Mark Steyn writes. Yes, it's strange, isn't it? Maybe the reason for the box office slump is that all the talk about box office makes movies seem like devices for taking our money. From early childhood, Americans learn to detect and resist such devices. The box office slump is testament to how savvy we are.
Remember when intelligent adults thought engaging with the films of the day was an essential part of life?
November 28, 2005
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At the dawn of the multiplex, my favorite movie theater was the Ritz, in Philadelphia. Their slogan, IIFC, was "Movies to talk about." It's where I saw "My Dinner with Andre," among others. Anyway, love the slogan. Wish there were more movies to talk about, instead of grosses to talk about.
Oh, I think there are plenty of films out there for “intelligent” filmgoers to get excited about but these films aren’t now, nor were they ever, the blockbusters that drive the box office. (You sniff about this like making a profit is a bad thing.) Movies are like any other artistic endeavor: most are garbage. And so what? What drives the box office permits the creation of those other films you like to talk about. Most people go to the movies for a good time, though the recent slump does indicate they audience would like a modicum of quality with their good time. While some blockbusters do pull in the dollars undeservedly, in my view, for the most part, the marketplace works and good films are rewarded with good receipts.
Dave: Then your moviegoing life must not go back before the year 1977, when it all started falling apart, because of the corrupting greed that flowed from the extreme success of a single movie.
Pete: Back when we were all going to see "Network" and "Clockwork Orange," things felt really different. It wasn't a matter of looking for something good in amongst all the crap. The main movies were worth engaging with, and everyone saw them and talked about them. I mean, really had conversations about life about them.
Ann, I second your memories from decades ago. A lot of my allowance and baby-sitting money in high school ('79 grad) went to this wonderful, big old theatre with a huge screen that showed the most diverse selection of films. I gobbled them up like candy-before-breakfast on Christmas morning. (Although, to this day, I question my sanity at once watching 10 different Bergman films in a single week. Not what I would recommend for your average adolescent--I was in a funk for weeks afterward.)
Later, in college, I got a job there just so I could see whatever films I wanted, anytime I wanted, and for free! You know you love the movies when you're willing to do truly menial work to sustain your habit.
(My job specifically was to clean up the theatre, including its bathrooms, after midnight showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," rock movies, and porn. Please keep in mind that this was a college town at the start of the '80s. Among other things, you could pretty much get stoned just breathing the air. And the rice! To this day, I have cleaning flashbacks if I spill rice on the floor, especially if it's damp. Good Rocky Horror fans should get this reference.)
Anyway, enough of memory lane.
I actually most appreciated Steyn's comments on the tortured state of politically correct perpetrators, so that's what I chose to blog about (hat tip to Ann, of course).
I think I'll go see if I can find my copy of "Rocky Horror" now. I'm about due for a revisit.
Peter: Yes, the Ritz! Also TLA. Mmmmmmmmmm.
Statistics are more fun than movies. What a country! What a world!
I find brylin's comments interesting in that Willis' Deuce Four movie project is getting good buzz before it is even funded or written. It used to be that movies had to be ready for the theaters, or, maybe even released, before they could get this sort of positive buzz.
But I do agree that there is a lot of potential there. Willis could probably have most of the script written from Yon's blog entries. And the resulting movie would have the advantages that it would be based on fact and positively show our troops in a heroic light.
If the movie is written and produced, and it keeps close to Yon's blog, I see a high likelyhood that it will be the definitive Iraqi war movie.
p.s. You might want to read Yon's blog, and in particular, read the series of entries on Mosul to get a better idea of what Willis is talking about.
Maybe one reason that I would never have been happy living in places like Madison or NYC is that must of this movie stuff just passed me by. When this appears to have been an important part of Ann's (and I assume many other readers here) life, I was immersed in writing software.
The closest I ever came to this sort of movie going was in dating a couple of women over the last decade or so. They were avid movie goers, and so I, for a short time, was too. But it never really caught with me.
Then again, the vast majority of my movie going over the last decade has been with my daughter watching more juvenile films. Wed. we saw the latest Harry Potter movie, and are looking forward to the upcoming Narnia film. And maybe that has skewed my appreciation of movies.
I should add the obvious from my last post, my movie going habits over the last decade have been much more driven by my daughter's desire to be able to share her movie going with her friends than my desire to share with mine.
I think part of it goes back to what my grandmother said. Talking about money in public is unseemly. If you have too liitle it comes off as whining, if too much then it sounds arrogant, and who cares if it's just right?
Talk of money distracts from the product -- in some cases that's good, but real gems get lost in the BO talk, much of which Drudge propagates.
Ann,
I’ve wasted too much time on this and came up fairly empty-handed but from what I’ve been able to find out, the two movies you gave as examples, Network, and A Clockwork Orange, earned $23 mill and $26 mill respectively. I don’t think these numbers are adjusted for inflation so for the years 1976 and 1971, again respectively, I’d say these numbers aren’t bad.
But how do they compare to the top 100 movie grosses? According to Movie Web, Rain Man occupies the 100th slot at a lifetime gross of $173 mill, a number I do believe is adjusted for inflation. (Not a bad movie, by the way, but admittedly not one the cultured elite likely spent hours conversing about.) Interesting about this list is that, except for Jaws and Star Wars, nary a movie from the 70s makes the cut. (Raging Bull did, though it’s from 1980.) And this list has an overall pretty good selection of movies, which lends credence to my theory that good movies are rewarded by the marketplace. (Though some bad movies are rewarded as well. No system is perfect.)
All this to say, people go to the movies to see the movies they want to see and not movies they necessarily want to gab about with their cultured peers. While I respect your view and feelings about art, I don’t think things have changed much, if at all. In fact, I’d say access to all kinds of movies is far better than it’s ever been.
Just like fantasy sports have impacted the experience of watching games, often in a negative manner, so too has the Hollywood Stock Exchange done the same for movies. (Danger, addictive substances lie behind above link...)
In all seriousness, movies are something of a two-tiered good. There is a certain baseline demand for "whatever opened this week", Additionally, there are certain, more discriminating tastes which actually want quality before they spend their $9 (or is it even more these days in Madtown?). My guess is that Hollywood has made the determination that, by-and-large, the marginal returns on quality aren't high enough.
1977? I think it was one movie released in 1975.
Stoqboy: Did I get the year wrong? I looked it up on IMDB. Oh, yeah. There really are two movies in the mid-70s. It is more Spielberg's fault, isn't it?
Bruce H: You beat me to the Yon link. GREAT photos of the Homecoming Ball there, and...Oh My!...the women of Deuce-Four are lovely, lovely, lovely!
For me, The Year I Quit Going to the Movies was around 1983 or so. I agree with Ann, there was a time when "cinema" was a party conversation staple. I think the biggest part of the problem is Hollywood is too safe these days. I ain't the first, nor the last, to say that. I know.
While the Steyn piece was interesting, I wonder about his choice of theatres, if he really did choose one. I go to any one of five or more multiplexes and all of them are clean, well run, the people are polite, and the theatres pretty large and plenty wide. I don't know where he lives but there must be ten or so theatres he could have attended that would have been close to my experience. I live in LA, the West Hollywood area, and I don't think my choices are dis-similar from other middle income areas around the country.
Jaws and Star Wars are not to blame for the state of modern movies. Those movies didn't introduce the blockbuster -- they re-introduced it, after a brief period (less than a decade) when smaller-scale movies dominated the scene. Hollywood has been following the "big dumb movie with name stars and big marketing campaign" formula, almost without a break, since the Silent Era.
Anyway, the reason movies aren't doing well anymore is that television has finally improved to the point where it is consistently better than movies have ever been. Add in the fact that there are more good movies on DVD than a typical person will ever have time to watch, and it isn't surprising that box office receipts are down.
Commenting on today's movies would be like commenting on a particular video gaming session; maybe those who play that game would "get it", but the rest of us would just glaze over...
That's why the grosses are more important than the movies; they're "the score."
Remember when intelligent adults thought engaging with the films of the day was an essential part of life?
Many still do. Why have some chosen to disengage with the films of the day?
I'd say people have been turned off by the hype surrounding the worst movies. It's an understandable reaction to the hype that adults would stop listening, stop going, and leave the cineplexes to teenagers (which encourages Hollywood to make more movies for teenagers). Added to this is that many of the better movies can't hang around in theaters for long, forced to make way for the next blockbuster needing a big dollar opening (a problem somewhat alleviated by DVDs).
However, there are still plenty of good movies being made that spark thought and conversation. There are more good movies released each year (from Hollywood and beyond) than I have time to see. I follow my heart and the advice of friends rather than the hype machine. It doesn't bother me that there is so much crap. There's never been a shortage of awful movies; it's always been on us to seek out worthier stuff.
Perhaps there is a greater ratio of crap movies to good movies nowadays, but what concerns me is the absolute number of good movies made each year, so long as I can avoid most of the crap. The absolute number of good movies each year has always seemed steady, and high enough to keep me happy, and so I'm not concerned about the state of filmmaking.
It's easy to list movies like Bewitched, compare them with the top masterpieces from the 70s, and claim the culture's in trouble. Is that the truth about the state of movies, though? I recently showed my mother my favorite movie of last year, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Two recent movies I rented over Thanksgiving were excellent: Downfall (about Hitler's last days in his bunker), and Closer (smartly written dialogue, and thought-provoking on the subject of deception between lovers). And the last two movies I saw in the theater - Capote and Walk the Line - weren't all-time masterpieces, but were well worth seeing. I don't know what I'm seeing next, I just know there's more good choices than I have time for.
The state of movies is often used to argue that the culture is headed down the toilet, and there's never a shortage of examples to rail against. This stems from a view that crappy movies are damaging the culture at large whether you're subjecting yourself to them or not. I've never cared whether there's crap in theaters, in book stores, on the Internet, in music stores, on television. I see a culture's outputs as being on a scale of 0 to +10, where the most worthy outputs are a positive contribution and the least worthy outputs are not positive contributions but are also not negatives. They come and go, and long after they're forgotten people are still enjoying the worthier outputs.
Others, I guess, see it as a scale of -10 to +10, and the least worthy outputs are actually negative, harmful contributions. If that were the case, though, why do people so easily brush aside all the rubbish movies from the 1970s while fondly remembering Network and A Clockwork Orange?
Follow your hearts instead of box office hype when you go to the movies and I believe you will find plenty to engage with and not despair at the quality of filmmaking today.
Similarly, don't despair about the Internet. It may be overflowing with moronic, sewer material, but with a little effort you can find blogs like...Ann Althouse's.
Oh, and I find it hard to blame Star Wars or Jaws for anything negative, since those happen to be two very fun movies that people continue to love to this day!
"Remember when intelligent adults thought engaging with the films of the day was an essential part of life?"
No, but I remember when the John Hughes movies, Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, et cetera were an essential part of teen life.
And I remember when the Kevin Smith films, Clerks, Chasing Amy, et cetera were an essential part of my twenties.
As a thirty-something the closest thing I have to those movies is Wedding Crashers and Old-School, but I'm not complaining. They don't really engage, but they sure do entertain.
For engaging adult movies I think Philip Seymour Hoffman is your best bet. He's on a great roll.
No, but I remember when the John Hughes movies, Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, et cetera were an essential part of teen life.
Hughes' movie Planes, Trains & Automobiles is one I never fail to watch on Thanksgiving eve each year.
HaloJonesFan said
"Cinema is still a conversation staple. We just watch it by ourselves and call it "television"."
This is an excellent point. Jim Emerson, Roger Ebert's web-editor recently discussed this at length. Consider:
But few full-length movie comedies offer as much quick wit, sophisticated multi-layered political and pop-culture satire, or hilariously nuanced characterizations as a half-hour of "Arrested Development" or "The Simpsons" or "South Park" or "My Name is Earl" -- or "The Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report."
I might add "The Boondocks" or "Family Guy" or "Scrubs" to that list, but you get the point.
Similarly: Movie franchises, like "Harry Potter" or "Lord of the Rings" or even "Star Wars" have generated much of the excitement (and revenue) at theaters and on DVD the last several years. But they're only mimicking what long-form series television has done best for a long time: tell a story with many characters and interwoven plot lines over a long stretch. I don't think any movie (or series of movies) is doing it as well (or with as much visual flair and intelligence and beauty) as ABC's "Lost." To watch "Lost" on a big-screen HDTV (and now, the whole first season on DVD) is to have a rich, cinematic experience that has all but vanished from actual movie theaters.
Will any mob movie work, post-Sopranos? Same with the western and Deadwood. Heck, "The O.C." is probably superior to crappy teen comedies in terms of both actual content and gratuitous demi-porn.
"Remember when intelligent adults thought engaging with the films of the day was an essential part of life?" Something you have - or had - in common with France but not with Britain.
To completely mangle Norma Desmond. . . .Not only did the pictures get smaller, but the TVs got better. (try hearing that with Gloria Swanson's voice, it sounds much better that way)
Now to explain myself (probably needlessly, most commenters should already know exactly what I mean)
'Serious films' rarely play at good theaters (or in many parts of the country and world, at all).
Many adults prefer watching their serious films on their serious home entertainment systems that often have better pictures and sound than can be found at the local mini-multiplex screen.
'Popcorn movies' are targeted to the people who still enjoy the communal experience and have the disposal income to waste (aka teens and now pre-teens (parents really should re-think allowances, pre-teens with significant disposable income scares me)). So the least serious films play on the best screens (but only for the first 2 weeks until the next overhyped 'must see' remake of a TV show gets released, don't look at the IMDB listings of films for 2006 unless you love yet more remakes (just to name a few Dallas, Deathrace 3000, Get Smart, He-Man, Lavender Hill Mob, Wicker Man (2 versions even!)))
Plus nostalgia is tricky. The number of studio releases was relatively small throughout the 70s and the entire industry was in somewhat of a slump but for a few mega hits. All those great pictures that all the 'smart' folk were talking about weren't seen by that many folk.
Plus the celebrity industry makes the personality aspect loom large over everything else. Whereas the early 70s are seen as the golden era of film criticism so it makes sense that auteur type films got better press.
I used to go to see 90% of the movies in the theater, regardless of quality. Four-movie Sundays were the highlight of my week. I've mostly stopped seeing movies in the theater because I can't deal with noisy people. I've sat in theaters where I've experienced everything from drunks yelling at the screen, to a woman loudly saying "Uh-Oh!" through a horror movie, to parents bringing their grade-school kids to inappropriate movies where the kids cry and whimper through the whole flick, to people standing in the entrance of the theater talking on their cell phones in a loud tone of voice, not knowing or caring that their conversation carries through the entire theater. Asking people politely to be quiet just seems to offend them (how dare you try to enjoy your movie experience!) and make them louder.
This seemed to be getting worse and worse starting about four years ago. Many theatergoers don't seem to realize that they're paying rent for their seat, and that they should try not to disturb other patrons, any more than they would bang on their apartment walls with a hammer at 3 am. The theater employees don't seem to care, so I don't care to give them my money. A couple of years ago we bought a big-screen TV so that we wouldn't have to go to the movies, and we only make a trip to the cineplex if there's something out that just wouldn't be done justice on a smaller screen, or if the movie is one that will attract a crowd that is unlikely to talk, i.e. at an indie theater (although this hasn't proven to work well recently either).
Hollywood is to much: (you choose)
1. in love with itself
2. PC to the max
3. Left wing
to do a good job with a "film of the day" as Ann describes it.
It's been 4 years since 9/11. We all can debate and argue (we have been) about the rectitude of the war in Iraq. Fine, I'll concede that point.
But why no feature film or even TV docudrama about 1 of the 4 planes on 9/11? Horrific violence? Three Thousand dying? Every single one of the more than one thousand deaths seemed to be shown over about 30 minutes of film in Titanic didn't seem to be a problem then? Why not focus on Flight 77 into the Pentagon or the heroic decisions and combat over Pennsylvania as the passengers attempted to take back their plane?
Terrorists did that. Why can't Hollywood say that without trying to airbrush history?
Instead all we get is PC. Don't offend this group or that group. Christ, it's history not fiction, why can't it be portrayed accurately? The only villains that Hollywood seems to allow are:
1. The evil CIA
2. The military or some sick wacko PTS victim
3. The military / industrial / Oil / Walmart / Haliburton Complex
The only films I've bothered to seem on wide screen in 4 years are:
1. LoTRs
2. Harry Potters
3. Master and Commander
4. March of the Penguins
Drill Sgt:
But why no feature film or even TV docudrama.... Why not focus on Flight 77 into the Pentagon or the heroic decisions and combat over Pennsylvania as the passengers attempted to take back their plane?
There are 9/11 films being made that will come out soon. I agree with your point about how weird it is that Hollywood is afraid to deal with Islamic-jihdad terrorism in general, however I can sorta understand why they wanted to wait before dealing with 9/11 itself. Some time probably had to pass.
Anyway, you may be interested to know some details of the 9/11 movies being made.
One, unfortunately, is directed by Oliver Stone, who is probably the last person who should deal with that subject given his sympathies with the enemy.
USA TODAY:
"Stone started shooting scenes in New York last month for his untitled film, starring Nicolas Cage as one of two policemen who survived the towers' collapse and were rescued from the trade center ruins after 22 hours."
Apparently the film will not include Stone's politics, but we shall see....
Also from USA TODAY:
"The Stone film may not be the first studio film about Sept. 11 to be released. "Flight 93," a Universal Studios film about the hijacked plane that left Newark, N.J., and crashed into a Pennsylvania field, is scheduled for an April release."
And:
"Other Sept. 11 films are in development, including an adaptation of the book, "102 Minutes" and a TV miniseries based on the findings of the Sept. 11 commission."
That book 102 Minutes is, in my opinion, the best book about 9/11.
Takes you right inside the buildings on that horrible day.
Link to the USA Today article:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2005-11-02-stone-filming-new-york_x.htm
Oh good, an Oliver Stone flick on 9/11. The Evil CIA at the direction of the BUSHITLER planted explosives in the towers.
Oh boy, the 9/11 Commission Movie. The Evil CIA at the direction of the BUSHITLER planted explosives in the towers.
The other 2? I cant see how to screw up a Flight 93, but who knows.
I'd like to see a Flight 93 flick and my candidate for a Twin Towers flock would be based on this article
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020211fa_FACT1
about Rick Rescorla. He was a hero in the classic Vietnam book:
We Were Soldiers Once and Young
on 9/11 he was the Security Director of Morgan Stanley / Dean Witter located in the WTC. When the planes hit, he put his plan in place and flushed nearly 3000 emplyees out of their safe offices down a hundred flights of stairs. Once they were all out, he was last seen heading back up to check one more time. Rick did not make it out. Neither did two of his security officers who were at
his side. But only three other Morgan Stanley employees died when their building was obliterated.
However, over 2600 employees of Dean Whitter walked out of the south tower and in to the rest of their lives that morning.
read more about this hero at:
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/000307.html
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