mad max & movie attention

The eventized moviegoing experience offers reprieve—for a few hours, at least—in our own wasteland.

Your sources are correct: Deez Links, the original online fixation report, is back and better than ever. It’s my main gig now, actually, which you can support with a paid subscription. Here we go!

xoxo delia 

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Warner Bros duh

Last summer’s Barbenheimer event (which I once described while journaling as “the last time I felt happy,” lol) got us hooked on the ultra-maximalist post-COVID cinematic experience + adjoining online frenzy now turbocharged by the effect of Muskian Twitter, where the “For You” tab now force-feeds you every movie-related joke and meme once it picks up your scent—hence the inescapable mania of Challengers and Dune 2, two films that leverage Twitter-esque fandom perfectly. (What was the Dune popcorn bucket but a 3D meme?) (Also, it’s definitely not awesome for the culture that every film now has to be an Online Event to break through, but also it is awesome for the culture that at least all the recent superhero movies seem to be not good at this stuff anymore after Endgame, thank god.)

I used to be pretty bad at going to the movies, though every time I did go, I’d be like wow this rocks! I should do this more! You know what I mean. There should be a scientific term for that feeling of divine conviction you get when you’re watching previews and mowing down all the popcorn already and thinking, FUCK YEA, MOVIES!! I AM GOING TO BE THE TYPE OF PERSON WHO SEES ALL OF THESE!!! (It’s like the opposite of F.O.M.O…. instead it’s the Joy Of a Future Cinematic Experience… J.O.F.C.E…….we can pronounce it as “joff-see”........). Few things inspire certainty and anticipation like a great movie trailer now. The Nicole Kidman AMC ad (for which people literally still cheer for whenever it comes on) succeeds because it attempts to bottle this feeling with gravitas.