Right Now: Movies Vs. TV?

tv is still nominally free. so.

i bet this gets a ton of votes and not much discussion

tv, btw

for me right now it's tv, mostly just because as a parent of a young child I rarely have enough time to watch an entire movie.

define your terms

youtube

if it doesn't get discussion it'll be because we've had this discussion so much already (although that hasn't stopped us before). will be fun to have it put to a vote, though.

define your terms

If you have to ask, you don't think much of either.

as you know, post-1975 counts as "today" with a fossil like me, sonny

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, March 16, 2012 10:15 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

everyone else has a smaller window for "right now" fyi

TV: bigger budgets, varying episodic structures, a willingness to try new forms of distribution, loosening of formal (conventional) constraints, better talent, steady paycheck and tolerable working conditions for writers/directors.

("Hollywood") movies: smaller budgets, corporate intervention, calcification of conventions, obsession w./ genre and remake, rampant abuse of talent.

World/"Indie" movies: Mixed bag, ehh?

World/"Indie" movies: Mixed bag, ehh?

This means you're not counting "Two and a Half Men" as TV, I guess. 95% of everything is shit.

The best movies being theatrically exhibited anywhere in America are inaccessible to most of our posters. And then when they become available on home media, most don't seek them out. Comfort food tastes best.

I got rid of cable last June and bought an antenna that essentially gets nothing. So film.

Alternate, rejected poll: Movie critics vs. TV critics.

I know which group I trust more often.

I haven't read a TV critic regularly in 20 years.

MZS has basically crossed over imo.

The best movies being theatrically exhibited anywhere in America are inaccessible to most of our posters.

if a tree falls in new york, nyc douchebags will swear up and down that your life is not worth living if you weren't close enough to hear it

he was the last one I read! (Newark Star-Ledger, early '90s)

xp

The short version of the common wisdom is this, right?

TV: Where critics and (reasonably sizeable) mass audiences can find common ground
Movies: Where critics and mass audiences repeatedly engage in ritualistic bad faith in two-hour chunks

tv and reasonably sizeable mass audiences can find common ground w/ shows like mad men because there are about 5 shows like that, total

And last year there was maybe one movie in the top 30 that critics could be bothered with and it involved women hershey squirting in sinks.

Sorry, I forgot the new M:I was pretty warmly received too.

her name is barbara hershey and apparently i need to see answers to nothing

TV: bigger budgets

("Hollywood") movies: smaller budgets

Really?

TV in a walk, although I absolutely agree that almost all of it is shit.

almost all of everything is shit

i think he means bigger/smaller budgets than 10 or 20 years earlier

tv: more time to develop characters/arcs

http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/images/the%20new%20ark.jpg

As I've said before, in many cases the 'movies vs. TV' argument often boils down to a 'short stories vs. novels' argument.

i want to say TV but last night i sat down to watch some and the best thing i could find was a late showing of "the Devil's Advocate", which really isretty damning all around

the breaking bad thread is basically pissing me off because it's reminded me that there just isn't anything close to as good as that show

i mean the other options were like Watson & Oliver and fucking Little Britain fml

movies vs tv vs sports cmon now

Definitely TV. I get less and less excited about new films every day, but have been thrilled by the rise of the HBO-style TV series over the last decade.

all 5 of them

I know it's supposed to be a TV golden age and all but are there really that many classic shows around?

I hate to burst the bubble re Mad Men, but advertising drones are not that complicated. 90 minutes is plenty of time to know everything about them.

there is also Local Garda's point that even when you decide to watch a movie on TV it just takes.... time, it's like your whole evening. TV feels looser in that respect

Morbs OTM

As I've said before, in many cases the 'movies vs. TV' argument often boils down to a 'short stories vs. novels' argument.

― Soggy Cheeseburgers (Deric W. Haircare), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 11:39 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well i definitely like the sustained longterm narrative aspect, but c'mon the written word is not subject to the overwhelming majority of factors at play here

not that I have ever seen Mad Men, but it does seem enough like "The Problems of Beautiful Rich People Part 1,833,928,188,721,645" for me to have avoided it

i could give a damn about Mad Men, but art is not a wikipedia entry, the point is not to sit down and stare at the screen for a little while and then go "ok, i know all i need to know about that, bye"

there is also Local Garda's point that even when you decide to watch a movie on TV it just takes.... time, it's like your whole evening. TV feels looser in that respect

my attention span is shrinking down to the point where tv feels this way too

I only watch gifs now

sometimes even gifs can be frustrating, like when you have to wait 30 seconds for the joke

sd, prince consort of bayoneting straw men

budgets for gifs have skyrocketed since the success of 'haters gon hate'

TV has plenty of corporate intervention, by the way, at every level, even on the high concept shows that are apparently standing in for "all of TV" on this thread

what else is on TV besides those shows?

- sports. i like sports
- news. i like news (sometimes)
- cheaters
- monster garage (RIP)

no contest

well i definitely like the sustained longterm narrative aspect, but c'mon the written word is not subject to the overwhelming majority of factors at play here

I dunno, all of those mentions of Subway in the last Franzen novel were odd. Not to mention the coupons in the back.

If you think about it, movies are also on TV

woah

apart from marquee serial drama and the alleged comedy renaissance we're in, tv has lots of stuff that i totally love

-- off-brand cop procedurals
-- game shows
-- car rebuilding shows
-- the soup

most reality tv drives me up a wall tho, and cheaters was vile, come on

If you're talking about American studio productions, television. Otherwise it's clearly movies.

As he points out tho, there is no such thing as "independent television," at least not in a way you can seek it out. (Acknowledging that YouTube does not make lists/discussions like these.)

There very well could be "independent television" in the near-future - produce a short run, stream it first-run on your own site, then sell it to Netflix for future streaming, make a few bucks on the side with Blu Rays for the super fans.

also this is a giant argument about nothing - who gives a fuck what other people follow? Why do you care about all the dastardly television fans of ILX, Morbs?

"who gives a fuck what other people follow?"

oh, c'mon

what if it's HITLER

it's impossible to get into 'a movie' the same way one gets into 'a tv show' imo. by that vague metric, i have never seen a movie that even comes close to being as good as something like THE SOPRANOS

what's "gets into"? Making you wanna be a nmade man for months and years on end?

i've never really seen a movie like the Sopranos, but i've never seen a tv show like Vertigo or The Tree of Life or Andrei Rublev. nor do i think what those films do can be done in a "tv show" as we understand it now.

yeah i was thinking about it earlier, for obvious reasons TV shows are much more formally constrained than films, and if there's auteurship in TV it general resides with writers rather than directors.

oh, c'mon

It's about caring deeply that fans of the other exist and haven't picked your team and then a strawman that there are rogues out there telling you not to bother with movies. Why is any of that worth caring about?

maybe im misunderstanding him, but i think Morbs' target isn't so much TV but the proud "middlebrow-ism" of the "tv is better than movies" arguments.

I am a dr. morbius whisperer.

xxxxp i dunno, kinda? also, developing and exploring many multiple different facets of its characters and locations, actual progression through time, having more than a single or couple of fixed storylines, always having the capacity to surprise with the next ep, having you reconsider things you've seen in the series sometimes real-time months or years earlier, etc? i said it was a vague metric

i firmly believe episodic tv is a flat out better medium fwiw

I think you can easily say that there's been a clear increase in quality tv series over the past decade. I also have a sense that there's been a corresponding decrease in quality films in that same time period, but I know that's a more controversial claim.

the film market is wildly diffuse--i think when people have this discussion it invariably boils down to middlebrow prestige TV versus middlebrow Movies. (like "Lincoln" vs "Breaking Bad" or whatever). which is an overly restricted argument to bother having.

i mean, there's like 4-5 "quality tv series" at any one time? how many "quality movies" are there out right now? can we add up all the hours and see which has more? it's just silly.

starting with The Sopranos and ending, probably, with Breaking Bad, or maybe, say, Homeland or The Americans.

haha, no

A couple of days ago Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad showrunner and writer) did an interview for some Australian show in which he basically said hes so glad hes in TV right now and that the movie biz is fucked and devoid of any creativity. I'm going from memory here but his explanation was that these days studios, producers and whomever have become completely unwilling to roll the dice on most scripts that aren't superhero based action blockbusters so fewer movies are being made and of those movies that are being made huge amounts of money are being thrown at them to make sure they succeed at the box office. Unfortunately these movies are all aimed at teenage boys so there aren't m/any movies for adults anymore. Now cable channels are putting out original content and imposing little creative restriction on the makers/writers, adult eyes have moved from the big screen to the small screen.

So, like ive always said, tv rules.

xp I've never watched Homeland, but I'd rank The Americans among the best shows on tv right now.

something that really surprises me about tv is how many people 50 and up tell me they love the big bang theory

i mean, really?

my parents. i will watch with them for kaley cuoco's shoulders.

Middle-aged people and their youngish children have always been the target for shitty sitcoms, I think - 18-35-year olds weren't watching According to Jim or Home Improvement.

No, but tween girls were.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lG3dnmilpB8/TahFv_J4Y3I/AAAAAAAAE2M/gAP5oeJgjo4/s400/Tiger.jpg

nm, you covered that with "youngish children"

I'm not convinced that there's quite as much "Great TV" consensus as some have argued here.

i firmly believe episodic tv is a flat out better medium fwiw

better for what?

again, using "the movie biz" as a representative for the medium of cinema is disingenuous or dumb.

When it comes to stories that are "serious" or "quality" or "adult" I think that TV these days hits a better balance between that and a more poppy sensibility. Those kinds of movies often get way too lazy. It's like arty filmmakers have come to expect that you've already paid for your ticket and you're going to sit there for 2 hours and watch what they're showing you no matter what. But the more poppy movies are too often aimed at brain-dead 10 year old boys. TV writers are used to having to fight to keep the viewer's attention and as a result I think they have a better command of dramatic craft in some ways. It would be interesting to see netflix statistics for critically acclaimed period dramas on TV vs. movies and see which discs get returned more quickly.

sunny, let me know when these adventurous cable execs discover their Pedro Costa or Carlos Reygadas.

Rectify / Ray McKinnon brings 'em a little closer, anyway.

Oh Morbs, I'm talking Hollywood here.

challops: novels continue to kick the ass of both these media

I loved Gravity and all, but this was lol:

@johnaugust
Wow, Gravity is as amazing as everyone says. It's like Cuarón saw TV was winning and said nope: MOVIES.

oh god

challops: novels continue to kick the ass of both these media

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, October 10, 2013 1:35 PM (5 hours ago)

there's no way this is true

It's like Cuarón saw TV was winning and said nope: MOVIES.

That is a noxious quote and yet is there a piece of television that has stuck with me more than Children of Men since I saw Children of Men? No. Wait, maybe Archer.

As for novels, they suit the times -- this is now a text-driven culture in a way the culture of my childhood was not, and novels know how to exploit that.

Novels are cheap to make and distribute and they don't require that everybody read them at the same time (not that current episodic TV _requires_ this, exactly, but it seems a part of the form.)

The median TV show probably more enjoyable than the median novel but we're not talking about the median, right?

Back-of-envelope ranking: median pop record > median movie > median TV show > median novel >>>> median stand-up comic

for me to poop on

It’s been something to watch, this televisionification of the left. Open a window on social media during prime time, and you’ll find young journalists talking about TV under Twitter avatars of themselves in MSNBC makeup. Fifteen years ago, these people might have attended media reform congresses discussing how corporate TV pacifies and controls people, and how those facts flow from the nature of the medium. Today, they’re more likely to status-update themselves on their favorite corporate cable channel, as if this were something to brag about.

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/05/stephen_colbert_wont_save_us_game_of_thrones_is_not_that_good_this_golden_age_of_tv_is_a_big_sham/

TESTIFY

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/why-nobody-writes-about-popular-tv-shows/361872/

i think there has obviously been a change in people's behavior (my elders in academia sure aren't reveling in their netflix binges) but the media picture of it seems distorted by interest in those few 'quality' shows and its own need to generate crit-clicks.

otm

The overpraise of television was the final rearguard action of a reactionary commentariat desperate to co-sign on a tidy, fallacious social-cultural narrative. 21st century insanity is truly visible through the preeminent art of the last century, cinema, and that of today, memes.

— 𝕿𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖊 𝕰𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞 𝕯𝖆𝖞 (@NickPinkerton) August 1, 2018

luv2disparage a tidy, fallcious socio-cultural narrative and then immediately call cinema 'the preeminent art of the last century' with no apparent irony

p much all of Pinkerton's tweets are tongue poking all the way thru cheek