fitzroyalty

Part 3 of the ongoing film rant… and today’s whinge is about deceptive film advertising and editing. People used to worry that the best scenes from a film were all in the trailer or in the television advertising, meaning that seeing the film did not provide sufficient further entertainment. Now you get even less.

After seeing Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby at the Hoyts cinema in Melbourne Central on Tuesday night, I mentally went through the advertising I had seen for the film and the film itself, and noted several scenes that feature in the television advertisements and online trailers but NOT in the film. These include Jean Girard shaving his legs in the bath and the scene when Ricky Bobby is lying on the ground next to his father’s car wresting a wild cougar. In the tv ad we see more of this scene than we do in the film.

I wonder if the edit of the film being screened in Australia is different to the US version. Perhaps the trailer and advertising was made before a final edit of the film was approved by the studio, which resulted in this inconsistency. In current film practice, however, I suspect something even worse: deliberate manipulation of the marketing collateral by using the best scenes ONLY in the advertising and not in the film. This makes the trailer funnier than the film, and undermines the value of the film. This makes you walk out of the cinema thinking you got less than you paid for. Cheated.

I got better value by downloading the various US trailers from the internet for free than I did seeing the allegedly ‘whole’ film in Australia, albeit on cheap night Tuesday for $9. It certainly wasn’t worth full price.

The film itself is very funny if you like that style of humour. After his role as Mugatu in Zoolander, I have found Will Ferrell extremely funny, and Sacha Baron Cohen is brilliant as Jean Girard, who has the most bizarre and inconsistent accent. I’m keen to see the Borat movie.

It must be whinging about cinemas week. After the Nova rubbish on Sunday I went to see A Dog’s Dream at the Greek Film Festival at the Palace Como Cinema on Monday night. They have a stunning foyer, a good bar, make reasonable coffee and have comfortable seats with wide isles. They also do allocated seating for all sessions, even when there are only 30 people in a cinema that seats 300. The film was quite good - slow dreamy magic realism and surrealism - David Lynch Greek style. Gorgeous lead actress in a Franka Potente / Run Lola Run fluorescent red wig. A few people walked out, and there were about 50 in the audience.

The Greek Film Festival is interesting in that it attracts a mostly Greek Australian audience. The older Japanese man and the younger skippie biker (me) were the only 2 people in this session not speaking Greek to each other. The French and Italian festivals attract a wider audience, but their national cinemas are better known and more broadly appreciated.

It’s only an occasional experience for a skippie Australian to be suddenly be placed in a minority position in a popular location within Australia. There are many questioning looks - what’s he doing here? He doesn’t look Greek! He’s not speaking Greek. Maybe he’s a student or an academic or something. He’s not a threat to us. I can look away now…

Now back to the point of this rant. Allocated seating. What’s the point? It takes longer to sell each ticket as the patron is asked where in the cinema they would like to sit, and this is allocated to the best of the booking person’s ability given the popularity of the session. When the cinema is mostly empty, it’s pointless and absurd.

It doesn’t encourage people to arrive on time, as it removes the first comes first served philosophy of seat allocation. It shifts the queue from the cinema to the ticket office, as you can buy tickets at any time then stuff around then walk into the cinema late and sit down in the best seats. It slows down the ticket queue. People don’t understand and don’t pay attention. They can’t see the seat numbers, and don’t care. They sit anywhere. They deliberately disobey a rule that makes no sense. They empower themselves as individuals.

Then along come the sheep who want to obey every rule, and want to sit in their exact seat although the cinema is mostly empty. I like some personal space when it is available so I never site next to anyone else if there is sufficient room. That means I don’t sit in my allocated seat as that is always next to someone.

The allocated system squashes 50 people together into an island in the middle of the cinema. No one wants this. People want space. If you arrive late you suffer and get a less favourable seat. Get used to it.

The same thing happened at the Tuesday night session of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby that I saw at the Hoyts cinema in Melbourne Central. Allocated seating. Less than half full cinema. A clash between the wolves and the sheep about following rules. People stuffing around and moving seats, which is much noisier and more time consuming than self allocation as per most cinemas. Much amusing social psychology to observe.

Message to all cinemas: get rid of stupid allocated seating and recognise that your system increases inefficiencies and does not take into account real human behaviour.

On Sunday I went to the Nova cinema in Carlton to watch United 93, which is soon to close. I am an avid film goer, and see at least one a week. However, as films have shorter and shorter screen lives, I sometimes have to travel far and wide to see a film before it disappears.

I have been to a lot of the cinemas in Melbourne and I can say that the Nova is possibly the worst. Their projection is appalling, and I suspect they only have one projectionist on to service all 8 cinemas, all the while he/she is busy shooting up and falling asleep on the floor. Previous efforts have included leaving the lights on during the film, turning the sound way down and projecting the film at an odd angle, not evenly horizontal.

This time, the film was well out of focus. Not for the first time. I was tempted to walk out and ask for it to be fixed, but when I have done that previously at the Nova I have missed the start of the film. This time, I sat still, and expected it to be quickly fixed. It wasn’t. After the film finished, I went to the candy bar, asked politely for the manager, and was pointed to the woman at the gate checking tickets. I explained the situation and asked for my money back; after all, I did not get what I paid for, namely to see the film in reasonable circumstances.

I was told that I should have come out to tell them it was out of focus. I replied that it is not the role of the patron to have to ask for the film to be in focus. I was told that I could have a voucher to use on my next visit. I responded that I would make no further visits. The woman made no attempt to refute or deny the issue of the film being out of focus. Because I sat through the whole film, I was not eligible for a refund. Because I consumed 90 minutes worth of rubbish, rather than five, I deserved LESS compensation rather than MORE.

I got no refund and no satisfaction. The Nova staff were indifferent and incompetent. I’m a contientious proactive consumer. If I am badly treated I have a long memory and a great willingess to share my experiences.

I enjoyed an excellent coffee at the always reliable Retro cafe on Saturday afternoon while discussing the meaning of life and the virtues of a good scotch with a friend. I love their 1950s chrome and laminate furniture and I sat at the yellow table.

After a week of thinking about the Phillip Island MotoGP and the difficult ride there, I am feeling far more positive about the day. The 125cc race was fantastic, the 250cc was not as exciting, but the MotoGP race was brilliant! Here are some YouTube movies of the race. The top one is amateur; the other two are from the television broadcast.

I attended the Portable Film Festival symposium on Thursday night, and one of the speakers, John Safran, joked that the constant exposure of banal life via YouTube would lead to the loss of all privacy and mass psychosis. The panel discussed everything from the copyright implication for broadcasters distributing user generated content to the proliferation of ‘crap’ entertainment. The idea that low production values and coarse humour are spreading via user generated content appears to despair some traditional media makers, but the ‘bedroom media creators’ simply don’t care.

The overall message of the evening was that the technology should service good innovative creative ideas, and that no amount of superficial novelty can compensate for compelling themes, characters and ideas. This is why the Portable Film Festival is selective and curated, rather than being like YouTube, where anyone can contribute. Outgoing MIFF Director James Hewison spoke eloquently about enduring values in film. It was a worthwhile way to spend an evening, and I spent some time talking to Melbourne film maker Nicholas Hansen.

There’s a video of some of the talk on Youtube.