Hollywood Goes To War
Yeah. I thought so. I'm betting you've probably gotten your fill of watching grim human drama, conflagration and tragedy this week.
But there's interesting news of a continuation of a trend spotted by this writer months ago: Films about the Iraq war or what was once called the 'War on Terror' are flopping miserably at the box office nowadays. (My reference point back then being a Samuel Jackson/Jessica Biel/50 Cent movie "Home of the Brave" that took in only $44,000 at the box office.)
According to today's Washington Times:
It doesn't matter how many Oscar winners are in front of or behind the camera — audiences are proving to be conscientious objectors when it comes to this fall's surge of antiwar and anti-Bush films.Now is this really a concerted political statement from American audiences? Or is it, as this writer thinks, merely a reflection of a universal media reality. After all, don't people turn to television and radio and the Internet for news or hard information or current events, but then use the movies as a getaway from sober geopolitical realities? (And they don't get grimmer than Tommy Lee Jones coping with his dead veteran son in "Elah.")Both "In the Valley of Elah" and, more recently, "Rendition" drew minuscule crowds upon their release, which doesn't bode well for the ongoing stream of films critical of the Iraq war and the Bush administration's wider war on terror.
To answer that question, here's the top five at the box office now:
Yup. With the exception of Michael Clayton -- and its grand constellation of stars -- not a whole lot of thought-provoking content there. Where do war dramas fit in with that roster? Tough to say.
What is interesting about all this, from where I stand, is that Hollywood thinks there is a market for these films. This, after all, is a conservative business where sure-thing sequels gets pumped out in mass quantities, rather than groundbreaking movies that try something new.
What do they think they stand to gain producing movies with a dubious potential for return-on-investment? (Aside from the likely end game of setting up the Oscars to be a three-hour discussion on global issues – but still, that's not worth losing movie dollars to do.)
If people want to see the drama of Iraq playing out, they can tune into the news or read the front pages on a daily basis. It's no surprise that they're not actively seeking out more information that reinforce what they already know.
And it's not just this media observer. Hollywood should have taken note of something that Homer Simpson – in full postmodern mode – said at the beginning of his movie this summer "I can't believe we're paying to see something we get on TV for free!"