Fun Stuff > ENJOY

Soylent Green (may contain spoilers)

<< < (6/6)

Orbert:

--- Quote from: Alex C on 13 Feb 2009, 14:39 ---Honestly though, I always thought Soylent Green felt hella long. I mean, I hate to play to the whole "People today have such short attention spans!" stereotype, but it kills me how there's so many movies from the '70s always managed to meander along and make an hour and a half film feel like three hours.
--- End quote ---

In the 70's, there was exactly one way to see a movie: At a movie theater.  There was no home video; no DVDs, no VHS... no one owned movies.  Yeah, they showed heavily edited, commerical-interrupted, formatted-for-TV movies on TV, but you weren't watching the actual movie; you were seeing something slightly better than a decent summary of it.

There were also no multiplexes with 8 or 10 or twenty screens.  Screens were big.  Fucking big.  Movies were an experience.  You watched the story unfold, it engrossed you, and you saw shitloads of detail that you don't get on TV, even in HD on someone's "big" HDTV.  You think that HDTV even compares to the size of a movie screen in the 70's?  You think "high def" even compares to the near-infinite detail of 70mm film?  Heh heh, right.

Yeah, 70's movies took their time telling the story, because it wasn't just about the story; it was the whole experience.  The scenery, the details, the acting performances.  You hear people say all the time that they watched a movie for the nth time, and saw something they never noticed before.  That's because it's harder to notice things when they're only two inches high on your screen, the camera angle changes every half second, and there's a fucking loud techno or metal track blasting you the whole time.

Also, it's generally true.  People today do have shorter attention spans.  Congratulations on reading this.

Alex C:
I've seen 70 mm film; it's pretty OK. I could also see a drive in theater screen from my grandparent's house growing up; it was one of the longest operating ones in Minnesota. I've seen plenty of '70s movies on dollar ticket days on full sized screens in their full glory thanks to run down but still good small town venues. Many of those movies are still longer than they have any right to be. Rocky was two hours long. Fucking Rocky. He's a good-hearted mook from Philly! We get it. Likewise Saturday Night Fever is hella long and juggles multiple plotlines. It is almost inevitable that you will not give a shit about at least one of the plot threads in that movie, which is one of the many reasons why it is has been consigned to the period piece gulags by most people rather than really remembered for the performances. And in all honesty, there's many movies around now that are just as long as those from the '70s, although I would argue that most of them are paced a helluva lot better. Film is actually in a fairly decent place right now; I would argue that it was the '80s and '90s that actually really suffered, and I would blame that on Heaven's Gate, the economic slowdown of the '80s and the move away from the expensive director driven productions that submarined United Artists than say, people's attention spans.

Cartilage Head:

--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 15 Feb 2009, 00:01 ---
--- Quote from: Krina on 13 Feb 2009, 01:57 ---I also remember a song with the line Soylent Grün ist Menschenfleisch from the years when I'd go to Goth / Industrial parties. That song always filled the dancefloor!

--- End quote ---

:wumpscut: - Soylent Green

I've never actually seen Soylent Green, but I have read the book it's based on (Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison).

The fun thing to do with this thread would be to post spoilers to movies without mentioning the movie and see how many people pick up on it. Or maybe that wouldn't be fun at all!


The man he sees die at the start as a kid is actually himself from the future.

His girlfriend becomes a hooker, his mother goes insane, his best friend rots in some hell-hole Texan jail and he gets his arm sawn off. Say no to drugs.

The ballet school is run by witches.

The visions of his dead daughter are premonitions of his own death.

Everyone dies on a raft full of monkeys.

Everyone dies, but they manage to turn the sun back on.





--- End quote ---

12 Monkeys
Requiem For A Dream
Suspiria
Not sure
Not sure
Sunshine?

EDIT: Oh nevermind. These have already been solved.

Ford Prefect:

Ballard:
Argh that is so painful to watch. It needs to be bigger and slower.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page