Letters to the Editor
-
Modern "cineplexes" ruin movies like this
I wonder how much of the lackluster box office of "No Country For Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" are attributable to the generally lousy moviegoing experience most major theater chains provide. These are both superb films (each with gorgeous cinematography that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible) but are also the type of literate, challenging films that most modern cineplexes make impossible to enjoy with cellphones and Blackberry's going off, people stumbling in thirty minutes into the film and (loudly) looking for a seat, crying kids, teens talking throughout the movie, etc.
I'd bet that a lot of the audience for these movies has probably invested in a really good home theater system, and would rather watch them there. Look for both pics to do really good business on DVD and Blu-Ray.
-
Heres's why NCFOM hasn't gotten a bump
People went on the intertubes and found out it was a long, slow, boring blood fest with the worst ending in cinematic history.
-
Dullsville USA
The audiences have become even duller than the people who make the movies who are bored and disappointed by their own work so much that they are willing to give awards to films that are not written for teenagers and children.
Seldom have i left a theater without wanting my money and time refunded. I think that "Dorr under the floor" was the last decent new movie i have seen.
The popcorn is a better deal than the movies.
-
Dullsville USA
The audiences have become even duller than the people who make the movies who are bored and disappointed by their own work so much that they are willing to give awards to films that are not written for teenagers and children.
Seldom have i left a theater without wanting my money and time refunded. I think that "Door under the floor" was the last decent new movie i have seen.
The popcorn is a better deal than the movies.
-
but who to nominate?
So I've been hearing this argument in a number of contexts now, that the Oscars are too focused on the indie specialty film, and have lost any access to moneymakers or to the public's tastes -- Entertainment Weekly included this observation in its coverage last week. And I think the argument has some merit. But who should they have nominated, this year or in recent years? Which films, besides Juno, are closer to the hearts of mainstream audiences but still of the quality that warrants awarding them the honor of Best Picture or a Best Acting nod? I didn't see as mnay films this year as usual, but just looking at the Top 100 box office for the year, the possibilities seems limited: Bourne Ultimatum is superb for its genre, but hard to defend as cinematic history; American Gangster and 3:10 to Yuma might have the depth, maybe. Zodiac, Gone Baby Gone, and Sweeney Todd would just spur the same criticism as No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Films like Into the Wild, Eastern Promises, Once, and In the Valley of Elah, which received acting nods, didn't reach big audiences.
It may be that the Oscars simply have to honor what's there to honor -- sometimes that's epic crowd-pleasers, sometimes its sweeping period pieces, and sometimes its violent indies. The other issue might be, why were films like Michael Clayton and Atonement not more widely seen and embraced than they were?
-
Coming (too?) soon on DVD
I wonder whether the DVD release dates have made a difference. I didn't get around to seeing either film in theaters, and by the time the Oscars rolled around, both were nearing release on DVD ("No Country" on March 18, "Blood" in April). So why bother rushing out to pay $10 plus snacks at this point? Had the DVDs been a few months down the road, I might have made an effort to go out for the Oscar bounce. (Same goes for "Michael Clayton," which I was able to order On Demand this weekend.)
-
I saw one movie this year
That I absolutely adored and it was La Vie en Rose. I watched it at my house on demand, only because Marion Cotillard won the Oscar and I was curious about it. It got a poor review here at Salon by SZ (she and I are officially thru BTW, not like she cares of course; she's entitled to her opinion but it's useless to me). She wrote that she would have preferred a straight-up hollywood story to this messy, transporting, disjointed, inaccurate movie. It may have been all these things, but it was mesmerizing and I felt overwhelmed and transported into someone else's life, rather than feeling as if I were watching a slick re-enactment in period costume a la Walk the Line or Frieda. This movie got very little press and I have no idea where it was playing here in town, a large western coastal city. I have heard lots and lots about No Count and TWBB, 2 movies I care as much about as I do Semi-Pro, but so little about LVER, a movie that I would have loved to see in a theater. I watched Michael Clayton before that and I was like, not a bad story, pretty good performances. Then I watched this other movie and I had no words, which is what I want from a movie.
-
You go to the movies with the movies you've got
My gut feeling going into this (which was wrong) was that this year the Academy would avoid the ultra violent content. Among the other offerings, "Into the Wild" was a film project doomed from the beginning, being 'quirky' and dark. This would have been a fine year for a film like Ordinary People, (we probably would have rather seen the curmugeonly psychologist turn the troubled outdoorsman in Into the Wild, into a well adjusted young man, if we had our druthers), or a year when something like Kramer vs Kramer wins, ( How would they do that picture now? Would they have the child before they are married, and avoid the messy divorce when they decide to split).
Bottom line is viewers are tired of 'quirky", with or without the violence, which is like pouring salt on nouveau cuisine. This might have been the year we took a U-turn, back to simpler times. But you go to the movies with the movies you have. You know Out of Africa isn't really all that bad, but they remade that already as the English Patient? Next year the producer who makes a simple family drama will win something, and people will flock to see it after it wins, because they didn't see it before, which is one way to measure these things.