Why Hollywood Is Currently In the Dark Ages (And Why We Can Blame Our Phones)
“When you tell a 22-year-old to turn off the phone, don’t ruin the movie, they hear please cut off your left arm above the elbow,” said Adam Aron, the new CEO of the AMC theatre chain, in an interview with Variety. He perfectly captures the strong hold that cell phones and social media have on today’s youth, and he seems to think that the battle against cellphones is already lost. I do not disagree at all. As a matter of fact, I would go one step further to say that it’s not just movies being shown in theatres — it’s movie viewings in general. Watching a movie with a friend on the basement couch now often turns into one person watching the movie while the other tries to beat his or her high score in Candy Crush, which often leads to painful post-movie discussions and inaccurate reviews.
The worst part is, the people aren’t really the ones to blame. Social media is constantly tapping people on the shoulder during the movie saying, “Hey, check this out.” And the information is there in an instant whenever they want to view it. I will admit that the quick vibration of an iPhone felt in the right pocket is usually a stimulating feeling, but as a film buff, I am often able to ignore the buzz during a movie due to my fear of missing an important bit of dialogue or maybe even something seen momentarily in the background that contributes largely to the story. However, most people I know don’t really worry about this and experience little to no hesitation when they feel that buzz. Most times, they hold their gazes on their phones without looking up until they have absorbed every piece of information that came with the notification. I have grown more and more frustrated with this as the years have passed, and I can confidently state that this is a problem that is only going to get worse with the ever-changing world of social media.
I recall showing a few friends a movie I had recently seen and loved called Memento, and I was crazy excited to see what they all thought. The movie is extremely unique and told in an unconventional way in terms of chronology and I thought it would even spark the interests of some of my dumber friends. I was wrong. Not only did three of the four friends I showed the film to not understand the movie (especially the twist ending); they went as far as to say it was “just a bad movie.” The latter struck a nerve in me that got me irrationally angry.
“What do you mean it was bad? You weren’t even watching,” I vividly remember blurting out.
“Dude, we were watching, what are you talking about?” says the Instagram addict, who must have checked for updates every five minutes throughout the duration of the film.
“No, you must have looked at your phone for that entire movie, I’m not even exaggerating.” I wasn’t.
“I heard what was going on when I would look away. That movie just doesn’t make sense, has nothing to do with me checking my phone.” I was shocked speechless.
Using “I heard what was going on” as a defense really set me off. Movies are visual experiences, not auditory. I informed him that maybe he was better off listening to the radio as I continued to defend the film from their criticisms. But this idea of “hearing” as a substitute for actually paying attention haunted me to this very day. I began wondering if Hollywood would begin prioritizing films that cater to the inattentive audience, with little focus on detail and substance and more emphasis on the aesthetically pleasing (explosions, nudity, gunfire, out-of-place humor). I had no idea at the time how right I would end up being.
All of my fears about where the movie industry was headed culminated when my roommate in LA dragged me two summers ago to see the fourth installment of the Transformers franchise (which was somehow stretched to a runtime of 2 hours and 47 minutes). The film’s title, Transformers: Age of Extinction, ironically captured how I felt about this movie even reaching the production phase. It truly was the “age of extinction” for the golden age of cinema. The “Renaissance” occurred in the 70’s, when filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese were in their primes, and that had slowly dissipated over the years until finally, we reached this point, where Hollywood churns out garbage with not a care in the world about quality as long as there is a profit to be made. This movie was just so, so, so bad. It was almost as if after every take, the whole cast and crew would laugh with each other, boasting, “I can’t believe people are going to pay to watch this shit.” I can just picture Michael Bay trying to give Mark Wahlberg an incredibly awkward fist bump after the exchange.
Walking out of that movie, I swore that never again would I pay to go see these current “blockbusters” which fill the pockets of executives in the industry while they laugh about how dumb we all are. And by “all,” I don’t just mean the US — I mean the whole planet. This was the highest grossing film in China ever until it was recently beaten by Furious 7 — it made an absurd $212.8 million total in the country. It was not a problem I could fix (or that anyone in specific could fix), but it was one I would no longer be a part of.
“How could this have happened?” I remember thinking out loud. I thought about the movie as we left, and then remembered how hollow it was and how one-dimensional each character came off as. And then I realized — they know. Hollywood knows that most of us are on our phones, not paying attention to the little things. That’s why the movie had racist, sexist one-liners that came out of nowhere after overly serious moments. That’s why there was an explosion every fifteen seconds. They only needed to make it entertaining on the most basic level. “Who cares about the characters?” I could imagine someone saying in the boardroom. “Just blow something up and show the supermodel trying out an acting career in a bathing suit, and the money will follow.”
Recently, I decided to conduct a study that involved me watching a movie with a friend and attempting to prove the detrimental effect that phones are having not only on the movie-watching experience, but also the way in which Hollywood views their audiences (as dumb, somewhat blindfolded six-year-olds). Originally, I was going to screen The Godfather with a friend of mine, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1972 might not be the best choice. The friend I chose, John, already knew of many of the key moments in the film that have become iconic in modern day pop culture.
“He gets a gun from behind the toilet at one part, right?” asked John. I knew I had to pick something more contemporary and lesser known, but I wanted to choose a film that was lengthy and required a focus on attention, as well as visuals. After racking my brain for ideas, I recalled my debate with a fellow cinema lover over the recent film, The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film that was released in December. Even he thought it was too long and too “talky.” Personally, I absolutely loved it and consider it to be one of Tarantino’s better films, certainly his most confident. The film even polarized critics, with some hailing it as one of the best movies of the year while others referred to it as empty and juvenile. Tarantino also decided to defy expectations by holding off on the violence until the first bullet is fired 1 hour and 34 minutes into the movie — usually violence is sprinkled all over the place in his films. Tarantino seemed to have a lot of faith in his audience and does not cater to the standard set by today’s blockbusters whatsoever, so I decided that this would be the perfect choice.
Now, I didn’t inform John as to what the objective was. I just told him I had to watch the movie “with a buddy for class.” He was interested, but pouted a little when he saw the runtime.
“Holy Shit! We have to watch this whole thing?!” We were off to a good start.
I recorded each time John looked at his phone and wrote down what was happening. In total, John looked at his phone 18 times for notable durations throughout the course of the movie. Below, I list what was happening during these moments and how long John was on his phone. SPOILER ALERT. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN.
1) John Ruth and Major Warren argue in the snow about the Major’s identity. (20 seconds)
2) John and Major Warren talk with Daisy and early in the lengthy coach scene. (15 seconds)
3) John Ruth identifies the figure as “Chris Mannix.” (12 seconds)
4) Joe Gage tells John, “You just entered it,” after John asks if he’s part of Joe’s “life story.” (6 seconds)
5) The group first sits down with their stew. (25 seconds)
6) Mannix interrogates Warren about the Lincoln letter. (18 seconds)
7) John dismisses Warren’s lie and expresses contempt. (8 seconds)
8) Flashback of the General’s son. (Looked up and down)
9) While Daisy sings, John supervises the two closing the door and then pours some coffee in the background. (20 seconds)
10) Daisy keeps looking at them. (Looked up and down)
11) Warren talks about eating stew when he was young. (10 seconds)
12) Joe Gage stands guard at the window during the massacre in Chapter Four (6 seconds).
13) Joe Gage walks out to kill the stable boy in the snow. (11 seconds)
14) Jody hands the General a cup of coffee. (10 seconds)
15) Oswaldo crawls on the ground in the background after being shot. (4 seconds)
16) Warren uses the bedpost to prop himself up. (6 seconds).
17) Warren and Mannix secure Daisy’s noose to the bedpost. (4 seconds)
18) Mannix reads the last lines of Warren’s letter. (5 seconds)
After the film concluded, John said that he “thought it was really good.” Then I informed him that I would be quizzing him on the movie, and he was very confident in his knowledge of what had taken place. To hear the humorous results, listen to the interview I conducted with him attached at the bottom. The quiz goes a lot like you probably expect it to. I crafted the questions so that many of the moments I ask about occurred when I noticed he was looking at his phone. When I would look over on some occasions, he would just be mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and Twitter, as if hoping that something on there would be more entertaining than what was happening on screen.
John helped me prove a great deal of my point, though I was hoping he would say that he didn’t like it, which would have been hilarious after I revealed that he had checked his phone so often and missed some key parts. The look on his face when I told him I had noted each occasion was one of slight embarrassment. I truly believe that after the score he received on the quiz, John might reconsider the importance of whatever he is looking for, scroll after scroll, on social media, and that he will be more conscious about focusing on the screen and might walk away with a more rewarding experience. Overall, I’m happy with the way my experiment went and I hope that it will open some of your eyes to how cinema is regressing and how we might be able to change that with similar exercises on a larger scale.
https://soundcloud.com/pat-tully-849117772/the-hateful-eight-quiz-feat-john-meehan
