Film Courage: How often do you watch a movie?
Scott Menzel, Film Critic, Writer, Hollywood Critics Association Founder: It changes. The
pandemic really did change things for me. I used to be the movie guy,
movies only. TV show, what's that? Never going to watch it. The pandemic completely changed that. I
started seeing the movies that were coming out during the pandemic and I don't know if
it's something with the studios that they were trying to release films that I would label as
lesser than, they just didn't hit the way that a lot of movies that I’ve seen in years prior.
I was watching these movies at home and I was just kind of like that was fine, that was fine, that
was okay, Oh this one was a little bit better than that one, and I just kept seeing on social media
all this talk about TV shows and then I started going into it and I started watching TV shows. One
of the shows that I fell in love with during the pandemic was Normal People with Daisy Edgar-Jones.
She's now in fresh and she has the Crawdads movie [Where the Crawdads Sing] coming out and
she is just electrifying. I don't know how else to put it but her and I believe the guy's name is
Paul Moscow. I think that's Sam Pascal something like that might be butchering that but it's Paul
something and this it's a very intimate Love Story between these two people who are just
not right for one another but they're trying to make it work and they each have their problems
and I just remember sitting through this and it's it's really depressing it's really heavy
but I just remember when I finished it I was like wow what an experience like it made me feel
how I used to feel when I went to the movies and then I started watching more TV shows whether it
was like comedies like doll face or Ted lasso that everyone's connected with or hacks or
only murders in the building or severance and I started having this weird pivot where I was like
as much as I love going to the movies is this movie that I'm going to see gonna be as good
as hacks or as good as Severance or as good as Ted lasso and it's weird to say this as
someone who grew up with such a fond memory of movies and who loves movies with all his heart
to sort of pause and kind of say you know what I got an invite for Crimes of the future should I
go to that or should I finish watching the dropout and it's really really weird to have that happen
when you feel so dead set against something for so long but to answer your question I know it was
like a roundabout way of getting there I I used to go five days a week you know when before the
pandemic it was like literally any screening that came off Scott Menzel is there I would be going
and then it just changed because not only with the gas prices and like valuing of time a little bit
more like I I kind of had this realization like not every movie needs to be seen on the big screen
so I'll never forget it is it's moving and I don't mean to to crap on this movie but like
it's something that really bothered me was they wouldn't send me a link to see the card counter
it's the Oscar Isaac movie and I had to do the junket for it and I drove down to a screening room
and truthfully I didn't really like the movie there's elements of it that I kind of enjoyed
but as a whole it just didn't work for me and I remember sitting in traffic driving home and
I'm like why did I have to drive to see this like I would have had the exact same reaction
watching this on my couch that I would have had driving all the way here in fact it probably
would have been a little bit better because I would have been like Ah that's fine where now
I'm gonna lean a little bit more negative towards it because the experience that I
had driving to the theater two people being in the theater like like they couldn't even
fill up the screening room it was like two people in the theater and it's like why why
and I know people always argue the fact that like movies need to be experienced on the big screen
and I think it was James Gunn who said this but movies have a very short life expectancy on a big
screen they they're there for a couple of months and then they live whether it's on DVD on demand
streaming whatever it is nowadays so as much as I enjoy the spectacle of like watching like
a top gun Maverick on the big screen and that movie needs to be experienced on the big screen
a movie like card counter where it's just like a drama like where there's no big set pieces there's
not a lot of action there's not a lot going on I can enjoy that at home so my viewing habits
have pivoted from going like five days a week to kind of going to maybe three at most and I'm more
selective of what I'm gonna drive to see because again there's so much other content out there then
I'm like okay do I really need to see this movie before everyone else like yes I need to see Thor
love and Thunder but do I need to see the card counter before everyone else or can that wait
until that plays five minutes from my house and I'll just go randomly on a Saturday night I was
gonna bring up the fact that I'm in that camp too where I thought that TV was whatever and and I've
pivoted as well yeah it's crazy yeah I feel like I just feel like I'm being like a traitor in a weird
way to the industry but I think a lot of people are starting to come that that turn that corner
now I think a lot of people are just connecting with things and they're like wow these shows are
better and I think it's even the Studio's fault like Marvel is turning their products
into TV shows so when you have a Wanda Vision which to me is better than most of these phase
four movies I mean it's way better than eternals it's way better than doctor strange it's better
than Thor love and thunder so you have this TV show that I think has more emotion more depth
that of course people are going to have the option do I really want to go see this or am
I going to stay at home and watch this what's the longest you can go without watching a movie
I would say
probably a day or two it's weird like we talk about addiction all the time entertainment is
sort of addiction whether it's watching a trailer or a TV show or being the first to see a movie
there's something that is wired up there where you just feel this need to experience it
and the only time where I don't feel I need to go to a movie every day or every other day is
after I get back from a film festival because in film festivals I go hard and when I say I
go hard I'm going from the first screening of the day usually at nine o'clock in the morning
until the last screening at the of the day at 10 o'clock if you're at Sundance it's 12 or at South
by as well so I'm literally going non-stop from nine o'clock in the morning sometimes
until two o'clock in the morning watching movies and when I'm done with a film festival
that's like the time where I can step back for like a week and be like you know what
I think I'm okay if I don't go but then what happens in our industry is that you get these
nice little things called screening invites and you're like oh man that that's right that
screen is coming up and then even though I said to myself I'm not gonna go for a week
oh well Batman's on Thursday I gotta go see Batman on Thursday and that's what happens yeah that
would be difficult to be sitting that entire time but I know it when you when it's being like fed to
you you have no other choice oh no no and I mean you can't Pro you can't process everything right
that's that's the the one thing I will say about film festivals that I think is very interesting
in a weird way you're doing yourself and the filmmakers and the storytellers a little bit of a
disservice because if you see a movie that is like phenomenal like that like knocks your socks off
at like nine o'clock in the morning and then you have one at noon
you're going to be riding this high from this movie that you're going to go into the next movie
and it's going to be very very hard for that movie to top when you just watched and then the opposite
can be said you can watch the most horrendous movie at nine o'clock in the morning and be like
I hope the day gets better because you know that movie I just sat through what a piece of crap and
then you go in the next movie and you almost have like this well this was so much better
so it's almost like you oh over hype it a little bit and I've been I've been I've been very guilty
of this I think like when you see stuff it's sort of at Film Festival specifically you kind of feel
the audience reaction you kind of feel the crowd and I've been on both sides of that where people
have been really enjoying stuff and I've been like in pain like Centrist like oh my God what
is over I don't want to be here anymore or the opposite of where like I've really
enjoyed something and you can tell like everyone around me is like not feeling it
but I do think that the more stuff that you watch back to back to back the harder it is to have
appropriate expectations and reactions towards because what I found myself is that when I hit
in a middle ground like if I see something really bad and then something really good then the rest
of the stuff I kind of walk out of and go oh it's fine it's a very weird to explain and experience
but if you go to a film festival and you've done it for like numerous numerous years like I have
you'll sort of understand what I'm saying is that seeing four or five things back to back
is not always the best way of doing it but you feel like you almost have to because it's like
oh I don't know when this movie is going to come out and then there's this always this urge of like
I want to be the first person to see it I want to be one of the first to see this I want to be the
the champion of this movie like I I think back to CODA you know I saw that at Sundance and that was
the movie where like I saw it I fell in love with it and I was like this is going to be the awards
movie and I and I literally rode that train and everyone was like Scott you're crazy you're crazy
you're crazy and you know in those last two months going into the Oscars going from sag to seeing
it kind of sweep everything moving forward from that it was it was it was great to see.