"my actual interest in supporting and platforming artful movies full of personal expression means I probably should never be handed the keys to major conglomerate enterprises at all" I relate to this so strongly.
Yeah. I'm not actually really all that against the conglomerates, I'm just not personally interested in their output or trying to change them from the inside. If they want to spend $300m trying to make $1billion in China, who am I to tell them what to do? My larger aesthetic gripe is how many of their movies just look generally boring, I feel like if you have $300m to spend you can make the movie more exciting.
The thing I'm more worried about is how they flood the field with their stuff so it's harder for indies to thrive --> basically a single screen theatre in a small town running Captain America: Brave New World for two months before switching to Snow White, and there's the small town complaining that cinema's been ruined by DEI when what they need is competitive programming. Take the kids to Snow White and dad and Uncle John can pop into Working Man and meet you all after. One weekend Uncle John tells dad, "C'mon I've heard good things about this" and they watch something like Black Bag instead.
That's probably why I feel like one of the only NY based indie filmmakers who is very interested and appreciative of what Angel Studios is doing. Mind you, I haven't seen any movie they've released, but I have sort of the same opinion regarding Tyler Perry movies. I don't need to watch them to know I won't like them, but I absolutely see their audience is being served and the movies are profitable. Studio Ghibli seems to be on permanent summer Sundays matinee release somehow. There are options to give movies screen life as long as indies break out of their "see how NY/LAers like it for a coupla weeks then expand or disappear" current approach.
"boring" is a great term to describe the current output. I am also interest in how Angel Studios operates! I think their pay-it-forward campaign was so smart. I love what you said that "there are options to give movies screen life as long as indies break out of their "see how NY/LAers like it for a coupla weeks then expand or disappear" current approach." because I truly believe that if independent cinema is gonna make a dent in this country - it cannot be concentrated to just two cites and I think a lot of what has happened since the pandemic makes way for it to thrive elsewhere. (a lot of people moved outside those cities and they took their creativity and love for cinema with them.)
"my actual interest in supporting and platforming artful movies full of personal expression means I probably should never be handed the keys to major conglomerate enterprises at all" I relate to this so strongly.
Yeah. I'm not actually really all that against the conglomerates, I'm just not personally interested in their output or trying to change them from the inside. If they want to spend $300m trying to make $1billion in China, who am I to tell them what to do? My larger aesthetic gripe is how many of their movies just look generally boring, I feel like if you have $300m to spend you can make the movie more exciting.
The thing I'm more worried about is how they flood the field with their stuff so it's harder for indies to thrive --> basically a single screen theatre in a small town running Captain America: Brave New World for two months before switching to Snow White, and there's the small town complaining that cinema's been ruined by DEI when what they need is competitive programming. Take the kids to Snow White and dad and Uncle John can pop into Working Man and meet you all after. One weekend Uncle John tells dad, "C'mon I've heard good things about this" and they watch something like Black Bag instead.
That's probably why I feel like one of the only NY based indie filmmakers who is very interested and appreciative of what Angel Studios is doing. Mind you, I haven't seen any movie they've released, but I have sort of the same opinion regarding Tyler Perry movies. I don't need to watch them to know I won't like them, but I absolutely see their audience is being served and the movies are profitable. Studio Ghibli seems to be on permanent summer Sundays matinee release somehow. There are options to give movies screen life as long as indies break out of their "see how NY/LAers like it for a coupla weeks then expand or disappear" current approach.
"boring" is a great term to describe the current output. I am also interest in how Angel Studios operates! I think their pay-it-forward campaign was so smart. I love what you said that "there are options to give movies screen life as long as indies break out of their "see how NY/LAers like it for a coupla weeks then expand or disappear" current approach." because I truly believe that if independent cinema is gonna make a dent in this country - it cannot be concentrated to just two cites and I think a lot of what has happened since the pandemic makes way for it to thrive elsewhere. (a lot of people moved outside those cities and they took their creativity and love for cinema with them.)