Flutterby™! : Fast Changing Trends 2010-04-27 17:38:00.322206+00

Fast Changing Trends

2010-04-27 17:38:00.322206+00 by petronius 8 comments

Ah, how quickly things change. On April 25th, a story from the LA Times service declared that Hollywood was herniating itself to convert summer blockbusters to the 3-D format. However, on April 22nd the same service declared that the bloom was off the 3-D rose, and viewers were complaining. So, which is it?

Do you mean Hitchcock's Birds in 3D? That is a revelation to me. I have seen the 3-d version of Hitch's "Dial M for Murder". It was shot at the tail end of the early 50s 3D craze. It's an odd choice for stereo, since it mostly takes place in one room, as it was based on a play. There is one exciting shot where a vital item sudeenly looms up (no spoilers here), but otherwise 3D makes no difference whatsoever. When the 3 and 2 d versions were released at the same time with no difference in ticket sales, the studios finally dropped the technique.

The first 3D movie I ever watched requiring 3D glasses was the classic "Birds," shot not far from where you live now, Dan.

I suspect that none of you is old enough to remember that back in the '50s there was a brief period of 3d movies. The glitter wore off back then, too.

Re "viewers complaining", since when has Hollywood actually cared about "viewers" and their comfort? As long as you don't demand your money back, they don't care if you have a migraine leaving the theater.

Back in the days of anyone caring about CNET, I remember picking out a couple of pro/anti/pro sequences that made me wonder whether any editor cared. The explanation, that the "news" component was that the people they were sourcing from thought these things, seemed kinda silly to me then and now, but I've come to understand that that's how "news" organizations view their mission.

Things get crazier. The anti-2d story was published in LA on the 22nd, but didn't get into the Chicago paper until yesterday, the 26th. The pro-2d story was printed in Chicago on the 25th. I don't wonder so much about two different reporters getting different slants, but I do question if the same editor read both stories, and let them run anyway. But then, its in the entertainment section so who cares?

One of the problems with modern "journalism" is that it seems that there's little effort to go to primary sources, and repeating opinions with attribution is the norm. Thus I'm totally sure that the first two guys interviewed a source who told 'em one thing, and they printed it, and the second guy interviewed a source with a different axe to grind, and they printed it, and there we go.

Our local paper is extremely bad about this, they'll catch the loudest voices coming out of a city council meeting, print those quotes, and call it an article.