New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

To be fair they did a lot of good, too. We can thank Miramax for jump-starting the careers of Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Danny Boyle and Todd Haynes. The trouble began when others saw how successful they were and started to emulate The Weinsteins' techniques. Soon, releasing a film in December was an announcement that you had hopes for Oscar gold. In years past, opening a film in the latter part of the year may have been seen as an advantage - a prime example is Gandhi opening in December of 1982 and beating out E.T, which had opened in June, for Best Picture (I know there's a massive debate to be had here but that's entirely another conversation altogether. However, I'm going to the mat for E.T. Just saying). Today, it's a given. Opening a movie with possible awards potential at the end of the year isn't to gain an edge, it's just to stay competitive.

Whether it's because we're such slaves to these damn awards to the point where winning an Oscar is the only way we'll buy a ticket or marketers just perceive it that way, a year's worth of good movies are now crammed into a tiny, two-month hole. And we're left clamoring, and ultimately failing, to keep up. The only people who have time to see everything are critics and The Academy – and I have doubts if even they get to them all. But we're still the ones paying for tickets.

In my vision of a perfect world, The Messengers – fourth on my list now but about to be bumped down with Invictus, The Lovely Bones and The Princess and the Frog opening this weekend – opens in April. I promise you, marketing people, there are other people like me who will always come out to see a good movie. Just give us a chance and stop acting like you know what we want. What we want is simple. To see good movies all the time, not just in the winter. Is that really so much to ask? My guess is yes. Those who have the power will always take advantage of those who have none. Where's Keanu Reeves when you need him?

Continued:       1       2       3       4