As our 2nd Critic on the Spot, we welcome Carrie Rickey, film critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer for 21 years. Her reviews are syndicated nationwide and she is a regular contributor
to Entertainment Weekly, MSNBC and NPR. Rickey’s essays appear in
numerous anthologies, including “The Rolling Stone History of Rock
& Roll,” “The American Century,” and the Library of America’s
“American Movie Critics.” Carrie also hosts a spirited blog, Flickgrrl.
Every few days, we've posted a new Q&A between Carrie and one of us. Here's #7—our final installment—from John Yearley. From all of us at E.C., big thanks to Carrie for her thoughtful and candid answers to our challenging questions. Carrie, you rock!
Q:
I don't fault Hollywood for not creating more masterpieces (I think great art happens under a certain set of circumstances that are very hard to plan for). What I wonder is why they can't consistently produce intelligent entertainment. Movies like Apollo 13 and Training Day are not Great Films, they are good ones—intelligent, well written, and well acted. Hollywood has more money than anyone in the arts ever had. They have everyone in the world at their disposal. Why do you think they are consistently unable to put out good (not great) movies?
A:
John: In the 1930s and 1940s when the studios were the dominant entertainment form, 1) the studios were independent corporations answerable only to their boards of directors , 2) there was little competition for the entertainment dollar and 3) the studios owned the movie theaters and did not have to share profits. These vertical monopolies gave executives latitude to make everything from cartoons to newsreels to expensive prestige pictures to cheapo B movies. During that so-called golden age, the studio heads were in place for decades and there was a consistency of quality and output.
Studios no longer are freestanding companies. At least since the 1980s they are subsidiaries of consumer electronics corporations (GE owns Universal, Sony owns Columbia) or media conglomerates (Rupert Murdoch’s News Inc owns Fox, Sumner Redstone’s Viacom Paramount and Time/Warner Warner Bros.) The pressures on satisfying shareholders are enormous, which is why we see so many lackluster sequels made —the Shrek brand is known, and even an inferior Shrek sequel makes piles of money. To maximize profits, decisionmakers inside these conglomerates are pressured to synergize – i.e., Warners owns the Batman franchise and the Batman rethinks capitalize on the brand and on Warners’ Batman backlist. The emphasis is on big movies and big profits. Because marketing departments are designed to sell only blockbusters, smaller movies without starpower, i.e. Juno, are consigned to the studios’ independent divisions. It’s a miracle that these solid — as you say, “good”— entertainments get made at all.
