Bad Movies to Blame for Box Office Slump 416
macklin01 writes "The LA Times is reporting that box office executives are finally fessing up and taking the blame. Poor box office receipts over the summer weren't caused by surging fuel costs, changes in audience preferences, or anything else. As Slashdot readers might have put it (and as it comes out in the article), 'It's the movies, stupid.'"
DUPE (Score:2, Informative)
Re:DUPE (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, people inbetween the US's east and west coasts mainly voted for Bush, so their version, linking to Fox News, will follow later with a suitable spin ("It's the fault of those damn terrorists!"). Meanwhile, people outside the US will get their own frontpage story too, citing news sources such as the BBC, that will point out that it's the American film industry that's in decline, not the global one...
Re:DUPE (Score:2)
Re:DUPE (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I welcome this change, as it implies that Americans are becoming more
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Content is the Key (Score:3, Interesting)
sure buddy (Score:3, Funny)
No, NO. (Score:3, Funny)
The problem was all those altruistic producers, with their Lord of the GNU/Rings, KAlien and OpenMatrix trilogies!
Moviegoers should support our plotless, $2.00-worth--I mean, Oscar® worthy movies! All the people that we entice and underpay^W^W^W^Wwork on our movies deserve nothing less.
--Dr. Random RIAA Spokes-Person
P.S. Encourage your local movie studio to use CSS (and I don't mean standard Web technology--besides, what's better than protecting official-movie-site IP with Flash?)
Re:sure buddy (Score:5, Funny)
it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:5, Insightful)
It's almost amazing the movie industry gets away with this. They scream and throw tantrums over any overtures, any market that dares step foot in their domain. How? By threatening to sue almost anyone! How? By demanding the electronics industry put "safeguards" in dvd players (more on that in a second). How? By spending millions in D.C. demanding laws be passed to protect their eroding stranglehold on an evolving market place. How? By doing everything in their power to prevent evolution (read: progress).
In the meantime, they approve pap for movie plots and ideas, pander to the idiotic mainstream thinking that's their meal ticket (it mostly is). But their offerings have become so predictable, so terrible, and so terribly produced and directed people are starting to feel ripped off for the small fortune they must spend for a night out of movies and popcorn. They've sown these seeds, they're reaping their own rewards.
What I think funny in the article is their collective sigh of relief some recent movies are getting viewers. I suspect when movies like "Transporter 2 are raking in blockbuster revenues it's more about their concerted ramped-up advertising and less about the quality of their movies.
It does appear there may be some good movies this fall ("History of Violence" is high on my list), I'm guessing we'll see more of the same crap. I don't know how many times they can go to the well with their overproduced special effects stories with no plot or believable ideas and keep the public coming back (but don't underestimate the masses to continue to believe, ever heard of Charlie Brown and Lucy?), but they're creating their own misery.
As for their heavy handed fingers-in-the-distribution-and-technology pie, give me a break. I set up a dvd recorder for my dad. I LOVED how simple it was to operate, and it did an excellent job of recording shows for him. He was a happy camper too. He loves to watch PBS, and was excited to record a recent Civil War special on his new dvd recorder and wanted to send the dvd to me to watch. He was concerned because his dvd would not play on other dvd players, something about a region code violation (we know what that is).
Anyway, the disk arrived today, and it's NOT playable on my player. Fuck the movie and entertainment industry. They've made my dad unhappy, they've prevented me from watching a show which, had I watched, could only have helped their cause (exposure, exposure, exposure).
This isn't the first time I've had this technology dance with my dad, and I'm sure it won't be the last. But, I hate it, and the sooner the entertainment industry cleans up their act, the better. Sigh.
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:2, Interesting)
Evolution and progress are hardly the same thing. Evolution is change that occurs due to selective pressures, resulting in individuals/creatures which are better suited to the environment in which they find themselves. Depending on the metric which you use, evolution may or may not result in "progress" e.g. when civilization crumbles, selective pressures will shift toward individuals who are able to survive under those conditions, which while progress in one way, proba
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe that is called giving consumers what they want (which, by the way, is how people tend to become rich). Politicians do the same thing, to a far more damaging extent.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:2)
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:2)
I'm not completely sure about this (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, the lack of good movies is hardly a new thing. Maybe the Internet has made people more aware of the problem, but do we really think that after a century people have just caught on, most movies suck? And if that was the case, wouldn't we expect Britney Spears and friends to take a hit as well?
No, I think they are barking up the wrong tree. Making better movies would probably help, but more likely they are facing an inevitable decline as newer technologies provide better entertainment. Now movie theatres have to compete with DVD, game consoles, online games, downloaded movies, web browsing, and probably other things that either weren't around or occupied far smaller niches ten (or even two) years ago.
Re:I'm not completely sure about this (Score:2)
TV has already lost out for me. I have not watched tv in about 3 years now but I do sometimes pick up dvds fo
Re:I'm not completely sure about this (Score:3, Interesting)
Because it's not quality of *individual movies* that counts, it's quality *overall*. Yeah, Batman Begins was a good film, but all the films released around it were crap, and people had been trained to expect that all movies were crap
Re:I'm not completely sure about this (Score:4, Insightful)
Think about it. Four years ago you might see a new bomb and hate it, but ut would be a new script. Today, the only thing they show is remakes of old series or films. We have a TV channel specialized on old shows here (Retro, is you want to know). Watching that channel you can easily see two things:
Think about it.
Charlie and the cholocate factory: seen it when I was a child.
War of the worlds: remake, no need to comment more.
King Kong: (yet another) remake.
Bewitched: we can see it on retro here.
We just need "Get Smart" and "I dream of Jeannie" and we can make a retro movie festival.....
I really miss some original plots, like "The Incredibles" where ALL of characters are completely unknown.
The worst part of it is that those MPAA bastards are not only not doing anything, but they are also preventing everyone el from doing it.
So, basically, we're not barking up the wrong tree. People is so fed up that they're not bothering to go to the cinema anymore.
Re:I'm not completely sure about this (Score:3, Funny)
Unknown only if you never read The Fantastic Four or Watchmen.
Ok, I'm being a dick here, but it had to be said.
Re:I'm not completely sure about this (Score:3, Insightful)
Because
I used to see three-plus movies in the theaters every week. If and when the industry cleans up its act (e.g., no non-movie ads in the theaters, no "no-skip" copyright warnings on DVDs), I might come back after a few years. Until that happens, though, I'll pretty much
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:2)
Now for your claim that the industry is hurting itself by not making more quality films like "A History of Violence." If Hollywood only made the sort festival films comes out in the fall then they would quickly put themselves in even worse shape when it comes to reve
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd expect people on Slashdot to be a little more technically literate than this. DVD region codes are trivial (if annoying) to get around. Most DVD players have a short code that makes them region-free (look on dvdrhelp.com), or you could
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:5, Interesting)
The Circuit City DIVX fiasco proved that you're wrong. There was no chance that the studios would leave billions of dollars on the table just to spite the pirates.
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:5, Informative)
+1 Insightful? More like -1 Ridiculous! They're in the freakin movie business. The way they make money is by selling movies. They wouldn't release DVDs if pirating were easy? Like they did with VHS? Yeah, not a single movie was released on VHS. Furthermore, it's not like region coding does diddley squat to prevent piracy. It's not even intended to stop piracy. It's sole purpose is to facilitate market segmentation, whereby the movie industry can squeeze the maximum possible profit out of every market in the world without the low income regions undercutting the high income ones by selling out of the country.
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:5, Informative)
1. Do you want to duplicate a DVD? [yes] [no]
2. Insert the original DVD in the Tray, close the tray and push the go button (along with a picture of the go button)
Archiving {here the screen get's hash marks that slashdot won't display}
3. Remove the original DVD from the try and insert a blank DVD disk in the tray, then press go (again with the picture.)
Recording {here the screen get's hash marks that slashdot won't display}
4. Do you want to make another copy of this DVD?
BTW my home DVD player/Recorder will do 8GB and 12GB DVD's... but my comp is limited to 4GB.
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:5, Informative)
Reread that. The GP poster said region coding didn't do anything to prevent piracy, not that it didn't do anything. And that's correct. It does nothing against piracy.
I can guarantee the movie industry would have released material on DVD even without those protections. Why? Because for every videotape produced, it costs a significant chunk of change and takes a significant amount of time in some giant room full of VCRs recording the content, probably at real-time speed. A DVD can be stamped in a fraction of a second, and costs a tiny fraction of what a videotape costs from a manufacturing perspective. THAT is why the movie industry was inevitably going to move to a digital optical disk format, protection or no protection, just like the audio industry did.
It's simple math, really:
Channel loss: $5.
Movie company gets $10.
Tape costs $3 to dub.
Profit: $7.
Channel loss: $6.66.
Movie company gest $13.34.
Costs $0.20 to manufacture.
Profit: $13.14.
The very suggestion that the movie industry would continue to encourage people to buy videotapes at such low margins knowing that DVDs would generate nearly double that margin is utterly naive. Protection or no protection, there was never any question about whether studios would relent.
The problem is that two of the companies making up the DVD standard WERE content companies, and thus, copy protection was also inevitable....
VHS was copyprotected (Score:3, Interesting)
This was intentional. It was actually a feature of the platform that was touted
Re:it's their mess, hope they clean it up (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? I wasn't claiming that if DVD's had poor copy protection, studios would sell VHS instead. I'm claiming they would abandon the market altogether.
Okay, that's even more ludicrous. Nearly half of movie studio revenue (and thus, likely the vast majority of studio profit) comes from home video sales and rentals. Statistically, only about 26% of their revenue comes from the box office. There's not a snowball's change in hell that they would abandon the home movie market any more than they would abandon the TV market if digital TV didn't have similar content protection.
Bluntly put, if the movie studios abandoned home sales/rental, they wouldn't be in business. They may be shortsighted and a little paranoid, but they aren't complete idiots.
Of course, there could be a way to profitably make a movie without IP laws. But NO ONE (and that includes the myriad Slashdotters who are heavy on complaints about copy protection, light on complaints about piracy) has come up with one! Until that happens, this is the best we've got.
Uh.... Don't assume that I want to eliminate intellectual property just because I dislike the abusive content protection and DRM that the movie industry is trying to shove down everyone's throat. Life isn't that black-and-white. My belief is that you can either trust people or you can't. If you can't trust them, you're screwed whether you protect your content or not, and if you can, you're only screwed if you protect your content in such a way that it annoys the people who might otherwise buy it. :-)
The short form of my opinion on IP is this.... DRM: evil and largely ineffectual (except at restricting fair use). Copyright: good. Perpetual copyright: bad. Hope that clears things up.
Re:/.er blaming the wrong people as usual (Score:3, Interesting)
The movie industry is a bunch of asshats because they demand all this really annoying restrictions and extend copyright way beyond where it should be(Citizen Kane should be public domain...geez, you studios abused the poor guy
Troll shilling for the *AA as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
Next on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, and everything changes (Score:2)
Movie makers are trying for blockbuster movies to support the high prices of tickets. How about more lower budget movies at better ticket prices. I love going to the video rental store and finding gems that I can rent for cheap and watch at my convenience.
And there's more trouble for the movie industry; high definition television will make the movie theater experience moot. We'll be able to see video in wide screen format, with excellent picture quality, from the comfort of our recliners.
Re:*sigh* (Score:2)
You aint kidding. I went to see Serenity yesterday. First time in a movie theater since Batman Begins (and I saw that in Imax so it doesn't count). They actually showed commercials for movies before the now standard Coke/Gieco/Fandango commercials and then proceeded to show actual movie previews including a preview for one of the movies they'd shown a commercial for 15 mins before.(Something with Orlando Bloom and Mary Jane Watson
Re:*sigh* (Score:2)
This is the reason I don't go to the movies anymore. I don't mind the trailers so much, but forcing me to watch commercials when I've paid for a ticket is sick. Same goes for DVDs with unskippable things before the menu. Is it really worth pissing people off just to make a few extra cents?
Re: showing older movies, a local independent theater (one which does not show commercials, I might add
Shocking (Score:5, Funny)
Tim
It's not too late!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Hopefully that means "Naked and Petrified" starring Natalie Portman will finally hit the big screen in 2006.
One can only dream...
Re:It's not too late!!! (Score:2)
Re:It's not too late!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Say what? You honestly believe that studio execs have been telling each other, "we don't need to make movies that people want to see?" That makes no sense.
They've always been trying to make popular movies — they're just not any good at it. They're part of a system that is thoroughly dysfunctional. It discourages risk taking and creativity. Most of all, the idea of actually telling a story is completely overlooked.
Anybody
Re:It's not too late!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's not too late!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's much cheaper to advertise for one blockbuster than several regular movies.
Therefore the movie industry go for blockbusters.
The problem for the movie industry is that a failed blockbuster are very costly so they try to appeal too as large group of people as possible. This often lead to that the blockbusters loose its edge and often become dull and boring and noone will see it.
The movie industry seam to have forgotten that large profits can often come from a smaller movie that becomes an unexpected hot item.
Serenity (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Serenity (Score:4, Informative)
Is this Lucas's fault? (Score:4, Interesting)
Partly. (Score:5, Interesting)
Part of the reason they're 'fessing up is because movies like March of the Penguins were actually doing better than "blockbuster" titles like Fantastic Four. (Per screen, on release, March of the Penguins actually did make more money than Fantastic Four. It has now made more money than Fifth Element, in total, according to some articles.) It is hard to keep claiming that it's someone else's fault when even a French wildlife documentary can outsell multi-million dollar projects from Hollywood.
I think the other part of the reason is that the RIAA is starting to take a turn for the worse in the courts, and the MPAA wants a backup plan in case this spreads to their own lawsuits. In other words, if a movie does crap and fileswappers cases get kicked out, then they can now say "well, we TOLD you the script for that specific movie was no good!" It also didn't help the MPAA when eDonkey started talking about quitting. If there are no fileswapper companies to blame, it's going to get harder for them to push responsibility onto others.
(After all, they've known for HOW LONG that other people's movies were selling just fine? They were having a downturn for how many YEARS before fuel costs shot up? But it was only very recently that fileswapper cases stopped doing well, and only in the last week that eDonkey talked out quitting.)
Will this get Hollywood to make something worth watching? Uh, no. What it'll mean is that they'll spend even MORE on public relations to persuade people that the next movie is worth seeing. That's the usual corporate reaction - why change things, when you only have to convince people they're changed?
Changes in audience preferences (Score:5, Insightful)
Next up on Slashdot: (Score:5, Funny)
"Overabundance of Commercials and Tons of Bad Reality Shows - Not TiVo - To Blame For Decline in Television Audience."
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff you Already Knew.
Re:Next up on Slashdot: (Score:5, Insightful)
If only... (Score:2, Interesting)
Other forms of entertainment... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Other forms of entertainment... (Score:2)
- first 10 minutes, action.
- the middle, plot.
- last 10 minutes, action. Use up budget.
Where are the messed up films? It's like a lost art. And why are there so many wannabe films. Every decent movie has a dozen imitations.
Re:Other forms of entertainment... (Score:2)
Heck, just a month ago I subscribed to HBO + a DVR. Given how unpleasant movie experiences have been the last couple of years, I don't mind waiting 6 months or so to see a semi-interesting movie. If they want my regular attendance at the local cinema, they need better movies, more comfy seats
Record companies (Score:2, Funny)
How about more inspiration and less specualtion? More perspiration and less litigation... what else rhymes with this...?
I will personally put sales over last years... (Score:2)
Re:I will personally put sales over last years... (Score:2)
Bah. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know the answer! (Score:5, Funny)
Episode I) Fool us once, shame on you.
Episode II) Fool us twice, shame on us...
Episode III) Fool us three times, screw this shit.
Re:I know the answer! (Score:3, Funny)
So Hollywood needs to be bolder and make ... (Score:2)
Lets see (Score:5, Insightful)
Poor movies
Expensive Popcorn / Sweets / Drinks
Expensive Tickets
Can't use Gift Vouchers (Fully Paid) with new movies
Bad seating - I've seen some *shockers* in some cinemas
20 minutes of ads before the show
Those silly piracy ads on stealing music - yep thats right, we all have to put up with that
Customer Fault:
Noisy movie goers / pranksters
Mobile phone calls and constant rings
Children screaming in tense moments
Seat fighting
Its all just not worth it - wait a month or so, buy for it less than the cinema price, grab some take away and watch it on your nice big digital entertainment unit @ home - and keep the damn movie!
No wonder we don't bother going !
Am I the only one picturing this image? (Score:2)
Re:Lets see (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lets see (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do so many people say that they have to eat something when watching a 2 to 3 hour movie? Is it really that hard to see a movie without eating, or to eat a proper meal, elsewhere, before the movie so you wouldn't be hungry during the movie?
Re:Lets see (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, I didn't moan about the price while I was doing it; sure, it's expensive, but I don't go very often (hard to when you're the parent of a young child), so I like to make the most of it.
I just say no (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh.
DT
Simple answer, really. (Score:3, Funny)
It's all George Bush's fault.
He doesn't care about movies.
I know he's too busy with his bicycling career and all to go to movies. I just want to know that he cares.
Movies (Score:2, Interesting)
The "bad movies" fallacy (Score:5, Informative)
The critics rated all researched 2005 movies (those that were still in theaters by the end of August - slightly over 100) with 69%. For 2004 movies, it was 64.25%. The audience also posted better ratings for 2005 movies: 68.4% versus 67.9% (source: IMDB). In the case of blockbusters (defined as movies opening on more than 1000 screens), 2005 movies come up on top as well: 62% versus 59.5% by the critics and 63.1% versus 61.7% by the audience. Independent movies were an exception: while critics rated them higher in 2005 (76.25% vs. 71.5%), the audience rated them lower: 70.9% vs. 71.5%.
Despite these numbers, the opening weekend has seen a drop of 12.87%. For blockbusters this drop has been even more significant, despite the fact that they were rated higher and that they opened on 5.14% more screens. The drop in box office was 15.79%, compared to last year. Yet, the top 8 movies had an above-average per-screen revenue on the opening weekend, and the top 6 movies retained this statistic into the fourth week. In addition, the reviews have a positive correlation to the movie revenues (42.9%).
As a result, I don't believe that bad movies are to blame for the box office to slump. I can speculate (haven't run any statistical analysis for those), that the declining revenues are to blame on a set of other factors, such as rising ticket prices, rising gas prices, shorter time to DVD, commercials before movies, and others.
Re:The "bad movies" fallacy (Score:2)
Or it can mean that the Movie Industry is exerting more influnce over reviewers and creating astroturf campaigns for their movies.
Re:The "bad movies" fallacy (Score:3, Informative)
Ever heard of grade inflation [wikipedia.org]?
Possible cause of why movies are still bad (Score:2)
As far as the critics are concerned, that's harder to explain, maybe they're being paid for more than normal? (Bit of a stretch, but if the slump gets bad you could imagine the industry would get a bit more dersperate in their bribery). Or are you percentages being pushed out by outlies? e
Re:The "bad movies" fallacy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The "bad movies" fallacy (Score:3, Funny)
That is NOT a statisical analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
Bold claim, lets see if you can back it up.
There are so many things wrong with your analyses of data here. Lets go statement by statement.
You state that you ran a "statistical analysis," when the only statistic that you've given us are measurements of central tendency (means, in this case).
You reference a group known as "the critics," however you do not specify who you consider to be members of this group. Did you count only critics that are published in major newspapers, or did you include internet only critics? If you chose to include internet critics, how did you choose which to count? Anyone who can write a review and post it to the internet can be considered a critic (if sources such as rottentomatoes.com are to be relied upon). In addition, some critics approach and rate movies from a certain orientation (for example, some internet critics write their reviews solely from the perspective of a parent). Your statements would be a lot more believable if there was some sort of qualifications required to be counted as part of this group.
Which brings me to question how you managed to assign a quantitative number to such a subjective activity as analyzing a movie. On his tv show, famous critic Roger Ebert rates movies with a thumbs up or thumbs down, then occasionally augments that. What number would you assign a movie that got a "thumbs up" when compared to a movie that got a "thumbs way up"? What number would you assign a movie that received a C+ rating (some critics like to grade movies on the classic academic scale)? Or do you forgo that and follow rottentomatoes' style, by deciding that a movie got a positive review or a negative review, and assign it 1 point or 0 points, respectively. If you used that style, how did you deal with critics that gave a movie a mixed review (e.g. a review that says "If you liked X, then you'll like this movie. If not, then don't see it.")
Almost all of the differences between 2004 and 2005 mvoies are small, and while you did not include size of your rater pools, I suspect that most of them are not statistically significant. ("The audience also posted better ratings for 2005 movies: 68.4% versus 67.9%" I can assure you that this is NOT a statisticallly significant difference, thus your statement is not supported by the data.) If you actually did run a "statistical analysis," you'd have given stats rating the reliability of your results.
Certainly, while the precentages are maybe a bit higher for 2005 vs. 2004 (which a very astute poster suggested might have to do with the phenomenon of grade inflation), you don't account for the fact that this year is not over. What you might have done was only included 2004 movies released in January to September.
All in all, while your numbers are interesting, they don't support your broad generalization that "The only conclusive thing I found was that bad movies are not to blame for lower box office tickets. Why? Because the movies were better than last year." Instead, they show that there is actually no powerful difference one way or the other between the quality of movies from last year compared to this year.
Jon
Re:The "bad movies" fallacy (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
Let's See Some Real Research (Score:4, Insightful)
And I'm just listing mainstream-ish stuff. I'm also a big fan of indie/experimental stuff.
This is just more people spouting theories. Let's see some research about people's movie satisfaction. Sales don't mean anything.
Personally, I think it's more likely that cheaper home theatre, the economy, and videogames especially contribute to lower box office turnout. The videogame industry has become huge, and IIRC it's outgrown the movie industry. People have a limited amount of time and money for entertainment...
well.. (Score:3, Interesting)
But now, despite their unending denial it's:
- ridiculous prices for tickets
- ridiculous prices for snacks
- picture quality that hasn't improved much since about the mid 70's (sound quality *has* improved)
- filthy theaters
If the movie makers want to claim they made bad movies this year, I'm not going to disagree - they did. But that's only part of it. Do the analyis:
One trip to the non-matinee movies for my family, plus a large pop, large popcorn and some candy for each, plus parking: ($8.50 ticket + $3 pop + $2.50 popcorn + $2 candy + $1 share of parking) x 6 = $102.
36" widescreen Toshiba hi def tube = $1600
Toshiba progressive scan DVD player = $200
(hooking it to the stereo I own)
= $1800.
So for the price of 18 trips to the movies, PLUS Deducting the intangibles:
- the convenience of watching in my own home
- the ability to pause/rewind/stop and chat about whatever I want whenever I want
- the ability to have whatever snack I want, in any quantity
- the ability to have as many friends over as I can stuff into the room
- to watch in my underwear and bathrobe if I want
- to watch at whatever TIME I want, and interrupt to go do something if I want
- to sit in my comfy chair, and exercise whatever odious personal habits I choose
- the ability to (via Netflix) see pretty much whatever movie I want, not juse what the studio suits think I should be watching.
I don't think there's any doubt - film industry pricing DROVE the development of home theater, now they have to live in the world they created. Nice job guys, you eat your young, too?
They don't care. (Score:2)
Just this summer? (Score:2)
For me, it's been about a year and a half. There have been a small handful of decent movies, but nothing else. I even got rid of my blockbuster movie pass, because we'd go months without finding anything worth renting.
steve
I agree (Score:2, Insightful)
This summer had the worst movies that I've ever seen. Other summers had interesting Pixar movies. This summer had, chickflicks, lame action movies and uninteresting comedy.
Better luck next summer...
One thing... (Score:2)
One thing that I forgot to say is that nearly every good movie I've seen in the past 10 years has been one of the following:
- made from a book
- made from a comic book
- a remake of an old movie (which doesn't preclude #1 or #2)
The movies where the script actually comes out of Hollywood are rarely worth a thing.
steve
April Fools Day? (Score:2)
Trailers are to blame... (Score:2, Insightful)
They show all the good scenes, so no good surprises. Why bother going to the movie when you know what the heck will happen?
Re:Trailers are to blame... (Score:3, Interesting)
The best trailer I've seen this year? The one for "Flight Plan" with Jodie Foster. Havn't looked at any reviews yet, but if they're not horrible then I plan on going to see that in a few days. The trailer gave me enough to kinda know wh
Movies yes, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are many movies that I would be very willing to watch in the theatre if I only had the ability to do so with some guarantee of peace and quiet from those around me.
Since that is not going to happen, I prefer to hold off and wait for the DVD. Simple as that.
Perspective from a SIGGRAPH talk in LA (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the speakers (can't remember his name) was discussing some of the current issues with the current box office, and number one on his list was bad movies. That was followed up by high ticket prices, high concession prices, poor theater experience (bad theaters ?), short time between theater release and DVD release, and people changing their spending habits. (Oddly enough, no mention of piracy from them)
They seemed to be really big on getting digital and 3d technology into theaters as they felt it would get people back into theaters. The equipment can be expensive and ticket prices might have to be increased to help offset the costs, but these people seem to really think that it'd bring back people to the theater. I thought maybe in the short term...but maybe it's just another fade ?
The demos they showed can be pretty impressive (especially ones originally intended for 3D instead of being converted from standard 35mm to 3D) but I don't know if it'll help in the long term to bring people back. It is pretty compeling to see this stuff, but I don't know if I'd wear 3D glasses for 2 hours...
The natural response will be to lube critics more (Score:3, Insightful)
Serenity, though? Ass kickery. So many flavors of goodness: "T'weren't been nothin between my nethers but was run on batteries..."
$2.95 Popcorn cost them 1/7 of a cent (Score:4, Insightful)
"That's awful," you say, but what about this: theaters typically make about 5 cents per movie ticket. On an independent film they might make 10 cents. Oh and by the way, they're exempt from overtime laws so their workers never get paid over $5.15 (much of the entertainment industry is exempt from overtime)
I think what it boils down to is people are turning from the theater experience. At home I have a 1024x768 Viewsonic projector, Onkyo 5.1 surround system and a Linux box where I keep tons of downloaded Xvid files. The fact is my home theater experience, even with a decent quality cam, is still better than the actual theater with the screaming kids and people throwing popcorn and $7 rape you in the ass entry fee; that is for an average film.
With electronics getting cheaper, it seems like my friends only make it a point to go see movies in the theater for films that really stand out. We make it a point and an ocasion to watch the midnight premier. But I agree with the arcile, there really haven't been a lot of good movies worth that effort lately, and with better home theater systems emerging, I think the movie industry will need to work harder to produce films worth the entertainment value of the theater.
Or as I like to say... (Score:3, Interesting)
If anyone is really interested in the modern (Score:5, Interesting)
He is a self-professed cinephile, but he seems to really hate the whole corporate moviegoing experience, but loves some of the interesting independent places he has found. Ones that actually offer a REASON(a good environment) for going to the cinema
Plus he smuggles a whole Thanksgiving dinner into a theatre!
It's not JUST the films, it's the experience... (Score:3, Interesting)
The entire experience of going to the movies is just awful, one brutal and unsophisticated marketing blugeon after another.
Screw it - it'll take a hell of a movie to get me back into the theater again and it won't have penguins: it'll have decent writing, a plot, an understanding of cinematography and editing and it won't substitute CGI for any of these things. Most of all it will understand Fowler's Law: "When anything is possible, nothing is interesting."
So called "IP" is overpriced (Score:4, Interesting)
We have so many outlets for entertainment right now that the sheer volume means I can never get to a significantly fraction of movies, books, records, video games or web sites.
And when there is too much of something, prices will fall. Not quickly, as copyright laws work to keep prices high. But fall they will.
Yes, there is a lot of sucky bands, movies, books, but the amount of material out there means there are a lot of genuinely good entertainers out there, yes, even with RIAA affiliated labels. But because there is so much material, I think the amount of material means the market is segmented and its harder to differentiate from the pack.
But again, in that kind of environment where there is a lot of decent entertainment readily available, prices will fall. Its inevitable, even in the face of lawsuits, new laws, technical hurdles. It's as inevitable as gravity.
Serenity (Score:5, Insightful)
Blame It On R Rated Movies... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wait for the DVDs of Movies and T.V. Shows (Score:3, Insightful)
As for TV shows, there's way too much advertising, especially on the Sci-Fi channel. So I just stopped watching TV. A 1-hour episode is only about 41 minutes of the actual episode and 19 minutes of advertising. Amazon.com sells boxed sets of the popular TV shows and I get those at the end of the season. High on my list for this fall/winter is Smallville Season 4, 24 Season 4, Battlestar Galactica Season 1, and Tru Calling Seasons 1 & 2.
Re:And it's not over yet... (Score:2)
Looks hilarious, especially considering the last scene of the trailer!
Bootleggers (Score:3, Funny)