Monday, November 21, 2016
The Upshot of ‘Billy Lynn’: Movies and Virtual Reality Don’t Mix
Variety: “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” is the most accomplished and provocative movie in a long time that ever went down as a debacle. From the moment it premiered at the New York Film Festival in October, it has been viewed by media culture as a colossal misfire, a highbrow “Ben-Hur,” a movie no one seeking a good night out at the movies would want to go near. Now that the film has opened wide and the numbers are in, the dire reaction seems complete: No one wanted to go near it.
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2 comments:
I sort of hoped this article would be more about the plot of Billy Lynn, since I saw one trailer for it and thought it looked very unique and somewhat edgy, but in the end I thought the resulting conversation was interesting. The points that the author made about 3D glasses in particular were very accurate. Just tonight I was going to a movie with my cousins, and my aunt wanted to make sure that the movie wasn't in 3D because no one actually likes 3D movies. That reminded me of going to the movies when I was in middle school almost 10 years ago, and everyone wanted the 3D movies because they were novel and exciting. Now I can't remember the last time I went to a 3D movie, and even more of a stretch when I went to a 3D movie willingly. This article accurately expressed my feelings about how 3D movies at first seemed like a huge technological breakthrough, but if no one actually wants to watch movies in this format then it's kind of useless.
This article immediately made me think of the film, "Hardcore Henry", which really doesn't have to do with Billy Lynn but I'll explain. Hardcore Henry was a really bad film in my opinion, but the entire thing was shot in first person perspective and was pretty high quality. I find it really interested to see how mainstream films are investigating new and unique ways of filming or presenting film. Although the plot of Hardcore Henry was god-awful, the weird and video-game like experience of watching it made me stay. I feel like the author of the Billy Lynn article is trying to express the same thing. Billy Lynn may have had a poor plot, and it's overly intense graphics were annoying, but it's use of breakthrough technology is what makes it noteworthy. I'm happy too see films like Hardcore Henry and Billy Lynn come through movie theaters, even if they are trashy, because once we can hone down the use of VR or first person perspective in movies, we can start using this technology to make not trashy films!
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