The Ohio Sci-Fi and Horror Marathons

The Official Forum of the Ohio Sci-Fi and Horror Marathons
It is currently Fri Mar 29, 2024 7:10 am

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 11 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Sun Nov 10, 2013 5:30 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2010 3:28 pm
Posts: 618
Location: Beautiful Cleveland, Ohio.
I'd like to occasion a conversation about access.
I have a ROKU setup, which includes access to Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix & others. Since I am old & cheap, I should add that the access codes to those & others services are all due to the generosity of my daughter who programmed in a variety of her own & friend's codes which provided free access.
Anyway.
Does access breed contempt?
Does the ability to sit at home & watch an obscure feature improve or kill the desire to attend a film Marathon or showing of a classic (or old & cheesy) film?
Personally, I honestly don't have an answer. There is so much out there that I don't find on broadcast services that I am enthused to go to theater showings. But then I am retired.
I also have the obvious enjoyment of watching a big screen with friends & fellow enthusiasts at a special showing.
But it is costly & you are forced to endure the dumbass comments made by the idiot Two seats down.
What is the balance? Does electronic access (& DVD purchase) help or kill Marathon & group showings?
Thanks for commenting.

_________________
Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought. - Walt Kelly


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 2:32 am 
Offline

Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 12:54 am
Posts: 355
Location: Outskirts of Nowhere
I also have a Roku, which with I mostly use Netflix. I can only speak for myself, but I find that having access to so much stuff at the touch of a button just gets boring after awhile. A friend of mine once put it this way: "When everything is available, nothing is special." It's very convenient, yes, but sitting by yourself watching movies all the time is a little too addictive for one's own good. Sometimes I actually miss video stores, believe it or not. I miss making the minimal effort of going to the store and picking something out to watch. Spending time looking at the shelves and actually making choices. Interacting with the person behind the counter who usually has never heard of the movies I rent. Netflix is basically all about picking something you already have on your queue and hitting a button. That's it. You don't have to make any effort whatsoever. While Netflix has lots of obscure indie and foreign films, which I love, you don't really have to DO anything. And even if you have tons of free time, you can't possibly watch everything they have to offer. It's a little too easy to get hooked while making no real effort. Netflix is like the heroin of movie watching. Gimme my fix, man...

Something like the marathon is a completely different animal. It's a real event, programmed by people who clearly love film and genre film in particular. You're sitting there with an audience full of rabid movie maniacs like yourself, and it's a genuine experience that you can't have at home. Even if you're not crazy about that particular film that's showing at a given time, it's still tons of fun to experience it with the crowd. A movie like Night of 1000 Cats just can't be fully appreciated at home by yourself. The trailers, contests, etc. just add to the crazy fun. You don't get that experience at home on any format. That's why those who choose to stay home and watch films on their couch rather than go to the marathon are missing the point. You can do that any time, any night, any weekend. For that matter, you can go to the cineplex and watch mainstream movies any weekend. The Marathon is an EVENT - it's like acid for movie lovers. It's a wild and crazy, hallucinogenic trip. That's what makes it SPECIAL. And "Special" is what the act of watching movies should be. It shouldn't just be something we do out of habit, or something we do out of convenience. We should do it because it's a great, wonderful, incredible thing to do. Once we lose those elements, it just becomes a drag. The marathon reminds us that movies are worth making an effort. Or at least, at their best, they damn well should be.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 1:27 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2010 3:28 pm
Posts: 618
Location: Beautiful Cleveland, Ohio.
Thanks Wolf. Your views mirror mine.
Although you seem to feel them more strongly and state them with a lot more fire.

So why are attendances at the three different city Marathons that I have attended dropping?
Accepting the reality of Wolf's description, are there just fewer people who have bumped into the experience and learned it's pleasures? Or is it laziness? Or this variety of nerdom moving on?
Perhaps exposure to blockbusters and pure spectacle inoculates against the variety of stuff that pleasures Marathon attendees? There are certainly people attending big screen events.

I am not trying to be ingenious. I put it to a combination of laziness and the glut of access, including what I described in my first post.

Divergent views? Particularly from those who don't always attend?

_________________
Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought. - Walt Kelly


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 5:09 pm 
Offline

Joined: Wed Apr 05, 2006 12:23 pm
Posts: 527
I'm an odd bird. I like the community nature of the events. But then, I still go to live theatre.

As for why attendance is dropping, well, I think that the younger you get, the less that sense of presentation matters. The younger you are, the more likely you're used to consuming media off a small screen on your lap than having it delivered presentationally. Similarly, you get more and more on-line communication and less face time.

So, I think the marathon experience means something different to those of us who are still able to remember a time that the films we wanted to see weren't available at the drop of a hat. I remember seeing the line up for the first few "Night of the Living Drexels" and thinking "Wow, I've never seen that movie on a screen. Or without commercials interrupting. And I've never even heard of these."

This was also in the time that we knew nothing about the premieres, unless we had managed to read an article or listing in Starlog or Fangoria, meaning premieres really were something special.

It's not the marathon experience is something we can re-create at home, but it is true that there is more of it that we can re-create - and for some, that might make the experience no longer worth the hassle.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed Nov 13, 2013 1:52 am 
Offline

Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 12:54 am
Posts: 355
Location: Outskirts of Nowhere
What AE says is all true. But to clarify my thoughts, I think people are just all too used to the convenient nature of watching movies at home now - particularly streaming, which has made it easier than ever. You don't even have to leave your home to get a movie, you just push a button. So why make the effort to go to a marathon when you don't have to leave your couch? (I don't know, maybe because you're BORED silly?) A lot of people I know rarely go to movies theatrically any more (if at all), because they can so easily just watch movies at home. Why spend 2 hours in a movie theater, much less 24?

This, of course, is missing the entire point of going to the marathon in the first place (convenience isn't the point, the experience is the point), but I digress. I don't think it even matters what films are showing at a particular marathon. One could probably rent Lords of Salem from Redbox on horror marathon weekend - but did the people who didn't come actually rent it and watch it at home? Probably not. They're just using "I could watch it at home" as an excuse not to make the effort. They're not actually watching those same films at home instead of buying tickets. They're mostly doing what they do every other weekend, whatever that is. The excuse is just that - a way of saying, "I wouldn't be coming anyway" in the nicest way possible. :wink:


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed Nov 13, 2013 2:55 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:21 pm
Posts: 906
Location: Phoenix, AZ
It's counterintuitive, but Wolf is absolutely right about the sheer volume of entertainment available at your fingertips becoming overwhelming and ultimately boring. To similarly paraphrase Incrediboy/Syndrome as Wolf did: when everything is special, then nothing is. Personally, I have found a way to make my home theater movie watching more interesting lately, and that is by having someone else make my choices for me.

A girl I recently began dating and I don't get to get out and see each other face to face as much as we would like, so what we do in the inbetween time is assign each other to watch movies that we love that the other person hasn't seen. In a wierd way, treating it like "homework" makes the experience more enjoyable and also makes us feel a little closer when the physical proximity is not possible.

This experience also relates to the Marathon, because the audience doesn't get to pick all the movies we are going to watch. But chances are all of the Marathon junkies out there will enjoy at least most of what is presented to them. And the experience you get from watching a movie you like on a big screen in a theater full of like-minded individuals is something that just cannot be recreated in any way, anywhere, ever.

_________________
Aliens? Us?
Is this one of your Earth "jokes?"


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:54 pm 
Offline
Site Admin

Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:59 pm
Posts: 840
Location: Drexel North, circa 1993
Attendance at the Marathons is an interesting topic, one which we've previously addressed here. Yeah, the Columbus Sci-Fi and Cleveland Sci-Fi Marathons have endured fluctuating attendance for years. But the Boston Marathon is actually undergoing a sort of renaissance in terms of attendees. Having the gorgeous, 800-seat Somerville Theater as a semi-permanent home doesn't hurt.

The Horror Marathons are another beast. We had out best attendance in ten years at the 2012 SHOCK AROUND THE CLOCK, but we still didn't sell out the 300-seat Grandview. Meanwhile, the twin Horrorthons on Chicago do very well (in 500+ seat theaters) and the Philadelphia Horrorthon (which doesn't even announce the titles in advance.....in fact, the audience doesn't know what's showing next until it hits the screen) sold out in two hours when tickets went on sale in August.

Now, some of this discrepancy is probably due to stability. The Exhumed Films gang in Philly have been running other shows for 15 years, and have held the Horror Marathon at the same venue for all eight years of its existence. Population size is also a factor; having the larger Chicago and Philly audiences to draw from is a boon. But that doesn't account for everything.

I don't want this to sound whiny, but personal anecdotal evidence (mainly with the Horror Marathon, but in some ways with the Sci-Fi as well) has convinced me that the general tenor of the city is one where a good deal of attendees and potential attendees want us to convince them to come to the Marathons. There seems to be around 150 loyalists who will attend no matter what, but even in our better years we still get folks whose general attitudes reflect a feeling that hey, if there's nothing else interesting going on that weekend, they MIGHT show up for the event.

This is why we created the aforementioned missive on the future of the Marathons. It's also why we've tried to emphasize the communal aspects of the event, the fact that these shindigs aren't just a collection of films, but a cultural happening with all sorts of bells and whistles.

Now, has the relatively mercurial state of the Sci-Fi Marathon hampered things over the years? Yeah. Has the lack of one home for both events hurt? Maybe. Hopefully, this seeming new dawn of the Marathons, both united under the Drexel umbrella, will help things out. But we still need more people to view the Marathons as a highlight of the year, not just as a something that will always be there, ready to be dipped into if necessary.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 3:42 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 8:14 pm
Posts: 629
Location: Los Angeles
Can't disagree with just about anything posted so far.

But, as one of the few (Bruce, where art thou?) who remember a time when there were Marathons before there were even Video Stores (and cable TV was also in its infancy), I think the critical point is that a Marathon is no longer the "only place" you can see these films. Hard for the youngins to comprehend, but when Boston and Cleveland ran those first Marathons in 1976 you literally could not see some of those titles at the drop of a hat...er...push of a button.

Unless you lived in a big city AND there were revival houses AND the movie was still significant enough to still have showable prints OR your local TV channel ran it (edited, often; and certainly cut up by commercials) you were out of luck as far as seeing many of these movies.

So, the availabilty issue is now moot.

As far as the theater experience, that has many ups and downs. As others note, too many people have decent enough home equipment now that they don't feel compelled to leave their sofa and "brave" the crowds. But, the Marathon has never been about just showing one movie after another. It is an experience first. The issue is getting folks into the theater in the first place (and, leaving them satisfied once they do). As Joe Neff has pointed out, Boston had its best SF year in over a decade this February. On the other hand, their off-shoot Terror-Thon in October attracted only about 60 folks. Same theater, hundreds and hundreds of fewer attendees.

It's tricky. There are the hardcore faithful in Ohio and Boston for the SF Marathons. There is another batch of folks who attend intermittently. Beyond that? It's a crapshoot: The schedule. The time of year. The weather. Local publicity - or lack, thereof. How the genre is doing in general - hot or not? The theater. Print availablity. Word of mouth from year to year. Technology. Any of those things - or, all those things (and more) can factor in.

One thing that suprises me that I've heard little discussion of is - With all the binge watching going on now with folks spending a whole weekend watching a full season of a TV series all at once - WHY HASN'T THIS TRANSLATED INTO MORE FOLKS GIVING A MARATHON A TRY? Are these people all just couch potatoes? Serious question.

_________________
Long Live the Orson Welles Cinemas


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Nov 19, 2013 2:10 am 
Offline

Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 12:54 am
Posts: 355
Location: Outskirts of Nowhere
I'm not particularly a binge watcher myself (I like to savor shows over a period of time), but I know several people who are, and I think it's a very different thing than going to a marathon. Binge watching is about trying to get something done in a relatively short period of time, for example - "I watched all of Breaking Bad in one weekend". It's achieving a goal, in a weird way. Going to a marathon is a different thing, more of a film-watching experience than a goal-oriented thing. Binge watching seems more related to video gaming, where people spend hours and hours trying to finish the game in a certain amount of time and move on. It doesn't even seem to be about actually enjoying what they're doing.

I think what keeps some people away from the marathons is more about comfort than anything else. Some people are willing to binge-watch at their homes, but they can lie on their couches or beds in comfort while they're doing it. They can pause for bathroom breaks, phone calls, meals, etc. Marathons require you to sit in a theater seat for 24 hours and watch the films that are programmed by someone else. Some people are too used to the comfort and convenience of home to spend an entire day doing that. It's much the same reasons that going camping sounds incredibly unappealing to many people (myself included), but others love it. Then there are people who just aren't film buffs or genre fans in general, and there are those who get adventure in their lives elsewhere. If people need to be talked into coming, maybe they're just looking for that something special (be it a certain film on the lineup, a special guest or something else) that would motivate them to buy a ticket. But it's unknowable what would drive each individual person to come, unless you ask each and every one of them personally. So maybe the only thing one can do is just try to organize the best marathon possible and hope people will respond to it. I think that's the only real answer. The rest is just speculation.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 4:03 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 8:14 pm
Posts: 629
Location: Los Angeles
Yeah, I assume most Binge Watchers are couch potato types. The reason I brought it up was that for years and years when I would mention the Marathon to folks they would look at you quizzically and say, "Why would you waste a whole weekend watching movies?!" Now, we have tens, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people gorging on a whole season's worth of shows -- good, bad and, mostly, indifferent. The idea of watching 20 hours of some wretched 'Reality' show makes me wretch at just the thought of it!

On the bright side, I guess at the very least, if we Marathoners have friends who binge on something like DR. WHO, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA or FRINGE could at least have an opening to suggest the Marathon. "Hey, you know there's a place where you can watch Sci-Fi stuff on the big screen."

And, this quote:

WolfNC17 wrote:
Binge watching seems more related to video gaming, where people spend hours and hours trying to finish the game in a certain amount of time and move on. It doesn't even seem to be about actually enjoying what they're doing.


MAN, does that notion sound depressing! Watching 24 episodes of a show in short time frame just to get it over with and not "actually enjoying what they're doing" Wow!

_________________
Long Live the Orson Welles Cinemas


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 7:45 pm 
Offline

Joined: Fri May 18, 2012 3:38 pm
Posts: 56
Location: Northeastern Kentucky
I know this topic has been dormant for a bit, so I thought I'd resurrect it, since it's getting close to marathon time.

My wife and I binge watch TV shows sometime, especially if we started watching it late. For example, we enjoy the TV show Grimm - but we watch at most 5-6 episodes in a day. Why? much like the other people were talking about - it's not goal oriented, we actually enjoy the show.

All that said - We are trying to do themes for triple, maybe quadruple features.

This weekend, we are going to try to do a triple feature of time travel movies.

We've got it narrowed down to these: Looper (oddly neither of us have seen), Frequently Asked Questions about time travel (both of us are Chris O'Dowd fans - especially IT Crowd & FM), Timecrimes, Time After Time, The Time Machine (1960), and 12 Monkeys.

Since I use a Roku / Plex combo, I actually program trailers and shorts too.

It's fun, but it's not the same things as a marathon. I really enjoy the social aspect.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 11 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 38 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group