Is cinema dead, or dying?

I went to see Jennifer's Body the other day, as Cineworld were showing it a week before release as a Hallowe'en special. It was a good film, and I really liked it. However, I went to see An American Werewolf In London straight after it (midnight showing!!) and one thing was apparent - they don't seem to make movies for the cinema like they used to. There seem to be a lot of throwaway scenes/dialogue, and nowhere is this more apparent in the current trend of series reboots' (eg. Die Hard 4, Indy 4, etc). I personally miss films such as The Shining, Dawn of the Dead (1978) and The Big Lebowski showing on the big screen..
What do you guys think? Is cinema a dead/dying artform, with movies released specifically with the 'small screen' in mind, or is cinema in its Golden Era right now?

Cinema is certainly going through a lean spell at the moment but there are usually a few good films each year. Let The Right One In was a brilliant movie, if you don't mind subtitles, and both There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men were recent classics

Good call on There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men - and Let The Right One In (I have a personal stake in that movie ;) ). Other films that I thought were good at the cinema were The Mist (but would have been better with the black&white version you can find on the blu-Ray), Zodiac, Inglorious Bastards and Donnie Darko. However, I think there's a severe lack of movies made specifically for cinema. Perhaps I'm just being nostalgic (I watched a horror marathon this week - The Omen, Phantasm, Jaws, The Shining, Salem's Lot (1979) and The Thing), but I miss the faded-out colours of the 80s, and the films themselves are composed differently to how they are today
It'll be interesting to see how 3D affects cinema-going. I was lucky enough to catch Toy Story in 3D for its limited release, but I wasn't fully impressed. It was astounding how such an old movie could be changed (or updated?), but it felt like 3D was only utilised at the beginning and ends, with only the odd touch of 3D in the middle act. I just thought I'd open up the debate on the state of cinema now, especially as lots of prestigious filmmakers (del Toro, Spielberg, Lucas, etc) are saying that James Cameron's Avatar will change the face of cinema..

I can't really put Inglorious Basterds in the same leage as No country etc. It was one of the worst movies ive ever seen, and another poor showing from Tarantino. He thinks his scripts are better than they actually are, so the point his movies have became so talky talky, i'd be better off just reading its script.

We've all got 32" TV's, surround sound & 4 blockbuster films for a tenner off the Chinese.

Who wants to go and sit in a dark room with a load of strangers.

Me :)
A film is a film - it's the same scripted experience you'll get anywhere, director's cuts aside. However, going to the cinema is an event (although, admittedly, an overpriced one atm)
And that's the argument I'm talking about J. Green. I see, and appreciate your point, but is there too much emphasis on 'home cinema' (despite less than 30% of the UK population owning HD TVs and less than 10% owning Blu-Ray players), and is this affecting cinema? I'd argue that too much emphasis on disc release is killing off the traditional cinema experience - and that would reflect on the movies that would be released on disc

I don't think its dying, there are plenty of decent movies coming out soon. The cinema's just need to charge less, as its a rip off at nearly £7 most places

IMHO one of the biggest changes in cinema, is in how it's edited. The push these days is for super fast editing. This is for several reasons: films are made for younger audiences, raised on the slick-fast editing of MTV (with more directors coming from this background); the emphasis is more toward fast-paced action, which is greatly helped by the quick edit; and audience attention spans (used to channel-surfing) are so much shorter. All these factors mean that there just isn't a premium put on good dialogue these days - which means character development goes out the window. As an example, watch a re-run of `The Professionals', or `The Sweeney' on TV, and you'll be screaming at it very quickly, to `get a bloody move on !', but in their day, they were thought to be fast-paced action.

On the plus side, Tarantino should be congratulated for trying to make dialogue important again; on the downside, sometimes his great globs of dialogue, clash with the fast-edit jobs of his action scenes - you're zipping along on the edge of your seat, only to be rendered comatose by a 15 min spoken essay.

Again, I know from experience, that movies these days, particularly in post-prod, studios are just as interested in how a movie will look on DVD/Home cinema, as they are about how it will look on the big screen. This can affect how a film is edited, how lighting is handled, how sound is covered etc. Indeed, given that many movies only make profit on DVD sales, studios probably pay a bit more attention to this market, than the straight cinema one. This means that there could well be differences between what you see at your local Odeon, and what you see on the DVD, and almost certainly, there will be a difference between what the Director thought they shot, and what appears on the big and small screen.

As to the classic cinema experience, I hate it now - cinemas just seem to abound with people for whom the film is a backing track to other entertainment - chatting on the mobile, playing games on the mobile - and face-stuffing veritable 4 course meals !!

Personally Cinema died a long time ago for me. I just got so fed up of going to the cinema and paying more for me and my GF to see a film than the cost of the DVD. This coupled with the uncomfortable seats and having to sit next to too many fat people squashing me or behind some tw*t who was tall, plus all the noise people talk all the time and mobiles going off. It really distracts me from the film experiance.

I do try and go to the cinema once or twice a year for big event movies but thats it.

For me the home is a much better place to watch movies. I have a very decent 37" HDTV with a Onkyo SR606 amplifier and jamo speakers. I have a standalone panasonic Blu ray Player, a HD DVD Player and can play movies on DVD from any reagion on my DVDE player.

My amplifier is capable of decoding the new HD sound formats which includes Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD master audio. Cinemas do not produce sound in any of these HD formats.

My TV and Blu ray Player provides a better picture quality than a cinema.

In my home I can watch a movie as comfortably as possible. I can smoke if I want to, pause the film and go to the toilet, get a drink etc. I get to sit on a comfortable seat and pay less to own a film and watch it as many times as I want.

As a movie fan i find my home is the best place to fully enjoy a film and in blu ray with a decent sound system I can fully imerse myself in the film in a way that I can't in the cinema.

Cinema is dead.

Cinema is only dead for those of us who are over 17 years of age, or who have more brain cells than teeth. It could be argued that Jaws (though a great film) was indirectly responsible for the decline in cinema as a distinctly adult pasttime. The unexpected and lucrative reaction to this "first summer blockbuster" - with people going back to the cinema for repeat viewings - enticed the major studios to rethink their approach to their output, paving the way for the summer event picture, aimed squarely at the teen date night demographic or even younger kids to whom they could peddle a tsunami of tie-in merchandise. Three decades later and this trend shows no signs of dying, with the studios even more concerned than ever that they receive the maximum return for their investment. The result is an endless stream of flaccid comic book franchises and pointless sequels/remakes that almost guarantee a huge profit simply because a sizeable - and none too discerning - fanbase already exists for the product. So these days, if you're looking for a more grown up movie experience, something that you can actually taste on the way down and remember the next day, your safest bet is a decent home cinema set-up. At least at home you can tailor your own experience AND you can bring your own food without being made to feel like a social leper for refusing to pay a fiver for an eggcup-full of hydrated syrup and a sliver of gristle in a suspiciously moist bun.

Cinema is most certainly not dead. Each year the big hollywood studios make more and more money, The state of California makes more money then many european countries (I read some where that its about the same size as the Italian economy). And yet you hear the studios constantly complaining about the hundreds of millions they are losing to pirating.
The US is also not the only country that has a film industry, most countries have a film industry of some sort. If you value the cinema experience then its up to you to seek it out films that interest you.
And another reason to support cinema, If it wasn't for cinema, then there wouldn't be a home-cinema market, after all what would you watch? tv shows and made film tv movies

Thanks for your responses, guys. And therein lies the crux of the debate
Films like ET, Jaws and Star Wars all paved the way for 'home cinema', basically initiating the 'downfall' of cinema as we, or our parents, knew it. However, films are costing more and more to produce these days, with James Cameron's Avatar costing (if rumours are to be believed) around the £300 million mark
Personally, I still love going to the 'picturehouse' four or five times a month (I pay £162 annually for an Unlimited card with Cineworld that lets me see as many movies as I want, apart from 3D ones. They're, cheekily, an extra £1.50), but the experience isn't the same. As Wayne stated, for your average cinephile, movies can be upwards of £7 EACH, whilst DVDs can usually be bought new for around £10 - and you get all the priveleges of your own home and comforts to boot
I see this 3D 'revolution' as a kick against home cinema. 3D TVs won't properly enter the market for several years yet, and even then they won't replicate what cinema can offer
In my opinion, studios and cinemas need to offer a greater incentive for the public to watch movies there - cheaper films, cheaper food and less noise amongst the audience. Either that, or bring back the Grindhouse ;)

PS. "feel like a social leper for refusing to pay a fiver for an eggcup-full of hydrated syrup and a sliver of gristle in a suspiciously moist bun" < Pretty much sums up the typical cinema experience. Well said :)

Paul, I was at the eurogamer expo in London last week and got to see the game of the up coming avatar movie running on a 3D TV. The experiance was breathtaking. The game actually looks amazing on a normal HD TV but when it is released in december it will be fully 3D compatable for the new range of 3D TV's without any extra cost or add ons, just straight from the box. The game was truely amazing and shows off what the future of gaming and film will be like in the home. I was talking to a guy from Ubisoft who developed the game and he said that the first wave of 3D TV's have already gone on sale in the US and a 40" version can be picked up for around $2,000. Very reasonable and he said he expects them to be sold in the UK next year.

3D TV is closer than you think and I have seen a couple of 3D films at the imac cinema in London and from what I saw of the Avatar game this looked just as good if not better, and it's in your own home.

In my opinion Home cinema technology has already surpassed cinema. Blu Ray and 1080p mastered films are a better resolution than most cinemas currently show and the high definition sound formats are superior to what cinema has aswell. For me the appeal of cinema is the atmosphere and the occasion and this was great as a young child but now as an adult I demand more from my movie experiance.

Saying all the above, if cinema whats to entice people away from the comfort of their homes then places like the electric cinema in Notting Hill is a good way to do this. Google the electric cinema and you will see that it offers comfortable armchairs and you can have a beer and proper food while you watch the film so merging the comfort of the home cinema experiance with the occasion of a night out and the atmosphere of cinema. You can even book sofas in advance for groups of friends.

For all people who think that blu-ray 1080p is better quality than a cinema projector, you are wrong.
Home cinema projectors are apparently better than even the best HDTV, and as the picture quality on a TV can be lost over a certain size, imagine the picture quality of a cinema sized TV.

Paul - couldn't agree more with the idea that cinemas need to provide more in terms of 'service' (and I'm not talking about a gym next door) - I was watching one of the art deco progs on bbc 4 last night, which was about hollywood's influence on the UK. One part covered the cinema-going experience here in the UK, and I was staggered by the sheer number of people employed to provide various services, including of course, the usherette - their re-introduction is the sort of thing that would get me to go back/more often.

I've also followed some of the forums in the Times & Guardian recently, on 'cinema rage' - though probably blown out of proportion by the papers, I find the atmosphere in cinemas more intimidating as the years pass - forget the Kia-Ora, gimme a tazer !! - How do others feel ?

Wayne - agree that 3D is rapidly on way - a bit off subject, but I recently bought a pair of the Nvidia 3D specs for gaming, and they are incredible - OK, the new monitor set me back £300 (I needed a new a new one anyway), but the specs were less than £100 !

NAA

"For all people who think that blu-ray 1080p is better quality than a cinema projector, you are wrong."

James, is just your opinion or is it fact. If it is fact please post some stats to back this up as I would be interested in seeing them.

I have always been under the impression that the resolution of a cinema projector is way below 1080p and is still considered standard definition. This coupled with the size of the screen which stretches the image way more than a TV at home would then you are left with what is actually quite a poor picture compared to what you can get at home.

I will look into this when I have a bit more time later and if I find any facts/stats on this I will post them here.

The Last movie I saw at the Cinema was James Bond Casino Royale, in Manchester. I walked out after 20 mins, the Cinema experience is terrible now, louder than a rock concert, I SAID IT'S LOUDER THAN A ROCK CONCERT!!! oh forget it, I'll tell you when the ringing in your ears has gone.

Personally I still love going to the cinema; I just haven't been for a while due to having small children. Seeing films in a group, which is largely comprised of strangers, is a different and interesting (though sometimes annoying) experience. It is also a different experience to see things on a truly big screen. For now I make do with a cellar-based home cinema set-up. As to the point regarding 1080p at home vs cinema projectors, it so much depends on the individual equipment. A top of the line high-end home cinema projector will beat some (not all) commercial cinema projectors. Take as you find. But bear in mind that a cinema must cater for a larger screen area than at home, so even when they lose it wasn't necessarily a fair fight.

I always love that antipiracy advert designed to make you choose the cinema over a bootlegged dvd. Highlighting the poor picture quality of a bootleg or whatever is fine, but drawing attention to "that one guy who has to go to the bathroom" is pretty stupid, after all, he'll distract you in the cinema as well.

Is cinema dead or dying - well i think its all relevant to one thing and thats price most big complexes lets be honest charge £7 plus

Far to often so many people i know keep saying why spend loads to go cinema if they can watch a film at home they just bought at supermarket for less than half that price - ( its not just the ticket price its all the s**t to eat and buckets of soft drinks that send the price through the roof that gets forgotten)

Me personally i have a belting cinema projector but do prefer the experience of the occasion of the BIGGER screen so i go to an indipendant cinema ( plymouth city center) where the charge is £3 most weekdays with £5 at weekends - and thats a belting deal even cheaper than mobile phone deals!

i would advise anyone to look further than big complexes as there are good deals there on current movies

Well said. And don't forget, the staff have no legal right to stop you bringing your own refreshments into the cinema with you. Take a stand against bullying corporate policy!

Personally I think 2009 has been a good year in terms of cinema viewing.
Watchmen, The Hangover, Inglorious Bastards, District 9, Zombieland, Let the Right One In, Dillenger. A pretty good run of decent movies. I exploit the 2 for 1 Orange Wednesdays offer, so I don't feel particularly ripped off.
Recently, I went to see UP on the strength of the critical acclaim. Yes, it was a great little movie, but the 3D was fantastic. No eye strain, crystal clear and used in an understated way. If this is the future of cinema, it looks good to me. I think cinema is very much alive. I have been a regular cinema goer for many years. Assertions that cinema is dying have been kicking around since TV was invented. I can remember the same arguments during the rise of the VHS video shops. I do agree that the films can be less cinematic. Also, the guy who mentioned the editing. I totally agree, ... movies like Transformers are edited so badly you can't tell what is happening. I think that's why I enjoyed Inglorious Bastards so much. It was the dialogue, character developement and great acting that created the tension. Not a bunch of whizz bang special effects.
I also think that's why the Transformers generation now hate Tarantino so much.
As for home cinema, it really has improved the way I watch movies at home. However, I think all the techno geek nerds who like quoting their fvcking Dolby 7000 ultraHD laser guided mega televisions are missing the point. If you want to w@nk over your TV spec, you are a boring gadget fan. If you are interested in script, dialogue, acting and cinematography you are a movie fan.

Hi Butler,
absolutely agree with your last point there - it seems that no matter where, or with what, many movie threads start, it's not long before they start diverging into a 'mine's bigger than yours' anorak tech-spec debate. If a movie's bad, it doesn't matter whether you're watching on a 7.5" screen in the back of a car, or at home on the pinnacle of home cinema kit - the latter will just give a clearer representation of the badness.

NAA