It’s all a balancing act, to be sure. And theaters sink or swim all depending what the existing state of balance is. Regarding the 2008 election, I continue to hold that if Obama prevails it will spell an especial death knell for theaters, my basing this on what happened to the DuPage movie palace in his district while he totally refused to intervene on behalf of those attempting to restore it, and if Clinton prevails, it might just be the booster shot the struggling theaters all across America could well use. I remember how much her husband loved movies while he was in the White House, while I’m assuming she shared his passion.
As for Oscars this year, my only real complaint, aside from the fact that there were no unprepared for political outbursts which make the evening in my views, is that they came and went too fast! Someone mentioned earlier, and I quite agree, it was better when they aired in March. What I think would be an interesting idea, and please note you’re hearing it here first, is that, instead of airing the Oscars in February like they did this year, have a special preliminary show in February where they simply air the trailers of movies that will be up for Oscars, which could also include in-depth interviews with the films' directors, stars and so forth. Then, with the stage being set by that, air the Oscars in March like, they used to do, with viewers having a much better grasp of what’s getting praised, and why.
Just like the cost of gas, although drivers continue to drive to gas stations in droves whenever they run out of gas…same thing for the movie rental business. Where I work at CVS, business is doing great in the pharmacy section, as well as the front store. In a time where a recession might happen, people tend to forget all the bad things and focus on important stuff like the election. Maybe next year 10,000 BC could get an award for best makeup and costumes!!!
I heard that the box office revenues have climbed up too. U know recently I did a Google search on cinema closing and I found some more going on in Northeast. Like a multiplex owned by National Amusements has closed in Amity,CT. I like the fact that Sheri Redstone criticized her competitors in the industry and most of those cinama chains like Cinmark,Regel Entertainment Group are here in the southeast and Southwest. I figure when a cinema closes I factor in box office losses with it. I maybe wrong on that. But that’s how try to see the big picture.
One thing I did learn about Regel Entertainment Group. They went bankrupt in the early 00s. Once I read about it in Wikipedia it all made sence becouse of the selling of the local cinema to Village Entertainment. Now why Regel sell to such disrepectable owner? Especially one that’s bad apple. Listen in a Google search college students who once worked with Village Entertainment are speaking out on how bad that company is.
To say that the era of the movie theater might soon be extinct is the same in my views as saying a major crash in our economy is imminent. For the day that all humanity retreats into its own respective private little cubbyholes is surely to be the day that this planet gives a big groan and says, “All right, enough of that!” and shakes us all back out again.
As for me, I’m one of those who goes in for having a decent home system for viewing movies, but I’d be kidding you and myself if I hid the fact that I rely on this as just a tie-over till the movie theaters come back once more. For come on, you guys, watching a movie in the privacy of your home is like drinking alone or something. Where can it possibly lead to? It doesn’t matter how good the home-based systems are.
Maybe the movie theaters won’t come back, but if they don’t it’s not because the home-based movie-viewing systems are a thousand times better. It’s not a question of great technical strides being made on the home front that’s displacing the theaters. Rather, it’s this illusion that so many now have that everyone can keep going off in their own direction, writing off everyone else in the process, and the world can continue to accommodate it. From the sacrifice of the theater and the rise of the home-based system it has handled it so far. But all told that doesn’t mean anything. For rubberbands don’t stretch forever without snapping. But my saying that right now is kind of like FDR pushing his New Deal policies in the ‘28 election; FDR, armed with the right stuff, but putting it to a world that didn’t want to hear it yet.
There’s still a segment of the population that doesn’t want to get all its entertainment at home: young people. They’ve been driving the box office for quite a while, and as long as there are parents to escape, there will probably be movie theaters.
Excellent point on that one. Cinemas will actually become thing of the past especially when techology is involved. Now we can dowmload films on our flat computer monitors. Next thing u might have Direct Tv make the same offer by passing the pay per view.It does reveal a weakness of Tinsletown that they’re not up to speed with techonogies.
The most popular Oscars of all time will be the one back in 1954, when From Here to Eternity won the statuette. It was seen in 82 percent of American homes, back when TV was just a fad. It was the first awards show to gain popularity, followed by the Grammys, Golden Globes, and of course, the Emmys, which honor TV. Since the strike’s over, ratings could be up for the Emmys moreso than the oscars, since TV ratings have rebounded from a lull during the strike period. Right now the box office is in a bit of a slump that started in late February. Blu-Ray movies will dominated the sales charts over DVD in time, and Netflix will become more popular than Blockbuster. Out of Youtube’s 100 million+ vids, some of them have pirated movies that can be viewed in parts. It won’t be long before the age of moviegoing will end in the viewer’s home.
Over years what has turned some off some of the viewing public is the fact that some actors used thier speeches to address thier politics. Which cause some to loose out at the box office. Even away from the oscars when actors speak publicly on thier politics,it backfired at the box office.
I learned over the weekend that the Screen Actors Guild contracts are up for negations this summer. And its over the same issues that was addressed in Writers Guild Strike.
The highest rated show in the history of the Oscars was 1970 which had the highest concentration of superstars from Bob Hope hosting to John Wayne winning his first Oscar to Elizabeth Taylor giving out the Best Picture Award her first Oscars since 1960. As Bob Hope said during the show anyone who is anyone in Hollywood is here tonight. It was one of the last shows to be dominated by old Hollywood superstars a record 70 Million plus watched that show. I found this years show lacking the old Hollywood magic and the films nominated very arty small films that most of America hasn’t seen.Most of the films were very dark and violent at a time when our country is at war, we are on the verge of a recession and Jon Stewart was right I think Hollywood needs to give America a little hug right now. I also know that there are many Cable stations today and not just the big three networks as in the old days. The Old Hollywood did a better job of giving America a lift during times of trouble and the film product was more balanced. I saw all five nominated films while well crafted and acted didn’t have the wow factor for me. None of the Five films will be in my film collection.brucec
I think that the show this year was great. I think part of the problem is there hasn’t been a blcokbuster movie that has won in years. Last year Dreamgirls which should have been nominated wasn’t. In the past few years the best picture winner has not swept the awards.
Million Dollar Baby-4
Crash-3
The Departed-4
No Country-4
Holywood needs a blcokbuster movie.The one good thing about this year was that only 2 of the acting catagories were locks. This is the first year I can remember that the supportin actress catagory had a different winner Globes-Cate Blanchet,Sag-Ruby Dee and Oscar -Tilda Swinton. I do think they voted honestlyfor the best actress as Maion Cortillard was incredible.
When it is said that this year’s Oscar telecast was the lowest rated ever, it almost holds the implication that there were far more exciting things to attune to during the same time it aired. But I’ve always found that if there is anything exciting happening in America the Academy Awards Presentations embodies it. This year, however, America-wise, there was nothing to get excited about, or “hung about,” as the Beatles might say. So in the face of that across-the-nation dullness, this year’s Oscar telecast had quite a challenge in making itself exciting. The “highpoint of interest” this year while the Oscars aired was the presidential race going on, and that, too, surely must be the lowest-rated presidential race ever. It is by far the dullest presidential race I’ve ever seen, so dull, that if this year’s Oscar telecast had acknowledged it in any it would’ve really made for an especially dull Oscar telecast. So thank God it didn’t!
I don’t deny that many Americans tuned out the Academy Awards this year. But it should be noted that they tuned out everything else as well, lest it be made to look like the Academy Awards is being singled out and picked on as being dull while all else other than that is being praised and flocked to.
I was dissapointed that Juno didn’t win the trophy for Best Picture but a got a much needed Best Original Screenplay win for a writer who used to be a stripper. I just saw Juno and thought it was way better than No Country of Old Men. Can’t wait to buy it on blu-ray. It was a movie that everyone can enjoy without being sad. It also has a good soundtrack, which didn’t get the award it deserved at the Academy but might win it come Grammy time next year.
Yes, they’re both standing. The Chandler Pavilion is being used for operas right now; the Shrine was recently host to the Jules Verne Film Festival. Both are kind of on the fringe of the movie-making scene. Chandler is in downtown LA, the Shrine is farther south by USC. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the decision to set up at the Kodak, which is in the heart of Hollywood.
Why don’t they broadcast the Oscars from a Shrine Auditorium or a Dorothy Chandler Pavilion anymore? Are these locations still standing and used in LA?
I, for one, was happy just to see the Oscars air at all, given the threat being posed to it by the writers' strike several weeks before. And all this criticism of this year’s Oscars going on here, if you ask me, is just another classic case of blaming the victim. Could any of you doing all this criticizing do better than than those who you’re putting down so readily? To answer that question for you, in many instances the answer is likely yes — IF ONLY it WASN’T for certain big obstacles in the way, number one being the extremely bad refereeing going on right now. And if you can grasp that, well, guess what; it’s the same obstacles that those who you’re criticizing are up against. But at least in their case they were able to make some headway despite it. Which is more than the rest of us out here can claim.
And who is it that’s doing the bad referreeing? Well, in many instances it is we ourselves. On the other hand, not to come down to hard on us, some of you might’ve noticed that the American government is not functioning right these days. Too often now, in many instances now it’s become quite standard, regulatory decisions are based not on order of law, fairness and reason, but upon prejudices, jealousies and whims. This, in turn, makes it very hard, in some cases impossible, for those in the film industry to be fully truthful and objective. While on the one hand they might succeed in getting that far so far as producing a truthful and objective film itself, but beyond that there have to be the theaters and other outlets where such films will be seen. Where they can be seen. Otherwise, what good is such a film?
Because of the way politics is in much of America now, theaters are under great restraints in terms of what they can and cannot exhibit, lest they have the carpet pulled out from under them, which so many theaters throughout America already have seen happen. And all other outlets are under similar restraints. Yes, even the Internet. And unfortunately the film industry is not 100% immune to that, as much as many of us would still like to believe it is. And the restraints are NOT based on order of law or reason, but on the character flaws of those doing the restraining.
And it is through this unreasonable filtering process that those who put on the Oscars each year have to weave through to put on an at least half decent show. And this year the challenge they faced I liken to that scene in THE SOUND OF MUSIC when the Trapp Family Singers were called upon to perform for those German officers.
My big disappointment this year was that there were not any unplanned-for Michael Moore type outbursts, which to me is a must-have if the Oscar Presentations are to truly be great. Hopefully, future Oscars Presentations will have those once again.
The Oscars have been low rated for the last several years. To me watching the Oscars is like watching the Super Bowl for the others. This years Oscars was no suprise to me. I knew that Marion Collard was going to win Best Actress Oscar for her role as Edith Piaf in “La Vie En Rose”. I missed it in theatres but watched it on DVD.
Justin… Spielberg won a Best Director Oscar for “Saving Private Ryan” nine years ago. I think what you probably meant to write was that a Spielberg-directed film has not won a Best Picture Oscar in fifteen years.
Losing one theatre does not mean the end of the world. Sometimes people can be really stupid.
There’s life and there’s everything else. Sometimes, the fate of the world is better than saving a theatre that probably won’t be saved anyway.
It’s all a balancing act, to be sure. And theaters sink or swim all depending what the existing state of balance is. Regarding the 2008 election, I continue to hold that if Obama prevails it will spell an especial death knell for theaters, my basing this on what happened to the DuPage movie palace in his district while he totally refused to intervene on behalf of those attempting to restore it, and if Clinton prevails, it might just be the booster shot the struggling theaters all across America could well use. I remember how much her husband loved movies while he was in the White House, while I’m assuming she shared his passion.
As for Oscars this year, my only real complaint, aside from the fact that there were no unprepared for political outbursts which make the evening in my views, is that they came and went too fast! Someone mentioned earlier, and I quite agree, it was better when they aired in March. What I think would be an interesting idea, and please note you’re hearing it here first, is that, instead of airing the Oscars in February like they did this year, have a special preliminary show in February where they simply air the trailers of movies that will be up for Oscars, which could also include in-depth interviews with the films' directors, stars and so forth. Then, with the stage being set by that, air the Oscars in March like, they used to do, with viewers having a much better grasp of what’s getting praised, and why.
Just like the cost of gas, although drivers continue to drive to gas stations in droves whenever they run out of gas…same thing for the movie rental business. Where I work at CVS, business is doing great in the pharmacy section, as well as the front store. In a time where a recession might happen, people tend to forget all the bad things and focus on important stuff like the election. Maybe next year 10,000 BC could get an award for best makeup and costumes!!!
The box office keeps going up, but it’s from rising ticket prices, not admissions.
I heard that the box office revenues have climbed up too. U know recently I did a Google search on cinema closing and I found some more going on in Northeast. Like a multiplex owned by National Amusements has closed in Amity,CT. I like the fact that Sheri Redstone criticized her competitors in the industry and most of those cinama chains like Cinmark,Regel Entertainment Group are here in the southeast and Southwest. I figure when a cinema closes I factor in box office losses with it. I maybe wrong on that. But that’s how try to see the big picture.
One thing I did learn about Regel Entertainment Group. They went bankrupt in the early 00s. Once I read about it in Wikipedia it all made sence becouse of the selling of the local cinema to Village Entertainment. Now why Regel sell to such disrepectable owner? Especially one that’s bad apple. Listen in a Google search college students who once worked with Village Entertainment are speaking out on how bad that company is.
To say that the era of the movie theater might soon be extinct is the same in my views as saying a major crash in our economy is imminent. For the day that all humanity retreats into its own respective private little cubbyholes is surely to be the day that this planet gives a big groan and says, “All right, enough of that!” and shakes us all back out again.
As for me, I’m one of those who goes in for having a decent home system for viewing movies, but I’d be kidding you and myself if I hid the fact that I rely on this as just a tie-over till the movie theaters come back once more. For come on, you guys, watching a movie in the privacy of your home is like drinking alone or something. Where can it possibly lead to? It doesn’t matter how good the home-based systems are.
Maybe the movie theaters won’t come back, but if they don’t it’s not because the home-based movie-viewing systems are a thousand times better. It’s not a question of great technical strides being made on the home front that’s displacing the theaters. Rather, it’s this illusion that so many now have that everyone can keep going off in their own direction, writing off everyone else in the process, and the world can continue to accommodate it. From the sacrifice of the theater and the rise of the home-based system it has handled it so far. But all told that doesn’t mean anything. For rubberbands don’t stretch forever without snapping. But my saying that right now is kind of like FDR pushing his New Deal policies in the ‘28 election; FDR, armed with the right stuff, but putting it to a world that didn’t want to hear it yet.
There’s still a segment of the population that doesn’t want to get all its entertainment at home: young people. They’ve been driving the box office for quite a while, and as long as there are parents to escape, there will probably be movie theaters.
When TV goes digital next year, expect attendance at movie theaters to go down more, and the era of the movie theater might soon be extinct.
Excellent point on that one. Cinemas will actually become thing of the past especially when techology is involved. Now we can dowmload films on our flat computer monitors. Next thing u might have Direct Tv make the same offer by passing the pay per view.It does reveal a weakness of Tinsletown that they’re not up to speed with techonogies.
The most popular Oscars of all time will be the one back in 1954, when From Here to Eternity won the statuette. It was seen in 82 percent of American homes, back when TV was just a fad. It was the first awards show to gain popularity, followed by the Grammys, Golden Globes, and of course, the Emmys, which honor TV. Since the strike’s over, ratings could be up for the Emmys moreso than the oscars, since TV ratings have rebounded from a lull during the strike period. Right now the box office is in a bit of a slump that started in late February. Blu-Ray movies will dominated the sales charts over DVD in time, and Netflix will become more popular than Blockbuster. Out of Youtube’s 100 million+ vids, some of them have pirated movies that can be viewed in parts. It won’t be long before the age of moviegoing will end in the viewer’s home.
Over years what has turned some off some of the viewing public is the fact that some actors used thier speeches to address thier politics. Which cause some to loose out at the box office. Even away from the oscars when actors speak publicly on thier politics,it backfired at the box office.
I learned over the weekend that the Screen Actors Guild contracts are up for negations this summer. And its over the same issues that was addressed in Writers Guild Strike.
The highest rated show in the history of the Oscars was 1970 which had the highest concentration of superstars from Bob Hope hosting to John Wayne winning his first Oscar to Elizabeth Taylor giving out the Best Picture Award her first Oscars since 1960. As Bob Hope said during the show anyone who is anyone in Hollywood is here tonight. It was one of the last shows to be dominated by old Hollywood superstars a record 70 Million plus watched that show. I found this years show lacking the old Hollywood magic and the films nominated very arty small films that most of America hasn’t seen.Most of the films were very dark and violent at a time when our country is at war, we are on the verge of a recession and Jon Stewart was right I think Hollywood needs to give America a little hug right now. I also know that there are many Cable stations today and not just the big three networks as in the old days. The Old Hollywood did a better job of giving America a lift during times of trouble and the film product was more balanced. I saw all five nominated films while well crafted and acted didn’t have the wow factor for me. None of the Five films will be in my film collection.brucec
I think that the show this year was great. I think part of the problem is there hasn’t been a blcokbuster movie that has won in years. Last year Dreamgirls which should have been nominated wasn’t. In the past few years the best picture winner has not swept the awards.
Million Dollar Baby-4
Crash-3
The Departed-4
No Country-4
Holywood needs a blcokbuster movie.The one good thing about this year was that only 2 of the acting catagories were locks. This is the first year I can remember that the supportin actress catagory had a different winner Globes-Cate Blanchet,Sag-Ruby Dee and Oscar -Tilda Swinton. I do think they voted honestlyfor the best actress as Maion Cortillard was incredible.
When it is said that this year’s Oscar telecast was the lowest rated ever, it almost holds the implication that there were far more exciting things to attune to during the same time it aired. But I’ve always found that if there is anything exciting happening in America the Academy Awards Presentations embodies it. This year, however, America-wise, there was nothing to get excited about, or “hung about,” as the Beatles might say. So in the face of that across-the-nation dullness, this year’s Oscar telecast had quite a challenge in making itself exciting. The “highpoint of interest” this year while the Oscars aired was the presidential race going on, and that, too, surely must be the lowest-rated presidential race ever. It is by far the dullest presidential race I’ve ever seen, so dull, that if this year’s Oscar telecast had acknowledged it in any it would’ve really made for an especially dull Oscar telecast. So thank God it didn’t!
I don’t deny that many Americans tuned out the Academy Awards this year. But it should be noted that they tuned out everything else as well, lest it be made to look like the Academy Awards is being singled out and picked on as being dull while all else other than that is being praised and flocked to.
I was dissapointed that Juno didn’t win the trophy for Best Picture but a got a much needed Best Original Screenplay win for a writer who used to be a stripper. I just saw Juno and thought it was way better than No Country of Old Men. Can’t wait to buy it on blu-ray. It was a movie that everyone can enjoy without being sad. It also has a good soundtrack, which didn’t get the award it deserved at the Academy but might win it come Grammy time next year.
Yes, they’re both standing. The Chandler Pavilion is being used for operas right now; the Shrine was recently host to the Jules Verne Film Festival. Both are kind of on the fringe of the movie-making scene. Chandler is in downtown LA, the Shrine is farther south by USC. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the decision to set up at the Kodak, which is in the heart of Hollywood.
Why don’t they broadcast the Oscars from a Shrine Auditorium or a Dorothy Chandler Pavilion anymore? Are these locations still standing and used in LA?
No, it sounds as if the place is made out of cardboard! I’ve never been inside, but there’s a real building there.
Egad, Sir! I must mount my silver steed and gallop to the defense of the Kodak Theatre, which I like and do not think is “phony”.
The show is as phony as the KODAK theatre. Bring the show back to the historical Shrine Auditorium or even the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
I, for one, was happy just to see the Oscars air at all, given the threat being posed to it by the writers' strike several weeks before. And all this criticism of this year’s Oscars going on here, if you ask me, is just another classic case of blaming the victim. Could any of you doing all this criticizing do better than than those who you’re putting down so readily? To answer that question for you, in many instances the answer is likely yes — IF ONLY it WASN’T for certain big obstacles in the way, number one being the extremely bad refereeing going on right now. And if you can grasp that, well, guess what; it’s the same obstacles that those who you’re criticizing are up against. But at least in their case they were able to make some headway despite it. Which is more than the rest of us out here can claim.
And who is it that’s doing the bad referreeing? Well, in many instances it is we ourselves. On the other hand, not to come down to hard on us, some of you might’ve noticed that the American government is not functioning right these days. Too often now, in many instances now it’s become quite standard, regulatory decisions are based not on order of law, fairness and reason, but upon prejudices, jealousies and whims. This, in turn, makes it very hard, in some cases impossible, for those in the film industry to be fully truthful and objective. While on the one hand they might succeed in getting that far so far as producing a truthful and objective film itself, but beyond that there have to be the theaters and other outlets where such films will be seen. Where they can be seen. Otherwise, what good is such a film?
Because of the way politics is in much of America now, theaters are under great restraints in terms of what they can and cannot exhibit, lest they have the carpet pulled out from under them, which so many theaters throughout America already have seen happen. And all other outlets are under similar restraints. Yes, even the Internet. And unfortunately the film industry is not 100% immune to that, as much as many of us would still like to believe it is. And the restraints are NOT based on order of law or reason, but on the character flaws of those doing the restraining.
And it is through this unreasonable filtering process that those who put on the Oscars each year have to weave through to put on an at least half decent show. And this year the challenge they faced I liken to that scene in THE SOUND OF MUSIC when the Trapp Family Singers were called upon to perform for those German officers.
My big disappointment this year was that there were not any unplanned-for Michael Moore type outbursts, which to me is a must-have if the Oscar Presentations are to truly be great. Hopefully, future Oscars Presentations will have those once again.
The Oscars have been low rated for the last several years. To me watching the Oscars is like watching the Super Bowl for the others. This years Oscars was no suprise to me. I knew that Marion Collard was going to win Best Actress Oscar for her role as Edith Piaf in “La Vie En Rose”. I missed it in theatres but watched it on DVD.
Humm, greed, corruption and psycopaths as Oscar-nominated fare. Sound like 1974 all over again: “Chinatown”, “The Conversation”, and “Godfather II”…
JSA
oh….I’d love to see Spielberg win a best picture, best screenplay, and best director trophy.
Justin… Spielberg won a Best Director Oscar for “Saving Private Ryan” nine years ago. I think what you probably meant to write was that a Spielberg-directed film has not won a Best Picture Oscar in fifteen years.