The Great (Hollywood) Depression

I purposely tend to avoid the popular films that are coming out, although with some exceptions (I did see Dial of Destiny, Oppenheimer and Barbie at the cinema), and find these usually more rewarding. In the last several years I’ve been lucky enough to see Werewolves Within, Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey (ok, maybe not that lucky), Beau is Afraid, Infinity Pool, The Green Knight, Uncut Gems and several others that most avoid watching in favor of the usual franchises.

Bio-pics are my thing. The last well made one that I seen was Stan & Ollie (2018). It succeeded because it focused on a certain time frame in their lives vs the usual trying to tell too big of a story in the limit time a movie can offer. But I bet Stan & Ollie didn't generate as much $$$ as a flying super hero flick does. Hence we get mostly crap franchise and reboot films and yet mostly people like those films.

I recall a few years back when we did a Disney World trip and noticed a lot of what has been labelled PC back then, Woke now. I also recall reading that, for Disney, it was mainly a financial decision, based on marketing research and demographics. I can't imagine that, whatever is left of the movie industry in a few years won't be looking at the same thing. They have to draw in sectors of the population that have been under-served in the past because that's where future revenue comes from as the numbers change.

This comes from the Accounting Department, not the Office of Moral Correctness.

That's what I was saying about metadata

Metadata, predictive statistics, woke agenda, etc are just the thing of the moment, contrasted with a loud producer in the 1940's proclaiming, "I have a hit on my hands". Some predictions work, some don't and statistics are a weak science.

I was noting how I saw Wicked Little Letters last night. While it was cute and witty, but disappointing and it was also playing to a small "crowd". I can't help but note, based on my own "vast" experience, that the same movie, same theater would probably had a better audience 5 years ago. Between the remaining FX of Covid, the stream-ability of almost anything and Americans' seemingly ever increasing tendency to do nothing if they can sit on their couch, it just doesn't seem like the numbers can be there.

I've also noted a tendency, over the past few years, to come out of a theater with a big "nyeh". I don't think it's just me. In the production cycle of movies, we're probably, chronologically, at the nadir of covid mentality and, it seems like it's effecting movies that have been released recently. The only one I've seen for a while that seemed to reach for anything was Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan seems like the sort of personality to thrive in our toxic time, a movie megalomaniac.

I keep hoping to hit bottom on this. The same night, before the movie, I had dinner in the same food hall that had also been slack for several years. It was crowded and noisy and they had live music.

Maybe that's an omen.

Could it even be The First Omen?

OK by me as long as the First Omen is followed by more.

Followed by the sequel "The Omen After First Omen, But Before The Infamous Omen".

Malayalam cinema says hello.

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San Franciscan lesbian dwarves and their tomato orgies.

I was thinking Alaska or Hawaii.

Yep, Christopher Makoto Yogi is an industry himself.