MST3K: Anti-cinema?

Also, as Wyldeside said, Heaven's Gate is a good movie. Which is something your average person will just instinctively roll their eyes at if you say. Because the story is no longer about how too much money got spent on it, it's become how terrible a movie it is. And how when you make such a bad movie, of course it will lose money.


But it's not bad. It might even be great.



But try telling that to someone who only hears about what a dangerous turkey it was because it almost killed a studio.

I don't think the math of it is complicated. A business that doesn't make enough money will go under, that's just how math works!

The numbers don't lie! If you have enough hits, you get to stay in business. When you have enough flops - or a big enough flop - then you go out of business.

Is that not simple enough?

The business part of the whole thing really hasn't changed since the days of the earliest studios. Sure, audience expectations change over time, the technology changes over time, but at the end of the day, you gotta sell enough tickets! When you haven't sold enough tickets to cover your costs, then you can't continue doing business.

Clearly I didn't realize I've been talking with yet another 'movies are a business' poster.


I'm no longer interested in this conversation.


Have a good evening.

I’ll also point out that Heaven’s Gate gets too much blame on bankrupting United Artists. There were other factors and let’s be honest, studios were looking for a reason to take back control anyways, and Heavens Gate was a convenient scapegoat.

That is not necessarily true, though. I mean, sure, in the US, the movie business can only exist as a business.

There are other countries where government-funded productions are meant to boost the local film industry. So, film production is essentially subsidized by the taxpayers.

But one way or another, someone has to pay for a movie to be made, that's just the reality of it.

It doesn't mean that movies have to cost an arm and a leg. Robert Rodriguez allegedly made his first movie for $7,000 (some people have disputed the figure).

Do you want to talk about movies exclusively from an artistic perspective? That is certainly a valid choice, so long as you remember that artists don't just get to spend an infinite amount of money to create their art - and they shouldn't have to.

But what happened to United Artists is hardly an exception. Studios, mini studios, and production companies have routinely gone out of business when they just didn't make enough money to continue producing movies.

How many such entities have gone down in my lifetime alone?

There's UA, and then there's also Orion Pictures, Gramercy Pictures, October Films, Carolco Pictures... all the way to the more recent demise of Participant Media.

If you don't like the way Heaven's Gate led to the demise of UA, then how about Cutthroat Island and Carolco?

The story of film production companies being brought down by costly flops is a long and storied one; at the end of the day, it's all about making money - because movies cost a lot of money to make.

Of course it's a business. It's a business even when it's a low budget film being made in any country at all. But I'm not interested in conversations about the art of cinema that keep turning towards how it's primarily a business, and then have any appeals for movies to be more than profit generators, just being constantly led back to the line of 'but the investors...'


I do not care about the investors. And I do not care about arguments that pretend there aren't other people who will put money into a films where they are actually investing in talent. It happens all the time. But the higher we allow budgets to keep climbing (out of some kind of imagined necessity) the less likely you are going to find these kinds of investors who are more interested in the art than the profit.


Too much money corrupts the whole creative process.



Yes, like where I live. And where the tax payers paid for a movie about parasites that turn Montrealers into sex crazed orgy zombies. And which the public screamed and cried about because it was 'a bad and morally unsound investment'. But that the movie got to be made anyway....and now we have David Cronenberg.



This isn't a fact I have somehow overlooked when talking about this


Yes. Exactly. And I'm calling for more of this, and for less movies that need hundreds of millions of dollars to come into existence.


Who's talking about an infinite amount of money? I already called out Cimino's negligence and the part he played in Heaven's Gates failure. I'm not saying directors are off the hook for blowing millions of dollars. They need to have some amount of shared responsibility.



But just because Cimino had a god complex and did crazy coke addled things that ended up blowing up his career, doesn't mean my take away from this is that directors are the primary problem here. That just because some artists are egomaniacs and their own worst enemy, that this somehow means the better way is having the people with the money making the creative decisions.



If someone wants to invest in a movie, you invest in the talent. And you let that talent do what it does and get out of the way. Otherwise, find something else other than the arts to invest in.


And obviously, if the person with the money wants to do everything wrong and interfere with the artists vision, that's obviously their right to do it. Just as it's my right to say they suck and they don't know what they are doing and this is why I think there are so many disposable movies these days.

OK, as far as your mentioning "arguments that pretend there aren't other people who will put money into a films where they are actually investing in talent," I don't know which argument you're referring to, but it sure isn't mine.

Yes, there are some investors who do that - and sadly they too have gotten burned, even without investing in big-budget stuff.

Look at Participant Media. The fact they've gone out of business means there's less space for production companies with those shared goals now than there was 20 years ago.

I get that you don't like the way things are. I'm trying to patiently explain to you why things aren't likely to get any better at least in the foreseeable future.

And for what it's worth, I don't like the way things are any more than you do. But I'm not blind to the reasons why they are that way and unlikely to change any time soon - and perhaps during the rest of my lifetime.

This is skizzerflakes argument. And when you bring up things like Heaven's Gate, that was a key moment where the power began to shift back towards the suits and away from the artists. And I'm criticizing that cultural shift, whether or not you were in agreement with it.




I'm not blind to it either. But I also try not to just resign myself to this and act like there is no solution to it. Because there is.



Less money and less reliance on the blockbuster model of filmmaking, as it can't sustain itself. Also more investment towards independent filmmaking. Then hopefully this will start garnering more engagement from audiences who in recent years have become such passive watchers of film there is good reason why studio's think they'll lap up whatever they are served. Because they do.



But, I'm also a pessimist, so I'm not exactly expecting this to happen either.

From my perspective, "criticising" a cultural shift is like yelling at the clouds. Those things are just going to happen every so often, sometimes you like the outcome and sometimes, not so much.

Better to wait until the next shift happens and hope it's a better one.

But the only "solution" is for certain like-minded individuals to come into a great deal of money. So, if you win a billion dollars in the lottery, there would actually be something you could do. But short of that, it's hard to be very optimistic about things changing in a meaningful way any time soon.

So we shouldn't criticize things because nothing changes?



No. Sometimes things do change, because people do speak about it (things don't just happen in a vaccuum, you know). And even if nothing changes, complacency is a ridiculous option.


Want to know what will never change? Me complaining about terrible cultural trends. So by your own logic, you complaining about me complaining is kind of you yelling at the clouds, isn't it?



I need to win a billion dollars in a lottery to change things? What is it about me saying movies should be made cheaper that isn't computing here? You yourself have quoted how Rodriguez's first film was made for $7000. People aren't beholden to the existing structure. At least as long as everyone doesn't also give into total apathy and just sit around waiting for changes to magically happen on their own. Or for billion dollar lotteries to be won.

Are you familiar with the Theory of Change?

Are you saying that if you did win a billion dollars, you wouldn't dedicate most of it towards funding the kind of movies you want to see made?

But let's say you "only" won $7,000. Are you going to put that towards making a film? If you make a huge profit, you could finance even more movies of the kind you want to watch. OTOH, if you lose what you put into that first movie, you're out as a movie financier.

Do you still risk it all on the most artistic project you can find?

No.





If I won a billion dollars, I would invest the majority of it in all sorts of different art projects. Because I have literally no interest in having that kind of money. And I would have no interest in telling any of the artists what to make if I did invest in them. Because if I'm already wealthy, what the hell do I care if the film makes a profit? I just want there to be more good films, or books, or music, or paintings. And if I believe in someone's talents, I want to see what they do with them, without me interfering and telling them what I think will sell.

If you're really serious about wanting things to, you know, actually change, you should look into it. You could find a way to really make a difference!

You realize you could just set up an arts fund that would function like non-profits do? The goal is not to make a profit, but to use any money that comes in to continue funding even more art projects.

Wow....still going on with the Profit VS Art debate. When I got first interested in that one, it was when I used to go to a college "Film" series (not movies) and saw Films in the science auditorium with about 12 other Cinema fans, stuff like early Bergman, 8 1/2 and of course, Citizen Kane. We discussed just how decadent the movie world was, pandering to popular tastes and attitudes, all stuff that's still true. The economics have changed a bit and gotten even more intense (gambling with more money at stake), but the issue has not and you don't have to be in a university basement to debate it.

So, what's the other side? Does anybody in this discussion know where you'd go, what you'd see, if you wanted to see Cinema in its full glory as Art and not as popular pablum? I can't help but think of one of my local "Film" icons, John Waters, who made some early movies that had budgets like eight thousand bucks. Nobody does movies for 8K anymore. Those movies (charging 2$ admission), probably made 100 times their budget in the first year.

If it's not going to be conventionally entertaining, what will it be and what keeps me in the seat for a couple of hours? What does pay the bills? As I recall, this clip, locally well known, was made guerrilla-style, without permits or permission or a union contract, in Fells Point, next to the Broadway Market in Baltimore. I think Waters got arrested.

No. As I clearly mentioned about three posts up, I want this conversation to end. I'm not interested in arguments whose soul function seems to be to undermine the value of any film that dares to do anything more than conventionally entertain. I only want to talk about the art element. And if you want to go on and on about profit, start a ****ing lemonade stand. Maybe if your lucky, John Waters will come around and give you ten cents to piss in one of your styrofoam cups.





I think I heard this one before. And it's just as irrelevant to me as it was on the previous page. And the page before that. And all the other threads you've mentioned it in.


Clearly you are very proud of something here, even if it mostly sounds like you disdain everything that comes with an education. Maybe you think this lends what you say some kind of credit. You know, like when you try and sound erudite by mentioning Dickens.





What are you talking about. What is decadent? Who is pandering? I think you left some words out.



Debate what? Who's in a basement now?


We need to have the first side before we can get to the other one.
"I was in a classroom once" is not the valid argument you seem to think it is



A movie theater? Is this a trick question?



You'd think, considering how often you mention John Waters, and consider him your hero, that you might see how he embodies exactly what I've been calling for in film, but that you keep poo pooing because you keep saying art and profit are somehow mutually exclusive.


And before you even go there, yes, John Waters is an artist.






But they should


I'd assume a heavy meal.


And why does everything always get back to where you park your ass? There are many asses in the world,.and they aren't all yours.



Whose bills? Mine? In that case, no one. I throw them out.




Got anymore random clips to share with us?

Not tonight, maybe tomorrow, but it will end if you choose it to end.

Whats honestly the point of watching a movie if you cant make fun of it in your own home? There are stupid decisions that happen ALL THE TIME in these things and they deserve to be laughed at.

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I wouldn't go so far as to call it good, but it definitely isn't bad. Zsigmond's cinematography is notable, for one.

And yet the stupidest decision is to watch the MST3K version.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.