Monday, February 06, 2006

OpinionJournal echos Fedora-Pundit

Heh that title is self congratulating I know. But I have previously said many of the same things talked about in this article over at OpinionJournal:
OpinionJournal - Taste: "Maybe so, maybe not. The famous flowering of anti-establishment films such as 'Easy Rider,' 'Midnight Cowboy' and 'Coming Home' petered out in a shower of cocaine, inflated egos and expensive flops. Of course, drugs may not be such a spoiler in the current cycle of art-film making. And now, as in the Vietnam era, there is a war on, producing a level of public anxiety that moviemakers with a message seek to tap into. All the same, it may be too early to celebrate a new age of the provoc-auteur.

The main reason, as always, is audiences. Their taste in entertainment, much lamented among the socially conscious, now runs to big, spangly movies full of wonder or to stories with a minimum of ideology and a maximum of happy endings. This helps explain why this year's best-film nominees, with their somber themes, did not attract notably large crowds compared with many other, less ambitious films. The combined U.S. box-office revenues of all five nominees, 'Brokeback Mountain,' 'Crash,' 'Munich,' 'Capote' and 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' added up to some $185 million in 2005. 'Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith' made twice that. 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,' which opened only in November, has pulled in about $285 million."
People go to the movies to be entertained. And liberal message films do not equal entertainment. The one exception being Farenheit 9/11. Michael Moore made the film entertaining through pop music sound effects and flashy cinematography. Is it a coincidence that it is the highest grossing "documentary"(that word is in quotes because propaganda is a more acurate word to describe this film, however it falls in to the documentary category in the record books) of all time? I think not.