finnegan’s film blog

Generally speaking, there are supposed to be two “good” movie seasons — the Oscar contender season between Thanksgiving and the New Year, and the blockbuster season during the summer. I saw several great films last Oscar contender season, including No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. But this summer, not so much. While I liked Iron Man, and thoroughly enjoyed watching WALL-E, they weren’t high on my list of “summer movies I simply must see.” That list would only be two or three titles long, and Indiana Jones was a complete stink bomb.

The Dark Knight is one I’ve been waiting to see since… well, ever since I saw Gordon hand Batman Joker’s calling card at the very end of Batman Begins in June 2005.

My fascination with Batman goes back to the late 1980s, with the release of Tim Burton’s Batman, starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. That movie, and Burton’s other caped crusader film, Batman Returns, got me reading the “Knightfall” series. In middle school, I started drawing my own comics heavily influenced by Batman. I was pretty obsessed. In 1992, I even dragged my family to a car show featuring the batmobile from Burton’s Batman (note the video camera slung around my neck).

My brothers and me (left) at a Batmobile exhibit in Idaho, circa 1992.

Although I read other comic books in the early 90s, including Spidey 2099, The Amazing Spiderman, and the X-Men, Batman was always my favorite. He’s one of the few superheros that doesn’t really have any super powers. Just brain, brawn, and gadgets.

All of that is to say I really liked Burton’s Batman films (which do not include the disappointing Batman Forever and unredeemably shitty Batman and Robin films). But Christoper Nolan’s Batman Begins was so much better. It was so much darker, and more believable than Burton’s versions. Not to mention that Christian Bale is the best Batman to ever cast a shadow on the big screen. If Michael Keaton is to Batman what Sean Connery is to James Bond, Bale is the Daniel Craig. He’s younger, stronger, smarter, and more convincing than his predecessors. I’ve been a Bale fan since seeing Empire of the Sun and the made-for-TV Treasure Island with Charlton Heston as Long John Silver.

But I digress. The point of this entry is that I’m really excited about the release of The Dark Knight tomorrow. If it’s anywhere near as good as Batman Begins, it’s going to be great. And so far, the reviews say it will be.

Netflix is taking movies-over-the-Internet to the next level.

Today Netflix announced the release of their Internet movies-on-demand box today. Similar to TiVo or Apple’s box — but at $100 for the box, and as low as $18 a month, cheaper than either — the Netflix box allows current subscribers to hook up the box to their TV (like a DVD player) and uses wireless Internet to play movies when you want them.

Sweet.

Anyone who goes to see movies in the theater on a semi-regular basis knows that ticket prices have been on the rise since… well, the advent of movie theaters, I suppose. But I’ve been frequenting the theater less and less over the past year or two, and carefully reading reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, because going to the theater has become too expensive.

And it’s about to become even more expensive.

Josh sent me this article from Advertising Age, which explains that the primary reason for rising ticket prices is inflation. “Adjusted for inflation, tickets today cost less than they did in 1977, according to the MPAA.” But because corn prices are skyrocketing, and theater chains make about half of their money from concession sales, ticket prices are poised to make their biggest leap in decades.

This year’s popcorn crop is down roughly 10%, said Larry Etter, chairman of the National Association of Concessionaires. In the past 18 months, the cost of coconut oil used for popping corn has risen 24%. And the price of the paper pulp to produce popcorn tubs has jumped 40% in the past 36 months, making the tub more expensive than the corn inside it.

[…] ticket prices may start to rise with demand. For example, going to see a blockbuster when it opens Friday night could run you a dollar more than going a week later.

Looks like I’ll have to become a little more stingy with the recommendation, “worth seeing in the theater.”

I’m left wondering if movie tickets are like gas: will people still pay the going rate, no matter how ridiculous; or is there a breaking point at which the majority of theater audiences will simply stop going?

Hello.

This is finnegan (of hburgnews.com fame). I’m helping Mason alpha test harrisonburgblogs.com

I’ll do my best to update this blog with a very pithy review or reaction any time I see a movie (either on DVD or in the theater).

Enjoy.

Netflix just announced that they now offer unlimited “Watch Instantly” hours to customers online. If you’re a Netflix customer — with the exception of the $4.99 2 per month plan — you can watch as many movies as you want online. Of course, not all their selections are available online. But most of the popular and semi-popular titles are.

This is expected to give Apple and their iTunes movies a run for their money… And now you know why the writers are on strike.

The Golden Globes will still be handed out this year, but there’s a strike on, and this year’s televised show won’t be much of an awards show. At least, not in the traditional sense.

As a filmmaker, a television producer, and a screenwriter — I’m not a Writer’s Guild member yet — I’ve been following the WGA strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) with great interest. I’ve had friends ask me when their favorite shows will return. All I can do is shrug, and tell them to take up another hobby, like reading, because I don’t see the WGA strike ending anytime soon.

So, what’s it all about, and why now?

It’s about money, of course. Money from DVDs and the Internet. When the WGA last signed their three year agreement with the AMPTP, there weren’t nearly as many TV shows on DVD. Today, all of my friends watch shows online, and own at least one TV show season on DVD. With the advent of the iTunes/YouTube revolution, network and cable channels scrambled to keep up, selling ads on their websites, alongside embedded video of their programs. These advances in technology and new sources of revenue led the WGA to believe that they are no longer (or never had been) getting their fair slice of the pie. And by “slice,” I mean four cents per DVD sold.

What’s fair? The WGA says eight cents per DVD would be a good start. But DVD sales account for almost three times what Hollywood studios make at the box office, and they’re not about to let go of those four extra pennies. Also, the AMPTP balked at giving the writers 2.5 percent of the distributor’s gross profit for online media.

Unfortunately for everyone involved — including the viewing audience — the renegotiation process has devolved into a Israel-Palestine situation. And I’m not saying that because there are a lot of Jewish executives in the AMPTP. This is a no-win situation.

NPR’s Kim Masters summed it up best when she said:

“I think at this point, the networks would rather undergo extreme torture than give the Writers Guild any kind of deal,” Masters says. “In all of these things, there is always an element of emotion. I think the networks are really mad at the writers and they don’t want to give the writers a deal. Period.”

Adding to the dark cloud accumulating over Hollywood is the pending Screen Actors Guild strike. Contracts between the AMPTP and SAG, as well as the Directors Guild, expire in July. SAG is expected to demand the same sorts of residuals from DVDs and Internet revenue that the WGA is demanding. In other words, the sky is falling in Hollywood.

Right now it’s affecting television viewers. If no settlement can be reached with SAG and the WGA, it will have a drastic impact not only on next year’s season, but on the big screens as well. Nominees for the 2010 Academy Awards will be slim pickins.

I joined Netflix yesterday. I realized that I need to stop buying DVDs (because I only watch them once or twice ever) and start watching more indie films and docs.. And stop supporting Blockbuster, the Wal-Mart of video store chains.

Currently in my queue: The Corporation, Bus 174, and Devil’s Playground. I’ll let you know how they are.