Not a Top 5 of 2011: Movies

Date: 2012.01.01 | Category: Movies | Tags:

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing in the media lately over the decline in motion picture attendance in 2011, and what may be causing it. I feel well qualified to speak on this issue, because my own movie attendance dropped from 26 in 2010 to 15 in 2011. Why did I see fewer movies? Simply because there were not many films I was inspired to go out and pay $8 to see. (I’m the thrifty type who only goes to matinees.)

I know a lot of moviegoers blame the behavior of their fellow audience members — in this commentary, Roger Ebert mentions, “The annoyance of talkers has been joined by the plague of cell-phone users, whose bright screens are a distraction.” Luckily, I have found Bay Area moviegoers to be, on the whole, fairly polite. Smart phones are much more of a distraction at concerts, where half the audience seems to either be texting/checking email or filming the performance with their iPhones.

We generally get three types of films here: (1) The mega-blockbusters, heavily advertised pictures which are often based on a superhero comic — generally, these do huge business on their opening weekends and are immediately replaced by the next comic book or action movie the following Friday. (2) The increasingly rare hit movies for grown-ups that wind up playing for months due to solid word of mouth. “Midnight in Paris” is still showing here, even though it came out six months ago and is now available on DVD. Other examples: “The Help,” “The Descendants,” “The Blind Side.” These are the sorts of films that older people (by which I mean age 30 and up) who only go to a movie theater once or twice a year see. (3) Blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em foreign and independent films that may do a one-nighter at the Pacific Film Archive or have a weeklong showing at the local Landmark theater.

I used to see a lot more of type #3, but because I see so much live theater, I don’t really have time to keep up with the smaller films nowadays. Once in a while, I’ll read about something that sounds interesting and wonder if it’ll ever open here, only to find (when I check Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB) a Chronicle review, indicating that it did play here. For instance, “Bellflower,” which was on critic Christy Lemire’s top 10 list, didn’t ring any bells with me, but it apparently did get a Bay Area showing (undoubtedly a brief one) back in August.

Generally, once something is gone, so are my chances of catching up with it. I hardly ever watch movies on DVD or streaming. Occasionally I’ll catch something on a plane. I thoroughly enjoyed “Crazy Stupid Love,” the Steve Carell romantic comedy, which I saw on the little seatback screen on my Air France flight from Paris. It was the kind of small-scale movie that worked fine on a miniature screen. I can’t imagine watching “Tree of Life,” which I’m sorry I never got around to seeing, on a tiny screen, or even on our 40″ TV.

So I don’t feel qualified to do a top 5 list when I saw so few films. The ones I ranked the highest were “Super 8,” “Bridesmaids,” “Hugo” and “The Artist.” I enjoyed “The Muppets,” even though it sort of wore out its welcome by the time the end credits rolled. A few of my favorite directors — Thomas McCarthy (“Win Win”), Alexander Payne (“The Descendants”) and Jason Reitman (“Young Adult”) — released films that I didn’t think were as good as their past efforts. Usually, Pixar’s annual feature is a sure thing, but there was no way in hell I was going to see “Cars 2.”

It’s possible that I will see more movies in 2012, but I sort of doubt it. The fact is, Hollywood would rather spend $150 million-plus to make and market a film like “Thor” or “Green Hornet” than $15 million on a smaller film geared at adults, because the execs know that the Comic-Con crowd will always go see the blockbuster du jour, whereas adults will only go if it’s good. “Young Adult”‘s grosses have been disappointing so far, which I chalk up to the fact that it’s a depressing, not terribly insightful movie about an unlikable character. “Midnight in Paris,” on the other hand, was a sparkling, entertaining, escapist delight, and I’m not surprised that people recommended it to their friends. “Bridesmaids” was genuinely funny, and Twitter and Facebook were aglow with positive write-ups the weekend it opened. The scariest thing about “Bridesmaids” is that there was talk that studio heads were watching its performance closely, and if it flopped, that would mean no comedy starring a woman would ever be greenlit in the near future. Its success immediately led to calls of “Get me the next ‘Bridesmaids’!” That tells you a lot about Hollywood and how dysfunctional it is.

There’s no way of guaranteeing that a movie will get good reviews and win acclaim from discerning audience members. No actor or actress is bulletproof (cf. Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in “Larry Crowne”). A hot script can turn into a dud, sometimes for reasons out of the studio’s control (cf. “The Beaver,” which topped the annual “Black List” of “best unproduced screenplays” before Jodie Foster made the mistake of actually making it into a movie starring Mel Gibson). When you think about it, a risk-taking movie like “The Artist” is a little miracle. Of course, it was a French/Belgian production with a relatively tiny $12 million budget; an American distributor only bought the rights after it became a hot ticket at Cannes. I’m sure no homegrown studio would ever have agreed to finance a silent, black and white movie starring two actors most Americans have never heard of.

Many TV critics argue that the real innovation these days is happening on the small screen, where visionaries are given the freedom to tell complex stories (“Mad Men,”  ”Breaking Bad,” “Sons of Anarchy,” etc.). But people still like going to the movies, and most adult filmgoers, will, like me, keep an eye out for those increasingly rare little miracles.