Posted on 03/17/2006 4:52:43 AM PST by abb
In a loud corner of the Bally's hotel convention floor, a dozen beefy, bare-chested men wearing chicken masks and black Lycra tights leapt from a wrestling ring onto the exhibition floor. It was a welcome distraction at the annual ShoWest convention this week, where the aim is to whip up enthusiasm among movie theater owners for the coming summer blockbusters.
Theater owners and studios fret about smaller audiences, like this one for a 7 p.m. show of "The Hills Have Eyes" in Las Vegas on Monday. Readers Forum: Movies
Deftly stepping to avoid a flying wrestler (part of the promotion for the June release of a new Jack Black movie, "Nacho Libre"), Frank J. Rimkus, the chief executive of Galaxy Theaters, based in Sherman Oaks, Calif., mused on the subject preoccupying most convention attendees, namely, the future of American moviegoing.
"There is a general recognition that the world of entertainment is opening up in ways that we can't imagine today, we are launching into a whole new era," he said. He added, with a note of self-confession: "We are trying to understand what the public wants. And Galaxy does not yet have a handle on it."
The slide in American moviegoing was an open wound at the ShoWest convention, and was addressed with unusual directness by John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, and Dan Glickman, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, in their speeches here.
The decline in attendance for three consecutive years "is a trend that must be reversed," Mr. Glickman declared in his address Tuesday; he still called himself "bullish about the moviegoing experience." A former secretary of agriculture, Mr. Glickman suggested that the film industry undertake something similar to the "Got Milk" campaign that promoted the dairy industry as a whole.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No matter what the format, crap is crap.
When your brain is dead already, the body will follow.
Movies made for World audiences must offend US citizens..
The movie industry is now made for foreign film goers..
too bad, but I will not miss them.
Lets hope the third world salary structure hits Hollywood, they are living much too high for the pennies they can charge in third world theaters.
"Mr. Glickman suggested that the film industry undertake something similar to the "Got Milk" campaign that promoted the dairy industry as a whole."
How about, "GOT NOT JUNK?"
the aim is to whip up enthusiasm among movie theater owners for the coming summer blockbusters.
Yeah, that's gonna do it, all right.
The best bet for the theatres is specialty, IMAX and the 4-D approach they use at amusement parks for big FX movies only. Or perhaps a new line of moviemaking, specializing in IMAX and 4D. That will make for a much smaller industry.
Brokeback Mountain author, 70 year old Annie Proulx, probably agrees. Ticked off her story translated into film didn't get the best picture award, she complained with the odd complaint heard from many of us:
In Saturday’s edition of The Guardian, Proulx accused the Academy voters of being out of touch with everything. "Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good," she wrote.
. . . [ Proulx ] compared Academy members with heffalumps, the plump elephant-like character in Winnie the Pooh.
Strange bedfellows.
The people who actually run Hollywood operate almost completely on fear. Everyone is afraid of making a mistake and getting fired. Of course, getting fired is what they have needed for a long, long time.
Movies are now negotiated "packages" that start with agents and producers packaging name actors and directors with a pitched concept. All the players are contracted to work together. This insures the agents get a bunch of money in commissions.
After the package is assembled, the LAST THING DONE is to see if they can find writers to write some kind of story to make the movie.
This explains the revolving door of writers on movies and the endless script revisions and complete rewrites that haunt the industry.
STORY IS NOW THE VERY LAST PRIORITY IN HOLLYWOOD....
...and, BOY, DOES IT SHOW!
The quality of the script is far more important than the big-name actors which is why there can be terrible movies loaded with good actors AND, conversely, great movies made with total unknowns.
Unfortunately today's "packaging" doesn't start with a great script.
Hollywood's problem is systemic and fatally flawed and it will be taken down.
The future of movies will be led by independent filmmakers, shooting digitally, who START with great scripts.
I turd with new bells and whistles is still a turd.
I = A
MSM is cannibal. Grow a new arm or star or format and eat it by feeding it to the market. I ain't the market.
Yup -- and no matter how expensive the perfume you spray on it is, it still smells like sh!t.
I wish someone in the movie industry would ask me what is wrong.
For me to attend a movie theater, the film has to be good enough that I do not want to wait to see it on DVD. It's that simple. Make good films, and they will come.
"Rot -- hollywood films are aimed only at liberalgaylords"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>...........
look at the standards of the EU , I think we agree.
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This'll bail 'em out. |
That would be my biggest complaint. I can only name a couple of recent movies that didn't take a swing at conservatives, religion, or George Bush at some point during the movie.
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