[lbo-talk] RE: The Movies (was Oscars)

Gary Mongiovi MONGIOVG at stjohns.edu
Tue Mar 7 12:06:06 PST 2006


Regarding Carl's remarks: I beg to differ. Movies remain the best entertainment bargain around in terms of value for money. Yeah, there's a lot of crap, but plenty of good stuff too, including mass market Hollywood flicks. 2005 was a terrific year for movies. Except for "Good Night & Good Luck" my shortlist of the 5 best movies of last year wouldn't have coincided with the nominees, but I saw about 100 movies in 2005 and only a small handful weren't worth the 20 bucks & change Marge & I paid to see them. To name just a few of the more outstanding flicks: "A History of Violence", "Me & You & Everyone We Know", "Kung Fu Hustle", "Kingdom of Heaven" (much better than the reviews would lead you to believe), "Sin City", "George Romero's Land of the Dead", "The Corpse Bride", "Four Brothers", "Lord of War", "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang", "Dreamer", "Walk the Line", "The New World" and "The Descent" (not released yet in the US, but a top-notch creeper-outer).

For all the rubbish that gets released, an impressive number of smart, emotionally engaging movies appear every year.

And it is indeed true that watching movies on TV doesn't come close, as an aesthetic experience, to experience of watching them in a theater. A heads-up for listmembers in New York: in March Film Forum will have a series showcasing the films of the great Don Siegel; not to be missed!

Gary

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>From: "Dennis Perrin" <dperrin at comcast.net>
>
>Carl:
>
>>[Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? -- Mark 8:18. BTW,
>>the projected 41 million US audience mentioned below did not materialize.
>>Nielsen reports 38.8 million Americans viewed the Oscars, down 8% from
>>last year.]
>
>I've no doubt that Hollywood's biz is off -- nothing new on that front. I
>simply don't see the film industry "flatlining" which, to me, means that's
>it's dead. People will always want to watch movies.

... Movies could be a passing fad, since the industry has entered a persistent vegetative state that is embarrassing to see. Movies seem to skew either to the vapidity of today's mass market releases -- "big screens .. awash in the fast and the furious, the cheap and the stupid," as that NYT article put it -- or to the suffocating solipsistic whimsy of the indie market.

Carl

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