I saw all nine films nominated for best picture for the 2014 Academy Awards, and can recall offhand a quotation from only “Captain Phillips” (“I’m the captain now”). True, I’ve seen each film just once, but I also don’t expect to see many of them again, and that has nothing to do with their quality. If “Her,” which had me at hello, were made a decade or two ago, I may have bought it on DVD or VHS, and thus would have watched it several times over the years and ended up committing various lines to memory.
“Her” is available to own digitally now, an option the film industry hopes is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, though I’ve never purchased a movie online and don’t anticipate doing so when I could rent it for the cost of a $7.99 monthly Netflix subscription. But it’s also hard to justify rewatching it when nearly every film made since the Lumière brothers is available at the click of a button, as opposed to the limited options of a brick-and-mortar video store.
Frankly, I’m not the only one who doesn’t give a damn. Hollywood, we have a problem: according to the industry nonprofit Digital Entertainment Group, total home-entertainment revenue was $18.2 billion in 2013, far below the industry’s peak of close to $22 billion in 2004, with DVD revenues deeply shaken, not stirred up, since then. Fasten your seatbelts, because adjusted for inflation, the current numbers make for an even bumpier night.
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