Try seeing the movie using https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48018066 and sit in the center back row so that you can see the entire empty room as you watch it. Obviously this doesn’t work if everyone does it their first time (though I see some empty seats just a half hour away, so for evening Sunday showings it might be solidly reliable); I bet it hits different the second time too :)
Good movie criticism is alive and well. You simply need to expand your vision beyond anyone who relies on Rotten Tomatoes or (probably) Letterbox. That's probably not it.
Youtube is a great place to start looking. It has a lot of trash, but there are some extraordinary essayists and writers giving robust and insightful looks into films new and old.
These channels (expect for #2) all diverge from straightforward reviews, but what they give you are the tools to articulate what the film is doing, how it is doing it, and therefore equip you to become your own critic. Someone capable of thinking critically.
I think a bit problem with any kind of art criticism in 2026, especially on YouTube, is audience capture. It's rare to find analysis that examines a piece as it is without dipping into some kind of political angle. A few channels try, but you get more clicks by choosing a side in the culture war and catering to those that agree with you. Once you go down this road, woe be to you if you stray from the path - your audience will turn on you in an instant.
I think this effect is worse on YouTube because YouTube creators live or die by the algorithm. There's no organization backstopping them if they publish something their audience doesn't like.
An underground K-Line extension was recently approved to go through my neighborhood. This is after a small handful of 2-3 homeowners caused it to be delayed by 18 months over objections that seismic activity from drilling would be noticeable under their homes.
The city spent a year doing a study and report to appease the concerns of these residents, who - when presented with this extensive report showing that it would NOT be noticeable - proceeded to disregard the opinion of the city engineers and continue blocking it with the help of the Mayor, who is a friend.
Thankfully their objections were finally outvoted. West Hollywood had put up several billion in matching funds to pay for the extension, and if things had continued to drag on, the offer would have expired and jeopardized the entire project.
Exactly. This line was actually planned for in the approved Measure M Ballot Measure in 2016 to be “shovel ready” [environmentally cleared, funding identified, etc] by 2022, with optimistic projections hoping construction would be finished by 2028. Clearly, we’re at least 6 years behind schedule, considering the final funding votes and route design specifics won’t be set until then, much less construction. It was not a surprise, so I consider any further delays on that front by detractors to be in bad faith, and I am happy that Metro has started to put its foot down and force progress, albeit I wish they would have done so sooner.
Nevertheless, I think it’s a good sign of government inertia that we won’t run into a 60 year delay ever again, especially as Metro prepares to finalize approval of the Sepulveda Pass Subway from LAX to the Valley.
via a 75-year EIFD, which the city successfully lobbied the state to change California law to allow them to enact. Talk about city support!
It may not look like it, but most residents in LA are literally begging for an option to navigate the city that is not car-bound. Cost isn’t even a concern at this point, for better or worse, it’s just the current situation of 30 min traffic to drive 3 miles at rush hour is untenable in a region that is about 50 miles in each direction. And WeHo has no direct highway access anywhere, so they’re really feeling the brunt of it.
As a record maker, I'd say record making is under attack from Suno about as much as novelists are under attack from Chat GPT. Both still require a crafts person to steer the tools, if they're to be used at all.
Yes there will be slop, but neither Suno nor GPT are close to making coherent work with creators with taste and good judgement.
I have no qualms with a long movie. If the story is great I want to live in that world for as long as possible. A 95 min movie can feel like an eternity (good or bad) and a 3 hour movie can fly by and leave you wanting more.
The problem, as I see it, is unfocused storytelling.
It starts with a good screenplay that is focused, concise, and well paced. Shoot more than you need to tell the story, then edit out everything that's not 100% necessary. Be lean and purposeful in your story. A great screenplay will service everything in the story with great economy. Great scenes will serve two or more purposes, develop the story, and - when they're really great - make you lose all sense of time.
Many films are full of sprawling superfluous plots that don't amount to much. I feel this most during certain blockbuster films that are packed to the gills with spectacular set pieces, have three separate "emotional" climaxes, and somehow fail to stick the landing. When these elements are poorly balanced or overcooked they feel like a slog.
I would not phrase the means of approaching best length as "edit out everything that's not 100% necessary" but as something more like "make every scene count/pull more than its weight". The former, to my mind, tends to associate with small goals and a pure utilitarianism that falls short of excellence. I doubt you meant anything like that.
I certainly agree that "Great scenes will server two or more purposes". A scene can advance the plot, display who the characters are and who they may become, foreshadow or rationalize future plot elements (or present red herrings), introduce worldbuilding depth, manage the emotional state of the audience (comic relief is a simple example), etc. I would not be surprised if a great scene can also so elevate other scenes that its relative greatness may be less obvious because it makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts in isolation.
I very rarely watch movies (even less often in a theater) and I do not have a drama or fiction writing background, but even a "little learning" about the theory hints that bulk is easier to achieve than extensive excellence.
The director's cut of Apocalypse When at, I dunno, about nine or ten hours (take a blanket and pee bottle), is definitely worthwhile, but most films that have gone over about two hours seem to be just the director being so impressed with their own vision that they didn't know when to stop. But then it's also quite a balancing act, there are some films where the studio insisted on messing it up (Blade Runner is a prime example) and others where the studio should have reined in the director a lot more than they did (many films where the director had a huge hit with film n and was given free rein to do whatever they wanted in film n+1).
It doesn't even have to be too long to go off the rails, for example Stalker, if you haven't read Roadside Picnic, is just two nutters wandering aimlessly around the landscape for 2+ hours (Tarkovsky allegedly said that it needs to be slow and boring at the start so that people who walked into the wrong film showing had a chance to leave), and if you have read the book is nothing like the book. It's a fabulous film but presumably completely baffling to anyone who hasn't read the book, and also somewhat unsatisfying to someone who has.
I give it three months before it's ironically adopted by a broader audience or else sincerely adopted by people who see some value in the ethos. As if often the case, the lines will be blurred.
Sometimes I think people just want to be contrary and on some "new shit".
I was a Boy Scout growing up and the Philmont Ranch is a destination for hiking and backpacking situated on his property. Twi weeks of backpacking through that wilderness was a formative experience for me, and I hope future generations aren't deprived of the opportunity to enjoy it.
That said I do like your description of “falling through the skin of the world.” A+.
reply