Comment by socalgal2

Comment by socalgal2 14 hours ago

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Agreed. There are lots of movies that are hard to watch. A modern one for many people is "The Green Knight". I made it to the end but personally the movie didn't do anything for me and I don't agree with the praise.

I generally don't skip forward but I did on several parts of Pluribus. There were several segments that were clearly just filler and after the first episode or so where they stuck out it just got tiring. Made up example (Character: "I'm flying to Vegas", the 3 minutes of pack, get in car, drive car, get to airport, walk through airport, wait in lounge, board plane, sit in plane, de-board plane, pick up rental car, drive toward city, shots of city, get out of car, see lobby, get in elevator, arrive on floor" for 2-3 minutes. You could argue a segment like this is supposed to convey tedium or the fact that the character is the only person in all of these shots, but that was established 3 episodes ago. Now it's just filler. A good editor would have cut it but a series like Pluribus has a contract to provide X hours of content, and so they fill it up.

Some movies I watched recently:

"The Long Goodbye" (1973) - I'm not recommending it but I found it interesting/different enough that I'm glad I watched it.

"Madame De..." (1953) - This one was too slow for me. I stopped about half way through. Nothing iteresting had happened.

"The Enchanted Cottage" (1945) - I enjoyed though it was as little cloying

"Marked Woman" (1937) - It was overly melodramatic but Betty Davis was great at being strong and, I had no idea hostess culture was ever a thing in the USA which I found fascinating. It's still a thing in many parts of the world (and I have no issue with it to be honest)

Dylan16807 4 hours ago

> Pluribus

The episodes vary from 43 to 63 minutes because that's what the director thought worked best. The season is 9 episodes long.

I extremely doubt anything in there is filler.

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bccdee 13 hours ago

> I generally don't skip forward but I did on several parts of Pluribus. There were several segments that were clearly just filler

When I read the post you're replying to, my first thought was, "sure, some movies are boring. But I bet they're talking about stuff like Pluribus, not actual boring movies."

Pluribus has no filler. Sure: the plot moves slowly, the cinematography is artsy and sedate, and it's all very character-driven. So what? It's beautiful. You may as well go to an art gallery and say the story moves too slow. Look at the stuff on the screen. Take it in. You don't have to like it, but maybe don't assume that Vince Gilligan is wasting your time with filler to make a quick buck. Consider that you might be holding it wrong.

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  • TheAceOfHearts 9 hours ago

    I regret watching that series, it was immensely disappointing. Some aspects are really well executed like the coloring and framing, but that's not enough to carry a series. Pluribus is a concept that works for a single season, anything beyond that is dragging its feet.

    Screw off with this "you're holding it wrong" nonsense. Sometimes the work is bad, but it has good components or elements and you can still enjoy those however you want. I stuck with the series because I was hoping there would be some redeeming aspects by the end, but it didn't pay off.

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blindriver 14 hours ago

> Character: "I'm flying to Vegas", the 3 minutes of pack, get in car, drive car, get to airport, walk through airport

That is classic Vince Gilligan. He does that several times in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. It's not filler, it's done with intentionality. You might not like it, but to say that an editor should cut that out is simply wrong. That's his distinct style, just like Wes Anderson has his own style, etc.

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  • socalgal2 6 hours ago

    I disagree. It's only there because he has to fill the time of a TV show. I strongly believe he'd pull those out in a movie. In other words, they aren't there to help the story, they are there to pad the production to the contract's content length requirements.

    He's not the only one. Almost all current long form TV series do this. There are a few exceptions but it's now the norm.

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  • PaulDavisThe1st 12 hours ago

    A couple of years ago, I rewatched some episodes of a 70s BBC drama called "Survivors" (the plot etc. is irrelevant in the current context). In the very first episode there's a scene where a woman who is looking for her son but has no idea where he might be walks across a very small wooden bridge over an even small creek. She stops in the middle, holds the rail on the bridge and looks down at the water. The camera shows us what she sees. For somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds, we just see the water in the creek flowing. It's not even particularly beautiful.

    Aesthetics sure can change a lot, even within a single lifetime.

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