To a new funding mechanism for American movies for American viewers.
10 thoughts on “Two Days To Go”
If you check out sites like Boxoffice mojo, you know that movies today have to appeal to not only US audiences, but overseas ones as well. The blockbuster movies are making half or more of their grosses overseas. Which explains, perhaps, why American movies are not all that “American” these days. And why I used to go to maybe 12-15 movies a year and now do 3 or less.
I’m not sure what the mechanism is, but I will say that I would pay the monetary equivalent of season tickets for a professional sports team to be able to really enjoy 10-15 movies a year again.
The problem is quite simple. Some businessmen ARE evil, greedy SOBS that produce and provide nothing while ripping people off for as much as they can for as long as they can get away with it. The Wunch are perhaps the best recent examples of this, but the directors of Union Carbide might come in here as well – thousands of Indians are still waiting for compensation after Bhopal, twenty years later.
Some politicians ARE warmongers who choose the targets for US military aggression according to what will give them most electoral advantage while protecting their friends’ profits. Some politicians (in fact most) ARE bandwagon-jumpers who will take ridiculous, but trendy, positions for electoral advantage and personal profit. And just about all politicians just LOVE pork.
By the way, sorry for capitals – I’m not all that good at HTML.
Fletcher: so what? Some black people commit crimes — does that mean that ALL black people in film should be gangstas? Of course not! That would be racist and unfair. How about a little fairness for all America?
Buying tickets in advance?
Trimegistus, it does mean that powerful people of whatever sort should be depicted in film at least some of the time as vicious bastards. There is also a selection effect here; nice people don’t make particularly good enemies for the hero of the movie to fight.
Actually, there is a third point. Even high-ranking corporates with a pleasant image are actually very unpleasant and/or criminal people, quite often. For example, Richard Branson made his first few thousand selling illegal bootleg records.
Incidentally, as a Brit I object very strongly indeed to the frequency of British (usually English) villains in Hollywood movies.
American movies were quite popular when they were still being made for a primarily American audience. Foreign audiences don’t go to the movies for political and cultural propaganda any more than Americans do; they go to the movies to be entertained and to forget their own crappy lives for a couple of hours. The rise in the sort of anti-American garbage that has come to infest movies has been put there not to draw in more foreign viewers, but to satisfy the status-marking needs of the mostly SWPL Hollywood crowd, so they can congratulate each other that they aren’t putting out “jingoistic pro-American propaganda” and that they are catering to the “whole world” not just the US audience.
British villains are a combination of the old stereotype of the criminal mastermind and the idea that really cultured, smart people speak in British accents. It’s actually a kind of compliment.
Has anyone seen the A-Team?
I did.
Except for the CIA and Blackwater bashing, it was fun.
If you check out sites like Boxoffice mojo, you know that movies today have to appeal to not only US audiences, but overseas ones as well. The blockbuster movies are making half or more of their grosses overseas. Which explains, perhaps, why American movies are not all that “American” these days. And why I used to go to maybe 12-15 movies a year and now do 3 or less.
I’m not sure what the mechanism is, but I will say that I would pay the monetary equivalent of season tickets for a professional sports team to be able to really enjoy 10-15 movies a year again.
The problem is quite simple. Some businessmen ARE evil, greedy SOBS that produce and provide nothing while ripping people off for as much as they can for as long as they can get away with it. The Wunch are perhaps the best recent examples of this, but the directors of Union Carbide might come in here as well – thousands of Indians are still waiting for compensation after Bhopal, twenty years later.
Some politicians ARE warmongers who choose the targets for US military aggression according to what will give them most electoral advantage while protecting their friends’ profits. Some politicians (in fact most) ARE bandwagon-jumpers who will take ridiculous, but trendy, positions for electoral advantage and personal profit. And just about all politicians just LOVE pork.
By the way, sorry for capitals – I’m not all that good at HTML.
Fletcher: so what? Some black people commit crimes — does that mean that ALL black people in film should be gangstas? Of course not! That would be racist and unfair. How about a little fairness for all America?
Buying tickets in advance?
Trimegistus, it does mean that powerful people of whatever sort should be depicted in film at least some of the time as vicious bastards. There is also a selection effect here; nice people don’t make particularly good enemies for the hero of the movie to fight.
Actually, there is a third point. Even high-ranking corporates with a pleasant image are actually very unpleasant and/or criminal people, quite often. For example, Richard Branson made his first few thousand selling illegal bootleg records.
Incidentally, as a Brit I object very strongly indeed to the frequency of British (usually English) villains in Hollywood movies.
American movies were quite popular when they were still being made for a primarily American audience. Foreign audiences don’t go to the movies for political and cultural propaganda any more than Americans do; they go to the movies to be entertained and to forget their own crappy lives for a couple of hours. The rise in the sort of anti-American garbage that has come to infest movies has been put there not to draw in more foreign viewers, but to satisfy the status-marking needs of the mostly SWPL Hollywood crowd, so they can congratulate each other that they aren’t putting out “jingoistic pro-American propaganda” and that they are catering to the “whole world” not just the US audience.
British villains are a combination of the old stereotype of the criminal mastermind and the idea that really cultured, smart people speak in British accents. It’s actually a kind of compliment.
Has anyone seen the A-Team?
I did.
Except for the CIA and Blackwater bashing, it was fun.