I used to love the Oscars. Yeah, I get that makes me a bit of an outcast on the Right, but I don’t really care. The Oscars were about movies, and I love movies. Before DVDs, I had a large collection of VHS tapes (mostly used from Blockbuster, but I had them). Then I upgraded to DVDs, which were great thanks to the advent of bonus features. Now I’ve gone digital, which brings the features of DVDs with none of the bulk of having to store anything anywhere (or alphabetize).
Over that time, as my collection evolved, Hollywood changed too. They were always political, but somewhere along the line they went crazy. The Oscars went from something I looked forward to, to something I had to remind myself of. The hosts changed from someone who would do anything for a laugh (Billy Crystal) to someone who would do anything for applause over political agreement (Jimmy Kimmel).
When the nominations were announced this week, I didn’t even realize it till that night when I saw someone write something about how “Sinners” set a record for nominations. I’ve never seen the movie, barely heard about it, and the same goes for almost all the nominated films.
Hollywood is less relevant than it has ever been. Disney routinely bombs at the box office, which would have been impossible just a decade ago, and they’ve killed Star Wars, Indiana Jones and are slowly snuffing out Marvel. In its own way, that’s some kind of accomplishment.
Even Avatar: Fire and Ash isn’t living up to the hype. Sure, it grossed more than $1.3 billion worldwide, it’s petering out well short of the first one ($2.9 billion) and the second one ($2.3 billion).
Streaming is where it’s at, which I agree is a drag.
I do like taking my kids to the theater – as big as a TV can get, and however great a sound system at home can be, it can’t match a theater. But I also love what I have at home. Streaming, especially as snow storms loom over the country, is a great innovation that only gets better.
Movies and TV shows I’d forgotten existed are out there, at your fingertips and ready for immediate viewing. You can’t find everything out there, at least not yet. A movie I thought was hilarious as a kid – If Looks Could Kill – I can’t find anywhere. You have to buy it on a low-quality DVD (pan and scan, not widescreen) and hope it actually works.
There are a lot of movies like that out there that simply don’t have an audience large enough to justify the effort to put them out there. Look through Paul Newman’s IMDB page and you’ll see all the movies you know, but then you see a bunch of things that have you thinking, “What the hell is that?” Ever heard of “The Macintosh Man”? I haven’t.
I’d like to see these movies, either again or for the first time. But they aren’t out there.
The more I look around for classic and unknown movies to check out, the more I realize many of them are Warner Brothers movies. There aren’t really any studios left from the classic days with a catalog like Warner Brothers.
As new movies beat you over the head with politics and PC BS, I want access to that catalog, which is why I’m glad Netflix is buying Warner and its catalog. If there’s one thing Netflix knows how to do it is stream. There are some weird things on Netflix, if you scroll through looking for something to watch. If they buy Warner, that will give them a lot more, and much better, choices. I’m down with that.
Paramount is trying to buy Warner, too, but they just bought CBS and are kind of busy trying to unscrew up their “news” division – I do hope Bari Weiss is able to make 60 Minutes good again. I’d rather not create a super-mega company controlling even more access to entertainment by simply buying it.
As we retreat into our homes more and more, I welcome more entertainment coming in to entertain us. It’s a sad commentary that so much of that “entertainment” – the type that actually entertains us, not preaches at us – was made a long time ago. The days of “woke Hollywood” may be numbered, as their biggest night will likely draw an audience that will soon shrink to the point of irrelevance, if it isn’t there already. But the good movies they’ve made in the past remain and endure. There’s no awards show for that, but we will all win from it.
Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Show on WMAL in Washington, DC, and has a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.