The Day the Movies Died

Interesting read from GQ. Who's to blame for the state of films today? The studios, the marketers, you?

No wonder the films that I love dearly are hard to come by, see excerpt below on how Hollywood make decisions based on demographic quadrants.

"In Hollywood, though, not all quadrants are created equal. If you, for instance, have a vagina, you're pretty much out of luck, because women, in studio thinking, are considered a niche audience that, except when Sandra Bullock reads a script or Nicholas Sparks writes a novel, generally isn't worth taking the time to figure out. And if you were born before 1985... well, it is my sad duty to inform you that in the eyes of Hollywood, you are one of what the kids on the Internet call "the olds." I know—you thought you were one of the kids on the Internet. Not to the studios, which have realized that the closer you get to (or the farther you get from) your thirtieth birthday, the more likely you are to develop things like taste and discernment, which render you such an exhausting proposition in terms of selling a movie that, well, you might as well have a vagina."

On the bright side, there a few good films these year which I've seen recently - Inception, The King's Speech, The Social Network. And if you have the time, Black Swan and 127 Hours are worth a watch as well. But truly, I still crave more films like The Prestige, 500 Days of Summer, A Single Man, Shortbus. Yes, yes, I've got niche written all over me.

Read More: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201102/the-day-the-movies-died-mark-harris#ixzz1EW4rWogV