Dispatches from the Fury Road: I Can't Believe You Don't Watch...

Back in the old days when TVs were box shaped and you only had to worry about four channels to choose from, everyone was across everything.

I never watched Melrose Place but I knew about Billy and Allison and how Heather Locklear was a special guest star on eleventy-thousand episodes, which to me would suggest it wasn’t as special as they proclaimed. I didn’t watch Home Improvement but knew too many grown women who were invested in Jonathan Taylor Thomas’ potential to grow up to be a hottie. I only ever watched a couple of episodes of Perfect Strangers but that was enough to know Cousin Balki loved telling people “…don’t be ridiculous”. With so few channels to choose from, the TV options were limited and therefore information about those shows would soak into the every day discourse whether you wanted to engage or not.

Now of course we have so many channels, so many streaming options, so many different ways to enjoy entertainment, so much can easily fall through the cracks. I don’t know how anyone keeps up with it all and have been unsurprised over the last couple of months to hear people tell me they’ve checked out of certain art forms. I know a lot of people who just don’t go to the movies anymore. I know some people who have reduced their TV viewing to crap reality shows because they have fun in WhatsApp threads with their friends and that’s as far as their focus will extend. I try to keep up with music but it is a losing battle especially since I don’t own what I listen to anymore. Instead I listen to an album I like on a streaming service, and then eventually forget about it because there’s nothing physical around to remind me to listen to it again. Case in point I loved the last Fiona Apple album that was released during Lockdown One but I cannot tell you the title of the album or one song from it. And I literally just remembered that I loved it while trying to think of an example to share with you about this phenomenon. Excuse me while I go and have a listen.

I’m back!

One thing I need people to stop doing is acting incredulous when you’re not across something. It is very easy for entertainment to fall through the cracks, you shouldn’t be that surprised. Not everyone or everything finds mainstream success in this new world, there’s no point in being freaked out when someone isn’t across what you’re into. At the moment I am currently watching a lot of TV shows. How many can you point to and say that you’re watching, that you’ve heard of but you’re not watching or you’ve never heard of?

Winning Time

Barry

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Better Call Saul

We Own This City

Slow Horses

Atlanta

Severance

Moon Knight

For all Mankind

Outer Range

That’s a crazy amount of television and I love all of them except for one. (I’ll let you take a guess on the show I’m watching while replying to text messages, scrolling through Instagram or just generally daydreaming through.) Some of these shows are brilliant. Some are a notch below but still excellent and compelling. There’s also a lot of TV that I’m dying to get to but as you can see, my dance card…or maybe that should be my “lounge card”…is full. When I look at that list I am so grateful that I’m single. Sure, I’ll probably die alone but at least as I shuffle off this mortal coil, I’ll be able to ruminate on Outer Range and wonder just what the fuck is going on with Josh Brolin and his pit.

When I hear people haven’t watched a TV show or heard a specific podcast or seen a movie, I give it a mild recommendation on how best to watch it and then leave it at that. I know lots of people who haven’t seen “Everything Everywhere all at Once” so rather than react like I’m in a character being overacted in a pantomime, I just say, “It is truly, wonderfully bonkers and if you have any interest in seeing it, don’t let anyone tell you anything about it” and then let them go from there.

The problem with this amount of choice is that quality productions can be lost amongst the algorithms and in turn this encourages producers to be conservative in their approach to art. That’s why so many blockbuster franchises are playing it safe. Big special effects cancel out innovative direction. Tapping into nostalgia covers up for lack lustre storytelling. Rehashing storylines blocks the growth of exciting new characters. It’s important to go looking for something new, something ground breaking and then commit to the process. This is why I believe in the cinema experience. Once you invest in seeing a film at the theatre, you have to sit in the dark and take in the movie without distraction. I would have hated to watch the Oscar winning film “Drive My Car” at home. This was a beautiful and quiet story that had me so riveted in the cinema I barely moved for three hours. If it had gone another 15 minutes, you would have had to send a nurse in to roll me over. I can safely say that if I’d watched this beautiful film at home, there would have been distractions. I live on a busy road so there are sirens and crazy people yelling at the fruit bats throughout the night. I would have stopped at least twice for a snack and once for a toilet break. I might have heard my phone buzz a couple of times and taken a quick squiz to check who was contacting me. Each of these moment would have broken the rhythm of the story, the mood that was shaped and the tension of the tale. The movie used silence in such an incredible way I could feel it pressing against my ribcage in the cinema. At home that would have been lost and in the process, a part of my movie experience would have been severely compromised.

Oh dear, old man yelling at clouds alert!

I guess the main point of this is that there’s a lot of beautifully made entertainment out there. Stories that enrich the soul, that speak to the world we live in, that provide a prism to help us relate to and understand the broad range of experiences around us. If someone has missed something you love and you think they might love in turn, there’s no need to overreact. You’re immediately putting them on the back foot with that approach. Instead let them know it is out there and waiting for the right moment for them to enjoy. You should feel excited for them because at some point in the future, they might watch what you loved and have the same reaction.

And when that time comes, you can meet up again, compare notes and maybe share some new suggestions for what you can both enjoy in the future.

Justin Hamilton

Surry Hills

May 2022