melannen | Endgame

Endgame

I have bowed to the inevitable and been to see Endgame.

Here is my comprehensive, spoiler-free review:

It needed to be a little better, a little shorter, or a little worse.

If it had been a little (or maybe a lot) better, I could have enjoyed it on a thoughtful, detached level without needing to be immersively swept up in the story, but it wasn't quite good enough to sustain that.

If it had been a little (or maybe a lot) shorter, I wouldn't have started NEEDING TO GODDAMN PEE about halfway through, and maybe I could have gotten immersively swept up in the story instead of using half my attention on that.

If it had been a little (or maybe a lot) worse, I might have talked myself into taking a bathroom break.

As it is, if by some chance you haven't seen it yet, my advice is to either see it in a format with a pause button, or go to the drive in, where the cranky old Stan Lee esque dude who owns the place and has a vendetta against Disney is actively advertising a bathroom intermission in his showing.

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Blessings upon that drive-in owner!

I've made statements about where I had to potty break on my own DW. Did not think it was cute having my own bladder weaponized against me. There are scenes I will have to roll around in once it's on dvd. Because I couldn't quite revel in them as I'd have liked. So glad I managed to stay for those.

May all the drive-ins be so smart and may they sell many nacho platters or like.

We are definitely going to the drive in for something this summer, although tbf it's physically taxing in other ways, especially if you stay for the triple feature. Maybe it'll run Detective Pikachu!

It was fanservice from start to finish, something I found an entertaining watch largely from having seen it in a packed theatre in a crowd of fangirls, and it's not going to have much staying power or rewatchability when compared to stand-alone movies like Black Panther or The Winter Soldier.

It was the sort of movie I mightve thoroughly enjoyed if I'd been able to turn off my brain, but between the type of movie it was (massive crossover culmination of etc etc) and the pee issue, that wasn't going to happen.

Still better than AoU though!

The faint praise leaves a mark!

I saw it in a screening where most of the audience had seen it before, so I was perhaps alone in doing clappy hands etc as they gave me what I wanted after the year since Infinity War.

I never did see infinity war, so I didn't get the cliffhanger payoff effect, that probably didn't help!

If they are going to insist on longer and longer movies, they need to bring back the concept of intermission in general. Lots of very good movies had them! You sell more coke and popcorn! Customers are happier! it's winwinwin!

I think Cleopatra had two?

It was less a cliffhanger payoff and more "the car door is no longer being closed on my hand" relief. The three hours and two minutes is pretty long but then tack on the trailers...

That is a good summary of why I never watched it: I didn't see much point in volunteering to get my hand slammed in a door for a year when I could just wait (and a movie that was obviously going to be retconned immediately didn't seem likely to catch hold in fic writers' imaginations either.)

My meta engagement was high enough to get me into the seat. Of course, I didn't know how trying RL was going to toss into the mix...

I will say Infinity War is less of a fork in an electrical socket that IM4 (CA:CW by any other name) was.

I 100% agree with the intermission!

It's worse for people Assigned Female At Birth [who have smaller bladders;
and are also more likely to have bladder issues after childbirth]

it's worst for people with Disability/chronic illness/medication that affects their bladder.

Long films with no break = Disability access issue AND feminist issue.

Unfortunately, with cinemas trying to screen sessions back-to-back to wring every last dollar out of the cinema, they're not going to bring back intermissions. :(

That it was men* being dismissive of the challenge the movie's length might pose did not go unnoticed.

Given that theaters are more revenued at this point by concessions, very long movies without intermissions may be more damaging than anything so far inflicted. Though, my understanding it's a particular segment of the audience that's buying most of the concessions and they don't have as small of bladders.

People with small bladders don't buy as many concessions because they don't want to end up having to pee halfway through the movie...

(I am in a wonderful catch-22 where if I don't drink a lot before/during a movie, I get a headache from the combo of noise + screen + theater air + dehydration. If I do drink a lot before a movie, I have to pee. There's probably some perfect balance where I drink exactly the right amount at exactly the right time, but I don't really care enough to find it. And I shouldn't have to plan my water intake for a movie more carefully than for a two-day hiking trip...)

Captain Marvel I had a self-inflicted situation (I thought I needed to post-haste to my seat, but I could have made a dash despite my late arrival) which I thought was sufficient practice since transit time plus movie would have been close if Endgame was merely long.

My normal procedure is to have a little water from the bubbler before going into the movie after a visit to the 'jill' and treat movies like a Tuesday/Thursday seminar. The only other time I've had to dash from a screening since I was seeing movies on my own, was when I saw maybe the last LoTR while still recovering from a bad cold? It was a bad cold, maybe it was a different movie, that seems too long ago. Could have been the second Sherlock Holmes.

You'd think if the issue was cinemas wanting to maximize the number of screenings, they'd be pushing for shorter films, and no post-credit scenes that keep people lingering in the theaters, and they *wouldn't* be delaying the start of the films by 15+ minutes in order to show ads. They could just move the ads to intermission instead of before the film and not lose any time! Plus I can't believe the extra concession sales wouldn't make up for it. But from what I can tell, theaters have less and less control over what they show as the media companies conglomerate and throw their weight around.

I really think it is mostly just Artiste Directors who know they can get away with it and think an intermission would interfere with their Vision or whatever. (They are Wrong.) And if the Artiste Directors at the big studios did work an intermission into the film, the theaters wouldn't have any choice but to include it. (They pace the films for commercial breaks anyway! Auugh.)

You'd think it would at least make sense to do intermissions on, like, weekday daytime shows, when the theaters are half-empty and most of their patrons are stay-at-home moms and disabled and retired people, all of whom are going to be kept away by long movies with no accessibility considerations. But no.

If it hadn't been a scheduling nightmare getting all the requisite actors available, they could have done either a Double Bill with each movie having a runtime of 2 hours and 50minutes/a movie with an intermission.

I read comics (because libraries) and I keep thinking "You've got the good paper! Why cannot you use it?" That and also "pick a way to run the spread, double page or single, stop changing back and forth you're not clear enough for that". It makes me salty when Artiste Directors are precious against the needs of the audience.

I'm pretty sure the ads are part of the revenue stream, though they may be more of a daytime function, since IM3 was the last time I saw a non-matinee show). My showing had an actual ad in the trailer block, after the admonishments.

it's not going to have much staying power or rewatchability when compared to stand-alone movies like Black Panther or The Winter Soldier

ITA. One thing that struck me about both IW/EG is how joyless they are (and I don't mean the forced jokes like Bulk dabbing). The ending of IW was the team losing big, and the ending of EG was the team breaking up for good with two key members dying.

I rather miss our town's dollar theater, which got movies usually the weekend before they came out on home video and always, always had an intermission.

I haven't seen it yet, mostly for this reason. (And also being behind in general; hopefully Netflix still has Infinity War so I can edge closer to knowing what's going on.)

I haven't seen IW either, but when I asked around, the consensus was that as long as I'd been spoiled for the cliffhanger and knew who had or hadn't died, all I had really missed was some witty banter. That was probably correct.

It has always baffled me that movies outside of India don't have intermissions. Granted, Bollywood movies tend to be three hours long on average (often longer) so intermissions are often an absolute must, especially if you're taking kids!

And lol: re: drive-in theatre owner. I hope it netted him extra business!

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Endgame

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