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2024-04-23, 02:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
Within the last year, the man who basically invented the Pop Tart passed away. We had a pop tart morning at the office to commemorate this 1960's era breakfast food that has lasted a while.
Jerry Seinfeld is directing Unfrosted, a fictional movie about the origin of the Pop Tart. Jerry, having now gotten into the movie business, has a few things of interest to say about it.
Originally Posted by Variety, excerpted
What do you all think. Is he on to something?Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2024-04-23 at 02:45 PM.
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2024-04-23, 03:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
"It was totally new to me. I thought I had done some cool stuff, but it was nothing like the way these people work," Seinfeld said. "They're so dead serious! They don't have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea."
- I've never worked in film.
- I have massive respect for people who work in film.
- Film people are deluded about the death of their artform.
What a zero-to-sixty quote. Taking his quote at face value, it seems like a textbook case of being brand new to an artform or field of study and deciding you've seen enough to make broad, sweeping judgments about it.
Keep in mind I'm not defending movies from the Big, Scary Seinfeld. I don't have a horse in this race -- I even kind of agree with him about their decrease in cultural relevance (for certain cases). But he still strikes me as unnecessarily aggressive about a thing he doesn't know very well.
Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast
Somebody noticed a cultural trend and is trying to apply a moral judgment or philosophy to it. Same story, different day.
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Incidentally: I do think that movies aren't the widespread social activity they used to be. Streaming was already affecting that (e.g. not trying to see it in theatres since it'll be out on streaming soon enough), and social distancing dealt it another big blow.
Which is a shame, because some of my favorite watch experiences have been in theatres. Dune Part II and Everything, Everywhere, All At Once were both phenomenal to watch as part of a crowd -- the former for the sheer awe, the latter for the laughter and communal chaos. I remember other popular watches similarly -- you felt like you were part of an event. Live theatre is even better at this. Seeing Hadestown in a sold out theatre was a spectacular experience, enhanced by the people onstage being real people alongside the people around me in the audience. The energy is totally different and well worth it.
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2024-04-23, 03:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
No, he's not.
Not even getting into how his own narcissism drives this, it is observably false.
He says that film is no longer the pinnacle, and somehow claims that stand-up comedy is. And he says that this can be seen because people used to all see the good movies, and talk about them, and quote them. I'd argue that it was never about the movies being "good", but about movies being popular, which isn't the same. But, yes, people used to always talk about the big movies, quote them and discuss them ad naseum. Thing is, they still do that.
Let's just talk last year. Anyone remember Barbiheimer? Of course, you do. Everyone talked about both of them. Many people went to double features of the two. Tons of people dressed in pink. There were articles about the hidden depths of Barbie, about whether it was a feminist movie or not. There were articles about how people should think about Oppenheimer, what it tells us about America, about how it was being received in Japan.
Or how about Sound of Freedom? Boy did that movie drive a bunch of conversations that aren't really appropriate here.
Or how about the endless ink spilled about the end of the superhero movie era? If movies were truly on the way out, no one would care that superhero movies in particular may be.Created an interactive character sheet for sidekicks on Google Sheets - automatic calculations, drop down menus for sidekick type, hopefully everything necessary to run a sidekick: https://tinyurl.com/y6rnyuyc
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2024-04-23, 04:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
I am not sure if I read between the lines on his points correctly, but for some reason the recent actors strike and the issue with AI versus Creatives may be lurking in the background of his observations...and the of course he blows his own horn on stand up because AI can't do that.
And I may be waaaay off the mark in that regard.
I am still going to see his movie: Pop Tarts are a cultural touchstone from my youth.Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2024-05-18, 08:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
I saw the movie last night.
Funny in a Seinfeld way.
It's a send up of the 1960's among other things.
Fine cast.
One anachronism among many:
I don't think there were any dumpsters or dumpster emptying trucks like that in 1960. (I sure don't recall those. Didn't see dumpsters until the 1970's).Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2024-05-18 at 08:29 AM.
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2024-05-18, 08:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2009
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- Birmingham, AL
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2024-05-18, 08:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2015
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Re: Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
Your words, not mine.
His style goes back to his stand up routines, long before he had a TV show. I remember seeing his first appearance on Carson/Tonight Show (Yeah, I'm that old).
He was quite good and quite popular as a stand up comic, clean humor being a part of his schtick.
It's that style which he leans into.
Amusing and at times silly.
Like a breakfast cereal, if one is searching for a metaphor.
Tastes good but might not be the most nourishing.Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2024-05-18 at 08:38 AM.
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2024-05-18, 10:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2009
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- Birmingham, AL
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2024-05-18, 08:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2015
Re: Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
This is quantifiable. Global box office remains well below pre-pandemic levels. The 2023 US box office was 8.9 billion. Adjusting for inflation, the last time it was below that was 2005. That's massive, especially considering that the US population has been growing that interval - by almost 40 million people! Worldwide numbers are less accessible (and also involve weird manipulations by China, the second largest market), but appear to be in the same ballpark trend-wise. Movie going has definitely declined. I wouldn't blame streaming, which is a change in software, so much as hardware. Large HD TVs are now very cheap, and a high-quality speaker system similarly so. This can get quite close to replicating theatrical quality in a way that wasn't possible until a few years ago (and the pandemic likely pushed investment in new televisions as well).
An arguably greater 'problem' is this regard is content proliferation. Movies not only compete with TV in a way they didn't until a few years ago (we complain a lot about the Star Wars TV shows on this forum, but those shows weren't technologically possible until moments before they were made), but they compete with various forms of online video content from Youtube, Tiktok, and countless others. There are only so many hours in the day, and the media landscape has grown increasing fragmented as a result. One of Seinfeld's points, though it's not articulated properly, is that in a fragmented landscape, having established cachet is huge. That's why established IP has been so dominant for the past two decades or so. Jerry Seinfeld is a brand, and he was able to get a movie like Unfrosted made because of that. Note that person-as-brand (which is similar to but not entirely the same as star power) scenarios like this are increasingly rare and are mostly holdovers from earlier eras in media, Jerry Seinfeld is 70, because it's more and more difficult for someone to become established in the current media environment.
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2024-05-19, 10:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2024-05-20, 06:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
I'm not so sure about this.
I have a pretty serious home entertainment setup and even putting a movie through a good £5000 of kit isn't the same experience as seeing it on even a mid-sized cinema screen with auditorium sound. Size and space have qualities of their own in picture and audio.
There's a lot of reasons why people aren't going to the cinema as much, One is because people are going out a lot less in general, especially younger people. Partly that's economic and partly it's the ongoing removal of free third places where they can just exist in public which might also be near enough to a cinema that you can go in it (eg. cinemas in or near malls). Going to see a movie is always a destination now, not something you can do at a place you happened to be already, and that raises the barrier to entry accordingly.
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2024-05-20, 07:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
Cinemas have always run a Red Queen race against home viewing. Movie theaters are the only place to see film, whoops, TVs are now available for home viewing. No problem, movies can be in color! Dang, color TVs are now all around. Well, the people still have to come to see the movie during the first run, who knows when it'll be run on TV? This newfangled home video is wrecking us, dagnabbit! Fine, we'll focus on surround sound! Home speaker systems are cheaper than ever? That's ok, we'll revamp to luxury theater with heated seats and direct-to-seat concession delivery!......
Color me skeptical, but i suspect Seinfeld's old-man-yells-at-cloud rant is more about how it's harder to gouge people with outrageous ticket prices (another longstanding movie theater tradition) when you can have the same family or friend group all watch together at home for one smaller price, and this directly affects his bottom line. I may be biased, I'll admit - i do not think highly of Seinfeld.
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2024-05-20, 11:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Unfrosted _ a movie about Pop Tarts
I think Seinfeld is coming across as borderline unhinged. He seems upset at the way things are, but is unable to enunciate how. If Film is no longer #1, what is?
It's a simple question. "Disorientation" is not an answer. Is it books? The internet? I could absolutely see an argument that streaming and youtube are displacing traditional media, but this isn't the case he's making. Instead he's just rambling.
Another more probable explanation is that Covid screwed up the moviemaking business pretty badly. The film industry has always been a bit inflexible and grand productions of that scale didn't mesh well with a pandemic. This is a fairly boring explanation that doesn't need any weird asides about cabinetmaking to explain.
TLDR: No, dude is crazy.