This post is in response to latest post from Missmollygrue over at blogspot.

I think the primary reason why most movies right now are poop is due to overload. There are more movies available than ever before at any given time. 16-screen mega-theatres? Cable/Dish-On-Demand/Netflix/BitTorrent? DVD players in laptops and cars? This massive mass-distribution causes the industry to kick out product that is cheap-plastic-shiny-on-the-outside-but-not-too-expensive-on-the-inside. They spend more time talking about which special-effects to use than they do working on the script. They go for the marketing-department-approved-R.O.I., which has a rubber stamp of approval for crap like 'The Dukes of Hazzard' or 'Home Alone 8', or Anne Rice [Fill in book title here] or Harry Potter [Fill in version number here].

[Editors Note: Do people ever make movies based off books that Weren’t best sellers?]

Regardless, this business model is the Wal-Mart method of movie production, which stresses Quantity of sure-returns over Quality pieces of artwork. (I suggest we call them Wal-Movies...)

Because of the ridiculous volume of media available, it will take time for the cream of the crop to rise, and all of the overhyped poop to sink to the bottom. My point is - it is difficult to see what will stand the test of time until some time has passed. We know now that The Police were doing good music, because you still hear it today, and we know that Air Supply was garbage, because you don't. We know that Dashboard Confessional is dogpoop squared, but it will take some time before the lustre of overhyped prodution, product placement, and the kickbacks to magazines and radio stations wear off, and the public is left with simply the product.

This does not change the fact that the majority of movies made right now truly are poop, and you won't see a single movie from the year 2005 mentioned in 2010 when they highlight the current decade. My theory is that there are some gems being made (or at least written), but they aren’t being made by the people with the $$$ to get them onto the big screen.

To those who would say that movies suck simply because Americans have nothing to say (Josh), I would say that is not entirely true, but rather that 99 percent of Americans have nothing NEW or INTERESTING to say, and they get a large budget to say it with. Americans have become quite adept at repackaging other people's ideas and selling them, or in more motivated cases, putting a spin on the original idea, but that requires original ideas, and those 1 percent have to come from somewhere, and they are not all imported from foreign countries with subtitles.

I would argue that much of that 1 percent of clever, original, genre-breaking-movie-making is an untapped resource known as Independent artists. The audio industry is discovering this now, and the video industry is sure to follow. As the living-room entertainment center gets more tightly connected to internet distribution methods, and as websites (like video.google.com, youtube.com etc) start doing for independent video what they currently do for audio (garageband.com, mp3tunes.com, magnatune.com etc..) The volume of video media available will increase exponentially.

I predict that at first, this will be video Nirvana. A rennaisance of filmmaking creativity which will make Hollywood shrivel up and die like the testicles of a bull being casterated. Unfortunately, this utopia will not last, as the market floods, and suddenly, video of someone's girlfriend's breast augmentation surgery is deemed 'art', alongside a 12-hour security camera tape of SuperAmerica titled, 'A Day In The Life Of Johnny' in which nothing happens. Toss in some payoffs to websites for a link, which raises their social network ranking, and suddenly, we have the video version of 'Dashboard Confessional' - Dogpoop cubed. Suddenly, that 1 percent becomes .01 percent.

And the cycle Lathers, Rinses, and Repeats.

Hopefully, someone is working on a computer program which can watch a movie for me and tell if I will like it or not before I watch it. What would that be like, to only watch good movies? Weird...

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: consumerism, Cultural Observation, Culture, Hollywood, indie movies, Movie News, Predictions