The box office has been taking a major hit in the past few weeks, and I don’t think Hollywood can legitimately blame this one on Netflix. For the first time in recent memory, no movie earned more than $10 million on the weekend of Sept. 8. Led by the underperforming Ben Affleck comeback feature “Hollywoodland” and the downright idiotic “The Covenant,” that weekend was a markedly poor one, but can anyone honestly think of a movie that came out in the last month that they were really eager to see?

I had hopes for the Ed Norton historical-magician piece, “The Illusionist,” but it was plagued by the major problem I see facing movies today, that being an emphasis on story over character or visuals.

Movies stimulate our eyes and ears first, and then our minds. In recent years movies tend to focus on just getting the story told as quickly and with as many star close-ups as possible. I don’t want to be a film snob, pooh-poohing anything that doesn’t mimic the masterful screen vision of Ingmar Bergman, but movies these days are often downright boring to look at. Of course I’m not a fan of the other option, which is the MTV inspired get-as-many-shots-into-10-seconds-as-possible method, which attacks and offends the senses.

I don’t want to give the impression that I think a good story isn’t necessary to a great movie. I liked but was disappointed by the recent Michel Gondry offering “The Science of Sleep,” which did not lack in expressive camera work but featured little to no character development or story. We are at a point in history where anyone with a digital movie camera and connections can get their movie on to the big screen, and new vision is always a plus for art, even if a lot of it sucks. And the past few years have definitely given us some interesting and entertaining movies, from “The Incredibles” to “Brokeback Mountain,” that succeed on almost every level. So Hollywood can’t be entirely to blame because even comic book movies, such as the excellent “Batman Begins,” have found a place for themselves among Hollywood’s best work.

I’m going to have to be rough with the American public and put the blame on our shoulders. I, along with the rest of you, have paid good money for movies I knew almost certainly were going to be marginal at best and left alone some that I thought honestly had a chance to shine (“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”), or at least would make me laugh my ass off (“Super Troopers”).

The reason is simple enough, and I know it is one that has guided everyone’s movie choices at some point. The fact is that movies are a social experience meant to be seen on a big screen in a room full of people. Ninety percent of the time, the person sitting directly next to you is someone you know.

Whether it’s a date or your friends, the people you know have the biggest impact on what movies you see, often even bigger than you know. Movies are most often chosen, and made for that matter, by committee.

No one wants to be the odd duck and suggest something that everyone else you know will hate. I recently made this mistake with “Repo Man” and will probably not live it down for the next few years. But I sincerely believe that if the public starts spending money on the movies that look interesting as opposed to easy, we would never be in this fix, with Michael Bay directing “Transformers.” But that’s assuming Hollywood actually cares what we think.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Cadenza. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.