Indie cred is important.

[quote="sheerheartattack"]What is this, the thesaurus club?

Anyway, if "sci-fi" and "western" aren't genres, then I don't know what is. If anything isn't a genre, it's "mainstream" or "indie," terms which hold no relevance whatsoever to anything.[/quote]

I was just making a comment on the indie/mainstream being genres thing, I wasn't trying to make a point on it or "correct" or anything.

But as long as we're on it, I really don't consider sci-fi and western genres. Action, drama, comedy, etc, those are genres. Sci-Fi and Western are more like... settings. When things like Star Trek, Star Wars, Twilight Zone, Lost, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Dark City can all fall into the same genre, it strikes me as silly. I would say something like Battlestar is a war drama with a sci-fi setting, stuff like that.

Little side thingy on indie films, the ones everybody hear of lately aren't really independent films, they're these weird "big-budget indie films" that are financed by the "independent" wing of a major studio (Fox Searchlight is obviously Fox, Focus Features is Universal, etc etc), so while movies like Juno or Little Miss Sunshine do well, it can almost be seen as another step backwards for indie films because now the public is used to these sleek-looking medium-budget indie films.

Plus that whole digital thing, while making it exponentially easier and cheaper for Joe Film to go out and make a movie, it also means the market is going to get even more hilariously overpopulated, so I think it winds up screwing people over more than anything, unless you're one of the really talented ones or one of the ones with connections. I'm going to have to rely more on connections to get started off

[quote="sonic3305"]
I was just making a comment on the indie/mainstream being genres thing, I wasn't trying to make a point on it or "correct" or anything.

But as long as we're on it, I really don't consider sci-fi and western genres. Action, drama, comedy, etc, those are genres. Sci-Fi and Western are more like... settings. When things like Star Trek, Star Wars, Twilight Zone, Lost, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Dark City can all fall into the same genre, it strikes me as silly. I would say something like Battlestar is a war drama with a sci-fi setting, stuff like that.
[/quote]

A "genre" is simply a category. There are numerous ways to categorize things - by setting, content, plot, etc. Therefore, something can be a war movie, a drama, and a sci-fi movie all at the same time. It just depends on how you want to characterize it. However, "mainstream" and "indie" are not genres, because they relate to something completely extraneous to the movie in every way.

[quote="sonic3305"]
Little side thingy on indie films, the ones everybody hear of lately aren't really independent films, they're these weird "big-budget indie films" that are financed by the "independent" wing of a major studio (Fox Searchlight is obviously Fox, Focus Features is Universal, etc etc), so while movies like Juno or Little Miss Sunshine do well, it can almost be seen as another step backwards for indie films because now the public is used to these sleek-looking medium-budget indie films.
[/quote]

It's still expensive to make a quality movie. You still need money. This is even further proof of how ridiculous it is to characterize movies by producer or affiliation, or even budget. The larger the budget, the more versatility, and depending on how well the budget is spent, there is a direct relationship with the quality of the movie. What you're trying to argue is that the public is getting used to good movies so that means bad news for those who can't afford to make good movies. So what?

[quote="sonic3305"]
Plus that whole digital thing, while making it exponentially easier and cheaper for Joe Film to go out and make a movie, it also means the market is going to get even more hilariously overpopulated, so I think it winds up screwing people over more than anything, unless you're one of the really talented ones or one of the ones with connections. I'm going to have to rely more on connections to get started off [/quote]

The more competitors in an industry, the higher the quality of its output. The mediocre - even the above average - even the good: they all get weeded out. This is good in every way imagineable. The end.

[quote="sheerheartattack"]It's still expensive to make a quality movie. You still need money. This is even further proof of how ridiculous it is to characterize movies by producer or affiliation, or even budget. The larger the budget, the more versatility, and depending on how well the budget is spent, there is a direct relationship with the quality of the movie. What you're trying to argue is that the public is getting used to good movies so that means bad news for those who can't afford to make good movies. So what?[/quote]

I mean the public gets used to even just the [i]look[/i] of sexy high-budget 35mm indie films and might go "ew" at stuff that isn't as sleek-looking. A higher budget definitely doesn't hurt the quality of a movie, but it's hardly necessary. I just mean that the general public may overlook the less-sleek looking indie movies like Once, which was made for something like 100k but is a hundred times better than Juno, simply because it doesn't "look" like a Hollywood movie. I know a [i]ton[/i] of people like this.

Thankfully this isn't the case with Once due to good word of mouth and the Oscars ceremony awesomeness, but I think you get what I mean.

It sort of goes back to one of my gripes with Hollywood and the value of spectacle over substance, but that's another issue.

[quote="sheerheartattack"]The more competitors in an industry, the higher the quality of its output. The mediocre - even the above average - even the good: they all get weeded out. This is good in every way imagineable. The end.[/quote]

I'm not speaking on how good all the new media winds up being. The people that get picked out of the crowd will be the best people who make the best movies, just like it's always been. I'm speaking of my chances of actually making it. It's just that the crowd is bigger and it'll be that much harder to be one of the best of those best. It will make people rise to the occasion, but when a lot more people are rising to the occasion then usual... I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how this digital age thing will pan out with the movie industry. Lines are already starting to blur with the rise of internet media and the slow painful death of the "classic" theater experience.

[quote="sonic3305"]the "classic" theater experience.[/quote]

Fifty bucks for tickets and snacks?

Yeah, that's part of the death thing. Studios make probably 4/5 of their money on a movie from home video sales now, and with home theater setups getting increasingly badass (and the lack of loud obnoxious people in the privacy of home), it seems that theaters are gouging people for as much as they can get because everybody knows the theater thing (in it's current form) isn't going to last much longer.

I'm not a fan of piracy but it's to the point where I can sort of understand downloading a movie that's in theaters. $11 to go to the local AMC is insane. They don't even have a matinee here anymore. The best you can do is knocking off $1 if you remember to show them your student ID.

There's still that appeal of theaters, just seeing something on a big screen. The crowd can be a lot of fun depending on the movie (Simpsons Movie at midnight was amazing, everybody was ecstatic that the movie was actually being funny and you could really feel how great everybody felt). But 90% of the time it's just a bunch of assholes talking to each other, turning on their cell phones (people must realize everybody else can see it), [i]talking on[/i] their cell phones... ugh

[quote="sonic3305"]
I mean the public gets used to even just the [i]look[/i] of sexy high-budget 35mm indie films and might go "ew" at stuff that isn't as sleek-looking. A higher budget definitely doesn't hurt the quality of a movie, but it's hardly necessary. I just mean that the general public may overlook the less-sleek looking indie movies like Once, which was made for something like 100k but is a hundred times better than Juno, simply because it doesn't "look" like a Hollywood movie. I know a [i]ton[/i] of people like this.

Thankfully this isn't the case with Once due to good word of mouth and the Oscars ceremony awesomeness, but I think you get what I mean.

It sort of goes back to one of my gripes with Hollywood and the value of spectacle over substance, but that's another issue.
[/quote]

Then that simply means that people value sleek looks over other aspects of the movie. The "quality" of a movie is entirely based on the value assigned to it by consumers in the market. Therefore, if at a particular point in time consumers value sleek looks more than they do, say, plot, then movies with sleek looks are inherently of a higher quality than movies with a good plot.

[quote="sonic3305"]
I'm not speaking on how good all the new media winds up being. The people that get picked out of the crowd will be the best people who make the best movies, just like it's always been. I'm speaking of my chances of actually making it. It's just that the crowd is bigger and it'll be that much harder to be one of the best of those best. It will make people rise to the occasion, but when a lot more people are rising to the occasion then usual... I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how this digital age thing will pan out with the movie industry. Lines are already starting to blur with the rise of internet media and the slow painful death of the "classic" theater experience.[/quote]

In that case, I understand. It's the same with every competitive industry, though. Those are just the breaks. Good luck, though.

[quote="sonic3305"]Yeah, that's part of the death thing. Studios make probably 4/5 of their money on a movie from home video sales now, and with home theater setups getting increasingly badass (and the lack of loud obnoxious people in the privacy of home), it seems that theaters are gouging people for as much as they can get because everybody knows the theater thing (in it's current form) isn't going to last much longer.[/quote]

There's really no such thing as "gouging prices" in the sense that everybody believes there is. Businesses don't keep prices low to be friendly, and then hike them when they feel like making more money. Ever.

[quote="sheerheartattack"]There's really no such thing as "gouging prices" in the sense that everybody believes there is. Businesses don't keep prices low to be friendly, and then hike them when they feel like making more money. Ever.[/quote]

*coughcoughROCKEFELLERcoughcough*

[color=white][size=75]I know what you meant. wink[/size][/color]

Hahaha, okay, non-monopolistic businesses do not - they can not - "gouge prices."

I liked this movie.
[quote="sheerheartattack"]No matter how many times you are offered strawberries, you're not going to like them if you don't like them.[/quote]
I never liked skim milk when I was a kid, but my mom tricked me into drinking it, and now it's all I drink.

oh my god, how am I just now realizing Shigekazu Aida is in this movie? He also sang the happy end cover on the soundtrack, which is damn good, btw.