the chutry experiment

I watch a lot of movies, but I don't go to the movies very often. When I do, it's typically with my son, so I guess that makes me one of those folks who shell out $7.50 to see films that are never nominated for Oscars. (I think the last film I saw in the theatre was The Ringer.)

I think your assessments are right about why people choose not to watch movies on the big screen (desire for interactivity, convenience, pause and rewind, etc.). Incidentally, I find the worst patron behavior occurs at our local art-house cinema. Here, the chatter -- the running commentary -- is nonstop. Maybe this is why indie films don't do better at the box office?

I haven't experienced that kind of chatter in DC or Atlanta art houses, so I wonder if that's something specific to your theater. I see Hollywood films less often than I do indies, and that's likely connected to my not having children.

Cost does seem like a big factor, and I don't know if I'd spend as much as I do on tickets if I didn't see it as an investment of sorts. Of course, where I live, I'd love to pay $7.50 for a movie ticket.

Passing thought: I wonder if "rude" audience behavior is a form of talking back to an unsatisfying theatrical experience. I know I've discussed my distaste for such pre-show "entertainment" ad nauseum, and part of that distaste comes from not really enjoying being treated as captivate audience for nearly half an hour before the actual previews start.

But such pre-show entertainment seems to blur the boundaries between movie and not-movie, making it less clear when one should be silent (I went to see X-Men 2 a few years ago with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, but when the Twenty began, it made conversation a little more difficult to know when our conversation would become inappropriate.

>>>> attribute this decline to the much larger video game market, concluding that "kids have better things to do than see movies."

Well, yes and no. First of all, those video game figures account for not only software sales but also the sales of consoles and portable players. It would be like including the cost of a DVD player for the home in the sales figures of DVDs generally (if those DVD players were proprietary, but whatever). So those figures that say "games make as much money as the box office" are both right and wrong.

More to the point, however, is that game sales have slumped a bit too, and the industry suffers from many similar complaints that plague other entertainment media - too many sequels, not enough innovative work, too expensive, too much marketing tie-in, etc. etc. On the other hand, a games slump isn't uncommon during years of transition (new xbox, with ps3 and nintendo revolution coming out; plus new DS and PSP).

This isn't to say that games sales aren't cutting into both time and money for cinema (or TV). There are just a ton of possible other factors, not least of which is piracy, rising expenses (gas), some pretty decent television, the convenience of Netflix. And I agree with you - with home theatre systems on the rise, the appeal of the theatre diminishes.

What I thought was an interesting contradiction in approach was the selection of movies for awards and the staging of those movies as "issue-raisers" by an industry priding itself on its "bold sense of social responsibility" (which, frankly, seems incredibly ironic, considering how many of those same movie-houses make millions of dollars off vast stereotyping on the basis of sex, gender, race, and class)... and then having the President of the Academy come out and practially beg the viewing audience to "not pirate DVDs" and "go to the movies." It was the strangest approach I'd ever seen... as if saying "we're bold enough to make a stand... so long as you still come, and you don't pirate the good ones." I shouldn't be surprised, but it was a usually quixotic Hollywood message.

What I also found interesting was Jon Stewart's moment (perhaps the only one) of non-teleprompter performance in which he pointed out the industry's incredible hypocricy... demonstrating how "starving" the artists are in the theater... due to the "rampant" pirating of DVDs, that seemed to be the Academy's *real* beef for the night.

I'm rambling... but I thought this was particularly interesting.

Jason, you're right about games. I'd meant to complicte that point, but this entry changed directions something like eighteen times, and that got lost. Interesting that games are facing a similar slump. Your mention of gas prices is also significant--I'd imagine that entertainment budgets are probably tighter than usual this year due to gas/heating bills and filling the tank (luckily I don't have either expense right now).

CJ, interesting to see those hypocrisies (the self-congratulatory "social responsibility" and the "starving artist" lines) overlap in that way, as if Hollywood is the only (or primary) source for socially responsible filmmaking. Piracy was certainly a big issue last year, but it sounds like that was an even bigger issue this year.

Stewart's "unscripted" moment sounds really interesting.

Why do I watch the Oscars?

Maybe because The Sopranmos weren't on TV that night?

One version of "pimping the big screen" at the Oscars: Jake Gyllenhaal reading a scripted "[T]here's no place to see [movies] but the big screen," followed by a montage of spectacles such as 2001 and ET. Even Gyllenhaal had a hard time keeping a straight face, according the folks at Slate.

I love how conservatives fail to ever point out market considerations in Hollywood. I don't go to the movies because it's too damned expensive.

I think you're right. Especially if you have children, movies can be an expensive habit. I'm single, so I sometimes forget that. Still, I spend much of my disposable income on movie tix and Metrofare to the movies.....