The Only Upside of 3D That I Can See...
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 9:00PM ... is that we get great movies back in theaters where they're meant to be seen. If it takes a 3D conversion, well that's what it takes.
Next year, the only animated picture ever nominated for Best Picture in a field of five films -- don't you love the qualifier? -- Beauty and the Beast will arrive in the January graveyard. That's the month usually reserved for slow-ass expansions of Oscar nominees and terrible Nic Cage movies. Later in the year Titanic arrives for the centennial of the infamous watery disaster. That's good news: 2012 is guaranteed to have at least two great movies. (Yep, I love both of them.)
Given that many of the biggest hits of all time are epically romantic, why is Hollywood making so few romantic movies?
Remember early in the year when articles started popping up suggesting that 3D would be shortlived (as it's always been in the past) since its market share was starting to ebb after all the 2009 Avatar excitement and the perfectly timed hideous 2010 cash-in of Eyesore in Wonderland ? Good times. Yet the statistics, which suggested that the novelty appeal was wearing off and many people would prefer to go back to 2D, were too optimistically misleading. The further along we march post Avatar, the more the industry invests in 3D with an eye towards the next thing "Holograms!" and the the less likely it seems that it will ever be leaving us.
Which makes me sad. I hate the glasses. I hate the fussiness of it. I really enjoyed Hugo EXCEPT for the 3D. It's done very very well (that team of filmmakers is top-notch) and looks beautiful but who needs all those dog noses and hands shoved in their faces? If I want "immersive" entertainment experiences, I'll just pick a good movie to see. The good ones are always immersive, no glasses required.
Even in films where 3D feels conceptually right somehow, like in Pina where you can understand the spatial relations of the choreography or in Hugo where the 3D plays into the idea of film artists experimenting with a new technological medium I have never once thought "Oh, I'm so glad this wasn't in 2D!" But It's looking like it's here to say. Major film artists like Herzog, Scorsese and Cameron and so on are beating the artistic drum for it and the studios are happy with the short-sighted extra bucks they can charge for it. I say shortsighted because if they keep raising the prices, they price themselves out of relevancy and further cement TV as the opiate of the masses, far and away more popular than film; don't think the price points aren't a major part of that.
How long before we have to split the cinematography Oscar categories like they used to have to with black and white vs. color until black and white I mean 2D is totally gone? Sigh.
So while I shed my little psychic tears about the death of my favorite medium as it becomes something else entirely -- I love holograms but I don't really think of them as "movies". Can't we have both? -- I take comfort that I'm not alone and that I have one bright side. It's an obvious bright side now that Belle and the Beast will soon be spinning in ballrooms and Jack & Rose will be falling in love above and below deck again. Presumably more grand entertainments will follow. Encore!
3-D, Beauty & the Beast, Oscars (12), Titanic
Reader Comments (16)
Completely agree. The glasses are annoying and it all gives me a headache by the end. Not to mention the absurd price hike. I mean, movie tickets on average increase almost twice the inflationary rate every year without another added price! How the movie theater business doesn't see that's it's slowly pricing itself out of the entertainment market is beyond me. I for one go to the movies about half as much as I did 5 years ago and refuse to pay for 3D anymore (might make an exception for Titanic, swoon). Seeing as the overall attendance numbers keep dropping, I'm not alone. I wait a few months and head to redbox. Saves me at least 8 bucks a movie.
Makes me a bit sad, but unless I know it's going to be a great movie that needs the big screen, it's just not worth it anymore.
But it looks like it's here to stay. I love you.
I agree with everything said except the above sentence!
I do love the idea of Kathy Bates in 3D.
So glad to hear that you love Titanic. It gets the shaft among film buffs these days! Reason #28,099 why I like TFE.
If I want a 3D experience, I'll go for a walk.
I hate 3D and found it distracting at Hugo - and Pina - and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Even Avatar and some of the other universally acclaimed "good 3-D" movies. I wish it would die as a format and the idea that we're moving toward "hologram" movies fills me with a certain despair. I like the movies the way they are, thanks.
That said, I saw Adventures of Tin TIn in 3D earlier tonight and found it to be almost remarkably seamless and effective. I kept taking my glasses off, suspecting that it was one of those barely 3-D movies where the glasses aren't really necessary (like Tron: Legacy) - but no. I was shocked at how good the 3-D was, and the added texture it gave to the imagery. That's not to say that I'm a convert - far from it. But tonight was the first time I found myself willing to make an argument that 3-D may have - and only may have, not definitely did - enhance the experience I just had. I don't know what to make of that, really, but I think a little crack has opened in my brain that is at least hypothetically open to the idea of 3-D not being a 100% useless tool.
@Arkaan, Good one! LOL
@Natt, I'm so glad you hate 3D too! But I'm afraid not for the same reason as me. I have no binocular vision so I can't watch 3D. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, try to watch a 3D movie winking an eye, you go back to 2D in grey tones!
So, anyway, vision problems aside, I agree that you don't need that extra gimmick to get inmersed in a movie. I just went to see Carnage, and boy, was I deep INTO that living room with theses characters! Do you know what effect made it possible? Talent.
The cynic in me doesn't get past the cash grab element to it. Different packaging, same product. That's why I refused to see "The Lion King" when it was back in theaters. The $3.50 extra 3D charge to the already pricey adult ticket here is too much. And I could always get "The Lion King" on DVD anyway (only now it's the Blu Ray/DVD combo ridiculousness--charging all that money and I don't have or want a damn Blu Ray player). But I haven't seen "Beauty and the Beast" before, so maybe that's an enticement there. I can see "Titanic" anytime on HBO or TNT or whatever channel it's playing on. I'm not paying to see that movie ever again.
Lem -- wait hold up now...
!!!!!!!! I envy your upcoming virgin experience. it's so good!Nathaniel—I wonder if you've ever managed to see the 3-D version of Kiss Me, Kate. (For example, when it played the Film Forum about a dozen years ago.) I think it was the first 3-D movie I'd ever seen, and I was quite taken by the format's ability to provide stage-like depth to the film medium, and all the possibilities that that could entail; previously, I just thought of it as a gimmick to show things popping out of the screen.
(Oh, and if you didn't know Kiss Me, Kate was originally filmed in 3-D, well, that's why Ann Miller's throwing stuff at the camera during "Too Darn Hot.")
Reason to Hate 3-D: As the last holdout film-projection theaters are knuckling under to studio pressure and converting to all-digital, it bears pointing out that 3-D—only available in digital—was a significant player in the Death of Film. After all, if people wanted to see Avatar or Alice in Wonderland or Toy Story 3 in 3-D, theaters had to buy the digital projectors, didn't they? Pushing digital into theaters may not have been the foremost reason for upconverting some of those unnecessary 3-D movies (which, when it comes down to it, is most of them), but I'm sure it was factored into the equation.
JP -- i have seen Kiss Me Kate in 3D yes. That was even how I saw it the very first time I saw it when I was a kid in Detroit (I grew up near a great revival house. It's where I saw so many classics. The only downside ws that they only played one movie every other weekend.
Nathaniel I grew up in Detroit (ok, and the suburbs surrounding); what revival house was that? (It wasn't until college and Ann Arbor that I frequented the revival house in that town - my first viewing of The Wind with Lilian Gish.)
Arkaan and Seisgrados - can I marry you both? (I don't mind a three-way if you don't.)
I am happy to say that I have so far successfully avoided the 3-d experience - ever. I don't see the point of paying the extra money, and as I have epilepsy and I suspect I would have difficulties with it. (I can't go to rock concerts because of the flickering and the light shows.) I really don't see the point of it, though, other than a cash grab - isn't that why it was a fad in the 1950's? The studios suddenly had to compete with TV , and the suburbs put people further and further out from the theaters. I suspect we're going to have to endure all sorts of nonsense from the studios along this line. It's disappointing, though, that the directors who have sort of represented the "old guard" in terms of respect for the cinema and it's history (Scorsese, Luhrmann) are falling for it, as you say.
As for me, if I can keep getting quality entertainment and good stories on TV with series like Parks and Rec, Raising Hope, Nurse Jackie, etc, I'll stay at home.
BTW - regarding Titanic, won't 3-D let you really notice how dated and crappy some of the effects were, or is Cameron going to completely remaster it (a la Lucas?) Some of the visuals (pulling away from the ship, etc) looked very obvious and a bit cheesy, like legos, even then.
Ok, I guess I'll be the lone 3D defender lol I actually love the idea of remastering classics to fit a 3D medium. Especially with Titanic, because James Cameron is putting so much effort (and $20 million) to convert it. Having seen Titanic on the big screen when it came out I'm super anxious to see how "adding a dimension" will play. The sinking scenes are sure to be incredible.
The problem with 3D is that filmmakers often don't conceive their films as 3D movies, which makes them look terrible (Clash of the Titans, Eyesore in Wonderland, etc.) It's all about the approach studios take, when you just do it for a cash grab it dilutes everything about the movie and experience. Movies that are filmed with 3D in mind to enhance the storytelling look great and add a new experience to watching movies.
I'd love to see a musical filmed in 3D (not Les Miz, something like In the Heights with a lot of dance numbers)
I wouldn't so much mind the 3D if I could actually notice it making much of a difference. So many movies I've wondered where the 3D is. I mean, I get the whole "immersive" thing, but I find things flying out at me (like, say, "Final Destination 5") is the only way to keep the 3D imagery going in my brain. It's as if my brain just stops projecting the images in 3D after about 45 minutes. And then there are movies like "Pirates of the Caribbean 4" that allowed me to take the glasses off for a good 50 or so minutes and not notice a single problem.
I'm really curious how, say, Luhrmann tackles 3D with "The Great Gatsby", I really am.
But, yeah, "Titanic 3D" is bound to be one of 2012's best movies just like it was in 1997. "Beauty and the Beast 3D" was already released in Australia last year so I don't think we'll be getting it again.
Janice -- it's The Redford Theater on Lahser. They used to preface each movie with a 1/2 hour organ concert. and they had a player piano and everything: so retro! My parents loved it and though they're totally weirded out about my movie life they have only themselves to blame ;)
when i go home for a visit i tend to check what they're playing and i've noticed that their "old movies" are now often 80s movies. LOL. Christ.... but time flies.