Rondo and H8—honestly, even the animations are solid.
What’s the actual metric here—is it a minimum of 100 votes on IMDb or what? Because you see plenty of higher-rated stuff out there that barely has any votes behind it.
I don't think you can really draw any conclusions just because there are two films from this decade on a top ten list. If anything, having 2 out of 10 on an all-time list is actually pretty impressive for a single decade. People claim the 50s were the golden age of American cinema, so at the end of the day, H8 is the only one even showing up on this specific list.
A pretty decent lineup for this year. If they could just snag a few more bands from the top tier and actually give them reasonable set times, it would be perfect.
As far as moving back to the old two-day format goes—I'm still waiting to see anything happen. It looks like they’re sticking to three days.
shadowtinker15 said:Real and hyper—just two ends of the same stick.
Actually, if we're being precise, the "real" would be the stick itself, while "hyper" is just something attached to one end. But I get what you mean—they aren't mutually exclusive.
Real = something that actually exists; something true. Hyper = 1. something above or beyond something else; 2. excessive or over the top.
When I bring up hyperrealism, I'm leaning into that second definition of the prefix "hyper."
shadowtinker15 said:I have no idea how this movie relates to Romanian hyperrealism. Juric, for instance, is just trying to mimic the Romanians. This isn't that kind of film.
Look, I’m not quite brilliant enough to draw a hard line between Romanian hyperrealism and Belgian realism—to me, they're basically the same thing. Or rather, I tend to use "hyperrealism" to describe something that feels excessively realistic—like, ultra-realistic or turbo-realistic. Maybe I'm using the term wrong, but I'm certainly not the only one. To my mind, those films are hyper-realistic because "realism" is such a broad category. Take *The Godfather*—that's a realistic film, but *Hell Orange* definitely isn't. Yet, *The Godfather* isn't "hyper" realistic either. Hyper-realistic films are the ones that feel like fake documentaries. There's no background music the characters aren't hearing, no camera tricks, no artificial colors... just raw.
This movie is just another entry in the recent wave of hyper-realistic slow cinema that seems to be everywhere lately. Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of the style—either because we’re already drowning in movies like this, or because this approach feels like a self-imposed limitation on what the medium can actually do. Watching this in a theater offers zero added value compared to watching it on your TV or a tablet. The widescreen aspect ratio, the camera angles, the outdoor shots... none of it matters. You could have shot the whole thing on a smartphone and gotten the exact same effect.
That said, just like anything else, there are better versions and worse ones—mediocre examples versus the absolute bottom of the barrel. For me, the Romanian 8 Months... is the gold standard for this genre; a truly brilliant piece where you feel the director actually guiding both the audience and the actors toward those intense dramatic peaks. 2 Days... is just mediocre and way too hyped up. Marion has sixteen colleagues to visit, and she basically has the same conversation with twelve of them—with the other four being only slightly different. If there had been eight people instead of sixteen, the movie would have been half as long without losing a single bit of substance.
Given how much the lineups at Coachella have overlapped with my favorite acts in the past, I'm really just crossing my fingers for Motörhead this time.
Movies are true art, whereas most series are just eye candy—with a few notable exceptions, of course. That said, I happily watch both, though I find myself gravitating toward the classics rather than modern releases; think along the lines of The Twilight Zone, Alohas, Only Fools and Horses, M*A*S*H, The Addams Family, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, or Twin Peaks...
Hmm, right after that sentence you quoted from my intro, I added this: "People claim we’re living in the golden age of television—that the popularity, social impact, and even the artistic weight of TV series have overtaken film. Movies are becoming passé; series are our zeitgeist."
I think it’s pretty obvious I was talking about the present—the current moment. As for how wide we define "the current moment," we could argue about that forever, but I’d say a 10-to-15-year window is a reasonable frame? That’s basically what most critics mean when they bring up the "golden age of television." Usually, they’re looking at everything from the era when American networks like HBO set the modern standard with shows like The Sopranos and The Wire, all the way up to today.
If you look at most of the commentary out there, the consensus seems to be that series have caught up to—if not surpassed—film when it comes to quality in mainstream, commercial productions. When commentators say today's prime-time series are better than blockbusters, that’s the target they're aiming for. But once you pivot to art house, indie, underground, or non-American productions? Not so much. Things haven't fundamentally shifted there; series still can't quite hold a candle to film.
goldenskipper72 said:I’m way more of a movie person. When I try to list the TV series that actually touched my soul, I can barely get a few names out, but the pile of movies I want to watch before I die? It’s endless...
Every single year, I can rattle off about thirty absolute masterpieces from the big screen, whereas with series, I’m lucky if I find a handful every decade...
Take the 90s, for example: the only shows that really hit home for me were The Simpsons, Twin Peaks, The X-Files, Red Dwarf, and Jerry Seinfeld.... but with movies from that same era, I could give you a hundred just to start—especially starting from '94. And don't even get me started on the 70s because there were so many genius films, and I just don't feel that same connection with TV shows.
So, I’ve decided to spend what's left of my life diving into cinema. I mean, we're all heading to the grave eventually, so why spend my final moments regretting that I didn't even catch 30% of the stuff I actually wanted to see?
The bottom line is this: sure, some series might feel like epic movies right now, but the reason we're seeing so many mediocre films and endless shows is because of all the advertising and the lost soul of the industry. People have become addicted to fast food, so they don't appreciate a real, home-cooked meal anymore.
TV shows are just a quick distraction, but a great movie? That’s a timeless postcard.
I'm pretty much on the exact same page as you, though this thread seems intended for more recent stuff. We should probably stick to the last 10 or 15 years and leave the '70s and '90s out of it.
P.S. For those of us living in nostalgia: the era from the mid-'60s to the mid-'90s was the absolute golden age of pop culture. I'm just glad I caught the tail end of it firsthand.😉
Richard Wilson4 said:Everyone’s agreeing on sitcoms, but that's not the point. The question isn't about whether we're in some "golden age of sitcoms," it's whether they actually beat out the comedies from that same era.😉
Which comedies are actually better than 30 Rock during that stretch?
I'm talking even compared to The Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother.
So, yeah, even those light, commercialized sitcoms—are there five comedies out there that genuinely top them?
I haven't really sat down with 30 Rock—looks decent enough—but honestly, any movie by Judd Apatow or Seth Rogen is funnier than TBBT (which is fine, I guess) or HIMYM (which feels overrated just because there isn't much better out there). And those are just standard, grounded movies. For them, The Guard is basically their version of Amarcord.
Andrew Roberts3 said:And why on earth does it have to be one or the other? Honestly... I love sitting down to a high-quality movie just as much as I love bingeing a great series. Sure, you can find absolute garbage in both formats—don't get me wrong there—but that's just how it goes.
Because that's the whole point of the thread.
The original post lays out the argument that people are constantly claiming "TV series have overtaken movies"—so this is our space to tear that thesis apart or back it up with our own takes. If you don't have a horse in the race, just say you're neutral.
I’d like to pivot to another point here. When everyone starts parroting this idea of the "golden age of television"—something our journalists and audiences (and really, the whole World) just repeat like a script—it ends up being incredibly American-centric. It’s almost exclusively about US shows. Sure, people might mention that British series are on par, but let’s be real: the Brits established their quality standards decades ago; it’s hardly news to them. Maybe you'll see some Frenchmen or Scandinavians trying to keep up with the trends, but they just don't have the production budgets to actually compete at that level.
Small-scale cinema can still reach a global audience, but it happens strictly through movies. And even though Americans set the trends that everyone else follows, I don't see that changing anytime soon. Just tell me how many Romanian series you've actually sat through lately, and I'll tell you how many recent Romanian films I've watched. 😉
Do you honestly think anyone outside their own borders has heard of Mad, confused, normal or Return to the Roots, or No Man's Land, Grbavica, etc.?
I’m actually rooting for Qatar to pull this off. I mean, if they’re allowed to field national teams packed with ten naturalized players, why not let them win? If that's how the game works now, let's just follow their lead—before long, every national team will basically just be a glorified club side...
rustypanther13 said:Over the last decade, American TV series have consistently outclassed almost everything being churned out by Hollywood... For instance, I don't think any single film has ever captured the shifting landscape of the 1960s in the US with the same depth and meticulous detail found in a series like Mad Men.
For a judgment like that to actually hold weight, it would need to come from someone who lived through the sixties firsthand—someone who actually knows what they're talking about.😉
I think you'd get a much better sense of the changes during the sixties by, say, watching a few films from 1960 and then a few from 1970 (which wouldn't take nearly as long as bingeing all of Mad Men), rather than watching a show from the 2000s made by people who weren't even alive to see those decades unfold. (And sure, it doesn't have to be movies—it could be shows from that era—but you get my point).
One of the main reasons we’re seeing this massive obsession with TV series lately—this total cultural fixation—is actually pretty obvious and frankly quite prosaic. It all comes down to technology. Nowadays, the primary way we consume video content is through downloading or streaming, which usually ends up being played back on a home television. By its very definition, a TV series is designed for that specific type of consumption. A movie? That’s meant for the cinema. When the film format was first established, televisions didn't even exist. Sure, plenty of people watch stuff on laptops, tablets, or phones, but a film just can't reach its full potential on an interface like that. Is it any wonder the small screen has taken over?
I’m firmly on the film side of this debate—no holding back. TV series just don't offer the same level of artistic freedom that movies do; they’re shackled to the rules of their own format, constantly forced to manipulate the viewer into coming back for more. Personally, I have zero interest in shows that lack a cohesive, pre-planned narrative—those types where scripts are cobbled together episode by episode because, let's face it, the commercial interests are calling all the shots. It’s always the same tired tricks used to juice the ratings, and a series only ends when the studio decides they've squeezed every last drop of profit out of it. There’s simply no room in television for true directorial virtuosity—for playing with visual language, camera movement, lighting, color palettes, or the interplay between interior and exterior settings. Instead, most series end up looking exactly the same.
Most of the TV series I find myself gravitating toward are either sitcoms or mini-series—older formats, really—though I tend to view mini-series more like extended TV movies that just happen to stretch out a bit longer. There are a few multi-episode series that stand out as genuine exceptions, though; shows like The Wire that I honestly consider just as good as the best films out there.
Maybe the golden age of cinema is behind us—I don't know—but I still find myself leaning toward movies over TV series every single time. Even when I'm watching at home, nothing—and I mean absolutely nothing, regardless of how much we've upgraded to 4K or high-def—can actually compete with that feeling of sitting in a dark theater. There’s just no substitute for the big screen, is there?
This is the thread where we hash out the age-old debate: movies versus TV series.
They say we're living in the golden age of television—you know, those endless arguments about how the popularity, cultural impact, and even the artistic merit of TV series have finally overtaken cinema. The idea being that movies are becoming passé while series define our zeitgeist.
Do you actually buy that? Why do you think things shifted this way? Forget the objective truth for a second—what’s your personal preference?
Let's see if we can dig up some answers to these questions...
(It probably makes sense to open an identical thread over on the Series subforum, though I'm not sure if we can have the exact same topic in two places—I'll just start both and let the moderators sort it out 😉 )
I was about 15 minutes into the fifth installment—the one with the bridge collapsing—before I just gave up. It felt way too predictable and repetitive to keep going. It left me wondering if all five of them follow the exact same formula, which makes you think: what’s actually the draw here? Who wants to sit through five movies built on the same single premise?
Then again, I recently sat through the whole Omen series, and you could definitely draw some parallels there. Specifically, The Omen II feels pretty similar to Final Destination—except in the latter, death isn't exactly a personified entity. In both cases, you're basically just watching a sequence of "accidents" play out for every character that shows up.