tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23254459562200765222024-03-05T18:10:58.467-08:00The Movie ActivistAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-64587300801420054582018-06-04T10:19:00.000-07:002018-06-04T10:52:39.341-07:00"Solo", Farewell, Auf Viedersehen, Goodbye (or, All Our Yesterdays)<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivF3d8VSdDf4eUuuOWzEVZoh9AMPhzpeZTE3e4k2b4HtLf1C7FxHuIgu-uRrhApe-aNaMVEu9uNPxIuSv8QbMj_RNoG2XksNql4xT1a4AhznJLg_7HZ2CkNaWqSyFLqgOxvRJ-aAIYXygp/s1600/c3a9476b-4425-40d2-8d6c-76fd8ffda284-solo-star-wars-story-wide-5-1920x804.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivF3d8VSdDf4eUuuOWzEVZoh9AMPhzpeZTE3e4k2b4HtLf1C7FxHuIgu-uRrhApe-aNaMVEu9uNPxIuSv8QbMj_RNoG2XksNql4xT1a4AhznJLg_7HZ2CkNaWqSyFLqgOxvRJ-aAIYXygp/s320/c3a9476b-4425-40d2-8d6c-76fd8ffda284-solo-star-wars-story-wide-5-1920x804.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As an aforementioned <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/12/december-19-2016-theater-roots-wars.html" target="_blank">first-generation fan from the Star Wars O.G.</a> (1977, baby, Bicentennial behind us, Vader was lying, nobody dressed up in line, tickets were a buck-fifty and Han Shot First), it might seem strange to start off a piece about the recent box-office fate of "Solo: a Star Wars Story" with a Star <i><b>Trek</b></i> reference, but just go with me on this for a moment:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikr7hWn3hLG7pGbCxO1opIw7S5XQnthHF4xYDxt9OkGBjsSETPYd3okI_WTsQiWHI5Xvx8YAS5oGQ-TQjEeRuCDleoWebprE3753ZzxkJkGbPHgQH4CMkGIldVvBJhpDGeL-50GCCKfsMv/s1600/allouryesterdays_028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikr7hWn3hLG7pGbCxO1opIw7S5XQnthHF4xYDxt9OkGBjsSETPYd3okI_WTsQiWHI5Xvx8YAS5oGQ-TQjEeRuCDleoWebprE3753ZzxkJkGbPHgQH4CMkGIldVvBJhpDGeL-50GCCKfsMv/s200/allouryesterdays_028.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Our_Yesterdays_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)" target="_blank">one episode from the original 1960's Trek series</a>, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy beam down onto a planet about to be destroyed, and into what seems to be a giant archive library of electronic disks. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As the librarian, Mr. Atoz (get it?) explains, each disk is an encyclopedic entry on planetary history, and controls a time portal back to that period--And the reason no one else is there to meet them is that the entire planet has been evacuating the disaster by escaping back into the previous past era of their choice...Or, at least, that's all he has time to explain, before his own "gotta run!" exit leaves them just as confused as before. It won't stop the planet's sun from going supernova, but at least everyone could now safely go somewhere where they can stall it off for a few hundred or thousand years and let it become somebody else's problem.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's not as crazy science-fiction as it sounds. In fact, too many of us seem to be doing it right this very moment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The current headline that's left the movie industry reeling for the last ten days--in an oddly absent movie summer where every hit seems to be giving each other a wide berth and safely staying out of each other's way--was the rug-pulled no-show box-office opening for "Solo: a Star Wars Story", which opened to an all-time low of $90M on the usually sacred Memorial Day, dropping to an even more embarrassing $29M the second week.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, a Star Wars movie tanking at the box-office on launch, that-there's stuff that just shouldn't usually <u>happen</u>--Over the week in between, the industry scrambled for an explanation, with producer Kathleen Kennedy blaming bad weather and the holiday weekend. (Which was a bit ironic, considering how Fox first tried to use Memorial Day to "bury" the 1977 Star Wars forty years ago, hoping everyone would be at the beach.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some fans went the quick route, saying that while the movie had the screenwriter of "Empire Strikes Back" and a director who'd worked with George Lucas in the past, new actor Alden Ehrenreich was just too uncharismatic a lump to step into Harrison Ford's shoes.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRjplS7iALmuT7ofMfIiXgpK74w3MtRxWhmIun5_0UIRUB0hLDp4c9lC6iKA2PYoBfXbL2N5nEc3i9zmYNyZgN1LT0GSbTQH_uFLWF5kOKnaoz-W0UW4Gq3a6VkqM6FzbBR1Zgk9FapSt/s1600/Alden-Ehrenreich-star-wars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRjplS7iALmuT7ofMfIiXgpK74w3MtRxWhmIun5_0UIRUB0hLDp4c9lC6iKA2PYoBfXbL2N5nEc3i9zmYNyZgN1LT0GSbTQH_uFLWF5kOKnaoz-W0UW4Gq3a6VkqM6FzbBR1Zgk9FapSt/s200/Alden-Ehrenreich-star-wars.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Most core Star Wars fans, still reeling from the unholy self-indulgent train wreck of last December's "Episode VIII: the Last Jedi", were quick to grab writer-director Rian Johnson by the scruff of the neck, hold him up next to Kennedy's need to make the stories more "socially inclusive", and shout "It's <b>THEIR</b> fault for ruining the whole thing!"...Which is not, we should say, far off.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />But critics were a little more incisive in their complaints: Columnist Joshua Rothman for the New Yorker called the Solo movie "Distressingly forgettable...A Star Wars movie about Nothing, like a Seinfeld episode with hyperdrive". Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal called it "Dramatic neutrality", where "Action of no great consequence grinds on". C</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ritic A.O. Scott of the NY Times shrugged off the "Low-stakes blockbuster" fun, but called the story's need to backstory every unexplained reference from Eps. IV and V "A filmed Wikipedia page".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And it's <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-growing-emptiness-of-the-star-wars-universe" target="_blank">Rothman's New Yorker column</a> that seems to have nailed as many of the reasons as any: The Star Wars universe felt "empty" with no one hero to follow anymore. It was a setting of people, creatures, identifiable pop-lore references and occasionally battles, ones we expected from a big famous brand name, but nothing that <i>took</i> us anywhere anymore. A wandering nobody with "no people" stumbled into scoundrel company, learned to pilot a ship, met two loyal sidekicks who figure in more important later stories, and became at the end of the movie...pretty much who he was at the start. We know LATER that he'll go on to great things, but that's another movie. And you wouldn't <i>know</i> that, of course, unless you'd seen them already.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQlwKVEMj2RXyFWfLUEb_f9XEmAtGtL80FpMuoIZeMiJn69rrX3PA5FGkP0I8ogcZAujN9W13u_ULUx4vW9Zbzj_pOf7T7I9CHCScHO_DTa9DARhyCZKnApocQBz4JlDi7DYv9aqD5BCaq/s1600/11791309.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQlwKVEMj2RXyFWfLUEb_f9XEmAtGtL80FpMuoIZeMiJn69rrX3PA5FGkP0I8ogcZAujN9W13u_ULUx4vW9Zbzj_pOf7T7I9CHCScHO_DTa9DARhyCZKnApocQBz4JlDi7DYv9aqD5BCaq/s200/11791309.jpeg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The reason that it doesn't quite <u>feel</u> like an epic Star Wars saga may probably be </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">because of the other big name we'd all heard forty years ago when the first movie opened. Oh, we all heard about George Lucas...And if we were watching PBS stations on pledge drives for the next twenty years, we also heard about the philosophical author of the books Lucas claimed <b>he</b> had been inspired by: Joseph Campbell.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In his book </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;" target="_blank">The Hero With a Thousand Faces</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, Campbell outlined how every mythic-saga hero in cultural history, from myth and fairytale to Beowulf, to King Arthur, to Frodo Baggins, to, well, Luke Skywalker, the hero's adventure is a life-changing journey that is like maturity itself: The hero starts from nothing, and must leave it or see it destroyed before he can search the world for what will make him complete--He will receive advice or even magical help from a fatherlike mentor steeped in ancient traditions, he will have sidekicks who may even be inspired to find their own selves by lending support, and, like Luke's final lightsaber duel, he has to overcome his own personal demons or failings and conquer them before he can be worthy of getting his prize.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsubawfHt2ERxdT_WteziKmyjTrJbdY7L8l7tyYVij4Vjd_xbRe2vp4m3tcKxAeFpe2wdwTgbeb2cKgj-ORkqJjxdLuNfTCtSLTXf4b4EyR6_LZ_u8x65MNW01r4FxS8yaFxz6Rkhyphenhyphen3YLI/s1600/9994aa06c58078fe8f8a9e7dcc7cb1b3.618x465x1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsubawfHt2ERxdT_WteziKmyjTrJbdY7L8l7tyYVij4Vjd_xbRe2vp4m3tcKxAeFpe2wdwTgbeb2cKgj-ORkqJjxdLuNfTCtSLTXf4b4EyR6_LZ_u8x65MNW01r4FxS8yaFxz6Rkhyphenhyphen3YLI/s200/9994aa06c58078fe8f8a9e7dcc7cb1b3.618x465x1.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In a 70's where cynical Clint Eastwood antiheroes had become the "relevant" norm, the Campbell-worship in Lucas's first Star Wars (it wasn't "Ep. IV" or "A New Hope" back then) was praised for its "Modern mythic" quality, and even accused of being a deliberate old-Hollywood throwback to the 30's-serial Flash Gordon days, when heroes were Heroes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Without the Hero's Journey, and what he finds at the end of it, you do not have a Story. I'm not exactly sure what you <b>have</b>--whether it's a diary, a tangential anecdote, or, as the NY critic said, a footnote analysis of somebody <i>else's</i> story--but it's simply not something you can apply the more familiar word to. Unless you happen to be Atreyu or Falkor, there is no such thing as a Neverending Story.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And that's a problem for studios at the moment: They were sort of counting the next years' strategies on stories not ending. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Particularly after most of them did--Warner had the good fortune back at the beginning to luck onto multi-filmed serials of Harry Potter and Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" adaptation, which were already in-production to deliver one film of the open-ended books' chapters per year. And execs in 2001 now had the one-two punch of knowing exactly what money they would make in 2003 and 2004 before they'd even made it, a strategy they've applied ever since. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A strategy they later believed in the 10's they were copying from Marvel's success with interconnected and serialized big and little movies all telling the "universe" of one big TV-series like story--Not realizing that Marvel was simply adapting what they'd written for fifty years: Ongoing magazines meant to get you to buy the next issue, or story-crossover issues of another magazine. What Marvel did, they did for a <i>living</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Harry and Frodo were characters in the more <u>traditional</u> kinds of books, and as Joe reminded us, books end after the hero finds what he was looking for. Studios (including Warner's original contract deal to write more Harry Potter stories without JK Rowling, even after there was no more Voldemort to fight) believed they could turn a story into a Brand Name, by telling us everything else that had happened. And, if living Happily Ever After, or dying, happens to be the major stumbling block, everything else that happened, happened....</span><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">before</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. And to everybody else, whose stories were glossed over the first time around--Hey, ancient mentors and flawed sidekicks are people <i>too</i>, y'know!</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Studios needed to promise the public More--Especially when it was looking more and more like they wouldn't be able to deliver it. And fans, being of the right age when more hamburgers and more cookies sound better than Less of them, thought they wanted More.</span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But in writing, More is not always Better...It's just <i>more</i>, like more paper clips on your desk, or more lint in your closet. One of the first things your freshman writing teacher drilled into your ambitious high-school head was "Kill your darlings"--Not EVERYTHING you think up belongs in a story, and sometimes the hardest work in telling a story is in knowing what part of the story <u>not</u> to tell, and the </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">narrative will be clearer to the reader for what you remove. (A screenwriting concept Michael Bay and M. Night Shamalyan have apparently never heard of in their entire <i>lives</i>, but that's another issue.)</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP6UFu7tDAnPvMr0ru7wA0SzVguV3gVXPHvbMdDY2VRPOiyD0i4Gzh-UWnjLtKpvAfhR774m4TSqkcQzXqYD12pRtc7riDg_btl1Nc2PSy_4CKM523xK8bNQlDD70E4jSlFIZbFqObnn5J/s1600/51HV84ZG2VL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP6UFu7tDAnPvMr0ru7wA0SzVguV3gVXPHvbMdDY2VRPOiyD0i4Gzh-UWnjLtKpvAfhR774m4TSqkcQzXqYD12pRtc7riDg_btl1Nc2PSy_4CKM523xK8bNQlDD70E4jSlFIZbFqObnn5J/s200/51HV84ZG2VL.jpg" width="141" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Think of any classic story: Would Cinderella be a better tale if we had a lengthy flashback to when Cindy's parents were still alive, or if we saw what happened to the Stepmother's previous husband? Would Robin Hood be a more compelling adventure if we saw the origin of how the Sheriff of Nottingham rose to power? Would Hamlet be a more effective tragedy if we had a flashback of the close relationship he had with his dad when still alive and king, or if we followed the side adventures of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern?...Er, oops, wait, think someone's already written that play.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The narrative is clearer when we know the answers to the question the reader will ask...Who is the main character? What does he want? When does he start to go after it and how does he plan to do it? And what are we to take away from the story in the end into our own experiences, that we'll care whether or not he finds it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To tell the eight, nine, ten, or however ultimately-many chaptered story of Star Wars, you have to ask the same question the Prequel trilogies brought up: Just who the heck's saga <u>IS</u> this, anyway? Is it Luke's? Is it Anakin's? Is it <b>both</b><i>?--</i>Is it about how Luke redeemed Anakin, or how Anakin was redeemed by Luke?<i> </i>Is it the robots'? Is it Obi-Wan's? Is it Boba Fett's? Or is it Solo's, who isn't even mentioned at all in the first three episodes?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And that question, Campbell already answered: It is the saga of the hero we follow because he is Us. He may have friends, he may have a mentor, and he may have help, but if the story was about <i>them</i>, we'd know it from the beginning, wouldn't we?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But instead, we think we want to come back to More Star Wars, whomever it's about, because, like Marvel or Pixar, a reputation-proven brandname is one of the last remaining safe-houses to come back to at the cineplex. We feel nowadays as if we can't expect good new movies anymore, so keep the OLD good ones alive as long as we can.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8pc3oD0Lg3Fqmfe_hsfvxACEyaKEDF_W46lxwcoxUXX86MCeb0tuyzPBNQvWhA-DLOYqKTF-ezF-_m0m71ZLossobm07AjY7hNf5HkEm5Ydy3m6vscDsHuycOTP-ZdVWFZUMna3aMD1yn/s1600/MV5BMjhmZWFlZmEtNTBhMC00OGMwLWE2YTYtNjU5NDk1MTc5ZmQ2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjMxOTE0ODA%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C631%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8pc3oD0Lg3Fqmfe_hsfvxACEyaKEDF_W46lxwcoxUXX86MCeb0tuyzPBNQvWhA-DLOYqKTF-ezF-_m0m71ZLossobm07AjY7hNf5HkEm5Ydy3m6vscDsHuycOTP-ZdVWFZUMna3aMD1yn/s200/MV5BMjhmZWFlZmEtNTBhMC00OGMwLWE2YTYtNjU5NDk1MTc5ZmQ2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjMxOTE0ODA%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C631%252C1000_AL_.jpg" width="125" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like Mr. Atoz's planetary library-patrons, we audiences have also become like those studios: All the good old stories had endings, and good new ones seem to be less and less forthcoming every year. So we evacuate to a Summer '18 with another story of Pixar's Incredibles, more adventures in a newer, bigger Jurassic Park, a new heist for a new Oceans '11 gang, and more thrills that remember how cool it was to go to a theater in 2004, 1993, and 2001. Those were good years...But they're not 2018, 2019, or 2020, and they sure as heck aren't 2021 or 2022.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With only a brick wall at the end of the tunnel, the train speeding up, and studios seeking only movies the audience already knows by name and can identify--namely favorite <u>old</u> ones--the audience can only loop, re-loop, and re-re-loop itself into the favorite past of its choice, trying to survive in old movies when new movies can't deliver anymore, until it realizes a basic problem: The past is not a future. Saying "Here's <i>another</i> part of the story we forgot to tell you twenty years ago" is not going to stop an industry of Today from blowing up around their ears.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And the stories that Yesterday had to tell are just not all that interesting, when you're living in Today and know what the characters don't. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's just not that much fun to see a character who knows less about his own story than we already do. If the hero has no new journey to go on, what will we ever find on ours?</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-70607882444623055422018-05-22T08:11:00.000-07:002018-05-22T08:26:59.975-07:00The Twilight of Digital Download, Epilogue: The Future? (or Able Was I, Ere I Saw Disney)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBNcDK3CPpfE8iJxFhWTX_RvmbwbUQfvukjnAgeOsOs_y64DDpKZ0xChFeAZ4Po1cWkZLmt56POSP7sAQN6Alv2Ii_3CSY3qKTiN43Hx7jqYJKef3dR2JbilQkf3VHudtt9wged9O4eG3F/s1600/Napoleon_sainthelene.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBNcDK3CPpfE8iJxFhWTX_RvmbwbUQfvukjnAgeOsOs_y64DDpKZ0xChFeAZ4Po1cWkZLmt56POSP7sAQN6Alv2Ii_3CSY3qKTiN43Hx7jqYJKef3dR2JbilQkf3VHudtt9wged9O4eG3F/s320/Napoleon_sainthelene.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the 2001 Ian Holm comedy "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QXBKIhC3RI" target="_blank">The Emperor's New Clothes</a>"--look it up if you get the chance, and no, I'm not talking about the Disney movie--we're offered a whimsical what-if premise: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Instead of dying in exile on the island of St. Helene, what if defeated ex-conqueror Napoleon had switched places with a lookalike commoner, in a plan to return and retake Paris?...But when the plan goes wrong, he finds himself stranded in modern 1820's post-Revolutionary Paris as an average citizen, thought to be one more lunatic every time he tries to tell the world the truth. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As our now anonymous citizen tries to find work and romance--and even organizes the street fruit-sellers with military strategy--he comes to realize the humiliating truth that years later, he's since become a quaint historical relic in his own country. The free democratic France he helped create has now grown and matured past him into a country of citizens simply struggling to get by in a nation of their own, have no more need of self-satisfying world conquerors, thank you, and are in no mood to hear the cannons of war start again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Picking up the pieces from the would-be all-or-nothing, last-man-standing Digital vs. Physical war, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">we customers in the middle have become like those simple Parisians now: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Home-theater has had a rough history over the last thirty-six years, born in war from the beginning. VHS battled Betamax, DVD battled DiVX before it could overcome VHS, and Blu-ray had to beat HDDVD to the bitter end before it could have a chance to blow away DVD. When DVD and Blu-ray's scheming Evil Twins hijacked the battle and represented threats to our very freedom, we rallied around the flag, and fought for principles of liberty and unity. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But we have two generations who've so grown up with movies in their home, they've never known a time when movies weren't--At the right age, our children are now shown Wizard of Oz on the family disk, with no TV station to show it every year, and if a revival shows up, parents take them to the theater to amaze them with what The Lion King or Star Wars looked like in their day, when it used to play on bigger screens. Home-theater simply was, and <u>is</u>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Warner, armed with their experience of the past, believed that the next New Format would be forged in the fires of war...And of course, in format-war, there is only room for one, a Winner that becomes a wildfire overnight phenomenon, and a Loser that quickly blows away into the wind like dandelion seed, and is never heard from again. The latter is what they were chiefly interested in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was when that didn't happen that panic-mode set in: I was hanging around Warner's online customer-survey community at the time, and new-idea and customer-satisfaction surveys from the company were frequent. You can guess what most of them were about. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFsHXNeXR-nq6kSH3qT67L6Y2diwoTiXY8f5OEcguReQcCMkTpUzOJfkkYP25bQXrtwetI-3W7KCuX4yIoz2tD932rCYPqHP1LSXttVIt-hNESbCYwQAO8wSUEKHIPRvdYucPnbQIjlquF/s1600/AlexaAmazonFireTV_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="320" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFsHXNeXR-nq6kSH3qT67L6Y2diwoTiXY8f5OEcguReQcCMkTpUzOJfkkYP25bQXrtwetI-3W7KCuX4yIoz2tD932rCYPqHP1LSXttVIt-hNESbCYwQAO8wSUEKHIPRvdYucPnbQIjlquF/s200/AlexaAmazonFireTV_3.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The most recent, only last month, asked customers to approve a new sales pitch--for use in a radio ad, or podcast, or maybe even an in-theater ad?--saying, and I quote, "Have you heard yet that 'Digital' means you can get movies FIRST? It's true! When you think 'Digital', think 'Your movies <i>first!</i>'"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The sheer, disillusioned <b>bafflement</b> in their voice was unmistakable: Ultraviolet's fortunes were sinking, why hadn't we all caught on yet what a wonderful miracle it was</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(especially for the studio)</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> t</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">o now preorder digital movies while they were still in theaters?...Didn't we KNOW?? Or had we just kept forgetting? Were we all just six years slow on the uptake? Was it simply that someone had neglected to <u>tell</u></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> us yet for our own good, and the truth hadn't yet set us free?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Later, I was shown their survey findings that a majority of new voice-activated-device users were using theirs mostly to listen to their music collections, set reminders and seek quick information on the Internet...Wait, does that mean they </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">weren't</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> using it to sit on the couch, say "Entertain me, Alexa!" and call up a recent hit Friday-night movie rental at random, like in all those Amazon ads?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In Warner's surveys of my customer-interest in digital libraries--which also became more and more often, the more that Blu-ray wasn't falling down yet on schedule and going plotz overnight as much as Marketing predicted it would, and they felt they hadn't hit on just the right sales avenue yet (maybe if they sold movie downloads on Gamestop gift cards?)--the question would often come up, "How many Ultraviolet digital movies are in your library collection?" Followed by itemizing "How many were A) purchased, B) redeemed with free disk codes, C) promotional bonus/gifts?" </span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 0px;">
<div style="color: black; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I had to answer truthfully: In order, I had 43 movies and 1 TV series in my collection. 23 of those were redeemed from free codes--that I'd received from, ahem, <b style="font-style: normal;">BUYING</b> the <b style="font-style: normal;">DISKS!</b>--and 19 were free promotional bonus/gifts. They should know, most of those promotional gifts were <u>from</u> Warner, trying to get me hooked on the new convenience of Flixster. I did buy <i style="font-weight: normal;">one</i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> with real money</span>, yes...An iTunes downloadable file of Eddie Murphy in "The Haunted Mansion", back in 2007 when we all were all playing with our new Apple Video iPods, and it'd somehow stayed on my Apple-account library ever since.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In fan conversations where I tried to explain whether I was fundamentally Fer or Agin' the idea of Digital, I simply explained that I saw it as a <i style="font-weight: normal;">tool</i>, for one specific situation I didn't normally encounter: I might use Vudu or Amazon to Friday-movie-night rent some recent hit I'd missed in theaters rather than go to Redbox, but didn't really do anything with my library, since my living-room TV was already next to my disk shelf. But, that I could see an online collection conceivably coming in handy for an emergency someday, if--let's be generous for the sake of argument and say IF--I was ever, say, stuck at the airport with a delayed flight for six hours with free WiFi. Otherwise, since I wasn't a regular Amtrak commuter, or wasn't usually sitting in some public WiFi hot-spot for two hours when I left the house, I didn't really, y'know, see the <u style="font-weight: normal;">point</u> of having it in any other situation.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT7nccwkqiMF8HOz6pPKmvWLfIrc9FzOrNaDUbZfEZe0orWTZ21uB2r_Qamlwj9nr1g7Pkg8jXzAw3V3NFUmNene2XiBf3cv5a1QJY7iiDln4DSuykynusgsrFSi0ih96X8d7yp79il4Ls/s1600/IMG_0264.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT7nccwkqiMF8HOz6pPKmvWLfIrc9FzOrNaDUbZfEZe0orWTZ21uB2r_Qamlwj9nr1g7Pkg8jXzAw3V3NFUmNene2XiBf3cv5a1QJY7iiDln4DSuykynusgsrFSi0ih96X8d7yp79il4Ls/s200/IMG_0264.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Last February '17, I was coming home from a cruise vacation, had no idea that the entire Northeastern seaboard was being socked with a major storm, that my flight home was delayed, and that I'd be stranded at Orlando Int'l airport with my iPad from 11am to 8pm, with free WiFi. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, what can I say?...I did ASK for it. </span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Between naps and app-games, I enjoyed a rather nice afternoon in the airport's rechargeable comfy-chair islands and food-courts with headphones on, watching "The Avengers". (Er, the original '67 Patrick Macnee/Diana Rigg TV series, that is, that I'd gotten from my free Blu-ray code, not the '99 Ralph Fiennes/Uma Thurman movie.) </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And if it makes Warner feel any better, it did come in handy.</span></div>
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When it was useful, digital became a tool, nothing more or less. A tool is what you use to solve a problem: You can't build a house without a hammer and saw, but you can't simply decide that they're <u>more</u> useful than a house, and sleep on them.</span></div>
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">We were asked to buy digital libraries because, well, digital was just <i>better</i>, is all--Yet in trying to hook us on sweet sugar by including "Digital Copy" in every Blu-ray disk, what the studios taught us was the very lesson they believed was impossible under the Darwin rules of their industry, and were strategically trying to eliminate: Co-existence. Harmony. Infinite movies in infinite diversity. Peace on earth, and goodwill to rival formats. A</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> movie can exist in two different forms...Three, if you ever actually </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">used</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> the DVD copy. (I never did.)</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">The strategy may have in fact, ultimately </span><b style="color: black; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-style: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">backfired</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> on the studios--Since we would get the digital with the disk combo anyway, why not simply buy the disk, and get TWO things for your buck instead of one? The digital copy would probably serve some purpose later, but for now, hey, it was Free Stuff. If we ever sat down and thought when on earth we'd ever need to use the digital-copy, it only brought up the idea that there would be different situations when we might want to watch something. And the right job would need the right tool.</span></div>
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Warner knew how to sell their movies, but it had lost any personal, emotional, or sentimental connection for why we bought one in the first place--</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What was left of the DRM industry was turned over to a new service that didn't want to remake the universe in its image, but just round up a place for confused folks to find them. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When we were asked, "But don't you understand how </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">wonderful</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> it is to let us take care of them for you?", the response, en masse, was "NO. They're </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">our</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> movies now. You can't have them back."</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lI6DSmY8X_eKuGms8CMYkSvJXOsHO0BHeiNSAWjHsR7QI9t6KAJVLMVW_QMA7P67Ok8XDiMU5c-0VAThIy5pBmvEchAWvQpf9qwAw2Wq76MkyJTUswpkKonYwoBe7ZnQCqAHo9K6IDPE/s1600/best-strains-high-movie-watching-1280x800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="320" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lI6DSmY8X_eKuGms8CMYkSvJXOsHO0BHeiNSAWjHsR7QI9t6KAJVLMVW_QMA7P67Ok8XDiMU5c-0VAThIy5pBmvEchAWvQpf9qwAw2Wq76MkyJTUswpkKonYwoBe7ZnQCqAHo9K6IDPE/s200/best-strains-high-movie-watching-1280x800.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That became one of the chief battle cries when disk users were under attack. But with no more enemy at the door, should it still be a militant fist in the air? It never hurts to be secure, but to bring peace, we have to learn how to beat that one sword into a plowshare, and see it as our freedom: Yes, they're <u style="color: black; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">our</u> movies now...They always were. They're a part of our lives, for whatever reason we keep them. They can be any way we want to see them, in the way we want to see them, as long as that option remains available. If we want more, there is no reason to deny us more; if some want less, less must not be enforced upon everyone. We can watch in high definition in our living room recliner with commentary and 2-hour documentary, we can watch it in 4K on an 80" home-theater or on Blu-ray on a 40" set, we can stream it out of curiosity on a Netflix subscription, or we can keep a download on a tablet at the airport waiting for our flight.</span></div>
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And as long as we can, movies will live--That's all that should matter for posterity. But take away that freedom, and movies will die the same way all stories can die: We forget them.</span></div>
<div style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">And will we forget them? That depends on us. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It depends on what the idea of being able to </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">find</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> movies, old, new, the first ones we saw as kids, or from before our parents were born, means to us, and how willing we are to do it. On whether we can define what having a movie, or keeping a movie, or discovering a movie, or infecting a beloved newbie with a favorite movie, or taking one home that you found, even from a weekend rental, means, and what that means to us whether or not someone tries to cut a few red-ink costs by taking that away. We've got to do that hard work ourselves, because we're now building up again from what's become the scorched-earth of somebody else's battlefield.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once we figure that out for ourselves and build something on that again, no one will ever again be able to sell us any other idea--Because what we build there will also be ours.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And a defeated conqueror with his one dream to improve the world and accept its thanks, will have to resign itself to a life of simple, anonymous <i>usefulness</i>, as it can only stand and stare at the faraway shores of a world that is no longer theirs to conquer.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-10773302784418977032018-05-15T07:53:00.000-07:002018-05-22T08:14:16.270-07:00The Twilight of Digital-Download, Pt. 3: Of Course You Realize, THIS Means War...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6DbUo68PL4O3SMITd52FoejFn_Eryrg5da7wW3P3W1aC9fFY0aP2AK73SZNfFOFVvmnVtAHstk7kHc7YuyyiWBPvPwmvhdQnEeKCnycIgFHhwtPDtJVOkZ8z36gIvh1bXlIj1vK8_6hjJ/s1600/5182f88ba9b6a8018fa5fffa2457a2af.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6DbUo68PL4O3SMITd52FoejFn_Eryrg5da7wW3P3W1aC9fFY0aP2AK73SZNfFOFVvmnVtAHstk7kHc7YuyyiWBPvPwmvhdQnEeKCnycIgFHhwtPDtJVOkZ8z36gIvh1bXlIj1vK8_6hjJ/s400/5182f88ba9b6a8018fa5fffa2457a2af.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, as we see from <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-twilight-of-digital-download-pt-2.html" target="_blank">the history</a>, the Digital vs. Physical-Disk War between Digital-rights locker and Blu-ray disk--and whether we should now be referring to it in the past tense--was the result of a collection of blunders, wild misreading of trends, executives out of touch with their consumers, and, that old self-destructive enemy of business, wishful thinking. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some columnists have wondered whether we should have been calling it a Format W</span><span id="goog_537369142" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><span id="goog_537369143" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ar at all, when it should have been downgraded to just a catastrophic Class 5 Format Blunder.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But make no mistake--Since 2011, Blu-ray and DVD owners have been at war. They have been caught in a war they never started, have battled an enemy they had no reason to hate until they came under unprovoked attack, and have fought for the right to stay alive in the marketplace, for the very crime that they still existed...When another corporate party, who controlled a third of the available content, felt it more convenient for their sales model if they did not. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A minority of studio interests believed that wiping out a majority of customer interests would simply be an advertising/public-relations matter of winning Hearts and Minds, and that a trendy year or two later, a grateful public would never even <u>think</u> to ask what happened to all those buried bodies.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, who'd ever pull a stunt like that? Toss some of the means, motive and <i>modus operandi</i> around for the heck of it, and the answer shouldn't really surprise you.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There are a few things that, historically, almost every living-room Format War</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">has had in common</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> since VHS first battled Betamax tape:</span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The first</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> is that in every single battle in which the competing products were the Home-Theater Collectible--like the DVD disk or the VHS tape--versus the Studio-Owned Pay-Per-View Rental option, at the early stages when the two players are still equal in the running with no winner ahead, the studios have always backed the PPV-rental option that protected their own omnipotent, unquestioned hands-on control over the movie content. </span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.</b></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When Betamax first offered customers the new ability to tape Sunday's football game in their home, Disney protested the format and Universal rushed to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc." target="_blank">block the technology in the courts</a>, worried audiences might use it to, gasp, tape movies off of TV for free. Later, when a VHS player was in every home, studio marketing played up the brand new option for viewers to order recent hit movies On Demand from their cable-TV and satellite providers--"Now you can fast-forward </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">and</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> rewind!" Er, do tell.</span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSz110o6zSdkJ2f8VuU1-LvoWSwUxSLdlPLvzxpeu-Weeghqm_xVjTMCnynsxrWhhlI8iB78okx2ZkGvFV_zpYbUWYmlo7RDZxqhpieleixauf_GNk22o8LL_lQsalgCpFK5MN6y25c1NL/s1600/360_flexplay_0624.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSz110o6zSdkJ2f8VuU1-LvoWSwUxSLdlPLvzxpeu-Weeghqm_xVjTMCnynsxrWhhlI8iB78okx2ZkGvFV_zpYbUWYmlo7RDZxqhpieleixauf_GNk22o8LL_lQsalgCpFK5MN6y25c1NL/s200/360_flexplay_0624.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgucdJKHb6Fh7AmcuQzTSbnkQ2lR7KXFe0cZc4yy46jDNuFqYmI-3Jfa1BwvzDQmjReyzYW5XIHoKgRjjmGjoBH36CyO7kqKPHy8O-7Z6DbnOm-B_Rb1olUNdOvxlsARsrd1yVsA0J2jWHG/s1600/rca-divx-ps8680z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgucdJKHb6Fh7AmcuQzTSbnkQ2lR7KXFe0cZc4yy46jDNuFqYmI-3Jfa1BwvzDQmjReyzYW5XIHoKgRjjmGjoBH36CyO7kqKPHy8O-7Z6DbnOm-B_Rb1olUNdOvxlsARsrd1yVsA0J2jWHG/s200/rca-divx-ps8680z.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When the fate of DVD was being decided in the mid-late 90's, major studios like Fox, Disney and Universal, and even reportedly major players like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, rushed to back the inferior technology of <a href="http://www.dvdjournal.com/extra/divx.html" target="_blank">DiVX</a>--A disk system that would let viewers buy their movie on disk for $5, and, with the player connected to the phone line, continue to unlock their own movie for a small 48-hour pay-per-view charge every play. Even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Or4nWQpidk" target="_blank">the promo video</a> showed poor home moviegoers, desperate for entertainment, being bestowed the studio's generosity literally from on high, in a holy heavenly light. History has since told us how well the reality of the paying audience agreed with <u>that</u> interpretation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When DVD became the dominant format, studios and hardware companies rushed to back "Netflix-killer" ideas that would bring the one-viewing-only Blockbuster-rental experience to the home: The preoccupation with creating a rental-based industry briefly introduced </span><a href="https://www.wired.com/2005/02/disposable-dvds-at-crossroads/" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;" target="_blank">Flexplay</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, a disk you "didn't have to return to the store", since the disk erased itself after 24 hours. Disney backed the idea as "ez-D", which barely made it out of test-marketing.</span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Few remember the Flexplay/ez-D--now reduced to an urban-legend at best--but even that has since stuck in the public's mind as the boogeyman symbol of the studios' fears: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like the medieval monarchs that once feared the printing press, and what would happen to the state's monopoly on information once the peasants learned to read, studios have historically had a terror of the public permanently OWNING the movie in their own home on their own shelf. The need to make audiences aware of "their" movie, and profit on it a second time after it left theaters, ran up against exactly the reason that DiVX failed and DVD succeeded--People simply don't like buying things twice, let alone a third, fourth or fifth time. No matter how generous the good people selling it may be.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The second thing most Format Wars have had in common, is that it's not always the hardware company behind the technology that has had the chief interest in the race:</span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There has usually been a second, bigger, not directly-related studio, tech or retail company lurking behind the throne, that had staked its own fortunes on which product made it to the finish line, and promotes the format with <u>more</u> personally invested bloodlust in the outcome than the developer itself. As master Yoda once said, always <i>two</i>, there are, in the shadows--The master, and the apprentice. </span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWqqEjoiF_lXZwH8ZEJXCui783MINYQoNBXPKWgzjUQyd_4W23XFwtGpqpWoJbgHg8P7bRHXGPbaewNcHZnam4i3u_YA9scJtoj5CrJ4EHU9BSTRIjn_GEOIbm6Q9uy-5nHpvnPzSO5_T9/s1600/220px-Circuit_City_Holland.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWqqEjoiF_lXZwH8ZEJXCui783MINYQoNBXPKWgzjUQyd_4W23XFwtGpqpWoJbgHg8P7bRHXGPbaewNcHZnam4i3u_YA9scJtoj5CrJ4EHU9BSTRIjn_GEOIbm6Q9uy-5nHpvnPzSO5_T9/s1600/220px-Circuit_City_Holland.JPG" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The chief general in DiVX's war was not RCA or Panasonic that produced the technology, but electronics retailer Circuit City, which reminded us of their exclusive deal to sell the hardware--The chain never escaped the tech-disgraced image of being the company that "forced" the format on the public, which didn't help its stores drastically slashing its chain into Chapter 11 two years later.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Toshiba was not HDDVD's main villain in the Blu-ray vs. HDDVD war, but Microsoft, who hoped to see their software adopted as the new default standard for hi-def video...Microsoft not only had X-Box game consoles to sell the format, but its ties with Universal, and no HD spokesman became more public and hated than Universal Marketing VP Ken Graffeo's constant cheers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, bringing us up to the present war--Who was the shadow behind DRM's throne? Who </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">would possibly have the chief interest that the studio-controlled digital-rights locker format would not only hope to win public away from Blu-ray disk, but "replace" it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Who attached itself to Ultraviolet, in full view of the industry, right from the first CES agreement? Who initially outright-owned the service that offered you your first and "only" door to that free purchase code they were generous enough to include with their own Blu-ray disk, hoping you would be their own private customer for life and never, ever stumble upon another service? Who believed that Ultraviolet's fortunes were </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">their</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> fortunes, even when what audience they had still clung to non-players like Amazon?</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Do any of those answers involve the word "Flixster", that late-lamented service you never used and could never escape? Now tell us who they worked for.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like I said, it shouldn't be surprising: Yes, this is a war. And it's </span><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">WARNER'S</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> war. They didn't want it to be anyone else's. </span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQj8Fo3PxJTSP8sLAon5rhhKt4dDx68VnjGqsqZFhGdgF24Ltjd10dWumQNTkr_qCyhi-xrqZcEnEpiF3BoYCiiGKZIBFUYVrKYkmz_gGiNpvWvNhfYxf8EePvELt3yjL4wCX2jTRS0nZ/s1600/HOMEENTCOLOR_LOCL_POWERPT_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQj8Fo3PxJTSP8sLAon5rhhKt4dDx68VnjGqsqZFhGdgF24Ltjd10dWumQNTkr_qCyhi-xrqZcEnEpiF3BoYCiiGKZIBFUYVrKYkmz_gGiNpvWvNhfYxf8EePvELt3yjL4wCX2jTRS0nZ/s1600/HOMEENTCOLOR_LOCL_POWERPT_1.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's an old trick of Warner's, who tend to be a bit more neurotic in their business practices than other major studios--For some odd reason, if a product misfires in the marketplace, they never believe in publicly blaming the product, and they never blame the marketing strategies...They immediately toss babies out with bathwater, blame the audience and their new "waning interest in the property", and rush to correct the waste of time they clearly made down that road. But to simply declare the product dead and pull it off shelves would have their own fingerprints on the deed, and even worse, martyr the product with loyal fans who might start nagging them with annoying petition campaigns to bring it back. Nothing inconveniently ruins a good funeral like mourners</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, Warner believes it must preemptively crush resistance and absolve itself from blame by persuading the consumers to do the dirty hatchet-man work for them: Like making a leprechaun leave your house, Warner's pet strategy for covering up its one sales alibi believes it must first convince the audience to </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">say</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, in their own words, "We don't like the product anymore! It's outdated and silly...Who'd ever miss it?", and then, well, who is the studio to argue with the will of the public? And in come the Good Generous People to come and sweep the embarrassing old thing away, and replace it with something shinier, newer, and more mainstream-demographically marketable to play with.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And if the public doesn't happen to be saying it yet, don't worry, they </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">will</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. A</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> little old-fashioned consumer apathy can always be whipped up in the kitchen on demand.</span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The "Propaganda strategy", of telling a studio-convenient Big Lie loudly, often and nonstop enough until (hopefully) it's believed by the public, is one cartoon fans have already encountered, from their experience with Warner's own cable Cartoon Network</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">channel</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">:</span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">From '99-'02, the network wanted to move into more profitable original series, but felt they were "held back" by being the parent-company's corporate Hanna-Barbera</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">classic-rerun</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> archive for the Smurfs and Flintstones. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The trick to changing the audience demographics from vintage reruns to new cable series, CN believed, was to spend three years on an all-out orchestrated campaign of blitzing viewers with nonstop tasteless, sophomoric, mean-spirited and <i>witlessly</i> humor-free stoner-rage hipster "satires" of 70's-80's Boomer-culture H-B lore--In the hopes audiences' minds would be indoctrinated into remembering the studio only for the crimes of Scrappy-Doo and the Wonder Twins, and just couldn't wait for those all-new cable-original schedules of Powerpuff Girls and Dexter's Laboratory to sweep in the Great Cultural Purge. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the tasteful Warner tradition of selling their new product by publicly spitting upon the old one before rallying the audience to bums-rush it out the door for them, the network coined its most infamous slogan: "Some people want to watch the same cartoons they saw as kids...Scary, huh?"</span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Translate that to home-theater, and you have <u>exactly</u> the message that Warner Home Entertainment is now trying to send to the retail disk industry. Not the consumers, the <i>industry.</i> The people that make and sell the disks. Yeah...Scary.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7VP4KaSaytguc1PVBXXZ8PH1jijkYvGfuLgiVbCYwS2TXTcLh3U05xJD-QyVTHJCdRSSaofgNREDrm7bl9BJ2SrIJVvcaueP3H1F9Z6Gwj55OIs3s32vVypwnTe6JcTZNDOEMKF2GzyuM/s1600/MEC_LCE_GLAMjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="320" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7VP4KaSaytguc1PVBXXZ8PH1jijkYvGfuLgiVbCYwS2TXTcLh3U05xJD-QyVTHJCdRSSaofgNREDrm7bl9BJ2SrIJVvcaueP3H1F9Z6Gwj55OIs3s32vVypwnTe6JcTZNDOEMKF2GzyuM/s200/MEC_LCE_GLAMjpg.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">WHE's complaints to the retail industry began spreading its own self-fulfilling prophecy--Citing their own numbers of "declining retail", and that they "couldn't sell" any of their catalog on wide retail except for their three brand-label leaders, Harry Potter, DC Comics and Peter Jackson's Tolkien, they reduced their mass-retail vintage catalog to only a handful of cult films and creatively repackaged editions of the Three Brandnames...All bearing gifts in the form of collector cases, large figurines, or other excuses to stand out on the shelf to target customers besides just a stupid old disk case. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That came to an issue in '16 with what became known among disk fans as "<a href="http://digitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/081816_1445" target="_blank">the $800 Bookshelf</a>": A repackaged set of the two Tolkien trilogies that passed over the director's own offer of extensive new bonus material, only to package it as an inexplicably priced uber-edition to appeal to what they believed was now a "small niche" of target collector fans, who could be counted on to pay whatever the market wanted, and if they didn't, see how few and hard to please they were?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The message WHE wanted to send to the other studios with their demonstrated warnings of "declining retail" was implicit: Sure, you COULD continue to sell wide retail Blu-ray and DVD in the stores, but since "everyone knows" the only people who buy disks are comic-convention fanboys and eccentric niche-collector intellectuals, why WOULD you?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's one thing to get out of a market, if you think it's not bringing you the profit you imagined. It's another thing to poison the wells, salt the ground, and persuade the rest of the marketplace to follow your example for you. Warner had a lot more than a sales urge to stop selling mass-retail disk...They wanted to directly influence the psychology of the industry so that no one else ever <i>would</i> sell them,<i> </i>and then they would just be one more innocent studio among many. When Warner set out to rid the world of nasty expensive Blu-ray retail, they intended to </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">make very sure that Blu-ray retail <b>NEVER CAME BACK</b>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And trying to meddle with an entire industry, let alone its evolution, is an area that's not only out of one company's jurisdiction, but one where they'd be better advised to simply mind their <u>own</u> damn business.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
-----</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMSad-Ql-dowd-bximlhEfty36HId_U8-s4rPKyvp40_J25nNeCiiF67RYcO4VcvzJt0WU2GJvR_mX9i3Xx03YuZ83NfaXeZaI6cdwPYwyzkjX0mQUUmla-_9IKD_XmL6yJ4mW1AL9dwN5/s1600/battlefield_in_black_n_white_with_flag_background_by_annamae22-d9wyp3r.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="302" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMSad-Ql-dowd-bximlhEfty36HId_U8-s4rPKyvp40_J25nNeCiiF67RYcO4VcvzJt0WU2GJvR_mX9i3Xx03YuZ83NfaXeZaI6cdwPYwyzkjX0mQUUmla-_9IKD_XmL6yJ4mW1AL9dwN5/s200/battlefield_in_black_n_white_with_flag_background_by_annamae22-d9wyp3r.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And so, in the end, we must return to our original premise: Digital Vs. Physical was all format-war fun and games at the start, until somebody had to make it personal. Well, congratulations, Warner...NOW it's personal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You took a technological innovation, and turned it into an ideological insult. You took a tool to bring easier movie access to the public, and used it to wipe movies off the cultural landscape. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You took a wealth of new options for the consumer, and turned it into an autocratic symbol of consumer genocide. You antagonized your potential allies by bragging to the world about how no one would ever miss them if they were gone. You embraced your own imaginary "fears of the marketplace"</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, and <u>became</u> that industry's greatest fear. You gained no ground on the battlefield, you lost public hearts-and-minds, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">you not only increased public opposition against you but strengthened its moral resolve to a new level it hadn't seen in a decade, and saw your chief secret-weapon factory bombed to rubble in a fair fight. Is this "your" war, Warner, with your name on it? Because you</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">appear</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> to have</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> just</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> been officially defeated in it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Is any product that Warner can't sell still caused by, quote, "Waning consumer interest in the property"? Not to remind you of the obvious, but Flixster is now out of business, and Ultraviolet is rapidly following. On behalf of the home-theater public, Warner, "Wane" </span><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">THAT </b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">consumer </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">interest</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--That's pretty bold talk for a product you spent six years never</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">even</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> being able to give away for free.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-twilight-of-digital-download.html" target="_blank"><b>Next week: </b>The future</a>--Making the peace...Can it be done? It can, but it's going to mean starting from scratch.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-35095999649677499872018-05-08T13:49:00.000-07:002018-05-15T07:57:18.512-07:00The Twilight of Digital-Download, Pt. 2: So...What Went Wrong?<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKDsyeUat0F2UNa4Ovi2aWyBEYaSFllJ-m31Ud_XCn525uvAT3b0M47GV39cftYwzgG4RCkUstU0c1oKUR5ENrf0vC5oT1bo0IFtjMza30fWnYN7gSDvog9cSvLwiPJOjap8CjS4h6jM05/s1600/2017-mj-pg57-AutopsyMain.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKDsyeUat0F2UNa4Ovi2aWyBEYaSFllJ-m31Ud_XCn525uvAT3b0M47GV39cftYwzgG4RCkUstU0c1oKUR5ENrf0vC5oT1bo0IFtjMza30fWnYN7gSDvog9cSvLwiPJOjap8CjS4h6jM05/s400/2017-mj-pg57-AutopsyMain.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-twilight-of-digital-download-pt-1.html" target="_blank">The story so far:</a></b> Since summer '17, major digital-rights locker service Ultraviolet, the network that was promising to join all studios, devices, and retail chains into one big glorious network that would bring customers their digital movies on the go, has seen all but three of its merchants go out of business, seen its remaining business defect to its new Disney competitor, and has already lost support from two major studios...</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Will our hero survive? </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Don't count on it. I'm not.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
I was looking for a metaphor to try and Monday-morning-quarterback the one reason that the digital-locker industry never quite caught fire as much as studios hoped it would:</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Gosh, they <u>thought</u> they had done everything right, in pitching their product to Those New Millennials And Their Cellphones, who hate physical purchases, and it offered such a shiny new promise of recouping theatrical losses sooner in "preorders" without having to wait for physical manufacturing and retail rollout...Why, seven years later when the dust settled, and their one "brand label" became a ghost-town, didn't it just catch on? Was it the public? Was it the technology? Was it their deodorant? Was it something they SAID??</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWmg8ls1cbdbzc-4Kicx6wOBibQyubEosRn5LfmIcYj9xVx56RohyJhaC5XdmX_UNyU-0QOjlOxJug0YuzC15BvbHxU1Cfy4KBt_a2KJ2X64C5GLuuNmUb2Q7J06BC4h1WlZI4oTfnps9R/s1600/how-to-treat-a-slow-computer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWmg8ls1cbdbzc-4Kicx6wOBibQyubEosRn5LfmIcYj9xVx56RohyJhaC5XdmX_UNyU-0QOjlOxJug0YuzC15BvbHxU1Cfy4KBt_a2KJ2X64C5GLuuNmUb2Q7J06BC4h1WlZI4oTfnps9R/s200/how-to-treat-a-slow-computer.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some thought it <i>was</i> the technology: The "Join or die" industry policy to back Ultraviolet made things even more confusing for casual customers who didn't want to commit to a preset selections of app services to access it, and many who didn't go shopping for the right app service found the one they registered to be poor and clunky. A few tech columnists at the time, who'd raised their hopes about the service, even <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/11/your-movie-on-every-platform-sort-of-for-a-while-how-the-new-ultraviolet-drm-fails/" target="_blank">openly blamed</a> the two-step movie purchase, the lack of big-player iTunes and Amazon, and a need for a third-party app on tech devices, for why it "didn't catch on with the public".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ah. That must be it. Despite massive pushes in publicity, and free gifts from every direction, the public expressed unprecedented apathy and sales-bottoming figures toward the entire format over five to six years, creating the near-collapse of the industry, because the app was confusing...Nice to get simple explanations for these things.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But y'see, I was making the same mistake too: I was looking all over in industry theories, and audience concerns. If studios wanted to post-mortem a simple What They Did Wrong, they should have just gone back to their old children's folktales.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAaQ7StYn8-0A044rwdIYt9HR5Zj2cgyJnwOWWGeWZ8eLoTCvyH0Mh7hMET_XPdsCIu54JYV6XQeYDsH26gsS8UzGraT20BSaimDwDzHaiyVzrRlHYAX-F5jFEGY8nNHjoDG67JiihxGgm/s1600/51di5m7y5WL._AC_UL320_SR250%252C320_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAaQ7StYn8-0A044rwdIYt9HR5Zj2cgyJnwOWWGeWZ8eLoTCvyH0Mh7hMET_XPdsCIu54JYV6XQeYDsH26gsS8UzGraT20BSaimDwDzHaiyVzrRlHYAX-F5jFEGY8nNHjoDG67JiihxGgm/s200/51di5m7y5WL._AC_UL320_SR250%252C320_.jpg" width="156" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The story of Epaminondas--oh, I remembered reading this one--was a funny folktale that's since been cleaned up out of its turn-of-the-20th-century African origins to represent just about <u>any</u> kid's basic mistakes:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our hero is sent to the market by his mother to buy some cake, and when it comes home squeezed into a tight handful, his mother tells him, "You don't carry cake that way, put it under your hat!" </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Next, he's sent to pick up a pound of butter--It's a hot day, he goes with the one bit of advice he knows, and things don't end well. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"You don't carry butter that way, you dunk it in ice-cold water first!" </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The next day, he's sent to pick up a puppy...Okay, </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">that</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> doesn't end well. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"You don't bring home a puppy like that, you tie a string around it and let it follow along behind you!" </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The next day, he's sent to bring home a loaf of bread...Er, no need to drag this story out any further.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The ultimate fault of digital-download seemed to be in the industry's utter blind faith that they had something they could sell, and that it was just a matter of selling it now that they thought they knew how: In every debate where uncommitted supporters asked "But why would the public simply throw over all their disks tomorrow, if they've found them reliable up until now?" the only--the </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">only</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--rebuttal ever offered, apart from the usual Important-Sounding sociological study of the week or news about trendy cable-cutting, was "They're </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">going</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> to! It's just a matter of time, if you saw what happened to CD's and magazines!...It's FATE!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
Basically, not so much faith in their product, as, like well-meaning Epaminondas, an industry that looked at the painful out-of-nowhere lesson they'd learned from the decline of CD and print media, and believed they were now armed with their one bit of advice to handle the scary new challenge ahead of them.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And when they kept trying--and trying, and <i><b>trying</b></i>--to apply the successful MP3 mobile-music formula to the high-definition living-room</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">demands of</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> home theater, they kept dunking that poor puppy in ice-cold water until it howled. They simply couldn't understand, in their own minds, why we wouldn't want to take our movies "on the go", the way we could with our iTunes playlists. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Neither theory is 100% wrong, and neither theory is 100% right--There are no innocent parties standing over UV's corpse, and a lot of basic conceptual mistakes made at just about every stage.</span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The top seven reasons, in no particular order:</span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho5ruMKKOXAZVQad6XOezSpC-5d2y32eRUa0iUlqbylOJZj_F_Rc1VShIMZSg-WPCt6N_hui7xPpaD_ogo985ST8ct_pGdLspnlAPldz-lhe7PxwqSW2216t6CeSw-MNmq-A0ZHL2zZ0ij/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho5ruMKKOXAZVQad6XOezSpC-5d2y32eRUa0iUlqbylOJZj_F_Rc1VShIMZSg-WPCt6N_hui7xPpaD_ogo985ST8ct_pGdLspnlAPldz-lhe7PxwqSW2216t6CeSw-MNmq-A0ZHL2zZ0ij/s200/11.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>1. Execs don't really understand that Geeky-Techie Stuff: </b></span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you don't understand how your car or computer works, how are you going to know when it breaks down?--Let alone how to fix it, or whether or not to get a new one?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And if you don't happen to keep up with current home-theater formats--if you considered yourself smug-Luddite enough to sit out the last couple Format Wars and just download a recent on-demand hit from your satellite provider once in a while when you had the time--how many theories can you make about why Blu-ray beat HDDVD in a long fair fight, why DVD wiped VHS off the face of the marketplace, or why more kids are listening to MP3 on their earbuds than on CDs? You can spin the standard marketing-voodoo to theorize why the new pushes took hold with the public, but if you're not </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">in</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> said public, it won't help to guess from the outside. Like jazz, If You Have to Ask why Blu-ray crippled DVD, You'll Never Know.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And most hardware and studio execs simply didn't: What they knew, from long battles in commerce, was that somebody had stubbornly hung onto VHS or Vinyl LP longer than they should have and paid the price for it...And this time, it wasn't going to be <u>them</u>. This, at the same time as they were still defining "Physical disk" = "DVD", and </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">reporting "declining" DVD retail-chain numbers in the 2010's, while still in 2008 mode of passing off Blu-ray as "a limited niche market among home-theater techs" and reporting those sales figures as mere footnote statistics. Gosh, nobody's buying DVD's from retail stores in 2017?...That sounds serious!</span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">2. Mainstream audiences don't really CARE about that Geeky-Techie Stuff: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At least not as evangelically as the industry hoped they would, in imagined mass-demonstrations of smashing their Blu-ray disks with big hammers and crying "Die, obsolescence, <i>die!!</i>" While the industry hoped Ultraviolet would join the public in a new network, most users who did buy or rent digital tended to think only in terms of where and on what most convenient device they could be able to watch it--namely, whatever Internet thing they already owned--and didn't quite pick up on UV merchants' promises to "watch on any device": Those with Kindles and Fires tended to buy from Amazon, those with AppleTV's and iPhones tended to buy from iTunes, those with Androids frequented Google, etc...Hey, it was <b>there</b>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The problem? None of those services supported Ultraviolet. Isolation became a big problem for all the services, and some of the services began linking their user libraries together in the mid-10's, to try and take the "network" where the customers actually <u>were</u>. Up to that point, however, those customers who were curious enough to take Warner and Universal's first-one's-free invitation by redeeming their free Blu-ray disk codes <a href="https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3407747" target="_blank">found themselves frustrated</a> that they had to do it by signing up for the extra step of a Flixster service or website registration they didn't want, and then, that the movie wouldn't PLAY on their Fire, iPad or Android tablet without that extra service. Like streaming, a dozen players were trying to sell to a customer who only wanted one shop. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The need for a poorly designed second app, only reminding them that they </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">could </i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">just as easily</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> get a movie from Amazon or iTunes in one playable step, didn't help much either.</span><br />
<h3>
<b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><br /></b></h3>
<h3>
<b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">3. </b><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">Problems in communication:</b></h3>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We were told a lot about how "successful" digital was in the marketplace. An AWFUL lot. Studios went out to spread the news, heard it reported, and, like presidents on their Twitter accounts, spread the big news that someone else had said it too! The problem was, no one had a clear idea of what exactly they were</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">saying</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpibwg_IKyjCiJalzP0PP8OZdaBuoOX8CvrSjlrcdkSlhK3RlVtvfj1HNeoIU-QU13s_w5E74oU5-pVRVocjHR1ubVLZrxGXGBVFjQHnGvnWzREC5tH4mze_FBLTrNYK6YvYGgp1WlRph_/s1600/hqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpibwg_IKyjCiJalzP0PP8OZdaBuoOX8CvrSjlrcdkSlhK3RlVtvfj1HNeoIU-QU13s_w5E74oU5-pVRVocjHR1ubVLZrxGXGBVFjQHnGvnWzREC5tH4mze_FBLTrNYK6YvYGgp1WlRph_/s200/hqdefault.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ultraviolet's success--and by it, digital's--was measured in the industry press by, quote, "Thousands of new subscribers this year! Over a million movies in customer's libraries!" Yes, they enrolled, and the headlines sound nice without messy details, but someone had forgotten to itemize the messiest: How many of those movies had those new subscribers actually </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>bought?</i>...Businesses get by on customers paying them money, you know. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Customers needed to enroll free memberships with Flixster or other merchant-apps just to redeem their first free Blu-ray disk-code out of idle curiosity; what they did with the service after that--if anything at all--was never reported. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And if I happened to be stuck with a free Warner promo-gifted copy of Chevy Chase in "Vegas Vacation" as a free signup bonus, that I didn't know how to remove from my UVVU library, I didn't consider that title to be yet one more of the "Million or more!" library titles that satisfied purchasing customers were now enjoying for life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That's rather like giving someone a free kitten, dumping eight more on their doorstep, and then pointing them out to everyone as the "Crazy cat lady".</span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>4. "You keep using that word...I do not think it means what you think it means."</b></span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The other messy detail was, what exactly </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">was</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> the big D-word in "Digital is bigger than ever this year!", and who was enjoying all that success? In the majority of cases, it wasn't even rights-locker.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To execs and the industry, it was...y'know...that cellphone and binge-stuff, and that little Google plug-in thing! Netflix-mania was just coming into trendiness, and analysts trying to analyze the big move away from cable and broadcast found they couldn't throw a rock in any direction without hitting Transparent's Emmy or Stranger Things "original series" fan-hype in the press to remind them of where the public was going. But Digital is not "one" magic neato-10's industry, as those tech-illiterate analysts believed, it's </span><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">THREE:</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Rights-locker purchase, subscription-streaming, and on-demand rental. Two of those industries did very well over the past seven years, and took hold with the public as the new pop-tech standard. One of those three did not. </span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2th2sHydajJ-OVYTY_oO9AUxte9vMNNytVoPBiJC7322YcCYS9R8MmKXQN2r_ZT0wtUL1R7cn7wKSBrdBfq57bf6_II7uZ9D7xIdSfe96_gSFqOuv_yg3HJTbpKu4pmaAKlwNL-eozaWs/s1600/img7c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2th2sHydajJ-OVYTY_oO9AUxte9vMNNytVoPBiJC7322YcCYS9R8MmKXQN2r_ZT0wtUL1R7cn7wKSBrdBfq57bf6_II7uZ9D7xIdSfe96_gSFqOuv_yg3HJTbpKu4pmaAKlwNL-eozaWs/s200/img7c.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You did not read a praise of Digital's "success" in the home-theater marketplace without reports of Amazon's latest profits, or how Netflix subscriptions were rocketing to the sky with millions of new binge-cult watchers, put up almost <i>completely</i> as evidence--In the industry's mind, Netflix streaming WAS digital download, and vice versa, end of argument. If you watched programs on Netflix rather than pay for expensive monthly cable, that meant you liked digital things, QED. And if N</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">etflix is doing better than ever this year, well, that just </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><u>proves</u></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> it, doesn't it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By logic, that's rather like saying "Lemons are enjoying new popularity, because apple and banana sales pushed fruit to its best year ever!"</span><br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">5. "It's HIS Fault!"</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Usually, when there's some new craze that's going to Change The World As We Know It, the news is usually coming from one of several hundred enthusiasts on the Internet who found each other and got together to declare that we'll all be speaking Esperanto, eating Gluten-Free, and spending Bitcoins in the next generation, whether we like it or not. </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJpT4B2RxoVpK_hsfCCS0HPuE-k4EmA-QsfX8P8PbQAjtrCD0u62QHI3H90w9gnx_W3Um0oxMNdslfn0wyBrY3rwG181tGzcXYoe2zSGSHZfkXfxVYqFQjqkWCbzNl9mkBusqPNb2E_2li/s1600/e4f50-blameshifting.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJpT4B2RxoVpK_hsfCCS0HPuE-k4EmA-QsfX8P8PbQAjtrCD0u62QHI3H90w9gnx_W3Um0oxMNdslfn0wyBrY3rwG181tGzcXYoe2zSGSHZfkXfxVYqFQjqkWCbzNl9mkBusqPNb2E_2li/s200/e4f50-blameshifting.gif" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Digital-download, OTOH, was different in that there was plenty of theorizing about "why" it was going to become either such an inevitable convenience or blight on our culture, but not counting the studios, very few of those <u>doing</u> the theorizing were actually in the camp themselves--Analysts shrugged to explain why "somebody" was the reason Digital would ultimately take over someday, a Somebody who was nice and safely distant, and whose motives were already crazy enough to ever explain, so we old duffers might just as well take our medicine and settle in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ndustry analysts blamed those darn Millennials, and their tendency to "Rely on the Internet, and refuse to buy longterm physical goods". </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Millennials, who didn't care how mangled a movie looked on YouTube as long as they could track it down there for free, blamed those "Greedy studios", trying to make them buy their movies one more time. Regular Net users unhappy with the Flixster-signup process blamed those Internet enthusiasts who knew how all that social-media stuff worked; Internet enthusiasts who found their movies intrusively attached to their Facebook account blamed normal users who were gullible enough to fall for any sales pitch. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Diehard movie-night buffs, refusing to give up their good-looking disks, blamed the casual philistine who didn't care how he got his new-hit rentals instead of the restored classics, and the casual user blamed the diehard movie buff who wanted his movies everywhere, since he didn't know why he couldn't watch his own free movie on Amazon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Digital is more popular than ever with <i>someone</i> this year, we just...don't quite know WHO.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>6. Welcoming Our New Overlords:</b></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></h3>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ99Cp-M9E2ChHXM27nk2fUoUgzQr8jB7diaUrD6fTYIUpNe3brREtlembyGTSdufHyAha8S2awEsLvVhMLMkLaON3VWUiDUnBKcfq2cOPyFS1z-9QNYgsEXEucGLookYFVkZ_Ql7Pq3II/s1600/f7c7d3a2ff1d3610ad6a2f16b0083bd8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ99Cp-M9E2ChHXM27nk2fUoUgzQr8jB7diaUrD6fTYIUpNe3brREtlembyGTSdufHyAha8S2awEsLvVhMLMkLaON3VWUiDUnBKcfq2cOPyFS1z-9QNYgsEXEucGLookYFVkZ_Ql7Pq3II/s400/f7c7d3a2ff1d3610ad6a2f16b0083bd8.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If the industry, as the users did, saw cloud-locker as a useful tool for home-theater watching, they would integrate it into their new selection of options for available viewing. But they didn't, had no clue what they were selling, and knew only that it was the New Thing that comes along at the CES Show and replaces everything within two years...Y'know, like Uber and Alexa did. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As a result, there was almost no strategy imagined from the very get-go in which users might watch disks at home <u>and</u> digital on the go: For a great many other reasons, users were helped along by the studios--with free gifts, retail-store services and propaganda--in the difficult inevitable change of converting their entire library for the Great Day of Change, as presumably the whole country would at some future point. And if customers complained that that wasn't what they wanted, well, <i>they</i> were clearly the ones afraid of Mighty Progress.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Remember when you surrender, you only do so out of fear. And there's no one old executives fear, misunderstand, puzzle over and try to court more than Those Crazy Millennial Kids Glued to Their Smartphones, Who Live With Their Parents Because They Won't Buy Cars or Houses...Them kids, what're they, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>nuts?</b></span><br />
<b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><br /></b>
<br />
<h3>
<b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">7. Ask For It By Name:</b></h3>
<b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Studios in the 10's are not in the business of selling movies...They are in the business of selling STUDIOS. Namely, their house-franchise brand-names, the sticks-and-stones in the war they fight on the schoolyard with the other studios, and the new "franchises" the audience creates out of nowhere with every new hit film. </span></b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYTTd8lLiw_8378v2u2JkljdFNdEXQVOmKND1dFC1BrijXyCn4Vi3xvkyWHrIBSjK5nvWnL6V6h283av5ZOsFAg4rgBrqIwbzMK_4w4arH6PYR2EcjZfeq0tXCtLO5NDaWCYuQgR_Ut56q/s1600/906041-168.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYTTd8lLiw_8378v2u2JkljdFNdEXQVOmKND1dFC1BrijXyCn4Vi3xvkyWHrIBSjK5nvWnL6V6h283av5ZOsFAg4rgBrqIwbzMK_4w4arH6PYR2EcjZfeq0tXCtLO5NDaWCYuQgR_Ut56q/s200/906041-168.jpeg" width="140" /></a><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">And in digital-rights, "Deals", "Packages", "Bundles", and "Bonus movie tickets" became the name of the game: </span></b><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The purpose of digital was not to sell you the rare high-definition print-restored version of Sunset Boulevard, when they could sell you a house brand that was already being cross-promoted in theaters. Warner did not give a flying Kryptonite fig if you wanted to buy</span></b><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <u>only</u></span></b><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> the 70's Superman movie with Christopher Reeve that you saw when you were little, or because you preferred Reeve to Henry Cavill; it was there to sell you the DC Universe labels</span></b><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, in the hopes you'd buy the whole conveniently-priced bundle of seven in one conveniently-priced package, in time for the next DC Comics movie, coming to theaters this summer. Or Harry Potter. Or Lord of the Rings. Or Universal's Jurassic Park. Or what-have-you. Selling a sequel-promoted title on digital would recoup the theatrical debts from the last movie, and add to the profits needed to make the next in the hit brand label, and the next.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Studio execs didn't understand the experience of how customers watched the classic favorite movies that struck a personal chord with them, because studios didn't believe they were selling </span><b>experiences</b><span style="font-weight: normal;">--They were selling "franchise outreach" for merchandisable titles that they owned, because that was the studio's product. And hey, why would it matter to you </span><i style="font-weight: normal;">how</i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> you watched the latest Superman movie?...It was a HIT, wasn't it? "Hit" means it's popular, so you want it, and here's an easier way to get it! You're going to be <u>picky</u> about it??</span></b><br />
<br />
<b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"><br /></b>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>8.</b>...Yes. There is one more reason things went wrong. A <i>big</i> reason. No one likes to say it, but it may have been at the top of the list. And which got ugly between the core movie-watchers and the invested studios REAL fast. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the end, it may have been the One Reason to Rule Them All why the rights-locker industry made no friends among the discerning film-buffs it first tried to court, and then tried to snub as "unnecessary", mock, trivialize, paint as harmless eccentrics, and then push out of the way when those "inconvenient" customers turned out to be in no mood to play along with what the majority of Joe Strip-mall clearly wanted. A bit of frustration-enabled wishful impatience that said the wrong thing at the wrong time, continued to double and triple-down on it with resentful stubbornness over a series of years, and turned what started out as a mere trendy-eyed marketing grudge into an all-out genocidal and ideological <b>war</b>, in the minds of both sides...On the level of a good-vs.-evil Armageddon to decide once and for all future generations who would literally still be standing on the face of the earth, who claimed the right that they "deserved" to, and who had learned their lesson about ever trying such a stunt again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But that's a long story. It'll have to wait for <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-twilight-of-digital-download-pt-3.html" target="_blank">next week</a>.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-8841162472200351712018-05-01T12:58:00.000-07:002018-05-09T07:11:30.520-07:00The Twilight of Digital-Download, Pt. 1: So Much Ultra-violence...<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYOE16OuDSlj4iujmQyDo2Y5dVY9s_b2K6TzZM70zNJ_RfQlEO66Ws1D4gl2E3ukog-iGIQmCdcIph6z0E-BtBx1ZcLsFOC8Jn1_n0yBhNenbTkdsdfWRHZdw1xtTj5ER_YI1DshJvb84v/s1600/Blank_Headstone_Stock_by_moonfreak_stock-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYOE16OuDSlj4iujmQyDo2Y5dVY9s_b2K6TzZM70zNJ_RfQlEO66Ws1D4gl2E3ukog-iGIQmCdcIph6z0E-BtBx1ZcLsFOC8Jn1_n0yBhNenbTkdsdfWRHZdw1xtTj5ER_YI1DshJvb84v/s640/Blank_Headstone_Stock_by_moonfreak_stock-1.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's rare that simple bloggers like me ever get to break the big news--But today, May 1, 2018, I'll take that opportunity, and remember, you read it here first:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ladies and gentlemen, the Digital vs. Physical War is <b>OVER</b>. There is no longer any tangible enemy to "threaten" customer existence or loyalty to Blu-ray and DVD disk. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's not the moment to go out and smooch nurses in Times Square as of yet, but stand ready, over the next year or two, to pucker up.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The bad news for main digital-movie format Ultraviolet seems to have been happening in too suspiciously well-timed a storm between summer '17 and the spring of '18: Two of its major remaining merchants folded in the same month, Disney created a rival service out of the remaining non-Ultraviolet affiliates, and two major movie studios have already publicly abandoned future support for the format.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Where Ultraviolet was originally going to create the "Digital revolution" by joining together a media-wide network of online merchants, <a href="https://www.myuv.com/" target="_blank">a quick check of their website today</a> is down to <i>three</i> merchant affiliates--two of which have already defected to the competition<i>--</i>one cellphone provider, and three studio websites, one of which studios had already abandoned the format. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If the network was going to be the iconic brand label by which the Digital Revolution of the 10's would be under, as movie sales go, it's quickly becoming clear that the Revolution will now not only be televised, it will not even be </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">happening</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ultraviolet's collapse and heave-ho by the studios does not singlehandedly ding-dong the Death of Digital--In best scenario, digital-download may in the end return to just being the set-top toy/app-tool and promotional curiosity it began with seven years ago. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But to have this massive industry-wide failure in the public eye now and forever strips digital-download of its fearsome god-like image to being a mortal creature like any other hit-or-miss business venture, to where it can no longer be seen by even the least tech-savvy executives as Invincible, Unstoppable and Inevitable. To quote Arnold Schwarzenegger from "Predator", if it bleeds, it can be killed, and to quote Damon Wayans from "Major Payne", if it ain't dead now, it sure ain't happy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The decline of Ultraviolet in the marketplace is one of those unique failures in home-theater, in which the product was a privileged-child that actually <u>did</u> have No One But Itself To Blame: </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeOuQPmGitdL4epglbYkPAkiest8VGzBahntY4NWk8M4RZnGFxuCcq9PJuL33Koc6ApGTwFDeF0_LZdzPQIMRXiHNXTIPgM7jzmRK_domRt0QUDihUlIYyzEUKfgdXRV7KE135JmFseJca/s1600/UltraViolet-logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeOuQPmGitdL4epglbYkPAkiest8VGzBahntY4NWk8M4RZnGFxuCcq9PJuL33Koc6ApGTwFDeF0_LZdzPQIMRXiHNXTIPgM7jzmRK_domRt0QUDihUlIYyzEUKfgdXRV7KE135JmFseJca/s200/UltraViolet-logo.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Major-studio support was almost unanimous behind it from the rollout; it made sure to avoid a long, bitter and in-fighting tech-company format-war that might divide studios, delay titles and frustrate customer interest, like the ones that ultimately <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2017/01/january-11-2017-longest-w-day-with.html" target="_blank">sank HDDVD</a>, DiVX and Beta tape, and it was never the victim of bad timing and even worse manufacturer interference like the <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/10/october-2-2016-brief-history-of-3-d-pt.html" target="_blank">sad fate of 3DTV</a>. Digital-download was offered to the public on a silver platter--to the point of force-feeding it with a silver spoon--and in the end, the public <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/08/august-29-2016-what-if-they-gave.html" target="_blank">simply didn't buy it</a>. Despite being told, sold, cajoled, schmoozed, rumor-gossiped, harangued, and even "scientifically" persuaded to their faces why they "did", or peer-pressure bullied why it was "obvious" that everyone else besides them did...the public simply didn't <b>WANT</b> it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Even when 4K UHD's format was being crowned the new presumptive heir to home theater's throne before the devices and screens had hit shelves, rollout plans were gridlocked by long tech-vs-studio stubbornness--with delusions of grandeur on both sides--over whether the new 4K industry was going to be dominated by movies on physical UHD Blu-ray disk or movies on UHD download. 4KTV has since arrived, and among its new faithful early-adopter community, the excited buzz is about which studios will leap onto the 4K UHD disk classics, with dazzling new sound and picture, and when they'll get that chance to upgrade their physical favorites...Nobody is talking about 4K streaming. Digital lost its second battle in its own virgin marketplace before it even had a chance to be fought, and that's a record that's not boding well for any future battles. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It became, quite literally, The Format-War Where Nobody Came.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For the average folk trying to get a grip on what's happened, we need to start with the basic </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">question: What </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">was</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Ultraviolet?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And when, in studios' minds, did Supply take complete priority over Demand?: Why did studios take such a personally invested concern that the technology must exist at </span><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">ALL </b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">for the audience's own good</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--and must be THE Future of home theater, nothing less</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">regardless of the audience's lack of sales or interest in it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For that, we have to go back to the beginning. Heck, even <i>further</i> than the beginning. We have to go back to YouTube.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As streaming video found its niche in the mid-00's, studios, wanting a piece of Where Those Internet Kids Were Going, thought they could sell their movies in that marketplace, before those same movies might end up there for free. To this day, you can still buy Universal, Disney and Paramount VOD movies on YouTube, and if you had no idea in the last twelve years that you could, that gives you some idea of how popular the idea of charging folks to watch YouTube took off. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There was only struggling interest in online movies, since it required a new startup business, but nobody seemed to know precisely <u>where</u>, if not YouTube, customers would watch them--New services like Amazon's and Hulu's tried to sell their movies for the desktop browser and smartphone, and apart from Playstation/X-Box game consoles with their own private movie stores, the only major living-room competition was Apple, reshaping its iTunes video store for its own AppleTV set-top box. iTunes was not popular with studios because of Apple's insistence on set prices, and studios looked to back, or create, a new competitor that would let them charge whatever price struck their fancies.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggpM024_TAjPMRRQhrjH2KBeTnXrlqL1Fz9E7guL4NdCM5O9N9nBZ6GqNKdQycG79WFLeW3B1lDjydIRWPF6F8kIY821sFHXjnLjpoR2uHOkkUPz0qTh-m8f_B3AIflWWGUABU7D9-oaqr/s1600/Shoulder-devil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggpM024_TAjPMRRQhrjH2KBeTnXrlqL1Fz9E7guL4NdCM5O9N9nBZ6GqNKdQycG79WFLeW3B1lDjydIRWPF6F8kIY821sFHXjnLjpoR2uHOkkUPz0qTh-m8f_B3AIflWWGUABU7D9-oaqr/s200/Shoulder-devil.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But it was Microsoft--who by 2008 had just suffered a humiliating defeat backing Toshiba's HDDVD disk format, but still hoped to ultimately win the war by cornering the market over its competitors in new online hi-def movie coding--that became the sour-grapes PR devil on the industry's shoulder. And slyly whispered in its ear "So Sony won the Blu-ray battle!...So what? Let 'em keep it--Disks are so last week! <i>Everyone's been saying</i> physical retail was already on the way out anyway, and the <i>future's</i> in online movies and mobility!" And guess who would come to the rescue on those innovations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It instantly became one of those statements industry analysts heard and repeated from someone else without checking the source. The long Blu-vs-HD war had wearied a LOT of the industry and consumer base by '08, and to hear a rebellious "Who cares??" knock the two heads together was just too good to be true for a lot of consumers that still didn't want to plunk down $1500 on a new investment, or for companies hesitant to commit themselves to one more difficult-to-sell hardware-tech rollout.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The studios didn't want a repeat of 2006-08 either: The industry agreed that if a new online market was created, studios would have to agree to back <u>one</u> format from the beginning, leaving the market to be decided only by Who sold Which movies, not How.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With Cloud Storage as the new tech buzzword, studios in 2011 <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/07/dece-moving-forward-with-beta-tests-but-still-sans-apple/" target="_blank">announced their content support</a> for the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, now brand-named Ultraviolet (changing its tech abbreviation from DECE to UVVU), a "digital locker" that would handle the central storage for customer's libraries of purchased/unlocked digital-movie titles, and merchant apps and services would sell customers the rights to download movies from that cloud-account. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The immortal slogan promised viewers nothing less than "All Your Movies, Forever"--Meaning only, that if even one viewing service went out of business, your movie was still safe in the central account, and could be accessed from another participating service. Wooed by the slogan, defenders took it a little <i>too</i> literally, and dreamed of the public throwing all their disks off a cliff in holy sacrifice, so that their movies would forever reside in a heavenly Cloud, safe from physical harm or burdensome storage. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">No one thought to ask what would happen if Ultraviolet <i>itself</i> went out of business. Back then, it was too big, too safely sheltered from the market, and too unlikely to ever happen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Preparing for Ultraviolet's big debut in October '11, Warner <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2011/05/04/warner-bros-acquires-social-movie-site-flixster-and-rotten-tomatoes/" target="_blank">acquired movie-info social-media site Flixster</a>, and rebranded it as Ultraviolet's new right-arm on day one, a place to <u>watch</u> your movies while you talk about them with friends! </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Flixster was unusual in that it was the only UVVU merchant-app with a </span><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">STUDIO</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> owning the major interest, and in whether digital or disk had the bigger customer outreach. The studio also pioneered the idea that you could immediately transition your library <i>away</i> from disk and into online, by including free UV/Flixster purchase codes for the title inside new Blu-ray disks. If anything, Warner knew how to drum up its own business.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-lSSkHygAg_DPPknMVuRWmjdgorN9ek7OIxkF1uXgnoWH-8BSYkJc5E5u5YunNvCvwkGnclwkhtZXispF9SJAKidXmwRqIwf74JWiXDqLhgJId1INa7jXp7SPH9_njylZf-5uSXr9S08t/s1600/Untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-lSSkHygAg_DPPknMVuRWmjdgorN9ek7OIxkF1uXgnoWH-8BSYkJc5E5u5YunNvCvwkGnclwkhtZXispF9SJAKidXmwRqIwf74JWiXDqLhgJId1INa7jXp7SPH9_njylZf-5uSXr9S08t/s200/Untitled.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Three of the other later companies came from retail chains: Wal-Mart created Vudu, specifically to promote their "Disk 2 Digital" promotion, where customers could walk into their local Wal-Mart and "upgrade" their disk to digital rights for a small fee without completely re-buying the title. Target and Best Buy immediately competed for in-store upgrade business, Target creating Target Ticket, but Target Ticket was so badly managed and entered the game too late to take on iTunes and Amazon's device-based share of the market, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/target-pulls-the-plug-on-video-streaming-effort-target-ticket/" target="_blank">the service folded in less than two years</a>. Best Buy acquired Blockbuster's old attempt at an online Netflix competitor, and attached it to their retail chain as CinemaNow, but sold off their interest in 2014, and the service limped along under new owners for another three years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like Bitcoin and self-driving cars, the "future of digital movies" continued on in a stalemate for that three to four years, with more evangelism from the faithful about what was <i>going</i> to happen than actual sales or market share. But, like any other overenthusiastic Bubble of Dreams, sooner or later, something has to pull the bottom out of the house of cards:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Warner had since sold its market share to ticket-website Fandango, who had already bought up struggling early failure MGo to turn into their own "Fandango Now!" UVVU service. If Warner had hoped that merging Flixster and Fandango would create an even bigger player, they got a shock on August 28, 2017, when Fandango kept their own service and folded Flixster. The ripples were already being felt--CinemaNow's owners dropped the UVVU movies that same month, switched to a TV service and started putting their affairs in order. With almost no one left to sell to, Fox announced in November ' 17 they were dropping Ultraviolet from future digital rights, and Universal followed in January '18.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As those who've seen past format-wars will tell you, companies can change hands or marketing, but when studios remove their support for future movie content, the game is <u>over</u>. Studios do not like blame, and are very quick to kill the scapegoat, by their own hands if possible.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIuygVr2X41qmWClESja_BuXeYb9Hu0LT3-3qUcQxLkvBg12gCl2UQv6ZDEcgFDY7h3rjPvKstIgr9QR_YErei-bvXNCpv11ZxR4W8sMX_SWneRztvLy7G4IVDowW3Vmbwe9o59wp17rI2/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIuygVr2X41qmWClESja_BuXeYb9Hu0LT3-3qUcQxLkvBg12gCl2UQv6ZDEcgFDY7h3rjPvKstIgr9QR_YErei-bvXNCpv11ZxR4W8sMX_SWneRztvLy7G4IVDowW3Vmbwe9o59wp17rI2/s400/images.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Disney, meanwhile, in March '18, took their name off their isolated Disney Movies Anywhere service and rebranded the new "<a href="https://moviesanywhere.com/welcome" target="_blank">Movies Anywhere</a>", by linking themselves with successful survivor Vudu and the three other stubborn non-Ultraviolet holdouts: Amazon, iTunes and GooglePlay, three device-exclusive services that originally preferred to sell to their own captive customers without any help, thank you...And even Fandango Now. DMA already had experience linking movie accounts with their disks, offered customers easier use, and now that it has to back a new horse in the race, the industry is making a great show of moving their love to the New Kid in Town. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But unlike Warner, Disney does not have the same terror of the physical retail market, and in fact, probably the opposite: They know <i>very well</i> that they have just as much a sales foothold in physical DVD and Blu-ray, and prefer having All of their sales rather than Part of it--The studio is pitching MA as a convenience option, and maybe even an option to get their money faster than mass-retail, but no longer THE option that moviegoers must now embrace or fall behind. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Even Warner, that once leading-question surveyed its customers "What do you like best about digital?", in February began preliminarily surveying its customers the more nervous question of "What do you like best about Movies Anywhere?" General, hand over your sword.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-twilight-of-digital-download-pt-2.html" target="_blank">Next week, Pt. 2:</a> So...what went wrong?</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-23668235623805021372018-04-24T14:30:00.001-07:002018-04-26T17:06:34.292-07:00Lion, For Adoption, Needs Good Home (or, How to Stream the Exact Same Movie in Six Different Places)<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd2tfTjbaTA23VrHJ5wYdG73vYxBX7DvKkFWNoF7hBDB2sDUBFBDll3-2b9F8Y9IUSY1WVeyinAPwlyEAhlFXMV7K4E2GGW3PFbpj-IKH6tl3ctB-HCTkuWzfGn4OTgoZ4gohngxr1Ogp1/s1600/adoptcat3-1.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd2tfTjbaTA23VrHJ5wYdG73vYxBX7DvKkFWNoF7hBDB2sDUBFBDll3-2b9F8Y9IUSY1WVeyinAPwlyEAhlFXMV7K4E2GGW3PFbpj-IKH6tl3ctB-HCTkuWzfGn4OTgoZ4gohngxr1Ogp1/s320/adoptcat3-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Say, did I ever tell you about my cool psychic powers? No, really, they're awesome, I'll prove it!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Go look up your favorite independent streaming service, like Amazon Prime. Or HuluPlus. Or PlutoTV. Or free Vudu Movies on Us. Now without looking at the catalog, I'll guess which major-studio movies are on it this month:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3M1ZTdBuhPZOb8C1gWq4F_aQqCR8QyXw8uetZ7yhxY9l6mgbufyEuTeFa8v3SqkjxDToxqUmefdMq98LH_2dL56EPJ4YHpiJNC-k2kOdOJBqDw7UzQCw5_TrAa2jSY6wQAyrLF1My99u9/s1600/140331-142.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3M1ZTdBuhPZOb8C1gWq4F_aQqCR8QyXw8uetZ7yhxY9l6mgbufyEuTeFa8v3SqkjxDToxqUmefdMq98LH_2dL56EPJ4YHpiJNC-k2kOdOJBqDw7UzQCw5_TrAa2jSY6wQAyrLF1My99u9/s1600/140331-142.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>(hominahominahomina....)</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">...Aha! I'm guessing that Prime or Hulu is currently showing the complete collection of 007 movies! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And no, no wait--I'm seeing....kids cartoons! Your service has All Dogs Go To Heaven 2, and the Care Bears Movie, and Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And...I'm getting a color....pink! Does a Pink <i>Panther</i> have any significance?: A Trail? A Curse? A lost Son, perhaps? And a number is coming in clear now..."1984"!--Was that a significant date, like a birthdate? Was it your big brother? I see you going on a long journey, with a friend, and...driving off a cliff?--Oops, sorry, that's "Thelma & Louise". And...no, so much pain...oh, wait, that's just "Troll 2".</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Okay, you got me: It was a trick. Whatever service you picked, they were probably all playing there.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And I'll make another guess--Right now your most immediate question is not why someone would guess them, but why four or five or six major streaming services would all happen to be showing the <b>EXACT SAME MOVIES</b> at the <b>EXACT SAME TIME!</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But that's not really the question to ask. The important questions to ask are A) why those exact same movies all happen to come from the same studio, and B) why four or five or six major streaming services don't quite seem to be showing movies on a regular basis from any <u>other</u> studio.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you're one of the Kids Today who grew up with streaming, it's something you probably don't notice at first. (Unless you happen to have Amazon Prime, and then, you'll happen to <i>notice</i> it.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But for us old vets of three Format Wars</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">growing up</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, it's a pretty common sight of the postwar reconstruction and one we've gotten used to by now--Create any new home-theater business, and the first rushers-in through the door, who don't really understand the format before trying to cash in on it, will believe that any movie is a "classic" if they can get their hands on it and sell it. In a word, Public Domain. It's the stuff you can sell a hundred times, and never have to pay anyone back for, because ownership troubles due to age or copyright loopholes let you use it for free. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHHD1SQaiECcGNE3mE7jw4furJiJ6vOVkZcqf5bM6_Lz0xFAW00-04CRw9NvF3mkgB9TbTktGkgZFYU1odXXtDpZ2faZxgsadwl_aF78gJkW_C7kU-sms-0cRiMOtmVXa7ftzURmJnucWe/s1600/81QOzR1ejxL._SY445_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHHD1SQaiECcGNE3mE7jw4furJiJ6vOVkZcqf5bM6_Lz0xFAW00-04CRw9NvF3mkgB9TbTktGkgZFYU1odXXtDpZ2faZxgsadwl_aF78gJkW_C7kU-sms-0cRiMOtmVXa7ftzURmJnucWe/s200/81QOzR1ejxL._SY445_.jpg" width="138" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When studios were slow to jump onto DVD in the late 90's, but eager bottom-feeders were quick, we struggling DVD adopters could look at a box of "50 Greatest Movie Classics On three-disk set!" at Suncoast or Wal-mart, and pretty much rattle off the public-domain titles ahead of time from rote memory. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Can I still do it?--Let's see: <i>(takes deep breath)</i> A Little Princess Royal Wedding D.O.A. Charade Suddenly It's a Wonderful Life Beyond Tomorrow When the Clouds Roll By Night of the Living Dead This is the Army Carnival of Souls House On Haunted Hill Little Shop of Horrors Africa Screams Jack & the Beanstalk My Man Godfrey His Girl Friday The Lady Vanishes The 39 Steps Meet John Doe Nothing Sacred Cyrano Algiers Stage Door Canteen</span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">(exhale)</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Whoosh...Gimme a second. The list's gotten longer in those last twenty years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We learned these from sheer repetition whether we wanted to or not. EVERY company thought they were the first to sell them, and didn't particularly care whether they weren't the only ones. As you can expect from the title, they weren't big on restoration-for-disk either, and if you got a silent movie (which was often, especially if they put "Wizard of Oz" on the cover and hoped you wouldn't notice it was in B/W and Judy Garland wasn't in it), you were lucky if you got an organ score that <u>fit</u> it, or at all. Oh, and colorized of course--Any old B/W movie is always New-to-You if it's been colorized.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Later on in 2009-10, when rumors of vapor-ware said that Netflix and Amazon were planning to invent this new Internet gizmo where you could watch movies on your cellphone or computer--just like YouTube, only with <i>real movies!</i>--other entrepreneurs tried to race to the start too. Hulu, which wasn't Plus yet, rushed in its new desktop service, on a shoestring startup budget. Betcha can't guess what most of the available new movie titles were.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of course, once the industry got going, we started to get movies from real studios--Like MGM/UA for instance.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXa02kNKHRdOy6lImz2XogXNlqA8k_cAn5J3usD36MAOTII_Xs2Qccz2EuRs823L9TzQCnOHoj10d-wK6Eo6CT0nwfwWLn1ult97CbfCbPbl3UcgdwAFPvHhEYF0LdDg-vtaWiv3DCPTh3/s1600/140804-142.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXa02kNKHRdOy6lImz2XogXNlqA8k_cAn5J3usD36MAOTII_Xs2Qccz2EuRs823L9TzQCnOHoj10d-wK6Eo6CT0nwfwWLn1ult97CbfCbPbl3UcgdwAFPvHhEYF0LdDg-vtaWiv3DCPTh3/s200/140804-142.jpeg" width="140" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">MGM's catalogue happens to have <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer#Acquired_libraries" target="_blank">a lot of diverse miscellanea</a> in it: For one thing, they became MGM/UA when they merged with United Artists, an independent release company you might remember for vintage James Bond, the Inspector Clouseau series, most of Woody Allen's 80's post-Funny classics and Heaven's Gate. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Pictures#Orion's_library_today" target="_blank">Orion Pictures</a> came and went during the 80's, bringing us Robocop, Silence of the Lambs, Bill & Ted and Dances With Wolves, before becoming a distribution label that bought up many of the defunct little release companies, like the American International B-movies, Samuel Goldwyn's arthouse classics, and the 80's catalog of Golan & Globus's Cannon Pictures. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That's a lot of watchable library for one holding company to own. Be a shame if anything happened to it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And for MGM, UA and Orion, just about anything <u>did</u>. Long story short: Sold off in the 70's, their classic 30's-60's library bought up by Ted Turner and Warner, and the new production division changing a variety of hands throughout the early 80's, to be revived as brand new labels in the 90's. A string of disappointments in the 00's, however, and MGM finally folded in 2010, taking "Hot Tub Time Machine" on the way out with them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That put a lot of catalog titles out of the market and up for grabs, and it's not only in the subscription streaming market that we've been seeing a lot of the hopeful grab for them:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">- Digital channel <a href="http://thistv.com/" target="_blank">ThisTV </a>was an early-10's digital-broadcast splinter-channel that tried to revive the idea of a commercially-supported all-movie TV channel...If you didn't mind that just about every feature movie came from MGM, UA and Orion's indie-acquisition catalog.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAfAAlrI1pRcvUDxA1Z9o_mMxT3DqoofS5ydaRsc2-1UgMJDHKnHn6GbWzfO7XoVNy6oELMWP80c4rwY5FmHMG35Usd1eCRMeRrsATR3yL_qO9isGehkN9TC9xrUyp4ILOi6IENm4raiQr/s1600/140309-142.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAfAAlrI1pRcvUDxA1Z9o_mMxT3DqoofS5ydaRsc2-1UgMJDHKnHn6GbWzfO7XoVNy6oELMWP80c4rwY5FmHMG35Usd1eCRMeRrsATR3yL_qO9isGehkN9TC9xrUyp4ILOi6IENm4raiQr/s400/140309-142.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">- New "Independent label" Blu-ray disk companies like <a href="https://www.twilighttimemovies.com/" target="_blank">Twilight Time</a> have been picking up the studio slack and releasing vintage catalog on physical-disk that studios had lost interest in--I was glad to finally get my hands on TT's Blu copies of "The Bounty", "Rollerball" and Woody Allen's "Love and Death", until I saw those same movies turn up on the usual streaming suspects, remembered which studios they had come from, and realized..."D'ohh!"</span><br />
- <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ad-supported streamer <a href="https://pluto.tv/watch/" target="_blank">PlutoTV</a>, trying to spin a hipster parody on Ted Turner's old holiday marathons of "A Christmas Story", last year offered its viewers the "All-day Thanksgiving 24-hour Robocop marathon". Clever, yes, but why "Robocop"?...Take a wild guess and tell </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><u>me</u></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There's some minor relief on the horizon, that Paramount seems to have fallen on the dustbin too: Paramount, losing interest in releasing their 80's catalog for disk, sold the rights to Warner back in the late 00's, and no prize for guessing what Warner did with them...Which explains the sudden recent appearance of "Clue", "Clueless", "School of Rock" and "A Clear and Present Danger" among the orphanage of Usual MGM Suspects. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It may not be a solution, but you have to appreciate the problem that if studios won't release their iron grip on their own content--content they still dream we audiences will come to their private websites and pay for, rather than own on respectable formats or enjoy in the mass media--our only hope to enjoy a new resurgence of restored bigscreen 20th-cty. mainstream-studio movies is to hope they'll all be neglected and abandoned into some wider market where people actually have access to them again, from services that don't particularly care <u>how</u> they show them. Rather like the abuse they used to suffer from local TV stations, that just wanted to show them with commercials.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Obviously, that's not <b>THE</b> prime solution to the problem that film buffs hope will come out of this. We're hoping for a few better options than that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While it took the first few years for a new audience to discover the Wide, Wide World of Streaming, and make a show of spurning our expensive cable companies, it's a hard fact, but one new streaming audiences may have to come to grips with: By the time we took the leap of falling in love with it, the movie sources had dried up, and the party was over by the time we walked in the door. We only think we're watching the movies we want to see, when we're in fact watching the only familiar movies we can FIND.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLhKo4VP9_4K6NN9iRJFgHj4QLBEXEAzlCiCja9efHw3tNsZ9lCXRwlO29hG7Kq0HGucjFFKHUF4695DSGwyqYUICnxol-4r4VnmO4nxTW2XHZk3Z_cl9xVhegstERerVIy1G25vxkEL-2/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="152" data-original-width="331" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLhKo4VP9_4K6NN9iRJFgHj4QLBEXEAzlCiCja9efHw3tNsZ9lCXRwlO29hG7Kq0HGucjFFKHUF4695DSGwyqYUICnxol-4r4VnmO4nxTW2XHZk3Z_cl9xVhegstERerVIy1G25vxkEL-2/s320/images.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And while it's nice to turn on a free or ad-supported streaming service on a channel-clicking evening and see them playing "Fiddler on the Roof" or "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" for being a late-60's/early-70's United Artists film, or to see "Teen Wolf", "The French Lieutenant's Woman" or Cannon Pictures' "Runaway Train" show up for being 80's MGM films, when they're the <i>only</i> major-studio films that start showing up <u>every</u> month, one might have reason to harbor suspicions that Something's Up. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's not so much fun enjoying them when you stop to realize </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">that we're only getting streaming cinematic entertainment in our homes as a result of six or seven starving raccoons all diving the exact same dumpster for free goodies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-87533745830741064512018-04-16T10:04:00.000-07:002018-10-28T16:18:17.487-07:00Will You Accept This Flower From the Holy Cult of FilmStruck? (or, Fury Hath No Vengeance Like a Netflix Cable-Cutter Betrayed)<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3pptyWZkL3OcTnirYKdFTcNCXe_YsrQZ2WzL3JuiN_TwrFqI3d2iEewLT_2EXOyDXVkg_v_Mv3BqfjfDMC9gVb5nt3LG2rrBJZUbmqNM0cerRw-8fkAT0YRZb-TPIyHrY4yIQD29mQPZ/s1600/BrickSmallBrown0456_3_350.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3pptyWZkL3OcTnirYKdFTcNCXe_YsrQZ2WzL3JuiN_TwrFqI3d2iEewLT_2EXOyDXVkg_v_Mv3BqfjfDMC9gVb5nt3LG2rrBJZUbmqNM0cerRw-8fkAT0YRZb-TPIyHrY4yIQD29mQPZ/s320/BrickSmallBrown0456_3_350.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And just when--like Jason Robards at the end of "A Thousand Clowns"--I'd thought I'd finally run out of things to say.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Okay, it'd been a while, and I'd been thinking of retiring from the blog--Not because an Activist ever gives up the fight (although finally losing the fight for 3DTV was a heavy blow, and I'm not being ironic about that), or because movies were getting better (although seeing "The Mummy"'s failed franchise now firmly established in industry culture as a national punchline gives us hope), or even because of laziness...Oh, like <i>you</i> never fell behind on a blog! But simply because I'd thought I'd run out of Universal Truths to shout from the wilderness on street corners. Reducing the many problems in our current movie and home-theater scape to simple explanations, how many times can you say "It's Warner's fault!", "Still trust China?", or "How desperate can Sony BE?" and not sound like a record player with its crank broken?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The good news is, things have started to change. Even if, occasionally, during the transitions, they start changing into bad things...Or at least very, very <u>frustrating</u> things, that make you risk head injury with the sheer force of your facepalm, or from banging it against walls.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ghVLjTqFCqfQB5ZOA1HJlAVPmxTK3T-XYX6LNfz33eh2NTGryScdcOw1VkAfGMWhyphenhyphenpu05bKyNeJdN115yusKk_AqFOr9ZoHiZ4riz96Da7VVqCg8JRLb0219M6p1F1BC9blNo4ndZAdg/s1600/DSC_All-Access.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ghVLjTqFCqfQB5ZOA1HJlAVPmxTK3T-XYX6LNfz33eh2NTGryScdcOw1VkAfGMWhyphenhyphenpu05bKyNeJdN115yusKk_AqFOr9ZoHiZ4riz96Da7VVqCg8JRLb0219M6p1F1BC9blNo4ndZAdg/s200/DSC_All-Access.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The good news first:</b> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The once "No end in sight" Disk-vs-Digital War is starting to have an end in sight...And it don't look good for Digital. Apart from the near-collapse and re-patching of the Digital-locker sales industry last summer (which is too good a story and will have to merit another column), Streaming is starting to take its lumps, too. A boom-market that once promised every studio and every content owner could build its own private vanity streaming network, and have the world beat a path to its door, is starting to discover that it takes a lot of money to keep a bad idea going, that you only own so much content and the content you <u>don't</u> own is harder to license when everyone else is hopefully holding onto theirs, and that it takes even more money to create "Original programming" to try and be the Next Netflix. Oh, and that not as many people </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">want</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> to pay for it as you think they will, because they only want one or two, and one of those probably IS Netflix.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Even more refreshing news is that a majority of customers, still clinging onto the 2010 idea that Netflix was a magic Wonka-factory of digitized entertainment that would bring all movies to their door, has started just awakening to the idea that that service isn't doing so hot at the moment either. Mainstream Hollywood movies have all but vanished from the site, the service is now getting by on its "New TV network" cult of original binge-series fans, new "Exclusive movies!" from Will Smith, Adam Sandler and JJ Abrams are still perceived as "busted!" theatrical failures that got pink-slipped by the major studios in mid-production, and the updates of titles have now been permanently weed-strangled by indies, documentaries, Bollywood, and foreign TV-series imports. The Big Red Hollywood-feed has now become a charity-bin of streaming, for poor homeless, unwanted movies that have nowhere else to go.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, I don't like to be the kind of person who says "I told you so"...Okay, just kidding, I <b>LIVE</b> for it. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But I seem to recall bringing up the point a little while ago.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRGdbkGKh1wjI_MDP2AaPTFPyynLm1osv3SOf45-24t4zAP9k4fyzjnHWRiXG1yIlTflYdjwP69nyM8IOXxjns0gFNLIaQMRsK3maJdcYriFfE4EhpEBX52h4h6UY5pIR-SlP-rm1ZzF1i/s1600/fpqabe341bwut16xkmuj.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="84" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRGdbkGKh1wjI_MDP2AaPTFPyynLm1osv3SOf45-24t4zAP9k4fyzjnHWRiXG1yIlTflYdjwP69nyM8IOXxjns0gFNLIaQMRsK3maJdcYriFfE4EhpEBX52h4h6UY5pIR-SlP-rm1ZzF1i/s200/fpqabe341bwut16xkmuj.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Back in <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/10/october-8-2016-something-missing-at.html" target="_blank">a column from October '16</a>, I first brought up the warning that Netflix's offerings seemed to have fallen a bit from where they used to be, and the movies just weren't coming in anymore: Studios, searching for a reason why digital-download sales weren't catching fire, thought that nasty one-price subscription services were stealing their business, and Big N, along with Emmy-winning Amazon Prime, were the new super-trendy rivals whose names they heard in the tech press most often. The majors stopped licensing their big movie catalogues to Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, and as the drought set in, all three animals gathered at the same watering hole of indies and public domain. (One PD source in particular, but <a href="https://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2018/04/lion-for-adoption-needs-good-home-or.html" target="_blank">that's another column</a>.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It occurred to me to ask the fatal question: "Netflix fans are still in love with the service to show mean old cable companies that they cut the cord...But when they have to bring themselves to cutting the Netflix cord, where will they go and who will they trust?"</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Which brings us to the bad news...Okay, the <b>frustrating</b> <b>news</b>. It's technically part of the good news, but it's still a bit frustrating at the moment. Because it shows just how <u>hard</u> it is to get the basic gist of the message out, once people get caught up in working out their gut grievances:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzmuzPvSiXlghoeK6bpxWAki-j-0YwwW0Pwk_P7Iqg5MZBcAeWNcGY58vrydD-jsXm3-QQwuvL478WKrMUnvh4LyZZgcPVRviOTlzUEFQ9TdWjcjIagIruTESqgl5AJRPQexsmbLadrlXG/s1600/e19d0efc5d161cb7c3f701afc696b755d5c962fbf19ac78d99d45029db4ef5ad.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzmuzPvSiXlghoeK6bpxWAki-j-0YwwW0Pwk_P7Iqg5MZBcAeWNcGY58vrydD-jsXm3-QQwuvL478WKrMUnvh4LyZZgcPVRviOTlzUEFQ9TdWjcjIagIruTESqgl5AJRPQexsmbLadrlXG/s200/e19d0efc5d161cb7c3f701afc696b755d5c962fbf19ac78d99d45029db4ef5ad.png" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As content owners now see more money in merging their services from minor vanity ones into major player leagues, <a href="http://variety.com/2018/digital/news/turner-filmstruck-warner-bros-classic-films-warner-archive-shut-down-1202709741/" target="_blank">last March</a>, Warner pulled back from its promise to make the new FilmStruck service a collaboration of Turner Classic Movies and Criterion, folded its Warner Instant Archive service, and instead merged the obscure and classic Hollywood titles from their streaming Instant Archive catalog in with the arthouse classics of Criterion--Now making FilmStruck a service where you could watch Kurosawa and Bergman <b>AND</b> "Meet Me in St. Louis" and "Rebel Without a Cause". Gotta admit, that was a pretty sweet deal: The only two streaming services left worth watching, in one place...Why go anywhere else? It represented the positive future of the streaming industry: Titans who owned their own content, and could never be starved out by the big boys because they <i>were</i> the big boys, should join together, instead of scrabbling for little pieces of territory. The problem, as is starting to become apparent, is that it turned out to be TOO good a deal.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, as the Frugal Gourmet used to say, <u>please</u> don't write in--I like FilmStruck. I even <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/11/november-14-2013-thunder-struck-just.html" target="_blank">said so, back in November '16</a>, when the service first premiered, that having a source for actual movies would be a new source for people to start that home correspondence film-study course. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'd like it a lot <i>better</i> if it had working streaming apps for my Roku or Playstation, and I could watch the classics in my living room instead of on my iPad, but it's a start.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But what happens when a lot of less discerning and more unexpectedly stranded Netflix refugees suddenly stumbled upon the combined Elephant's Graveyard and King Solomon's Mines, where all the classic movies went to when they disappeared so mysteriously over the last six years? They get a little overexcited.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'll let a flood of adoring posts to Filmstruck's Twitter channel to do the talking--If anyone feels their privacy violated, tell me, and I'll replace it with another quoted Tweet, there's PLENTY to choose from:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-O3Tsg2kYOhhJSIvpzyA-rBXau0MiiTsgkOtPmQhffRbRGeBn8N2vtwgA6dj98iNbRn7usiY2mheq79_hMC-cPwRI-GHb5Atq2nAoD-XOjWjJ64KIH8cZsi6-ulXX8NGXfLsIMrrMCbpx/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-04-13+at+11.54.19+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-O3Tsg2kYOhhJSIvpzyA-rBXau0MiiTsgkOtPmQhffRbRGeBn8N2vtwgA6dj98iNbRn7usiY2mheq79_hMC-cPwRI-GHb5Atq2nAoD-XOjWjJ64KIH8cZsi6-ulXX8NGXfLsIMrrMCbpx/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-04-13+at+11.54.19+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk08WUHS0XOv00yLSLfnIvROpPB6jMVNmx3ro8i4Z1UiBI_3fCO-7EG2zt3C5p-ft84YYbrNHcmfsJ0lAOkD7NF1q7uqEeXLO0P4LIPr7-0-qZYbFNf5GCOQhpcayj7h4Mhlmh8aPsjw7o/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-04-14+at+9.05.22+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk08WUHS0XOv00yLSLfnIvROpPB6jMVNmx3ro8i4Z1UiBI_3fCO-7EG2zt3C5p-ft84YYbrNHcmfsJ0lAOkD7NF1q7uqEeXLO0P4LIPr7-0-qZYbFNf5GCOQhpcayj7h4Mhlmh8aPsjw7o/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-04-14+at+9.05.22+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRm_o8iNhkJslx6sAd_iqDuU3c5nO0e8sH5k-hWDGIWruiJUmy9MHLQbY6Djlbz3RCBhKYDgOcIDUA5GjRL92OzYwSWCSBtvXwFZ2EEDHedRtSQsvkOJWe818XGWOViXlMfRzplQHR454I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-04-14+at+8.59.59+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRm_o8iNhkJslx6sAd_iqDuU3c5nO0e8sH5k-hWDGIWruiJUmy9MHLQbY6Djlbz3RCBhKYDgOcIDUA5GjRL92OzYwSWCSBtvXwFZ2EEDHedRtSQsvkOJWe818XGWOViXlMfRzplQHR454I/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-04-14+at+8.59.59+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, as an experienced film buff, there are some words to describe this sudden mass reaction--"Yeeesh!" is the first one that springs to mind. It's nice to see people Tweeting about their favorite film-class movie--Even if it seems eerily like a de-evolutionary throwback to the dark 70's days when only a small cult of urban intelligencia at revival theaters talked about great movies while the common people were stuck with TV. But when each and every Tweet personalizes the adoration with "<i>Thank</i> you, FilmStruck!" it brings up the question of how many people had seen these movies before the Nice People brought it to them. Remember when you were that innocent freshman girl with that first dreamy crush on that free-thinking college professor who first taught you so much about how to see the world? (Well, <i>I</i> don't, obviously, but...)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Another is "D'ohh!!", for those on the Disk vs. Digital battlefront, who hoped that the Starvation of Streaming would finally drive people to more and more desperate means to find their movies, and spark them to realize if they weren't on streaming, maybe they should give into that new wave of 90's nostalgia for the long-gone corner Blockbuster Video, and go out and find a movie on physical <u>disk</u> again?--Nope, they just stopped online-bingeing Netflix, and went off to online-binge their next new craze. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As Maria says, "How else?" indeed? Something that, scoff, <i>wasn't</i> on the Internet?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But rather than shake our heads at adoring sycophancy, we should be a little more scared where it's coming from: People aren't thanking FilmStruck for giving them their movies back...They're thanking FilmStruck for "teaching" them. They're thanking them for personally making them the better, smarter, more culturally-enriched people they weren't <i>before</i> they started streaming. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's one thing for a once Netflix-obsessed fandom to make a great show of tossing over their previous love, shouting "Give us Barabbas!", and making an even bigger show of their new love that solved the problems of the old ones. It's another thing when audiences stop thinking of the service as entertainment, and start thinking of it as a life-hack.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's the same saying about religion, that any church will help you find answers in your life, until you start believing that the <u>one</u> church you found, and the wise folks behind it, will provide you with all the answers you were searching for, because you were too lost and unworthy to find them yourself...Because that's when it officially becomes a Cult. And historically, bad things have happened when Cults show up.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMp9jXBkIhs4yRMWNdD3HIxVZ0d3bRa1U0TEDDGl-GIwFpqAGQUIdoD1IFtaVRrtNMkyYGJhuy9SxIZk2J396a2cOehfz9eQ3G6UM0tj_rh4OilLTE_efx-9_NL42wOoeGwpnCHsDZqUqh/s1600/07_doorman1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMp9jXBkIhs4yRMWNdD3HIxVZ0d3bRa1U0TEDDGl-GIwFpqAGQUIdoD1IFtaVRrtNMkyYGJhuy9SxIZk2J396a2cOehfz9eQ3G6UM0tj_rh4OilLTE_efx-9_NL42wOoeGwpnCHsDZqUqh/s200/07_doorman1.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In fact, it's a good thing nobody likely <i>is</i> reading this blog anyway. If it were, I'd be drowned within minutes by a flood of Butthurt, from folks who believed I was not only speaking bad things against FilmStruck, but that I was implying they were bad people <u>personally</u> for embracing the new awakening it provided their lives with. If I tried to point out that every single Criterion movie, and many of the Warner Instant Archive titles, were <b>already available</b> on Blu-ray and DVD disk, were for sale at cut prices on Amazon to own forever, probably were already on the shelf at your local public-library system for a free one-week rental, and had been since long before the service even existed, I'd be deluged with posts shouting "You're just a digital hater! What's the matter, grandpa, still love 'dying' disks, and can't handle the new riches that streaming has brought us? Go back to your network TV and those cable pirates, we'll watch the good stuff!" After all, the rule of a cult is, you can speak against the church, but how <i>dare</i> you speak against the beneficent ideals of its founder? Remember when Ringo Starr was chased all over London by that crazed "Kailiii!" cult trying to kill him in the Beatles' "Help"?--</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He had it </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">easy</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But that's not it at all, y'see...I'm all for the idea. I like the merger of two big studios into a big-label player instead of two little greedy delusional ones, and I look forward to--WHERE THE <b>HELL</b> IS THAT PS4 APP, FS, IT'S BEEN TWO FREAKIN' YEARS!!--er, ahem, I mean, I look forward to having more of it available to stream, now that many of Warner's key vintage catalogues, like Fred & Ginger and Val Lewton, now have a home with the Archive half of the collection.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But I know that because I've been pursuing my love of old movies for years. I knew where to find it by <i>looking</i> for it. I didn't wait for someone to be saintly enough to bring it to me, I just gave it a grateful nod of good sense that someone got over the whole industry foolishness and found a way to.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqLWobFysbsUudtpLATcOY5Q3pDA1kxqA4K2U4V7GhVa2P5XEP4kr7ZxUAA5qpWVgM8S6YN7lG1q0k2Q2aQrFuJ3AED0yPMqHzK4Af-C1elwjazVbZyo_FEF-OZgK8EaK6BQ8-5wJwyAQz/s1600/wizardOfOzGlindaSendsDorothyBack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqLWobFysbsUudtpLATcOY5Q3pDA1kxqA4K2U4V7GhVa2P5XEP4kr7ZxUAA5qpWVgM8S6YN7lG1q0k2Q2aQrFuJ3AED0yPMqHzK4Af-C1elwjazVbZyo_FEF-OZgK8EaK6BQ8-5wJwyAQz/s200/wizardOfOzGlindaSendsDorothyBack.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Are you, like H. Perry Horton, Maria and Miguel, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tearing up in grateful awe that someone brought classic movies to your living room? At the risk of sounding like Captain Planet, the power to search out classic movies was in YOU. It was all around you, in those shiny silver things an entire industry tried to tell you didn't matter anymore, because there were so many new things your remote could find. They never left you all these years, even when you left them, and then your new love left you. They were still there, because that's the one function they were </span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">built</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> to do.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And at the even greater risk of sounding like Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, you had the power to find those lost movies all along. All you had to do was click your heels three times, get off your seat and <b>onto</b> said heels, and say "There's no place like Blu-ray...There's no place like Physical...There's no place like the Library..." And then if you ever go looking for your heart's movie classic again, you'll never have to look further than your own backyard. Because if it wasn't there, you probably never lost it to begin with. (Or, well, <i>something</i> like that.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGkDnO9D03_6k_brnXO5AJMK55YQMMR0sBfr0LQoV_I2k_DUTXi-huwmK1KdesySe109Ph8HWUHbLWQ3vcRiokf896MAjnGDkWbM4RS7xSLu1-qVa179MM4jS5CXAoHUnnp_oiS9n9O4bM/s1600/flower-necklace_s2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGkDnO9D03_6k_brnXO5AJMK55YQMMR0sBfr0LQoV_I2k_DUTXi-huwmK1KdesySe109Ph8HWUHbLWQ3vcRiokf896MAjnGDkWbM4RS7xSLu1-qVa179MM4jS5CXAoHUnnp_oiS9n9O4bM/s200/flower-necklace_s2.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'm not accusing anyone of <u>deliberately</u> fostering a cult-of-personality with brainwashing, salutes, armbands or red baseball caps, I'm just pointing out the dangers of what happens when they find themselves stuck with one </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">anyway, </i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">whether they like one or not</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. Intentional cults are evil, yes, but UN-intententional cults are ten times more scary, because nobody can claim they're doing anything wrong.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's an important thing to tell someone lost that they had the power and the individuality to find their own answers all along, if they just dared themselves to go and look for them. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Because it's one of the first things deprogrammers used to tell confused kids who were in danger of the more familiar kinds of cults that claimed they had all the answers in one easy place. And which promised to make them new people if they would just turn and reject all those things in their old lives they were so confused and angry about.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-89229797133639374442017-09-11T13:30:00.000-07:002018-04-13T22:18:56.278-07:00Back-to-School Edition: Why Won't Johnny Watch B&W?<h2>
</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbMO9XA4cmjseNCyBAFQoh0oGuESl7gyQgk06L3nAE6sT8sMyfu_rcIhZafysSKAdPmbTHTbzrGo57F1wF3CueZRsYGQGPyO-gVV3cljF2NboZgbzsbRh6JIcW9psA38JpP0UCjSTVoYg4/s1600/wjww.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="685" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbMO9XA4cmjseNCyBAFQoh0oGuESl7gyQgk06L3nAE6sT8sMyfu_rcIhZafysSKAdPmbTHTbzrGo57F1wF3CueZRsYGQGPyO-gVV3cljF2NboZgbzsbRh6JIcW9psA38JpP0UCjSTVoYg4/s320/wjww.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Okay, so I had to take the summer off. Even activists need a little inactivity.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Came back to find the "China" thing had mercifully cooled a bit, now that <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/09/07/the-lessons-of-wolf-warrior-ii-the-trump-effect-on-chinas-box-office/" target="_blank"><b>Wolf Warrior 2</b> had suddenly scared the crap out of every studio in town</a> over August ("Uh-oh, they, uh, like their <u>own</u> movies now?"), and more and more brave souls were coming forward</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, like Bill W.,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> and forcing themselves to admit that, okay, maybe Tom Cruise in "The Mummy"'s new Dark Universe did actually ffff.....f-f-f-f-fffffffff.....</span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">flop</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And picking on Sony taking their big one-two summer punch with "The Emoji Movie" and "Valerian", leading to an analysis of why Sony now seems to be beating Fox as the new failed-franchise Sad-Sack studio still running to keep up with the Big Five's joneses (the one hit they had last summer didn't even <u>belong</u> to them anymore!), just seemed like kicking it while it was down. At some point, the discussion would have led to mentioning Ghostbusters again, and, well. Bury the dead, or at least wait till after the Jumanji movie.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But, to quote the elder Michael Corleone, just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in again--A new headline hit the movie discussion forums over August. A</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">nd just in time for the kids going back to school.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjHqf27bj2TX9i759RM9kHLZVZu3Ah7edItEt2yVAwyF85n1xvOp6yKBTd7QSGHyfjN-UDVf6erMr8ir96m2UGY2JyvdVP5qeQtv78DhQDUsoMyS29p0sd5840y7GhuknOAC3g2VwbmasE/s1600/7448420542_f49b3a5f94_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="427" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjHqf27bj2TX9i759RM9kHLZVZu3Ah7edItEt2yVAwyF85n1xvOp6yKBTd7QSGHyfjN-UDVf6erMr8ir96m2UGY2JyvdVP5qeQtv78DhQDUsoMyS29p0sd5840y7GhuknOAC3g2VwbmasE/s200/7448420542_f49b3a5f94_b.jpg" width="141" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">If you're wondering about the title, it's taking its play from Rudolph Flesch's 1955 book <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Flesch" target="_blank">Why Johnny Can't Read</a></b>, a bold manifesto that showed teachers and educators that kids weren't learning to read because they weren't being shown any reason <u>why</u> reading was interesting--The use of recognize-and-repeat in "See Spot run. Run, Spot, run" (rather than learning the basic "C-at" phonics that the Electric Company taught us) made learning to read a droning chore, and kids were falling behind in their verbal scores. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">Among Flesch's new ideas, what if we had more intuitive beginning-level easy-readers that were </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; text-align: center;">fun</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-align: center;"> reads for kids to show more enthusiasm learning on?...Say, maybe that funny Dr. Seuss fella from the Bartholomew Cubbins books could try writing a few "cat" and "hat" books for first-graders!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And new literacy in the last half of the 20th century was born. But now the 21st century is facing a new kind of illiteracy: Kids who didn't read books in the 50's were never half as openly, combatively, or stubbornly martyr-complexed or <i>smug</i> as 18-24 yo.'s--the dreaded "Millennial generation"--who claim they've never watched an old classic film in their lives.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">According to an unscientific survey conducted by FYE media-store chains last August--maybe not Nielsen, perhaps, but it got the discussions started across the net--conducted between 1000 over-50 movie fans and Millennial 18-24 fans, the results weren't promising:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://nypost.com/2017/08/16/millennials-dont-really-care-about-classic-movies/" target="_blank">"Millennials Don't Really Care About Classic Movies", NY Post, 8/16/17</a></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">- 30% of the young audience polled had never seen a movie from the Black & white era.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">- 20% said they feared one would be "boring"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">- Only 28% said they had ever seen Casablanca, 16% said they had ever seen Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West", and only 12% had seen Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">-The most classic movies the young audience had claimed to have seen were those their own theater/DVD experience personally remembered from the 90's and 00's, including The Matrix, The Dark Knight and Return of the King, with, of course, Disney's "The Lion King" for most-seen "classic" film.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(C'mon, you're going to worship Quentin Tarantino, and you've </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">never seen</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> an actual real-life Leone film? And no Rear Window?...Seriously?? I knew the plot at ten years old, from a Flintstones cartoon!)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The discussion so far, on most news and film forums, has gone in the usual directions:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The older folk shake their head, the younger folk protest "Don't stereotype us!", and then fall back on asking what's so great about the movies they "should" watch, anyway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This seems to be the main stumbling block that's been the hardest to overcome: How do you sell an audience, of whom less than half has ever actually seen "The Sound of Music", on the idea that maybe Terminator 2: Judgment Day might <u>not</u> be one of the Ten Greatest American Movies Ever Made? (Although I'll grant that Back to the Future may be high on the list.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The issue is the same as putting a book in the hand of a grudging fourth-grader who won't read anything else after Harry Potter: Don't lecture them that they're not reading. Find out <b>why</b> they're not reading...And put something within reach just different enough to <i>show</i> them why they were wrong. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And then, of course, gloat later.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To this end, it would first probably help to take on the Millennial's main arguments against having their parents' classic movies forced upon them--or "Pre-1970 movies", as the term has now come to call them (because pop-culture didn't <u>exist</u> before the 70's, of course), point by point:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje6c_4RBBkBNpsUSsRFoYVnoCOw-vHyESVfLWbhWx5W86Q2yJte730JHrIY6KzAnlZ4v04Oe5mOvwpMycYDPE-YDsYY1HN4jOPL8XiFEfSNGGLXW9r8XpqZaOcpU3sGUdQIdLQsfJ-82OT/s1600/Citizen-Kane-Welles-Podium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="220" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje6c_4RBBkBNpsUSsRFoYVnoCOw-vHyESVfLWbhWx5W86Q2yJte730JHrIY6KzAnlZ4v04Oe5mOvwpMycYDPE-YDsYY1HN4jOPL8XiFEfSNGGLXW9r8XpqZaOcpU3sGUdQIdLQsfJ-82OT/s200/Citizen-Kane-Welles-Podium.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>1. "But I don't WANNA watch Citizen Kane!"</b> Well...you don't <i>have</i> to, y'know. No one's forcing you to--And that seems to be the main perception at the very top of Millennial's fear-list: That embarking on a self-help kick for watching Old Movies<i>(tm)</i> will become the same punishing highbrow foreign/classic syllabus as the Film majors. Engage in any film-stubborn debate with the right age, and <u>wait</u> for the K-word to appear as the big demonic straw-elephant in the room.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Keep in mind, if you're at the age where you're in college, just come out of college, or either way just made it through high school, you've been actually forced, at various points in the recent last years of your life, to read <i>Julius Caesar</i>, <i>1984</i>, <i>Pride & Prejudice</i>, <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>, <i>A Tale of Two Cities</i>, and at least one Franz Kafka or James Joyce novel, without the clarity or courtesy of being told WHY you should. Beyond a make-or-break term paper where you're presumed to suddenly have the same enlightened analysis of the book on first read that hundreds of literary critics before you have expounded upon.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And then, when those same Grown-Ups tell you you haven't watched very many "great films" made before your birthday, what's the first one they tell you to respect, watch and analyze?--Or at least the first one you're <u>afraid</u> they will? Like your high school Lit class, your first worry is "Does this Famous Book have a <b>plot</b>, so I'll have something to take my mind off my assignment while I'm reading it?"</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here, don't worry, you're clear: This one passes the "Things actually happen in it" test, and, one might add, with flying <strike>colors</strike> B&W.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6bYd2foiuuDUSDmC5stFMQfgbHPq6mkQhj3ay8puC4dtERw-__-Fvdx_I2LOLgIyhzOfBPoQWRRRboARxUFzXF8rTCmNsIXFMNMNd9qW48TtiP2vnruouX1PvObwVLVFCTmmUIhiI8o_W/s1600/Citizen-Kane-Welles-Coulouris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="220" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6bYd2foiuuDUSDmC5stFMQfgbHPq6mkQhj3ay8puC4dtERw-__-Fvdx_I2LOLgIyhzOfBPoQWRRRboARxUFzXF8rTCmNsIXFMNMNd9qW48TtiP2vnruouX1PvObwVLVFCTmmUIhiI8o_W/s200/Citizen-Kane-Welles-Coulouris.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Y'know...there's nothing WRONG with Citizen Kane. Do a lot of pundits commanding you from on high to be amazed by the first use of "bold cinematography and editing" in the 40's just somehow, in some way, not excite you? Try Orson Welles' character instead. In telling a non-linear fictional story of William Randolph Hearst--of whom to say was "the Rupert Murdoch of his day" would be putting it <i>mildly</i>--Herman Mankiewicz's script, mixed with Welles' own smooth, literate sardonic-velvet from his post-radio bad-boy days, fairly drips with acidic irony: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzhb3U2cONs" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzhb3U2cONs</a> There's a very good, and very deserved reason the real Hearst took the movie so personally.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If the idea of watching a 40's film avengingly analyzing the rise and big ironic fall of an egotistic but ultimately insecure self-styled tycoon, who believed he could personally manipulate the world around him "like a modern feudal baron" for its own good, sounds a little, um, <u>familiar</u> right now, well, it should. A <b>lot</b> familiar. Even if you've never heard of Patty Hearst's Granddad, but you've heard of Ivanka's Dad.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And, yes, it's got a lot of those neat cinematography shots, editing, and set ceilings that all the fancy people talk about, if you're into that. What you may instead be surprised by is just how darn good it is by the last reel...An experience you may or may not have probably already had in Lit class with Dickens or Orwell.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And as for going on to "snooty" critics' "overpraised" great-film-syllabus recommendations of Vertigo or The Seven Samurai...heheh. Why is this expert smiling nastily?</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(But don't worry, even I won't make you watch Death playing chess in Bergman's "The Seventh Seal", if that's what your imagination's also afraid of. This isn't college and you don't <u>have</u> to agree with anyone older than you, but you're still not going to get anything over a C- if you didn't do a little homework before the lecture.)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA2Ig78suE4J_VIgMGvR3mgO3c6_ZnuIApkFV6OfenGJtEbiXEagWc2rYEeszlo3lwIg7n5MbS_Yx3d8ro5kLH2jWUPsYx_TZwWf3fdW2cK6Hr9Y8WHco-3G00WoT6XpPeeU1xaPFXBdlc/s1600/modern-times.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="420" height="95" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA2Ig78suE4J_VIgMGvR3mgO3c6_ZnuIApkFV6OfenGJtEbiXEagWc2rYEeszlo3lwIg7n5MbS_Yx3d8ro5kLH2jWUPsYx_TZwWf3fdW2cK6Hr9Y8WHco-3G00WoT6XpPeeU1xaPFXBdlc/s200/modern-times.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>2. "They made movies in B&W because they didn't HAVE color back then!"</b> - Well, that's certainly a profound observation. But when Millennials use it as a reason not to watch B&W, it's more of a social criticism. It's a weapon used by the belief that only people of a certain age were able to master the technology of the late 90's and 21st century, and those who didn't just couldn't get into the big Pirate Treehouse Club. Apparently, B&W films existed simply because older people's <i>eyes</i> were different way back then, and couldn't see color like we can today...Sort of like dogs.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's a reason used to say that the movies that are readily available at hand--the overexposed studio-marketed 80's classics and current blockbusters--are easier to watch than those that take effort and film knowledge to track down, so watch in amazement as I download last summer's hit on my smartphone! Wow, you've got Disney's live-action Beauty & the Beast, right there in your hand!...It's magic OUR generation never had!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The problem, however, is one that's <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/09/september-25-2016-look-back-in-remakes.html" target="_blank">frequently brought up with remakes</a>--Particularly the remakes of old films the same audience actually is sentimental for. Movies that had genre coolness, but were "handicapped" by the fact that they couldn't use CGI, or faster editing, or that Sean Connery's 007 couldn't do the same wild stunts that Jason Bourne could.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There's a love/hate relationship, in that admitting that old films had great appeal, and how wonderful it must have been for an earlier generation to see 80's films, or even 30's films, in theaters, as good...But not as good as WE could make them today if we tried! And then when they do, they discover it was a lot harder for somebody else, who was good enough to make it look too easy.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This brings up the old observation that anything you <u>can</u> do is not always what you <u>should</u>, and what you <u>should</u> do is that much more of a challenge if you <u>can't</u>. It takes a bit of life experience to know the difference, and maybe someone before you who had, did.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pursue Millennial Fear #2 into a corner, and the cornered animal will in the end strike back with "Eh, Grandpa can't handle what the new kids on your lawn are into, didn't get your Metamucil today?"...Tribalist trash-talk? </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Oh, now that's just being childish.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi3hlwogvfFxm6df7ovAZ8CzeS06HE5inOA1BoIoH_flKnJiNh6NHUS9SAtJRroeX5nv7aqurs1UiITLwPw22UKOEGqAhVUWpjMlE_l7OnmSEG08iLZKOWDVFJmZZVfa9icmkpS6TdmQst/s1600/young-frankenstein-movie-screencaps.com-8591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="173" data-original-width="320" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi3hlwogvfFxm6df7ovAZ8CzeS06HE5inOA1BoIoH_flKnJiNh6NHUS9SAtJRroeX5nv7aqurs1UiITLwPw22UKOEGqAhVUWpjMlE_l7OnmSEG08iLZKOWDVFJmZZVfa9icmkpS6TdmQst/s200/young-frankenstein-movie-screencaps.com-8591.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>3. "The only <u>good</u> B&W films were Psycho and Young Frankenstein!"</b> - Ah. So, there are <i>good</i> old B&W films you don't mind watching, and <i>bad</i> ones you'd never touch with toxic gloves. It's not a double standard, we actually have some dividing line between one and the other.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pursue this argument into a corner, and most Millennials are happy to explain why: The movies were newer, and <b>CHOSE</b> to use B&W, you see, to show off...They could do that, if they wanted to. It's not like one of <u>those</u> old musty-dusty films from Reason #2, that hobbled along in technical obsolescence.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The one argument you don't tend to hear is that there was some culty-reputation preceding the movie that made them sit down and watch it as part of American mass pop-culture, and lo and behold, the movie turned out to be <b>good</b>. Stuff actually happened in them; one was a horror movie where things turned out to be scary, and the other was a comedy where things turned out to be funny. And once the Millennial had watched it, it became his film to adopt, one that rebelled against the system and did things its own way, unlike all those <i>others</i> that had to do what they did back then. It may not have been in color, but like the 10-yo. says after falling off his skateboard, the movie MEANT to do that.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, no chance that you might find the same personal "adopting" discovery in a movie that didn't "mean to" use B&W, and made the most genius use of what they had? Or was making movies with a little hip informed experience just an idea that somehow sprung into human consciousness <u>after</u> 1955?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkP-l-T64n2FplaXAuwk5oEegwciUvdp2BkbJUuVgVLnqMRK7XDsXNL_CF1sNbhozH2Ivywz8R_km7imlrMafaBbvxF4W7HGcN5EBRDstFfXsUV7TiLZvzv-VxnJLttDGJIMMSQ1gWfLpZ/s1600/picture-1-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="241" data-original-width="291" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkP-l-T64n2FplaXAuwk5oEegwciUvdp2BkbJUuVgVLnqMRK7XDsXNL_CF1sNbhozH2Ivywz8R_km7imlrMafaBbvxF4W7HGcN5EBRDstFfXsUV7TiLZvzv-VxnJLttDGJIMMSQ1gWfLpZ/s200/picture-1-.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>4. "What do old movies have to teach us today, anyway? They put all the women in housewife aprons back then!"</b> - And here is where the argument finally starts dropping its big, loud, ugly penny.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The basic foundation of the Millennial is one that's been raised on thirty years of Historical Revisionism since the 80's--in which we were told how many slaves George Washington owned, and every "shocking" bad thing our forefathers ever did to women, minorities, natives, and other countries--and not very much <u>actual</u> history of causes those people stood up for, or things smart people occasionally did right. When you hear one story over the other long enough and not both, you tend to believe the one you hear...And if you're at the age where college independence makes you want to Change the World personally, the first thing you're going to want to change are the crimes committed by the fact that Americans in the 20th Century Were Evidently A Bunch of Major Racist/Chauvinist/Imperialistic Jerks. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And if you can't make actual guilty heads roll because they're, um, already <i>dead</i>, the other weapon is dismissive historical-revision laughter at the naivety or un-PC of any idea that YOU weren't enlightened enough to live to figure out. And maybe if hip people laugh at it long enough, Bad History will eventually slink away into the shadows and disappear.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNiVQNz4JEv-NsDcRvS1isHcl9G08xSISYb-RRM8dD6GF5GnmNGwwWPstIiklaVazi2nluo8WWnjc6l2baGow0M67MAkWA_HlO3lq5BRLWZIXsAekXEfZFTxb672F_5tybzhZPtKS9ZrbA/s1600/Hattie_McDaniel_4_embed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="648" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNiVQNz4JEv-NsDcRvS1isHcl9G08xSISYb-RRM8dD6GF5GnmNGwwWPstIiklaVazi2nluo8WWnjc6l2baGow0M67MAkWA_HlO3lq5BRLWZIXsAekXEfZFTxb672F_5tybzhZPtKS9ZrbA/s200/Hattie_McDaniel_4_embed.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Persuade a Millennial to watch <b>Gone With the Wind</b>, if ("if"?) he hasn't yet seen it in its epic-roadshow entirety. Take a guess <i>why</i> he hasn't watched it, and then take bets on what's the first thing he'll say when you ask him <u>why</u> he hasn't watched it. The reason he'll likely give you is that he believes it's a movie he shouldn't watch, followed by progressive and self-righteously historical arguments why it's a movie that now, in 2017, NOBODY should watch, so don't go around faulting him if he hasn't. Well, that's taking a bold stand against dogmatic thinking, isn't it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I confess it's not my own personal favorite either, but certainly not for any reasons regarding racial stereotypes or defenses of racist American history...Let's face it, either you <u>like</u> spending four hours cataloguing the dysfunctional relationships of a spoiled brat, or you don't. But one thing I will grant in the movie's favor--Those amazing sunsets. (Yes, in <i>Technicolor!</i>) And why Clark Gable was the Coolest Male Human Alive in the 30's.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'm not watching History. I'm not watching a Confederate-Sentimental Defense Of Segregation. I'm not watching the Relics of Destructive 20th Century Thought. I'm watching a movie, featuring amazing sunsets, amazing Max Steiner music, and starring the 30's coolest man alive. To be a movie fan is to know how to do such things, and you can learn from the masters, or you can learn from your local hobbyist who got the knack on his own.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There is one bit of sunlight on the horizon: Millennials don't like being called "Millennials". They say old people "unfairly stereotype" them too much, in thinking that they have smug persecution complexes, hate old people, and wave smartphones in their faces.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgboMHbpTJRMYx4jLZGOcSJxAH1IxuIJKQBg75pGlGUIJMQezBtgnG43lvnGpzIvho31lAhvX2WdvP6ckLUarPTQkrU8X9_OXop_WskhsppUREilATjAKHO1YUHEY95emYOW7j6aRciGvZr/s1600/lg_casablanca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgboMHbpTJRMYx4jLZGOcSJxAH1IxuIJKQBg75pGlGUIJMQezBtgnG43lvnGpzIvho31lAhvX2WdvP6ckLUarPTQkrU8X9_OXop_WskhsppUREilATjAKHO1YUHEY95emYOW7j6aRciGvZr/s1600/lg_casablanca.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And when Millennials want to combat the stereotype that they "Don't watch old films", they immediately rush out to go see one, so they can be Cool and Different from other nasty old Millennials, so there. Where we now run into the problem that they don't know WHAT to watch, or WHERE to go see one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The instinct is to look up where a classic film is streaming, but the new 21st-century reality is that you don't </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">find</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> very many of the essential-list </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years...100_Movies#List" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;" target="_blank">AFI 100 Classic Films</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> on streaming: They're certainly not on Netflix, and studios don't make money on them--They'd much rather you buy the new hit blockbusters they're still trying to pay the bills on, and have the live-action Beauty & the Beast playing on your very own smartphone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The next instinct is to wait for them to show up at a theater, and TCM and Fathom screenings have started to make those trendy again in the shopping-mall cineplexes, especially during a lull seasons for the new hit movies. But the hard business truth is that seats have to be filled, and there's usually more tickets sold to The Princess Bride and Fast Times at Ridgemont High--great "Old films from the 80's", as the age group calls them--than for Double Indemnity or Gunga Din. Only a 30th, 40th, 50th or 75th Anniversary, to help sell the disk release, will usually get any "unmarketable" old classic movie back into the plexes for a night or two only. (Although, ironically, take a guess WHO'S the reason most old films aren't showing at random for free on local TV stations anymore, where anyone can see them.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But if it's cool to be curious again, curiosity won't kill you. It's still a night at the movies, after all, and yes, Things Happen In Them. You might even <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/07/july-7-2016-my-new-regular-friday-night.html" target="_blank">find a few at the library</a>, for free, on those old disk things, if nothing's playing on Fathom this week.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As a wise saying once taught me at the same age, "Never proudly show off in public what you <b>DON'T KNOW</b>. It's darned hard to try and impress someone that way."</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-5926640350988664562017-06-26T16:34:00.000-07:002018-04-14T02:25:33.172-07:00We AREN'T the World? (or About "Last Knight"...)<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLN2LJPnqaUH4FzCtIgfloBk_-t1tRvL7CbvUtlz8kyw0fkkRbR7V3lj4vHZxbzNyFtsbYRKCTWVeS-5mox5kwdkU40ug5XOUjyfyIuGpt_BT3hBf4nE5xx05lqqitdrw_0sT9sLjgpkN7/s1600/lX2P-fyfzhap5523145.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="288" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLN2LJPnqaUH4FzCtIgfloBk_-t1tRvL7CbvUtlz8kyw0fkkRbR7V3lj4vHZxbzNyFtsbYRKCTWVeS-5mox5kwdkU40ug5XOUjyfyIuGpt_BT3hBf4nE5xx05lqqitdrw_0sT9sLjgpkN7/s320/lX2P-fyfzhap5523145.jpg" width="192" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There's a funny but not too well-known story from the 1001 Arabian Nights that I can't help noticing has been more and more on my mind of late...</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The short version:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A poor merchant has one last chance to rescue his failing business, so he puts every last <i>drachma</i> he has into three fine glass jars he bought wholesale, and plans to sell them at the street market. But he remains hopeful--"These three should sell easily by the end of the day," he tells himself. "And I'll be able to turn enough profit to buy six to sell the next week, and ten the week after that, as I expand my trade. Soon, I'll have cleared enough profit to switch my business from glass jars to rare jewels, and become the richest jeweler in the city market. Word of my success will spread among the gem traders, and soon reach the ear of the grand vizier himself, as I arrive at his palace on my fine horse, and present him with diamonds, to ask for his beautiful daughter's hand!</span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Af0MHAzdbuX7HCu0p-_a8lEAOHE_KKFhKwLbwl4f8-yVnu0q4i3hxA-E4MAfZgn2ykMifBL508qgPr16jZ71XkLVojWp8ES850MEeFECWWk9oeP1l0c-QuV4fSQp70VCS0udGVbqxg8H/s1600/aladdin-disneyscreencaps.com-121.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Af0MHAzdbuX7HCu0p-_a8lEAOHE_KKFhKwLbwl4f8-yVnu0q4i3hxA-E4MAfZgn2ykMifBL508qgPr16jZ71XkLVojWp8ES850MEeFECWWk9oeP1l0c-QuV4fSQp70VCS0udGVbqxg8H/s320/aladdin-disneyscreencaps.com-121.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"And after we're married, we'll build a huge palace in the desert, with a hundred servants, and my new wife will have the finest room, and the most gorgeous fashions! But soon, she will come to me and say 'All you care about is your business, you never pay attention to me anymore, how can you neglect me so?'...But I will only be rich, proud and haughty, and ignore a single word she says. She will go to her mother, and her mother will come to me and say 'How can you treat my daughter so shamefully?', but I will only refuse to listen, and have the servants send her away. Finally, my new wife will come to me in tears and say, 'I can't take it anymore, this palace is a prison for me, I'm going home to my mother!'...But in my arrogant pride, I will grow angry at her foolishness, and send her to the floor with a kick, like <i>this!</i>"</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Without realizing, he demonstrates by kicking the table, knocking it over and shattering all three glass jars. And the merchant now realizes he has nothing to sell on day one, before he's even opened his stand. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A tailor in the next market stall sees this, and laughs, "Serves you right, for treating her like that!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's a funny story. It's whatcha call "World culture".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lately, this summer, we've been seeing not only a lot of building imaginary trading empires and palaces in the desert--and dreams of someday getting the chance to act like a powerfully rich, influential jerk--but a lot of interest in our international neighbors overseas, and their cultures.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Y'see, seems there's one exotic thing the folks do in Asia that teases, tantalizes, and mystifies us folk here on the Western hemisphere, with its golden Marco Polo secrets of the East: They apparently like going to see big-studio blockbuster movies. Even when said movies might happen to be crap. And more importantly, even when US audiences <i>don't</i>, in their mass opinion that the movies actually <u>are</u> crap.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And it's been starting to give a little too much aid and comfort to the people here on our shores that MAKE crap movies, and cause them to, well, dream a bit too much and too far ahead for their own good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Let's flash back a year: Remember that long-ago <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/09/september-5-2016-massacre-of-summer-16.html" target="_blank">Summer of '16</a>? Remember the "Trump rallies" of DC fans, who didn't like being told that no audiences besides themselves went to see "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" ("But it made $500M!"), and that "Suicide Squad" didn't exactly rescue the brand name six months later either?</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixzjVYXT7mxVr6LDe1rH5WgfkKTHyzUOYCtksPURKitPK8luWvo2iTvpUQlSkuP6XkNCGh-3J19Ekym3syCd6_vEjaImKG7kGNf0xcptgaEX1d4-dQL9CWpQHTDP0qMLkF64PWAJpUcFgf/s1600/65c331c52d54bbc570eab3b7948ed0c5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="416" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixzjVYXT7mxVr6LDe1rH5WgfkKTHyzUOYCtksPURKitPK8luWvo2iTvpUQlSkuP6XkNCGh-3J19Ekym3syCd6_vEjaImKG7kGNf0xcptgaEX1d4-dQL9CWpQHTDP0qMLkF64PWAJpUcFgf/s200/65c331c52d54bbc570eab3b7948ed0c5.jpg" width="173" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That was the summer of "Lugen-criticsse!", as the fans tried to start demonizing the image of RottenTomatoes movie critics who had mostly, um, <i>panned</i> the two movies, as members of an "Outdated" profession, as "Elitist" meanies who just didn't like seeing Joe Idiot have fun on a Friday night, and asking whether they still had a role in our new interactive social media, where we can decide our movies for ourselves? The problem is, a majority of moviegoers outside of the never-say-die-hard fan niche <u>were</u> thinking for themselves, and ultimately agreed with the critics: Yes, the two movies might have been crap.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But since, to the desperate and faithful, Numbers Didn't Lie, the box office figures would always be inflated to include the "Worldwide" B.O. numbers, and all of a sudden, the issue of Batman v. Superman only making a paltry third of what its overseas numbers made was now something you could brag about to "almost a billion!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But, see, even before the summer of comic-fan movies, the desperate "Box office numbers = Quality" fan argument of "But it doesn't matter if <i>you</i> didn't like it, it must be good out there, because it made $300M!", already had a name.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was dismissed by other fans as "the Transformers Fallacy". And few were arguing that THOSE frustratingly "critic-proof" movies might happen to be crap, once you actually got inside the theater and watched them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The idea that World numbers were always bigger than US numbers was not a new idea--Disney had started the craze for discovering it after finding out that US audiences might have dropped <b>Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides</b> like a cold potato, but that it had gone on to gross a "billion dollars!" in European and Asian sales. Back then, they didn't exactly go around mentioning that little detail, and the discrepancy puzzled the rest of us over here who'd actually seen it--Er, wait, hadn't the movie done a quick two-week disappearance from our local cineplex, or are we just not remembering it correctly?</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">An even bigger difference between box office numbers hit the industry headlines this past weekend, after Paramount's <b>Transformers 5: the Last Knight</b> opened with an unexpected all-time franchise domestic US box-office low of $60M, while the numbers from its China opening brought in $175M. And Paramount executives, faced with the choice of either telling us their movie had opened with an embarrassing $60M or a whopping $175M, took the obvious choice.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3wXocppAz7IZcmcb7xw1W7Hx9XeJncmjHG8uGg1ifKESJ2e4fBtQRzpjX9uFfm0kwXMzSJE_GfSIQNHhDSEr__swLogDcvQiVbdLxElhzXrTPIQcv0VB2ZmK_oCx2AteZKALLb31nMKdm/s1600/MV5BMTk3OTI3MDk4N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNDg2ODIyMjI%2540._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="163" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3wXocppAz7IZcmcb7xw1W7Hx9XeJncmjHG8uGg1ifKESJ2e4fBtQRzpjX9uFfm0kwXMzSJE_GfSIQNHhDSEr__swLogDcvQiVbdLxElhzXrTPIQcv0VB2ZmK_oCx2AteZKALLb31nMKdm/s200/MV5BMTk3OTI3MDk4N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNDg2ODIyMjI%2540._V1_.jpg" width="135" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But something was a little different this time: The fact that the "success" came from China </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">wasn't</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> exactly hidden in the headlines the way Disney had hidden it. China's BO numbers were splashed on Variety on Sunday literally right next to the US box-office figures, as if that was the "Other half" of our new mentality for considering movie success. Critics had uniformly savaged the movie as "Messy" and "Incomprehensible gibberish" (something about our human heroes now descended from Camelot, and a new villainess-Transformer, suspiciously resembling a certain Egyptian mummy), and core fans tried their old standby rally that its 15%-and-dropping critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes was the work of "elitist meanies". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That discussion, however, was now in the minority--The new discussion in town was whether it was "Selfish" or "Nationalistically short-sighted" to say that the movie had flopped in the good ol' US & A, when everyone knew how much foreign moviegoers had loved it...Shouldn't we start paying more attention to Overseas box office as the new reality of the movie industry? Is China, with its billion CGI-hungry moviegoers, the new Hollywood?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, there's a couple problems with that. Obvious one first:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yeah, China's hungry for movies, all right...One might even say "Starving". And a starving man doesn't care whether he gets a six-course steak dinner or a Denny's Grand-Slam breakfast.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZShnXiCW-V9sj6zKjIpJ0P7tNAX0nMkHte0f27UzCo-7BgzX1l9OtQLNHZvnheLQBHnaj0KLNq7sZoDEokKf90fWwHFqpjIx8Xg3PaeP7qx2aaufkZG8roFT6qsu6ZB5MBAr_nQZgnjQ3/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZShnXiCW-V9sj6zKjIpJ0P7tNAX0nMkHte0f27UzCo-7BgzX1l9OtQLNHZvnheLQBHnaj0KLNq7sZoDEokKf90fWwHFqpjIx8Xg3PaeP7qx2aaufkZG8roFT6qsu6ZB5MBAr_nQZgnjQ3/s200/images.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The reason dates back to the Big Red Elephant in the Room, namely the reason why nobody's so concerned about Tokyo or Seoul's box office in compiling Asian figures: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In China, the State's Communist control of the industry has a very tight say on what movies get made, and which movies are shown. The masses, for their own good, are not to be shown criticisms of the government, the policies of Western countries, decadent or "deviant" depiction of sex, religious stories, or any emphasis that supernatural forces, like ghost stories, might still be possible in our modern scientific world...Y'know, all the good things that make movies worthwhile. It was the reason Sony suddenly found themselves banned from China when the '16 Ghostbusters fought ghosts in NYC, and why Warner's Suicide Squad had their invitation revoked after the villain was possessed by the spirit of an ancient sorceress.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So what DO they make movies out of? Well, all that pretty much leaves on the table for Generic Politically-Uncommitted State-Approved Entertainment are:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">1) Romantic comedies, where shy squeaky-clean working folk and poor office Cinderella-girls meet-cute in the most unexpected and heterosexual places, and become new benefits to society as they realize their dreams, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">2) Over-the-top fantasies that take place in no geographically identified location, and usually involve the Monkey King, and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">3) Big-budget epics, particularly if they depict one of the Dynasty battles of the glorious empire in its ancient days. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The latter is one of the reason we got this year's earlier Matt Damon mess of <b>The Great Wall</b>, when Chinese ideas of What Makes a Good Movie clashed with good old American opportunistic greed to let them make one. In fact, when the new "Hollywood Silk Road" was opened last year with <b>Warcraft</b>, the joke among moviegoers was "No <i>wonder</i> they liked it..."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The other reason, of course, is that a fantasy movie with big explosions and CGI creatures translates well in any language, without the need for too much dialogue, cultural explanations, or thinking. Beijing audiences unused to life in the West would find it easier to understand Johnny Depp's character in "Pirates of the Caribbean", or the dogs in "Secret Life of Pets", than, say, Michael Fassbender's character in "Steve Jobs".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And there's a bigger problem, and it has a little more to do with that story.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb5oB6GnwyMYBuA6v107No6_cjQ6n0lY_bHt6uaK0x3qtz6QcHStrKDlhtEMY12V1ukWm6FshRUta_OMFsh1Hy-SfVkAwjfy0Kfe7OAcT9Hr6IVZ5nU6MaxdIGdPVvxZGSIPM7jcty2VNi/s1600/MV5BMjI5NTM5MDA2N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjkwMzQxNw%2540%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C631%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="151" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb5oB6GnwyMYBuA6v107No6_cjQ6n0lY_bHt6uaK0x3qtz6QcHStrKDlhtEMY12V1ukWm6FshRUta_OMFsh1Hy-SfVkAwjfy0Kfe7OAcT9Hr6IVZ5nU6MaxdIGdPVvxZGSIPM7jcty2VNi/s200/MV5BMjI5NTM5MDA2N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjkwMzQxNw%2540%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C631%252C1000_AL_.jpg" width="125" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A string of surprise big-budget flops this summer has the studios more than simply just a bit rattled: All four of the most high-profile box-office busts of May and June were meant to be the flagships for studios' new "House brand" franchises, and pave the way not for just a quick summer, but for a five-year strategy of interconnected sequels, spinoffs and "Crossover Universes". Universal's <b>The Mummy</b> would have led Tom Cruise to the new "Dark Universe", Warner would have brought us new adventures for their gritty "re-imagined" <b>King Arthur</b>, and Disney's <b>Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales</b> was going to be the first in Capt. Jack Sparrow's "Final Adventure Trilogy", as not one but three movies over three summers would wrap up the saga. And news bulletin: That suddenly didn't seem likely to happen.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_UliK3bT4KbzwOXoocFjGm_oIPpyQOYrid6Mp8g9LD93kRObTdl41vH5EPzxwnA71psigv2zRRJt0oVQxetrit-g_wTpi1guKPyR7p5MCfqWGhH9sS_2bW0N21bXE97Dmwn4bRA34uy7K/s1600/MV5BMjIxMDI1MTI2M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODYzODc2NTE%2540._V1_SY1000_SX675_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="162" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_UliK3bT4KbzwOXoocFjGm_oIPpyQOYrid6Mp8g9LD93kRObTdl41vH5EPzxwnA71psigv2zRRJt0oVQxetrit-g_wTpi1guKPyR7p5MCfqWGhH9sS_2bW0N21bXE97Dmwn4bRA34uy7K/s200/MV5BMjIxMDI1MTI2M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODYzODc2NTE%2540._V1_SY1000_SX675_AL_.jpg" width="135" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Paramount also had hopes for the Transformers--The franchise had been getting diminishing returns, and even director Michael Bay had begun talking about hanging up his pot brownies and letting someone else take over. But since Paramount needed a "Universe" to compete with Disney's Marvel and Star Wars, and Warner's DC Universe--and Universal's monsters, just in case--the studio had always had plans for a "Hasbro Universe", especially if it involved lots of space robots with whizzing gears in it. Paramount's first attempt at a Trans-friendly Hasbro movie, 2012's <b>Battleship</b>, where J-5 tried to sink an alien spacecraft, was a crushing, incoherent, laughably baldface-derivative flop, and Paramount reigned in its strategy of filming Hasbro board games somewhat. A few earthbound projects--like a Candyland movie, a non-comic reboot of Clue without Tim Curry, and the movies that became '14's <b>Ouija</b> and '15's <b>Jem & the Holograms</b> for other producers--were sold off or dropped, and Paramount was now only interested in space and action-themed Hasbro properties, developing 70's toys ROM: the Space Knight and the Micronauts, and 80's toys M.A.S.K. and the Visionaries for future projects. After all, if they're in space, you know who they'll meet. Why, the M.A.S.K. team might even meet up with the GI Joe force, for one more movie.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But what happens if audiences say no, to the budget-busting tune of $60M? Like they said no to Tom Cruise meeting Dr. Jekyll, or to Johnny Depp reminding us how just how damn long he's been saying "savvy"? What if the chemical factory was shut down the day <i>before</i> it opened?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, let's be honest, any three-year-old knows the answer to that one. If Mommy says no, go ask Grandma...She'll ALWAYS say yes. And then when Mommy says she said no, tell her she's in the minority, and that she's just been officially outvoted by someone who already said yes, so there. And then Mommy will be afraid to argue with the implied overhead authority of <u>her</u> mommy.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk-_i8QE5eqzCNwxgowGauzaG3M3MpQEWulm3jmJyxQ3ogcbSgAd4kPKAd2FMXh0C2U7oH6QASkufJi7u9bh-FEwL8WpDB8OvaPx_v-xVly331AmXu6LHvOSAiRnRKFgIV0HSV70CWVo8S/s1600/86cbc339af23c06e596f604bbcb15d8a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk-_i8QE5eqzCNwxgowGauzaG3M3MpQEWulm3jmJyxQ3ogcbSgAd4kPKAd2FMXh0C2U7oH6QASkufJi7u9bh-FEwL8WpDB8OvaPx_v-xVly331AmXu6LHvOSAiRnRKFgIV0HSV70CWVo8S/s200/86cbc339af23c06e596f604bbcb15d8a.jpg" width="166" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's a natural reaction for someone who's just seen the next five rich years of their life go up in smoke over literally a weekend, and in Hollywood studios, the three-year-old never grows up. The discussion of why it "doesn't matter" if US audiences said they didn't have the slightest interest in a Hasbro Universe, let alone the upcoming solo movie for Transformer's Bumblebee character (who is made to be a central plot point in T5 to prime the franchise-strategy pump), turned to discussions of the "New reality" of the industry, and the "Unstoppable new market force" of overseas audiences--I.e.. that Hollywood will just now have to <b>GET USED</b> to the idea of making their movies for Beijing and not Hollywood, so there. And if we don't like it, we all just got 175 million reasons why we can lump it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Should that worry us? Yes. And not because it's encouraging rich corporate execs in their fifties to employ the negotiation strategies of their three-year-old granddaughters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And not because of complacent American "Aww, we used to be the big Uncle-Sam bully on the block and now we're not anymore!" jingoism, but because of a little thing that happens when you start selling diamonds you <u>don't</u> have instead of glass jars that you do--It's one of the first or second mass delusions that happens when a Bubble is on the horizon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/09/september-15-2016-im-mister-dot-com.html" target="_blank">we've discussed Bubbles before</a>--They always start when there's a Mysterious New Market no one understands, but seems a virgin gold mine ripe for the picking...And then once a few lucky gold strikes happen, the rush...And then, ultimately, the SOCIAL THEORIZING why this new gold mine is the wave of the future, and why science doesn't lie, and why you just shouldn't put your money anywhere else if you know what's good for you. And that anyone who tells you the lack of logical reasoning is "crazy" is just jealously stuck in the past and wishes he could get in on the gravy. And then, something always happens that nobody exactly, um, planned for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'm not going to be the futurist who says what that might be. I'll just point out China's bad habit of finding a popular import, and for the State industries to find a new alternative they can whip up by themselves to profit off of, so that they don't <u>have</u> to rely on or pay out money to those barbarian foreign imports anymore. It's a little something that corporations can call "Chinese loyalty". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And it's not the most reliable basket to put all your eggs in for the next ten years, especially if you're going to start burning hyper-defensively divisive bridges with what used to be the most reliable source. Like the shouts that once greeted Jane Fonda in Vietnam, moviegoers are starting to react to this weekend's "It's a new market now!" claims--and the trying to make their vocal opinions of What's Crap and What Isn't into quaint, obsolete <i>persona non grata</i>--with the very specific reaction of "Hollywood, love America or LEAVE it."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We've seen studios try to build five-year franchise strategies, and we're starting to see them put up a good fight when the audience won't let them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But let them get too far ahead into their dreams where their new future unbuilt riches allow them to act like arrogant jerks, and all they may soon hear is broken glass on Monday morning.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And bit of mocking laughter from the bystanders nearby.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-24092650945504108622017-06-12T14:29:00.001-07:002018-04-14T02:26:40.536-07:00The Implosion of the Universe, or Here There (won't) Be Monsters<h2>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBA8pI6cHoTgxm-v7t2_OCiYGUD_kMUpwrJexCIhDhofl4SRJQAL3BNLZC5ANMK4M0WfHdbQmXg6ozcRRFh0247M8htAhRI1XZ2YxcE6QiKColbOPzQcCTWiH87vxgYQ36q3z33fIXlbZ0/s1600/MV5BMjM5NzM5NTgxN15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNDEyNTk4MTI%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C631%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="303" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBA8pI6cHoTgxm-v7t2_OCiYGUD_kMUpwrJexCIhDhofl4SRJQAL3BNLZC5ANMK4M0WfHdbQmXg6ozcRRFh0247M8htAhRI1XZ2YxcE6QiKColbOPzQcCTWiH87vxgYQ36q3z33fIXlbZ0/s320/MV5BMjM5NzM5NTgxN15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNDEyNTk4MTI%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C631%252C1000_AL_.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>
</span></h2>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFR0T_56GdfQJQ0XyGtjR7EI5BSZsHbl4uW0cWDCYa51nv34qllEEehezaC230HWIuinQ3MDSq1o2BiL4j83thWROfc1DL0nzjcmtJ6P_yx_y196aoNDxBOvHAauSBmpPZHIACbrGgZo3T/s1600/1-5-Horse-before-cart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="314" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFR0T_56GdfQJQ0XyGtjR7EI5BSZsHbl4uW0cWDCYa51nv34qllEEehezaC230HWIuinQ3MDSq1o2BiL4j83thWROfc1DL0nzjcmtJ6P_yx_y196aoNDxBOvHAauSBmpPZHIACbrGgZo3T/s200/1-5-Horse-before-cart.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">...Would it be too much of a cliche' to talk about "Putting the cart before the horse"?</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Okay, then maybe we should try the exchange between Groucho and Chico Marx from <b>Horsefeathers</b>:</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Rosmv6OqjavWVT6uSPfS5vTVuleCPO-jZSX2Xqbddqa12OapbSWRgbilmIqR-xIEnEwKdV-aQqOmI5zfZuWZp7FSZgKgzehJPGbLYRZYOpQrBhQ1lr-3I9tVWFBrII-F2U3tkm5ZewMm/s1600/Marx+Brothers+%2528A+Night+at+the+Opera%2529_09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="320" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Rosmv6OqjavWVT6uSPfS5vTVuleCPO-jZSX2Xqbddqa12OapbSWRgbilmIqR-xIEnEwKdV-aQqOmI5zfZuWZp7FSZgKgzehJPGbLYRZYOpQrBhQ1lr-3I9tVWFBrII-F2U3tkm5ZewMm/s200/Marx+Brothers+%2528A+Night+at+the+Opera%2529_09.jpg" width="200" /></a> <i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">C: You know what I do when I kidnap somebody? First I call them on the telephone, and then I send over my chauffeur.</i><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>G: Oh, you've got a chauffeur? What kind of car have you got?</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>C: I no got a car, I just got a chauffeur. </i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>G: Well, maybe I'm crazy, but when you have a chauffeur, aren't you supposed to have a car?</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>C: I had one, but y'see, it cost too much money to keep a chauffeur and a car, so I sold the car.</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>G: Shows you how little I know, I would have kept the car and sold the chauffeur.</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>C: That's-a no good, I got to have a chauffeur to take me to work in the morning.</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>G: But if you've got no car, how can he take you to work?</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>C: He don't have to take me to work, I no got a job.</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This past June 9-12 weekend, readers of box-office news on Sunday saw two interconnected headlines blast their bold unexpected shock across the banners of industry papers:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One was that, surprise, Warner/DC's lone pattern-breaking "good" movie, Patty Jenkins' <b>Wonder Woman</b>, had passed the same unexpected word-of-mouth audience test that Disney/Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 had passed last month, and taken $55M in a second #1 box office weekend. The reader may theorize for himself why a jaw-dropped industry considered that a "surprise".</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The second headline, to emphasize the first, was the presumable look on Universal's face, when Tom Cruise, blockbuster CGI effects, a full year of pre-release hype, a summer June opening and an audience-identified cultural property to be big-budget rebooted, left the studio stuck at the gate without transportation. The latest 2017 reboot of <b>The Mummy</b>, meant to be Universal's new "House brand" to compete with all those apes-and-capes at Warner, Fox and Disney, took in a mournful $32M in its opening weekend (compared to Dreamworks' epic "Captain Underpants" taking in a third-place $15M in its second weekend). </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, <i>c'est la guerre en la cine'</i>. It was rather a bigger problem for Universal, however, in that the selling point of the movie--even more than its A-list star <u>or</u> its monster--was that there were going to be MORE movies immediately in the pipeline after it. A house brand that would reawaken the 30's Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi monsters of the studio's proud heritage, and reboot them into a new world where all the characters happened to know each other, and presumably, would start to <i>fight</i> each other, in some future group film a few titles down the line.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What, you didn't know that? It's okay, the studio wanted to make sure we knew about their newly named "Dark Universe"*, and told us about it. In the final-release <b>trailer</b>, no less:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s4C1gnqdrew/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s4C1gnqdrew?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(* - "Wait, wouldn't 'MonsterVerse' have been more Universal-y?" Yes, but Warner had already copyrighted the name, for their plans for Kong of Skull Island to fight Godzilla, and have Pacific Rim's Jaegers break up the scuffle.)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The "Too long, didn't watch" version: Tom Cruise is a special-ops soldier in the Middle East. (And not Vietnam, like in Kong:Skull Island) He digs up the ruins of Ms. Four-Eyes, survives a plane crash, and is told by Dr. Henry Jekyll--<i>yes</i>--as played by Russell Crowe, that his role/encounter has corrupted him with <strike>Engrams</strike> Monster Cooties, and he is now one of the unkillable few whose destiny is to Bust Monsters. And we know the good Doctor likes <i>classic</i> monsters, because he quotes Dr. Praetorius's "Gods and monsters" line from the '35 <b>Bride of Frankenstein</b>! Crowe, we discover, is part of this said league of extraordinary avenger-friends of justice, "Prodigium", and we are intended to soon discover that a certain Professor Van Helsing once belonged to this organization too. But first, we've got to deal with, and protect a CGI-destroyed London from, a supernatural-powered female Mummy and her minions, which Cruise is now indestructible enough to fight, no matter how much you bang and toss him around like a rag doll. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Which is likely what Cruise's own Scientology also causes him to believe about himself offscreen, so, no biggie.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And why is Ahmanet female?--Oh, c'mon, why was the T-X Terminator female in "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines", figure it out! And the first person to point out that the reason Ahmanet </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">is a female mummy is that "she's not a </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">daddy</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Mummy!" gets hit.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvBdtKNMRBLsSVAlGd852ekCn4DmjzgPvG7Lfz4NDHWeECZD_Asun9eowVrZusZHpRcUyCrw0O_2Hq8rPdr9D_GfbkjZo1JevnDEtpJ89CkdrvXtoYmhFcrmybh27jRsjiUVz4oYGaTpod/s1600/mummykarloff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="304" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvBdtKNMRBLsSVAlGd852ekCn4DmjzgPvG7Lfz4NDHWeECZD_Asun9eowVrZusZHpRcUyCrw0O_2Hq8rPdr9D_GfbkjZo1JevnDEtpJ89CkdrvXtoYmhFcrmybh27jRsjiUVz4oYGaTpod/s200/mummykarloff.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, maybe I'm misremembering the 1932 Boris Karloff movie, a tad:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In that one, archeologists dig up the ancient Egyptian mummy of Imhotep, who secretly turns out to be not quite as stiff as they thought--And are soon met by the sinister and suspiciously wrinkled "Egyptologist" Ardath Bey, who takes an unhealthy interest in our heroine, believing her to be a reincarnated Egyptian queen. No prize for guessing why.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(Yeah, all that stuff with Kharis, the lumbering guy in bandages? Didn't happen until Universal's reboot of their monster brands for more quick, commercial B-movies in the 40's and 50's.)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But, y'see, this one isn't Karloff. It's FRANCHISES. Universal Studios had one thing in their attic trunk that Warner and Disney didn't--Okay, if you don't count the little yellow pill-creatures, or Vin Diesel & Dwayne Johnson.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So it doesn't matter if you don't get the original movie right--a problem that was already a bit noticeable with franchise-ready <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2017/03/march-22-2016-wbs-death-march-or-twas.html" target="_blank">reboots of King Kong</a> or <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/09/september-25-2016-look-back-in-remakes.html" target="_blank">The Magnificent Seven</a>--so long as you Remember the Name. And then you can make up whatever crap you want, so long as you don't change <b>THE NAME.</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And what if the audience <i>does</i> remember the historic studio property name a little better, and doesn't quite take to the new changes, or, in the worst scenario, considers the studio a raving lunatic for making those changes? Um...poopie. But hey, at least be glad they <u>remembered</u>.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thing is, this isn't the <i>first</i> time it's happened, either. Universal now considering the M-word as a license for wild chases and CGI insect/sandstorm effects was meant to follow in the footsteps of their "franchise" created by the goofy 1999 movie with Brendan Fraser. And how did we happen to get <u>that</u> variation on Karloff? As usual, it's a long story. Oddly, as has also so often happened in American history, it turns out to be Forrest Gump's fault:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuLL8rvR2P0dMyQ_2Ck-L48IF9GNK6ZJPMn9W3uOLACm018cASomGDWgsBNH9JVCqr80Fx-shzrCTytlD-x3mxQeTx3g-yvME9SKKRaPR2B0wO6q_kDhy07vo_hYJbAOkrnRsnTmcvKyNz/s1600/Forrest-Gump-Meets-John-F.-Kennedy-Picture-Quote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="604" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuLL8rvR2P0dMyQ_2Ck-L48IF9GNK6ZJPMn9W3uOLACm018cASomGDWgsBNH9JVCqr80Fx-shzrCTytlD-x3mxQeTx3g-yvME9SKKRaPR2B0wO6q_kDhy07vo_hYJbAOkrnRsnTmcvKyNz/s200/Forrest-Gump-Meets-John-F.-Kennedy-Picture-Quote.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In 1994, twenty-three years before CGI effects could bring Peter Cushing back from the grave, Hollywood was astounded at how well computer effects and voice impersonation could create the illusion of Tom Hanks shaking hands with JFK in black-and-white 60's news footage. And, as usual--and as they also did after Cushing and "Rogue One"--once Hollywood had a new toy that would let computers replace expensive actors, the industry started talking about "Virtually-resurrected" celebrities, bringing back dead stars to surprise us with new roles.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Plans to bring George Burns back in a new comedy never quite came to fruition, and John Wayne came back to plug soft drinks in angrily debated commercials, but Universal, the House of Frankenstein, had bigger ambitions: What about bringing back the very Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr., for a rematch of Frankenstein vs. the Wolf Man? (Uh, technically, it was Bela Lugosi who fought Lon Chaney in the 1943 "Meets" movie, and Glenn Strange who met Abbott & Costello after that, but y'know, we can fix that and do it bigger this time, because we've got computers, 'n stuff.)</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc69SdLYG5sql-SlO30_oZzXtVa5wuy9W71CY-3QxW61ddtaFnWRE_4kJQCWKT_KwThCsVUzBlOh8dArpgO1syHgp7e4HSlxPffElvIjS4LiU5vblHmUqF5CCWHUtTtB5YOISYgPD40y8r/s1600/MV5BMTMzMTY3NjMxNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjk5NDQyMw%2540%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C678%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="163" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc69SdLYG5sql-SlO30_oZzXtVa5wuy9W71CY-3QxW61ddtaFnWRE_4kJQCWKT_KwThCsVUzBlOh8dArpgO1syHgp7e4HSlxPffElvIjS4LiU5vblHmUqF5CCWHUtTtB5YOISYgPD40y8r/s200/MV5BMTMzMTY3NjMxNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjk5NDQyMw%2540%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C678%252C1000_AL_.jpg" width="135" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And, armed with their new whalebone harpoon, the studio now had its Ahab Complex of destiny: Every "Legacy" horror movie of their beloved 30's creations that Universal released since 1994 bore the ulterior motives of trying to "test the waters" for whether the audience was ready to have Frankenstein and Dracula back in their theaters again, and justifying those expense accounts for the slightly dead Karloff and Chaney.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The '99 Mummy was a hit? Yay, we can do it!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The '98 Gus Van Sant shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's Psycho was a flop? Boo, we'd better not.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The '01 Mummy Returns was a hit again? Yay, we can do it!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The '04 Van Helsing, with Hugh Jackman fighting every monster you could name, tanked epically? Boo, we'd better not.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And so on. And so on. Even the '10 Benecio Del Toro remake of <b>The Wolf Man</b> was meant to hint about whether we'd want the Creature From the Black Lagoon to resurface soon. As it ultimately turned out, the answer was no--When asked how they felt about resurrected Universal Legacy monsters, the audience, rushing out to buy the 30's originals on restored Blu-ray, routinely replied that they had to pee. Boo, the studio had better not.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But that was just for license sales and bragging rights. Now, in 21st-century 10's Hollywood, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man have a NEW battle to fight for the studios: Crossover franchise universes.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, if you're not Marvel Studios working for Disney, or DC Comics working for Warner, you may not quite know what they <i>are</i>, but that you have to make one if you want to stay in the game. The other guys, after all, made it look easy--Just make a half-dozen solo movies for each pop-culturally recognized character, and spend time in the script where they explain their origins and search out to meet each other, so they can all have a common grudge to fight in the group film. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of course, if Mary Shelley had never met Bram Stoker or Robert Louis Stevenson, and couldn't imagine a scenario where Henry Jekyll helps Prof. Van Helsing stop Dr. Frankenstein's Creature, that's what screenwriters are paid for.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7HswWgZHhc1vIGXUgpwBId_kRe95yt2vYs6yOXL9P96jAF4ZQlKIzZF3eqhFYhsrdZ0iYde79cNGoHMtXB5RpgiRFGGQV8aQlWCnCSwxfD-ZyZKYAPzInJJVRxfbGaHzTDAlBO9SQcpDM/s1600/MV5BYjJhNjQ2MGEtODU2Ny00NjdhLWI4NDYtMDJlYzQ3NTNlZmI1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzAwOTU1MTk%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C1211%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="231" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7HswWgZHhc1vIGXUgpwBId_kRe95yt2vYs6yOXL9P96jAF4ZQlKIzZF3eqhFYhsrdZ0iYde79cNGoHMtXB5RpgiRFGGQV8aQlWCnCSwxfD-ZyZKYAPzInJJVRxfbGaHzTDAlBO9SQcpDM/s200/MV5BYjJhNjQ2MGEtODU2Ny00NjdhLWI4NDYtMDJlYzQ3NTNlZmI1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzAwOTU1MTk%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C1211%252C1000_AL_.jpg" width="192" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And Universal certainly had their road map in mind. Next up, a remake of <b>The Bride of Frankenstein</b>, with Javier Bardem as the groom, which would have put Prodigium aside in the story for the moment to focus on an "allegory of awakening" for the demographically female-identifiable Bride, as she fights to establish her identity against the controlling Doctor. "Oh, sort of like that 80's movie with Jennifer Beals and Sting, you mean?" Well, yes. Publicity did rather hint that they'd seen that movie on HBO, too, and were using it as a template.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And then? A new reboot of Van Helsing--"Wait, y'mean the one that tanked?" Well, yes. The one that tanked <i>back then, </i>because it wasn't part of the bigger story. Only he's not working for the Vatican anymore, now he's working for the ancient order that later became--okay, you get the idea now?</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Oh, and their 2014 Maleficent-envying "Dracula Untold" that was "supposed" to be part of a new franchise strategy? Well, er, that sort of doesn't count anymore. That one got out a bit early, before the real plans were in place. Don't worry, they had it in mind to fit him in again somewhere.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was a brilliant plan. Everything was in place. The movies were even granted their "existence" by a slate of release dates up through 2019-20, which would certainly give them enough time to actually make the movies by then. Was anything missing? Why, yes, as a matter of fact. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Turn your ear to those theater seats, and hear that booming neigh of "Ohh, Willl-burrr, remember us? We're the AUDIENCE!" </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And without them, your five-year franchise-universe strategy isn't going <i>anywhere</i>.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"But it made $175 million <b>worldwide</b>!" Then go to China, where you can be loved. Because over here, Universal, in the good old U.S. and A, you just had the year's biggest flopola since King Arthur grew up on the dirty streets of Camelot with his Round Table Posse, or Captain Jack Sparrow metaphorically had the Giant Fork of Neptune stuck into him...Or were you too busy looking at Shanghai numbers to notice? And we've still got two more months of the summer to go.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If Universal built it, why didn't they come? Tom Cruise might be a reason, and we can't honestly say he wasn't. He's certainly taking the majority of the blame at the moment, because execs always find it easier to blame actors for why a movie doesn't find love. Actors, after all, are easier to fire than studio execs. And then, of course, it might be all those nasty-wasty <i>critics</i>, at that meanie-ol'-poopiehead RottenTomatoes, who all hated to see regular dumb-people have fun, and decided to be mean and gang up on it with a 16% </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">score...It's Orwellian group-think!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A better question to ask is, why didn't the audience LIKE the idea of being told that they had to see this $15 movie-night-out solely for the purpose of seeing six <i>more</i> of them later on?--And being told <b>TO THEIR FACE</b> that they would do so solely because of that. After all, didn't they all go see Marvel's Avengers, and come back for all those Harry Potter stories? Aren't the kids into that "binge-TV" thing, where they like unfinished chapters and chapters of a story all at once?</span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM-y2Bm5P9nQjzNY5EHFgNxNwGmppxXb2VCxlT_bbSYLxVypWuXcD_mT8p3R46Dgi2YReZqqeRuKvGGIABOtWGHNeDHgg81su_Y7uiofiW7lrJ-E2S8yLpmoUsYV3wET5627_aHnNJljO7/s1600/MV5BMTUzNjk1MDQ0MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDA4NzM2MjE%2540._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM-y2Bm5P9nQjzNY5EHFgNxNwGmppxXb2VCxlT_bbSYLxVypWuXcD_mT8p3R46Dgi2YReZqqeRuKvGGIABOtWGHNeDHgg81su_Y7uiofiW7lrJ-E2S8yLpmoUsYV3wET5627_aHnNJljO7/s200/MV5BMTUzNjk1MDQ0MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDA4NzM2MjE%2540._V1_.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here's one answer to learn from the experience that you might be seeking, Universal. It's a lesson that Warner's already learning with a certain big ape whom they want to fight a big lizard three years from now: Don't try to tell the audience what they "know". We've been doing it for a lot longer than you have. And we don't have to keep you in business if we don't want to.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Treat us like gullible idiots who, in your imaginations, act exactly like numbers on a spreadsheet, and you'll find out exactly how much we DO know. Think that you've made six films before the first one opens, and you're going to forget just exactly how hard it is for that first one to open on Friday night.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And that's good advice on the propelling of franchises you can take, straight from the horse's mouth.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-31492766705786387122017-05-06T17:40:00.000-07:002018-04-14T02:36:08.878-07:00The Capes of Wrath?<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg53puhQ7Ailww5gpzwlxYsSpi5hXQEIhgyNoIgwLgxxIhJlWUENyiLncyR8bCuicMJTE6A8rqLFDZwFgCEBuhumWVTtCzbl5cGgLOQpmZ9KAQy2nJ1_TOA8V0TO4ace0Z20cZFQGruict_/s1600/posters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg53puhQ7Ailww5gpzwlxYsSpi5hXQEIhgyNoIgwLgxxIhJlWUENyiLncyR8bCuicMJTE6A8rqLFDZwFgCEBuhumWVTtCzbl5cGgLOQpmZ9KAQy2nJ1_TOA8V0TO4ace0Z20cZFQGruict_/s320/posters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today, Saturday, May 6, if you may or may not be aware unless you've happened to be on the Internet or at your local comic-book store, is National Free Comic-Book Day. A day set aside by the print-store industry to help promote fun reading for kids, even as the comic industry itself is facing danger from its own online-downloadable versions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">More to the geek point, it's the sought-after first-May movie weekend that Marvel Studios wanted to starting pistol the opening of Summer Movie 2017, with their big tentpole rollout for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2". (And just as Marvel's big opener was one of the sole standout bright commercial spots of last year's season, let's try and have a <b>better</b> summer this year, shall we? That last one was pretty painful.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And with the traditional coming of May and November movie seasons, with the coming of big Warner, Fox and Disney/Marvel franchise tentpoles, comes that other new tradition, like the swallows at Capistrano: Moviegoers wanting to vent their spleen at the current franchise-ridden Hollywood saying "All Hollywood makes is comic-book movies! Have they run out of ideas? Can't they make anything else?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_NDQaF1ezalTN9dPGmWKYHC093oWf7AZpmcRPtFOhHWA1GvFoPnc7f9TlkhV9QR6zrD0PChkaXZnVH9r_huw63FjavAyTOP8IuQN3LdZ5lVt4qj2lca_Br7vEovMa_Vo_s-BTduGXOzAD/s1600/ComputerFrustration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="111" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_NDQaF1ezalTN9dPGmWKYHC093oWf7AZpmcRPtFOhHWA1GvFoPnc7f9TlkhV9QR6zrD0PChkaXZnVH9r_huw63FjavAyTOP8IuQN3LdZ5lVt4qj2lca_Br7vEovMa_Vo_s-BTduGXOzAD/s200/ComputerFrustration.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yes, folks, let it out. Here, I'll give ten seconds for the smug reader to let out his own primal screams searching for frustrated-moviegoer sympathy:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Okay, good. Can we move on now? (Guardians 2 <i>is</i> actually a pretty good movie, y'know.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But to search for the root of our anger, we must have to come to grips with the fact that it might be MISPLACED...Stop and think for a moment, <u>what</u> are we trying to convince the world we're angry at? Who are we pitching cabbages at, as they're being dragged to the guillotine in a tumbrel cart for their crimes against the citizens?:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">An overexploited trend? The story-similarity of genre formula for a standard origin-vs. villain plot? The belief that studios are, quote, "desperate" to dig up lesser-known heroes who non-fans might not know off the tip of their tongue and now, quote, "throwing any old thing at us for money", unquote? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Or just the general audience/industry malaise of 10's studios now searching for franchises in place of stories, as an easy road to make movies five years ahead of time?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That's okay, folks. It's not a bad idea to think like that sometimes. It's just bad to pat yourself on your martyred back and think that you're the <i>first</i> generation who ever had such frustrations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's happened before, you know. But to explain how, we're going to have to back a few years and look at another movie genre that ran its "gold rush" into the ground with audiences, and move slightly off the topic of National Comic Book Day: 90's animated films.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Twenty years ago, we thought there was no...STOPPING them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">---</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgix8xFAM-87oCqCtXd13AvH7QUVkCJs5Zmw1E1Y33C1OdACFjSwSiZjzA8uw3Gwziwgjfhf_G0xUb5-fz_Qqqnpm4SnJF2-c6t5Zm1K2c2BIL4Eu5TBmnP29jkVCBFok5ZBqfkU3jwkcXO/s1600/Choose_restaurant_in_Mauritius.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgix8xFAM-87oCqCtXd13AvH7QUVkCJs5Zmw1E1Y33C1OdACFjSwSiZjzA8uw3Gwziwgjfhf_G0xUb5-fz_Qqqnpm4SnJF2-c6t5Zm1K2c2BIL4Eu5TBmnP29jkVCBFok5ZBqfkU3jwkcXO/s200/Choose_restaurant_in_Mauritius.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Douglas Adams, in one of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, quipped that all of man's innovations, over the history of civilization, tend to follow the same pattern:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">First a problem, then a solution, then the know-how to control the solution, the solution becomes commonplace, and we soon instinctively start developing brand-loyalty preferences about thinking <u>which</u> solution happens to be better than the other--</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We find ourselves hungry, we have an urge to eat, we learn to grow our own food, restaurants begin popping up in every city, we feel like a bit of lunch and think, "Which restaurant has the best salad?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The same pattern is at work when a new studio takes the time and effort to use their own specialized talent to create something new in the movies, cleans up, and starts the proverbial New Trend.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A studio with a different idea "solves" a problem we never realized we had at the theaters before, they display the know-how to tell the unique story, and when every other studio thinks they've found a license to print money, we enjoy the generic glut of riches for a while, until it slowly begins to dawn on us...some of the other studios away from the original prime source actually sort of stink at it. And then, the problem in the audience's mind becomes the Plague of Imitators that has to be stopped, so that the "good people" can continue their own specialized work uninterrupted.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPkn4FVkIf6N1ZltmUHQ_f7gwHSQ49vpIGdFXMa7-pV8GMakZ0QMyUU5KrwN6VBhJT_S7S75Vtvlig4H8RlV84-z1KYOYpgXwYcpaswLzUqrHAeI9uFwjB4wi-uMb6QW4D15klJp3jSEUK/s1600/MV5BMzE5MDM1NDktY2I0OC00YWI5LTk2NzUtYjczNDczOWQxYjM0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI%2540._V1_SY1000_SX674_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPkn4FVkIf6N1ZltmUHQ_f7gwHSQ49vpIGdFXMa7-pV8GMakZ0QMyUU5KrwN6VBhJT_S7S75Vtvlig4H8RlV84-z1KYOYpgXwYcpaswLzUqrHAeI9uFwjB4wi-uMb6QW4D15klJp3jSEUK/s200/MV5BMzE5MDM1NDktY2I0OC00YWI5LTk2NzUtYjczNDczOWQxYjM0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI%2540._V1_SY1000_SX674_AL_.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the 1980's, Disney had their own problem trying to make family animated movies relevant again, and distinguish their history away from a market that now believed the industry was for selling the Care Bears. In 1989, a new generation of re-dedicated folk gave us "The Little Mermaid", and all of a sudden, the image of the G-rated kids-animated musical clicked seamlessly into place. '91's "Beauty & the Beast" caught the wave of adults looking for alibis to claim why they enjoyed going to see them in the theater (it's Oscar nominated! It's the New Broadway!), and every studio now saw that forming their own animated studio was a foot in the door for a nice big validated audience demographic and a brand image away from that other big one with the Mouse and the Castle. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>E</b></span><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">VERY</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> studio. Because every studio wanted that image. And besides, how hard could it be?</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzEwGsSuZlEdWGmergYS34UhHv5w38sbetSQrfuiod1zfuNJorlOQbDNbnk1LXsdtL6H3K7Jh7h9wmmDhWynD5gCtD_TuMEApoSXvQ2H8HPnt-nbA8u5Op32sbXdjQR_Zf621aeZ1FLYpt/s1600/MV5BNDM2OGM1MjAtYjA3Zi00NzEzLWFiOWMtYjg4MDdiMzYzMWVkL2ltYWdlL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDA5Mjg5MjA%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C701%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzEwGsSuZlEdWGmergYS34UhHv5w38sbetSQrfuiod1zfuNJorlOQbDNbnk1LXsdtL6H3K7Jh7h9wmmDhWynD5gCtD_TuMEApoSXvQ2H8HPnt-nbA8u5Op32sbXdjQR_Zf621aeZ1FLYpt/s1600/MV5BNDM2OGM1MjAtYjA3Zi00NzEzLWFiOWMtYjg4MDdiMzYzMWVkL2ltYWdlL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDA5Mjg5MjA%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C701%252C1000_AL_.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That was the problem: The prime source was so good at it, and was coming off of a proud fifty-year legacy of trying to be good at it, they made it look Easy. And nothing raises the hopes of an imitator than the idea that they won't have to do much of that nasty hard work to get the exact same identical results.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While Disney continued the "90's Renaissance" bringing back the genre with Aladdin and The Lion King, we also had the decade of the "90's Wannabe", the third-party imitator that believed all they needed was a villain, the right songs, a wacky sidekick</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, and some message about Believing In Yourself, and that Best Song Oscar was as good as yours.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ferngully. The Pagemaster. The Swan Princess. Dare I mention that '99 Warner animated version of "The King & I", or do we get the point?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For a while, we never even suspected it might be coming from different places. After all, there was just so much of it, and it was <i>new!</i>...And look how successful the first bits of it were! That's what we thought, anyway. For a <b>while</b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But here's the problem. And it's a BIG problem:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's just our own human nature--maybe buried in the insecure angry child that never left us--that most of us who don't analyze our anger and just want to let it out don't take the time to find out who's the problem and who's the solution. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We just want to pin all our blame for frustration, repetition and helplessness by finding "Who </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">started</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> it?", and take it out on them for doing such mean things to us in the first place.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Despite the fact that the People Who Started It were technically the ones doing it <u>right</u>. All the cheap cynical parasites came later.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGjD3NnJUBtKLzSHZaKhkLTSuHguFvv3i92NzxCzeCwpyEL62-Z34GrFV6qjX9uX9H-i1MMzwg7LHCyGHdlQDnNPGFtMCNI4Uk1Zav5cCnYQi_w5cUQlzSrD5R1-GO-P5RfPkXdyrcDPMp/s1600/07f6e-savedisney121123.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="99" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGjD3NnJUBtKLzSHZaKhkLTSuHguFvv3i92NzxCzeCwpyEL62-Z34GrFV6qjX9uX9H-i1MMzwg7LHCyGHdlQDnNPGFtMCNI4Uk1Zav5cCnYQi_w5cUQlzSrD5R1-GO-P5RfPkXdyrcDPMp/s200/07f6e-savedisney121123.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And take it out on them, we did. As the increasing audience grumbles grew against CEO Michael Eisner--for all the troubles of the company, the studio, the networks, the theme parks--soon, all the frustrated blame for the 90's-Disney tropes (most of which Jeffrey Katzenberg took credit for creating) was placed on the head of the studio where it had all started. By the time later 90's movies began slipping, like '95's Pocahontas, '96's Hunchback of Notre Dame, and finally coming to a scalding boil with '97's Hercules, fans began shouting that nothing less than either destroying the studio or beheading its management was necessary, if it would only bring us a few less wacky sidekicks and singing heroines. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And if you feel blame was correctly placed, ask yourself which of the movie titles mentioned in the last three paragraphs you still watch on disk today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">---</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, such are trends.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But what we may be responding to today is that the current rush for superhero movies--no, sorry, make that "Superhero UNIVERSES"--at each studio now, is a little disturbing bit more than just a <i>trend</i>. Studios don't see it as a "money trend", they literally see it as the answer to their problems. They look at Marvel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kNGtHkruPk" target="_blank">announcing a full interconnected slate of release dated "Phase 3 & 4" movie titles into 2019-20</a>, and don't see a studio with a uniquely connected bit of pop-culture, where each story leads into the next. What they see is a studio setting themselves up for life, with pre-greenlit properties the audience already presumably knows, with interconnected cliffhangers to "grab" them into the next. (After all, if you announce a release date, why, that's halfway to the movie actually <u>existing</u>!) </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">How to Make a Studio-Brandname Franchise Without Really Trying, or Particularly Trying at ALL.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And an audience's mutiny against repetitious genre-trope or trend fatigue ain't nothing compared to an audience's mutiny at the suspicion they're being courted by their nostalgia with one hand while being treated like strategic cogs-in-the-wheel of a boardroom spreadsheet by the other. And especially if it seems as if there's more boardroom strategy going into the final product than the entertainment value we poor peasants are supposed to subsidize for the corporate good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Let's be honest, people: It's not <b>REALLY</b> "Comic-book movies" we hate, is it?...Now, <i>is</i> it?</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6G9FIGHjlUDvd_Vv5RXbSG4vCUO4Hzi0NfBRZ-Ld9t9dIKPGp0MN95niXDNBX8VS7TH6ZytLzmnnDmAmgBBLj0sPz8KSLl9RKjpYqU6ERiHRD6gtFhtnLjAIL9bpSsGTXyW-mkBily9Vr/s1600/BVS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6G9FIGHjlUDvd_Vv5RXbSG4vCUO4Hzi0NfBRZ-Ld9t9dIKPGp0MN95niXDNBX8VS7TH6ZytLzmnnDmAmgBBLj0sPz8KSLl9RKjpYqU6ERiHRD6gtFhtnLjAIL9bpSsGTXyW-mkBily9Vr/s200/BVS.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's the psychotic mess that was Warner's Batman v. Superman, and the studio's belief that Zack Snyder's dank, doomed fanboy bacchanalias will save the studio for the next seven to eight years. It's Bryan Singer's attempt to "blackmail" Fox into a lifetime career of sausage-ground X-Men sequels--seeing as it worked so well getting "X-Men: Apocalypse" greenlit--by sticking on imaginary post-credit teases to the "next" sequel like some Hollywood Scheherazade to the audience's Sultan. It was Sony refusing to say die on Spiderman, even after they'd already surrendered the character back to his proper owners, where he seemed a lot happier. It was Fox refusing to give their pride an inch on giving the Fantastic Four back to its owners, and...well, <i>you</i> know what happened.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We may not really hate Comic-Book Movies, any more than we wanted to see every print of Disney's 90's animateds burned just because Fox made "Anastasia", or the Pixar headquarters bombed to rubble for the crime of Cars 2, just because another studio's CGI Shrek movies weren't funny and Robert Zemeckis kept making creepy motion-capture. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We don't hate the genre, we just hate the exploitation--We don't hate the barrel, we hate the few bad apples trying to rise to the top of it. We're not angry at a few isolated movies that didn't do as well with the public as they were convinced they would, we're angry at them as symbols of greed, laziness, and out-of-touch stubbornness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Which are not bad things to be angry at, in principle. But you can't actually HIT an abstract principle, so the bad things happen when we tell ourselves how frustrated we are, and go out looking for some symbolic physical scapegoat we <u>can</u> hit, to feel better...Especially when it probably wasn't <i>all</i> their fault.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And when that happens, it's usually called a "crazed mob". And the innocent tend to be punished instead of the guilty, because we're not particularly interested in the difference.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoJeVaFd5xAUDJ-V7cp1uKMWvcR3tywYCB76zUgxSd-XaOLQHqm1xlvMB9wmG1AdIYcDZ6O6Cg4lz5DWCqJylmiaf4kKZuTVWMRLJMJSY88AOoRY3lIFGSrShR2vpWVADfqRa_QKu67tPA/s1600/2cb745fc8594e7f0d8f900c8fc66a2c9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoJeVaFd5xAUDJ-V7cp1uKMWvcR3tywYCB76zUgxSd-XaOLQHqm1xlvMB9wmG1AdIYcDZ6O6Cg4lz5DWCqJylmiaf4kKZuTVWMRLJMJSY88AOoRY3lIFGSrShR2vpWVADfqRa_QKu67tPA/s200/2cb745fc8594e7f0d8f900c8fc66a2c9.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some of us, however, take the time to look at brand labels, and stick with just those that actually know how to do this stuff.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You don't have to be a front-line fighter in the DC-vs-Marvel/Warner-vs-Disney Wars to consider one movie better than another, or one studio showing a little more technical competence at it than another, but it does sometimes help to notice a DIFFERENCE. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That's always the first big step.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-81171099682098512442017-03-22T19:58:00.003-07:002018-04-14T02:37:45.456-07:00WB's Death March, or 'Twas Warner Killed the Beast?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH6BXt7dDwnbTU65C85BK4Gc_05_TFMTMsIaqyTBToO0Ur9jDAINV7-8BndG-_9WyPnaGZ3Iu_TfKoJsbqWaI2lIiNLxPCzHwZ6_Jp7rOWKKvM0dxdMrW9Fn8ZydXQoj4SG1pqf-nfAoy6/s1600/march.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH6BXt7dDwnbTU65C85BK4Gc_05_TFMTMsIaqyTBToO0Ur9jDAINV7-8BndG-_9WyPnaGZ3Iu_TfKoJsbqWaI2lIiNLxPCzHwZ6_Jp7rOWKKvM0dxdMrW9Fn8ZydXQoj4SG1pqf-nfAoy6/s320/march.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There's an old saying about alcoholics: It's never about the drink already in your glass, it's always about the <b>NEXT</b> one.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgxjcdpTcy_6XcUxisxx2IlEEHqV8ECBcWYzuZWHU39HF944ewwHBDq7d1ClOy6VvfhDRUB_Q1E5P9ac6-eIgZi1V8mGeNgjvteGd__FQB_N8EBAny4Utx6zXqxvaDjq7jgiwHa6uyv7Mw/s1600/landscape-1485831848-hbz-batb-new-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgxjcdpTcy_6XcUxisxx2IlEEHqV8ECBcWYzuZWHU39HF944ewwHBDq7d1ClOy6VvfhDRUB_Q1E5P9ac6-eIgZi1V8mGeNgjvteGd__FQB_N8EBAny4Utx6zXqxvaDjq7jgiwHa6uyv7Mw/s200/landscape-1485831848-hbz-batb-new-1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With last weekend's current headline raving over the record-setting opening for Disney's live-action "Beauty & the Beast", think we can say that Warner's big record-setting opening from the weekend before has been duly upstaged. I'm not <i>proud</i> of it, as Disney's current attempt to cash in on every single fan-iconic title, sensical or non, seems to have been done for the exact same motivation as Warner's--But for good or bad, the damage seems to have been done, and it's all over but for the post-mortems:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Kong: Skull Island", </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">which</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Warner hoped would be the flagship for their new "Monster-verse" in connection with upcoming "Godzilla" and "Pacific Rim" sequels, took a hefty 53% dip in second-week audience. <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2017/03/march-5-march-madness-of-geek-week-ask.html" target="_blank">March Geek-Week</a>, with only a precious two weeks at best to stoke the fires, is the traditional time to excite teen audiences into a big front-loaded opening, and those who went in search of that opening the first weekend found their urges satisfied. Now the burden is on the movie itself the second weekend, to see whether or not the reviews held, and the reviews for Kong were mediocre at best.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS1MU3-tBE7Rf1NZITRTrMLx_lzDKd94eQTHAsD9B3CszOvePjErhAimIMZ0MWhNC4FxS-MqrH4VMA8Tyz1JokOGsPqROwKZW9Lgx8YiwD-z8ro9ysZtMDfGxHKZiMKn4cHORl0Yf5-WRI/s1600/batman-vs-superman-review-pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS1MU3-tBE7Rf1NZITRTrMLx_lzDKd94eQTHAsD9B3CszOvePjErhAimIMZ0MWhNC4FxS-MqrH4VMA8Tyz1JokOGsPqROwKZW9Lgx8YiwD-z8ro9ysZtMDfGxHKZiMKn4cHORl0Yf5-WRI/s200/batman-vs-superman-review-pic.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Warner had fanboy-armies-on-the-March very much in mind when it scheduled Kong for a potential Spring Break weekend, much in the same way they had strategically hoped to front-load comics fans to create the new DC Comics Universe with "Batman v. Superman", last March 2016 at this time. In fairness to the big ape, Kong's fate wasn't <i>quite</i> the disaster that that previous attempt creating New Warner Universes became, or at least it's not likely to be remembered as longer in audience legend.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But factoring in Warner's hopes to build a new "American Wizardry" universe out of a front-loaded opening for "Fantastic Beasts" last November, and now <a href="http://www.cinemablend.com/news/1637290/what-the-new-matrix-movie-may-be-about" target="_blank">rumors that Warner wants to explore "side stories and spinoffs"</a> for their next remaining marketing icon, "The Matrix", it raises a real question: When was the last time you saw Warner make just <b>one</b> movie? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And it stops becoming a joke when you literally wonder whether they've finally forgotten <u>how</u>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Warner's new Kong wasn't exactly following in the "Hollywood legacy" of the 30's, 70's and 00's versions before it:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE8obVnnF4dD7iSlZy1hBf6iVDidLqwRSVP0XQkn7TIDZXReYRACCKtBqju5bpD4mriXANfVh0GD33q5uCudOugd7emg4A5Zz5mfYg3d80pD3C1Xf89xlfTJBFmBvh4SnAOyhgE2UdQblU/s1600/kingkong11_6514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE8obVnnF4dD7iSlZy1hBf6iVDidLqwRSVP0XQkn7TIDZXReYRACCKtBqju5bpD4mriXANfVh0GD33q5uCudOugd7emg4A5Zz5mfYg3d80pD3C1Xf89xlfTJBFmBvh4SnAOyhgE2UdQblU/s200/kingkong11_6514.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In 1933, director Merian C. Cooper, with producer Ernest Schoedsack, had the one image in mind when they created the movie--Pitting the Eighth Wonder of the World against the current newly-built Seventh one, NYC's Empire State Building. Cooper himself had already been famous as the globe-trotting documentarian who brought the world to silent audiences with depictions of faraway Asian life in 1925's "Grass" and 1927's "Chang"--and later sent audiences down a widescreen rollercoaster in 1952's "This is Cinerama"--and when Cooper's story created Robert Armstrong's character of globe-trotting cinematic showman Carl Denham, no points for guessing who he had in mind. When Edgar Wallace's treatment brought Fay Wray's character into the story, all of a sudden, the big ape was now in love, and destroying Manhattan to protect the love of a girl...Cooper even had to invent the "Arabic proverb" about beauty and a beast for the opening of the story, since it bore little resemblance to the more familiar French tale. (The contemporary irony is noted.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The romance of </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">the big</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> ape and his handheld cutie is probably what we remember most about the story. It was (rather clumsily) the focus of Dino DeLaurentiis's 1976 version, that didn't know whether it wanted to be a 70's disaster movie, and Peter Jackson's 2005 version went all out to keep a 30's-stylized NYC at the "tragic" spiritual heart of the story.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When Warner gave us their version, they certainly played up the aspect of strange prehistoric creatures on the island, in gloriously realistic CGI, and the idea that Kong was big. They did, however, leave out a few important elements. Like the romance. Or New York, for that matter.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpt0jF-r22SxEDhFiWvOZRleAyhSrX8AefR4QcU4ohvClCiPPM8iIQaBh40OpfWsaCamWa-XkqUTr-RMktWj5g1ussU-RkQ4SDcqQxTNTZdXMMRu6pZSaWxRJ-N6D_n3Y4G1vg2a5sb-HH/s1600/c68974e502c7bfa41779c545c62d0dbfce2d9124898a8dc7489ac50bf0ae88a4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpt0jF-r22SxEDhFiWvOZRleAyhSrX8AefR4QcU4ohvClCiPPM8iIQaBh40OpfWsaCamWa-XkqUTr-RMktWj5g1ussU-RkQ4SDcqQxTNTZdXMMRu6pZSaWxRJ-N6D_n3Y4G1vg2a5sb-HH/s200/c68974e502c7bfa41779c545c62d0dbfce2d9124898a8dc7489ac50bf0ae88a4.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The new movie, meant to be a chronological "prequel" to the events in Legendary Pictures's 2014 "Godzilla" remake, is set during the Vietnam 70's. Robert Armstrong and Jack Black aren't going to the fog-shrouded island to make a movie, and Charles Grodin isn't going there to look for oil--The plot involves Samuel L. Jackson looking to rescue downed fliers in the Pacific, and discovering old survivor John C. Reilly, who proceeds to give them all the backstory necessary to get the sequels going. He even offers an explanation for why Kong is now ten times <i>bigger</i> than he was in the previous movie versions, which Warner had hoped to establish, otherwise he might not be able to fight Godzilla in future sequels.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(The "Vietnam movie" ambition was so thick, the <a href="http://www.imax.com/news/kong-skull-island-imax-exclusive-art" target="_blank">IMAX-release poster</a> <i>literally</i> parodied 1979's "Apocalypse Now" poster, just to rub the movie's artistic hero-worship in the audience's face..."Yeah, smartypants, we MEANT to do that!--'Oh, the gorilla, the gorilla!""</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Brie Larson does play <i>a</i> female character in the more contemporary spirit of Fay Wray, but with the new size ratios, the romance element is reduced to a few scenes at best before we're back to battling more reptilian "Skull Crawlers" in glorious CGI-effects again. Oh, and suffice to say the ape doesn't tragically fall off of anything at the end, otherwise it might be difficult to establish the new Film Universe.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg47Hj9HVBdFk2yivky3d9HhaYF7I8H4jr2VOUvyrtgZkBmhzH35vO_Zor4LORSgzDNY1HH9Vd-zuegWSMmjbefz6fa_u7MIj5eMYRXO4PV3GZzoVJwMessp2POfv0Q9JPXzxYssoPZKhjx/s1600/f75b1fe58a3cece5c4d532783b70c0b6cc6765fb60933ce45f063248ac7d06d7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="99" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg47Hj9HVBdFk2yivky3d9HhaYF7I8H4jr2VOUvyrtgZkBmhzH35vO_Zor4LORSgzDNY1HH9Vd-zuegWSMmjbefz6fa_u7MIj5eMYRXO4PV3GZzoVJwMessp2POfv0Q9JPXzxYssoPZKhjx/s200/f75b1fe58a3cece5c4d532783b70c0b6cc6765fb60933ce45f063248ac7d06d7.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In short, "Kong: Skull Island" was not a movie that was meant to be seen by itself--Like the Batman movie the year before, it was a movie created for no other purpose than to create other movies. If it leaves viewers unsatisfied, it's <u>supposed</u> to be the potato chip of which you are not intended to eat only one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was not a movie made to pay tribute to classics from 1933. It was a movie made to pay tribute to Toho monster battles from 1962, as that was <i>all</i> that Warner could associate with Kong's name once someone at the studio mentioned Godzilla. That, and the fact that Toho could mix and match them at will.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh0zWVq3uaxSsz9M8JO4o26K2_RGDY2dYu7loIauloz6wcdRn0_ya37xve7hg7Y7egaE3LRsxflTr1isZ0rXqJ-kWXfiTQ3rESABe0ZnUCtmvuQyGSXOD5433S1sG93MQgYXqbQabvoJIe/s1600/MV5BMjMxOTM1OTI4MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODE5OTYxMDI%2540._V1_UX182_CR0%252C0%252C182%252C268_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh0zWVq3uaxSsz9M8JO4o26K2_RGDY2dYu7loIauloz6wcdRn0_ya37xve7hg7Y7egaE3LRsxflTr1isZ0rXqJ-kWXfiTQ3rESABe0ZnUCtmvuQyGSXOD5433S1sG93MQgYXqbQabvoJIe/s200/MV5BMjMxOTM1OTI4MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODE5OTYxMDI%2540._V1_UX182_CR0%252C0%252C182%252C268_AL_.jpg" width="135" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Every studio has been seeking the Philosopher's touchstone in trying to find "The next crossover universe", where you can make films without having to write them, or even to end them before making another. Warner was particularly spoiled in that their biggest hit sequel franchises for the past sixteen years since 2001--Harry Potter, and his seven bestselling novels, and Lord of the Rings, with its epic trilogy--left the studio temporarily set-for-life throughout the 00's, with a total of eleven whole movies that you could make without worrying about whether or not the audience would go see...And most importantly, whose plots were each open-ended enough to string out their audience like Flash Gordon in a 30's afternoon serial and say "Well, we've GOT to make the next one, don't we folks?" with a greedy wink to their knowing fans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But Harry fought Voldemort and graduated Hogwarts, and Sam returned home to the Shire without Mr. Frodo. The literary franchises came to a story-completed end as their books did, and after an entire generation on the rush of their own addiction, Warner was now forced to make <i>new</i> franchises out of thin air, and make it look as if we, the audience, were now clamoring for the next. So they did what every other studio did, Sony, Paramount, Universal and Fox included: Copy what Marvel's comic-book movies were doing, and hope another "universe" came out of it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The problem with hoping to emulate Marvel Studios in everything they do is that, well, they already <u>had</u> a backlog of stories, building up like a dam in print for fifty years, and the only finger in the Movie/TV crack throughout the entire 70's and 80's had been our cultural jokes at the expense of Bill Bixby and Howard the Duck. And then, after Bryan Singer, Sam Raimi, Jon Favreau, and finally Marvel's print company deciding to take the initiative and rescue their Studios back from the ruinations of Ang Lee, the dam burst, and the floods began.</span></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_YusfK6bQwWvb0FGiGoyAR6p65ZUFctUX-E49GuVoEwUnDDjYlNKRt6aktB5A2aEQvo548KiLGL2LqDkq1nIU5fERGhiTt8BfGA2wOeSsNf-DvVEvZLho_hzTglZCWoEWMckbqt9mtKG/s1600/MV5BMjQ0MTgyNjAxMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjUzMDkyODE%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C674%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_YusfK6bQwWvb0FGiGoyAR6p65ZUFctUX-E49GuVoEwUnDDjYlNKRt6aktB5A2aEQvo548KiLGL2LqDkq1nIU5fERGhiTt8BfGA2wOeSsNf-DvVEvZLho_hzTglZCWoEWMckbqt9mtKG/s200/MV5BMjQ0MTgyNjAxMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjUzMDkyODE%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C674%252C1000_AL_.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Marvel wants to tell those stories that they hadn't been able to since the mid-60's, but the problem of all that water-pressure starting to build up was that those fan-legendary stories started to interconnect: It's not that they <i>wanted</i> to leap into the franchise-production game and tell six stories at once, it's that you COULDN'T properly tell the character complexity of of one of the major pop-cultural stories without telling five other historic stories to explain it, or telling those other five stories first so that the one story would (finally) make sense. It's something they, well, couldn't help.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If they wanted to homage the historically pivotal "Civil War" print-comic storyline, and throw in "We see a deeper romantic relationship developing for the Vision", a non-reader would say, who's the Vision? Well, you remember when Ultron tried to take over...Who's Ultron? Well, that was when Dr. Henry Pym tried to invent...Who's Dr. Pym, and why's he so angry? Well, back when he was on the team as Ant-Man...Who's Ant-Man? Well, he was already on the team when they found Captain America in the ice, and.....ohh, let's start over: Y'see, <i>first</i> there was WWII...</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The reason Warner--or Fox, or Sony, or Universal--</span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">can't</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> be like their role-models is because they're missing the key ingredient: The stories were already </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>THERE. </b>That's what made it so "easy" for Warner with Harry and Frodo on their side, and gave them </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">that</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> rush of overconfidence in the first place.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Maybe Marvel's adventures had the "licensed property" advantage of being about characters we already knew, and the entertainment advantage that nobody on the street knew what happened in those stories and was eager to find out, but the point is, they already existed as a cultural reference, with other stories to refer to. Nobody had to Make Up Crap.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And for Warner, whose deep personal insecurities are like the ocean trenches, that's exactly the problem: Everyone knows their stories, probably because they were already done better in generations past...And also, occasionally, done worse. So now they must do them <i>differently</i>. And the most unique way to do that, and stage pre-emptive strikes on the audience's expectations while satisfying them, is do a new, contemporary twist on the material! Which is often usually accomplished by Making Up Crap.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The "alcoholic" metaphor at the beginning seems to be there for a reason: Warner doesn't seem to know how to satisfy itself, or how to satisfy the audience with ONE film anymore...It began to rely too much on the next, and the next, and now it <u>needs</u> the next, and the next. And in chasing the next and the next, it has lost interest in finding any other purpose to its existence.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-oO3K2Okouj1RIJy-_t4N_ugY0nONCfAEGDEDOMiejJGbnJFEJ5OM8SrJBq74Qy35B65VBrfcXzwjyXAf5Ue5EGdjYW8yWhuKIjjoS3YOUZYPu_D4Sm99hByMFWZZYoIt_gnj1FO3lTs5/s1600/alcoholic1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-oO3K2Okouj1RIJy-_t4N_ugY0nONCfAEGDEDOMiejJGbnJFEJ5OM8SrJBq74Qy35B65VBrfcXzwjyXAf5Ue5EGdjYW8yWhuKIjjoS3YOUZYPu_D4Sm99hByMFWZZYoIt_gnj1FO3lTs5/s200/alcoholic1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Maybe an addict can live for the unsatisfied thrill of knowing that the next feed to his rush is coming, but very few of us can live in a perpetually strung-out state--It's often a good feeling to for us moviegoers see a story told to its satisfying end, and walk out knowing that we've been somewhere adventurous, come back safe, and not know where the next story will take us. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Warner, in their deep terror of a movie we might, gasp, <u>not</u> pay to see, wants exactly the opposite: They want us to line up to see <i>exactly</i> the movie we expected to see, because we know it will be exactly as good as the last one, and to have exactly the next movie in mind when they tease it to us in the post-credits scene, for that big front-loaded super-opening weekend in March, November or May...We expect it from the brand name, after all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But then, there's another old saying about the alcoholic: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">They always want everyone ELSE in the room to have a drink, too.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-68450978969829444832017-03-05T14:21:00.002-08:002018-04-14T02:44:47.311-07:00The March Madness of Geek-Week<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXeM3EHt7SUnIaFiXj78XfPqRXObmX4NhwRMiZY_O3SBWK2NAcS7locgvhfHa7vxxzO81Luaa5NXdBTPHQRcWY7YUXVqjSptWix21HNFctq1UiqGJs_WO_tnC7FjR5C7W3EwgNInZhjNJj/s1600/march2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXeM3EHt7SUnIaFiXj78XfPqRXObmX4NhwRMiZY_O3SBWK2NAcS7locgvhfHa7vxxzO81Luaa5NXdBTPHQRcWY7YUXVqjSptWix21HNFctq1UiqGJs_WO_tnC7FjR5C7W3EwgNInZhjNJj/s320/march2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ask studios what are the most greedily sought-after release dates of the year, and you get several answers:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The first week in May, of course, for the first big summer-blockbuster. July 4 weekend, going back to those old 90's days of the Transformers and ID4. The first week in November is the coveted spot to seek the Christmas family films, and Avatar, Tolkien and Star Wars have since turned the week before Christmas into a billion-dollar sci-fi fan convention. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And last but not least, of course...the second and third weeks in March.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cue the audience saying "Huh? Sure you're not talking about the basketball thing?" No, I'm not talking about the basketball thing.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For the past ten years--celebrating the anniversary this year--middle-March has become a strategic and necessary staked tentpole for studios to court specific high-school and college-aged fanboy and fangirl audiences with the week off for Easter vacation or Spring Break, to provide them with their own fan-niche targeted blockbusters that might not otherwise have universal appeal during May or June. They're only out of their cages for a week or two, so grab your nets and <i>catch</i> them, before they go back in again!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And thus the tradition of "March Geek-Week" was born. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So what is Geek-Week? Well, right now, as the detergent-selling manicurist used to say, you're soaking in it.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Up to about ten years ago, March, like February, was not particularly in high demand.</span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_fvtpKXnjh1lt4tsXx7MYduAGsDynBGHK0MyrTifNF3ekpInAqQQJrXhj_Sn-B8vDGT4fo0-ilmHWXuY2Brr3lytidAgn3nSpSSHQYbdsgZ5G_x7S2KmqN9Wu-kA9QXz0Y9wdZ6nsKUd/s1600/MV5BMjQyODg5Njc4N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzExMjE3NzE%2540._V1_SY1000_SX686_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_fvtpKXnjh1lt4tsXx7MYduAGsDynBGHK0MyrTifNF3ekpInAqQQJrXhj_Sn-B8vDGT4fo0-ilmHWXuY2Brr3lytidAgn3nSpSSHQYbdsgZ5G_x7S2KmqN9Wu-kA9QXz0Y9wdZ6nsKUd/s200/MV5BMjQyODg5Njc4N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzExMjE3NzE%2540._V1_SY1000_SX686_AL_.jpg" width="137" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">January, with snowbound audiences, and theaters looking for any excuse to clean out their empty December-movie screens, was the time for studios to clean out their wastebaskets and unload their trash--Usually either minor horror movies, or misfired studio projects that had already had their release dates delayed twice already out of panic, and that the studios hoped would disappear under the radar and under the rug.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">February was considered an extension of the winter-cleaning, with the exception of a few movies that tried playing the "Valentine's Day" programming (which explains why nobody went to see the Fifty Shades movies on the second week)--Until Disney discovered that February also had Presidents'-holiday school vacations, and was a good excuse to float a family-movie that wasn't meant to last very long. Which it usually didn't, once vacations were over, and the key audience was back in school again.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">March and April were considered a time to grab some audiences out on Easter vacation, and maybe give them a big-budget movie that was <u>meant</u> to be disposable (if Disney delayed "The Alamo" till April, you could write your reviews from there), and maybe tide desperate two-months-starved audiences over with a little quick snack until the "real" summer movies hit on Memorial Day.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But that release ethic was suddenly changed in 2007...<b>BY SPARTA!!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nothing creates an instant overnight phenomenon than a movie that nobody can figure out <u>why</u> it becomes a hit, and creates fear, awe and superstition--That, in a nutshell, is the founding idea that all the "core" Geek-Week classics share. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcBXVXCr7chej_WkdlSD6Z8OS2qesIjZ4RaItj9_tdxAd_Bx7b7uxc5MxGp7Iinf6e0HfVpa7sMcsIwIZCAnEOXLg5dX3xBaQpDF9zDpdZS5j3bc4TlCJRBmTZJsldKIQJcFy3WblwvxWD/s1600/MV5BNTc1OTc2MTQ4OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjgyOTAzMw%2540%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C676%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcBXVXCr7chej_WkdlSD6Z8OS2qesIjZ4RaItj9_tdxAd_Bx7b7uxc5MxGp7Iinf6e0HfVpa7sMcsIwIZCAnEOXLg5dX3xBaQpDF9zDpdZS5j3bc4TlCJRBmTZJsldKIQJcFy3WblwvxWD/s200/MV5BNTc1OTc2MTQ4OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjgyOTAzMw%2540%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C676%252C1000_AL_.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Warner, in particular, didn't have much faith in "300", a bizarrely over-stylized tribute to a pretentious Frank Miller comic graphic-novel story, by a young promising comic-fanboy director named Zack Snyder. (Who had previously shown such promise with an "unwanted" Dawn of the Dead remake with core-fan audiences in March '04, and was therefore a "lucky charm")--Particularly after "Sin City" hadn't exactly brought out the core Frank Miller fans in droves. But the fans had heard of it, and those who hadn't were curious to look at it anyway, and came out quoting all the cool cult lines. With little or no competition in theaters to stop them, except for studios' spring disposal bins of cheap horror and Will Ferrell comedies, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">the 300 Spartans of Thermopylae became...unstoppable. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And in Hollywood, the rule is, "If you can't beat 'em, pledge eternal loyalty and obedience."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, to understand Geek Week, here's where we need to get back to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant" target="_blank">the fable of the Blind Men and the Elephant</a>:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKfVV1-L9vy2KoJYkNFOc6XvOmPrqDaEhbCbt1DHJ3YC9EXwk7qWPYBdjSANwwcEvFY9_a2JEBfe3S2yWgsw9NZT-R3nwapiLjmWI1lTuAwxw4vuV5r_hRGJsiVcKBcSF5ejlrFhbTfU1Z/s1600/1507537191.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKfVV1-L9vy2KoJYkNFOc6XvOmPrqDaEhbCbt1DHJ3YC9EXwk7qWPYBdjSANwwcEvFY9_a2JEBfe3S2yWgsw9NZT-R3nwapiLjmWI1lTuAwxw4vuV5r_hRGJsiVcKBcSF5ejlrFhbTfU1Z/s200/1507537191.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like the six blind men feeling the ear and saying "It's a fan!", or feeling the trunk and saying "It's a snake!", studios tried to feel around 300's success without standing back and looking at the whole beast. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One blind studio exec felt the plot and said "This 300-phant is a new generation sword-and-sandals epic!" and proceeded to remake "Clash of the Titans" for spring. Another blind studio exec (ahemwarner) felt the comic-core audience, said, "It's clear to anyone, this 300-phant is the success of Zack Snyder graphic-novel movies!", and immediately gave Snyder the keys to fanboy-faithful adaptations of "Watchmen" and "Sucker Punch".</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSRBMyM11YQMQJBh7Tkb60_cVIGMj0sw9RlV0p1psPowygTdGkU8_WXYS9RZWBo59s6reZPdB-CTXBBR64r4kTneB6pn6OxuMaHbQ-y_ljt5daJz4Toztid3COchFh600JnPaQYHuNtZGp/s1600/MV5BMTQyMTkxNzU2MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDQ5MzYxMw%2540%2540._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSRBMyM11YQMQJBh7Tkb60_cVIGMj0sw9RlV0p1psPowygTdGkU8_WXYS9RZWBo59s6reZPdB-CTXBBR64r4kTneB6pn6OxuMaHbQ-y_ljt5daJz4Toztid3COchFh600JnPaQYHuNtZGp/s200/MV5BMTQyMTkxNzU2MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDQ5MzYxMw%2540%2540._V1_.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But then, in 2010, an even bigger, more titanic elephant stampeded trumpeting into the room: Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland". Here was an elephant with a dozen different parts to feel, and months to spend feeling them: A Tim Burton core-fan targeted movie (back before Alice, Burton fans were still devoted zombies hoping his next "weird" movie would bring back "The Nightmare Before Christmas"), with fangirl fave Johnny Depp front and center on the poster (no, he wasn't playing Alice), and the glorious lure-promise of Dark Burton-esque Weirdness with the fairytale. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Any </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">one</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> of the reasons would have made it a fan-cult juggernaut for HS/college vacation week, and here we had three, to <i>start</i> with</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. If you needed a clue, you could have spent some time at the Disneyland parks, watching fangirls Instagramming themselves in the mock-Depp Mad Hatter cosplay hats they'd simply had to pick up.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And the more money it made, on into April, the more the blind men started feeling until their hands were sore: This Alice-phant is clearly a big-budget, candy-colored CGI epic, with all the money Disney can pour into it! It's a "re-examination" of classic stories, with CGI coming out of its ears! Nonsense!--It's a DARK version of fairytales, and just look at all those girls swoon dreamy sighs...Quick, get those Snow White adaptations ready, and polish up those glass coffins!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkQItCfO9rzlc_0-yH2OM14U88a67Uk_GT6cjUtu84jlyOyCtozgdn1bHARHkmZmo_sAAYZqY7C-ed-_DjJBHObq1xj-qRHt3RRpNWblI9VYCYt71jKuCimg5Gr9SMuXsURV8GAZaE2XuS/s1600/MV5BMjA4NDg3NzYxMF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTgyNzkyNw%2540%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C674%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkQItCfO9rzlc_0-yH2OM14U88a67Uk_GT6cjUtu84jlyOyCtozgdn1bHARHkmZmo_sAAYZqY7C-ed-_DjJBHObq1xj-qRHt3RRpNWblI9VYCYt71jKuCimg5Gr9SMuXsURV8GAZaE2XuS/s200/MV5BMjA4NDg3NzYxMF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTgyNzkyNw%2540%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C674%252C1000_AL_.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And The Hunger Games? Well, let's not get into that. We'll assume everyone <i>knows</i> by now there's a reason why Lionsgate or Summit tries forcing YA-novel franchises on us every March, even after 2014's "The Fault in Our Stars" turned out to be the bigger summer YA-cult reader hit gone to the screen. (Self-martyring YA-reader teens now dream about terminal illness; crossbows, tournaments and government dystopias have Had It.)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Okay, so the name's cheating a bit--It's not <i>really</i> a week. It actually lasts the whole month long, and sometimes into the first weekend of April, since studios have the two problems of:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A) Seven studios each trying to cram ONE lovingly groomed niche-targeted blockbuster into the same two or three-week period, and </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">B) Nobody really knows for certain <u>which</u> week high-schools and colleges have off for break, as it can often vary from one state or school to another. At least, y'know, it's sometime in that general ballpark.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And, of course, competing with the non-Disney family studios, like Dreamworks, that want to grab elementary and middle-school Easter-weekend audiences with <b>their</b> big animated/family tentpoles that staked out their release territory. Which starts to get a little crowded in the room.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Together or separately, the studios feel that to crack the Mystery of Geek Week, superstition dictates that they must provide:</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A CGI-heavy action blockbuster</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A CGI-heavy period-fantasy blockbuster,</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A long-awaited cult-comic or videogame adaptation that mainstream audiences haven't heard of</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A dark fangirl fairytale, heavy on the romance, and</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The latest core chapter in a YA cult-novel series. (Which, after Allegiant, the studios have since wisely decided to cut back on, and move to streaming-miniseries to cut their losses instead.)</span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That's five movies, minimum, <i>each year</i>, in the space of one month, that studios believe they're obligated to release, regardless of audience demand. The competition is fierce, the budgets are high stakes, and the dogs that lose the fights lose a lot more than their tails.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A brief lineup of the targeted March Geek-Week movies, their release dates, and final domestic US box-office grosses, from 2007-2016:</span></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">300</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/9/07 - $210M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">10,000 BC</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/7/08 - $94M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Watchmen</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/6/09 - $107M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Alice in Wonderland</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">3/5/10 - $334M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Battle: Los Angeles</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/11/11 - $83M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Red Riding Hood</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/11/11 - $37M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Sucker Punch</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/25/11 - $36M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">John Carter</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/9/12 - $73M*</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">The Hunger Games</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">3/23/12 - $408M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Wrath of the Titans</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/30/12 - $83M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Mirror, Mirror</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/30/12 - $64M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Jack the Giant Slayer</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/1/13 - $65M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Oz the Great & Powerful</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/10/13 $234M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Olympus Has Fallen </b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/24/13 - $98M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">GI Joe: Retaliation</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/29/13 - $122M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">The Host </b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/29/13 - $26M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">300: Rise of an Empire</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/7/14 - $106M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Need For Speed</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/14/14 - $43M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Noah </b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/28/14 - $101M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Cinderella</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">(live-action) - 3/13/15 - $201M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Divergent: Insurgent</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/20/15 - $130M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">London Has Fallen</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/4/16 - $62M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">10 Cloverfield Lane</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/11/16 - $72M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Divergent - Allegiant</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">- 3/18/16 - $66M</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Batman v. Superman</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> - 3/25/16 - $330M*</span></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As you can see, it's not exactly the Yellow Brick Road to riches, even for Oz, the Great & Powerful. <span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Although it was necessary to put a baseball-asterisk on two of the statistics, as "John Carter" was considered to have been sabotaged by a marketing campaign so disastrous it helped cost the chief Disney studio exec his job, and "Batman v. Superman" was idealistically and artificially boosted by a small, angry Trump-like core of downtrodden DC Comics fans that wanted to prove their numbers and identity to the world, in the hopes they'd get that cool Wonder Woman movie next year.)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's a myth that studios continue to bet the farm pursuing, and often losing, possibly for the simple reason why studios DO put such blind faith in an over-marketed movie: They were so caught up in "properties" and release dates, they simply didn't know their audiences.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Leaving aside the quality, or lack of, the movies (and in "Noah"'s case, that's saying a <u>lot</u>), there are more problems with releasing a movie in March than there are rewards to it:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">1) It's not summer. Theaters don't have as many afternoon screenings when the kids aren't out of school for long terms, and less chances to do business in a day. And if you're recouping a movie with almost three times the gross of its $150M budget, you're going to want as MANY screenings available as you can get.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibAcwpCNeOpX7pyi0ZT4UUqtl_kOpjWKQTvw9LE3iBPwqPmWZOFHzzWeY_r7RfcodcQgSP6ZBmJ0PzqXnenMUrTf1Pp5t9xOvTZZ_zpdvZpfCUtti_djWIs3-h84qQi8YYv5dD6FBbRxdj/s1600/how-long-is-a-semester-in-college_a4653cd6-5911-4149-ab46-edf1a094784c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibAcwpCNeOpX7pyi0ZT4UUqtl_kOpjWKQTvw9LE3iBPwqPmWZOFHzzWeY_r7RfcodcQgSP6ZBmJ0PzqXnenMUrTf1Pp5t9xOvTZZ_zpdvZpfCUtti_djWIs3-h84qQi8YYv5dD6FBbRxdj/s200/how-long-is-a-semester-in-college_a4653cd6-5911-4149-ab46-edf1a094784c.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">2) It's not forever, and it's not on the calendar. Since nobody's quite sure which week schools have off, as it's not a </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">national</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> holiday, it becomes like Spring Break tourism in Ft. Lauderdale and Cancun in that weeks can differ from one college to the next. You'll get some movie business the entire month, but not the all of May orJuly. And if the majority of common vacation time is one week, that ain't much.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">3) You're targeting a movie to only a <u>select</u> front-loaded group of people who care and will be in line the first week only, fully knowing few normal mainstream civilians will be there on the second. Again, a big-budget movie can't afford to be choosy, even when that was pretty much the purpose of the movie going in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's going All-In on a high-stakes poker match with two pairs, and you'd better be able to afford to lose. Because <i>someone's</i> going to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Which brings us to March Geek-Week Madness, 2017: </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA6saEPRmp8uh748Daph24kZbV7VTM6viXRKSDVNrEo6Stb-R7CxiMoaL4K3yezEf_7kGf1R-gzBPD3VVCjBi0p5gHkBLSZCA7Pu-A2xCqldrNJKyWTDeZBcYaamluzd-o09cOsiTh8ZbX/s1600/march.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="97" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA6saEPRmp8uh748Daph24kZbV7VTM6viXRKSDVNrEo6Stb-R7CxiMoaL4K3yezEf_7kGf1R-gzBPD3VVCjBi0p5gHkBLSZCA7Pu-A2xCqldrNJKyWTDeZBcYaamluzd-o09cOsiTh8ZbX/s320/march.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In this bracket, Fox's critically well-received but prohibitively R-rated "Logan" for the comic readers, Disney's much hyped "Beauty & the Beast" for the dreamy fairytale-fangirls, "Kong:Skull Island", for Warner to blitz us with CGI Action 'N Stuff, and launch their new "Monster-verse" (their name, not mine), Lionsgate's "Power Rangers" reboot, for the cult-fan love, and Paramount's American live-action remake of "Ghost in the Shell", which every cult Japanese-anime fan will be demanding that civilians go see, and if not, well, Hollywood always ruins 'em anyway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Five films courting for those TWO slots of #1 and 2 at the running box office, with the #3 and 4 films out of the running overnight, never mind what happens to #5.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Who's got game? Place your bets, folks, we're still in the quarter-finals. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And as you can see from the list, don't feel sorry for the losers.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-72702640878475538282017-02-26T18:46:00.000-08:002018-06-04T11:06:50.972-07:00Who Killed the Oscars?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkJqrPu3srDs_u1AzrXZSC9l6d3Ch-zPOpF1E9aHqokawOWZcCFi5doMe-hKK1ltzQsHsz6jLzJtDLKWpNN_6Z0XUtJfPWwyvgQZq3ByFeE-SdmhmkZiPz7iXT4fG_bA6RmB6zSacHBY__/s1600/oscar-statuette-given-facelift-ahead-of-awards-1455825269-5960.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkJqrPu3srDs_u1AzrXZSC9l6d3Ch-zPOpF1E9aHqokawOWZcCFi5doMe-hKK1ltzQsHsz6jLzJtDLKWpNN_6Z0XUtJfPWwyvgQZq3ByFeE-SdmhmkZiPz7iXT4fG_bA6RmB6zSacHBY__/s1600/oscar-statuette-given-facelift-ahead-of-awards-1455825269-5960.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Growing up in the 70's, I don't know why I was so determined to stay up and watch (some wretchedly small part of) the Oscars on a Monday school night: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I was in 3rd or 4th grade, and had no idea what a Cabaret, Godfather, Towering Inferno or Clockwork Orange was supposed to be, nor would I probably be allowed to see them if I had. Maybe that was the reason, so that I could watch the few mysterious out-of-context clips of the movies that had been nominated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Later, in the late 70's, after Star Wars hit, and into the glorious Big 80's, we all became more interested in movies, and we'd be rooting for movies that we'd all actually <i>seen</i>. (Gandhi, you did NOT deserve to take it from E.T., and you know it!) It was probably the last decade that spoiled us for good, thrilling, nail-biting competition among Best Picture and Actors that you wanted to see win, because it was just a matter of instinct that they would when you walked out of the movie.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I remember the bragging-rights "in-your-face" thrill in the betting pools of sticking up for "Amadeus" in '85 when every important person was so emotionally moved by "The Killing Fields"...And listening to every pundit and fellow pool-snob in '04 say "The Academy will <u>never</u> give it to 'Return of the King' because they hate fantasy, smart money's on Sean Penn and Mystic River!" (Oh, friend, you are <i>so</i> going to lose your money to me, and you are going to beg forgiveness on Tuesday morning...)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And then...something happened. Right after that thrilling "Return of the King" in-your-face win, as a matter of fact. All of a sudden, the Oscar Best Picture races turned really, really <b>boring</b>, with a lot of movies nobody had really gone out of their way to see, and while you still tuned in if you were a movie fan, it was for more of the "Oh, so <i>that's</i> what that was" experience.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsnyCcYT6pkpmlxzAy42oRlQdNMEsEL8VD75IlOSycfYdzPIIz5yZg1GO9JGzrDE62IMGDT45cDbjgNwxTwbtAeyhoGHvRxPUwrb9SNtMU23T10RyUuIRVVu9ipZW8fvt5OF2pk6lTRXtS/s1600/Oscars-2011-hosts-James-F-007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsnyCcYT6pkpmlxzAy42oRlQdNMEsEL8VD75IlOSycfYdzPIIz5yZg1GO9JGzrDE62IMGDT45cDbjgNwxTwbtAeyhoGHvRxPUwrb9SNtMU23T10RyUuIRVVu9ipZW8fvt5OF2pk6lTRXtS/s200/Oscars-2011-hosts-James-F-007.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It wasn't just the movies' fault. (Well, not really.) The show producers kept going to crazier and crazier hosts trying to find, as Anne Hathaway and James Franco said, "the Young, Hip Oscars!" to figure out why the show's TV ratings and audience interest was going down. In the old days, there was no such <b>thing</b> as a "too long" show. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It never occurred to the producers to suspect foul play, and to search for who had cruelly taken away our one uniting reason to be American movie fans every year.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There are three suspects for us to apply, as the Belgian detective said, the little gray cells, in our search for a most cruel and cold-blooded murderer of the little naked gold man:</span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Prime Suspect: Harvey Weinstein </span></h3>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcqX7hriLv9Z4U82k9Jhfb8UtEmLObyJiMbhz-jG3d-WUa3hycsDAlB03NfdgeYzkRdhnCPi68tveDej_t3wvizRnBLlFWgO8p9d-eJzQK-3zUmPwny3oPTJdHYMaVih-YoyLMPC-ofZZ/s1600/harvey_weinstein_oscars_-_h_-_2014.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcqX7hriLv9Z4U82k9Jhfb8UtEmLObyJiMbhz-jG3d-WUa3hycsDAlB03NfdgeYzkRdhnCPi68tveDej_t3wvizRnBLlFWgO8p9d-eJzQK-3zUmPwny3oPTJdHYMaVih-YoyLMPC-ofZZ/s200/harvey_weinstein_oscars_-_h_-_2014.jpg.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some of us remember 1996--The year that consisted of THREE arthouse nominees (with the mainstream "Fargo" and "Jerry Maguire" pushed to the back), and "The English Patient" winning Best Picture for Miramax more or less by default, since it was the one that "looked" the most like an Oscar Best Picture. (All those deserts and period British army uniforms just sort of reminded us of Lawrence of Arabia.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Probably more of us remember tearing up our Oscar-pool bets when Miramax's "Shakespeare in Love" surprise-upset the had-to-win favorite of Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" to take 1998's Picture, even beating out Miramax's own "Life is Beautiful".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By that point, Miramax's ego, like Harvey's legendary own, determined that they had a place in EVERY Oscar ceremony, and turned "Oscar-bait" into the cynical and calculated art-form it now is.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4XhWZGBBg4t9U5SnS8VGDTPSW6hoa3uO1iJhxvLywUUHKhm38m-ro6PZUueDCy_BBQi3Yc8MReRVxiNpMfjQoLUIWpfzi7VT7Fqx0fqn7gZYYUf4X6jQr92g42e2LtKSDG_GdjzAHjlvF/s1600/shippingnews-fyc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4XhWZGBBg4t9U5SnS8VGDTPSW6hoa3uO1iJhxvLywUUHKhm38m-ro6PZUueDCy_BBQi3Yc8MReRVxiNpMfjQoLUIWpfzi7VT7Fqx0fqn7gZYYUf4X6jQr92g42e2LtKSDG_GdjzAHjlvF/s200/shippingnews-fyc.jpg" width="158" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Harvey put the studio's money behind full blitzes of For Your Consideration campaigns from the very beginning of the seasons, and usually for the exact same movie every year: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For most of the 90's, if Miramax let Lasse Hallstrom direct a heartwarming film that year, you </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">knew</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> why. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Kevin Spacey in '01's dreary "The Shipping News" became the symbol of Miramax's attempt to rush the bouncer at the velvet rope every year--If not that "In the Bedroom" had had an actual critical reception behind it after its Sundance showing that year, without the studio's "help". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It became a little more noticeable when Hugh Jackman, in his '09 hosting gig, got laughs for singing what every other voter said with his screener: "'The Reader', 'The Reader', I haven't seen 'The Reader'..."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Academy now had a common enemy and a common goal: <b>SHUT HARVEY UP.</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A rule change in 2005 shortened the voting period by one month to announce the nominees in January instead of February, and give the awards at the end of February instead of March, and give FYC campaigns one <u>less</u> month to drown voters' desks in paper. It <i>didn't work.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Overworked movie technicians and actors, who already had little enough time to keep up with their screeners, and focus attention on the buzz-favorites, now had one less month to either pick their screenings carefully, or just guess at the rest. And who got the most buzz-rumor exposure?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, given by the fact that the Weinstein Company's "The King's Speech" still won in 2010, beating out their own competition for "The Fighter", the rule change didn't exactly keep the Weinsteins out the door, even <i>after</i> Miramax and TWC had already gone under as release companies. You just can't kill a cockroach, because ten more come out of the woodwork.</span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Accused Suspect: Batman, aka the Dark Knight </span></h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh7HXtE_Bha-yqAPgny3IdNymzLSoIMSozpLpMiXYfz9JD_lPJQ7RdVaZZXyRe7f7T9uCjKccPHPw3Inpt_UXsGROQKAyCV1cMlYcix3xlB3ycMRVCapUQRi8B0mKeeZ0r6QmL_gfUBpPx/s1600/batmans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh7HXtE_Bha-yqAPgny3IdNymzLSoIMSozpLpMiXYfz9JD_lPJQ7RdVaZZXyRe7f7T9uCjKccPHPw3Inpt_UXsGROQKAyCV1cMlYcix3xlB3ycMRVCapUQRi8B0mKeeZ0r6QmL_gfUBpPx/s200/batmans.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If there was one movie that quickly became "Not Our Best Picture!" for a lack of wide public enthusiasm in 2008, it was "Slumdog Millionaire". The feel-good attempt at do-it-yourself Bollywood had its supporters among the early voting, but seeing Pixar take Best Animated Feature for four of the last seven years running began to feel not so much unfair to the other Best Animated nominees as unfair to Pixar--Specifically, many viewers felt that Pixar's "Wall-E" could have beaten the pants off the dancing Indian game-show contestant in a fair bare-knuckles Best Picture fight.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And then there was the other faction objecting to it: The DC Comics fans, still in love with Christopher Nolan's "deconstruction" of superhero movies in '08's "The Dark Knight", angrily wondered why it hadn't been given every award in existence, and a wreath of unspoiled laurels anointed on Heath Ledger's posthumous head. (Well, at least they got <i>that</i> one.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">More to the point in either case, it started bringing up the question among audiences, why were the "real" mainstream studio films starting to disappear from the Best Picture nominations? Where was the fun of betting on Amadeus, Chicago or Return of the King, when we were more obsessed with making sure "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" <u>didn't</u> win?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Academy started to notice, as well. In 2008, they revised the rules in the hopes of giving voters more "freedom" in making more personal selections--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Best Picture nominations were now expanded to eight to ten nominees (hoping to capture some of the more diverse Hollywood populism of the Golden Globes having five Best Dramas <u>and</u> five Best Comedy/Musicals), and voting was now assembled on a "points" basis of multiple-ranked movie selections--As Oscar-watcher site Vox explains in detail:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AfIxihGOaQ8/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AfIxihGOaQ8?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This did have one benefit: The new voting made deliberate allowances for voters to sponsor one vote for an animated Best Picture nominee, and the Pixar supporters immediately made for lost time making sure that '09's "Up" and '10's "Toy Story 3" made the lists over the next two years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But what happened was the reverse: Voters now had one <i>less</i> month to choose <b>twice</b> as many selections. The selection started becoming a bit less selective, and more guessing on reputation to fill out the lists. If rumor said that "District 9 has a social theme!" or "Tarantino is back with Inglorious Basterds", hey, might as well, got a few spaces left.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The nominations soon became reflecting desperation and rumor rather than achievement, and well...WE civilians were already handling the desperate rumor-guessing, thank you, we didn't need the professionals to do it for us, too.</span><br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Accidental Suspect: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association </span></h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmeR9fpSOvAXUgcYWlGfvCbn95kZNuoSs8M-9UBKnEvbBojwG_FDJ2DiO4QsjgMbO2phdeSMUaHixRfE0Vxd1svpSUfgMikkNtsH1rLDbjON0UjNu9AqbDD4ngRr0hwEaH9Su3LrbtMpLS/s1600/golden-globe-award-500-2801.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="111" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmeR9fpSOvAXUgcYWlGfvCbn95kZNuoSs8M-9UBKnEvbBojwG_FDJ2DiO4QsjgMbO2phdeSMUaHixRfE0Vxd1svpSUfgMikkNtsH1rLDbjON0UjNu9AqbDD4ngRr0hwEaH9Su3LrbtMpLS/s200/golden-globe-award-500-2801.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Y'know, I can remember not so long ago--let's say twenty to twenty-five years ago, back in the mid-90's--when the very words "the Golden Globes" would make people snigger their milk in sudden laughingstock giggles. The awards were NOT taken very seriously.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One major reason was that audiences in the 80's and 90's didn't much see the point of them and networks were starting to move away from extraneous awards shows. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ted Turner at Superstation TBS was famous in the 80's for wanting to show everything on his network, and never getting it. When Cap'n Ted couldn't get the Olympics for his channel's very own, and had to air Russia's cheap face-saving 80's imitation-Olympics instead, it became a national punchline among frustrated cable fans of Turner's sad delusional hubris--And when he tried to get the Oscars and ended up with airing the "pointless" but well-</span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">sorta</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">-Oscar-like Golden Globes instead, we felt the poetic justice was off the charts and the two </span><u style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">deserved</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> each other: "The Goodwill Games of Movie Awards".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It even became a humorous frustration to ask: <b>WHO IS</b> the HFPA? Have they ever been seen in public? The Globes had been around since the 30's, when studios hired their own publicists and worked with the press, and the Foreign Press returned their sycophantic love accordingly. Nowadays, without the studio system, it's hard to say where these shadowy people are, but members have been sighted on various press-interview junkets. And yes, according to some critics, they're still crawling kissups.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Strange part is, nowadays, we take them SERIOUSLY. We used to spend November predicting the Oscars, now we're wrapped up in the fierce competition to predict the Globes, in the hopes that they will tell us who to predict for the Oscars. And why? Because they're first, that's why. We wouldn't know, without them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Usually by the end of November, the National Board of Review and regional Critic's Circle awards also surface, naming most of the critically received arthouse and independent films (a tradition that dates back to when critics feared that only Hollywood movies would win the Oscars, and wanted to thumb their snooty noses at them), and we clueless folk have two sources to guess from:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU-xQkBn-3Qkt6mJU1TAlSfgMATipqZImBkMagpByqTgmQlRUV7upnJCyauySYuBLLYWIlKImAej8yvHdeCYDq6y84Gm4Qevl-a1ro8pYPH-TU1hxx_iRlD0y1O406Vxf_BpmbgBLayE_T/s1600/Baseball-App-LOGO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU-xQkBn-3Qkt6mJU1TAlSfgMATipqZImBkMagpByqTgmQlRUV7upnJCyauySYuBLLYWIlKImAej8yvHdeCYDq6y84Gm4Qevl-a1ro8pYPH-TU1hxx_iRlD0y1O406Vxf_BpmbgBLayE_T/s200/Baseball-App-LOGO.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We choose our nominee guesses from A) sycophantic studio kissups who believe every buzz rumor that studio publicists <i>tell</i> them, and B) critics who want to nominate everything <u>but</u> mainstream studio movies. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Globes and NBOR poisoned the Oscars by poisoning <b>US</b>: We no longer know how to choose nominees on our own (there's usually not as much to choose from as there was in the 70's and 80's). We no longer root for movies because they moved us, because only a very secondhand few of us ever saw them, or they haven't even opened <u>yet</u>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Oscar prediction has now become a game of Fantasy Baseball, where the Globes are Draft Day, and we spend three months assembling statistics from the SAG Awards, Screenwriter Guild Awards, Director Guild Awards, etc., and see whose pick had the best "season".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtVHiMJA_k22MXQOit2Aos0-3yKtyA24IDA1vF_7ZUICkRNREOeEZkpBVOSt1ghavr3WsP0GxO-T6x7pXomGIIqgmM733hBZGZ6dG2_58ifHVvHCMh-f1bY2OQCO183Cs4fMXaD0Ju6wom/s1600/Halloween-For-Poirot-poirot-29272182-2400-2114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtVHiMJA_k22MXQOit2Aos0-3yKtyA24IDA1vF_7ZUICkRNREOeEZkpBVOSt1ghavr3WsP0GxO-T6x7pXomGIIqgmM733hBZGZ6dG2_58ifHVvHCMh-f1bY2OQCO183Cs4fMXaD0Ju6wom/s200/Halloween-For-Poirot-poirot-29272182-2400-2114.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And so we gather the suspects in the drawing room, we must assemble the evidence, but what we do not as yet have is a solution.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The detective says, the horrible and most tragic murder of the Oscars is a most puzzling problem. Each one of them could have done it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And very possibly, like Poirot's most famous case, all of them DID.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-11310409540200176622017-01-24T16:01:00.002-08:002018-04-14T03:02:14.173-07:0080's Throwback (Now with real cane sugar!)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhux5diBLIq2xDGzoUaX10tWIDFUImkEb-ck8d4aWXrhC3kM49Gy_TyAwg7lobX2lKfA3At9zZ4SKus0PbInzDLEcPCaEhBJIU6yiObkn3CwTswC_tE9CoWhgxa6h82_rDppt3ask19xFzJ/s1600/header3-stranger-things-80s-movies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhux5diBLIq2xDGzoUaX10tWIDFUImkEb-ck8d4aWXrhC3kM49Gy_TyAwg7lobX2lKfA3At9zZ4SKus0PbInzDLEcPCaEhBJIU6yiObkn3CwTswC_tE9CoWhgxa6h82_rDppt3ask19xFzJ/s1600/header3-stranger-things-80s-movies.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Normally, the opening of "Monster Trucks" these past weeks would not particularly seem like the stuff of blog fodder. (And as it turns out, it wasn't.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But piggybacking onto one of the other current fan-crazes--the Netflix binge-following for Season 1 of "Stranger Things"--it's brought a certain phenomenon to the front of the stage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's been around for years; it was the reason fans became artificially excited for JJ Abrams' 2011 "Super 8", and became a rallying cry against last summer's "Ghostbusters" remake, but now it officially has a name: A lost public is searching for "80's Throwback!" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(Or, occasionally, "90's Throwback" if you find childhood-sentimental fans of Jumanji, Jurassic Park, or the Goosebumps books, and even that decade didn't last long...But that's another post.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLuhQYExz_f2N6pzYOZ2aDKtJRDjo6-Q-dfaeOocuWt4P9bWxyHefbVhjWlACLuHk2puNZM2mHa9nnELNw1zQX5yF2qve8ogw7DzN1eKs92jVldYuUxy6eGLwR6ANfSyk1hNW6MS7Cevn/s1600/netflix+stranger+things+poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLuhQYExz_f2N6pzYOZ2aDKtJRDjo6-Q-dfaeOocuWt4P9bWxyHefbVhjWlACLuHk2puNZM2mHa9nnELNw1zQX5yF2qve8ogw7DzN1eKs92jVldYuUxy6eGLwR6ANfSyk1hNW6MS7Cevn/s200/netflix+stranger+things+poster.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's become the centerpiece of Stranger Things' marketing, to conjure up a genre of kids up against unworldly forces, evil psychic tots and sinister plots "reminiscent of Stephen King". (Who was also a cottage-industry of mid-80's movies, as ten bestsellers were dumped on the decade between "Cujo" and "Pet Semetary" alone.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Fan sites now use Stranger Things as a "gateway" for leading on new-generation fans, offering reading-list syllabi of other core 80's escapist scifi/horror classics, like a library's children's-book section recommending other books to their readers besides Harry Potter:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/upstream/films-to-watch-if-you-love-stranger-things/" target="_blank">"10 Films You Need to Watch If You Love Stranger Things", Daily Dot, 7/25/16</a></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /><br />"Monster Trucks", and its kid-friendly Nickelodeon Pictures story of lovable CGI octopi and the teens racing them to safety, seemed a little TOO familiar for its audience, and was dumped into January by Paramount with the understandable hopes of being ignored. But trying to rescue their dignity for an empty early-'17 weekend, the producers thought their CGI critters had tapped into an 80's/90's "retro" ethic--the kind that conjured up the cheaper Amblin' productions of the late 80's like "Batteries Not Included" and "Harry and the Hendersons", and the post-Jurassic CGI fests of the Jumanji 90's--and that the movie was actually a labor of Retro love. </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW2Kv1mjDIdoLr4QxN0assZhKUllYNLtX9gbfeQ32SoJWI56cSE6N09B5snNvZUz3Fz6eh6djL9foDZg2Ru_uuMd1J5809LBBnm5MIjApAZjLcmzR-XxPEiLE6e7P6u5uj5RtEpNO_LTDL/s1600/oj4z63befx7y.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW2Kv1mjDIdoLr4QxN0assZhKUllYNLtX9gbfeQ32SoJWI56cSE6N09B5snNvZUz3Fz6eh6djL9foDZg2Ru_uuMd1J5809LBBnm5MIjApAZjLcmzR-XxPEiLE6e7P6u5uj5RtEpNO_LTDL/s1600/oj4z63befx7y.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Trucks even tried an alternate movie poster deliberately homaging the style of Richard Amsel, the iconic 80's movie-poster artist who gave us Indiana Jones, Willow, and every big-budget Lucasfilm of the decade. A generation knew, if Amsel painted the poster, you <i>knew</i> what to expect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And just like our Stranger Things kids on the run from evil firestarters, some loyal diehard Monster Trucks defenders also tried to rally around the Retro Childhood flag, for a generation that was never there and needed to learn the Old Days...Or at least other overlooked 80's movies besides Princess Bride quotes:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.cinemablend.com/news/1611850/10-awesome-throwback-movies-to-show-your-kids-if-they-dig-monster-trucks" target="_blank">"Ten Awesome Movies to Show Your Kids If They Dig Monster Trucks", CinemaBlend, 1/13/17</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(Yes, "Batteries" is on the list, as is '99's "The Iron Giant".)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ-QIqPnlXWSSOQiaqZFKxIgYnrZsfOkPP062rusef5rDsOHfe7MRguCEHrvlDyz3h0GWX5BZtBM8-FKmxSSKZb_R3knGCcXF-QeH9eyvEKWnFOHvChydFDVt9CodK1sfAPe1FZXAf3VZL/s1600/811vPtHNfEL._SY445_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ-QIqPnlXWSSOQiaqZFKxIgYnrZsfOkPP062rusef5rDsOHfe7MRguCEHrvlDyz3h0GWX5BZtBM8-FKmxSSKZb_R3knGCcXF-QeH9eyvEKWnFOHvChydFDVt9CodK1sfAPe1FZXAf3VZL/s200/811vPtHNfEL._SY445_.jpg" width="140" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The craze even attracted B-video company Mill Creek, which had the licenses to a number of discarded Columbia catalog titles, to sell many of their 80's fantasy/scifi Columbia classics in a bulk box <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Things-Collection-Spacehunter-Lurkers/dp/B01M9IQ4SZ/" target="_blank">under a Stranger-knockoff banner</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And while it's a stretch to think that 1983's gorgeous old-school fantasy "Krull" or cheesy low-rent space-opera "Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone" would be the first things to watch after a grim 10's-streaming series of nasty genetic experiments, it's clearly tapping </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">into</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> the audience's reawakened search for the same question: "Where did they GO?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you today hear anyone talking about "Great movies of the 80's", it's a safe bet they're <b>NOT</b> talking about "Amadeus", "Out of Africa" or "Terms of Endearment". </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr5w6789X-3pH1rYU9GWoOTcmffQsD-xU7cNmaesACasxgVJyTL5csxozc9e6sQavjubFC_IQX5J_6JEAwNLxjmK48tuhqkg1TFPIF0Up_rzDDzeTG34z26ybAsD9Kc5Rl96x506pCHqxq/s1600/1417363888560.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr5w6789X-3pH1rYU9GWoOTcmffQsD-xU7cNmaesACasxgVJyTL5csxozc9e6sQavjubFC_IQX5J_6JEAwNLxjmK48tuhqkg1TFPIF0Up_rzDDzeTG34z26ybAsD9Kc5Rl96x506pCHqxq/s200/1417363888560.jpeg" width="170" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What they're most likely talking about is summer movies of the mid-80's, usually involving neighborhood kids taking their bicycles and flashlights out to investigate the monster or friendly alien in the woods nearby their whitebread California suburban neighborhood...And in general, going on an adventure, as the MST3K-ism has it, "just like The Goonies". (Which, btw, we <i>hated</i> in 1985--There's a difference between a movie for 10-yo.'s, and one that reads like it was written <u>by</u> 10-yo's.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In other words, they're talking about Elliott and E.T., or any of his many imitators, back in the days When Steven Spielberg Roamed The Earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, what footprints <u>are</u> we tracking when we go in search </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">of</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> the rare and elusive 80's Movie? What historical factors caused the generational break to stick out in our mind when we turned "80's" from a box-office-statistic year-date or childhood memory into an artistic Film Genre? Whadda they got back then that WE ain't got? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Appropriately enough, part of the answer would seem to be "...Courage." (Buh-huh, you said it.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>1. It was easier to go to movies - </b>In fact, we <u>had</u> to: VCR saturation in the home didn't really catch on at popular prices until the mid-80's, and even then not all of your favorite movies came out for retail sale. More theaters were locally</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">mom-and-pop</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> owned, and might be charging upwards of $3.50 by the mid-80's, although the big chains had already ballooned up to $5 for an adult ticket. (Assuming you were over twelve, the year WarGames or Superman III came out.) If you couldn't wait to see it again, hey, you had an afternoon or a weekday night, and three or five bucks in your pocket, why not?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today, we have what you might call a trade-off: Now you can see EVERY movie in your own hometown area the week it opens...but you can probably only afford to see it <i>once</i>, before waiting for the disk. And heaven help you if you want popcorn with it.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY3KSo_yue0iK8d1_phb_caY5WB1M_JYmZgHIOGXxTTmVpBJNjOo05FNQwZm0q8uPF26v7Kuk9Ps-Px8MvN1SVYjYd4eZU-yaaQ8DnguHtAot89cDcyEaMoLxtKSYtyyububfHdiEqsx7n/s1600/8029411.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY3KSo_yue0iK8d1_phb_caY5WB1M_JYmZgHIOGXxTTmVpBJNjOo05FNQwZm0q8uPF26v7Kuk9Ps-Px8MvN1SVYjYd4eZU-yaaQ8DnguHtAot89cDcyEaMoLxtKSYtyyububfHdiEqsx7n/s200/8029411.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>2. Theaters weren't so big - </b>Chain cineplexes, huge 7-8 screen ones, were beginning to appear, but most towns still had a 1-3 screen left over on Main Street from the old days. If you had an older town, you probably had two or three of them scattered about the downtown back streets, or some new ones built into an unused office building. You <u>found</u> where your movie was playing, that was part of the fun of going to see it, and if it wasn't in town, you ventured forth to the town where you could get your experience...Otherwise, you might never get it at all!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And if your theater was playing in town, you didn't need Mom to take you, or at the very worst, all you needed was for her to drop you off with your friends, and pick you up after her 2-hour vacation from you. On a Friday night, the local theater was the gathering place for your school friends; if there wasn't anything you wanted to see, you saw it anyway, and if you <i>did</i> want to, so much the better.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx6seei4R_9GJCG66BP-JqxO1m7bb6dcc_tuVJVyjJHNy-rWfU3U5T0OhaMUieTeGWUbjQcZhU0g0rJDcimAky-yZKpj1o8XYAS18Cczshh-BtILmFq-gpTXwycMRnhzJS3P1GAcQOBmfj/s1600/Remington-Steele.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx6seei4R_9GJCG66BP-JqxO1m7bb6dcc_tuVJVyjJHNy-rWfU3U5T0OhaMUieTeGWUbjQcZhU0g0rJDcimAky-yZKpj1o8XYAS18Cczshh-BtILmFq-gpTXwycMRnhzJS3P1GAcQOBmfj/s200/Remington-Steele.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>3. TV still mattered - </b>It doesn't <i>now</i>, you know, we pride ourselves on being able to stuff our face with an entire season on Hulu over a weekend, and flip a bird to the cable companies with our mouths full. But while watching TV was looked down on in the 70's, and movies gave you spectacle and bestsellers, TV became popular again in the 80's; you counted your weekdays by show title, and when you went out of your house on the weekend, you went out for fun.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Movies weren't designed to be more than one, they were movies because they only had one wild story to tell you, and if you liked it, <i>then</i> they might reward your love with a sequel, if they could figure out one to tell. That's why they'd decided not to be TV, because they'd put everything into whatever little isolated bit of imagination they had.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>4.</b> <b>Movies were made for YOU, not anybody else</b> - There was one good thing about having little cheap-priced theaters nearby in your local area, within walking or bus distance, and not five miles out of town by the highway strip malls: You could go to your own movies.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjBuxRirXBbMjzB1QAcYZyxdJ7BunCW6fDIpza9weusPEvsFGu9Lg35EOH0RrAmj989JuYKLltXTHqzdlRV0vXnQgpWjWYGP6fskKdV8utUHa7KeFNW8wsbqOqbVfV3qjxXncSICodr46l/s1600/footloose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjBuxRirXBbMjzB1QAcYZyxdJ7BunCW6fDIpza9weusPEvsFGu9Lg35EOH0RrAmj989JuYKLltXTHqzdlRV0vXnQgpWjWYGP6fskKdV8utUHa7KeFNW8wsbqOqbVfV3qjxXncSICodr46l/s200/footloose.jpg" width="131" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And because tickets didn't have to be sold to parents, they could be sold to the people who DID want to see the neat stuff--Kids' movies could be sold to kids, escapist tween-boy adventures could be sold to 9-12 yo. boys, and teens could get rock musicals, rebel dramas and--you know it--teen-babysitter horror films pitched all to themselves on Friday night and nobody else had to care. But then, everyone knew grownups didn't understand anyway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We don't see that nowadays: Studios have too much at stake pitching a megadeal, they can't put themselves in the position of letting just <i>some</i> people buy a ticket at the risk that other people might not. As a result, most mainstream movies calculate themselves to be <u>all</u> things to all audiences, male, female, ethnic and overseas alike, and are carefully assembled not to leave anything out..."Your" movie just isn't YOUR movie anymore, unless you happen to have $200M to pay a studio personally to make back their net.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some niche movies, like female-audience or frat/weed-pack comedies, might still target "their" audiences without a hope of finding any other, but they tend to be the product of producers who don't know how to make any other kind of movie. It's harder to make one that's <u>supposed</u> to be what the audience wants.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But there's a deeper answer here, and just why it DID end with the mid-90's may have to be the stuff of another column:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>5. Studios still bought SCRIPTS - </b>Yes, we've all heard the whine: "It's all comic books, sequels, remakes and teen novels nowadays...There's nothing original in Hollywood anymore!" And the minute you say that, everyone immediately rolls their eyes and groans, because by "original", they think you're being a pretentious jackass talking about La La Land, or whatever just came out of the indie Sundance fests. But back in the 80's, studios did EXACTLY what Hollywood studios had been doing for the past fifty years, since the days of Louis B. Mayer: They let a poor, struggling screenwriter pitch his neat original idea, to see if it sounded like a surefire winner. And it might be an idea he made up <i>all by himself!</i>--Which meant the audience would be taken by surprise, and seeing it for the first time!</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-QTWN7wupzZChJXU3bblA6SGJVcu7n6tFz_mriYl6v0L6o4pyE9xVi5SAGtNjjC7t3JDZWpgSomYI2C5stJzdJIbPDzHJlJ-6GUiuMKbDApFP5cjmgm8CPozkUQXz6OAytDNh5GjyN9To/s1600/9447236_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-QTWN7wupzZChJXU3bblA6SGJVcu7n6tFz_mriYl6v0L6o4pyE9xVi5SAGtNjjC7t3JDZWpgSomYI2C5stJzdJIbPDzHJlJ-6GUiuMKbDApFP5cjmgm8CPozkUQXz6OAytDNh5GjyN9To/s1600/9447236_1.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like the old songwriter musicals of the 40's, call it the "Tin Pan Alley" days--"Chief, got a boffo idea for ya: An 80's kid goes back to the 50's and meets his parents! A romance-novel author finds herself on a <i>real</i> adventure, straight out of one of her books! Or, wait, I got it--Bill Murray, Paranormal Exterminator!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of course, you know the risk of that: For every Back to the Future or Ghostbusters, there could be a My Stepmother Is an Alien. And studios don't want that. ("But it had Dan Aykroyd in it!") </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Studios can't do that anymore. After a bad experience with getting big-name writers to write original action blockbusters in the 90's [more on that later], and negotiation salaries ballooned after actors stopped asking for profits and became smart enough to ask for cash up front, studios decided that a $150-200M movie just wasn't <u>worth</u> the risk of an audience seeing a movie they didn't know. If you could audition an "accepted" property ahead of time, like a TV show, long-awaited live-action form of a cartoon or comic, or a "franchise" sequel that one need only show the logo symbol to promote, well, that was half the battle won right there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The answer's not a complicated idea: We don't miss aliens, and kids with bicycles and flashlights. It's not that we miss old-school mechanical creature effects, soundstage-sets or 80's fashions. (Although we do.) We miss <b>IMAGINATION</b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We look for a "throwback" to someone telling us a story we've never heard before, and letting our neato tapped-into emotions go along for the ride.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi82dLJRx9bUc2yykCpWkaDl1vd_ZvkSPn4WOaHP_Uo1YtyMn3jodpE5OhRZLdl5IN8qpldYnBmofgbX7JvZ05WcLC37A2sKGZ0qdi1Hdrx1BJ48lfNPNvJxwuWDN12742GbaDe3romXYsW/s1600/Untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi82dLJRx9bUc2yykCpWkaDl1vd_ZvkSPn4WOaHP_Uo1YtyMn3jodpE5OhRZLdl5IN8qpldYnBmofgbX7JvZ05WcLC37A2sKGZ0qdi1Hdrx1BJ48lfNPNvJxwuWDN12742GbaDe3romXYsW/s200/Untitled.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Are Disney, Pixar and Marvel becoming the new dominant forces at the box office?--Think what they give us: Dory and Cars 3 aside, Pixar and WDFA gave us <u>new</u> stories of island girls, spunky rabbit cops and personified emotions, while Marvel Studios, for their group initiative, were forced to bring us a few solo heroes who were once forgotten B-stringers in print--Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther. Did <i>you</i> ever read their print books growing up?...Er, didn't think so. Well, guess you're hearing their stories for the first time, then. Not so bad, aren't they?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With a few exceptions--who are in the accidental good luck of being exceptions--studios in the 10's are ruled by fear, and like most people who let their lives be ruled by fear, don't like to take chances.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Not like the characters in really good movies, who have to take chances all the time, and sometimes discover that really neat things happen to them in the end if they do.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-6884954701355539272017-01-11T16:20:00.000-08:002018-04-14T02:57:21.765-07:00The Longest W-Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6B3DfMBVrCyPx7clLM5ju7gdZW6_qU0zZ_2Nu3aiIGHp4qzMyWuSBb16YIN3vcx1sHWHGj3Zj2V9xqyMBQRYKO1Y-C-M5ZuNi3EN5jb_Ks-YHj0LHClY1ENUH9KNmQFWuNaurDslWpyrb/s1600/bluray-vs-hddvd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6B3DfMBVrCyPx7clLM5ju7gdZW6_qU0zZ_2Nu3aiIGHp4qzMyWuSBb16YIN3vcx1sHWHGj3Zj2V9xqyMBQRYKO1Y-C-M5ZuNi3EN5jb_Ks-YHj0LHClY1ENUH9KNmQFWuNaurDslWpyrb/s1600/bluray-vs-hddvd.jpg" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG_eUVNJ4Px3PNuCLTj90D_x43Tchccc_t9_UjGCTqgrfY0OmOLrtldQTsPtQptPovKeJQu_s21wMOelIj-ZwSvcHxUQPQHcmde4srQxSwqkfLbMjNuNuoYmxwiTMQTw7UuDoyLTkla5am/s1600/CESLasVegas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG_eUVNJ4Px3PNuCLTj90D_x43Tchccc_t9_UjGCTqgrfY0OmOLrtldQTsPtQptPovKeJQu_s21wMOelIj-ZwSvcHxUQPQHcmde4srQxSwqkfLbMjNuNuoYmxwiTMQTw7UuDoyLTkla5am/s200/CESLasVegas.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) just wrapping up in Las Vegas this past week, it brings up that sacred January anniversary tied to the show every year, that all Blu-ray disk home-theater fans of the right generation hold dear--The one that summarized all the industry's suffering and troubles under the '06-'08 "Format War II" of Blu-ray vs. HDDVD:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Last Wednesday, January 4, we pause for the observance of the day that united all us home-theater disk fans in an appreciation of how the fans, not the companies, drive the market in deciding the best format...A date which became known in fame <i>and</i> infamy as "W-Day".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To save space, a brief historical rundown on the technical "Red vs. Blue" specs and backstory of the great '06-'08 war:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/08/29/origins-of-the-blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-war/" target="_blank">RoughlyDrafted, "Origins of the Blu-ray vs. HDDVD War", 8/29/07</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hi-Def was already becoming the "new frontier" of home theater in theoretical vaporware at industry shows long before the FCC's new standard for digital HDTV sets made it a necessity. Even as far back as '04, when companies were only presenting their prototypes for new high-definition compression or extended-capability disks, the battle lines were already being drawn between hardware companies and studios for loyalty, in the battle for the successor to DVD's crown.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Blu-ray was Sony's hardware baby, so Sony naturally committed their studio titles, along with their recently acquired MGM titles. Universal was tied to Dreamworks, Dreamworks was tied to Microsoft in deals for </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">animation</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> software, and both had to be solidly behind HD, if they knew what MS thought was good for them--While Toshiba's Japanese execs addressed the issues with Japanese reserve, it was Universal Marketing VP Ken Graffeo who soon became Blu-ray's most hated rah-rah cheerleader for HDDVD. Fox cited software-security concerns as reasons not to support HDDVD, but took its time before going Blu. Disney, having just merged with Pixar and gotten Steve Jobs as a board member into the bargain, now had a very, <i>very</i> vested interest in not seeing Microsoft and VC-1 win the home theater battle, and in seeing Blu-ray win to keep hi-def movie coding out of Bill Gates' hands. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Bnmjexa7wpH__9R-42tqrkO0YNUuwLk0sUm1H1wR4TgFXz58vsR9tXKXwYUUKTTdYbUPMaeYLpSn5NoxM2FXOyZq3y0p7br-tgQVmV5ku85nRFz_Wlzg6yGrl8v3AW49jYYhwT7PkaQu/s1600/transformers-hddvd2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Bnmjexa7wpH__9R-42tqrkO0YNUuwLk0sUm1H1wR4TgFXz58vsR9tXKXwYUUKTTdYbUPMaeYLpSn5NoxM2FXOyZq3y0p7br-tgQVmV5ku85nRFz_Wlzg6yGrl8v3AW49jYYhwT7PkaQu/s200/transformers-hddvd2.jpg" width="154" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And that left Warner and Paramount as the swing votes. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The uncommitted studios were caught in No Man's Land between the battle, with no clear winner to support, neither side gaining decisive ground, and forced to release two sets of titles, one for each format--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Warner released titles in both formats, but while Sony was wooing the action and comedy demographic to Blu-ray, Warner believed HDDVD would ultimately become the "film fan's" discerning format for watching Casablanca and The Searchers. Paramount released both formats, but infamously took a "contribution" from Toshiba to move their support to HDDVD, in return for needed funds for their Star Trek TV restoration--A move that had the industry crying "Traitors!", and blackened HDDVD's image overnight as the product of a weasel company that would pull any stunt to win the War.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The war was most definitely NOT being won by the marketplace: Mainstream buyers were apathetic about dueling near-identical formats at high prestige price points, and--with frequent complaints about the Beta-vs.-VHS battle years before--put off their buying either until a winner pulled ahead, or until the price came down on one or the other. Toshiba, facing dropping sales for their HDDVD hardware, was quick to exploit this angle, finally dropped the price on their players to $199 in time for Christmas, back when Sony was still selling their players and compatible Playstation consoles were going for $450 and up, and cleaned up with a new growing HDDVD customer base of People Who Couldn't Care Less, So Long As It Was Cheap. </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAmMaGmBkDsoVmU9B7C9_1DFJejcsaCvZC2OrhQ1bi6bLFQk5TL4fJ_Shk0xR6IRtISywwamL-KStRZ3PzSxq_H2h2mkaRXnaoCc0QhDXSq7vMSmjI6bsBj_t26E7lNCU_Yc562Hbt0xY5/s1600/phaser-remote-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAmMaGmBkDsoVmU9B7C9_1DFJejcsaCvZC2OrhQ1bi6bLFQk5TL4fJ_Shk0xR6IRtISywwamL-KStRZ3PzSxq_H2h2mkaRXnaoCc0QhDXSq7vMSmjI6bsBj_t26E7lNCU_Yc562Hbt0xY5/s200/phaser-remote-3.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With Paramount, Universal and the promise of Warner's big (and still uncommitted) mega-franchises on their side, HDDVD tried to sell its few "killer apps" against Blu--New Toshiba player buyers would not only get a hi-def future, but a Star Trek Phaser remote-control as well! But what wasn't selling the format with the public was that Sony and Microsoft had taken the battle to the game-console market, and the tone of the battle became increasingly gamer-adolescent with gamer fans declaring their diehard support on home-theater discussions--When the loudest praise of HDDVD was coming from X-Box Doods raving loyalty over Peter Jackson's "King Kong", or the two formats tried dueling Will Ferrell comedies (with Sony offering "Talladega Nights" with new PS3's, and Paramount promising "Blades of Glory" on HDDVD), it didn't do much for the Format War's image among adult mainstream buyers. And even then, the X-Box Doods' chief complaint was that their console required a separately-priced module to play the format...If only the X-Box came <u>with</u> the format installed, they dreamed, everyone would finally see the light, but rumors of a new console never came true.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">From late '06 to early '07, the chief goal for a weary industry was not to find the decisive "format killer" for the other, but some universal dual-format player or disk to say "A plague on both your houses" and let buyers buy whatever danged movies they wanted to. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhur2VAvbFcZgKwLEs-uK2nQ0mB62bGddn3U9i_uVz9uQJ4aKdkNRnWZBqdtpltPlHd8L2rCT3xg_-aYmnYd1OPqyLPRwqeeV420QmbmrjKDEeKN-FHDlYmU-2gSzLtxRIrK82JDMzjOONV/s1600/Warner_Total_HD_SM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhur2VAvbFcZgKwLEs-uK2nQ0mB62bGddn3U9i_uVz9uQJ4aKdkNRnWZBqdtpltPlHd8L2rCT3xg_-aYmnYd1OPqyLPRwqeeV420QmbmrjKDEeKN-FHDlYmU-2gSzLtxRIrK82JDMzjOONV/s200/Warner_Total_HD_SM.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Warner thought they had the angle on this--While hardware company LG promoted their new dual-format "Multiplayer", Warner</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> pursued R&D on the idea of a <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/warner-officially-announces-total-hi-def-hybrid-disc/" target="_blank">"Total Hi-Def hybrid disk"</a>, with dual layers of HDDVD and Blu-ray. Unfortunately, this turned out to be an impossible idea (as HDDVD was a matter of coding, but Blu had finer-etched disk grooves), and long searches for such a disk never panned out. But until they got one--and could corner the market with their own profitable patent on the Peace Treaty that would end the war--Toshiba's increasing defections and losses in the industry was still a necessary evil to hold onto.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Hybrid disk never came, and no Hybrid disk meant that HDDVD had literally outlived its usefulness to Warner: The Las Vegas CES shows for the past '06 and '07 had become highly anticipated battlegrounds for who would drop the Big Bombshell news about one format or the other throwing in the towel. Warner knew if they dropped their big news at the presentation on Jan. 8, '08, the shock headlines would unfairly overshadow all the other technical presentations at the show, so they decided to do the more reasonable thing--On Jan. 4, 2008, four days <b>before</b> the CES, the studio announced it was abandoning its HDDVD support and going Blu-ray.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Toshiba, who had been hoping that Batman and Lord of the Rings would sell HDDVD, was understandably a bit upset--HDDVD supporters' first suspicious reaction was that, since everyone knew studios changing loyalties always happened because of <i>bribes </i>(and how did we get <u>that</u> idea?), Warner must have clearly taken Paramount-like blood-money from those Sony weasels, but given HDDVD's steady decline by the end of '07, it was a weak alibi at best, and looked even more like the rages of a sore loser.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Analysts went into CES '08 knowing for established fact that HDDVD was a dead format walking, and for Media VP Jodi Sally, that unplanned '08 Toshiba presentation was <u>not</u> a happy one, but certainly a brave and stubborn one:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TZiWid5gO_E/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TZiWid5gO_E?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For Toshiba, Warner's defection was more than just seeing the shift in the balance of studio content, it was being </span><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">jilted at the altar</span></i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">: The company's last sole defense against an industry increasingly demanding they get off the stage was telling the industry that they were still in the game for so long as Warner was their faithful, powerful friend to the end. </span></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGgF19Smfwr0vT1z2VzPCVuvMSJWJmk9t9RPpQmNHmNhuauqx-tJvErD1Z4jkFntf_404Cu7_SAW9UQRNxMK1KME-mUAwOBaUXy_pTC3YyVqzr_u8_qbgciXkj7uJzhYSnrSFPksjugj6n/s1600/29E676BA00000578-3136356-The_famous_embrace_On_14_August_1944_a_sailor_and_a_woman_locked-a-21_1435078480070.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGgF19Smfwr0vT1z2VzPCVuvMSJWJmk9t9RPpQmNHmNhuauqx-tJvErD1Z4jkFntf_404Cu7_SAW9UQRNxMK1KME-mUAwOBaUXy_pTC3YyVqzr_u8_qbgciXkj7uJzhYSnrSFPksjugj6n/s200/29E676BA00000578-3136356-The_famous_embrace_On_14_August_1944_a_sailor_and_a_woman_locked-a-21_1435078480070.jpg" width="148" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And when Warner dropped Toshiba for their own convenience--raising some real speculation of just how "loyal" they had been all along--it delivered the very clear, unmistakable message of "This </span><b style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">IS</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> the end." By the end of the day, the national press was actively speculating on a date for HDDVD's demise, and on February 28, Toshiba finally announced they were folding the format, outside of a few conciliatory cleanups like refunds and hardware conversion. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The War was over, and the obvious Times Square VE-Day nurse-smooch metaphors were all over most home theater news sites.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Which leads us to one of the other funniest, truest, and most <i>(ahem)</i> infamously best-known contributions that W-Day 2008 gave to our culture:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The VE-Day jokes also extended to smartypants movie fans who had just seen Oliver Hirschbiegel's Oscar-nominated 2004 WWII German drama <b>Downfall</b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the climax, Hitler's staff of German army officers in the central Berlin HQ bunker are not only dealing with the advancing Russian front, but with fears that their militarily inexperienced leader is sinking into further unstable bipolar fantasies of "glorious victories" and paranoid "traitor" suspicions--Cut off from the realities of the battle, he reassures his generals that his one strategically-placed general will singlehandedly hold off the Russian advance, and when told that the general was unable to carry it out, and that there is now nothing to stop Russia from taking Berlin within days, and the entire War with it, the news is...not taken very well:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pR5q0ajW8Ko/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pR5q0ajW8Ko?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The joke that hit the YouTube home-theater fanbase (including the nastier gamer Playstation vs. X-Box factions) after the Warner news was a movie-referencing joke for movie-quoting fans. We were imagining a long-hated, reality-retreated, Napoleonic-complexed company that had lost their last faithful imaginary "general" to hold off an advancing enemy, and were now flailing about to look for scapegoats to keep them from admitting the inevitable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in case you might've ever wondered where they came from: The very, very FIRST Angry Hitler YouTube Video ever created, within hours after the headlines first hit.</span><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frZTf3mX97c" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hitler Reacts to HDDVD</span></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. It was W-Day that first created them, because W-Day was what it was first about...<i>Nowwww</i> d'you get it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(Clip on separate link, as some dialogue NSFW--As, we suspect, Toshiba's wasn't either when they got their news.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Y'see, we <u>got</u> the joke. Mostly because we'd just rented the movie on disk and knew the scene, but mostly because we HAD watched the bad news about Gen. Steiner, that we could relish Toshiba's imaginary reaction that their "glorious conquest" had just hit hard reality...We knew what the scene was really saying, and we knew what the clip was really, <i>really</i> saying. Every line was truth about Toshiba's delusions that Paramount titles and Will Ferrell comedies alone would hold off a growing studio majority, or that no one was really buying the standalone players with any degree of technical loyalty, and after we poor fans had held back with saying so for so long with no one to believe us, hearing them out loud was victoriously nasty enough to savor.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7d2Bb41GLiLz3vLqyPiuWtK1770uRUXZmX_-igj25wd85_zjqkpLGiQK3fz-WPPsbmuU-QVJ904bdHqNqKCeCSo2NSn-JHz5LIw5KgFtMmk4QqoZAWnMiV9LDK-a8NH24HbLu89vaJXEn/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-01-11+at+7.04.17+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="119" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7d2Bb41GLiLz3vLqyPiuWtK1770uRUXZmX_-igj25wd85_zjqkpLGiQK3fz-WPPsbmuU-QVJ904bdHqNqKCeCSo2NSn-JHz5LIw5KgFtMmk4QqoZAWnMiV9LDK-a8NH24HbLu89vaJXEn/s200/Screen+Shot+2017-01-11+at+7.04.17+PM.png" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Kids nowadays don't get the joke. They might remember <u>a</u> format war, but they don't remember why Hitler was shouting about it. (The second video, an intentional parody of the parody a few months later, ingeniously had Hillary Clinton, another reality-busted Napoleon, ranting about losing her '08 superdelegates to Obama, and was just as funny and true-to-life.) They seem to be under the adolescent idea is that the joke is that a shock-value symbol is turning red-faced and cursing, huh-huh, huh-huh, and that that itself is comedy enough. A quick YouTube search will turn up plagues and plagues of Angry Hitlers shouting about everything from a late pizza, to the latest Halo incarnation, to the last episode of Westworld. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YLqC3DIgjY" target="_blank">German actor Bruno Ganz has commented</a> on the plague of seeing "himself" rant about so many fanboy issues, and takes it in stride, but is disappointed they don't appreciate the tragically sympathetic performance he put into the original context.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But if there must be only one AHYTV, there is one rule, and that's that Comedy is Specific. There should be a Joke to Get, and, as Mystery Science Theater 3000 famously observed, The Right People To Get It.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And that's why we old FWII vets raise a glass every January 4, and put a Blu disk in our players. (Well, mine's a Playstation 3, because they were the only ones back then that worked. And yes, the X-Box kids annoyed us.)</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-34513644925081026772017-01-01T20:31:00.001-08:002018-04-14T03:05:03.451-07:00The State of the Revolution, 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIjiUtC0uqFuWxm5Z5YrFjDXXVuAxyT8ns355kKGvr0hmQSPNt9HiqRrvMFoKMZ86o1jinYOP0ZW7RLf-DgynZ_mVuX0OWmmc4IM3-sL0wHeCDYaUjjZdgSgt8pMXjOInajZo6LBpdzpu4/s1600/1-cngGq_tpWS1fZTIMPs2ZdA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIjiUtC0uqFuWxm5Z5YrFjDXXVuAxyT8ns355kKGvr0hmQSPNt9HiqRrvMFoKMZ86o1jinYOP0ZW7RLf-DgynZ_mVuX0OWmmc4IM3-sL0wHeCDYaUjjZdgSgt8pMXjOInajZo6LBpdzpu4/s1600/1-cngGq_tpWS1fZTIMPs2ZdA.jpg" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As a tumultuous year comes to a close, we pause to look back at the changing tides, trends, and topics that shaped our...er...</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>(eeesh)</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">...Aw, it's a New Year's blog post. You know the drill.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I began the blog back in July '16 because I found I was explaining the same general concepts of the current film, streaming, disk and TV industry over and over in conversations, and thought if I'd just written them down in permanent form, it would be easier to just send other people a link.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I joke about the "revolution" of the Movie Activist, but when you come down to it, it <b>is</b> a revolution: The problems we face at the moment, we face because we allowed them to happen, mostly because we didn't realize they <i>were</i> happening--Either under the ideas that the alternative was technologically "easier", or because we'd grown up thinking things had always been that way. Those in authority who make the decisions that rule our usage of it would certainly LIKE us to think so, and want our willing acceptance of it, for their own convenience. Things aren't, and they hadn't. That's when it's a good thing to begin making change, and I don't mean quarters for the bus.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Looking back at many of the causes, and seeing whether any headway was made in establishing some good old-fashioned Thomas Paine-style Common Sense in the industry, I feel as if making the year-end appraisal is like the president standing before Congress to make the State of the Union address. Although, like Gerald Ford, the temptation is to say "The State of the Union is not good," I can't honestly say it's bad either. At the moment, the State of the Movie-Activist Revolution just, well, IS. Many parts of the industry had the carpet dramatically yanked out from under them in 2016; the industry is now in a flux state of picking their dignity up and dusting it off called "Figuring Things Out", and the good thing about that is, sometimes, on a good day, you <u>do</u>.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Taking the major issues:</span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">- Theatrical Films</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Studios had a lot to learn from this year--Now, we get to find out whether they actually <u>learned</u> it. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There have been other Summer Massacres before: The terrible '01 slaughter where Planet of the Apes was considered the "big" picture for the season and Spielberg showed us what a <i>real</i> flop looked like with "A.I."</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, that dropping-like-flies '03 where studios first learned to fear the might of Pixar when we wouldn't go to see Terminator 3, and oh, ohh, that '13 where After Earth was playing in the same theater as the Lone Ranger...Will the traumas ever go away? </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjen6cOeLiYA8-k7fANVegR5wd4INg3ZsY3v8tOg_su6Y5HfE5KqkLxVxrLDZv_ywABvjmGWBcOg5Axymjx8-iGs_WnZbOV9U5HYjmM02nDZQqBohIlbLRJlARh6K63gXs-VdmZvimYuos_/s1600/MV5BYWJmZWExZWQtNDJiMy00OGZkLWI0ZjgtOTM4MTNjYjQzNTNlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDQxNjcxNQ%2540%2540._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjen6cOeLiYA8-k7fANVegR5wd4INg3ZsY3v8tOg_su6Y5HfE5KqkLxVxrLDZv_ywABvjmGWBcOg5Axymjx8-iGs_WnZbOV9U5HYjmM02nDZQqBohIlbLRJlARh6K63gXs-VdmZvimYuos_/s200/MV5BYWJmZWExZWQtNDJiMy00OGZkLWI0ZjgtOTM4MTNjYjQzNTNlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDQxNjcxNQ%2540%2540._V1_.jpg" width="128" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But the movies in those years were each wrongheaded in their own unique way. <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/09/september-5-2016-massacre-of-summer-16.html" target="_blank">What we learned instead from the Summer of '16</a> was that many of '16's high-profile casualties had flopped for the <b>same</b> pandemic reason: Franchises. One movie does not become a "franchise" just because it became a hit, and having one hit is not <i>carte blanche </i>to make seven more over a five-year period before the second movie has even had a chance to prove the theory right or wrong. The New F-Word became what studios thought movies had become, Brand Names; the brand was sold like a label on a tin can, and you weren't supposed to ask what was <u>in</u> the can, you were just happy it was on the label.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And studios, each hoping for the Big Icon that would make their own name to take on Warner's Batman and Disney's Mickey Mouse, found you couldn't make a franchise purse out of a Ninja Turtles' ear. Attempts for Fox to hitch their wagon to the X-Men, Paramount to hope Star Trek was their last hope, and even Disney's hope that Tim Burton's Alice hadn't lost its freshness since '10, all paled before the light of day. For studios, There's No Thinking Like Wishful Thinking.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, studios and industry analysts are noticeably disturbed by one glaring fact: </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The top five domestic box-office grossers of 2016 were, by year's end, Finding Dory, Captain America: Civil War, Rogue One, Secret Life of Pets, and The Jungle Book. ALL Disney and its subsidiaries, except for the one CGI comedy that got lucky in a bad summer.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7TVJR563mIOkUY24LBiF31J-HInwdrI_vRFasEwAc82ySkNR1SRrBCPNv2xIKnJQUfsRaq7HC68vc3MYQK0pF7Dw8U_rldK2gwgVoL8hwC_sb1j5sVl5izFKosgHFcm-4-RtyAtlSQjOw/s1600/Untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7TVJR563mIOkUY24LBiF31J-HInwdrI_vRFasEwAc82ySkNR1SRrBCPNv2xIKnJQUfsRaq7HC68vc3MYQK0pF7Dw8U_rldK2gwgVoL8hwC_sb1j5sVl5izFKosgHFcm-4-RtyAtlSQjOw/s320/Untitled.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some analysts are now vocally concerned that Disney/Pixar/Marvel/Lucas movies have an "unspoken monopoly", in that they seem to be becoming the ONLY big-studio movies that audiences show any actual mainstream enthusiasm about going to see or trust with quality. (Including disgruntled Warner Bat-fans, who are convinced it's a bribery conspiracy of paid critics and audiences.)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If so, it's really for quite a simple reason: Every other studio wants to be Disney/Etc., and make movies and crossover franchise-strategies just like them. Disney can't: It can't imitate Disney/Pixar/Marvel, it <b>IS</b> Disney/Pixar/Marvel, so it just wants to be itself. It lets its historically maverick independent family of sub-studios, namely Marvel Studios, Pixar, and Lucasfilm, be <i>them</i>selves, trusts the rebellious instinct of their magic hit prodigy children to know what they're doing, keeps hands off, and lets them do it.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hey, y'know?: "Be yourself"...That's catchy, as a policy slogan goes. Got a nice ring to it, don'tcha think? Kinda sounds all "Integrity" and "Sincerity"-like.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Unfortunately, the search for Brand Names, and recreating the Disney/Marvel Formula, led to the next big issue of '17:</span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">- Side Stories</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Y'know, I'd sort of hoped I'd be able to do a big column in November about Warner's "Fantastic Beasts, and Where to Find Them". From all indications of audience conventional-wisdom from summer through October, <i>nobody</i> seemed to be enthusiastically looking forward to this--Apart from the most utterly book-smitten core fans, few mainstream audiences looking at the trailer saw the point of "Potter Without Harry", it looked like a painfully off-the-subject studio-marketing cash grab, and seemed destined to be one of Warner's big high-profile stumbles of the fall. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCvgbM2VEnA_KZWYO7AB6GVO2KW0obdO9nwvz8QPruP2nxjBbnBMKma1b3OVATJwUD-dqucr8htcmtxGxcCHmT4qgQq0UDxYMx57UJVvaeRbmYAdaVYVpu70xpOpSB9VDCTn-i82EAJPGf/s1600/MV5BMjQyMzIyMTY5NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDA0Mjk0NzE%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C674%252C1000_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCvgbM2VEnA_KZWYO7AB6GVO2KW0obdO9nwvz8QPruP2nxjBbnBMKma1b3OVATJwUD-dqucr8htcmtxGxcCHmT4qgQq0UDxYMx57UJVvaeRbmYAdaVYVpu70xpOpSB9VDCTn-i82EAJPGf/s200/MV5BMjQyMzIyMTY5NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDA0Mjk0NzE%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C674%252C1000_AL_.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Um, for obvious reasons, I didn't get to do that column. The wishful desire to have the Harry Potter franchise "back again" front-loaded a smash opening weekend, and justified Warner's and JK Rowling's delusions that they had another instant artificial do-it-yourself five to seven-book Epic in the making. As with studios, never underestimate Wishful Audience Thinking, either, from audiences who overlook smaller concerns, just for the nostalgic thrill of having their favorite "back again" after absence made the heart grow fonder. (Admit it, some of you went to see the Ghostbusters remake and Independence Day: Resurgence <i>knowing</i> they probably weren't that good, didn't you?)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But like a old favorite movie series seemingly buried and resurrected at an evil Pet Sematary (Peter Jackson's Hobbit Trilogy springs to mind), there's "back", and then there's <b>BACK</b>. If you want the bare corpse of the body--namely the franchise title, some favorite cast members, and all you think it stands for--back, studios are happy to negotiate that with the right agents, but it doesn't necessarily mean you'll get your moviegoing childhood of ten or twenty years ago back with it.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Rogue One: a Star Wars Story" was a different issue: It was made because studios became jealous of what Warner had been doing with Peter Jackson's pre-filmed Tolkien trilogies, in that enough shooting had been done ahead of time to deliver one sequel bang-on-time every November or December, by the clock. Studios wanted a franchise to be as punctual as a weekly TV series, only by the year, so audiences would know what to expect from a <i>date</i>, not a movie: If it's the same Christmas weekend that gave us "The Force Awakens", it's must be time for another Star Wars movie! And even if Episode VIII is still another two or three years away, don't worry, we've got another story for you in the meantime--We call it "Filler".</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzkjcaqLqWYGp8BdnsI21Xmala_Js-tSW1pOHYRV5o8Gab4ZLPkq7p2moDms7tYPnxx6bJ1ceIj5pDR_KaOzc4BEygkeFpSFPyXJSj4Jo34gQHNX-8emZTpG2XjKr6LtY-tC9xOdil8YOy/s1600/MV5BMjEwMzMxODIzOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzg3OTAzMDI%2540._V1_SX214_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzkjcaqLqWYGp8BdnsI21Xmala_Js-tSW1pOHYRV5o8Gab4ZLPkq7p2moDms7tYPnxx6bJ1ceIj5pDR_KaOzc4BEygkeFpSFPyXJSj4Jo34gQHNX-8emZTpG2XjKr6LtY-tC9xOdil8YOy/s200/MV5BMjEwMzMxODIzOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzg3OTAzMDI%2540._V1_SX214_AL_.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, there was a problem with that complaint, too: Rogue One turned out to be pretty darned <u>good</u>. Some fans argued it was actually a <i>better</i> tribute to the '77 original than Force Awakens' teen-cosplay and cast-reunion pageant, and captured the gritty spirit of the Rebellion that Lucas's slick Prequel Trilogy ignored. (I'm waiting another month to see the movie on vacation, so I'll reserve judgment for now, but from the looks of things, I'm inclined to agree.)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What both Fantastic Beasts and Rogue One did, what we might say was, Got Lucky. The second one's always a bit harder. The second Fantastic Beasts movie now has to set up even <i>more</i> convoluted off-book plots of its own making, and after an early Episode VIII, Lucasfilm plans to bring us a Han Solo spinoff from the makers of "21 Jump Street" and "The Lego Movie"...Why do I have the feeling the second Lucas side-story spinoff won't have <i>quite</i> the grittiness, integrity, or discipline that the first one had? (Is it because directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller are walking advertisements for Ritalin?)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As you can see, I don't have quite as glowing an opinion of "Side Stories" as the bright lights of a franchise name might dazzle us with: I've seen of the bad side of Franchise-Filler; part of it came out in 2009, and was called "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". Oh, dear lord, was that one wrong-headed bit of physical <b>pain</b>.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCjSfWO-246Gx9h5J8A1eLpLFUogk11V7IVkKJopUVyK4oME_3-5s57PAlQHqjsAIUGSWFj7UYHZy636c4GROck7ZHpoS5uUXx1BkGknvYMWjhRFXGA5ZK8HoEV0m2NRs04-Vm4eq48UXk/s1600/MV5BMTAyNjM0ODM5ODBeQTJeQWpwZ15BbWU3MDIxMTg5NTI%2540._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCjSfWO-246Gx9h5J8A1eLpLFUogk11V7IVkKJopUVyK4oME_3-5s57PAlQHqjsAIUGSWFj7UYHZy636c4GROck7ZHpoS5uUXx1BkGknvYMWjhRFXGA5ZK8HoEV0m2NRs04-Vm4eq48UXk/s200/MV5BMTAyNjM0ODM5ODBeQTJeQWpwZ15BbWU3MDIxMTg5NTI%2540._V1_.jpg" width="140" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It demonstrated every object lesson in explaining why PART of a story cannot be the WHOLE story--We wouldn't ask for a Gone With the Wind spinoff focusing on Ashley Wilkes, and would we spin off a Wizard of Oz story focusing on <i>just</i> the Wicked Witch?...Well, maybe for a musical.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To be given too much of <u>one</u> aspect, just because the studio thought we were Paying Attention, just reminds us why some things are better taken as ingredients in a soup, and not force-fed to us for two hours straight. Worse yet was the need to remind us that this was "The REST of the story!" to the story we'd already seen, thank you--And every single plot point, every reference, and every script-alluded-to backstory from 2003's "X2: X-Men United" had to now be neatly catalogued, homaged and categorized onscreen, so that all questions were answered and all plot concerns were brought full-circle. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOfsTFvchlx65xnaimUSYMDEWpGnigh2m8iuxnymzRuoozCF3fxUNaaysLRTUv26A5VDOS3e6LqM87xxY82nyLxSFXMk4Y-0SgTP-QYNSUL4rkkwHsrQYAvXsjVhJqdzDYfuMPiJ-JAb2Z/s1600/51HV84ZG2VL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOfsTFvchlx65xnaimUSYMDEWpGnigh2m8iuxnymzRuoozCF3fxUNaaysLRTUv26A5VDOS3e6LqM87xxY82nyLxSFXMk4Y-0SgTP-QYNSUL4rkkwHsrQYAvXsjVhJqdzDYfuMPiJ-JAb2Z/s200/51HV84ZG2VL.jpg" width="140" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I confess I will never be able to look at Newt Scamander or Jyn Erso without thinking of the Depressing Anal-Retentive X-Movie Fox Made After Killing Off the More Expensive Cast.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Even Rogue One, as good as it was, was guilty of a bit of over-Wolverinizing, in attempting to explain everything, every single <i>dear, blessed detailed thing</i>, that ever took place before the opening Star Destroyer battle in the first '77 Star Wars. But then, that's just a bit of over-defensiveness that you can expect with side-stories from here on in. They want to feel just as classic as the Classic stories they're plot-homaging, too.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As I summed up the issue of filling space and anal-retentively over-explaining better-known plots: "Shakespeare did not write a play about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern...Tom Stoppard wrote a play about how </span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">NOBODY CARED</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> what happened to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern."</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">- Blu-ray vs. Digital</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the moment, the Disk Wars are a bit of a Mexican standoff: Physical Disk isn't losing as fast as the studios want everyone to believe it is, but the problem is, Digital isn't winning fast enough to be convincing about it. The only industry they've successfully been able to convince are the brick-and-mortar mass retailers like Target, Best Buy and Wal-mart (who were already trying to reduce physical sales to promote their own flagging spinoff digital-streaming companies), that couldn't keep up with Amazon's online discounts, reduced their shelf-space for physical sales, and then cried to the industry that "You were right, disk sales are going down!" Well, golly, I can't imagine how THAT happened.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimbdRwFKerlP53RSOtvnYKoHOu-_H2ffsHPlrEfBDX62IpV3uF7iZzHe7otakJS5Iqz5gKHL0xWP1zyXtsjwXNYLLlJK9VjqDot7Ehx4bWcycgyUKD11KWutdaU68iLGm8fZZxpULYElDi/s1600/MEC_LCE_GLAMjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimbdRwFKerlP53RSOtvnYKoHOu-_H2ffsHPlrEfBDX62IpV3uF7iZzHe7otakJS5Iqz5gKHL0xWP1zyXtsjwXNYLLlJK9VjqDot7Ehx4bWcycgyUKD11KWutdaU68iLGm8fZZxpULYElDi/s200/MEC_LCE_GLAMjpg.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The big smoking-gun controversy that brought the Wars to the forefront in 2016--briefly, before it was quickly passed off as "just another fanboy issue" and forgotten--was the <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/08/september-1-2016-elf-on-800-shelf-first.html" target="_blank">"$800 Bookshelf"</a>, when Warner packaged the premium Extended edition of their core-Franchise Tolkien series as an inexplicably fan-soaking "prestige" item designed for convention fans, and tossed off the barer Basic editions in a cheap cardboard box. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With Warner in charge of almost half the movie disk library in the country, and several of the top-selling marketing franchises, other studios are looking to Warner as "so goes" the state of Blu-ray sales in the US. And what Warner believes is, the only people who would actually buy plastic things, off a store shelf, are people who would buy Plastic Things that looked nice <u>on</u> a shelf...Anyone else either wants The Hits on digital, or is some hobbyist who would be happy to buy a one-off at the MOD Archive. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you can't blame the industry for not moving as fast as you want it to, blame the fans for being too weird and "stubborn" and not letting you.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, maybe it's that I was a Japanese anime fan in my college days--back in the pre-streaming days when a little rare fan-subtitled VHS tape you guarded with your life was all that stood between you seeing your favorite show and never seeing it at all in this country, <i>period</i>--that I appreciate the fact that it's sometimes good to have your physical movies RIGHT THERE, in front of you. On tape, on DVD, or on Blu-ray, at least you'll know they're there. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's not, as Warner wants to convince us, about "space", or "taking them on the go" (where?), or "pre-ordering while still in theaters", it's about knowing where they'll be when you need them. You can promise where they are, Warner, but I'd rather <b>know</b>, and seeing is believing, but handling is better.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If there's one message that Blu-ray fans need to organize themselves behind in '17, it's not to be written, dismissed, or fantasy-trivialized out of the equation, just because we're "burdening" studios with the need to manufacture physical disks: </span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJOO4CVeMIcWWgBrzmepduok4ozDGafk7vz1f48Y0pUzI9iax549fFaE_VdzKQ2CgCTkNSEkr8H3kQfFYVZUBZqFNCEz9z40IP7v0nIgz6k3aM6fboKKEgwa_1qPE2nikiTSBskdZflCrr/s1600/60386594.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJOO4CVeMIcWWgBrzmepduok4ozDGafk7vz1f48Y0pUzI9iax549fFaE_VdzKQ2CgCTkNSEkr8H3kQfFYVZUBZqFNCEz9z40IP7v0nIgz6k3aM6fboKKEgwa_1qPE2nikiTSBskdZflCrr/s200/60386594.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We're not weirdos. We're not plate and thimble collectors with Star Trek chess sets from the Franklin Mint. We're not San Diego ComiCon fanboys with Harley Quinn and Gollum figurines on our bedroom shelves.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We're movie fans who love all movies--not just pop-selected copies of Princess Bride and This is Spinal Tap that our millennial kids can cult-quote--who want our movies physically on our shelves, in our homes, and <i>in our hands</i> for posterity, because we don't trust anyone <u>else</u> with them.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And that, studios, as the pretty guardian of love and justice often said, means <b>YOU</b>.</span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">- Streaming</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As noted, The Future Isn't Quite What It Used To Be for digital ownership. Subscription streaming continued to make cable networks extinct, despite studios' best efforts to make subscription-streaming extinct.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPhQlRhyphenhyphenaSrB5E17mC2QZ2a-3h9_zccvJT0MFmiy62hCQ87WZLqU93tlBtAnJ5IRCQdQdKTLzJqjyiOYxRPo44Bqq5ULG0qZj_iB-maXP4RyjUf4KjCd2xT4RjgK6dEIHED3DVtpo7iU4/s1600/31LqsUc84vL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPhQlRhyphenhyphenaSrB5E17mC2QZ2a-3h9_zccvJT0MFmiy62hCQ87WZLqU93tlBtAnJ5IRCQdQdKTLzJqjyiOYxRPo44Bqq5ULG0qZj_iB-maXP4RyjUf4KjCd2xT4RjgK6dEIHED3DVtpo7iU4/s200/31LqsUc84vL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Netflix fans in 2016 started becoming more and more aware that while there was more Daredevil and more Stranger Things, there was less and less of everything <u>else</u>. Except for the fandom (and an industry) happy to binge away from their online cookie-jar and let "Netflix" be synonymous with "The New TV Network". </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Amazon Prime, OTOH, dealt with its increasing ghost-town lineup of programming by grasping the content-ownership bull by the horns, and being Amazon, well, <i>selling</i> it: Prime's new lineup is now not in the movies they own, but in being a one-stop third-party clearinghouse dealer for new small optional-charge streaming content-specific splinter micro-channels for Showtime, Starz, TED, among others, much like the rise of <i>a la carte</i> premium cable channels in the 80's.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With the rise of core binge-cult shows on HuluPlus, viewers saw subscription-streaming more as a substitute for TV than a home-theater lobby. Hulu began offering an ads-free service, for a millennial generation that is now <i>offended</i> by the idea of being shown advertisements with their TV entertainment, but the rise of Hulu has begun to have more of an influence on the industry.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0QwqAKmHp3jjU8YFYtS5CGidHnYYmivJyT4lQd9ZEWhJph6od9TNKikO1h0ydE9ysp7tPSpVGC0Q-1MG9Kf3nDPq3vf8YofBmRCG_7lLuxQmBBKk6DVsAuf9osQQ-ZkuevWwy-Z-c3krr/s1600/vudu-movies-on-us.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0QwqAKmHp3jjU8YFYtS5CGidHnYYmivJyT4lQd9ZEWhJph6od9TNKikO1h0ydE9ysp7tPSpVGC0Q-1MG9Kf3nDPq3vf8YofBmRCG_7lLuxQmBBKk6DVsAuf9osQQ-ZkuevWwy-Z-c3krr/s200/vudu-movies-on-us.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Vudu VOD, in addition to being a streaming ownership/rental site, has now offered an additional monthly random selection of free-with-ads back-catalog movies, in the style of HuluPlus's catalog, with no subscription. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Free is a big deal", Vudu's ad line tells us...Well, yes. As a matter of fact, it </span><u style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">is</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It represents a surprising transition in the industry's thinking about where exactly streaming's money <i>is</i> coming from at the moment, if it's not coming from sales, and less of it is coming from subscription. It's coming back to where cable WAS, when it used to be cable, and back before we all started cutting it--A combination of subscriber money and sponsor money, for a combination of marketable random content, without losing too much of one to try and appeal too much to the other.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With the <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/11/november-14-2013-thunder-struck-just.html" target="_blank">new introduction of FilmStruck</a>, and Japanese-anime streaming channel Crunchyroll now being considered as a major player on the field, subscription-streaming hoped to replace cable, and it now seems to be getting its wish: It's now in the process of BECOMING a second collection of cable channels, premium or ad-supported, offering random programming to a select niche of interests, only with that one unique aspect of not having to worry about running times.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In a way, maybe that's just what we wanted all along. Not so complicated, is it?</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As you can see, we've much to do over the next twelve months. Helping several neurotic, hyper-defensive industries think straight is a full-time job.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But we all got into these messes over the last year because <i>we</i> weren't paying attention to our movies and TV, and if we want to complain about the mess, let's not forget to look into a mirror occasionally. That way, we'll know what to say to everyone else, and where to start cleaning things up.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-65474428543055909342016-12-25T15:48:00.000-08:002018-04-14T16:28:34.164-07:00Wishing You a Merry Val Lewton Christmas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsnVFd38oA3fegdg4cU5eh51yWv-f2c_iWqvdFUd8ia-Py__BmEeKl2XPYVOzA6ewkwJVtwsPyy0IuVP9ODRJ5W-J1M_WHYY3qEbgRvdbwoHnQ8QTBv20EPVTaO_77zhNUpRPOpwM3YC6g/s1600/the-curse-of-the-cat-people-1944-poster-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsnVFd38oA3fegdg4cU5eh51yWv-f2c_iWqvdFUd8ia-Py__BmEeKl2XPYVOzA6ewkwJVtwsPyy0IuVP9ODRJ5W-J1M_WHYY3qEbgRvdbwoHnQ8QTBv20EPVTaO_77zhNUpRPOpwM3YC6g/s1600/the-curse-of-the-cat-people-1944-poster-1.jpg" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's hard, slaving over a hot keyboard during the holidays--Christmas isn't a time for brandishing Activist causes, it's the season for peaceful classic-movie-watching on earth, and goodwill to studios, even to crazy, neurotic, spin-doctoring, Blu-ray-genocidal studios that banish every old classic movie to their MOD Archive like Mad King Ludwig.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE_gZ2ro-9j2wduHNxrVhPEh9AzpL2ecgIwxk80oZLOlp53CxHyT_ccsTO5kF12xchiLf5kWXw5auP3DpAANKOyQ7wEZFL8v6JOBVf1SKORGMgo9YXM96MCNcEylpL3xZkrHmB5kTgqnun/s1600/126-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE_gZ2ro-9j2wduHNxrVhPEh9AzpL2ecgIwxk80oZLOlp53CxHyT_ccsTO5kF12xchiLf5kWXw5auP3DpAANKOyQ7wEZFL8v6JOBVf1SKORGMgo9YXM96MCNcEylpL3xZkrHmB5kTgqnun/s200/126-2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I just wanted to find a nice sentimental Christmas-movie cause to stick up for. I was feeling too good to bring up my old nails-on-chalkboard grudge about people who have never seen Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby in 1942's "Holiday Inn" because they think Crosby sang "White Christmas" <u>only</u> in the corny fading-studio 50's-G.I. Danny Kaye/Rosemary Clooney movie where, like, it's in the title, and it's Technicolor...Next year, definitely. (Although with the stage show on Broadway for the season, maybe a few movie-illiterate folk will have <i>heard</i> of it now.)</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5j3FXQAdznzSrhvQsOBfhhX7FcaHv7qAhk8Tu_fHw-N5iJThyEuuPhNoh7li45YuwYPLwnQbcrChKwJCppgy_qM7ofUQmzimaIsmje_bXUeCxiIVO4_ZswXzRtz9E0cs9NkyFiGH0SaT8/s1600/santaclausthemovie1985.0102.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="96" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5j3FXQAdznzSrhvQsOBfhhX7FcaHv7qAhk8Tu_fHw-N5iJThyEuuPhNoh7li45YuwYPLwnQbcrChKwJCppgy_qM7ofUQmzimaIsmje_bXUeCxiIVO4_ZswXzRtz9E0cs9NkyFiGH0SaT8/s200/santaclausthemovie1985.0102.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was too much work to do a post sticking up in defense of 1985's "Santa Claus: the Movie", in praise of the Alexander Salkind days when big-budget movies spent their money making big REAL soundstage-and-matte sets of Santa's workshop...</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxImroi4neUw5mp7XTL_mZZYxDQXh8fS0snFDfaN9i2zFtT_bAF556L_EeY9CgzusMEuIXnEhfj-dsIV1n79sX-KNX2NzPqxUh-zg-jGqUBEo-g8tBvZtwqSyPOke4JhLzy2vqpEzplZZY/s1600/00254613_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxImroi4neUw5mp7XTL_mZZYxDQXh8fS0snFDfaN9i2zFtT_bAF556L_EeY9CgzusMEuIXnEhfj-dsIV1n79sX-KNX2NzPqxUh-zg-jGqUBEo-g8tBvZtwqSyPOke4JhLzy2vqpEzplZZY/s200/00254613_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And I didn't see any point in digging up the already Internet-beaten fan debate about whether the first 1988 "Die Hard" (back when Bruce Willis played hip "regular guys", and still had hair and an actual working sense of humor) is a, quote, "Christmas movie", since to my mind, there is no debate: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It </span><u style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>is</b></u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But, with the smells of a fresh ham roasting in the slow-cooker, I decided to take it easy on the column this week, and save my holiday time for putting my feet up with the old Blu-rays and vintage DVD's.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And one that I always reserve for Christmas--or at least always <u>tell</u> people I do, just to see the look on their faces--is the heartwarming family holiday warmth of Robert Wise's <b>The Curse of the Cat People</b> (1944), from the director of "The Sound of Music".</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Okay, cue the people saying "The <i>What</i> of the <i>Who?</i>" And thereby hangs a tale to send you to the library's video section. (Or to Mad King Ludwig's dungeon of the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Classic-People-Snatcher-Walked/dp/B00DNQGL42" target="_blank">Warner Archive</a>.)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUNLbQNdn0x5RrCRXuwzN1wDuUZfqyu-kctH6iESnRupQZgp4PkSJnGwHx86dZ7Vb2bZajD_wxmFqOIIPh2nFegQYH8b5jqYVHQ4H8hMAj-F4Uu4g_V3dbE1yGpeILlWuXHGBLqGod3seK/s1600/Lewton+05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUNLbQNdn0x5RrCRXuwzN1wDuUZfqyu-kctH6iESnRupQZgp4PkSJnGwHx86dZ7Vb2bZajD_wxmFqOIIPh2nFegQYH8b5jqYVHQ4H8hMAj-F4Uu4g_V3dbE1yGpeILlWuXHGBLqGod3seK/s200/Lewton+05.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To explain why, to the uninitiated, goes back to Jacques Tourneur's original <a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/28696-cat-people" target="_blank">Cat People</a><b> </b>from 1942: In the story (later remade into overbearingly pretentious and point-missing kinkiness by Paul Schrader and Natassja Kinski in 1982), our hero Kent Smith meets mysterious foreign Irena, played by Simone Simon...But she tries to avoid marriage, claiming her ancestors were under an ancient were-panther curse. Smith humors her "delusions" but when he turns to attractive co-worker Alice Moore to get Irena some help, Moore discovers--in one of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkrsymAhI0U" target="_blank">most film-school studied scenes</a> in horror movie history--that jealousy has claws.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The creepy, atmospheric B/W thriller became a huge hit for RKO, and, like many a studio today, the studio now thought they had a <u>franchise</u>. Every Hollywood studio hoped for a new "horror" line, now that Universal had broken the supernatural envelope with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and RKO thought they had a new horrormeister in producer Val Lewton. The chief moguls at RKO pitched one cool Horror-Sounding Title after another at Lewton, hoping lightning could strike as many times as they wanted, starting with a sequel to their big studio hit.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG6hCDsuBOVwf7IzfalAXYT50qiDnuepGZoBJFqRIi2fTBqxYL-6MdD-v9d8Fsbwf4IxeDUlljNb47UM5LSo8tX7eM3vVXYZygiaGkkQV-Uxl_ogkzQHgvouEuFqMB-iR5IK3La4wzAmyb/s1600/curse_of_cat_people_poster_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG6hCDsuBOVwf7IzfalAXYT50qiDnuepGZoBJFqRIi2fTBqxYL-6MdD-v9d8Fsbwf4IxeDUlljNb47UM5LSo8tX7eM3vVXYZygiaGkkQV-Uxl_ogkzQHgvouEuFqMB-iR5IK3La4wzAmyb/s200/curse_of_cat_people_poster_01.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But here's where kicks in what could be called "Val Lewton <i>pranks</i> RKO": Lewton was a producer of eerie atmosphere, B/W shadows and lurking fears left to the imagination, and he didn't want to do lurid studio Universal-envy monsters...So, he found a way of sabotaging them by making stories in <u>own</u> style, and justifying the titles so the boss didn't complain. When RKO threw "The Leopard Man" at him, he delivered the story of a circus performer who <i>owns</i> a leopard (which escapes into a sleepy border town), and when they pitched "I Walked With a Zombie", Lewton put George Romero aside to deliver a romantic potboiler set against Jamaican voodoo--"Jane Eyre in the Caribbean", unquote.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lewton had been hoping to move on to "Amy & Her Friend", a heartwarming family picture about a little girl and her imagination. But, when RKO's moguls pitched the "next hit followup, 'Curse of the Cat People'", Smith, Moore, Simon, and Lewton-regular Calypso singer Sir Lancelot had all been contracted. So, Lewton simply changed the names, inserted his usual strategic justification-line in the script ("Ever since his first wife, it feels like there's been a <i><b>curse</b></i> on this house...") and the hit Cat People sequel was now the heartwarming story of Amy and her Friend for parents and children alike.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the now-altered "sequel", Kent Smith is married to Alice Moore, after Simon met her end (or did she?) in the first film. He's too busy with his job designing boats than to look after his shy young daughter Amy (played by a realistically sullen Ann Carter), who's misunderstood by the other kids at school and retreats into her overactive imagination. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In fact, whereas most dads might play along with their little girl's fantasy lives, Smith frustratedly seems to rage at Amy's pretend view of the world--"She's just like Irena was, believing things that <i>aren't true!</i>"...There, see how we got more of the "sequel" into the script?</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4yJ19ZyAFykfHFI8V1PBGgntpufyxgGHBBKTQU6lDAU25ZOq3QUobSmoqMWgtAdj1-B60APDNn4a0W9JipWAFARXPRkRFKBAKYj3TzVhyphenhyphensjVhnfPtbbh-q-CW-Gdk1i-j_u9fDxdEitSA/s1600/tumblr_ljwlrdfpoU1qgxfi2o1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4yJ19ZyAFykfHFI8V1PBGgntpufyxgGHBBKTQU6lDAU25ZOq3QUobSmoqMWgtAdj1-B60APDNn4a0W9JipWAFARXPRkRFKBAKYj3TzVhyphenhyphensjVhnfPtbbh-q-CW-Gdk1i-j_u9fDxdEitSA/s200/tumblr_ljwlrdfpoU1qgxfi2o1_500.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Amy's only friends seem to be a reclusive grandmotherly ex-actress in the mysterious house nearby (and whose colorful senility about the past seems charming at first, but soon develops a dark Lewtonian edge, like seeing Norma Desmond played by Angela Lansbury), and Amy's claims of a beautiful princess in white who's become her "imaginary friend". From child-perspective, we don't see Amy's friend onscreen at first, until she sees an old photo of Simone, and says "'But that's <i>her!</i> You know my friend, too!"'</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">How could she have known, Smith wonders? Hehehh...But since the story is mostly from Amy's fantasy POV, we're never allowed to know just quite <u>how</u> imaginary her "imaginary" friend might actually be. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3fAecm2Djv2CKtXJkhRAxRbGJ37u1FfBhTKyx0xHRVD7tGvKz_UYPkgtKluSHhcCF2FkOzBRpiS8NWvTgKMyigAyZxrHFCacddQFjIjNqbNdXG-2RqthYSuXcdMIXW5Od5aBm_yCeNZlY/s1600/totoro2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3fAecm2Djv2CKtXJkhRAxRbGJ37u1FfBhTKyx0xHRVD7tGvKz_UYPkgtKluSHhcCF2FkOzBRpiS8NWvTgKMyigAyZxrHFCacddQFjIjNqbNdXG-2RqthYSuXcdMIXW5Od5aBm_yCeNZlY/s200/totoro2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(As I described the story to one newbie, "Imagine if Val Lewton had remade 'My Neighbor Totoro', and turned it into a spooky B/W 40's RKO film." </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Complete with a Totoro-style climax where Amy's parents search for her in a Christmas blizzard, and things still take an eerie, even if family-friendly, Lewton turn...)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Which brings us to our scene, for Season's Movie-Activist Greetings: </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As the parents welcome their upper-middle-class upstate-NY friends in on Christmas Eve for a caroling party, Amy lives the bane of all our neglected childhoods...The Grownups' Party. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Until Irena (or is it Amy's imagination?) comes to the rescue:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/10OXtPn9r1U/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/10OXtPn9r1U?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yeah. Like the spooky hot French imaginary might-be-ghost babe says: Merry Christmas.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-77734352570942928832016-12-19T12:26:00.001-08:002018-04-14T03:12:03.907-07:00Theater Roots, Star Wars Edition: Notes From the O.G.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAIenyr1i5PNfO0IHs-QuPoohozXfBnbc3WzkEPY4kgs5zIHpO7YBhBuLLbU0XcCQ7UYVyN_V4z-udtk6UOeV9PoUTYpErzojXgeG4WXmaHTVysS_7Z_aOeWrib74gNO2mPaXKISFz40YT/s1600/star-wars-August-3-1977.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAIenyr1i5PNfO0IHs-QuPoohozXfBnbc3WzkEPY4kgs5zIHpO7YBhBuLLbU0XcCQ7UYVyN_V4z-udtk6UOeV9PoUTYpErzojXgeG4WXmaHTVysS_7Z_aOeWrib74gNO2mPaXKISFz40YT/s1600/star-wars-August-3-1977.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With Rogue One opening in theaters this week, it's an excuse for my favorite symbolic Star </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Wars-fan story:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In 2005, as the days led up to the big May 18 opening for "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith", the news covered the traditionally symbolic straw-man images of devoted core-cosplay Star Wars fans, with Jedi robes, Stormtrooper armor and plastic lightsabers, camped out six weeks ahead in front of Hollywood's Grauman's Chinese Theater <span style="font-size: x-small;">(to even dare properly call it the current "TCL Chinese" is an insult to movies <u>and</u> theaters)</span> to be first in line for tickets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There was just one problem: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Episode III </span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">WASN'T</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> opening at the Grauman's Chinese. In a break with tradition, it was opening at the newer Hollywood Arclight theater, some distance across town.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2005/apr/08/local/me-starwars8" target="_blank">"At a movie theater not so far, far away", LA Times, 4/8/05</a></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRaD7TrggwOFbdp6KTF6v_GjWh9IaotzQ0z1rIidztw1jrqmI9Z6FeFD4AdkRcUAtkE1k65_18_3xE3D286mLpxhVQo3IWSpMO4phM8c9BmOPrcAKs4pKG9xFG3OA0uiCKHezAEh2XpY3R/s1600/image696446.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRaD7TrggwOFbdp6KTF6v_GjWh9IaotzQ0z1rIidztw1jrqmI9Z6FeFD4AdkRcUAtkE1k65_18_3xE3D286mLpxhVQo3IWSpMO4phM8c9BmOPrcAKs4pKG9xFG3OA0uiCKHezAEh2XpY3R/s200/image696446.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Yes, we know it's not opening yet, and yes, we know it's across town," one representative fan wearily explained. The issue, they claimed, was <u>not</u> so much that the Arclight had more modern cineplex ticketing and different sound from the Grauman's, but that, well, opening at the Grauman's </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">should<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> be <i>traditional!</i> They hoped that their camping out in front of the theater would be a statement that would inspire distributors to change theaters at the last minute.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When it, um, <u>didn't</u>, the fans in costume tried to portray their doomed vigil as a Fans For Charity stunt, getting sponsors to fund their marathon campout to raise funds for Starlight Children's Foundation...It wasn't about tickets, they explained, it was about <i>celebrating the unity</i> of a worldwide fandom! Finally, on the big day of the premiere, the event concluded with legions of fan Stormtroopers rounding up the "Rebel scum" and leading them on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neaQhftCrzI" target="_blank">a big charity parade across town</a> to the Arclight opening. Which was meant to be a big display of fan unity, but to the non-fans, came off as "Well, after all that, maybe you might like to go see it where it's actually<i> playing</i>, doyyy..."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The mainstream public's reaction in 2005 wasn't quite what it was in the glory days of 1977 and '78--Most '05 teen moviegoers looked at the diehard fans putting their spare time</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">aside</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> for the Glorious Cause and stared, "Dude...who </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">stands in line</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> anymore? Why didn't you just buy your tickets online</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">six weeks ahead</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> at Fandango, like everyone else?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was thirty years too late to try and win back their hearts and minds for the days of Stunt Fandom to get the word out.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">---</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have to admit, I love that story. I may spend a lot of time saying what damage the Rise of the Multi and Mega-plex may have done to moviegoing in the 21st century, but I side with the "That's <i>so</i> 90's!" kids.</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Whatever else the plexes have corrupted the audience mentality with--now that <u>every</u> movie opens in <u>every</u> town, and your local shopping-mall 15-screen can serve all your one-stop needs, all day--worrying about getting tickets for a movie is one thing I do not miss anymore.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But y'see, I have a reason for that. I'm a grizzled survivor of that sometimes revered, sometimes mocked, remaining audience of what the Star Wars fans call the "O.G."--<b>Original Generation</b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I DIDN'T grow up watching the Original Trilogy on VHS in my jammies, or first see Jar-Jar Binks on a Phantom Menace DVD. I was thirteen when Star Wars opened at the big-city theater in the summer of '77 (in those days, it wouldn't hit the suburbs until a few weeks later), and I was IN those lines that the New Kids like to decade-mythologize about. Ohh, was I ever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And if I don't sound happy about it--proud, yes, wistful, maybe, but not happy--it's because it <i>wasn't</i> the myth that everyone thinks it is. But it was something you don't see anymore.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Actually, I didn't line up in May, and I didn't go to the Hollywood Grauman's or NYC Ziegfeld, like all the iconic photos show. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQet4vl0bteONhYT6JdXIjXkt-AISOk_yO_7Nt8PNdJTJqlYcH00HC-s82DDHWEQ8zTgfeDEtdZxkuIjek9JIREPhG3tj9EqHD72SuEyKHL34cakfiIOcufavWsUa_PNYkYklgBlVi_bmg/s1600/large-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQet4vl0bteONhYT6JdXIjXkt-AISOk_yO_7Nt8PNdJTJqlYcH00HC-s82DDHWEQ8zTgfeDEtdZxkuIjek9JIREPhG3tj9EqHD72SuEyKHL34cakfiIOcufavWsUa_PNYkYklgBlVi_bmg/s320/large-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">See that, over there? That's the Boston Sack Charles, just down near the Charles River and Longfellow Bridge, just across big Cambridge St. from the old red-brick townhouses that led to the Public Gardens. It was Boston's most cavernously elegant Cinerama theater back before the day, but now a strip-mall/office complex, still with the big wide-widescreen main theater, but split into cineplex mini-screens on the lower floor. All the downtown commercial-chain theaters were owned by the Sack company, later bought out by Loew's, and with 1-3 screens each, which movie would be playing where was a matter of neighborhood real-estate reputation: The movies that got the big audience would probably playing the Charles, or the Cheri next to the convention hotels, the snooty Oscar-bait would always play the Paris, across from the Prudential building, and the not-so-fortunate might be playing underground at the Beacon Hill across from New City Hall, or in a parking garage at the Pi Alley on Washington St. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Suffice to say, the entire Original Trilogy played one by one at the Charles. The location became such a local tradition (especially once the '77 movie played there for a year), it somehow didn't seem right to stand in line there for anything else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our family didn't move to the Boston area till June, after school let out, but Dad had already moved there in May for work, and wanted to take us in on the MBTA train to show us all the Boston-insider sights. That meant a big movie night, and by that point, three or four weeks later, the little movie that Fox wanted to "bury" had become a hot ticket for the feel-good sleeper discovery of the summer, at least until the next 007 movie would come along in August. (According to legend, theater-distributor demand had originally been so low, Fox resorted to illegally "<a href="http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/blockbook_aftermath.htm" target="_blank">block-booking</a>", ie. <i>blackmailing</i>, theaters into booking Star Wars in late May, if they wanted to book the surefire best-seller adaptation of "The Other Side of Midnight" two weeks later.)</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The press articles, quick to jump on stories about Francis Ford Coppola's discovery, the new young breakout American Graffiti director, homaging a sci-fi movie, played up all the "Tribute to old 30's cinema" angles, to make the movie look as if it was some Hollywood-genre labor of love to Flash Gordon...So even regular city-folk who hadn't bought the "secret" posters at sci-fi conventions were standing in line. I'd never seen a three-screen cineplex before, and hoped that we wouldn't hear anything from "Exorcist II: the Heretic" playing downstairs.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1T8A1GdwKx_M8RVGzzL5-MiSIOr-EyThaKFBKcWgcLPT22w5nJhJZtyr9gzWJNXLvW_RVvlcDDC_YFKOosOHSxsn4Hx_ecYpnnyqKmyBrEnWDiMsxc5wX_i2cdi-tsXieW1n2JQ1MP7vf/s1600/star+wars+1977+bee2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1T8A1GdwKx_M8RVGzzL5-MiSIOr-EyThaKFBKcWgcLPT22w5nJhJZtyr9gzWJNXLvW_RVvlcDDC_YFKOosOHSxsn4Hx_ecYpnnyqKmyBrEnWDiMsxc5wX_i2cdi-tsXieW1n2JQ1MP7vf/s200/star+wars+1977+bee2.jpeg" width="123" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And we stood in line for a very important reason--We were trying to get tickets. It was playing on <b>ONE SCREEN</b> out of three, and if you weren't in line early enough, the movie would be Sold Out. In fact, you weren't even realistically trying to get tickets for the next show, you knew that you were standing in line at 3pm trying to get tickets for the 9:45 show. People about ten yards ahead of you would be the last to get 7pm. Nobody was in costume, for one rather logical reason: We didn't know who was <i>in</i> it, or what the heck it was about, apart from the fact that it was "old-fashioned" sci-fi. I had some familiarity with the characters after a readup in a Scholastic children's magazine trying to target some underground hype, while every other upscale movie fan was looking for cineaste comparisons to John Ford westerns or The Wizard of Oz. (Because Luke Skywalker came from a farm just like Dorothy, y'see, so that made C-3PO the Tin Man and Chewie the Cowardly Lion...)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Right up there, in that second-floor glass hallway over the CVS Pharmacy, was the line (which extended all the way down to the bottom of the escalator, or down the chair-ramp to the street out back). With twenty minutes before the next seating, and trying to keep the midnight-show ticket lines from getting too long, the theater let the next-show audience into the lobby to keep down the crowds. All we could see of the earlier show, still going on behind little glass panels in reasonably soundproofed wood and aluminum doors, was the climactic Death Star trench battle--Or rather, just isolated peephole bits and pieces<i> </i>of explosion sparks and cockpit closeups, at least, that's what they looked like. A jam-packed crowded lobby of puzzled, impatient, stand-weary folk heard one Dolby-booming explosion after another coming from the inside theater with the sparks, and with some of the explosions...audiences <i>cheering</i>. Okay, that was just strange. We hadn't heard audiences mass-cheer anything for a long time, especially not during the gritty 70's Golden Age (okay, maybe Rocky Balboa after the fight), but whatever those lucky folks ahead of us had gotten to see, something had gotten them <b>pumped</b>. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PzRveOGMflo/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PzRveOGMflo?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And in the Carter malaise of 1977, anything that could pump you to feel optimistic and happy enough to say that good things had happened to movie characters that deserved them was something that had come in from some magical Elsewhere. This was NEW.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Oh, and as one of the ultimate Elite O.G.'s himself, James Earl Jones, points out, when we O.G. folk first saw Darth Vader give Luke the big news about Anakin Skywalker in 1980's "The Empire Strikes Back"...we knew <u>exactly</u> what we thought, and so did Jones when he first got the script. And oh, how we LOVE to frustrate N.G.'s that the "Big moment" wasn't quite what their fantasized nostalgia likes to dream it was:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ1mmkKb_BQ" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ1mmkKb_BQ</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(As you can see, like most New Generations, the fanboy YouTube argument has since devolved into a nitpicking argument over whether the line was "No..." or "Luke..."--Even though we're clearly justified in remembering "No, <strike>Luke</strike>,..." muffled by '97 re-edits.)</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD-zjIO94dJvAvEYPnNi3TxIMoF-WTRmttPEbNJTMTuCiZUo58-V3Vf69hexwVPaeAs6JEUX9BSkBpK5tBs-i3ZQzszI9op_siA2BJLsfVxhP07b2M3WdvM2uHgiw8lEmGj7WHfx3KWnnL/s1600/Review_SCCantinaTable_still.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="88" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD-zjIO94dJvAvEYPnNi3TxIMoF-WTRmttPEbNJTMTuCiZUo58-V3Vf69hexwVPaeAs6JEUX9BSkBpK5tBs-i3ZQzszI9op_siA2BJLsfVxhP07b2M3WdvM2uHgiw8lEmGj7WHfx3KWnnL/s200/Review_SCCantinaTable_still.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And yes, Han Solo DID Shoot First. That was because Han <b>always</b> shot first, it was his answer to everything. No one appreciates that better than an O.G. who first discovered Harrison Ford in the seventies, when the future granite-face of "The Fugitive" and "Air Force One" still had a working sense of humor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You may notice, in the YouTube clip, that most in the 2005 Sith-fan Parade are, it is safe to hazard a guess,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">under</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> the age of 28, and most with a ticket for Rogue One are under the age of 39</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. Star Wars had always been around as a Thing since literally before they were born, like the rocks and trees, and jumping onto the phenomenon was just something</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">everybody</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">geeky-cool did, sooner or later, like your first sip of Coca-Cola. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYQCl690D-dr6rDjb_Zu8NxFcCIMridagGDz1VrX-itz64suV3PJLr7FC4w3dXskVfBvKVZ2w3M8ph6K-81LWdNMbFqof6skqNMAqXif0C3KP8CvPSimTUQETye_NNlsIbeHRuMWD-eWod/s1600/7035406-3x2-940x627.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYQCl690D-dr6rDjb_Zu8NxFcCIMridagGDz1VrX-itz64suV3PJLr7FC4w3dXskVfBvKVZ2w3M8ph6K-81LWdNMbFqof6skqNMAqXif0C3KP8CvPSimTUQETye_NNlsIbeHRuMWD-eWod/s200/7035406-3x2-940x627.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The current generation's fan-love is an attempt to wish for something they were born too late to do. It's a wish to see their favorite childhood DVD on the bigscreen, and try to capture Something Their Parents Did, just like 50's Grease-themed parties, or Civil War re-enactment societies. If you dress up well enough, maybe, through some wishful miracle of time-travel, you'll have been Born Back Then too, even if you weren't. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Even the attempt to bring "Star Wars: the Force Awakens" back to the "spiritual feel of the original", and bury the goofy George Lucas atrocities of the Prequel Trilogy, is essentially a story of a teen heroine too young to have seen the battles, against a teen villain who hero-worships a Vader-helmet relic, and snotty young new Death Star trainees trying to be Peter Cushing...A reverent New Generation dress-up movie for a reverent New Generation dress-up audience, until gray-haired old Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill show up for real.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Speaking for all us mad old grizzled O.G. hermits in the desert, it's not about Dressing Up. It never was. For Star Wars to be mentioned at all in the media in the fall of '77 (look, network TV's going to do a Holiday Special!) was validation that our little secret, which <i>we</i> called "A new hope", was finally starting to take hold with a grownup moviegoing society who were paying more attention to Vietnam-vet movies and Woody Allen comedies. Hope for saving the Alliance went hand-in-glove with hope for discovering that Movies Were Fun Again, and our going to Star Wars was <u>our</u> trying to celebrate how much fun our grandparents must have had going to the Flash Gordon serial every Saturday.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHTh6QNMJibrRBCEBNJKacxuYc-8ZDPKDBm71ONwtFEzCy0i1V_u90rP6HKolfrG1qFLjsoJu9gcUOnDdgOIaZy9q0uQGr81fk_57MjRXef8M6DAg1sQQ8I5oxsSBPybMcWDdiYehhvYQg/s1600/CharlesRiverPlazaNorth-email.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHTh6QNMJibrRBCEBNJKacxuYc-8ZDPKDBm71ONwtFEzCy0i1V_u90rP6HKolfrG1qFLjsoJu9gcUOnDdgOIaZy9q0uQGr81fk_57MjRXef8M6DAg1sQQ8I5oxsSBPybMcWDdiYehhvYQg/s200/CharlesRiverPlazaNorth-email.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Boston Sack Charles?...Oh, that. It isn't around anymore. The downtown theaters all closed one by one in the 90's, to be replaced by the Loews' Boston Common 20-screen on Tremont St. (and some highway cineplexes in the Cambridge suburbs), and nearby Massachusetts General Hospital added six more floors to the future Richard B. Simches Research Center. When I went to MGH for a specialist appointment a few years ago, nobody I talked to could remember that Charles River Plaza North had ever been anything <u>else</u>. You'll notice the CVS Pharmacy is still there, though.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Me, I can still remember a couple of Boston books I bought at the plaza bookstore nearby (not there anymore either), because to my Old Geezer memory, Star Wars was never a "franchise", a "phenomenon", a "Jedi religion" or a "fan lifestyle". It was a movie night out with my folks in the big city, and even standing in the stupid line turned out to be worth it.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-7259625043177054722016-12-12T14:17:00.001-08:002018-04-14T03:21:55.557-07:00How Chuck Norris Freed Romania<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGOW-_-Xt0qqN2eKjM4Yf_DIGq69DLeqJdEfTAlii2Es04Tm5HCoHKdMIL8ccb-0elttyKRvk1HxHMY-cR9S1cfwvpzA_60ji0jlyjlMLuCo_THQNg4FdAQJIcKMXyRTWEbK5OCqKISBFj/s1600/3443df974ef39476f01809c9a9a2cd4c189c3b31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGOW-_-Xt0qqN2eKjM4Yf_DIGq69DLeqJdEfTAlii2Es04Tm5HCoHKdMIL8ccb-0elttyKRvk1HxHMY-cR9S1cfwvpzA_60ji0jlyjlMLuCo_THQNg4FdAQJIcKMXyRTWEbK5OCqKISBFj/s320/3443df974ef39476f01809c9a9a2cd4c189c3b31.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Coming up to the end of the year, I'm usually making the last-ditch viewings of titles I didn't catch up with on my Netflix queue. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It may be coming late to the party--seeing as it was already shown at film festivals in '15 and on PBS back in January '16--but for anyone else who hasn't yet picked up on it, I had to give a shoutout to Ilina Calugareanu's </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">documentary produced for HBO Romania, <b>Chuck Norris Vs. Communism</b>, now currently available on Netflix US, and where all fine indie documentaries are sold. (Which would be...<i>most</i> of the subscription streaming services.)</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vAxZ08YGzL0/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vAxZ08YGzL0?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like any great populist mainstream-audience documentary, it's one of those stories that, if it didn't happen, it <i>should</i> have, but fortunately, it did:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht6_Lf4zVNlePI3No5k13pISISDJeA7i8aDEmCp5XAOI47fI7HazKbYa13y2ZuXb4mkiKdfupQa3NJ5htXpJCJHw3mz1gdKSvj3mmOfBYkheRkdm1fvTJZ_Fgrgh8R6RnEWBTkjrjqaf3V/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-12-09+at+1.10.44+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht6_Lf4zVNlePI3No5k13pISISDJeA7i8aDEmCp5XAOI47fI7HazKbYa13y2ZuXb4mkiKdfupQa3NJ5htXpJCJHw3mz1gdKSvj3mmOfBYkheRkdm1fvTJZ_Fgrgh8R6RnEWBTkjrjqaf3V/s200/Screen+Shot+2016-12-09+at+1.10.44+AM.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Under Nicolae Ceausescu's tight Communist control up through the 80's, Romania was culturally isolated from the Western world. Two channels of television were cut to two <u>hours</u> of television a night, usually state-sponsored propaganda of ministry speeches. Anything that even hinted at the infiltration of anti-state ideas was tightly cut. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Film or television might be state-censored just for showing an abundance of food, lest it give the masses dangerous ideas to grumble about.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjacmU8l0mNJHgr5CTfn_IyeO9cFDQLb8-XvndyUWFxU8CmDM2nxKM9aumOmNIQhRhDXCRhIRiDGdRZBkGcljJuGriI4ASeFmJuQcPveW_ELWF6-uNkuk9IXq-l2FEAcufFWBQN06G5feI1/s1600/mezzanine_545.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjacmU8l0mNJHgr5CTfn_IyeO9cFDQLb8-XvndyUWFxU8CmDM2nxKM9aumOmNIQhRhDXCRhIRiDGdRZBkGcljJuGriI4ASeFmJuQcPveW_ELWF6-uNkuk9IXq-l2FEAcufFWBQN06G5feI1/s200/mezzanine_545.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Irina Nistor worked as translator for the state media's information department, before she was privately approached by a man she only knew by his last name and title, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Engineer" Zamfir, for a part-time job dubbing over black-market bootleg VHS tapes of smuggled Western films.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sitting like a United Nations interpreter with headphones and microphone in front of a small monitor in a rented room</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, Nistor singlehandedly added UN-style second-after translation dub-overs to Zamfir's </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">bootlegs--And in the process, she not only found herself exposed to new Western influences, but also the unseen free-spirited thrill of enjoying the job in the process.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"I was allowed to say things you weren't allowed to say in this country", Nistor recalls, in her job of translating Ralph Macchio in "The Karate Kid" one day and Sylvester Stallone in "Rambo: First Blood Pt. II" the next. "I could say 'You stinking Communist'!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So many secret fans recognized Nistor's voice coming out of every actor's mouth ("She had the voice of an angel", one surviving fan jokes, as most try to guess what body the Voice must have belonged to), Irina found herself becoming</span><span style="font-family: "\22 trebuchet ms\22 " , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "\22 trebuchet ms\22 " , sans-serif;">literally</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> the Voice of the Underground.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA_wVGKSb8xBZ_hAILpmwKs78gycqJSV3uaVdYYbQL95pes9zi6ZGlGcsOcNyxeGbkLawV3BgduKt-zClhAlW8Ebuir1XvOBo5rJmTWakSF2vgT-OTEF-E6-VkxJ5vZP9JkNIw9TuGoqSR/s1600/chuck-norris-vs-communism-sig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA_wVGKSb8xBZ_hAILpmwKs78gycqJSV3uaVdYYbQL95pes9zi6ZGlGcsOcNyxeGbkLawV3BgduKt-zClhAlW8Ebuir1XvOBo5rJmTWakSF2vgT-OTEF-E6-VkxJ5vZP9JkNIw9TuGoqSR/s200/chuck-norris-vs-communism-sig.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In a country where a foreign-bought VCR could cost as much as a Dacia automobile, fifteen or twenty people could gather in a neighbor's darkened living-room apartment with the curtains closed for a cash-under-the-table "Video night", to watch just whatever forbidden Western VHS tape the local black-marketer had smuggled past the border in his car trunk.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As with any cheap forbidden-thrill, sex and action were the big sellers at first: Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Stallone--A machine gun volley or kickbox-chop always transcended language barriers. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One woman remembers her first experience with Western films hiding her eyes to "Last Tango in Paris" ("I realized how far behind the West we were", one recalls.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But as Zamfir expanded his operations to a thriving black-market factory of more smuggled goodies, audiences were exposed to more and more eye-opening images of life outside cultural repression. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Eddie Murphy driving through Beverly Hills was not as much of a culture shock to a disgruntled generation of Romanians as seeing the movie scene of a character walk into a grocery or convenience store with <i>full</i> shelves of food.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Although watching forbidden movies didn't mean deportation, watching unapproved movies might still attract attention by the Secret Police. Kids grew up only vaguely knowing why they weren't supposed to talk about their parents and parents' friends watching a static-riddled Nth-generation copy of Top Gun (some barely visible, copied by bootleggers who had never heard of Macrovision), or why to hide in the bedroom if there was an unexpected knock at the door.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Wr24Aa7Bah4FTL0HTnEzkpD2lSdPlmtGmEJoKu4CixD3SWrPJ8EbBYb-9a1hRbvtJjVpbD-3fQbAT9cbXsCLUTs-myJy2Sl68X0FutsNzG4BRrYm2PtLM6H1WrMWq-pAss_87w_br8fk/s1600/capture2iec1.8863.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Wr24Aa7Bah4FTL0HTnEzkpD2lSdPlmtGmEJoKu4CixD3SWrPJ8EbBYb-9a1hRbvtJjVpbD-3fQbAT9cbXsCLUTs-myJy2Sl68X0FutsNzG4BRrYm2PtLM6H1WrMWq-pAss_87w_br8fk/s200/capture2iec1.8863.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But a generation becoming hooked on the rush of illegal goods </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">came to realize they weren't just watching the cheap thrill of seeing an action hero: Watching Norris singlehandedly defeating his POW torturers in the "Missing in Action" series, or driving his Dodge Ramcharger out of the grave in "Lone Wolf McQuade", they were seeing lone heroes fight back against authority and win, and the triumph of the </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">individual</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, not the state, over all impossible odds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Golan & Globus's Cannon Pictures had now become Radio Free Europe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By mixing dramatic re-enactment with the recollections, Calugareanu also manages to stage her documentary as an espionage thriller as well:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As Nistor's duties expand with Zamfir's growing business, she's aware the Secret Police may be on to her, but wonders why they haven't moved in yet. Although she barely knows anything about her employer, agents seem to be treating him with kid gloves, and with her day-job bureau position, begins to suspect that she's been set up for high-level entrapment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And yet, the movies win out even with that secret revealed. Zamfir was a black-marketeer and a man of mystery, but behind all of that, he was an 80's video nut <i>first</i>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's a feel-good documentary that takes a Romanian pop-culture nostalgia approach to the events--glossing over the other political upheavals that ultimately took down Communist Romania, and the harsh transitions in the changeover--as a romanticized myth that it really </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">must</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> have been Chuck who inspired the people to revolution. As current Internet memes have it, what <b>can't</b> Chuck do?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And for US movie fans, it has any number of reasons to appeal: </span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On a culturally jingoistic level, it's another fun story of gloating over the end of the Cold War, and how the Berlin Wall couldn't stand up to our decadent capitalist revolutions of blue jeans, the Beatles and Coca-Cola.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For the movie-sentimental, it's another sigh in favor of the Power of Movies, as we see apartment living rooms of rapt audiences glued to an adventure on a small VCR-fueled TV set, and children playing out Chuck's victories in the street.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On a Big-80's Movies level, it's a nostalgia blast of how mainstream movies in the 80's <u>could</u> get fifteen or twenty people in a living room, of the thrill of taking the magic black hard-plastic tape out of its cardboard and popping it in the machine for Movie Night, and the cheesy glories of 80's action stars. (Although for the glories of 80's Golan/Globus films, Mark Hartley's 2014 documentary <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-igpjqRDgDI" target="_blank">Electric Boogaloo: the Wild Untold Story of Cannon Pictures</a>, is recommended as further syllabus on the subject, and also currently available on Netflix.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But with my own particular cause, I found the movie resonated an important lesson in o</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ur own repressed war at home as well:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's a victory for democracy that</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> could have happened</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>ONLY</b></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> with physical media. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmNKhSQYZ2JD90tx38-w3olYiXEXETwUcNc7QRF_Rq5AzjKAUYOvYugCse6FRGE93OIf_GJiFGHrHY3Z9to8D7oGSbDCaYSEYo-PyOOoRMIOLhdgtEnsVPzecRrZYbaycksfgbXiQ4k9qN/s1600/o-BANNED-BOOKS-facebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmNKhSQYZ2JD90tx38-w3olYiXEXETwUcNc7QRF_Rq5AzjKAUYOvYugCse6FRGE93OIf_GJiFGHrHY3Z9to8D7oGSbDCaYSEYo-PyOOoRMIOLhdgtEnsVPzecRrZYbaycksfgbXiQ4k9qN/s200/o-BANNED-BOOKS-facebook.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the 60's, we'd be talking about forbidden books breaking down the Wall, a secret paperback copy of Jack Kerouac or George Orwell smuggled past the border guards in the book bag of an exchange student, and changing from hand to hand between intellectually curious university kids at a cafe'. Ideas were in books, and books existed as <i>things</i>, conveniently packed objects that could be passed from one hand to another like a cigarette or cup of espresso, with the secret lure of "Here, try this, it'll open your mind, and it's, like, cool, too." Preferably if there was no one watching who had already declared said package was against the interests of the Powers That Be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the 80's, once the technology caught on, we discovered that movies were books, <i>things</i> to put on your shelf to be preserved for posterity. Or better yet, to be kept in a rental library for others, the more off-center the better, and loaned out to your friends and neighbors by hand, with the same personal-delivered message of "Watch this." More just because it was Cool, Too than politically enlightening...But the point was to make it contagious, and watch the pandemic spread. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvq7gJllSqM9DvFDC0rv_sWj0jtPk77sbeqidRsWgt9UyMnOn2zTW1UIzQDCK_u3TVFW1cE2k5N93Bu3mXJq_EdXuJ3fbC5RV_4HV1w-_PC2iHv5lJfqactn5FwOByiXvhDjd0b-6WOMJ/s1600/%2524%2528KGrHqN%252C%2521o0E9cz%2529Z3E7BPehDoYfm%2521%257E%257E60_35.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvq7gJllSqM9DvFDC0rv_sWj0jtPk77sbeqidRsWgt9UyMnOn2zTW1UIzQDCK_u3TVFW1cE2k5N93Bu3mXJq_EdXuJ3fbC5RV_4HV1w-_PC2iHv5lJfqactn5FwOByiXvhDjd0b-6WOMJ/s200/%2524%2528KGrHqN%252C%2521o0E9cz%2529Z3E7BPehDoYfm%2521%257E%257E60_35.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The state could tell us "Don't read these books" or "Don't watch these movies", but nothing could stop the books or movies once we had them in our hand, because having them in our hands meant we owned the ideas. And they were ours to throw about as we wanted, unless you could come and take it out of ours in person.</span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />Studios at the moment don't have quite the same respect for treating a movie as a package that can sit on shelves or travel from hand to hand, or across patrolled borders in unmarked cardboard sleeves, next to a buried bottle of liquor or pair of blue jeans. They wish to get it into our heads that, you see, we don't really <u>like</u> movies being physical objects, because they're so bulky and clunky, and that we wish for some great authority to handle them for us, and make it easier to watch the movies on <i>their</i> convenient terms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Movies would be so much better, they tell us, if they were just <i>somewhere</i> in a corporate central location where important people could take care of them for you, and you wouldn't have to bother with tapes to snarl or disks to clutter up your shelf--That way they'd be YOURS, you see!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But it's <b>because</b> movies could travel, even to places where they couldn't, that they could infiltrate viewers who didn't even know yet that they loved the movies. Movies that don't travel, and stay on the Internet in some soft, magic digitally-traveling ether of 1's and 0's, are at the mercy of the state's control of the Internet, what is allowed to travel on it, and just which of the masses are allowed to patronize advantage of it for their own good. Physical media tends to frustrate that, since the problem of stopping that is in stopping the people who carry them...And that's always been a bit more complicated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ceausescu's regime could have stopped a theatrical film from being shown in public theaters, it could have stopped television, and it could have stopped the Internet before it even got to the border. But Communism couldn't stop a VHS tape.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-41632214854851921982016-11-28T09:47:00.000-08:002018-04-14T16:39:42.004-07:00Four Disney Movies to See After "Moana" (and why you probably never saw them in the theater)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVgb7MVn6RQ-Kgw6d2pNRw_bsgv2vc3Cpvr5X4E5QNgeOwSWtnPZpDkrvXB8hbKRuPBIjGBQPeZiAUgFfnBRIYF8ODchpjZiQlRUqsDFsBoPNPDlOV1vWSUUajWvLwbHDnajzh3aZEwB59/s1600/moana-firstlook-moana-maui.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVgb7MVn6RQ-Kgw6d2pNRw_bsgv2vc3Cpvr5X4E5QNgeOwSWtnPZpDkrvXB8hbKRuPBIjGBQPeZiAUgFfnBRIYF8ODchpjZiQlRUqsDFsBoPNPDlOV1vWSUUajWvLwbHDnajzh3aZEwB59/s1600/moana-firstlook-moana-maui.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have to make a confession here, and hope I can humbly beg your pardon: I still haven't seen Moana in a theater yet. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Don't worry, I have an airtight alibi: I have a Disney Cruise coming up in February, and hoped that I was just in time to plan ahead and hold off seeing the newest Disney animated in time for the experience of seeing it three months later in the onboard theater. Whether I should hold off on "Rogue One: a Star Wars Story" as well, in December?--Ohh, temptation.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-rT-1uPuXpfcin_EgNEuBeXFIdbVTfec7oPO6NZliS5VM_KWn90F1HubUtIcq1iVcX6TIZCl-WQK8GTd1tekz9jIOYLRGISun4PbR4rpsjGa1jWZao3icn2Ka0iAHVyVH0hrukJpmDmh/s1600/l-r-director-john-musker-and-director-ron-musker-photo-by1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-rT-1uPuXpfcin_EgNEuBeXFIdbVTfec7oPO6NZliS5VM_KWn90F1HubUtIcq1iVcX6TIZCl-WQK8GTd1tekz9jIOYLRGISun4PbR4rpsjGa1jWZao3icn2Ka0iAHVyVH0hrukJpmDmh/s200/l-r-director-john-musker-and-director-ron-musker-photo-by1.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So even if I can't yet discuss the movie in detail as other lucky folks might, I do know one indisputable fact from experience: It is almost <b>IMPOSSIBLE</b> for directors John Musker & Ron Clements to make a bad Disney animated movie. They're considered the "architects" of the Great 90's Disney Renaissance--those holy words that conjure up our great childhood decade of When Disney Animateds Were Good--just for their work straight out of the gate on "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Ron & John" seem to possess an instinctive genius for understanding the "neato story" aspect of a great Disney movie that sticks in the memory, and push the right buttons like concert pianists. A lot of Disney fans sing praises that the Great Classics of 90's Disney were Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise's "Beauty & the Beast" and Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff's "The Lion King", </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">but I offer an alternate theory: The zeitgeist manias for Beauty & Lion both occurred one delayed-reaction year after the surprise of grownups discovering that it was "okay" to like Mermaid and Aladdin, respectively, something you just didn't go around admitting at the time. </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_9GviQhVUHSlqXn8yZqvnPAy7Wvnigny6GrCoCNuKThVuCkxJwtsJQkZpUi2G-4uvOjmeGIMKd3izsH-oZifbZ6tQg-Yk_Sfvec-1sDjeHqIUnVLkYpIUaDHwSU5X4RQ3AH6nxV7cP6Qh/s1600/aladdin-disneyscreencaps.com-1114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_9GviQhVUHSlqXn8yZqvnPAy7Wvnigny6GrCoCNuKThVuCkxJwtsJQkZpUi2G-4uvOjmeGIMKd3izsH-oZifbZ6tQg-Yk_Sfvec-1sDjeHqIUnVLkYpIUaDHwSU5X4RQ3AH6nxV7cP6Qh/s200/aladdin-disneyscreencaps.com-1114.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After the entire 80's, when Disney was considered at death's door, and "animation" was considered only fit for corporate kiddie marketing of the Chipmunks and Care Bears, no grownup literally wanted to be SEEN going to a Disney movie by themselves, and some worried they might even be accused as some kind of weird pedophile. Go back and look at the 1992 press reviews for "Aladdin", and see critics virtually </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">reassure</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> grownup audiences that no one would think </span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">badly</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> of you, so long as you were going to laugh at Robin Williams' jokes. The movement to give Beauty & the Beast a Best Picture Oscar nomination (born of early buzz-desperation and a big-event screening at the NYC Film Festival) was not so much a search for awards, as a search for public validation that it was okay to have liked Ariel & Sebastian a year before.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(I'm in the minority of just <u>not</u> finding Beauty and Lion particularly very good movies, and just a tad short on charm.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If this November's "Moana" is getting good reviews for its strong story and characters, well, it's all in a year's work for these two.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you don't believe me--and need a few disk rental suggestions to keep from going back to see the movie again--look back at four of the directors' earlier titles that, for one unfair reason or another, DIDN'T quite become as iconic Disney staples:</span><br />
<h3>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Great Mouse Detective (1986)</span></li>
</ul>
</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtb_ZoPL7vsQ6i0cB1b0MFUpLxzGCsQPtjS6RPWedstgAzA8-vMHAc4z_uE5dsXBnREHKZjvKsN4ufoiJJeWs7L4DUae1xwA5EtRcK73RPtYWFiiYZkvHufWRilUhe-8rGEbTFNH_SSHKV/s1600/basil_cover_6034.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtb_ZoPL7vsQ6i0cB1b0MFUpLxzGCsQPtjS6RPWedstgAzA8-vMHAc4z_uE5dsXBnREHKZjvKsN4ufoiJJeWs7L4DUae1xwA5EtRcK73RPtYWFiiYZkvHufWRilUhe-8rGEbTFNH_SSHKV/s200/basil_cover_6034.jpg" width="126" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If everyone expected Ron Miller's post-Walt studio to finally roll over and die of Terminal Outdatedness, it would have been in 1985. "The Black Cauldron", produced during the studio's big shakeup between Old and New, was supposed to be the new bold revolution for the studio, but was a creaking, unholy mess that became the studio's biggest crushing money-loser--To add 80's insult to injury, the corporate-marketing "Care Bears Movie" had made more box office than Disney had that year. The studio was embarking on a new strategy of putting out one new movie a year, instead of every five or seven, and the next year bounced back with a hyperactive, unexpected surprise.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0rF2vM_RxoOoS-yxt9tDrGN8EhlG5U-rcNQoSg5_1S81xzOVbVGBMzc60OZCT0Y-BCtsY5xR-n32gYZUo3wkLjgD4e38PYGGM_TaPWNtUVYb_dihYhBoh1seotO8Xk12zeiwgPFrwZDw/s1600/latest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0rF2vM_RxoOoS-yxt9tDrGN8EhlG5U-rcNQoSg5_1S81xzOVbVGBMzc60OZCT0Y-BCtsY5xR-n32gYZUo3wkLjgD4e38PYGGM_TaPWNtUVYb_dihYhBoh1seotO8Xk12zeiwgPFrwZDw/s200/latest.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Musker & Clements were the new young co-directors brought in to help flesh out old-Disney directors Burny Mattinson and Dave Michener, and you could see a catalyst change right away: To the untrained eye, it LOOKED like a late-70's/early 80's Old Disney movie, fresh off of "The Rescuers" and "Fox & the Hound", with cute animal critters and a basic confusion about where to put songs in because, well, they "had" to...But there was a new fast-moving energy and humor to the story, chases were more exciting, gags were funnier, and the plot even now seemed to have some actual story structure.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Most of the humor came from the titular hero, Basil of Baker Street--the mouse who lives in Sherlock Holmes' apartment--as a manic lunatic of Holmes-like inspirations and impulses, as he chases rodent-London's worst villain (voiced by Vincent Price, clearly having just as much fun as Barrie Ingham's hero).</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xA5-L6mbABY/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xA5-L6mbABY?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>Why you probably didn't see it:</b></i> Well, few did. It took a <u>lot</u> of word of mouth to persuade parents back to a theater after Cauldron. But the diehard hopeful enough to go back got the surprise message: Prepare,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ye</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> unsuspecting 80's folks, 90's Disney is coming. (Only it's not coming just <i>yet</i>, there's still '88's old-school "Oliver & Company" to slog through first, before the good stuff.)</span><br />
<br />
<h3>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hercules (1997)</span></li>
</ul>
</h3>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcd5xvWPQcINBIrBwekm7Agjb-lAGtfNfQSJVJt1lCXTARlEENaJvpEscOHb0ahGWDejd8OdROZ77wt0Wiqf0NB8ndNBTwCJOQS6M9PMDhb-0g6PtvPXrFThCvYNL77YQefq_Obx5B4dWy/s1600/Hercules_%25281997_film%2529_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcd5xvWPQcINBIrBwekm7Agjb-lAGtfNfQSJVJt1lCXTARlEENaJvpEscOHb0ahGWDejd8OdROZ77wt0Wiqf0NB8ndNBTwCJOQS6M9PMDhb-0g6PtvPXrFThCvYNL77YQefq_Obx5B4dWy/s200/Hercules_%25281997_film%2529_poster.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In 1994, "The Lion King" had become so (inexplicably) unstoppable, everyone assumed the blessed 90's Disney Renaissance would last forever. That's why most audiences had such problem coming to grips with nagging, forbidden, heretical thoughts that 1995's "Pocahontas" and 1996's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" just might <b>not</b> have been<b> </b>very good movies, if not, in fact, insufferably melodramatic, manipulative and corny. Hunchback, in particular, had laid so heavily and over-earnestly on the now creaking conventions of the Disney Villain and the Broadway-Style Musical Number, it was clear that the camel was becoming dangerously overladen and someone might be along the next year with a piece of straw.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7u-BPtxdgwkrKDH4Cjbayxnajv8HIuRTyabsQEXg-vWXx9jGvv3lh4p3pftbOJZTpsavFA-5zomoAfNElDrX_B2UPP5sthPiMAFoePX5ZnReLZ1eqQ7QPAREs1dsPJbR5sxn7P4R32vrP/s1600/19e4c9a73e4247073b87d21c1d55fa52.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7u-BPtxdgwkrKDH4Cjbayxnajv8HIuRTyabsQEXg-vWXx9jGvv3lh4p3pftbOJZTpsavFA-5zomoAfNElDrX_B2UPP5sthPiMAFoePX5ZnReLZ1eqQ7QPAREs1dsPJbR5sxn7P4R32vrP/s1600/19e4c9a73e4247073b87d21c1d55fa52.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A fast-moving, "Aladdin-style" pop-culture-reffing Looney Tunes spin on Greek mythology <i>should</i> have been the antidote, but at the time, backfired with grumbling audiences spectacularly. All the blame for Everything You Happened to Hate About 90's Disney (or ABC, the Parks, you name it) was put on the head of CEO Michael Eisner; '97 audiences found the "contemporary" gags forced, sitcom and desperate, and the implied message that Disney was making, quote, "boring" Greek mythology more palatable by gagging it up seemed like it had Eisner's tasteless corporate style written all over it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ron & John reportedly weren't happy with the intended Helzapoppin-burlesque style--every time they tried to pitch their dream </span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">project, then-studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg would stick them on the house project to keep them busy--but...they made lemonade with their lemons: Even if not every gag lands, there's still as much energy in a musical number like "</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOL-EJZjmp0" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;" target="_blank">Zero to Hero</a><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">" (with the narrating Muses depicted as a gospel-Motown group, straight out of songwriter Alan Menken's days on "Little Shop of Horrors") as there was in any of Aladdin's high-energy numbers, and the result still looks like the work of someone who knows what a good 90's Disney movie </span><u style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">should</u><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;"> look like, even when it might not be. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Why you probably didn't see it:</i> </b> Suffice to say, whatever 90's audiences were picturing "Disney Greek mythology" to look like at the time (probably picturing the Pastorale scene from Fantasia), it sure wasn't <b>this</b>. The idea of getting British cartoonist Gerald Scarfe to design the wild angular style confused audiences, James Woods' movie-stealing Disney-villain turn playing Zeus's scheming brother Hades as a motormouthed Hollywood agent came off more overbearing than funny, and everything that should have gone over in the room at the time didn't. Despite its rescued reputation on video--and a Disney Afternoon TV-cartoon spinoff--it passed Black Cauldron's record as biggest studio money-loser in theaters, and nearly brought the 90's Renaissance to a crashing halt, if '98's "Mulan" hadn't shown up the next year.</span><br />
<h3>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Treasure Planet (2002)</span></li>
</ul>
</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM23nOVhBxLGxz9iSrJtAdLrAIEiBkW-frxsD17aFDvIhGaetD8Nto1BcWV3rXCMVRyinKa8U_2UWzHVqd82N9vnNn1kqVgPaNtkvEksGHvDCazF3LpoKRJhubkXHfHhEXJUJdB4mlol5P/s1600/Treasure_Planet_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM23nOVhBxLGxz9iSrJtAdLrAIEiBkW-frxsD17aFDvIhGaetD8Nto1BcWV3rXCMVRyinKa8U_2UWzHVqd82N9vnNn1kqVgPaNtkvEksGHvDCazF3LpoKRJhubkXHfHhEXJUJdB4mlol5P/s200/Treasure_Planet_poster.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Traditional 2-D animation had a problem from '00-'03--Everyone was trying to kill it, so that they could figure out the reasons why it was "dying". Audiences' grumbles with Michael Eisner had become a full-on mutiny, after Roy Disney had started the "Save Disney" movement at the studio to kick the CEO out. Jeffrey Katzenberg at Dreamworks Animation noticed that women were the biggest fans of the princess-bashing anti-Disney gags in '01's "Shrek", and knew how to play the grudges against his old boss to stir up the rabble. '98's "The Rugrats Movie" for Paramount had started a "Cable Bubble", for every corporate studio to leap on hoping that there was a feature-film for cult cable toons like Hey Arnold or the Powerpuff Girls, and tried to explain why it was popping.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Worst of all, among all the industry's voodoo-analyses, was trying to figure out why three high-profile sci-fi-action animateds in '00 and '01--Don Bluth's confused "Titan AE", the technically ambitious but clueless "Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within", and Disney's own unlikable and bewildering "Atlantis: the Lost Empire"--had all tanked at the box office. Well, there ya <i>go</i>, analysts rolled their chicken bones and divined, it clearly shows that audiences hated space action!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip4_y9zA7fVHKxQksJPbOum_sK_4QeOaXkTMkBq7_s_eCwbtaBJdxx5Rx_2YcP0YYvJzKqcM8LlHGFkU7xFijKB0oju6mk4wRGVcUQ3bRuUeD_DyD_XhbxPzuZsx4hsHGDftwvGYJum6Le/s1600/treasureplanet2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip4_y9zA7fVHKxQksJPbOum_sK_4QeOaXkTMkBq7_s_eCwbtaBJdxx5Rx_2YcP0YYvJzKqcM8LlHGFkU7xFijKB0oju6mk4wRGVcUQ3bRuUeD_DyD_XhbxPzuZsx4hsHGDftwvGYJum6Le/s200/treasureplanet2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Disney actually had fairly high hopes for theirs: One of the last projects from the legendary "Jam session", where animators first pitched story ideas for Aladdin and Mermaid, was an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island", updated to a sci-fi galaxy of alien pirates, Royal Navy space-sailships and 19th-cty. interplanetary seaports.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As crazy as the idea sounds, it's still a wildly visual and spirit-faithful adaptation of the original book: While other directors at Disney worked on "girl power!" princesses, Musker & Clements' strength was creating memorable male heroes for the boys, and the book's Jim Hawkins is updated into a moody, thrill-seeking teen who finds his missing "father figure" in the sympathetic but menacing cyborg Silver, both played in perfect book style without an ounce of irony. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-entkP1DWlQ/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-entkP1DWlQ?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(Updating mad castaway Ben Gunn to circuit-scrambled comedy-relief robot B.E.N., voiced by Martin Short, was a bit less successful, but by that point in the story, you just go with the book's spirit.) Even the famous "Pieces of eight" parrot is updated into a cute alien shapeshifting blob who has clearly studied with Aladdin's monkey Abu, in how to steal comedy-relief scenes with pantomime.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyo3icoXebbkAnj893c2SfskpktVga9Nv3R7fVAZw-uBfNbNqj2AfZTkH8dpqzt2hkSVLPbGNtMlc90opbAOSHMVgr79LZ1UZX8zLbz_4E-1UVsYngm29byMMiTHgUA3sPXMIMy0gIoiYj/s1600/Lilo_and_Stitch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyo3icoXebbkAnj893c2SfskpktVga9Nv3R7fVAZw-uBfNbNqj2AfZTkH8dpqzt2hkSVLPbGNtMlc90opbAOSHMVgr79LZ1UZX8zLbz_4E-1UVsYngm29byMMiTHgUA3sPXMIMy0gIoiYj/s200/Lilo_and_Stitch.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>Why you probably didn't see it:</b></i> <i>Hoo</i>-boy...Was there a marketing problem this movie WASN'T saddled with when it came out in theaters? The main reason you probably didn't see it was Lilo & Stitch--The SaveDisney movement needed a "messiah", and Disney didn't quite expect a crazy little Hawaiian girl and slobbery alien vandal to catch on quite as well as they had. The studio didn't know how to market their tropical summer surfing picture, and expected it would be long gone from theaters in time for the Big November Epic...But when word of mouth was still going strong after the summer, most fans were barely aware Disney even <u>had</u> one more movie opening that year. Eisner quickly bought the "Audiences hate action!" theory, tried to beef up the humor, and recut Treasure's action trailers and ads as a wacky comedy of pratfalls and farty-noises.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The other problem was that maybe it wasn't a good idea for the studio to release the movie within two weeks of both a 007 movie and the second Harry Potter. Throw in the fact that "The Santa Clause 2" was doing a little stronger than expected, and Planet now had three crushing contenders for its opening weekend. It crushed, opened fourth, and Eisner was mortified that a 90's Disney movie, gasp, <i>didn't</i> open at #1. To save face, he pulled it out of wide release in time for the stockholders' meeting, thus depriving it of that sweet Christmas-vacation business most studio family films now count on. Disgruntled fans, waving Lilo & Stitch on their banner, and hoping that director Chris Sanders would be put in as new CEO to make "more weird movies!", shouted that Planet "deserved what it got"...Nasty old <i>normal</i> Disney movie! STAY down!</span><br />
<br />
<h3>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Princess & the Frog (2009)</b></span></li>
</ul>
</h3>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Okay, <i>this</i> one you probably remember. But I'm still betting you didn't see it.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijg908e3IOAoNyYKnZCkMKbz6LyMSt8LacSnlh4aXP9UsQg6TF8iz-Ea78TBhRYArMhwHsfAGi8ru7rkFG5CMUZ_azA_urx8EvaoG4ek3nL5Oare5RQNw7QF74Bcs0svdmAyZY4gCaBmym/s1600/The_Princess_and_the_Frog_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijg908e3IOAoNyYKnZCkMKbz6LyMSt8LacSnlh4aXP9UsQg6TF8iz-Ea78TBhRYArMhwHsfAGi8ru7rkFG5CMUZ_azA_urx8EvaoG4ek3nL5Oare5RQNw7QF74Bcs0svdmAyZY4gCaBmym/s200/The_Princess_and_the_Frog_poster.jpg" width="127" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If Eisner hadn't been kicked out in time--after a lot of studio in-fighting, staff firings and a disastrous fight-picking with Pixar--there wouldn't likely have BEEN a Disney for Bob Iger and John Lasseter to rescue at the end of the 00's. Eisner had been so publicly cowed by audiences jumping on Katzenberg's anti-princess bandwagon in '03's "Shrek 2", he felt he had to <u>personally</u> offer the studio's head as apology for all those terrible princesses chauvinistically marrying princes, and corrupting our daughters' dreams. 2007's "Enchanted" was originally going to be a lot less <i>gentle</i> of a spoof on Disney princesses, and a much angrier, or at least more passively-hostile one, and the "Rapunzel" story in the works was going to be rewritten for two transported teens who hate fairytales, but then a miracle happened: The Stinky Guy was at last ousted, more Disney-friendly heads were put in charge of the studio and animation division, and all of a sudden, it was <i>okay</i> to like princesses, fairytales, and happy musical numbers again. Oops.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Musker & Clements had been one of the "director firings" after they couldn't adjust their latest project to the all-CGI that Eisner declared all new studio projects would be, but one of Lasseter's first announcments at the studio was that the Mermaid directors would be invited back to do one more old-school traditional 2-D animated princess musical...Nyeahh. Fans were excited--We were about to see seven troubled studio years finally buried on hallowed ground.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7oQw74Ns9t_lwQG2JHMAANiorF_0UeJDtcabLBYVCMoV9R1L4c4LgAIC6g4qbWiym8Jt8zokA0bwgN8Y5Q4kCyMa_vwJijuuMM3MPJn1me2OkItZqSt0U0UHmo2x3nkxMohg8_V90hzsv/s1600/1268751412_princess-frog-290.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7oQw74Ns9t_lwQG2JHMAANiorF_0UeJDtcabLBYVCMoV9R1L4c4LgAIC6g4qbWiym8Jt8zokA0bwgN8Y5Q4kCyMa_vwJijuuMM3MPJn1me2OkItZqSt0U0UHmo2x3nkxMohg8_V90hzsv/s200/1268751412_princess-frog-290.jpg" width="153" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, I said it was "<i>almost</i> impossible" for M&C to make a bad movie. Have to admit, this is the "almost": There are good ideas here, two of them, in fact, and they seem to pass by on separate trains and never meet. One was the idea to adapt E.D. Baker's fairytale spoof "The Frog Princess", where the princess's kiss on the enchanted frog backfires, and the two hop through the swamp to find the cure. But Baker's book was set in a generic fairytale castle, and the studio's idea was to update it to 1920's New Orleans, with jazz, gumbo, and a heroine who dreams of opening her own restaurant. See, that's the idea, she wants to be a successful career woman and NOT marry a prince, since the prince is a comically irresponsible ladies-charmer from a bankrupt country, while the heroine's buffoonish spoiled-Southern-belle best friend throws herself at any prince she can find...Have we got the message yet? Have we reminded you yet in this scene that our heroine wants to open her own business all by herself? Have we got our crash helmet on, to protect us from falling bricks, or do we need to get out the Crayola crayons? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Even though the "story" is a bit of an improvised shambles, with a rush of storyboards and supporting characters that don't go anywhere, Musker & Clements clearly went into this project in love with the setting, and if you have a choice of watching the Not-A-Princess Movie and the New Orleans Movie fight it out, the New Orleans movie is more rich and visual fun to root for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>Why you probably didn't see it:</b></i> You mean, BESIDES the fact they put it in theaters a week before "Avatar"? (Nobody has yet been able to explain <u>why</u> movies that open in the second week in December suffer calamitous fates, but I'll wait a few weeks to see who's this year's victim, before explaining it. Don't worry, there's a reason.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The same voodoo-analysts (no relation to this movie's voodoo-doctor villain) came up with every imaginable crackpot theory--Racist audiences weren't ready for a black heroine? Nobody liked musicals after all? Boys didn't want to see a princess movie? Nice tries, but the popular favorite was the traditional old "<i>Told</i> ya 2-D animation was dead!" from way back in 2003--Just hard to let go of a classic, especially for those hoping that Disney was ready to "stumble" under new management. 2010's "Tangled" quickly dispatched those ideas for good the next year. (Although the fact that Tangled had been all-CGI still took the credit.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, I know what some are saying right now: "What? How <i>dare</i> you say Hercules wasn't a hit!" "Princess & the Frog? My daughter loves Tiana at Disneyland!"</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-U9HZBSdyh_pHWede4EKOq_dPbd6OWE3EFttbKt5ug4pyoK1r7BZcfxHjn6WQo-PdPnk0i1TfLUWWNrqNqzJIRJKQKB0gpsySVJ5moa-ghgQwL-M3RZaba70Nv5yRIr1s1YfUoFqB2I2Y/s1600/tumblr_n3bmo3BXVk1sfuzkjo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-U9HZBSdyh_pHWede4EKOq_dPbd6OWE3EFttbKt5ug4pyoK1r7BZcfxHjn6WQo-PdPnk0i1TfLUWWNrqNqzJIRJKQKB0gpsySVJ5moa-ghgQwL-M3RZaba70Nv5yRIr1s1YfUoFqB2I2Y/s200/tumblr_n3bmo3BXVk1sfuzkjo1_1280.jpg" width="197" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, see, that's the thing: Audiences change. Trends die out. Cooler heads prevail. We all find something <i>else</i> to be angry about, and forget why we were all so mad at the last thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Disney head Bob Iger deliberately thumbed his nose at all the "Told ya!" industry dogpiling on Princess & the Frog's box-office by immediately declaring that the heroine, Tiana, would now OFFICIALLY be a part of all licensed Disney princess marketing from now on, so there, haters, neener. As a result, it worked--Like the movie or hate it, it's now probably the second-most visible 00's-10's movie to be seen at the Disney Parks behind "Frozen", and certainly one that sticks in the memory of new young fans. Some, raised on a generation of DVD and Blu-ray, already aren't even aware that anyone had <u>ever</u> said bad things about Hercules or Treasure Planet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That's what home theater is for, after all, for a movie to Outlive History, and give someone else a chance to see it. Not to mention, making it a lot easier if you </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">did</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> happen to miss it.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-14991560763217363472016-11-24T14:31:00.002-08:002018-04-14T15:35:10.018-07:00A Thanksgiving Memory: When Friday Wasn't Black<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpkylVm8x2us5PIjxd_Jf9kjSMcR5_PeGfmNe2QrUcM311JyN73wB7p2HQjYxrk7879qzXPNmVKm-D8OYbTEtJMOVrvVu-KYdeJp41G01G4DHXUAKN6siEo7DhdOnTUwYtP1Mk_A47unX_/s1600/5dd7224c-320e-4c91-9774-0e7c017d44ac_zps3fd656d8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpkylVm8x2us5PIjxd_Jf9kjSMcR5_PeGfmNe2QrUcM311JyN73wB7p2HQjYxrk7879qzXPNmVKm-D8OYbTEtJMOVrvVu-KYdeJp41G01G4DHXUAKN6siEo7DhdOnTUwYtP1Mk_A47unX_/s320/5dd7224c-320e-4c91-9774-0e7c017d44ac_zps3fd656d8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Thanksgiving holiday brings back so many memories every year, I can still feel a "Thanksgiving morning" when I get up first thing on Thursday Even if I'd spent the entire Mon-Wed. forgetting to look at the calendar, even when it's only me in the apartment expected to do my own sage-and-thyme cooking, and not stressfully throwing myself out of the kitchen and telling me to stay out until the turkey's in the oven, unless I wanted to help peel potatoes. I still feel the gray nip of probably-going-to-snow in the air--gray skies were the Color of Thanksgiving, to go with all the harvest-browns--and want to rush to the TV to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade plug all the NYC family Broadway shows on the street before the parade started. As we used to joke, we'd "Start preparing the turkey when the parade officially got going, and baste it every time an NBC soap star appears on a float lip-synching 'Winter Wonderland'". </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFEw2JRKILSmfxa9oxgcRmX_5JCvEV8AWPzx6ONzlrjS-ubirRyrPUx4y14OA7DcNDntlHSbooeJLW1Fs2mMwnQyPUz2wX7kX7P8jBxP9v9CV-DP8ew2rsFdrLw-Rah0y17ukGQmryUVk3/s1600/macy-thanksgiving-day-parade.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFEw2JRKILSmfxa9oxgcRmX_5JCvEV8AWPzx6ONzlrjS-ubirRyrPUx4y14OA7DcNDntlHSbooeJLW1Fs2mMwnQyPUz2wX7kX7P8jBxP9v9CV-DP8ew2rsFdrLw-Rah0y17ukGQmryUVk3/s200/macy-thanksgiving-day-parade.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">More to the point, Thursday and Friday were important days for TV, if you didn't have that personal alma-mater college-football Bowl game to watch: One is that networks knew the kids would be home from school that day, and any that didn't have football would be using the time wisely, with bonus Saturday-morning cartoons and Hanna-Barbera's Kenner Classic Tales (with plenty of commercials for Kenner Toys). And the second, tying in with the first, was that the local area stations that owned movies wanted to give their employees the weekend off, and would line up big three-hour blocks of all their family and first early holiday movies to fill time all afternoon, while you snacked on the chips-and-dips and carrot sticks that were being left out for company. One of our Boston stations still owned George Pal's 1962 "Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm", which was three hours of family-demographic enough to end up on my all-time favorite lists, as well as a rotated holiday movie.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ask some people to name "Thanksgiving movie", and on generational knee-jerk reaction, they'll say "Planes, Trains & Automobiles", because you're, like, <i>supposed</i> to watch it. Depending on how far back in the generations you go, however, some will remember the days when TV networks actually showed a movie in the evening (preferably a three-hour one, also to give their employees the night off)--And you can probably judge how old, if they say either "Home Alone", "E.T." or "The Sound of Music". Me, I go even farther back, and if I'm not using my ancient VCR to watch my last tape copy of Pal's Grimm, my conditioned reflexes expect a network or local station to be showing three hours of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". It seems heresy to watch it any other day of the year.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Friday after Thanksgiving was also a very important holiday--We called it "The Friday After Thanksgiving". It didn't <b>HAVE</b> a name, because it wasn't supposed to.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It didn't exist for any reason except that most businesses thought it was cheaper not to open again just for Friday, and turn a three-day weekend into a four-day one. That meant you didn't have to do anything, except sleep late, lounge in pajamas, snack on cold turkey, cranberry and stuffing for breakfast, while Mom tried to be domestic and boil the turkey skeleton and thigh leftovers hoping that Soup would come out, like in the old days of low-tech homemakers before her. (Uh, that's <u>not</u> how you make soup, Mom, we'd say, but no one would listen.) </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtK8WiJfdSFzXgBjGqd96Q7woVpCEBQOeCrvBfQa0ZH_G_JqOWLBlkz03EdSN2DbRQ9x8bjPWBo0ffQQbFHf0-EqAm2QJcBmwY6UQl5skTL6YYi3Fl6KLO5ZUdRKmp5_7-LPusSTDHOeDc/s1600/its-a-wonderful-life-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtK8WiJfdSFzXgBjGqd96Q7woVpCEBQOeCrvBfQa0ZH_G_JqOWLBlkz03EdSN2DbRQ9x8bjPWBo0ffQQbFHf0-EqAm2QJcBmwY6UQl5skTL6YYi3Fl6KLO5ZUdRKmp5_7-LPusSTDHOeDc/s200/its-a-wonderful-life-3.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The original day after Thanksgiving--what do we call it, "White Friday"?--still had an important purpose in holiday commerce, however: In those days, it was considered tasteful to hold off on Christmas marketing until Thanksgiving, so, as every kid knew, White Friday was the official Starting-Pistol of the great Getting Excited About Christmas dash...Annnd, they're off! No early jump-starts, contenders, or you'll be disqualified!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Local stations continued to want to give their employees the day off, but with fewer Thanksgiving football bowl games to air, that meant movies...The <i>Christmas</i> movies, this time, now that it was allowed. You might find a station showing "Miracle on 34th St." (while we were still in a Macy's mood), but most started getting the cheap public-domain classics ready, while they dug the more "hardcore" Christmas movies out of the back for later in December--By the end of White Friday, you knew at <u>least</u> one station would start the ritual monthly showings (plural) of "It's a Wonderful Life", and one might be brave enough to start showing the Alastair Sim "Scrooge" early. And if you lived in the broadcast area of the NYC stations, White Friday was annual Laurel & Hardy "March of the Wooden Soldiers" day.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Shopping? Oh sure, White Friday was for shopping, all right. You just didn't camp out at midnight or search the Internet for sales flyers about what big-ticket purchase you'd been holding off all year for, though.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRooSum4wR07t13KXx34LRQTS-62FGkX-jqsMzNRl-QgfTKmieSxR-90vqov7fQsXc6D1EpAROdjrLbVhjFnOZ51Hw1ZX6MIh4uZfhlLk21xHBKIZ92IBJG2jZSff-YBHWlwP6CdZFzrLx/s1600/o-CROWDED-MALL-570.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRooSum4wR07t13KXx34LRQTS-62FGkX-jqsMzNRl-QgfTKmieSxR-90vqov7fQsXc6D1EpAROdjrLbVhjFnOZ51Hw1ZX6MIh4uZfhlLk21xHBKIZ92IBJG2jZSff-YBHWlwP6CdZFzrLx/s200/o-CROWDED-MALL-570.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You went to the mall because, by three or four o'clock, a day and a half of cabin fever had set in, and you didn't want to enjoy Christmas starting-pistol preparations from a distance. The Christmas lights would just be starting to be put up at the mall, and the holiday Muzak, of Nat King Cole's "Christmas Song" and Darlene Love's "Christmas, Baby, Please Come Home", would finally be allowed to be played over the loudspeakers. If you lived within range of the Big City (Rochester NY, for me, before we moved to within a commuter ride of Boston), the family urge might be to look at the big department stores, and maybe end up with taking the whole family to a movie (theaters weren't conveniently at the malls back then) or the Christmas show at the science-museum Planetarium that wondered whether the Star of Bethlehem was really a 4 BC comet.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Point was, shopping was to put us in the <i>mood</i> for Christmas shopping--and hope to brainstorm present ideas we hadn't thought of yet--and was still recreational. It wasn't something you trained to knock yourself and/or others out for. When you got to the mall or parking lot and discovered every other person in a twenty-mile radius had the <b>EXACT SAME</b> White Friday holiday-sentiment urges as you did on the exact same afternoon, that's when it might suddenly hit you what a stupid idea it was, and that's one thing that's the same today as it was then. Believe me, <u>that</u> didn't change.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, you're probably asking yourselves--come on, start asking: What caused the change? When did the glorious holiday-tinged sloth and family time-off of White Friday turn moldy, and mildew into the predatory, kill-or-be-killed competition for the sake of sales figures once it turned Black? And how did a name that was humorously given by news media, to explain the problems of stores and malls that had to deal with a mass-sentiment perfect storm of holiday urges, become ACCEPTED, and have its name now hailed as the center of American trade? When did we think that Black Friday wasn't enough, that it should be a "week" instead, that it be lobbied to be declared a "national holiday" to help stores or employees, or that Saturday and Monday deserved their own names as well? </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The historical cutoff point might be found in the Cabbage Patch.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrRbjFgr2kaBhDDxs-naOsmn8kZDCmfb0e5es8VmIAG3ITdvUu0ur_gmqokpdTsocdKOLc-qqCgQpojKpRSRZ8NJvWt2qS7aKqGvjS1ihon_YScLA7V5B-iwh0YcYHWigzJ9wfTjgmKeuX/s1600/1983-Cabbage-Patch-Kid-624x863.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrRbjFgr2kaBhDDxs-naOsmn8kZDCmfb0e5es8VmIAG3ITdvUu0ur_gmqokpdTsocdKOLc-qqCgQpojKpRSRZ8NJvWt2qS7aKqGvjS1ihon_YScLA7V5B-iwh0YcYHWigzJ9wfTjgmKeuX/s200/1983-Cabbage-Patch-Kid-624x863.jpg" width="145" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the 80's, Amazon didn't exist. There was no "online" to order things--which is why you were deluged in paper snail-mail catalogues all month--and if you wanted to find the hot toy that season, you had to go to Toys R Us, because Target wasn't a wide chain back then, either. And the big news story in November 1983 was that the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, which had first started as prestige dolls from a small independent maker, were going national, causing parents to storm malls, empty shelves as if they were Wonka Bars, and do incredibly cynical media-happy stunts (like buying three or four, and hoping to auction one off for $1000), trying to find them. That itself wasn't such a big deal, except that we'd had TWO similar manias the year before in 1982, with parents trying to find ColecoVision videogame consoles, and those with older or no kids trying to find a remaining copy of that new "Trivial Pursuit" game that a couple of smart guys in Canada had just thought up and were sending to us southerners.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But it was the Cabbage Patchers that stuck in our cultural heads. Even when we similarly stampeded each other trying to find a Tickle-Me Elmo doll in the early 90's, the news talked of a "Cabbage Patch craze", and we knew in exact detail what they meant. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was such a media-friendly story, because the obnoxious cuteness of the dolls was <i>symbolic</i>, you see, of frustrated parents having to spend money on their worthless children every year...Making the act of cynically fighting your friends and neighbors either a self-deprecating display of how much better a parent you were, or how cynically you were willing to knock yourself out once a year in December. Eh, the holiday's for the kids anyway.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And that was the problem: It was a neato story, but it didn't happen every year. It would be nice if a hurricane or earthquake happened once a year that we could put on our calendar, so we could all have fun preparing for it, and the news stations could have fun building up for the disaster coverage...But they're forces of nature, so they don't. They just <b>happen</b>, unless they don't happen.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDhZbZi83W2WNYGe4MEGKuvHW13RqN5ehHdXaw5mdk_chhFdQbC52gAIYiWLPmB53KrPHxpJlwnDLDYqPDhnwDkShOyJJddJE90irE3bdFfPmuVCPxCBsYg_AOM3_n83W6awt_WRg-7G4/s1600/Coleco-taetpaa.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDhZbZi83W2WNYGe4MEGKuvHW13RqN5ehHdXaw5mdk_chhFdQbC52gAIYiWLPmB53KrPHxpJlwnDLDYqPDhnwDkShOyJJddJE90irE3bdFfPmuVCPxCBsYg_AOM3_n83W6awt_WRg-7G4/s200/Coleco-taetpaa.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And when they didn't happen to happen in '85, or '86, news media tried to MAKE them happen. It's now a tradition to say, not what will be the hot-selling toy or Christmas item, but, quote, what will be the next Christmas "craze". What new item will we fight each other for, that store chains can count on to make up for any losses they might have incurred the other eleven months of the year? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Usually, its what $200+ high-tech item, like the latest smartphone, will be groomed to be the next "craze", as a ColecoVision was more expensive than a Tickle-Me Elmo, and you don't have to be a greedy, cynical parent to buy one, you could be a Millennial 18-24, too.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, with the jollity every year, we come to Black Friday. A day devoted to treating the entire national consumer like deranged, greedy, cynical idiots like ravers at a rock concert. Because idiots are easier to predict, and thus easier to manage, than intelligent, tasteful customers, that might do <i>anything</i> unpredictable.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6y8LCWnC90lD7DwmLXUNzXCVQ-3Q2CLJ3tKGuvc6vnZnboCiWyrXtGRVFDTLBbYeJcLIy6kMHOoVV1D3I9pW61sGGart9r99hxjimrW_lRcSgcg8pdTC3kg3TlNWD7G4VRGn1tn-fi62-/s1600/gty_black_friday_mi_121122_wmain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6y8LCWnC90lD7DwmLXUNzXCVQ-3Q2CLJ3tKGuvc6vnZnboCiWyrXtGRVFDTLBbYeJcLIy6kMHOoVV1D3I9pW61sGGart9r99hxjimrW_lRcSgcg8pdTC3kg3TlNWD7G4VRGn1tn-fi62-/s200/gty_black_friday_mi_121122_wmain.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When you see "Doorbuster Sales!" at Target, Wal-Mart, Sears and Best Buy (well, some Best Buys now close over the holiday weekend to give their employees a break), ask yourself: What "doors" are we expected, even <b>encouraged</b> to "bust", and why? A Doorbuster Sale is not asking us to be polite in our shopping, because polite shopping to them means we're probably not buying anything--Instead, they are <u>literally</u> asking that we create another 80's Frenzy-Stampede craze out of thin air, even if we or they don't know what we're crazing for, and risk fights, injuries and possible vandalism, to help out the chain stores annual holiday-quarter and year-end sales projections. What thirty-three years ago we shook our heads at as greed, tragedy and self-serving dark-side, we now chuckle at as tradition, and hope such mindless turning-against-each-other-like-jackals will happen again, because we've been told it's such a rich evocative part of the HOLIDAY.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For those who want to start a new holiday tradition, here's my Thanksgiving present, from the Movie Activist to you:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This year, take the day off and celebrate old-fashioned White Friday, like your parents did. Do nothing--you don't have any reason <u><b>not</b></u> to, after all--and savor an extra day off from the Thursday that you were probably too busy working in the kitchen, or driving to visit other friends' or relatives' kitchens, to enjoy. Go look at the Christmas lights if you have the urge, and browse for the sake of browsing, not bargains, but if the parking lots are too crowded, don't worry, they'll thin out by Cyber Monday or Spent-Out Tuesday. (Now that they all have christened names.)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of course, the old tradition, of sitting home and watching TV try to fill time with holiday filler, isn't around anymore, now that stations have no more obligation to create local programming besides news. Fortunately most of us probably have at least one of our favorite Christmas movies or iconic specials on disk...That's what they're for, after all.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, for those of you who DIDN'T grow up within broadcast range of WPIX-11 NYC as a kid, a chance to enjoy an old-fashioned local-station public-domain White Friday the way we remembered it in the days before 1983: Laurel & Hardy in "March of the Wooden Soldiers" (And yes, badly colorized, as every cheap public-domain B/W movie on local channels was in 1982.)</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9IdIoORhID8/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9IdIoORhID8?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You'll have to provide your own cold turkey, leftover pretzels, thin homemade turkey-peas-and-water soup and 5 lb. holiday tin of cheese-caramel popcorn.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-45712024002984063892016-11-14T12:22:00.001-08:002018-04-13T22:19:40.950-07:00Thunder-"Struck"? Or Just Aww-"Struck"?<h2>
<br /></h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNxYKlH7gTdXsmvnJhgXPZ8xzbjHRg8OEU9HJwq_8Yi31MSyIgVgOCh17X-3EjQzFfEdG-e-N2ziTz-cDX_7h7zDVjebzmOFCH-pqxUxcKRz1TleYzPoQCODTINWoNsGZe2eIcxAfgaE96/s1600/Filmstruck_Stacked_WhiteRed_TM220.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNxYKlH7gTdXsmvnJhgXPZ8xzbjHRg8OEU9HJwq_8Yi31MSyIgVgOCh17X-3EjQzFfEdG-e-N2ziTz-cDX_7h7zDVjebzmOFCH-pqxUxcKRz1TleYzPoQCODTINWoNsGZe2eIcxAfgaE96/s200/Filmstruck_Stacked_WhiteRed_TM220.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A brief shoutout this week to the newest struggling major-player in the Streaming Subscription-verse--</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Filmstruck</b>, a new service that debuted on Oct. 19, finally made its peace toward being a professional service this past week, by officially cutting their old exclusive ties with HuluPlus. It's now a new monthly subscription-streaming film service on its own, picked up by the doctor and slapped on its hinder, and ready to be cord-cutting viewers' latest monthly <i>a la carte</i> television substitute.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://filmstruck.com/" target="_blank">FilmStruck.com</a></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(The mission statement by co-partner Criterion: <a href="https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4252-filmstruck-launches-october-19" target="_blank">FilmStruck launches October 19, Criterion.com</a></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'm not paid to promote it, in fact, I'm still the grudging skeptic who thinks it's not <i>quite</i> what it's cracking itself up to be yet, until all the kinks are ironed out...BUT, knowing where it comes from, I'm still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, and push that doubt on others. The service is still a desktop/tablet service, although in their rush to bring the service, better apps for the living room are <a href="http://www.filmstruck.com/devices" target="_blank">still in development</a>--We're promised AppleTV in December, and Roku boxes, Chromecast and X-Box/Playstation game-console streaming apps "early in '17".</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For all of a lot of misleadingly gratuitously-snooty "mission" press about "Bringing independent films to the public" (we're already <i>drowning</i> up to our online eyeballs in "independent films", thank you, and not good ones, now that the studios have taken the mainstream films away from Netflix and Amazon Prime), we're getting this for a much more simple and realistic reason:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFb_71p9rqVc7pqlrK-cpxFPMrLL6DuKrclKYc8PA7z90e0rAo640_DiFUf3iLj0eV5Ub-oHRoNqwnegY4myjADnrtOMy7FCEP6v80Erdhp9DfkJZsgCxbJWSSewpoUTaHZng_S3keQeLl/s1600/hulu-logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFb_71p9rqVc7pqlrK-cpxFPMrLL6DuKrclKYc8PA7z90e0rAo640_DiFUf3iLj0eV5Ub-oHRoNqwnegY4myjADnrtOMy7FCEP6v80Erdhp9DfkJZsgCxbJWSSewpoUTaHZng_S3keQeLl/s200/hulu-logo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Criterion and HuluPlus used to have a partnership, back when Hulu Non-Plussed was still a struggling, mostly public-domain streaming service, and was grateful for some actual exclusive deal (in addition to a short-lived deal for Miramax films) that would give them some competition with the Instant Netflix titan. Well, that was <i>then</i>--Hulu is now its own corporate giant, has since folded its modest</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">old</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> free-with-ads desktop roots to become a nation's Network-Rerun Binge-Addiction on Roku's and smart-TV's, and partnerships are a little more of a serious negotation.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Turner Classic Movies tried to branch out its own streaming service, but like most private channel-streaming, eg. HBO or Disney Channel, never got past a few desktop/streaming apps, and still required a premium-cable subscription to the network...Which was becoming more of a defeated purpose now that viewers were using streaming as an excuse to <u>drop</u> their cable services</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. The new mission was to partner the two streaming orphans to create a TCM <u><b>and</b></u> Criterion service, although the "and" is still a bit forthcoming in the works.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Current new subscribers are offered a choice between monthly streaming the "Filmstruck Collection" at $6.99/mo., or an upgraded "The Criterion Channel", including Criterion's collection of rare classics and Janus foreign films, for $10.99/mo. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-ZWOauH8ovMIi9qF4XVxIQwSVZDs-S8HlLLljnY-8ZEHYUqumSY41olGgW9ugzcbVTJGhrs40j3eQpbEUbfbjlSzesRTA6C7ZjWDSkn2Q2fNP9Wa11Jt3hxpXaKE8BHF9n0tsnmVsNte/s1600/criterionlogo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-ZWOauH8ovMIi9qF4XVxIQwSVZDs-S8HlLLljnY-8ZEHYUqumSY41olGgW9ugzcbVTJGhrs40j3eQpbEUbfbjlSzesRTA6C7ZjWDSkn2Q2fNP9Wa11Jt3hxpXaKE8BHF9n0tsnmVsNte/s200/criterionlogo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the moment, I don't quite know what the difference between the two is, as TCM won't be involving itself for another few months (until it can fold its own service)--And apart from a few rare inexplicably random films that used to play Hulu's otherwise-empty Movie page, and might or might not show up on Criterion's label next year (Mad Max? Shakespeare in Love? On a Clear Day You Can See Forever?) much of Filmstruck's catalog as we speak seems to be just a more limited selection of what's already on the Criterion Channel page. If that's what you get for your ten bucks, well, that's as much as most already pay monthly for Netflix, and I can GUARANTEE you'll find more actual vintage movies.</span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF0uyLp3ScXTtAWzCBevuzcnAI6mVDjCBS6OnoDYWPAxbASHoB7fBjfFfg7D-Yh4AYvv5_4wRRMsZaiOMgxYlVUZg-Oyr1ncAvMCh9DmRuqnJ_cekrf-IFXSTZVm6-k4xV4eg1HdR69Wz-/s1600/hard-days-night-beatles-filmstruck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF0uyLp3ScXTtAWzCBevuzcnAI6mVDjCBS6OnoDYWPAxbASHoB7fBjfFfg7D-Yh4AYvv5_4wRRMsZaiOMgxYlVUZg-Oyr1ncAvMCh9DmRuqnJ_cekrf-IFXSTZVm6-k4xV4eg1HdR69Wz-/s200/hard-days-night-beatles-filmstruck.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Those with a shelf of Blu-rays already <i>know</i> the Criterion name, and buying a Criterion disk to some fans was like buying a rare wine bottle at auction, whether you'd ever drunk that vintage or not. Those who don't know, oh, come out from hiding under the bed, it's not <i>all</i> Ingmar Bergman and Max Von Sydow grim-reapers playing chess. (Although they do have a bad habit of forcing "The Seventh Seal" down our throats.) Criterion's mission is to create a sort of "in-home film school", with all the titles your professor might make you write end-of-term essays upon, and takes a wide intuitive sweep of <u>what</u> films meet that bit of history--We get almost the entire filmographies of Bergman, Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa available, right next to David Cronenberg's "Scanners" and "The Brood", the comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, "Time Bandits", "Gimme Shelter", and even the Beatles running through the train station in "A Hard Day's Night". If it's classic--and more accurately, if it's had an arthouse restoration in the last twenty years--it's probably on Criterion disk. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Just to go off on a nostalgic side note: When I was in college, movie study WASN'T in the home. If you (like me) took a semester of film at NYU or Boston's Emerson College, it was like signing on to some mad-monk discipline, and because you were mad and monkish enough to do it--They didn't give you a syllabus of DVD's, or even VHS tapes, to look up at the college library, for the simple reason that they <u>couldn't</u> back then. It was the early 80's, and if you had to watch a film for that week's lesson, you sat in an audience every Tuesday and Friday and watched it in a theater. Fortunately, the college had its own private screening-room theater to watch it in...That was the cool part. (Oh, you <i>chose</i> a Friday-afternoon class, if you could help it.)</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jNjpdITt7KPaL1w6uo3vBetwfVe3s7fPXHXcfkDTaNi-QteDtwNs6aracJttVLbanGbUAjh9zjL0_VtXmpdxeB7E8ihdLjuO09mIeES3qnnEhxHqGH6uRDtu6yUjgQK6soMbkwr_6JBo/s1600/brooklyn-design-architecture-dattner-feirstein-film-school-navy-yard-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jNjpdITt7KPaL1w6uo3vBetwfVe3s7fPXHXcfkDTaNi-QteDtwNs6aracJttVLbanGbUAjh9zjL0_VtXmpdxeB7E8ihdLjuO09mIeES3qnnEhxHqGH6uRDtu6yUjgQK6soMbkwr_6JBo/s200/brooklyn-design-architecture-dattner-feirstein-film-school-navy-yard-6.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Remember when you were in sixth grade, and the substitute teacher just turned out the lights and put on a video instead? That wasn't a <i>class, </i>that was a reprieve period that you sighed relief that you got to blow off. To go to a film class, you sat in the private campus screening room with your classmates (the newer big spiffy universities would have their own big stadium-seated theater, but small enough to be private; the one we had at Emerson was an old Boston-antique room on the third floor fitted for old wooden theater-seats), and watched a big movie screen on the wall, where <i>film</i> would be projected. Yeah, watching movies for our credits, we thought, we're doing something right--And some of us had actually taken the major or minor <u>not</u> to be lazy about it. We knew we'd be there to watch the WHOLE movie, no switching the channel or bathroom breaks, because it was a movie...And as such, we were all conscious we'd have to watch Dr. Strangelove or Mean Streets or La Strada knowing we smart cool people would asked to analyze it later for what the professor would insist we learn from it. Ohh, sure, sure, we'll be analyzing it, but right now, we're having fun being a room full of Smart Movie People, with no disrespectful cellphone idiots who don't understand the true faith. It became a sort of collective attempt to see who could foster a better hive-mind sense of Movie Smartness.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I haven't been back to film college since then, so I don't know if the technology is still there since the DVD and video projector, but it installed in me the last great generation of the Cool Audience: If you're going to watch an old movie right, watch it in the dark holy padded-seat temple with thirty or forty other people who are there to improve themselves with it.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of course, that was then. Like the Millennials say, we <i>had</i> to.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nowadays, Film Study has pretty much become a correspondence-course: You take your disk home and watch it, and write your essay later.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If that's the field we play on now--and if streaming makes the school syllabus as available in the home as Blu-ray disk does (not a replacement, just a free sample!)--it doesn't make it any less of an in-home course. I know I'm probably losing a few people here by saying "Try an in-home study course in the classics!" by making it sound like online Phoenix University, but it's really a lot more fun than that. It's still movies, after all. You're still in one big, big campus screening-room theater, just that you can't see the other people in the audience.</span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkfyU2S0AV75DcpqPHCYoVYj7VJsTSrWdi0f9WETMPDD7fVC2h1ZpKSMpXIkx4lzjIZJQcCesmOUHaGH9q1NcDDNJgycy7O_SZbpSHCWyTLdvYYlIsGPXOEXEDAlXzclLHfa3PLWQM2VQ-/s1600/160426074410-seven-samurai-780x439.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkfyU2S0AV75DcpqPHCYoVYj7VJsTSrWdi0f9WETMPDD7fVC2h1ZpKSMpXIkx4lzjIZJQcCesmOUHaGH9q1NcDDNJgycy7O_SZbpSHCWyTLdvYYlIsGPXOEXEDAlXzclLHfa3PLWQM2VQ-/s200/160426074410-seven-samurai-780x439.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you see a classic-movie press photo for Filmstruck's Criterion movies, there's a 2 out of 3 chance it'll be from either A Hard Day's Night or The Seven Samurai...Well, there's a reason for that:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some classics aren't just classics, they're also GOOD--And they'll leave you a lot more energized in your seat than trying to punish yourself binging the third season of Daredevil. If you've ever met a foreign-movie buff who tried to get you to watch Da Classics, he's probably tried to sell you on at least one Kurosawa film to start off with. You have only one viewing of Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Throne of Blood (the Shakespeare one) or The Hidden Fortress (yes, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g8r0LhpMzk" target="_blank">the Star Wars one</a>") to convince yourself that other countries with other cultures and histories knew how to make "real" genre movies--yes, with action, not just standing around to make arcane visual symbolism--fifty or sixty years ago, the same as we did in commercial Hollywood...Just that they were there, and you were here, and you probably didn't find out, is all.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And we already mentioned a few months ago, even <a href="http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/08/august-20-2016-golden-is-silents-or-how.html" target="_blank">a Silent or two</a>, courtesy of Chaplin, Lloyd or Fritz Lang won't hurt either.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cutting the Cable Cord can be a handful of monthly streaming subscriptions, and even if having only two or three (and being able to drop the services you don't watch) can be too many, at least you get some actual <b>CHOICE</b> for your "New online revolution of choices". You can watch a film people before you have heard of, or you can chat online about how a season binge of Stranger Things is the coolest thing on Netflix right now, just because it's the <u>only</u> thing you can find on Netflix right now...Your call.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Education begins with curiosity.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-21114144043341748362016-11-06T13:57:00.000-08:002018-04-14T19:09:24.060-07:00Election Edition: I'm the Movie Activist, and I....oh, YOU know.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMdz5wam2EvaKuPdabYkWh9BLGuQwMJU4pAUgWW2daOcH4hdxSsug04UdeauLc6M98Q46s-S7daww1LtYuq12whsZzxkHQ9vzOPTsV-jqtKlP5Ry-UJsfvhxonsasLq2U0hhNNRCXezLuZ/s1600/vote-dont-vote-dont-complain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMdz5wam2EvaKuPdabYkWh9BLGuQwMJU4pAUgWW2daOcH4hdxSsug04UdeauLc6M98Q46s-S7daww1LtYuq12whsZzxkHQ9vzOPTsV-jqtKlP5Ry-UJsfvhxonsasLq2U0hhNNRCXezLuZ/s320/vote-dont-vote-dont-complain.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Just taking a break from Movie Activism to encourage the </span><u style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">rest</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> of the activists out there:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Get out and vote. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nobody--I repeat, <b>NOBODY</b>--will give <i>rattus tucchus uno</i> if you try to show off your Righteous Anger With the System by saying "I don't like either of them, I'm staying home, so there!" That's like protesting the Atlantic Ocean by refusing to drink a glass of water. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Seriously, grab a twelve-foot Olympic vaulting pole and get over yourself: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you're going to be a smug self-righteous jerk, at least be a jerk and do something that will have some actual </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>effect</i></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(Like the days of folksy, outhouse-nutty ol' Ross Perot, many people right now are making big shows of singing the praises of Libertarian Gary Johnson or the Green Party's Jill Stein without really having a clear idea of their respective political platforms, just to express their own tantrum at having to choose between Clinton and Trump. Regardless of their relative chances, voting Third-Party without knowing the platforms, for no other reason than to thumb rebel-patriot noses back at the established Two-Party candidates, is a bit like the high-school girl who dates the class nerd just to get back at her boyfriend: It doesn't improve the relationship, it gives the wrong guy a lot of false attention she'll regret later, and it's just <i>not worth</i> the date itself simply to prove some point.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9IJHRSL2cjFTWhDafd2D97z3eMEKo4vCJ6JlZyG08zGNdFD-SanoXQTv9BWzYK5skD2eH95GKtMcb8j0O9Cy1oCkpaabN3IiiHTYauzAGE89faIHmG931BdQoVHshVaYrd4KEqwUk3UP/s1600/MainExhibit_Highlight_VotBoothAlt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9IJHRSL2cjFTWhDafd2D97z3eMEKo4vCJ6JlZyG08zGNdFD-SanoXQTv9BWzYK5skD2eH95GKtMcb8j0O9Cy1oCkpaabN3IiiHTYauzAGE89faIHmG931BdQoVHshVaYrd4KEqwUk3UP/s200/MainExhibit_Highlight_VotBoothAlt.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There's a reason it was called a Secret Ballot when it was written into our system, and why they put dividers and curtains up at polling stations: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nobody is going to think badly of you whoever you vote for, because nobody is going to KNOW who you voted for. Nobody can tell you before you do, nobody's in there with you <u>while</u> you do, and nobody cares after you do. Trump aside, you're not staking your immortal soul for now and all time on a stand for Good vs. Evil, or Patriarchy vs. Feminism, or Team Iron Man vs. Team Cap, you're just participating in a democratic political rotation that takes place every four years. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And we've had Family Guy on TV for <i>seventeen</i> years and survived, you'll live through four.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We've got it easy in our country. Our politicians aren't like Hollywood studio executives, in that we can vote them out of office as easily as we can put them in: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">No politician brags about being a "shark", or that they live by the laws of their own "jungle". </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGxLFhkTj8eO89rKR9YQAysMWbd7HgLLoBXV6BwjtfS9eS_wijTvu4pNz7snnXTIiHon6i1kjdRk00vbJry4BO_diO_MrVx9xngzI3DVj0ZH66rgR9K4pX8YVE7fIAsAKCkFyd_iyg6_0/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGxLFhkTj8eO89rKR9YQAysMWbd7HgLLoBXV6BwjtfS9eS_wijTvu4pNz7snnXTIiHon6i1kjdRk00vbJry4BO_diO_MrVx9xngzI3DVj0ZH66rgR9K4pX8YVE7fIAsAKCkFyd_iyg6_0/s200/Unknown.jpeg" width="175" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">No politician is so dismissive of domestic trade that he shrugs "Hey, if US customers won't buy our goods, just make all our industries to sell to China, they'll buy anything." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our politicians are not self-styled gangster-boss dictators who set themselves up in private dominions answerable to no one, free to use as much propaganda and cooked numbers as they can spin to convince the people of what they "should" think, and who gloat over their elite status far above us poor five-figure-salaried peasants, and their ability--their traditional pride and <i>duty</i>, in fact--to lie, cheat and hustle their rivals for personal marketplace gain as they kill-or-be-killed to keep their jobs. Okay, Donald Trump, maybe, but that's because he has the same corporate business-CEO background as said studio execs, and doesn't know how our little "democracy" thing works...Where those in charge <i>don't</i> get to indulge themselves, and <u>do</u> have two-hundred-year-old higher political authority to answer their actions to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And in politics as well as business, what you don't know can hurt you: In the end, democracy gives everyone a voice, and either way, someone's going to get a rude awakening in their ear. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All it takes is for one person to speak up, and enough One Persons to be a People.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If we can stop one politician's dream of building a wall, we can stop a studio's dream of building one movie into an eight-film "Franchise". If we can stop a war from killing innocent people overseas, we can stop the war Warner is waging to kill innocent Blu-ray disks. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If we can change the problems in our country, we can change the problems in our movies and TV shows...How hard could it be?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But while we're here, in the interest of TV/movie/sitcom cliche's, I also put that cartoon at the top for a reason--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There are three widespread mainstream pop-culture annoyances that will make me froth at the mouth...Okay, FOUR, if you count people who spell "Santa Clause" like he was the title of a Tim Allen Disney comedy (it was a <i>clause</i> in a <i>contract</i>, people, rent it!): </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One are kids who still confuse "Loose/Lose" into adulthood, the second are people who put a comma in Shakespeare's "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" (Hint: Look up "wherefore" in Webster's.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And the third are would-be current-ref comics and hootsters who try to joke about quoting "...And I approve this message" from political ads in everyday conversation. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nothing creeps up my spine like a much needed Cliche'-Buster.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWGCPURCUEnuoNWwZfwN5ayJJgfH1eGFHNdwGCp1R3IvZPV-ZJskIp-1jK6aO11PyufCGwxSjz7UJzaulIr1Ro75-Bstnf2yhV7ZZ3vL10xX19R9ETIs-MHv4wKoYrNnVL0cbQxt4fPy4k/s1600/jefferson-adams-jpg-10001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWGCPURCUEnuoNWwZfwN5ayJJgfH1eGFHNdwGCp1R3IvZPV-ZJskIp-1jK6aO11PyufCGwxSjz7UJzaulIr1Ro75-Bstnf2yhV7ZZ3vL10xX19R9ETIs-MHv4wKoYrNnVL0cbQxt4fPy4k/s200/jefferson-adams-jpg-10001.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Think we've got the "Ugliest presidential campaign in American history" right now with Trump v. Clinton? Well, we'll probably make the top three in the next historical revision.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the moment, the top prize is hotly debated between <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1800">John Adams v. Thomas Jefferson, 1800</a>, which basically caused the first US two-party political split when a debate over a central Federalist Constitution versus the earlier Democratic-Republican idea for states to mind their own businesses turned too personal and made the two lifelong friends mortal political enemies...And in the other corner, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1988">George HW Bush v. Michael Dukakis, 1988</a>, when nervous Republicans, about to lose eight years of Ronald Reagan to the two-term rule, refused to give up their "Republican Camelot" without one ugly schoolyard fight, and were determined to grind the intellectual Democratic Massachusetts governor into paste under their heel.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfksw9Vv6orQMxbtRa7SlmwA7bG5zDEW4YGCpKEH8AhESAVoJyEIuoWz0ny1aaXLUGSvuAYKHNHQ2qZlrSNTcm6jtGaCmE4FKIIxyp_xF2N1qO9Xzj2tf-JeSJNEigl53ORB1vuX3M0u3S/s1600/bvd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfksw9Vv6orQMxbtRa7SlmwA7bG5zDEW4YGCpKEH8AhESAVoJyEIuoWz0ny1aaXLUGSvuAYKHNHQ2qZlrSNTcm6jtGaCmE4FKIIxyp_xF2N1qO9Xzj2tf-JeSJNEigl53ORB1vuX3M0u3S/s200/bvd.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That was the election that created more slang terms in our campaign culture than any other (quick, who said "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy"?), most of them referring to aired attack ads, and all aimed by Republican strategist Lee Atwater towards "that little midget": "Willie Horton". "Revolving door". "Boston harbor". "Vacuum cleaner". Bring back memories for some of those older folks out there? For those who weren't there, ask your parents for definition. I could explain them for the young folks, but the tastelessness and implied racism of some of them might be unsuitable for this blog.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And, okay, "Vacuum cleaner" wasn't one of theirs--That was the election we saw the rise of the Third-Party Attack Ad, which could be produced by private organizations, like a PAC support group or the Religious Right, and express a little <u>more</u> personally questionable anger than the candidate himself would want his committee to be associated with, but which the candidate could still stay above and say "Not mine, folks, don't look at me." It started to become just a little too convenient an excuse, particularly when it was hard to determine whether those "crazy loose-cannons" had been acting on under-the-table orders or not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The use of nameless drive-by attack ads with or without the sponsoring candidate's name, face or participation had reached such proportions in state and federal elections that by 2002, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, designed to close loopholes in campaign funding, also created the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_by_Your_Ad_provision">Stand By Your Ad provision</a>, which required the candidate to appear, onscreen, in any TV, radio or print ad produced by his own campaign committee, and say so. (Internet is still exempt from the rule, and frequently exploited.) The idea was not only to help identify the "real" attack ads from the "fake" ones, but also that no image-conscious candidate would want to be <i>seen</i> next to his own genuine schoolyard attack ad, and thus make fewer of them, or at least keep the tone a little more civil--And if they did personally "approve" (= authorize) their own attack ad against their opponent, that told you everything you needed to know.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6dlm80XCtqDg4MRGmbJs0NV7I36TS0bQKaYx7uWCSqj4MIhyr7ZRBBDoN8oMHlDxmEqNRY5at8kw6IJy7EsjOS0SfeU6hu-kQgGdAS7CspHXTBoj2s4TJXCJTn7TJfbQ0rShhEvtImcY/s1600/2011-10-busted.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6dlm80XCtqDg4MRGmbJs0NV7I36TS0bQKaYx7uWCSqj4MIhyr7ZRBBDoN8oMHlDxmEqNRY5at8kw6IJy7EsjOS0SfeU6hu-kQgGdAS7CspHXTBoj2s4TJXCJTn7TJfbQ0rShhEvtImcY/s200/2011-10-busted.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ever wondered? That's why.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When a candidate in a political ad says "I approve this message", he is not--now, let's repeat that very slowly and clearly so everyone can understand it, he is </span><u style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">NOT</u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">--trying to annoy you by chirping "I liked it!", nor is he some vain idiot saying "Dang, I'm good!...See how good it makes me look?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He is complying with the election law and validating his own campaign comittee's ad with his legally-required disclaimer stamp of <b>APPROVAL</b>. <i>Get</i> it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Adam? Jamie? I'd call this cliche' "Busted".</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2325445956220076522.post-75432384293838255202016-10-30T13:55:00.000-07:002018-04-14T19:02:26.809-07:00A Flop is Not a Disappointment (and vice versa)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr5Og8Apd5JedXpB3MjCBNMcn2qjBeaYH4bgkJ_TumR4GsqpFAZSwSRCEUVw5hOS5pNxa-QKcgFkN4uM1fWjLKhTBkAcaszFsaAG6xvGv0jO5ucw_2-OEjVJG0_hWgmQqeR1bc5cDIE3iZ/s1600/posters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr5Og8Apd5JedXpB3MjCBNMcn2qjBeaYH4bgkJ_TumR4GsqpFAZSwSRCEUVw5hOS5pNxa-QKcgFkN4uM1fWjLKhTBkAcaszFsaAG6xvGv0jO5ucw_2-OEjVJG0_hWgmQqeR1bc5cDIE3iZ/s320/posters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Almost twenty-five years ago to the day (I wanted to save it for the November anniversary, but there were too many other good topics, and it's a quiet week), I was browsing magazines at a Barnes & Noble, flipped through the Entertainment Weekly that week, and read one of the most elusive, unexpected lightning-bolts of accidental <b>GENIUS</b> I had ever read about movies. I don't even think the columnist quite knew what he'd hit upon either. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But twenty-five years of quoting and expanding upon the theory later, it was probably one of the first great influences that set me on the road to Movie Activism, and not following the crowd of entertainment-newsthink. It was like the movie-nut equivalent of the Theory of Relativity.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9NWN3dRbv4hnBU8y7JMlNMr5QWT4WGyS0Uj8wtaM75m-JCZAqoHIK1h3-AhziZPRm-_6tJmaRhtWRgtDniB1oqX-YGMOsYy49xzYThCRhKWRYH126nbgi5I9Zngc-9beIafgHwU5yPEuT/s1600/MV5BMTYwMTQ2Mjc0Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwNzY5NjI5._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9NWN3dRbv4hnBU8y7JMlNMr5QWT4WGyS0Uj8wtaM75m-JCZAqoHIK1h3-AhziZPRm-_6tJmaRhtWRgtDniB1oqX-YGMOsYy49xzYThCRhKWRYH126nbgi5I9Zngc-9beIafgHwU5yPEuT/s200/MV5BMTYwMTQ2Mjc0Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwNzY5NjI5._V1_.jpg" width="141" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Video columnist Ty Burr (now critic for the Boston Globe) had been handed the home-theater review for 1991's "Hudson Hawk", only a few months after it'd become one of the biggest theatrical money-losers to date, and since he hadn't already seen it, tried to find a "hook" that would liven up the column.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Trying to put aside the cheap "so bad it's good" angle--which it WASN'T--he asked the simple question, is a Flop a "flop", and if so, how do you know for <i>sure</i>? Maybe it's just "misunderstood"?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For all those years, until the miracle of Google, the Internet and magazine-website archives, I thought I'd never find it again. And now you can read it too:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.ew.com/article/1991/11/22/hudson-hawk">EW.com - Video, "Hudson Hawk", November 22, 1991</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A quick summary for the Too Long, Didn't Read crowd:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A "Box office disappointment" is an otherwise reasonably watchable movie that didn't fare well for reasons beyond its control--bad timing, poor marketing, being put up against tough-competition weekend, etc.--and might be rediscovered later on video.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A "Flop" makes its own mistakes through bad creative decisions at the highest production level, and has no one but itself to blame. And because they have a bad habit of making the <u>same</u> mistakes over and over, you can judge a Flop by testing it against the bad decisions made by other more famous established Flops:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>"The </i><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>Howard the Duck </i></span><i>test</i></strong><span style="background-color: white;"><i>: </i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic;">Is the movie’s very concept ridiculous?</span></span></li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Heaven’s Gate </span>test</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: </span><span style="background-color: white;">Was the director given insane license to splurge?</span></span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Leonard Part 6</span> test</strong><span style="background-color: white;">: </span><span style="background-color: white;">Is it vanity fare from a star no one dared say no to?"</span></span></i></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And these were just the flops we knew of from the 80's to 1991, folks. Look back at the summer of '16 and consider, how innocent <i>were</i> we thirty years ago?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: , sans-serif;">For some reason, I remembered the article as being longer. Over the years, every time I quoted the article, more 80's "tests" seemed to crop up in my recollections of EW's '91 column, like:</span></span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>The Dune test: </b>Was the absolute wrong/unsuited director chosen by the studio for the genre?</i></span></li>
<li><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>The Annie (1982) test: </b>Were large portions of the budget spent on opulent set details that would spend little time onscreen?</i></span></li>
<li><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>The Ishtar test: </b>Did the studio put too much faith that star-value <u>alone</u> would rescue a weak script?</i></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I somehow remembered the Heaven's Gate test as the "set detail" one, and the Howard the Duck test as <i>"Was it made by a director who was his own executive-producer, and no studio had higher control over creative decisions?"</i>...Or maybe that was <b>the Willow test.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Moving on from the innocent screenwriter-80's into the corporate-franchise big-studio 90's, 00's and 10's, I was able to apply </span></span><span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">other more specific tests, like:</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><i><span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Godzilla (1998) test: </b>Was a familiar property handled in a willfully <u>wrong</u> or inaccurate </span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tone compared to what the core audience expected? (See also: Batman & Robin, Dark Shadows, Green Lantern, Jem & the Holograms)</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Lone Ranger test:</b> Was the studio/director so confident that a hit director was reuniting with his star from a previous hit, they tried to change the new film to incongruously copy the earlier one? (See also: Battleship, The Wild Wild West)</span></i></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Looking back at Michael Lehmann's work on Hudson Hawk, we can even today say it chiefly failed:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Green Hornet test: </b>Was a major big-budget studio genre film for a wide mass audience instead given to a director of small, quirky cult films? (See also: Fantastic Four (2015), The Dukes of Hazzard)</span></i></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The very definition should be in the name: </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A Box-Office Disappointment </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">raised your hopes about</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> it, and circumstances <i>disappointed</i> you. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A Flop, onomatopoetically, trips over its own feet.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Last summer we had a bit of confusion with two of Disney's underperforming movies, which was already news considering they had the monopoly on almost every other hit film that year:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">July's "The BFG", directed by Steven Spielberg, had an almost <i>non</i>-opening in fourth place, followed by August's update of "Pete's Dragon" which struggled in third behind two front-loaded cult-films before disappearing without a trace.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In entertainment headlines, that's the stuff that gets reporters to pass the popcorn--The need to validate all good and bad box-office figures as "true", for obviously being the movie's own fault, had analysts dancing around the fires. And when Spielberg's "BFG" unexplainably did poorly, it was a time for vanity-bonfires <u>and</u> crackpot theories. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Variety and other industry sites jumped on the unexpected headlines with bloodlust claiming "Spielberg can't make a summer hit anymore! Is his career over?" (Hey, got a little </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">drool</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> there, might want to...)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02A20hrUBh1HP3Ct2ZuBcoHFuMYAzkC6XzgpXxi59m1T4A8hqjgYoLmfFLrygQIOTj5iA31VhRQwgzubYkyavOMBObzulJEUwicn6EpnFP6i-COsFMYZwKTEd9STaIrXsS1jREffNUXsD/s1600/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02A20hrUBh1HP3Ct2ZuBcoHFuMYAzkC6XzgpXxi59m1T4A8hqjgYoLmfFLrygQIOTj5iA31VhRQwgzubYkyavOMBObzulJEUwicn6EpnFP6i-COsFMYZwKTEd9STaIrXsS1jREffNUXsD/s200/maxresdefault.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's not a bad film, actually. In fact, it's rather cute: Spielberg had wanted to film the script adaptation by "E.T."'s Melissa Mathison for years, and the project suggests a labor of love after Mathison had passed away during production. </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">JK Rowling had once mentioned wanting Spielberg to direct the first Harry Potter movie, and here, she almost gets her wish--Spielberg gives Tom Hanks a rest and puts aside his usual Jewish/wartime agendas of his past few films, lets Mark Rylance as the title character transform Roald Dahl's nonsense-word jabberwocky into a natural North-country dialect, and turns the keeping-calm and carrying-on of British-fantasy whimsy up to eleven to give us, basically, the Early Harry Potter movie he never made.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So why <u>did</u> the movie </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">do so badly? Here's where we get into the theory of what makes a Disappointment different from a Flop:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuSZ6n5CDpDJL3HF1EQYG0SqMxoVviBg0B4Or1jwsB_IzLIc39_B0jCm4U5CfKRyRobp0WU6k1Q6Vsyo6uJBdPEO1pm7f4Inibuhe0t_RyD44ambHr77mTFVVbg6PV9HpMQWCCFGMHkBMO/s1600/finding-dory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuSZ6n5CDpDJL3HF1EQYG0SqMxoVviBg0B4Or1jwsB_IzLIc39_B0jCm4U5CfKRyRobp0WU6k1Q6Vsyo6uJBdPEO1pm7f4Inibuhe0t_RyD44ambHr77mTFVVbg6PV9HpMQWCCFGMHkBMO/s200/finding-dory.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">First, it had just about the year's worst release date imaginable--Maybe Disney was modestly not expecting their own Pixar's "Finding Dory" to be the year's biggest box-office hit to date, but it certainly couldn't have helped Spielberg's film to be released <b>two weeks</b> later. Many who saw BFG felt it would have done better later in August, when less competition in theaters finds it easier to attract parents with back-to-school kids, as well as end-of-summer audiences who've spent out the tentpole blockbusters and are willing to try something different. Unfortunately, Warner's "Suicide Squad" had the same second idea, and Disney had tried to steer clear...Not to mention, they'd already saved that slot for their own other summer oddity.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_HOq9FQJoRMgp6OMlgYJwSvOJCo_Z9IUIF8iskW8kYU7TYHeLreaRf8V0_rsaBU0_nzeQxnTZx_W1eMBU6uXhmSsu-0kL52-vt0gL_YOL1k_dIaRKvz6xBdlHtKVdiYJvtibXTDdrCUc3/s1600/41%252B2MpZb-SL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_HOq9FQJoRMgp6OMlgYJwSvOJCo_Z9IUIF8iskW8kYU7TYHeLreaRf8V0_rsaBU0_nzeQxnTZx_W1eMBU6uXhmSsu-0kL52-vt0gL_YOL1k_dIaRKvz6xBdlHtKVdiYJvtibXTDdrCUc3/s200/41%252B2MpZb-SL.jpg" width="185" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Second, the marketing was difficult, as Disney was overestimating the children's-book literacy of the audience--Roald Dahl's book is a staple in England, but over here, not too many Yanks past their fourth-grade reading lists know their Dahl apart from classic Gene Wilder candymakers, giant peaches and smart telekinetic waifs. No one quite knew what a "BFG" <i>was</i> (a Big Friendly Giant, in case you're wondering), and groused that it was the <u>movie's</u> fault for not telling us in the trailer. Thus, they wondered who the funny-looking character with the big ears was, since they had no idea that Rylance's CGI-enhancement had been crafted to resemble Quentin Blake's well-known illustrations from the book.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Do any of these complaints have to do with the movie itself? No. They have to do with the audience, the studio, and the pre-release marketing. And when a movie unfairly suffers for the crimes of the audience and the studio, that's, well...DISAPPOINTING.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Disney's remake of "Pete's Dragon", although it doesn't quite extend far enough into the "mistake" territory of the Flop (at least not as much as the bizarre downbeat bait-and-switch of Disney's flop "Tomorrowland" did the summer before) did rather puzzle its intended audience:</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLiU9yWhetfd6QFyjQfSWck5iX4ZmHHS3s6731q3vbkeQwUZEtyRZDv1nE1OHsFhdV0DDjENDb6axSVnp0k6pB2Wuo3-wclQLi_suEd3vvjxqMC5bSbv93DNxGlNX6DT1yH9hp6N41pANI/s1600/v1.bTsxMjAyNzMzODtwOzE3MTQ5OzEyMDA7NTQwOzgwMA.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLiU9yWhetfd6QFyjQfSWck5iX4ZmHHS3s6731q3vbkeQwUZEtyRZDv1nE1OHsFhdV0DDjENDb6axSVnp0k6pB2Wuo3-wclQLi_suEd3vvjxqMC5bSbv93DNxGlNX6DT1yH9hp6N41pANI/s200/v1.bTsxMjAyNzMzODtwOzE3MTQ5OzEyMDA7NTQwOzgwMA.jpeg" width="135" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">An old-school singing-and-dancing 70's-Disney musical set in a 1900's Maine town was instead turned into a serious realistic TV-styled contemporary non-musical drama--with gripping action climax--with no resemblance to the sentiments of the previous movie, except for the baby-boomer money-title and central concept of a boy and his invisible dragon. Parents wooed by childhood Disney nostalgia were disoriented, and kids who hadn't grown up with their parents' DVD's had to take a relatively generic movie at face value...Along with an even <i>stranger</i> all-CGI virtual-character than just an old grandpa with elephant ears.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Neither movie seems to outright fail any of the Flop Tests, and yet we're left with the sense that Dragon was the guiltier party of the summer--</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Many Disappointments find amnesty years after video, with their theatrical numbers long forgotten, while a</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Flop is when the central reasoning or appeal of the movie </span><u style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">itself</u><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> doesn't make sense, and causes every audience to ask basic questions any normal audience member would ask--Like, "The Lone Ranger rides a freakin' </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">elephant??</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(Or, in the case of Disney's summer movie, "Who the heck ever heard of a FURRY dragon anyway? Seriously. That's like...<i>no</i>. That's even stranger than the 'no musical' thing!")</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzm3TExlIwDKMjY2ddy58EduAjwZeMMRLtfei0o_FUYZsSERu-mBPtu49ySmoIv01of463EnkxxoA4YQen44XAC878p4IeCwuXsPbK5COT-bB09LJTis35SPuxKLin4RVmISD2qHp0gJBW/s1600/fantasticbeastsposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzm3TExlIwDKMjY2ddy58EduAjwZeMMRLtfei0o_FUYZsSERu-mBPtu49ySmoIv01of463EnkxxoA4YQen44XAC878p4IeCwuXsPbK5COT-bB09LJTis35SPuxKLin4RVmISD2qHp0gJBW/s200/fantasticbeastsposter.jpg" width="135" /></a><span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The point is, every Flop and every Disappointment has to be taken on a case by case basis, and some even manage to have their "criminal records" cleared. The trick is just in knowing which questions to ask.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Years from now, who knows, experience may provide us with even more new tests like, </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"- <i><b>The Fantastic Beasts test</b>: Did merchandising shift and misdirect story focus to minor side franchise characters/details that held no interest for the main audience? (See also: X-Men Origins: Wolverine)</i>", </span></span><span style="font-family: , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">etc., </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">but the theory remains.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">The science of forensically testing our "flops" will help determine the Innocent from the Guilty.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04313965706116757023noreply@blogger.com0