Well said. I said recently in a post how I just couldn't drag myself to see Prince of Persia, A-Team, and a few other "blockbusters" because they're just more of the same. Instead I watched--and loved--the foreign film "The Secret in the Their Eyes". Watching that sub-titled movie, with unknown-but-excellent actors, a well written plot that took its time to develop and didn't depend on explosions and CGI, was a great experience. It was literally like eating a small, excellent meal in a fancy restaurant after days of gorging on McDonald's. Oh, I'm still enough of a scifi/action/movie nut to take in the well done summer movies: The Dark Knight, District 9, Star Trek, etc. But I still try very hard to look for good movies, regardless of the subject matter, and seeing some of the comic properties utterly destroyed by crappy flicks (Wolverine, Elektra, etc.), just makes me sad.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Daryle Lockhart" <dar...@darylelockhart.com> To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 1, 2010 11:28:41 AM Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Comic Con is killing Hollywood Actually...that's not ENTIRELY accurate. Remember that most of these studios are owned by corporations that have little to do with entertainment. As I write this, "At The Movies" just showed a clip of a Roger Ebert review from 1987 where he goes OFF on "Leonard Part 6" because at the time, Columbia was owned by Coca Cola, so Bill Cosby is holding a can up to his face randomly in the picture. THIS is where it all went left. Corporations "getting into the movie business". Disney's one of the only pure-play entertainment companies making movies right now. This is one of the factors that went into selling off Miramax. As for the audience not going anywhere...that's not entirely accurate either. They're slowly leaving, as evidenced by the rise in ticket prices. Check the match. You're paying an additional 2 dollars in some markets. 5 extra dollars for IMAX. That's somebody's seat. The audience isn't JUST leaving for the internet. People are starting to watch smaller movies, even movies that LOOK smaller. The "French new wave" of the 21st Century is made up of movies from Asia. Bollywood, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese films take risks that American pictures don't. And they pack houses they way a movie during a recession is supposed to - 300 at a time. But on to the point of the article. Comic book movies are SUPPOSED to kill Hollywood. Comics are supposed to be counter culture. The movie business cycle is at a point now just like is was in the early 60s. The pictures are too big. The stars are too boring. The money's just not there in some (MGM) cases. There's a collapse coming of "Cleopatra" proportions. When that happens, it's not gonna be about Superman or Green Lantern movies to save the business. It'll be pictures like Scott Pilgrim. Popular comics with stories you can tell a number of ways, but more importantly, cost effective pictures that relate to the audience. Comic Book movies are killing contemporary Hollywood. Long Live the next Hollywood. On Aug 1, 2010, at 6:29 AM, Martin Baxter wrote: No one puts a gun to H'Wood's head and forces them to churn out such crap. If they want to do movies based on comics, they can take their time and do it right. The audience isn't going anywhere. On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 9:38 PM, Kelwyn < ravena...@yahoo.com > wrote: http://news.premiere.com/blog/2010/07/comic-con-is-killing-hollywood-.html Super hero movies might save the box office, but they fail fans of good movies. That's because movies based on comic book super heroes are the worst of Hollywood's modern genres. These flashy passion plays that celebrate the redeeming powers of violence are more loathsome than torture porn, fratboy fart operas, or mopey boomer spawn tearjerkers. The brooding, misunderstood heroes are boring. The erotic, computer generated fisticuffs between demigods is boring. The secret identities, costume fetishes, and the super powers – the grappling-hook bazookas, and lightening sneezes and berserker gorilla rages – are boring. The genre is exhausted. And this is coming from a dude who is currently plowing through three comic book series (Ex Machina, The Walking Dead, and Top Ten.) http://news.premiere.com/blog/2010/07/comic-con-is-killing-hollywood-.html -- "If all the world's a stage and we are merely players, who the bloody hell wrote the script?" -- Charles E Grant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUxw9aUVik
