'Movies try to escape cultural irrelevance'

NYT story today about how movies continue to lose ground to television:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/movies/hollywood-seeks-to-slow-cultural-shift-to-tv.html?hpw&_r=0

Although I enjoy both, this saddens me. I'm a movie guy first and foremost. The communal experience. The self-contained but semi-long-form storytelling. But truth me told, I'm worried about its future, for the same reasons I'm worried about the future of a lot of the old mediums, mainly that it doesn't jive with the new information delivery systems. (Note: Good piece in The Atlantic this month about why cable TV has been able to insulate itself.) It kind of sucks because everything I love - rock albums, print publications, books, movies - are basically fading into cultural irrelevance. I suppose I do have to say that the rise of sophisticated scripted television has been a positive development, particularly since a few years ago it looked like reality television programming would crowd it out, as well. But I just wish it didn't come at the expense of movies (if indeed that is what is happening.)

I get it. The home theater experience is so good now, who wants to go through the trouble of going to the movies? And paying for it.

I'm interested in what Double Down has to say on the topic, after he stops smiling long enough to type.

 

Re: 'Movies try to escape cultural relevance'

I used to love going to the movies, but it's just a pain in the ass when people won't turn off their goddamn cell phones and shut the fuck up talking. I don't know why some people bother paying to see a movie when they clearly are not watching it.

Now, I only see a movie if I really, really want to catch it on a big screen. Otherwise, I can't stand being around idiot people.

 

"TV will kill the movies."

- every critic everywhere, 1949

 

I still go to the movies but much less often and for many of the reasons Bradley cites above. We are most likely to go to a discounted pre-noon showing on a Saturday or Sunday morning which means we don't see anything before it's been out at least 4 weeks but we see it with only a handful of people in the audience, most of whom seem to be middle aged like us and there for the same reasons.

 

A few weeks ago, we went to see "The Master" at a matinee showing in a big city. The theater was packed. We had to scramble to find two seats together. I was, to say the least, shocked. Usually it's like HC says - we go to matinees, and my wife and I are the youngest people in the theater by 20 years. And there are usually only 15-20 people in the place.

 

We saw "The Master" this past Saturday at 11:45 AM. There were 5 people in the audience and you could have heard a pin drop throughout the showing. Perfect!

 

I used to probably go to the movies close to 100 times a year. Now, I go about 10-15 times a year and at least half of those are kids' movies. We go to the drive-in all the time during the summer and that's really fun because they kids watch a kids movie and then fall asleep and then my wife and I watch whatever the second movie is, but these days, in most cases the second film was so bad that we left halfway through it, and we just start laughing about how glad we are that we didn't pay for someone to watch the kids and $10+ ticket prices to see some shitty movie...

It's just too much of a pain in the ass to go. It's not just because I have young kids, but it's so expensive and the quality of movies out there just aren't usually worth it.

Also with stuff coming out on VOD faster and faster, I'm usually content to wait a couple months and see it then.

 

One problem for me is that most of the stuff that is actually to my taste does not end up in the suburban theaters. As we've discussed on here before, that was not the case with adult-aimed dramas 20-30 years ago. I remember my parents coming back from "Blue Velvet," which was one of two movies playing at the theater next to K-Mart in my hometown. Today, "Blue Velvet" would be playing for one midnight screening in a decrepit Brooklyn theater next to a hipster beer bar in a gay neighborhood. And only because David Lynch agreed to do a Q-and-A afterward.

 

It's good if the old boy needs a nap before lunch too!

 

We will melt into our sofas if TV gets its way. I avoid it as much as I can.

 

The kinds of movies I love(d) are now being made as cable TV shows. I'll pay out for a Dark Knight or an Avengers, but $10 for character-driven film? I'll wait for the DVD.

 

And admission to the pre noon weekend screenings is only $6.00 compared to the usual $13.95.

The sad part is that a terrific movie (albeit flawed) like The Master draws flies while genre films aimed at the lowest possible denominator (think "Ted") dominate the box offices.