Countdown to FILMADRID: Cinema.

A video essay praised by Matt Zoller Seitz

Starting in 2019, I had four video essays selected by FILMADRID and MUBI spread out over a period of four years. As I anticipate my experience at the fest this month, I’m going to repost those four video essays here.

Here’s the second one:

Martin Scorsese’s 2019 comment that Marvel movies were not cinema stirred controversy. This playfully metaphorical video essay takes a multi-faceted approach to Scorsese appreciation, the irrefutable impact on moviegoers caused by streaming services, and the questionable future of cinema itself.

For my second video essay submission to FILMADRID, I made memes for the first time, to try to address how cinema culture was now thriving online, albeit in a truncated form.

Perhaps you remember the manufactured controversy around Martin Scorsese’s comments that Marvel Cinematic Universe movies were “not cinema.” This set comic book heads into a tizzy, but I largely agreed with Scorsese. It was also in the middle of the pandemic, so people were already stressed and eager to glom onto some distraction.

Not only was the video essay accepted to FILMADRID in 2020, but a local Madrid-based news station covered the video on a TV program and singled it out as one of the best of the festival. I was also interviewed by Andrea Morán in “Entrevista a Philip Brubaker” for Festival Internacional de cine FILMADRID”.

Matt Zoller Seitz liked the video essay so much he made his Twitter banner out of a screen grab:

In a Twitter post that netted me a couple hundred new YouTube subscribers, MZS went on to say:

"Excellent (short) video essay on the future of cinema in the age of streaming. Sharp editing, too. Lots of clever references to film history touchstones..."

Needless to say, I was chuffed! I just wish we could have stayed in touch.