Speaking of going out to the movies, the summer slump in Hollywood output apparently continues:

Fans complain that high ticket prices and concessions make going to theaters too costly. But industry players hear that gripe often, and note the average ticket price is up 3 percent this year, roughly equal to the increase in 2004 when the box office hit a high of $9.54 billion.

The only reason everyone seems to agree on for 2005's box office slump is that this year's films of familiar remakes, sequels, comic book capers and science-fiction adventures simply failed to connect with broad audiences.

"Audiences have gotten more sophisticated, and movies do have to catch up," Dergarabedian said.

I've certainly done my bit to suppress sales. The movie I saw yesterday was the first one I've seen in a theatre in well over a year, and the above reasons are why. Thirteen dollars for a tub of popcorn and two soft drinks seems ridiculous when one can pop it oneself in the house, and not have to put up with noisy kids, sticky floors, etc.

And they do seem in a rut thematically. Of all of the previews that I saw before Star Wars yesterday, only one (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) wasn't either SF or fantasy (Chronicles of Narnia), which also made me realize how mainstream the genre has become compared to when I was a youth, though I suspect that it doesn't dominate the book-reading public to anywhere near the same degree. In fact, I imagine that few people even realize that these are SF movies at all, so common have they become. Of course, they may have chosen those previews precisely because the movie we were seeing was SF (well, as SF as Star Wars ever was). But that does seem to be the trend this summer, judging from the paper and the buzz.

But Reuters (unsurprisingly) misses another reason that people may be staying away--the fact that so many in Tinseltown can't keep their idiot yaps shut about politics, and other subjects. I'll almost certainly skip (without missing) Oliver Stone's upcoming movie about 911, for no other reason than that it's by Oliver Stone. I'd like to see War of the Worlds, but a reason not to is the foolish things that Stephen Spielberg does and says (including his apparent worship of Fidel Castro). Why line his pockets and reward him?

And then there's Tom Cruise.

Now, I've never been a person to go see a movie just because some "star" is in it (including Jennifer Connolly, though I'm often sorely tempted to see a movie in which I'd otherwise have no interest, if she graces the screen), and that goes double for Cruise, of whom the appeal is a mystery to me. I suppose that it would probably help if I were a heterosexual female. But even the latter audience may have been turned off by his latest antics. I talked to a twenty-something of my acquaintance yesterday, who said that she was going to boycott the movie simply because he was in it, and if she ever saw him in person, she'd be tempted to slug him over the things that he's said recently about mental health (a subject with which he perhaps needs to become more familiar) and his induction of Katie Holmes into his weird cult.

If she's in any way typical of her generation, instead of a box-office draw, he may becoming box-office poison, and cratering his career. And I don't think it will be very easy for me to dredge up any sympathy if he does.

A big factor left out is the increase in home theaters and big screen TVs and surround sound systems. As more households build A/V systems that can rival the theater experience without the cost and hassles, more people are going to stay home and watch DVDs. And the growing backlog of older DVDs (and personal libraries) means that new films have to compete against many, many others.

I saw exactly one movie in the theaters last year - Star Wars III. And only because my daughter wanted to see it right away. For anything else, we wait for the DVD because we have a better picture and audio in our home theater than we can get at the multiplex anyway.

There may not be as much of a rut as you perceived. Theaters match their trailers to the main feature and if you had gone to see "Bewitched" or "Madagascar", there would have been a very different set of previews.

Personally, I think the problem is not so much the extremely naive and distorted worldview of many actors, but rather it's the fawning and scraping press that gives them a national forum. After all, without the press, these fools would be just that... some random fool with peabrained ideas and who just happens to be an actor. If the press didn't give them a pulpit from which to preach their vacuous nonsense, then they'd just be people expressing personal views and having no more and no less influence than anyone else. Which, of course, is as it should be.

Besides, Spielberg may be as vapid as the rest of those left-coasters, but at least he's done good work in trying to document as much on the Holocaust as possible.

BTW, WotW (I just saw it yesterday) is a fairly good rendition of the story. As always there's some nits to pick. The big surprise for me is that Cruise appeared to show some acting ability. I think that Dakota Fanning was doing such a good job that it was drawing Cruise out of his 'Al Gore' mode.

- Eric.

The reason Hollywood makes so many movies that look and seem alike is because that's what the formula dictates. More than half of its profits now are from abroad, meaning less and less dialogue and more special effects, bonus car chases and really cool explosions. It is also why we still have Germans as bad guys instead of fanatical Muslim murderers killing people in planes, trains and high rises. Only a fool would offend a potential market of a billion customers. Also why you don't see any movies anymore glorifying tradtional American values. They don't sell in the foreign market, therefore they're not made. Why any healthy heterosexual female would see anything in a closeted gay like Cruise in the first place baffles me.

I never buy snacks at the movie theater. Waste of money, and popcorn is overrated.

I've tended to stay away from theaters as well. They are getting way too high priced. I saw Star Wars III at a bargain matinee -- didn't buy any popcorn, either.

The movies aren't all that great, either. Three's too much going on in life to waste time sitting a theater watching a forgetable movie.

Do many people pay attention to Hollywood politics in deciding whether or not to go to a movie? I don't doubt that some do. But there's always been significant numbers of people who pay attention to something other than the film itself.

Boring movies are probably more to blame for the poor turnout than anything else.

Througout history, until the twentieth century, actors and minstrels were loathed, not admired. In medieval Europe, actors and minstrels were not admitted to towns except for the duration of their performance. After that, they were kicked out of town where they slept in tents. Maybe our ancestors were onto something.

It is technology that is driving the box office slowdown. If you want to see some startling statistics, look at the ratings for television shows like "The Dukes of Hazzard" back in the early 1980s and then compare them to today. Even shows with middling ratings back in the 1980s would be at the top of the heap now. What caused that? Cable, satellite, DVDs, videogames. In short, technology drove down the numbers of people watching the television networks. So why should we not expect the same thing to be happening with movies? (Heck, how far back do you want to go? Theater was done in by moving pictures. Radio was done in by television. There is a long list of one kind of entertainment technology destroying another.)

In fact, the movie studios have essentially acknowledged this trend by rushing movies to DVD faster. Part of this is to capitalize on the massive publicity campaigns, so they can put that DVD on the shelves while people still remember the television ads for it. But they also are acknowledging that motion pictures no longer last long at the theater and need to migrate to new media.

And, of course, people still buy the DVDs. So if the box office numbers are going down, it does not mean that people are reacting negatively to the stars. They could be, as Rand suggests, reacting negatively to the theater experience. After all, if the average ticket price is now $9 for an adult, then two adults watching a movie have just spent $18. Most new release DVDs sell for under $20. You could save money easily just by buying the DVD and popping your own Jiffy Pop.

"Personally, I think the problem is not so much the extremely naive and distorted worldview of many actors, but rather it's the fawning and scraping press that gives them a national forum."

Alas, it is the people that want this stuff. You can see it just by watching The Daily Show--the audience goes nuts when Jon Stewart says that he has some star on. Who wants to sit and listen to some guy hawk his policy book about Syria? There is an unquenchable thirst for celebrity gossip, culture, crap.

In the future, everybody will have his own reality television show for fifteen seconds.

Given that John Milius and Lionel Chetwynd are the only directors I know of who aren't raving lefties - and neither has made a theatrical feature in years - I pretty much stick to the Leni Riefenstahl Rule: if the film is good, I'll hold my nose about the director's philosophy or politics and enjoy the show.

So I went to see WotW yesterday. Paid $10/ducat. Very good job of work. Worth the price.

Unanticipated bonus: Tim Robbins gets killed in it. As someone said of the crowd at Louis B. Mayer's funeral service, "Give the public what they want and they'll turn out."