Movies Losing Popularity at Box Office 795
andyring writes "Without the slightest mention of piracy, the MPAA said box-office revenues declined by 8 percent last year. About 40 percent of the decline came from the U.S. Now if only they'd realize that the decline is from movies sucking more than my shop vac." It's been a while since a film warranted spending the money to watch it in a room full of strangers.
Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Interesting)
Really. There's jibes all over in the press about it. Most of the films in the past year I spent my money on were at a place like this [thenick.com].
Why?
Because I've seen it all before, now they're re-doing it all and nothing surprises me. Then I go to the Del Mar or The Nick and see something
- See a story which is either deeply thoughtful or genuinely entertaining.
- I have no idea where the story is going.
- See really good acting.
- See a production done so well I forget for a moment I'm actually watching it on a screen.
- Suprising. Innocent Voices, that was an eye opener. Amelie, that was a charmer. Run Lola Run, that was just cool.
Steve Martin in the recent remake of The Pink Panther is a prime example. I already have some idea where jokes are going, long before the punch. The acting isn't anywhere near as good as the first (Sellers may have been an ass, but he could act comedy.) Honestly. Steve Martin (The Spanish Prisoner) and Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda) are really capable of great acting, but this was pretty weak.I'm a real flim buff. You can tell. I take my own popcorn salt, rather than risk they'll have table salt shakers from SYSCO.
Hey, get that guys post! i want to create a movie based upon it! car chases! beautiful women! huge fireball explosions! sophomoric humor! It'll be great!
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Funny)
He was trying to make a Muppet Movie reference: "Dee flim ist hokey-dookey!"
Or maybe not. But that's all I can think of.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Funny)
There's a joke hiding just beneath the surface of that misspelling, but I can't figure out what it is!
Me neither, but I can tell it involves muppets and nudity!
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason for that is that they have choked off the supply of works going in to the public domain. Historically, Hollywood has dipped into the public domain for ideas. Nothing new into the public domain = nothing new in Hollywood.
Little wonder that Anime and Manga are getting more popular.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Interesting)
There's still buckets of stuff in the public domain. That said, there were a lot of great movies made of stuff copyrighted, like Gone With The Wind and The Wizard of Oz. I just think they've got some twisted idea that they won't take a risk. I think Heinlein's Tunnel In The Sky would make a killer film, but not with the calibre of actors I've seen cropping up lately. Lord knows they did a real job on Starship Troopers.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of which has been already used in something "new" that is still under copyright, making it a risk to use.
Last estimate showed that 80% of the currently available works are still under copyright but have no known owners.
I think Heinlein's Tunnel In The Sky would make a killer film
Agreed. But who owns the copyright? Heinlein's been dead for nearly 20 years.
Also, Hollywood doesn't want to pay for writing. Disney, for example, timed their version of Peter Pan so that it wouldn't come out until the story passed into the public domain.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Interesting)
UC Santa Cruz IIRC. He bequethed his literary work to the library. Which means a film would be excellent as (assuming is has a good director and cast and budget) it's a great story and the money would not go to waste.
-nB
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Informative)
-nB
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry. I'll go away now.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Funny)
"I really liked the Starship Troopers movie."
No, I'm Spartacus!
T&K.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Interesting)
And some of the studios do still draw on PD material.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0401729/ [imdb.com]
I sincerely hope the title in the above link does actually become a reality on the big screen. And I hope that whatever studio is doing it doesn't completely fuck it up.
This is something I've been waiting to see made into a movie (or series of movies) since I read the books back around 1980 or 1981.
(And I hope whoever they cast as Dejah Thoris is just as hot as Burroughs described her in the first book.)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I don't go to the movies. Why should I? People are noisy, its either to loud or quiet, I can't smoke, I can't stop it, I can't go to the toilet, and, finally, my arse goes to sleep.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Interesting)
Verhoeven did it better in Robocop. But rather than turning Starship Troopers inside-out, he should have started with something more in tune with his viewpoint, like The Forever War. (ST was basically WWII in the Pacific, complete with Pearl Harbor, FW was Vietnam.)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing I can think of is that people could reuse ideas without permission from the (ex)copyright holder, meaning that you wouldn't have the same mindset, groupthinking people remaking the same things over and over. Instead, you could have some people not affiliated with Hollywood using their ideas in something new and innovative--and given the movie theater's relationship with Hollywood, you'd never see these films on screen. You'd see them on the Internet, and that wouldn't help increase box office revenue.
No, ultimately there are a large number of factors which are (probably) contributing to this decline. They've all been said over and over, but here they are again:
* Bad movie theater experience (screaming kids, cellphones, etc.)
* Increasing ticket prices
* Lower quality movies, in general
* Shorter DVD release times
and quite likely the biggest factor:
* The Internet.
Not only is there a lot of legal, free video entertainment available on the Internet, there is also music, gaming, etc. That's not counting piracy (which is certainly rampant and might cut into Box Office revenue, but it's impossible to prove).
There was a time when I could look at a 16-screen theater listing and pretty much tick off every one of them as a movie I'd seen
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
One other thing on the internet is instantaneous Communication with large audiences. Go to imdb and see a few comments and the film already rated and you just may change your mind about seeing it. Before the internet bad reviews got around on two legs.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, reviews from real people rate about 80% of the time. Hollywood also needs to get over their obsession with making their money in the theater. If they were smart they would cut out the middleman and do unlimited dvd by mail (ala netflix and blockbuster) with PERMISSION to copy the rented films.
It doesn't impact hollywood one bit if I have 1 movie or 10,000 movies. It does impact hollywood if I am spending $30/month on movies and that is all going to blockbuster online (tip, they don't throttle and give free weekly instore rentals on top of it).
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, I only go to see about one movie out of every few hundred these days because it is almost always obvious that most movies are going to be steaming piles of excrement.
No, the biggest problem with Hollywood is greed. Between then and the theater chains, the cost of a movie is absurd. $7.50 per person + $10 worth of refreshments comes out to a $25 date. Alternately, dinner at a fairly decent restaurant and BUYING a DVD of a two year old movie comes out to a $25 date. Which one is the better experience? Duh. I watched movies constantly when I could go to the early showing for $3.50. Now, it's over $5 and I've been to two movies in the last year, one of which was paid for by my employer. They priced themselves out of business.
And greed is the problem with their plot lines, too. The cost of making movies is insanely high---in part because of outrageous costs for actors and actresses, outrageous equipment costs, outrageous film/processing/splicing costs, etc., but in part because they just over-produce the movies---which leads to production of far fewer movies, and thus, it is almost impossible to get into Hollywood screen writing, and even if you do, it probably won't pay the bills.
The result, from what I can discern from the outside, is a relatively small talent pool that generally discourages new blood, which results in the same stale content being repeated over and over. Most (not all) of the wannabes who try to get into this pool tend not to be the best and brightest writers out there, as the best and brightest see that there's not a lot of hope of making money in the field, so they steer way clear and do something that will actually keep a roof over their heads.
The only real solution for Hollywood is this: use no-name actors and actresses more, pay your writers better, spend less time and money on special effects, produce more movies on a lower budget each, and search far and wide for new talent to increase the diversity of your writer culture. If you don't, you will eventually fade into obsolescence.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Insightful)
That's just silly. Hollywood has no problem paying for ideas. They pay to do remakes of crap like The Dukes of Hazzard. For every movie produced, hundreds of scripts and books have been optioned. The ones that get finance are those the studios think have an audience. Obviously t
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Interesting)
But leave the Santa Cruz Bubble and art houses like the Nick become incredibly rare-- they usually only show 1 movie a week. The Nick is showing 6 films this week. We arguably have a couple nice arty theaters in Berkeley, but they are plagued by loud people, cell phones, drunks, etc. (Students? I don't know).
Even Santa Cruz is loosing their Art houses--- there used to be 5-6 funky arty movie houses in the area. I think they are all gone except for The Nick & the Del Mar, and the Del Mar nearly went bust a few years ago.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, me too. Remember Gregory Peck and Jimmy Stewart in the 1952 version of "Brokeback Mountain". Now THAT was a classic. Nothing like that crappy remake that came out last year. WHAT was that studio thinking?
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Funny)
Get ready for in a few years time:
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
You just start with "Who isnt allowed to shag who in some parts of society" and take it from there. There have even been a couple of inter species ones, like Enemy Mine.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason more people didn't go see it was because it was GAY love story. People go to see crappy love stories like the endless stream of vomitous romantic comedies starring jennifer lopez or kate hudson. They won't go see a really well made love story like brokeback mountain though just because it's about gay people in love.
Having said that if it was about two hot lesbians in love the movie would have been a best seller. Mainstream america is disgusted by male homosexuality but LOOOOOOOVES female homosexuality.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides the poor material, the commercials are too long and the dynamics are too much. I hate sitting through ads before the movie, now that they run twenty minutes that was the breaking point. I will never go back. Movies are way too dynamic - street noises and crashes blast at you from the speakers, then the dialogue is so frigging soft you have to strain to hear it. The ears get fatigued fast.
And I won't repeat the host of other reasons why the theater experience sucks today.
DVDs solved many problems. I can zap the damn ads, and the audio output of my DVD player gets tamed by a compressor so that dynamics are flattened to a much more enjoyable level before they reach my stereo system. I don't want my speakers to get blown or my neighbors to be disturbed.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
you get the original audience and fans of the current talent. two birds with one stone. by and large that formula isn't broken. it works to the point that people go and see them, and they do rather well.
there is a dearth of original ideas. this is because more expensive films require compromise to mitigate risk. understand, most films, small or large, are financed by thrid parties. hollywood is notorious for not financing their own films. so these films are beholden to finance guys who want easily reducible commodities. remake plus star talent is a recognized formula.
the real problem here is this. hollywood primarily relies on the first-timers to make some cash. first timer are the rising young adult - adult generation. this is the problem - the first timeers aren't going to the movies. they're like the second generation to grow up with cable - so technically - they aren't first timers. So when a 30 something guy reflects that films are recycling themselves... hollywood is in the problem place that 18 year olds are saying the same thing. they've seen it all before.
this is why the movie paradigm is problematic. hollywood has always been cyclical before. They'd wade out the lull and wait for a rising generation and introduce them to old shit that's new to them. It's not new to them - they've probably seen the original on cable or online or via blockbuster. they have prior memory of originals and probably prefer them. so without the first timer cushion - hollywood is quite possibly rready for a paradigm shift.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Over the past ~5 years, there's been a massive surge to release new versions of old movies - "The Pink Panther", "When a Stranger calls" - or movie versions of old TV shows - "Dukes of Hazzard", "Lost in Space",
In general, the originals being remade fall into two categories:
- really good movies, where there's no real chance that a remake will improve it (e.g. Pink Panther) and it's far more likely that a remake will be total crap
- really bad and/or cult movies/shows, where there's some chunk of a (predominantly) baby boomer audience that's virtually guaranteed to go along (e.g. Dukes of Hazzard, Mission Impossible). They rely almost solely on two comedy devices: (a) repeating the exact comedy lines that were most remembered in the original, (b) putting the "old" character/s in the present day (e.g. Brady Bunch), so the audience can laugh at their clothes, speech, etc.
What happened for things to get to this point? To some extent, I can understand remakes like "Dukes of Hazzard", because you've got a guaranteed audience, but why "Pink Panther"? It would have been obvious on day 1 that you can't hope to top the original scripts, and Steve Martin wasn't going to top Peter Sellers as Clouseau.
Are there any writers (as distinct from "re-interpreters") actually left, and if so, what are they doing? They can't all be doing stand-up; they don't all have their own TV shows; there's just not that many jobs as waiters in LA. Where are they?
Bring them back, put together plots that might actually push a 5yo mentality, line up and shoot the likes of Jessica Simpson and Hilary Duff for crimes against humanity, and you'll get your audience back again. It's really that simple. Baby boomers have all the cash, increasingly have time on their hands to spend it, but the movie industry (actually, make that the entire entertainment industry) seems to target only 13-30 year olds; wise up, there's not that many of them around, the average age of the population in the US is now 44 (and increasing by 1 year for every 2 years that pass at present), and 13-30 year olds don't have anything like the disposable loot that their parents have.
It's not like every movie has to cost $200m and have some hopeless bimbo in it to get an audience; Blair Witch and Michael Moore proved that convincingly. Sure it's probably not easy to make another Blair Witch, but the trail has been blazed for others to follow. Where are the movies being made for (say) $100k-$1m, which are amounts that could be raised without Hollywood-type "creative input" being imposed? I can see a few of them in arthouse cinemas, but why aren't they getting promoted more widely?
Hell, I'll make it even simpler. Here's how to get baby boomers back to the movies:
- stop thinking in terms of using stars and making huge profit, and make a movie with unknowns that will evoke some sort of emotion in the audience. Sorry, Vin Diesel, Tom Cruise et al; you had a good run...
- employ script writers who write scripts from scratch, rather than rehash old ones
- have more than 1 thread of plot going on; movies don't all have to be linear as some of us have attention spans greater than 30 seconds
- look at the age of the people around you, then forget targetting 15-30year olds as your prime demographic
- don't bother using bimbos to sell movies; boomers would rather watch a real actor than a clothes horse. If we want porn, we rent it. Bring back women who can act, and who aren't trying to look 30 years younger than they are
- stop making bad guys be really really bad, and good guys be really really good. Treat them as shades of grey rather than ridiculous stereotypes
- try making a film without CGI. It can be done, really
- as per the previous point, not every mov
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Insightful)
Another: Aaron Sorkin, wrote A Few Good Men, and The American President before diverting to TV to do Sports Night and the first 4 seasons of West Wing (and he's working on a new series now).
Even some adaptations are so drastically re-worked as to bear only a passing resemblance to the original. The new Battlestar series is quite well written, and shares only a couple of proper nouns with the original series.
And don't forget, people are still writing new books. Because movies cost a lot, studios aren't as eager to take risks on them; there's more red tape to wade through, and people who just want to tell stories without having to fight quite so damn hard to make their vision come out the way they want it, frequently turn to publishing. Stories that are light years beyond any movie in terms of creativity are routinely completed as novels. Dan Simmons, Gene Wolfe, Salman Rushdie, Neal Stephenson, Vernor Vinge and hundreds more, are publishing new books that put all but the best movies to shame. None of them are recycled, and in fact, many of them make me wonder just exactly what the author was smoking to be able to come up with something so original.
Yeah, there's a lot of rehashed crap as well, but that's because people will pay to see it. I guess a lot of folks don't want to have to think too hard when they look for entertainment, and the safety of something they already understand is appealing. But that doesn't mean something better isn't out there if you look for it. You just won't find it in the big-budget action or comedy films.
Why remake good movies? (Score:4, Insightful)
- really good movies, where there's no real chance that a remake will improve it (e.g. Pink Panther) and it's far more likely that a remake will be total crap
I was thinking about this: remakes are common in all fields of performance, but nowhere is it as reviled as in movies. For example, we have recordings of Leonard Bernstein conducting the Chichester Psalms; why should anyone else bother performing it? Because it's interesting to see how a different conductor and a different orchestra interpret the piece; because they can contribute something new to it. (And after all, the programs of most orchestras are almost entirely "remakes"; premieres are a small percentage of the output of most musical ensembles.) Same goes for theatre: why do we keep seeing new performances of Hamlet? Partly for the live performance aspect, but partly because 1) a number of actors want the chance to play the role themselves, and 2) audiences appreciate a different spin on an old favorite.
So why not do it in movies? Peter Jackson made "King Kong" because he thought, "I like that movie, I'd like to put my own spin on it." If someone really liked the Pink Panther and wanted to do the same thing, I have no problem with that. It could be interesting, if done well. Even if Steve Martin couldn't possibly "top" Peter Sellers, he could still be good, and do something interesting and unique.
The real problem is not that movies are remade, but that they aren't remade well. But a lot of movies aren't being made well, whether remake or not.
Just a thought.
Re:Why remake good movies? (Score:3, Insightful)
These grosses are further inflated because movies have become events in themselves. When the original KK came out, there was at least one big showing where all the glitz came alone. Starwars Ep1 had a world-wide release on the same day(sic!).
So todays film dynamics
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at it like this: Will you ever buy the movie Battlefield: Earth and show it to your kids? (Assuming you're not a Scientologist.) How about Howard the Duck or Batman and Robin? Unless you want to mess them up, I doubt it. In 50 years, they will only remember the good movies and people will say "Man, movies have really gone down the toilet these days." forgetting entirely about The Toxic Avenger.
Re:Why Movies Suck (Score:4, Interesting)
But the fact is that no decent music has been written since the Baroque era.
Beg to differ. I'm happy to pledge my undying devotion to Renaissance and Baroque music above all other, and I agree with you completely about Mozart and the rest of the Classic era music--99% of it combines the worst elements of Baroque music with the worst elements of Romantic music. But even beyond that other 1%, there was PLENTY of great music after the Classic era ended (for reference, I consider Beethoven's Fifth Symphony to be the border between the Classic and Romantic eras). I refer you to Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Grieg, Holst, Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky, to name a few. And that's just taken from traditional Western art music, and just those who were consistently great. There are plenty of mid-level composers who turned out a masterpiece once in a while, too.
There have been some great musicians in popular music of the past century or so as well. Most modern popular music is crap, yes, but the same is true of any era--crap from the past has just had time to be forgotten. The jazz tradition has Scott Joplin and Duke Ellington. As far as rock goes, the more I learn about music theory, the more I appreciate the Beatles. Procol Harum and Queen also put out top-notch music by any standards. And over the past 15 years, there's been some really good stuff coming out of the progressive/melodic metal genre. I'm not saying most of it is truly all-time great, but some of it is, and a lot of it is more than adequate even by the highest standards. Stratovarius, Nightwish, Kamelot (only after Roy Khan became the lead singer), Him, and to a lesser extent, Hammerfall (talking about the music, not the lyrics, in this case) and Sonata Arctica, are metal bands that have songwriters who can legitimately be called composers and performers who could be professional musicians even if their chosen genre was not rock.
If it's not just any Baroque music, but actually J.S. Bach you're using as your standard for "decent music," then no, I'm not claiming any of that music is as good as his. But none of his contemporaries or predecessors were as good either. The fact that the greatest genius in human history happened to be a musician and happened to live during the Baroque era does not mean that that the Baroque era produced the world's only good music.
Simple formula (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple formula (Score:5, Insightful)
Shitdrummer.
Tranquilizer? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Simple formula (Score:3, Insightful)
Vast Profits = Mass ticket sales = Aim for lowest common denominator
Recent failure at box office = Aimed too low = Aim higher next time
Alternatively,
Massive success at box office = Could we improve by aiming even lower?
Hence the cyclical nature of Hollywood.
Though of course the main reason box office sales have fallen is Home Cinema, why expend the excess energy travelling to the theatre, only to put up with monkeys and their cell phones / repellent smelling popcorn/sna
Re:Babysitter? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simple formula (Score:3, Insightful)
did you see the oscars? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:did you see the oscars? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:did you see the oscars? (Score:5, Funny)
Agreed (Score:5, Funny)
I go to the Carmike in Statesboro (35 mile drive) to watch I,Robot. Some assholes bring their 2? 3? year old kid with them and sit directly in front of me. By the time I realized this kid was going to make noise the whole time, there were no empty seats left. The kid starts making a racket as soon as the movie starts and never shuts up. She even started singing! People all over were staring at the kid instead of the screen, waiting for the parents to start acting like parents.
You ignorant fucktards who bring small, noisy, untamed children to adult movies and don't keep them quiet are fucking assholes. What the hell is wrong with you people?
"Oh Jesus Christ!", I yell, as I get up to find the manager. I let the manager know what's going on and he goes in and stands against a wall for about five minutes, watching them. Miraculously, they keep the kid's yap shut the whole time, so the manager sees no reason to ask them to leave. "Fine. You want to run a daycare center instead of a movie theater, that's fine. Give me my money back."
Next day, I go to a smaller theater in Vidalia (25 mile drive) to watch it. So many people are lined up outside that it takes 20 minutes to get everyone in the door (they don't let you in without a ticket + they don't start selling tickets until 5 minutes before show time + only one ticket seller). Graciously, they hold off starting the movie until everyone is in (they did that for Star Wars III too).
Fifteen minutes into the movie, THE PROJECTOR EATS THE FUCKING FILM! They handed out refunds and sent everyone home. GRRRRRRR.........
The next day, I drove all the damn way to Savannah (80+ miles), crammed into an overstuffed theater and FINALLY watched the movie.
This is why I don't watch movies on the big screen anymore. Unless it is something that I HAVE TO SEE RIGHT FRIGGIN NOW, I wait for the DVD. And I RENT that DVD, I don't buy it. Or I buy it used from the video store. So Hollywood loses every opportunity at having my money.
my experience (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Agreed (Score:5, Funny)
Bwahaha (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure they are, but their big problem is that we already explored all that five years ago. Time to catch up, Hollywood, and fast!
My $0.02 (not adjusted for inflation) (Score:3, Interesting)
The nail in the coffin though (as it were), is the Netflix and Blockbuster DVDs by mail
What, they didn't blame piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, I'll agree with the submitter's remarks - most movies nowadays are pure shite, little more than CGI thrown everywhere to try to cover a pathetic script. Oh, and don't forget the half-hour of commercials before the movie, too. And they always seem to start the commercials at the published start time. So you arrive half an hour late, trying to skip the commercials, and *this* movie was the one with only 15 minutes of crap in front of it.
I wait for the DVD nowadays. Cheaper, too.
-paul
Re:What, they didn't blame piracy? (Score:4, Funny)
They figured out the real problem isn't pirates... It's ninjas!
Re:What, they didn't blame piracy? (Score:3, Funny)
Come on, everyone knows the anti-pirate is a lumberjack, not a ninja.
Re:What, they didn't blame piracy? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What, they didn't blame piracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
All that money and you get 15 minutes of some of the same commercials shown on daytime TV for free anwyway. I usuaully show up 15 minutes late, but sometimes it leaves me with crappy seats.
I used to go to the movies all the time (every week), but after sitting though the RIAA painter and stuntmans anti piracy rants about 50 times I all but quit going. I still go see great movies, but for most stuff I just add it to the Netflix queue and they ship me the DVD when it beco
Home Theaters (Score:5, Insightful)
Correction... (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, it's in the first sentence of the article. 40 percent of the 23 billion dollars in total sales was in the US, not 40 percent of the decline.
A misleading summary, here on slashdot, I'm as shocked as the rest of you...
CowboyNeal (Score:5, Funny)
If dropping a ten-spot and spending 3hrs in a theater to see King Kong on the big screen doesn't appeal to you then you are beyond hope.
But I can understand your fear of seeing 'Brokeback Mountain' with others around. I mean with a name like CowboyKneel
Summary inaccurate! (Score:3, Informative)
OTOH, whether it's 6% or 8% doesn't make all that much difference in the end -- this is something like the fifth year running that movie sales have dropped...
It never fails... (Score:5, Funny)
Prime examples:
In that crappy Sky Captain movie, when the flying ships dive straight into the water, this guy next to me starts shouting "THAT DEFIES THE LAWS OF PHYSICS!!"
In that crappy Manchurian Candidate remake, some dumb bitch sits down right next to me, babbling through the whole movie. When Meryl Streep goes into a long speech, this woman starts shouting "MERYL STREEP AT HER BEST!!"
During Batman Begins, some fat ass was munching down bag after bag of chips right next to me. He'd finish a bad, then extend his hand out and drop the bag on the floor, and go for another. Then he'd start belching, or fall asleep and snore really loud.
What the hell is it with these people?? Can't they see that I want to watch my crappy movies in peace??
Re:It never fails... (Score:5, Funny)
That reminds me of the time I went to see Batman Begins
Re:It never fails... (Score:3, Funny)
Well, next time teach her a lesson and leave the bitch at home.
Box Office Down... DVDs ??? (Score:5, Interesting)
What happened to DVD sales?
Why I don't go as much (Score:4, Informative)
- Kids go to matinees. Being in the same theaters as a bunch of rug rats suck.
- Evening shows cost $9 (or more). Have to get a keg o'Icee, another $4.
- Have to go with daughter or girlfriend, and pay for their move and stuff. Another $13-$18. Total so far, around $30.
- Netflix costs less than $20/month and the food is a lot cheaper, and I can drink beer or tequila instead of an Icee.
Just because I can afford $30/week to go to a movie, doesn't mean I want to pay it.The Decline For Me Is Because (Score:5, Informative)
*Babysitting
*Parking
*Ticket
*Crap to eat
It costs me approx. $15.00 for a DVD.
To add to that my home theater looks and sounds great, the seats are more comfortable, we can pee when we want, and the drinks are a hell of a lot cheaper. We haven't been to a theater in over three years now when before the munchkin we used to go at least once a month. Sure, there was the initial investment in the home theater, but we're past breaking even on that now.
The Passion of the Slump (Score:5, Informative)
The fact is, 2005 was the second or third best year for film revenue in history.
--
N
How dare you? (Score:5, Funny)
From now on just keep your facts to yourself.
BTW, mod parent up. Sounds like he hit the nail on the head
According to Ebert and Roeper... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are just going to be some years were attendance exceeds normal growth due to the popularity of certain movies.
Re:According to Ebert and Roeper... (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean the Stealth with a budget of approximately $130 million and a box-office gross of just $32,116,746 [boxofficemojo.com]? I don't think that exactly qualifies as a 'blockbuster'...
Stealth... (Score:3, Funny)
I know why I don't go... (Score:3, Interesting)
- Really expensive! (Ticket are $9.25 for adults! Are you kidding me?)
- Really expensive snacks ($4 for a Coke? Fuck You Cineplex!)
- Standing in a painfully long line to be gouged for your ticket.
- Standing in a painfully long line to be gouged for snacks.
- The arsehole that won't turn his cell-phone off until he "remembers" when it rings at the most tense moment in the movie.
- The other arsehole whose phone is on vibrate, but who answers and talks as he walks out of the theatre.
- Spoiled suburban brats dropped off at the theatre instead of the hiring a babysitter who throw things, talk, and generally distract from the picture.
- That unidentifiable sticky substance on the floor that could be spilled Coke... Or any number of other unpleasant alternatives, each indistinguishable from the next in the dark.
Suck? (Score:3, Insightful)
The main reason nobody's going to the movies: they've found other ways to entertain themselves. There's DVDs of course (I have a two-year backlog in my NetFlix queue!), and TV. But I think people are just generally branching out more. Book clubs are popular, and museum attendance is at all-time high. Hey, lots of folks are amusing themselves by creating their own content, in the form of blogs, podcasts, and now video podcasts. How can Hollywood compete with that?
Mashed Potato Cinema (Score:5, Interesting)
What the MPAA doesn't get ... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the whole, I'm betting post-boomers are less "social" and far more likely to be comfortably entertained at home. We're quite comfortable with our kick-ass flat-screen monitors, thanks, and our sound systems beat those our parents senseless.
We don't NEED big theatre screens. We rarely dress to go out. Our popcorn comes from the microwave, not a $4.00 carboard bucket. And if we want to be in a roomful of strangers, there are all those IRC channels to choose from ...
I thought the MPAA's pitch that "nothing beats the theatre experience" we heard at the Oscars was simply pathetic. Please don't tell me what I like, Mr. Hollywood. Let me tell you:
I want downloadable movies. I want them as soon as possible to release. I'll pay.
Oh -- and more sex, please. I'll take that over cartoonish, numbing gore and violence. But that's just me.
Movie theaters suck, that's the problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the theater-going experience itself that has become intolerable. I'd go back to the movies in a heartbeat if I knew of a theater that had the following policies:
1) Theater owners need to hire large, hardass, bouncer-type stone cold ushers. If you talk, you're out. Cell phone? Out. Laser pointer? Out. Kick the seat in front of you? Out. Smartass who yells comments, thinking he's the next Joel Robinson or Mike Nelson? Out. If you're bothering the people around you in any way, instead of watching the film quietly or respectfully (or making out quietly, that's always cool by me), then you're out on your ass, no refund, and cry me a fucking river.
2) Theater owners must enforce the MPAA ratings. Don't let kids buy tickets for The Shaggy Dog and then sneak into Saw II. They ruin it. Check IDs at the box office, and check tickets at the door of the auditorium, and bingo, no more problem. I tried to see the Exorcist re-release 5 years ago, and it was ruined by a theater full of teenagers who were all holding tickets to see the latest g-rated insult to IQs over 50. I haven't seen a horror film in the theater since.
3) Theater owners must stop showing advertisements before a film starts for products that are not other films. People resent paying $12 to be a captive audience for 30 minutes of television commercials.
Bonus un-necessary but IT WOULD BE AWESOME policies:
4) Theater audiences must SHUT THE FUCK UP. In the last ten years or so, I've noticed a disturbing trend. Audiences seem no longer content to just laugh at the funny parts or cry at the sad parts. They now must treat a film as if someone is filming a sitcom, and they are part of the live studio audience. Here's a news flash, people: IT'S A FUCKING MOVIE. IT CAN'T HEAR YOU. Stop clapping and cheering when the Warner Brothers logo shows up at the beginning of the next Batman film. Stop applauding when Neo beats down Agent Smith. Definitely STOP GIVING THE CREDITS A STANDING OVATION. What, are you fucking retarded or something? What the hell is wrong with you people?
3) A liquor license, even just wine-beer, for R-rated evening showings after 8pm. I'd love to be able to drink a cold one while I'm watching a movie in a room full of grownups. I already have a local theater that does this with second-run films, but I'd love it if I could get this kind of service in a first-run show with a kick-ass sound system.
It's not that the movies suck... (Score:5, Interesting)
- parking
- the tickets
- the $4 small bags of popcorn
- the $3 box of raisinettes
- the $5 cokes
I can buy a DVD, get a couple of pizza's delivered, open a bottle of wine (or a couple of beers), nuke a bag of popcorn and enjoy the movie on my schedule in a room with comfortable chairs that have lots of leg room, floors that aren't sticky and covered with garbage, a room without noisy assholes talking on their cell phones, stupid people constantly asking their friends "what did he say?" and "who's that?", a speaker system where the bass isn't being over driven and the center channel speakers aren't blown, a place where I don't have to sit through 15 to 30 minutes of commercials before the movie starts and if I have to get up in the middle I can pause the damn thing.
I don't go to the theater because the theater experience sucks.
In the past people went to the movies because it was an event, they looked forward to it for days or weeks ahead of time. Everyone was there to enjoy and drink-in the experience. Now we go to the movies because we don't have anything better to do.
In the world / One Man / with a mission ... (Score:3, Informative)
blah blah
Simple fact is that movie-going is no longer a past time activity. It's becoming more and more a privilege to be entertained rather than being entertainment for the common man/woman/child/old people.
I can take the crowded theater, high price of pop corn, sticky floor, crappy seat, and the guy/gal sitting behind me talking on the phone. However what I cannot take are;
1) treated like 2nd class citizen with empty center seats for higher prices
2) double and triple gated entrances to theater seating, treating everyone like little kids sneaking into movies
3) "Piracy is illegal" message then FBI Warning right after, treating everyone like criminals or just plain ignorant
4) Remake of Remake of Remake of another Remake of the original from 1942
5) high price tickets forcing me to make a decision between films
Going to movies used to be "entertainment", a mindless fun and/or enlightment, now it's a chore, a responsibility, a time taking investment.
I used to go to movies every week, watching at least 1 or 2 movies (paying every penny), regardless of its critical acclaim from so called "experts". Now, first I have to check out box office number and reviews (watch what's worth money).
Then I have to put up with checking with 2 to 3 different ticket checkers to get into the seat. If that is not enough, now I have to put up with long public annoucements and commercials that tells me "stealing is bad" message. Ironically yet another message telling me to buy food and drink with highway robbery prices.
If insulting is the way to inform the public, then this one tops the chart. A bright red seats in the center of theater for even higher price with its own popcorn and drink stand. Even more insulting when those seats are totally empty.
Especially ironic when the movie we are watching is either about main characters being compassionate criminal, murderer, or rebel.
The movies portays breaking the rule and going against authority is cool, and movie threater chains to label movie-goers with 2nd class ignorant citizens is perfectly fine, but when the box office doesn't do well, it's not entirely because movie sucks, maybe and MAYBE people like myself don't want to be in such place. After all, if I'm going to be insulted and annoyed, I rather be insulted and annoyed at home watching the movie on cable or DVD.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
The entire experience is bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Why?
Well the huge drop in our attendence this year was because every movie house around us now shows 20 minutes of video commercials before the lights dim and the trailers (usually 6) begin.
I like to sit in the theatre and talk to my wife or the people we're with. You can't do that over the damn TV being projected onto the screen. It's awful and I hate it.
Blend in people who think they can talk as if they were in their own living room, text message, talk on their cell phones, get up three or four times for more soda/popcorn/etc, and you have a truly wretched experience. I won't even MENTION kids crying and throwing things. I don't go when the high schoolers go - that's even worse.
So mostly it's Netflix and a very good widescreen TV instead of the movies.
I'm SICK and FUCKING TIRED of being endlessly marketed to. I don't need surround-sound tunes blared at me, crap on the screen. I have a mind, I like the people I go to movies with, I want to enjoy them until the lights fade and a new world unrolls on the screen.
Seriously.. (Score:3, Informative)
1. Family Reunion 2.8/10 Family Comedy/Drama (Worst 100: #61)
2. 16 Blocks 6.8/10 Crime/Drama/Thriller
3. Eight Below 7.4/10 Family Adventure
4. Ultraviolet 4.0/10 Superhero/SciFi/Something
5. Aquamarine 2.0/10 Kid's Comedy
6. The Pink Panther 4.7/10 Family Comedy
7. Block Party 7.6/10 Documentary/Real Event
8. Date Movie 2.8/10 Comedy (Worst 100: #57)
9. Curious George 6.9/10 Family Comedy
10. Firewall 6.0/10 Crime/Drama/Thriller
Two of the lowest 100 rated movies ever.
I really have no desire to see any of those movies, at least not in the theater. I'm not really interested in the family/kids movies, so that rules out half of them. I'd rather watch Dave Chapelle's Block Party on video so I can skip music I might not like. I'm not going to watch a movie rated below 5, so that rules out Date Movie and Ultraviolet. That leaves Firewall (and we all know how accurate the technical aspects of THAT movie are gonna be) and 16 Blocks/The Gauntlet/Escape From NY/LA/Whatever. Yeah... pass.
Of course. No Pixar movie. (Score:5, Insightful)
Too LOUD and too many commercials (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't mind audience noise related to the movie. I do mind cell phone conversations, crying babies, and teens messing around making noise unrelated to the movie.
I went to a movie about 3 months ago- there were maybe four of us in the theatre and it was super loud- I asked the manager to turn down the sound and she -refused- and gave me back my money rather than turn it down to a reasonable level.
Finally- the commercial load is absurd. I'm paying good money and if I want a decent seat I -must- sit through 15 to 20 minutes of commercials. It irritates the hell out of me. Even worse is obvious product placement. The second I see them, it breaks me out of my suspension of disbelief and pisses me off unless the movie is poking fun at product placement.
The combination of these are why my movie going has dropped from 20-30 movies a year to 3 to 4 movies a year. It's just not worth it- there is too much other entertainment to engage in vs getting pissed off at being treated so poorly by Hollywood's grasping after every last dime of revenue.
Its TV show on DVD... They kill movies (Score:4, Interesting)
That and the movie going experience is terrible.
quality of movies (Score:3, Insightful)
Things were really dry prior to the huge upsurge in piracy, but just because the marketing machines are pumping crap, there's no excuse for any claim that movies today suck. That's just something people who haven't been paying attention say because it used to be blaringly true.
Quit bitching about movie theatres! Demand better! (Score:5, Interesting)
You book your seat online before arriving, so you know where you're going to sit, and no queues. You can pick up your ticket from an ATM style thing out the front if you want to get it quickly, or you can go in and pick it up whilst you're ordering your goodies for the film.
You can order hot food, pizzas, cakes (including creme brulee and lemon tarts... even choc top ice creams - but adult flavors like rum n raison and dark chocolate), champagne, wine, beer, decent cafe quality coffee, coke (if you must) to be delivered to you seat during the film, which is placed on a little table between every two seats... which has an inbuilt ice bucket. As there's so few seats, the waiters do not have to lean over someone else or squeeze past hundreds of others to give you your stuff.
They have 30 or so reclining armchairs in a small theater with a smallish screen, but top notch acoustics and audio gear, usually not too loud (although Return to the King was painfully loud).
There's heaps of space between you and the next person in any direction. Even if you're laying down flat and Sideshow Bob is in front of you, you can still see the screen.
As the tickets cost $25, and the food aint cheap, it keeps the plebs and kids away for the most part. Sure I spend like $60 or $70 going out to see a film, but it's been an enjoyable experience, no brats, great food and beverages and I've felt like I got my money's worth.
So quit whining about crap theaters, and ask for your own Gold Class theaters!
Now if only they make more films like Amerlie and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and less shit like Date Movie, I'd be inclined to go to Gold Class more often.
It's Not the Movies (Score:3, Interesting)
During my college days, way back in the 1970s, I used to go to one of the local movie theaters a couple times a week. One was what we called a "repertory theater." They showed a frequently-changing bill with classic old movies interspersed with more recent films. I saw a lot of great films, and became a real movie buff. I often dragged friends along with me to see movies I really loved.
Eventually the theater changed hands. The last time I went there, the manager blocked my way to the ticket booth. I was carrying my book bag because I'd just got off work. He insisted that I was taking outside food into the theater -- something I had never done -- and refused to let me, or the friend I had with me, buy tickets. I never went back, and within a year or two, the theater was sold and converted into a restaurant. It's said that the sale included a restrictive covenant barring the new owner, or any future owner, from ever converting the building back into a theater.
I still went to movies at other theaters, but early in the '80s some theaters started interspersing commercials among the coming attractions. That practice angered me so much that, whenever a theater showed a commercial, I would shout, "Boo! No commercials!" loudly enough to be heard and understood in the projection booth. Often this would get a small round of applause. I would then go out and get my money back, and go home without seeing the movie. This became frustrating after a while. At some point in the mid-80s, I gave up. For about ten years, I never went to a movie theater.
About ten years ago, a new theater opened near here, with big screens, great sound systems, and stadium seating, and I tried again. I was very happy to see that they were not showing the commercials that had driven me out of the theaters years earlier, and I started going to movies again.
A few years ago, the commercials came back. Nobody seemed to mind except me. The last time I tried to see a movie at that theater, they were playing an endless string of commercials, interrupted only when the movie started. (Actually, the commercials, continued playing for a few seconds after the actual program started.) I haven't been back to that theater, either. It's going to make one enormous restaurant, I must say.
Re:Damn it's tough being a pimp . . . (Score:4, Funny)
"Hollywood, I wish I knew how to quit you..."
Re:Damn it's tough being a pimp . . . (Score:3, Funny)
Or at least put them together in the same movie. One of the problems with the Oscars is the Academy has a strong bias towards movies which strive to be Important, rather than entertaining. So producers, directors, etc, particularly those already rich as hell, have a strong incentive to make such movies for the prestige. Obviously a movie can be both, but often enough they sacrifice entertainment value for Importance.
Re:Damn it's tough being a pimp . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Please. This sentence is hypocritical and trollish. Brokeback Mountain is a good movie with a good script.
Actually it isn't hypocritical or trollish. It's just worded horribly.
Gay Cowboys and Pimps == Movies about topics that most people don't really give a shit about. Don't believe me, look at the ticket sales. BBM may have had great writing, and even been a great movie (i don't know, haven't seen it) but very few people cared about the topic.
As far as the bad writing, do I really need to throw down examples? There are way too many to name.
My point is clear, if Hollywood wants to make more money they can do one of two things:
1) Make movies about things people care about. Even if it's not the greatest writing/acting/directing, people will see movies about things they are interested in.
or
2) Make movies with good writing. good acting and so on. There is more to movies than special effects
But if they want to maximize their profits, they can combine 1 & 2.
Re:Damn it's tough being a pimp . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you know, there were no movies made this year without gay cowboys or pimps.
Re:whats wrong with old movies (Score:3, Interesting)
"Wish I could get Turner Classic Movies without having to pay for 90 other channels I have NO interest in."
McCain is actually working on legislation to require cable to go a la carte. From what I've seen, the cable companies are down with it, but the bundle-monsters like Disney and Fox hate it.
I really hope it materializes. We haven't had TV for a couple years now, but if I could just pick a couple of channels I can't get now without a multimegabuck megabundle, it would be great to be able to casually
Re:I just spent (Score:5, Funny)
"Under 2 got in free."
If you took someone under the age of two to a feature length movie, then I hate you.
Re:duh (Score:4, Informative)
You mean brother and sister?
Re:The reason why people don't go to the movies (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe its because the popcorn is a heck of a lot cheaper - fresher, and has butter on it instead of that crap they make you use at the theatre.
Maybe its because you can at least turn the sound down on the commercials they force you to watch at the beginning of the DVDs you buy, rather than having the sound at even more than normal in the theatre.
Mabye its because you c