What the article doesn’t mention is that ticket prices went up, not sales. As someone who is sitting in the belly of the beast (Show East) even as I write, I can attest that the industry is in a panic. I truly feel for the theater owners, they get such a bad deal from the studios (they make most of their money from tickets sold after a 3 week period, when no one goes to see the movie anymore – which is why popcorn is $15) If you look at the product that they are trying to shove down the theater owners throats, you can see why. Only two movies look interesting and I’m not talking about A Man from Plains either…

In the 1970s, Hollywood didn’t seem to know where its audience went, as ticket-sales increasingly flat-lined until two young tyro directors named Spielberg and Lucas had a blinding flash of the obvious: American moviegoers want to be entertained, not …

That must really bother them.

In all seriousness, though, there’s a lot of leftism in videogames, too. Bioshock, while a very good game, was very critical of Objectivism and could easily be seen as also being critical of Conservativism. Certain audio files the player can find point to the “horrors” of having a free market (waaah, the rich are oppressing the poor) and of fighting back against terrorism (innocent people rounded up, killed). But in truth, the game constructs a straw man and proceeds to beat the living daylights out of it with such criticism.

Then there’s Raze’s Hell, which I haven’t played, but I do know the premise: A race of extremely cute (but racist) creatures, called Kewletts, decides to invade other peoples and make them cute, too. However, an ugly creature called Raze (controlled by the player) starts a revolt to overthrow them. Doesn’t that sound EXACTLY like how the left likes to characterize the war against Islamofascism? And yes, the game has you play a metaphorical Iraqi insurgent and tasks you with killing metaphorical US troops. Nice, huh?

Yea you’re still going to find a lot of the lefty stuff in there but honestly I don’t think it comes across nearly as bad as we have it here. Might be the translation. But anyways when you have a film like A Bittersweet Life and The Twilight Samurai you can’t help but be impressed by what they offer (both story wise AND artistically. I’ve seen more incredible displays of cinematography in Asian films then I’ve seen in every English movie I’ve watched combined.)

Note: There is crazy s**t out there so be cautious but know not all the incredible films out there are in English.

Then we’ll see why Hollywood movies are tanking at the box office.

The Bourne trilogy was a pure anti-CIA, anti American crap machine. The action was good, the story was good but they could have as easily made the bad guys a KGB splinter cell or a MI5 splinter group. But NOOOOO it had to be anti-american.

the bourne superemcy sucked goat’s testicles

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it

So is Halo 3 so big because of the marketing or because of the foundation of the game? The game could have sold 1 million copies without any advertisment IMO.

Whatever happened to films like Patton and Father knows Best? Live Free or Die hard was a good movie, the bourne superemcy sucked goat’s testicles.

Sinister BlackOp covert conspiracy plots are staple stuff…old hat…I enjoyed seeing the genre being given a fresh coat of paint.

That’s why I think Bourne did so well. Granted, I have not seen the third movie, but watching the first two, I never once thought about political implications, it was total escapist action for me. I’m not arguing Bryan’s overall point (I actually agree that there is a lot of crap coming out), but I thought the Bourne series was unfairly singled out. But I’ll shut up about it’s merits till I see it. =)

I don’t think anyone is arguing that Bourne didn’t do well at the Box office. On its face, it’s a pretty good high action flick. The problems start when you dig into the narrative. Bourne is a created assassin; mind control, hypnosis, whatever. All of the treadstone guys are. It’s what makes them so single minded and deadly. But who created them? America! America brainwashed young innocent soldiers into cold hearted killers…and now, the CIA is going to PAY! I’ve watched the first 2 several times..and they’re pretty good, but I guess I got tired of the toilet pie that he kept digging into and finding dirty intelligence officials to kill. Why couldn’t they come up with a CIA operative that goes after terrorists ruthlessly? Why not a rogue agent who decides his government isn’t doing enough on the war on terror so he wages a little terror war of his own…put some moral ambiguity in there; make him careless of civilians when he focuses on getting the terrorists. There are a lot more things they could have done to the Bourne series to make it appeal to more people. As it is, it’s a ‘corrupt government’ movie at its core and like other Hollywood preachiness, gets old after the 2nd one.

mymanpotsandpans on October 16, 2007 at 9:48 AM

3:10 to Yuma should be the movie to break that drought ;-)

Classic heroism/triumph/redemption themes…kicked off with a Gatling gun shootout chase

$/hr of entertainment, games beat movies hands down.

I gotta agree. Having just reentered the “gaming” world, I’m stunned by the scope of these games. I can drop 20 bucks on an old Gamecube disc with a storyline that takes 40-80 hours to play through. And the storyline’s good too… usually classic good vs. evil.

I’m not at all surprised Halo has pwned Hollywood.

mjk on October 16, 2007 at 9:04 AM

Yes, the escapist fare will always do better than genuine movies. That’s why I think Bourne did so well. Granted, I have not seen the third movie, but watching the first two, I never once thought about political implications, it was total escapist action for me. I’m not arguing Bryan’s overall point (I actually agree that there is a lot of crap coming out), but I thought the Bourne series was unfairly singled out. But I’ll shut up about it’s merits till I see it. =)
One more thing to expand on your list: Movies cost a heck of a lot more to make than ever before as well. What was it for Transformers? Like a quarter billion or something? Crazy.

Bryan on October 16, 2007 at 9:22 AM

I completely understand, but like I stated above, I never thought about serious issues while watching them (I enjoyed the first much more so than the second). Really, you should at least give the Bourne Identity a try. It’s great fun.

SouthernDem on October 16, 2007 at 8:49 AM

Well, news of the film’s anti-Americanism certainly influenced me not to go see it, or even to go back and rent the first two so I could get caught up before going to see the third one.

Uh, are you sure about that? Looks like it did ok to me.
That came out during the summer. A four billion dollar summer.

SouthernDem on October 16, 2007 at 8:45 AM

Here’s the problem with those stats:
(a) Hollywood advertised the crap out of everything – that ain’t free and most of it was pretty manipulative. It’s certainly up to them to do that and for the best, but sometimes they don’t include that in the total of what it was to make the movie itself.
(b) the biggest hits of the summer were escapist, fun movies like Transformers.
(c) the majority of Hollywood’s preachy boring garbage bombed (hello, A Mighty Heart).
(d) most movies with any sort of anti-Bush, Anti war stuff, however subtle (for Hollywood – like a hammer to the head), were either ignored or were simply watched without los of analysis.

The simple fact of the matter is that if Hollywood studios didn’t make simple escapist movies, they would be continuously in debt. Those simple movies keep their heads above water so they can fool themselves into believing that the boring, preachy crap they make is relevant or important to the movie-going public. However much Hollywood talks down to the “rednecks” or the “flyover country morons”, they need us. But as it’s becoming frighteningly obvious to them, we don’t need them. (that’s why I have DirectTV and thus, can watch whatever the heck I want and that certainly isn’t the latest Hollywood “hit”)

Bryan on October 15, 2007 at 9:58 PM

Aw c’mon. I really do see your point about In The Valley of Elah and Michael Clayton, but the CIA has been a boogie man in movies for decades now.

American movie-goers don’t want to sit through two hours…of Matt Damon depicting America as evil.

Uh, are you sure about that? Looks like it did ok to me.
That came out during the summer. A four billion dollar summer.

“Do you want to win the War on Terror, yes or no?”

Clearly, Tom Cruise’s character will be evil.

1. He believes in the War on Terror
2. He sees things as black or white
3. He’s wearing a FLAG PIN!!!!