@paulharrisshow Paul Harris: A question for your blog, if you'll indulge me.
Why do so few movies now have credits and a title sequence before the main film?
We saw "American Fiction" last week and it stood out for many reasons, but one thing I noticed is that it's a current movie that actually has a title and credits at the beginning; many films ("Maestro" is one, I think) just start cold, and don't have a credit sequence until the end of the film.
@jaythurbershow Jay, I'm sure there are myriad answers, but I'll offer 2 possibilities.
1) Our modern attention span. We're not even willing to sit through a :30 commercial to get to the content we want to watch, so filmmakers get us there as quickly as they can; or
2) We can find all the credits we want on IMDb, and often do before we even start the movie, so why give us information we already have?
What do you think?
@paulharrisshow I think those are plausible, but I'm old enough to remember when the title sequences were sometimes the best part of the movies, with great theme songs and animation from Saul Bass or DePatie-Freleng.
Would the Sean Connery James Bond movies be as iconic without those great title sequences?
It seems like a lost opportunity for filmmakers to be creative. Worst-case scenario, you add a "SKIP INTRO" button for streaming services and jump over them.
Paul Harris
Jay Thurber Show