Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See
"Consider what might happen if Roger Ebert couldn't find a single movie to recommend on one of his weekly shows," Rosenbaum asks provocatively in this freewheeling critique of the American movie industry. Arguing that American moviegoers are consistently denied the right to make up their own minds about what movies to see, and even how to think about them, he reveals the powerful influence market researchers, production studios, advertisers, film critics and publishing concerns ("the media-industrial complex") have on how films are made, marketed, released and reviewed. Citing such diverse examples as George Lucas's draconian exhibition contracts for The Phantom Menace (which bound theaters to a lengthy run regardless of audience size), distributors' offers of free film junkets to bribe critics and the use of canned reviews and industry-sanctioned lists of "the 100 Best American Films" written by "professional blurb writers," Rosenbaum drives home his point that there is far more commerce than art in American film. Occasionally, his arguments are overheated (the fact that film festivals are often popularity contests is no surprise), but for the most part they are well-supported and potent, and successfully address broader questions of consumer culture and capitalism. Rosenbaum's journalistic style makes this animated treatise accessible to film buffs who want to know more about how movies get made, while his sound arguments make it a good bet for academic readers as well. (Nov.)Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.