A new low, even for AMC

[Bobby Henderson]

Nowadays, it would, likely, be impossible to remake a movie like Logan's Run or Barbarella, not because sex is taboo but because people, these days, just don't know how to portray eroticism on screen, anymore.

For various reasons, sex isn't all that special or interesting anymore. People in the Gen-Z and Millennial generation groups are having less sex and fewer sexual partners than people in their parents or grandparents generations. The sex activity declines are spreading to people in Gen-X and older groups too.

One of the key problems is people are living more isolated lives. It's easy to disconnect and replace in-person human interactions with digital substitutes. But that's coming at a cost of slow atrophy in social skills and one's sense of reality or world-view. We have a growing number of young adults describing themselves as "asexual" -they don't have any partners and don't want any either. They've opted out.

A bunch of younger people (and, hell, even people my age) have grown up as children of divorce. I'm sure those life experiences have colored their perspectives on movies containing "love stories" or various cheaper, more transactional portrayals of sex. "Happily ever after" just doesn't sell very well to a lot of people anymore. And there is a whole lot of bad that can come with a booty call.

I think movies can still speak to these audiences with sexual subject matter. But it can't be done like it was in the past. The key thing is the story has to be relatable to modern audiences. Easier said than done though.

[Randy Stankey]

People just don't understand what eroticism is, anymore. They don't have any concept of what fantasy is. They don't understand anticipation. All they think about is taking off their clothes and bustin' a nut. Once that's done, it's "game over."

The whole point of sex (in movies) is about the things that lead up to the climactic moment, not the climax, itself. Anybody can hop into bed and have an orgasm. It's the feeling one gets, beforehand, that makes things erotic.

I think you're right. The internet has a lot to do with it. A moment a go, I googled "naked women" just to see what would happen. Three or four of the top ten images were porn. Only one or two of the whole first page of results were what I would call artistic nudes.

If people can't even look up erotic words without getting splattered by seedy porn images, how will they perceive eroticism in movies beyond the old bump-and-grind?

I agree with you. The story is key. The idea that I'm getting at is about the same thing. It's the story that makes plain sex erotic.

[Bobby Henderson]

I agree, too many people don't understand eroticism. They're not in touch with what makes something sensual. Getting a sensual vibe out of something doesn't need to involve physical sex either. It's in the mind. It's how someone observes another person and/or what they're doing as being seductive.

The way people "consume" hardcore porn is part of the problem. To be fair, some porn is crafted to appeal more to women (and be more tasteful, emotional and relational, but also present fantasies that women like). Too much of porn is like a gymnastics routine, all of it goal-oriented. The act is no more special than taking a piss. The only difference is a jolt to the central nervous system at the end of it. The performed "sex" in the scene may be real, but the situations are totally fake. So many parents don't bother to teach their kids about "the birds and bees" -such as the important parts, like emotionally connecting with another human being. So the kids learn from bullshit they hear from other kids and by watching porn online. They get a lot of bad information and then actually try out some of the stunts they watched in real life. Yeah, kid. Go ahead and try choking your girlfriend and spit on her while jack-hammering her pelvis. Let's see how that works out. It's no wonder why some young people are choosing to be "asexual."

Aside from how people are misusing porn, the Hollywood movie studios have to move on from the old tropes. One of the most common is the guy who just can't manage to get laid and sexual contact is just unattainable.

I felt like that when I was a teenager. I loved the movie Risky Business. I could relate with the "Joel" character played by Tom Cruise. The movie was about more than just him managing to get laid. Still, the movie spent a lot of time building up to that first scene between Joel and Lana.

As adults in real life we find out it actually isn't all that difficult to get laid. I've been in dating situations where the lady was getting impatient or even pissed off that I wasn't making a move already. Our culture is slowly allowing women to have the freedom to get what they want without being slut-shamed for it.

One thing that hasn't changed: anyone can still get their heart broken. That feeling is universal. The emotional connection between two people is what matters most. That's where any love story or coming of age story needs to be centered. That's what will speak to both male and female audience members across all age groups.

[Randy Stankey]

The act is no more special than taking a piss.

Wait till you get older! Taking a piss becomes more "special" as you age!

I grew up in a bar. I have seen people hooking up ever since I can remember. That's one of the main reasons people go to bars. Right?
Whether it was in the 70's and 80's or in current times, things haven't changed much and people still have the same expectations about sex. You're right. It's like a gymnastics routine where (imaginary) judges hold up score cards at the end.

People need to learn that it's about the journey, not the destination.

If you want to put it another way, "It's the thrill of the chase."

[Bobby Henderson]

In my own experience there is hardly any chase anymore. I'd be on the couch kissing someone new and trying to see how far I can get with my hands. I'd get to first base and she would simply cut out the game playing and pull me to the bedroom. Hell, the couch has been bypassed a few times. The first time or two with a new partner can be awkward. I think a lot of people just want to get that out of the way. Then both people can focus on the next stage of the relationship.

[Randy Stankey]

Then both people can focus on the next stage of the relationship.

There's the problem! Most people (present company excluded) don't think about the "next" stage. Their one and only stage is sex.

More well-rounded people think in terms of whether they like the other person well enough to have a physical relationship where your average idiot just thinks about how to get the other person to have sex.

I think that's the reason why more and more people are declaring themselves as "asexual" or "non-sexual." They think of the sexual part of a relationship first and see that it's a dead end but don't understand how to have a good enough emotional relationship with another person that would make sex feel "worth it."

Anybody can go out and "get" sex, these days.

It takes work to have a relationship with others but people don't know how or don't want to put the work into it.

Change the phrase "have a relationship" to "write a good movie" and you'll have a good way to describe the state of movies, today:

It takes work to write a good movie but people don't know how or don't want to put the work into it.

[Bobby Henderson]

The situation is complicated. Despite what seems like easy availability of sex people in the Gen-Z and Millennials group are having less sex than those in the Gen-X and Boomers generations. The divorce rate is falling, but that's only because the number of new marriages is falling too.

Perhaps a lot of younger adults don't really know how to have a relationship with another person. Kids growing up stuck indoors connected to digital screens and then living in isolation as adults doesn't work so well for developing good social skills. Relationship skills are a giant step above that. Compound that problem with the unrealistic images and messages our popular culture sells to the public about love. I think a lot of young adults are holding out for that "perfect" partner to come along that checks all the "important" boxes on the list. It's ridiculous some people are being judged by the content of their Instagram profile. Gotta have enough images showing off vacations and displays of wealth and success. It's a depressing enough situation to make people just give up and settle for being single.

It takes work to write a good movie but people don't know how or don't want to put the work into it.

The higher ups (producers, studio executives, etc) aren't going to let the creative people stray outside the boundaries of the Save the Cat! beat-sheet clip-art formula either.

[Randy Stankey]

I think it has a lot to do with people having superficial attitudes. They only see their outward appearance to others as important but not the underlying meaning. People want cars, nice clothes and other worldly possessions but they don't understand or care about the meaning behind things.

When I was growing up in the bar I noticed a funny phenomenon in the way people behaved. I often saw people holding out their drinks as if they were showing them off to other people. (Prospective social contacts.) One guy might be drinking Budweiser. Another might have a Heineken. One woman might drink Long Island Iced Tea while another might drink "Sex on the Beach." People often seemed to hold their drinks out for others to see as if they were advertising themselves to others. They seemed to pose behind their drinks as if the glass/bottle they had in hand was a proxy.

Come on! Beer is beer! Liquor is liquor! Some brands are better than others, depending on personal taste but, beyond that, names are meaningless. How many times have you heard somebody say something like, "I got drunk on Wild Turkey last night!" How is getting drunk on "Turkey" any different than getting drunk on vodka? Some liquors have more sugar in them and drinking stuff with a lot of sugar can make your hangover worse, compared to others but, beyond that, booze is booze. They are virtually all the same.

Look at some of the ways alcohol is marketed. Goldschlager has flakes of gold in it. Tequila (mescal) has a worm in it. People act as if the gold or the worm has some kind of magical power or something. In reality, that gold you drank, last night, will just end up in the toilet the next morning. That worm, soaking in alcohol, can never become more potent than the liquor it's soaking in. Some people might think it's, somehow, manly to eat the worm while others watch but, in reality, it's little more than grade school theatrics. Didn't everybody know a kid in school who would eat anything for a quarter? Kids would catch a grasshopper or something and laugh while they watched him eat it! That's all that eating the worm from a bottle of tequila really is! Nothing more than a grade school gross-out!

People's behavior in bars is little more than a grown-up version of the school playground! Frank Zappa was, once, quoted, "Adult life is exactly like high school, only with money." (Paraphrased.)

People need to stop acting like life is all about having fancy cars or showing off to others by posing behind a bottle of beer or a glass of liquor. They need to think about what they really want out of life and stop depending on worldly possessions to define themselves.

Until that happens (likely never) people are going to live sad, superficial, meaningless lives. They will never have truly meaningful relationships with others and that will preclude the majority of them from having a meaningful sex life.

I think that movies reflect that. Movies, today, and many from the past, are little more than superficial reflections of what people think life should be. I agree that movies are fantasy and fantasies are often superficial. It's only natural but there's more to life than superficial appearances. And, so, I say the same thing about movies... There should be more than superficial appearances.

[Mike Blakesley]

People often seemed to hold their drinks out for others to see as if they were advertising themselves to others. They seemed to pose behind their drinks as if the glass/bottle they had in hand was a proxy.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. During my "girl chasing" days, I can't ever remember looking at a girl across a bar and saying "Wow, look at the drink she's got...I need to get her number." A more likely thing is, if you buy someone a drink and they're super anal about the brand of vodka or something like that.... then you might be dealing with a "high maintenance" person, but even that never fazed me. A girl wants a drink, I'd buy her a drink. We can argue about finances later.

We have 8 teenage employees. They are all over the map when it comes to their social skills.

[Randy Stankey]

I don't mean to imply that the observation applied universally. I'm sorry if I gave that impression.

There are plenty of people who just drink what they want without trying to impress others. I guess it has more to do with the style of the place you are in. Some bars are trendy. Others are more casual. I'd say that it happens more frequently in trendy bars than in casual ones.

Still, in my days growing up in the bar, I remember people being described by what they drink. (e.g. Some guy drinking Molson vs. some other guy drinking Southern Comfort Manhattans.)

Maybe it has more to do with the way a person is perceived because of the amount of money they spend on drinks. Liquors like Grey Goose or Hennessey are more expensive than the standard "well liquors."

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

The drink status thing must be more regional. The bars around me in Idaho don't seem to have that kind of environment. The majority are laid back, kinda country, mainly locals who smoke and don't seem to drink to excess, with the occasional tourist dropping in. Oh, and they all are smoking cigs. I haven't been to any in the bigger cities (like Idaho Falls) so I can't vouch for those, but they probably have more of the "status" types there. (As well as college kids.)

I have been working on a novel for some time now, and one of the main story elements is the relationship between the two leads. One is struggling with his sexuality (and is very arrogant, in denial and socially inept) and the other is quite comfortable with his, and has better social skills. The tensions between the two have been relatively easy to write so far, but there will be a point where writing will become more difficult as they grow closer to each other. My storyline is pretty much too intense (sexually and otherwise) for "mainstream" Hollywood (which is what I intended). I did have contacts at a certain well known "independent" studio, and I did carefully discuss some of the elements of the story with their project team, and they are (probably now were, since it was literally 18 years ago) interested in discussing the feasibility of making it into a feature length film. I have pretty much abandoned that idea as one of the stipulations for filming would be that a specific song, rearranged, MUST be in the film as it was the genesis of the story (and appears in the climactic scene). I am pretty sure the artist involved would demand millions in licensing fees if they even allow it.

Of course now the studio system has serious competition thanks to digital (one of the very few good things I can say about digital BTW) so I could simply make my film on digital, make a DCP and distribute it in a few different ways. I probably won't live long enough to see that happen though.

And to make this post somewhat on topic, I can say for certainty that my distribution terms would exclude American Monkey Cinema locations.

[Frank Cox]

If you release your novel or movie commercially you will probably have to arrange some kind of licensing with the songwriter (and possibly but not necessarily with the artist who performs it). You should have that checked out by a good lawyer who specializes in copyright law before the fact, though, since there's a really big hammer there.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

If you release your novel or movie commercially you will probably have to arrange some kind of licensing with the songwriter (and possibly but not necessarily with the artist who performs it). You should have that checked out by a good lawyer who specializes in copyright law before the fact, though, since there's a really big hammer there.

I had done so many years ago to find out the potential costs...it cost me $400 just to make the inquiry! They had handled many clearances for the artist in question and assured me that the clearance would be in the mid to high six figures. PLUS since I was doing a re-arrangement (that I could self-edit from my source recording) that additional fees would have to be paid to the other performers in that particular recording. It was going to be a major budget line-item, even for a studio film, and for an indie production, the music clearance costs would have been a serious percentage to swallow.

And of course, as you suggested, a lawyer will have his fingers in the pie as well. So that ONE song, for an indie production, could easily reach 30-40% of the total budget.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Went to see Ferrari yesterday, and I finally found a decent local Plex to go to. It's an older Regal 16 screen that's just a couple miles from me. I know it is also 4k laser as well, and appeared to be using Barcos. One of our Film Techers did the conversion there right before Covid. The only downside is that it's at a very busy mall and you need to allow extra time to find a parking spot and walk. The attached 5 story parking garage was already full at noon on a Wednesday. But there is another parking garage under construction. They also do run classic movies... No more AMC for me!

[Marcel Birgelen]

My storyline is pretty much too intense (sexually and otherwise) for "mainstream" Hollywood (which is what I intended). I did have contacts at a certain well known "independent" studio, and I did carefully discuss some of the elements of the story with their project team, and they are (probably now were, since it was literally 18 years ago) interested in discussing the feasibility of making it into a feature length film. I have pretty much abandoned that idea as one of the stipulations for filming would be that a specific song, rearranged, MUST be in the film as it was the genesis of the story (and appears in the climactic scene). I am pretty sure the artist involved would demand millions in licensing fees if they even allow it.

There's always Netflix, that's where disgruntled Hollywood directors go now, isn't it? Or if you want to make sure somebody rich pays for it but absolutely nobody watches it, there is AppleTV.
Also, the Korean movie industry is really up and coming, so if you can, maybe change the setting somewhat? Or if you don't want that, you should convince them to make "Hollywood Style" movies, just like the Italians did back in the heyday of the Spaghetti Western. Maybe entire new genres could come out of it: The Kimchi Comedy or the Bulgogi Drama?
Furthermore, you don't seem to have your Hollywood Accounting in place. Instead of paying the artist, composers and other license holders their six-plus figures, you promise them a stake in the profit. As a good representative of the Studio System you then make sure the movie makes absolutely zero profit, no matter what the box office may indicate.

If you release your novel or movie commercially you will probably have to arrange some kind of licensing with the songwriter (and possibly but not necessarily with the artist who performs it). You should have that checked out by a good lawyer who specializes in copyright law before the fact, though, since there's a really big hammer there.

For the novel, if you only reference the song and maybe quote a few lines of the lyrics, you should be fine. There are no copyrights on references and quotations, as long as they're reasonable and to the point, are also exempt from copyright.