DEAD AT THE BOX OFFICE

So I'm not alone in thinking the Academy Awards seemed even more irrelevant this year. In an LA Times op-ed, film historian Neil Gabler, digs into the technological and psychological roots of Hollywood's crisis:

Today, movies just don't seem to matter in the same way — not to the general public and not to the high culture either... Two years ago, writing in these pages, I described an ever-growing culture of knowingness, especially among young people, in which being regarded as part of an informational elite — an elite that knew which celebrities were dating each other, which had had plastic surgery, who was in rehab, etc. — was more gratifying than the conventional pleasures of moviegoing.

In this culture, the intrinsic value of a movie, or of most conventional entertainments, has diminished. Their job now is essentially to provide stars for People, Us, "Entertainment Tonight" and the supermarket tabloids, which exhibit the new "movies" — the stars' life sagas.

Traditional movies have a very difficult time competing against these real-life stories, whether it is the shenanigans of TomKat or Brangelina, Anna Nicole Smith's death or Britney Spears' latest breakdown.

[Hat-tip: John Naughton]

But perhaps that means that the grown-ups will be allowed to go back to telling serious stories for serious, non-popcorn audiences. Or am I just starry-eyed?

Comments

[dearieme]

The problem with films today is that there just aren't enough exploding helicopters.

[John]

I thought the awards irrelevant, too. It wasn't that I hadn't seen the films, it was that I had actively chosen not to see most of those films.

[TheManTheMyth]

I've see exactly two movies in the last ten years. Just don't care. Not gay, don't want to be.