Hollywood's disconnect

The standard entertainment industry reaction to Hollywood's box office slump reveals the same shallow, materialistic mindset that helped create the problem in the first place. The left-leaning thinking that dominates the movie business follows a common liberal instinct to deny the spiritual dimension to every problem, thereby profoundly compounding the difficulties.

Tinseltown's recent setbacks suggest a crisis of major proportions, with a May USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll showing 48% of adults going to movies less often than in 2000. For 19 consecutive weeks, motion picture releases earned less (despite higher ticket prices) than the year before. Projected ticket sales for all of 2005 indicate a disastrous drop of at least 8% - at a time of population growth and a generally robust economy.

USA TODAY ran a headline, "Where have all the moviegoers gone?" under which insiders discussed their desperate attempts to rebuild the shattered audience: "The lures include providing high-tech eye candy through 3-D digital projection and IMAX versions of movies. ... Stadium seating, which improves views, is just now becoming standard. Other theaters are opting for screenings that serve alcohol to patrons 21 and older."

Revealingly, none of the studio honchos talked about reconnecting with the public by adjusting the values conveyed by feature films, and replacing the industry's shrill liberal posturing with a more balanced ideological perspective.

Something clearly changed between 2004 and 2005 to cause an abrupt drop-off at the box office, and the most obvious alteration involved Hollywood's role in the bitterly fought presidential election. The entertainment establishment embraced John Kerry with near unanimity - and bashed George W. Bush with unprecedented ferocity.

Michael Moore became an industry hero and the most visible symbol of the Hollywood left. Innumerable callers to my radio show expressed resentment at the strident partisanship of top stars; no one ever complained about the lack of 3-D digital projection or alcoholic beverages at concession stands.

Despite efforts by entertainer activists, a majority of voters cast their ballots for Bush. If even a minority of those 62 million GOP voters - say, 20% - reacted to Hollywood's electioneering by shunning the multiplex, it could easily account for the sharp decline in ticket sales after Bush's re-election.

Another values-oriented phenomenon of last year similarly contributed to missing moviegoers: The Passion of the Christ earned $370 million by drawing religious-minded patrons who had long avoided movies altogether. Amazingly, no major release in the 17 months since the opening of The Passion attempted to appeal to that huge, wary churchgoing audience. Walt Disney Co. hopes that the faithful will flock to theaters during Christmas season to see the adaptation of the Christian allegory by C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but that promised deliverance is still five months away - an eternity in show business time.

Meanwhile, conventional wisdom ignores all ideological considerations in explaining the sudden box office collapse, concentrating instead on purely material excuses (high ticket prices, availability of DVDs) that have, frankly, applied for years. This knee-jerk tendency to offer direct, physical solutions to deep-seated problems constitutes an unmistakable element in the liberal outlook that remains Hollywood's reigning faith.

To combat threats to the family from out-of-wedlock births, for instance, the left offers birth control and abortion - though illegitimacy soared as "reproductive choice" became widely available. On crime, liberals stress gun control - despite statistics showing states with widespread gun ownership producing less criminal violence. To fight poverty, progressives want more funding for welfare and public housing - ignoring the destructive impact of a culture of dependency and the failure of government projects in every big city. On the core question of terrorism, liberals blame economic deprivation, suggesting foreign aid to dry up anti-Americanism - downplaying the depravity at the heart of Muslim militancy that draws its murderous leadership from the Middle East's most privileged classes.

This same habitual blindness to spiritual, substantive dimensions of every significant challenge continues to handicap Hollywood. Paramount Pictures recently announced that the first major thriller dramatizing 9/11, with Nicholas Cage as a rescuer attempting to escape the wreckage, will be directed by notorious conspiracist Oliver Stone. Aside from his recent drug busts and box office bombs (the gay-themed Alexander and his documentary paean to Fidel Castro, Commandante), Stone has compiled a vast collection of anti-American statements, including his 1987 declaration: "I think America has to bleed. I think the corpses have to pile up. ... Let the mothers weep and mourn."

Meanwhile, Tinseltown will continue to weep and mourn as long as its bosses depend on the likes of Stone to portray the worst terrorist attacks in our history. Americans aren't stupid, and we're not all apolitical; many (at least a third) are even self-consciously conservative in both politics and values.

In Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign, his staff kept focused with the help of a sign: "It's the economy, stupid." In their campaign to bring back disillusioned moviegoers, Hollywood's honchos ought to consider similar signs, reminding themselves, "It's the values, stupid."

BB was much better than WOTW, both in overall execution and in faithfulness to the original material. But if there's one thing Spielberg knows how to do it's make money on a movie. He's the guy that accidentally invented the summer blockbuster (prior to Jaws summer was considered a movie release deadzone) I would hope he knows how to make a solid summer blockbuster. I didn't bother to see it though, I've grown sick of Spielberg's crap (not political crap, I'm good at ignoring that when watching movies, his story telling crap, he's far to willing to sell out a good story for a "popular" story) and the changes I saw to the story in the previews drove me away. I might have swallowed my disgust had they not named it War of the Worlds, it looked like a pretty solid generic alien invasion movie, but I just couldn't accept it as War of the Worlds, that story is too important in the history of sci-fi for me to tolerate it's butchery by Spielberg.

If you didn't see it how could you know? BB was a completely generic piece of product with no directorial vision behind it. The entire first act in Bhutan was breathakingly dull. And Nolan can't stage fight scenes to save his life. It could have been made by any one of 100 Hollywood hacks. WOTW however is a genuine vision. He takes more risks then any other big budget director. Whatever complaints you can make about A.I. and Minority Report, lack of ambition wasn't one of them.

Perhaps. I'd have to see her actual statement. But unless she framed it as "half my audience is Republican, and half is Democrat" then she made a clear political statement.

Lindsay Lohan said, "I'm not very politically involved. And I don't like to talk about it. I mean, if you say you're a Democrat, that'll turn off Republicans and that's half your fan base."

I saw the previews, they made it painfully obvious that the movie would have almost nothing to do with the story of War of the World, and then just to make sure I went over to Rotten Tomatoes and check their reviews (they're a lot less susceptible to director worship, way too many paid reviewers will laud any crap Speilberg puts out just because they love him).

I liked BB, I don't think the first act was dull at all, it established how this Batman was going to be like the original comicbook design of the character and not like the previous movies. It was a Batman movie for real Batman fans, somebody who doesn't like the real Batman wouldn't like it, but that's OK, not all moves are for all people.

Actually I will say AI and Minority report lacked ambition. And ambitious director would have realized that these stories just couldn't have happy endings and would have let the stories end properly without supergluing half-assed happy endings on the end for the sake of bax office. But SS has NEVER been able to do that in his career, he MUST have a happy ending (except for his occasional "message" movies like Schindler, which I'm pretty sure just exist to salve his conscience for making so much money producing the perfect mass market tripe). The only vision SS has for most of his movies is the box office receipts, his primary talent these days is feeding the market, I'll give him the credit he's due for being able to make the type of movie Americans like, but frankly he bores me. And it was clear from the previews and the reviews (both from those who liked the movie and didn't) that WOTW was just another SS movie, and I've had enough of those.

My wife wants to see "Must Love Dogs," since she likes Diane Lane and it looks like it might be a funny little romantic comedy. It would be the first non-bird-documentary we've seen in a theater all summer.

Then last night, the star, John Cusack, came on Letterman to promote it and just couldn't talk for 10 minutes without slamming President Bush. They were talking about the hurricanes and heat wave and what causes them, and Cusack said, "I'd like to blame the guy who was the subject of your Top 10 list (Bush), but I guess I can't blame him for everything," and chortled at his cleverly concealed political statement.

Now, I'm thinking twice about paying to see this movie. Good promotin', John! The studio should be proud of you!

Previews almost always misrepresent a movie making good ones look bad and bad ones look good. I can't your comments about WOTW seriously unless you've seen it. Try to see it in a theater as the sound mix is one of the best thigns about it.

I don't know which of his films you would call 'mass marketed tripe'. The Sugarland Express? Empire of the Sun? E.T. was expected to be a small little personal film. Movies about children hadn't made money at the time in almost 20 years. And in general he raised the level of main steam filmmaking in the mid 70s. Jaws and Close encounters were worlds away from the Love Story, The Towering Inferno, the Poseidon Adventure type of junk that was clogging theaters at the time.

P.S. The ending of A.I. is most definitely not happy.

Previews often make bad movies look good, but it's rare for them to make good movies look bad. I will not be seeing WOTW, everything YOU'VE said about it afirms the opinion I got during the previews I would hate every minute of it.

Sugarland Express - one of his early movies that's actually very good, back when he used his talent. Important to note as much as I despise the modern SS Jaws is one of my all time favorite movies, problem is he just doesn't put the level of work into movies anymore
Empire of the Sun - this was actually the movie that first made me theorize that SS was feeling guilt over all the mass market tripe he was producing so he needed to make something "important"
ET - who expected it to be a small personal movie?! That thing got hyped up the wazzoo, I rememer seeing a full page print add for it in the paper 3 months before it came out. And really ET sucked, it was stupid and insulted the audience with its pedestrian heart string tugging.

Other movies that were "clogging" the theaters during SS's rise: Godfather, American Graffitti, Patton, A Bridge Too Far. Sure you can pick and chose bad movies during that time period, you can pick and cose bad movies during any time period. But when you open your eyes you see there was plenty of good stuff going on that wasn't SS.

The ending of AI is much happier than it would have been if SS ended the movie when he should have. Closing credits should have run with bot-boy chanting in his ship staring at the statue, but that was too much of a downer for Spielberg, he needed the kid to be real at least for a little while, and resurrecting the Close Encounter aliens was just silly.

Lindsay Lohan said, "I'm not very politically involved. And I don't like to talk about it. I mean, if you say you're a Democrat, that'll turn off Republicans and that's half your fan base."

That's somewhat better stated. Kudos to Lindsay.

What I'd really like to hear from one of these folks is:

I don't talk about politics. I'm an actor and my job is to try to master my craft and skills to give the best possible entertainment to my fans. I appreciate all their support and will continue trying to do my best to deserve it.

Those weren't aliens at the end of A.I. those were advanced Mechas. the Osment character has a fake day with a fake mom in an artificial suburban environment and dies. I don't call that happy. It was more of a criticism of his earlier films if anything. (The only place a Spielbergian suburban paradise could exist is in a petrie dish) E.T. was a cheaply made film that no one thought would make any money at all. Can you think of any movies about children and their experience that were popular in the late 60s and 70s? It was also a masterpiece. A capturing a of a child's emotional experience and the epiphanies of childhood in general to put beside the best Disney films (Bambi, Pinocchio).

The commerical success of The Godfather was an aberration. The movies I listed were almost always the highest grossing films of their release year. I could add The Sting and Blazing Saddles as well. Not my idea of cinematic art. I didn't say there was no good stuff then. It just wasn't popular. The mass audience wasn't rushing out to see Mean Streets or Mccabe and Mrs Miller.

Whatever they were, they sure looked like the Close Encounter aliens. The Osment character got to almost be real, and got to hear his mom say she loved him, much happier than the natural ending for the story, not as happy as a typical Spielberg ending but given what a downer the rest of the movie was it was pretty happy. I'll give him technical props in AI for doing an excellent immitation of Kubrick, up until that last 10 or 15 minutes he really did manage to shelve the Spielberg style and direct like somebody else which is a pretty good accomplishment for an established director, especially given how different Kubrick's style was from Spielberg's.

If nobody expected ET to make any money then why did they spend so much on advertising? It opened in 1100 theaters, this was not a movie people thought wasn't going to make money. Maybe they didn't think it was going to make as much as it did, but there's no way they thought it would make nothing. Masterpiece my butt, it captured a bunch of foul mouthed obnoxious brats hanging out with an alien deliberately designed for mass appeal (Spielberg even pretty much admitted that when he said the key to a sympathetic alien character was big eyes).

Godfather wasn't an aberation, the movies I listed were all in the highest groses for their year too, there were good movies making good money while Spielberg was still directing TV. You don't like Blazing Saddles?! Well now we know that you should never be allowed to pass a quality judgement on movies again. The mass audiences were rushing out to see good movies and bad, just like always.

Of course they were going to promote it as much as they can. Why shouldn't they? My point was there was no immediate precedent for its success. What audience do you think they were trying to capture at the time? Like I said there were no commerically successful films about children since the early 60s. If you were going for mass appeal in 1981 that was not what you did. You'd cast Burt Reynolds or Chevy Chase.

You can reduce it to a one line summary if you like but it appealed to people all over the world for a reason...even in places like Malyasia. It premiered out of competition at the Cannes festival and got a standing ovation from the most sophisticated film going audience in the world (and the French aren't big Spielberg fans). And American Graffiti was every bit as calculated to appeal to a certain generation as anything SS ever made

I pretty agree.
I just don't go much anymore as I too have Netflix and can find interesting stuff to watch that is also hard to find.
I also find very little on TV to watch anymore as it is way too much reality TV and a real dearth of good drams and sitcoms.
And like many of you the first run movies are hitting DVD earlier and I can watch them in my home on my big TV and pause the action whenever I want and watch it at my leisure.
There certainly are some pictures I would like to see but they are now few and far between.
I also are tired of the Damn message movies and the subtle type liberal messages I see in films.
Biggest thing is I am sick and tired of Hollywood actors giving me their Liberal views and every time another does that is just more one person whose movies I try and quit watching. I just don't need the aggravation.

Batman's done pretty solid in the box office too, but it's not putting up Spiderman numbers

Toby McQuire makes Spiderman happen. Plus it is light in delivery and the audience can sit back and watch it in essence over and over again like reading a comic book.

Batman, in my view, is too heavy for a youthful audience. But Batman has no super powers, everything he does he has to create from science and/or mechanics.

I skipped the Wedding Crashers and popped in to see The Bad News Bears. Much better movie, in my view; if you want an hour of laughter. Plus, in part, sends a good message to the kids. You catch the American Flag waving in the end.

Are you a Hollywood flack?..... My business partner who is a movie goer and a sci fi lover, said WoW was the worst movie he had seen in quite a while

To each his own. Depends on your expectations. I was not looking for an award winning film. Just a couple hours "at the movies"..being entertained.

Will tell you this. ;) After absorbed in the complete chaos depicted in WOW; I went over to Home Depot where the "Backstreet Boys" were playing over the sound system and customers were meandering with carts slowly through the aisles. It was like being tossed immediately into a "different world" from whence I had just come.

Wasn't a great movie ;but was better than some of Cruise's other attempts after Risky Business or Jerry McQuire. Was worth the price of admission to me.

If you don't think a movie is going to make a lot of money you don't spend a lot promoting it and you don't open it in 1100 1982 theaters. If it's not going to make a lot of money spending a bunch on advertising just means you lose more. Movies that are expected to gross quietly are released quietly. If you were going to make a mass appeal movie in 1981 you let Spielberg direct it, he'd just had Jaws, Close Encounters and Raiders (oh and 1941, which truly was a private movie that primarily existed so he could have fun with some of his favorite old time actors). The guy was 7 years off of inventing the summer block buster and here he was with another summer movie, that had it's opening weekend at 25 more theaters than Raiders. People probably didn't expect ET to make as much as it did, but there's no way it was a quiet little movie expected to make no money, quiet litte movies expected to make more money don't get opened at more theaters than Raiders, they get opened at fewer theaters than 1941 (325... all numbers from Mojo of course).

It appealed to people all over the world because that's what Spielberg is good at. Oh please, the Cannes audience is the most overrated bunch of egotists in the world, these are the clowns that worship Michael Moore, sophisticated might be on their press release but it isn't in their character traits.

Actually American Graffiti was what you're trying to cast ET as. There were a lot of complaints by the studio heads about the format of the movie (tracking stories that largely don't interact with each other) and the fact that it didn't have much of a point, and they generally thought 1973 was a little too early for 50s nostalgia.

I'm thinking twice about paying to see this movie. Good promotin', John! The studio should be proud of you

The studios have to start placing restrictions on Political Opinions offered up by some of these stars when they are being paid big money (already in their pockets if no piece of the film)to go out and promote a film. It immediately hurts the box office numbers and studio execs ARE NOT happy. But then its all about Free Speech.

Phone calls don't come around as much for a while. Cusack is replaceable. He may think not; but he is. Diane Lane can carry the film with any male lead.

Cannes is the international film making community at any given moment. The people at the time had nothing to do with the Jury that gave Moore the top prize. Spileberg was advised by studio suits that E.T. was not a commerical venture. They said it would only play to little kids and their grandmothers...which were not considered a profitable demographic back then. They are now. Of course they tried to sell it as much as possible and take advantage of his reputation at the time. Just because something was very popular doesn't mean it's bad or calculated. Sometimes an artist's vision just appeals to a large number of people.

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