It’d be like restricting Taylor Swift to vinyl…
Or having Jason Isbell play the Grammys instead of Luke Bryan.
How in hell did the movie business lose touch with America?
The Oscars used to be an international rite.
A veritable holiday. Movies drove the culture, especially after classic rock decimated credibility in music and disco took over…
Hell, isn’t this the exact same thing?
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and as a result losing your core audience? The music business imploded in 1979. If it wasn’t for MTV’s appearance in 1981 it would have been a dark, cold, lonely winter for much of the 1980s.
Then rap killed the lowest common denominator hairbands.
Don’t the movie studios realize they’re killing their own business?
Happened in music too.
We called it Napster. Whereupon it was proven everybody wanted everything and they wanted it now.
But now, there’s an endless hype cycle for mostly unworthy movies and those that are good require a trip to the theater. Who wants to go to the theater? Certainly not me.
I love the experience, of a big screen and good sound, but the problem is movies don’t start when I want them to. We live in an on demand culture and movies are not on demand.
So I don’t go.
I don’t know anybody who goes, except for my octogenarian mother, who grew up believing in the religion of attendance.
I too used to go, every night in the mid 1970s. That was back when movies were part of the national discussion.
Does anybody discuss “The Lego Movie” or “Guardians Of The Galaxy” other than the grosses?
Meanwhile, Amazon steals the Academy’s thunder by making a deal with Woody Allen. That’s the big story this week, not these nominations for films most people have not seen.
At least now the Grammys get it right.
They nominate what the labels push, at least in the big categories. If you’re not successful, you can’t play. But the holier-than-thou film folk sell candy every Friday, but once a year want to turn on those who keep them alive and focus on foie gras. Huh?
Meanwhile, the bankrupt media trumpets the nominations as if they matter.
They don’t matter.
They’re as interesting as lacrosse statistics to those who never played the game.
People want story. Isn’t that the essence of the television renaissance?
And big time movies are all whiz-bang, with cartoon characters made for adolescents who have now stopped going to the theater too.
That’s the latest bad statistic for the film business, the cratering of teen attendance.
But ain’t how that always is in modern society?
You rule until you die…suddenly.
Everybody thought digital photography was a joke; it was on the horizon for years. And then in the space of 24 months, film cratered.
Same deal with CDs…
They may still be a strong revenue source, but they’re miniscule compared to streams and stolen files. Thank god the labels authorized Spotify, otherwise they’d be like the movie companies, protecting dying retail…in this case movie theatres…and sacrificing their audience in the process.
At least you could see “The Interview” when demand was hot, when the publicity peaked. I was invited to a viewing party. Who wants to go to a viewing party months after the marketing? When the buzz is done.
Quick, name the winner of last year’s NBA championship – even the World Series!
There’s so much going on today that we can’t even remember what went on yesterday.
I used to record the films when they hit HBO. But then I stopped even that, because I wasn’t watching them.
Now you’ve got to subscribe to HBO, Netflix and Amazon Prime.
That’s like shopping for groceries at multiple stores. Who’s got the time, never mind the money?
But no one wants to bite the bullet.
No one in the film industry wants to rock the boat. They don’t realize they’re balkanizing the market.
The truth is few people care. Hell, even the ratings for the Golden Globes went down.
Do you even recognize the Oscar nominees?
You can tell me how many iPhones there are, and what their storage configurations are. But who cares about this dreck?
You’ve got to make it easy today. Talk to music people. The hardest thing is getting people to listen…and continue to listen.
If you’re about windowing and restrictions, you’re ignorant.
And if (film producer) Amy Pascal wasn’t caught up in the hacking scandal, you wouldn’t even know her name. Hell, I bet more teens and 20-somethings know who (venture capitalist) Chris Sacca is – he’s got a better track record and he’s on the bleeding edge, changing society.
That’s right, our films used to reflect society and change it.
And for all the endless hype about “Boyhood,” where was I supposed to see it?
How successful do you think “1989” would be if you couldn’t stream the hits on YouTube?
Imagine that, a record release that you couldn’t hear. That’s the movie business, you can’t SEE the flicks!
I’m sure Woody Allen likes the money. And he’s so damn old, it’s like when Fred Silverman made that deal with Lucille Ball… But one thing Allen knows is you can reach many more eyeballs online, and that Amazon doesn’t mess with your creativity, something the movie studios cannot help but doing.
So there you have it.
All the talent – and there’s not much of it – not top-draw, dependable icons, is migrating to TV and the new banks/distributors…who make the entire series viewable on a single date. And the movie business’s answer?
HOLD AN AWARDS SHOW HONORING FILMS PEOPLE HAVEN’T SEEN AND DON’T CARE ABOUT!
Hell is freezing over.
Good article.
The Best Picture winner “Shape of Water” made a total of $57 million domestically. “Black Panther” did that on a slow Tuesday. People will still turn out for “event” movies. I don’t know anyone who’s seen “Shape of Water”.
Very good point
bizarre movie shape of water….
but it was interesting…if you took 3 good one hitters before watching it!
saw it at cinetopia….wooooooooow!
we nearly cleaned out the concession stand of jujubees and milk duds.
Next up: free movies at cinemark in mission on johnson drive!
Totally agree, but Woody Allen is a perv and I don’t care whether he has figured out the new reality. He’s still a perv.
Yep.
It doesn’t help that the Hollywood “elite” have turned the show into nothing but political ranting and virtue signalling. These hypocritical dickwads are under the delusion that the rank and file Americans give a shit about what they have to say. They are the biggest collection of morally bereft hypocrites I’ve ever seen.
Guy, I believe the needle is pegged on the hypocrite-o-meter in Washington D.C., not Hollywood. While I’m not swayed one way or the other by anyone in Hollywood, the “elites” that actually MAKE policy are the ones elected by the hypocritical “rank and file” scattered throughout this nation. Both parties are guilty of turning a blind eye to ANYTHING their candidate says or does as long as they have the correct letter next to their name. It’s all about the R’s and D’s. Period.
Believe what you want Jim, but sadly hypocrisy is almost part of the job description in DC. Not that I excuse it. I loathe it.
That being said, the hypocrisy of Hollywood and the entertainment industry is far worse. These empty headed douche-nozzles prop up the sexual deviants, child molesters, pedophiles, rapists, etc. when it serves their careers. Then when it’s “fashionable”, make up some slogan to trumpet at their award shows in order to virtue signal, and use it to lecture the rest of the masses of the United States that they consider unwashed, uneducated, and unfortunate. Just get out of my face with that crap. These assholes do nothing but play make believe their entire lives. Leave it Dolly Parton to be the one with any wisdom at all. She recently stated that she learned a long time ago that if you want to be in the entertainment industry, it’s best to just keep your politics to yourself.
+1,000,000
Won’t argue that the industry is partitioning the market, but will disagree on one point – they are deliberately doing so and waiting to see which revue stream shakes out: Will it be “VHS” or “Beta”? Whichever, the future of the industry is rapidly changing.
And as much as Hollywood has started shedding Boomers in their deliberate segue to the iGeneration, common sense and lessons learned have also reduced this particular slice of the national agora from a healthy wedge to a dieter’s sliver: Theater attendance has declined every year since the Aurora, CO, ruminant hunt.
I still patronize theaters (yes, when I can find the flic I want), usually in the off-hours. Not for convenience, but for the smaller audience sizes; one is less likely to be lead-sprayed by an assault weapon if the anticipated kill rate is minuscule (for the most part those boys sure do like their numbers.) And you hardly ever get killed streaming Amazon’s “Mud” at home.
With less attendance (and its attendant common discussion) comes less overall interest in the industry itself. Especially when the Academy does stupid sh*t like Give “Rocky” an Oscar over “Network”, Taxi Driver” and “All the President’s Men” (or name your favorite outrage – the Academy seems to manage to engineer one annually.)
This has been ongoing for over a decade now. Don’t see it it reversing.
Interesting perspective. Thanks for posting it, Nick.
lefty…you are the most depressed person i’ve ever seen.\
Nothing is good anymore.\
Find a good dr and take some antidepressants. You might make it thru a day
without feeling so down!