I went to see that Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood movie last night. My wife and I couldn’t stop talking about it. Not because it was good, but because it was so full of flaws that we were astonished that it managed to be released.
The truly remarkable thing was that we paid $9.50 apiece to see the damn thing.
Now if you ask me, $9.50 is a hell of a lot of money to charge to see a movie, especially in an economy that hasn’t had a lick of inflation since Greenspan became chairman of the Federal Reserve four presidents ago. But we paid it, willingly, in hopes that we would be entertained.
And now that we’ve seen it, we feel cheated.
We’d ask for our money back, but we did sit through the entire movie. And I believe in paying for what I eat, even if it tastes like cardboard.
On the other hand, we had every reason to expect a decent film. After all, we saw a decent trailer.
Which gets me to thinking. Hollywood is actually in the business of creating two separate products: films, and promotions for films. The promotions for films are better than ever, while the films themselves are, well, probably as bad or good as they ever were.
The problem is that it’s become harder than ever to differentiate between the good films and the sucky ones, at least based on their marketing, simply because studios have more of an incentive to create a great marketing campaign than a great movie. After all, when a film can pull in $100 million in the first weekend, who cares whether it even has a second weekend?
I know—that’s what film critics are supposed to do. But even in the midst of a scathing review, it’s often possible for studios to extricate an adjective or two with which they can bludgeon an unsuspecting movie-going public.
You know what I wish? I wish Hollywood would realize that just because more people go to see a movie, that doesn’t necessarily make it a better movie. Ford sells more Escorts than Mercedes sells S500s. Does that make the Ford Escort a better car?
And I wish Hollywood would also stop believing that a bigger budget makes for a better production. When Bruce Willis gets $20 million dollars to do a film, is it because he’s actually worth $20 million? Or because he’s in a position to make a studio fork over that kind of dough if they want his box-office draw to salvage their misguided turd?
I think I know how to solve the problem, though. Ratings.
Here’s what I propose: The MPAA already evaluates films on the basis of their content. Let’s start another ratings board made up entirely of film critics. We’ll call it the Critical Analysis Content Advisory Administration, or CACAA.
In addition to the reviews that critics already do, members of CACAA rate a film based on cohesive storylines, believable performances, gratuitous sex and violence, continuity flaws and appropriate casting.
And here’s the really good part: The CACAA rating is used to determine a film’s ticket price.
That way, an exceptional film can charge $20 a head, while a piece of crap will only bring in $5.
What’s wonderful about this system is that in addition to the incentive that it gives studios for making their crappy projects better, it also provides a financial incentive to create artistic films. Sure, a retrospective of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s work isn’t going to pack a theatre, but at $20 a ticket it only needs to pack a quarter of a theatre in order to bring in as much as, say, Gone in 60 Seconds.
The inverse of that is that films geared toward a less-discriminating audience can be priced relatively more affordably: Teenagers, for instance, who tend to have less discretionary income than people in the workforce for 10 years, also tend to be much more forgiving of a storyline, as long as there are plenty of poop jokes and naked titties.
This system isn’t perfect, of course. Like most people, I’m willing to forgive a couple of blatant plot deficiencies if I’m entranced by an exuberant performance. But it gives me a better guideline. And more important, it helps to separate the product that Hollywood manufactures from the marketing of that product.
What do you say? Anyone with me on this?
