Skanky Vamp
Sniffin' the Slayer
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2008
- Messages
- 26,460
excerpts from the article:
"There are a lot of reasons that movies have been so bad during the last couple of years and probably won’t be any better for the next couple of years. One big reason is that rotten pictures are making money—not necessarily wild amounts (though a few are), but sizable amounts. So if studio heads want nothing more than to make money and grab power, there is no reason for them to make better ones. Turning out better pictures might actually jeopardize their position."
"The studios no longer make movies primarily to attract and please moviegoers; they make movies in such a way as to get as much as possible from the prearranged and anticipated deals. Every picture (allowing for a few exceptions) is cast and planned in terms of those deals. Though the studio is very happy when it has a box-office hit, it isn’t terribly concerned about the grumbling."
"Financially, the industry is healthy, so among the people at the top there seems to be little recognition of what miserable shape movies are in. They think the grosses are proof that people are happy with what they’re getting, rather than what they settle for. Executives don’t necessarily see many movies themselves, and they rarely go to a theatre. If for the last couple of years Hollywood couldn’t seem to do anything right, it isn’t that it was just a stretch of bad luck—it’s the result of recent developments within the industry. And in all probability it will get worse, not better."
"the studios have discovered how to take the risk out of moviemaking, they don’t want to make any movies that they can’t protect themselves on. Production and advertising costs have gone so high that there is genuine nervous panic about risky projects. If an executive finances what looks like a perfectly safe, stale piece of material and packs it with stars, and the production costs skyrocket way beyond the guarantees, and the picture loses many millions, they won’t be blamed for it—they were playing the game by the same rules as everybody else."
"The executives are a managerial class with no real stake in the studio; they didn’t build it, it’s not part of them, and they’re moving on—into a bigger job at another studio, or into independent production, or to form their own companies. The executives just try to hold things together for the short period that they’re going to be around; there isn’t even an elementary regard for the conservation of talent. And, as in any chaotic bureaucracy, the personalities and goals of those at the top set the tone for all the day-to-day decisions; the top executives’ apathy about the quality of movies infects the studio right down the line."
"Part of what has deranged American life in this past decade is the change in ... movies as they have passed out of the control of those whose lives were bound up in them and into the control of conglomerates, financiers, and managers who treat them as ordinary commodities. This isn’t a reversible process; even if there were Supreme Court rulings that split some of these holdings from the conglomerates, the traditions that developed inside many of those businesses have been ruptured. And the continuity is gone."
excerpts from The New Yorker, June 23, 1980
I thought it interesting. Same thing could be said today.
"There are a lot of reasons that movies have been so bad during the last couple of years and probably won’t be any better for the next couple of years. One big reason is that rotten pictures are making money—not necessarily wild amounts (though a few are), but sizable amounts. So if studio heads want nothing more than to make money and grab power, there is no reason for them to make better ones. Turning out better pictures might actually jeopardize their position."
"The studios no longer make movies primarily to attract and please moviegoers; they make movies in such a way as to get as much as possible from the prearranged and anticipated deals. Every picture (allowing for a few exceptions) is cast and planned in terms of those deals. Though the studio is very happy when it has a box-office hit, it isn’t terribly concerned about the grumbling."
"Financially, the industry is healthy, so among the people at the top there seems to be little recognition of what miserable shape movies are in. They think the grosses are proof that people are happy with what they’re getting, rather than what they settle for. Executives don’t necessarily see many movies themselves, and they rarely go to a theatre. If for the last couple of years Hollywood couldn’t seem to do anything right, it isn’t that it was just a stretch of bad luck—it’s the result of recent developments within the industry. And in all probability it will get worse, not better."
"the studios have discovered how to take the risk out of moviemaking, they don’t want to make any movies that they can’t protect themselves on. Production and advertising costs have gone so high that there is genuine nervous panic about risky projects. If an executive finances what looks like a perfectly safe, stale piece of material and packs it with stars, and the production costs skyrocket way beyond the guarantees, and the picture loses many millions, they won’t be blamed for it—they were playing the game by the same rules as everybody else."
"The executives are a managerial class with no real stake in the studio; they didn’t build it, it’s not part of them, and they’re moving on—into a bigger job at another studio, or into independent production, or to form their own companies. The executives just try to hold things together for the short period that they’re going to be around; there isn’t even an elementary regard for the conservation of talent. And, as in any chaotic bureaucracy, the personalities and goals of those at the top set the tone for all the day-to-day decisions; the top executives’ apathy about the quality of movies infects the studio right down the line."
"Part of what has deranged American life in this past decade is the change in ... movies as they have passed out of the control of those whose lives were bound up in them and into the control of conglomerates, financiers, and managers who treat them as ordinary commodities. This isn’t a reversible process; even if there were Supreme Court rulings that split some of these holdings from the conglomerates, the traditions that developed inside many of those businesses have been ruptured. And the continuity is gone."
excerpts from The New Yorker, June 23, 1980
I thought it interesting. Same thing could be said today.
