tv or movies

as thoughtful as anything you've ever posted

thanks!

write in for Angry Birds

Although the current percentage of quality television is probably just as infinitesimally small as the percentage of quality film, I have to go with TV. Hardly anyone making movies seems to be trying very hard anymore.

Tough. A few years ago I would've clicked "movies" without hesitation -- but TV is a much bigger part of my life these days.

stan for tv cause it's where i wanna work and i think it has infinitely more potential, but movies are clearly better

Hardly anyone making movies seems to be trying very hard anymore.

thread delivers on challop promise

I mean, it's not like I want to be right about that. I'm open to being put in my place and introduced to recent films that do anything exciting/interesting/different.

Tough. A few years ago I would've clicked "movies" without hesitation -- but TV is a much bigger part of my life these days

^^i'm kind of inclined to say this. i think TV has gotten p dope over the last decade. can't really say the same for movies.

movies are pretty awful. can't think of the last time i saw a movie that was successful as a piece of art; most of them barely function as pieces of entertainment.

i could talk about cultural values or changing economics or easy access to a couch potato like me, but really i'm voting 'tv' because good fiction always means more to me in the form of a sustained narrative like a novel or a tv series than in a one-shot 'you and these characters spend 2 hours together' movie.

I mean, it's not like I want to be right about that. I'm open to being put in my place and introduced to recent films that do anything exciting/interesting/different.

idk what you even mean. what movies do you like. are we talking about hollywood movies. lots of movies are really exciting, do interesting things, are different from movies of the past. what is it you're looking for, formal ingenuity or just quality or ???

jaymc otm and i certainly watch way more television these days than i do movies

youtube clips

nothing like the artistry in a video of a dude puking after falling off a rail-slide while his friends yell oh shit and damn son and then are like wait is he really hurt oh wow

gifs

yeah i tend to find the hollywood movie machine a little boring these days, so i would vote TV. there's probably a specific reason for this, tied in w/how TV is by design a medium that requires more patience w/storytelling and seems to allow for more experimentation and bizarre one-offs, plus it seems to be a medium where the best writers are drawn to. not sure when this change really occurred but you have to figure that 25 years ago something like 'justified' would be closer to 'hunter' than anything else. there's probably an element of 'sopranos' and 'oz', etc, breaking open cable and writers realizing that they would be given an opportunity to flex their creative muscles a little more with this new frontier, coupled with movies kinda aiming for more "opening weekend" flash. idk.

really i'm voting 'tv' because good fiction always means more to me in the form of a sustained narrative like a novel or a tv series than in a one-shot 'you and these characters spend 2 hours together' movie.

^ This, completely. Movies often feel too much like short stories to me. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with short stories. I just don't tend to get as involved with them unless they're doing something stellar within the boundaries of their brevity.

or TV gives writers some control and Hollywoodish movies don't

also two hour visual narratives as the standard film length is too fucking long w/out even getting into 20 hour che soderbergh marathons. a tv season is obv aggregate much longer but u watch in twenty minute or 45 minute bites which is the perfect length to sit down at one time and watch something

+ like watching something from my couch >>>>> sticky gross STADIUM theater w/ fucked up air conditioning in shitty seats

Also two hour visual narratives as the standard film length is too fucking long. or it has become too long because movies are atm relentlessly ggg plot-driven without any of the breathing room or atmosphere that once made two hours require, like, a sine wave of attention rather than a constant escalation until a tumbledown mawkishness in place of any sort of controlled dénouement. There are exceptions that prove the rule – maybe deliberately - but in my experience they mistake indulgent languorous and Scenes That Are Art™ for anything actual structure that would once have justified length.

voted movies, because I didn't assume n/a was talking about current tv and current movies in the OP

I'm looking at the highest rated movies of 2011 on Metacritic just so I don't feel like I'm talking completely out of my ass here. And, granted, there are a lot of things I haven't heard of or heard much about. But among stuff I'm familiar with, Moneyball, Harry Potter and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are all in the top ten. It's pretty weak tea in terms of anything that people are going to hold up as a paragon of filmmaking even ten years down the road.

+ like watching something from my couch >>>>> sticky gross STADIUM theater w/ fucked up air conditioning in shitty seats

Nah, I still love the big-screen theatre experience.

i cannot remember the last movie i saw in theaters that i didn't check my watch (lol jk i don't wear a watch, my cell phone) during

we need an entire year to settle this poll?

is that any different to the level of immersion you have at home, or is it just that when you do that at home you can get up & go wander around? cinemas offer the kind of immersion that a bunch of things need & aren't the same without, i think
xp

home is better both ways. when i really need to immerse i can make it as comfortable as i want, get some food that isn't made of concession stand fingers and stretch out on my couch and chill out with some CENSOREDILLEGALSUBSTANCES and just enjoy. also, if i need to, i can stand up and walk around and do other stuff esp if the flick doesn't really need all of my attention. did i miss the point of Bridesmaids bc i wasn't in the room for every joek? one advantage movies definitely have is that they get me out of the apt and they're an easy date night option when we've gotten my sister to watch the babby and need something to do that only takes a few hours. but even then i'd rather get dinner or go to a different event. besides rarely is there a film showing that i really want to see.

I don't watch a lot of new movies but I think the 'tv renaissance' is totally overblown. there are a handful of shows w/ movie-esque budgets. almost all tv is bad. really bad. worse than watching a bad movie.

I don't think tv has the same place in our culture that it did back in the day and I don't feel like I'm missing out on much now that I don't watch it*. but there's nothing that's ever gonna be as universal or essential as the simpsons and I think producing and financing 'good tv' will becoming more and more difficult as fewer people watch.

*except breaking bad

er minus one 'but'

voted movies without hesitation because this:

I don't watch a lot of new movies but I think the 'tv renaissance' is totally overblown. there are a handful of shows w/ movie-esque budgets. almost all tv is bad. really bad. worse than watching a bad movie.

is absolutel otfm. I spend most of my viewing time watching movies, usually older stuff. TV is really painful.

i haven't seen a movie this year that was as funny, or true, as the second season of Louis. if you guys have seen one, tell me about it bc i would like to watch it.

Maybe if I had a different (bigger?) entertainment set-up, but there's no way I'm as immersed at home as I am in a darkened movie theater.

I'll admit that one advantage to watching at home is that I can pause to use the bathroom instead of sitting in discomfort for an hour because I'm afraid I'll miss something, as I did last weekend when I saw Shame. But the best movie experiences for me are ones where there aren't any interruptions at all.

like I am 99.9% certain that the totally insane but not particularly well-made slasher flick "Silent Night, Deadly Night" that I watched last night was better than anything that was on any available TV channel.

Now let's not go overboard here.

wire, sopranos, breaking bad, mad men, louie, west wing (first 3 seasons or so), party down, eastbound and down (1st season), 30 Rock (first 2 seasons) parks & friggin rec >>> than 98.9% of all movies i've seen in the last several years. it's possible i've missed some really good ones due to laziness but

I like movies but I watch more TV now, and I have been enjoying TV more than movies (for lots of the reasons already stated in this thread). Part of the change is access - with Netflix streaming and iTunes and Amazon and Hulu and all that, I have access to a lot of TV shows that I either couldn't get to before, or didn't want to mess with because of commercials/having to be home at the right time.

Maybe it's better to differentiate between TV as "what is playing per the channel channel at any given time" and TV as "serialized episodic visual entertainment." Because I'm thinking of it as the latter, and even including stuff like web-based series and stuff like Louis CK's $5 download comedy special.

Because TV as defined by what is air right now at any given moment is largely crap, but by the second definition, it's pretty fantastic.

Also, strangely, I have noticed a recent shift in my tastes wherein I prefer movies to be pleasant escapist entertainment, while I like TV shows that are challenging and complex and sometimes difficult to watch. It used to be the exact opposite - movies were for engaging my brain, while TV was for shutting it down.

almost all tv is bad. really bad. worse than watching a bad movie.

I agree with this 100%, and I still vote for TV over movies. Because the small percentage of really good TV is really good. The better stuff is sort of becoming more of a niche product, but I think we're on the cusp of the television industry being hit with new and different viewer expectations in much the same way the recording industry was hit several years back, so I think you're going to see an increasing number of experimental models that cater more to those niche viewers (a la Netflix's distribution of new Arrested Development episodes). I think judging TV on the basis of the material that thousands of channels scrape together in order to have something to broadcast 24/7/365 is as wrongheaded as judging music on the basis of the fact that you can hear "Moves Like Jagger" three times an hour on the radio. There are ways other than mindlessly gawping at some stupid channel for hours to engage with the medium, and I doubt that's how most people who enjoy television enjoy television.

And jenny more or less beat me to it while I was writing.

Whoever you are, you have excellent and well-reasoned opinions.

Lol at the main anti-TV people being like "I haven't watched TV in years." way to invalidate your opinion.

sorry let me go buy a new tv just to make sure I still don't like tv

yeah it's pretty much impossible to watch tv today w/out having an actual set there are no other routes/models of watching television things over the last ten years

Lol at the main anti-TV people being like "I haven't watched TV in years." way to invalidate your opinion.

I turn on the TV pretty much every night after dinner and 9 times out of 10 there is nothing decent on that I haven't seen before. There are no new episodes of the Sopranos, or Mad Men, or 30 Rock. I have seen all the Simpsons and South Park episodes I ever want to see. Always Sunny's seasons are like 10 episodes long or something...? I am always better off getting a movie from the local shop.

TV, by a lot. Even in novels I love, I don't attach emotionally to characters, but in really good TV I do. The episode of Louie this season when he professes his love to Pamela Adler was more powerful to me than any (new) movie I've seen in years. And Luck, last night, looked better than any recent movie I can think of.

I'll totally cop to this being an attention-span and setting thing, too - watching DVDs at home, I'm too connected with the outside world. I'll start looking up the actors or directors or something that catches my interest. Can't do that in a theater so I'd much rather see movies in one - but what makes it to theaters (even the Angelikas/Landmarks near me) usually isn't worth paying $20 plus gas to see.

and I dunno, I guess I don't see much TV because if I'm looking to get into a new show there's almost always something highly touted that I haven't seen. I bought the first season of Breaking Bad recently and I haven't seen 90% of the Community run that's on Hulu now.

dumbest fucking fucking poll ever

I do not watch/enjoy the thing you are comparing with the thing I do watch/enjoy = 'dumbest fucking fucking poll ever'

because the answer is obvious or because there can't be made a valid comparison or because you can't choose or because you require the correct capitalisation of abbreviations or why, exactly?

tv's been better than movies for years, imo

that's nice

bye

(what really sucks is music)

everything but the internet sucks

true!

Morbs...never change.

xp!

!

i'm feeling like it could be with dramas, esp including like foreign films, docs, whatever kind of movie hip in-the-know ppl like, movies are still superior to tv. but in terms of laughs i'd love to hear from someone who believes there are more lols to be had from movies

internet has more lols than tv

I agree w/ you tho, film has always been a shitty medium for comedy

i dunno 'drive' had em rollin in the isles

i'd probably answer internet in a tv or movies or internet poll

drive is serious face ryan gosling movie right?

p much co-signing morbs here BUT
it's frustrating to me that no-one has really mentioned any movies (apart from bridesmaids), either those that were good, back in the day, or are good, now, BUT ALSO
it's also frustrating to me that louie is being held up as the competition for film because i do like that show an awful lot and in fact as much as i like a lot of cinema. but that's a credit to the show, rather than a way to denigrate film, & it's being made of something that imo is like the apex of tv.

i'm feeling like it could be with dramas, esp including like foreign films, docs, whatever kind of movie hip in-the-know ppl like, movies are still superior to tv. but in terms of laughs i'd love to hear from someone who believes there are more lols to be had from movies

yeah i don't really feel like we were even arguing if the debate was 'comedy tv' or 'comedy film'

so really my answer is tv but not bc i'm watching more tv these days and more bc i'm just watching way more comedies these days. i'm so much less interested in most dramas including tv dramas.

still all this tv renaissance stuff is like, people naming a dozen shows. I am sure there were at least 20 movies I didn't see this year that I would have enjoyed very much, it's hard to figure out which 20 those would be, but still. whereas the tv renaissance is like, people talking about *the same shows* cause really outside of those shows tv is horrible, the worst it has ever been.

your argument is basically that bc you're sure movies also have 20 things you'd enjoy very much, that means tvs 20 great things doesn't excuse tv for being terrible? like, there are still shitty movies all over the place and it's the worst it has ever been so what's your point?

i want to insert something molly lambert said in a rambling blog entry about how tv is for women and movies are for men, but that sounds impossibly glib because i don't remember exactly how she said it. the context was that she thought tv had given women more opportunities to create/direct/write than the movie industry has. if that sounds dumb it is my fault, not molly lambert's.

in the longer term tv is gonna get more internety and the cable networks are screwed and it's prob gonna be good for short comedies that can be made cheaply and not great for $2m an episode dramas.

i am basically morbs here but for me this is like a poll of snacks vs. meals.

i eat snacks way more these days!
eating snacks is so much more comfortable!
i can do it on my couch!
lots of REALLY GOOD snacks out there today!

what a weird comparison between something you need to live situated in various models of ritual eating that span human existence and entertainment made by ppl in relatively novel human industries

There are definitely a lot more prominent female tv writers than movie writers

your argument is basically that bc you're sure movies also have 20 things you'd enjoy very much, that means tvs 20 great things doesn't excuse tv for being terrible?

my argument is I have seen like 10 of those '20 great things' and I liked 4 of them, and there aren't any more hiding on some obscure cable channel, whereas there are always dozens of good movies being made across the world

12 tv shows * 15 hours of viewing apiece = 174 hours of quality viewing = 87 movies

+ 40 movies worth of commercials

only film has sent me into hypnagogic states of mind where i commune with being blah blah, no amount of awesome plot from a tv show can compete with that.

xp to mordy you're kind of proving my suspicion that people who think tv is superior or whatever have no imagination

there are no commercials when you download everything from the internet

ya which is why tv is doomed

because even people who like it hate it

only film has sent me into hypnagogic states of mind where i commune with being blah blah, no amount of awesome plot from a tv show can compete with that.

xp to mordy you're kind of proving my suspicion that people who think tv is superior or whatever have no imagination

i can imagine you communing with being blah blah

http://www.comicbookbrain.com/_imagery/_2008_03_21/kinetic_man_buster_keaton_440.jpg

i'm not comparing older cinema comedies with older tv comedies. i'm only comparing contemporaneous ones.

it also helps that nothing on tv has ever come close to what movie art has pretty consistently achieved for what, 6-7 decades more or less?

why are you only comparing contemporaneous ones

well - we're talking specifically about comedies right? i think you could make a pretty compelling argument that there has been a cultural shift re comedy from cinema to tv that has been going on for a long time + is particularly obvious right now in history

+ spitballing probably has something to do with where vaudeville traditions + performers + institutions gravitated to at different times of history. like marx bros are hilarious but they're not making any marx bros movies (or anything as funny) in 2011

I don't think that's necessarily true? if anything 'comedies' probably have a lower % of tv viewership than they did in the 90s

why are you talking about what they're making in 2011. xp

idk, bc that's how i interpreted the poll question obv?

but if you think the question is as stupid as asking 'snacks or meals?' why even engage w/ my opinion on any level?

also iirc during this golden age for tv comedy two and a half men was the most popular show in the country

+ the most popular movie is the country was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2?

The Hangover Part II was the most popular film comedy

i never asked to engage with your opinion on any level. xp

I don't watch a lot of new movies but I think the 'tv renaissance' is totally overblown. there are a handful of shows w/ movie-esque budgets. almost all tv is bad. really bad. worse than watching a bad movie.

the fact that you're talking about "budgets" as if that has a direct relationship to quality says it all imo

still all this tv renaissance stuff is like, people naming a dozen shows. I am sure there were at least 20 movies I didn't see this year that I would have enjoyed very much, it's hard to figure out which 20 those would be, but still. whereas the tv renaissance is like, people talking about *the same shows* cause really outside of those shows tv is horrible, the worst it has ever been.

i did a list of my top 50 favorite tv shows this year. not that most of the choices on it wouldn't get plenty of snorts of derision, and i wouldn't even argue that many of them are anything other than effective light entertainment. but just because most people talking about the 'rv renaissance' are still afraid of most things outside HBO and AMC doesn't mean there aren't pockets of good stuff all over the dial.

really tho, people don't watch that much comedy compared to the seinfeld/friends era

nobody actually watches community except 20 people whiney follows on twitter

xp tbh all I remember about you is that you like two and a half men

still all this tv renaissance stuff is like, people naming a dozen shows. I am sure there were at least 20 movies I didn't see this year that I would have enjoyed very much, it's hard to figure out which 20 those would be, but still. whereas the tv renaissance is like, people talking about *the same shows* cause really outside of those shows tv is horrible, the worst it has ever been.

― iatee, Tuesday, December 13, 2011 1:02 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

maybe you don't realize this because you don't watch tv but tv shows come in "seasons" where they come back year after year, so the reason people talk about the same shows is because the same shows stay on tv for multiple years

oh shit I was zinged bad

seasons, gotta write that one down

y'all

2 1/2 men was not in my top 50 shows fwiw

sorry for being unnecessarily sarcastic but that was a pretty silly point. people keep talking about the same tv shows because new episodes come out with new things happening so there's new stuff to talk about.

"new" things "new" stuff

tv turned into sweary soap opera so slowly i never even noticed

i always forget about tv show, that i watch them, i usually enjoy one episode and forget to ever watch it again. i mean there are exceptions but

movies are art but tv is more fun to argue abt on the internet

well most movies arent art really but at least a couple a year seem to manage it

movies usually only waste 2 hours of yr time

tv is incapable of beauty is really the problem, some shows tell interesting stories tho like

i like long movies i do get the appeal of #sustainednarrative, also the way that you can argue w/ppl abt w/e this weeks spinning top is, did it fall or not blah blah blah

i think movies are better at showing you worlds, like 'margin call', despite the reduced time is probably more 'informative' but tv can be better at 'telling', letting oyu live inside the world it creates

i liked buffy

i voted tv but i am blind to/suspicious of cinematic beauty tbh so i think i'm just missing the thing Lamp's talking about

I think the problem w/ sustainednarrative tv is that there are usually so many writers involved that someone ends up fucking it up along the way, it's a lot easier for a movie to be perfect than a tv series

this is like the novels v poetry debate that kept rearing its head when i was in grad school, except novels and poetry are better than tv and movies.

nah modern novels are about as bad as modern movies

or about as good

haha now i get why the movie partisans are all mad at you

i actually kind of agree that movies are theoretically better at being beautiful and perfect than tv shows but i honestly can't remember the last time i saw a movie that was actually beautiful or perfect

xpost lol

novels are tv in this analogy anyway. movies are poetry.

what does 'modern novels are abt as bad as modern movies' mean

proportionally about as likely to make you feel/think something amazing

which isn't really true, novels are better than movies in that sense. i don't really want to drag novels/poetry into this tbh

i liked middlemarch

sorry it just seemed similar to me. the thing people say about novels is that they're character driven but baggy and imperfect and poetry is about the pure beauty of language or whatever. that argument is annoying.

xp <3

by "people" i basically mean "this one professor"

novels are also stuff girls like/write, whereas poetry is the important stuff dudes like/write

obviously that's not actually true it's just the stuff that creeps into the argument

stuff

i actually kind of agree that movies are theoretically better at being beautiful and perfect than tv shows but i honestly can't remember the last time i saw a movie that was actually beautiful or perfect

― n/a, Monday, December 12, 2011 9:49 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

yeah this is how i feel.

i also think its interesting the way both are/were (pre internet/vhs/whatever) communal experiences, but in different ways. tv shows and the water cooler and movies and everybody alone together in the dark. i mean i'm drawn more to that, the dark room, the whirring projector, the laughter or sobbing or gasps of the rest of the audience kindof piercing into the isolation of the cinemagoer. the way tv shows force you to stay with them to keep coming back, they pull on your time, whereas a movie burrows into your brain in a different way. its singular maybe because its a single thing. i think of that shot in texas chainsaw massacre where hes spinning around with his chainsaw or the red coat in don't look now or i'm not sure, but just the way the images burn without needing to increasingly reveal themselves.

man we need to get some mcluhan in here

voted movies, if you want a long and engaging story w/ a complex plot and multidimensional characters go read a book

peace

TV would be my answer for most of the reasons already mentioned and also because I really love good comedy - most of the good stuff is on TV; there is very rarely a truly funny movie out, for whatever reason. I find a lot of incidental everyday stuff funny (Peep Show, etc) which would not suit the movie format.

the everyday world is also all around you though i mean

like right there

and also over there

eh mcluhan

also with tv you can pretend it's going to go on forever and conquer death etc.

also ad breaks

well most movies arent art really but at least a couple a year seem to manage it

"a couple," or 40 or 50 I saw this year

(that admittedly mostly don't play in huge swaths of America, but u know discs/downloads etc)

u would consider 40-50 movies from this last year "art"?

it could be so. i don't know if i've ever even seen that many new movies in the year. seems like a huge number tho

I'd say about 600 feature films were exhibited for a week or more in NYC this year.

for sure, but that means that something like 6% of movies are art

film as an art form exists outside of those 600 feature films

tv does not exist outside of tv

tho it can be show outside of tv

I think it can be summed up like this for me: I love my favorite movies more than I love most good TV series (w/probably the exception of, like, Larry Sanders or Kids In The Hall...which, incidentally, I remember Morbs also adoring!), but I think there might be more television that I love than movies that I love. And I daresay that the television I love has been far more impactful on a number of levels.

i stuck a noodle up my nose

tv's got the bewbs

lol aspie rube shut-ins

for sure, but that means that something like 6% of movies are art

Do you really think TV can claim a better average?

(For the record I think of the best of both mediums as essential, w/ different strengths.)

tv = less letters so it wins

I think the problem w/ sustainednarrative tv is that there are usually so many writers involved that someone ends up fucking it up along the way, it's a lot easier for a movie to be perfect than a tv series

not all shows work like this, not all shows have to work like this. actually can you clarify that you're not assuming that a show's story is tossed around from one writer to the next episode by episode without any leadership or communication, cause i'm not sure

serialized television getting better will happen as long as shows keep getting more centralized leadership from talented writers (ie louie, the semi-auteurs of HBO). but having a room filled with talented writers backing the author up and providing salient perspectives and filling in the empty spaces and writing glorious dialogue where the author might be better at story = potential greater than most glorious films. rarely reached tho

also wtf, why is television less capable of achieving moments of beauty? it has happened much less with television but it's a young and slowly growing medium

no it's not

and i agree that tv isn't in a renaissance at all, ppl just have too low expectations for it. if breaking bad is the best drama on television we're definitely not in a renaissance. i think tv has to outgrow its current format fully for that to happen

tv will not outgrow its current format it will just stop being ""tv"" and start being media that gets put on the internet in various formats

iatee can you try explaining why television is inherently incapable of cinematic-level beauty

it's not inherently incapable it's just even less likely due to the way it makes $

xp so why exactly will internetized tv fail to continue growing? piracy?

ya i agree, but the way it makes $ is evolving

piracy, long-term problems w/ making money through traditional tv commercials, people being increasingly unwilling to pay for cable due to the way we consume media

movies are pirated too, i don't think it's as damaging as you think it is. advertising doesn't need to be a part of tv's future -- premium cable networks are still getting by fine without it. i'm an optimist but i think tv will get a successful itunes treatment before it fails and dies. and subscriber cable will still support networks.

er, cable networks i mean. ABC and them will do what they do and not necessarily have a major impact on the evolution of cable.

hollywood will have problems too but people are willing to pay for 'the moviegoing experience', the 'tv experience' can be pirated. premium cable networks still depend on having a huge base of people w/ large cable packages who 'watch tv', I don't think that will exist in the same sense in 20 years.

I would love to see Louie become a more prevalent model for future shows. Made on the cheap by one central dude with complete creative control. I feel like we'll see a lot more of this as subscription fees for various services increasingly supplant advertising dollars (there's a pretty direct causal link explaining the disproportionately high level of quality of HBO's original programming, f'rinstance). That day can't come soon enough, by christ.

fwiw, i get more pleasure out of watching episodes of breaking bad and parks and recreation than i do out of watching most movies. 10 years ago, i would have said the same thing about the sopranos, 5 years before that i would've said the same thing about the x files and 5 years before that twin peaks and the early episodes of the simpsons. TV has gotten better over the past ten years, i agree, but even before that in the "dark ages" there were TV shows i liked way more than most movies ... so it's a long way of saying that yeah the tv renaissance is kinda overblown.

besides, even most good tv shows lose steam after the third season. it's cliche, but it's true and even more true nowadays.

and i don't even ask for "art" in either movies or TV shows ... i just ask to be entertained!

the thing is that a 'tv show' fundamentally just doesnt seem that concerned w/imagery or the way it looks &c &c and in order to be successful you can be so ugly and formulaic, no one watches 'seinfeld' for the way it looked but its about as good a sitcom as you can make. even shows that had real visual style and grace like 'the sopranos', some of their best episodes are still about dialogue, character, plot and some of their weakest episodes were the most cinematic. (whats the one w/carmela in paris called?)

you could make like non-narrative tv that addressed the role of the camera but then would it really be a 'tv show'? its not even that tv is junk food or a narrower format or w/e its just... its not concerned w/images and the senses the way film can be, its sorta a hybrid medium that has its own strengths but its limited too i guess

xp can't really pirate a big-screen football game w friends, families are never going to crowd around the computer screen to watch their shows, etc. daytime talk shows, late night shows, soaps, sports, maybe even the crap reality shows on Bravo, i don't think these things will ever be fully relegated to the internet. and if they do, they'll find a way to strive there. there's no reason a netflix model can't basically replace cable as long as it costs as much as cable. if/when free ad-based sites like hulu either die out or become entirely subscription-based, that model would make sense. and piracy hasn't killed netflix, etc

basically, there are a million things that can happen. tv's survival and continued evolution (haven't even mentioned the internet's capability to foster low-budget indies) is more likely than its death imo

TV has sports.

Newer digital TVs with a good sound system kind of makes going to a theatre not as big as big a deal as it once was.

the thing is that a 'tv show' fundamentally just doesnt seem that concerned w/imagery or the way it looks

this is a trend based in a history of ad-based, network-meddled-with television, not an inherent fundamental truth. a tv show isn't a sentient thing, and if a showrunner/head writer wants and has the capability to concern the show w imagery, no reason why not. i would if i could! also not buying that there aren't shows right now that achieve beautiful imagery. even the x-files was pretty capable of it at points.

people already watch stuff on their ipads / the internet is easier than ever to connect to someone's tv screen. owning a large tv screen, computer screen or projector or whatever =/= "tv"

xp to lamp

its limits are 100% commercial I think, something is a tv show because it is X minutes long (w/ or w/o commercials) - beyond that there is nothing really that defines tv as an art form when I watch a daily show clip on youtube it's not 'watching tv' but if I watch the whole episode it is.

xp to my last post: i'm no film historian but i imagine you might be able to say the same thing about film in the 20s/30s, before studio productions were overtaken by (at least the concept of) the auteur

voted tv just to enrage morbs like everyone else

its limits are 100% commercial I think, something is a tv show because it is X minutes long (w/ or w/o commercials) - beyond that there is nothing really that defines tv as an art form when I watch a daily show clip on youtube it's not 'watching tv' but if I watch the whole episode it is.

true, but this seems like arguing the difference between a short story and a novella and a novel and a flash fiction.

television is a medium that includes serialized stories, mini-series, made-for-tv movies, etc. not to mention a million other bits of non-fictional media. so maybe the comparison between "tv" and movies doesn't work unless you specify what kind of tv. all i know is that film is basically always 90-120 minutes, while television offers the possibility of every single other narrative length/scope, and that is necessary.

cmon bro nothing is sadder than when 'breaking bad' tries to get cinematic or visually inventive its just like jeez tell yr stories, this is so embarrassing grandpa

also film was p much always visual tv is abt words but it cant actually use words as effectively as books

i know i basically said that too upthread, but tv just uses words differently. also words are better than images.

sure thats why books are better than movies but cmon

haha wait are you granting my five-year-old "argument" that words are better than images? i am really embarrassed that i still think that, but i do. maybe there's something wrong with my eyes.

I think the fact that tv doesn't have the image-thing going for it is mostly due to realities of cost and the production schedule. but again, just like the fixed time, it proves to be an artform that can only be defined by the limits of a budget.

it doesn't have to be like that tho? i think i am alone here in seeing serial tv drama as a very young thing. not in terms of years alive but actual development.

for the record i think that breaking bad is an overrated show and i agree that its visuals are not very great

the sopranos had plenty of both and time and money in its later seasons its just intrinsic in the way a tv show communicates its purpose like i sd the most 'cinematic' episodes of the sopranos were not nec its most 'successful' or enjoyable, tv tells stories and presents its ideas diff than film

does every beautiful image in film exists because of a high budget tho? or even most of them? it's a subjective thing of course. not sure why this is such a huge deal either, didn't know beautiful images are the only judge of a film

above: ya your last part is what i'm getting at, agree. but that doesn't mean television in incapable of 'cinematic' beauty. maybe just indicative that the good cinematographers are in film or that tv suffers too much from serialization, which could possibly be rooted out eventually (like it was in novels).

no Lamp's right what's good about tv is not the cinematic beauty stuff.

an artform that can only be defined by the limits of a budget.

how cynical and rong is this? i mean, apply this to Taxi

to clarify my second part so it makes sense -- i think weeding out ad-based broadcasts = less importance given to serialization = dramas running more fluidly with episode lines blurred and more like chapters in a book that finds chapters arbitrary. i think there might come a point where seasons of television are released all at once rather than week-by-week, which would make tv dramas more novelistic in scope and cinematic in presentation.

how cynical and rong is this? i mean, apply this to Taxi

how long were episodes of taxi? how much time did they have to make new episodes? that's all I meant.

ernest dickerson and agnieszka holland directed several episodes of the wire (which most certainly had some "cinematic" style). neither is ingmar bergman or martin scorsese, but juice and europaaa, europa were solid movies!

Newer digital TVs with a good sound system kind of makes going to a theatre not as big as big a deal as it once was.

I love seeing things in cinemas because it can be so joyous to surrender to being part of ~an audience~

I hear the director of Bridesmaids is thinking about doing some slumming in tv yo

I heard that about the star, too.

want to cosign lamp's points abt movies doing imagery etc better and tv doing plot, character etc better.

Why this could ever be a point in favour of movies escapes me.

bridesmaids is tv xxpost

(oh and stupid thread)

(but movies obv.)

also there is no golden silent era of television

films every time. i've never fully been able to get into tv as a regular thing (wasn't brought up in a tv-heavy household, living in a few houses with no tv at all completely weaned me off the habit). i actively resent it when tv is default "background noise" in a house.

i'm kind of all-or-nothing when it comes to getting into things, and tv series aren't very conducive to that. remembering to be around for it every week is a massive commitment! and the minute i miss an episode that's it, have to stop completely. last time i tried to do this was the lost/desperate housewives era and i didn't even make it to the end of the first series.

which leads into the most important point to me - films = socialising for me. you go out to the cinema, meet friends, maybe go for a meal or a drink, you talk about it afterwards. tv = a block on socialising. instead of going out you have to stay in at the same time every week.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Lex have you heard of VCR, Sky+, Tivo, iPlayer even? Totally removes the need to be in a room at the moment something is broadcast.

VCR - never could work out how to record on videos
sky+ - haha I haven't heard of this
tivo - didn't think we had this in the UK?
iplayer - oh god this just makes me too lackadaisical about catching up and then when i finally get round to it the programme's been taken off iplayer the day before. EVERY TIME.

bear in mind i genuinely struggle with, like, turning the tv on and changing the channel

the absence of time constraint for TV means even the best shows just blather along until they stop being profitable, plot - not that i'm a big fan of plot but still - is just a structuralist sausage machine now designed to keep the show junkies strung along as long as poss

Twin Peaks kinda foresaw, satirised, then invented this method

and if that's yr bag fine, whatever, but i have other time-murdering habits to sustain like video games kthx

goddamn threads are long these days

i got up to this part:

I am sure there were at least 20 movies I didn't see this year that I would have enjoyed very much, it's hard to figure out which 20 those would be, but still

this is a big problem with great, say, iranian movies, or indie budget flicks - they are just not available, even on the pirate bay, much less reviewed or written about; there is a huge failure to push these things up into anyone's consciousness even though the internet is supposed to make distribution and associated "conversation" smooth as butter

speaking of video games, i love video games, but i have this weird feeling that i'm "wasting time" when i play them - even the very best games - which i almost never feel with TV or movies, even when they are terrible

i feel more or less the opposite re: tv

but then i feel like most drama series are written by fanboys and slash authors now and again i just can't be bothered to engage - season-long plot arcs and never-solved "mysteries" that are made up as they go along, whole thing really designed for DVD buyers rather than an audience that might wanna casually watch the odd ep of something if they happen to be in that evening

shdn't be on this ting hungover i'm just gonna go full mental about the evil that is 21st century tv

i hear that. to bring it back to videogames again there is maybe a need for the "pick up and play" model to have a renaissance, for us casual viewers

re: time-wasting, even if it's some horrible shit on TV like "i'm a celebrity get me out of here" i feel like i'm connecting up with the unseen millions out there who have also seen it, or are seeing it; particularly if some of those unseen millions actually LIKE IT (which some of them must) i feel like i'm getting some purchase on their mentality, which feels socially useful - and curiously i don't have this feeling of socially useful communion with videogames, even online multiplayer games

i get no sense of social usefulness from video games really but a deep brain-tickling pleasure, whereas i don't get much sense of social engagement from tv either but i feel like i'm slaughtering hecatombs of precious time. i'm purely talking from my own perspective here tho, i've got no judgement on people who love their tv, if i was of a mind to smoke weed nowadays i'd probly suck up a lot more tv than i do

live sport is the most tv i watch, tbph, i'm taking 'tv' as dvd boxsets and d/l series, i'm assuming everyone is too?

this is a big problem with great, say, iranian movies, or indie budget flicks - they are just not available, even on the pirate bay, much less reviewed or written about; there is a huge failure to push these things up into anyone's consciousness even though the internet is supposed to make distribution and associated "conversation" smooth as butter

― his venerable escutcheon, Tuesday, 13 December 2011 11:05 (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

this is interesting - do you mean there's no canon for arcane stuff, outside of individuals enthusiasm? bc i think that's kinda true. i think it is harder to embrace things that are imperfect in a climate where there's such a voluble conversation about the 'best' things, so repping for some kind of idiosyncratic if nobly failing personal work is hard to get traction for.

i think there might come a point where seasons of television are released all at once rather than week-by-week, which would make tv dramas more novelistic in scope and cinematic in presentation.

― zachylon, Tuesday, December 13, 2011 1:11 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

why would this business model ever make sense

boxsets

schlump no i mean that there are an unbelievable number of great movies that get made every year that we will NEVER know about (to take just one of many reasons: the producer doesn't have enough money to subtitle it) whereas there is very little great TV that passes unnoticed

actually maybe that last bit's not true; there have been approximately one (1) metric fvckton of interesting-looking docs on BBC4 that i haven't watched, not to mention an incredible miniseries like "the promise" that i only saw because i randomly happened upon someone's tweet about it

by the way i watched "outnumbered" last night - cause it was on - and it was much worse than i had imagined

ahhhhhh ha ha ha ilx! you almost fooled me into caring about this.

anyway the answer is tv because it's more like books

schlump no i mean that there are an unbelievable number of great movies that get made every year that we will NEVER know about (to take just one of many reasons: the producer doesn't have enough money to subtitle it) whereas there is very little great TV that passes unnoticed

ah okay. i mean this just reminds me of life!, though. & is maybe a negative result of the generally positive democratisation of film, the opening up of film to people who aren't necessarily w/a studio, who can shoot digitally &c&c&c. but yeah obv this is true. but i have hope for this though. the internet has engendered a swing back to curatorial input, & to people being able to defer to experts' choices rather than just listen to the loudest voices; there are even those communities who'll subtitle the unsubtitled film for wider consumption. I think that there are going to be, somewhere, bbc4 programmers or Iranian film nerds doing some of the legwork is what we have to invest in, but i still think escaping the shadow of the canon is a big deal -- there is that guy writing a column for film comment about lost hollywood-era ""auteurs"" (prob not his term), arguing that a lot of the basic spadework hasn't been done in watching through & organising that stuff in postmortem

Poll Closing Date: Saturday, December 29, 2012

TV preferred by clowns who don't know what year it is.

How many of you watch TV and movies at home while doing other things, btw? cuz none of that counts.

the answer is tv because it's more like books

i do really like the way characters in a TV series live in your headspace for weeks or months

this is a big problem with great, say, iranian movies, or indie budget flicks - they are just not available, even on the pirate bay, much less reviewed or written about

100% RONG

well karagarga won't give me an invite

morbs i only watch tv while jacking off over dennis perrin tweets, i highly recommend

u might as well be ethan or someone just as boring

morbs i know there are a few specialist outlets that write about totally unobtanium films but i don't read them for the most part, why because i would have to be available at 2:30pm in new york city on a particular wednesday in order to see them and you know, i work for a living so the whole exercise would just make me cry with futility

sorta otm ^

another reason i'm giving TV the edge is that even the artiest shows have to be middlebrow to an extent, they have to straddle the line between art and product; like stand-up comedy they have to at least attempt to work on a functional level as entertainment regardless of whatever other artistic ambitions they have, whereas by my lights movies have been shoved towards opposite poles, either machine-tooled product or plangent meditation on postmodern subjectivity (or whatever)

guys lets start our own TV channel

cd call it F U Tube

another reason i'm giving TV the edge is that even the artiest shows have to be middlebrow to an extent, they have to straddle the line between art and product; like stand-up comedy they have to at least attempt to work on a functional level as entertainment regardless of whatever other artistic ambitions they have, whereas by my lights movies have been shoved towards opposite poles, either machine-tooled product or plangent meditation on postmodern subjectivity (or whatever)

i would hate to be arguing for art refusing to try to engage people, but i think in a world in which there are ~a bunch of other shows~, a bunch of other films, it's okay to have outliers & idiosyncratic shows/films. to invoke louis ck's efforts re: making louie, he was mad at the punch-up & grooming that was done to tv to make it broadly pleasing. cinema is doing god's work imo in plangently-meditating-on society

The majority of anti-TV peeps in this thread seem to dislike TV because they don't know how to do it right. Because I actually agree with a lot of their points (TV sucks if you just sit and passively watch it for 8 hours at a time, it sucks to be locked into a schedule of watching shows, it's hard to judge the quality of quality television when you haven't actively engaged with television in 5+ years, etc.). To me, this isn't that far off from someone saying that they hate movies because people are always getting shot in the theater they go to. Or that every time they get bored and go see some random movie they're always disappointed. There are different and better ways to enjoy it.

An hour of programming on ABC Family, for instance, is almost enough to make me wish that Western culture didn't exist.

Tv, by a lot. The only movies I like these day are big budget action/scifi flicks or documentaries.

The majority of anti-TV peeps in this thread seem to dislike TV because they don't know how to do it right. Because I actually agree with a lot of their points (TV sucks if you just sit and passively watch it for 8 hours at a time, it sucks to be locked into a schedule of watching shows, it's hard to judge the quality of quality television when you haven't actively engaged with television in 5+ years, etc.). To me, this isn't that far off from someone saying that they hate movies because people are always getting shot in the theater they go to. Or that every time they get bored and go see some random movie they're always disappointed. There are different and better ways to enjoy it.

I have never had a problem w/ gun violence at the theaters I go to fwiw

bringing a gun to a movie theater is pretty bad gun etiquette

speaking of video games, i love video games, but i have this weird feeling that i'm "wasting time" when i play them - even the very best games - which i almost never feel with TV or movies, even when they are terrible

didnt we have a long & p interesting thread abt this like a year or so ago on real ilx???

like stand-up comedy they have to at least attempt to work on a functional level as entertainment

Ingmar Bergman was an entertainer, and a good one.

why do we have to choose?

serious question.

agreed, morbius!

(i was talking broadly about current movies)

xxpost

You have to choose because we're going to shoot one of them in the street like a dog.

put movies out of their misery, and do it in 3-D smellovision

Jean-Luc Godard is an entertainer. He put a llama and a mule at a gas station in his latest film.

Best part is when the mule says to his friend "do you believe in god?" and the other animal nods and says "yes, I follow the dali llama."

damn those Navajo subtitles

And then the camera pans to a llama sporting an eccentric upturned mustache.

Anna Karina and Jean Paul Belmondo were told by Godard to put a mule in the barn. When they led the mule over to the barn, they decided that the mule's ears were to long and he would not fit into the barn. So they put their heads together and decided to get a ladder and a saw and saw the overhead of the barn out so the mule could walk right on in the barn.

They began their job and Godard walked over to them and asked them why they were sawing out the top of the barn. When they told him the mule's ears were too long to go into the barn, he said:

"Why don't you just get a shovel and dig the dirt out of the ground below, then the mule could walk on in"

Anna and Jean Paul looked at each other and said "We told you his ears were too long, not his feet."

The majority of anti-TV peeps in this thread seem to dislike TV because they don't know how to do it right. Because I actually agree with a lot of their points (TV sucks if you just sit and passively watch it for 8 hours at a time, it sucks to be locked into a schedule of watching shows, it's hard to judge the quality of quality television when you haven't actively engaged with television in 5+ years, etc.).

this is not it at all, at least for me. the simple fact is that the number of pleasurable viewing hours to be derived from movies (and I mean ALL movies going back to the dawn of film) is larger than the number of pleasurable viewing hours to be derived from TV (and I mean ALL of TV going back to the dawn of television). Some of this is attributable to the fact that so little TV bears re-watching - even the stuff that is pretty good (I never need to see an episode of Cheers, or MASH, or the Wire, or Happy Days ever again, for example). There are some exceptions (Simpsons, Sopranos, Twin Peaks, Twilight Zone, KITH, Mr. Show) but they're pretty rare.

This is not the case with films - decent films bear up under repeated viewing. And then there's the simple fact that the vast majority of TV is total shit. I simply think the hit:miss ratio for films is better.

don't understand why this thread got hung up on NEW TV shows and movies, that seems like a totally irrelevant and outdated way to assess viewing material in this day and age, when everything is available all the time.

SMC OTM --

voted movies, because I didn't assume n/a was talking about current tv and current movies in the OP

― William (C), Monday, December 12, 2011 5:15 PM (Yesterday)

this is a big problem with great, say, iranian movies, or indie budget flicks - they are just not available, even on the pirate bay, much less reviewed or written about

also yeah this is nonsense I can get this shit from my local video store

tbf you do live in iran

love this place - bros for all time and they're going to put in a screening room in their basement! awes

most people don't have hipster videostores nearby, including most people in sf or brooklyn

heaven forbid you should actually have to find a physical place, walk somewhere, and talk to an actual person to find a movie

you should print that out and post it on their window when they go out of business in 2 years

A major source of international films for me is the New York Public Library.

(I imagine other major cities' libraries stock many, many fewer)

including most people in sf

there's at least 4 throughout the city that I know of (Le Video and Lost Weekend are the best ones tho)

okay so I guess you should print out 4 copies

you should print that out and post it on their window when they go out of business in 2 years

people have been saying this for at least 5 years and not only are they still in business, they're expanding so whatever

anyway the point is these things are available if you are interested and willing to look for them on something that is not an internet service

don't understand why this thread got hung up on NEW TV shows and movies, that seems like a totally irrelevant and outdated way to assess viewing material in this day and age, when everything is available all the time

I totally get this. But I'm judging this silly poll in terms of "What brings the most pleasure to my life right now?"

hipster videostore economics aside, it's pretty easy to film relatively obscure films in 2011, 100x easier than it was in the 90s

esp if you don't live in a big city

There are going to continue to be niche video stores even after everything [sic] is streaming, the same way there are vinyl record stores for fanatics.

A major source of international films for me is the New York Public Library.

Yeah, my father-in-law actually gets lots of international films from his local suburban library and does interlibrary loan for the titles he can't find there.

so basically you guys are saying that movies are better than tv, but only if you do research to find the few obscure foreign movies that are actually good and have a niche hipster video store in your area that stocks these movies

eh I doubt it, everything is digital, there's no real difference between walking to a store to get those 1s and 0s or pressing 3 buttons on your computer, whereas record stores offer something 'different' from downloading on mp3

xxp

an

like there is such thing as vinyl fetishism there is no such thing as 'borrowing a dvd for 2 days fetishism'

afaik

this is not it at all, at least for me. the simple fact is that the number of pleasurable viewing hours to be derived from movies (and I mean ALL movies going back to the dawn of film) is larger than the number of pleasurable viewing hours to be derived from TV (and I mean ALL of TV going back to the dawn of television). Some of this is attributable to the fact that so little TV bears re-watching - even the stuff that is pretty good (I never need to see an episode of Cheers, or MASH, or the Wire, or Happy Days ever again, for example). There are some exceptions (Simpsons, Sopranos, Twin Peaks, Twilight Zone, KITH, Mr. Show) but they're pretty rare.

i guess it's impossible to crunch the numbers on this but i feel like there are more shows with like 50 hours worth of episodes that are all watching at least once than there are movies that are worth watching 25 times or whatever.

I am saying it's stupid to choose one or the other. AKA what is the purpose of this poll

lol "few"

like I said before the hit:miss ratio for movies is just better for me. If I want to find something decent to watch for two hours I just walk to the store - odds are I will enjoy whatever I rent there more than whatever new 22-minute episode of the one halfway decent show currently in production available on demand. for example.

I don't do "research"

many xp

there's no real difference between walking to a store to get those 1s and 0s or pressing 3 buttons on your computer,

this is wrong and you know it!

the best thing about Lost Weekend is actually going there, hanging out and shooting the shit with the people there, discovering new stuff I didn't know about etc.

i guess it's impossible to crunch the numbers on this but i feel like there are more shows with like 50 hours worth of episodes that are all watching at least once than there are movies that are worth watching 25 times or whatever.

yeah see the problem is I have seen all those shows that have 50 hours+ that are worth watching already. And I don't need to see them again. Whereas with film I feel like I've barely begun to scratch the surface of all the material worth watching 25x.

I meant w/r/t to the product you see not the 'experience'

but I don't think very many people actually care about 'the video store experience'

heaven forbid you should actually have to find a physical place, walk somewhere, and talk to an actual person to find a movie

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, December 13, 2011 6:23 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

this snark is so misplaced. there is, honestly, not a single place within walking distance where I can rent a video that isn't bolt ii: hamster of death. the closest two places are blockbusters, and after that I'd need to take a bus to a train to another bus to get a place that charges a $90 annual membership to take out the remaining half of the criterion collection and old miss marple VHS tapes

you don't have a library?

ha ha ha you know nothing about public libraries in 99% of this country do you?

You can ILL all kinds of DVD's via ILL as Jaymc pointed out.

if you are really that into movies and you don't live in a place w/ an enormous library you should prob just get netflix?

Every interlibrary loan request I've ever made has been like pulling impacted wisdom teeth. "WHY in god's NAME would you ask me to do something like THAT, you think you're too good for these Touched by an Angel videotapes? ok, FINE. FINE!"

Whereas with film I feel like I've barely begun to scratch the surface of all the material worth watching 25x.

for ex. y'know, one day I will get around to going through all of Sam Fuller's films. Or Ozu. Or De Palma. I am fairly confident that these are treasure troves that I am likely to enjoy. I do not feel this way about diving into the entire run of, say, Lost.

xps

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s320x320/381407_10150408507856548_683531547_8780150_621217801_n.jpg

Yeah, and I've seen everything I want to see from them. Unless I take up a marathon viewing of Armenian miniseries concerning the effects of genocide and the problem with Turks, that is. ILL is a great option in theory, but the wait time for anything that isn't Anne of Avonlea is +/- 6 months. I still do it sometimes, but by the time I get the movie I've ILLed, I've often moved on to something else or forgotten why I put it on the first place. I live in a suburb that's suburby enough (sorry, iatee) that I don't have access to the large city collection that I did even 5 miles on the other side of town. I do netflix, greencine, hulu, and DVDs by mail from Sprockets when I need, and I see a ton of movies through them but there is honestly _no_ local option for watching them.

ha ha ha you know nothing about public libraries in 99% of this country do you?

hahaha I was raised by a librarian, have two close friends that are public librarians in the SF library system, and go to our branch on a weekly basis. and get ILL all the time (primarily for sci-fi books and not for movies tho)

in conclusion, fuck you

Every interlibrary loan request I've ever made has been like pulling impacted wisdom teeth. "WHY in god's NAME would you ask me to do something like THAT, you think you're too good for these Touched by an Angel videotapes? ok, FINE. FINE!"

― William (C), Tuesday, December 13, 2011 6:46 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Permalink

that's a function of a person at your library being a total dick, not ILL itself as an idea.

Yeah, I loved the SF library system. And the LA library system. And the Seattle library system. And the Boston library system. Unfortunately I'm not near any of them.

remy is there stuff you can't find on those internet services? (I've never used any of them)

xp

"DO I KNOW ABOUT LIBRARIES!? YOU GO TO HELL, SIR" may be my favorite haughty comeback in ilx history

ILL is a great option in theory, but the wait time for anything that isn't Anne of Avonlea is +/- 6 months. I still do it sometimes, but by the time I get the movie I've ILLed, I've often moved on to something else or forgotten why I put it on the first place.

6 months? Really?

that's a function of a person at your library being a total dick, not ILL itself as an idea.

I agree completely, but a barrier is a barrier.

some of my BEST FRIENDS are librarians

your results may be somewhat affected by the fact that you live in San Francisco btw, i can't believe that you're arguing that someone who lives in topeka or basically anywhere that isn't an urban/upper-middle class suburban area is going to be able to get a steady stream of iranian art movies or whatever through inter-library loan

ps i am a librarian

there's no real difference between walking to a store to get those 1s and 0s or pressing 3 buttons on your computer

Well, the diff is the vidstores will have stuff you are not going to find on your computer. We lose titles every time there's a technology change, as Dave Kehr has pointed out.

even if they magically did have access to this type of movie through ILL, they won't for much longer thanks to national library budget cuts

ILL would be a great setting for a hilarious TV comedy (not really)

6 months? Really?

Really. I waited for almost a year to rewatch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and then got kicked off the list b/c I didn't pick it up w/in 4 days of it arriving at my branch.

Shakey,

I'm pretty pleased with what I can find through the various internet-based sevices. It's not 100% - more like 70% - and it takes a _lot_ of time to track down some titles. Generally I'm 6 or 8 months behind the curve on new releases unless I get screener copies, and that's a good 3-6 months behind where I was when I had local video stores or libraries pipelining me new stuff. It's not a bad setup, but it leaves a lot to be desired, and I've been moving from movies toward TV just for ease of procurement.

btw I would never disagree that major-studio US films are worse than ever, and will be worse 5 years from now. He seems to agree:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/8919102/Where-are-the-great-movies-asks-Spielberg.html

some of my BEST FRIENDS are librarians

your results may be somewhat affected by the fact that you live in San Francisco btw, i can't believe that you're arguing that someone who lives in topeka or basically anywhere that isn't an urban/upper-middle class suburban area is going to be able to get a steady stream of iranian art movies or whatever through inter-library loan

I work for an academic library that sends out DVD's, VHS tapes to small town middle of nowhere libraries on a daily basis. Our holdings include all kinds of stuff, including IRANIAN ART MOVIES. Neat, huh?

slightly off-topic, another weird thing about TV is that it requires this bigger emotional/time-commitment to pay off, imho. For example, I've watched episodes of Community and Parks & Rec and Arrested Development, not laughed once, and happily ignored them ever since. But you get this phenomenon of people telling you you have to watch several episodes before you will enjoy it - it's like you have to perform this mental trick to get anything out of it, you have to first invest time and energy into it and then the cognitive dissonance kicks in and you figure you better watch it/enjoy it now cuz you've already watched 1 1/2 hours of it etc. Like you have to develop this familiarity/immersion in the show before you get anything out of it. I find something about this phenomenon off-putting.

And I don't get this from movies.

xps

that is neat

xpost

Attacking the prevalence of film franchises - movies based on toys, or video games, that are intended to sell a product as much as they are to entertain - Spielberg said: “I think producers are more interested in backing concepts than directors and writers.

Kinda disingenuous of him not to note his own role in this process, witting or unwitting.

btw I would never disagree that major-studio US films are worse than ever, and will be worse 5 years from now.

yeah this seems kind of indisputable.

thanks internet!

slightly off-topic, another weird thing about TV is that it requires this bigger emotional/time-commitment to pay off, imho. For example, I've watched episodes of Community and Parks & Rec and Arrested Development, not laughed once, and happily ignored them ever since. But you get this phenomenon of people telling you you have to watch several episodes before you will enjoy it - it's like you have to perform this mental trick to get anything out of it, you have to first invest time and energy into it and then the cognitive dissonance kicks in and you figure you better watch it/enjoy it now cuz you've already watched 1 1/2 hours of it etc. Like you have to develop this familiarity/immersion in the show before you get anything out of it. I find something about this phenomenon off-putting.

And I don't get this from movies.

so you don't have to invest 1.5 hours in a movie to get something out of it?

Really. I waited for almost a year to rewatch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and then got kicked off the list b/c I didn't pick it up w/in 4 days of it arriving at my branch.

This is kind of your fault, though. If libraries didn't do this sort of thing, it would take even longer for you to get your stuff.

i'm really not trying to be a dick there, i honestly don't understand the difference you're trying to point out

ILL would be a great setting for a hilarious TV comedy (not really)

Yes!

ps i am a librarian

― n/a, Tuesday, December 13, 2011 11:53 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

showing you're a pretty terrible one itt

good thing i have ilx posting to fall back on

so you don't have to invest 1.5 hours in a movie to get something out of it?

the specific amount of time is not the issue. It's more the phenomenon of say, having to watch several episodes of something before it becomes funny. Which has always struck me as odd. Good comedy should be funny right off the bat. Movies work in a different way.

xp

Good comedy should be funny right off the bat.

yeah all comedy shd be relentless pies in the face

and usually it's not a question of continuity - ie, a joke being set up early on that pays off four episodes later (altho this does happen with the better serialized shows like Sopranos, Mad Men, the Wire, etc.). It's more a question of developing a familiarity with a show's rhythms and tropes and then once you've internalized those you come to see the comedy in them... A lot of times I don't want to go through that process. Like with Parks and Rec I just didn't think the jokes were funny, I didn't want to have to sit through 4 episodes of bad jokes before I laughed at one, that seems like a waste of time.

xp

not saying that people don't sometimes excuse weak material with "you just have to get into it" but it's crazy to exclude all comedy that involves meticulous build-up of observation or establishment of expectations

yeah all comedy shd be relentless pies in the face
football in the groin

tbf football in the groin works on so many levels

ILL would be a great setting for a hilarious TV comedy (not really)

Ha, the other night at drinks, a few of us were actually discussing the idea of a library as a setting for a workplace sitcom.

http://aklemai.com/albums/album34/FootballGroin.gif

not saying that people don't sometimes excuse weak material with "you just have to get into it" but it's crazy to exclude all comedy that involves meticulous build-up of observation or establishment of expectations

obviously I'm referring primarily to the former scenario.

didn't they try a "party girl" sitcom?

I don't think the first few episodes of Parks and Rec were particularly funny. If I were recommending the show to someone I knew would be impatient, I would tell them to start with Season 2, and I don't think they would miss out on much. But ultimately I didn't mind watching them because they created context and familiarity. And one of the things that TV has on movies is that allows you to develop relationships with characters over time. I watch P&R not just for the laffs but also b/c I care about those people.

it's not just lesser shows people are pretending to like that take some time to really get invested in, it's pretty much EVERY SHOW, especially if you're watching it from the beginning and it's one of the 99% of good shows that had a shaky start

and then sometimes you invest yrself in a show that turns to shit... like, say BSG or (I have been led to understand) Lost.

xp That's true: most shows take at least a few episodes to find their rhythm, figure out what they do best.

my choice of films over tv wasn't a judgment of quality, it was more about which one fits my lifestyle better - actually i agree that the best tv is great because it allows you into this self-contained and detailed world that references back to itself, past events, different characters etc all the time. i just don't have the time for that sort of entertainment! and following tv in a more dilettantish kind of way feels way less satisfying.

films are both more disposable, weirdly (in that all you have to commit is a couple of hours then it's over) but also more intense an experience.

(I have been led to understand) Lost.

yeah, I wouldn't mind having those 130-something hours of my life back, tbh

something else i like about tv is that it doesn't have to tell you the whole story in two hours, so it's just more relaxed about everything.

in screenwriting there's this golden rule that every line of dialogue has to say something about both the plot and the character saying it, which is like seriously rigorous, and i feel like usually this mentality stretches out to every other aspect of the movie as well: you've got like an hour 45 and that's IT so every microparticle of the soundtrack and set and everything has to be honed to extract the maximum impact of whatever it is the director's trying to do. (this is one reason i think there are so many heist movies and thrillers, which you don't get so much of on tv - the characters' lives turn on the same kind of nanosecond mechanics that directors have trained themselves to excel at in the crafting of their movies). not all movies have this kind of saturation of meaning but most seem to. and sometimes it's great when the whole thing really clicks like a well-oiled machine. but i like to watch things unfold languidly too, or seemingly at random, or with small stakes - no big weddings or nuclear bombs - and tv seems suited to that because of its serial nature and its length.

i mean even in something as slow and natural as "i've loved you so long", there's really not a single wasted shot.

i guess another contributing factor here is what morbs hates - tv has to share space with the rest of your house, and it doesn't envelop your senses the same way, so it doesn't make as much sense to invest every frame with freighted meaning cause half the audience just put a forkful of ramen in their mouths

and then sometimes you invest yrself in a show that turns to shit... like, say BSG or (I have been led to understand) Lost.

Lost was like a really fun and engaging videogame that ends not with some awesome boss but rather with a screenshot of the designers thanking you for playing. And also they're flipping you off and one of them has your toothbrush up his ass.

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