Posted on 07/26/2005 8:52:10 AM PDT by holymoly
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."
More balance needed
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.
Liberal tendencies
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."
I'd like to see the film again, but only if it is run thru the censorship people who produce copies that cut out offensive moments.
For several years now, I've gone to movies less and less. As others have said, the social climate almost gaurantees that asses and their cell phones and other noises and behaviors are close by. That, and most movies don't contain subjects I want to see. Or often have left-leaning slants in the ones I do.
Also, it's hard to escape movies even when you aren't in the theater to watch them. Review shows and sites are everywhere and most trailers nowadays practically give the movie away. Heck, after you pay for your ticket and popcorn, it's a 90 minute wait for the twist that _might_ make the movie passably interesting.
Wow, so many great movies not on that list at all.
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Casablanca, From Here to Eternity...
Is it the General Lee in the video? The doors weren't a gag in the original show. They were welded shut, which is a common safety requirement for a racecar.
Huh? I'm trying to imagine what that would involve. I mean, it ain't Shakespeare, y'all.
Well, I heard she hired a "coach" for the movie...
Dialog coach? Probably not...
Acting coach? Probably not...
Personal trainer? Ding, Ding, Ding... We have a winner!
Mark
"Personal trainer? Ding, Ding, Ding... We have a winner!"
If you can't act you'd better be eye-candy, I guess. Still not enough to get me to pay to rent the DVD, much less go to a theater.
I was thinking about the usual Hollyweird suspects the other day, and it occurred to me that in a country the size of the US there *must* be at least several hundred really good-looking women with the potential to become truly fine actresses.
Lauren Bacall turned into a leftist, but in her first movie (To Have and Have Not, with Bogie) she was a sensation. There must be, oh, fifty or a hundred potential Bacalls out there.
I note that Mel Gibson has said that he's not going to use any stars in his next movie. It will be interesting to see what unknowns he can discover.
The motion is there to tell the story. Movies are a story. I want plot in my movies, which the good ones have.
Well they're going to have to go through some pruning, that's just the nature of movies vs books, even short books if done completely faithfully would turn into incredibly long (and generally rather slow) movies. As for the allegorical content I hope they keep it, but we'll see.
And therein lies the difference between us. It's not something I prioritize in movies. Something like '2001' is one of my favorite films of all time even though plot is quite minimal.
There's TONS of plot in 2001, also lots of brilliant direction, but there's a solid story that's being told with that brilliant technique. I love 2001, I love Kubrick (though Eyes was a definite disappointment), you can have good moves AND a good story. Spielberg USED TO do both, but not any more, thus why I don't like him anymore.
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