Winona Ryder worries about film's future and diminished interest in film among her young co-stars

[bttrsondaughter]

Winona Ryder loves working with the young co-stars she’s been given over the last several years, but there is one aspect of them she isn’t exactly a fan of: their diminished love of film.

Read more: https://t.co/YttwqhUVoL pic.twitter.com/wIw8besom3
- TheWrap (@TheWrap) August 28, 2024
• In a recent LA Times profile, Winona Ryder spoke from the heart

Comments

[varioussaints]

I also ask "How long is it?" because modern filmmakers are producing films with unnecessarily longer and longer runtimes and I'm so tired of sitting through something that could have been whittled down in the editing room but wasn't. Silly example, I know, but I rewatched Shrek recently and I could not believe how short it was for how complete it felt (only an hour and a half). I truly miss when a "long movie" was something like Hitchcock's Rebecca (which is just over 2 hours and yet I remember being captivated from start to finish when I was a child) and not Oppenheimer (3 hours? In one sitting? No thank you

[januarysix]

the "this could have been an email" of the film world is "this could have been a 30 minute or 1h episode of (insert tv series)"

[varioussaints]

Yes! I prefer older movies in part because I feel like so many more scriptwriters, directors, and producers back then actually understood the importance of tightly plotted stories, which is what TV dramas have to do to fit within the standard 40 minutes of runtime. On top of that, they have to do it for every single episode (at least in theory--I can't pretend they're all perfect or that I haven't sat through many dud episodes, even for shows I love, but on average they at least try). Films can obviously go longer than that 40 minutes, but when someone asks me to watch a 2-3 hour film with a story that could have easily been told in 1-2 hours I just can't do it. I can certainly pay attention for that long, but why would I want to waste my time and energy like that?

[spellmanian]

Bruh these overpadded movies kill me! Like fix your pacing bitch! It's one thing for a movie to be 3 hours if every scene matters and adds something, but most of the time it doesn't and you can tell they think a longer movie = better one or they weren't able to kill their darlings when writing the script or w/e.

[theleveebroke]

I get it, but youve got to lend some credence to the younger gens. The goalposts shift depending on which director you're talking to or what publication is printing commentary. Gen A, Gen Z, Marvel, Tiktok, Millennials, so on and so on have been the downfall of film for how long now? At a certain point, the industry needs to shift attitudes and marketing instead of blame.

I'm in my late 20s and work with plenty of Gen Z. They still go see movies, but they're more likely to discern what's interesting or appealing to them because they're watching those reviews on Tiktok/Reels and reading them online. If a "prestige" film is getting mid reviews from critics and social media alike, chances are they're not going to be lining down to block to see it.

Also, shit is still too fucking expensive.

[varioussaints]

If a "prestige" film is getting mid reviews from critics and social media alike, chances are they're not going to be lining down to block to see it.

This! People forget that the internet wasn't always a thing and even when it was, Rotten Tomatoes only started in the late 90s; before then, you basically just had the teaser trailers and the reviews in whichever newspaper you read to go on. Going out to see a movie (even a bad one) was a relatively cheap form of entertainment. Now, we have so much more than Rotten Tomatoes, we have an entire internet full of people sharing their opinions, and more competition than ever for our attention. "So and so is directing, so and so is starring" is no longer enough to get people out to the theatre, and that is an incredibly good thing in my opinion. Every time I see some movie "unexpectedly" tank at the box office, all I can think is that the industry only has itself to blame at this point. The writing has been on the wall for decades at this point, and while they clearly learned enough to figure

[xtinkerbellax]

Lack of curiosity is one of the worst traits someone can have imo. It inevitably leads to willful ignorance and lacking knowledge which will always be dangerous.

[januarysix]

applies to all industries

[angriest_girl]

I do agree, but I don’t care whether or not someone is curious about movies. I think lack of curiosity about the world, history, the experiences of other people, etc. is far more of a problem.

[xtinkerbellax]

Also I do love seeing younger people with movie reaction channels on youtube because it's a great way to get into classic and acclaimed older films. Like I have not seen one person not get super into 12 Angry Men and that makes me happy.

[varioussaints]

12 Angry Men!!! 😩👌🏻

[gumby]

this comment reminded me of how excited tiktok users got when parts of 12 angry men got uploaded lmao

pic.twitter.com/2SM373ihET
- Jacob deNobel (@Jacob_deNobel) March 29, 2023

[ellie_andrews]

aw i love this!

[gabzillaz]

My 12 year nephew struggles with anything longer than an hour and the only thing that seems to keep his attention is YT streamers. Sadly, this is common among his classmates. No interesting in reading anything either.

[varioussaints]

I feel like there are two problems at play when it comes to complaints about media that's ~longer than a Tiktok video~. The issue you're flagging (that we have a massively oversaturated media landscape that is decimating attention spans left right and centre, especially for children) and the issue of cinematic bloat (which is trying, even for people with more robust attention spans). Rather than address them separately, though, it feels increasingly like these more attention is being paid to the former (which is a very serious and widespread issue) while dismissing (or otherwise ignoring) the latter in these conversations