Then i'll look forward to the "I Hate TV" thread.

yet, as always, you've put it far better than I ever could.

I think the vast majority of mainstream films are made purely with the cinematic experience in mind. Hence, you get explosions, stunning effects and great landscapes, but next to nothing in the way of story, character development or decent dialogue - Avatar being the best example of this.

It's why the best films of recent years are the slightly quirky, offbeat ones, where nothing much happens and are created by people who clearly love filmaking and storytelling. I'm thinking Juno, Lost In Translation and (500) Days of Summer (though that probably says more about my taste in films than anything else).

The thing is, these two approaches don't have to be mutually exclusive; there's been a few mentions of Jaws on this site recently, and that's the perfect example.

But yes, in the last year I've gone through half of The Wire, six seasons of 24, Heroes Season 1, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and I'm most of the way through the last season of Prison Break and even though some of those are trashy and not exactly too hot on the character development front, I'd still rather watch them than the latest blockbuster at the local multiplex.

As all blockbusters are targetted at the less discerning segment of the teenage population, character development just gets in the way. Cinema's big hitters are all about ticking as many boxes as possible - Oscar worthies too - just different boxes.

Films which focus more are more interesting to me. Duncan Jones' Moon was the only film which struck a chord with me last year. Hardly a blockbuster.

Partly down to having kids, so opportunities thin on the ground, but I do agree with you.

I thought Moon was really well done and explored the idea well in the time-frame and couldn't really work out where else it could have gone if made into a TV series.

But I'm a big TV (US, especially) junkie and adore 20-something-episode long series.

The one caveat, though, is that it takes just as much craft to fit ideas, plot, and action into a couple of hours, as it does to write an entire 24-ep series.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, I think HBO, Showtime etc's Boxset collections easily outstrip mainstream cinema now. The first series of the Wire didn't really kick-in until episode 3 - it took it's time, and the results are plain to see. Movies these days (cue boring old fart brass-band music) are usually CGI spectaculars - things that TV can't possibly come up with. Battlestar was superb,and I couldn't care less about the CGI or the FX, I was caught up in the interplay. But then again, I'm getting old, and all that banging and booming makes me nervous.

It's funny that you mention the Watchmen - I've just finished reading Comic Book Nation (The Transformation of Youth Culture in America) by BradfordW Wright, and it details why Alan Moore's masterpiece, along with the Dark Knight, saved DC's skin in the mid-eighties and has become a cultural revolution, so was inevitable that I movie would be made - but to me, that book is already a movie, if you know what I mean; the vivid writing and Gibbon's layouts were so cinematic that a movie version would almost be a remake. I think that's why it didn't succeed. It was a non-win situation, but there are parts of that film that made my hair stand on end. Of course, THe Incredibles came out first and used a (very loosely) similar plotline, and in a whacky way, it's the best superhero movie of them all. (In my opinion, I'm sure to be corrected)

But then I've not really enjoyed a big budget blockbuster for years, your Lost In Translations or Royal Tennenbaums have been the films for me, as somebody says above, quirky character driven things, with very little plot, and sometimes nothing more than two people sitting in a room talking, or simply looking at each other.

There's been a lot of tv that's is good, full of intelligence, great acting and sharp writing. They are more like moving books than little films these days.

(I did sort of enjoy Watchmen, being a comic fan from old. But as Heroes first series had pretty much stolen the plot and carried out in a far more enjoyable way I wasn't as excited as I might have been)

You might like this, Archie: http://www.kottke.org/08/10/megamovies-tv-shows-as-dayslong-movies. It really puts the TV series vs film into perspective. The Wire, for example, is over 60 hours of story. I find that films tend to drag once they pass the 1hr 45 min mark.

However, I think there is a place for them both, just as great American literature can accommodate Raymond Carver's story Cathedral and John Dos Passos's masterwork, USA. (Or Russian writing is equally powerful as a Chekhov story or War and Peace.)

The problem is that Hollywood hasn't yet woken up to its responsibility in telling short stories. For every Chinatown or A Single Man, there is a misguided attempt to deal with mega-stories like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

It was always the DVD player rather than the Sky box that got a hammering in Waring Towers, but initially films rather than TV. But now, we almost exclusively watch box sets for exactly the reasons Archie outlines.

Actually, 'watch' is wrong. 'Devour' would be a better description.

It started with The Sopranos, then 24. We then moved onto The Wire, with side orders of Dexter and Mad Men. Then onto The Shield, followed by Prison Break. We currently have four series of Supernatural to plough through.

Now I appreciate that not all the above are high art, but even at their trashiest and most unbelievable, the series allow for characters and storylines to develop and unfold in a far more satisfying way than most films allow.

I believe that too many Hollywood movies rigidly embrace Syd Field's guidelines for scriptwriting - 3 acts, a personal journey, a confrontation, a turning point, a denouement - which makes the films all seem "samey". Even if tv programmes have very rigid structures the length of time available makes it possible for them to digress, progress and be much more rounded. Not that all of them do of course.

BTW, I loved Lord of the Rings, and have enjoyed the Harry Potter movies.

It goes without saying that the mainstream movie business is mostly about generating a large return on the first weekend of release. Hence a product which ticks boxes and has the explosions etc. Then you have a TV series which is allowed to take time in building up an audience and developing story lines and has a much smaller budget. I'm not sure the two have ever been comparable. I agree with Robram that there is still an incredible skill in being able to deliver a well scripted, directed, acted and of course budgeted film with a running time under three hours. Mainstream studios have always produced a few gems in their schedules...although at the moment there do seem to be less than say in the early 1970s but that was a particularly rich period.

The Dark Knight, Michael Clayton, Zodiac, Frost/Nixon, No Country for Old Men and The Bourne films are good examples of when there is intelligence at work in the recent mainstream movie world. But to compare them with The Wire is a waste of time.

I just finished watching all 13 episodes of the Wallander detective series (the Swedish one, not the Branagh version) and was totally absorbed in the brillantly acted and scripted characters, with their occasional depressions, family and relationship problems, even dealing with medical problems like diabetes and mid-life crises. Absolutely superb, you can really get a feeling for the characters and what makes them tick. You rarely get this in a movie due to the time constraints but it does make me very impatient with films nowadays.

It's an eye-catching heading, but it looks to me as if the salient point you make is For over a year now, I haven't seen a single big-budget film that has entertained me or captured my interest even half as much as those first 20 slightly cheapish-looking episodes of Heroes. [my emphasis]

When I was a carefree bachelor I'd see a film a week or more, and this might include Blockbusters. Now I pick and choose, and although I don't see many films in the cinema, it's rare that I come away from one feeling I've wasted my money. And I watch a lot on DVD. You know what to avoid, and if you're a film lover (which I'd say you are at heart), you'll inform yourself which films are worth seeing.

That said, I agree about the boxset experience. It's self-evident that you can do a lot of things over that length of time that you wouldn't even attempt in a film.

Which has just made me think: I wonder if Peter Jackson's magnificent (let me lay my cards right on the table!) rendition of Lord Of The Rings would have worked as a TV series. Obviously a lot of the stuff that was left out could have been included, and it would have satisfied the purists. On the other hand, it really needed to be seen on a big screen. My theory is: Jackson's films were pretty much definitive, as a three-part cinematic telling of the story. If anyone attempted another adaptation, it would have to be a TV series, as only in this format would there be a chance to do something new.

I agree as well. It's probably a cliche but The Wire, Mad Men etc are probably closer to great novels in their depth and scope than films. And even now 24's still more entertaining than anything Hollywood could throw up.
I think there have been a number of interesting films in the last year or so though. The Hurt Locker is one exception where you do get the sort of gradual character development Archie's talking about. And looking at the best picture category at the Oscars, it is quite strong.

You can't hate all films, surely

in that I find the plots of many mainstream films to be formulaic in the extreme. But I suppose I'm a simple soul at heart and like to watch a good story that is well told. A great filmmaker in my opinion is one who can compress the complexities of plot into a couple of hours, leaving the viewer to fill in the remainder of the story. We do not need to see everything; it is the job of the director to decide what to show us and what to leave to the imagination. Hitchcock, for example, was a master at doing this.

In general I am not a big fan of multi-episode, multi-series dramas. They make my brain hurt. They are often too complex for me to follow and rather exhausting. With rare exceptions (documentaries) I don't want to have to watch something three times to feel I've fully grasped it.

As well as comparing these box set series to films, you could compare them to other TV, in particular soap operas. Are some of the plots on Madmen that different to the staples of say EastEnders – closeted gay man, infertile couple, frustrated housewife, man with a secret which the viewer knows but not the other characters? Or in the case of Madmen, again, compare it to period dramas, which also draw attention to the gap between the clothes and characters of the era and those of the present day.

I have enjoyed some of these box set dramas, and when they work well, it seems to be that they bring together the production values of cinema to fairly established TV story telling.

it is also flawed. Archie how come films means only the those on current release and yet your dvd tv boxset watching can stretch back to the start of century. We don't all obsess about listening to only current music so why so with films. I enjoy seeing films on big screen with other people http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/harold-and-maude-hal-ashby-1971
and have done so with films made recently in Bruges, let the right one in and ones made a while ago the Third man 1947!
The third man is a good case in point would it benefit from having a single frame added?
Also it's not all one way the The Hurt Locker is far superior to Generation kill in it we have a perfect examination of a flawed hero where as the HBO series was baggy flabby and not nearly as engaging.
Also aren't boxsets "soap operas it's ok for middle class to like" a way of enjoying serial storylines without having to say you like watching Emmerdale? It's ok to bang on about The wire because it's about life on the streets but well showing an interest in Ambridge makes you seem gauche and suburban. I like boxsets and films I like schlocky poppy nonsense like the Die Hard series and also grim and glum fair like the Piano teacher.
Also cinema is great at spectacle which is an end in its self, I wasn't sure about the 3d bit but I enjoyed the big daft battle in avatar.
Also it's odd because every two weeks someone round here gets their rosey glasses on and wants the Wednesday play back on tv. The direct opposite of boxset sprawl personally I would like a bit of everything: good quality tv serials, one off plays and films of every kind.

Copycat

oh, Marge!

threads that pass me by. People I work with play a game "What film HAS daveross seen?" usually my answer is "no, not seen that". It's not that I don't enjoy them when I can be arsed to sit for a couple of hours, I do, it's the process of being in one place for that time that puts me off. Unforgivably I have yet to see "Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll" but I sat with the wife and watched "Music and Lyrics" on Saturday night, an hour and a half of leering over Drew Barrymore followed by the worst end to a film ever. I can watch The Die Hard films and Road House over and over again but wouldn't sit through Terminator (I haven't seen any of the Terminator films). Don't know what I'm saying really except films, the process of seeing them and the fuss surrounding them and their stars passes me by, probably my loss. I have watched all Disney and Pixar films by the way and loved them all. I ruined one of my wife's favourites "You Got Mail" by shouting "There's a snake in my boots" just as Tom Hanks was getting it on with Meg Ryan, she can't watch it now and I've never been forgiven.

A Prophet and The Road. Both are fantastic. Good films exist, they just need to be sought out. Occasionally I try.

I have not seen Avatar.

big budget end of the film world is leaving me behind. I started and gave up on GI Joe (about 10 minutes in) and Transformers 2 (about 3 minutes in). It's not that I demand high art or anything from them. I just feel the sound and fury and the endless CGI isn't very engaging anymore. They've started to go too far for my more plot-centric tastes. They're made for teenagers looking for a cheap thrill via expensive spectacle. As long as the kids like it then the adults can get lost as far as the money people are concerned.

TV is better than cinema if your over the age of 25. What they're doing on TV is superior if you're not preoccupied with spectacle.

Film as a medium was devised as a way to fill one evening and it was modelled on the three-act play. This generally works as follows: set-up, jeopardy, resolution. I share much of Archie's disenchantment with films because they seem to me to be far too concerned with arriving at a resolution that leaves the audience feeling satisfied at the end of the experience. In this they often settle for endings that are either glib ("Juno") or too complex for anyone to care about (see that last Batman film).

Watching my favourite long form TV series, such as The Wire or Madmen, I realise that I have stopped caring how things turn out. I don't care about the ending of The Sopranos. It wasn't written with an ending in mind. It's built for constant forward motion. Bit like a shark in that sense.

There's an interesting story about Brookside. Phil Redmond & the team wrote a storyline where Shiela Grant was raped; all the way through the arc, the rapist was to have been the Grant's family friend, Matty (remember any of this?) Now I'm not name dropping (honest - it was just a chance encounter in a Belfast pub), but I met Frank Cotterill Boyce who wrote for Brookie at the time,and he told me that Phil called a meeting of the writers and told them they'd have to change the script - The Actor - Scoggo - I think his name was had become so beloved by the cast & crew - Redmond's exact words were apprently - "Scoggo needs the work" - that they were forced to change the outcome - they made the rapist a taxi-driver that had brought Shiela home that night. The whole point of the storyline was to show that women who are attacked - are usually assaulted by people they know; whereas this scenario gave completely the opposite intent: women! Beware of strangers! Which was a bit of scaremongering, rather than a cautionary tale.

Also, the actors involved in a series - and the public's adoration/fascination with a character can override the writers original intent - so the danger is, that narrative will change as the makers consider public reaction, and you will be left with a show that bares no resemblance to the original concept.

Probably the biggest load of banal tripe since Inglourious Basterds...no it didn't take long did it?

i know what you're saying but 'a prophet' and 'the road' are as good as any tv boxsets i've seen wire/mad men/sopranos/red riding etc

I feel like I'm shifting towards your consensus. I'm watching more of series. Rather than drifting in and out I find I want to watch the whole story arc. Particularly after Lost, which only really starts to make sense after seeing every episode twice. Which I've done. You notice minor details and the complexities of storytelling are really a thing to behold. Even in a program like Skins.

I have of late lost most of my love for "new" films. Obviously I still love the concept of movies. But I haven't really been interested in anything recently that's come out in the past year. Apart from three releases, The Book of Eli (Which I've seen twice now), The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. All of which I've been compelled to write about. And I haven't even seen two of them yet! Everything else I've been loving recently came out a few years ago. For example, my most watched films of the past 6 months for me have been High Fidelity (4 watches) and Wristcutters: A Love Story (3 watches). Both of which have been out for years. Maybe I need to reignite my passion for cinema, but at the moment it's just a bit meh...

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS (well, sort of).
::::::::

Currently suspended from duty, Det. LESTER "BUNK" McNULTY (Vin Diesel) can make you a mean miniature Louis Quatorze chair, no problem - just don’t ask him to assemble your IKEA flat pack! (A notorious incident with a bunk-bed kit saddled him with the nickname he famously hates, and got him suspended in the process.) McNULTY likes a drink, especially with his partner and only friend "PROPOSITION JOE" RAWLS (Matthew McConaughey), but what he likes best of all is smashing international terrorist networks and keeping America safe from harm. If only the bone-headed police department would just give him one more chance.

It was business as usual in Baltimore - until the night sixteen Eastern European nukes showed up in a container hidden inside the shell of a boarded-up row-house in the city's Western District. So far, so routine, but nobody counted on the nukes disappearing from "THE WIRE", the cops' ultra-high-tech maximum-security storage compound, the very next day.

Newly appointed Police Commissioner KIMA GREGGS (Halle Berry) has a grudge against McNULTY - she's the ex-wife he fails to pay his child support to - but, bitter as she is, she knows she only has one choice: when things get nuclear, get McNULTY.

"You've got 24 hours, detective. You heartless bastard," she tells him, smokily.

McNULTY gets his first lead from his gay junkie snitch OMAR BUBBLES (Eddie Murphy). Word on the street is that they call the bad guy "the GREEK STRINGER". They call him that because of his habit of lynching those who cross him and inserting a snipped-off neck-tie in their anus as his calling card. (Note: The snitch knows these things because he's gay.) Nobody has ever seen the GREEK STRINGER in person. And nobody wants to - unless that nobody's name happens to be McNULTY.

CLAY CARCETTI, the beleaguered young mayor (Casey Affleck), gets a ransom note. "Sheeee-it!" Either the city’s entire education budget is transferred into a Polish bank account, or the nukes will instantly redevelop the Western District as a glass parking lot. It had seemed to be just another simple, open-and-shut missing-warhead case. But now they're playing for the highest stakes of all.

After a thrilling CHASE SEQUENCE involving multiple means of transportation - helicopters, cars, speeding subway trains, space hoppers, helicopters, unmanned stealth surveillance drones. And helicopters - McNULTY finally corners his nemesis in a pigeon loft. The GREEK STRINGER defiantly PULLS OFF his mask: it's Proposition Joe RAWLS, his supposed "loyal” partner.

"You shoulda listened to me, Joe," McNULTY says, as tears of anger and frustration begin to WELL UP in his steel-gray eyes.

"Huh?"

"I told you not to call me Bunk, punk," McNULTY sneers, before shooting RAWLS three times in the throat.

After staring down at the still-gurgling corpse of his one true friend, McNULTY shakes his head, casually FLICKS the catch on the pigeon coop, lets the door SWING open, and LIMPS away into the shadows.

CUT TO: The newly released birds FLY OFF into the slate-gray Maryland sky. FREEZE.

END TITLES.

CUE: Mariah Carey song ("Down In The Hole").

I knocked off at lunchtime, came home, did some paperwork, went to the shops with the nipper, came back and gave him some nosh and did the prep for dinner, put nipper to bed, made dinner, ate it with wife who had got back from work, then sat down. It was nine o'clock. The telly was on but I wanted to check emails and this blog. Wife has now gone to bed so I'll be reading the new Kermode book and listening to something. TV, particularly immense boxed sets, takes up just too much time. The boxed Prison Break set I got for Christmas remains in the rack, unopened, unloved and probably due for an eBay BNIBWT listing. When and how does everyone else find the time?

And should be enjoyed in different ways. I agree that the boxed set experience gives more room for character and plot development. I also agree that the quality of blockbuster movies leaves a lot to be desired, but there are some smaller gems out there that make the movie-watching experience a real delight. In particular, Mrs W and I watch a lot of foreign language recommendations which, more often than not,are really enjoyable (Let The Right One In is highly recommended).

I would liken a great movie to a great single. A short well-constructed slice of musical perfection taking you quickly from A to B. If you prefer a longer, more scenic route then the album is the way to go.

Have to agree with Lennylaw.Always wondered how people find the time to watch this stuff.Doesn't anybody sleep these days.As I write I can say I have not watched The Sopranos/The Wire/Battlestar/24/Prison Break/West Wing or any other of the tv series that have come out in the last few years.Not one single episode.Apart from not having the commitment to invest,if I find myself with an odd hour or two to spend I tend to go outside or talk to other humans.If we could get the government to give us a bi-annual box set weekend holiday that would be nice.

I have to defend films. I find the two hour film (when made well) to be a near perfect art form.

There's something about the looseness of a long form TV series that just turns me off. Just the idea of a meandering story that you know may never be resolved properly. And (by its very nature) requiring the pass-the-baton distraction of a constantly revolving director and production crew.

Nah, give the discipline and perfection of a two hour film any day. One director, one crew, one idea, one story, one conclusion.