Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Timothy May's avatar

I've never lived in a market with an arthouse theater, but I've also never supported day and date. The idea that not releasing a film to the widest possible audience immediately is denying it to any portion of the audience is kind of ridiculous in the era of home video, and now streaming. I grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania. The long tail of a platform release is the only reason I ever heard of many movies that I would eventually rent at a video store. Now, when a film is made immediately available to everyone, it goes through exactly one press cycle (now shorter than ever), and then slips into the void. If it's elitist to wish for as many parties as possible (arthouse theaters, multiplexes, physical media distributors, streaming platforms) to benefit from a film's release, rather than one giant corporation like Netflix of Disney, then call me an elitist.

Expand full comment
Matt MacKenzie's avatar

Many of my fondest movie memories (and memories in general) have come at the Brattle Theatre in Boston and the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, and the thought of a world without cinemas like these is really sad to me. It's a great idea to "tour" this movie around, and I have some sliver of hope somewhere that business models like this may catch on in some small way. The success of Venom 2 at the box office last weekend buoys this hope further. The argument that cinemas are dying / people don't want to go out to see a movie anymore is a covertly classist one anyway, as the assumption there seems to be that everyone has home theater setups that are at least approaching comparable to the "Cinema Experience." I dunno, lots of disjointed thoughts. I'm also a huge fan of Joe's films and am really excited to catch this one in theaters (the first one of his I'll have seen outside my home!).

Expand full comment
24 more comments...

No posts