An open letter to Hollywood

ATTN: Hollywood Studios
C/O The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy
The Direct Center of the Core
Earth, Sol System 00001

December 7, 2005


To Whom It May Concern:

I have been a loyal customer of each of your respective studios for years. From my first experiences seeing Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Land Before Time at the Bay Cinema to the life-changing screening of Quiz Show at the Guild on 50th to my recent trip to see RENT, I’ve shown up for whatever you provided, and devoured it all. My endearing love was shown when I begged to see The Rocketeer at the Village East a second time, when I spent hours on the phone to secure tickets to The Phantom Menace, and when I spent hours agonizing over the selection of my first true “date movie” (we eventually went to see Bananas at MoMa). What I mean to say is that I have an intimate knowledge of your products, and that I enjoy them immensely. Recently, however, I’ve had a bit of trouble discerning your new system for sorting and displaying your items. The old system worked incredibly well, which is why I’m at a bit of a loss as to why you would reorganize your merchandise. My main question about this new system is as follows:

Where do you exhibit all the new good movies?

I’m sure that there is something very obvious that I’m missing, but I feel like an idiot for not being able to work it out. Have these movies been moved to their own special theaters? If so, I don’t see any new markings to tell me where I might go to find these engagements. When Dolby Digital was introduced, and when 70mm prints were being exhibited in Manhattan, the theaters screening the equipped prints were usually surrounded by a box or marked with an X in the print advertisements, and there were no such marks on any engagement listed in this Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. Perhaps Crash was an aberration, but I wouldn’t want to assume that screed/abortion detailing a rather clichéd and ignorant take on race relations was supposed to be a “good” movie. You’re much smarter than that, Hollywood; that film was most obviously part of the new segregated exhibitions for terrible movies. I happened upon a theater showing good films when I went to see Serenity, but it had changed to a terrible screening room by the time I went back to view A History of Violence. I don’t think it would be too much of an inconvenience on your part to inform us film buffs at which theaters the good films can be found, because some of us are growing dismayed at the increasing number of cinemas exhibiting crap.

This weekend, I’m taking a young lady to see Brokeback Mountain, a film which promises to be quite entertaining. If the film is not moved to the few elusive good theaters remaining, and turns out to be only on the same level of quality as Robots, Crash, or any of the other lackluster films of the year, I will be quite upset and be forced to write you many more irate letters.



Regards,

James Rabbitte