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.

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.

So I decided to go see Star Wars, Episode 3, before it left the theatres. I’d seen every one up till now on its first run in the theatres, and it’s apparently part of the zeitgeist of my generation that the ticket get punched for each one. I saw the first one at a less impressionable age than some, and so wasn’t as impressed with it as that generation–my lodestone for SF movies remains 2001, having grown up on a steady diet of Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov, and that was the first SF movie that really tried to get it right (unlike Star Wars, which simply tried to get the effects spectacular, physics notwithstanding).

I know I’m a little late to the party, in terms of reviewing this film, but it’s tough, given today’s technology, for a movie to ride on special effects any more, just as it was easy to do so in 1977, because so much of the field laid unplowed. So the effects were simply what was expected, and had lost their capability to amaze.

How did I like the movie?

As I’ve already said, not being a Star Wars fanatic, I had no expectations. Or rather, given the previous two pathetic Lucas efforts, my expectations were that it would be bad. It lived down to them, but managed to barely maintain my interest for a couple hours, if only to see if it could manage to not be as bad as its predecessors. In that, it succeeded. Barely. I do think that, that had I been Lucas, and wanted to goose the box office draw, I would have at least put out a rumor that Jar-Jar Binks would be killed in some drawn-out and gruesome manner, if not actually doing it in the movie. I’d have paid double the price to see that.

I’m putting together case studies for system failures as part of my day job, and I think I may do this as one for a failure of management. The Jedi screwed the puppy big time, though the Anakin character seemed too weak and pussilanimous to begin with to be the appropriate subject of a proper Greek tragedy.

But mainly, it increased my admiration for Natalie Portman as an actress. She was given a role so pedestrian and devoid of character (unlike her putative daughter, Leia, in the pre-sequels) that it seemed a travesty of her talent. I’d always thought her a good actress, but the first two movies of this series were disappointing. But in this one, George Lucas’ wooden dialogue skills brought her talents fully to the fore. Any intelligent woman who can mouth the words “Hold me, Anakin, hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo,” and keep a straight face deserves the Oscar.