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What is clickbait, anyway?

Over the weekend, a Twitter user named Dakota Lopez posted a list of the websites that were most frequently called out by a Twitter account called FilmClickbait:

FilmClickbait quote tweets out headlines from film news websites and blogs, usually revealing the information that is teased. Here’s an example:

I have some thoughts on all this, but here are a few caveats before I proceed:

    Coming in sixth on that list is slashfilm.com, a site I used to write for regularly and that I currently still host a weekly podcast for.
    I have not verified Lopez’s methodology or his final counts, but nothing about the list strikes me as implausible.
    I can’t comment on whether there’s anything “disproportionately malicious” happening, but it seems possible that the sites that rank highest simply traffic more frequently in what FilmClickbait deems clickbait.

Here is the problem with FilmClickbait’s entire modus operandi: There is no widely understood definition of clickbait, and if there is one, it’s not one that seems to match FilmClickbait’s.

In 2014, Ben Smith wrote a piece for Buzzfeed (a site that would know or thing or two about clickbait) explaining why the site no longer used “clickbait.” In it, he defines clickbait as headlines that fundamentally mislead the reader about what the article is about. When Buzzfeed used to do this, they’d generate short term engagement, but they’d destroy user trust. So they stopped:

If your goal — as is ours at BuzzFeed — is to deliver the reader something so new, funny, revelatory, or delightful that they feel compelled to share it, you have to do work that delivers on the headline’s promise, and more. This is a very high bar. It’s one thing to enjoy reading something, and quite another to make the active choice to share it with your friends. This is a core fact of sharing and the social web of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other platforms.

The best way to ensure your readers won’t choose to share a story or a post is to trick them. Anyone who has spent the last 20 years online knows the specific disgust that comes with a headline that doesn’t deliver on its promise. It’s the kind of taste you get in your mouth from a glistening but spoiled peach. The publisher got the page view, and ComScore doesn’t record your flash of anger. But you’re hardly going to subject your friends to this experience. (Maybe your enemies.)

Smith even went on to provide tips on how to write good headlines:

Great headlines, meanwhile, tell you a lot about what you’re going to read, and persuade you to click because you know you’ll find a story that will satisfy your interest. The lists that BuzzFeed has long been known for are, as list titles tend to be, extremely direct; “31 Genius Hacks For Your Elementary School Art Class” is just that. As my colleague Ryan Broderick puts it, the goal is often, in fact, to “blow away the curiosity gap.” One of his recent headlines: “A 5-Year-Old Girl Raised Enough Money To Take Her Father Who Has Terminal Cancer To Disney World.”

When you look over Filmclickbait’s targets, there are certainly pieces that fall within the standard definition of clickbait. But there are at least as many pieces that simply don’t adhere to Filmclickbait’s version of a good headline.

Take today as an example. Many websites are writing about Game of Thrones final season premiere date:

Nothing in the headline that is being linked to is misleading. It simply doesn’t include the most crucial piece of information that is teased. And while some (many?) might find it annoying to click through to the actual article, it’s important to ask other questions beyond whether that info is in the tweet/headline itself: Does the article provide important context? Does it provide insights and information that you might not otherwise have known?

If no, then eventually readers will decide on their own that your website is not worth reading or sharing, and the laws of Darwin will eliminate the publication from the pool of going concerns. But if yes, then value is still being delivered to the reader. I don’t understand how that could be called clickbait, or if it can be, I don’t understand why that distinction is important because literally every publication does it.

Here’s a screenshot from today’s New York Times about U.S. tensions with Iran. It reads: “Pentagon Officials Fear Bolton’s Actions Increase Risk of Clash with Iran”

It would be ludicrous for a clickbait-like account to simply quote tweet this article and flippantly write, “He asked for military options to strike Iran!” Why? Because the article itself might contain other information that is important to know about! Simply because the headline doesn’t contain all the relevant information doesn’t make it a bad or clickbait-y headline. And sure, pop culture ephemera doesn’t have the weighty importance of national security, but the same concept applies.

I wholeheartedly believe that there are websites that act in bad faith. But by refusing to distinguish between actively misleading headlines and headlines that simply don’t (can’t?) include all the possible relevant information, FilmClickbait throws the baby out with the bathwater. It provides a skewed perspective on what “clickbait” and bad headline writing even is. That’s arguably an equal disservice to the fan community as the prevalence of actual clickbait.

A few interesting things from the web recently:

Alan Scherstuhl’s do’s and don’ts of film writing

Film writer Alan Scherstuhl has published his writing advice for film reviewers. I don’t necessarily advocate for every single thing here, but it’s all valuable and it’s all worth considering. With Alan’s permission, I’ve reproduced his entire list below. My favorite bit:

Do not forget that some 14 year-old version of you might happen into reading your piece, and that that 14 year-old wants to be invited into the world of culture and ideas, not shamed away from it for not knowing who Jafar Panahi is, so when you mention Jafar Panahi provide some enthusiastic context that might make that 14 year old look Panahi up rather than think “Fuck off, you snob.”

Always good to remember where you came from and how you got started.

Alan is one of the smartest, most astute film writers I know. Follow him on Twitter and check out his wrap up of 2018 in movies. And one last thing that Alan wanted me to share: a good writer can break any of these rules at any time. 

***

My advice on reviews is simple. First, the don’ts:

Do not open with plot summary

Do not write a paragraph of plot summary

Do not ever write this sentence: “CHARACTER’s NAME (ACTOR’S NAME) is an L.A. architect suffering from ennui in the years since her professional chef husband CHARACTER’S NAME (ACTOR’S NAME) had to close his dream restaurant and bury their child CHARACTER’S NAME (ACTOR’S NAME, adorable in sad flashbacks to a happier time)”

Do not forget that it is your job to highlight what is important and memorable and unique, whether good or bad, and to dash the rest to the rocks

Do not only characterize performances in parentheses

Do not laundry list, meaning don’t give us a paragraph of intro, one on the story, one on the actors, one on the direction, and then one of opinion

Do not just rely on adjectives to characterize a performance or a scene or a feeling. Instead, draw upon every bit of descriptive power within you to capture exactly you are attempting to capture. Summon up the moment itself rather than just how you feel about the moment.

Do not despair that the above is hard.

Do not put scare quotes around “wacky” or “zany” or other words. That asks the reader to guess what you think the word usually means and then what you intend it to mean this time and whether you’re putting it in someone else’s mouth.

Do not presume that your understanding of/tolerance for wackiness or zaniness or pretension is the universal standard. These words mean little on their own and demand you clearly characterize whatever strikes you as wacky/zany/pretentious rather than trust that tossing the word in there is enough.

Do not be all, “I don’t know, there were some decent action scenes.”

Do not rely on adverbs that merely add emphasis: “very” or “really” or “wonderfully” in front of an adjective characterize that adjective only in degree, not in character, and more than anything else they suggest that the adjective you’ve chosen is inexact and needs some help. “Stunningly” is just “very” with its eyes bugged out; “profoundly” is just “really” with a beard and its voice lowered an octave.

Do not use “titular” or “myriad” or “gleefully” or “iconic” or any of those godawful Variety terms like “actioner” or “laugher.”

Do not write sentences where the reader could start skimming halfway through and still know what you were going to say.

Do not ignore the real world and the film’s social/political context

Even if you’re exercised about that context, do not ignore the formal choices the filmmakers have made
— how is this film shot and edited, and why? Is it effective? If someone reading your review had never heard of the movie, would it be clear from the review that this was, in fact, a movie and not a play or a TV show?

Do not tut down at regular folks who might not ever see the challenging movie you’re savoring.

Do not write, “In a perfect world, [INSERT MOVIE YOU LOVE HERE] would be a huge hit.” You’re not the Commissariat of Enlightened Taste. Argue for what you love — don’t whine that it’s not as loved as you’d like it to be.

Do not assume that people who do not love what you are championing – or who love what you’re panning – are doing so in bad faith.

Do not forget that some 14 year-old version of you might happen into reading your piece, and that that 14 year-old wants to be invited into the world of culture and ideas, not shamed away from it for not knowing who Jafar Panahi is, so when you mention Jafar Panahi provide some engaging context that might make that 14 year old look Panahi up.

Do not think of your review as just one of the many reviews this film will get, as just a datapoint for the Tomatometer, as just some piece of consumer advice only likely to interest people already engaged with whatever you’re reviewing. Instead, think of your review as an event itself, as something that needs to win people over and get them to care.

Do not think that reviewing simply means setting down your subjective opinion. Key to it is to marshal as much objective evidence and memorable detail as you can to a) make your case, b) give readers a feeling of the experience of actually watching this movie, c) participate in the art yourself, as recording what you witnessed is immortalizing the work in another medium, and d) prevent you from spinning your wheels with dull-ass plot summary.

Again: DON’T WRITE PLOT SUMMARIES ANY LONGER THAN A LINE OR TWO. If you would skim it in other people’s reviews, they’re sure as hell gonna skim it in yours.

Do not worry much of what other critics have said except in the rare revisionist piece where you are proving everybody else wrong a month or so later.

Do not forget that Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael panned 2001. Their reviews of it are persuasive.

And here’s a do:

Engage with the art, open yourself to the art, process the art, and respond to the art. If you ever sit down to watch something and think “Jesus, I don’t want to do this” the same way so many of those sad bastards we all see in the screening rooms seem to, ask me to re-assign because, seriously, there’s someone else who *does* want to do it.

And a Word on Profiles and Interviews:
I prefer our pieces be about how we “get” someone — as in offer rare context and insight — rather than how we “got” someone, as in put some famous person in the paper.

And here’s words I will always cut from reviews so don’t try to sneak them in:
titular, palpable, triptych, myriad, “pokes fun at”, groan- or chuckle-worthy, astonishing, stunning, iconic, painterly, veritable, fever dream, gleefully, plethora, laugher, actioner, most uses of “very,” and the very idea of the setting as a character which it just isn’t, ever. (Note the acceptable use of “very” in the preceding line, rather than the usual “very pretty” or “very funny,” where “very” is less a descriptor
than it is an admission that the adjective it’s paired with is insufficient.)

The glory of ‘Roma’

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“None of those people is an extra. They’re all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.”

Those words were spoken by Philip Seymour Hoffman, playing the role of Caden Cotard in Synecdoche, New York. I found Synecdoche to be maddening and inaccessible but I also felt it contained insights that were worth trying to get to (I tried to do this awhile back in this video essay with Amy Nicholson).

Despite my confusion, these lines stood out as a fundamental message of the film. We experience our lives in a much different way than those around us experience them. Everyone is the main character in the story of their lives. And it can be difficult to let other people in — to acknowledge that their lives have fullness and arcs of their own. It’s difficult not because their lives are dull, but because we barely have the capacity to process our own stories. How can we be expected to understand what others are going through?

This thought came to mind while watching Alfonso Cuarón’s newest film Roma, out on Netflix today. Roma is a semiautobiographical story of Cuarón’s childhood and of his family’s live-in housekeeper, Cleo. Throughout the film, we witness Cleo’s experiences, from the mundanity of her daily tasks to her loving care of the household’s children. At the periphery, we see snippets of external events — the family she’s employed by begins to fall apart, and political unrest spills into the streets — but as with real life, these events are just tangential to the story. They aren’t the story itself.

Roma is a technical masterwork. The camera work is masterful and intricate. Its seeming passivity as it glides and pans its way through each scene seems to be the film’s way of saying “This is real. This happened. You’re just lucky to get a glimpse at it through this tiny window. ”

The movie invites us to take a look at this person who would be a side character in another film and to experience her life in all its fullness. The result is a wonderful celebration of how we shape the lives of those around us, and how they shape us too.

A few more thoughts for the week:

Mission: Impossible – Fallout 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Review

The Mission: Impossible – Fallout 4K Blu-Ray is a great home video package. Included in the box are three discs: A 4K UHD version of the film, which includes some of the special features like the commentaries, a Blu-Ray version of the film, and a separate Blu-ray disc that contains the rest of the special features. The biggest downside of this release is that it doesn’t match the box art for Paramount’s recently released 4K Mission: Impossible set. Really makes you wonder who Paramount is making those sets for, because in general, anyone who’s going to buy a 4K box set of all these films is probably going to watch those discs to match. Just going out on a limb there.

In terms how the feature presentation looks, it’s great. The movie’s shot and lit beautifully and loses very little in its journey to the small screen. Of course, Fallout was shot on a a mix of film and digital and this does make for an occasionally jarring viewing experience, but this is something that was present in the theatrical presentation as well. The sound mix is also great and it’s a particularly great way to experience composer Lorne Balfe’s score, which is one of my favorites of the franchise.

When it comes to special features, the highlight is the feature length commentary featuring Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie is an extremely generous filmmaker. Even before this disc was released, I’ve probably listened to about 8-10 hours of interview with him, but even so, I still Learned a few things about the production of this film listening to this commentary. And if you’re a fan of Tom Cruise, it’s great to hear his enthusiasm for the storytelling and the stunts of this film. He seems genuinely excited about the movie and grateful to his cast and crew to have the chance to make it.

On the special features disc there are a few cool things worth noting. First of all, instead of “deleted scenes” there’s a Deleted Scenes Montage. It’s a bunch of deleted scenes cut together with finished color grading and visual effects set to music. The objective of including this was just to give you a sense of all the hard work put into this film that you didn’t see. I personally would’ve preferred to see all the complete deleted scenes here, as it would’ve been fascinating to get more insight into how they decided to structure the final story. But my sense is that director Christopher McQuarrie wants us all to think of the final film as the definitive version (the “Director’s Cut” as it were) and putting in completed scenes might’ve muddied the waters a bit.

There’s also a ton of featurettes about the making of virtually ever major set piece in the film, where you learn really cool tidbits about production, like how they did hundreds of jumps prepping for the halo jump sequence, or how they needed five helicopters for that chase sequence at the end, or how they needed to airlift 150 crew onto the site for the final fight that they shot at Pulpit Rock. It’s all fascinating stuff and reminds me of the heyday of Blu-Rays when discs were just loaded with content.

But it’s not all perfect. One downside is that a lot of the special features are edited in a really distractingly frenetic way. It felt like the person making these didn’t trust they could hold the audience’s attention throughout literally an entire sentence, so you end up with sequences where they are cutting mid-sentence and you have like 4-5 people contributing to that same sentence? After awhile of watching this, it got pretty distracting. I wanted to say to the creators of this disc, “Hey, what you’re showing me is already pretty impressive. Please don’t edit this to ribbons, thanks!”

The second thing is that everything on this disc and these special features is meant to convince you that Tom Cruise risked his life to make this movie. I have no doubt that people put themselves in danger, but the special features do a lot to downplay all the safety precautions that were taken. It’s never about “Here are the 15 things we did to make sure Tom Cruise didn’t die,” it’s always about “Here are all the ways things could’ve gone wrong for Tom Cruise.”

I’m not sure if we should be celebrating the fact that Tom Cruise almost died making Mission: Impossible – Fallout? On the one hand, yes, we’re living in an age where advancements in CG have made audience skeptical of virtually anything they see on screen. And it genuinely is impressive that Tom Cruise did a lot of this stuff practically. But it’s also true that a lot of it was augmented with visual effects, and the special features barely talk about any of that at all. For me, I would’ve been much more interested in how they were able to combine both the practical and the digital, and how the director made those calls. But fundamentally, that’s not the story these features are interested in telling.

In a time where stunt people have actually died while making movies quite recently, the idea that this billionaire risked his life for us just feels like a weird message to hammer home in this piece of mass market entertainment.

Those minor issues aside, if you’re a big fan of Mission: Impossible – Fallout like I am, I think you’ll find this disc is worth your money. I just wish they had made the box art match.

Here is a list of all the special features included in this disc:

  • Behind the Fallout (Featurettes)
    • Light the Fuse
    • Top of the World
    • The Big Swing: Deleted Scene Breakdown
    • Rendezvous in Paris
    • The Fall
    • The Hunt is On
    • Cliffside Clash
  • Deleted Scenes Montage with Optional Commentary by director Christopher McQuarrie and editor Eddie Hamilton
  • Foot Chase Musical Breakdown
  • The Ultimate Mission
  • Storyboards
  • Theatrical Trailer
  • Commentary by director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise
  • Commentary by director Christopher McQuarrie and editor Eddie Hamilton
  • Commentary by composer Lorne Balfe
  • Isolated Score Track

The Content Cycle

Max Read, writing for New York, has a good overview on how cable news, social media, and blogs have a symbiotic relationship with each other:

The Content Cycle, a phrase I did not just come up with right now, describes how content arises from the internet, is absorbed into cable television, and then gets redistributed back into the internet for the cycle to begin anew. Like the water cycle, the Content Cycle provides sustenance and habitation to a multitude of organisms, and in many ways it exists independently of human thought. Let’s walk through Problematic Rudolph as our emblematic example of the Content Cycle.

That time David Edelstein said something dumb

From the AP:

NPR’s “Fresh Air” has parted ways with contributor David Edelstein after the film critic made a joke about the rape scene in “Last Tango in Paris” on his Facebook page following Monday’s death of director Bernardo Bertolucci.

In a statement Tuesday, “Fresh Air” said the post was “offensive and unacceptable” because of what actress Maria Schneider experienced filming the scene. Schneider said in a 2007 interview that the simulated sex scene was unscripted and that she felt bullied by Bertolucci and unsupported by her co-star Marlon Brando. “I was crying real tears,” said Schneider, who died in 2011.

Edelstein later apologized and said he wasn’t aware of Schneider’s remarks. I find that unlikely given that I heard about them at the time and I feel much less plugged into the film scene than Edelstein is. Still, even if he hadn’t heard about them, the joke was inarguably in poor taste.

One common mistake I see people make when news like this drops about a public figure is to assume they understand the totality of the circumstances. There are many potential reasons that NPR might want to show Edelstein the door that go beyond this tweet. But the tweet can often be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Edelstein’s views on cinema have been…pretty interesting in recent days (like when he longed for a time when everything, “even racism,” seemed simpler). But Edelstein has decades of work to stand on. Should one mistake cost him his job?

One thing that has really swung into focus for me recently is what a powerful responsibility it is to be able to express yourself to thousands of people so quickly and easily. Twitter and Facebook make it super easy to dash off a latent thought or an ill-considered jokes, but ultimately, they are public forums. They entice you into thinking you’re speaking to a small group of friends, when in fact, you’re broadcasting for the world to hear.

Ultimately, our words come with stakes attached, even if you write them on your smartphone while half awake in the morning, or after an all-night binge. We should all proceed accordingly.

See also: Terry Rossio and Paul Schrader.

Creed II and the problem with modern boxing movies

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I love underdog sports films. There’s something about the balletic performances of talented athletes, the forging of the bonds of friendship, and the triumph of a group of determined folks against all odds that just gets to me at my core.

But recently, I’ve started to think I can’t enjoy boxing films anymore.

Other sports can be problematic for a variety of reasons. Football is still in the process of coping with an epidemic of CTE. Hockey can frequently be violent. But boxing is one of the only sports where the objective is to punch someone repeatedly until they pass out. It feels like a barbaric spectacle, with many parties being enriched as a massive audience cheers two people nearly beating each other to death. Boxing movies invite you into that audience and ask you to cheer too.

Of course, the Rocky films weren’t always about the spectacle. The first Rocky in particular was about the beauty of perseverance, and focused intensely on the Rocky/Adrian relationship. As the films went on, they mirrored Stallone’s other action franchise (Rambo) and became increasingly conventional, bombastic and unmoored from reality.

The problem with Creed I and II are that they add to the mythos, but they don’t really do anything to challenge or interrogate the ideas behind the franchise. The creation of the character of Adonis Creed (played with quiet intensity by Michael B. Jordan) is unquestionably a great achievement. But neither of the Creed films engage meaningfully with any of the interesting questions behind boxing as a modern acceptable profession.

Creed II in particular posits the concept of not boxing as an event greater sacrifice than boxing. On one side is Adonis Creed’s pride and his reputation as the heavyweight champion, but with a large possibility of a crippling or fatal injury. On the other: a fulfilling life with his family. In the end, Creed makes the predictable choice. The moral of the story is that might makes right. Boxing might not fix all your problems, but if you DO box, you should win. Winning is what gives you your value.

The films are the cinematic equivalent of comfort food, with fairly predictable arcs and endings. That doesn’t make them bad films, but it doesn’t make them particularly interesting ones either.

Here are a few things I’ve been reading this week:

The Darjeeling Limited Perspective

I love many of Wes Anderson’s films, but this video essay by Leon Thomas (AKA Renegade Cut) does a great job of identifying the flaws in one of Anderson’s weakest, The Darjeeling Limited.

Describing a late plot development, Thomas writes:

The brothers realize, after the first half of the movie plagued with infighting, that they have to stick together. All they were missing was a dead Indian boy. The child does the demanding work of dying tragically so that the privileged white Americans won’t have to die spiritually or emotionally. There is no joke here. The scene is played to tug at our heartstrings, and as quickly as the Indian boy is mourned, he is forgotten.

It’s all very brutal but accurate.