Are today's film comedy audiences dumbed-down, or has popular taste simply changed? Have comedy movies always disappointed, or has there really been an erosion in quality? What does it mean when critics revile a movie that becomes number one at the box office?
These are among the questions addling my troubled brain of late, stirred up in part by some comments on my post about The Break-Up, in part by a discussion I had with the studio reader of record on that film, and in part by my suspicion that as a culture, our handbasket's already hit Hell.
But to even begin to discuss this matter, which is probably way too large to get into with any reasonable depth in a short blog post (but has that ever stopped me before?), I feel the need to state a few caveats.
1) Taste is taste. You love Anchorman, I passed on the script (three times). You say McConaughey, I say Cusack. And who can really support the argument that Some Like It Hot is "great" and say, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut is not? If it makes you laugh, on a certain level, it is good. There is no accounting for taste.
2) Every generation is the best generation. It's axiomatic that every generation of moviegoers complains about the kids these days and bemoans the decline in comedy. Your grandad thinks no one's topped Chaplin and Keaton. Your mom says Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are fun, but nothing next to Tracy and Hepburn. Maybe you thought Ben Stiller's last pic was hilarious, but you just didn't get Napolean Dynamite. This is "same as it ever was."
3) In Hollywood, nobody knows anything. William Goldman said it, and dude is it true: if studio execs could really accurately predict what will work with an audience, they'd actually be worth what they're paid. Most of the time The Biz is just as surprised as me and you are when a seeming sureshot tanks or a winner comes from nowhere. Otherwise we would have been spared the new Lindsay Lohan comedy, etc. The best the studio system can offer is educated guesswork (and we use the word "educated" loosely).
4) There are always great movies. No matter how bleak the territory may look, every year (thank God) some film comes out that busts the rules and regulations and delivers the goods, period, whether it be a left field oddball like Sideways or a straight-up heartwarmer like 40 Year-Old Virgin. This is why those of us who write them, work on them, or write about them keep the movie faith.
Okay, given all these givens, let me turn the soapbox over to fellow blogger Bill, who writes:
Some movies (particularly rom-coms) aren't light enough - they're weighed down by what seems to be a perceived responsibilty to treat their subject seriously... Other films, more often straight comedies, are so light as to be almost drivel, if not sheer drivel. The on-screen result seems incapable of reaching that middle ground where the serious elements and the silly ones are in balance. The obvious question is why. Is it because certain films are being shoe-horned into certain marketing templates? Is it because directors have lost the sensibility required to find the right balance? Is it the demands of audiences?
Bill added that he's ultimately asking why so many [contemporary] comedies just aren't funny.
Now, I don't have a readymade answer, but I have my suspicions. And some of it is about case-by-case stuff, having to do with the process of mainstream movie development.
When I spoke to my reader friend about Break-Up, I wasn't exactly shocked, shocked to hear that there was gambling in Casablanca: in his notes on drafts of the project, he had in fact posed many of the same questions I raised about the movie's characterization work and story development, but his notes went unheeded (no! really?!). Vince Vaughn was running the show and had his own ideas about what the movie was going to be -- which BTW, should help puncture one myth about "the studios." The studios are often at the mercy of the expensive talent they hire, and it's often the case that a given project's 600-pound gorilla (the star, or star director attached) is ultimately largely responsible for how a movie turns out.
And now that The Break-Up has had a fabulous opening weekend, far surpassing even Universal's expectations... are we readers wrong? Are all the critics who cited the very same weaknesses (e.g. not enough reason to root for the leads and believe their relationship could work, not enough big laughs and full exploitation of the premise, etc.) -- are they myopic, unjust, out of step? Given that many who saw it did laugh and were moved by it, are all of us sideliners misguided and/or simply... irrelevant?
To some degree, on that last question, yes we are (see Caveat #1). But there are larger issues involved. For one, my reader friend believes that the opening weekend is part of the problem.
By now so much hinges on a movie's opening that it skews the entire moviemaking equation. It's all about perception; a strong opening convinces the rest of the moviegoing public that the movie's worth seeing, and convinces the studio to further promote the movie. So a great deal of the development and the selling is focused on this one window of opportunity.
The same is true of the music industry and the publishing business. Occasional sleepers aside, if the new CD doesn't catch on in its first week or two of release, then it's generally last week's also-ran; if a hardcover doesn't sell a requisite amount of copies upon initial release, then remaindering is just an aisles' walk away. Stands to reason then, that in the movie biz, packaging a product to make a strong first impression is the prime priority.
Hence, to quote Bill again and second a comment from reader Denise, certain films are being shoe-horned into certain marketing templates. On one side of the equation, to get the butts into the seats, for example, a movie that's not really a date-movie comedy is made to look like one, in the trailer. On the other side of the equation, something more insidious: a quick fix, sugar-high sensibility gets applied to a project in development. Obsessed with that opening weekend, the big splash, a movie's most broadly sellable aspects get the most attention.
A comedy spec comes into the studio and it sucks. But it's got that One Great Scene (a set-piece, natch), the one where the whole cast gets bathed in shit when the shit-house explodes, the one where the cat blows up -- and the studio thinks: water cooler! Trailer shot, poster image: the thing that'll crack everyone up and make that opening weekend happen. So... all that sucky stuff? We'll fix it, as best we can... and the project is bought and greenlit.
A comedy script comes into the studio that's more like a dramedy -- full of pathos, poignant moments, quirky depths. Well, is it fish or fowl, or feathered fish? An insecure development process will push it one way or the other: amp up the melodrama if they want to sell it as something substantial, or pick at the quirky depths of the thing until it's more pure comedy... often losing sight of what the movie's premise actually suggested and ending up in a muddle (e.g. Prime's "I'm dating my shrink's son?!" comedy concept descending into strained-seriousness bathos). And meanwhile... Garden State (see Caveat #4).
But why? Why keep under-estimating the audience's intelligence? Are we really that dumb and manipulatable and incapable of appreciating subtlety, ambivalence, et al? Well, I don't think so, but I do think this: the audience has changed.
The target demographic for movies, the under-25s, raised on MTV, video games, the computer, the dish, the cellphone... is a generation currently watching quick TV clips on iPods and phones. These are humans who've been literally bombarded with fast, right from the cradle. And their water-cooler buzz this week is that homemade 25-second YouTube clip that's a viral hit on the internet.
Watched a film classic from the 30s recently? Notice how freaking slow and laborious the first act seems today? All that expositional info (in black and white, fer chrissake) that we wouldn't even bother with, in a remake now? That should give you a rough sense of what today's prime audient doesn't want to know from. Anything that requires time... patience... an explorative spirit, is suspect.
Today's audience looks a bit like a patient with ADD. Overloaded with imagery and information, the target crowd is used to getting It, whatever It is, in super-fast bite-sized blurts. They're like kids who want to eat the dessert first and forget about the veggies. And often what they're going to the movies for isn't really a cathartic emotional experience; they want to be stimulated. Entertainment, in the horror genre, is now a movie like Saw -- a collection of isolated bits of gruesomely shocking gore that'll really make you pay attention for a couple of minutes. And in a comedy... well, it's that wild scene where the shithouse blew up in chunks.
But wait a second, you say, that's not me. I'm a smart discerning viewer, and I deserve better. To which I counter, fine, but where are you? Chances are you're at home with your Netflix -- a venue where even the most adult, sophisticated, depth-full entertainments do in fact get their play, according to this article from the NY Times. And sure, you still "go to movies"... but I'll wager you're not a regular in those opening weekend crowds at the multiplex.
No, truth is, the demographic that still buys the most tickets is getting the cheap thrills it's groomed to enjoy. Do you think Break-Up had a great opening weekend because people wanted to see a provocative sophisticated romantic comedy? Please! A large portion of that audience, jazzed on Brangelina, went to gawk at the Vaughniston -- you think the movie would've opened so big with two other stars? And they went because the trailer promised broad farce amidst the glib bickering, scenes like Jen in the buff, etc.
I'm still wrong, some of you are thinking, because nuh-uh, that wasn't you, either. You really were hungry for a good romantic comedy, and you know what? This one was pretty good -- you had a few laughs, maybe even teared up a little at the end. Okay, I can see that (Caveat #1). But you, my friend, are really the person I want to sit down and talk to.
Because I think you're settling for less. I think you may have forgotten what a really, truly great movie can do. I think you, and me, and all of us here in the handbasket are living in The Age of Lowered Expectations.
And if you weren't ready to throw something at me before, you're gonna want to now, because having taken so much time in setting up this concept, I've already gone waaaaay past my usual post length. And given the audience's short attention span, I'll have to go to a Part 2.
Please come back at the end of the weekend, wherein I will discuss exactly what I mean by The Age of Lowered Expectations, with discourses on why Annie Hall is like Citizen Kane, how we've slipped back into Plato's Cave, and why, as reader Binnie points out, our President is the poster boy for The A.L.E. There'll be a link to a provocative article on the Decline of Rom-Coms, and perhaps cheesecake. Till then... well, you could tell me what you think.
Seems like the theme of the week... Lee Gomes' column in the WSJ on Wednesday talked about how "epidemic ADD" is going to be the demise of books and movies in favor of user-created web mash-ups.
Maybe it just seems like there are fewer good movies because there are more total movies being made each year? It's a lot harder to weed out the crap...
Posted by: HuckleCat | June 08, 2006 at 10:26 PM
Not having seen part 2, and it being fairly late, I'm not sure what my comment is but I'd like to toss out two thoughts that popped up while reading this:
1) You're focusing on Hollywood (studios) but I've seen what would be called independent, or at least somewhat independent rom-coms, and they seem to always depress the hell out of me. (Why do they think life is so awful?) (I should also say that I've been planning to watch Sideways again but I've been avoiding it because that, too, by the end depressed me.)
2) I understand the weekend box office thing but I can't help wondering if the business of bums in the theatre isn't wrong-headed now. I don't have numbers in front of me but it seems to me many films perform very differently (in terms of dollars) once they're on DVD. I also notice DVD reviews often divurge from the theatrical critics.
Along the same lines ... Kingdom of Heaven in theatres was okay. But for me, the recently released Director's Cut is a new movie and ten times better. It's not the same movie. And while I don't know what it may be doing in rentals, I'm willing to bet its sales place it in the top three. (It's certainly hugely popular on DVD sites.)
So ... is Hollywood actually helping their bottom line by focusing on weekend box office? Or would it make sense for them to pay more attention to what happens when it leaves the theatres?
(And that's a whole other issue ... "movies should be seen in theatres." Should they? I believe many directors now are thinking about DVD and that smaller screen. Ridley Scott certainly seems to be.)
Posted by: Bill | June 08, 2006 at 11:37 PM
One other note ... the beginning of the Director's version of Kingdom of Heaven adds a LOT to the opening (character stories, plot) and the film overall takes it's time (which Scott mentions in the additional materials) ... and yet it seems to be very popular with the DVD crowd, many of whom (if not most) are fairly young. Is our belief that young people are programmed for fast really accurate?
Posted by: Bill | June 08, 2006 at 11:42 PM
Let’s start by saying I haven’t seen The Break Up. However, everyone I’ve spoken to who has, including my wife, was disappointed. It will be interesting to see how it does this week because I haven’t heard one good thing.
I’m going to have to mull over the whole “lower expectations” idea before I offer an opinion, but I did want to thank you for the CD. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to really sit down and give it a good listen. Eighth graders in June are a whole different beast, but it will all be over soon and I’ll the entire summer to listen and write.
Posted by: Craig | June 09, 2006 at 02:41 AM
I look forward to part 2, meantime, the reason I'd like to someday write a romcom is because I rarely see what I'm looking for in that genre: something complex and real. I don't know if I am not the average person, but my beef with many of these movies is that there's often some element of "conflict" introduced that seems forced and unnecessary, where some more believable, real-life type conflict seems like it would be infinitely more interesting to me. And dag nab it, if I can figger out how (when I get to reading your book!) someday I'll do it.
Posted by: Betsy | June 09, 2006 at 08:10 AM
Wow! You've been a busy posting bee since Santa Fe, so I should be reading this in reverse order. I agree we're in the age of lower expectations, and that's all the tougher for the spec writer knocking on hollywood's door (actually knocking on the doors of those who can knock on hollywood's door). So is it your contention that it's more a case of stars tailoring these fluff peices from some shallow raw material with good "hand feel"? Or taking a good spec script and turning it dreck?
Posted by: Ken Mora | June 09, 2006 at 09:13 AM
Billy,
Maybe Vince Vaugn should be forced to read Robert McKee's "Story." Dude's got comedic tallent, but past past sucessess aren't always gauranteed sucess templetes for your current project. "The Break-Up" isn't "The Wedding Crashers." Still, love the Vaugn. Hopefully he'll learn/evolve (get some perspective) and his next project will be be better. Sometimes a litle loss of ego improves the art.
As far as the age of lessened expectation goes, perhaps Jenna Rinks said it best in the movie "13 Going on 30."
"We've got to remember what used to be good. Because if we don't, we wont remember what is good even if it hits us right between the eyes."
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
Posted by: E.C.Henry | June 09, 2006 at 11:42 AM
Movies may not be getting better, but they're certainly getting louder. So, we've got that going for us.
Posted by: JJ | June 09, 2006 at 12:15 PM
Huckle, yes, the weeding is more time-intensive than ever.
Bill: both points (the Sadness of Indieville and the dif between theatrical and DVD perception) well taken and I'll try to speak to them in A.L.E. Deux...
I don't think an interest in DVDs with bells-and-whistles precludes the ADD effect; again, the DVD format enables FF, skipping, watching in segments, etc., which is part of this same "fast food media" sensibility.
Craig: 8th graders in June? Let me know when they give you back your brain.
Betsy, you will figure it out, you must, and the book will help, i trust. Bring on the complex and real, bring it Betsy please.
Ken: sad to say both phenoms are endemic to the system. but wait! there's even MORE reasons for why things go wrong, which i hope to articulate in A.L.E.: The Return.
E.C. what an effen hot quote!!!
Gonna use it.
Somebody buy the JJ man a beer.
Posted by: mernitman | June 09, 2006 at 11:08 PM
jeeze, just one day after I promised myself, no more tirades on billy's blog... you jump deep into a quest for "real" answers to even more good questions. and you have a whole interconnected crew paying attention. go billy go... what a brave discourse....
firstly, let me get this straight; people in a meeting actually listen to what vince vaughn has to say about anything... why? because he is a mega box office hero..? he is one of steven spielberg's illegimate children? an xmen of cinematic knowledge.? he is banging the other star and is keeping her quiet? it is too bad, that when he starts talking about his vision, they don't have the balls to fire him or tell him to shut the fuck up and sit down. but alas that is life today.. we dont really know what is what. yes i must be grandpa... because i remember when irving thalberg was the bad guy,(now the little cuthroat bastard has to be considered a paragon of vision)... i remember seeing orson wells chow down on scampi at ma maison like there was no fuckin tomorrow... the man who brought us Touch of Evil... put out to pasture.
so it is the same as it always was... much as I would like to heap a pile of shit on the current powers that be...
but I tell ya bill.... you or one of your crew will pierce the armor of boredom and lowered expectations... because at the end of the day, some arrow always gets through...
and one more note... "Back to the Future" a semi-modern motion picture, filmed in color no less has the most labored first act in recent memory...
check it out.. and the movie, if you can stand the set-up... works like a charm...
Posted by: markensparklefarkle | June 10, 2006 at 01:20 AM
Everytime I come here I feel a little more inferior. Thank you for that.
Posted by: Brooke | June 10, 2006 at 07:14 AM
You obviously care intensely about the future of Romantic Comedy. You mention a few movies which apparently come up to your standards. I am wondering what you would consider the top 10 Romantic Comedies of film history? If all copies of all the rom-coms were on fire, which would you reach into the fire to try to save? (With tongs, of course.)
Posted by: Patty | June 10, 2006 at 12:45 PM
This topic has been bothering me for awhile now. I am of the younger generation, but thanks to my upbringing (books, books, books) I like to think that it takes something witty and off-the-wall to make me laugh. And, well, the movies have turned into a predictability-fest, unless you move to Park City and Sundance it. While bemoaning whether or not producers will ever churn out something like The Philidelphia Story again, I discovered that there are good movies being made. They just are not mainstream. Take Triplets of Belleville or Autumn in New York for example. No one has seemingly heard of these movies, but they are beautiful and funny...
Unfortunately, the rest of our peers have been McDonaldized and find satisfaction in White Chick.
Posted by: Janet | June 10, 2006 at 01:46 PM
Marken: please don't let it be your last tirade, cause we love them (i.e. a long-time reader of this blog now comes here specifically to read you) and I'm still seeing Orson sucking down that scampi...
But Brooke, that's how I feel when I visit YOURS.
Whew, Patty, talk about a challenge... I won't attempt an all-time top 10, but your "what I'd save from the fire" idea would yield this top 20+ short-list -- and even it feels absurdly truncated (e.g. rescue one Hawks film, but leave 4 others?!) -- in chronological order:
Bringing Up Baby
The Philadelphia Story
The Lady Eve
Some Like It Hot
Breakfast at Tiffany's
The Graduate
Shampoo
Annie Hall
Arthur
Tootsie
Romancing the Stone
Moonstruck
The Princess Bride
Say Anything
When Harry Met Sally
Groundhog Day
4 Weddings & a Funeral
Jerry Maguire
As Good As It Gets
There's Something About Mary
Eternal Sunshine...
Welcome, Janet: You make a good point about the indie track v. mainstream (e.g. I'd keep the two Linklater "Before" movies from the fire, as well) -- it's certainly true that the more interesting risks are being taken on the fringe, e.g. last year's Saving Face, and Kissing Jessica Stein before that. But I guess I'm asking, why can't we have our cake and eat it, too (i.e. does the mainstream really have to abandon "witty and off-the-wall" and unpredictable altogether)?...
Posted by: mernitman | June 10, 2006 at 03:07 PM
...and how could I leave out
The Apartment
A Fish Called Wanda
Hannah and Her Sisters
to make it an even double-dozen? And if we go foreign, add Cousin, Cousine to make a top 25, and then there's the second tier of guilty pleasures like Sleepless, and flawed-but-braves like Chasing Amy, and hard to entirely dismiss pics like Shakespeare in Love and Sense and Sensibility and...
Posted by: mernitman | June 10, 2006 at 03:36 PM
I never had so much fun at a movie as I did with Fish called Wanda. I laughed until my sides hurt, and I STILL get a chuckle out of Otto and Wanda's "foregin languages turn me on" dialogue.
Hee hee.
Posted by: Writergurl | June 10, 2006 at 09:29 PM
Well, you open a can of worms when you get into lists. I won't disagree with anything but I will say, "My Man Godfrey" and add that for some reason I've always preferred "Sullivan's Travels" to "The Lady Eve," though I like them both. But that also puts me in my of "The Palm Beach Story" ...
Posted by: Bill | June 10, 2006 at 11:58 PM
WriterGurl: I will never get enough of Otto.
Bill: I too prefer Sullivan in the Sturges canon, but Eve is truly a romantic comedy (Sullivan isn't, technically; the girl -- even though she's Veronica Lake --is more subplot than central). And I only had room for one other genuine screwball, so I picked Baby over Godfrey, but it was definitely a close call... just like it was tough picking Gets over Broadcast, when it came to Brooks, and... etc.
Posted by: mernitman | June 11, 2006 at 12:20 AM
Oh you are such a liar. I love it.
Posted by: Brooke | June 11, 2006 at 09:36 AM
I agree in principle with the ideas in this post, but there are alot of angles that may also head off in different directions - the vaughn/anniston example is so unique as to really not be very usable as a measurement in other cases, and just like the partner example of the whole brangelina thing as well.
But to introduce some other idea about the romantic comedy, attention span, et al equation - cartoon culture just got so much better at what made the best comedies funny. The whole Adult Swim phenomena as a network, with its way of programming, its tight scripts and humor (Aqua Teen, Harvey Birdman, etc.. etc...) really addressed the audience that isnt simply A.D.D.led but was looking for HUMOR and WIT, and as well a cartoon that does it all in 15 min or less.
The 1980s Hollywood started the transformation of actors into being more and more just cartoons. The cartoons just returned eventually and did what the human comedies USED to do. Anchorman or any Ben Stiller film, etc.. are just big cartoons, and conservative at that.
But TV has been rewarded for keeping some kind of scale in the past years.
What about the "Romance" of the Rom-Com. Maybe really there, the answer is just that Hollywood is too out of it. I mean, read the gossip sites of the last year that have cropped up due to Paris Hilton and her world - where is there any mention of Romance? Its sole focus is on bodies and contracts: screwing around, drugs, binges, engagements, babies, divorces, next movie/music/fashion contract etc.
MySpace? Is that romance today? At least its partially literary.
For real romance, I have to say, if you ever deem to watch the old Futurama series, it was THE most intelligent, ADULT romantic subplot running through between the two characters, of Leela and Frye, and really, no movie or tv managed to keep that kind of humor and consistency going.
I love movies, but lets call a cartoon a cartoon - what we often talk about as "movies" are just moving billboards and humanized cartoons - and not good ones.
Posted by: Art | June 11, 2006 at 12:29 PM
I agree whole-heartedly with your four caveats, Billy, and with the diagnosis that the economics of attention is driving the shape of the releases (it's especially astute to note parallels in the publishing and music business, too).
But shoe-horning doesn't necessarily mean that the audience's intelligence is being underestimated--there are other, simpler explanations. It's hard to incisively pitch an artistic product, and it takes practice, smarts, and creativity. The studios probably realize that many of these movies are turkeys, and, in some cases, *are* aiming low and making the best of mediocre product. And, as the post states, capital is a pervasive influence, one that discourages risk: opening weekends, yes, and filmmaking is a corporate enterprise, demanding unusual skills, that the director be a good CEO as well as a good artist.
But I think it is also correct to finger the audience, which almost certainly has changed, MTV and all that. But maybe not exactly for the reasons you cite: I think our dreams are less affecting than in the 70s, and that has little to do with intelligence (and more than a little to do with capital, too). It was much easier back then, I think, even when one accounts for age, and I try harder and am disappointed more these days. When I was in my early twenties, the good theater in Baltimore showed a double-bill and changed the program every two or three days. Today, that same "art house" theatre has five screens, and is showing "The DaVinci Code" and cartoons and so much else that I often can't find one thing to see. Hollywood, always in touch with our dreams, has laid bare our basic nature: that typically (and that might not mean *you,* per se), we wish to be transported by being elevated from our essential humdrum existence, Seacrest (or Vaughniston) ex Machina.
Posted by: Bill Sebring | June 14, 2006 at 08:39 PM