More about bingeing

Recently I got an email from my friend Alicia McLachlan in response to my post on TV bingeing. It was meant to be a comment, but for some reason Blogger wouldn’t let her post it. It’s big enough to be a post all its own, though, so since I kinda owe her one, I’m reproducing it here, with her permission. She’s studying to be a screenwriter, so her perspective on the subject is especially relevant.

Very insightful article! I was curious to see how this experiment went after first seeing your tweets about it. As an aspiring TV writer and avid viewer, I have mixed and evolving feelings on the subject. 

As a viewer, I have of course binge watched and enjoyed it. I don't know what the most ever was in one sitting, but I've definitely been through entire seasons in a day. More recently, I tend to stick to two episodes at a time, maybe three if I'm at a "really good part."

Looking at it from a writer's perspective, particularly with the business part of television in mind, I'm not so much a fan of a binge release for any show I may one day be lucky enough to have produced. Alongside the "communal experience," I feel like week-to-week distribution is better for a show's longevity. It allows for word-of-mouth publicity, which is free, which producers and marketing departments love! Whether that be at the old-school water cooler or on social media, the communal experience draws viewership out long term and allowing a chance for the audience to build (if the show is good of course). This in turn has the potential to drive more web traffic to support sites and side projects, including traditional media coverage like recaps and reviews, blogs and fan pages like this one, and even "in between" webisodes or post-show deep dive analysis podcasts. And it generates long-term interest that can turn into another season, and then another … 

Bird Box

Bird Box
Netflix viewing

I first heard about Bird Box on Facebook. Friends would discuss something called “the Bird Box Challenge” and I, naturally, had no clue what they were talking about, nor did I care. I’m not the type to pursue every trend on social media. Then I discovered Bird Box was a movie, and I kept seeing memes of a blindfolded Sandra Bullock in a rowboat. Why hadn’t I heard of this movie that apparently has quite a bit of buzz?

Oh. Of course. It’s on Netflix.

These days, serialized television dramas drive social media discussion more than any one film, so to see this film not only generate talk, but to develop a life of its own beyond the film — especially a movie only available through a streaming service — says volumes about how movies have changed, and are changing. I seriously doubt the filmmakers anticipated how big a hit this would become, and it’s not like it was connected to a gimmick, like The Blair Witch Project, or spoke to a bigger social movement, like the recent gay romance Love, Simon, or was an overhyped genre blockbuster.

It was just this Sandra Bullock horror movie.

#TCMParty: Monkey Business (1931)

So last Friday night, the 14th, marked a return for me to the #TCMparty, the Twitter feed in which fans of the classic film network Turner Classic Movies (TCM) congregates virtually to live-tweet during movies aired by TCM. As I've said before, I'm of two minds about live-tweeting: I dig the social aspect of experiencing a movie online with other movie fans, but I don't like dividing my attention between my TV and my cellphone - and while I enjoyed taking part in it, I'm afraid my attitude on this hasn't changed. Hats off to those that do this sort of thing all the time, but I don't believe I want to do this more than a couple of times a year. Still, there's something about it that can be a lot of fun, which is why I join in the event.

#TCMparty: Annie Hall

This is a type of post I've never attempted here before, so bear with me if it doesn't work quite right. I've written before about live-tweeting movies and TV shows, as well as about the Twitter hashtag #TCMparty and my experience with it. Since I've committed to spending 2015 exploring classic movies in greater depth than usual, it seemed appropriate to spend some time live-tweeting a movie with the TCM fans on Twitter, but this is the first post I've devoted exclusively to the experience.

In the past, I've found live-tweeting a bit awkward because I don't like the idea of dividing my time between the movie and my cellphone, so I knew if I were to do this again, I'd have to pick a movie I was already well familiar with, and I did: Annie Hall. I'm gonna attempt to summarize my experience live-tweeting the movie last night, as part of #TCMparty.

Groundhog's links

So far, the new format seems to be going over well. The pageview numbers are roughly comparable with what they were before the Switch, and the announcement of the CinemaScope Blogathon generated a whole lot of interest. Thanks once again on behalf of Becky and myself to everyone who's joining us for that next month.

Among the stuff to look forward to this month will include another venture into the hullaballoo that is the #TCMparty on Twitter, only this time I'll devote a post exclusively to my experience with it, which will be a first. I have a tentative idea which film to watch. It's one that I'm quite familiar with, so dividing my time between my TV and my cellphone shouldn't be much of a problem. As I've talked about before in this space, I'm still not convinced that live-tweeting a film is a habit I'd want to obtain, but I can't deny its popularity, and it certainly can be fun - in the absence of watching with real live people.

The Top 10 for 2014 should be ready, if not this week, then next week. At this point, the only movies I still haven't seen which could affect my selection (and that I wanna see, of course) are Still Alice and A Most Violent Year. I hope to get to the latter, at the very least. Also, I'll post my Oscar predictions and a brief post-Oscar recap.

I've already started sharing excerpts from my novel with my writing group and I'd say they like it. One guy said, in all seriousness, that I should start thinking about getting an agent because he's convinced it's marketable. I don't know about that. It's a sports novel, and from what I've read, sports novels are a rare and tiny niche. But it's also a tragic love story, so there's that too. 

Regardless, I'm well over 40,000 words at this stage and it's a slow, uphill climb. I'm impatient about it because I want the writing part to end so I can start revising, and a lot of times, I'm paralyzed by the lack of words coming to mind. What I'll do - something I learned during NaNoWriMo but didn't apply to my own writing until now - is that I'll write a generic description of what it is that's supposed to go in a certain paragraph and highlight it in red. Then, when it comes time to revise, I can go back and fill it in with the necessary detail. That has helped me a lot.

Your links for this month:

Speaking of Bill Murray, did you know about the other sci-fi film he made in 1984 - the one that never got released? Allow Will to elucidate.

Raquel reflects on the death of a loved one through a Lionel Barrymore film.

The Lady Eve saw The Godfather with a live orchestra.

Monstergirl has a really weird-sounding Gothic horror flick about a girl school with some funny business going on.

Don't think I've ever mentioned The Hollywood Revue before, so I'll do so now. Here, Angela reviews a new book about epic filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille.

My new favorite movie blog title is Cary Grant Won't Eat You. And the blog is pretty good, too. Here, the author laments that comedic acting remains unappreciated at the Oscars, using The Grand Budapest Hotel's Ralph Fiennes as a case study.

In last week's new release roundup, I linked to my report on a second-run Forest Hills theater that gambled on American Sniper to save them from extinction. I'm proud to say that they gambled and won.

Great article about the Loew's Wonder Theaters (including the Loew's Jersey City), then and now.

Are kids' adventure movies on the wane?

Finally, the issue of Newtown Literary with my short story "Airplanes" is now available for the Kindle.

The Spoiler Experiment pt. 3: observations

Part 1: Draft Day

Part 2: Million Dollar Arm
the post that inspired this experiment

So after watching both Draft Day and Million Dollar Arm under the unusual (for me) conditions I set out - watching the former without spoilers and the latter with them - I feel like the results weren't that surprising. I thought both films were enjoyable enough. They both achieved what they set out to do. They were entertaining without being terribly challenging, and to my mind, at least, neither one was quite as mediocre as their respective Rotten Tomatoes scores made them out to be. 

Both finished about even on that score - a 62 for Draft Day and a 61 for MDA (54 and 56, respectively, on Metacritic) - and those sound just about appropriate. Although normally, I try not to take too much stock in reviews, for the purposes of this experiment, reviews did play an important factor.

Re-examining live-tweeting (however reluctantly)

This morning I read a terrific interview with Kerry Washington, star of the TV drama Scandal, and the legendary TV, film and now Broadway actress Cicely Tyson (it really is a great article, take a look). Among other things, Washington mentions the fact that part of the show's success is having the cast live-tweet during show airings. I looked it up - and it's true! (You probably already knew this, but I don't watch TV, so cut me some slack, okay?)

I've complained a lot in this blog about people who live-tweet and/or text during movies, as have many other people around the blogosphere, but try as one might, one cannot ignore the fact that it has become a Thing. It's something certain people love to do now, whether it's at the movies or while watching TV, and I imagine it's probably not limited there, either. So maybe it's past time to try and understand why people do it, and do it so often.

When I recently watched Gone With the Wind on Turner Classic Movies, I mentioned in my post that I followed along on Twitter at the hashtag "TCMparty" for the first time, to see what it was like. I wrote that reading other Tweeters' comments, jokes, bits of trivia, etc., made watching the movie more fun that it would've been without, but I also said that I didn't feel entirely comfortable dividing my attention this way, and I wouldn't want to engage in this sort of thing all the time. In addition, I emphasized that live-tweeting should be looked upon only as a substitute for real-life interaction in the absence of the real thing. I still believe that.

I initially joined Twitter for one reason: to promote WSW. Over time, however - and I suppose I should've anticipated this - I realized that "promotion" can mean much more than posting the link to the latest post every time it goes up. Establishing and maintaining a presence on Twitter is difficult, and I admit I'm not that great at it, but I do what I can: during the summer, I live-tweet at outdoor locations before the start of a film, for instance, or I'll post links to past posts.

But of course, as I accumulate more followers, especially when they're fellow bloggers, there are more people I wanna talk to, and soon enough, I'm having entire conversations with people like my pal Page, and meeting new people like Joanna, and that's great too. I understand that this is Twitter's primary purpose.

That said, I still feel - and maybe I'm just a fuddy-duddyish square for thinking so - that there ought to be boundaries. I was at a street festival last week and at one point there was a live band playing, and I felt the need to tweet a couple of times as they played, when I should've been paying attention to the band (who were great). It seems like common sense to me, but if something's going on in front of you, like a performing band, or a TV show or a movie, and your attention is somewhere else, you might miss something good. So why split your concentration that way?

Modern technology has turned us into a society of multitaskers: we're no longer either willing or capable of focusing on one thing at a time. If we're at the movies, we have to also text our friends during it. If we're driving, we have to also check our e-mail. But do we have to? And should we? Research suggests that multitasking can be less productive than we think.

When I was live-tweeting Gone With the Wind at #TCMparty, although it meant dividing my concentration, it did feel at times like I had twenty or thirty other people in my living room talking about the movie with me. I can certainly understand the allure of that, and I'm sure it's the same way for Scandal fans, especially since they get to watch the show along with the cast. It's an unprecedented level of interaction between fans and performers. It's different, however, when you don't have other people around, experiencing the same event or performance as you. 

Film has traditionally been presented in a format that demands your complete attention, your complete focus, in a setting with other people. This was particularly true during the silent era, where you couldn't rely on dialogue or sound effects to help you figure out what's going on. These days, watching movies is no longer limited to sitting in a darkened room with other people, and new viewing habits such as live-tweeting have encroached on the old, to the point where some theaters are considering making concessions to this new breed of moviegoer - and not just movie theaters, either. In fairness, there have always been talkers at movie theaters, people who either whisper too often or too loudly or both, and sometimes, they don't even whisper. Also, in some cultures, social interaction during movies is no big deal.

I feel the same about live-tweeting/texting now as before - don't do it around me - but if more people keep doing it... I dunno, maybe it is time to provide separate facilities for people who wanna do that. My gut tells me that this is just giving in to inconsiderate rogues who have forgotten how to simply sit back and enjoy a movie/TV show/concert/whatever, if they ever knew, but live-tweeting/texting can no longer be written off as an aberration or a youth fad. 

I wish I had a solid answer. Maybe you do?

Gone With the Wind

The Blind Spot is an ongoing series hosted by The Matinee in which bloggers watch and write about movies they've never seen before. For a list of past entries, visit the home site.

Gone With the Wind
seen on TV @ TCM
8.20.13

I've loved classic movies ever since the first time I saw Sunset Boulevard in college and became fully aware of what movies can do. In the three years I've worked on this blog, I've made some good friends who share this love. Thing is, though, loving classic movies means accepting the fact that they were made in a less enlightened era, to say the very least. Most of the time, I can deal with this. Sometimes, though... sometimes it's a little bit harder.

With rare exceptions, black actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood tended to fill one of two roles: either they sung and danced and made music, or they were servants, and if they were servants, often times they were little more than one-dimensional caricatures. I'll look at them every once in awhile and wonder whether it would've been better to not have them in these movies at all, than to have to see such skewed and distorted images?

Most of the time I think the answer, looking through the lens of hindsight as I am, is yes, although I'm sure the justification would've been that any work is better than no work. I try not to judge those actors; I don't know all the things they went through, all the sacrifices made, all the pride they had to swallow, just to make it in Hollywood. Hell, to share a soundstage with the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis, even if only for a few scenes? I'll bet they thought it was worth it.

The Social Network

The Social Network
seen @ Green Acres Cinemas, Valley Stream, NY
10.5.10

Technology has such a strange hold on us. When I was about 13 or so, my parents sent me to computer camp for a summer, where I learned BASIC, having fun with it but not taking it all that seriously. In college, I took a computer art course during senior year on a Macintosh, not entirely believing it could help me as an artist but everyone said I should take it anyway. Eventually, though, I understood that I would need a home computer - not want, need. When I got one, in 2000, I told myself I could severely limit the amount of time I spent online. I believed I would only need a computer to send and receive e-mail. I didn't want it to take up all of my time.

A decade later, and much has changed. I had been reluctant to embrace the Internet, but little by little, I've come to accept it as much as anyone else these days. Each new technological innovation during the Aughts took the world by storm, but I was always resistant to it at first. I wish I could say why for sure. Money was a factor, but it wasn't the only one. Fear? Maybe - but I've taken to the Internet in general fairly intuitively, all things considered. I put off getting a cellphone for the longest time until it became necessary to have one, and I rarely use mine for anything other than making and receiving calls. Like I always say, I don't need my phone to be anything other than a phone.

Maybe I simply needed to proceed at my own pace. I don't think people realize how shocking is the speed at which technology progresses. With each passing year, it's becoming harder to remember when we all didn't have cellphones or Blackberries or iPods - and we've become so attached to them, we've adapted to them so quickly, it's unreal. The Internet is the same way. I live a significant part of my life online now. This would've scared me ten years ago, but now it's a simple fact.

Which brings me to Facebook. Again, I avoided it in the beginning, like instant message chatting, like blogs, like video streaming, like wireless technology. I only joined Friendster when it was the social network of choice because my co-workers had done so, but I barely used it. Facebook was different. It was - it is - more intuitive, more interactive, more versatile, and when more and more of my friends starting becoming part of it, suddenly it was much harder to resist. But boy, can it take you over. As one of my friends wrote on my wall upon my entry into the site, "Welcome to the time-suck!"

At the outset, I liked the ability to keep tabs on what my friends are doing, but lately I've begun to wonder whether or not it's all just too much information. I've certainly enjoyed learning about aspects of my friends' lives I either didn't know or knew little about. On the other hand, though, some of them talk a lot but don't have much to say, if you know what I mean. This doesn't make them bad people, but it does make me wonder what it's all about, y'know?

When something major happens in the world, everyone has to comment on it. If it's a celebrity death, some people will just post something like, "OMG RIP So-and-So" without saying what that celebrity meant to them, if anything. I mean, I can go to CNN for news!

I play a game on Facebook called Social City which, like Farmville or Mafia Wars, requires you to "friend" strangers. They rely on you to help them succeed in the game, and vice versa. Many people, though, only use Facebook for their gameplay. They're not interested in getting to know the strangers they've "friended." It's their choice, but I find it unfortunate that I have people on my friends list from all over the world as a result of my involvement with Social City (in addition to my "real-life" friends, for lack of a better term) and I can't get to know anything about most of them outside of the game context.

I'm sure other people have written about this phenomenon, and more eloquently than me, but it does seem like a system meant to bring people closer together can be alienating at times. Different people are gonna have different levels of openness with regard to their lives, and I naturally accept that - I've become more cognizant of what I say on the Internet in general as a result of Facebook - but in the end, I believe that social networks are pale substitutes for actual human interaction.

I have tried not to become blinded and deafened by all the hype surrounding David Fincher's film The Social Network. It has not been easy. When I first heard about it, I did not believe the formation of Facebook was a premise worthy of an engaging movie. I'm happy to say I was dead wrong.

Network is a dialogue-driven story in a manner that I found reminiscent of old-school Hollywood, in the days when rat-a-tat-tat back-and-forth between actors was commonplace. In the first fifteen minutes, I found myself wishing the cast would slow down, so rapid-fire do Aaron Sorkin's words come. Everyone feels like they're acting in the moment, but Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg embodies this. Coupled with his cold gaze, he's difficult to take your eyes off of. Is his portrayal of Zuckerberg 100% accurate? Probably not, and I admit, this does bother me to a certain extent, but it does make for compelling drama.

I follow the Oscar race every year, and right now, the popular belief is that Network could go all the way, and maybe it can. A lot depends, though, on whether it can sustain all the accolades it has received, from now until February. One of the trailers that ran in front of Network was for the Coen Brothers' True Grit, and that looked every bit as awesome, so we'll see what happens. Naturally I'm hoping for a race and not a blowout.

The theater I saw Network in is one I hadn't been to in years. I was prepared to pay the standard double-digit admission, but it turns out you can get in on Tuesdays for six bucks. They have a popcorn-and-soda deal, also for six, and on a whim I decided to take it - I normally don't buy anything more than candy of some sort, since movie food has become so damn expensive. All I got for my six bucks, though, was a small soda and a ludicrously tiny bag of popcorn that was gone by the end of the opening credits. It's back to Twizzlers from now on.