‘Paranoid Elements Think Hollywood Has Proactive Agenda’
by John NolteLast week I posted an article from the Washington Post asking… “Hollywood Gets More Religious?” When the author of that piece used the planet-worshipping “Avatar” and Christian-ridiculing “Invention of Lying” to back his point that Hollywood’s suddenly jumped on the Religion Train I was skeptical, but left that one up to the readers to decide.
Agenda? What agenda?
Daniel Krandall over at “The American Culture” took a look at the same piece and smelled a different rat, but a rat nonetheless:
The only explanation I can come up with to explain those who deny Hollywood’s left-wing agenda is that they want to remain on the “Above the Line” cocktail party invite list. Either that they are lying to themselves, and are nothing more than useful idiots to left-wing ideologues.
The Washington Post recently reported on Hollywood’s turn toward films promoting spiritual themes. The litany of spiritual themed movies includes Avatar, The Road, The Invention of Lying, The Lovely Bones, The Blind Side, The Book of Eli, Legion, and The Last Station. While many might pause at the “spirituality” the Dream Factory promotes in some of these films, I was struck by this opening quote from Greg Wright, editor at HollywoodJesus.com:
“The more paranoid elements of our culture tend to think Hollywood has a proactive agenda, that producers have a grand scheme to use movies to shape the thinking of audiences. I don’t subscribe to that school. I believe that Hollywood gives audiences what audiences want to see. If people don’t want to see movies with certain messages, they won’t buy tickets. So if there’s a trend out there, it’s one reflecting what people are already thinking and feeling.” [Emphasis added]
Has Mr. Wright been so long in Hollywood that he is no longer aware of the waters within which he swims? Declaring that Hollywood does not have “a proactive agenda” and does not want “to shape the thinking of audiences” is like declaring MSNBC is an unbiased news source and Chris Matthews does not care if Pres. Obama is a grand success as POTUS.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Big Hollywood, Michael Chavez and DNC DUDES, Mr. Pink. Mr. Pink said: ‘Paranoid Elements Think Hollywood Has Proactive Agenda’ http://tinyurl.com/yzd7c5e [...]
Does this bozo read what he writes?
“The more paranoid elements of our culture tend to think Hollywood has a proactive agenda, that producers have a grand scheme to use movies to shape the thinking of audiences. I don’t subscribe to that school. I believe that Hollywood gives audiences what audiences want to see. If people don’t want to see movies with certain messages, they won’t buy tickets. So if there’s a trend out there, it’s one reflecting what people are already thinking and feeling.”
He's got to be kidding. Or dumber than a box of nails. He believes Hollywood gives audiences what audiences want to see? "If people don't want to see movies with certain messages, they won't buy tickets".
Uh, Hello — Have you taken a gander at box office receipts for the anti Bush anti war movies that came out one after the other? Every one of them tanked, yet Ho'wood spat them out like a tobacco chawing character in an old John Wayne western.
Hollywood has always had a love affair with Communism/socialism and has always used film as propaganda. For reference, read "Red Star Over Hollywood".
What Mr. Wright seems to be forgetting, or more likely intentionally ignoring, is the fact that movies like Avatar are made and marketed for children and the younger demographic. And unfortunately children don't have the intelligence or experience to see through all the suggestive messages and propaganda fed to them through movies and television.
Well, there was "Kingdom of Heaven" where we found out all Christians are bad, Catholics are worse and priest are even worse than those — that Muslims are kind, gentle creatures who only want to protect their land from the evil Christians crusading there. (Never mind that the Holy Land was pagan, then Jewish, then pagan again (Alexander), then pagan (Roman), then Christian (Jesus), then really Christian (Constantine – 4th c A.D.)…all this two centuries before Mohammed was even born.
Ask Brit Hume, I'm sure he knows about it.
"Then count me among the paranoid"
Me too Mr. Kandall. Me too.
(Outstanding John. Thou Dost Protest Too Much. When did Hollywood start caring about "conservatives" having issues with their films? And when did they take the time to plant stories throughout the media complex in their control. I guess when Nolte body blows sent shivers up their spines.)
I'm leaning towards the second possibility.
So if there’s a trend out there, it’s one reflecting what people are already thinking and feeling.
Mr. Wright is being intellectually dishonest. He knows damn well leftwing Hollywood packages liberal messages into its movies and tries to manipulate public opinion. If his claims were true these anti-war films that were box office disasters would have never been made after the first two flops. Unless of course when he says "what people are already thinking" he's referring to the anti-American leftwing filth in the Gaza strip and West Bank aka NY and LA.
But I am enjoying these religious themed movies even though I haven't seen any yet. Legion is the one I'm looking forward to. As the archangel Gabriel says in the preview, "The last time God lost faith in man he sent the flood, this time he sent the angels." Awesome.
Nice post, John.
I believe that Krandall is sincere (albeit wrong). The reason is that leftists have a radically different frame-of-reference than conservatives, and story lines that seem politically charged to us are not controversial at all to them.
The root of this point of view is their belief that all intelligent and REASONABLE people must agree with them. For example, they believe that all reasonable people favor gun control laws prohibiting private ownership of firearms. Thus, if part of their film advocates this point of view, it's not "controversial" or "political" at all, because everyone with a brain already agrees with it. This way, having an evil character who opposes gun control is no more "political" than an evil character who beats his wife and steals money from a charity box.
I posted this over at Daniel Krandall's site in response to Greg Wright's post there today:
<<Ouch… Drink the Kool-Aid much, Greg?
Mr. Crandall didn’t say he loathed the filmmakers, just their onslaught of anti-American, anti-Christian messaging. When a group of people share the same viewpoints almost to a one, it needn’t be a conscious cabal of conspirators. But either way, the effect is the same. And if you don’t see that, what’s the point of your own website? Wasn’t it, in fact, formed to be a Christian counterpoint to something?
See Matthew 5:13, and think it through.>>
Kingdom of Heaven was such revisionist pap it became painful to watch.
In other words, Avatar, but with Muslims instead of blue aliens. (See, Hollywood does keep making the same movie over and over.)
The only reason Avatar is a sucess is because it has great eye candy and mind numbing effects. If none of that excisted Avatar would be another ho-hum movie that no one would want to see. The wworship of the planet is not new in movies…anyone remember the awful kids movie Fern gully? (It is a lot like Avater in story plot) I use to read hollywood Jesus frequently but lost interest when they started making excuses for the bad movies coming out of Hollywood.
"Has Mr. Wright been so long in Hollywood that he is no longer aware of the waters within which he swims?"
I think Forrest Gump said it best: "Stupid is as stupid does". Hollyweird has been the coach leading the charge in the program to "Dumb down America" for a long time now. It is up to society to call them out on it.
Nature abhors a vaccuum. The US is adrift from its spiritual underpinnings. The barbarians are at the gate with souless tripe to replace the foundations of our culture. We'll all be the poorer for it.
Woah! Who knew I was just paranoid? Here I thought there really were a bunch of preening, amoral jackasses in Hollywood who got off on casually, constantly attacking the values of heartland America?
What a relief! Is there a pill I can take to cure the paranoia?
"is like declaring MSNBC is an unbiased news source "
And FOX News too. Right. RIGHT?
(see what I did there?)
Give it up, Nolte. Wright hit the nail on the head. His thought process is logical and rational. Not knee-jerk reactionary.
There's a very easy, simple explanation to all of this:
Mr. Wright is PART of the propaganda machine of Hollywood. By denying his role in it, he's trying to deflect attention from the truth. It's Alinsky 101! Ask Obama! He's an expert, since he taught Alinsky's methods!
We must remember that the Devil also denies his own existence! It's one of his biggest lies!
I just want to throw this idea out there, see what people think. Relating to a pro-active agenda:
I noticed, strongly, when the character of Commander Cisco for Star Trek: DS9 was announced and the *actor* made a statement about his purpose in acting that seemed to be *embarrassed* over the lack of societal importance of a sci-fi adventure role… he seemed to need to explain himself and why this wasn't a sell-out or something… that, what was illustrated for me, was that acting was not respected for its own sake.
I think, very much, that the pro-active agenda in Hollywood is the result of a lack of respect for acting and movie-making for the sake of acting and movie-making by the actors and others involved in movie-making.
The result is that actors want to prove their relevance and the societal importance of what they do by choosing roles that are attached to a message. (Or else viewing acting as valuable because of the *resulting* celebrity that allows actors to promote socially relevant causes.)
I noticed this also in written science fiction around the same time (earlier than that, I wasn't old enough to pay attention) where writing an *entertaining* book was derided as something unworthy, hack, genre, space-opera… I also have noticed *now* a sharp shift away from this. Instead of being embarrassed to admit to writing science fiction and refusing to use one's real name, as it was for a while, and insisting that a novel be something more *important* than adventure or escape… the attitude has shifted. ( One of my favorite authors who was accused of producing the dreaded "space opera" escapism put it like this… she was a nurse and saw so much hardship and pain… if she wrote a story that let someone have a break from their cares for a while, then it was a *good* thing. )
Perhaps the attitudes will shift in Hollywood as well.
Acting, for its own sake, is giving something valuable to society. It doesn't have to be applied to something more to make up for the embarrassment of producing entertainment. Entertainment, for its own sake, is giving something valuable to society. Escapism and adventure is giving something valuable to society. The heartwrenching drama is important. The happy comedy is important. The motivating docu-drama is important. The 'sploding helocopters and ninjas are important. The war epic is important.
Importance doesn't have to be ladled onto the top of it to push some sort of social relevance in order for the enterprise to have worth.
"But I am enjoying these religious themed movies even though I haven't seen any yet."
How can you enjoy something you haven't seen yet?
Once again, you Repubutards display your incredibly flawed and irrational thought process. Kudos. This site is amazing.
I've got my own opinion on why Hollywood keeps cranking these things out. Not being of the industry, I have no way of knowing if I'm right or simply bat shit crazy. Any one with inside info would like to set me straight, I'd love to hear their opinions.
I spent over 20 years working in product development for a large international conglomerate that shall remain nameless (IBM). And in that job, during one of the pep talks from the head honcho, I was told they currently canceled about 75% of their development projects long before they got anywhere near the market, and they wanted to get that up to about 85-90% in line with the rest of the industry. The idea is to identify projects that were predicted to not make sufficient return on investment, and shut them down before they wasted any more money.
Could it be that Hollywood just doesn't have that mentality? Once they get a project going, they are loathe to pull the plug, even when it becomes obvious the project won't make enough return on investment?
I can almost see a bunch of Hollywood big wigs, watching the poll numbers drop on the Iraq war and Bush, and thinking 'hey, this is the perfect time for anti-American, anti-military movies!' And they all agree, and get down to work.
I imagine different movies make their way through the pipe line at varying speeds, depending upon waiting for script rewrites, dealing with stars working on other projects, and for who knows what other reasons.
Could it be by the time the first ones come out and bomb, the others are just too far along the process, to much time, money, and street cred invested, so they have to slog it out and hope for the best?
Makes sense to me.
You know those movies were made by *people*, right, and not some vague entity with a boogey-man name you've titled "HOLLYWOOD."
You silly, silly repubutard.
Saul Alinsky 4. "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
While taking some screenwriting classes at UCLA last year, I asked the same question of several exeperienced and established producers and writers – no one famous, but people well entrenched in the industry. Without exception, they gave me the same answer: What the hell are you talking about?
They told me that those Iraq-themed movies (Redacted, Lions, Grace, Elah, etc) were NOT anti-American, NOT anti-military, and not even anti-war. They weren't "controversial" at all – the only thing they had in common was they were all DRAMAS. The concensus was that the DRAMA genre was no longer viable, at least not for movies, but certainly for television.
I mentioned Gran Torino and got dirty looks.
"I believe that Hollywood gives audiences what audiences want to see."
Anyone who knows big businesses knows that is only part of the truth. They give audiences what they think they should want to see. But egos, bias and misconceptions always interfere. They interfere in the creation and marketing of soft drinks and cars – we all know the famous product flops – why wouldn´t they interfere with something that´s so hard to nail down as a movie?
This explains why so many in the Lamestream Media freaked out when Brit Hume suggested that Tiger Woods needed to be saved through Christ:
http://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/14003-how-...
Haven't liked Cameron for 2l reasons – Titanic and for cheating on Linda Hamilton; Avatar is icing.
Screen writing classes? You have got to read this book.
http://www.amazon.com/City-Edge-Forever-Harlan-El...
I'm almost done with it, and its extremely entertaining.
With respect to your classmates, perhaps there are worse places to live than in uber liberal NY. At least out here when you yell at them they don't look at you like your nuts. New Yorkers sort of expect to get yelled at from time to time. Because I'd have gone off on them.
Hollywood as a whole has one agenda – $$$. Very few films have any lasting, profound, or broad impact on the national psyche or on important policy making decisions.
That's fine but movies don't really change society much. Books have a far more profound effect than movies.
Nope. Hollywood does NOT have a proactive agenda. They have a cash flow agenda.
You think otherwise? Then please tell me the release date of "Lions for Lambs Part 2".
"why not with something that is as hard to nail down as a movie?"
or for that matter, corporate-backed AM Radio?
Good points, Mr. Nolte. I saw that piece; I appreciate your take on it.
Right on. You got it.
This guy's been swimming in KoolAid so long his skin's turning pink.
Dead on. They don't see the leftist politics in the media for the exact same reason that fish are not aware of water.
If Hollywood's eye is always on profits, I still don't see why the hell they thought that Lions for Lambs, Grace Is Gone, Redacted and In the Valley of Elah were going to make money.
Don't be too surpirsed about Mr. Wright's cluelessness. If I remember correctly, HollywoodJesus is the same outfit that tried to claim that the Kate Winslett character in Titanic was a "type" of the Virgin Mary. They have not demonstrated any sanity since.
It is without a doubt, and shown with empirical data, that Christianity is 9 times out of 10 represented
negatively by Hollywood productions. Its because the subtle and overt innuendos of
producers and directors, who go through every minute of film with a fine tooth comb, can exploit and attack
Christianity as it is the only acceptable prejudice in popular culture. Especially Roman Catholics. Whether you are Christian or not, this is incontestable.
Nice. If the drug-infested whoremongers at whom you have launched this missive bother to retreat from their chemically-altered fantasy land and dwell in the miasma of reality that the rest of us inhabit on a daily basis, then they might have a chance at understanding something deeper than Mariah's "…..Yeah."
But probably not.
Green Zone looks awesome! And by the way, I'm sure Hollywood sees it as "Bourne 4" more than anything.
as far as "Brothers" & "Redacted" go… I'd bet they were all in the pipeline prior to the Lions for Lambs release date.
Wright's obviously clueless. The fact is, most people don't give a crap about politics in movies. They don't care. They sit, they watch, they are entertained, and of story. As long as a movie doesn't explicitly target people and parties by name, they can say it had nothing to do with politics.
I'm speaking from observation here. I have relatives and friends who habitually watch TV and go to movies, and they'll literally watch anything you put in front of them. It's not the content they're interested in. It's the experience of sitting in front of a TV or a movie screen and watching characters (preferably "cool" characters) do stuff. It's escapism. They don't actually think about what they've seen. Intellectualizing ruins the experience for them – puts distance between them and the experience. Criticism ruins the experience. So when you point out things like we discuss on this blog, they have no idea what you're talking about. And if you press them, they'll simply say it's 'just a movie' or 'I don't read anything serious into it.'
And I always wonder whether they're right.
Oh, sorry – got off my point. The point is, contrary to Wright's assertion, the majority of TV and movie watchers don't approve of Hollywood's left-wing propaganda. They don't even know or acknowledge they're watching it. Doesn't even register.
If there's only one restaurant in town, a lot of people will eat whatever's on the menu. Doesn't mean the food's actually good.
Great (if abreviated) synopsis GT.
It's quite obvious that Mr. Wright has no frelling clue what America wants to see. He should come here to Big Hollywood on any Saturday and see the films Leo Grin spotlights. THAT'S what America wants to see.
Great article here about conservative whining over Avatar
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/...
Yeah, two years later and "Brothers" and Hurt Locker" were in the pipeline, and movies don't have the plugs pulled at the last second all the time.
Bourne 4? There's an epic of rationalization.
"Bourne 4? There's an epic of rationalization"
not really! You tell me this: Watch a preview of Lions for Lambs, Green Zone, and any of the Bourne movies. (Matt Damon aside) Green Zone and any of the Bournes are both clearly action movies.
If your argument is that Hollywood has a proactive agenda because Lions for Lambs and all 17 anti-war movies to come since are all commercial failures, well I'd have a hard time denying that!
But I suspect that we have 17 anti-war movies, per your count, because enough of them were commercially successful, which is the real point of these ventures.
Be cool. We Americans don't feel threatened, as long as it isn't tax money being spent, we say, go for it.
But I suspect that we have 17 anti-war movies, per your count, because enough of them were commercially successful, which is the real point of these ventures.
Instead of "suspecting" they're successful, maybe you should find out for sure before posting.
Just a thought. Who knows, maybe you'd find out something beyond your present world view.
"Please tell me the release date of "Lions for Lambs Part 2"
Oh snap. Nice one. CgntcDssdnt.
It was an awful movie that rammed its awful message down people's throats. That's why it failed.
Cameron and others like him are pandering to a certain crowd of moviegoers.
i.e. the entire world
What? We've still got religion in movies! Tree worshiping counts, right?
Also you can just replace 'Christian-ridiculing' with 'Christians in a movie'. Saves time.
two things at work here…
First the genuinely ignorant. Not being able to climb inside the cobweb laden recesses of Mr Wright's mind, one can only assume one of two possibilities. Ignorance? perhaps. The 'useful idiot' of Marxist parlance at play.
Second, and more onerous- purveyor of disinformation. Sure we are tyring to shape the dialectic (no, actually CONTROL is a better term) but we need the dark of night to slip it past everyone lest they catch us and the jig is up.
YOU make the call…
Funny then that the box office numbers say otherwise
Anti-war movies are successful because sane people, unlike right wing conservative, think war is a bad thing.
I wonder if does anyone know if Denzel Washington's new film, "The Book of Eli," has any left wing snark in it.
Anybody who thinks that filmakers are not aware of the impact that the images they create; there is a bridge in Brooklyn for you to buy. Regarding Wrights statement, If what he said was true, then every film that was made would make money. Some films are so obviously made for ideologic reasons that they bomb at the box office but not at the Oscars and now, the new ideologic proving ground, the Golden Globes and to a lesser extent the SAG awards. Everything the film business does is heavily calculated.
Ummmm Mark (taps on monitor) I'm going to have to agree with you because Smokey And The Bandit and They Where Expendable aren't currently in theaters…
And mark – keep in mind that revenue is not attendance – the MOST important of box office numbers. Of course revenue is going up – ticket prices are roaring upwards like Barney Franks overinflated ego while attendance numbers have been spiraling downwards fast enough to leave a vapor trail. 2009 may show a slight increase, but since 2002 theater attendance has been plunging downwards faster than Obama's approval ratings. Both for the same reason: America sees through the bluster and can't put up with crap any more.
Like Rush Limbaugh said earlier today: "It's all content, content, content." If the American People can't find it on TV (or in the theaters) they'll go where the content they want can be found: internet or their own DVD collection.
So enjoy your funny box office numbers as you will, I'll remain here in the real world where Americans want what they've always wanted: entertainment, values, virtue, and talent.
I'm sure Mr. Nolte, like most here, would admit a level of bias from Fox News. I would suggest however that liberal points of view are given voice on Fox far more often than MSNBC gives voice to conservative ones. But that is beside the point. The point is that some people admit their bias (Rush Limbaugh, Ed Shultz) and some do not (Keith Olbermann, most of Hollywood). For anyone to suggest that Hollywood doesn't produce many more films with leftist messages than center or rightwing messages is either the height of ignorance or of intellectual dishonesty. My guess is you are of the latter sort but we can hope that you may be of the former and can be taught better.
And they make it BORING too!
The real reason the knights marched across the desert in history was to save a township that Saladin had threatened to destroy. There's no reason for the march in the movie except that crusaders and stupid and evil.
Nice history lesson guys.
"Lions For Lambs Part 2" was called: "Brothers," "Redacted" and the upcoming "Green Zone."
Excellent, excellent piece. I read yours and Mr. Wright's comments at the end of the piece which were very enlightening than….hopefully for Mr. Wright.
Gonna have to echo the preceding sentiments. Otherwise, why was Hollywood gonna dump the Narnia books (though they are going through with the third installment)? Originally, it had been reported that, despite making profits, the studios wanted to dump Narnia.
Yet anti-American film after anti-American film gets made, despite never even covering the costs. Hollywood most certainly has an agenda, but that doesn't mean *every single film* is part of that propaganda. Tent-poles and franchise blockbusters are always wanted. However, when they can, they'll put out lower budget propaganda films. Usually, you can get big names for those latter kinds of films because they're "issue" films with decidedly left-wing bias.
I'm just curious, does anyone remember when the last overtly right-wing film came out, excepting "An American Carol?" I can think of some films that many have *analyzed* as conservative, in some aspects, but a truly conservative *film*?
the sinner,
Patrick
everyone knows Cameron and others like him are pandering to a certain crowd of moviegoers. There agenda is to make money and who goes to movies? He must satisfy the crowd he is making movies for if he wants to actually make money at his 'craft'. If he were making movies for me or my generation of adults, he would be making an entirely different kind of movie, with different themes or he would go broke. My age group are not movie goers, so we don't get any movies made that reflect our ideas, thoughts, morals.
What´s your point?
Thank you, John, for linking to my piece at Sam Karnick's "The American Culture." I hate to be a stickler for details but my last name is spelled with 'C' not a 'K'.
BTW, I think John's post alerted Mr. Wright to what I wrote, which led to an interesting exchange between the two of us in the comments at TAC. While I think he is wrong about the industry's push for left-wing conformity and its desire to pursue influence over entertainment, we do agree that more voices should be heard in the Cultural Influence Professions rather than less. That is something the Entertainment-Industrial Complex does everything it can to avoid.
Anti-war movies can fail in more ways than one. In recent decades, we have generally seen two kinds of anti-war movies. There are those that are entertaining by giving us harrowing situations, suspense, stuff blown up and kick-ass fighting. Apocalypse Now and Platoon fall into that category. If well made, they are profitable and can even become fixtures of popular culture. While they may perpetuate historical lies, it is debatable whether they turn anyone against war. When our guys killed their Vietnamese guards in The Deer Hunter, how did it feel? Felt good, didn´t it?
Then there are movies that are full of suffering and crying and self-hatred and no kick ass fighting or white knuckle situations. They usually make little or no money and while the message is indeed antiwar and often anti-American, they can only preach to the choir. People who watch these movies expect their prejudices to be confirmed, not challenged. And that´s the kind of movie Hollywood made in recent years.
When we saw the numerous "anti-war" Vietnam movies made in the late 1970s and 1980s, we were teenagers. And I can assure you we thought Vietnam war must have been an awesome time. I mean, sex, drugs, rock´n´roll PLUS hot machine guns and helicopters? Are you kidding? To a hormone-addled young male mind this sounds like HEAVEN.
For all I know this reaction was not unique. We were dumb kids, didn´t know anything, didn´t really know any veterans, but we were also total liberals (no contradiction there). We probably would have volunteered but, to paraphrase Barack Obama, there wasn´t a war on at the time.
One thing must be clear: There are almost no conservative films. By that I mean explicitly political movies, which push a conservative message just as blatantly as dozens of movies push a liberal message as their main raison d´être every year. The latter have no conservative equivalent.
My definition excludes movies which are often called conservative because they are not relativist (good vs. evil) or show an American hero doing good or just have a shot of a cross or a waving flag like the Spiderman movies. For many so-called conservatives that is good enough. If they are happy to reduce conservatism to its most superficial symptoms, well, I refuse to be satisfied by being thrown a bone twice a year. These movies are not conservative the way dozens of movies are liberal. In a sane world, there is nothing "conservative" about killing a terrorist or NOT making your country or the military look bad.
What we have here are movies which conservatives can bear to watch. Not conservative movies.
You just proved my point. Your age group thinks they are the entire world. Get over yourself.
To be honest, as far as I remember the figures, attendance is not dropping any more. While grosses have roughly doubled in the last 20 years, attandance has hardly changed, especially given US population growth. It will be slightly up this year, last year it was slightly down. The big drop came before the 1990s. As a movie event, Avatar cannot compare with E.T. or The Empire strikes back – when we had 80 million fewer people – because the moviegoers aren´t there anymore. Never mind Gone with the Wind. Sure, video games, TV and DVDs share some of the blame, but movies also do not occupy same the place in our minds anymore. No one will in his old age look forward to watching Avatar for the tenth time the way my late uncle watched The Sound of Music.
as are we…
Nope, I looked her up. Actual attendance records show that for the past 7 years there've been fewer and fewer actual tickets sold :
2003 – 4% fewer tickets sold than in 2002
2004 – 1% fewer tickets sold than in 2003
2005 – 8% fewer tickets sold than in 2004
Rumors are that 2009 MIGHT be the year ticket sales increased but I doubt it. The Harry Potter books themselves decended into a morass of depressing angst, how can the movies reflect the past fun and lightheartedness that made them boxoffice blockbusters? Avatar's biggest attraction according to the producer is blue 3D animated boobs, Guy Richie turned Sherlock Holms into an actionfigure inspired episode of House, everything else is so infected by the Shakey Cam how can a movie goer hold down their lunch let alone their popcorn?
Wow, awesome article there Mark. Davin O'Dwyer's best argument against the conservitive backlash is "They're wrong" and his reason why conservatives are wrong is because the Avatar characters are blue and animated.
Remind me to make all my political decisions based on the semi educated opinions of a kool-aid sucking Irish truther.
I thought grape Kool-Aid was the preferred flavor at Jonestown? Wouldn't his skin be purple?
I've said about all I can over on Daniel's post. Drop the word "paranoia" and watch the sharks swarm. Honestly, folks who think I'm a Hollywood defender (or part of it) really ought to check me out a little before jumping to that conclusion. I manage not only Hollywood Jesus but Past the Popcorn, too (ptpopcorn.com). My interest is independent films and filmmakers themselves. I don't even see Hollywood films these days unless my editorial assignments dictate that I do.
And, yes, I'm a little paranoid myself. But I don't take my paranoia seriously.
Thanks for the follow-up comment here, Daniel.
I´m not sure audiences will ever be what they were when people went to the movies every week. Not when it is so comfortable to watch them at home. But Hollywood doesn´t help itself at all. It used to excel at being an assemby line for either classy entertainment or good, dumb entertainment. It fails at both now, for exactly the reasons you give. I put it down to a lack of humility among filmmakers.
War is a bad thing, but allowing yourself to become enslaved is much worse. Thomas Jefferson correctly said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
One of Hollywood's finest (Woody Allen) said it best: "It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you!"
However if they actually make a movie that the people WANT to see: another Goldfinger, another Gone With The Wind, another Smokey And The Bandit – but unlike post 1990 production values do it with people with TALENT (OMG Lucas, where the hell did you find that corpse to play Anaken Skywalker?) I'm positive that the public will return – we just need the scripts sans dogma, and toss out the talentless prettyboys for the new generation of Jimmy Stewarts and Kathryn Hepburns who will keep their ignorant yaps shut when the cameras aren't rolling. (Megan Fox – is your pretty but completely empty head listening?)
Let's face it, if Detroit built and sold cars like Hollywood makes movies and sold movie tickets the US government would have to take over their pathetic looser operations…. ooops.
According to today's newsfeed, he's optioned a book about Hiroshima. I'm sure that won't be insulting to American servicemen -not.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." — John Stuart Mill
Exactly! That's also why when you talk about the liberal bias in the news, they look at you like you're from another planet. They sincerely believe their view is true, so to oppose it, you MUST be either stupid or crazy.
I am very curious about this, and about the film in general as well! This is sort of movie that can either be great, or be really, REALLY bad.
"Not knee-jerk reactionary."
As opposed to your your logical and rational comment here, right?
What are you, five years old? No one is every claiming war is a good thing. But it's sometimes necessary. Why? Because evil is real. But apparently in your version of the world, there's no such thing as evil, right? It's because of the big, bad insane conservatives that there's any war in the world at all.
It's BECAUSE some people have the guts to fight for things like freedom and life itself that you get to sit there typing your nonsense. So take your moral superiority and outrage elsewhere.
Alex Proyas has been doing a pretty good job. "Dark City", "I, Robot", "Knowing": all three have overt Christian or Conservative messages. Granted, they don't beat you over the head with it(the ending of "Knowing" not withstanding; the imagery is pretty blatant), but they contain much more than the undertones from many films people consider conservative.
I used to enjoy reading Hollywood Jesus, but it seems they try so hard to find something positive in EVERY single movie. They can't seem to take a stand on anything!
"Instead of "suspecting" they're successful, maybe you should find out for sure before posting.
Just a thought. Who knows, maybe you'd find out something beyond your present world view."
I'm all for fact-based-discussion. no, lets review this thread. Our discussion leader John Nolte, asserted that he's counted 17 anti-war movie "flops" in 2.5 years. So you argue that I should do the research to support his claim?
"Instead of "suspecting" they're successful, maybe you should find out for sure before posting. Just a thought. Who knows, maybe you'd find out something beyond your present world view. "
or maybe you should?
I'll accept that ("A")war is an ugly necessary thing, but then you must accept "B"… that as long as the rest of us are told to accept "A", then there should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS be debate and discussion and constant thorough review of ALL of the ongoing unfortunate situations that has led us (or forced us) to accept "A" in the first place.
"The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."
Fortunately, that does not describe the general left. some of the fringe left, perhaps, but not the left in general.
There's nothing to "debate" and "discuss" and "constantly review" about the fact that there is evil in the world and it needs to be fought against.
In addition to the evil itself, it's attitudes like this that are the problem. Can you say straight out that there's good and there's evil and that evil must be opposed? If you can't, then you're part of the problem. Because when it comes to this very black and white issue, it's really not so hard to figure out.
YES. I can say straight out that there is EVIL and it must be opposed.
But there still must be debate!
Because: who is this evil? Where does it come from? Is it in our government? Is there an evil plot to maintain suffering in this world so that others may profit? And that EVIL (that I presume you agree with me exists) is of course: unbridled corporate greed.
I mean, unless you 100% agree with me, then I am assuming that you will want to debate me. So I proactively invite you to debate me.
well it seems that your point is something like: even when we agree that the profit-seeking motive is a leveler against bias, companies (including movie companies) are not machines but humans, with biases, egos and misconceptions. And as evidence, you point to famous bean-counter mis-steps with soda and cars.
Well you have a good point. But before you get very far in hitting Hollywood on that point I will tell you that it cuts both ways: AM Radio sure seems to be pushing the "corporate-agenda" much more so than would seem profitable in terms of advertising dollars versus appealing to the broadest possible listening base.
Great AVATAR leads again, its a masterpiece! unlike this classless and disturbing movie LEGION, or this boring violent movie ELI. Filmmakers please note that gory violence or a black cast will never make a huge box office.
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