Simple really 14/11/2005
Hollywood’s legendary moguls succeeded beyond all expectations by employing the first — some would say the only — rule of show business: Give the audience what they want.
Along the way their heirs ignored this golden rule and started pandering to critics, intellectuals, burnt-out hippies, anyone but the vast consuming masses.
And in a development that would have Sam Goldwyn apoplectic, they began losing squillions of bucks.
Fortunately, the worm appears to be turning, according to this immensely readable, well-researched piece in City Journal:
There’s no question Hollywood is reeling. Film attendance is down a wrenching 12 percent from last year, and a May USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll found that nearly half of American adults go to movies less often than they did in 2000. Some pundits have blamed the rising price of tickets, but in constant dollars a ticket costs less than it did 25 years ago. Others believe that it’s all those DVDs that people are buying—except that DVD sales are slumping, too. The most likely explanation is the left-wing politics. “You can date the recent box-office decline from the end of the summer last year, with the intensification of the presidential campaign,” notes conservative film critic and talk-radio host Michael Medved. “It wasn’t just Hollywood’s hostility toward President Bush; it was the naked, raw partisanship.”
Hollywood is reeling
What a pun, excellent.
it may be because most movies out recently have been very poor.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, Slatts:
“Reds” with Warren Beatty was hugely popular.
“Shrek” as an anti-monarchist bought green politics to new height.
“Nemo” an upswimming fish, opposed abuses in the fishing industry.
Need I continue Slatts?
Suffer mate suffer.
Yeah, well leftys can get a message across with a bit of a laugh, just like Michael Moore’s stuff too. Most of the time they’re no bloody fun and unsuccessful. Probably due to the pathological types they like to hang about with.
Well Observa
After watching endless reruns of the Nuremburg rallies followed by Skippy I don’t share your slightly fascist tendencies.
Sorry Petter but Reds was a major flop at the box office. Shrek is not anti-monarchical at all, it’s anti-Eisner (who the villain strongly resembles). Nemo is primarily about individualism and hard work, not really lefty virtues.
Hey Peter, sounds like this book in the Michael Moore genre will be a lot of fun
http://www.newsmax.com/adv/doasisay/?PROMO_CODE=16B7-1
You can count on its facts being true too, given its subjects’ ample capacity to pay expensive lawyers if they’re not.
Thanks observa
Most interesting. BTW I’m considered very conservative on some blogs and a lefty on others. Depends on the reigning political orientation of the blog.
As this is a pretty conservative blog I’m quite happy to be classed as a lefty – but, if you only knew…
Anyway another amusing site is http://www.whitehouse.org/ I kid you not a repectably loony lefty comedy outfit have domain rights to it rather than Bush. There is justice in the world!
- but, if you only knew…
Tell us mate, tell us! Why do people think you are a conservative? No need to be backward in coming forward.
Charlie
Are you giving me a political test? Do I really “want to join the Judean People’s Front or is that People’s Front of Judea”
Well Exhibit A. On Online Opininion (OLO) I wholeheartedly support the proposed anti-terror laws including that pertaining to sedition. What swung my around finally were the arrests in Sydney and Melbourne and the Muslin riots in France. This puts my on the “right” of most posters on that blog.
What makes my “left” here is that Slatts makes some well intentioned, conservative (even rightwing) generalisations that are just begging to be knocked.
Slatts is being provocative which is good thing. If we just agreed – “yup, yup, you’re so right Slatts” poor Slatts would get sooo bored. So I see it as my duty SIR, through my therapeutic posts, to maintain Slatts (relative) sanity.
Fair enough.
But the trouble is Peter, your movie nominations are wrong, wrong, wrong (not even relatively so)!!! So you really haven’t much to offer.