Why are movies so bad?

[Wiglaf]

Indeed. If by "prearranged deals" you mean TV deals, merchandise, etc -- you don't get that if you make a dud. Like Pluto Nash.

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by nostromo


Read the ****ing article and learn something

I've learned that this person is retarded.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


From Wikipedia: Pluto Nash's budget was estimated at (U.S.) $100 million, with marketing costs of $20 million and the domestic box office (of which the studio typically receives about half) was $4,420,080 and $2,683,893 (overseas) for a total worldwide gross of $7,103,973.

No matter what kind of accounting you do, that movie was a horrible failure. Studios notice losses of $90 million on one movie, whereas this author (and you, apparently) seem to think they don't care.

In the 1930s, when a couple of Katherine Hepburn films tanked, she was labelled box office poison, exiled to Broadway, and only managed to work her way back into teh studios good graces by starring in the film version of her own smash stage success, Philadelphia Story.

In 2002, Eddie Murphy tanks in Pluto Nash -- and turns right around to star in I Spy (tanks), The Haunted Mansion (tanks), and Daddy Day Care (tanks in theaters; probably gets saved by video/DVD).

Obviously, the studio would have preferred that Pluto Nash make money. But it seems just as obvious that they don't care much. If they did, there's be no way to explain how it is that Robin Williams has yet another film coming out this month.

[Wiglaf]

You confuse an actor with a studio. Studios can be devastated or even eliminated by bombs (eg Square Studios after the final fantasy movie). Actors, not so much.

Battlefield Earth, for instance, ruined its studio. Travolta is still known for his work in other movies, as he should be.

[LordShiva]

Gladiator

[Wiglaf]

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Indeed. If by "prearranged deals" you mean TV deals, merchandise, etc -- you don't get that if you make a dud. Like Pluto Nash.

You get what "prearranged" means, don't you? As in, arranged in advance? As in, arranged before anyone knows whether or not its a dud? I'm sure whichever fast food chain got stuck with all those Pluto Meals would happily fill you in...

[Agathon]

I guess the answer is that people will pay more money to watch crap. The longer that people pay money to watch crap, the longer crap will be made.

There have been some good movies in the last 20 years. The Shawshank Redemption is one of the best. As a Johnny Cash fan, I liked Walk the Line. But most films now are celebrity vehicles. It's just appalling prolefeed by and large.

You know there is something wrong when the entertainment news on TV is longer and more detailed than the real news.

[Wiglaf]

You get what "prearranged" means, don't you? As in, arranged in advance? As in, arranged before anyone knows whether or not its a dud? I'm sure whichever fast food chain got stuck with all those Pluto Meals would happily fill you in...

No one gave any studio anything near $90 million in prearranged deals for Pluto Nash. Or virtually any other movie. Sorry.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


I've learned that this person is retarded.

You like to use that term, don't you? You sprinkle it quite liberally here and there in your posts. I happen to use it to describe people who really deserve it. People like Sylvia Brown, for example.

[Bkeela]

I've noticed a dramatic drop in quality in films the past couple of years. I've concluded either I've become stranded by the generation gap, or rationalisation has crippled the film industry.

Out of 46 films I've seen at a cinema over the past four years, only five I have enjoyed: Love Actually, Kill Bill Vol 2, The Village, War of the Worlds, and King Kong. 5 out of 46! (10.87%) Of the 41 films I didn't enjoy, I could have saved ~ $492 and about 3 and a half days worth of time.

Of 15 films I saw in 2003, I enjoyed 7 (45.66%). So for every film I saw and enjoyed, there was another I didn't like. If I could be bothered compiling data from my peak cinema going period of 1995 - 1996, when I saw a film almost every weekend, I'm sure the ratio of favourable experiences to bad ones would be much higher. Maybe on the order of 3:1.

After recently seeing Transformers and HATING it, I've now decided to boycott the cinema. Because no matter how good reviews a film receives, no matter how many fanboys rave about it, no matter how promising the special effects look - they still have crap writing. I'll make exceptions for anything by Spielberg and Tarantino.

[Jon Miller]

The last good film I saw (sinec 2 years ago?) was Pan's Lybrinthe. (SP)

JM

[Rufus T. Firefly]

One reason for the decline in film art over the last 30 years is the increasing importance of the "blockbuster" mentality in film financing. The measure of a film these days is not how good it is, but how "big" it opens; if a film makes enough money its opening weekend -- before there's even any clear consensus on how good or bad it is -- that's enough. Ultimately, then, studios are not interested in the success of their films per se so much as the success of their marketing departments.

The other contributing factor is the increasing importance of foreign markets to the US film industry. Increasingly, films have to be hits worldwide in order to be considered hits at all. The need to please audiences in Tokyo, Calcutta, Moscow and Cairo has led studios to build their films out of lowest-common-denomenator materials: stuff blowing up and clothes coming off. Social commentary and witty dialogue both tend to be culturally specific, and have been losing ground consistantly to things that go boom.

[LDiCesare]

I liked Persepolis... Might have to do with seeing one movie or two a year?

[Varwnos]

I read parts of the article, but it seems to me that the author is just expressing a personal opinnion, presenting it as fact.
I did read all of the bolded parts, and immediately they create the aura of projection, and false guessing.

For example:

The movies have been so rank the last couple of years that when I see people lining up to buy tickets I sometimes think that the movies aren't drawing an audience — they're inheriting an audience. People just want to go to a movie. They're stung repeatedly, yet their desire for a good movie — for any movie — is so strong that all over the country they keep lining up.

This just appears to be a hyperbole, presented however as fact.

The same tone is to be found throughout. For example here as well:

When the numbers game takes over a country, artists who work in a popular medium, such as the movies, lose their bearings fast. There's a pecking order in filmmaking, and the director is at the top — he's the authority figure. A man who was never particularly attractive to women now finds that he's the padrone: everyone is waiting on his word, and women are his for the nod.

Im pretty sure that this is not the case. Besides, this is way too gender racist a comment, and Pauline doesnt fail to sound clueless.

Granted that i am not aware of the author's ussual tone, the piece comes across as little more than pompous, with epithets defining objects left and right without the slightest effort to justify them.