The cyberhacking of Sony Pictures last December led many Americans to wonder: “Is this the end of the movie industry as we know it?”
Yet Hollywood doesn’t need cyberattackers–whether from North Korea, as the FBI alleges, or fired ex-employees of Sony, as others believe–to seek its destruction.
It has long been its own worst enemy.
On July 22, 2014, a headline in the Hollywood Reporter offered this insight into moviedom’s current woes: “Average Movie Ticket Price Hits $8.33 in Second Quarter.”
Click here: Average Movie Ticket Price Hits $8.33 in Second Quarter

It’s hard to think of an industry that’s created a better recipe for self-destruction than the movie business.
Consider the following:
According to Rentrak, a company that keeps tabs on box office profits:
- Ticket sales to movie theaters in the U.S. and Canada are expected to sink to $3.9 billion.
- In July, movie ticket sales were down 30%.
- That’s a 15% decline in movie revenues when compared to those racked up during the summer of 2013.
- For the first time in 13 years, no summer film netted $300 million in domestic ticket sales.
Among this summer’s films that disappointed movie studios:
- “The Expendables 3″
- “Planes: Fire and Rescue”
- “Amazing Spider Man 2″
- “Sex Tape”
- “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For”
- “Edge of Tomorrow”
- “Transformers: Age of Extinction”
- “How to Train Your Dragon 2″
Click here: Film Industry Has Worst Summer Since 1997
Analysts had predicted a drop-off in movie attendance owing to increased use of online streaming. They also expected major television events like the World’s Cup to keep moviegoers indoors.
But they didn’t expect the summer of 2014 to prove the worst in ticket sales since 1997.
Actually, the wonder is that the movie business hasn’t collapsed already.
It’s hard to think of an industry more geared toward its own destruction than the movie business.
First, there’s the before-mentioned average ticket price of $8.33. You don’t have to be an Einstein at math to multiply $8.33 by, say, a husband, wife, and two to four children.
So a couple with two children can expect to spend at least $33.32 just to get into the theater. A couple with four children will be gouged $49.98 for a single movie’s entertainment.
And that’s not including the marked-up prices charged for candy, soda and popcorn at the concession stand.
Second, it’s almost guaranteed that even the biggest potential movie “draw” will be released on DVD or streaming within three to six months after it hits theaters.
Putting out a film on DVD so soon after its theater-release only cheapens the thrill of seeing it in a movie theater.
So if you need to save enough money each month to meet the rent and other basic needs, you’re likely to wait it out for the DVD to hit stores. Wait even longer than six months, and you can probably buy a cheaper used DVD.
With that, you can watch your new favorite movie as many times as you want–-without being charged bigtime every time you do so.
This is especially tempting to those with big-screen TVs, whose prices have steadily fallen and are now affordable by almost everyone.
Third, there are the TV-like commercials that overwhelm audiences waiting for the movie to start.
There used to be an unspoken agreement between theaters and moviegoers: We’ll pay a fair price to see one movie. In return, we don’t expect to see commercials.
Naturally, that didn’t include previews of coming attractions. These have been a widely enjoyed part of the movie experience since the 1930s.
But starting in 2003, theaters began aiming commercials at their customers before even the previews came on. Some industry sources believe cinema advertising generates over $200 million a year in sales.
Even so, it turns movie-theaters into expensive TVs, and thus cheapens the special experience of seeing a movie in a theater.
Click here: Now showing at a theatre near you – Louisville – Business First
But for those who feel they’ve already suffered enough at the ticket booth, being forced to watch TV-style ads is simply too much.
Fourth, while some theaters provide lush seating and special help for their customers (such as closed-captioning for the deaf) many others do not.
At AMC theaters, an onscreen advisory tells you to seek help if you need it. But your chances of finding an available usher range from slim to none at most theaters.
To sum it up: What was once thought a special experience has become a jarring assault on the pocketbook and senses.
Just as airlines are now widely considered to be “flying buses,” so, too are movie theaters fast becoming expensive TV sets for moviegoers.
In the 1950s and 1960s, theaters lured customers from small-screen TVs with film spectacles like “Ben Hur” and “Spartacus.” Or with new “you-are-there” film experiments like Cinnemascope.
“Family-friendly” movies like “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music” proved box-office champs with millions.
But now theaters have allowed their greed–for high ticket prices, quick-release DVDs and/or streaming and TV-style ads–to drive much of their audiences away.
Unless the owners of movie studios–-and movie theaters–quickly smarten up, the motion picture business may ultimately became a pale shadow of its former Technicolor self.

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NO SENSE OF DECENCY
In History, Politics, Social commentary on January 15, 2015 at 12:56 am“Senator, may we not drop this?….You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
The speaker was Joseph N. Welch, chief counsel for the United States Army–then under investigation by Joseph McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Submittee on Investigations for alleged Communist activities.
It was June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the Army-McCarthy hearings.
And it was the pivotal moment that finally destroyed the career of the Wisconsin Senator whose repeated slanders of Communist subversion had bullied and frightened Americans for four years.
Joseph McCarthy
When the Senate gallery erupted in applause, McCarthy–totally surprised at his sudden reverse of fortune–was finished.
Today, however, other Americans could stand to remember the question asked by Welch: “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Americans like Herman Cain.
Herman Cain
On January 28, 2012, he threw whatever support he might still have among the radical right to GOP Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
Newt Gingrich
Appearing with Gingrich at a Republican fundraiser, Cain said: “Speaker Gingrich is a patriot. Speaker Gingrich is not afraid of bold ideas.
“I don’t care about where he stands in the polls. And whether my endorsement helps him or not, that’s not the point. It’s to let my supporters know that he is the closest to what I represented when I was still a candidate.”
“The closest to what I represented when I was still a candidate“? That’s hardly a compliment.
Cain withdrew from the race in December, 2011–after four women charged him with sexual harassment during his tenure as CEO of the National Restaurant Association.
Gingrich, a notorious serial adulterer, twice began affairs and issued marriage proposals while he was still married to his first and second wives.
Then there’s Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
On April 17, 2011, toying with the idea of entering the Presidential race himself, he said this about Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and GOP candidate:
“He’d buy companies. He’d close companies. He’d get rid of jobs. I’ve built a great company. I’m a much bigger businessman and have a much, much bigger net worth. I mean my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney.
“Mitt Romney is a basically small-business guy, if you really think about it. He was a hedge fund. He was a funds guy. He walked away with some money from a very good company that he didn’t create. He worked there. He didn’t create it.”
Trump added that Bain Capital, the hedge fund where Romney made millions of dollars before running for governor, didn’t create any jobs. Whereas Trump claimed that he–Trump–had created “hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
So at least some observers must have been puzzled when Trump announced, on February 2, 2012: “It’s my honor, real honor, and privilege to endorse Mitt Romney” for President.
“Mitt is tough, he’s smart, he’s sharp, he’s not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country that we all love. So, Governor Romney, go out and get ‘em. You can do it,” said Trump.
Mitt Romney
And Romney, in turn, had his own swooning-girl moment: “I’m so honored to have his endorsement. There are some things that you just can’t imagine in your life. This is one of them.”
Clearly, the word “hypocrisy” means nothing to Cain, Gingrich, Trump and Romney–all of whom still harbor Presidential ambitions. But it should mean something to the rest of us.
In samurai Japan, officials who publicly disgraced themselves knew what to do. The samurai code of seppeku told them when they had crossed the line into eternal disgrace.
And it gave them a way to redeem their lost honor: With a small “belly-cutting” knife and the help of a trusted assistant who sliced off their head to spare them the agonizing pain of disembowelment.
In the armies of America and Europe, the method was slightly different: A pistol in a private room.
Considering the ready availability of firearms among right-wing Republicans, redeeming lost honor shouldn’t be a problem for any of these men.
But of course it will be. It takes more than a trigger-pull to “do the right thing.” It takes insight to recognize that you’ve “done the wrong thing.” And it takes courage to act on that insight.
In men who live only for their own egos and wallets, such insight and courage will be forever missing. They are beyond redemption.
Their lives give proof to the warning offered in Matthew 7: 17-20:
“Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
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