Bad movies, high prices … what’s wrong with this picture?
June 20th, 2007 ~ Movies I liked or didn't, Pop goes the cultureI just rented a pay-per-view movie that I really, really disliked. I disliked it so much that I didn’t pause it when I went downstairs to get a snack. And once I was down there, I unloaded the dishwasher and took the astonished dog out for a long backyard potty break. But it was no good — the movie was still going on when I got back. I did what I’m starting to enjoy doing with a movie I dislike. I went to Netflix and look through the member reviews until someone can help me understand why the movie is annoying me so much.
It usually doesn’t take long. For any movie, there are bound to be some perky cheerleaders wiping away a tear as they explain why it deserves six stars out of five. And then there’s the crabby lot that try to nail down just how much of a pointless waste of time a bad movie can be. More and more, that would be me.
I wouldn’t mind so much, but the last three movies I’ve seen in theaters have been almost as bad as this pay-per-view stinker. Two of them were much-anticipated “summer blockbusters,” and the third was a sequel to a movie Greg and I really liked. All three were a disappointment. Two of the three made me wonder what the filmmakers were smoking to have put out something this bad. One of the three made me wish I had sneaked my laptop into the theater so I could bring up Netflix and read member reviews (and NOT the perky ones).
I won’t mention the names of the movies, because I wouldn’t want to ruin anyone else’s viewing experience. After all, these things are subjective — one man’s blockbuster is another man’s reason to cruise Netflix reviews.
But there is something happening that isn’t just a matter of my personal taste. When Greg and I got to one of the movies that had had a major ad push going on for it, we were surprised to find that the theater wasn’t even half full. That made me ask “When’s the last time you went to a theater and it was really full?” The last one I could remember was Disney’s “Aladdin.” Greg couldn’t remember one.
And yet, the news has been all about how the summer movies are breaking records this year. “Spiderman 3″ took in $59 million on opening day, breaking the record set the summer before by “Pirates of the Carribean: Black Pearl.” But then, not to be outdone, the current “Pirates” offering broke the all-time box office record for a Memorial Day debut by netting $142.1 million. To date, “Pirates (3)”, “Spiderman (3)” and “Shrek (3)” have brought in over a billion dollars each. (Link HERE) Box office records are breaking left and right.
And yet one of those is the one that had me longing for my laptop. I think I can say in all due diligence to individual taste that none of these movies are the kind that’ll make a lasting impression. How is it that these movies are bringing in more than any other movies?
Elementary, my dear Watson — the price of movie tickets keeps going up. While viewership is going down and down, movie studios keep hiking the prices up and up, and then happily reporting their profits as if it equalled popularity. As “Wild About Movies” (watch the bad language if you go see) points out:
While inflation has been rising steadily for, well, since the beginning of time, when people traded sheep for salt, movie box office reporting has never changed, which is something that needs to be addressed. How can anyone be ‘amazed’ at “Pirates 2″ earning $259 million, in its first ten days, when ticket prices are now averaging $7? In 1982, the summer “E.T.” was first in theaters, the average adult ticket price was $2.
If you adjust for inflation, the “box office” picture becomes much different. As shown at Box Office Mojo, the top records are held by movies that are actually memorable: “The Ten Commandments”, “Dr. Zhivago”, “The Sound of Music.” the list is HERE, and it’s fun to look at. And what’s the top selling movie? “Gone with the Wind”. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
And sense is what’s lacking here. Can you imagine if you told a restaurant that their food made you ill and they said, “We know, and because it made so many people ill, we’ll be charging more next time”?
It’s just dumb, but then dumbness seems to be the rule where obscene profits are concerned.
Well, if there’s going to keep tumbling down this downhill slide, at least put outlets in the theaters so I can plug in my laptop. That seems fair.
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June 20th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
I wouldn’t be surprised if they are also including worldwide premiers rather than just American.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:45 am
I’ve never found the reviews on Netflix very helpful, except on rare occasion when someone takes time to point out that a movie is filled with profanity (so I can avoid it). I’ve also given up writing my own reviews, for the most part, because people’s “Helpful/Not Helpful” votes seem to be based solely on whether they agreed with the reviewer about liking or disliking the movie, and not on the reviewer’s _reasons_ for it.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:39 am
It is rare that I watch movies because I tend to wander away from them and read.
Not that there aren’t great ones, but like you, it irks me to pay money for an experience I don’t enjoy.
Glad the dog got walked though :)
June 21st, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Kyralessa,
I go to those member reviews sometimes before I see a movie. When I do, I’m usually looking to see what emerges as a pattern. Of course, you risk spoilers when you do that, but it’s also been helpful at lowering my expectations if there’s a movie out that has a lot of hype connected to it — I usually just want to see what ordinary people thought of it.
With a movie I’ve already seen and like a lot or dislike a lot it’s just a bit of fun going to see if other people can express it.
I’ve also had the rare times when someone changes my opinion of a movie by offering an interpretation I hadn’t considered.
So all in all, I guess it’s the same thing that happens when you talk to people about a movie
the ratings: I know what you mean. It doesn’t seem to me that the best ones have the highest ratings. Must just be a matter of timing or luck, right?
June 21st, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Mimi,
I think this is starting to be more common. Movies can be such a wonderful experience when they’re good, but the entire situation — dark place, enormous screen, booming speakers — is set up to make it impossible to ignore. It was all good fun until I started feeling like filmmakers were taking advantage of the situation to force me to take in a worldview that I utterly reject. Having a movie here or there that was offensive, twisted, disgusting or whatever wouldn’t have been such a problem. But now that they rarely make any other kind, I find that I’m less and less likely to shell out the money and let them have two uninterrupted hours of my time.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Grace:
As an old film course groupie, the stats on “top grossing picture of all time” were always in dollars… and always always always led by “Gone With the Wind”. We always wondered why number of tickets sold was never the metric. But then as you point out, the rising price thing which lifts all boats (even the duds), means that marketing is just a whole lot easier if you count dollars. I guess they really do think we’re all stupid or something, huh?
I’ve begun to equate the level of advertising push with the level of desperation in selecting films to see in the theater. The higher the push, the more likely it’s a real dud. Seems to be a pretty good indicator. You just gotta remember this whole industry runs on fear. Then it’s craziness makes sense.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:35 pm
I guess I’m weird. I LOVE trailers for movies, I swear I’m going to see one, I’d actually like to see one… but I never do. My kids even buy me DVD’s of movies I’ve mentioned I’d like to see and they sit in the TV cabinet for 2-5 years before I watch them if ever. I dunno… it just seems like I never have time to actually sit down and watch one. Unfortunately my wife DEMANDS that I go see a movie probably once or twice a year with her and it is usually Keanu Reeve’s latest romance flick. sigh. She agrees he can’t deliver a line with a FedEx truck, but he’s eye candy and the stories are mushy…and I’m OK with that even though my tastes in movies runs that gamut from “Die Hard” flicks to esoteric subtitled artsy existential stuff. Maybe some day I’ll be bed ridden and have a DVD player and a remote and catch up on all the movies I’ve missed.
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:45 am
James,
That’s interesting that there’s a tradition of looking at the box office gross rather than tickets sold. Well, to give moviemakers these days the benefit of the doubt, if they were to suddenly fix that, there would be a major period of adjustment during which the moviegoing public would get the impression that nobody was watching these things anymore. I can’t blame them for not committing suicide that way.
Hype = desperation. Well then, as near as I can figure out, stand back for Evan the Almighty. It sounded like it might almost be cute when I saw the trailer, and who doesn’t like Steve Carrell these days? But you can’t go near a popular Website without seeing the ads, and I’m getting sick of it.
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:50 am
s-p:
I like the idea of just watching trailers and never seeing the movies. Great time-saver, really, since you know all the best stuff is in that five-minutes’ worth. Kind of like eating appetizers at a fancy restaurant and then skipping the meal. Greg and I talk about doing this as a way to partake of good fare without going broke. And since I have a finite amount of time and patience, I could undertake these budgetary cuts in movie-watching for the same reason.
So what was the last Keanu Reeves romance? Was it that one where he and Sandra Bullock both own the same summer cottage two years apart and yet they carry out a correspondence somehow. That sounded like it just HAD to be interesting and yet, magically, … it wasn’t. I don’t even think Keanu is that pretty, so I don’t know what my excuse is.
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:55 pm
The only movies I have seen in the 21st Century is the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Being an old lover of Douglas Adams, I tried to see “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” and walked out of it. Ok, so I have a rather, specialized, taste in movies :) I used to go to them more frequently, before the prices just got so high and it seems like there used to be a better choice of movies.
Perhaps it is only that my tastes have changed. . .
I did intend on seeing “Into the Quiet”, but put it off until the day after it stopped showing. . .
As far as watching trailers, S-P has a good point - they do put the best part of the movie in those things and you don’t have to pay for it :)
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Hitchhikers’: UGH. Wasn’t that a disappointment? I don’t know if you’ve seen the British mini-series (which you can get on DVD), but it was much better in spite of the usual problems with British productions: cheap sets, cheap props, cheap production, no special effects to speak of.
Looking at the trailer of that recent movie in the theaters, I could tell it wouldn’t be satisfactory. But it wasn’t till I went ahead and watched it on DVD that I saw just how bad it was. Whoever made it had no interest at all in capturing everything that was inspired, funny and unique about the original (which I think, BTW, started life as a radio series THEN went to the books THEN went to television). They obviously just wanted to re-do Men in Black with a British accent. I get embarrassed for us when we do things like that — I think if I were English I’d think we were all nitwits.
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I loved the BBC mini-series of Hitchhikers - it was worth watching and I would love to do so again. :)
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Hi Grace,
Yep, the lake house thing. Interesting concept, but enough already with the scenes of him running to the mailbox and the setup for the ending was waaayy too long. But oh well. I’m not a TV watcher either so when I see “critically acclaimed movies”, even the three thumbs up ones, to me often the acting really stinks or the story is weak or something. I guess having not been bombarded by crappy media for 47 years now (yes, the last time I watched TV “seriously” was 1959, since then less than an hour a week if that average…) I see acting etc. more compared to reality than other media. Anyway, yeah, trailers always have the best stuff, the rest of the movie is just the vehicle to get those moments to the audience.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Hitchhiker’s was a disappointment. Evan’s getting the real pan here in DC - from the critics. But the avoid the hype formula seems to pay off for “Spiderman”, “Titanic”, etc. Also pays off for a low budget wonder like “Milliions” - best British movie since “The Gods Must be Crazy” IMHO. But I’m probably forgetting a lot of good ones.
Trailers… again… film class teacher used to say that the time and attention devoted here vastly exceeded anything in the film business. Most cases, all the good scenes of a 90 minute movie (the standard length in the good old days) were jammed into 30 to 90 seconds. And the level of artistry was far, far better focused as a result. There is a discipline here that is missing in so much of Hollywood today where somehow the “director’s cut” seems to equate artistry with a lack of editting. THis turns the old practice on its head for Hollywood and virtually every creative art. Most folks have a lot of talent, but many don’t have the ability to discern their really good from their mediocre either.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:34 am
The Last time I saw a full house at the cinema was for the three installments of the “Lord of the Rings”. Friends in France and Russia report the same phenomenon in their countries. There is an audiencce out there, but apparently it does not desire the sort of films that Hollywood is producing today.
I don’t think the lack of audiences is due to home viewing of DVDs. Going to the cinema is a social event, and the theatre version usually has nicer sound, and there is a rather marked difference in seeing a film on a larger screen. So, the only reason for the decline in audience has to be viewer disgust with the visual pap were are offered.
The best film I saw in a theatre in the past year was Pavel Lungin’s “Island”. That was in an art house in New York, as it is in Russian, with English subtitles. It is easily the best religious (not merely Orthodox) film I have ever seen. Pyotr Mamomov’s portrayal of the starets Anatoly was moving and spot-on. BTW, the film broke all records for attendance in Russia, and swept the Golden Eagles (the Russian Oscars).
I must mention that this was produced by a commercial studio, released in ordinary cinemas, and it was not an “official” church production. Do see if you can rent or buy it on DVD. the cinematography is stunning.
People shall come if the material offered is compelling. If they are offered shlock, they shall stay home and barbeque.
Vara
June 25th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Barbara:
The first and second paragraphs of your comment had so much to generate new thought that I posted a new entry with it.
“The Island” — thank you for the recommendation! I went and looked it up on Netflix and it looks like it’s not available yet, but I’ve got it reserved when it comes in.
I tried looking up Russian movies at one point to see if I could find anything with a good Orthodox message, but I didn’t have any luck. I tried a 60’s film about Andrei Rublev, but it was AWFUL — dark, pointless and irreligious.
Then I rented “Russian Ark” — a 2002 film shot at the Hermitage Museum that dances in and out between conversations with a jaded museum viewer and scenarios of historical figures from the exhibits interacting. The entire movie is one long uncut shot, if you can believe that, and for cinematography alone is stunning. But again, the movie gives no credance to religion as a source of truth (or even as a cultural force), and the dialogue just seems like the kind of senseless, fatuous artsy drivel that we’ve all gotten used to. So I was disappointed again and gave up on Russian film.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Dearest Grace!
Blagoslovi vo imya Gospodne!
There are quite a few good movies coming out of Russia these days. New films of “The Brothers Karamazov” and “Doctor Zhivago” are in production, and Pavel Lungin’s next effort shall be a film biography of Ivan Grozny (known in the West as Ivan the Terrible).
This is all a part of the religious revival sweeping Russia today. The prominent (and famous in Russia) actor Nikolai Berliaev is doing much to promote good and solid Orthodox material in the film world. He has even set up his own special awards for Orthodox films.
The fine arts are full of Orthodox material, but it is unknown in the West because of insufficient publicity and the fact that many of the materials are available only in the Russian language. I finished reading a wonderful novel by Aleksandr Poliakov called “Ognyenii Avva” (”The Firey Abba”) based on the life of the modern Elder Sampson (Seavers). Unfortunately, it is not available in English translation, but I have excerpts I can pass on. My e-mail address is attached to the reply form, drop me a line, and I can pass on some great Russian material that I have in corrected translations.
Pray for me, the sinner.
Vara
June 26th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Barbara-Marie (or Vara?)
Religious revival in Russia: That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time! It’s really hard to get an accurate picture of how Orthodoxy is faring over there, because our religion-challenged media are even more religion-challenged about Orthodoxy. They haven’t the faintest idea what it is or why anyone would care. But *I* care — any chance you can give more info about what’s going on there? (Don’t know if you have a blog, but if so, I’d love to see a post about that. If not, do you have any links you could send me that would give the picture?) Hooray for the good guys!
I’ll e-mail you about the other stuff — I’m definitely interested.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Oh, and by the way … “Blagoslovi vo imya Gospodne!” Translation?
(I think “Gospodne” is “Lord,” yes?)
June 26th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Dearest Grace!
It means “Bless in the Name of the Lord”! Another related tag is “Blagosloven grady vo imya Gospodne”! (Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord!) Another nice Orthodox thing to say is “Sotvori Gospodi na mnogaya lyeta”! (May the Lord grant thee many years!) Now, you have enough Staroslav (Old Church Slavonic) to enchant your friends and stupefy your foes.
Unfortunately, our media is not as Church-conscious as the Russian media. NTV carried the reconciliation ceremony on 17 May live from the Khram Spasitelya, and the Rossiya network carried an abridged broadcast of Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev’s “Passion According to St Luke”.
Check out the following You-Tube link. It is not church-related, but the little girl who is the soloist in the first number is so adorable, yet, she is a spot-on pro! In the second number on the video, do look for the two little ones holding the icons on either side of the boys singing. They cannot be more than five, and they are so cute!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ABBhRp6bn0
“Vara” is simply the Russian diminutive for “Varvara” (Barbara). There you have it, “Vara” is “Barb” or “Barbie”!
your puckish correspondent,
Vara
PS watch out for “moose and squirrel” (you do recognise the pop culture allusion? Yes?)