Hooray for Hollywood?

Hollywood cheats.

And they get away with it each week. Every Monday morning, our collective news media reports on grosses for movies that screened over the past weekend. We get dazzled by eye-popping numbers for a film's opening, or total gross figures for a James Cameron film that rivals the GDP of certain foreign nations. Some even make comparisons to classic films that were released decades before.

But numbers can lie. Especially when it comes to ticket sales. At one time, our parents bought their way into a double feature and possibly a newsreel with just a few sheckles from their pockets. Today, a family of four needs a credit card, and that's not just to get the points. In addition, the U.S. now boasts over 3,000 screens that include multiplexes, IMAX and 3-D theaters. Up until the mid-seventies a single film played in a solitary theatre. I wouldn't exactly call box office analysis a fair fight.

In turn, despite an extended recession, 2009 was a record year for Hollywood ticket sales. To make things more interesting, they accomplished this by releasing fewer films than the prior year. Without a dramatic rise in prices, how could this feat be accomplished? A slight of hand? Parlor trick? Creative accounting? Not quite. The studios actually executed on a sound business principle that successful companies have been using for years.

Find a product with universal appeal...then completely monopolize the distribution system.

The fact is, we love movies. They distract us from our mundane little lives. We escape reality for ninety minutes and even more importantly, we escape the house. Most of us don't even care if the reviews are good. If there's something playing less than a few miles away, we're in. In other words, Hollywood has us right where they want us. You see, even 60 inch LCD televisions and digital downloads on mobile devices are no rivals for the personal and social experience provided by a state of the art movie theater.

So, the studios take a shortcut. They release films about popular super heroes. They conservatively produce sequels to movies that weren't good the first time around. They attract young audiences with digitally animated animals in some sort of predicament, and a new wave of sexy vampires. A majority of these films fall into a specific category - - crap.

It wasn't always like this. Hollywood had a very long winning streak right through the 70's. The comparison is even more blatant when you compare some of those films with current Academy Award winners. Let's face it. How many times can you watch Crash, Chicago, No Country for Old Men, Slumdog Millonaire or The Hurt Locker? I'd be generous by saying once. From 1970-1979, the Academy awarded statuettes to films like The Godfather, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Rocky, The Sting, and Annie Hall. All these movies were quoteable, enduring, seen more than once, and in short, well crafted.

As long as we tolerate mediocrity and voluntarily fill the theatres for the senseless drivel that emanates from Tinsel Town, we will continue to get what we deserve - - C+ material. Perhaps we all need a new hobby. Something novel.

Like actually reading one.