Category: Culture

The NYT has some interesting analysis of how movies have changed in the last number of years, using the Star Wars franchise as an example.

EXCERPTS:

[V]ery little of the new film [Episode III] makes sense, taken as a freestanding narrative. What’s interesting about this is how little it matters. Millions of people are happily spending their money to watch a movie they don’t understand. What gives?

Modern English has given us two terms we need to explain this phenomenon: "geeking out" and "vegging out." To geek out on something means to immerse yourself in its details to an extent that is distinctly abnormal – and to have a good time doing it. To veg out, by contrast, means to enter a passive state and allow sounds and images to wash over you without troubling yourself too much about what it all means.

The first "Star Wars" movie 28 years ago was distinguished by healthy interplay between veg and geek scenes. In the climactic sequence, where rebel fighters attacked the Death Star, we repeatedly cut away from the dogfights and strafing runs – the purest kind of vegging-out material – to hushed command bunkers where people stood around pondering computer displays, geeking out on the strategic progress of the battle.

All such content – as well as the long, beautiful, uncluttered shots of desert, sky, jungle and mountain that filled the early episodes – was banished in the first of the prequels ("Episode I: The Phantom Menace," 1999). In the 16 years that separated it from the initial trilogy, a new universe of ancillary media had come into existence. These had made it possible to take the geek material offline so that the movies could consist of pure, uncut veg-out content, steeped in day-care-center ambience. These newer films don’t even pretend to tell the whole story; they are akin to PowerPoint presentations that summarize the main bullet points from a much more comprehensive body of work developed by and for a geek subculture.

The author then suggests that America may be in danger because it’s national culture is becoming dominated by a veg-out attitude that wants to enjoy life rather than digging into the geek-oriented details needed to sustain the good life.

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(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)

The last three or four months have seen a remarkable sign of box-office slump: For sixteen consecutive weeks, domestic weekend box-office receipts have been lower than the corresponding weekends from the previous year, 2004. Added: That’s one week away from the record 17-week recession set in 1985 — "one box office record we don’t want," Exhibitor Relations chief Paul Dergarabedian commented this week.

It’s not just that ticket sales are down — that’s been happening for at least three years. But because ticket prices continue to climb, Hollywood seldom takes in less  money each week on a year-over-year basis for more than two or three weeks in a row. (For example, during the same 16-week period in 2004, the weekend box office never dipped below 2003 levels for more than two consecutive weeks. Of course, as a friend of mine observed, the early part of last year might have been unusually strong due to the lingering effects of The Return of the King and the powerhouse presence of The Passion of the Christ.)

In any case, in the last 16 weeks not even the release of a the third and final Star Wars prequel could boost the box office to the levels it enjoyed a year ago. Nor could media blitzes, drummed-up controversies, or big names like Ron Howard, Russell Crowe, Adam Sandler, and Ridley Scott, Orlando Bloom pump movies like Cinderella Man, The Longest Yard, and Kingdom of Heaven to box-office success.

Hollywood execs, of course, are scrambling to point to all kinds of factors, from the continuing rise of DVDs and Internet use. But a few bold voices are wondering whether the problem isn’t the movies themselves. Amy Pascal, chairwoman of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s motion picture group, has a startling suggestion for Hollywood: Try making better films.

"We can give ourselves every excuse for people not showing up – change in population, the demographic, sequels, this and that," she said. "But people just want better movies."

Better movies. What a concept. Mrs. Pascal’s suggestion may not be the most popular advice in Hollywood — but it sounds pretty good to Paul Dergarabedian, who actually puts a positive spin on this view of things:

"It is much more chilling if there is a cultural shift in people staying away from movies… Quality is a fixable problem."

The reason I’m mentioning this now is that this week a movie opens that could turn around the box-office slump… and certainly deserves to. Batman Begins is the best Hollywood studio film of the year so far, in addition to being one of the best super-hero movies of all time, and easily the best Batman movie ever.

Considering the years of trouble Warner Bros had even getting this picture made, what with directors, scripts and stars coming and going on a regular basis, it’s amazing that it turned out so well. In the end, they did everything right: Instead of a schlockmeister director like like Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever, Batman and Robin), they got a gifted filmmaker, Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia); instead of casting a marquee name like George Clooney or Val Kilmer, they cast talented, brooding Christian Bale. And instead of making the villains the real stars of the film, they made the hero the star.

What’s more, the film has real-world relevance. The bad guys are a crypto-organization that wants to wage war on human decadence — but their methods include decapitating prisoners, instilling terror, and unleashing weapons of mass destruction on large metropolitan areas. Hm, sound familiar? 

It’s a terrific film, though some viewers, critics and otherwise, would apparently prefer a return to the first two Tim Burton films, and don’t know what to make of a story in which Batman’s parents were killed by somebody other than the Joker, or where the film is more interested in character development and moral themes than colorful villains, big explosions, and campy dialogue.

One caveat: If you decide to go see Batman Begins this weekend, don’t bring the kids. It’s way too dark and scary for young viewers (a mature 10 or 12 would be the cutoff in my book).

My Batman Begins review

Added: Will Batman rescue the box office? Get the story.

Other stories on the box office slump:  one | two

Who would you think of if asked for a name of Greatest Child Star Ever? Wouldn’t you automatically think of those child stars who have made something of their lives, transitioning from the difficulties of child fame to make their mark as adults? Apparently, becoming a well-adjusted adult is not a requirement for being considered Greatest Child Star Ever:

"VH1 has named Gary Coleman No. 1 on its list of the top 100 child stars ever. Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin was second, and the Olsen twins were third.

"Coleman, now 37, was the precocious star of the hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, which ran from 1978-86. Coleman played Arnold, who along with his older brother Willis (Todd Bridges) moves from Harlem to live with an affluent white family in Manhattan.

"In 2003 Coleman joined 134 other candidates to run for governor of California. Arnold Schwarzenegger successfully replaced the recalled Gov. Gray Davis, but Coleman got a few more minutes in the spotlight.

"’This is really interesting and cool and I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it because I get to be intelligent, which is something I don’t get to do very often,’ the 4-foot-8 actor said then."

GET THE STORY.

Coleman doesn’t get to be intelligent very often? Poor man.

Director-actors Ron Howard and Jodie Foster did manage to hit the top ten. But the article didn’t even mention Shirley Temple Black, possibly the iconic child movie star and a woman who made her mark not only in acting but also in the U.S. Foreign Service as an ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia.

‘Course, that’s small potatoes compared to running for governor of California in a come-one, come-all special election open to anyone with $3,500 and 65 signatures.

Who would you think of if asked for a name of Greatest Child Star Ever? Wouldn’t you automatically think of those child stars who have made something of their lives, transitioning from the difficulties of child fame to make their mark as adults? Apparently, becoming a well-adjusted adult is not a requirement for being considered Greatest Child Star Ever:

"VH1 has named Gary Coleman No. 1 on its list of the top 100 child stars ever. Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin was second, and the Olsen twins were third.

"Coleman, now 37, was the precocious star of the hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, which ran from 1978-86. Coleman played Arnold, who along with his older brother Willis (Todd Bridges) moves from Harlem to live with an affluent white family in Manhattan.

"In 2003 Coleman joined 134 other candidates to run for governor of California. Arnold Schwarzenegger successfully replaced the recalled Gov. Gray Davis, but Coleman got a few more minutes in the spotlight.

"’This is really interesting and cool and I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it because I get to be intelligent, which is something I don’t get to do very often,’ the 4-foot-8 actor said then."

GET THE STORY.

Coleman doesn’t get to be intelligent very often? Poor man.

Director-actors Ron Howard and Jodie Foster did manage to hit the top ten. But the article didn’t even mention Shirley Temple Black, possibly the iconic child movie star and a woman who made her mark not only in acting but also in the U.S. Foreign Service as an ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia.

‘Course, that’s small potatoes compared to running for governor of California in a come-one, come-all special election open to anyone with $3,500 and 65 signatures.

For some years they’ve been talking about doing a full-scale motion picture of The Simpsons.

Word has been, though, that they wouldn’t do it until the TV series wraps.

But the TV series has proven far more resilient than anybody imagined. Heading into its 17th season this fall, the series has become The Series That Wouldn’t Die.

Kinda helps a show stay fresh when the premise is as wide-open and unbound to conventions of realism as The Simpsons is, I guess. (I mean, the show may not be as fresh as the immortal Season 5, but can you even imagine how stale a typical sit-com would be in its 16th year? . . . Brrrrrr!)

So the movie-delayers finally threw in the towel and The Simpsons theatrical movie is now in production!

YEE-HAW!–I mean–WOO-HOO!

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