Category: media

“The cinema, like the novel, is always dying. The movies were killed by sequels; they were killed by conglomerates; they were killed by special effects. “Heaven’s Gate” was the end; “Star Wars” was the end; “Jaws” did it. It was the ratings system, profit participation, television, the blacklist, the collapse of the studio system, the Production Code. The movies should never have gone to color; they should never have gone to sound. The movies have been declared dead so many times that it is almost surprising that they were born, and, as every history of the cinema makes a point of noting, the first announcement of their demise practically coincided with the announcement of their birth.”

“Movies have long been a magnet for scrutiny, hysteria or moral panics, though obviously television now draws much of that dubious attention. Still, nothing can get commentators and even politicians going like a Hollywood movie. Consider Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, made mostly with Gibson’s money but also with funds from investors, and released by a large theatrical distributor–thus, like many so-called “indies,” a Hollywood movie in all but name. The Passion of the Christ represents a strange historical irony, because it was precisely the type of Catholic conservatism animating Gibson’s controversial blockbuster that inspired Joseph McCarthy’s tirades against Hollywood movies.”

“By most estimates and anecdotal evidence, revenues from international home video sales are the fastest-growing part of Hollywood’s business. The most reliable estimate comes from Screen Digest, a British data company, which calculated that the home video divisions of the United States studios garnered $11.4 billion in wholesale revenues from the $24.6 billion that overseas consumers spent buying and renting home video products in 2004. What is more certain is that the windfall from overseas home video sales is affecting how the movie business is run. It is inflating budgets for films with big international potential.”

This year’s Sundance Festival closes in a blaze of awards and respect for documentaries. “It was a weak year for the American dramatic competition and a strong one for documentaries, but the contrast between these groups of movies was not just a matter of quality. In any case, the dramatic jury had no trouble handing out prizes – it seems none of the juries did; there were more than 30 awards given.”

Hollywood should be feeling guilty, writes Michael Wilmington. Martin Scorcese has deserved an Oscar as Best Director at least three times before. Yet he’s got nada. “Why should Marty Scorsese get the Oscar this time? More than anything else, because he’s earned it. Though there’s controversy about whether it’s really 2004’s best movie, The Aviator is currently the front-runner and favorite, by virtue of its pack-leading 11 nominations.” So is this the year?

Bernard Weinraub is retiring as Hollywood correspondent for the New York Times. After a tour covering the Vietnam war, Hollywood should have been a breeze. But “only in my 14 years here – most of it spent covering the movie industry, the rest covering television and music – did I come face to face with some of the more startling, and not always pleasant, truths about human behavior, my own included.”

The expectation of the new entertainment consumer is that they should be able to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it. And if the producers of these programs don’t make it easy and attractive, then consumers will find other ways to get it. How about your own cable-TV set-top box? TV shows on your computer? Bottom line: entertainment moguls better figure out a business model to satisfy customers or they’ll lose out.

As Sundance ’05 steamrolls its way to a star-studded conclusion, Geoff Pevere decides that he has seen some spectacular films, but notes that it’s the little Hollywood overindulgences that will likely stay with him: “Slumming superstars. Californians in general. Recovery junkie Californians in particular. Movies about making movies. Ordinary people with extraordinary abdominal muscles. Dysfunctional families (is there any other kind?). The 1970s. The Tarantino Factor. Quirk. Handheld. Emo-folky soundtrack music. Freeze-frames. Creative swearing from cute kids.”

“The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11 might have been the year’s most talked-about movies, cultural watersheds that produced hefty lines at movie houses and a mother lode of pundits yapping about the inevitable divide between red America and blue America. Yet one group that seemed curiously uninterested in the religion, politics and controversy the two pictures embraced was the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which opted to leave both off the shortlist for best picture.” So is Hollywood out of touch? Are moviegoers easily seduced by mediocre films that play to their preexisting beliefs? Maybe both.

A storm of criticism has enveloped the new film, Million Dollar Baby, with right-wing commentators and disabled activists calling for critics to reveal (and condemn) the movie’s controversial surprise plot twist. But Roger Ebert says that such demands miss the point of both the film and a critic’s role in the cultural sphere: “Most movies have no issues and inspire no thought. A movie like this forces you to think about its issues. If you leave it and discuss what Maggie should have done, what you would do, and what you would wish for your loved ones, then the movie has served a purpose, whether you agree with it or not. A movie is not good or bad because of its content, but because of how it handles its content.”