From virtually its inception in 1997, I've enjoyed The Digital Bits Website, which does a tremendous job of tracking down rumors and release dates for upcoming DVDs. I even interviewed Bill Hunt, its editor, for a couple of articles in the late 1990s. And speaking of Hunt, he writes today:

Now then... if you're in the Hollywood area tonight, I'm going to be participating in a panel discussion at the Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Sponsored by the Northwestern University Entertainment Alliance and hosted by producer David Zucker (Num3ers), the event is called Film & TV & DVD: The Next Generation. Here's the description:

"Have we reached the tipping point? Is the ritual of movie-going drawing to a close as the speed in which new DVD titles reach store shelves increases? Has the filmmaker's craft been diminished or enhanced by ‘extras’ and ‘uncensored cuts’? And as the size of televisions grow and the era of downloads and on-demand explode, where will these trends ultimately deliver us? Hollywood Armageddon or a New Genesis?"

"The ritual of movie-going" is dependent upon providing product that audiences want to see on a big screen. And since Star Wars' release in 1977, it's been conditioned that if you give them big budget, effects-laden, relatively apolitical fare, it will turn out in droves to be blown away by the action on the big screen. Certainly, Philip Anschutz, executive producer of The Chronicles of Narnia and 2004's Ray Charles biopic isn't betting that the ritual of movie-going drawing to a close--he's betting some serious contrarian money on just the opposite. And he's got it to spend, with Narnia and Ray having earned a collective $353,078,995 at the American box office.

For background material to use in my recent post about Robert Altman, I pulled out my copy of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind. I have to laugh at the tunnel-vision of the filmmakers of the 1970s (and to a certain extent, Biskind himself, as he chronicles their rise and cocaine-laden fall). Sandwiched between blockbuster crowd-favorites of the 1960s such as Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, The Sound of Music and The Dirty Dozen and then the Star Wars, Star Trek and Indiana Jones movies (not to mention the bulk of Steven Spielberg's first twenty years of filmmaking), they don't understand what an aberration their late '60s to early '70s films were. Much as I love some of the darker movies of the 1970s (such as M*A*S*H, Taxi Driver, Chinatown, and The Conversation), while all of these films were critics' darlings, its always been popcorn fare that's kept Hollywood afloat.

How a slate of leftwing political movies such as Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, The Constant Gardener, The Interpreter, and Munich could be greenlighted for release last year is beyond me, unless Hollywood in mid-2004 assumed that a Kerry win was inevitable, or after he lost, decided to put the celluloid shiv into Red State audiences. Why anyone thought these films would make money is utterly astonishing. But, to build on Michael Barone's recent op-ed, the Hollywood left is currently as stuck in the 1970s as liberal politicians are.

Want the ritual of movie-going to return? Give mass audiences movies they'll want to see.