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December 13, 2005
to screen or not to screen
I wish I had a dime for every time this year I've scanned the movie listings, thinking to take my son to see a flim, and finding nothing worth seeing. And now this just in from AFP via Breitbart.com:
"Plunging movie ticket sales, after a string of uninspiring remakes and movie sequels coupled with an explosion of the DVD and video game markets, are keeping audiences at home and have sent Hollywood into a deep existential crisis."
Am I the only one that finds this bout of...existentialism hilarious? Studies have shown that G-Rated movies are more than 10 times more profitable than R-rated movies, and yet G-rated movie releases continue to lag far behind the other rating types. Of the 940 films released in 2003, only 29 were G rated.
"It's not just a slump in box office, but also in sales of DVDs," Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., tells AFP.
These days the box office represents only about 20% of a film's earnings. The rest is merchandise, DVD sales & movie rentals. G-Rated films win again: seven of the top ten performing video rentals of all time are G-Rated (the other three are PG). And when's the last time you took your Saw II lunch box to work with you?
Hollywood is trying to walk on R-Rated water, immunne to the market forces which move $5 billion worth of DVD's through Wal-Mart & Sam's Club every year. As a PG-Rated Kevin Costner's Ray Kinsella might say, "If you build it, they will come."
Sources:
Plummeting 2005 box office sparks Hollywood crisis
The Disfunctional Family-Film Business
Posted by joel at 02:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 06, 2005
a coalescing of the unwilling
Yesterday it was Kerry moaning about US Soldiers terrorizing Iraqi children in the dead of the night, a job which he feels should be done by Iraqis (presumably he's longing for the pre-war situation). That was enough for Chairman Dean. Today he brazenly announced that the US will never win this war. Finger to the wind, he says the Democrat position on the war is coalescing.
Dean is just sure that this is Vietnam all over again. But the scary thing about Dean and his party is that when they look back on Vietnam they have not learned its lessons. The Tet offensive was a bust for the Viet Cong. Later they admitted to the world that they were hanging on by a thread, with little more to sustain them than the hope that the American Media would do the job assigned to it from Moscow.
By any sane standard of measurement, the situation in Iraq is excellent. We trashed their military capability. We caught Sadaam and he is now making an buffoon of himself at trial. The Iraqi people (including women) voted in a new government and a new constitution. All while maintianing a casualty rate that is phenomenally low.
But Dean would have us do Iraq like we did Vietnam: a round of Jane Fonda-style photo ops, followed by a strategic redeployment of our tail between our legs. How did this political party become so invested in the shaming of their own country?
Posted by joel at 02:52 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack