There has been a huge stir going on around a new rule change that the Canadian government has proposed to its Tax Credit system for filmmakers. Basically speaking, the new law would give the Canadian Government the ability to deny certain projects the lucrative Tax Credits if they feel the project in question is overly offensive (too much gratuitous sex or graphic violence). The government claims the change in the rules is prompted by citizens concerned over where their tax dollars are going.

The response to this issue from many people has been to stand up upon the bell tower and cry out “CENSORSHIP! CENSORSHIP! CENSORSHIP!” They see themselves as modern day Paul Revere’s warning the populace that “The censors are coming! The censors are coming!” After all, no one likes the idea of the government telling people what they can and can not watch. No one likes the notion of a government dictating what is and what is not acceptable, especially when it comes to the arts. Art is a form of expression, a tangible manifestation of ideas, thoughts, emotions, perceptions and inspiration. Ultimately, censorship against the arts is therefore censorship against ideas, thoughts, emotions, perceptions and inspiration themselves.

This should never be taken lightly. The right to expression in its various forms is arguably the very cornerstone to any concept of freedom. And so, whenever the government steps in to restrict or limit or CENSOR expression we all need to look upon it with a very dubious eye. Sometimes, when that expression requires the victimization of another (like kiddie porn for example), we as a society approve of the government stepping in and outlawing it. But that is a rare exception.

And so it’s completely understandable that people get concerned when they hear the Canadian government is now going to censor filmmakers. How dare the government tell filmmakers (artists) what they can or can not put in or make the subject of their art (expression)!?!?! This is intolerable right? We should all fight this right? Right???

Well… no.

The main problem here is that the wrong question is being asked by some people. There are those who want us to believe that the question here is “SHOULD WE ALLOW THE GOVERNMENT TO CENSOR FILM MAKERS?”. That question pushes a button with us. That question will stir our emotions and our anger. It is a question that has an obvious answer. “NO!” But that’s not the correct question here, nor does it even begin to apply to this situation.

The real question we need to be asking is “DOES THIS SITUATION FALL UNDER THE DEFINITION OF CENSORSHIP?” I’m sorry, but the very clear answer to that correct question is “No. This is not in any way, shape or form an example of censorship in the least”.

For one to even begin to call this situation an example of “censorship” with a straight face, it would require the Canadian government to restrict filmmakers from making their films. It would require the Canadian government to ban filmmakers from making their movies the way they see fit. For this to be called “censorship” the government must in some way be stepping in to stop artists from freely making their art. And that simply is not happening here.

There is a massive and fundamental difference between STOPPING you from making your movies and REFUSING TO HELP you make your movies. One is censorship, the other is not.

The Canadian film industry is essentially a welfare state. It lives on the handouts the government gives it. Unlike the United States or India where the film industry pays its own way… unlike just about every other industry in Canada that has to find a way to pay for itself and be self sustaining, the Canadian film industry is basically a collective of baby birds in a giant tax credit nest with their mouths stretched open waiting for the government mama bird to come along and drop freebies in its mouth.

Anyone who gives away free money (or even just loans it) has the right to decide, on whatever basis they want, who they will or will not give or loan that money too. Let’s say I want to build a rocket ship to fly to the moon and paint a giant happy face on it to make the world feel good. I go to the bank and ask for the $700 million it will take me to bring my creative masterpiece to life. Here’s the question: If the bank turns me down for the loan, would they literally be committing censorship against me? Obviously not.

I’m still free to pursue my artistic vision. No one is stopping me. But it’s up to me to come up with the money I require to do it. The bank is under no obligation to give me money. If they do, then great! If not, it’s not censorship. In the same way, if the government gives a handout to your film project, then great! If they don’t for whatever reason, it may suck but it’s NOT censorship.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually love that the government helps out the Canadian film industry. But government handouts to an industry is NOT a birthright. It’s not a fundamental freedom. It’s not something filmmakers are entitled just by virtue of being filmmakers.

The debate on wether the new rule about extremely offensive projects is a good one or a bad one is certainly a good debate to have. The positives and negatives of such a rule change to the current system should be weighed, compared and debated. However, when some people start throwing in the term “censorship”, then the real issue gets lost, the title of the debate becomes deceptive and ultimately confuses the whole matter until no one is even talking about the same thing anymore.

Is the new government rule a good one or bad one? Will it help or hinder the Canadian film industry? Is it or is it not in the best interests of the citizens and tax payers of Canada? Honestly I haven’t formed my opinion on this yet. But the one thing I do know is that the new proposed legislation is not in any way “censorship”. So quit your midnight yelling Mr. Revere, you’re raising a false alarm.

[Source : The Movie Blog]

As some of you may remember, a little while ago it was announced that a new limited series of premium movie theaters are being built that will have a bunch of perks… but that also will cost you about $35 a ticket to get in to see a movie at them. This got a lot of people talking both pro and negative.

Anyway, our friend Brad over at RopeOfSilicon put up a great top 10 list of the things he would need to have in a $35 ticket movie theater if he is to even consider going to one. His list includes:

Membership cards and Infraction tracking
Pre-selected seating
No Ads and 3 Trailer Maximum
Private booths and suites
5 Ushers per screening
Meal and Alcohol service
No late entry
No children to R rated movies
Properly trained projectionists
Comfortable seating with ample leg room

You can read his article with his full rationale behind each point here.

I agree with most of Brad’s conditions. It should be mentioned that there are theaters around that already have many of these in place (and still only cost $11 instead of $35). Personally, I don’t see the need for 5 ushers per screening, but aside from that I’m pretty much right with him.

I would however also add a couple of things to that list:

1) Screening Room VERY close to a bathroom
Look, despite your best intentions, sometimes during a 2 hour movie you find you may have to hit the bathroom. I hate that… but it’s reality. When that happens I want to miss as little of the movie as possible, so it always frustrates me when I have to hike through the 15 screen multiplex to get to the 1 men’s room they have and then hike back. If you’re going to have a $35 per ticket screening room, I want a bathroom right outside the door.

2) The ability to change your ticket
If I’m going to pay $70 for a movie for me and my date, then I want the ability to change which show time my ticket is for (kind of like an airline ticket). I like to order my tickets in advance… but it my date is running a bit late for our 7pm screening, I want the ability to hop online and change my ticket to the 9pm show. That’s a premium service for sure… but I did pay $70 for two tickets.

3) No Cellphones
Shout out to James who put this one up in the comments section… I slapped my head when I realized I forgot this one. Unless people refer to you as Mr. President, or the letters “Dr.” are in front of your name, there is no reason why you can’t be without your bloody cellphone for 90 minutes. Check your messages when you get out.

So those those are things that I’d add to the list of conditions for me to pay $35 for a movie. What other things would you add to that list that could possibly tempt you into trying a movie at such a theater?

[Source : The Movie Blog]

One of the best things about the internet is the democratization of, and ability to exchange, information and ideas. When you really boil it down, therein lay the true genius of the web. This applies perfectly to the movie world since all film is subjective and open to our own individual opinions, ideas, interpretations and impression. A world wide forum where fans of the art can come together to exchange ideas and engage in debate over various opinions is like Nirvana to many film fans.

I love engaging in film debate, mostly because of what Movie Blog readers write in the comments. Quite often the best stuff on The Movie Blog isn’t written by the authors, but rather by the users in the comments section who are debating with each other or the author of the post. A good, intelligent and open debate is a very fun and informative thing to be a part of.

But let’s be honest, quite often forums like The Movie Blog and other movie websites have their arenas for the exchange of ideas and debate hijacked by those who just like rant like 6 year olds, hurl insults at the people they’re supposedly engaged in conversation with, add nothing to the conversation itself and in general just like to see what they typed up on the screen. These type of people are a cancer to sites like ours an others and become living black holes to suck the fun and enjoyment out of online movie debate.

Earlier today, I came across a great little post over at a site called “Create Debate Blog” that created a graphic illustrating the seven different levels of debate… ranging from the most idiotic and poor up to the ideal form of debate. The graphic was made with the issue of debate in general in mind, but I think it perfectly applies to the world of film debate on movie websites like The Movie Blog. The chart looks like this:

Let’s start at the bottom:

NAME-CALLING
This is where some people reveal their basic lack of intelligence the most. They’re so devoid of anything intelligent to say that they resort to name calling. “You’re an idiot if you think Star Wars isn’t the best movie ever”. Instantly the environment for an exchange of ideas and debate is killed and replaced with a hostile thread where it’s almost guaranteed nothing intelligent will come out of. Name calling is the fall back position of the weak.

AD HOMINEM
Another great method of the weak is to attack the messenger instead of the message. In other words, making the debate about the person presenting the idea or opinion instead of debating the idea or opinion itself. “How can you not like Juno? Like you would know a good movie from a bad one. You didn’t even like Hot Fuzz”. You see what they did? Now the conversation isn’t even about the topic itself. Their inability to intelligently debate the actual issue drives them to change topics and make the debate about the person instead of about the merits of “Juno”. Also, now instead of an open exchange for everyone to be involved in, the thread becomes a personal argument between two people. Weak weak weak.

RESPONDING TO TONE
We’re starting to get up into the more understandable areas here. “I don’t like the way you said that”! Ok, there is nothing offensive or counter productive really about this type of comment… but it just wastes space. It doesn’t actually address the content of what the person said… and therefore is a waste of space, and a waste of the readers time.

CONTRADICTION
There’s nothing wrong with contradiction. Not every comment has to engage in debate. Sometimes it’s perfectly fine just to express a contrary idea or opinion without debating the merits of another persons idea or opinion. For example, I put up a post about how bad “Jumper” was… another person may just simply comment “I really enjoyed jumper”. Fair enough. Part of the purpose of the comments is just to express opinion. Nothing wrong with that.

COUNTERARGUMENT
This is where stuff starts to get fun. “John, in your post you say Chris Tucker isn’t funny, but if you look at A,B and C I think it’s fair to say that he is indeed funny”. Now we’re contrasting our opinions and and giving reason for our disagreement. It’s still just in the arena of opinion.

REFUTATION
Very useful and informative… but it SUCKS when people properly do it to you (it happens to me all the time). When actual objective, measurable FACTS are able to be used to counter notions proposed by the other party. For example, I remember this one time where on the podcast I made a joke about how Sylvester Stallone would never be on “In The Actors Studio”… only to have a couple of people leave comments with the actual dates and episode number where Stallone had ALREADY been on the show. It’s a little embarrassing when it happens to you, but it’s also a great learning experience.

REFUTING THE CENTRAL POINT
This the the height of great movie debate and where it’s at its most fun. When people start to exchange ideas and opinion while staying on the central idea. When the starting idea is: “Chris Tucker doesn’t deserve $20 million a film” and then people on both sides stick to expressing their thoughts, ideas, opinions.. backed up by some (if applicable) objective data and where the participants keep the exchange respectful of each other… that’s total gold and a lot of fun to be a part of.

I visit a lot of movie websites dozens of times a day, and just about all of them (including mine) face the problems of a few individuals who try to sour things for everyone. But I think if people would shape their comments to the top four levels of that pyramid, comment sections on all film sites would be a much more fun, informative and even entertaining place to participate.

[Source : The Movie Blog]

I’m sure you’ve seen the articles popping up all over the place in the recent weeks. Traditional true “Film Critics” are losing their jobs at a break neck pace and are starting to disappear off our movie community landscape. Prominent publications like The LA Times, The New York Daily News, The Chicago Tribune, Newsday, Newsweek, The Village Voice and countless others have been firing, laying off or just not encouraging to stay traditional print film critics.

There are lots of smaller reasons why this is happening, and each reason deserves to have a chapter in its own book:

1) Audience attention span - Let’s be honest, most people (not all) would rather read a 2-4 paragraph quick take on a movie these days than a 2-3 page insightful analysis of a movie.

2) Economic realities - Film critics aren’t the only people in North America getting laid off and losing their jobs these days. Most companies and corporations are trimming staff and reducing head count. The print industry is no exception.

3) Loss of trust in Critics - I’m not talking about trusting their honest opinions or not. I’m talking about the new trend of critics becoming “quote whores”. Certain guys who will say anything to get their name put on a poster. The audience doesn’t forget that stuff.

4) The Internet

Ah yes the internet. There is no getting around the fact that this is probably the biggest and most significant reason we’re seeing the disappearance of the traditional film critic. After all, in the time it would take you to grab the local newspaper or magazine, flip through it and find the actual review you’re looking for, you could have jumped online and scanned about 150 “reviews” of your movie.

Some of my online colleagues (whom I greatly respect) are cheering this development. As a matter of fact, some of my absolute favorite online guys (who are still some of my favorite online guys) have been standing on proverbial mountain tops holding these stats and figures of the loss of Film Critics aloft like the head of a fallen enemy.

And really, that’s how a lot of online guys like myself have viewed traditional film critics… as THE ENEMY! Let’s be honest, most online movie guys (myself included) have often lived in jealous envy of the status, popularity and respect that the traditional critics get while the online guys still (to a point) get relatively little. And so, like sniveling little whelps we lurk in the shadows like Scar to Mustafa or Prince John to King Richard… eagerly bashing our “big brothers” at every turn… calling them “dinosaurs” or relics… talking about how WE are so much better than THEY are. If nothing else, it has revealed just how attention starved we are and how much of an inferiority complex we in the online world suffer.

So while some celebrate the demise of the traditional film critic… me personally… I lament it greatly.

As an online film guy, I can list to you 20 reasons why what WE do is valuable and has a place in the larger film community. The interactive nature, the conversational tone, the speed, it’s relational, it’s debatable, it’s something from a fellow film fan rather than a film expert… yadda yadda yadda. These are all things that online film guys like myself bring to the table that the traditional film critics can’t. HOWEVER….

There is a valuable contribution that the traditional critics make to the film fan community that is not better than online guys… but rather DIFFERENT than what online guys bring to the table (or, quite frankly are even capable of bringing to the table). Knowledge, skill and expertise.

What makes a great film critic is not if they share my opinions or not. All opinion is subjective, it bends, it’s never 100% consistent and no one’s will ever be consistently the same as mine. But rather, what makes a film critic great is his/her ability and skill in crafting words, their theatrical historical knowledge, their journalistic training, their experience, their understanding of the medium, knowledge of the filmmaking process and their ability to put elements of film into an historical, modern and relatable context that makes the reader feel like they learning something as they engage the review.

Guys like Kevin Thomas, David Ansen and Roger Ebert are (or were) able to deliver that sort of contribution on a level that, quite frankly, no one at The Movie Blog, Slashfilm, FilmSchoolRejects, Screenrant or other sites of our ilk are capable of even coming close to.

These are different things than what online guys like myself deliver (or even try to deliver). It’s not our place to educate or do any of those other things the traditional guys do. We share our opinions, express our thoughts and simply open it up for discussion. And what we do is every bit as valid as what the traditional guys do. With that said, it also means what THEY do is still every bit as valid as what WE do.

To me, the loss of the traditional film critic is just another step towards the reality of the movie “Idiocracy”. We’re programing ourselves more and more to just listen to what is easy, to pay attention only to those that already agree with us. We want our information feed to us in quick sound bites rather than in exposition. Where there should be a healthy balance of the online style and the traditional style, there is now only 1, and that is a detriment to the movie fan community as a whole.

So while some people in the online world are gleaning a sense of self-importance from this perceived “victory” of the online world over the traditional…. I see it as a massive defeat to the movie fan community as a whole. And while some stand and cheer at the demise of the traditional critic, I will personally bend a knee to those people who did what they did for so long, so well, and who were quite frankly 1000x better than I will ever be.

[Source : The Movie Blog]

So by now you all know that Oliver Stone is gearing up to start shooting his movie about President George W Bush later this month and it should be in theaters before the end of the year (they’re aiming to get it in theaters BEFORE Bush leaves office).

Over at CNN they asked a pretty simple question that got a lot of responses. The question was this:

“Will you go to see this movie about President Bush?”

Simple question. But by far the best answer I read was left in the comments by Keith from Texas who said:

“Why see the movie, Jack, when I’ve lived the nightmare for 7 1/2 years?”

I laughed out loud when I read that, but it also got me thinking. A lot of people hate Bush, a lot of people want to see him tried and convicted of crimes against humanity… and I can see where they’re coming from to a point. But as for me, I’m DYING to see a movie about George W Bush… but not for the reasons you may think.

It’s no secret that I think Bush was a horrible world leader. He’s done more to make the world a more dangerous place than any American president before him and found a way to make even more people in the world hate the US than before him.

Having said that… let’s face it… the man was in an impossible situation. Maybe he made horribly wrong decisions… but can you honestly say that under the circumstances and under the pressure he was facing that you would have done much better? He’s just been elected president, and all of a sudden for the first time a foreign attack is made on American soil with a catastrophic series of events that left thousands of people dead and BILLIONS of dollars in damage. Communities destroyed, lives ruined and a country in panic.

Put yourself in George W Bush’s shoes in that moment. Seriously. WTF do you do? You can’t do nothing. You have to do SOMETHING, and you don’t have a year to sit around and think about it. You’ve got very angry people screaming for justice, a nation hurting… and on top of all that you HAVE to be insanely pissed off. How the hell do you manage all of that? How the hell do you take a situation like that and make calm, rational and sensible decisions that are well thought out and wise?

THAT’S something I’d love to see a movie about. That’s a story that deserves to be told. Maybe Bush failed, but dear heavens, 99% of us would have failed one way or another under those type of impossible circumstances. I’m not trying to make excuses for Bush or the string of decisions he made following 9/11, but step back and think about it. It was a remarkable time under remarkable circumstances that would push the capacity of any human being. You can’t write drama better than that. It was the single most dramatic moment and decision facing an American President since JFK and the Cuban missile crisis and a look at how one mortal human being faced it, rightly or wrongly, is a movie I’d pay to see.

Maybe Stone will do a great job with this movie and maybe he’ll ruin it. Either way it’s a movie worth making and one I’m anxious to see.

[Source : The Movie Blog]