Tag Archives: the monday question

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The Monday Question: The LAMMYs!

The Monday Question

Just like many of you, I have been a member of the Large Association of Movie Blogs (LAMB) for a couple of years now. There were periods where I was quite actively participating and times where I was wondering if I should stay a member as I didn’t feel it added much to my movie blogging experience. Of course how much you get out of it depends on how much energy you are willing to invest, but there was something I was looking forward to each year and those were the LAMMYs. The awards which would be voted upon by your fellow movie bloggers. I’ve participated in these each year and even managed to get nominated. They were usually held somewhere in the first half of the year, but this year they still have not happened. I had read something about it, but had forgotten the details, so last week I asked The Lamb directly through its Twitter account when and if they would take place this year. The answer I got was: “We’re still expecting our new shepherd, and in the meantime, I have no info about this year’s LAMMYs. We’ll update it asap“. So as it seems that without a shepherd, just one person who isn’t there, something like the LAMMYs doesn’t take place, which of course is very disappointing to hear. So I want to ask you:

How do you feel about the fact that the LAMMYs have not taken place yet and might not happen this year?

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The Monday Question: Amazon!

The Monday Question

At the end of last week there was a rumour that Amazon will be introducing a service comparable to what Spotify currently does with music for people who don’t subscribe: You’ll be able to watch movies for free, but supported by ads. They would do this in order to lure people away from Netflix towards their own service, Amazon Prime. I think it is a very interesting development, which potentially could attract a whole lot of people. Watching a couple of ads when watching a movie is something people are already accustomed to when watching them on television, so they will probably won’t mind here either.

What are your thoughts about this rumour?

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The Monday Question: Split!

The Monday Question

During the last couple of years the studio has slowly introduced something to the cinema which we previously only saw happening on television: splitting up movies into smaller parts. Every year there seem to be a couple of movies which do not tell their complete story, but leave their audiences with questions and a cliffhanger. Upcoming movies that are an example of this are of course the third instalment in The Hobbit series, the next chapter in the Hunger Games story (itself broken up into two movies). In the past we have seen this as well, for example Kill Bill (vol.1 and 2), the final movie in the Harry Potter series or Lord of the Rings. It is a trend I have mixed feelings about. Yes, it allows more time to develop story and characters, but is that a good idea if this means waiting (sometimes) a year before you can finish something? I’d prefer these two parts to come out simultaneously, allowing the viewer to choose if they “binge watch” them, but it is something we have not seen happen yet.

What are your thoughts about movie being split in separate films?

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The Monday Question: Title!

The Monday Question

The title of a movie as an important part of making a movie. Make it too generic and it won’t be appealing to many. Make it to cryptic and people will have no idea what your movie is about. I remember a few years back there was a lot of criticism about John Carter (I myself even took part in the fun: If movies were titled like John Carter) and recently the title of Edge of Tomorrow wasn’t shown prominently on the cover of the Blu Ray and DVD (it was Live.Die.Repeat). Then there are titles which might raise the wrong expectations: On Friday I saw Jake Gyllenhaal’s new movie Nightcrawler and when discussing the movie with a friend who didn’t know about it, he assumed it was about the X-Men character.

How important is a well chosen title to you and how does it factor into you being interested in it?

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The Monday Question: Award!

The Monday Question

This past weekend I went to a special premiere of a Dutch movie, which won three prestigious Dutch movie awards. It was shown in a big electronics store on three of the biggest televisions available and the cast was also available. My expectation of it was high as I wanted to know if it really was that good. Turned out the movie really disappointed and bored me. It is one of those films which makes you wonder whether you have missed something which makes it so praiseworthy. I didn’t think it was particularly clever or funny so it really left me stunned. Why did it receive the award? Where there no other movies available? So this week’s question:

Are there any award winning movies which you didn’t like and made you wonder why they won?

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The Monday Question: Tattoo!

The Monday Question

The popularity of the tattoo has risen a lot the last couple of years thanks to various TV shows and the fact that a lot of celebrities in both sport and entertainment have them. Personally I don’t think I’ll ever get one, but somehow I was thinking if I ever would get a tattoo what would it be? If it would be movie related, what would it be? I’d probably go for something that would have to do with one of my favourite movies (Black Swan/Mr.Nobody or Pulp Fiction), although I’d take a lot of time figuring out what it would be exactly. So this week’s question:

If you would get a movie related tattoo, what would it be?

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The Monday Question: Archive!

The Monday Question

A big part of blogging is the sense of community and I enjoy visiting other blogs to read about other people’s opinions about specific movies. I’ve got more subscriptions to blogs than I am able to read each day which always leads to a big backlog in emails of blogposts I still want to read and comment on. I’ve been steadily trying to reduce the unread emails and my backlog ran all the way back to July. When you read such blog posts that late you notice something: Unless it is a timeless post there will not be any comments made after only a couple of days. The average relevancy for a post therefore is extremely low and it is quite a shame how “disposable” that time you have put into something is. It made me wonder how you feel about this:

Do you read older blog posts of blogs after you have seen a specific movie and how do you feel about the average relevancy of the posts you have written?

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The Monday Question: Comedies!

The Monday Question

During the last couple of years I feel that the average comedies have gone through a transformation. They usually were the type of movie you could see with the whole family, but it seems that shock value has become the new way of trying to generate laughs. Although I have to admit that I can often enjoy them, I have moments where I think it happens way too much and that comedy based on situations is happening less and less. I’m interested in your thoughts on this:

Do current comedies rely too much on shock value to generate laughs?

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The Monday Question: Netflix!

The Monday Question

The past week Netflix made a couple of interesting announcements. First off they will be showing the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel on the same day it is released in IMAX theaters. I think it is great news that this is happening more (and something I hoped for in an article I wrote for Flixchatter). Of course various cinema chains were not happy about this and have stated they won’t play the release. The thing which stood out to me was the following quote:

“While a homevideo release may be simultaneously performing in certain Imax locations, at Regal we will not participate in an experiment where you can see the same product on screens varying from three stories tall to 3-inch wide on a smart phone,” said Nunley. “We believe the choice for truly enjoying a magnificent movie is clear.”

The thing I don’t understand about it is if the choice is clear, why would you not show it? It means you aren’t that confident that that choice really is that clear. These chains are seeing it as a big risk to their business and losing revenue, but they should be embracing this and think of ways to make it worth going to the cinema to see it.

The other news I read was that Netflix has signed a four movie deal with Adam Sandler. These movies will be exclusive to Netflix. As you can read in the article Netflix has made the deal based on their statistics on which movies subscribers watch most. While a lot of his latest movies didn’t get many positive reviews it seems that big data on which movies viewers check out on Netflix tells a different story. There still seem to be enough people who enjoy his films and therefore it makes a lot of sense for Netflix to go ahead with this.

What are your thoughts on these Netflix announcements?

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The Monday Question: Characters/Plot!

The Monday Question

There a lot of factors which have to come together to result in an interesting movie. Two of them are the characters and the plot of the movie. In action movies the plot really isn’t very important as long as it allows the main character to do cool stuff (and I must admit that this character usually is pretty two dimensional). In dramas usually the focus is more on the depth of the characters with a plot that can be very strong, but it is important that the viewer feels for what the characters are going through. A perfect movie would of course have great, fully developed characters and an extremely well written plot and execution of it. It happens a lot that that doesn’t happen though, so I was wondering if you have to choose:

What is more important to you: The plot of a movie or the depth of its characters?