• MaoTheLawn [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    The people who started the company are just 3 white blokes with extensive industry experience who had their finger on the pulse of media appetite outside of blockbusters. They’re not activists or politically motivated in a serious sense.

    Maybe I’m being harsh but it seems like aside from a few good films they mainly just pump out quirky liberal stuff for the sake of generating profits - a heartfelt i-think-i-like-this-little-life movie with vague themes of representation and a saturated colour palette*** can be put together on a middling budget and easily recoup costs. Commercial viability is of course unavoidable but it feels like a motivating factor.

    Civil War’s their most expensive movie so far and it’s only 50 million USD.

    ***Or whatever it is that tiktok is harking for in the moment: trauma-as-horror, the 2000s, existentialism, Adam Sandler, etc.

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      One of the funniest weird lefty sentiments I’ve seen is that A24 is anti capitalist. I think I came across a tweet saying some shit like “people hate A24 because it’s anti capitalist and doesn’t have a super hero flying around for 3 hours” and I couldn’t stop laughing at how absurd this premise is. People really out here thinking some depression demon making a girl traumatized is calling for the overthrow of a system

    • yoink [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      ok there are a lot of valid criticisms of A24 and the culture around them, but saying that the majority of their films are heartfelt twee indie movies or tiktok movies is completely untrue

      like you can read down the list of A24 films on Wikipedia, if anything the ‘twee indie film’ archetype is surprisingly underrepresented, and the bulk of the company’s lifespan (and the movies that got them some reputation in the first place) are pre-tiktok explosion

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A24_films

      • MaoTheLawn [any, any]@hexbear.net
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        7 months ago

        Yeah, kinda true - and I have to respect the gambles that paid off when they invested in the careers of Aster and Eggers who have now continued to produce with A24.

        I guess it’s now that they’re so big (especially since lockdown and their deals with gluttonous streaming platforms) that I feel like I can smell their marketing/audience research board members through the screen.