How “Breaking Bad” and “House of Cards” killed the Oscars…

I guess I wasn’t the only person not all that interested/invested in this year’s Oscars.  This article by Anne Thompson for Salon.com offers great insight into what may well be ailing the theatrical movie industry and why:

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/01/how-breaking-bad-and-house-of-cards-killed-the-oscars/

I agree with much of what Ms. Thompson’s analysis.  We’re entering a new age in so many ways thanks to the digital/computer revolution.  As I’ve mentioned many times before, stores we used to frequent, such as music and book sellers, are fading away when we can simply, easily, and conveniently download said material from the internet…hopefully doing this legally.

The theatrical movie industry is starting to feel the pinch as well.  Yesterday I noted (you can read it here) how few of the films nominated for the Oscars I had actually seen.  In going over that blog post, I didn’t make it as clear as I should how little I cared to see these other films.

These were the nominees for best movie of the year:

12 Years a Slave (the winner), American HustleCaptain PhillipsDallas Buyers ClubGravityHerNebraskaPhilomena, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

As I stated before, I’ve only seen Gravity.  Of the rest, the only one I’m somewhat interested in seeing is American Hustle.  But I’m hardly “dying” to see it.  It looks like it could be good, but then again so did Argo (last year’s big Oscar winner) and I found that film to be a pleasant enough diversion but, frankly, nothing exceptional.

A weak batch?  For me certainly, though I stress this is just my opinion alone.  For whatever reason, my personal movie interests didn’t coincide all that strongly with what was considered some of the best movies released this past year.

Yet there is another element to this picture, and that is what Ms. Thompson points out in her article.  The fact is that there are some really terrific TV series out there that draw my attention far more than many theatrically released movies.  Why?  Because these TV shows feature some of the best talent in Hollywood today, both in front of and behind the camera.  And instead of a story that is told in an hour and a half to two hours, TV shows have the ability to present viewers a longer, more involved, and deeper story than a single feature film can at times provide.

Sure, I can envision a Justified motion picture, but seeing the adventures of Raylon Givens and the motley crew of lowlifes around him play out is something that works extremely well in an hourly episodic fashion.  I suspect that’s what has drawn so many to Breaking Bad and House of Cards as well.  Again, a movie version could be made of each, but what thrills you is seeing the story play out in a longer format.  These multiple episode features, of course, are perfect for streaming services who have enriched themselves providing these services and therefore have deep enough pockets to pay for top talent in their features.

And this brings us to another element to the equation.  If the money is moving away from the theatrical releases and to the TV series, where do you think the talent will go?

As with many things, this may be a temporary change.  Perhaps in another year or two audiences will bore of long TV series and the theatrical movie making companies will get their mojo back.  It only takes a couple of big successes (witness Jaws and Star Wars) to revitalize and refocus an industry.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull…

…and the Rise of Simpleton Wisdom, a fascinating article by Heather Havrilesky for Slate Magazine:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/03/jonathan-livingston-seagull-new-edition-with-fourth-section-is-dumb-as-ever.html

If you’re like me and were a child of the 1970’s, Richard Bach’s novel Jonathan Livingstone Seagull was one of those books that seemed to be everywhere.  I remember seeing it in drug stores, libraries, bookstores (where it was very prominently featured), left behind at bus stops or schools, etc. etc.

I tried reading it way back when but found the whole thing rather…silly.  I mean, a book about a seagull that somehow finds its Nirvana?  To this day it fascinates me what people react to and make a big part of their culture, and Ms. Havrilesky astutely points out why this book may have become as popular as it was, a revelation to me (I never cared enough about the book, despite its popularity, to find out the why’s related to the same).

By the way, so popular was the book that they made a movie out of it (it bombed).  The movie featured the music of Neil Diamond.

Oh yeah…

…oh my….

Royals…

Teenage musician Lorde created a really good song in “Royals”.  I love the music and the message and in my opinion the song is quite an achievement for someone so young…

Apparently Bruce Springsteen likes the song as well.  Certainly enough to cover it in Lorde’s native New Zealand:

About the Oscars last night…

Used to be I was a movie watching fanatic.  Couldn’t wait until the weekend to see whatever new features were out there.  I envied the hell out of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel and their (*smirk*) “job” as movie critics…what in the world could be better than having a job that pays you to watch films?

Over time, work, family life, and general life obligations made it increasingly harder for me to find time to get out to the theaters and see the latest films.  Somewhere along the line I also realized the film critic’s job is not one to envy.  Quite the contrary, being a film critic was something I began to find terrifying.  A lesser known film critic noted that in one year s/he (sorry, don’t recall who it was exactly) watched something like five hundred films that year, both in theaters and in the film fest circuit.  That meant that in a year this individual saw approximately 1.4 films each day…and probably wrote about almost all of them.

Much as I love films -and I absolutely love them- I couldn’t bear the rigors of being a film critic.  Of being forced to see not just the films you want to but taking it upon yourself to see as many films as you can.  And if you’re an honest critic, you have to enter the theaters to see a film like Citizen Kane with the same neutrality as Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.  There are commercials for rom-coms that look absolutely dreadful and I have no desire at all to see.  A movie critic dedicated to his/her job willingly goes to see these films while I can ignore them completely.

So the 2014 Oscars came and went last night and CNN provided a great summary of the films, actors, directors, technicians, musicians, etc. etc. who won the prized statuette:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/02/showbiz/oscars-2014-winners-list/index.html

Looking over the list I’m surprised, yet not terribly shocked, by how few of the film winners and nominees I’ve seen over the past year.

For most of the “big” categories, such as Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, etc., I’ve seen a grand total of…one film: Gravity.

You trek down lower and lower on the list and get to the Visual Effects award and there you’ll find the most number of nominated films I’ve seen.  Of the five listed (including the winner, Gravity), I’ve seen four of them.  The one I have yet to see?  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  And therein lies the reason I’d make a terrible movie critic.

As much as I loved the first two films in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I found myself really burnt out of all things Hobbity by the time the third movie in the series was released.  When I heard director Peter Jackson was working on The Hobbit, and then that it would be two film…then three!…I thought: No mas.  I didn’t catch the first Hobbit film and likewise ignored the second.  Take a wild guess as to whether I’ll catch the third.

So much for my dreams of being a film critic.