Right now, as stay at home orders extend deep into the late spring and likely further into the summer, we are finding ourselves relying more heavily on home viewing as our one and only avenue of entertainment.  The fate of movie theaters are in limbo, Broadway is facing a massive crisis, and sports have gone dark for the foreseeable future, possibly continuing on without live audiences.  But, there’s still television to tide us over, and the seemingly endless abundance of streaming material available.  But, for many viewers believing that Hollywood will ride this pandemic wave out unscathed thanks to on demand entertainment revenue, there is another lingering factor that may spell a much darker future for the industry.  While new entertainment options are continuing to premiere as planned on platforms like Netflix, it’s only because they had been worked on and completed before the outbreak occurred.  When the world economy shut down all non-essential activity, it also put all film production to a halt.  Everything from sound-stages on studio lots to on location production went completely dark in the hopes of slowing the spread of the COVID-19 virus.  And these productions continue to remain on hold, which does come at a cost.  Time lost in production usually leads to productions losing the favorable weather conditions that they needed for their shoot, or the brief window they could have had with a certain actor before they commit to another project.  And those are just the minimal problems related to a shut down.  There’s a whole human factor about all the crew members out of work right now that is especially going to hurt the industry going forward.  The question now is whether Hollywood can return back to normal after this shutdown, how  much longer they can withstand not being able to produce anything, and what options we may have to face in the aftermath of this pandemic.

You take away all the glitz and glamour of the Hollywood mystique and underneath you’ll find that it is an industry just like any other in the global economy.  All those names you see scroll by in the closing credits of a movie or television series belongs to a person who has a valuable purpose in creating the thing that you just watched.  Whether it’s constructing the set, setting up the lights, fabricating the costumes, building the props, filing the paperwork, running errands, loading the camera, supervising the script, catering the meals, or even in some cases putting out fires or causing them for the sake of the scene.  To the general public, these names in the credits are considered nobodies, but in reality, they are the lifeblood of the industry, and they are sadly the ones affected most by the shutdown.  They don’t earn the kind of money that movie stars or directors do, but they take pride in their work and can often benefit from more steady employment as their talents can be applied to a far higher variety of productions.  But with the shutdown happening right now, many of these same people have seen that market of available projects dry up.  The unions and guilds that work within Hollywood can only help so much in assisting out of work crew members, and the freelancers are left to fend for themselves even more.  They don’t have the cushy mansions and stockpiles of spendable cash that the Hollywood elite can live comfortably off of during these many weeks of isolation.  Many of them have been living paycheck to paycheck, and with the cost of living still high in Hollywood, many of them won’t be able to maintain their residency there.  So, as a result, the longer this shutdown continues, the more likely we’ll see many of the skilled labors leaving the business altogether, leading to a shortfall of available staff once production picks up again.

What will that mean for Hollywood?  Sure, productions can fill the same positions with newer faces once things begin to ramp up; but you’ll lose the experience and knowledge that seasoned professionals would’ve had.  There are a lot of crew members with specialty skills that only they are able to perform, particularly on the physical production side of things.  You put these skilled laborers out of work for an extended period of time, it may lead them to abandon their trade in favor of more stable work that doesn’t utilize the same creative aspect.  Like any other industry, there is an element of ageism in Hollywood that unfortunately causes many careers to end abruptly.  For many skilled laborers in Hollywood, a halt in production means a loss of that stability of allowing their work to speak for itself, and for many of them, it means an end to their value in the ever changing landscape in Hollywood.  Sure, the film industry needs to roll over their pool of talent in order to keep up with the changing advances in technology and standards within the workplace, but people who have spent decades refining their talents develop a skill set that can’t be easily replaced.  And when this pandemic does blow over, we will likely see many careers come to an end because the employees couldn’t withstand the storm and had to compromise in order to feed their families, or were sadly seen as expendable in order to preserve the bottom line of the studio.  It’s unfortunate, but sadly also can’t be helped either.  The studios can’t just bring production back to where it was before the pandemic, because that exposes their worker to a potential new outbreak, which itself would have even more economic consequences.  What we’ll likely see out of Hollywood in the aftermath of this is a much different character, of the new guard having to quickly take up the tools of the old guard.

While this is a devastating circumstance for the industry and the people who work within it, it is at the same time nothing new.   Hollywood has faced crises before that has significantly dwindled their resources and available staff.  And somehow, they always find a way to work around it.  During World War II, with a significant portion of our population enlisted and fighting oversees, Hollywood managed to press on by joining the war effort itself, making propaganda films funded by the War Department and promoting the sale of War Bonds in their theaters.  They also employed many women for the first time in roles typically filled by men as an effort to keep their staff  levels up to normal, a move that itself would have a profound effect on a female presence in Hollywood thereafter.  Subsequent conflicts oversees, and social unrest at home also didn’t deter the Hollywood machine either.  The only major disruptions that they faced came from strikes within their own industry.  The Screen Actors Guild, Writer’s Guild of America, and many other labor unions have all led to work stoppages within the industry as new market changes lead to more contentious negotiations between them and the studios.  The most disruptive such strike came in 2007, initiated by the Writer’s Guild and supported by all the other Unions in solidarity.  The strike lasted a full four months, which sounds like not that much time, but for a perpetually moving machine like Hollywood, it was a very costly disruption, costing billions of dollars and putting all those previously mentioned crew members in dire financial straits.  Even through this, the industry still found a way to keep moving, and that was through reality television, which began to dominate airtime because it allowed them studios to put people to work without the two biggest guilds involved, the SAG and the WGA.  Even still, movies were heavily affected, and many productions ended up being delayed or cancelled.  Until now, this has been the closest that Hollywood has come to a full shutdown.  The current climate in many ways dwarfs that of the 2007 strike, because at least that had a clear end point that could be worked towards.  How do we work around a contagion that we still don’t fully understand yet?

The uncertainty of this pandemic is the main concern of Hollywood right now.  We really don’t know when things are going to be back to normal again.  All we have to go on are charts that tell us how pandemics play out to give us a rough estimate about when infection rates will slow.  And so far, every study tells us that this is going to be a long process.  Major studios like Disney are already feeling the crunch of a deep recession affecting their future recovery.  The only thing the industry can do right now is to support each other in the midst of an uncertain future.  A lot of charitable funds have opened up in order to keep out of work technicians and staff financially afloat while the studios remain dark, but again, how long could this last?  For a lot of the industry, the need to return to work as soon as possible is becoming the only option they have left, even if it puts their own health at risk.   Like joining the war effort during WWII and relying on reality television to stay afloat during hard times, Hollywood is finding itself improvising once again, with many television shows filming from home, utilizing the video meeting app Zoom to keep people connected.  But, while this helps to fill airtime with new content, it doesn’t exactly replace what has come before either.  And it only works for weekly, non-scripted shows.  As we learned in the aftermath of the 2007 strike, there is a desire for scripted entertainment and that aspect of the industry will need to pick up immediately following the end of this shutdown.  And the clock is ticking for Hollywood to be able to do that without significant financial cost.  There is a lot about the business that is dependent upon new content releasing into the market over the course of the year, from marketing to merchandise to broadcasting rights and the subsequent ad revenue attached.  You slow all that down, it will affect more industries than just Hollywood alone.

So what options does Hollywood have right now?  While physical production is impossible during the pandemic, it is possible to have movies still work through development in order to be camera ready once the shutdown is lifted.  Writers for one thing see no difference to the way they normally work during this pandemic since they are able to work from home anyway, and the Zoom Meeting feature allows them to continue their writer’s room collaborations on a normal schedule.  In some instances, the shutdown has been a blessing in disguise for some troubled productions, as it buys them more time to fix underlying issues with their movies.  That has been the case over at Marvel, which saw the departure of their director for the Doctor Strange sequel and the assignment of a whole new one to take his place.  The shutdown now gives the new director, Sam Raimi in this case, much needed extra time to resolve issues in the production that would’ve been rushed had he had to deliver the film on it’s original May 2021 release date.  But, a lot of other film productions don’t have the luxury that Marvel has where they can just move their releases one step backwards.  For them, continuing to work still costs money and delays are costly.  Because of this, the need to make changes to their projects in development must be worth the effort.  The post production side can also function out of the home, as more and more people have available editing and visual effects programs installed on their home computers.  But, as productions continue to process their way through safe, isolated home environments, there comes another problem; the empty gaps in between when a movie will be ready to complete and when it will actually be ready to premiere.

The process of making a movie sometimes takes years, but we don’t notice that process so much, because there seems to be something new coming out every week.   But when every movie is put on hold all at once, it will create a ripple effect that will eventually catch up with the public.  Right now, there are still plenty of new shows and movies making their way to streaming channels, and that’s because they were all shot and edited many months earlier.  Eventually, Netflix and the like are going to run into the situation that they’ll have exhausted all their new content unless the shutdown ends pretty soon and they can ramp up production once again.  The 2007 strike shut things down for 4 months and it caused a noticeable disruption in the years that followed.  Imagine what would happen if this pandemic induced shutdown went on for possibly a year.  We wouldn’t start noticing it for a couple years, but eventually that lack of new content could not only affect the bottom line of the streaming channels, it could change the face of Hollywood forever as a result.  I believe that this is why the movie studios made the choice that they did to delay every theatrical release until the late summer and fall season, so that the industry can play a bit of catch-up once it’s able to.  It’s a costly choice, particularly for the theatrical market, but in the end it may be the only way for Hollywood to be able to survive what comes after.  If they don’t delay things now, they’ll either run out of new movies sooner, or rush everything into production which will hurt the quality of the output.  Strangely enough, the one aspect of the industry that won’t be affected by this is animation, which in every aspect of production can be worked on safely from home.  We may end up with a glut of animated movies in the long run because of this shutdown, depending on how long it lasts, because they are the only types of movies that can go on unencumbered.

There are some promising signs that tell us that things won’t turn out to be the worst case scenario.  Countries like New Zealand and the Czech Republic are already making the moves necessary to re-open their film-making industries, and may be ready to welcome back film crews from around the world in as little as a month from now.    Also, heavy hit areas, including New York and California (major epicenters of the film industry) are already seeing a decline in new cases and are making plans for a return to business under the guidance of the safety guidelines given by the CDC.   But it will still be a long process that will no doubt leave the industry changed for a long time.  The loss of skilled crew members who will see their careers in Hollywood come to an end itself will be a tragic outcome.  One would hope that there is enough goodwill extended out to them in order to keep them afloat and able to continue in the film business, but that’s dependent on the needs of the studios in the long run and by how long this shutdown may stretch out.  The ability for Hollywood to prolong their production schedules may also be a factor, as many promised upcoming projects may have to be sacrificed in order to either save capital or be dissolved in favor of something different.  There may be even the societal changes that could leave a lasting effect on the industry.  How comfortable will actors be with performing more intimate moments on screen in a era of social distancing.  A lot of new normals are going to be the case over the next few years, and it may change us as a culture permanently.  That in turn will extend down into the entertainment we consume, and Hollywood will be a different industry because of it.  For right now, the empty film sets that sit silently all across the world wait for a different kind of storm to blow through once this current deadly one forces us into isolation.  Hollywood is going to face a long road back to business as normal, and it may result in a Hollywood we no longer recognize.

The ongoing pandemic of 2020 has taken away many options for entertainment across the world, but one of the hardest hit is undoubtedly the theatrical market.  We’ve witnessed movie theaters collapse pretty much overnight due to the shutdowns, and without some very much needed loans and debt restructuring, they could’ve easily never come back at all.  Hollywood has had to seriously readjust itself in this crisis, either by rescheduling their entire theatrical calendar or by moving something directly to on demand.  And though it has caused a disruption in the industry, the major studios do see a light at the end of the tunnel, and everything right now is centered on staying afloat until they are able to get there.  There is, however, a much more significant part of the industry that may have a more lasting change due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Though big tentpole features usually benefit from years worth of buzz surrounding them before they eventually premiere, smaller films usually spend most of the year desperately trying to find it’s audience and fight for that spotlight.  Independent and foreign language films depend on a different system outside of the studio driven hype machine  as a means of getting the attention they need, and that system is the film festival market.  Film festivals, for the most part, are the venues that provide test runs for the movies that usually fall outside of the mainstream but have the potential of crossing over if they are received well by festival goers.  These festivals often have been where the industry has found their awards season prize winners, showing the growing influence that this tradition has on the business.  But because of the uncertainty that the pandemic has put on the future of the theatrical experience itself, it has put the festival circuit into unknown territory, leading many of them to rethink their strategies for both this year and the ones ahead.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had to face a pandemic of this magnitude.  The 1918 Spanish Flu was just as widespread and far more deadly.  But what’s different is that there wasn’t an economy that included movie theaters, concert venues, and convention spaces as a daily gathering place for hundreds to thousands of people.  We’ve moved away from the more agrarian days of the early 20th century to a thoroughly social one.  Because of this, though the death toll won’t be as high as the 1918 pandemic, the economic impact will be just as severe if not more so.  Hollywood, which was in it’s infancy during the previous pandemic, has never been through a crisis like this before, and it’s testing them in a way that may determine the future of the industry.  Certainly this is something that will leave a lasting effect on the industry as well, though the festival circuit has gone through disruptions before.  The two oldest and most important film festivals, Cannes and Venice, both had to be cancelled during World War II, and they managed to come back strong afterwards.  Various other factors have also led to sudden closures of a festival as well over the years, such as a sudden tragedy like 9/11.  But, as they say, the show must go on, and it has for many of the most prestigious festivals around the world.  The traditions themselves are not lost, but what is affected most in the meantime are the movies themselves.  A movie that would’ve had it’s chance to be discovered at a festival, picked up by a distributor, and released by the end of the year just in time for awards consideration, ends up getting lost in the shuffle, and that in itself has it’s own ripple effect.  There are many people who get their one shot at glory by having their film seen by industry insiders at a film festival and by taking that away, those filmmaker’s hard work ends up being completely wasted.

For this year in particular, we’ve seen two of the most important film festivals of the spring resort to either an outright cancellation or a undetermined postponement.  South by Southwest (SXSW) is a film and live music festival that takes place in the early spring of each year in Austin, Texas, and is a favorite venue for off-beat and experimental movies to make their world premieres.  It’s also a festival that spotlights rising talent with it’s focus on first features and micro-budget short films as a part of it’s programming.  Unfortunately, SXSW’s festival dates were set to occur right when the coronavirus cases were starting to spike upward, and immediate stay at home orders were beginning to descend across the country.  With numerous panels being cancelled and a number of sponsors pulling out, SXSW were left with no other choice than to cancel the entire thing and begin to hand out refunds to it’s passholders.  For them, the swiftness of the cancellation had a profound effect, as eager filmmakers who were going to get their first bit of exposure suddenly had to reconsider their future.  Another Spring festival that was going to happen in only a matter of days doesn’t quite have that immediate effect, but will no doubt leave the industry changed in the months ahead, and that is the legendary Cannes Film Festival.  The Festival, held on the French Riviera, is considered the most valuable of all because it’s always been seen as a bell-weather for Awards season.  Last year’s Best Picture Oscar winner Parasite started it run by winning the top award at Cannes (the Palm d’Or) months prior, giving the festival much more industry influence.  Un-mooring it from it’s mid Spring time-frame could affect the awards season significantly, and potentially affect Cannes standing overall, if it is unable to prove itself with a calendar year of being that important spotlight on these special kinds of films.

Cannes may still yet be able to put films in competition this year, but it could prove to be in a truncated version that sees less film screenings and a smaller than usual market.  Because of the shortened movie season in general, there is far less of a chance for festival premiered films to be able to even have their chance to connect with mainstream audiences.  The Fall movie season is already jam-packed with movies that were postponed from the Spring and Summer, and even those new dates could be in doubt if there is a second outbreak later this year.  So even if a festival happens, the chance that it will produce a new awards favorite is pretty dim.  The same is going to hold true for all the remaining festivals throughout the rest of the year, with Venice coming in the late Summer and Toronto in the early Fall.  And at this point, does the industry still take their influence into account, or does it judge it’s Awards season favorites by a different measure.  More than likely, the industry will still be looking at the festivals for awards recognition, but it may be towards films contained within that are of the more mainstream variety.  For movies to be awards favorites, they must not only show quality, but also the ability to be profitable as well, which is a problem when certain movies are far more niche than others.  That’s why these festivals exist, so that they can be seen by the right people in a venue that signifies the best responses these movies can get from a mass audience.  In a world where movies can’t be screened in a theater for fear of an virus outbreak, what other choice is left there.  So, in the absence of movie theaters, many of these festivals are looking for the best alternative, and it is leading them to one branch of entertainment that is left open to them; the internet.

In 2020, we are seeing the beginnings of an entirely new kind of exhibition strategy, which is the virtual Film Festival.  With people staying at home, the demand for streaming entertainment has seen a significant rise, with some movies that were slated for theatrical release winding up bypassing it altogether in favor of releasing on Netflix and the like.  That works well enough for singular theatrical films, and is nothing really new, but how do you do the same with an entire festival’s worth of programming.  With two different examples, we are seeing that actually play out right now from the comfort of our own homes.  Turner Classic Movies, which holds it’s Classic Film Festival every April in the heart of Hollywood, was one of the first major public events to cancel all it’s plans in preparation for the stay at home orders due to the pandemic.  It was a big loss for movie fans across the City of Los Angeles and all over the world (including myself, who usually has a report written up this time of year recounting this traditional event).  But, days later, TCM announced that they would be forming a special Home Edition of the festival, taking the movies that would’ve been screening at this year’s festival and presenting them on their cable channel programming with specially made introductions added in the same style as they would’ve been done for the festival.  Simultaneously, they would also be releasing onto their YouTube channel never before seen footage from festivals past, like the Q&A’s with filmmakers and movie star shown in their entirety; stuff that only festival goers would’ve seen before.  In addition, they would also conduct new interviews via the online meeting app Zoom with people who would’ve been honored at this year’s festival.  Though not in any way close to filling the gap left by the communal experience of the event itself, it still gave fans of the festival something to tide us over while we wait for a return to normal.  Having spent the whole of last weekend going through all they presented both online and on TV, I was pleased to see TCM make some attempt to keep the tradition going, even if it’s on the small screen.

Certainly TCM’s example provides some idea of how to continue on a tradition of a film festival, but it also benefits from the fact that most of it’s content are films that have already graced the silver screen before, and doesn’t feel out of place being shown at home.  It’s a whole different matter when the movies that are a part of the festival are ones that have never been seen before.  Are those movies going to have the same impact if they can only be seen on a television screen instead of in the theater.  That is the gamble that SXSW is about to make this next week.  Though the festival was cancelled, it was far enough into the planning to have a full line up of movies ready to screen.  Without the festival, the movies and shorts now sit in this limbo state where they may have to wait another year to be seen at all, due to some exclusive contracts made with the festival itself.  But, like TCM’s plan to move their programming onto their channel, SXSW felt it was best to get their line up of movies out into the public right away instead of sitting on them, and thus they looked to find a way to do a virtual festival for themselves.  In the process, they managed to strike a deal with Amazon to allow their programs to stream on their Prime Video platform.  It may be outside of the valuable theatrical experience, but at the very least all these movies and shorts will have a chance to be spotlighted on one of the most widely viewed streaming platforms around.  The prestige of having the exclusive SXSW deal also helps to endear Amazon to all these up-and-coming filmmakers who had their movies tied in with the festival, helping to endear the streaming giant to the indie film crowd as well.  Any of the other streamers probably would’ve done the same, and this might begin a new arms race in the streaming market to create these platforms for film festivals that, depending on the circumstance, may have to move online.  It will be interesting to see if Amazon and SXSW’s gamble pays off, because it could indeed change the festival circuit forever.

I have no doubt that both TCM and SXSW will return to their public venue format eventually, but simultaneously, we might see these virtual offshoots make their way online in conjunction with the real thing.  It’s another form of exposure, and in the years ahead, we are going to find out which one provides the most benefit for the industry.  Sure, you may not make as much in ticket sales, but you’ll also save on the expense of having to set up the exhibition at the festival in the first place.  It’s that cost to benefit analysis that is no doubt going to be weighing on the minds of executives throughout the rest of the year.  And if the pandemic continues to be effecting the industry far into the remainder of the year, we may see them having to reconsider much of their criteria for the value all the movies by the end of the year.  The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the governing body overseeing the Academy Awards, for one thing may have to loosen up their rules for what qualifies for the Oscars next year, because there is still the possibility that theaters could remain shuttered for the rest of the year, or at the very least be so constrained that they’ll have less time to show more movies throughout the year.  With the film festivals bringing in more movies into contention, and fewer public venues to show them in, the last remaining alternative will be to have this influx of awards deserving movies move to channels like Netflix and Amazon.  Considering that the Academy requires at least 2 weeks of theatrical screenings in the cities of Los Angeles and New York for eligibility, it will be very difficult for those movies to gain the exposure they need, because of the uncertainty of the market right now.  So, many presidents are perhaps going to fall and rules bent in order to keep this industry running as close to normal as it possibly can get, which means a further tilt in the direction of online presentation.

As someone who values the theatrical experience very much, I am disheartened to see a further erosion of it’s future with so many of these festivals opting for these virtual alternatives.  At the same time, I am grateful to see these festivals acknowledge the whole left behind and try to emulate it in some way through a different format.  It remains to be seen if these changes are permanent.  In the case of TCM, I absolutely see this as a temporary fix, as so much of that festival’s purpose is to celebrate the theatrical venues themselves just as much as the movies they screen.  I have no doubt that a year from now, I will return to cover this festival as a guest in person just as I have over the last few times.  But I am curious if SXSW, Cannes, and all the others will ever return to normal.  Sure they’ll have their festivals live again, but will the industry invest in them as heavily again, or will they see the virtual model as being just as valuable.  This will really be the test of whether or not we’ll be returning back to normal in the years after this pandemic when it comes to the theatrical experience.  Moving festivals online may be economically sound because it removes so much of the marketing costs associated with setting up a premiere and transporting talent across the world to bring more prestige to a festival.  But, there is something to be said about the way these festivals generate more excitement for a movie based on that shared theatrical experience.  Word of mouth is one of the most effective forms of marketing that a film can have, and if word gets around that this movie had this kind of reaction at such and such a festival.  The impersonal feel of watching something online or on television just doesn’t carry the same kind of effect.  It’s also going to be interesting this year to see if such a gap also arises from the cancellation of San Diego Comic Con this year; one of the industry’s most valued events for generating excitement for upcoming projects.  As for now, we are seeing Hollywood testing the waters and seeing if they can do the same kind of events virtually rather than open to the public, because really at this point there is no other alternative.  It is amazing how much of this industry is a freight train that can not stop moving, otherwise it will run off the rails.  I found TCM’s experiment to be nice filler that smoothed an empty void but could not fill it in completely, and I’m interested in seeing what SXSW does next week.  But Hollywood should also consider that the theatrical experience will always be the most powerful barometer for judging the success of a movie, because it commands the most attention of it’s audience.  The film festival circuit has been part of the life blood of this industry, and I don’t see it being put to rest by a virus or by the advances of technology anytime soon.

A very different world we live in over the course of just a few short weeks.  At the beginning of this month, I wrote out a review of Pixar’s new film Onward (2020) as I would normally do.  Little did I know that over the course of the next couple weeks, not only would that film be pulled from movie theaters after the briefest of runs, but that the theaters themselves would also close it’s doors indefinitely.  The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused one of the biggest upheavals in recent human history, both financially and culturally.  To help stem the rapid spread of the disease, local, state and federal governments issued an unprecedented “stay at home” order, causing businesses across the country to cease operation.  Among those hardest hit by this order were movie theaters.  I already wrote about the long term effects this may have on Hollywood itself right here, but today I want to focus specifically on how this current situation may end up damaging the theatrical experience, possibly forever.  Movie theaters are one of those institutions that we often take for granted.  We’ve been going to them our entire lives, and for some of us, watching a movie in a theater is oftentimes a part of our weekly routine.  Not all experiences in a movie theater are positive ones, but I bet many of you can recall your own favorite theatrical experiences at one point, often tied to a personal favorite movie most likely.  Already leading up to this year, movie theaters were engaged in an uphill battle against television and more recently streaming.  So with this pandemic closing the doors to theaters for an uncertain amount of time is making people wonder, is this the death stroke to movie theaters as we know it?  It is a dire time for the industry, and also a time where we need to remind ourselves just how important and worth saving movie theaters are.

The most stressing thing right now is the fact that no one, not the experts nor the people in charge of the theater chains know what’s going to happen in the next few months.  As of now, the largest theater chains in America have all committed to a closure of up to 9-12 weeks in accordance with the recommendations of health officials.  That is an extremely long time for any business to close it’s doors, let alone movie theaters, and it also means a staggering loss of revenue from ticket and concessions sales.  The worst part of this is the labor cuts that are going to have to be made in order to keep the companies afloat.  AMC, the largest chain in America, had to furlough their entire corporate office in addition to making difficult staff layoffs.  Even their CEO is putting himself on furlough, just to keep some solvency in the company’s expenses.  It’s a sad reality for a once profitable company, but they were left with no other choice.  The government mandate could not be ignored, and you certainly don’t want your business to be responsible for the spreading of a potentially deadly virus.  Also, with the movie studios all pulling their movies off of the calendar for the remainder of the Spring season, there was going to be nothing worth showing regardless.  It’s bad for one company alone, but as we are seeing, it’s happening across the entire industry.  I especially feel for the theater staff, since I was one of them back in my college days.  You enter the month of March fairly secure in your position, only to find a few short weeks later that you have no job and the place you worked at may not even come back from this.  Movie theaters were one of those reliable open 365 days a year kind of places.  Even shopping malls that had fallen on hard times could always rely upon the movie theaters as an anchor that could bring in people daily.  Now, that has all come to a grinding halt, and it has many people, film goers and theater workers alike, worried that this might be the end.

The reason why people are believing this is because of the fact that streaming has developed into the fiercest competition yet in the field of distribution.  The rise of Netflix and it’s ilk has shown Hollywood a different model for exhibiting movies that allows for a wider variety of movies that normally wouldn’t survive long in the theatrical market to get more broad recognition.  So, a lot of movies that otherwise would have been buried in theaters end up gaining traction on streaming and perform better as a result.  With the “stay at home” order given out during this pandemic, streaming has now gone from an alternative option to presenting a new film, to being the only option at the moment.  The Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae comedy, The Lovebirds (2020), which was slated for theaters in April, suddenly made the move to premiering on Netflix instead, where to be honest it probably would have had a better shot to begin with.  Disney+ is also making moves as well, bumping up it’s premiere of Frozen II (2019) on the platform, and taking the extreme measure of premiering Onward on there as well in the first week of April, a mere month after it’s short lived theatrical debut.  The move is a necessary one for Disney, as they need to rely more heavily upon their still fairly new streaming platform for some cash inflow, considering that they not only have no movies playing in theaters, but their theme parks are also closed as well.  All this is making the streaming business more lucrative, while the theatrical market is stuck in the mud.  And that is worrying to the theatrical side of the business, because the last thing they needed was for people who could choose between one or the other to have no other option.  For Hollywood, it’s a shift, but not one that will stall their production; at least until it’s okay to restart filming again.  What the theater chains worry about in thus regard is that with people becoming more comfortable with watching their movies from home as opposed to going to a theater, it’s going to keep those audiences forever in that mode, and Hollywood will likewise move on to where the audience is.

Now, that’s not to say that when the theaters are eventually allowed to reopen that they’ll all be too far gone to ever reopen.  These chains have hundreds of locations nationwide, and if they had to downsize, it would take them several years to do so, and not every single one will be gone.  There is a passionate base of fans of the theatrical experience that will always return to the multiplexes no matter what; of which I consider myself one.  The only problem is, there aren’t enough of us to go around to support every single movie theater.  What I especially worry about are the independently run movie theaters that you find scattered throughout the country.  These often “mom and pop” run businesses are hurting very much right now, because they don’t have the deep pockets to maintain operations that the big chains have.  Sure, they have dedicated clienteles that will gladly return once they are allowed, but sadly, depending on how long this pandemic continues, those theaters may be too far in the red to ever return again.  It would be a major loss to see these kinds of theaters go under, because they are often the only ones presenting art house entertainment to communities that otherwise wouldn’t be able to have access to them.  But, the sad reality is that once the crest of this pandemic has thankfully passed us by, there will be far less movie theaters available for us to go to.  These independent movie theaters are sadly in survival mode right now, and in a “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” situation, where they have to stay closed to keep people safe to the peril of their bottom line.  With the recently passed stimulus bill, one hopes that those small business loans may include some much needed cash to help them weather through, but that remains to be seen.

More than likely, the road to recovery will take many years for the theatrical industry, and it will also be dependent on what Hollywood does as well.  For the film studios, moving their movies off the schedule was no easy move either, as it meant a lot of wasted marketing spent over that last few months plus it’s going to shake-up their long-term release strategy.  But, it was an easier move than say what the theaters have had to go through.  If anything, the outlook for movie theaters would be far more dire if Hollywood was coming out and stating that they were abandoning theaters altogether.  Thankfully, there have been commitments made by some of the studios to release their movies theatrically once the doors are reopened.  Warner Brothers publicly announced that Wonder Woman ’84 (2020) their big summer tent-pole, would still see a theatrical run, albeit much later in the summer than planned.  It stands to think that the other studios will likely also release their big tent-pole films into theaters when they are able to, mainly due to the already existing agreements that they’ve had with the theaters in the short term.  It’s the long term outlook that remains uncertain.  Once the theaters reopen, are they going to draw in the same crowds as before?  Will “social distancing” just become the new normal, and movie theaters will no longer be able to generate the same ticket sales in order to justify the enormous costs of the movies they are showing?  There are some filmmakers who will insist that their films be shown theatrically, like Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino, but in the end, they won’t have the final say.  For both the theaters and the studios, there needs to be a profit on the other end, and it won’t matter how necessary the theatrical experience is in the end; the theaters will need those audiences back in a big way in order to be seen as economically viable for the future of cinema.

So, what are they going to have to do?  For a short time, movie theaters may have to reduce their ticket prices in order to entice audiences to return to their venues again after such a long absence.  They were already moving in a direction where they were taking the now defunct MoviePass model and adopting it into their own business plan by offering a monthly subscription to regular patrons of their theater.  The subscription plan worked very well for the two biggest chains, AMC and Regal, and hopefully, they return that plan once the theaters reopen for those of us who used it.  That will certainly bring back a certain segment of their patronage, but how do you bring back the casual movie-goer?  Those lower ticket prices may be one option, but you’ve also got to convince the patron that their experience there will be wildly different than what they’ll get in their living room.  We may find ourselves in a bold, experimental time for the theater industry, which can either lead to a boom in business (like what Widescreen did) or lead to embarrassing failure (Smell-o-vision, anyone?)  It may also change the kind of movies that get screened in the theater as well.  For one thing, depending on how much contraction in ticket sales that might come about in the coming years, Hollywood may end up making movies on more modest budgets than we’ve seen in the past decade.  It’s happened once before, as the extravagant epics of the 1960’s like Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Cleopatra (1963) gave way to smaller, grittier dramas in the 1970’s like The Godfather (1972) and Taxi Driver (1976).  And eventually, the blockbuster era arose out of this fallow season in the movie business, with Star Wars (1977) leading the way.  Periods of transition are turbulent, but not uncommon for the movie industry, and we’ve seen movie theaters rise and fall before.  It’s just that this time, the fall is coming hard and fast and in a moment when theaters were already suffering a blow.  It may take some ingenuity to get themselves out of this rut, but with so much uncertain, it’s anyone’s guess what might happen.

I have always been a strong proponent of the in theater experience and I feel that it is something worth preserving.  We all tend to focus on the pet peeves of watching a movie in a theater, all of which seem to be magnified in a time when the term “social distancing” has become a part of our daily lives.  Sure the people talking during a movie, or playing on their phones, or failing to manage their out of control kinds are annoying and they no longer become a part of your experience when you watch a movie from home.  Nor do you have to deal with the less than clean conditions of your theater after the ushers make the quickest of cleaning transitions before the theater can be ready for the next show.  Trust me, having cleaned a few theaters myself back in the day, we would be lucky to have more than a ten minute window available in order to get everything clean.  But, despite all this, I would gladly trade in a theatrical experience for a sit at home one any day.  And that’s because there are some movies that just never feel the same on a small screen as they do on a big one.  And seeing a truly rousing movie in a nearly full theater is one of those true delights that I cherish in life.  Just last year, I had one of the best theatrical experiences in my life watching Avengers: Engame (2019) on an IMAX screen on opening night.  Feeling the rush of the crowd reacting to what they were watching was just as entertaining as what I was watching on the screen, and that’s something that I never would’ve gotten at home.  I know that this won’t happen with every movie, but it is something worth preserving.  We are distancing ourselves on purpose right now for our own safety, but in doing so, we may end up losing the thing that most effectively brought us all together.

I heard Quentin Tarantino put it very well in a 2015 interview with the Hollywood Reporter where he said that, “movies are the art-form for the masses.”  In that statement, he means to say that movies were the one form of entertainment that spread across class, race, gender, no matter who the person was.  It wasn’t an expensive art-form of the elite like opera, Broadway, or professional sports.  Movies were available to most everyone for a reasonable ticket price, and that’s what made movie theaters such an integral part of our lives.  Now we are in a time when they’ll need all the help they can get just to survive the next few months.  Strangely, help has come from an unlikely place like Netflix, which has helped set up a fund to support furloughed workers within the industry.  Netflix’s creative head, Ted Sarandos has also stated publicly that his intention is not to have Netflix supplant the theatrical experience, but to work alongside it.  Hopefully, this experience may loosen the theater chain’s objections to Netflix’s model of distribution and we may end up seeing more of the streamer’s movies released into theaters in a wider distribution.  But, what’s most important in the weeks ahead is that we don’t forget the importance of the theatrical experience itself as a part of our connection with the movies.  Nothing can replace that, not even the most high tech of home theater set-ups.  The big screen is where most movies are meant to be seen, and the theaters are going to need us if they are going to survive.  We especially need to give our support to those small, independent theaters that provide their own one of a kind experience that can never be replaced.  Communities that otherwise don’t have much access to alternative kinds of media and film are dependent on these movie theaters’ survival, and it is very important that they continue to remain open after this crisis is over.  Movie theaters may not go away completely, but this pandemic crisis is certainly going to be a crushing blow that may take years to recover from.  But, my hope is that I can convince enough people out there to remember the value of our movie theaters and all the good they have brought into our lives.  Not everything about the movie theater business has been perfect, but I certainly don’t want to live in a world where I can never walk into a movie theater again.  So, once we are able to, please buy those tickets, order those buckets of popcorn and drinks, and please enjoy the show.

It’s the kind of thing that you always see play out in the movies, but never think it may actually happen for real.  However, this week, the entertainment world was faced with that unfortunate reality.  In the face of a worldwide pandemic, the movie industry enacted an unprecedented shutdown in order to help the containment of the highly infectious Covid-19 coronavirus.  This included the postponement or outright cancellation of many upcoming movies within the next few weeks, as well as further cancellations of media events across the world.  The South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, a major destination for independent filmmakers to premiere their new projects to the public, saw it’s first cancellation in it’s entire history.  Other key events like Coachella, CinemaCon, and various others also have put the brakes on their plans over the next few months.  Here in Los Angeles, things have also gotten seriously dire.  Many productions have been shut down until further notice.  Industry employees are now being told to work from home.  We even got the shocking news that beloved Hollywood star Tom Hanks and his wife, actress Rita Wilson, were among those infected with the disease.  Not only that but Disneyland and Universal Studios had to shut their gates to guests, disrupting a major source of income for both of their parent companies.  In total, this is a lock-down of an entire industry that was thought unthinkable before, and yet is happening before our very eyes.  That’s not to say it’s not warranted either.  It’s better to be over-prepared than under-prepared in a case like this, and no one in the movie industry, not the studios or the theaters, wants to be responsible for making a bad situation even worse.  But though the short-term situation is all about caring for the safety of the public, it also is leaving the industry in a wary position about how this will effect them in the long run.

Only a short couple of weeks ago, things looked like they were going to go on as scheduled in Hollywood.  The coronavirus was making the news, but it was a far off menace, effecting the Asian markets more than anything.  Then the first cases began to hit the United States and Europe, and it grew rapidly from there.  The landslide began with Sony deciding to pull the new James Bond film, No Time to Die, out of it’s planned April 2020 release and pushing it all the way to November.  It was a risky move, as advanced tickets had already been sold to customers, but Sony recognized that it was not worth the risk depending on how serious things were getting.  The worries were also mounting after Disney and Pixar’s new film Onward opened to tepid box office last week, leading industry professionals to believe that people were staying home to be safe.  And that led to the bottom falling out this week, with pretty much the entire slate of upcoming Spring movies either being delayed or taken off the calendar completely.  This included heavy hitters like the horror sequel A Quiet Place: Part II and Disney’s live action remake of Mulan.  Even Fast & Furious 9, which wasn’t slated to release until mid-May, moved itself back a full year.  It’s all in response not just to the outbreak that has occurred, but the threat that it could get even worse.  And that is why we saw the drastic measures that were taken this week.  Poor Onward is going to be left out in the cold having to try to make up what it can in a market that is all but shutdown.  As of this writing, many theater chains have yet to cease operations, but given how the studios have pulled so many of their upcoming releases from the schedule, I don’t know how much longer they can continue doing business like normal.

The ripple effects of these decisions will no doubt leave their mark on the industry.  This is almost certainly going to be the biggest disruption the industry has faced since the Writer’s Guild strike of 2007.  And in many ways, it could be far more disruptive than that.  The strike, even as protracted as it was, still didn’t effect the theatrical end of the business.  Theaters were still able to capitalize on the backlog of already completed movies to see them through the slowdown of production.  The strike more or less was more disruptive to the television end, which had to see many of their programs go on protracted hiatuses.  But this situation could be far more destructive to the theatrical side than anything else we’ve ever seen in the history of Hollywood.  If theaters do have to close over the next couple weeks, it will be a major loss of income for both the theaters as well as the studios that make money off of the box office returns.  And moving all these movies to later dates already signals to these theater chains that they are going to see far less business in general for quite some time.  It’s the tough call you have to make in a time of uncertainty such as this one, and no matter what, businesses are going to suffer.  For an industry that has already been struggling in the wake of the rise of Netflix and it’s competitors, the movie theaters are in their most vulnerable position yet, possibly facing the final blow to their industry in general.  Of course, that’s assuming that this virus can not be contained quickly, and that audiences will return in droves once the crisis is over.  As someone who has come out of the theatrical industry myself, my hope is that those who work in these theaters and are doing their best to help stop the spread of this disease don’t end up seeing their life and careers torn apart by a crisis that is fully out of their control.

That’s the first point where we may see the long lasting effects of this virus’ impact on the industry.  The movie studios can make the choice to hold back their films, but it also means that they will see a disruption in their revenue for the year.  No one is going to come out of this unscathed, and already many of the major studios are already looking at 2020 as a lost year for the industry.  Disney has already lost 20% of it’s stock value, even losing a big chunk before the virus hit our shores due to their closure of the Asian theme parks and loss of the Chinese market at the box office.  Disney is big enough to rebound eventually, but this will no doubt leave them wounded for some time.  Thankfully, Disney is not doing anything reckless to try to counter their losses, and are following every health guideline to ensure that no one is going to be further exposed to their viruses on any of their properties.  Yes, closing down nearly all of their theme parks is going to cost them millions, but it’s better than the millions more they might have lost due to bad publicity if an outbreak broke out on their watch.  This is a time for tough choices, and it may end up changing the industry in the long run.  Certainly, the short term money issues will affect what gets green-lit in the months ahead.  It may end up convincing executives to rethink their strategies for tent-pole features, especially those with out of control budgets and troubled productions.  We may see much less of the likes of Marvel and Star Wars blockbusters, because their enormous costs will not justify their productions in an industry where you aren’t certain if there will be any box office revenue on the other end of it.  This effect is something we might not see for a while, as most big budget films like Bond’s No Time to Die and Marvel’s upcoming Black Widow are already in the can and ready to go.  But, a year or two from now, we may see a much quieter and subdued slate of releases from an industry that is less willing to take costly risks.

That is to say, if the spread of the virus does get much worse in the weeks ahead.  The best hope that we can have is that these extreme measures taken by Hollywood and the theater chains do help to stem the tide of the outbreak, but at this point, no one knows what will happen.  The film industry is in uncharted waters right now.  This is especially true when you are dealing with the possible exposure of people within the industry to the disease.  The announcement of Tom Hanks having being diagnosed really put a face on the pandemic that hadn’t really hit home for most people up to that point.  And when it became apparent that anyone, even a movie, star could come down with the disease, than it essential for everyone to take this disease with complete seriousness.  The one blessing is that Covid-19, despite being dangerously contagious, is not as destructive as past pandemics like the Bubonic Plague, Smallpox, and Yellow Fever.  Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson will make a full recovery, there is no doubt about that, and so will most people who become effective.  The danger is not so much how badly it will make the person ill, but in how fast it will spread from person to person, and lead to infections of people unlucky enough to have weakened immune systems that can’t fight the disease.  This outbreak is putting us on a learning curve of what a pandemic in the 21st century can look like, and hopefully we will learn the lessons of it in order to be ready for when the really bad pandemic starts to span across the globe.  It’s the one silver lining that we can take from this; this outbreak is exposing the weak-spots in our disease prevention system, and will hopefully lead us to fixing them in the near future.  In many ways, the drastic measures taken by the film industry is a noble bit of sacrifice in order to make up for the other parts of the disease control system that have utterly failed us.

Though the theatrical market is going to feel the effects most directly, it doesn’t mean that Hollywood is going to shut down completely.  Once the disease is under control, the industry will start up production again.  And this is largely due to the more diverse market we now have with distribution.  This is going to be a boom time for streamers like Netflix and Disney+.  While people are staying away from the multiplexes, the streamers are going to benefit from increased viewership as people stay home.  This will no doubt lead to an increase in subscription, as people on the fence will be more wiling to commit to signing up.  For Disney, they certainly have this to look forward to as their much publicized streaming service is going to have to carry the load while the theatrical side takes a hit.  The streaming market may also be the only choice that a lot of smaller films will have left to be seen by a wide audience if the theaters start to close their doors.  The cancellation of SXSW and the possible postponements of the Tribeca and even Cannes Film Festivals could lead to the loss of exposure for many important movies that were hoping to get a boost and also distribution over the course of the year.  You really see how crucial the Festival circuit is to the industry as a whole when the possibility of it’s cancellation puts so many film’s futures in doubt.  These are the kinds of movies that are likely going to be up for the Academy Awards next year (like Palm d’Or winner Parasite ended up being last year), and getting the head start from the festivals is what helps to build the hype they need in the first place.  If the theaters do close, hopefully Netflix, Hulu, and the like will swoop in and give these movies the audience that they deserve.  At the same time, it will be another step towards streaming taking over as the dominant force that it is already becoming in the industry as a whole.  And that is why the theatrical side is especially wary about how this pandemic is going to affect the future of movie experience as a whole.

For the first time in a long while, Hollywood is not in control of it’s immediate future.  It is going to have to weather the storm and hope that it will come out of it in one piece.  Wars, terrorism, and even industry shutdowns have not made things as uncertain as it is now.  Hollywood has just done it’s best to just carry on as best as it can.  But with the spread of this disease already cutting deep into the profits that they have relied upon for so long, Hollywood is right now just hoping for the best outcome they can.  In truth, this will no doubt change the industry.  We’ll see a constraining of budgets over the next couple of years in order to make up for the lost revenue of this year.  The theatrical side will see it’s biggest disruption ever, which may end up closing many screens for good; a huge loss not just for the industry but for local communities in general.  We’ll likely see streaming emerge as the savior for a shaken industry when all is said and done, and the theatrical experience further become a shell of what it once was.  But, this is all uncertain as well, as no one can say exactly what is going to happen over the course of this year.  We just know that there is going to be an immediate economic cost to the industry with so much of it’s revenue sources being cut off.  One can hope that the studios are prepared for a scenario like this and that they don’t loose faith in the return of audiences to their films.  It’s just, how will those audience end up turning up in the end.  We are going to experience a quieter Spring, that’s for sure, and hopefully the measures taken today will ensure that the rest of the year doesn’t get disrupted either.

For me myself, I am taking all the needed measure that an individual should do to avoid getting sick.  I am washing my hands regularly, and keeping my living and working spaces sanitized.  The outbreak has reached my home-base of Los Angeles, and I have seen everything from the theme parks to the live entertainment venues all shut their doors over the course of the last couple days, leading to a decreased level of entertainment within the city.  Local theaters have also shut their doors, though the big chains have yet to close as of this writing.  It’s also unfortunately led to the cancellation of this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival, which has been a staple of this blog since I started covering almost 6 years ago.   It’s a depressing time, but at the same time, necessary.  We have not seen an outbreak on this scale in a long, long time, and the drastic measures taken are to ensure that more people don’t get sick.  It’s not the worst disease we could be facing, but it’s certainly nothing to take lightly either.  Thankfully, because I write this from the comforts of my own home, it will not keep me from writing.  Expect to see more articles from me every week, even as the industry goes on lock-down.  I may end up spending my time catching up on what’s playing on Netflix or Disney+, and writing about stuff like that.  My worry is that whatever may happen after this pandemic, it’s going to lead to an increased diminishment of the theatrical experience.  I am one of those who still prefers that to sitting at home and watching TV.  There are worse things that will result from this pandemic, but to me, this will be the thing that hurts the most.  I hope that when the studios do start releasing their delayed films that they do so with a firm commitment to bringing people back to the cinemas.  We need the movies now more than ever to keep the world upbeat, and if it has to go away for a while for everyone’s safety than so be it.  But never forget, the greatest connection we have to movies is when they can bring us together as a community, and that is something worth preserving after a time that is forcing us into isolation.

The late 1990’s was an interesting transitional period for Hollywood, as the advancement of computer aided technology had opened many new doors for the industry.  Special effects extravaganzas like Twister (1996), Independence Day (1996) and Armageddon (1998) were dominant at the box office, but were usually seen as little more than popcorn flicks that were rarely celebrated for anything other than their effects.  But, there was another interesting occurance that was happening during this time and that was a surprising resurgence of something that was once the dominant genre in filmmaking at one time in Hollywood; the historical epic.  Reaching a peak in the late 50’s and early 60’s, the historical epic became the defining example of what Hollywood could accomplish, taking full advantage of the new widescreen processes of the time and delivering larger than life recreations of legendary moments of the past.  Started off with the biblical epics of The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben-Hur (1959), the genre would go on to be defined by other history based dramas like Spartacus (1960), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Patton (1970).  They were all grand in scale and with epic lengths to match their ambitious scope (a three hour run-time being the norm).  But with out of control costs also defining their productions, like the near cataclysmic Cleopatra (1963), the genre that would become known as the “sword and sandal” epic would not be able to sustain itself for long.  But once the CGI revolution of the 90’s began, filmmakers raised on those epics of the past found a new, cost effective way to bring movies on that scale back to grandiose life.  Movies like Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves (1990) and Mel Gibson’s Braveheart (1995) began to reivigorate the long dormant genre initially, and then James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) pushed the door wide open.  But a true return to an actual “sword and sandal” epic wouldn’t happen until the turn of the century with Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), a movie that both revived the epic in a big way, but also began it’s inevitable second decline as a result.

Gladiator, now reaching it’s 20th anniversary, is a rather intriguing oddity in the history of Hollywood.  Feeling both modern and nostalgic, it’s a movie that really feels out of place in it’s time.  It is very much a throwback to the “sword and sandal” epics of Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” and yet every aspect of it’s cinematic style is thoroughly contemporary.  And even more surprising is how much it was embraced by audiences and critics alike upon it’s release.  Despite the fact that a movie set in ancient Rome had not been a box office hit in nearly 5 decades, Gladiator somehow managed to be one of 2000’s highest grossing films, bested only by Mission Impossible 2 (2000) and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000).  And it did so with no A-List stars at the time.  Australian actor Russell Crowe had only appeared in a handful of Hollywood films at the time, most notably in The Insider (1999) which garnered him a Best Actor nomination a year prior, but he was unproven as an action star.  Joaquin Phoenix’s career had barely just begun, as he had only recently moved beyond the child actor roles of his youth into more adult ones.  Plus, director Ridley Scott had been known more for his work in Science Fiction with movies like Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982), and a lavish, costume drama was something that he had tried and failed at before with 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992).  But despite these limitations, the movie caught on in a big way and would go on to become one of the most influential movies of the decade.  It even rode it’s success to a Best Picture win at the Oscars, something that even most “sword and sandal” epics couldn’t do, coupled with a Best Actor win for Crowe.  It really leads you to wonder why this movie, above all the others, became the one to reach the top like it did in such an unexpected way.

Part of it’s creation no doubt was a result of a group of filmmakers wanting to indulge their nostalgia for the epics of the past, while at the same time finding a way to make good use of the new tools that could allow them to make a movie like it work.  The original concept came from screenwriter David Franzoni, who had been working on the story since the 1970’s, having been a fan of old fashioned epic movies and carrying an interest for Roman history his whole life.  Finding his way eventually to Dreamworks, and working alongside Steven Spielberg on the movie Amistad, Franzoni pitched the project to Spielberg, who himself had a long-standing interest in the genre.  Spielberg, who was too tied up at the time to direct himself, eventually gave the project over to his longtime friend Ridley Scott, who was more than eager to jump on board.  Scott certainly was also influenced by old fashioned epics, but he was far more interested in looking at this era through a more authentic vision; creating a Rome that felt less polished and more lived in.  Nevertheless, the movie would give him the chance of imagining Ancient Rome on a scale that old Hollywood would’ve only dreamed of, and on a more modest budget.  Aided with cutting edge CGI technology, Ridley could not only rebuild the mighty Colesseum, but even take you inside it, and span around looking at it from all angles, like in the now iconic 360 degree shot from it’s ground level.  After bringing on playwright John Logan and screenwriter William Nicholson in for rewrites to further match Scott’s vision, production began in earnest in the spring of 1999.  Shooting in places as diverse as Morrocco, Malta, and Northern Ireland, Gladiator was certainly one of the most ambitious projects of it’s time.  But even with a professional assembly of cast and crew on board, the movie still endured some unexpected hurdles.  Most notably, actor Oliver Reed, who was playing the role of gladiatorial trainer Proximo, suffered a fatal heart attack during the middle of shooting.  With the actor playing a crucial role in the final film, and without having completed his last scenes, Scott needed to find a way to bring his story-line closure without having to recast the actor and reshoot half the movie.  He made the controversial choice to digitally resurrect Oliver by placing his face artificially on another actors body in a groundbreaking visual effect.  Yes it’s a little ghoulish to do this after the actor has died and has no say over how his likeness is used, but in doing so, Ridley Scott managed to preserve the rest of his performance within the film, which is a wonderful final bow for the legendary character actor.

Though the movie is a magnificent showcase for Ridley Scott’s talents as a film director, the thing that I think really turned the movie into an iconic hit with audiences was the character at the center of it all; General Maximus Aurelius Meridius.  From the moment we first see Russell Crowe’s world worn but resilient face on screen as the character, we know that this will be someone who will command our attention for the next 2 1/2 hours.  Crowe absolutely owns as the charcter, being both physically imposing while also vulnerable in spirit.  And his journey through the film is no doubt what has captured the imagination of audiences around the world.  In the film’s tagline, it describes the character of Maximus as “the general who became a slave; a slave who became a gladiator; a gladiator who defied an empire.”  And it’s that undaunted drive to push beyond your limits and fight your way back to the place where you belong that makes his story so captivating.  After loosing everything, his rank, his home and his family, at the whims of a power hungry dictator, Maximus uses what power he has left (his fighting skills and knowledge of combat) to fight his way back to seek justice.  Russell Crowe is commanding in the moments that call for him to be larger than life, but I feel that his best work in the movie comes in the quiet moments in between, where Maximus becomes introspective and questions whether or not his path should lead him down this road towards vengence.  Of course, a hero is also only as good as the villain he faces, and Gladiator has a memorable one as well.  Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus is one of the most depraved heavys put on screen in recent memory, and Phoenix does a wonderful job of capturing the slimy nature at his very core.  It’s a performance that hints at the budding talent that Phoenix would display in the 20 years and more than anything else has been the thing in the movie that has aged the best over the years. Whereas most historical epics portray their villainous figures as pillars of insurmountable strength, Commodus is defined by his insecurities; a sniveling man child prone to abusing his power to compensate for his lack of strength. In many ways, Commodus is a truer depiction of what a tyrant actually behaves like than anything else we’ve seen in movie before, and it’s a real credit to the power of Joaquin’s manic portrayal of the character. It also plays off of Crowe’s Maximus perfectly, centering the movie around a truly dynamic contest between idealic good and loathsome evil.

In the 20 years since the release of Gladiator, it’s very interesting to see what kind of legacy it has left behind.  One thing that may be surprising about it is the fact that while it did revive the long dormant “sword and sandals” epic, it only did so for a short time, at least in the general traditional sense.  The movie’s box office success and subsequent Oscar wins signaled to Hollywood that this type of movie was easy money once again, which is something that only in retrospect now looks like a foolish assumption.  As stated, Gladiator stood out because of it’s stellar story and unforgettable characters, and not just because of it’s spectacle.  But, what Hollywood believed was the key to it’s success was the ground-breaking visual effects that it used to tell it’s story, which made people believe that they could plant into any old historical event and make it work just as well.  This led to some rather misquided attempts at Gladiator clones.  Much like how Pearl Harbor (2001) tried and failed to capitalize on the Titanic craze from a couple years prior, these wannabe Gladiators also would pale in comparison.  Two of the most notable failures came from one studio in particular, Warner Brothers, who put their money behind a couple of bloated epics in the same calendar year.  First was Troy (2004) from Wolfgang Petersen, which mistakenly believed that vain, egocentric Achilles (played by a miscast Brad Pitt) could become the next Maxiumus; and then there was Alexander from Oliver Stone with an even more grossly miscast Colin Ferrall as the boy conquerer.  I already went into detail comparing the two movies in an article here, but suffice to say, both missed the mark completely in recapturing the spark of Gladiator.  Ridley Scott himself would also find it hard to repeat within the genre he helped to revitalize.  His Crusades era epic, Kingdom of Heaven (2005) was butchered by 20th Century Fox upon release, removing nearly an hour of run-time from his original director’s cut and creating a hollow shell of what it could have been.  Even a re-teaming of Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott in a new version of Robin Hood (2010) couldn’t even come close to the effectiveness of Gladiator.  Which really made people wonder if Gladiator really did in fact revive the “sword and sandals” epic at all, or was it just an anomaly.

In one way, I do think that Gladiator did in fact bring the “sword and sandals” epic back in a big way; just not in the way you would exepect.  The aesthetics of the genre were revitalized by Gladiator, but it managed to thrive beyond it in a entirely different genre.  Only a year after Gladiator’s release, Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema released the first film of their ambitious The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) in many ways took up the mantle of what Gladiator brought to cinema, making it’s fantasy world feel authetic in the same way that Scott’s film tried to recreate ancient Rome.  For Peter Jackson, he wanted to take J.R.R. Tolkein’s fantastic world of Middle Earth and film it in a way that felt like a historical epic.  Great attention to detail was called for, making the world that the characters inhabited feel like it’s existed for centuries, and not look like an obvious set on a soundstage.  Removing the staginess of the production is one thing that the movie has in common with Ridley Scott’s epic, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Peter Jackson was in some way inspired by the success of his predecessor while making his own epic.  He’s certainly not copying Scott’s style, but seeing Gladiator succeed with it’s own level of authenticity no doubt must have emboldened Jackson’s determination to do the same.  So, though the historical epic genre floundered in the 20 years since Gladiator, the same kind of epic grandeur still lived on in the fantasy genre, which saw it’s own Renaissance in the new century.  We are even seeing the super hero genre beginning to pick up the mantle, with moments in Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame (2019) and DC’s Wonder Woman (2017) and Aquaman (2018) also emmulating the epic style of Gladiator and RIngs.  So, even if Gladiator didn’t make a lasting impact in the historical epic genre, it’s style still was able to live on in other genres that have only increased their epic grandeur.  Look at something like the arena fight between Thor and the Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and tell me that one of the first movies that you’ll recall in your mind is Gladiator.  Sure it may look different, but there are certainly echos that ring familiar at the same time.

One has to wonder though, is Gladiator the last of it’s kind as well.  It certainly is the last historical epic to have ridden a wave of success towards a Best Picture win at the Oscars.  In the 20 year since, the Oscars have favored contemporary dramas more than any other, with 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and 2013’s 12 Years a Slave being the rare exceptions.  The “sword and sandals” epic revival was pretty much over with by the end of the 2000’s, with even Ridley Soctt leaving it behind for a return to sci-fi in more recent years.  And it would seem that the once pinnacle of Hollywood filmmaking was no longer a viable artform in this vastly different market that we see today.  Nobody wants to invest in a lavish reproduction anymore of what is essentially a history lesson.  You do see modest attempts at it every now and then, but even so, they don’t have the majesty of something like Gladiator.  Netflix has recently attempted a couple tries at creating lavish period epics, like Outlaw King (2018) starring Chris Pine as Robert the Bruce, and The King (2019) starring Timothee Chalamet as Henry V.  Though both films are more ambitious than most, you can almost feel themselves being restrained by a sense of not trying too hard.  I think that’s what made Gladiator hit so well with audiences.  It was the last epic of it’s kind to not only be lavish in it’s execution, but unapologetically so.  It was a movie that was not afraid to embrace the over-the-top nature of it’s genre while at the same time trying to modernize it with a gritty aesthetic.  It’s not just in it’s epic scale that it worked, but also in it’s characterizations.  Maximus and Commodus are iconic characters that capture the imagination.  You can give them the most absurd, old-fashioned dialogue possible and they will still capture the imagination because they are that interesting.  In many ways, it’s not that the style of genre went out of fashion, but the fact that Hollywood forgot to add substance to these epics, leaving nothing but production values to do most of the heavy lifting.  And that’s why the style that Scott’s Gladiator repopularized moved on into genres that had far more interesting characters.

So, what we take away from the legacy of Gladiator is that it had a profound impact on the movies of the new century, but in a way that I think Hollywood and even the filmmakers involved probably didn’t expect.  Most of the industry expected the “sword and sandals” epic to just pick up right where it left off thanks to the movie, but that just wasn’t the case.  We ended up seeing a short lived revival, while other genres would end up prospering, picking up the aesthetic that had served the historical epic so well in the past.  But, though the movie may not have given it’s own genre the kick that it needed, it still holds it’s own as a fine epic that stands the test of time.  It did a lot of things for Hollywood as well; it reinvented Ridley Scott as an epic filmmaker, broke new ground in visual effects, made Russell Crowe a star and shed a spotlight onto a young Joaquin Phoenix. Legendary character actors like Richard Harris, David Hemmings, and Oliver Reed were also well served by this movie, with Reed’s final performance thankfully maintained even while being incomplete. But I think what works best for the movie is in how it inspires audiences who see it; reminding them of a time when historical epics set the high bar in filmmaking. Sure, Gladiator is far from historically accurate, as most films like it are, but it shows just how incredible a window into the past can capture our imaginations on the big screen.  During a rousing pre-battle speech early in the movie, Maximus tells his soldiers that, “what we do in life, echoes in eternity.”  It’s a profound statement that not only hits a personal core, but also reflects well on the legacy the movie leaves behind.  By being the bold artistic vision that it is, and striving to hold up the high standard of grand epic movies in the past, Gladiator continues a whole new generation of filmmakers to keep that tradition going on into the future, and hopefully inspire a desire to see more movies like it made in the future.  Strength and honor indeed.

Something peculiar and unprecedented happened in the film industry last year, and it came from the unlikeliest of places.  When Paramount Pictures delivered a first look trailer for their big screen adaptation of the video game Sonic the Hedgehog, it was received with a fair bit of outrage.  Long time fans of the character were quick to point out how terrible looking his new “enhanced” character model appeared, and they flooded social media with their complaints.  But what shocked many people afterwards was the fact that Paramount quickly pulled the movie off their schedule, stating that they were going to “fix” the animation and change the model of Sonic to better reflect the demands of the fans.  This is something that is pretty much unheard of in Hollywood, that a movie studio halts the release of a movie after the backlash it received from the trailer.  Originally slated for a holiday season release, the Sonic the Hedgehog movie is now being released in theaters with it’s new “refreshed” animation and, as of this writing, it is looking like it’s going to have a better than expected opening weekend.  Which raises the question; did delaying the movie actually improve it’s chances.  I haven’t seen it myself yet, but by judging the progression the movie went through from that original trailer to the final product, it looks like Paramount might have indeed salvaged what could have been an embarrassing train wreck.  I’ll definitely say that the new and improved model is a step up from the grotesque version we saw in the original trailer.  He at least looks like the character from the video game now.  But, what does this tell us about the film-making process in general.  Does it actually benefit a movie to have a delay in production in order to fix supposed problems?  Is meeting a deadline actually counterproductive to making a film better?  Is it right to take the response to a trailer as a motivation to re-work a movie?  In a blockbuster driven market like the one we are living through now in Hollywood, the questions raised by Sonic the Hedgehog’s troubled production provides some clues to problems that stem far and wide throughout the business as a whole.

So, what was the issue with Sonic the Hedgehog being delayed a few more months.  The answer is it’s something that just does not happen in Hollywood; at least not this late in the game.  One of the longest running mechanics of the studio system in Hollywood is a planting of a flag within a release schedule.  It’s a way of the studios telling the industry that they plan to have a movie ready for release  on a specific date many years in advance, even if they don’t quite know what that movie is yet.  It’s mainly done to assure business with the theater chains, who want to know what to expect over the next several years so they can make their long term plans.  Normally, these tent-pole dates occur during important periods of the year where both the studios and the theaters expect bigger than average audiences, like Memorial Day weekend or Thanksgiving or the Holiday Break.  And by planting their flag on these busy weekends, the studios can assure themselves that they have stood out among the other competition that weekend.  After that, then the pre-production planning begins, where studios figure out what they’ll actually fill those dates with.  Some studios know exactly what they’ll put there; Marvel for example has laid claim to the first weekend of the summer season every year for more than a decade.  But, other times the date exists there just for the studio to have a claim to a lucrative time frame, and then they sometimes fill it with a movie that they hope will benefit from that.  Regardless of what that movie is, the studios have that date set, and the focus from there out is making sure that a movie is ready on that date.  Once it’s determined what movie will fill the slot, then it up to the production team to make that goal.  And, as we’ve seen with Sonic, sometimes a movie just isn’t ready for prime time.

There are different classes out there with regards to how deadlines are viewed within the industry.  Some people, mainly writers, view deadlines as a positive, because it helps to sharpen their focus and allows them to get things done without too much second guessing.  On the other hand, there are other people in Hollywood, mainly on the production side, who view deadlines as cumbersome to the creative process.  Film directors in particular like to have as much time to work on a project as they possibly can, because it allows them to be experimental and shoot a scene from every possible vantage point.  Without the constraint of a time limit, they can also accommodate their production to deal with delays that occur, such as with the unpredictability of the weather.  The same goes in the editing process, where more time allows for a more thorough search for mistakes and oversights missed on the days of production.  But, a movie studio can’t allow for film crews to have all the free time in the world; because then you end up having runaway productions.  This is one of the things that ultimately ended the era of the New Hollywood in the 1970’s.  When Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) and Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980) both went over-budget and over-schedule, the studios intervened and put an end to these projects that seemingly were going to continue going on without end.  Ambitious visions are a valuable thing for a filmmaker, but at the same time, there has to be accountability with the budgets, as well as an end point in place, and thus, that’s why studios have become more reliant on those tent-pole dates to ensure things don’t spiral out of control.

But even when you have a well oiled machine that is able to fire on all cylinders towards meeting those deadlines, it can cause friction along the way.  Some filmmakers find that meeting those demands from the studio ends up diminishing the finished product.  In a tweet delivered shortly after he parted ways with Marvel Studios, Doctor Strange (2016) director  Scott Derickson described studio release dates as “the enemy of art.”  That led to what he and Marvel mutually described as creative differences that led to his being let go from the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel.   And it’s a trend that we are seeing happen more and more in Hollywood as blockbusters are becoming more like an assembly line product in service of ongoing franchises.  Some filmmakers are able to work under those conditions, while other feel stifled by it.  Marvel has benefited from a long line of stable productions throughout it’s run, but the same can’t be said about it’s sister company under the big Disney umbrella; Lucasfilm.  Multiple productions on that side have faced upheavals in recent years, with several filmmakers like Colin Treverrow, Benioff & Weiss and Lord & Miller all either being let go from a project or exiting out of their own choice.  Creative differences likely played a part in these shake-ups, but also the fact that many of them recognized that delivering under a tight schedule would’ve negatively affected their projects.  This seems especially to have manifested with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).  The movie was almost completely started from scratch once J.J. Abrams stepped in to take over from Treverrow’s previous direction, and yet it still needed to make that December 2019 deadline.  It became clear, with an unfocused narrative and far too many plotholes left open, that the movie needed a few more months to polish out it’s story problems.  But, parent company Disney was insistent that it be done that specific year, because the release was going to coincide with the opening of Galaxy’s Edge in the parks as well as the launch of the Disney+ series that tied into the universe.  And thus, we got an unfinished movie in theaters that not only was the least popular of the new batch of films, but in some ways also tarnished the brand.

And out of that, you see why Scott Derrickson views deadlines as the “enemy of art.”  But at the same time, a project run amok has it’s downside too.  What the Star Wars,  and for that matter Sonic the Hedgehog shows us is that there should be more assessment over how much time a movie actually needs to be ready.  This can usually be examined early on in a film’s development, and oftentimes you do see film studios halt production well beforehand in order to keep a movie from going off the rails.  There are often many movies that get announced, but are never made.  Some people wonder why these movies never get off the ground and it’s because the studios assess the risks involved if they continue to head down the same road, and sometimes those risks are not worth the investment.  There’s the example of Warner Brother’s Superman Lives, which was going to be Tim Burton’s own spin on the famed comic book character, after he had already famously brought Batman to the big screen.  The movie went through a fair amount of steps in pre-productions including casting (with Nicolas Cage playing the man from Krypton) and location scouting, before the studio ultimately pulled the plug.  And the result usually comes from either the executives balking at the budget or because of a lack of enthusiasm from the public in general.  There are probably more examples of movies that died in development than there are ones that made it into theaters, and that includes projects from some of our greatest filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon, or Francis Ford Coppola’s Megaopolis, or Ridley Scott’s Tripoli.  But these projects never end up hurting reputations for their creators, because they stalled long before things got way out of hand.  Perhaps what makes a case like Sonic the Hedgehog so unique is the fact that it changed course so far into production.

The unfortunate result of doing that kind of course correction so late is that it put extra pressure on the people working on your film.  In Sonic’s case, the visual effects team pretty much had to throw out months worth of work and effectively star over again.  This is especially problematic because the visual effects industry is notorious for over-working their artists, as well as adding a substantial amount to the budgets of the movies.  When a film is reaching that crunch time before a release date, it’s the pot-production crews that feel that crunch the most.  And with the case of Sonic the Hedgehog, they were saddled with having to work overtime on a project that they thought was nearly in the can already.  Having them go back and re-doing their work meant that it was going to take extra time away from their families in order to make the new deadline, and over the holidays no less.  To add more salt in those wounds, the visual effects company responsible for the Sonic redesign, Motion Picture Company (MPC), closed it’s Vancouver location shortly after, where all the Sonic work was done.  So, not only did the effects artists have to work through the holidays, but they were left without a job right after.  This speaks more to the volatility of the visual effects industry which is a whole other story, but it’s indicative of the growing problem where movie productions fall victim to their own inability to plan things out effectively.  Usually, movie studios haven’t taken the responses to movie trailers as seriously before, but in this case, the response had become so severe that Paramount had to intervene.  But, was it worth putting artists through a tough time for.  Many people get into the business for the love of creating movie magic, but when it’s becomes an arduous task to reverse a problem that should’ve been caught long before hand, that allure of creativity doesn’t seem so bright anymore.

The question remains, should movies be so beholden to set timelines.  In many ways, cinema is the only art-form that has to conform to such a demanding schedule.  Literature, for example, sometimes takes years to make it to the bookshelves from when they are announced to their ultimate publication.  We’ve been waiting how long now for George R.R. Martin to finish his next book in the  “Song of Ice and Fire” series?  Music also premieres in a different way, with singles often pre-releasing before a complete album; usually as a way to drive up hype.  The video game industry, like film, also uses release dates to gain attention for their products, but as they often fall prey to delays almost across the board, the gaming consumer base has become more lenient when it comes to receiving a video game far longer than what was expected.  So, why is it that movies are held to such a constraining time limit.  No doubt the history of out-of-control productions may have influenced it, but does holding onto it actually diminish a final product that ultimately needs more time to prepare.  It’s something that should become apparent when a major disruption happens, like a complete overhaul of the script or the team in charge of the production.  Otherwise, you are left with a movie project that either becomes a problem far too late into production like Sonic the Hedgehog, or a movie that lacks an identity because it had no time to evolve into something different like Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.  The worst thing a movie can do is to waste it’s potential, and sometimes it needs just that little extra time to finally meet it.  Otherwise, you run into the embarrassment of having a movie that fails at what it was supposed to do, because there wasn’t enough time to fix it.

Ultimately, there are many films that are far beyond fixing.  I don’t think that a post-release clean-up of the movie Cats was ever going to save that film from embarrassment.  But, at the same time, we may have seen another film like Sonic the Hedgehog possibly turn around it’s fortunes.  Sure, it’s not going to become an all-time great, but it may have saved itself from the train-wreck that it looked like it was heading towards.  A last minute delay like it’s was still not without it’s costs though, as the poor digital effects artists will tell you.  But, a better box office performance for the film may teach Paramount and other studios in Hollywood that rushing towards a release date is not always a good thing.  Some movies need to incubate a little longer, and the studios need to recognize exactly when is the right moment to change course.  It certainly shouldn’t happen as late as post-production, where you have to completely redesign a character because of the immediate backlash you faced from the trailer.  At the same time, a deadline also keeps a project in check, so it shouldn’t so much be a removal of all boundaries as just a re-positioning of the goal post.  If Star Wars hadn’t been so strict with their unmanageable release schedule, they wouldn’t have been forced into a hiatus like they are now, with so much personnel being shifted around.  At some point, a movie will let you know how much more time it will need, or even if it’s going to ever happen at all.  Overall, I don’t think Scott Derrickson is right when he says that deadlines are the “enemy of art,” because I see a lot of people become more driven when they know they’ve got an end point they need to get to.  It’s probably just the writer part of me that thinks that, but having a deadline in front of me allows me to keep my mind focused on a goal and eliminates all distractions.  But, there should be precautions allowed for any case where a project gets de-railed by unforeseen forces.  I don’t blame movies like Spider-Man (2002) and Zoolander (2001) delaying their release so that they could make a last minute edit of their films to remove the World Trade Center immediately after the events of 9/11 for example.  Sometimes, deadlines are a necessary evil, but it’s one that should be flexible enough to allow movies to become the best that it ultimately can be.

Hollywood is a city built on glamour and prestige.  Though movies are made for the masses, the heart of the community itself is in presenting this golden gleam of high class and glamour.  It’s the place where you either have to be somebody important or at least can pretend to be somebody important.  Much of it is a facade, but there’s no doubt that when you do visit Hollywood, there is an air of luxury and decadence all around you.  It’s the kind of Hollywood that you see outside of the tourist haven of Hollywood Boulevard; the one that exists where the stars and power players live and play.  The real Hollywood actually exists across the hills behind the famous sign in the less glamorous San Fernando Valley (where I actually live), because that’s the home of the biggest studios.  But the Hollywood that we seem to picture in our minds is the one found in places like Beverly Hills and Malibu.  There is a stark class difference in these kinds of places, because of the way the communities cater to their famous residents, and it’s the kind of luxury way of life that definitely gives this aura of desirability to the lifestyle of the movie star.  But, there is a downside to this kind of high quality way of life, in that it also causes the people living in these communities to live in a bubble; one that unfortunately may cloud their perception over what is really valued within their industry.  One of the biggest complaints leveled at Hollywood over the last few years is that it’s becoming more and more out of touch with the audiences of film goers and show watchers that they are reliant on for keeping them in the business.  This can be seen in the way that some within the industry are resistant to changes in the market (like the expanding influence of streaming platforms), and also sometimes alienating themselves from a fan-base by demanding too much from their loyalty.  But if there was ever a place where the disconnect between people in the industry and the audiences across the country appears most prominently, it’s with what should be the biggest night in entertainment every year; The Academy Awards.

The Oscars, as they are more commonly known by, has for nearly a century been the pinnacle of achievement within the movie industry.  Not only that, it’s a driving force as well.  Countless movies have been made with one purpose in mind, and that’s to secure that golden statue at the end of the year.  We may not have seen some of the most memorable films and performances on the big screen had it not been for the allure of the Oscar.  But, when something is that highly valued, you can almost always count on dishonest ways of securing it to always occur behind the scenes.  The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences have changed their rules countless times in order to make sure that their system remains pure and without corrupt influence.  Even still, it’s a highly competitive race, and much like in the world of politics, it gets uglier every year.  Now when a movie gets nominated, you’ll almost always read opinion papers and news reports about how problematic it’s content is and how this star’s off the set behavior is reflecting badly on the movie itself, and why voting for this film or performance would be morally wrong.  It’s all studio driven smear campaigns meant to influence the very easily persuadable voting block that is the Academy, and these campaigns in themselves can cost millions of dollars on their own.  And why all this effort?  Because, in years past, an Oscar win meant a boost in box office ticket sales for any given movie.  For the movie studios, Oscar campaigns are worth the cost in the end, because the box office would justify it in the end.  But, with streaming taking out the factor of box office grosses, this is changing the game a little bit more, and now the studios are starting to find that the influence of Oscar gold is not as important as it used to be.

The rise of streamers like Netflix and Amazon has put the Academy in an awkward position, because now the effect it has now on box office is somewhat lessened.  Before, it became a big deal to have a movie proclaim itself as Best Picture of the year.  These days, a Best Picture win is almost forgotten about and barely even mentioned a year after the fact.  Can anyone, other than serious Oscar history buffs (like myself) name the Best Picture winners of the last five years.  I’d be surprised if anyone can remember who one it last year; Green Book for those interested (and good for you for already forgetting it existed).  The Oscars have always struggled to keep up with the changing times, but it’s status as an institution in our culture had never been challenged until recently.  Now, the Oscars are starting to hit a crucial point where they are teetering on the brink of irrelevance, and there doesn’t seem to be an easy way for them to get back to the top.  The awards have been in a gradual decline ever since it’s peak in the late 90’s, when the movie Titanic (1997) swept through with record breaking viewership of the broadcast, but the fall has been precipitous in the last couple years.  Despite the expansion that the Oscars has made to the Best Picture category since 2010 (up to 10 nominees each year), it seems like the winners increasingly end up pleasing nobody in the end.  And with so much doubt cast over what should be the biggest award of the night, along with less influence it has on the box office itself, the Oscars are in desperate need of a reinvention.  But how do they do that, when tradition is so ingrained in it’s DNA, and the Academy itself is so resistant to changing it’s ways.

For one thing, there has to be a fundamentally different way it needs to present itself to the public itself.  The Oscars have always been a stuffy, affluent affair, and in many ways that’s been a part of it’s appeal.  But, in the last few years, the Oscars broadcast has tried way too hard to appeal to all audiences, and in doing so has lost their identity.  Gone are the musical numbers and the montages, and instead we are treated to just an endless roll out of the awards with little pomp and circumstance to surround it.  The show has even dispensed with the host of the ceremonies, who usually would end up being the only one to give the show some much needed levity.  This has been an unfortunate result of the Academy trying way to hard to comply with the demands of the medium on which they are presented.  The Academy Awards have been broadcast on television since 1953, and has been a fixture ever since.  But, as stricter FCC rules have come down hard on live shows like the Academy Awards, the opportunities for spontaneity to occur has also dwindled.  The Oscars producers have tried more and more to stamp down any moment that might get them in trouble at these shows, like a political rant or a publicity stunt gone awry.  But unfortunately for them, these are the moments that have made the Oscars the fascinating institution that they are, and trying to suppress these moments only makes the show feel more boring and unremarkable.  Not only that, the show has to limit itself in order to hit those necessary commercial breaks that the network demands.  That’s why the orchestra always plays music in the middle of a winner’s speech, because it’s the show producer’s way to tell the person to wrap it up.  Even with that, the Oscars always receive the complaint that they are too long.  And in response to the network’s complaints about the shows’ lengths, the Academy made the fundamentally ill-planned decision to pull some of the categories out of the broadcast all together; a decision that was thankfully reversed after the backlash it received from rightfully indignant members of the industry.

Though it may be a controversial proposition, I would suggest that maybe broadcast television may not be the best place for the Oscars to be at this point anymore.  Much like how the industry is already moving in this direction already, perhaps the Academy should embrace streaming as an alternative form of presentation.  This way, they can avoid the pitfalls of having to comply with broadcast standards and commercial breaks, and instead present the ceremony in all it’s glitz and glamour like it used to.  There is the issue of how they deal with the cost of the ceremony, which the commercial breaks from the live broadcast would have taken care of, but there could be an alternative to this as well.  The studios could use the ceremony itself to premiere exclusive first looks at their upcoming movies, paying the Academy itself for the privilege.  Yes, it makes the show more commercial in itself, but honestly, isn’t it that way already.  The Oscars can’t pretend that their ceremony isn’t all about building hype and earning money for the movies winning the awards.  There is the argument that it’s about honoring the art, which is valid, but Hollywood is still a business, and I would rather see the Academy take the ceremony back into their own hands than to have them comply to the standards of another branch of the entertainment business.  Other awards shows are already starting to embrace the streaming model, like the Game Awards, so this might be a possible avenue in the Academy’s future.  If anything, it will free them up to be the kind of show that it honestly should be, which is un-apologetically showbiz at it’s most spectacular.  Hosts should be free of constraints, winners should be able to say whatever they want after they win, musical numbers should dazzle and amaze.  Yes it could all be messy, but it will still make it memorable.

There is also the issue with how the Academy votes for their winners.  The downside of the industry living within a bubble can be especially felt here.  More and more we are seeing a disconnect between what the audiences value and what the Academy values.  At a time when audiences, critics, and industry elites can’t agree on what deserves the year end accolades, it becomes increasingly unclear whether the Academy is still the supreme authority over this in the end.  This is especially clear when it comes to movies that are deemed “popular.”  A couple years ago, the Academy got into hot water again when it was putting forward the idea of making a Popular Film category for the Oscars.  This caused a huge backlash, and was again quickly reversed, but it was also telling of just how insulated the Academy voters are as an audience themselves.  To them, they thought that throwing a bone like that to blockbuster favorites was a positive step forward, but what it actually did was expose the elitism that the Academy seems to be unaware they have.  When a big budget blockbuster crosses over into becoming highly influential for the culture at large, like the movie Black Panther (2018) did in breaking down so many barriers for African-American filmmakers, it stands that a movie like it should get the due recognition from the Academy.   But to ghettoize it by pushing it into the “Popular Film” category just undermines it’s impact, and is kind of an insult to the people who made it and the fandom that embraced it.  This has increasingly become an issue with the Academy, who seem to be making more and more “safe” choices at the ceremony, like what happened with the Green Book debacle last year.  In one of the Academy’s least popular choices for Best Picture in many years, the Oscars looked like it was beginning to lose touch with the audience, because it was ever so clear this time that the Academy just went for the least offensive pick in a field of otherwise challenging films.

There’s also the unfortunate factor of what appears to be a far less engaged pool of voters within the Academy.  The demographics of the Academy that we’ve come to find out has shown that they are disproportionately white, male, and above the age of 50.  There has been more efforts to boost the diversity of the Academy voting block, especially in the last decade, but even still, the movies that end up winning Best Picture seem to be the ones that appeal only to that narrow demographic that I stated above.  Not only that, they are a demographic that has their own biases when it comes to what qualifies as a movie deserving of the award.  As we’ve learned over the years, many Academy voters tend to not watch movies in a theater, instead choosing to base their votes on the screeners that they can watch from the comforts of their own home.  And those that do watch in the theaters are passionate about that standard of presentation, and are skeptical of new models like streaming.  There are even those who don’t watch the movies at all and just vote based on their gut feeling.  This apathy shown to the experience of watching the movies themselves really raises the question if the votes the Academy makes are valid at all.  Sure, no one should pressure the Academy to vote one way or another, but at the same time, you really wish they would go in informed before they cast their votes.  My feeling is that a vote should be cast only after the voter has viewed all the nominees eligible for the award.  Preferably they should see it in a theater, as many movies are best viewed that way, but I do know that it’s not possible for some of the oldest voters in the Academy.  They just need to show those of us outside of their closed, elite organization that they are ensuring that every movie is given it’s fair exposure to the voting block as a whole, and that those ingrained biases that the voters might hold will not go unchallenged.  Like any important institution, there needs to be a trust between the industry and the consumer; otherwise, it’ll appear that the Academy is purely just catering to a select group of elites and nobody else.

Are the Academy Awards destined to become an irrelevant relic of the past.  Hardly.  It still holds an importance every year in Hollywood that will likely never go away.  At the same time, with shifting demographics, newer platforms for presentation, and changing attitudes both within the industry and in the public at large, the Academy really needs to wake up and try experimenting a little in order to not look like it’s stuck in the past.  For one thing, it should embrace it’s glory days of the past, and not be so eager to conform to a strict standard that robs it of any spontaneity.  It should also reconsider what it considers worthy of Oscar gold, because as we’ve seen in recent years, some of the best films are the ones that don’t even get a passing glance from the Academy, because they are too unconventional.  The Academy is not compromising it’s integrity if it suddenly embraces a movie that’s deemed “popular.”  Popular movies can be works of art too.  Also, there should be more effort to broaden the spectrum of voices within the Academy itself.  Part of why the demographics of the Academy have shifted so far one way is because that’s what the industry valued many decades prior, but now the industry has taken on a much more diverse character and the Academy itself should reflect that more closely.  Otherwise, that divide between what the Academy values and what the movie-going public values is only going to widen further, leading to even further irrelevance in the future.  It would also stand for the Oscars to maybe embrace new forms of presentation to allow greater access for viewers to see the ceremony in the same way that the attendees do.  Instead of the broadcast model, allow for an uncut live feed to be available online; that way you don’t have to cut out categories and allow the ceremony to move along at it’s own pace.  At the same time, I understand that I’m making these suggestions as an outsider who will probably never move the Academy to change it’s ways.  But, I do speak as someone who has been a fan of the Academy Awards and what it represents.  I want to see the Oscars gain back some of it’s glory, and that requires a bit of change to make it happen.  Hopefully, the Academy learns to embrace some of the changes made to their organization over the years and hopefully welcomes in a wider swath of deserving movies into it’s pantheon of winners.  We want the Oscars to mean something, and that requires them to make the most informed choices in who they honor.  Like the statues they give out, all they need is a little polish in order to make it shine once again.

When we enter into a new decade, the first thought that we often ponder over is what the last 10 years were all about.  This can cover a variety of things; politics, music, culture, and really just the lives we had during that time.  Essentially, we like to mark this transition in years as an era of time, as if these 10 calendar years themselves had their own defining characteristics.  The truth is that eras are not so easily defined, as a time period we know as the 70’s in fact probably didn’t define itself until probably the latter half of the decade, and spilled a little bit over into the early 80’s.  But, we still seem to define these decades as such because of all those above factors: the culture, the politics, the music, and of course, the movies.  If anything, it’s really the movies that have come to define the transitioning of our culture from decade to decade, as you can definitely see a progression that not only was shaped by the culture that made them, but also would go on to influence the culture itself.  We all like to determine what was the defining 80’s movie, or the defining 70’s movie, and so on, and there are always some worthwhile candidates throughout.  But, as indicated earlier, the movies that come to define an era don’t always come right at the turn of a new decade.  Despite some rare examples, few movies actually make that transition hit right at the turn of the decade, and are often found somewhere in the middle, or even at the very end.  But, even still, it is interesting to see how much eras of cinema coincide with the character of the decades that they exist within.  And as we go into a new one this year, it makes us wonder where the next ten years are going to take us next, and if those markers even matter anymore, given how much change cinema seems to be going through even year to year now.

In many ways, we really didn’t take into account how much a decade left it’s mark on the movies until really after the culture itself shifted.  Once the counterculture movement started to move into full swing in the late 1960’s, it was about then that film criticism and analysis started to look back on the years prior as a way of defining the past from the culturally shifting present.  That’s when people started to look at the eras that were apparent, much less defined by the decades they existed in, and more defined by the advancements they made within the art-form.  Specifically, early films were defined as the Silent Era, which encompassed decades worth of movies extending from the first Edison Vitaphone shorts at the turn of the 20th Century to the grand expressionist masterpieces of the German masters to the very beginnings of Hollywood itself.  This celebrated era finds it’s end with the release of Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer (1927), the first “talkie” which would revolutionize the industry overnight and bring synchronized sound to the art-form.  But even after The Jazz Singer, silent films didn’t just end; Chaplain for instance would continue making silent movies for several more years.  But it would mark the end of their dominance in the medium, as sound film would quickly take over as the norm.  This as a result becomes the narrative of the history of cinema; with one fell swoop, one era of movies comes to an end and then another begins, ignoring the more opaque line that really exists between each.  Even still, cinema aficionados really want to classify a time period within these parameters and pinpoint exactly where the era ends and begins.  This is why the Silent Era feels so fittingly concluded by The Jazz Singer, because it’s works like a cinematic exclamation.  Also, it marked a point where new advancements in technology would play the defining role in presenting a transition for cinema in general.

As such, the years that followed would see new eras defined by the various new advancements in the medium.  The introduction of technicolor, the invention of anamorphic widescreen, even 3D and Smell-o-vision would characterize the changing times of cinema in the years ahead.  Real world issues would also play a factor too.  The 1940’s would absolutely be characterized as one thing in particular within cinema, because it was the thing that was on everyone else’s mind at the time; the War Years.  With World War II raging throughout the globe from 1939 to 1945, it’s easy to see how such a worldwide event would dominate every aspect of the culture, including the movies.  Indeed, every movie made in those years was in one way or another affected by the War, with some more overtly addressing it than others.  Even if you watch a sweet little romantic movie from that era, you’ll notice in the movie’s credits that there’s a reminder to buy war bonds in the lobby, which shows that even escapist entertainment needed to do it’s part for the war effort.  But, even despite the war hanging over the culture and the industry like it did, it doesn’t mean that there was a disruption in the advancement of film-making during that time either.  Some of the greatest movies ever made directly deal with the War head on and still hold up even long after the conflict is over; Casablanca (1943) being one of the shiniest examples.  But the War years as they are known in cinema also extended beyond just the War itself, as the aftermath also left it’s mark in the years after.  Soldiers coming home from the war became not just a different audience for the movies, but also an interesting subject as well.  The Oscar-winning drama The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) tackled the lingering trauma of the post war experience head-on, including having a real life wounded vet, Harold Russell, playing a key role.  There was also a movie like It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) that while not about the War itself still was thematically linked to it; especially considering that both director Frank Capra and star Jimmy Stewart were returning vets themselves.  Culture and technological advancements alike would both shape the different perceived eras of cinema, and though brief in comparison, the War Years themselves would leave the most profound of change on the industry.

But, once the counterculture began to really push society in a different direction, the importance of cinema leaving a statement became more relevant to how it would define an era.  For the most part, the years immediately following the War probably defined cinema the most, as it has been affectionately been dubbed the Golden Years.  During this time, to give rapidly growing families from the “Baby Boom” the kind of escapist entertainment that they desired, Hollywood began investing in bigger, more lavish productions.  This was the era of the Roadshow picture, with massive scope and production values meant to envelope the audience in an experience that they could only find on the big screen.  This was also spurned on by the beginning of television as a direct competitor.  Movies became grandiose spectacle, and with it, so came the inevitable downfall.  These movies often became financially unsound, with budgets ballooning to unfathomable heights.  20th Century Fox’s Cleopatra (1963) nearly bankrupted the studio, and they weren’t the only ones feeling the crunch.  At the same time, people were growing frustrated with the Hollywood machine, and were more attracted to the international output of bold new artists coming out of the French New Wave or the Italian Neo-realist Movement.  Thus, we began to see push-back from the Counter-culture, who saw big “Hollywood” as a relic of the past, and who wanted to carve out a “New Hollywood” in it’s place.  And in this period of time, you will find the most definitive year of stark transition ever in Hollywood.  Though the psychedelic 60’s had a major influence throughout the decade in cinema, Old Hollywood was still a lingering presence.  And then came 1969, where you see the real schism finally split the two apart.  It was the year that produced both Hello, Dolly (1969), an old-fashioned, and expensive, throwback musical and Easy Rider (1969), a micro-budget celebration of hippie culture in America.  Dolly crashed and burned at the box office, while Easy Rider became a smash hit, and the writing was finally on the wall.  1969 was the year that New Hollywood had finally come into it’s own.  This was even more apparent come Oscar time, when Best Picture was given to the first X-Rated winner, Midnight Cowboy; on the same night that Old Hollywood legend John Wayne won his Oscar for True Grit no less.  You won’t find a year that stated so much about the change in cinema than that one right there.

From that point on, it became less about the advancements in the medium that defined, but more about the culture itself that defined the movies.  And as such, the decades themselves became the benchmarks for the movies that premiered within them.  The 1970’s, in retrospect, took the counter-culture ideal more seriously, and as a result we saw a significant reduction in Studios being the driving force behind the movies and more the directors being the one’s pushing cinema to the next level.  It was the era of the director, a time period defined as some would call the “easy riders and the raging bulls,” as the 2003 documentary of the same name details.  Coincidentally enough, those were exactly the same movies that would bookmark the era, as the creative freedom given after Easy Rider would dissipate soon after Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980).  Much like the studios before them, the ambitions of the maverick directors of the era would soon become unmanageable, and their projects would in turn go over-budget and under-seen as well.  Great promising careers from amazing directors like William Friedkin, Michael Cimino, and even Francis Ford Coppola were cut short because they lost the trust of the studios financing them, and were left to work under tighter constraints for the rest of their careers.  Only Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese would manage to continue working on consistently high levels in the years ahead, which would be easily defined as the era of the blockbuster.  The 1980’s evolved in the wake of the downfall of the director era, and became more about escapist entertainment.  Every studio thereafter wanted their own Star Wars (1977) or Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and it became a fruitful time for fantasy, sci-fi, and adventure.  Though we see this as a defining aspect of the 1980’s, it would also extend far into the 1990’s, as digital technology began to redefine special effects.  And in this time period, box office became a race like never before.  Back in the early days of cinema, there would always be untouchable kings, like Gone With the Wind (1939), but starting in the 90’s, records would fall with regular consistency, and it was not always an indication of the quality of the film, but more about how well a movie can do on it’s opening weekend.  Thus we got into a time when intellectual properties became the most prized commodity in Hollywood; not the stars, nor the directors, but the brand, and that in a way has led to an era that more or less hasn’t changed in the last 20 years.

Right now, if you were to define the 2000’s and the 2010’s in cinema, I’d say that you’d have a much harder time than previous eras before.  That’s because the traditional markers that we’ve used before in defining the different eras of cinema have kind of lost their value over time.  What I think is the most defining change over the last 20 years of film is the advancement of digital cinema.  Since the year 2000, digital film-making has gone from a novelty to a norm in a very short amount of time.  And in that same period, movie theaters have also quickly converted to digital presentations as well.  This has reduced the necessity of physical media in making and presenting media, which movie studios and theaters see as more cost effective and efficient.  But it also leads to something that I don’t think many people have realized.  The reason why so many movies from different eras have a different look and texture to them is because film stock itself changed so much over the years.  There are very big differences between how a movie looks in 70mm, 35mm, and 16mm, and even the brand differences between suppliers like Kodak and Fujifilm, and processors like Technicolor and Deluxe, would make a big difference in how a finished movie would appear.  But now, with many movies today not even using film, it leads to a result of all movies looking more or less the same, at least in terms of texture.  Everything now has that digital sheen to it, all the way down to the way they are presented.  Even television shows are beginning to look more like movies today, and that’s because they are using pretty much the same types of cameras.  There are holdovers that still shoot and even present on film, but for the most part, movies have been going in this decidedly digital direction, and that has defined most of what we’ve seen in the last several year.  Combine this with an even more homogenized studio system that favors brands over original ideas, and you’ve got an era of Hollywood that seems to be more driven by repetition and standardization than ever before.

The only really disruptive thing that we’ve recently seen in the last 20 years has been the way we watch movies now.  If there was ever something that defined the 2010’s in cinema, it would be the rise of Netflix and streaming cinema; as well as super hero movies.  Netflix didn’t start in the last decade (it’s actually a surprisingly 20+ year old company), but it certainly came into it’s own in the last 10 years, and that is mainly due to their decision to invest in their own content.  Probably seeing the writing on the wall early on, knowing that eventually the other studios would want to take their model and use it for their own distribution, Netflix spent billions on exclusive movies and shows that could only be viewed on their platform, and as result became a studio on their own with a reach in viewership rivaling that of the big six.  Even with Disney, Fox, Warner Brothers, and Universal all jumping into streaming now, Netflix still has themselves positioned well, because of the quality of content they’ve acquired, including movies now from giants like Martin Scorsese and the Coen Brothers.  More than anything, what Netflix has disrupted the most is the viewing habits of the movie going public.  Their streaming model has offered the most direct competition to the theatrical experience since the advent of television, and that in itself is defining the last decade of cinema more than any movie has.   Movie theaters are desperately trying to hold onto their patronage that has benefited them for several decades before, and because of Netflix and the like, we’re going to see a new era for the presentation side of cinema the likes of which we haven’t seen in many decades.  So, if it’s not the movies that are defining the eras of cinema at this point, it’s the way we are watching them that is.  For the last ten years, it was Netflix that reigned unchallenged; perhaps the next ten will be defined by how all the new platforms will challenge each other in this new competitive market.

There are many different ways to look at cinema as blocks of easily defined eras, but the truth is far more complex than that. The truth is that cinema has been fluidly flowing from one decade into another, and only in retrospect do we take a look back and try to form a pattern in it all. The movies that we say defined the decade may have, in fact, not been recognized as such in their day, and were instead more likely just seen as the great movies that they were. Defining an era more comes out of how we want to look back at the years that have passed us by, and see a way that we can explain why attitudes and personal tastes change over time. At the same time, our perceptions of cultural touchstones, like the movies, can also be influenced by the era they come from, and helps to shape their reception for newer audiences. Terms like the Silent Era, the Golden Era, and the Psychedelic Era are easily marketable and can help to draw attention to older movies based on what someone is looking for. In many ways, Hollywood enjoys define their different eras, even if they don’t exactly know how to shape them to begin with. In the end, it is determined by the things that we find the most fascinating about the movies in each era that determine how they will shape their place in time. Whether it’s through the technology that pushes the medium forward, the stars that capture our imagination, the artists that drive the art-form, or as we are seeing right now, the way we watch the movies, cinema will more or less tell it’s own story, which it does so through it’s own evolution. An era in cinema is an easy to grasp definition, one that doesn’t tie down to a set number of years. So, as we look back at the last ten years, and forwards to the next ten, it helps to understand that a new era of cinema is just another chapter in an ongoing story that flows in it’s own way. Great movies can come at any time from anywhere, and the great part of history is that it is constantly being written. For now, feel happy that you are experiencing a time in cinema that itself will be seen under different eyes in the years ahead, and that hopefully you’ll have been part of something exciting historical and important to the culture at large.

Every generation of seems to have a holiday movie that resonates with them more than others.  For a lot of baby boomers, it was How the Grinch Stole Christmas? (1966), and the generation before that, it was Miracle on 34th Street (1947).  Us Generation X’ers who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s have a whole wealth of holiday specials that meant a lot to our nostalgia for the holidays.  But, if there was one that stood taller than the rest in our collective memories, it was the Chris Columbus directed blockbuster Home Alone (1990).  Now approaching it’s 30th anniversary, Home Alone was a phenomenon upon it’s initial release.  It rode it’s timely holiday season release to record breaking success, and even to this day, it still has the highest box office gross for a comedy when adjusted for inflation.  But it wasn’t just the holidays and the humor that carried the movie, and the real factor was surprising to most.  The key to Home Alone’s success remarkably came in the form of it’s then 8 year old star, Macaulay Culkin.  Culkin, who had only appeared in a handful of films before hand, was suddenly the most famous child star in the world thanks to this movie, achieving a level of fame in Hollywood for a child actor unseen since the days of Shirley Temple.  He represented a new generation of film goers who were going to make a big impact on cinema in the decades ahead, and the fact that many of us who were children at this time saw one of our own commanding the screen as well as he did in Home Alone really solidifies why we hold this movie up so much as a part of our holiday tradition.  But, it is interesting to see how the movie continues to resonate as a holiday film, given the fact that the movie isn’t necessarily about the holiday itself.

Don’t get me wrong, the movie is unmistakably a Christmas movie.  In fact, it is almost drenched in the holidays.  You’d have to look at something like It’s a Wonderful Life (1947) or the fore-mentioned Miracle on 34th Street to find another film with so much of Christmas infused into it’s DNA.  But, that’s an aesthetic part of the movie.  The basic premise of the film itself honestly didn’t need Christmas to work.  The story of a child accidentally left home alone by his family having to fend off home invaders could have easily been set at any time of the year.  A summer vacation setting would have made just as much sense in this case.  But, no doubt director Chris Columbus and writer John Hughes picked the holiday season because it provided a more atmospheric tone to the movie.  It’s one thing for a child to be left home alone; it’s another for it to happen around Christmastime.  Christmas is a holiday all about getting together with one’s family and enjoying the festivities together.  What happens when that’s all taken away.  The isolation of having no one around to enjoy Christmas with weighs heavy over the film, and gives it a poignancy that it might not have otherwise had in any other setting.  That being said, the movie probably could have worked well enough even without the holiday itself.  It’s far more about how Macaulay Culkin’s character, Kevin McCallister deals with the dilemma of keeping his home safe when he has no one else around him to rely upon for safety.  As a result, we see the characters ingenuity and the real reason audiences continue to be entertained by the movie after so many years.  The movie shifts suddenly in it’s final act into a screwball comedy on the level of something we’d see from the Three Stooges, and the results are pretty wild.

But it should be noted that the movie is never meant to invoke a holiday spirit or to solely illicit laughter from it’s audience.  Though on the surface it may seem like a farcical comedy, but underneath, there is something deeper.  Home Alone is in essence a coming of age story, showing the growth and maturity of Kevin McCallister over the course of the few days he’s left by himself.  John Hughes, who had spent much of the 80’s exploring the highs and lows of the average American teenage life in films like The Breakfast Club (1984) and Sixteen Candles (1987), went even further back into pre-adolescence when exploring the character of Kevin McCallister.  It’s interesting to note that when we first meet Kevin in the movie, he’s kind of rotten kid.  He’s disrespectful, bratty, and unsympathetic.  Combine this with the fact that he’s from an upper class household and Kevin represents every spoiled bourgeois American kid who you’ve no doubt seen throwing a tantrum every time they receive even the slightest rejection from their mother or father.    There’s even a point when he calls his mother an idiot to her face, something that I would have been severely reprimanded for if I said that to my mom.  And at first, when he finds that his whole family has left for their Paris bound Christmas vacation without him, he initially finds it liberating; immediately wrecking havoc throughout the house, and as he puts it, “watching trash and eating garbage.”  But as the movie rolls on, Kevin finds that isolation is not exactly as fun as he hoped it would be, and even begins to realize that a part of his loneliness is of his own making.  Through this, John Hughes gives Kevin a redemptive arc that helps to carry the film’s message of compassion.  Kevin, who started off the movie as a selfish brat, by the end has become more self-reliant as well as more considerate of the feelings of other people.

This message really becomes clearer beyond his character arc, as Kevin’s dilemma begins to affect those around him.  In particular, there is a beautifully told parallel story-line being told with Kevin’s mother Kate (played by an unforgettable Cathrine O’Hara).  Kate’s trek back to her son is just as harrowing as what’s going on with Kevin, because we really feel the pain that she is going through not knowing what’s going on with Kevin back home.  I find it funny looking back on this movie now in an era when everybody has a cell phone, and how so much of this would be solved today in an instant with a phone call or text message.  Still, even watching this movie almost 30 years later, Kate’s story-line still resonates, and I honestly think that Cathrine O’Hara doesn’t get enough credit for her performance here.  The normally comedic actress does have her wacky moments here and there (yelling at the incompetent flight desk representatives for one), but her moments of desperation and hopelessness do feel genuine as well.  There’s a wonderful scene late in the movie where she wonders if she is a terrible mother for leaving her child alone, while hitching a ride with a polka band in a U-Haul truck (lead by another comedy legend, John Candy), and it’s a honestly portrayed moment that shows the despair of a character who believes she has failed in her duty as a mother, not realizing that her desperate situation proves exactly the opposite.  Kate indeed becomes the movie’s beating heart, and it’s pleasing to see so much time devoted to her character as well.  Likewise, there is another wonderful arc explored with the character of Old Man Marley (played by Robert Blossom).  Kevin’s fearsome looking next door neighbor turns out to be a decent, caring person by the end, giving Kevin another opportunity to open up to others as a part of his character development.  In Marley, Kevin recognizes some who like him has pushed people away and it has left him isolated as well, and by recognizing this and encouraging the old man to reconnect with his own family, Kevin likewise recognizes what he must do for himself.  So, while there is a lot of shenanigans that go on throughout the course of the movie, it still never forgets that the characters involved are real people who evolve with their story.

Of course, the slapstick is a big part of the movie’s continued entertainment value, and it particularly works because of how on board the actors are to making it as funny as possible.  Working very much against type, we find Joe Pesci cast as one of the cat burglars hoping to rob the McCallister home in which Kevin is still present.  It should be noted that Pesci appeared in the Scorsese flick Goodfellas (1990) in the same year that he appeared in this movie, a role that would ultimately earn him an Academy Award.  To see him go from that to something as screwball as Home Alone really shows how much range he has as an actor.  Daniel Stern’s performance as the other cat burglar, Marv, is more logically placed, and Stern does indeed play up the Stooge like aspect of the character very well.  One of the biggest laughs in the movie comes from the scream that Marv belts out once he has a tarantula placed on his face.  Another reason why the comedy works is because Pesci and Stern have excellent chemistry, and their characters work so well in conflict with Culkin’s smartallecky Kevin.  Indeed, I think why so many fans of the film from my generation love this film so much is because we saw a child like us making buffons out of these adults.  Of course, a real life scenario like this would have a much darker outcome, but the movie never makes the mistake of taking itself too seriously.  Indeed, we will always enjoy seeing two incompetent criminals get pelted in the face with paint cans.  Some of the traps that Kevin sets up in particular are so wildly ridiculous that they defy logic, like Pesci’s Harry getting the top of his head blasted with a blow torch.  At the same time, it’s not like this slapstick comes out of nowhere in the final act though.  There are sprinkles of what’s to come throughout the movie, like the family’s mad scramble to get ready for their trip after sleeping in, or Kevin’s ridiculous indoor sledding down a staircase.  My favorite piece of comedy though is the film noir parody that Kevin watches while eating ice cream.  Doing a hilarious send up of James Cagney gangster flicks in the middle of this family oriented Christmas flick is something that I’ve grown to appreciate more as I’ve expanded my knowledge of film history, and it’s something that helps to make this movie a delight to watch still.

It is also interesting how the movie not only acts as a quintessential holiday film, but it has also gone on to leave it’s mark as a part of people’s traditions for the holidays.  For one thing, I think that more than any other movie of it’s generation, it has brought awareness to all these old Christmas standards from generations for younger audiences.  The movie is full of many songs that otherwise might not have resonated with Genration X or millennials beyond their initial years.  These are songs that are now standards like Brenda Lee’s “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree,” Mel Torme’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” or The Drifter’s rendition of “White Christmas.”  The movie’s soundtrack is basically a greatest hits album of all the Christmas songs that our parents grew up listening to, which is another great way the movie manages to bring multiple generations of audience members together as a part of the experience.  But the movie isn’t just blessed with a varied playlist of holiday standards.  Somehow, Chris Columbus managed to land the legendary John Williams to write an original score.  And for a movie as simple and small in scope as Home Alone is, it is amazing how much bigger it feels with a Williams score behind it.  Infusing more of a Christmas tone than anything else he has ever written, Williams probably is the one most responsible for making this an unmistakable holiday film.  This includes tones of memorable original pieces, like the mad-cap, sleigh bell infused melody that plays during the McCallister family’s rush to the airport, or the quiet grace of the original tune “Somewhere in my Memory,” that plays during the more heartwarming moments.  I don’t think the final shot of the movie with Old Man Marley reunited with his family would have had the same resonance without Williams amazing score in that moment.  Honestly, we have Home Alone to thank for the many different melodies that flood our airwaves during the month of December, both good and bad, and it all does helps to elevate the atmosphere of the movie itself.  As a result you can see why the filmmakers could not choose any other time but Christmas to set their movie in.

Home Alone is one of those movies that so perfectly contains it’s concept within it’s storyline, and it feels like there is no other way to improve upon it. Sadly, the filmmakers were saddled with the responsibility of having to make a sequel to Home Alone only a couple short years later due to how much money it made for studio 20th Century Fox. Long before The Hangover movies set a new standard for uninspired sequelizing of a hit comedy, Home Alone tried desperately to recapture the same lightning in a bottle with another movie but only this time in a new location; New York City in this case. Home Alone 2: Escape from New York (1992) does try, and is not without its moments, but it’s clear that Columbus and Hughes were really stretching the premise thin. And the main reason why the sequel doesn’t work as well is because it’s missing that crucial element that made the original so memorable; Kevin’s character arc. He’s already grown as a character, so by the time we see him again, he’s already gained his maturity. How do you resolve this in order to make a sequel; you regress the character and make him fall back into his bad habits, thereby undoing all the work of the original movie. It’s an unfortunately negative result that removes the emotional heart of the movie, resulting in a half-hearted “here we go again” feel to the movie. The relationship between Kevin and his mom is also unfortunately reduced as well. Even still, the movie has it’s fans, and I do enjoy some of the best parts of the movie, like another film noir parody as well as the addition of Tim Curry to the cast as a diabolical hotel manager. But what the sequel illustrates more than anything else was just how important that underlying heart was to making the original movie work as well as it did.

 The legacy that Home Alone has left behind is one that is inexorably linked now to the holidays. Children who first experienced the movie in its initial release are all adults now with children of their own, and I’m sure that they’ll no doubt be sharing the movie with them this time of year. Disney is even now reviving the property as a possible reboot for their Disney+ service, of which the original films are already available on. It’s easy to see why the movie became an instant hit, but I think the magnitude may have been the most unexpected part of all. It may have been too much for Macaulay Culkin in those hectic few years after Home Alone hit theaters, putting him at the center of Hollywood spotlight for most of his formative years. After being hounded by the industry for some time, Culkin retreated into a quieter life, but has more recently emerged on social media carrying around a sense of humor with the role that made him famous. He even jokingly pondered what a grown up Kevin McCallister would be like in a charming commercial for Google. Sure, time changes perception, and Home Alone is not without it’s quaintness due to the passage of time. But over the years, it has also gained something for its audience that all the best holiday classics have managed to do, which is to present a warm sense of nostalgia. My generation looks fondly back on Home Alone and we have grown to appreciate it more now that we have become grown ups ourselves. Sure, we all like to be a smart ass kid like Kevin McCallister, but over time we find ourselves also wanting to do whatever we can to be there for our loved ones for the holidays. In the end, the movie shows us that Holiday season is all about the importance of family and that being alone for Christmas is not the ideal situation. Togetherness is key, and Home Alone, in its own silly way, delivers that message beautifully. So, Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.

One day in the whole history of the Walt Disney Company holds very special significance.  It was a day after several years of planning, building, and long arduous hours for all at the company.  And the outcome was far from certain.  Everything was put on the line, and all that was left was to premiere their product before the public and hope that all that hard work was worth it in the end.  And that pivotal day was, December 21, 1937.  That monumental moment in their company was the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the first full length animated feature ever made.  It may seem hard to think of it today, but the making of Snow White was the biggest gamble in Hollywood history up to that time.  Walt Disney staked his reputation and the future of his company on the success of this one feature.  Had it not succeeded, Disney as we know it would cease to be.  But, to Walt’s eternal gratitude, Snow White was a runaway hit, and it not only made all it’s money back, but was profitable enough to allow the Disney company to grow.  And you would think that after such an ordeal that the Disney company would back away from such gambles in the future, but no.  Another pivotal day came on July 17, 1955, when Walt Disney risked yet again his reputation and future in Hollywood on a new ambitious project; Disneyland.  Though it took some time after to make up it’s cost, Disneyland too became a smashing success for Disney, and again July 17 became a day of triumph for the media giant that is celebrated annually every year.  The post-Walt years have seen many rises and falls, but despite growing exponentially larger over the years, the Company hasn’t risked so much in a long time.  But this year, after much development and hype, The Walt Disney Company has introduced their first major project in years that could very well determine the direction that the company takes in the same way that Snow White and Disneyland did.  And because of it, we might be looking at November 12, 2019 as another one of those monumental days in Disney history.

That project of course is the new streaming platform known as Disney+.  Disney+ is only the first of several new direct to consumer streaming channels that are hitting the market over the next few years that is intended to challenge the supremacy of Netflix.  After a multi-year partnership with Netflix, Disney decided to strike out on their own with a streaming platform of their own based on the Netflix model.  Taking advantage of their valuable library of hits, Disney believed that this could give them a better chance of broadening their audience base, while at the same time taking bolder risks without having to worry about box office performance.  This is, of course, based on how well they can develop that subscriber base right of the bat, and there is where the risk lies in creating such a platform.  Netflix already has a decade long history of building up it’s subscriber base, to the point where they now reach nearly a billion households worldwide.  And with the capital that they make off of those monthly subscribers, they are able to reinvest into exclusive content that rivals anything shown in theaters.  Disney no doubt can bring on board it’s loyal base of fans, but it’s in expanding their audience in order to compete with the number of subscribers that Netflix has that they need to work on.  And considering the scale and scope of what Netflix is putting on their channel, Disney likewise has to put on exclusives that match and even surpass those of it’s competitor, and that is likely going to be costly.  Needless to say, Disney needs this new streaming channel to do well, right out of the gate in order for it to justify it’s cost.  Let’s not forget that a lot of investment has to go into all the infrastructure and programming costs, that will likely be tested by a large user base.  Streaming platforms don’t just program themselves; it takes a lot of pre-planning and engineering to make it work, and for any studio unused to such a enterprise, it could prove daunting.  But, then again, Disney has been here before.

Even with all their beloved classics, the Disney library wouldn’t have been able to stand up to the sheer magnitude of what Netflix has on their platform.  That’s why I believe Disney pursued that Fox merger so aggressively last year.  As a singular movie studio, it may not have carried enough properties to challenge the Netflix juggernaut on Day 1, but with two studios worth of properties, Disney might have a shot at it.  I’m not saying that it’s solely why Disney purchased 21st Century Fox, but it probably played a major factor in the process.  I’m sure Fox looked at it as a beneficial factor too, because it freed them up from having to invest in their own streaming platform, with Disney doing most of the work for them.  Disney also has the benefit of having all  their acquired properties over the last decade turning into major successes, including the Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel brands.  It ensures that by making them all exclusive to their platform that they’ll carry those red hot franchises with them and translate those fanbases into a loyal subscriber base.  Even still, there is the risk of what it will cost to keep people subscribing, and that’s where the exclusives come in.  Disney is not resting on the laurels of it’s theatrical hits hitting the platform, and have invested heavily on new properties that will debut only on Disney+ over the next few years, which includes new films and series based on their Star Wars and Marvel properties.  All of this marks a monumental shift in the way that the Disney company operates, and it is proving to be both an exciting and nervous time for the company.  The platform has especially been the labor of love for Disney’s CEO over the last decade, Bob Iger.  Like his legendary predecessor, Uncle Walt, Iger has staked his own legacy and reputation on a project that he strongly believes in.  Whether or not his gamble pays off the same way that it did for Walt will remain to be seen, but it is a testament to Iger’s boldness as the figurehead of the Company that he would put so much personal stake into something that will change the company forever.

With November 12 having already passed us by, we can now judge for ourselves how Disney+ performs and if it is worth the plunge.  The starting cost for a monthly membership is $6.99, or $79.99 annually, almost half of the current cost of a Netflix membership.  For a starting point, this is a fair price to pay to have this much access to the Disney library.  It will likely rise over the next few years, but so will the number of available titles to watch, so Disney is wisely matching their price with the quantity of things to stream on the platform.  I managed to take advantage of an exclusive discount price available only to D23 Expo attendees this year, which gives me three years for the price of two, so I’ve paid through all the way to 2022, which should give plenty of opportunity to venture through everything available on the Disney+.  Like most other people I’m sure, I am coming to this new platform as a long time Netflix subscriber, so I’m definitely looking at this with some preconceived expectations.  So, after a couple days of finally using Disney+, what do I think?  Well, first of all, I have to praise Disney for an A+ effort in it’s presentation.  The look of the platform is incredible.  It shares similarities with the layout of Netflix, but there are subtle little things that really make it shine.  The home page for instance features tabs for the different brands that make up the Disney Company; notably Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and National Geographic.  Interestingly, no Fox tab is available, despite there being Fox Studio films on the platform, which I hope is just due to Fox still being fairly new as a part of the company.  What I like is the fact that every tab you click on leads to a home page for every movie, which feature beautiful background art.  Also, thank you Disney for not having an Auto-Play feature when arriving at these home page screens, which is one of my pet peeves about Netflix.  Disney+ as an interface is thankfully very easy to navigate and select what we want to watch.  It shows that they studied the Netflix model well and learned how to best utilize it for themselves.

What is also interesting is that Diseny+ is the first ever streaming channel to offer bonus features for their films.  These most fall into the range of theatrical trailers and deleted scenes, but on some films and shows, you even get more substantial things like Director’s Commentary and Making-of docs available. That in particular really shows how well Disney is serving it’s audience.  Disney has always delivered very well on home video bonuses with their numerous DVD and Blu-ray special editions, so to see them also available here on DIsney+ is a pleasant surprise.  Even more amazing is the fact that Disney has also made bonus features available here that are found nowhere else.  One noteworthy one comes from Avengers: Endgame (2019), which shows a deleted scene involving Tony Stark meeting a teenage version of his daughter in a spirit realm after he uses the infinity stones, in a scene reminiscent of the one at the end of Avengers: Infinity War (2018) with Thanos and Gamora. That deleted scene was not available in the Blu-ray edition, so it’s surprising that Disney made it available here, even with director commentary from the Russo Brothers.   For cinephiles like me, having exclusive bonus features is another major plus to justify our subscriptions to the service.  Not only that, but the presentations of the movies and shows are also top notch.  Apart from a few problems, which I’ll get to soon, the movies all have been given a polished HD remaster that gives them a beautiful pristine look.  You’d expect the newer films to look amazing, but what really struck me was how good all the older stuff appeared.  Disney not only put out their theatrical films on Disney+, but also a large amount of the many animated shorts from the heyday of the Animation studio.  And they all look the best they ever have.

Though there is a lot to be happy about with the platform, I do have a number of nitpicks to talk about.  First off, there are some bug to work out, which is not really too much of a problem, because those are pretty much expected for a newly launched service like this.  For the most part, I have not encountered any login, or access problems, as some other people have complained about online.  I have been able to login and click on whatever I wanted to watch without incident or experiencing the site crashing on me, which is pretty good for a first week.  I am using a direct Ethernet line connected to my PlayStation 4, so that may have helped out somewhat.  Even still, some of the bugs still manifest.  For one thing, every time I have watched something, the picture will freeze while the audio continues to run, which causes me to rewind a bit to put it back in sync.  I believed this has to do with the buffering capabilities of the video, as the movie plays while it still loads, just like on any platform.  But the thing is, I don’t encounter the same problem on Netflix or any other platform of the same ilk, so it’s got to be something on their end.  Hopefully Disney discovers this issue and patches it over time.  You got to remember this is only week number one; bugs are inevitable.  It’s kind of miraculous that we haven’t heard of a complete service meltdown considering the volume of activity that they had to deal with in the first week.  There are other problems though, and it does have to do with the actual content itself.  Some people have noticed that episodes of The Simpsons, which has made all seasons available on Disney+ day 1, have been cropped to fit widescreen TV’s, as opposed to it’s original 4:3 aspect ratio.  This has upset some fans, as some gags need the full picture to be fully appreciated.  I think it’s a major problem, because artistic intent is crucial for entertainment purposes, and cropping a movie to fit a format does hurt the product as a whole.  Luckily, word got out and Disney has publicly stated that the true aspect ration will be restored.  Another controversy came about with the realization that Disney was withholding problematic shows and movies from the channel as well. One such case is the Michael Jackson episode of The Simpsons, which presumably was pulled because of recent allegations made about the pop star.  Leaving the real world issues aside, it feels self serving on their part to not air the episode, despite the fact that it’s nearly 30 years old.  Withholding it only draws more attention to the controversy, which would have been lessened if they had just let the episode be.  It’s a similar situation that they’ve placed themselves into with Song of the South (1946), which is also notably missing from Disney+.  I’m on the side of hiding nothing from the public, and Disney is doing a disservice to both themselves and the audience by trying to sweep these controversial elements in their library under the rug.

Controversy aside, what do I think about the exclusive content available.  Well, or one thing, Disney made the smart choice of turning to Star Wars to deliver a Day One exclusive.  This comes in the form of the hotly anticipated series, The Mandalorian.  This ambitious new show is from the minds of director Jon Favreau and producer Dave Feloni (who previously created the Clone Wars animated series).  They wanted to create a Western style show within the Star Wars universe centered on a Mandalorian bounty hunter in the same mold as the iconic Boba Fett.  Though Disney+ had a lot of projects that were buzz-worthy leading up to it’s premiere, The Mandalorian was no doubt the one at the top of everyone’s list, and Disney was smart to make this one of it’s figurehead shows.  Having seen the only two episodes available so far, I can say that The Mandalorian is everything you want out of a Star Wars series.  It’s epic in scope, features incredible gritty performances from it’s cast which includes Pedro Pascal, Carl Weathers, Taika Waititi, and Werner Herzog of all people.  And it offers up an intriguing mystery that will likely open up a new chapter of Star Wars lore.  If there was ever a winning horse to bet on in Disney+’s early days, this was the right one to pick.  There are other shows available too, like the Kristen Bell produced Encore as well as a High School Musical series.  One show that I have found to be a delightful surprise is a National Geographic produced docu-series called The World According to Jeff Goldblum, which of course stars it’s titular host.  Goldblum is a delightful oddball and the show is tailor made for him, as he takes his unique perspective and investigates various small industries across the country with infectious fascination.  I have yet to look at the exclusive feature films debuting on Disney+, which includes a live action remake of Lady and the Tramp and the Christmas themed Noelle, starring Anna Kendrick and Bill Hader.  Those films no doubt show what’s in store for the future for Disney, as they begin to make more films that will be made exclusively for the platform and not for theatrical distribution.  And there is still many more on the horizon as well, including the very anticipated Marvel limited series, which are going to play a key role in the MCU Phase 4.  The only question remains is how bold will these exclusives be?

And what does this mean for streaming in the long run?  Will this begin to chip away at Netflix’s dominance in the streaming market?  While I do think Netflix will be affected in the short run, I don’t see Disney+ being a Netflix killer either.  Disney+ is just the competition, and if anything, competition will help to make Netflix even better.  Competition leads studios towards making bolder choices, and that is always a good thing for entertainment.  You are already seeing Netflix investing heavily in new talent and acquiring exclusive streaming rights to various properties, like their recent deal made with Nickelodeon.  And as more platforms hit the market in the coming years, like HBO Max and Peacock, both Netflix and Disney+ will only continue to raise the bar higher, hoping to gain the edge in the ever expanding market.  And that’s good news for creators out there, because now there is more demand for their ideas and talent.  Also, without the pressure of box office performance, these platforms can put together more films and shows based on outside the box concepts and perspectives.  It will give representation a boost as people who normally were not given the chance to put something that spoke to their community on screen before.  Up to this point, Netflix had been the kings of online streaming, and because of that, they were the ones who dictated the direction of the market.  Now, with competition from Disney, they are in the position of trying to find the fresh new thing that will keep them on top, and likewise, Disney will find fresh new ideas of their own to meet that challenge.  Like the past big gambles Disney has made in the past, Disney+ could be one that determines what kind of company they will be in the years and possibly decades ahead.  In my opinion, they are off to a solid start, albeit with just bit room for improvement, which they no doubt will take care of as time goes along.  It’s honestly one of the most exciting moments in Disney history and could indeed stand alongside Snow White and Disneyland as one of their greatest triumphs.  One can only hope that they’ll be able to sustain this outburst of creative fervor for a long time.  As for now, sit back in the comforts of your own home and enjoy all those Disney classics that you grew up loving, now just a simple click away.