I don’t know whether to think of this period as vacation time or just a different kind of work.



I went out of my way to get enough material to survive an actors’ strike that was expected to start in mid-July that I have enough material to get me through the next month (including the ideal film for a public television audience, BRIDESHEAD REVISITED—given that mini-series was one of the most popular in PBS history).



I also discovered that I must use up a resort opportunity in this high summer period or there will be no guaranteed openings in the more popular tourist season.



All of that sounds like vacation, but I’ve also been asked to fill my calendar with various local Philadelphia hosting and speaking affairs, so I must weave free time with more personal appearances than I’ve done the entire year until this time. This isn’t like work, however, since you’re around people who share your interests, knowledge, and sensibilities; in fact, it’s close to pure pleasure.



Of course, if an August 14 deadline for SAG to accept the last producers’ offer finally produces a strike that is now NOT expected—and for which I’ve not stockpiled—I will be using supporting actors from the major summer films for my FLICKS interviews. Still, I don’t suppose Hollywood actually plans its activities around my schedule, however much it sometimes seems so to do.



Meanwhile, this seems like a good week to note the career of Brendan Fraser.



July may be dominated individually by THE DARK KNIGHT, HANCOCK and a couple of other possibles, but only Brendan is starring in two MAJOR films (Will Smith is not in any other film comparable to the HANCOCK success).



JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH not only stars Fraser but also is under his executive producership (to coin an awkward phrase). It’s a family film that has stayed in the top ten and taken 3-D to another level of accessibility while not losing too much quality over the mega-level of IMAX theaters.



This week, the last of the blockbuster movies of the summer opens with THE MUMMY 3; it won’t steal the box office glory of THE DARK KNIGHT, but it should fill the seats based on the popularity of the first two films.



So, what is Brendan like as a person/interview?



As is the case with a lot of stars, it depends to a large extent at what point in his career you got to know him. If your first personal exposure was after his success with the special effects extravaganzas and the comedies that often used that image to spoof himself self-deprecatingly, then he probably comes across as a pleasant professional who has a well thought-out agenda of talking points that he organizes to respond to the usual questions.



That’s fine. It’s the way Arnold Schwarzenegger used to handle interviews before he became his governorship (to coin another awkward phrase; this is becoming a habit that needs to be broken).



Still, every interviewer is looking for something that makes her or her interview unique in some way (although the insecure needs constant reassurance from the outside that this is happening whereas the normal person will share only the unique anecdotes—for fun). Secure people don’t need outside reassurance.



What a serious interviewer desires is more understanding of what goes into making the actor whatever level of craftsman he or she is (only a few—like Meryl Streep or Daniel Day-Lewis, to pick two examples that nobody would dispute—become artists).



My introduction to Brendan was back about two decades ago for a film called SCHOOL TIES. They brought him—the star, playing a character who was Jewish in an upper class prep school who becomes the object of discrimination from his yuppie-hopeful classmates—and many of his supporting cast through Philadelphia, and I got to sit down and interview all of them at some length.



That was also when I met Matt Damon (and was overwhelmed by his intelligence and articulate charm); his part in the film didn’t showcase his potential as much as his interview did.



Brendan was interesting, however. Tall, handsome, and open, he was clearly someone selected by the Hollywood power players as a mainstream star. If he sensed that, he hid it well, and the pleasure he took in playing the subtext of the young man torn between two cultural worlds was obvious.



It was Matt, however, who became a major star in the deeper films when he and his best friend, Ben Affleck, created GOOD WILL HUNTING. Ironically, Matt would become a blockbuster lead with Bourne after he became a star in Oscar-level roles. Brendan would hit the box office superstar status with the action adventure genre.



So, what does this tell us, if anything, about Brendan Fraser?



Well, he has been smart enough to know that you must have power of some kind in Hollywood to do anything that will be noticed, and so he’s taken his onscreen success and accumulated offscreen status.



He’s also avoided the trap of making too many of the same type of films while the quality of each declines and loses audience fidelity, as others failed to avoid: this summer ADDS to his “creds”.



Yet, there is more to him than there appears to be, in spite of his 60’ tall familiarity to moviegoers. Success is necessary in Hollywood, but satisfaction doesn’t necessarily come with it. Brendan is still young enough to take his box office power and do a smaller film that utilizes the inner characterization that he drew on in the beginning.



It will be interesting to see if he decides to go in that direction in the second decade of the century.



Meanwhile, I have various directions to go…so enough for now.


The following website is now accessed from the internet directly more than any other area of our station's main site (which pleases us, of course).

To view a site with interviews (FLICKS), best bets (QUICK PICS), full reviews, free video podcasts (FLICKS/WHYY)and more, go to the following:

http://www.whyy.org/flicks

I’ve decided to ignore the possibility of an actors strike since it didn’t happen when insiders suggested it was most likely to happen and yet nothing is resolved as of this writing. Before leaving the subject until something happens one way or the other, it does strike me that the Screen Actors Guild leadership will probably replaced if they can’t either get the results they sought or get a strike approved by the membership.



Meanwhile, I have plenty of film star interviews ready to roll out over the next month either done or about to be done.



So, this journal entry will be about a moment in film history that goes back to June of 1969. It was a moment that foreshadowed the coming decade of the anti-hero, gritty realism, and a new way of looking at America and the world.



It’s on my mind because I’ll go from this computer to a film festival in Philadelphia where I’m a guest host for the “40th Anniversary Tribute of MIDNIGHT COWBOY” panel following a screening of the “brand-new restored 35mm print.”



The usual suspects of facts lead the reasons it was and is important. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won three—Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Editing. It would certainly have beaten John Wayne who won the Oscar for TRUE GRIT that same year if the two stars of MIDNIGHT COWBOY, Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, were not nominated for the same award.



The British version of the Academy Awards (BAFTA) solved that problem by giving Voight a Best Promising Newcomer award and Hoffman their Best Actor award.

There were many other organizations who honored the film, the director, the actors and others, but it was the fact that an X-rated film won the Oscar that surprised everyone (they changed its rating the year after it won to an “R”, which turned out to be far more appropriate when “X” became associated totally with porn movies).



There are ironies galore associated with this movie. Its title misled many moviegoers into believing it was a western (when it, of course, was one of the slang terms for a gay hustler). Why ironic? Because that same year saw the box office mega-hit BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (a very different “buddy” picture) change the nature of westerns even as The Duke did that strange supermodel walk of his down the Academy aisles to pick up his Oscar for a more traditional western.



You can view MIDNIGHT COWBOY from many different angles: it is a location film that gave people a realistic view of the increasingly violent, chaotic, and desensitized urban culture more poignantly (and frighteningly—especially to a small town, college-protected drama student who didn’t go to Vietnam about to move to NYC with the person soon to be his wife: me, of course) represented than it had been; it is anti-heroic as would so many films of the seventies be; it is an indictment of religious hypocrisy; it is an exploration of homosexuality; and, it’s black comedy (where the humor comes out of serious misfortune, not temporary problems soon to be solved).



In essence, it marked the time when America lost its innocence once and for all. The beginning of the sixties were benign, even sweet, with isolated incidents of violence (like the assassination of Kennedy) and incipient social revolutions that still seemed like they could be resolved by people of good will and sensitivity as we matured as a culture.



The end of the sixties were filled with multiple killings (King, the younger Kennedy, Malcolm X, and civil rights workers—often followed by riots in the cities) and increased violence overseas (as Vietnam grew into a monster killing machine and Americans turned on each other).



Times Square in New York City, where important scenes in MIDNIGHT COWBOY took place, was ground central for squalor, con artists, thieves, the homeless, and anybody who wanted to exploit anybody for anything—especially sex, as always. I often wonder, as we go to screenings in the Disney-led reworking of the area into a giant outside mall, how many of the people on those streets under fifty realize that they would have been viewed as ideal targets who had stumbled into the wrong place in 1969.



You can lament the commercialization of the center of Manhattan but you can’t realistically be nostalgic for what was there in the time of MIDNIGHT COWBOY unless you’re delusional, ignorant, or simply naïve.



Having said that, I well remember walking those streets as a young, aspiring actor and—later—as a still young doctoral student in drama during the early seventies and thinking how cool and sophisticated I was for being at home on the famous mean streets. It was a typical arrogant attitude of youth which I abandoned as I finally began to notice the sadness and nastiness that underlies neglected urban wastelands.



So, in a few hours, I’ll watch the uncut, restored version of MIDNIGHT COWBOY on the big screen for the first time in four decades and be reminded of its power and my lack of it so long ago.



We’ll talk afterwards about the themes, the close-call casting mishaps (Lee Majors who would later be the SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN on TV was originally cast in the role of “Joe Buck—Jon Voight’s part—but fortunately for film history, his current TV series, THE BIG VALLEY, was renewed and he couldn’t take it); also, Warren Beatty wanted the part but was—again fortunately—too famous for director John Schlesinger; and—although less obviously—I would contend that it’s good Robert Blake chose not to play “Ratso” instead of Dustin Hoffman.



I’m sure there will be those who still believe that Dustin Hoffman adlibbed his famous line, “I’m walking here”, to a real cab driver in New York while filming in spite of the fact that the cabbie was a hired actor and the line was in the script.



What I won’t talk about at the Philadelphia affair unless I’m asked is how much I’ve grown to like both Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman over these years. Both have been more than nice to me and, in addition to being great interviews, have been among those who have gone out of their way to be so outside of the interviewing situation.



That’s the final irony for me, because these two actors scared the hell out of me when they were young stars and I was just a college student ten years younger than they were. I could never have predicted that I would ever have gotten to know them.


The following website is now accessed from the internet directly more than any other area of our station's main site (which pleases us, of course).

To view a site with interviews (FLICKS), best bets (QUICK PICS), full reviews, free video podcasts (FLICKS/WHYY)and more, go to the following:

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The town is terrified.



I’m looking out the window of the Four Seasons Hotel which is carefully placed on the other side of the street from the beginning of Beverly Hills (in what is officially West Hollywood) so they could avoid the height restrictions on little cocoon of luxury just fifty yards away.



From here, I’m within a five-mile radius of just about everyone who holds the power in the film world—or, at least, where they maintain one of their residences. What is the reason for the fear?



The actors’ strike.



It seems to be a consensus opinion that when the official SAG (Screen Actors Guild) contract ends next week, there will not be an agreement in place for a new one. Of course, the whole point to labor negotiations is to strike fear (pun intended) in the other side so they’ll yield to your demands.



In this case, everyone is afraid because strike will affect everyone in one way or another, including the media. That’s why the studios are cramming in as much advance promotion and access to interviews as possible before they are forced to cancel anything that involves a star crossing a virtual picket line.



All of this past week and extending back through the last weekend, there have been screenings and interviews. As I write this, I’ve just finished the new Batman movie, will be doing more here in L.A. and then will be flying to Vancouver for a set visit for a film that won’t even be finished for a while.



Ironically, my personal ballot for SAG’s sister union, AFTRA (basically the TV and radio union) is still in my coat pocket. I’ve been so busy that I’ve carried it with through all of this and have been running around so much that I haven’t yet even managed to put in in a mailbox.



It’s for the vote to ratify the negotiated settlement that was supposed to be the model for SAG to follow in its separate negotiations with the producers.



The deadline for the AFTRA vote is significant: July 8.



If, as expected, it wins approval, there will be pressure on SAG to come to terms as quickly as possible or lots of people will on the sidelines just as the already damaged Fall season is upon us and as films are being completed (as fast as possible, I might add).



BUT, as of this moment, it looks like there will be a strike, so—for example—my interview with Kevin Costner for his new movie, on July 9, could be canceled literally as I will be preparing to talk with him.



Then, the question is: how long?



And, the fear is: how much damage will be done?



Although I can’t review films here because ethics require that I wait for the opening of the films, I can say that the major films planned for a July release, like HANCOCK, THE DARK KNIGHT, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, and others (like MAMMA MIA, for example) are set and will go off without any noticeable lack of paid or free publicity.



The end of the month would be the beginning of the drought and August—often the dog days of summer anyhow—could dry up and blow away.



So, as I speed about collecting enough material to last through July with a strike over some part or all of the month, it’s of more than just personal interest to see this center of show business getting ever more nervous that the brinksmanship of the two sides may end up affecting the film world as much as global warming is heating up the North Pole.



By the next blog entry, we’ll see if Al Gore can get us out of this one.


The following website is now accessed from the internet directly more than any other area of our station's main site (which pleases us, of course).

To view a site with interviews (FLICKS), best bets (QUICK PICS), full reviews, free video podcasts (FLICKS/WHYY)and more, go to the following:

http://www.whyy.org/flicks

Father’s Day is rather special to those of us who have children and a time when our priorities come into focus. My family gives me what I need now, but I also remember my father this week, Paul Stoner, who only had an 8th grade education but taught me how to live life and is still what I hope to be when I grow up.

We need these times especially during these periods when a host of movies (and interviews for them) are made available to us.



Look at next weekend alone just to get a sense of the variety of the films that we’re covering by interviewing their stars: Will Smith’s HANCOCK (a twist on superhero movies), JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (a remake to some extent of a science fiction classic), and MAMMA MIA (the latest big screen musical).



This isn’t the time of year when you’ll see films like JUNO or CRASH being released, but all genres are otherwise being released and made available to us over the next several weeks.



Having said that, the topic of my blog for this week is based on the Forbes Magazine list of the 100 most powerful celebrities. Since this was put together by a financial magazine, one of the main criteria was income, but also it measured public attention and status in the “industry”.



Many on the list were sports figures, music types, and TV personalities, but I’m only interested in film people (although sometimes I have to make a judgment whether someone doing a rare movie now or in the past really qualifies them).



For example, Howie Mandel shows up at #90 and Tyra Banks at #68 but can their old or meager film appearances trump their obvious inclusion because of TV? To put it another way, does somebody primarily known for something other than movies have power IN the movie industry? This is hardly a scientific exercise, so I’m going to be arbitrarily about that and just say a line about people on the list that I’ve interviewed that MAY meet that second criterion.



So, here we go, working in reverse order:



#99: Tina Fey—smart, cautious, lowkey, but quick; used to being the smartest person in the room.



#96: Jennifer Love Hewitt—knows that she is charming and assumes nobody guesses that she’s also tough.



#87: Steve Carrell—pleasant, self-effacing, and has the unique quality of reflecting with sardonic humor whatever is presented to him without trying to top the presenter.



#85: Charlie Sheen—honest and bored with “star” questions but open to almost anything; a poet though few know it.



#84: Patrick Dempsey—one of the few men known for their looks who accepts that as a given without either caring much about it or resenting it as underestimating him.



#82: Judd Apatow—far too nice to be a power, but is.



#80: Jon Stewart—I’ve never interviewed him, but I’m a big fan, and he was in DEATH TO SMOOCHY and PLAYING BY HEART (although his scenes were deleted in THE FIRST WIVES CLUB), so he gets on the list by sheer quality, if no personal reference.



#77: Cate Blanchett—a character actress who likes to meld into her parts but was just pretty enough to be a leading lady and uses it to do her more interesting work.



#73: Katherine Heigl—if you wonder why she resents scripts that she feels don’t show her talents, check out the small film where she was the executive producer and star, SIDE EFFECTS, which is a romantic comedy with a cynical look at the drug companies.



#72: Sarah Jessica Parker—of course, SEX AND THE CITY made her a star but under all of the hoopla is someone who knows that this is a jewel-encrusted trap for an actress who wants other successful films.



#71: Ellen DeGeneres—exactly as she appears to be (one of my favorite moments was when I was leaving an interview with Anne Heche, I heard a “hey, hey” loudly whispered from a side room and there was Ellen sprawling on the bed where she had been listening to the interview).



#67: Gwyneth Paltrow—one of those gentle creatures who never fully adjusted to the overbearing style of Hollywood and has never lost her more civilized demeanor.



#64: Daniel Radcliffe—a mystery as to how he’s maintained his lack of self-importance and always been kind to me since someone snapped a picture of the two of us at the interview the day before he became world famous with the premiere of the first Harry Potter film.



#60: Reese Witherspoon—steel encased in courtesy, she’s often underestimated.



#57: Nicole Kidman—“If you had seen me four hours ago, you wouldn’t think of me as beautiful”, or so she once said to me, and her performance in THE HOURS alone proved that she doesn’t need looks to be good.



#55: Ben Stiller—one of the few comic types who likes himself (his parents, show business legends themselves, did something right).



#54: Jennifer Lopez—a contradiction in the sense that she is demanding of those around her but thoughtful to individuals who aren’t part of maintaining her public image.



#51: Matt Damon—not only nice (which is nice) but also the person I noticed long before his name was known when he came through Philadelphia for SCHOOL TIES in 1992 as one of the smartest people I had met in the business.



#50: Spice Girls—I interviewed them all together for that film in 1997, SPICE WORLD; even then, Victoria Beckham (as she proudly now is) said little and appeared to wish to be somewhere else and Geri Halliwell did most of the talking.



#49: Nicolas Cage—among the best interviews you can get and disarming in his frankness and charm; he once told me that every film was used by him as therapy for different things bothering him in real life.



#48: Jerry Bruckheimer—the MAN; once not appreciated as much as he should have been because the late Don Simpson got so much notice, but now obviously the person who knows how to create hits although he told me that even he is often guessing.



#47: Keira Knightley—shares my opinion that PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is the best novel ever written and one of the few actresses who can do fluff and substance equally well.



#46: George Lucas—as protective and tough as it is possible to be in his professional life while being equally as generous and forthcoming in person; I enjoyed interviewing him at his ranch in northern California.



#44: Leonardo DiCaprio—has never forgotten who was interested in his acting when he was very young and unknown and absolutely sincere in his convictions about the environment and other issues.



#42: Tyler Perry—a man that knows a niche audience perfectly and targets everything to it and is not interested in trying to bring in others, at least to this point.



#41: Howard Stern—a surprise as an interview for the 1997 film PRIVATE PARTS since he was refreshingly self-aware (although that was clearly a clever choice in dealing with the media and quite intentional, it was obvious) and not hesitant to express his lack of respect for the people who are his most loyal listeners.



#35: Miley Cyrus—I have no idea since I’ve never interviewed her, but in addition to her concert tour box office hit, she was also in one of my favorite films as an eight-year-old, BIG FISH.



#31: Tom Cruise—it’s time to move on from the weirdness; whatever else Tom is, he’s also someone who cares about movies and is a consummate professional when making them; for me, his best work is in EYES WIDE SHUT, but the public wouldn’t agree.



#29: Bruce Willis—an actor that I’ve interviewed since the days he was doing both TV and films at the same time; he’s easily bored and hard to keep in his seat if it’s a busy day, but get him when there’s not a throng waiting for him and he’s gold.



#26: 50 Cent—if you say so, Forbes.



#25: Jerry Seinfeld—OK, his movie credentials are sparse, but I’m a big fan, and that’s why it was ironic that a friend of mine (who worked for WNBC in New York and knew him) got on an elevator in Los Angeles with Jerry in the back and other media friends doing that awkward thing when a major star is there with you and (I’m told) unintentionally snubbed him while we were engaged in some conversation of importance to us and never heard him repeatedly trying to get her attention. J



#21: Madonna—always frustrated because her film career was taken seriously, she liked my “craft’ questions enough (for Golden Globe-winning performance as EVITA) that she offered to sign her book, SEX, to me (and I wrapped it in plastic since it was a phenomenon in the early nineties).



#17: Jennifer Anniston—I’ve always gotten the impression that she is still somewhat surprised by the level of her fame and not quite sure how to translate that into a steady film career.



#14: Cameron Diaz—sexy, yes, and a class act; never a bad interview and always makes it personal; she also is smart enough to have sent those of us who covered WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS and expected to interview her as well as Ashton a note apologizing for not attending due to the death of her father.



#13: Steven Spielberg—still has the enthusiasm of a boy who just feels lucky he gets to make movies.



#12: Justin Timberlake—quite serious about his acting and not interested in taking the easy roles that his pop status permits; he likes to talk about the “work” and is articulate about it.



#11: Will Smith—not only loveable and always gracious to everyone, but also capable of excellent acting whether in films where it’s expected like ALI or in those where you might not think it’s needed like I AM LEGEND.



#10: Brad Pitt—perhaps the actor who has matured the most since I first started interviewing him, improving steadily all of the time and adding a sense of social responsibility that would have exhausted his younger self.



#6: Johnny Depp—besides being the actor who insisted on taking on roles that should have cost him his stardom but clearly didn’t when all was said and done, he has gone so far out of his way to get me into interviews with him and share enough of his thoughts to make them invaluable that I cannot express an appropriate level of gratitude.



#4: Beyonce Knowles—although my exposure to her is limited, she is a good example of those performing artists who have succeeded so hugely in a related field (her voice on soundtracks alone is omnipresent) that she should be included, although people with this resume never seem to feel entirely comfortable talking about their film work.



#3: Angelina Jolie—with so many stories, mentions, and testimonials about her good work in this journal, I will add nothing more here except to say that she’s a national treasure and an extraordinarily nice person.

#1: Oprah Winfrey—when I interviewed her for her 1998 film BELOVED, I wasn’t surprised to discover she knew how to give a great interview (duh), but it did surprise me when she said, “Oh, Patrick, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry today, but you’ve made me with your understanding of what this film means to me.” Hmmm. Impressive. If not convincing. Very impressive. Well, she IS Forbes #1, after all. Nobody handed it to her.



Were there any omissions from this list that struck me in the area of film? Yes, I would have expected Adam Sandler and George Clooney to make the power cut. I wonder if they, and others in their league, didn’t because they share so much of the proceeds of the films they do to lower that side of the Forbes evaluation. I don’t know, but it was an interesting list.



Oh, yes, and Britney Spears topped their Infamy list.

No Comment.



The following website is now accessed from the internet directly more than any other area of our station's main site (which pleases us, of course).

To view a site with interviews (FLICKS), best bets (QUICK PICS), full reviews, free video podcasts (FLICKS/WHYY)and more, go to the following:

http://www.whyy.org/flicks

My days in the hills have come to an end, and the combination of travel to various places interspersed with the last on-air fundraising period of the fiscal year has begun. June is crowded with activity.



Ah, well, it’s all part of the job, so it’s time to collect both interviews and money for public television.



Before returning to the overbooked world of the junkets and before doing the necessary duty of supporting something bigger than myself, I’ll do a little guessing about the changing movie world in this chaotic economic environment.



First, the good news: AFTRA (the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) informed those of us who are members that a deal was reached on May 28 that will require payment for television programs being streamed on the internet. That is good news to all fair-minded people, although I suppose it’s bad news to those who want to air other people’s work without legal consequences, if anyone cares.



It’s also good news for movie lovers because—according to sources in SAG (the Screen Actors’ Guild)—that decreases the chance of an actors’ strike later this summer. I gather the idea is that once the principle is established in its sister union, a settlement is likely in the film union. Let’s hope so.



Secondly, what may at first look like good news but will turn out to be a wash: there has been a secret government investigation of the oil future manipulation that has just been revealed. On the surface, the tentative conclusion that prices have been artificially inflated by at least a third of oil’s actual value would appear to presage lower gas prices.



Don’t count on that until near the election at the earliest, although the oil companies may try to calm down the outraged public by slowing down and even taking a few cents off before ascending again.



In any event, it’s too late. The mammoth increase in fuel has already sent food prices up and, believe it or not, that means film ticket costs are increasing.



Remember, concession sales are what keep local movie theatres from going broke; ticket sales alone won’t do it; they are just the entrance price to get to the overpriced popcorn and friends.



Sound a bit exaggerated? Let me quote Robyn Lee on a website called SEROUS EATS:



”Due to the increasing costs of popcorn, the price of movie tickets is expected to skyrocket by as much as 30 percent this year. Why is the price of popcorn going up? Reasons include the increasing demand for ethanol, the low yields of this year's popcorn crop, the rising cost in coconut oil for popping corn, and the increasing cost of producing paper popcorn tubs. Since "roughly 25 percent of the price of admission is subsidized by popcorn, soda, and candy sales," either snacks will get more expensive or movie ticket prices will increase. How much longer will it be before tickets cost closer to $20 than $10?”



What’s my point? OK, let’s put the pieces together: Gas is about $4 a gallon, heading to $5 by the end of the summer, so families are driving less and less; once at the theater, the cost of the tickets and the treats for the kids are up and will go higher, making a trip to the movies more of a luxury than it was; analysts suggest that the easiest box office bucks are front-loaded this summer--meaning people may treat themselves early but start worrying about those growing credit card balances as the season wanes.

It’s not that I’m predicting gloom and doom. Films are simply to important to Americans. They’ll find a way to see them, even if they increase their viewing at home and lessen it at the distant mall somewhat.



Things connect, however, and life is like a game of chess, so it’s always worthwhile to try to see several moves ahead (and it’s fun, if you’re analytically inclined).



Just as ridiculously low mortgage rates that weren’t guaranteed pretty much guaranteed a disaster that would lead the rest of the economy down the proverbial drain, so did the mushrooming gas prices lead to higher food prices, more expensive concession items, and higher movie ticket prices.



So, the final question is this: if you were a movie studio, what adjustments would you make in the near future in terms of your new films?



I don’t know the answer to that, and I’m glad that my future doesn’t depend on it, but there are some points that they must obviously consider. The big one is simply that it may no longer make as much sense to do as much as you have historically done.



Consider: The big films so far are IRONMAN, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, and—at least initially—SEX AND THE CITY. Did any of these need to generate interest to get people to go see them? Basically, all you had to do is make sure that people knew when they opened; the audiences were going to go no matter what else you did or didn’t do.



Of course, it’s the regular competition among less surefire successes that makes the studios cover their bets by overdoing the publicity, free and paid. Generally, that guarantees that nobody wants to be accused of doing too little by the disappointed executives and producers.



But, if a box office squeeze materializes and if the economy doesn’t turn around, then it wouldn’t be inconceivable that the studios could decide to cut back on their efforts. If the result wasn’t a dropoff from expectations, then the competition to do the maximum effort would decline. Once that happened, the concept of less is more might be adopted.

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It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Meanwhile, since it looks like the actors will be turning out new films, I’ll be out there interviewing a bunch of them.


The following website is now accessed from the internet directly more than any other area of our station's main site (which pleases us, of course).

To view a site with interviews(FLICKS), best bets (QUICK PICS), full reviews, free video podcasts (FLICKS/WHYY)and more, go to the following:

http://www.whyy.org/flicks