Posted on 02/02/2004 9:59:04 AM PST by truthandlife
Hollywood is in a huff that Americans are staying away from the movies in droves. It just can't seem to make the connection between the horrible quality of its recent releases and the disastrous box-office figures.
Critics as well as Joe and Jane Sixpack have been holding their noses at such duds as "The Butterfly Effect," "Paycheck," "The Perfect Score," "Torque" and "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton."
"The year got off to a frigid start as the national box office in January registered an anemic $628.8 million - the lowest gross in the past four years. And worse yet, admissions for the month could only muster a bleak seventh-best showing," Hollywood Reporter fretted today. (Make that "muster only.")
"Estimated admissions for January were 103.5 million - a decrease of 3% from last year's 106.8 million and down nearly 10% from the 114.5 million tallied for the month in 2002. Essentially, it was the lowest attendance registered in the past seven years. And compared with the record for the month, total ticket units were down a grim 18% from the 126.1 million counted in 1998, when 'Titanic' was on its unprecedented maiden voyage through theaters."
January is a notorious time for Tinseltown to dump some of its worst fodder, but this year's lineup is stinky even by those low standards.
"Pure disaster," Robert Butler of the Kansas City Star said of "The Big Bounce," which rated a miserable 15 percent at rottentomatoes.com and made only $3.3 million to tank at 12th place in its debut.
The only bright news at the box office: the decent leftovers from last year's batch. Although released in December, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" was January's most popular movie.
Well, of course I'm kidding, I'm not THAT old. But why haven't I seen more than 4 or 5 movies in the past decade?
Because I live in a time warp of a happier day. And I'm not ashamed of it.
I don't go to the show today because I want something for my money and I want to be really excited about a trip to the movie house.
I want to see a double feature, and then News of the Day, then a short subject, then a cartoon, then an episode of Flash Gordon and the Mud People, and then a preview of coming attractions. Damn right I do!
I want time to go to the lobby between films to get my pop corn, Black Crows and Holloway Sucker without writing a check. I want to be escorted back to my seat by a pimply-faced kid showing me the way with a flashlight.
I want to see real movies, not elongated episodes of mindless TV yuppie series.
I want to be able to sit with a friend or family member without cringing in embarassment at the obligatory sex gyration scene in every film.
I want to see history, foreign lands, timeless tales and stories with charismatic actors and actresses who are handsome and beautiful and who have combed hair they don't grab every 20 seconds to keep it out of their eyes, and who don't deliver their lines through their noses.
I want the movie moguls to give paying customers what the customers want, not what they want to shove down our throats.
But I can't get what I want in today's Tivolis. I can't even get a Tivoli. They're all Cinemas 1, 2, 3 and 4.
However, since I'm the greatest movie fan that ever lived, I can pretty much reproduce all that I love in my own frontroom with a VCR, DVD, and my buddy, Orville Redenbacher.
I predict that some if not a lot of this bountiful movie pleasure and enchantment will return some day thanks to some genius entrepeneur. Why? Because it will have to....or films will play to empty houses.
That's the happy day I'll go back to the movies. I'll spend Saturday afternoons in the Lido downtown. I'll stay for two complete double feature cycles. I'll have time to use the washroom with the crystal chandelier on the ceiling.
Then, on the way home, I'll park my bike and stop for a chocolate soda with two wafers on the doily.
Let me know when to come back, Mr. De Mille, just let me know.
Leni
Although I wouldn't go as far as to say I can't stand "any", I'm not interested in watching a movie during which I have to somehow put out of my mind there denigration of our nation and values and at the same time put money into their pockets. Sorry, books are more interesting then movies, and the whiny, America-hating, hypocritical loud-mouthed liberals can just sell their trash to the 30% or so dimocrat faithful.
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