Classic Movie of the Week
OnM - June 29, 2002

This give and take between the film industry and it's technological competitors has gone on ever since, in a pattern very similar to Elisabeth Kubler Ross' 'Stages of Dying'. You know-- Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Acceptance, etc. It would be nice if all this was about supporting the artists who make film creativity possible, but actually it's more about glomming onto the cash that large theater audiences bring in. And today, the audience is increasingly younger and younger, and wealthier and wealthier.

So, we shouldn't be surprised that we get to see so many youth films that are boring, repetitive and derivative, because that's the monetarily 'safe' way to make them-- formula sells, that's why it's 'formula'. Take a little adolescent angst, mix in some sleazy sex, the occasional random banal 'insight' and pretensions of 'growth', and there you be-- rollin' in moola.

 

read more...