Spider-Man or 20 interesting films?

During the Monday morning meeting this week, the talk was about how bad Spider-Man 3 is. "Do NOT go see Spider-Man" one co-worker warned. "It's the worst movie EVER" another chimed in. They were mad at one guy who said he thought it was good but the smirk on his face suggested he liked it BECAUSE it was so bad.

As we left the meeting, my cube-mate said "I don't know why they're so surprised. The third movie is always bad." She went on to name a series of franchises in which the third was bad. I wasn't really listening as I don't usually see franchises at all and I didn't think the first Spider-Man was all that great (aside from the special effects).

Of the big Hollywood films that I like, the third has been actually been good: Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter. "Well, Lord of The Rings is different," she murmurs, "that was one story that they made into three movies." Okay, and she hasn't seen any Harry Potter films.
Where I thought she was going was "Why are they surprised? Almost everything that comes out of a major studio these days is crap." Spider-Man 3, despite getting terrible reviews and (apparently) actually BEING terrible, it's well on it's way to grossing more than the previous two.

On NPR the other day, an industry expert was talking about why record sales are plunging. One of the biggest reasons he gave is that the artists the major labels are signing aren't putting out enough music. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that they sign lame no-talent teenagers that are manufactured and overproduced? I can't keep up with all the great music being released by real artists. The second biggest reason (curiously similar to the first) is that the major labels can't seem to find the hits. Where oh where ARE those hits?

Here's where the music industry is as lazy and greedy as the film industry. They really aren't interested in producing quality entertainment and they aren't as concerned about profitability as they are with big bucks, the jackpot! They're in the business of gambling and they have secured their fortunes through control of the distribution. They are basically like the mob except they don't have to break our knuckles to purchase their crap, we do it willingly!

In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell explains the ridiculous process the record industry uses to "test a hit" and why it doesn't work. People don't know what they want and when they like something, they can't explain why. We're also enormously influenced by the context in which we experience something. It's not insignificant that $150 million was spent marketing Spider-Man 3. It's not that people just can't wait to see it, we're bombarded with advertising that has us following the flock to movie theaters.

These industries are still trying to hump the "mainstream market" despite the lack of evidence that such a thing ever existed. It's not like The Beatles sat around trying to figure out how to sell records; they developed their talents, took incredible chances and sold records because people liked their music. Not EVERYONE, just a good chunk of loyal listeners.

Little Miss Sunshine, according to The Numbers, was made for $8 million (plus probably $20 mil for marketing) and grossed $97 mil. That's a 350% profit margin! The 40-Year Old Virgin was made for $26 mil (plus $27 mil for marketing) and grossed $177 mil! Even the British indies have fared well. The Queen, made for $15 mil grossed $113 mil worldwide and Bend It Like Beckham, made for only $5 mil grossed $76 mil.


So why aren't the studios making every $10-30 million movie they can find? They could make twenty indie films with Spider-Man 3's $450 mil. With an average profit margin of 300%, even if half of them fail, they'd still make out with $711 million and we'd have at least ten good films to watch! Problem is, Spider-Man 3 is on track to gross about $900 million and they want the easy money. It's too much work for the big studios to find quality scripts and develop them.

This is why, one of these days, the big guys will get swallowed up by a swarm of little guys delivering better music and better movies to exactly the right people - meganiches of a million or more folks each. Meganiches unite!

Wisps of magic

Something that's been rattling around in my brain lately is magic. Here's an abridged definition from Dictionary.com:

mag·ic [maj-ik] – noun
1. producing illusions by sleight of hand or deceptive devices for entertainment.
2. supposed human control of supernatural agencies through the use of incantation.
3. any extraordinary or mystical influence, charm, power, etc.
4. mysteriously enchanting.

THIS is what I think magic is:
An idea, vision or experience that defies explanation by and/or alters our experience of our earth-bound reality.

A lot of people have experienced this recently through "The Secret" or "What The Bleep Do We Know?" Some people find magic in God. Music is magical to me, the way it can lift me right out of the physical hell of driving. A good movie can work magic, utterly transforming my reality temporarily or permanently. And some dreams are certainly magic. No one really understands dreams.

We find magic in coincidences. Maybe they're just our brain sorting through our world in a way that shows us what we want or need - what Malcolm Gladwell refers to as "messages from behind the locked door" - but how do you explain this?

I was making banana muffins the other day and momentarily forgot while watching a show. Right at the time I should have been taking them out of the oven, one of the characters said to another "want to get a banana muffin?" I mean, are you kidding?

Mostly, though, I find magic in the wind, ocean, moonlight, trees and clouds:
Two hundred seventy thousand feet above the ground, higher than 99.9 percent of the earth’s air, clouds still float around — thin, iridescent wisps of electric blue.


The New York Times reported:
NASA is launching a small satellite to take a closer look at these clouds at the edge of outer space and to try to understand why, in recent years, they are appearing more often over more parts of the world. They are also becoming brighter.

The clouds are called noctilucent or “night shining,” because from the ground they can be seen only at night as they float about 50 miles above the surface, illuminated by light from a Sun that has already set below the horizon. (That is essentially the same effect that makes moonlight.)

Even scientists who spend their days studying the atmosphere are amazed:
“They’re beautiful,” said James M. Russell III, co-director of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at Hampton University in Virginia and principal investigator of the NASA mission. “The pictures do a good job, but it’s not like seeing them.”

There's so much in this world that I don't understand: hip-hop/rap music, horror films, rollercoasters, hunting, football. I hear that people like these things because "they need an escape" but with so much magic in the world, why do people seek escape through violence?

Eyes, lips and hands

I finally finished Blink and nearly cried at the last story about the female French horn player being hired by the Met because they finally "saw her for who she really was." I think the idea of seeing people for who they really are is probably the most Utopian idea I've ever heard of. I'm sure that no one sees even themselves for who they really are, and we can never truly know another person, but even so, I am in love with the idea that we have a beauty within that can be freed from the perceptions of gender, race, nationality, financial status, height, weight, hair color, eye color, etc.

This is, perhaps, EXACTLY what's wrong with online personals. There's really no chance to see a person for who they really are. By the time you meet them, you've already made a million snap judgments based on how old they are, the way they look, where they live, what they do, how much money they make and how they filled out their essays. It's got to be the most inorganic way to decide whether we like a person. There are only three things I need to see to know if I'm attracted to someone: eyes, lips and hands. I swear. I can look at those three things and I do or don't want to make out with that person.

Now, compatibility is something more complicated of course, but I still don't believe it can be determined by filling out online essays and comparing notes. I think it's something much closer to the blind auditions that Malcolm Gladwell writes about because being attracted to someone IS like being blind. How many times have you said, "I never thought I would be attracted to... [fill in the blank]" and cease to see anything other than a person you love and really want to get along with?

If online personals can figure out a way to see show us only what we need to establish an attraction, they could actually work better than the old-fashioned way.

Who's delivering the message?

I was having breakfast with some ladies last weekend. A TV writer was telling me about teaching summer school algebra at an inner-city school in LA. She said there were two distinct groups of kids taking her class: freshman Korean kids who were hoping to get into a more advanced math class the next year and African-American seniors who were getting a last chance not to fail out of school. These kids, she made a deal with.

"I have no interest in failing you," she said, "it's in my best interest that you graduate high school." The only two requirements she told them, to passing the class are 1) Show up every day and 2) Don't prevent any one else from learning. They didn't do either of those things and almost all of them failed.

One kid, however, wanted to turn in his homework. He asked her if there was a way to do it without his friends seeing. See, it wouldn't be cool to turn in homework. They would accuse him of "trying to be white". In his culture, learning and doing well in school (and presumably getting a job and everything else that might follow) is equated with whiteness.

The Korean kids are raised in a Korean culture, here in LA, that has a very clear definition of success. Their definition of success does not threaten their culture, because it's defined by their culture and supported by their community in the United States.

Malcolm Gladwell, in Blink, talks about just how pervasive it is in our society to associate positive ideas with whites and negative idea with blacks. Even liberal, open-minded whites and enlightened, successful blacks are susceptible to the subtle associations between blacks and crime, drugs, and a lack of education.

In what I believe is a search for cultural identity, the kids failing out of school are rebelling against what they feel is an attempt by the dominant culture to absorb them. All they've done is develop a completely whacked definition of success that doesn't include getting an education or a job that requires an education and unless they have an entire community supporting them in some other type of endeavor, they aren't going to have a lot of options.

When this woman was telling me about her students, I thought to myself 'she got it all wrong'. She assumed if she set the bar so low, they couldn't possibly fail. But how can they rebel against the dominant culture when the dominant culture is constantly lowering the bar and expecting less and less of them? What would happen if a teacher demanded everything? Pushed them to succeed. Embarrassed them when they came unprepared and tracked them down if they didn't show. It's a lot of work, I know, and few want to do it but guess what? If you set the bar so high they can't possibly reach it, they can rebel without even trying and in the meantime, might actually turn in some homework.

A friend of mine who teaches in Jamaica, Queens, does just that. She's been attacked, her life threatened and kids in her classes have died - they live difficult lives that I can't even imagine. But she has students that have gone to Columbia and other universities because she tells them that they can and they should. She tells them they are wanted at those schools and the schools will pay them to come. She tells them every day because words have that kind of power.

My friend, like me, is white and although her message gets through, it's not easy because of who she is. Her school has several teachers who are graduates of that school and they, she said, are received very well by the students. They can say, "I'm you. I went to this school. I grew up this neighborhood. I'm not trying to change you, just give you options and a view into the bigger world."

I always say that everything is marketing and this is a perfect example. The three most important things to determine when selling anything are:
1) Who is your audience?
2) What is your message?
3) Who's delivering the message?
It's everything.

The power of images

I've been reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I loved The Tipping Point, a great marketing book, and a friend said I should read Blink. In it, he talks about how powerful words and images are, even in small doses on a short term basis. Someone reading angry words will become angry, a person seeing images of a minority group committing crimes will become disposed to distrusting that minority group, etc.

I live in Los Angeles and while I've often known that the entertainment industry is by far the most sexist industry in the country - only 7% of working directors are women (for reference, approximately 16% of federally elected seats are held by women - not exactly a bragging point to begin with).

Even so, I'm constantly amazed by the movie posters that I'm subjected to on my way to work. I won't even get into the "Black Snake Moan" poster that is just beyond bizarre, or the "Captivity" poster that basically showed Elisha Cuthbert being MURDERED (it was taken off of buses after protest).

I'll just mention the three movies being advertised now on every billboard and bus stop on my eight mile commute. See if you can spot the theme:

"Perfect Stranger" - Halle Berry looks terrified at a menacing Bruce Willis.

"Disturbia" - The tagline is "Every killer lives next door to someone" while a terrified female is both menaced by the shadow of a man AND watched by another man through binoculars.

"Fracture" - Anthony Hopkins looks menacing and the headline is "I shot my wife."

I know. It's not something we normally think about but what do you think the unconscious reaction to this kind of messaging is?