What's wrong with the movies?

Eight letters to the Editor of the NY Times:
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"Summer Fading, Hollywood Sees Fizzle" (Arts pages, Aug. 24) does not mention the most glaring disincentive for moviegoers: the high cost of a ticket.
On hot summer days, people were always game to spend $5 or $6 on even a middling studio effort. But with ticket prices exceeding $10, who wants to waste two hours on a dud?
Especially for parents, whose movie, popcorn and babysitter costs easily exceed $50, many better, inexpensive options abound.
Surely, inflation doesn't account for the bulk of these ballooning costs. Can't Hollywood reverse the direction of ticket prices?
Kiernan Mathews
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 24, 2005
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In "Summer Fading, Hollywood Sees Fizzle" (Arts pages, Aug. 24), Robert Shaye, the chairman of New Line Cinema, is right to suggest that Hollywood can no longer count on audiences showing up for bad movies out of habit, boredom or a desire to get out of the house. But the real problem is that going to the movies has become an unpleasant experience.
Mr. Shaye should become his own focus group and sit through 10 minutes of commercials, then 15 minutes of earsplitting and embarrassing trailers and a too-long mediocre movie in a sterile mall-like setting.
He'll know what ails the movie business in two hours flat, and he'll pay only $10.75 for that privilege.
Jennifer Clark
New York, Aug. 24, 2005
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The best reason for the "fizzle" is "not good enough."
Jim Hoover
Huntington Beach, Calif.
Aug. 24, 2005
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The last few times my wife and I went to see a movie, we were bombarded by a sound system blaring the sound track for previews and advertisements displayed on video screens that dominated the lobby. Even in the furthest reaches of this multiplex theater, the sound track was piped in, loud and inescapable.
Going to a theater now is like being stuck inside a giant video game. No thanks.
Bob Jones
Salem, Ore., Aug. 24, 2005
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Why can't Hollywood figure out that special effects, blood and gore, gratuitous sex and dirty words will never make a good movie?
A good movie has a good story and characters you care about. A good movie is written with any number of wonderful ingredients: intelligence, wit, intrigue, adventure, passion, humor and heart.
The sad part is, Hollywood used to know how to lift us out of our lives and touch a psychological chord that resonated deeply in all of us.
For the last four or five years, I've gotten more resonance from petting my cats.
Bobbie Kaplan
New York, Aug. 24, 2005
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Another factor in declining ticket sales may be the movie trailers that we see in theaters and on television.
These trailers consistently reveal much too much about the film, so instead of arousing interest by creating mystery, they make seeing the actual film seem unnecessary.
Sandy Camargo
Urbana, Ill., Aug. 24, 2005
The writer is an adjunct assistant professor of cinema studies at the University of Illinois.
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Gone are the days when movie studios had contracts with top actors to appear solely in their films. Actors' independence may be a good thing, but it comes with a price.
When studio executives had their actors on a leash, an actor publicly humiliating himself (à la Tom Cruise) would have made his studio apoplectic.
If actors are going to make their drug addiction or adultery public and then sign on to star in a mediocre movie, they should not expect too many consumers to spend up to $12 to see it. (It would help if some of Hollywood's movies were engaging enough that we could forget about the actor behind the character.)
If you can act, and your movie decisions are good, I'd rather not know about your private life.
Nick K. Mandle
Briarcliff, N.Y., Aug. 24, 2005
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There are many moderate conservatives (not members of the religious right) who have grown weary of being lectured to by those in Hollywood. Case in point was last year's presidential election, in which many in the entertainment industry were visible and vocal in their efforts to prevent President Bush's re-election.
I suggest that this extreme politicization is alienating many moderates and contributing to declining movie attendance.
Tom Kazazes
Greenwich, Conn., Aug. 24, 2005