BURNED OUT

I’ve been staring at a blank screen for about three minutes now, thinking of something positive to say about the film business.....


I’ll start again.

This week an item on MTV movies grabs my attention, seeing as how it relates to some of the recent comments on my posts, especially from my pal, English Dave, about the dire state of distribution. The item concerns Ed ‘Brothers McMullen' Burns and the death of the art house film (so he says). Ed’s beef is that his latest film, Purple Violet, has failed to get bums on seats. In fact, it’s failed to get anywhere near the seats since he couldn’t bag a distributor, so instead he’s releasing it as a download on iTunes for $14.99.

Not a great move, Ed.

Now I admit I don’t know much about Ed’s movies, but it seems he’s made the same one about eight times now, dealing mainly with ‘relationship issues’. In other words, a few folk standing in rooms either shouting at each other or not talking to each other, maybe with a bit of door slamming thrown in. What Ed fails to grasp is that this sounds too much like real life to entice the punters to part with their cash. We can all do our own door-slamming, thank you. As he blubbers, “If they’re not going to see Reese Witherspoon and Tom Cruise they’re not coming out to see me and Patrick Wilson. The audience isn’t there anymore.”

Not so, Ed, so don’t point that huffy lip at us. The reason people are staying away in droves from your movies isn’t Tom Cruise. They’re staying away from him too, if the reported box for Lions for Lambs is anything to go by. No, the reason people are staying away from your movies is because a) they’re not in the cinemas and anyway, b) there are much better films out there.

The question is, how likely is it for punters to shell out 15 bucks to watch a movie on a screen smaller than a packet of fags? For years people have talked up the great online revolution that promised to turn distribution on its head. Lots of people have sat on lots of panels yakking about online distribution, film on demand, mobile phone downloads and suchlike. Apart from filmmakers flogging a few DVDs on a website, I’ve yet to see a rush on this.

Maybe it’s because unlike watching a couple of minutes of nonsense on YouTube or any of the other sites for free, there’s only a few nutters willing spend more money than it costs to rent a film to download an entire feature and watch it on their phone or their iPod, a bit like being in the cheap seats at a gig, since the screen’s so tiny it detracts from the ‘experience’. It doesn’t seem to matter that the technology’s out there, because all the technology’s done is make us part with cash for the latest gadget and brainwash us all into only watching shorts, usually topped and tailed with some corporate message.

They used to say that adverts were the good bits between telly programmes. Now we’ve got a situation where we dummies fork out for the hardware to watch ads and fork out for the subscription to download the ‘good’ stuff. Why anybody would want to pay more than the cost of cinema ticket to watch a screen the size of one is beyond me. Apart from watching porn, cause at least you've still got a free hand. (see pic)

Maybe Ed Burns would be better off with a camcorder and a YouTube account rather than get all sulky about nobody wanting to release his films. As he says, “I don’t think I’m going to make another small dialogue driven movie for a while.” I don’t think you’ve got much say in the matter, Ed, not when the audiences’ bums are firmly planted on their own seats.