18 Comments

1. Anthony (Los Angeles):

Hollywood is just another niche.

I claim the public is just rolling their eyes and changing the channel at Hollywood’s massive public act of narcissism.

Feb 25, 2008 - 3:55 pm 2. Ben:

I suspect that Roger, Anthony and the conservative blogs all have part of the answer. For my part, the answer is a combination of the three. Hollywood’s Left-wing lunacy makes me unwilling to suffer its narcissism and virtually guarantees that I will flip the channel. The Hollywood that holds me and my values in contempt shouldn’t expect my patronage.

Feb 25, 2008 - 4:29 pm 3. scott:

Marion Cotillard made it all worth while,her beauty and her joy

Feb 25, 2008 - 5:20 pm 4. chuck:

On(c)e the leading factor, Hollywood is just another niche.

So I guess the appropriate response is “who cares”. Works for me.

Feb 25, 2008 - 5:35 pm 5. srlucado:

Hollywood isn’t helping itself with its continual parade of awards, either.

Can an entire industry be so insecure that it needs to keep reminding us how award-winning they are?

They’re getting as bad as wineries (maybe Hollywood is a “whinery”) with their “gold medal” products. Personally, I think a bottle of vinegar could win a gold medal someplace.

As “The Incredibles” so aptly put it, saying everybody’s special is saying that nobody is.

Feb 25, 2008 - 5:35 pm 6. Lightnin' Hopkins:

There’s definitely something to that, in the same way that the internet has all but ruined me for books – it’s been both a blessing and a curse – I now know more than I ever wanted to about the Middle East, for example (thanks headchoppers!), and it is great to have everything at your fingertips but I end up taking twice as long to finish reading materials in print now – when I get around to them in the first place.

The Academy Awards, with their long history, certainly have more merit than the other gazillion shows they later spawned, but at the end of the day awards for art *are* stupid (to paraphrase Chris Rock, who wasn’t likely to ever win an Oscar anyway, and cinched it with that comment).

Don’t overlook the other obvious factor: After The Goracle graces your stage it’s all downhill from there, isn’t it?

Feb 25, 2008 - 7:17 pm 7. freetotem:

I know another factor for me is that the moviegoing experience has become so unpleasant. Even as the seating becomes better, and the sound quality gets better (though, unfortunately, far louder,) after I pay my ten bucks to see “Ratatouille,” I get to watch 20 minutes of commercials and previews of “Saw VI” and the other misogynistic fare—the art of a dying culture—before I see what I paid to see. Life is too short.

I don’t boycott the likes of George Clooney if I think his movie will be any good. I find him an appealing actor in an “Oh, Brother” or “Ocean’s 13.” But I now assume any drama he is in is going to feature his tiresome lecturing and condescension side. And we don’t need our court jesters to be our philosophers and preachers.

Even if they are not preaching politics to us, they seem to think “serious” art has to endlessly rub our faces in the darkest, most degraded side of human nature, with little sense of storytelling, character development and similar quaint notions. And most movies now are little more than an interesting premise that stalls after 30 minutes, because no one knows how to tell a story any more.

And, like TV news, the business of Hollywood seems immune to normal business goals. It’s the only industry where they routinely ignore what their customers want. OK, except the airline industry, maybe. They have become a bore.

Feb 25, 2008 - 7:31 pm 8. kcom:

I think Roger’s probably pretty accurate in his assessment. Hollywood just doesn’t have the overwhelming buzz it used to have. There’s so much more going on and the (potential) audience is so much more diverse that the Oscars have become much more of a niche event than any of us who grew up in earlier years might have predicted.

I know I haven’t watched an Oscar telecast myself for years. I don’t see many movies in the theater any more either. That’s partly age, partly the cost, partly interest in other things, partly disgust with Hollywood, etc. Overall, I’m just not into it any more. What I’m curious, though, and cannot answer, is whether young people coming along are replacing people like me. I know they aren’t buying newspapers (I don’t either) but are they buying into the Oscars like my friends and I did when we were younger? Anybody know?

Feb 25, 2008 - 10:11 pm 9. LarryD:

I’m with Ben, all three explanations are not mutually exclusive, they all contribute.

Myself, I’m not into the video games, but I now have an extensive DVD collection, and DishNetwork provides me with channels that I can actually find entertainment on: TCM, Discovery, Disney, SciFi, ect

Feb 26, 2008 - 7:32 am 10. Buddy Larsen:

The camera panned the audience during the remote-from-Iraq presentation made by the group of soldiers.

I couldn’t understand the reaction (of many, tho not all)– but it seemed to be a sort of embarrassed giggling. As if “there they are, ‘those’ people over ‘there’ doing ‘that’ thing!”.

Anyway, it wasn’t pleasant; it was too revealing.

This was the first Oscars I’d watched in probably five or six years. My baby sis and eldest daughter are visiting, and I was trapped playing Scrabble with them watching the show.

Did want to see the Coen Bros get some props for their far-and-away wonderful work over the years, and gotta admit the new crop of actresses are gorgeous.

Feb 26, 2008 - 9:37 am 11. photoncourier.blogspot.com:

Buddy Larsen…”a sort of embarrassed giggling. As if “there they are, ‘those’ people over ‘there’ doing ‘that’ thing!”

See An Incident at the Movies for another example of such behavior.

David Foster

Feb 26, 2008 - 1:53 pm 12. Buddy Larsen:

Thanks, photon — yes that was it exactly, tho far more subdued than the theatergoers in your example. I dunno, maybe it was my imagination — maybe they were unsettled by gratitude and appreciation. Heck it’s possible.

Feb 26, 2008 - 2:49 pm 13. Larry J:

[sarcasm]If only Hollywood would come out of its shell and have more awards programs! Why, 15 awards shows telling each other how wonderful they are just isn’t enough![\sarcasm]

Maybe the movies have changed or perhaps it’s me. My wife and I used to watch a movie (usually a rental) almost every week. We have over 200 titles in our DVD collection. For the past few years, our movie viewing has dropped to maybe one rental every 4 months, if that. I’ve only bought maybe 5 DVDs in the past 2 years. I can walk into a Blockbuster video for the first time in months, go through all of their recent releases, and most of the time I can walk out without finding a single title worth renting. It’s gotten that bad.

So, maybe it’s the movies or maybe it’s me. Most of Hollywood movie industry could dry up and blow away and I’d hardly notice. Their product sucks and I have better things to spend my money and time on.

Feb 26, 2008 - 3:34 pm 14. Sgt. Mom:

“Maybe the movies have changed or perhaps it’s me…”

It’s the movies, Larry. I don’t think the people who make them, make them for us any more – they make something they call a movie, but it’s actually some cinematic chum to throw out in buckets for the proles in flyover states, and to make a bundle in overseas markets. Or to make themselves feel good.

I didn’t watch the Oscars, either… I was working on my own project!

Three years ago, I posted a long essay on “The Daily Brief” blog, (www.ncobrief.com) lamenting the sad affair of the summer blockbuster movie season coming up and not a damn thing did I want to go see. I wrote a long essay about my dream movie, the movie that I wish I could watch, all about the frontier adventure that no one has ever heard about.

I think we also needed to claim back our own stories about those things that made America a place and the people who made it so – the stuff that Hollywood apparently can’t even bear to consider without tittering. What do you know – my dream movie is not a movie yet. but it is a book – “To Truckee’s Trail”. And the project I was working on while not watching the Oscars, was another book, another long advendure of 19th century America that again – hardly anyone has ever heard of.

So, yes – the rest of us have moved on – and it appears that Hollywood hasn’t quite figured that out, yet.

Feb 26, 2008 - 4:15 pm 15. dclydew:

I have to agree Roger. I think a lot of conservatives feel slighted by Hollywood, some of them seem to perceive everyone else as being in agreement with their views… from my perspective, I have a lot of friends that would agree with Hollywood’s politics, but they still aren’t going to the movies and watching awards shows.

There are simply too many venues for entertainment, interactive entertainment, for Hollywood to remain relevant. They’ll continue to score big by turning good books/comics into good movies (Classics like Lord of The Rings or Spiderman), but most of their general fare and particularly their Pat Ourselves On The Back awards shows simply don’t have much appeal to a demographic that Hollywood used to rely on for its bread and butter.

I can spend an evening watching Awards, or I can spend an evening building interactive gaming environments with Neverwinter Nights or one of the many other computer games that come with development tools now. There’s not really much competition anymore.

Feb 27, 2008 - 11:02 am 16. heather:

a few years ago, Ben Stein wrote about being in Hollywood (he loved it); and mentioned that there is (was) a lot of money in that business, and that it had gained such status/money that it was attracting tons of Harvard-type grads…

to me, this explains the condescending tone of so much of Hollywood today, and the preachy, anti-american, faux-intellectual stories that infest American/Euro movies.

Roger’s take on doing a Casablanca with all the romance and drama, is just too alien to these Ivy League wonders.

Funny. The Lord of the Rings was written by a Catholic who flourished post WW1, and the movie was made by Peter Jackson, who lives in one of the more unimportant outposts of the Anglosphere. Syriana on the other hand, is the product of one of Hollywood’s richest and most successful actors… one who, I think, actual talent is in old fashioned vaudeville…

The 2 hour movie is, I think, a thing of the past. The future of great talent, lies in TV series, like the Sopranos.

Feb 27, 2008 - 12:46 pm 17. photoncourier.blogspot.com:

Heather…some related thoughts from Hollywood denizens here.

Feb 27, 2008 - 1:54 pm 18. heather:

photoncourier:
yeah, the people who built Hollywood were hard scrabble folk, slum people who loved to entertain, immigrants, people who understood what most Amerians – and the world – FELT.

I would bet that Bollywood today, has a lot in common with that early time…and Nigeria.. did you know that Nigeria has a movie industry??

the simile is, of course, the soft, effete grandson, taking over the huge business, and running it into the ground (like PINCH, running the New York Times from $52 a share down to $18…!!!)

As to Casablanca: I just watched Beowulf .. and say to Roger, if you’ve got a good story, it should move our hearts for generations. And Casablanca is a good story. So, go and sell your version!

Feb 27, 2008 - 5:34 pm

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