Cinema advertising and the leading genres in movie blockbusters

If you spend a while in the foyer of a major cinema you’ll notice that the movie-making industry really applies itself to the cause of persuading you to buy things, and its efforts are quite productive. 

The ice creamery promotes peace, love and ice cream, with a deeply held predilection that you just buy the ice cream. I feel the need, the need to buy ice cream (an artistic depiction of an iconic Top Gun quote for the two people in the world who may have not seen the cult classic).

The good old fashioned games machines work the room entertaining young children as they contest game after game. People are buying popcorn in ten litre buckets overpowered with butter on the inside and movie marketing on the outside. Even the cinema advertiser advertises itself on a wall monitor. It’s the hustle. 

Some patrons stand back, deep in group negotiations, staring at the electronic boards assessing movies times, personal schedules, movie lengths. They are doing maths. Maths is hard and fraught with danger and should be rewarded with popcorn. Cinemas know this. Two people bolt through the foyer with popcorn. They are late for the start of their movie, but they at least have popcorn, and considerable balance and coordination.

And then the foyer falls quiet. Quiet enough for a moment to hear distant reverberations from cinematic enthusiasm and you can feel the aftershocks through the floor if you are close enough to the action. A cinema foyer is an entertainment gateway and an advertiser's dream.

A movie has finished! Patrons trickle out, gesturing with vast hand movements and excitedly recreating and refashioning portions of the movie script. It undoubtedly was Top Gun: Maverick. Someone alert Tom Cruise; the fans have gone wild. Don’t worry – I think he knows.

His movie has just clocked over USD$1.1 billion of box office sales. It currently sits at the 29th highest grossing film of all time, but likely to crawl higher up that list. Since opening globally in May/June this year, his movie has 51% share of the U.S domestic and worldwide markets, which means folks are heading out in droves to see Tom and his planes.

I feel the need, the need to see this movie.

In movie blockbuster terms, you could reason that  the action genre (encapsulating tales of utter and colossal disaster and Thor) would hold supreme, with the highest gross film of all time (Avatar), the Jurassic series, the Avengers and all manner of other super heroes and now Top Gun in its stables. But this isn’t the case. 

 

Market share for movie genres from 1995-2022 shows that adventure has actually been the number one genre, followed by action, drama  and comedy.

The adventure genre is heavily dominated by distributors Walt Disney and 20^th Century Fox, who are both unrelenting in exploiting their legendary cash cows that include Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, Hunger Games, Toy Story, Pirates of the Carribean. 

However, at the mid mark of the 2022, it is indeed the action genre (57% of market share) that is leading the pack in blockbusters, with adventure (19%) straggling in its wake. Maybe it’s more Covid-19 fallout, with less adventure movies being made during the last few years. 

Alas, for your noting, if you are thinking of directing an educational movie, please know it traditionally earns 0% market share. Maybe lob some fighter planes in there and email Mark Ruffalo to see if he’s available for a cameo.

Am I too old to be going through a Star Wars thing?

Amazeballs album - Dark Side of the Death Star

I very recently watched a Star Wars flick again and now I'm freshly obsessed. Which was a goal in fact because next week I am going to the Galaxy's Edge, Disneyland's brand spanking new land made of stormtroopers and death stars, which are the prettiest most sparkly stars around.

The new land is called Batuu. It's a remote outpost planet on the edge of the galaxy and is the last stop before you hit wild space. I'm fairly certain none of this is based on rigorous study and experiment and is solely Disney Physics but that's okay because they had me at the first sod of dirt that was turned.

I'm hoping the Disney Imagineers have managed to evoke The Force, because I quite like the idea of getting what I want in life simply by concentrating hard enough. How lovely. I'll have All The Things, please.

Surprisingly, many people have not even seen one scene of the most cultic, iconic cinematic cashcows there has ever been. I know; I've polled all of the people.  I imagine I am one of the first bloggers in history to blog about Star Wars but anyway.

First the people who have never witnessed the greatness, Star Wars stars a couple of robots, a big furry bear thing, men who wear too much beige, an annoying lady with a retro Princess Leia hairdo, armed men in all-white outfits wearing tap shoes, and a cape-wearing lunatic, but we all have our foibles.

While the fanatics debate the intracacies of hyperspace travel, the exact measurements of the Death Star, and the main themes running through the series, for example, the power of knowledge and the inability to control your destiny and how awesome and powerful you are if you are the Dark Side leader, a few key questions that never get answered keep rattling around in my head:

• Why do storm troopers wear tap shoes?

• There is practically no responsible use of lightsabres.  Someone could get seriously hurt.

• Every single malfunction on the Millenium Falcon can easily be fixed with a blowtorch.

• None of the windows on any of the space fleet seem to be double-glazed.  Who builds a space thingy without even blinds or curtains to keep out the intergalactic chill?  Who?  I wonder if Richard Branson has thought of curtains for his flying harem of galactic Virgins.

• There is far too much work involved to become a Jedi Knight.

• Yoda would have had another 200 years in him if Luke had stopped hassling him with endless inane questions.

• I love Harrison Ford.

• I want one of those doors that slide open at lightning speed.  The first movie was filmed in the 70's, so why aren't quickarse speedy doors mainstream forty years later?

City of Dirty, Bronze Stars

Los Angeles.  Meh.  In a couple of days I will spend about four hours in Los Angeles Airport, in transit to Disney World in Orlando, Florida.  I spent a couple of days in L.A.two year ago - well, Beverly Hills and Anaheim - and I really have no interest in venturing into the city again.

L.A. certainly doesn't live up to its hype.  But why should it?  The wannabes transition through it, much like I will be I suppose.  They just stay a bit longer.  And bleach their hair and teeth a bit brighter.  And get paid a lot of money to act like someone else.  Or get paid a lot of money to act like someone else and take their top off.  We all make our choices.

The whole city reminds me of a large suburban industrial estate, like anywhere you'll find in Australia, except the people are prettier and the cars are flashier than in Fyshwick.  L.A. doesn't have a homely feel to it; I guess because no-one really lives there. 

Its inhabitants are there to get famous, infamous or to make money off people who are already famous and/or infamous.  I imagine one can lead a fairly lonely, empty existence if that is your goal.  It's all about posturing, knowing who knows who in the zoo, and becoming the next Home Improvement girl or Kardashian layabout.  Like, you know, totally.

When I arrived there two years ago I had high expectations for my travels around glamourous Hollywood.  I wanted to see a glittering studio city town, paved in red carpet, movie stars, child actors who should be in school and Lindsay Lohan shooting up on Sunset Boulevard. 

Apart from the Lohan bit - she was due in Beverly Hills court house when I was there - the reality is somewhat different.  I remember getting off the hop on-hop off tour bus in a rundown street and being told it was Hollywood, and I was standing on its iconic Walk of Fame. 

I looked down at the dirty cracked pavement and saw a faded bronze star of some celebrity I had never heard of.  Tom Cruise or something?  A metaphor for the industry that holds 'em close then spits 'em back out and turns them into fanatical cult members.  Welcome to Hollywood.

Evidently the area has been largely refurbished over the past ten years, so one can only imagine the horridness of it all in the 90s.

Icebergs Sink Ships

It's all terribly exciting that the 'new' Titanic movie is coming out in cinemas next week.  Well, it's the same old version that made squillions in the noughties, but the director, James Cameron, has converted it into 3D, so now we can practically touch the people as they go about their drowning and what not in the icy Atlantic. Charming.

I might confess at this point that I love the movie Titanic.  And it's possibly the creepy stalker kind of love, not the dreamy romantic type.  Don't be hatin' on Titanic or you'll have me to deal with.  And I can be scary and shit when y'all be dissing on my big boats.

And THIS is why you don't drive your
boat anywhere need a friggin' iceberg



Making stuff in 3D is expensive, and adding 2D's to a 1D movie is just one gigantic money pit and requires a lot of hard arithmatic.  Evidently creating depth costs bags and bags of cash.  Just ask Cameron, who is forking out $19 million for the upgrade, presumably so he can make an extra $19 billion as he continues on his merry way of milking the popular disaster franchise for all it's worth.  I could do him a pop-up book for half that price.

I didn't see Titanic when it first came out in the cinemas for some reason.  Although I've watched the DVD a few hundred-ish times.  The best part of the DVD are the commentary components.  Cameron has a real passion for the wreck and paid great respect to it through film and documentary.

I’ve never much liked Cameron.  Despite my admiration for the talents of various people in Hollywood, I tend to view their leftist political beliefs as largely hokum.  But Cameron has been to the Titanic wreck many times to film and has quite the connection to the sunken ocean liner.  So kudos.

My interest in the golden era of ocean liners came about a few years ago, when I was required to do a presentation on a topic of my choosing for my first ever uni assessment.  One evening I was browsing the university's library shelves, searching for inspiration the old fashioned way, when I came across a book about sunken ocean liners, written by Robert Ballard, the man credited with discovering the underwater graves of many of the twentieth century's great liners. 

I sat on the floor and read, glued to the pages; I couldn’t get enough information about the Titanic, Lusitania, Mauritania and Britannic.  My new obsession turned the chore of completing the course work into a remarkably simple task.

After my presentation on Titanic and her golden era, I decided that I would continue this research when I had time. These ocean floor monoliths weren't going anywhere.  I have no idea what forms the basis of my interest; it just intrigues the hell out of me.

I have since read tales of survival and of tragedy, and of the notorious mis-quotes prior to the maiden voyage of the Titanic, that are easy targets for derision with the benefit of hindsight.
 
The fate of the Titanic is a terribly tragic story. The desperation of one man - her creator - to achieve greatness and supremacy in the eyes of his peers, and the world, enabled him to envisage the most spectacular ocean liner ever seen, but it also drove him to challenge the forces of mother nature and ignore all calls to logic and reason.

His vain attempt to make history by pushing his super liner through a field of insurmountable icebergs is one of history’s great dramatic ironies, and one of its most well-documented tragedies.

Aliens, FBI and Richard Branson

In the 100 or so posts I have blogged this year, I seemed to have neglected the extremely pressing and topical issue of aliens, UFO sightings, abductions and various other close encounters of the kind that always seem to happen to completely fucking insane people.  I must rectify this terrible oversight and write about them forthwith.

It's lucky that some poor stooge in the United States Federal Government doesn't have to investigate every alien sighting of every moron who thinks they've seen something mysterious in the night sky that they can't explain.  Oh wait, someone does have to do that?  I suppose someone has to give a shit.

You may think the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) spends every second of every day tracking serial killers, pedophiles, cyber bullies, and other people that, you know, aren't terribly society-friendly, but they are also required to look into alien sightings.  They have squillions of interviews with crazy farmers and various gap toothed, trailer park folk on their website - "I done seen it over there!" U.S taxpayer dollars well spent. 

The FBI were first drawn into this craziness in 1947, when there were a "rash" of UFO sightings.  Coincidentally, 1947 was also the year that the movie, Miracle on 34th Street, was first shown in theaters.  The movie is actually of no relevanace to UFOs and aliens, but my qustion to you is this:  why did they first show a Christmas movie in March? Totally weird year, 1947.

I'm sure aliens - or extraterrestrial life, if I want to be politically correct, which I rarely do - do exist, but not in a form that is visible or comprehensible to the human race.  I imagine they are simple bacteria-like organisms, which don't translate very well on the Hollywood bigscreen.

But you can't convince the Americans of this - they are totally obsessed with aliens in their scary, Hollywood form.  Think E.T phoning home.  Think, Mork.   Think any moronic character that Steven Spielberg or James Cameron conjures up.
 
It's anyone's guess why aliens would assume a human type form.  And why would they go to America?  Surely if you are looking for other intelligent life you would go anywhere but America.  And why would aliens choose to get around in flying saucers; given they're a Hollywood invention?  If I, as a human, am puzzled by these questions, I can only imagine how confused the poor little aliens are when sitting around their alien boardroom wondering where to send their alien astronauts. 
 
I must say, I empathise with other life out there in the final frontier.  Little do they know that Richard Branson is devising a plan to go intergallactic in the next few years with his Virgin brand, which means all life in outer space will have to put up with a bunch of spoilt, rich earthlings on Branson's outer space party shuttles.  I'm not sure how Branson will make the flight attendants look slutty in their over-sized space suits but I'm sure he'll find a way.

Declutter drugs

Why is decluttering so difficult? I am currently trying to throw out objects that don’t and have never had any particular significance to me.  So, why am I finding this process so traumatic and difficult?

I have a storage unit filled with useful, and many more less useful, personal items that I haven’t seen or heard from in two years, but when I “visit” them (1st red flag), I can’t work out for the life of me (2nd red flag) how I have coped without them for so long. For example, I have a pair of black, sturdy platform shoes, that were glued to my feet in the early 00’s, that I haven’t worn for a good eight years. I know they sound terribly glamourous – prison warden chic, as it were – but I loved them.

They were a tad chunky, a tad heavy and a tad ugly, but for some incomprehensible reason they were my faves for quite a few years.  And then there is the long, dark green velvet (yes, velvet) skirt I have for reasons I cannot fathom.  It's very soft and comfy, but I can't leave the house when I am wearing it without being accidently mistaken for Anne of Green Gables.  Better being mistaken for Anne than Gaga, I suppose.



Coop in urgent need of a haircut

I recently saw the movie Limitless, where the beautiful (not in this picture, right) Bradley Cooper pops these pills that enhance his senses 100-fold, allows him to use all of his brain, and gives him an IQ in the thousands. I love how the first thing he does is write a book in three days (he's a copywriter). Anyway, so I jumped onto the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website, looking for word that these super-pills had been approved.  Pills that if I popped like jelly babies will make me as smart as Al Gore.  Oh, wait, they would need to take AWAY from my IQ to make me as smart as Al Gore.

It wasn't terribly important to me that they had been given the all important FDA gold stamp.  But, alas, it seems these magic pills do not exist.  I am shocked.  It turns out that Limitless is just made-up.  A whole bunch of hokum.  I wish someone would tell me these things before I get all disappointed, because the accuracy and attention to detail in Hollywood flicks… geez, foiled again. The same thing happened when I saw Al Gore’s soul-destroying, action-packed psychological thriller, An Inconvenient Lie.

I would never have picked his movie as made-up bullshit, what with all the scaremongering, lying, delusional scientists, absurdly inaccurate charts and graphics, and the fact it was narrated by renowned science-fictionist Al Gore. It's amazing how far Hollywood has come with special effects. I’m joking; I never saw his retarded mockumentary. And if I had, I wouldn’t admit it.  If I could make someone non-exist with my mind, it would be Al Gore.  

So what the bejeezus has all this got to do with decluttering? Um, I can’t remember. Oh yes, if I had one of these jagged little pills I could clean up my shite in no time flat.  Sure, I would be addicted to a dangerous, soul-destroying uber-drug, have constant headaches and seizures, and experience time-lapses that take me from Friday to Monday in the blink of an eye; but I would be all decluttered! Oh, and I want to write a novel as well.  And in the end, Coop doesn't die.  Bullet dodged.  Come on pharma companies, let’s get this happening.

Hollywood's aliens

Quite extraordinary what some actors will do for a paycheck and a little bit of the limelight.  The other night, I watched a bit of a particularly painful movie starring Keanu Reeves as an alien, who looked remarkably like an Oahu local, and Kathy Bates as the US Secretary of State, which is actually quite good casting.  Although, ever since her performance as a psychopath in The Shining, she's crept the hell out me.  But then I suppose the real SoS, Hillary Clinton, does too.

Why do Hollywood's aliens always speak English?  And why do they have American accents?  Are why do they assume a human appearance?  Are why does Hollywood presume that aliens would give a shit about California?  If I was an alien, I would most likely veer towards somewhere on earth that contains intelligent life forms.  So that kinda rules out the U.S. West Coast.  Oh, the movie is a remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.  That's a classic movie, right?  Well, I suppose there is no accounting for taste.  It's a friggin' stupid movie, and I picked up the remote to get it away from me.

Universal Studios Hollywood

Last July I spent a day of awesomeness at Universal Studios in Hollywood.  It was so awesome that I could barely stand it.  We arrived just after they opened for business, and powered past the giant monument of Jaws to get to the backlot tour gates before the marauding crowds. It turns out the marauding crowds don’t get up until about 11am, so it was all good. Until 11am.

I really enjoyed the tour of the studios, which included driving down Desperate Housewives’ Wisteria Lane, through Jaws’ Amity Island, past the War of the Worlds ‘plane crash’, and experiencing a fake earthquake in a train station, as seen in Bones, and a real fake real flash flood, as seen in, umm, I dunno. I was too busy freaking out over the friggin' flash flood coming down the hill to listen to the tour operator. We saw many other incredible sets, and others that were incredibly fake and tacky-looking that somehow manage to develop great authenticity on screen.

Now, back to Wisteria Lane, because DH is my favourite TV show and this is my blog. The set looks as fake in real life as it does on TV, but I didn’t care much, because I quite like plastic wisteria. Our tour guide told us they would be shooting later that day, so I got a little excited. But they probably say that to every one of the 5,000 tour groups they have every week.

I have heard stories of stars walking around in curlers, slippers and dressing gowns, but, alas, no sightings of Dr Phil.  We didn't see Susan, Gaby, Carlos or Mike either. We did see a few miserable props guys that seemed to be ignorant to the fact that they work on Wisteria Lane. They looked even more bummed when some of the tour group waved to them, as if they gave a shit. If they worked where I work they would have a cause to be depressed, but they work on WISTERIA LANE! I suppose the conditions and super plan for hired help in Hollywood ain’t that grand, so they were probably depressed about having to work until they are 120 to keep paying the bills.

Another highlight for me was Psycho’s Norman Bates at his little house. The actor playing Norm was straight out of Clark Kent Central Casting, but played his creepy role so perfectly that it made my blood run cold. As the tour rumbled up to his little shack, we looked over to see Norm carry a body wrapped in a rug to the boot of his car. At this point, he spotted us, and started running towards us, before getting out a large kitchen knife and just missing the hapless souls in the back row. It was scripted to within an inch of its life, but was very well done.

Universal Studios have infused massive amounts of money into their fun park to encourage the tourists to show up all year round. It was 35 degrees the day we rocked up, but they have these outdoor air conditioning units throughout the park that randomly spray you with a fine mist. It actually felt like you were indoors if you walked in the right places. It was very refreshing, but would be rather annoying if I had been trying to maintain humid-free hair. As it was, I was saturated not long after arriving at the park, so hair maintenance wasn’t an issue.

The cause of my saturation was the Jurassic Park ride, which I found equal parts terrifying and exhilarating. In a nutshell, you spend a pleasant few minutes cruising through ‘Jurassic Park’ in a boat looking at cute, squawking dinosaurs, and then you go up into a pitch dark building, where a T-Rex, with a mouth the size of an average car, tries to bite your head off, and then you drop about 20 metres to the ground into a splash pond. The photo taken right at the point when you know you are going down showed me practically in tears.

Before the Jurassic Park ride from hell, I was somewhat of a theme park amateur, but I learnt quickly that if the building that houses a ride is high, there is probably a big scary dinosaur inside, and/or a big drop into a body of water, and it is probably not my cup of tea. The Mummy ride straight after Jurassic had me distressed for hours.  And then we saw Delta Goodrem and Brian ‘Goodrem’ McFadden, like I hadn't been traumatised enough already.

After that, I reluctantly went on the Simpsons ride, because everyone told me how excellent it was, and it was a simulator, so how scary could it be. I was terrified the first time, but by the eighth time you couldn’t drag me off the thing.  I'm so not a fan of the show, but the day just got better and better after the Simpsons, which is not something you'd generally hear me say.

We wrapped up the afternoon hanging out with the Terminator. The incredible Terminator 2: 3-D experience is presented in two parts. First, a hostess from Cyberdyne Systems Corporation, where they make the robots, tells you about the company’s latest creations. Then you get caught in the cross-fire when live actors, who look like the real actors through your glasses, play out a 3-D film. Universal Studios use the latest movie technology, digital graphics, and 3-D cinematography, and this was showcased in the Terminator experience, and probably explains why you can’t distinguish where reality ends and fantasy begins on most of the rides.

The Titanic and my reluctant acceptance of James Cameron

Six and a half years ago I was required to provide a presentation on a topic of my choosing for my first ever university presentation. One evening I was in my local Public Library in Canberra, browsing the shelves, the old fashioned way, when I came across a book about sunken ocean liners, written by Robert Ballard, the man credited with discovering the underwater graves of many of the twentieth centuries great ocean liners.

I sat on the floor and read, glued to the pages, book after book; I couldn’t get enough information about the Titanic, Lusitania, Mauritania, Britannic, etc. And so began my inexplicable obsession with sunken ocean liners.

I created a visually powerful powerpoint presentation full of simplified diagrams of bulkheads, icebergs, keels and lifeboats. I spoke of tales of survival and of tragedy, and of the notorious mis-quotes prior to the maiden voyage, that are in retrospect easy targets for derision with the benefit of hindsight of the cause of the tragedy.

My new obsession turned the chore of completing the assessment into a remarkably simple task. After my presentation, I reluctantly returned my books to the library, and decided that I would continue this research when I had time. These ocean floor monoliths weren't going anywhere.

That was in 2004, and I have thought alot about these ocean liners since then. I have no idea why, or what forms the basis for my interest. It just intrigues the hell out of me. The fate of the Titanic is a terribly tragic story. The desperation of one man to achieve greatness and supremacy in the eyes of his peers, and the world, enabled him to envisage the most spectacular ocean liner ever seen, but it also contrived to push him to challenge the forces of mother nature and ignore all calls to logic and reason.

His vain attempt to make history by pushing his super liner through a field of insurmountable icebergs is one of history’s great dramatic ironies, and one of its most well-documented tragedies.

The Britannic was equal in size to her sister Titanic. And like Titanic, she did not take one paying passenger to their destination. Her life as a luxury ocean liner was never to be. Her exquisite livery and interior was stripped before her maiden voyage, when she was requisitioned as a hospital ship to serve her country in World War One. She now lies on the floor of the Atlantic, mortally wounded from a missile attack during the war.

I’ve recently watched the movie Titanic on DVD, for about the hundredth time. I unfortunately didn’t get to see it on the big screen when it was released for some reason. And, for the first time, I watched the commentary components, which were fascinating. The director, James Cameron, has a real passion for the wreck and paid great respect to the tragedy through film.

I’ve never much liked Cameron. Despite my admiration for the talents of various people in Hollywood, I tend to view their liberal political beliefs as largely hokum. When it comes to politics, I try to separate the man from the ball, but Hollywood people don’t make it easy.

Their views are largely devoid of any reason or logic, and if they could coherently explain their views to the public without resorting to completely incomprehensible gibberish that misquotes and ignores facts, most people would call for their heads.

Their political views are just an appeal to emotion; an unrelenting devotion and worship to the environment and any other cause that is popular with the Hollywood elite on any given day. (As opposed to an actual religion, as they are EVIL, as you must be an atheist to fit in with Hollywood types.)

Cameron is your typical left wing Hollywood windbag, who insists on dictating to others how they should live, the taxes they should pay, the cars they should drive, the correct toilet paper to use, the carbon footprint they should leave. I don’t care that Cameron is richer than God, that’s not my beef.

Just because you are wealthy doesn't mean that you can tell us how we should live; all the while flying around in your private jet, lighting up your own house like a damn Christmas tree, and rallying politicians to hit the peasants with ridiculous energy saving taxes that do little more than make the Hollywood smug-set feel good about themselves. It’s hypocritical and plain dishonest.

Anyway, so I read that Cameron has been to the Titanic wreck many, many times to film and has quite the connection to the sunken ocean liner. So now I am forced to like him, which is a great annoyance to me.