Ebert has a piece on his website about a really well-reviewed indie movie that failed to find any distribution and failed to make any money. Apparently Ebert received an e-mail from the movie's director, Tom DiCillo, in which the director apoplectically pulled his hair out in disappointment and frustration, and finally posed for Ebert a series of questions, which Ebert then attempted to answer in an exasperated tone. I enjoyed the general nature of the conversation, but felt that both Ebert and the director lacked a larger sense of perspective. Some observations:
1) People only have so much time in their day to watch obscure indie movies
I like watching movies, but in addition to working, and in addition to doing all the other things I like doing such as eating, sleeping, talking to other people, listening to music, surfing the web, and so on, I only have so much time to watch movies. Of that time, about 40% of that time is spent watching movies I either own or have already seen, and another 40% of that time is spent watching older movies I have not yet seen, of which there are many. Now that leaves about 20% of my moviegoing energy for current movies playing in movie theaters. Despite the marketplace being saturated with crappy blockbuster sequels and horror movies I don't want to see, there are still a large number of semi-intriguing "indie" releases coming out every month. Now, out of all those indie releases, the ones I am most likely going to see are the ones that either receive so much press coverage and critical buzz from places like Ebert, the AV Club, the Bay Guardian, Rotten Tomatoes, etc. etc., that I simply have to see the movie so that I can read all the reviews and form an opinion for myself, or the ones that are by directors I already admire and have the hunch I'm going to get my money's worth. I think we're experiencing an age of serious cultural oversaturation. This guy's movie might have been great, but when people like me only have time and energy for so many movies, there has to be something about this movie that says, "Hey, watch me before you watch all the others." One or two positive reviews is really not enough. The director should probably not take this personally.
2) Theatrical release means almost nothing anymore.
Ebert frets that this movie's inability to find a theatrical distributor means that it "has disappeared," although he does suggest at the end of his rant, "Maybe DVDs and Netflix and Blockbuster on Demand and cable TV and pay-per-view and especially high-quality streaming on the Internet will rescue you and your fellow independents." Maybe? How about yes? I'm pretty sure that films are no longer "dead" if they flop in the theater, or even if they fail to get released in the theater. As far as I can tell, even the big blockbuster movies barely manage to pay off their budget from the theatrical run. The reason why there's no huge demand to see a small indie movie in a theater is because there's no huge rush; people know they can just catch it on DVD. I also believe that indie films make almost all of their money off the DVD release, and that the theatrical release at this point is basically just advertising.
In sum, Ebert and DiCillo might want to calm down, take their heads out of the sand a little bit, and save the nihilism for something more worthwhile. It's going to be OK, folks.
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