We circle back in 360 Screenings (previously featured on the podcast here) and discuss our reactions to the inaugural event, where we stepped into the world of Ghost. Plus, the summer 2012 box office shenanigans just keep coming: Men In Black 3 underpeforms, and G.I. Joe 2 clears clean out of the year altogether. Battleship might’ve sunk, but was Titanic the year’s most significant success?
To download this episode, use this URL: http://rowthree.com/audio/mamo/mamo255.mp3
Congrats on being amazingly diplomatic on the 360 experience.
No diplomacy Kurt. Had a genuinely enjoyable experience, and recommend the series to others.
That is great to hear! It’s hard to decode it on the podcast, however. And I mean that sincerely as constructive criticism!
Probably cuz you can’t see the grinnin’!
On Channing – may I enter into evidence his SNL performance form earlier this year. By the end of the show I had completely reversed my negative view on him.
On Ghost: Did the Mamo boys share a single pottery wheel during the pre-show festivities? I actually really wanted to come to this, but it was my wife’s birthday.
No pottery wheel. A lot of longing looks though. His eyes… [sigh]
Nothing made me feel more bad than when I processed my experience at 360 Screenings and considered it underwhelming (read my thoughts at http://www.skonmovies.com/2012/05/360-screenings-interesting-idea-with.html).
The hearts of these guys are in the right place (one of them personally thanked me for coming) and I really wanted this event to be awesome, but I expected a little more bang for my buck (though I do agree that the food was quite good).
That said, the fact that I have Asperger’s probably played a part in my underwhelming experience. I don’t mingle well, so within half an hour I was getting impatient and thinking “when does the movie start?”
As of right now, I’m opting out of the second event, but I’m willing to change my mind if I notice some improvements.
I tried to convince a few friends to go see 360Screening and everyone who I talked to had a problem with spending $60 to see a unknown movie. Having found out that it was Ghost, I felt like I dodged a bullet as even if the first part was interesting and well done, I think I would have caught hell from my friends to dragging them to see Ghost. That’s just not a film that I think any of my friends (or even my wife) is interested in watching.
Also personally, I have such little interest in the film, I think even if I had paid $60 to go, I’m not sure I would have sat around to watch the movie. There’s just better things to do with my time on a Friday night to watch a movie I dislike.
I like the idea of 360Screenings and for particular films, like looking into what the Secret Cinema group did with Bladerunner, I would definitely not have a problem paying over $100 for a movie I really love.
Perhaps even if they made public the genre it might be better. Like advertising with Ghost that it’s a famous romance movie might get a larger number of women going. Most of my friends are genre fans and so if they adverise that it’s a famous sci-fi or horror movie, it might be easier to get people on board.
The fact that they went with Ghost, will make going to see future screenings harder, both for myself and bringing other people along. Instead I think I will stay on the mailing list and if the hints are clear enough to point to a movie I like or a genre that I like, if I don’t already have plans for that night perhaps I might go.
I myself had a problem with spending $60. I only decided to go at the 11th hour when I was given a code that knocked $20 off the price.
Also, I think the event attracted more of a contemporary art/theatre crowd than cinema (i.e. mostly older and female).
You know, the guys behind the event considered it a success and even though I wasn’t sold, I wish them well.
Perhaps they did some market research and realized that was the type of crowd (older & female) who would pay for $60 for an interactive movie set and decided on a movie that would appeal to them.
Older and Female tends to be a VERY major demographic for TIFF. In my experience.
Well that’s definitely true for the TIFF Volunteer programme, since I believe many of them are retirees.
I almost stick out because I’m male and young (I’m talking about year-round volunteering. The festival itself is a bit more varied).
Something I considered, but didn’t mention on the podcast (cuz I forgot), was the idea of at least advertising the “theme” beforehand or providing some kind of hints as to the sort of evening one can expect.
When 360 emailed me the day before the event to advise me of the location they also included some tantalizingly enigmatic hints about attire; if this sort of thing were forecasted earlier it might help drive audience interest and awareness.
Yeah, that would have helped. Especially since they did not resend said e-mail to last-minute ticket buyers (i.e. me).
For genre movies & tv shows, San Diego Comic Con continues to be the place to be, in order to walk into the set of the movie or tv show. Previous years you could visit Flynn’s Arcade, go to a bar that looked like various sets (bar from Tron, bar from True Blood, a western style bar for Cowboys vs Aliens, etc.), a parking lot made up to look like South Park’s city and more.
This year, the people behind the Walking Dead (I’m going to have to guess AMC is also involved & it’s not just organized through the comics) are taking over the baseball stadium across the street and filling it with zombies. People will walk through it trying to survive the zombie hordes:
http://www.thewalkingdeadescape.com/
It’s going to cost you $70 to $90 to participate and apparently 35 to 50 minutes to get through it.
I bring this up because of the scale of these events seem to be increasing and while different from what 360Screenings or Secret Cinema is doing, I can see the two sides getting closer together.
Already this year there has been the Iron Throne & props set up at the TIFF Lightbox before Game of Thrones started and Batman’s Tumbler that is on tour, for events that hit several cities and are smaller in scope. I do think there is something there for having either props to be viewed or something more interactive.
CHANNING POWER! Paramounts 3D excuse is B.S. Check out the official website. Now Channing gets top billing over Willis and The Rock! Plus there’s a new poster featuring him.
http://www.gijoemovie.com
Wow. I guess Duke’s coming out of his coma earlier than expected.
My question is where is DIAL TONE in all this?? The dude with the stache? And MAINFRAME, the Joes computer expert! What about SPIRIT, the noble native American the Joes use to track their enemies? Is he in the movie? Come on!
On the flip side, Zartan is cool and all but they gotta get his hot-ass sister ZARANNA into the mix! The babe with the pink hair and the boobies! The ability to turn into Jonathan Price is nice I guess but I think pink boobies are better
Let’s get SERPENTOR in a movie. And the crazy motherfucker who dresses like a hawk – RAPTOR, not General Hawk. And CROC MASTER while we’re at it, and some Dreadnoks, like ZANZIBAR the one who dressed like a pirate. GI JOE + PIRATES = EPIC.
YOOOOOOOOOOO JOE!!!
The simple answer is that I don’t know who the hell any of those characters are….and I watched the cartoon.
Zandar has a credit in the movie. But more importantly, so does Sgt Slaughter.
Jesus. Good catch.
The funny thing is that when I was a kid, I equated Sgt Slaughter with G.I. Joe first before realizing that he was a professional wrestler.
That’s not funny
You watched the cartoon and you don’t know SERPENTOR?!! Damn son. Ya heard of BUZZER whose weapon of choice was a chain saw for some reason? What about TOMAX and XAMOT – the CRIMSON TWINS? Does the name GOLOBULUS ring a bell or do I need to yuyulate right here on the message boards for you find people?
Cuz I’ll do it
Till the Hard Master socks Lady Jaye right in the Law & Order, MAKE MINE MARVEL and YOOOOOOO JOE!!
Oh, I know who Serpentor is.
I was talking about the other guys.
I was warmer on the event than she was, but I think Kiva Reardon has given the most constructive response to the 360 Screenings GHOST evening thus far:
http://torontoist.com/2012/05/360-degrees-of-ghost/
Deadline reports on the delay, and places Channing Tatum squarely at the centre of the reasoning:
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/big-problems-behind-g-i-joe-2s-big-delay/
I know everyone is one the Tatum bandwagon now. But I still maintain the he was pretty bad in the original GI Joe which could have come from the director and writers. But now that it seems he’s found his groove, I’m all for them delaying this so they can add more scenes and not kill him off. Plus it could be cool to see him and the Rock playing off each other.
Hey guys, we never heard your show to be honest, we got an email with someone saying that you guys said cinemas will be dead soon (so theaters will be going away). My response was basically that everything changes, yes, but it depends on what ‘soon’ is. There’s still a demand for theaters and I don’t see that changing, well actually there’s a big change abroad where economies are getting bigger and the demand for theatrical exhibition is growing dramatically. But here in North America it’s a tough topic. A decade ago we made up a half of a film’s worldwide gross, now it’s down to a third. What I think that’s actually saying is foreign interest is up, not that North American interest is down. Tickets sold plateaus at around 1.4 billion and have been fairly steady at that rate ever since. Granted last year was a downer for ticket sales (1.283), but the box office still hit over $10 billion. Theatrical exhibition is such a strong part of the movie business model, and there’s no proven successor for it at this point. Video on Demand is a possibility, but you run into immediate problems, the main one being that you can’t charge for a single ticket and must assume that more than a few people will be watching at one time. That makes it hard to get the price right, especially if it’s a movie that will be watched by groups more than individuals or couples or the other way around. I’d be interested in hearing what you think the replacement for theatrical runs would be. I don’t remember the episode we talked about you guys on, but I just reiterated everything we said here anyhow.
Thanks for getting in touch Trevor, and that’s a great recap. I think we’re largely on the same page – one of the things we talk about on our show once in a while though is the possibility that cinema will become a much more “niche” art form, with a smaller audience but higher price point, kind of like what happened to ballet and opera over the course of the past century. But it’s all spitballin’.
360 Screenings released a highlight video, which includes a quote from MAMO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afhLRtgIYd4
And now I need to get off the internet. I’m not seeing Prometheus until Saturday night and it seems everyone wants to have an in-depth discussion about this movie spoilers and all.
Said video also features me (out of focus and in a red shirt) walking by (twice) around the 0:50 mark.