words.
"You could hope, after some of the loudest, costliest and most joyless products of the entertainment-industrial complex bombed this summer, that Hollywood would be having its Detroit gas-guzzler moment. That is, the point when a cobwebbed institution realizes that its main product is yesterday.
...popular films, the great American cultural export and the rare unifier in a toxically divided nation, are going the way of open Congressional districts and serendipitous love — to echo-chambered niches, where like-minded people can safely control expectations.
...More than ever, with the collapse of a number of tent poles, decent flicks are produced by premium cable television, or Netflix. Yes, Woody Allen still cranks out well-acted, original stories, but nobody watches them — by the standards of mega-viewing. And come the holidays, the studios will unveil an ornament or two of real durability, just to give executives something to brag about during awards season.
...Hollywood could listen to the likes of Elmore Leonard, who died this week, taking with him more knowledge of popular storytelling than the exists in all the suites of all the suits. He stopped writing screenplays in 1993.
“There were too many people you had to please,” he said in an interview. “This was a time when I needed the money, so I would adapt the scene according to what they wanted, and the result would be a bad picture.”
But what did he know?"
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Summer of the Big Dud
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