Reading this article on Dissolve discussing how band the 2013 movie season was.  Interesting comparison to previous years and how there was nothing that everyone glommed onto as "the" movie of the summer, so it feels more scattershot.  It summed up pretty well why I wasn't dying to see anything in the theaters this summer (heck, I went to two REreleases in the last month).  Plus there were just SO many releases, another issue I had (that didn't seem to be even brought up in the article), in the past there was scarcity, "this is what you get, pick."

I think it's a little unfair to compare every 3D film to Avatar because they pretty much invented the technology for that film.  Though I will say it is absolutely fair to call out 3D conversion, I HATE that stuff, if your movie is gonna be 3D, go Hugo with it and SHOOT it in 3D and USE the 3D.  We're all TOTALLY FINE with flat movies, we lived with them forever.

I really would like a big-screen TV (and I'm even a guy who would go for high frame rate on my TV, I'm actually coming around to it after seeing the Avengers like that) but I'm not there yet.  And I've seen some 4K tvs and they look amazing but there isn't that much content for that yet (you could get it downloading and streaming, but we have to solve this country's sh*tty internet connection issues first) and then the theaters will be in MASSIVE trouble (and god help them when RED camera quality stuff trickling down to the average consumer (the last I heard it was 5K and that was a few years ago).

And the thing about those great movies they listed in the article... how many of you saw those movies?  How many regular people who like movies but aren't plugged in even HEARD about those movies?  The high rating means nothing when you're a small movie no one hears about in a couple screens and festivals versus a sh*tty Lone Ranger that's playing in every screen it can.  Now when they come out on DVD and Blu and streaming it'll be a different matter, I'm sure, because you make good stuff and people will find it, but I think it's screwing with the numbers a bit to count their positive ratings along with the big tentpoles that everyone was overexposed to the marketing of.

Honestly, there's so many movies that I was just waiting to see on DVD because I wasn't willing to lay out that cash (Oblivion, etc) but also the smaller ones that I even avoided at festivals (the faux indies) that I knew were getting distribution, it's much easier to find them once they come out on DVD than it is to try to find a theater that's playing them.

And I realized this the other day, I haven't gotten the paper in years.  I wonder how many other households can say the same thing.  And you know what's in the paper, every day?  The theater listings!  No wonder I don't know what's playing, I only ever look at Fandango when I WANT to see something, not when I'm curious.  Has anyone considered that factor?  Systemic ignorance?

SD sounds like such an expensive city to live in.  Though I am a shut-in in a smaller place (and a notorious cheapskate) so maybe I'm not the most accurate guide.  But I did work in a theater and man, we had a minute to clean each theater after a showing and we never took the trash out if we could avoid it, we'd swap out full trash cans into the empty theaters... and that's just because we didn't have the kind of time to take care of that stuff.

Outside of the lower prices (and smaller attendance), the earliest shows rock because the pro cleaning crew comes in before hand so that's as clean as that theater's gonna be all day.

I used to love the previews and so on but all the previews look the same... the whole thing about promotional material being the same is a whole other discussion, but honestly, if they're not going to take any risks with the CONTENT of the movies, you think they're gonna take any risks with the marketing of the movie?  Forget it.  So how can we tell what to see if all the promotional material feels the same.  Even indie films all have the same kind of trailer.  I finally found an article about this in my history.

Good lord that was a long ass article.

Maybe it was in there, not sure, but I think the proliferation of Sequels, Remakes, Comic Book Hero onslaught is finally wearing folks down. I never got into the comic book movies, and what I did like (Iron Man, Thor), I was not real excited about watching more of the same. Remakes... duh, bore me. Sequels, uh, we'll, depends. For the most part, not interested in seeing the same formula.

So yea, I can see audiences thinking Meh, about what studios are counting on being big tent pole money makers.

OK, why in the hell did it take 130 Million for Turbo? Advertising to the kiddies? Good gawd.

215 Million for The Lone Ranger? I thought the studio's had a tighter grip on their products?