i've harped on it before, but the link between moviegoing and newspapers was huge papers were intuitive, everywhere, super easily accessible, and you'd open the entertainment section and get ads, local listings, reviews, and sometimes even reader responses all right next to each other - ThreadSky

coreyatad.com • 60 days ago

i've harped on it before, but the link between moviegoing and newspapers was huge

papers were intuitive, everywhere, super easily accessible, and you'd open the entertainment section and get ads, local listings, reviews, and sometimes even reader responses all right next to each other

Comments

poritsky.bsky.social•60 days ago

I miss the movie page, the easiest way to find a screening time. All the technology in the world hasn’t replaced it.

mrdys.bsky.social•60 days ago

Hell, I miss the simplicity of Yahoo! Movies for looking up times.

margotfharrison.bsky.social•60 days ago

I review for a newspaper (yes! a real print alt-weekly), but our last art-house theater closed, and the local mainstream theaters sure aren’t promoting The Brutalist. I didn’t receive a screener and have no way of writing about it.

coreyatad.com•60 days ago

really terrible situation all around

jvcarrington.bsky.social•60 days ago

This has been particularly devastating to Hot Docs, imo. The festival to an extent (those NOW fest guides are sorely missed) but especially the cinema.

Docs don’t generally have stars or major marketing budgets so that local media ecosystem was especially crucial.

coreyatad.com•60 days ago

if i land this pitch somewhere, i will be hitting you up

jvcarrington.bsky.social•60 days ago

By all means! 🤞🏽

heydonnelly.bsky.social•60 days ago

Yeah even though my dad gets the Boston globe every day it is WILD that he missed the holdovers, a movie he would love, and I suspect the paper’s current one-page arts section with no ads is the main reason why (just as an example)

coreyatad.com•60 days ago

you didn't even feel as much consternation over limited releases/regional delays, because ads in the paper were targeted locally, so they often better reflected when a movie might actually be out in your area

now people complain they can't see The Brutalist, not realizing they'll get it in a week

coreyatad.com•60 days ago

nowadays, systems for this are unintuitive (which listings site do i use? how do i know when a movie is out?), segmented to shit, and worse, people think they like the convenience of "apps," but actually they hate that simply wanting to watch a movie requires a lot more active thinking and searching

coreyatad.com•60 days ago

that said, newspapers are dead and not coming back, and we're not likely to see a better system replace them any time soon, so if you're the type of person who does actually want to see good movies, just google stuff, or add "reddit" to your search, or go on letterboxd, it's not *that* hard

coreyatad.com•60 days ago

i really should write about the link between the decline of newspapers and the decline of moviegoing at proper length one day, but the research required to back up my argument seems daunting, and publications don't pay well anymore (see: the decline of newspapers)

davidkuhne.bsky.social•60 days ago

My mom is online but she still has no idea what’s playing since the paper she gets doesn’t run listings anymore. I’ve tried getting her to use Fandango but without those newspaper listings she’s clueless

peter23.bsky.social•60 days ago

I sometimes wish there was an online version of that: one page with NO links at all and you can see all the movies, simply, and all the times/dates over the next week or so within like a 50 mile radius.

coreyatad.com•60 days ago

same here. the only way my mom will see a movie is if i'm getting the tickets. literally. usually i just take her to see something, which of course i love doing. but a few months back she wanted to see something on her own, and i had to look up the times and buy the ticket for her.

coreyatad.com•60 days ago

it's not just newspapers, of course, magazines and TV ads back when people used to actually watch live TV were huge, too

normwilner.bsky.social•60 days ago

I think the decline of the theatrical experience has something to do with it too; people don't encounter trailers and posters in a context that might lead them to follow up on something that interests them. YouTube just shunts you onto the next thing.

afis8.bsky.social•60 days ago

Yes to all of this and it's worth considering the way algorithmic marketing is used to keep people in their "lane," so to speak, at least in the States. The market is oversaturated and, unless you had the media literacy to navigate that before things changed, there's a razor sharp learning curve.

stevek.bsky.social•60 days ago

It's so weird whenever my parents visit. I'll usually put on some recent well-recieved mainstream movie and they will invariably have never heard of it.

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