Culture Study Podcast - Why Is It So Hard to Make a Good Blockbuster？

00:00:00.900 Hey, it's Anne.

00:00:02.620 Anne Melody.

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00:03:52.720 Okay, on with the show.

00:03:59.340 This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.

00:04:03.220 And I'm Hannah McGregor, co-host of the podcast Material Girls,

00:04:07.340 and author of the book Clever Girl Jurassic Park.

00:04:11.720 I am so excited to talk today. I love talking about blockbusters in particular, but also just like the movie industry broadly and also 90s blockbusters especially. So I want to ask about your first or like most vivid memory of a blockbuster experience.

00:04:31.120 It was definitely Jurassic Park. That's the first movie that I remember seeing in theaters and recognizing as having a kind of event-ness to it. I had definitely seen movies in theaters prior to that. One of my early core memories is being taken to see Ghostbusters 2 a little too young.

00:04:53.300 and i got too scared and my mom had to take me out my brother and uh father stayed and watched it

00:05:01.040 and my mom and i walked around the mall because i was too scared was it like the state buff

00:05:05.560 marshmallow man and ghostbusters 2 no it was the guy with the face in the wall oh yeah

00:05:10.960 uh so when were you born what year 1984 okay you're my brother's age so i'm 1981 i was born

00:05:20.420 in 1981 and i and also i grew up in a place um that was like pretty rural but like the uh

00:05:28.420 the only movie theater for like probably 100 miles in any direction um or like major movie

00:05:37.480 theater like cineplex and by cineplex i mean three screens uh and that cineplex also had a drive-in

00:05:45.620 And that's where I saw Ghostbusters, too. Indelible experience. But I think I would also agree that my most vivid, young blockbuster experience was seeing Jurassic Park. And I saw that. So we had this cineplex that was in the more strip mall-y area of town. But we had a picture palace downtown, like most towns over the size of 15,000, 20,000 did.

00:06:12.900 And by picture palace, I mean, like in a place like Seattle, it's a massive picture palace that can seat a thousand that are all now like concert venues.

00:06:22.360 Never heard this phrase before.

00:06:23.880 What's a picture palace?

00:06:25.300 So picture palace is how they referred to these like giant theaters that were built mostly in the 1920s, but into the 1930s and even 40s.

00:06:35.780 They often had they were atmospheric.

00:06:38.640 And by that means they had a theme.

00:06:41.020 Right.

00:06:41.500 So like the Egyptian in Seattle, and all of these things are very problematic in various ways. 1.00

00:06:48.360 Of course. 0.63

00:06:48.940 The Egyptian is Egyptian themed.

00:06:51.400 There were a lot of like the Orientalist or also in Seattle, there's the Neptune.

00:06:57.400 And so that had like a marine theme.

00:07:00.580 And the biggest ones in places like New York and Chicago and San Francisco, they would have ushers with very specific outfits.

00:07:09.460 they'd have daycare places like you couldn't drop your kid but you could go with like a noisy kid

00:07:14.840 to go and still be able to hear the movie and that sort of thing like they were very they were

00:07:20.400 very very fancy and a lot of these places either were chopped up in the 1960s so post which we'll

00:07:29.620 get to this later about like all of the forces that led to like the decline in movie viewership

00:07:34.680 in the 1950s um but some of them were chopped up into like multiplexes and oftentimes like very

00:07:41.440 clumsily some of them especially the ones that were downtown during um urban flight became

00:07:47.860 porn theaters yep and then some have been rescued and rejuvenated and are now musical venues

00:07:54.440 so if you see like uh like someone on the level of like i don't know the national like they will

00:08:04.240 often play in a theater that used to be a picture palace um and we had like a mini version of that

00:08:11.240 like a lot of small towns did it was called um the liberty and it had a balcony oh yeah yeah and

00:08:20.320 that is where i was sitting when i saw jurassic park and when the scariest moment in the entire

00:08:27.000 movie happens when they're in the kitchen um or i there's two for me and we can talk more about

00:08:33.000 the kitchen or when Newman from Seinfeld like get like the the really scary dinosaur I like

00:08:40.960 had my feet up on the balcony and was like terrified and had my feet like slammed down

00:08:47.280 but oh the most vivid memory I have of the first time seeing this movie and it wouldn't have been

00:08:54.420 in any venue as exciting as that because Ottawa Ontario in the 90s did not have cool theaters

00:09:02.620 I bet you there was a theater downtown that there was like absolutely there was the one in my neighborhood was called the Mayfair and it was an old like old old like theater that had been converted into a movie theater and it was a sort of arts like single screen arts theater where you could also see like you know it's the kind of place that you went to see the Princess Bride in theaters you know like

00:09:32.620 classic classics like they were like re-showing it like exactly yeah yeah exactly um but this was

00:09:38.600 definitely like a suburban strip mall viewing for sure um what i remember is the way the whole

00:09:49.280 theater seemed to shake when those t-rex footsteps started totally totally sort of visceral experience

00:09:57.800 of shared sensory input with a room full of strangers it's the earliest memory I have of

00:10:05.640 like that particular thing like we are all in a room in the dark and something is happening that's

00:10:12.180 happening to the people on the screen and it's happening to us as well and it is something that

00:10:16.980 is spectacle like fundamentally spectacular yeah and so much of it depends on being in the theater

00:10:25.500 with those other people right yeah i got a vhs of jurassic park when it came out because i think

00:10:31.120 that like many other vhs's it was sold in a partnership through mcdonald's where like if

00:10:37.760 you got like a super size mcdonald's you could get the vhs for like six dollars or something like

00:10:42.980 that that's how we had all of our family vhs's we're all like if you get a four-person family

00:10:48.780 meal at burger king you can also get a copy of wayne's world on vhs and at the time it was an

00:10:56.700 incredible deal because vhs were very expensive because they actually were expensive to make

00:11:01.060 but they essentially used these cheap vhs as as loss leaders um all right so we should we should

00:11:08.640 go into the question and deeply we go now into the history of the distribution of the vhs

00:11:14.500 Listen, media studies PhD, I could go down any wormhole. Any, any and all. You recently published this darling little book. I'm using darling specifically because the book is in part about the monstrous feminine. It's a book about Jurassic Park, and it's called Clever Girl. How did it come to be?

00:11:38.880 Oh, it, you know, it emerged as so many things do out of a set of material constraints, which is that I was, I was making a podcast called Secret Feminist Agenda. And every second week, I did a little like monologue episode to save myself from having to book guests every single week for interviews.

00:12:01.580 Yeah. Because I decided to solo make and fully produce and edit myself a weekly podcast.

00:12:08.540 Oh, that's something only an academic would do to themselves. 0.91

00:12:13.180 Yeah, we are perverts. So every second week I was like, oh, got to come up with a topic.

00:12:20.540 And, you know, one such week arose and I had just made a friend watch Jurassic Park because it is

00:12:29.420 one of those movies that i often show people because if they haven't seen it i'm like oh this

00:12:35.160 is a vital some people haven't seen it it's wild i know is it that they're younger and that they

00:12:41.560 didn't like experience the wave of like everyone has seen jurassic yeah okay yeah yeah often friends

00:12:47.020 who are a little bit younger or friends who weren't weren't born in north america and so have

00:12:51.160 a different set of early cultural touch points um so i'm often showing it to people and when i show

00:12:56.540 it to them, I am like, so the important thing for you to understand is that all of the dinosaurs

00:13:01.120 have been engineered to be female so that they can't reproduce, which makes this a fundamentally

00:13:06.320 feminist film, which is a thing that I have always said, like, with a little bit of, you know, 0.96

00:13:12.220 winky glibness. But I ended up making a podcast, you know, like a 15 minute podcast episode that

00:13:18.720 was like, let me articulate for you my argument that Jurassic Park is a feminist film. And people

00:13:25.360 really responded to it. And I think a big part of it is the way that people enjoy having an

00:13:34.680 actually shared zeitgeisty piece of popular culture turned at a different angle in a way

00:13:41.980 that reveals something new. And so often to do that, we've got to go back to historical objects

00:13:49.620 of study because you know the whole thing where we have almost no monoculture anymore makes it

00:13:56.860 really difficult to do that with contemporary stuff totally i also think it's particularly

00:14:01.300 resonant because the new versions of jurassic park i don't even know their names they're all

00:14:06.700 like jurassic world jurassic world fallen kingdom jurassic world dominion are not particularly

00:14:13.400 feminist or have like complicated negotiations of feminism going on and this is like it's a

00:14:19.060 pretty 90s understanding but like in a glorious way i think i also love like this is a something

00:14:25.420 i've seen a lot in academic presses recently is doing what is more of like a extended essay

00:14:32.420 like the book itself is i think it's like 114 pages right something close to that yeah yeah

00:14:38.420 and so it's not like 20 000 words it's you know like two articles yeah in academic speak it's not

00:14:45.440 oh here's my article and then here's like six chapters that no one is going to be able to get

00:14:50.160 through with different case studies it's instead like here is an argument and here's a little bit

00:14:55.880 more space for me to like do a little bit more with it and also to write I think a little bit

00:15:00.760 more beautifully than is is often expected in academic writing well the fun thing about this

00:15:07.940 book is that it's actually not a scholarly press ECW is a an independent trade press in Canada

00:15:15.060 And this is the 14th book in their pop classics series, which are all of these little books about a particular, you know, pop culture object. So I had, you know, Jen Suk-Fung Lee, just this absolutely incredible culture writer, in her own right, was my editor.

00:15:33.020 And the experience of having a very smart editor who is not an academic, that experience was so fun because trying to figure out how to make use of the set of critical tools that I have as an academic in a way that is like actually accessible and interesting for readers who don't, you know,

00:16:03.020 have a casual PhD in media studies.

00:16:05.840 Just casual PhD.

00:16:06.580 Just a casual, just a casual PhD.

00:16:08.100 Both of you and I with our casual PhDs.

00:16:10.120 Just a casual, just a little background PhD.

00:16:11.900 Don't even worry about it.

00:16:13.040 Don't even worry about it.

00:16:13.900 Don't even think about it.

00:16:14.580 It doesn't even need to be on the resume.

00:16:16.060 That's my new, that's how I have to do it.

00:16:19.300 Sorry, total diversion.

00:16:23.120 Yeah, no, I love that.

00:16:25.920 And I think this book would also be like,

00:16:28.300 I'm only saying this because we have a lot of academics

00:16:30.280 in the audience.

00:16:30.840 it would be an incredible book to teach yeah yeah agreed cosign sign this to your class

00:16:39.960 teach this book it's short but also a text that like if you do a screening of jurassic park and

00:16:46.560 then you were able to talk about this like i think it would be an incredible way to generate

00:16:49.620 conversation um thanks and the idea for today's episode is related to jurassic park but then

00:16:56.760 allows us to go kind of broader so it's about like the state of the blockbuster and I know what

00:17:03.380 like my definition of the blockbuster is like how like in a media text did we define it but I wonder

00:17:08.960 if like for our audience we can talk a little bit about like vibe oh yeah yeah yeah yeah the

00:17:16.060 blockbuster vibe yeah well yeah so there's I think there's all kinds of ways that people define the

00:17:21.280 blockbuster like i think sometimes it's a matter of like you know ratio of production budget to

00:17:29.100 ultimate earnings yep but i think in general it's a big budget star-led movie that is being

00:17:40.080 positioned as available to the widest possible sector of audiences right so like generally

00:17:49.280 they're going to be somewhere in the pg-13 world right that they want to they're not kids movies

00:17:55.760 but they want as much as possible for families to be able to go to them um they're gonna be sort of

00:18:03.160 treading lightly around violence and sexual content um and they're going to be re leaning

00:18:09.460 really hard into some kind of of spectacular element like literally being a spectacle

00:18:18.040 so that they can sort of attach an event-ness

00:18:21.300 to the idea of going to the movie.

00:18:23.560 Yeah.

00:18:24.180 And even the term blockbuster comes from, like,

00:18:27.340 the line for the movie goes around the block.

00:18:31.260 That's how, like...

00:18:33.120 Does it?

00:18:33.540 I thought it was named after a bomb,

00:18:35.920 but what do I know?

00:18:37.480 No, I mean, that's how I was always told it by my professors,

00:18:41.120 but maybe that's also, like, apocryphal lore.

00:18:45.400 To the OED we go.

00:18:48.040 this we will put this in the show notes how we decide um but the one thing like there has been

00:18:52.900 some interesting scholarship on like how the spectacle functions and one of the things i

00:18:57.440 remember is like they call whatever spectacle is like it could be a sex scene it could be

00:19:03.680 something blowing up it could be a car chase but they you could group those under a categorization

00:19:10.360 called a whammy and then they think when they're creating when you're creating a blockbuster you

00:19:15.160 want so many whammies per minute not minute but like every 12 minutes you need a new whammy

00:19:22.740 essentially and so it like you keep the um the flow very uh like keep people engaged through

00:19:32.120 those whammies over and over again i think they another thing is that like they employ a very

00:19:37.100 classic three-act structure that like most classic hollywood cinema does um very simple

00:19:44.860 narratives for the most part right melodrama melodrama for sure and like even i think sometimes

00:19:52.240 people think melodrama is always like drama but melodrama like a top gun is a melodrama right like

00:19:57.780 jurassic park is a melodrama in many ways definitely and like a morality play yes trying to make the

00:20:03.420 world morally legible in some way which like there's an interesting commentary about genetics

00:20:07.600 and ethics and all that sort of thing going on as well yeah um and then the other thing that i think

00:20:12.260 about is that the contemporary like the very contemporary blockbuster the ip has become the

00:20:17.940 star more than the star yeah yeah yeah so the idea of movies being star-led has sort of you know

00:20:27.340 there's conversations about whether or not we actually have movie stars big enough to sell

00:20:33.620 movies themselves anymore or if it's studio and ip now that sells movies and stars are in service

00:20:41.620 to that and i think we can certainly see the sort of industry logic of that playing out in the way

00:20:47.040 that you know stars are back to signing these like multi-film studio deals to play a particular

00:20:54.400 marvel character forever until disney decides that they're done with them which kind of harkens

00:21:00.280 back to like you know the studio system yeah exactly it feels like we're returning to that

00:21:06.180 um from this sort of money with a lot more money um you know which is which is why the sort of few

00:21:15.820 stars out there who seem still able to sell a movie are such interesting case studies

00:21:23.160 um you know like sort of tom cruise seems to still be a movie star but i would say chris pratt

00:21:31.080 is not chris pratt is just a useful thing to plug into ip totally just like a white guy

00:21:38.520 and and the other thing that's interesting is like the the movie industry has always been global

00:21:46.900 but originally pre-talkies it the content itself was much more global in terms of like you had

00:21:55.720 productions coming out of sweden you had productions coming out of japan that would be

00:21:59.680 global hits Hollywood then like essentially like becomes this hegemonic force and so much of the

00:22:07.320 popular productions that are coming out there there are obviously huge exceptions like Bollywood

00:22:11.900 and that sort of thing but most most of the like huge blockbusters that are circulating globally 1.00

00:22:17.660 are still very white very straight and I think what we've seen especially with the development 0.96

00:22:23.100 of the chinese market over the last like 20 years are these gestures that are like the leads are 0.88

00:22:31.300 still white but look at this here's a chinese star yeah this this like increasing reliance that

00:22:39.060 the the blockbuster movie has on a global audience right and sort of domestic is not actually going

00:22:46.280 to there's like just not enough people seeing movies in the u.s yeah to actually fund these

00:22:52.520 So they're depending on, like, a certain performance in China, for example.

00:22:56.920 And so increasingly we're seeing studios cast, like, celebrity Chinese actors in big blockbuster movies to get that pull.

00:23:06.320 I mean, this is part of why the Fast and the Furious franchise has been so successful.

00:23:11.700 Because they do such a good job of bringing in a cast that has, you know, legitimate global appeal.

00:23:19.640 Yeah.

00:23:20.340 Okay.

00:23:20.700 I can hear Melody whispering, not whispering, but she's just like, I can. 0.99

00:23:24.740 Answer the freaking question. 0.96

00:23:28.880 Okay, so. 0.98

00:23:30.180 For once, I'm just really enjoying the ride.

00:23:32.560 For once!

00:23:34.500 No, that's not what I mean.

00:23:36.880 Normally I am harassing Anne to, like, get a move on, but I'm just, like, really enjoying this.

00:23:43.180 She's like, stop talking about the picture palaces.

00:23:45.880 um so we all i think everyone knows and the and the statistics back this up fewer people are going

00:23:53.880 to the movies there are fewer movie tickets sold and we will put all of our statistic back up in

00:23:59.760 the show notes then like to it's i think the number sold is half of what it was in 2004

00:24:06.840 which is wild yeah um and there's some obvious reasons and some not so obvious reasons

00:24:13.540 what do you think like what's your overarching theory here we start with the obvious reasons

00:24:17.980 yeah yeah yeah let's start like it's it's this the advance of of home viewing uh technology

00:24:25.460 you know alongside the rise of other forms of immersive media that that just sector off this

00:24:33.580 potential audience right like video games and prestige tv and right so there's like lots of

00:24:40.080 other stuff competing for our attention but but if we look at you know if we look back at for

00:24:47.300 example the dawn of the vhs we see a similar moment where when new technologies emerge that

00:24:54.480 allow people to watch things at home to have more control over you know everything about their

00:25:00.820 viewing experience for a period of time in the case of vhs you know viewership dropped off um

00:25:08.820 And it picked back up, right?

00:25:10.600 We can talk about the relationship between the VHS and the sort of contemporary blockbuster

00:25:14.180 as a way to try to get people back in theaters.

00:25:17.660 And I think one of the biggest things that's happening right now is that there is so much

00:25:25.040 incredibly sophisticated technology that people can use to watch things at home that like

00:25:31.840 even the people who are interested in the eventness of movie viewing can reproduce

00:25:37.720 that eventness in their their own homes quite easily and a lot of the time the companies that

00:25:44.360 are producing the movies are the same companies that are making the technology that you use to

00:25:48.820 watch the movies at home so they're telling you like please go see movies but then they're also

00:25:53.700 at the same time being like you don't have to have the world's biggest tv yes and i also think

00:26:03.140 like obviously covid discouraged people from group activities in any sort of capacity uh and then

00:26:10.580 i think people are also unaccustomed to one screen viewing or increasingly this is not true for

00:26:18.480 everyone but i think a lot of people have become very accustomed to watching something on the big

00:26:23.460 screen and then also playing around with their phone or being on the computer right and what i

00:26:28.840 love about the movies is that you cannot do that yeah but it's difficult to encourage people to

00:26:36.000 if you're not used to that or if you have become unaccustomed or unpracticed at that

00:26:41.140 to do that it's also expensive like movie i mean we can talk about like how inflation and what a

00:26:46.940 ticket would have been in 1950 but to take your family to the movies is really expensive is very

00:26:54.780 expensive yeah certainly it's become something that like a lower middle class family like my

00:27:02.060 own growing up it was already a treat and it would be a pretty much a prohibitive family activity

00:27:09.480 you know for the equivalent family to us in 2024 yeah I go to the movies very seldom now even though

00:27:18.180 it is my favorite thing to do and I love going to the movies by myself and so much of it has to do

00:27:24.220 with the fact that I live on an island it just makes it much more if there was a movie theater

00:27:27.820 on my island we don't have a gas station but it'd be cool if we had a movie theater

00:27:30.700 if I had a independent movie theater in my neighborhood I would go to it all the time

00:27:38.220 every time I've lived somewhere where I'm like walking distance from a one screen movie theater

00:27:43.400 I am there constantly yep um there isn't one close enough to me now and so that's certainly

00:27:50.420 part of it right and and and we can talk about the way that like people are being driven out of

00:27:55.640 urban centers the the idea that like you're not close to kind of anything um yep and i think

00:28:04.440 the culture of multitasking has become so pervasive that not only do we sometimes struggle

00:28:14.280 to like sit and pay attention to a thing but it also feels really indulgent to be like i'm gonna

00:28:21.540 not check my work email for two hours yeah where do i get off or like i went and saw um killers of

00:28:30.300 the flower moon earlier this year and like that's a three and a half hour experience

00:28:35.300 also felt very indulgent exquisite and absolutely the way that that movie should be seen because i

00:28:41.360 think there are so many ways that we can like give ourselves excuses to stop watching something

00:28:48.220 right and what a movie theater does is like it forces you to hold your attention in that way

00:28:54.820 yeah and okay the last thing I'll say is that the middle the middle class of a movie going

00:29:01.580 has disappeared so the things that I would have loved to have seen in a theater like

00:29:05.980 rom-coms that you go with a friend right like merchant ivory prestige dramas like those have

00:29:12.000 all disappeared and they they show up in prestige television to streamers to streaming yeah so like

00:29:18.560 that that sweet middle is gone and so now you have like micro budget horror films and 300 million

00:29:26.360 dollar blockbusters with existing ip so there's not a ton of room for like as people say like the

00:29:31.220 adult movie goer yeah yeah and and you know depending on what you have access to you know

00:29:37.560 I live in a major city and so there's always something interesting and independent playing

00:29:43.760 but if we look at the actual sort of makeup of you know what movies are being funded what movies

00:29:49.980 are being produced what movies do most people have access to the reality is that most people

00:29:55.500 do not have access to anything outside of the horror to blockbuster uh spectrum and the harder

00:30:04.000 you make it for people to access a thing this is a i think maybe going to be a really mind-blowing

00:30:09.180 revelation for your listeners when you make it harder for people to do something they do it less

00:30:13.400 we come here for the big thoughts

00:30:18.680 okay let's get into our questions this one is from a listener who is also named hannah

00:30:25.580 there's been a lot of talk about blockbusters being in decline but what explains the occasional

00:30:30.720 movie that does become a blockbuster what do movies like barbie top gun maverick twisters

00:30:36.520 etc have in common that have allowed them to reach those blockbuster heights

00:30:40.720 when so many other blockbuster beat movies fail to get there

00:30:44.600 so the first thing i see in those movies that are named is it's all pre-existing ip yep for sure

00:30:53.680 and i think doing something simultaneously following the pattern of making use of pre-existing

00:31:03.460 ip but successfully recovering pre-existing ip that hasn't been rung out for the past 20 years

00:31:11.900 yeah so like a lot of the ip that studios have they have just like exhausted and all three of

00:31:21.420 these examples you know twisters and top gun maverick are sequels is twisters a sequel not

00:31:29.140 it's not it's it's i would say it is evocative like there is one moment where they use one of

00:31:37.240 the pieces of equipment that they used in the original twister and that's it and part of and

00:31:44.600 then and then also the central premise which is we are chasing twisters like we are we are after

00:31:51.540 tornadoes and tornadoes are dangerous the star that has returned is tornado yes that's the word

00:31:59.220 that is the returning the consistency uh the other thing that is common between at least two of these

00:32:05.360 movies is Glenn Powell who is a real movie star right and I think that that like that's something

00:32:12.400 that's that's fascinating is like you you need someone who has some of that wattage in order to

00:32:18.400 turn something into a distinctive blockbuster that people are like I really want to go see this

00:32:25.060 not just like I guess it's the next Marvel movie right yeah yeah and and it's not all it's asking

00:32:33.340 from me is a kind of like passive uh presence in the movie theater you know the marvel movies

00:32:41.040 um at this point are like largely incomprehensible i think like yeah like i have no idea what's

00:32:49.240 happening no and most people don't like most people are just not following the lore this

00:32:53.260 closely um you know but but a movie like um twisters or top gun maverick are offering you

00:33:01.280 narrative offering you like an entry point into some sort of um straightforward narrative arc

00:33:08.480 have that sort of um comfortable cushion of the recognizable ip but are also something that you

00:33:17.480 can just you know if you haven't seen twister or top gun recently you can still enter into these

00:33:23.600 movies with ease um but but it is that like in part i think it's a matter of like if you throw

00:33:35.140 enough paint at a dartboard is this a good is this a good analogy you know when you throw paint at

00:33:42.240 dartboards eventually you're gonna hit a bullseye a perfect analogy i think actually we can all agree

00:33:47.540 um that like if you reboot everything yes some of it's gonna hit yeah the the whole sort of

00:33:57.080 uh the concept of the black swan event right which is like used often in uh publishing

00:34:04.680 conversations to talk about books like harry potter that just like nobody could have predicted

00:34:09.340 the way that that took off and ultimately there ends up being a lot of sort of money and resources

00:34:15.440 behind it but like it getting picked up in the first place is kind of unpredictable and non

00:34:20.440 reproducible um and that's kind of one of the the truths behind the blockbuster as well is that a lot

00:34:28.160 more movies are always trying to be blockbusters than successfully are because there's always some

00:34:33.160 unpredictability yeah it's kind of like venture capital in that capacity right like there you have

00:34:38.400 to you have to invest in a lot of things and just hope that one goes big but i do think that like

00:34:43.680 the studios are so risk adverse now that they only will invest in something that has that

00:34:50.360 previous IP. And most of the time they are not willing to do something like what they did with

00:34:56.240 Barbie, which is allow Greta Gerwig to be weird with it. And I think that's what made it Barbie

00:35:04.300 into the phenomenon that it was, is that it was reaching beyond the typical blockbuster audience

00:35:10.360 to get people who maybe that was the only movie that they saw in theaters that year yeah yeah I

00:35:15.400 mean what really struck me about Barbie is how successfully they managed to attach eventness

00:35:21.760 to the experience of seeing it right the idea that like this is a movie that you're gonna go

00:35:26.600 see in a group and everybody in the group is gonna dress in pink and you're gonna take a group photo

00:35:31.980 a big part of it was like a really smart and successful marketing budget certainly but then

00:35:39.460 it also was a legitimately interesting movie um and when i think about things like top gun maverick

00:35:46.900 and barbie i also think about audience saturation with the experience of watching cgi

00:35:53.620 and the impact of like practical effects stunts real physical like people like seeing tom cruise

00:36:02.420 movies because he famously does his own stunts famously um you know and a big part of the appeal

00:36:09.160 of barbie was that they they made everything um and i don't want to make any sort of sweeping

00:36:16.300 claims about like the experience of practical effects versus the experience of cg because i

00:36:21.140 think in the 90s the presence of a computer generated effect was part of the novelty of

00:36:28.500 the blockbuster and now it's just become so widespread that what is novel and interesting

00:36:34.880 what feels like you're seeing something new is seeing something that is a practical effect

00:36:40.900 and that like novelty is so key the right balance of novelty and familiarity is so key to the

00:36:49.000 blockbuster sweet spot yeah that's so true that like it needs to have something that you're like

00:36:54.280 oh and i know what the next beat is gonna be right i feel like we're gonna have this really

00:36:59.560 interesting moment and it's starting already of looking back on some of the cgi of like the early

00:37:05.820 2000s and being like wow that looked like shit right whereas a lot of the effects from the early

00:37:14.080 90s or even like i think about jaws like it actually is very good right or even like original 0.63

00:37:21.120 star wars yeah and it's because they had to be so incredibly mindful and couldn't just be like

00:37:25.820 oh we're just gonna let the computer just render this right yeah um they had to be very careful

00:37:31.000 and cautious with the use of effects because they were very expensive yeah and if you overused them

00:37:38.420 they were gonna look really crummy right so like famously we see we actually see very very little

00:37:45.720 of jaws in jaws we see very very few dinosaurs in jurassic park yeah yeah and that part of the sort

00:37:54.560 of what makes it still feel special and exciting is that they are only appearing and sort of

00:38:01.820 heightened they can they can still be a whammy because they're not in every single scene right

00:38:06.720 like if something just saturates the entirety of a movie it loses its effect really really quickly

00:38:12.160 and and that kind of that kind of tasteful restraint yes I think is a quality in filmmaking

00:38:19.900 that is perhaps not valued much these days there are some directors who do not know how to use it

00:38:27.320 I'm so interested to see what the new gladiator is going to do in terms of this too because like

00:38:32.940 that is a pre-sold idea that and you have a big star or a big potential star in Paul Mescal

00:38:40.540 but also i i just i don't i don't trust like that you can make a sequel to gladiator and make it not

00:38:48.300 be like not that great um you know the other example that i find really interesting um that

00:38:55.760 could have been grouped in with the you know top gun maverick and barbie is is dune oh right and

00:39:02.980 And that is another like a pre-existing IP, some, you know, big budget movie stars, a successful, an interesting enough director that they're doing something that feels exciting with it.

00:39:20.680 Yeah. And also a little bit, and this is how I felt with Barbie as well, like a little bit of stunting, by which I mean, you know, Dune is a famously impossible story to adapt.

00:39:35.880 Yeah. Many have tried, all have failed.

00:39:39.100 Similarly, the idea of doing a good job of adapting Barbie into a movie, right?

00:39:45.300 It feels a little bit like you want to turn out to see it because it's either going to be really cool or a colossal disaster.

00:39:55.300 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:39:56.060 And that feels interesting because even though both of those examples are, you know, pre-existing IP, there's something a little risky about them.

00:40:07.420 yeah i think that's part of how barbie was successful vis-a-vis word of mouth right it's

00:40:13.800 like can you believe it the barbie movie is actually good can you guys guys they pulled

00:40:21.600 it off can you believe this right and then we'll put this article in the show notes there's a great

00:40:27.280 new yorker profile of like the access that mattel gave greta gerwig and how like mattel and other

00:40:35.420 companies are trying to think about how like how can we make the game life into a movie that isn't

00:40:44.340 ridiculous right like how do you actually do that little twist that's a commentary on the ip itself

00:40:50.980 and that's part of what we're talking about too i think it's like even top gun maverick is in some 0.53

00:40:55.680 way like the spectacle is in some ways tom cruise's face yeah and his body like what is happening to

00:41:01.720 his aging body and like who is his heir like is his heir glenn powell or is it miles teller and

00:41:07.840 personally i think it's glenn powell but uh next question has a theory for why blockbusters

00:41:14.920 resonate in various seasons so this comes from alana i feel like part of the reason barbie was

00:41:21.060 so special was because it brought people together in a blockbuster way with fashion the director the

00:41:26.240 cast and the political moment is there a chance that election years years of despair and

00:41:31.100 disassociation between the brutality of the world and the movies that are actually interesting

00:41:35.380 can help bring back the blockbuster for good i mean if if despair brings the blockbuster back

00:41:44.460 then then we are in great shape vis-a-vis the future of the blockbuster

00:41:49.700 i do think that like that there is an interesting argument to be made about

00:41:58.020 the decline of monoculture and the rise of polarization right like that's something that

00:42:06.340 would need to be done very carefully and by someone who is uh has more time on their hands

00:42:12.560 than I think either of us do since you're out here just producing podcasts by yourself

00:42:18.160 well not not anymore I know but just like you got a team but I got tenure in Zoloft so we're

00:42:25.900 doing a little better um but yeah like that like an actual sort of um deep study of what is going

00:42:34.560 on politically at the moment of particular blockbusters you know frankly i'm sure somebody

00:42:41.120 is already engaged in it i do think that something like barbie like even pointing out that the that

00:42:46.020 barbie brought people together i think that it actually pissed off a lot of people uh one of 0.63

00:42:51.860 uh the stars of rush talk kylan she who looks like a barbie uh she watched it and she was like 0.98

00:42:58.680 this is dumb and i think like it's a particular version of like a kind of feminism light 0.99

00:43:07.740 right like in the famous america ferrera speech like those were always like the parts where i was 0.98

00:43:14.680 like okay if we're gonna write a lot more about this like these are things that i would want to 1.00

00:43:18.200 interrogate more I do think that that that type of like almost girl powery feminism like life is 0.99

00:43:24.840 hard but like why don't we just like life is hard for women what if it wasn't so hard wouldn't that 0.57

00:43:32.680 be nicer what if we didn't have to wear heels that was very palatable yeah I mean honestly one

00:43:40.280 of the things that makes i think a movie like barbie or top gun maverick actually like go beyond

00:43:52.160 sort of the opening weekend spectacle numbers and have people like returning to see it again

00:43:57.980 and having conversations about it is that there is some kind of there there yeah um at least enough

00:44:05.920 to generate conversation um that there's readings available of it uh you know it's very hard to

00:44:15.080 say much of anything about the third guardians of the galaxy movie um but there's at least

00:44:23.580 a conversation to be had around watching tom cruise age and star in a movie that is about

00:44:32.980 aging or watching um margot robbie star in a movie that is about the objectification of women's

00:44:43.120 bodies like right there's a there's a conversation to be had um i think barbie is sort of aesthetically

00:44:51.000 quite a successful film because i think that sort of girl boss feminism 101 is a surface layer and

00:45:01.060 i think that there's something beyond that i think you can keep going and get deeper into

00:45:06.700 the movie than that but that gives it a sort of um a readily legible narrative that also makes

00:45:16.240 it accessible for further conversation um and that you know is a huge part of how a blockbuster

00:45:23.100 happens is that like people watch it and then go talk to somebody else about it they don't forget

00:45:28.880 it 30 seconds after they walk out of the movie theater yeah i that's such an important point

00:45:34.580 i think the other thing was especially with something like top gun is that it also reproduces

00:45:41.020 discourses that we are very familiar with in terms of like like american jingoism like that it's so

00:45:49.340 like there's something so ham-fisted in um top gun maverick about the fact that like they because

00:45:55.220 you can't be against the commies anymore right so instead it's like a country that's like clearly

00:46:00.900 iran but they don't say that it's iran like yeah it's clearly bad guys don't worry about it bad

00:46:07.960 guys that we need to bomb which also like that gives like allows or is actually very on point

00:46:14.800 in terms of like how we think about drone warfare and like oh it's just bad guys like it's okay

00:46:22.980 because it's bad guys yeah we don't even have to like name who they are or know anything else

00:46:29.340 about them as long as someone tells us that they're bad guys then they should get bombed

00:46:33.560 yeah yeah which again like melodrama like yeah and the the appeal of the moral simplicity of

00:46:43.160 melodrama in the midst of say the contemporary moment in which people are like you know navigating

00:46:51.340 on a regular basis the incredibly complex experience of like understanding what's

00:46:59.960 happening in the middle east right and the impossibility i mean people desperately want

00:47:05.560 to say like well there's good guys and bad guys um and again i'm full of hot takes now not not a 0.59

00:47:13.540 huge fan of what uh the state of israel is doing right now i think it's kind of monstrous um but

00:47:20.280 it's not a melodrama it's incredibly messy gritty difficult political experience and

00:47:30.280 the offering of a narrative that simplifies the world down to good guys and bad guys

00:47:35.440 um certainly has uh a particular appeal during a moment like this well and there's a reason why

00:47:43.600 Oppenheimer while successful is not what I would call a blockbuster right like there is there are

00:47:51.600 aspects of melodrama in that movie but it is offering a much more complex understanding of

00:47:56.700 like even what dropping creating and dropping the bomb did to all of us right and the wages

00:48:02.860 of those decisions yeah yeah I mean you know who's great still at blockbusters and and keeps

00:48:10.120 kind of nailing it every time is james cameron like that guy knows one i think he

00:48:19.080 genuinely experiences the world with melodrama this is my like fan theory i think this is real

00:48:27.380 like he's like i don't think he's simplifying the way that he sees the world for the purpose

00:48:32.780 of filmmaking i think he actually sees the world like that the narrative of making titanic the

00:48:38.780 narrative of making avatar is like good triumph over evil like no one wanted me to make these

00:48:45.760 movies but i did it but i did and now the movie exists and can you believe it it's so much movie

00:48:53.680 and every and and he's so interested in a melodramatic narrative accompanied by a cool

00:49:01.840 new thing to look at that's all he wants he wants to show you something cool you haven't seen before

00:49:06.660 and then he wants to layer that over a story a very simple story about good and evil um and every

00:49:13.840 time he does it like he does seem to knock it out of the park yeah no but then i think about someone

00:49:20.120 like uh why am i blanking um director of of oppenheimer um christopher nolan christopher

00:49:25.580 nolan like i i find christopher nolan really interesting because he is arguably the only

00:49:31.400 director that can make a movie that is not with existing IP that people will go see as if it were

00:49:39.240 and for all of the like dude bro critiques of him I do think none of his movies are offering

00:49:47.820 a simple understanding of the world and to me it's proof that like there is an appetite

00:49:53.840 for a melodrama that twists and that asks you to think more about like is this a good guy is this

00:50:00.880 the bad guy like those sorts of questions and i and i think that we actually crave more of those

00:50:06.460 type of films but when you are working with existing ip it is difficult to to create narratives

00:50:13.500 and that also need to be globally legible yep so you have to work with existing ip you need to

00:50:19.540 create narratives that are globally legible you have to somehow get anything interesting that 0.97

00:50:24.300 you're doing through a committee of probably hundreds of terrible, boring white men. And so 0.99

00:50:31.460 in most cases, the only people who can do it are people who already come in with a certain amount

00:50:38.760 of power. So Christopher Nolan enters into these arrangements with a pre-existing power of his own

00:50:48.000 to drive forward an unusual film um and so you know certainly we need to have as part of this

00:50:55.380 larger conversation like we got to think about well who who can even enter the conversation with

00:51:01.360 that kind of power in the first place absolutely it's very very few people and it's not a coincidence

00:51:06.600 that it's like a white guy who makes movies that are particularly appealing to other white guys

00:51:12.580 right do you know the maxim that like there's four quadrants of moviegoers very broadly understood

00:51:19.400 so there's adult women adult men teen women teen men yeah and women will go see anything that a

00:51:29.220 man will see but men will not go see anything that a woman will see and adults will go see

00:51:35.340 anything that a teen will see but teens won't go see anything that an adult will see and so if

00:51:39.940 You're making a movie for everybody.

00:51:41.300 It's got to be for teenage boys.

00:51:42.960 Yep.

00:51:43.980 Yeah.

00:51:45.120 Amazing.

00:51:45.880 Yeah.

00:51:46.120 And we sure do see an awful lot of that. 0.93

00:51:49.460 I mean, again, part of why Barbie sort of shocked people is they were like, a movie with a budget for women? 0.94

00:51:56.340 Can it be done? 0.71

00:51:58.520 Can men also go see this movie?

00:52:00.740 Wow.

00:52:01.320 Interesting.

00:52:02.340 Incredible.

00:52:03.020 They're very confused by it.

00:52:04.540 But Ryan Cosling's there, and that makes them feel safe.

00:52:08.260 Also, it's funny and good.

00:52:09.940 Okay, last question.

00:52:11.620 This will be our Ask It Anything question for this episode, and this comes from Spencer.

00:52:16.960 I love going to the movies alone, but when my friends say they really want to see a big new movie that's playing,

00:52:23.380 I'll ask if they want to come see it with me.

00:52:25.460 They usually seem completely bemused by this offer,

00:52:28.720 almost as if they forgot seeing a movie in theaters was even an option these days.

00:52:33.740 They politely decline and say they'll just catch it on streaming.

00:52:37.220 Months later, they'll stream it at home while scrolling their phone, not really paying attention to it,

00:52:42.780 and then say, it was mediocre, I'm glad I didn't waste money on it in theaters.

00:52:48.640 Is there any way to convince people that they will genuinely enjoy a movie more

00:52:53.300 if they see it in theaters instead of passively watching it at home?

00:52:57.420 Or has the convenience of the streaming era permanently eliminated theater going for most people?

00:53:03.400 Ugh.

00:53:06.520 I just I feel you Spencer it's like it's just so much better to go see a movie in the theaters it

00:53:12.300 just is we all know it this is one of the things that we're like I hate looking at my phone all

00:53:16.840 the time and yet I look at my phone all the time like we understand that there is an alternative

00:53:21.540 but it's very difficult as you said earlier when it has become harder and harder to see movies

00:53:27.540 for financial and time reasons and babysitting options and like all that stuff right yeah to

00:53:33.920 make it happen and also i think as you said people think that it's wasteful to go see a movie

00:53:39.700 yeah like that you somehow like it's indulgent yeah yeah i really think that's true i really

00:53:46.440 think that it feels particularly if you you know have a big tv at home that you spend a bunch of

00:53:53.620 money on yeah right it's like oh well i should watch it on this on this thing that i have um

00:54:00.580 Or, you know, I want to be able to watch it in little bits, right?

00:54:05.020 Because I can't, it feels impossible to set aside three hours to do one activity.

00:54:10.640 Feels impossible, or maybe for some people, simply is impossible.

00:54:15.340 You know, and Spencer, part of what you might be experiencing is your friend group aging.

00:54:20.420 Because that is certainly a thing.

00:54:22.860 Like, when you're in your 20s, your friends have time.

00:54:28.100 like my friends and I we you have very little money but you've got time my friends and I used

00:54:34.160 to uh we we figured out which movie theaters had concessions before ticketing and which ones had

00:54:41.680 concessions after ticketing and if the ticketing all kind of happens like at the front of the

00:54:47.640 theater and then concessions and and screens are beyond you can just buy one movie ticket and then

00:54:52.820 spend all day in that movie theater oh yeah we would absolutely like on a saturday just go see

00:54:59.580 like four movies for the price of one like it was you know a popular popular activity and the idea

00:55:06.600 of having a whole saturday that i don't have anything else i need to do now is unheard of

00:55:12.140 um and so you know part of it is just that that that shift in in my own life and the kinds of

00:55:19.860 My friends have kids. We've got full time jobs. We, you know, I want to be able to put on a movie and make dinner, like put on a movie and like putter around and clean up. Because if I go to a movie and come home three hours later, none of those whole tasks that had to be done have been done.

00:55:40.560 um so so you know that's that's all part of it for me and my response to like how do i get my

00:55:50.940 friends to go to a movie is this is going to blow your mind instead of trying to convince them that

00:55:56.180 it's better for them just say that it matters to you yeah yeah just like make it into something

00:56:03.040 that like hey can we go to dinner before right or like if you like going to see movies with people

00:56:08.320 I only like to go see movies with like five people

00:56:11.680 because I don't always appreciate the conversation afterwards.

00:56:16.500 Sometimes I just want to hang out in my own head.

00:56:18.760 My number one favorite thing is going to a movie by myself.

00:56:22.400 When I was in grad school, I would go at least twice a week to the movies.

00:56:25.460 I didn't have any money, but what I did have, I spent on going to the movies.

00:56:28.840 I also love going to the movies by myself.

00:56:32.260 I love your very subtle way of being like,

00:56:34.360 I don't want to go to the movies with a dummy.

00:56:35.920 no it's not gonna say

00:56:38.240 but i agree like i've got

00:56:43.260 especially if you're seeing something that's like kind of weird

00:56:46.600 or like asks you like wants to settle into your body a little bit like

00:56:51.080 you can't talk about it right away right or if you're just like weeping

00:56:56.040 uncontrollably which happens to me all the time in movies

00:56:59.660 like you just want to sit with those feelings you want to feel your feelings

00:57:03.480 And if you have to perform a different sort of feeling for someone afterwards, I think sometimes that is not the experience that you're looking for.

00:57:12.480 One of my favorite sort of going to a movie by myself memories is going to see Arrival by myself, which is a perfect, perfect movie to see by yourself so you can cry as much as you want.

00:57:26.920 In the theater specifically, right?

00:57:27.660 Because that movie is, that movie is like tremendous.

00:57:31.240 Like it is.

00:57:32.420 Yeah.

00:57:33.140 Yeah.

00:57:33.300 it's visually beautiful it's visually beautiful it's the sound immersive slow thoughtful like a

00:57:41.080 movie that really rewards attention and it's much easier to pay attention when you are in a movie

00:57:46.220 theater than when you are at home um so I went and saw it by myself and I'm sitting there at the end

00:57:51.840 you know it's got one of those crescendo endings where it's just like oh my god and I'm sitting

00:57:55.920 there and I'm I'm like feeling my feelings and processing this movie and there's this older

00:58:00.660 couple sitting right next to me and the wife turns to the husband and goes i don't get it

00:58:06.780 this is why you don't go with other people in the movie

00:58:13.420 the thing that convinced me to start going to movies by myself when i was pretty young

00:58:20.860 uh was going to see like if we wanted to get slightly more artsy we had to drive

00:58:27.780 half an hour to the um nearby university town where they would have like slightly more artsy

00:58:32.980 stuff like we're talking like more like miramax style and so went to go see uh the talented mr

00:58:38.700 ripley with like one of my high school friends and we got done and i was like blown away by it

00:58:45.400 like in you know the ways that the 17 year old and also that movie is really really good but

00:58:52.480 my friend was like that was weird yeah it was cool right isn't that exciting yes

00:59:01.700 but that wasn't the conversation that we had and I you know managing someone else's feelings about

00:59:08.060 something that you've just watched is sometimes something that you don't want to do and I think

00:59:11.580 that Spencer is kind of the sadness that is coming to them is from managing their feelings when they

00:59:18.500 have watched it in what in like a subpar way right yeah like they don't want to have that

00:59:23.220 discussion about twisters when they watched it cut up into four pieces yeah while also scrolling

00:59:28.700 their phone yeah yeah because because you've had a fundamentally different experience so trying to

00:59:33.360 talk about a movie that you went and sat in a theater and immersively watched while doing

00:59:39.240 nothing else trying to talk to somebody who like half watched it while scrolling their phone

00:59:45.360 is like well you you actually didn't see the same movie yeah you just didn't you just didn't have

00:59:50.120 the same experience and so that the pleasure and this is definitely a thing i've heard from a lot

00:59:56.140 of like real film buff friends is that like the pleasure of getting to talk to somebody about an

01:00:02.300 interesting movie you've seen feels like it's harder and harder to access yeah because we

01:00:08.460 aren't having those collective viewing experiences and because the the landscape of like meaningful

01:00:15.980 film criticism online has like all other forms of criticism like um you know there there aren't any

01:00:24.700 real well-respected mainstream film critics it's like you gotta find the right sub stack

01:00:30.900 and that is much harder to do than to just you know follow roger ebert um and so i think that's

01:00:38.400 why letterboxd has become so popular is because it has provided people a way to have those

01:00:44.520 conversations i find letterboxd kind of mortifying because i think like film conversations often can

01:00:52.960 be it's very performative when it's done for an audience right yeah but i understand why people

01:00:58.280 like it and i think i think my advice to spencer would be you need to keep going to the movies

01:01:03.880 because you love you love movies and people like spencer are what keeps the movie business alive

01:01:09.980 and i just wish the studios would maybe just do a little bit more to like

01:01:14.360 make movies that i absolutely want to see in the theaters right yeah yeah yeah that seemed like

01:01:21.860 indubitable like i must see this in the theater that's how i i did feel that way about twisters

01:01:26.240 and that's why i went and saw it in the theater yeah yeah you know i even have trouble um hearing

01:01:32.920 about movies these days right like the landscape of information is so incredibly fragmented

01:01:41.220 that sometimes there are major movies that i kind of don't even know did you know there's a new mad

01:01:47.740 max and that it was really bad i didn't i did i definitely like saw a trailer for at another movie

01:01:57.800 i was seeing with friends and it came up and i was like no never never in a hundred years i love

01:02:04.860 mad max fury road i think it's a pretty much perfect movie i do too the the last thing that

01:02:10.020 i want is like a prequel about the trauma of the protagonist before the liberatory events of the

01:02:18.100 film i've seen like i don't want to spend more time there whose idea was this um but like if

01:02:24.200 you aren't already seeing movies then like how do you find out about movies I know I used to like

01:02:30.360 when I lived in New York I loved that I would see the actual like paper ads the you know the

01:02:36.200 billboards and the stuff that was in the subways for new television shows for new movies like I

01:02:41.380 knew I felt much more grounded in the schedule of events and I also when there was something like

01:02:47.600 entertainment weekly right it prepared me like fall movie preview um part of the way that i find

01:02:54.460 out about movies now is uh the big picture podcast which does a lot of different previews of stuff

01:02:59.800 and talks in a way that i find very accessible about movies that are upcoming because sometimes

01:03:06.320 you're like i don't want to hear people talk about movies that i don't know about right like that i

01:03:11.260 like but they i think do a very fantastic job melody wants me to ask you what would happen if

01:03:17.340 movie theaters disappeared and i i almost didn't ask it because the idea makes me so sad that like

01:03:23.540 talking about it is like it's like talking about the election like it just is really really sad to

01:03:30.900 me but what do you think i i can picture the current version of like the cineplex disappearing

01:03:39.460 because it's such a specific business model and we can see it as a business struggling right now

01:03:47.500 right like they're they're actively playing around with like okay how do we do this you know in

01:03:52.540 canada i don't know if this is this is the case outside of canada but they've just started

01:03:57.100 charging an additional fee to book your seat online yeah that they're just like ah how do

01:04:02.860 we get enough money to stay open um you know these these um like monthly passes are becoming

01:04:09.920 a thing right like get a membership and you can see as many movies as you want like they are

01:04:14.440 they are scrambling and i can see that like 27 screen multiplex disappearing um i can't see

01:04:26.840 movie theaters disappearing because there are too many examples of people spontaneously

01:04:34.560 reproducing the effect of the movie theater via community screenings yeah for me to believe that

01:04:41.800 we would ever actually let that go like people are too into setting up a big screen in a park

01:04:50.060 and gathering together to watch a movie like we'll just find other ways to do it and it might

01:04:56.900 be fewer people do it or it will take different shapes but I just can't picture it going anywhere

01:05:03.740 yeah well and also shout out to like small movie theaters independently run movie theaters some

01:05:09.020 many of them are community supported and donation supported the Pickford Theater here in Bellingham

01:05:14.540 is an example of that that are doing incredible work to show all different types of cinema too

01:05:20.580 like to not just show like whatever is going around like there's always something that is

01:05:25.960 a draw like a movie that you have heard about but also doing all sorts of like documentaries

01:05:31.340 and local filmmakers and film festivals and it like yeah that's film culture to me and I think

01:05:36.900 that that is still very much alive and I don't think it's going anywhere either but it makes

01:05:42.220 me sad to think about so go to the movies take this opportunity to like we're also coming up

01:05:47.180 on winter blockbuster season so yeah i mean i for one i for one will be seeing wicked part one

01:05:54.660 as soon as humanly possible melody in the background yes yes yes yes when does it come

01:06:00.820 out thanksgiving thanksgiving yes i'm gonna you're gonna see wicked the first part of wicked and i'm

01:06:06.700 gonna see gladiator and then we can talk about it after we can exchange notes i'll be like this is 0.51

01:06:11.960 ball mezcal right here thank you thank you is he a white boy he he is he's he was in normal people

01:06:18.540 that's not seen it white boy with a mullet specifically he does have a mullet which am

01:06:24.320 loves it's a hot mullet uh okay all right hannah where can people find you on the internet if they

01:06:30.420 want to hear more from you um you can find my website at hannah mcgregor.com um you can find

01:06:37.960 all my podcasting work at awitchplease.ca. And if you want to follow me for fewer hot takes about

01:06:46.500 media and more pictures of my outfits, I'm on Instagram at hkpmcgregor.

01:06:53.540 Strong recommend for following here. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. This has

01:06:58.600 been a true pleasure. Thanks for having me. Melody, did we get everything?

01:07:04.060 i loved it i do i'm gonna keep rolling while i tell you that hannah is correct and blockbuster

01:07:10.960 references a bomb

01:07:12.000 that's so funny i love that i thought it was like the 1940s like people were very familiar

01:07:23.380 it was like an atomic bomb wasn't it it was like a yeah a big bomb and so they're like it's like a

01:07:29.120 blockbuster because it's like the movie is going to have such an impact well yeah this movie's

01:07:34.600 going to blow you up this but you can see how it's like oh the line goes around the block

01:07:40.940 absolutely who told me that i'm gonna have to like figure out the find them you find them you

01:07:46.680 track them down me i think i told students that too oh this is how misinformation spreads ann

01:07:55.940 Yep. Through the casual media studies PhD community.

01:08:03.920 Thank you so much for listening to the Culture Study Podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever

01:08:12.320 you get your podcasts because we have so many great episodes in the works and I promise that

01:08:17.460 you don't want to miss any of them. Some of the shows we're working on right now include

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01:08:33.280 if you want to submit questions for any of those episodes or for the ask and anything segment we

01:08:38.980 actually need some more of those so especially if you want some advice from me from melody you can

01:08:43.360 actually specifically direct it to melody i'd appreciate that you could go to our google form

01:08:49.580 at tinyurl.com slash culture study pod or check the show notes for a link. That's also where you

01:08:56.460 can suggest topics for future shows. Today's episode is free for everyone, so if you like

01:09:01.760 what you hear and you want to support the show, head to culturestudypod.substack.com. It's just

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01:09:18.100 questions go to the front of the line and if you're a paid subscriber head over to the discussion

01:09:22.660 thread and keep the conversation going i'm especially interested in how we can frame

01:09:27.660 this conversation about blockbusters on a week when we actually have two big blockbusters

01:09:33.740 in the movie theaters so if you've seen wicked or gladiators is it gladiators no it's just

01:09:39.440 gladiator 2 gladiator 2 not like twisters if you've seen either of those and you want to

01:09:46.320 talk about what makes them a blockbuster and whether they're good blockbusters come and talk

01:09:51.120 with us in the thread the culture study podcast is produced by me ann helen peterson and melody

01:09:56.040 rowell our music is by pottington bear you can find me on instagram at ann helen peterson

01:10:01.160 melody at melodious 47 and the show at culture study pod

01:10:16.320 You

Culture Study Podcast - November 27, 2024

Why Is It So Hard to Make a Good Blockbuster？

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