Who Is Murdering Cinema part 1: The Video

The cinema is dying. You can tell because movie theaters are slowly going the way of the rental store. I was surprised to see a Redbox at a grocery store. As more people are either uninterested in what’s coming or just waiting for streaming, as sales of DVDs and Blu-Rays has caused box stores to reduce or remove their home video sections, the movie theaters are closing. I think if it wasn’t for Fathom Events some of them might not even be around. There’s only two movie theaters near me, and one of the biggest closed recently.

Why are people not flocking to theaters anymore? Video essayer Patrick (H) Willems (not sure why the “H” is in parentheses) believes he has the answer after doing a deep dive into the mystery of what’s killing cinema. The thing is, I have my own response but because the video is over an hour and a half and my response is a full article length–which I knew before I even started writing–I’m splitting this one into two parts. Part one is today, the video itself. Part two will be the article as I break down his suspect and why I find them…suspect. Make your own notes and see if I jive with yours tomorrow, and where I agree and disagree with Willems’ examination of the clues. First: the case by Willems. Note that there will be swearing.

Some minor notes:

• No, Trevor Noah is an idiot. He doesn’t usually know what he’s talking about from what little I’ve seen of him, but he does have a point that is why I don’t care about awards shows. The choices are made by a film board, not regular people. The awards only exist for Hollywood elites to pat each other on the back, gain the credit of their peers with no regard for the actual movie goer, and more recently to either support their social cause or complain about the people going on about the other one’s social cause rant. I’ve never cared. Even awards shows supposedly chosen by the general public, like the Peoples Choice Award or Kids Choice Awards, have other people nominating movies and you can only choose from that list. There’s no room for a massive write-in for some movie that Hollywood doesn’t think is worthy. Look how they killed animation.
• I kind of wish he got to keep the mustache. Yes, I’m weird. Also, cool intro!
• I’ve brought up the fact that you can’t say “people want more of this” when you aren’t giving them other options in the past. (I wish I remembered which commentary that was.) However, those movies are out there. Why aren’t they pushing these other movies? I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

I’m curious what you guys think, but my response is already written. Check in tomorrow to see what I see as the killers of modern cinema.