many rapidly evolving updates and changes that I couldn’t distill them down into one little lesson or column entry. 

With several regions of America starting to re-open (including my own state of Illinois and city of Chicago), it was time to get on the stump and arm the cannons. I put some of what follows into spoken word recently on an episode of Mike Crowley’s “You’’ll Probably Agree” podcast, but the issue has grown since then. Click into the multitude of links in the lessons for the deeper referenced stories. They are well worth their reads and your attention. The theme of this all can be summarized as cautiously optimistic.

LESSON #1: WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO GO BACK TO THEATERS— I’ll open this rant back in late May with polling from Variety. It featured a survey of consumer comfort. Here are some bulleted results in numerical order:

  • 91% requested hand sanitizer stations
  • 90% say the most important factor is a cure for COVID-19.
  • 86% supported limited screenings for cleaning time
  • 75% support employees temperature checks
  • 70% would rather watch a first-run feature at home
  • 61% would feel better about mandatory face coverings
  • 60% support audience temperature checks
  • 47% were comfortable buying concessions
  • 46% were comfortable using public restrooms at theaters

There’s more there in that article, but those were the highlights. Beyond even that poll, you’ve got more and more segments of the population who won’t feel comfortable with any public event, let alone a movie, without a vaccine in place. Putting any number of these initiatives in place would be costly, especially for theater chain companies reeling on the edge of bankruptcy. 

LESSON #2: WHAT DOES THAT FUTURE LOOK LIKE— Any of those changes from Lesson #1 would make for a very different setting than the “normal” way we’ve been going to the movies for the last century. Many editorials and articles (Seattle Times in May, Vulture in May, and Quartz in June) have tried to talk that out exhaustively with every guess in the clouds. For example, many of us have embraced reserved seating as a way to select our spots, skip crowds, and guarantee seats even if we walk in last minute to avoid 20 minutes of senseless trailers (I know that’s not just me, *wink*). The activity timeline changes upward if we are to stand in a line for temperature checks and even downward if there are no concession lines or needs anymore, which is a tremendous business hit to the theater chains that have been bolstering their kitchen capabilities and choices beyond candy and popcorn for the better part of the last two decades. The other word in there everyone wants to avoid is “crowds.” Can that be accomplished with roped off sections, skipped seats, or an all-reserved seating model (which some older theaters don’t fully have)? In the meantime, you’ve got companies fumbling financial footballs and poking public outcry bears (bravo Michael Phillips) over requiring or not requiring masks (and reversing courses) and other measures before they even open. Do you really trust them to get all of this right on the first try here in July?

LESSON #3: THE OPTION OF AUTOMATION— Piggybacking off of Lesson #2, one potential solution could be artificial intelligence, as crazy at that sounds. According to Variety in May, some theaters in Korea were considering “contact-free” technology.  Theater chain CJ-CGV replaced its human staff with AI robots and automated kiosks for scanning and handling ticket transactions. Concession stands were replaced with app-powered and LED-controlled pick-up/delivery boxes. Leave it to tech-savvy Asia to be the tip of that spear. Could the likes of AMC or Regal pull stuff like that off, again, while teetering on financial failure? How do data-danger-minded consumers feel about that?

LESSON #4: COMPANY SURVIVAL IS PERILOUS— The first three lessons constitute a forecast and some great ideas, but who or what can afford those measures? After months of virtually complete closure, save for some door-front concession hawking, large theater chains, especially AMC (which includes the Carmike brand), are in the financial toilet. Bailouts and loans are hard to come by and “junk” status is hitting stock reports. You even have Amazon interested in gobbling up AMC, which would be quite interesting. It may require a rescue such as that. This peril is international as well with CineEurope reporting a possible $20-31 billion loss for the year. Even reopening isn’t an instant cure. The majority of profits for these companies are dependent on concessions because of the high ticket receipt percentages going back to the studios, a gouge that has been increasing over the years at the high blockbuster level (Thanks, Disney). If the food areas are closed due to viral fears and health code regulations, that destroys earnings. 50% capacities of social-distanced seating doesn’t help theaters either. Even 50% might be optimistic. There are theaters opening at barely 25% capacity. 

LESSON #5: “TOO BIG TO FAIL” IS LOOKING FAILURE STRAIGHT IN THE FACE— And with that we reach the studios’ level of wallet hit with an inactive theater distribution market. Even with their demanded big bites of the pie, half-filled (or less) theaters do not help them either. This is especially the case at the blockbuster level. No matter the anticipation demand or potential staying power of a really big hit flick with less competition, it is exponentially harder to recoup $200 million-budgeted tentpoles and their $100+ million marketing campaigns if sizable fractions of the screens holding butts are gone or entire chains are shuttered. That’s why the really big stuff like Tenet, Mulan, Fast 9, No Time to Die, and more are not automatically landing on streaming services or VOD outlets. Even at a Trolls: World Tour-equivalent $20 price tag per rental (and its modest success), those giants cannot recoup those huge red balances versus getting a ticket for every head instead of every household. A little thing like The Lovebirds or Irresistible can land in the green with VOD, but not Wonder Woman or Black Widow. A business with a blockbuster class level of movies that once looked too big to fail making its worldwide billions is now failing because they have no place to go and no one able to come to their shows.

LESSON #6: STUDIOS DID SOME THIS TO THEMSELVES— Believe it or not, the studios have slowly damaged their own theatrical success/potential for years with the incremental shortening of the windows between big-screen premieres and home media release dates. Folks my age remember the months of interminable wait back in the VHS and cable TV eras before streaming services were even a glimmer in someone’s eye. For example, Forrest Gump hit theaters over the July 4th weekend of 1994. It didn’t land on VHS until late April 1995 after a long theatrical run and a winter Oscar bump. After that, it wouldn’t hit paid cable for another bunch of months and then years before basic cable made it “free.” By comparison, Joker opened on the first weekend of October last year, hit store shelves the first weekend of January 2020, and no one cares if it comes to HBO or Showtime because Netflix, Hulu, or VOD is cheaper and better. What used to be six months at the minimum (or even an entire year if you were a Disney release) has shrunk to merely 90 days on average. Sure, both Forrest Gump and Joker raked for their times, but it’s an indictment on patience versus money-grabbing. People that are willing to wait can now weather a pretty comfortable amount of time compared to the past for their 4K players and big-screen TVs in their dens. In our current COVID-19 state, we’ve all got nothing but time on our hands to do just that. Why risk health if personal patience versus some “fear of missing out” can pay one $20-30 digital download/disc price to watch a movie repeatedly instead of hauling the entire family plus concessions once, especially for something they don’t deem “big screen worthy?” The studios trying to keep the buzz constant with shorter waits will now see leverage backfire in favor of the consumer. For a current case of that, just look at Disney/Pixar’s Onward and the mere weeks it took to cave from the VOD rental level to dismissively dishing it to everyone in Disney+. With studios building their own streaming shingles, you’re going to see more of that or see more wins for Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.

LESSON #7: THE PRICE POINT OF DIGITAL— Let’s go further with the digital wants of consumers versus the new risks and hassles of theaters. Circling back to that opening Variety polling again, remember that 70% would rather watch a first-run feature at home. And that was back in May. Imagine now knocking on the door of Independence Day, no matter how much antsy-pant anticipation and hope is out there. That same Variety polling screened respondents on online pricing with some keen results. It asked how much a “reasonable” price would be to stream top-quality productions in their home. Here are those results in numerical rank:

  • 47%- $10 
  • 20%- $20
  • 19%- only if it was free
  • 6%- $30
  • 3%- $40
  • 1%- $50, $60, or $80%

That’s 67% holding firm at $20 or under and studios need to do their own projections of math. Regardless, welcome to a more than a little bit of the #firstworldproblems portion of this entire “Soapbox Special.” Movies are wants, not needs, period. They are lovely fulfillment, but non-essential. For every one of those 6% hardcore FilmBros and cinephiles with the disposable income to drop $40 or more to see their precious Christopher Nolan film, over 95% aren’t budging or can’t afford it. Check your privilege. 

LESSON #8: ADAPT OR DIE— One way or another, change is needed at the highest level that trickles down to every screen in America. A popular industry that has weathered the advent of television, cable, and now streaming opponents and competition in its century of existence should be able to survive this. Or can they? With the Paramount Accords lapsed, is it time for studios to buy or build their own sustainable theaters to show off their own wares and keep all the profits they used to share with the chains? If studios instead mine the digital landscape successfully, do we really need multiplexes anymore? That is a question posed recently in The New Yorker by Richard Brody in a good read. They’ll need smaller budgeted films to do that, scaling so many things down. Go back to the roots. You can make a dozen solid indies or five or more star-driven mid-budget programmers like the industry used to do in the 1990s with the cost of a single MCU film. Reverting back to that level of business would require some baths and haircuts, but it would rescue the industry. It’s time to embrace those needs. In another angle, columnist Nick Clement on Back to Movies says the film industry is “f–ked.” In many respects, I highly agree with him and his fantastic stump piece speaking on unemployment and the public state of some of those aforementioned #firstworldproblems. Time and patience are the biggest needs. 

LESSON #9: “ABSENCE AWAY MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER”— I’ve used this lesson before in “What We Learned This Week” and it’s time to end with it again. Shed away all the polling and conjecture. We all know the love for movies is there or we wouldn’t be talking about it. Look at the success of early openings and the lined-around-the-block comeback of drive-in movie theaters. It will be a topsy-turvy year, without question, even with a full return. We’ve had a zero-budget film named Unsubscribe streaking at an empty box office only to be dethroned by revival screenings of Jurassic Park putting it back to #1 in the nation, George Foreman-style, 27 years after it last ruled the multiplexes. If the year ended today, Bad Boys For Life would get the “biggest movie of 2020” championship belt in the record books. Just like Field of Dreams says, “people will come.” They just need to wait. Everyone, for that matter, from the greedy studio execs and sidelined movie stars to the lowly theater ushers and concession stand workers, needs to wait. This has sucked and it will keep on sucking, but the best answer is to wait and get through this better and healthier, personally and financially, than rushing and screwing it all up. The movies will be there. We want all the people to be there too. 

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson. His movie review work is also published on 25YL (25 Years Later) 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 member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over two years, 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 previous “Connecting with Classics” podcasts.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.  (#135)

What We Learned This Week: May 25-June 14

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LESSON #1: THERE IS NO BETTER TIME TO EDUCATE YOURSELF— In this time of racial divide and protest, education is more needed than ever. Just as I tout with my website, movies can be a place to get it. Service after service, studio after studio, and platform after platform from Netflix and the Criterion Channel to Kino Lorber have begun to make films and documentaries by and/or featuring black artists free or readily available. Take this curated list from our own Erynne Hundley and pounce on this excellent recommendations: 

LESSON #2: SPIKE LEE IS ONE OF CINEMA’S BEST TEACHERS— When you watch a Spike Lee movie, you’re getting more than dramatic narrative for entertainment value. With his frequent use of archival footage lately in films like Chi-Raq, BlacKkKlansman, and the new Da 5 Bloods, Lee brings a marvelous ability to echo the lessons of the past into the topical present that still sorely needs education. The man sternly teaches as he preaches. Spike Lee may be a provocative and acquired taste for more than a few, but his contributions are nevertheless bold and vital. History can and should look fondly on what he’s done with his work for four decades and counting.

LESSON #3: OLD MOVIES ARE TIME CAPSULES FOR THEIR ERAS AND DESERVE TO BE SEEN FOR WHAT THEY ARE— Speaking of history, times change. Sensibilities change. The movies of those times and built with dated sensibilities age as well. Watch them, but do not censor them. The Gone With the Winds of history deserve to be seen, examined, and even still enjoyed. Watch them with fair and discerning lenses. Take notes and learn from them. Movies are one way we keep history from repeating itself. More than anything, some movies only get better with age. Take this list of pre-1967 movies fit for an modern audience from IndieWire and be amazed. 

LESSON #4: EVEN SAVIORS BLINK— Back in May in an op-ed in The Washington Post, filmmaker Christopher Nolan lobbied hard for the survival of movie theaters and wanted his Tenet to be the movie that could help revive the multiplex scene. Those “insiders” that believed a mid-July release was overly optimistic turned out to be right. Nolan and Warner Bros. blinked and moved Tenet (and other tentpoles like Wonder Woman 1984) two more weeks to July 31st. Watch the pandemic numbers move it again in another two weeks. Wisdom is winning over hubris. Everyone needs to keep their patience. This could take a while and I think we’ve all come find that out. Maybe someone needs to tell Christopher too.

LESSON #5: SOMETIMES MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN THEIR BOOKS— Early word around the campfire is saying Kenneth Branagh’s Artemis Fowl which debuted on Disney+ instead of theaters is quite the hollow husk compared to its source material. I will always be that critic that will implore anyone and everyone to separate the two mediums of written prose and visual filmmaking. That said, better is an easy measurement to make. It’s rare, but there are times the movie is better than the book. Collider made a nice list last summer of 30 such submissions, I would add a 31st of Field of Dreams. If you want Artemis Fowl this weekend and lament, seek a few of those classics out.

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson. His movie review work is also published on 25YL (25 Years Later) 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 member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over two years, 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 previous “Connecting with Classics” podcasts.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.  (#134)

What We Learned This Week: May 11-24

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LESSON #1: IF ENOUGH PEOPLE YELL LONG ENOUGH THEY OCCASIONALLY GET THEIR WAY— By far the biggest industry news this week was the rumor-destroying announcement that the long-rumored “Snyder Cut” of Justice League will see the light of TV screens on HBO Max next year. It’s rare to see urban legends come true, and it’s even rarer to see collective efforts move a needle in the entertainment industry. This whole campaign has brought out the best and worst of the internet, from fan support for creators and charitable goals on one side to every matter of entitled vilification possible known to Twitter and man. Besides the possible success or failure of the re-cut film, just the precedent of this can go many directions. As always, I think the goal becomes pausing and looking at you are arguing about or for. Ask if it’s worth it and to what degree, because if some new version of a maligned movie is all you have to sustain your life for hills to die on, you’re the epitome of dwelling in inconsequential first world problems. 

LESSON #2: CHOICES HAVE TO BE MADE— The longer these quarantines and sheltering orders go, the more release choices need to be made. It’s a split between the big stuff and the little guys. We’ve seen a massive amount of rescheduling at the blockbuster level because the studios know their best chance at making the most money (or even their gaudy budgets back) is with theater dollars. VOD rentals at $20 a pop is not enough. What once looked “too big to fail” now cannot survive, no matter how hard Christopher Nolan’s Tenet wants to be the savior. We citizens might not be able to go out and get a haircut, but a proverbial one might be forced in the coming months. The smaller fare of lesser spectacle can find life and some money going to streaming options. They are looking at their prospects and settling smartly. The Lovebirds just did this week following Trolls: World Tour and Onward. Unless Keanu Reeves is shooting people, the third Bill & Ted movie wasn’t going to break any banks and likely neither was Tom Hanks with Greyhound. What looks like disappointing endings for larger efforts still counts as coups for the outlets that get these titles. Apple+ has to be doing backflips to win the bidding war for a Tom Hanks vehicle. 

LESSON #3: MEASURES OF SUCCESS CHANGE OVER TIME— I was one of those keenly interested movie fans that enjoyed hitting up Box Office Mojo on Saturday afternoons and Monday mornings to see the box office estimates and actuals (and, of course, loving on inflation-adjusted records). Without steady business and streaming becoming the cinematic exercise model of necessity at the moment, success is getting measured a little differently with “digital records.” Netflix reports 90 million households grabbing onto Chris Hemsworth’s Extraction. Imagine if each household paid $20 or even just $10 to see it. There’s money to be made with the right move and the right price point, even if that price point is slice of subscription fees. Going back to that idea of haircuts from Lesson #2, Trolls: World Tour made nearly $100 million in its first month of rental availability. While it’s not an incredible windfall, it’s proof there still is a paying audience. If $100 million becomes the new high watermark, watch budgets get scaled down where profit margins get closer and more palatable for the accounting departments.

LESSON #4: LAZY PEOPLE GONNA LAZY— How lazy do you have to be during this current stretch of social life to NOT use your Netflix subscription? Who has that kind of disposable income nowadays? Apparently, there are enough inactive Netflix subscribers from their 183 million total that the streaming giant is going to start closing those silent accounts. What I find almost even more surprising is that a bottomline-chasing company such as Netflix hellbent on user statistics is publicly willing to voluntarily reduce their membership numbers and stop taking their blind money. That’s astonishing. That’s like asking a Twitter account puffed up on paid bots to poke its own influencer balloon. Somewhere Richard Roeper is throwing his arms in the air.

LESSON #5: AWARDS CAN WAIT— As a “Meme Monday” pusher on my own Every Movie Has a Lesson Facebook page, I’ve enjoyed the jokes that have hit social media over the last two months that if the 2020 movie calendar ended today the parade of semi-crappy film releases from January to March would all stand high as frontrunners for the 93rd Academy Awards. If that’s the only way someone like Elisabeth Moss is going to win an Oscar, let’s start the campaign now (see Lesson #1, maybe we can start #VisibibleforInvisible). Like this lesson title, the pageantry can wait for a full competition. I’m glad to hear the 2021 Oscars are considering postponement. Like everything else right now, it’s the right thing to do. I’ve said it this whole time and will keep saying it: “Absence away makes the heart grow fonder.” That will be the case with red carpet spectacles too.

LESSON #6: BILL HADER HAS VERY GOOD TASTE— If all you know of actor Bill Hader are the silly voice, impressions, skits, and his dorky Everyman TV/movie roles, you will be impressed by his taste in movies. In the recommendation slot of “What We Learned This Week,” I stumbled across Bill’s September 2019 list from a Collider interview of over 200 must-see films. The man has a great eye and I love his picks. Luckily, a few Letterboxd users have made this list convenient for your next checklist.

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson. His movie review work is also published on 25YL (25 Years Later) 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 member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over two years, 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 previous “Connecting with Classics” podcasts.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.  (#133)

What We Learned This Week: May 4-10

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LESSON #1: YOU CAN’T BEAT PARKED CARS WHEN IT COMES TO SOCIAL DISTANCING— The late spring calendar turning to May means the best window of pleasant outdoor weather months are coming to North America. With that, the 330 or so surviving drive-in movie theaters in the U.S. are approaching a rather rare season opener where they are quite incredibly the only movie theaters open. What peaked with over 4,000 locations in the 1950s had been dying a slow death of budget issues, technology hurdles, amenity shortfalls, and the constriction of urban/suburban sprawl. Now, instead of a real-life equivalent to the forgotten Radiator Springs from Cars, their spread-out and safe designs are the social-distancing lifeboats bringing cinematic joy to the masses after months of closure. Here in my neck of the woods of Chicagoland, the McHenry Outdoor Theater, part of Golden Age Cinemas, opened this past weekend. Please let this be the beginning of a comeback of a welcome novelty (go ahead and add car-hop drive-in restaurants too)! Come to think of it, I cannot think of a better re-purposing of defunct large urban/suburban spaces (like all of those dead shopping malls and department stores) than if a worthy investor can paint a few parking stalls, put up a big-ass screen, and throw-in a few concession stands.

LESSON #2: IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT’S GOING TO BE PLAYING— What a beautiful sight that video is! The best part is it doesn’t even matter what’s playing. As you saw, the re-opened McHenry Outdoor Theater playing a throwback double-bill of The Flintstones and Jurassic Park. The groundswell of trafficked pilgrimage looked like the final scene in Field of Dreams. People will come and I hope studios see that. They don’t have to swing for the fences with huge release. The anticipation is already there and the floods will come. Whoever and whatever is first is going to rake. Along those lines, Christopher Nolan doesn’t have to expend himself to be the savior of saviors with Tenet.  I’ll always applaud the guy as a huge proponent of traditional film and theaters, but just a wee bit of his semi-greedy ego is showing to the guy that revives cinema. I love you Chris, but let’s see a team effort.

LESSON #3: IF THINGS ARE GETTING A LITTLE WEIRD AT HOME, EMBRACE IT— Until an IMAX spectacle can save us all, we are still stuck at home in our third month of widespread stay-at-home orders. There’s a chance some queues are drying up and the cabin fever is making folks a little weird. I say roll with it. Get eclectic with your home viewing. Even somethings squeaky like Disney+ can help. It was click bait, but I got a charge out of this Collider article of “The Weirdest Movies on Disney Plus.” It’s actually a pretty deep dive into their live-action properties with some kitschy picks. Check them out and refill the watchlist.

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson. His movie review work is also published on 25YL (25 Years Later) 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 member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over two years, 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 previous “Connecting with Classics” podcasts.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.  (#132)

What We Learned This Week: July 28-August 10

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LESSON #1: PRICE POINT ALWAYS WINS— I’ve brought out this lesson often over the years here on WWLTW because it’s continuously true.  The latest case is the ocean of drool and the shipwrecks of dropped jaws this week when Disney revealed the initial bundled price to add ESPN+ and Hulu to their upcoming Disney+ streaming service.  As if the bulk year price of $69.99 or $5.83 per month wasn’t already amazing (and with this opening lineup menu), the triple-service package will only cost $12.99.  That’s the wealth of Disney, the range of Hulu, and the top network for all-things sports for LESS than the price of just Netflix.  Sure, Disney might (and certainly will) raise that price within the first year or two, but, by golly, they are playing hardball with price point and competition.  $13 for all that will make digital lines around the download block come November 12th.  Your move, Amazon (who re-upped with Bleecker Street’s content) and Netflix, especially for the latter which just had its first drop of subscribers in company history and a recent $26 billion fall in market value.  Yikes!

LESSON #2: WHEN ONE DOOR OPENS, ANOTHER ONE CLOSES, AND THEN ANOTHER ONE GETS REPAIRED— Before Disney becomes even more flush with steady cash this November, the Mouse House did announce what they consider a business loss this week.  According to reports, the Fox movies they acquired from their buyout under-performed to a $170 million quarterly loss.  Even for a profitable place like Disney, that’s haircut that still stings.  The Disney brass announced they will scale back film development under the Fox label while rebooting/remaking key properties and franchises like Home Alone, Night at the Museum, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Cheaper by the Dozen, Planet of the Apes, and giving the Marvel titles to Kevin Feige.  I can’t say I’m surprised by Disney’s lack of effort to support their Fox wing.  I think we all knew an eventual and full dissolution was possible.  Some of that starts here.

LESSON #3: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS REQUIRES INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR— Speaking of streaming services, I discovered this little story that may cause potential hazards for the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Apple, and Disney.  Last year, the European Union passed a ruling requiring that VOD services have 30% of their content sourced in Europe, with Australian interested in a similar measure.  That’s a bold “buy local”-ish mandate that may have those streaming companies scrambling to stay within new requirements.  I think that counts as a powerful effort to retain and promote homegrown products next to the shiny imports.  This is a fascinating and fortunate victory for foreign filmmakers and entertainment entities.

LESSON #4: BELIEVE THAT SHIA LEBEOUF IS A NEW MAN— How many of us wrote off Shia LeBeouf in the last five to ten years?  Between social media rants, odd acting choices, and a tail-spinning personal life, the Transformers star hit rock bottom.  I am pleased to announce that he is back and has come through wise beyond his 33-years.  Variety has an excellent interview where the LeBeouf calls himself “softer.”  If you need evidence, seek out The Peanut Butter Falcon debuting this coming week in limited release.

It might be the best I’ve ever seen Shia LeBeouf act.  Yet, he looks like he’ll top himself in the semi-autobiographical film Honey Boy coming this fall that outlines a child actors tragic ups-and-downs with Noah Jupe and Lucas Hedges ostensibly playing Shia while LeBeouf plays the hard father.

The guy is showing his talent and laying his soul bare.  Come and witness this because we don’t see resurrections like this often and I couldn’t be happier for him.

LESSON #5: CHRISTOPHER NOLAN HAS DAMN GOOD TASTE— In the closing recommendation slot, the verbiage of this lesson shouldn’t be a surprise among those here in the Feelin’ Film circle of Christopher Nolan worshipers.  While you all wait and over-analyze every shred of possibility for his upcoming Tenet before it arrives next year, build a playlist of thirty Nolan-recommended favorites and improve your palette and nose for damn good movies.  Compiled by Indiewire from interview quotes over the years, this list could fill a one-a-week education between now and Tenet.  Enjoy!

 

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson. His movie review work is also published on 25YL (25 Years Later) 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 member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over two years, 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 previous “Connecting with Classics” podcasts.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.  (#110)

You Should Be Watching: June 21-27

Posted on by Jacob Neff.

Welcome to You Should Be Watching, my weekly opportunity to introduce you to a variety of great films, gems of the past and present, available for you to stream from Netflix, Amazon Prime, FilmStruck, and anywhere else streams are found.

This week, I’m recommending a film about a conversation starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, a creepy psychological thriller featuring Joel Edgerton as writer, director, and actor, and the little-seen debut film by none other than the great Christopher Nolan. Also, among the heavy hitters, it’s your last chance to see Captain America: Civil War on Netflix, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi arrives there. It’s also your last chance for last week’s featured films, Room and the Human Condition Trilogy.

 

STREAMING PICKS OF THE WEEK

The Sunset Limited

Year: 2011

Director: Tommy Lee Jones

Genre: Drama

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson

 

Based on a play written by Cormac McCarthy (The Road, No Country for Old Men), The Sunset Limited consists of a conversation between Black (Samuel L. Jackson), an ex-con believer, and White (Tommy Lee Jones who also directed), a suicidal atheist professor. While a film with no action that takes place in a single room may sound dull, believe me when I say this conversation is utterly riveting from the first words to the last, and the film is as dramatic, entertaining, emotional, and thought-provoking as any blockbuster.

Jackson and Jones play off each other with seeming ease and the nuance that comes with being experts in their craft. It’s fascinating to see ebb and flow of the dialogue as either Black or White finds his groove and pursues it. Likewise, the emotional beats affect how each carries on, whether in quiet introspection, attempts at humor, or bouts of indignance. Black’s eagerness to see White find hope and come to believe as he does while also being humorously honest about his own doubts is particularly refreshing.

 

The Gift

Year: 2015

Director: Joel Edgerton

Genre: Thriller, Drama, Mystery

Cast: Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall, Joel Edgerton, Allison Tolman, Tim Griffin, Busy Philipps, Adam Lazarre-White, Beau Knapp, Wendell Pierce, Mirrah Foulkes, Nash Edgerton, David Denman, Katie Aselton, David Joseph Craig, Susan May Pratt, P. J. Byrne, Felicity Price, Melinda Allen, Beth Crudele

 

Simultaneously showing off Joel Edgerton’s talents as a writer, director, and actor, The Gift is a surprisingly effective creepy suburban mystery thriller that keeps you on edge and off balance throughout and might have you a little paranoid yourself coming out of it, but you’ll want to go in as blind as possible.

The story centers around married couple Simon and Robyn (Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall), who following a miscarriage have moved back to near where Simon grew up in an attempt to leave the pain behind and get their relationship back on track again. Shortly after arriving, Simon has a chance but polite and friendly encounter with Edgerton’s character Gordo, who claims to know him from high school. But then a series of unnerving events start occurring that drive dread and paranoia into this already fragile marriage. This isn’t the funny Bateman, but it is the uncomfortable one and with an edge at that. The tale Edgerton has crafted is fiendishly clever and explores the power of fear and the importance of character and the nature of both in the context of a marriage.

 

Following

  

Year: 1998

Director: Christopher Nolan

Genre: Thriller, Crime, Drama

Cast: Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw, Lucy Russell, John Nolan, Dick Bradsell, Gillian El-Kadi, Jennifer Angel, Nicolas Carlotti, Darren Ormandy, Guy Greenway, Tassos Stevens, Tristan Martin, Rebecca James, Paul Mason, David Bovill

 

Christopher Nolan has proven himself to be one of the world’s premier filmmakers with every one one of his films becoming appointment theater. Anyone that enjoys his work should definitely see the film that started it all. Despite its low budget, Nolan’s full-length debut is a tightly scripted and masterfully edited surprise, full of the seeds of his later work. It’s a crime thriller that though using an entirely different story acts as something of a test-run for the time-bending mind-bender Memento that put him on the map.

From the opening scene, the tone is set with a bit of now-familiar percussive score full of energy and tension as we’re introduced to the main character, who’s found himself in a bit of as-yet-unexplained trouble. It also soon becomes apparent that Nolan was exploring interweaved, out-of-order chronology even at this very early stage, and he thrives on misdirection and refusing to spoon-feed any details. Instead, he forces the viewer to pay attention to dialogue and visual cues such as a haircut and puffy eyes to alert the viewer to shifts in time. Quite bluntly, if you’re a Nolan fan, you need to be watching Following.

 

COMING AND GOING

LAST CHANCE (last date to watch)

NETFLIX

June 24
Captain America: Civil War (2016)

June 29
On Golden Pond (1981)

June 30
An Honest Liar (2014)
Before Midnight (2013)
King Kong (2005)
Michael Clayton (2007)
Tropic Thunder (2008)
V for Vendetta (2005)

From the Lethal Weapon Collection:

Lethal Weapon (1987)
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)

 

AMAZON PRIME

June 23
Room (2013)

June 29
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Friday the 13th (1980)
Marathon Man (1975)
The Music Never Stopped (2011)
A Simple Plan (1998)

June 30
Escape from New York (1981)
The Karate Kid (1984)
Mystic River (2003)
Sleepers (1996)

 

FILMSTRUCK

June 22
An American in Paris (1951)
An Angel at My Table (1990) *
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959) *
The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1960) *
The Human Condition III: A Soldier’s Prayer (1961) *
The Piano (1993)

June 29
History Is Made at Night (1937)
The Italian Connection (1972)
The Music Man (1962)

From the Lars Von Trier collection:

Breaking the Waves (1996) *
Dogville (2003) **
Europa (1991) *
The Five Obstructions (2003)

June 30
Caliber 9 (1972)
It Happened One Night (1934)
The Ladykillers (1955)
Uptight (1968)

July 6
Husbands and Wives (1992)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

July 8
Together (2000)

July 13
Losing Ground (1982)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

*  Remaining on the Criterion channel
** Remaining on the FilmStruck channel

 

HULU

June 30
Zodiac (2007)
Stories We Tell (2012)
A Simple Plan (1998)
Project Nim (2011)
Marathon Man (1976)
A League of Their Own (1992)

 

JUST ARRIVED

NETFLIX

In Bruges (2008)
A Little Princess (1995)
Set it Up (2018)

 

AMAZON PRIME

After Tiller (2013)
Duck, You Sucker (1971)
The Great Silence (1968)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)
The Last Seduction (1994)
Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)
Yellow Submarine (1968)

 

FILMSTRUCK

Ninotchka (1939)
Running on Empty (1988)
Queen Christina (1933)

 

HULU

Middle of Nowhere (2012)
Primal Fear (1996)
The Second Mother (2015)
Smoke (1995)
Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak (2009)
The Untouchables (1987)

 

COMING THIS WEEK

NETFLIX

June 22
Brain on Fire — NETFLIX FILM (2016)
Us and Them — NETFLIX FILM (2018)

June 23
Tarzan (1999)

June 26
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

 

AMAZON PRIME

June 26
Shutter Island (2009)

 

Jacob Neff is a film enthusiast living east of Sacramento. In addition to his contributions as an admin of the Feelin’ Film Facebook group and website, he is an active participant in the Letterboxd community, where his film reviews can be found. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with his latest thoughts and shared content.

What We Learned This Week: July 23-29

Posted on by everymoviehasalesson.

LESSON #1: ARE CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S FILMS EMOTIONLESS?— The prolific and cerebral director of Dunkirk recently answered critics who have called his films “emotionless.”  They must have missed the sharp revenge of Memento, the stirring heroic feels of his Batman trilogy, the seething jealousy of The Prestige, the suspenseful mental weight of Inception, and the familial anguish of Interstellar.  Emotionless, my ass.  I’m afraid Dunkirk will be the challenge.  I don’t think it has the necessary emotional anchors, but my Feelin’ Film peers will say otherwise.  See it for yourself (on the biggest and loudest screen possible) and let us know what you think.

LESSON #2: NETFLIX IS AN EVOLVING ENIGMA FOR THE MOVIE BUSINESS— Speaking of Christopher Nolan, he recently made negative comments on Netflix’s strategy of simultaneous streaming and release windows that take away from theatrical films.  GQ recently collected a roundtable of directors (included Ava DuVernay, Edgar Wright, Jeff Nichols, and James Gunn) who “blew up Hollywood.”  That led many, especially the Nolan disciplines, to raise those anti-Netflix pitchforks we’ve been back and forth on all year in this column.  A voice of contrast came out at much the same time from A Ghost Story director David Lowery calling the behemoth hub a “service to the industry,” especially for mid-range independent film who don’t have a chance in the theatrical marketplace (especially against the likes of Nolan’s films and their backing).  I side with Lowery, and what’s good enough for Martin Scorsese is good enough for me.  I see more help than harm, and it’s still too soon to see the growing effects, positive or negative.

LESSON #3: PRICE POINT IS THE NUMBER ONE ISSUE OF FILM VIEWERSHIP— Echoing the first two lessons this week and a great thread on the Feelin’ Film Facebook group, this whole audience problem comes down to money, plain and simple.  A family of four can get more content out of the recurring price of a Netflix subscription or more repeat viewing from the one-time-price DVD/Blu-ray disc purchase at Walmart than they would hauling everyone to the theater for tickets and concessions multiple times a year.  Add to that the substantially reduced prices for HD and Smart TVs compared to 10 or even 5 years ago.  While I fully endorse to the magic of the communal big screen experience, one would crazy not to see the price point logic and respect a smart household’s budgeting decisions.  It’s all about bang-for-your-buck and Netflix is winning that right now with content volume and ease of access.

LESSON #4: SOME FILMS DON’T BELONG IN SPACE— Bigger isn’t necessarily better, and how big is too big?  Space is too big.  I recently learned that answer when Fast and Furious series director F. Gary Gray said that a future sequel of the franchise that started with lowly car thieves in L.A. could be set in space.  WTF?!  Straining believability is fun and all, but that’s too much.  Has no one this century seen the Moonraker James Bond film?  Stop already.  Go back to Paul Walker’s sunset and be done.

LESSON #5: SOMEBODY TAKE JAMES CAMERON’S CRAZINESS AWAY— Apparently, James Cameron thinks he’s got another Terminator trilogy for the masses.  Come on, man.  While I respect the visual envelope-pushing and industry revolutionizing Cameron can perform, the man can be a quack as a writer.  That and, by the time he gets to this project for how slow he works, Arnold will be 100-years-old or we’ll all be dead.  Somebody shake this bad idea out of him and tell him to go finish Avatar 2 already.

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson.  He is also one of the founders and the current directors of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle.  As an elementary educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, Medium, and Creators Media.

 

 

Episode 068: Dunkirk

Posted on by thisispatch.

War film? Rescue film? Horror film? Or all three? We tackle Christopher Nolan’s latest movie and discuss whether the film’s unique narrative structure and immersive sound were positives or negatives. We also try to answer what we think a Christopher Nolan movie is, which is no easy task. Nolan may be our favorite director but Dunkirk was an experience we had to linger on. We hope you enjoy as we talk our way through how the movie made us feel.

What We’ve Been Up To – 0:02:32

(Aaron –  Oats Studios)
(Patrick – 48-Hour Film Project Screenings)

Dunkirk Review – 0:19:14

The Connecting Point – 1:07:31

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What We Learned This Week: June 25-July 1

Posted on by everymoviehasalesson.

LESSON #1: DON’T BUY THE DOOM AND GLOOM PRETENTIOUS PEOPLE ARE PUTTING ON ROTTEN TOMATOES AND NETFLIX— It feels like every week someone wants to pit the fans versus the critics and forget that critics are fans too.  This week it was a piece in Forbes.  Let me put this as simple as I can.  Reviews don’t make people pull money out of their wallet.  Products of interest do.  The content always sells itself first.  The frosting of random measured approval is second.  I will continue to be in the “want a better RT score, make a better movie” camp.  As for Netflix, people are forgetting about the huge access it grants independent films and documentary films.  Films like Okja this week wouldn’t get a puncher’s chance at the crowded multiplexes in this country.  A platform like Netflix lets it be everywhere.  In addition to being that kind of pedestal, the ability for audience buzz through binge and repeat viewing is something a theater cannot improve for a film.

LESSON #2: IF YOU REALLY NEED A NEW PLACE TO READILY AND AFFORDABLY ACCESS FILMS, HEAD OVER TO YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY— I’m not an avid reader, but I still frequent my local library through my children.   Especially if your library is part of a larger county or state system of shared material, the completely free access to both popular and hard-to-find movies is outstanding.  Before you pay that Redbox price with a time limit, a 24-hour Video On Demand rental, or even a full subscription to something like Netflix, Hulu, or Filmstruck, consider what you can mine and discover for free.

LESSON #3: SOUNDTRACKS CAN MAKE A MOVIE— There are films with cool soundtracks and then there are cool films with cool soundtracks.  The trick is not just having a cool soundtrack but using it to its fullest extent as a supporting layer of a film.  No movie in recent memory does that better than Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver.  That film isn’t throwing obscure tracks and deep cuts in there for indie cred.  Each song is purposely piece of the storytelling and the effect is genius.  See and hear Baby Driver at your earliest convenience on the loudest movie screen you can find.

LESSON #4: LET DIRECTORS DIRECT— I encountered a great deal of double talk this week on many fronts that all talked about directors and led me to this lesson’s title.  First, The Beguiled‘s Sofia Coppola is getting flack for not including a slave character or addressing the politics of the Civil War in her auspicious remake landing in theaters this weekend.  Right off the bat, she’s the writer and director and deserves to make those calls for the vision she wants to create, period.  I’ve seen the film.  The slavery angle or more men are not what the film is missing.  Look at the material.  The “whiteness” is the part of the point.  Next, I don’t know what to make of the coming new direction of Warner Bros. under Toby Emmerich when it wants to avoid hiring “auteur directors who want final cut.”  Do they realize they just hired and leaned on Joss Whedon, who had that final cut trouble with Marvel, to save one of their films?  Do they not look back at their biggest critical successes this century and not see names like Clint Eastwood, Ben Affleck, and Christopher Nolan attached the end of the credits?  I get trimming budgets, but don’t clip the wings of the incredible people you’ve hired.  Tinker as a studio too far and people like Eastwood and Nolan are going to stop working with you and then you’ll get the “bad for business” label, Toby.

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson.  He is also one of the founders and the current directors of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle.  As an elementary educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, Medium, and Creators Media.