#thecheckin: Ep.29 - Antebellum Film School preview, Dakota Johnson’s comments on Streaming & Creativity
If you haven't, go out of your way to check it out. It looks like somebody gave the CW another ten or $20 million. I may have done a swell on this. I know I covered Marvel a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if I brought up Madame Webb, but long story short, the movie doesn't look like it has any ambition. It looks like the safest bet one could take
Some of the great authors of Sci-Fi and fantasy could just do a single standalone books, but now everything is in a series and it's great if you are a fan and you want to delve into that. But at the same time, I want variety of thought and exploration. I want a richness of, and sometimes I do want the series of 1012 books, even three books
Well, it's like our previous conversations that we've had before, where we talk about what exactly is the culture of film now and culture and the way people receive ideas. To be honest with you, I personally believe that they've done the Ala carte model for so long now, where you see every single episode of a tv show where they said they were going to release a new movie every Friday or something like that. I remember to hearing that that was what Netflix wanted
And you give it to an upcoming filmmaker, you give it to one that's pretty unique and you see what you can get from it. That's how you get a unique project out of an intellectual property like this. But since they don't think like this anymore, they think in the safe way, no one wants to gamble on anything. We're not getting any films that are. Nothing is going to be considered an american classic anymore
I feel like this is a weird visual but someone taking this incredibly intricate, beautifully complex thing and dipping it into a vat of acid and you pull it back out again and all that's left is the framing. Right? And now, instead of having that complex, nitty gritty, beautiful thing that we originally had and now we have the framework and this is what is, quote unquote, a movie or quote unquote art in this particular format today
There is no way that this is going to be a good movie. And I especially believe that given the comments that Dakota Johnson has been making, ultimately, I think the folks at the top that are greenlighting these ideas just, they think they know what they're supposed to be doing. And it's easy for me to say that they have no idea what they're doing while they continue to rake in cash
Christina, I have to reply to you here because in my comment, I mentioned that nobody knows who Madame Webb is. You have to read comics a lot, I feel, to know who she is. But I saw the trailer initially for the first time when I was in the theaters and it popped up and I missed, I think, at the beginning of the trailer. If I'm not wrong, I don't want to rewatch it right now, but show the Sony logo, right?
But it's different groups, probably, right, that the movie houses want to make money. They're following formulas. And so they're setting themselves up to fail. Then society looks at it and says, oh, well, this is the reason it's failing. It's because it's a woman lead. And do you know what I mean? It's like all of these different intricate pieces together and. Blitz. Blitz
But when you undercut it to these trending topics and buzz topics of social media, you're not leaning into anything unique or any unfamiliar spectrums that allow a person to see something and be entertained and be educated. You're just pandering to them at this point. And so, I don't know, I think the movie is, I'm with you. I'm going to see it. I'm not going to the movies to see it because I refuse to support it
National Lampoon is an example of it because it shows how when we get older, we continue to try to have the perfect holiday and try to have the perfect Christmas gathering to somehow relive that childhood innocence. And you can't. And I think that's the importance of it, is to be able to open our eyes to new scenarios. And superhero movies are not doing that anymore. And like what I told Taylor in a response to his well, all these characters exist in multiple genres
And it's a close up and it is the creepiest, most impulsive thing I've ever seen. And if I didn't know anything about that movie, I would always remember that poster that says a lot about the creativity involved. They're not doing it anymore. And that's what's disheartening, because all these characters are so unique in so many different ways
At least during that first phase, there has quickly become something that people just really want to avoid. You can see it in the ticket sales for some of the recent films, but I don't know anybody personally that has said, oh, I need to go see x movie on this day, on opening day. I certainly haven't met anybody that said they want to see Madame Webb on opening day