Dear Sirs/Madams:
I realize that you are likely inordinately busy with your efforts to stem the tide of rampant piracy that’s likely costing you tens of dollars of profit and literally taking the food out of the mouths of set dressers if those insipid, pandering missives you used to show before paying customers in theaters are to be believed, constructing newer and more powerful technologies to make your Academy screeners harder to copy (or, as it happens, even watch), and your endless lobbying of Congress to ram legislation through that would essentially make any activity involving a movie that constitutes anything more than “press play” illegal. However, I’d like to take the time to provide a couple of points I think might help your audiences actually enjoy your movies a bit more. These observations sprung into my mind following my recent viewing of The Family Stone, a fairly representative example of the kind of dreck you regularly spew out and then have the temerity to complain that, of all things, piracy is the single cause for movie attendance to be down.
You may be unaware of this, but you really don’t have to include every demographic in each movie. Having said that, it was rather impressive seeing you work in a homosexual, interracial couple. That must have taken chutzpah! You are blazing trails! But it did set up that extraordinarily painful “conflict” when, believe it or not, your acerbic, uptight stereotype character got to start up an apparently unintentional (wink-wink) bigoted conversation. Not only was she picking on gays, but she also got in something that could be construed as racist! Brilliant!
If you need to add emotional weight to a movie, for the love of everything holy, come up with something more original than “one of the parents has cancer and will die by movie’s end.” It’s pathetic when, as Diane Keaton’s face came on the screen in the first scene in the movie I said to myself “I bet they’re going to kill her off.” He shoots he scores!
“Hamfisted” doesn’t begin to describe your dealing with the “main” relationships in this movie. So the two non-relationship couples spend a few hours with each other, then at the dénouement (AKA “okay, 15 minutes of celluloid left, let’s wrap this shit up!”) they’re so comfortable with each other that one “couple” is snuggling in bed together and the other “couple” is shown resting their heads together in a moment of tender intimacy? Really? Like an hour after they decide not to get married? Three cheers for believability!
A personal response to Dan Glickman
So, Danny here, the chairman and CEO of the MPAA, by the way, wants to correct some misinterpretation of their desire to close the “analog hole.” Alrighty, Dan. Here’s his letter and my response.
Hollywood isn’t the bad guy in content flap
Your Dec. 30 editorial, “Congressional copycats,” regarding proposed content-protection legislation resorts to the tired and perplexing premise that Hollywood is working overtime to prevent customers from watching our movies. In fact, the bill simply corrects a technical glitch that opens the door to theft of copyrighted material by individuals with the technical savvy and disposition to do so.
Hollywood is the only bad guy in content flap
Well Dan, that sounds somewhat akin to the MPAA resorting to the tired and perplexing premise that putting in technical limitations on what people can watch, when, and where is somehow good for your customers.
It would not prevent technological innovation. To the contrary, protecting copyright will speed innovation and ensure consumers have more options for viewing programming.
To the contrary, it will give you the impression that you’re protecting your business model while causing the average consumer to have fewer options for viewing programming. Furthermore, the people you purport to desire to stop, the ones with “technical savvy” will actually not be hampered in the long run. As has been shown repeatedly, the “technically savvy” will always find ways around whatever bastardized protection scheme with which you come up. Therefore, the only ones you’d end up hurting in the long run are the technically unsavvy customers that actually pay for your product.
The preferred approach to content-protection issues is private-sector solutions, and we have made great efforts to subject the analog-hole issue to public scrutiny and debate, particularly among technology companies. The legislation introduced in Congress reflects the output of that discussion.
Yes, the public is able to scrutinize the technology involved in plugging the analog hole. They are, of course, required to pay $10,000 for the privilege of scrutinizing this technology and then are unable to discuss — or debate as you so thoughtfully put it — their findings anywhere.
The analog-hole legislation levels the playing field for manufacturers in a narrow and limited fashion. Without this legislation, movies and TV shows cannot be securely delivered to consumers in the wide variety of viewing options they desire.
With this legislation the number and variety of viewing options would shrink and the level of functionality would decrease. Until you realize that the best way to win viewers and, oh, by the way, make money is to provide more functionality and value to your customers such that they are compelled to pay for it and instead maintain the “tired and perplexing” stance that the only way to keep your customers is simply to make sure that the same old shit is “securely delivered,” your industry will continue to slide.
DAN GLICKMAN
Chairman and CEO
Motion Picture Assn. of America, Washington
COLDFORGED
Movie Watcher and Paying Customer
The people that you rely on to make payments on your Mercedes, Raleigh
