The Death Of Hollywood

Show Announcement: Last night was the third episode of the award winning livestream that you can watch on Rumble and YouTube.


The Academy Awards show was this week and outside of the bugmen on YouTube, there was not much interest in the program. They claim it drew 19.69 million viewers, but they also claim that it is a five-year high, even though the number they claimed last year was slightly higher. Like everything else about the entertainment business, television ratings are mostly fake. There was a time when this award show was a big deal, but now it is mostly fodder for critics and comedians.

There are a lot of reasons why people have stopped caring about the awards shows, but one big reason is the product is dreadful. The nominees for best picture were a who’s who of films no one watched. The winner for best picture was a film called Anora, which appears to be a low-budget Slavic version of Pretty Woman. One of the runners up was a film called The Brutalist, which is about hideous architecture. It was also a low-budget, low-interest film that went straight to home video.

According to the bugmen who follow this stuff, the winner was supposed to be a film called Emilia Pérez, but the people who decide these things changed their minds at the last minute because the transvestite star had once held unapproved opinions about blacks and Muslims or whatever. Apparently, there is a hierarchy of degeneracy that the carnies are required to respect. It is Hollywood, so who knows if any of it is true, but it gets to why these awards show are floundering.

The Oscars used to be a popular topic because people were curious about how their opinions of the films stacked up with the insiders. Women liked watching the stars parade on stage and do their act in a social atmosphere. That only works when people watch the films and recognize the so-called stars. A Spanish man dressed as a woman, who is totally unfamiliar to Americans, lumbering on stage to get an award is not going to be a big draw for an American audience.

The fact is, Hollywood no longer serves the American audience. You see it in the box office for this year. The top grossing film is comic book movie that is popular with non-English speakers because it is mostly special effects and stupid dialogue. Half its gross is from overseas and you can be sure that a big chunk of the domestic box office is from people who are on the lookout for Tom Homan. Remove the nonwhite box office and Hollywood does out of business.

Of course, the dependence on foreign sales and non-English-speaking domestic customers is driven by the general decline in quality. Who is the biggest male lead in Hollywood these days? If you do not know, you are not alone, but it is probably a homosexual or a nonwhite. The same is true for female stars. The days of Hollywood stars being glamourous and recognizable are gone. Instead, it is a freakshow of random carnies picked from the diversity lottery.

Starting about ten years ago, Hollywood began to see a steady decline in revenues in North America, for both movies and television. Every year the gross declines, with some years seeing double digit declines. The remedy is to make an increasingly offensive product, which drives down the numbers further. Even easy things like remakes of classics turn into fiascos. The live-action Snow White has been repeatedly delayed because the diversity loons turned it into a punchline.

The funny thing about the collapse of Hollywood is that it is a good proxy for what we have seen in society as a whole. Unlike the government, colleges or the media, Hollywood needs to move product and that means they have to provide a product that the audience wants to buy. It is the ultimate test of the social fads pushed by the radicals over the last ten years. The fact that it was a disaster in the market should have been a clue to what was coming.

Things are about to get worse for the entrainment rackets. AI will soon make writers obsolete as software will generate scripts. Given that we know there are a finite number of plots and character types, and there is data on how these combinations appeal to audiences, it is easy to see what happens. Software will generate scripts that have the highest probability of success that year. That means all the experts on what is trending will be working at Home Depot.

Of course, the content itself will soon be generated by robots. You can now generate believable audio conversations using hints and suggestions. Businesses are already doing this for training and development. Video is coming online next. This not only will replace the actors, but it will lower the barrier to entry of filmmaking. Soon, teenagers will be making feature films that they find interesting. Just as digital audio killed music sales, AI will kill the Hollywood production studio.

To fill this out a bit, imagine you want to watch a film and you want something like the old spy thrillers of the past. You talk to your television about what you have in mind and it creates a feature film using your suggestions. Maybe it first suggests content made by others who had the same idea. Or maybe it recreates a James Bond film using period correct actors, but with changes based on your inputs. This is something that will soon be possible with AI.

What all this points to is that the woke lunacy that has raged for the last decade may have been the last effort at ideological control of the culture. The slow and steady erosion of the control mechanisms coincided with the woke rage. Perhaps the blue haired rage head was a reaction to the steady disaggregation of the culture that has been brought on by the technological revolution. She was not the vanguard, but a desperate rearguard action that has failed.


If you like my work and wish to donate, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar or a Substack subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars through the postal service to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 1047 Berkeley Springs, WV 25411-3047. Thank you for your support!


271 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
3g4me
3g4me
21 days ago

I don’t watch t.v. I don’t watch movies. I despise actors. I couldn’t identify any singer’s voice or computer-generated myuzyk over the past 15 years. I recognize some names because I scan headlines. What does Taylor Swift sound like? I couldn’t tell you. Latest krapper? No clue. Any awards’ show or charity ball or extravaganza is merely a showcase for the freaks – the ugly – the evil. They can (and do) celebrate themselves and their twisted reality but I have better things to do – like cooking for my husband or feeding the deer. My life has never been… Read more »

rasqball
rasqball
Reply to  3g4me
21 days ago

“Feeding deer” is a bad ideer:
(I know – less so for a rustic than a townsman…)
Odocoileus? There ain’t enoughofus
Willing to blast the lot for their meat and hides:
Exterminate the brutes!

(As for cooking dinner, tho… ; -)


RVIDXR
RVIDXR
Reply to  3g4me
21 days ago

Before I swore off Counter Currents for good, during the period what I now realize in hindsight was Greg firing & replacing all of my favorite writers, someone wrote an article waxing poetic about modern music. It was one a handful of moments of me realizing that I’m clearly not the intended audience for the site anymore. Now to be fair I don’t know who the audience for discussing modern music specifically is because the comments shared my sentiment. Dude was writing about & analyzing taylor swift & others like it was Bach lol. The only reason I know swift… Read more »

Ketchup-stained Griller
Ketchup-stained Griller
Reply to  RVIDXR
21 days ago

One funny lyric, that she had to change.
To state the obvious, I didn’t get my perfect fantasy
I realize you love yourself more than you could ever love me
So go and tell your friends that I’m obsessive and crazy
That’s fine, I’ll tell mine you’re gay

And one song I sing to my dogs after their baths: Shake it off.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  RVIDXR
21 days ago

Hilarious post! +100. A few months ago I was in a meeting where a man brought up Taylor Swift and, as he was saying whatever it was he had to say, I thought, “Who is he?” Then as the speaker went on, I thought, “Oh, it’s a she.” I’d never heard of whoever-she-is. I’ve lived without TV since 1987, and I don’t read magazines, even in the doctor’s waiting room, so I am totally divorced from popular “culture.” No recollection as to what the man’s point was.

RVIDXR
RVIDXR
Reply to  The Infant Phenomenon
21 days ago

I’ve learned the hard way to not read magazines in waiting rooms. My Irish dentist has a local Irish themed newsletter & of course, it was totally subversive. I live in a rural small town & even the tiny extremely localized journalism is inundated with anti White propaganda. The theme of that particular zine was about how Irish cops were racist back in the day & how anyone can be Irish if they get citizenship in the home country. I told my dentist about it & he doesn’t read it so he had no idea, ended up removing all the… Read more »

ray
ray
Reply to  RVIDXR
20 days ago

But that’s the thing. The Leftist mentality truly integrates politics into every aspect of their lives. They canvass n scheme n confabulate, with intense self-importance. V. different from Righties.

Lefties don’t have God. God isn’t a feminist or a socialist or a transvestite. So they fill that part up with their Holy Politics, which is their religion.

Last edited 20 days ago by ray
RVIDXR
RVIDXR
Reply to  ray
20 days ago

Well said, that behavior is very alien to people who only concern themselves with politics out of necessity. Sane people just want to be left alone & live their lives but these degenerates never stop & the nature of democracy means everyone has to be constantly obsessed with politics to fend these freaks off. Its so utterly exhausting, I mean everything about this system is just cancer. We can’t have ANYTHING without them trying to ruin it, there’s not one facet of daily life that they don’t constantly attempt to poison. Its like having a vampire living in your house… Read more »

ray
ray
Reply to  RVIDXR
20 days ago

Very true.

NoName
NoName
Reply to  The Infant Phenomenon
21 days ago

The Infant Phenomenon: I’ve lived without TV since 1987, and I don’t read magazines, even in the doctor’s waiting room, so I am totally divorced from popular “culture.” Back in 1987, I think it was still fairly safe to ignore popular culture. But almost four decades later, in 2025 Klownworld Hellscape, you d@mned better be OBSESSED with popular culture, else one day you’re gonna come home from work, and your waifu is gonna have a great big beaming smile on her face, as she welcomes you at the front door, and announces to you that she and your eldest son… Read more »

Shrinking Violet
Shrinking Violet
Reply to  The Infant Phenomenon
20 days ago

You still see magazines in doctors’ waiting rooms? Where do you live??? I want to move there! Here in left coast blue hell, there are no magazines anymore, not since the Covid scamdemic; everybody’s scrolling their phone.

Chris
Chris
Reply to  RVIDXR
21 days ago

I’m curious, around when was the changeover? I read CC, but haven’t been able to in a while, I’m curious how far back I should go. Thanks.

RVIDXR
RVIDXR
Reply to  Chris
21 days ago

It was a gradual shift of writers fading away but really went into overdrive in 2020 when it became very noticeable between writers disappearing & new ones popping up. Once they hired Jim Goad & went paywall suddenly the list of writers was updated & quite a few were removed which just confirmed what I already suspected happened.

I.M. Brute
I.M. Brute
Reply to  RVIDXR
21 days ago

A few years ago, the Nashville Establishment was touting Taylor Swift as the next big thing in Country Music. Thankfully, she moved on to bigger things and didn’t pollute our beloved music too badly. Nowadays, Nashville is desperately searching for the “Great Black Hope” to foist upon us fans. The Nashville Establishment has been fleeing from its hillbilly image for decades, bringing forward characters like Jim Reeves, k.d. Lang, etc. in an effort to broaden their fanbase and not seem so “country.” This is the nonsense that sparked the Texas Outlaw and NeoTrad movements, which basically saved Country Music for… Read more »

Krustykurmudgeon
Krustykurmudgeon
Reply to  I.M. Brute
21 days ago

Charley pride already did that

I.M. Brute
I.M. Brute
Reply to  Krustykurmudgeon
21 days ago

Yeah, he slipped in when we were still guilt-tripping about the assassination of MLK. Not many others since then. Gotta admit that old Charley was pretty good though.

RVIDXR
RVIDXR
Reply to  I.M. Brute
20 days ago

Ah yes I do remember that & now that I think about it, it was either that or kanye rushing the stage that I first heard about her. I do distinctly remember the media collectively wringing their hands crying about how she was treated by other country singers & their fans Speaking of, not that long ago I heard Beyonce had a meltdown & cried racism because country music fans didn’t embrace her country album. Credit where its due, that industry seems pretty damn resilient to subversion. Given demographics it makes sense that’d be the case but its very commendable… Read more »

Tars Tarkas
Member
Reply to  3g4me
21 days ago

Celebrity worship is one vice I’ve never had. Frankly, I’ve never been able to comprehend why anyone would take anything said by a celebrity of any kind seriously unless directly related to their “talents” Recently a bunch of CBD oil scams have been making the rounds. One of them involved falsely claiming Dolly Parton created and endorsed a particular CBD miracle cure. This was confusing in the extreme to me. Why anyone would take their medical advice from a singer is just beyond my ability to comprehend. A vice I do have is nicotine. I was in the vape shop… Read more »

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
21 days ago

Tars – well said. Yes, I too, have never suffered from celebrity worship.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  3g4me
21 days ago

Too bad you can’t make “celebrities” suffer from you worship. It would do them a power of good.

Johnny Ducati
Johnny Ducati
Member
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
21 days ago

Celebrity-branded liquor is another thing to avoid.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Johnny Ducati
21 days ago

Absolutely. Billy Beer was complete mule piss.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Steve
21 days ago

And yet it was ambrosia compared to Bidenbrau…

Auld Mark
Auld Mark
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
21 days ago

Tars, if you’re interested, two vape Companies I recommend make their vapes from real tobacco. They are four seasons and Blacknote.

Tars Tarkas
Member
Reply to  Auld Mark
21 days ago

Can you get them in the US? You cannot buy anything vape related over the internet in the US.

Auld Mark
Auld Mark
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
21 days ago

I’m in fl., get all my stuff off the Internet. 4 seasons is offered by many vape stores, but I get Blacknote directly off their website.even California has relaxed their shipping regs.

Tars Tarkas
Member
Reply to  Auld Mark
21 days ago

How do you get vape supplies off the internet? They won’t deliver. USPS, FED EX and UPS all refuse to deliver. What website are you ordering from?

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
21 days ago

My vape supplies get delivered by Fedex, and sometimes USPS. Here in AINO. Must be something about your state is my guess

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
21 days ago

Dear God.

Back when Hillary was trying to seize what americans are stupidly pleased to call “health care” (two words, please note), the buffoons in Congress held hearings on the subject. And since Sybil Shepherd had recently played the role of a nurse in some movie or other, they invited her to testify on the subject of “health care.” And she did. Small wonder that ‘our” country is circling the drain.

Steve W
Steve W
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
21 days ago

Where I live, grown men wearing Josh Allen jerseys are probably the worst offenders in the realm of celebrity worship. Of course, at least Josh is a white country boy. God only knows how many flabby middle-aged white guys in Philly are decking themselves out these days as Jason Hurt or Saquan Barkley.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Steve W
21 days ago

We’re peering ’round the sasquatch darkly…

Anne Arkie
Anne Arkie
Reply to  3g4me
21 days ago

For years I have been slowly assembling a collection of BOOKS and DVD’s as there is very little I actually watch on TV and I stopped listening to music 20 years ago. I accidentally heard Taylor Swift once and she had a screechy off tune weak second soprano voice, never did understand her appeal until I realized she was the product of the “next Brittney Spears” and “the next Justin Bieber” school which only selects and grooms/promotes for the under 13 crowd, then discards them when they hit 30. British films currently hold the most appeal simply because there’s no… Read more »

Pozymandias
Reply to  Anne Arkie
21 days ago

I tend to like the guns, explosions, and bright colors. As long as something is exploding or someone is getting shot, they are at least not preaching some stupid woke moral lesson at us. As far as British stuff, well I used to like Dr. Who until they turned the Doctor into a one-legged retarded trannie gay black midget.

ray
ray
Reply to  Pozymandias
20 days ago

Guns, explosions and bright colors seem very reasonable to me.

Lucius Sulla
Lucius Sulla
Reply to  3g4me
21 days ago

I checked out of popular culture for the most part (tv, movies, music) during 2020, and decided to start reading novels. I was previously mostly a non-fiction reader, but this world of classic fiction has been wonderful. Decided I really like historical period-piece fiction. I’ve read… War and Peace The Sun Also Rises (meh) Tom Sawyer (read with my son for school) Huckleberry Finn (also with son for school) Great Gatsby Call of the Wild Gone With the Wind A Tale of Two Cities Ivanhoe Lonesome Dove I did start Moby Dick but quit after ~200 pages. It was weird… Read more »

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  Lucius Sulla
21 days ago

Brutal short stories of race realism and conflict from Robert E. Howard 90 years ago:

“Black Canaan” 1936
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOn6kwcSmgI&pp=ygUeInJvYmVydCBlIGhvd2FyZCIgYmxhY2sgY2FuYWFu

“Grisly Horror” 1935
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjBrMO08Fkc&pp=ygUfInJvYmVydCBlIGhvd2FyZCIgZ3Jpc2x5IGhvcnJvcg%3D%3D

Ketchup-stained Griller
Ketchup-stained Griller
Reply to  Lucius Sulla
21 days ago

Anna Karenina

ZFan
ZFan
Reply to  Lucius Sulla
21 days ago

Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. My favorites that I have reread as an older guy

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  ZFan
21 days ago

“Les Miserables” is a fantastic story with an intricate plot, but Hugo takes up huge numbers of pages to depart from the story and give lengthy descriptions of the construction of the sewers of Paris or of growing wheat in France, so if Sulla can find an abridged “Les Miserables,” I’d recommend that.

ZFan
ZFan
Reply to  The Infant Phenomenon
21 days ago

I’m weird. When I went to Paris I insisted on taking a tour of the sewers.

Boris
Reply to  ZFan
21 days ago

Demons (aka Devils, aka The Possessed) is not only my fav FD work but probably my fav novel of all time. Just reread it last year. So many parallels to the contemporary West – the sheer moral rot that has invaded the West the past 20-30y was happening in Russia in the 1860-70s. And this year I’m almost finished with my rereading of Bros K. The money quote of both Mitya and Ivan: “Without God everything is permitted”. Doesn’t just sum up the West of the last few decades?

ZFan
ZFan
Reply to  Boris
21 days ago

Demons is on my to read list. Thanks!

ray
ray
Reply to  Boris
20 days ago

It does.

jms_inNorCal
jms_inNorCal
Reply to  Lucius Sulla
21 days ago

Les Miserables
Leatherstocking Tales
The Forsyte Chronicles

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  jms_inNorCal
21 days ago

Yes! And find and watch the Forsyte Saga that the BBC did in 1967 (I watched it with my father back then).

A Bad Man
Member
Reply to  Lucius Sulla
21 days ago

I am here to help you. Here is one of my lists — have read them all once, some 2x, a few 3+ times:

Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde

The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray

Robinson_Crusoe

Nineteen-Eighty-four

Something_Wicked_This_Way_Comes

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

No_Country_for_Old_Men

The_Unknown_Soldier_

Oliver_Twist

The_Sea-Wolf

The_Swiss_Family_Robinson

Jerry_of_the_Islands

Look_Who’s_Back

The_Time_Machine

Before_Adam

Dracula

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  A Bad Man
21 days ago

Many great suggestions – Dorian Gray may not be appropriate for his sons, but is a classic. I’ve not heard of “Jerry of the Islands.”

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Lucius Sulla
21 days ago

You can’t go wrong with Dickens. Nobody could contrive plots as intricate as his (except Alexandre Dumas). His works were originally serialized in newspapers on both sides of the pond. And when a ship arrived at an American port on one occasion, there were throngs of people on the dock clamoring for the news on “What happened to Little Nell?” a character in “The Old Curiosity Shop.” And since you already have “A Tale of Two Cities” under your belt, I recommend that you try more Dickens. “David Copperfield” would be good for your next one. If you want to… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by The Infant Phenomenon
3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Lucius Sulla
21 days ago

I’ve read all of those except Ivanhoe. Tons of recommendations; depends if you want classics or newer. One thing you must read with your sons (depending on age) – Rosemary Sutcliffe wrote brilliant young adult historical fiction – start with The Eagle of the Ninth (trilogy) but anything she wrote is worth reading. British author Hester Burton also wrote some good books – “In Spite of All Terror” features a female protagonist but is a tale of the evacuation of the British forces from Dunkirk. Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles are also brilliant (16th century Scottish nobleman around the world) –… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Lucius Sulla
21 days ago

Sketches from a Hunter’s Almanac / Ivan Turgenev
Master and Margarita / Mikhail Bulgakov
Glory / Vladimir Nabokov
Foucault’s Pendulum / Umberto Eco
The Summer of Katya / Trevanian
Moonraker / Ian Fleming
Tai Pan / James Clavell
The Fiery Angel / Valery Briusov
The Red Fox / Anthony Hyde

Chris
Chris
Reply to  Lucius Sulla
21 days ago

Beau Geste?

Stephen Dowling Botts, Dec'd
Stephen Dowling Botts, Dec'd
Reply to  Lucius Sulla
20 days ago

All Quiet On The Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque Three Comrades- Erich Maria Remarque The Black Obelisk -Erich Maria Remarque (The last two are set in Germany during the Weimar Republic; Remarque will make you feel things while giving a first hand snapshot of Germany in 1914-1929 or so) Hangsaman- Shirley Jackson (Never read anything else quite like it. Little happens, but the inner monologues, surreal scenes of liminal opacity, and witty dialogue make it a standout. Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ is also phonemanl, and ‘The Sundial’ is a bizarre take on insanity and apocalyptic vison. Jackson… Read more »

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
21 days ago

If music is any indicator, movies are not likely to get better as technology advances and gets more democratized/accessible. It appears this is a cultural issue, not a technological one. Putting cheap music technology in the hands of the masses didn’t produce more Donald Fagen, Tom Petty, Roger Waters, Pete Townshend, Michael Jackson, Prince et al. And jazz is basically dead as a genre. Putting cheap video technology out there won’t create classic movies either. An environment of mass mediocrity, vulgarity and conformity won’t produce art.

rasqball
rasqball
Reply to  Captain Willard
21 days ago

All too true!

karl von hungus
karl von hungus
Reply to  Captain Willard
21 days ago

uh, no, jazz is not dead. white people like me are keeping it alive.

roo_ster
Member
Reply to  karl von hungus
19 days ago

And I’ll never forgive you for that.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Captain Willard
21 days ago

Jazz died by becoming an academic subject and the default genre of music school. The hip new thing there is still “genre-mixing,” which peaked—reached total aesthetic exhaustion—forty years ago. All that’s left is irony. We have the best-trained players of all time, supposedly, and they produce absolute garbage, interchangeable widgets of corporate ideology (and novelty covers on YouTube). Thinking it used to be better back when it sounded better, like when Coltrane and Dolphy did it (and the average listener hated it, but millions didn’t), is white supremacy. The highest art black people ever produced is a casualty of diversity.… Read more »

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
Reply to  Hemid
21 days ago

Great analysis. Amazingly, rap crowded out jazz among the blacks. This is a great example of the democratization of “art” causing degeneration. Millions of jokers can rap but Miles and Coltrane were multi-generational talents.

There’s a strong argument for going back to the patron system – Medici and Brandenburg Concerto style (although not stiffing the artist this time).

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Captain Willard
21 days ago

By putting a great deal of surplus income in the hands of the masses, capitalism democratizes all products, including music and other forms of art. The results are the marginalization or elimination of greatness and a precipitious plunge into the lower depths of common denominators. This is one reason why rap, which should logically be the soundtrack to the worst nightclub in hell, is instead AINO’s national soundtrack. Come to think of it, the boundary between AINO and hell appears rather permeable.

Edward
Edward
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
21 days ago

I agree

rasqball
rasqball
Reply to  Hemid
21 days ago

The highest art black people ever produced is a casualty of diversity.

At a bar in the near past…Me, to a SoySucker who was for some reason uncomfortable with the ‘Trane I had jukeboxed…said loud enuff that all could hear:

“You know, friend-o, you should bear in mind that there was a time in the way-before when black people made a considerable contribution to American culture.”

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Hemid
21 days ago

Do you mean David Lean? David Lynch was a British actor, I *think.*

Brandon Laskow
Brandon Laskow
Reply to  The Infant Phenomenon
21 days ago

Uh no. David Lynch was the creator of Blue Velvet,
Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks, etc.

As far as jazz goes, it never was all that popular among blacks to begin with. Pre-hip-hop, R&B/soul and funk were the popular genres and never went away. Jazz always had a white-dominant audience, much to the consternation of certain blacks. It’s still a creative genre but as a complex type of music that involves a high level of musical knowledge and skill never has, with the exception of the Swing Era, and never will be widely popular.

Bloated Boomer
Bloated Boomer
Reply to  Hemid
21 days ago

I dunno if I agree with all this but they were interesting takes. So, thanks for that.

Marko
Marko
21 days ago

Soon, teenagers will be making feature films that they find interesting.

It’s called TikTok.

When people think of movies, over 30s anyway, they think of a story that unfolds over 2 hours. New media is killing the attention span, so it’s likely that what us Gen Xers thought was a chore – reading Shakespeare or Tolstoy – will be like how Zoomers or Alphas approach watching The Godfather. Perhaps even having to sit through Titanic or Million Dollar Baby will matter the same way as a 50-year old bragging about having read Infinite Jest.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Marko
21 days ago

Marko-

Anecdotally, what you posit is already happening.

I know a Zoomer that is a big Tom Clancy fan that has listened to all the audio books.

I suggested he watch The Hunt for Red October (1990).

He tried, but said he had to turn it off after 20 minutes because the pacing was too slow and he didn’t like the lighting.

Ok, Zoomer.

Last edited 21 days ago by The Wild Geese Howard
Geoff
Geoff
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
21 days ago

To be fair to your acquaintance, Hunt for Red October is definitely one of the more boring Tom Clancy movies. People who weren’t alive for the Cold War won’t feel some of the beats either.

Tarl Cabot
Tarl Cabot
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
21 days ago

Zoomers don’t do narrative. This is both a blessing and a curse. They are less susceptible to bullshit, but it’s hard to make sense of the world without it.

Even in the cynical antihero era we still had Snake Plissken, The Omega Man and Jonathan E.

Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre
Reply to  Tarl Cabot
21 days ago

Circa ten-twelve yrs ago I volunteered to read to a Sixth Grade class in a local elementary school with some terrific teachers. The county was building new Middle Schools for Grades 5-8 but most parents at the elementary school were happy that their kids were there at an important time in their academic lives; that Sixth Grade was the top of the heap where the kids learned responsibility and other important values as student leaders, rather than being lost in the middle schools with primary-aged children mixed with adolescents. Well, The Hunger Games by Susan Collins had just come out.… Read more »

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Dr. Dre
21 days ago

Mexico is not known for its literature nor its libraries. I stopped going to our local library in Texas due to noise, excessive computer use, woke librarians, and my tax dollars being spent on Spanish kids’ videos and Chinese language newspapers.

Tars Tarkas
Member
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
21 days ago

“a big Tom Clancy fan that has listened to all the audio books.”

Not the same experience as reading the book. The only way I can listen to an audio book is to read along with it while listening to it. Really, this is a decent experience and helps a bit with focus in the boring parts.

Ann Thompson
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
21 days ago

you can’t beat reading War and Peace and then seeing the Russian 1960s, think, twelve part series. Repeat that for other classics Russian or not and both media gain in effect and understanding …

Auld Mark
Auld Mark
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
21 days ago

WGH,Funny, I would think listening to the spoken word required more concentration than watching a movie. I just re watched that movie and found it well paced and a great rendition of the book.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  Auld Mark
21 days ago

I would think listening to the spoken word required more concentration than watching a movie. I’m sure it does, and that’s an even greater problem, because how most people listen to audio books isn’t to just sit there in a quiet room and give it all their attention. They listen to them in the car, or while their exercising or cooking or doing any number of other tasks. So the absorption level is really low. If I wanted to get the full effect of an audio book, then I’d have to give it my full attention, and at that point… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by Vizzini
Auld Mark
Auld Mark
Reply to  Vizzini
21 days ago

Yeah, I’ve listened to books on long drives, and realized I’d want to stick with lighter entertainment; serious work deserves full attention.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Vizzini
21 days ago

I was bedridden for a year after a near-fatal accident, and somebody brought e some audio books b/c I was flat on my back for many months. I found it intolerable. You can’t re-read anything–not anything–and you can’t flip back a few pages to re-read something when you want to verify something written earlier or to refresh your memory of somebody’s name, which is important when there are a lot of characters, whether the work be fiction or nonfiction.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Auld Mark
21 days ago

AM-

I tend to share your opinions.

On long drives I prefer to listen to popular podcasts rather than music or audiobooks.

I regularly cite Red October as a film that honors its source novel. I cite Die Hard and the first three Bourne films as pictures that are better than their sourcebooks.

Trek
Trek
Reply to  Marko
21 days ago

It’s funny because on the one hand you have these 10 second Tiktok videos but on the other hand you have 3 hour podcasts that are popular. Apparently there’s still a market for longer stuff if it’s good.

ray
ray
Reply to  Trek
21 days ago

Those long podcasts typically have a narrow and specific audience, niche markets, not the mass-market of the Hollywood filmmakers.

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Trek
21 days ago

I know! That’s the irony. I think podcasts or videos should be an hour max, yet I’m OK with films and books being long. Zoomers are OK with videos being meandering and interminable.

ray
ray
Reply to  Marko
21 days ago

Some of my favorite podcasters produce shows 3 or 4 hours long. Great for diehards but I’m like you, an hour is about my max.

Tars Tarkas
Member
Reply to  Marko
21 days ago

It’s not that they should be limited to an hour, it’s that all the bad parts need to be stripped out. I don’t like videos or podcasts that have been stretched out or made artificially short. They should be as long or short as they need to be. Shorts should be banned.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
21 days ago

Shorts should be banned.”

Especially on those with cellulite or varicose veins…

karl von hungus
karl von hungus
Reply to  Trek
21 days ago

people only listen to the first 10 minutes of that 3 hours

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Trek
21 days ago

“Apparently there’s still a market for longer stuff if it’s good.”

I see this in recommendations a lot, and not just Zooms. There is a large and I’m afraid growing cohort that are drawn to narratives that confirm their biases. I’m not an exception there, either. Every time I read Sailor or especially Unz, I realize, “There’s an hour of my life I’m not getting back.”

What is sorely missing, IMO, is the development of ideas. We get instead the same, often trite ideas, from a greater number of “influencers”.

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Steve
21 days ago

That’s why I like our esteemed blogger. I’ve been reading him for years, and he’s always making me think about something a different way. That is golden. You don’t get that from a lot of commentators. Usually you know exactly how the writer will frame a Happening, and most people want their biases confirmed, and the popular writer knows this, so writes accordingly. The better writers are at least amusing when they do it. I don’t think Zman is writing to confirm anyone’s bias. He wants us to think laterally about things, which is the white man’s gift to world… Read more »

Auld Mark
Auld Mark
Reply to  Marko
21 days ago

Marko, excellent observation. I don’t necessary learn something new, but I often get a take from a different direction and perception.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Marko
21 days ago

Z Man thinks outside the box. And his writing style is actually *readable,* which is a great talent and which sets him apart from the writers who produce turgid prose. He writes with both clarity and economy–his essays don’t go rambling on forever. He says what he has to say and then stops. And his output is prodigious, rivaling Dickens or Trollope. I don’t think he eats or sleeps.

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  Marko
21 days ago

I dunno, as a 50-year old my attention span is shot as well. The last time I was in a theater I thought the film I was watching was really good, and while I stayed to watch the whole thing I was done watching it after 15 minutes.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
21 days ago

That was likely b/c of the movie; not your attention span.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
21 days ago

I suspect there are studies around exactly on your (our) problem of short attention span. I’m the same way and attribute it to the Internet and use of such. It takes me an awful lot of time to begin to read books to the depth I once did normally. This of course is a killer in most scientific fields.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Marko
21 days ago

If you mean the “Titanic” picture with that Di Caprio brat, I don’t think anybody DID sit through it. Unless they had fallen asleep. Stupidest excuse for a story I ever saw. The only interesting moment in the whole disaster was when Kathy Bates, in a life boat, looked back at the doomed vessel and deadpanned, “Well, there’s somethin’ you don’t see every day.” The rest was trite garbage. We saw, for example, that although the water outside the ship was deadly, the water inside–the same sea water–was as harmless as bath water. And that’s only a single example.

Last edited 21 days ago by The Infant Phenomenon
Pozymandias
Reply to  The Infant Phenomenon
19 days ago

Well, you see it was just like restaurants during the Great Coof. You need to keep your mask on to stop the Coof particles while you wait but once you’re eating you take the mask off and the particles observe a sort of viral truce while you eat. The moment you’re done eating, you’re infectious again! I <<heart>> Science!

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
21 days ago

Part of the problem is that their seasoned hands are OLD and crazy (See De Niro screaming “F Trump!” from the dias.)

On the young side, we’re told we’d better believe that Zendaya is Helen of Troy reincarnated. (the Face that sunk 1000 franchises).

OTOH, the Weinstein metoo and P Diddy scandals pretty much showed the world that, male or female, if you want to succeed in that world you have to do unspeakable things.

When I see a nominee or a “winner”, it’s best to feel pity for someone who sold their soul.

Last edited 21 days ago by ProZNoV
3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  ProZNoV
21 days ago

Yes, they sold their souls – but for what? Fame? The adulation of the crowd? Strangers they despise and fear? They have millions of dollars to waste, but no functioning families, serial relationships, addict and trannie kids. I cannot imagine putting my private life on display – and if I had the kind of money they do, I wouldn’t spend it on botox and nipple pasties. They have no genuine sense of self which is why they spend their lives playing pretend. Any pity I had has long since been replaced by contempt.

fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  3g4me
21 days ago

It’s not hard to understand why they sell their soul. A normal 9-5 life IS BORING; there’s no two ways about it.

People want to be rich, they want to look beautiful in pictures and film as a form of immortality and prestige that shows that they are better than normal people. People want to part of the “cool kids” and have sex with the beautiful people.

When you’re sitting bored as shit on your so-so paying job and have to answer to people that don’t mean anything to you, then you’ll clearly understand why people crave such things.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  fakeemail
21 days ago

What you say is true, but it is not the reason for the things 3g4me is talking about.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  fakeemail
21 days ago

I’ll take the quotidian over the pretend any day. And I do not in any way crave immortality. And I choose self respect over faux prestige.

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  fakeemail
21 days ago

At the end of the day, you have to look at the man in the glass.

Last edited 21 days ago by ProZNoV
Auld Mark
Auld Mark
Reply to  3g4me
21 days ago

As Zman recently pointed out, throughout most of history, actors have been accorded about the same status as prostitutes.

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Auld Mark
21 days ago

In the primitive Church, actors were prohibited from receiving instruction or baptism while they remained actors. It’s all spelled out in a work titled “The Apostolic Constitutions.”

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  3g4me
21 days ago

All true and expressed with your characteristic verve. Thing about movies nowadays is just that the performers just don’t have any talent. And the script writers are even worse.

Vizzini
Member
21 days ago

One of the runners up was a film called The Brutalist, which is about hideous architecture.

The not-very-subtext is “Americans are mean to Jews.” They literally have the (male) American millionaire rape the (male) Jewish architect for no reason other than hate.

It’s so tiresome.

Last edited 21 days ago by Vizzini
Mycale
Mycale
21 days ago

Like so many other things in our society, Hollywood seems to have imploded around 2008. It nearly completely lost the ability to make a great film. You can see it in the Oscar winners and nominees. Most of the winners of the past 15 years are pure dreck. A movie about a woman who falls in love with a fish won for heaven’s sake. Obviously we didn’t know it at the time, but the 2008 recession and the subsequent five years – Obama election, OWS, Great Awokening, GamerGate, etc. – marked the end of American culture. It’s been shuffling along… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by Mycale
mmack
mmack
Reply to  Mycale
21 days ago

I was thinking about endless remakes, reboots, and “back stories”. Please, show, don’t tell. Show me Darth Vader is evil. Don’t do a three movie story arc that establishes WHY he is evil.

And really, a giant planet killing battle star? For the THIRD FREAKING TIME after one was blown up in two previous movies? What, did you literally believe “Third time’s the charm?” 🤦‍♂️

ray
ray
Reply to  mmack
21 days ago

I recall thinking are you kidding, the battle star AGAIN? Couldn’t take five minutes to conjure something else?

rasqball
rasqball
Reply to  ray
21 days ago

Sorry friends – while it impressed the 11 year-old me (as it was designed to do!), I recognized by the time of the intitiaI sequals that Star Wars was “falsch und Zwei,” through and through.
(I truly DO NOT understand the appeal…)

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  ray
21 days ago

Today’s script writers lack imagination, the sine qua non of even *being* a writer.

Filthie
Filthie
Member
Reply to  Mycale
21 days ago

That is probably the right time frame, M. And it just isn’t movies. I used to be a voracious reader and around the early 2000’s I noticed that when I bought books… the chances of getting a good read dropped like a stone. The best seller lists were a waste of time. Then the mainstream type writers started going woke and I probably stopped buying books altogether in around ’08. Probably stopped with the movies a short time later. Hopefully wokeness begins to die soon too. There are encouraging signs… I see that bint that faggotified Disney productions has finally… Read more »

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  Filthie
21 days ago

If it’s mass market books you’re talking about, they weren’t anything great fifty years ago either — writers like Harold Robbins, Arthur Hailey, Robert Ludlum, and Alistair MacLean. There are still good writers turning out good books, even superb books, both fiction and nonfiction. But you have to search for them.

John's Spam
John's Spam
Member
Reply to  Filthie
21 days ago

I was a big fan of John Sanford’s crime audio books (long commutes). They were free of wokeness, just story — well woven and often very funny. Then, at the time (maybe mid 2000’s), I got out his latest for listening. The abruptness of his going full speed woke in chapter one, when none existed before, was like a two-by-four to my face. I mused to myself his publishers must have told him “get with the program, change or die”. That was the end of that love affair.

Howard Beale
Howard Beale
Reply to  Filthie
21 days ago

I started hitting second hand bookstores for Heinlein, Alan Dean Foster, and other greats of the past I had not read yet about 10 years ago. Found out a little bit about a dude named ‘The Mule’ somewhere in there, too… 😉

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Howard Beale
21 days ago

The best used-book and out-of-print seller is alibris.com. A kind of “umbrella organization” for mom-and-pop brick-and-mortar book shops in the Anglophone world, although you can get foreign-language books from them, too. And if they don’t have on hand what you are looking for, they have a search engine that you can use to instruct them to find what you want, and it’s amazingly effective. It enables the buyer to “buy local.” Bezos is quite rich enough.

Evil Sandmich
Evil Sandmich
Reply to  Mycale
21 days ago

A guy on Fedi noted all the winners since 2004 (when Return of the King won Best Picture) and how mediocre the lot was. I think the only one I’d even seen was No Country for Old Men which wasn’t awful-awful but I still wasn’t a big fan of (oh, I’d seen Hurt Locker too, ditto).

(Actually just scanned the nominees too but that only added 11 to the count, and mind you that’s over 20 years and they had expanded the nominee pool for about a third of that time).

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Evil Sandmich
21 days ago

The Hurt Locker was utter garbage. Only got an Oscar because the director had a vagina.

Barney Rubble
Barney Rubble
Reply to  Mycale
21 days ago

The point’s been made six million times, but go onto the streaming services and try to find something that’s not either Negro-centric, LGBTQ/whatever, or about the Hall-of-Cost. Maybe you can locate some “Mannix” reruns, if you’re lucky.

ray
ray
21 days ago

‘Perhaps the blue haired rage head was a reaction to the steady disaggregation of the culture that has been brought on by the technological revolution’ The blue haired rage head was a reaction to a century of the increasing legal and cultural power of women, and a century of increasingly emasculated American men. Feminism and gynarchy were firmly established in America before the Silly Con Valley ‘technological revolution’ got going. ‘What all this points to is that the woke lunacy that has raged for the last decade may have been the last effort at ideological control of the culture’ Woke… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by ray
BoomerMCMXLVII
BoomerMCMXLVII
Reply to  ray
21 days ago

Yes, excellent post.

redbeard
redbeard
21 days ago

If I could make an AI movie it would be an adaptation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness but set in Vietnam.

Jack Boniface
Jack Boniface
Member
Reply to  redbeard
21 days ago

That was Apocalypse Now.

karl von hungus
karl von hungus
Reply to  Jack Boniface
21 days ago

it was a joke 🙂

LFMayor
LFMayor
Reply to  Jack Boniface
21 days ago

No, it was a biographical drama of the life and times of John Kerry!

karl von hungus
karl von hungus
Reply to  LFMayor
21 days ago

kerry was actually in AN. he was the guy water skiing bare assed!

mmack
mmack
Reply to  redbeard
21 days ago

”The horror, the horror.”

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  redbeard
21 days ago

Now there’s an embryonic idea — set “Heart of Darkness” in the USA, along some river, maybe going along some multi-culti cities — the horror, the horror!

Steve
Steve
Reply to  redbeard
21 days ago

It’s been done. It’s called Sleepless in Seattle

My Comment
My Comment
21 days ago

A fellow named Unwin wrote a book called Sex and Culture where he examined 86 cultures over time. According to him, sexual liberation killed the culture of any society in three generations. Sound familiar? “the data revealed that the single most important correlation with the flourishing of a culture was whether pre-nuptial chastity was required or not. It had a very significant effect either way. Highest flourishing of culture: The most powerful combination was pre-nuptial chastity coupled with “absolute monogamy”. Rationalist cultures that retained this combination for at least three generations exceeded all other cultures in every area, including literature,… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by My Comment
The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  My Comment
21 days ago

Francis Parker Yockey had a lot to say about this phenomenon in his book Imperium, which I highly recommend:
https://www.alibris.com/Imperium-The-Philosophy-of-History-and-Politics-Francis-Parker-Yockey/book/3150127?matches=20

ray
ray
Reply to  My Comment
20 days ago

Good comment.

Lavrov
Lavrov
21 days ago

it often fells like of much of National Review content is written by AI. They are so boring and obvious.

RDittmar
Member
Reply to  Lavrov
21 days ago

You are 100% correct. To be precise NR content is now written by children. The only reason I even click on a link to them nowadays is to see who the article’s author is and it is almost always some “intern” of this or that. It’s probably very likely that these same interns are using some kind of ChatGPT application to write content just like they’re using it to do their homework.

RealityRules
RealityRules
Reply to  RDittmar
21 days ago

Just train a model on 5 or 6 economics books, (Rothbard, Mises, Friedman, Hazlitt), a few decades of articles by the Mises crowd, throw in a few decades of Hitler hysteria and then a directive to always just parrot progressive dogma from 10 years prior and you probably have the National Review LLM. You just need some time function to accelerate the lag between the adoption of progressive dogma. Call it The Fresh Prince Acceleration Function. Heck you could probably just feed it the Rand Corp’s web site and it would suffice. That is actually an interesting social experiment. Train… Read more »

Mycale
Mycale
Reply to  RDittmar
21 days ago

That is the power of ideology. Who needs intelligence and wisdom when you are just repackaging an ideology over and over. A college kid can do that. It’s how Ben Shapiro became a national columnist in his early 20s.

fakeemail
fakeemail
21 days ago

Last great Oscars was Jack Palance doing push-ups!

Hollywood movies today are purely ideological as written and directed by retards; they are completely without craft.

So you either watch a holocaust/racist/homo/transo movie OR an idiotic superhero movie with some steroided-up actor in front of a green screen punching out alien Hitler.. Make no mistake, the superhero is ABSOLUTELY the modern form of IDOLATRY.

As for today’s “great” director Chris Nolan. . .all his movies are mediocre, muddled, well-marketed crap.

Last edited 21 days ago by fakeemail
Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  fakeemail
21 days ago

Here’s an Oscar nod to Ricky Gervais trashing the baizuo to their faces!

Last edited 21 days ago by Alzaebo
Boris
21 days ago

Not a contemporary movie fan either. I prefer the old stuff on TCM (plus there’s no insidious commercials!). However, there was one recent movie that was really a throwback to the action-packed alpha male movies of the 60s and 70s, probably because it was a period piece from the 60s – 2019’s “Ford v Ferrari”. Great movie w/ no retconed minorities. In fact the only black in the movie was the janitor in the garage and he made only one 2-3 sec appearance. Amazing that it was made just six years ago. Would never pass muster now without at least… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Boris
21 days ago

Since this is Gangster World, really, if you like gangster stuff then there is a ton of high quality offerings.

Peaky Blinders.
Mr. Inbetween.
The Gentlemen. (movie)
Snatch.
Sicario, y Sicario- Dia del Soldado.
No Country For Old Men.
Road to Perdition.
Eastern Promises.
Gangs of London. (Especially the farmhouse shootout scene, jeebus cripes)

Nah. Good shows ain’t dead. They are just less genteel, because we live in an ungenteel age, and need role models on becoming a lot harder as we used to be.

Last edited 21 days ago by Alzaebo
mmack
mmack
21 days ago

I’ll repost what I posted at another site about the Oscars: Ah, The Oscars. We were on the phone talking with my wife’s good friends who live in England when the show started. We watched the opening act (A Wicked/Wizard of Oz mashup), Conan’s intro, and then when we hung up to end the call she turned to me and said “Okay, we can turn it off now, it’s too weird for me” after Conan’s intro. We switched to a music channel. She agrees with me that Hollywood hates people like us, polite White people who live in the Midwest and aren’t raging Leftists.… Read more »

RealityRules
RealityRules
Reply to  mmack
21 days ago

This is progress. As sad as it is, this is necessary to get our people to wake up and move through to the other side.

Vegetius
Vegetius
21 days ago

It has never been easier or cheaper to write and edit scripts, cast actors, scout locations, mix sound, or shoot and edit video. And yet everything is shit.

I think the vaporization of attention spans is more important than the fertility crisis, and likely has something to do with it.

rasqball
rasqball
Reply to  Vegetius
21 days ago

I agree, mon ami(e).

S K
S K
Reply to  rasqball
21 days ago

A chick reading the Zman? Maybe. But press (x) to doubt.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Vegetius
21 days ago

Movies have never been cheaper to make, yet movie budgets have never been higher. Independent production has never been easier, yet no independent films break through like they used to.

People read all day; literacy is down. Almost all human knowledge and experience is right here on the tubes (for now); nobody looks at almost any of it.

Many such cases—one for almost anything you can think of.

Two things are happening at the same time. The bigger, stronger, darker one is unacknowledged.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Hemid
21 days ago

Yesterday NoName gave us “egregore.” Of those two things, here’s what I suspect:

The zeitgeist is being retuned. If White people, retuneable by their exposure to the aurora borealis, were the combination necessary to open the pinhole in the eggshell, that is, begin the populating of the “Heaven”, the immaterial panspermial Sporing layer…

Then are the JQ attempting, or necessary for, an alternate copy of this process?
That is, pushing a physical cybernetic form capable of surviving space travel? That seems to be what the transhumanist vision is for.
A Borg vision for leaving the nest behind.

Last edited 21 days ago by Alzaebo
The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Alzaebo
21 days ago

What?

rasqball
rasqball
Reply to  Hemid
21 days ago

Today, the (unspoken, unacknowledged) raison d’être in show biz is plain old money laundering.

There’s always been an element of that type of “financialization,” but that’s were the “energy” has been for the past twenty years or so.

(I’ve got friends in the business, and I know of what I speak.)

Pozymandias
Reply to  Hemid
21 days ago

It’s probably something like the MIC and their quadrillion dollar weapons systems. The more you spend the less you get. Eventually, as cost goes to infinity the usefulness of the product goes to zero.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  Vegetius
21 days ago

You expect me to read that wall of text? It must have, like, a few dozen words!

Ted X
Ted X
21 days ago

I’m down to watching Japanese samurai and monster movies from the 1960s and South Korean gangster films because at least there is no diversity and somewhat coherent plots. All the old movies I used to love have become unwatchable for some reason.

Filthie
Filthie
Member
Reply to  Ted X
21 days ago

Yeah me too… but it’s amazing because the pozz isn’t just in America. It’s tearing up Japan and Korea and some of the other Pacific Rim countries too…

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
21 days ago

I don’t find it coincidental that Hollywood product mostly became garbage around the same time that popular music did. 2000-ish, give or take a few years. It happened sooner in most of the visual arts. I have this notion that cultural decline precedes artistic decline, and is manifested in the arts some time after it has already happened culturally. Decades even. Art is a lagging cultural indicator, both on the way up and on the way down. Thus, the creative zenith in the arts may have occurred some time after the cultural peak. Because the artists themselves were formed by… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by Jeffrey Zoar
The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
21 days ago

The current popular music scene is utterly bizarre.

In 2025, millions of people are listening to songs from the mid-60s to mid-80s on a daily basis.

In 1985, no one was listening to anything from the mid-20s to the mid-40s on a daily basis.

ray
ray
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
21 days ago

‘First time listening to’ podcasts are popular now because the ‘music’ of the past 30 years — (c)rap and whiny corporate-produced wimmin — sucks so bad. Young people are recognizing that the music of the Fifties – Seventies was vastly superior.

‘I can’t believe this song!’ or ‘I wish I had lived back then’ is a typical podcast comment.

Arthur Metcalf
Member
Reply to  ray
21 days ago

Oh come on Oldsters. Let’s stop with the coping. Please, go spend some time observing and listening to the world outside of your home. Go up and down the FM dial today while driving. Or look on Spotify at the top 40 songs. Find your 1960s and 1970s music on there. It’s not. Go to a Food Court at a remaining mall in an upscale area. Listen to what’s being played by the high school age kids. They are not listening to your music and they are definitely not watching your films. Edit: Why must you do this? Your generation,… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by Emmanuel_Thoreau
KGB
KGB
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

My FM dial is packed with music from the past. Now maybe that’s a sign of how outdated terrestrial radio is, but even online and in music apps, pop music of the past has a strong presence.

And even if our culture was garbage, that doesn’t negate the fact that today’s dreck has upped the ante.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  KGB
21 days ago

Yeah, I’ve got an ultra-hip 14-year-old niece who lives for Fleetwood Mac and other musicians from that era. And many of her friends are the same. The partial rejection of contemporary garbage in favor of superior stuff from the past is a real thing, not a friggin’ cope.

ray
ray
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

The music — and more latterly, films — of your generation suck. Pretty much everybody but you, mr. teen zeitgeist, seems to know it.

Wah de wah wah.

Gespenst
Gespenst
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

What you don’t understand about old people is: We’ve seen a lot of entertainment and judge what we see in the present against the very best of what we’ve seen in the past. A CGI sequence where a 95 pound girl beats up on a 250 pound man just looks silly when compared to the action in, say, The French Connection.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

Listen to what’s being played by the high school age kids.”

There is some, sure, but the overwhelming majority are some simple I-IV-V-IV progressions or something equally bland. Music that resolves itself in 3 chords is trite.

Mixolydian? Andalusian? “Git yer damn ferriners out of here!”

Mycale
Mycale
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

Eh, I’ve actually started to notice just how much old music (and yes 1990s music is old at this point) is being pumped through public spaces these days. Not just that, but studies have been done on popular music now and then and have found that the music is less complex, the lyrics are simpler, the chord progression is more basic, it’s more focused on hooks, etc.

Last edited 21 days ago by Mycale
Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Mycale
21 days ago

And then there is rap, which is anti-music–the primordial expression of a people so primitive that they’re barely even human.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

I was born in the 80s. I remember a little 50s nostalgia in the music. 90s, 60s. By the time I graduated high school, 70s. 20-somethings at the watering hole ask me to play 90s music.

Looking back 30 or so years seems to be a thing.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Paintersforms
21 days ago

Perhaps. But nobody is dam’ sure going to look back to 2025. It’s a metaphysical impossibility.

Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

You’re no fun. We, H.S. Class of ’63, had a marvelous time — but that came to a whiplash halt Nov 22 that year, then marching off to war in Vietnam for ten ugly years. The music really kept us going. I wouldn’t change a minute of my about-to-be 80 years.

ray
ray
Reply to  Dr. Dre
20 days ago

Me either.

HeWhoNotices
HeWhoNotices
Reply to  Dr. Dre
20 days ago

Hard to believe a 70-80 year old man would use the handle “Dr. Dre.”

The Infant Phenomenon
The Infant Phenomenon
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

“Find your 1960s and 1970s music on there. It’s not.”

Oh, yes it is. Maybe not in your mediation market, but there *are* other media markets.

“Go to a Food Court at a remaining mall in an upscale area.”

Are you insane? WHO in his right mind would go to a mall these days?

Brandon Laskow
Brandon Laskow
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

There’s also the huge popularity of tribute bands. On 10/14/83 I saw the Grateful Dead perform in Hartford CT. Pedestrian first set, tremendous second set. If someone had told me then that last night, 41+ years later, I would see in a small venue in Berkeley CA a very talented faux Jerry and his ever changing band of cohorts, all too young to have seen the actual band, play the setlist of the show and quite well, and learn from a few friends that they also attended the actual show, I would have thought them to be completely insane. But… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

Pull the cork out, Jack. If you can’t discern the difference between the pop culture of 2025 versus 1965 then you’re too obtuse to be posting here.

Tom K
Tom K
Reply to  ray
21 days ago

Ray I hate to break it to you, and I’m of your generation so I sympathize, but those “reaction” videos you’re speaking about are frauds. It’s just another grift for blacks who have no marketable skills. I love a lot of the music they’re reviewing, but they don’t. These people are actors pretending to be floored by the music. It isn’t their music, they’re just pretending to like it even though it really is great music and maybe some of it really does impress them. The important thing is they aren’t introducing a new audience to the music. When you… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by Tom K
ray
ray
Reply to  Tom K
21 days ago

Willing to stipulate that some of the reviews may be cynical frauds. But I see the reaction on faces, and I seriously doubt your contention is broadly valid.

‘It’s just another grift for blacks who have no marketable skills’

Many of the reviewers I watch are younger, white folks. One markets themselves as college kids. Dunno why you think they’re all black. Do we have to insert politics into everything? Part of the point of these podcasts is to transcend that and just share the music.

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  Tom K
21 days ago

These videos are one more discouraging sign of how deeply white people want blacks to like them.

Nothing can make an older white person happier than hearing a black person praise Reagan-style conservatism or 1970s rock. Nothing!

Last edited 21 days ago by LineInTheSand
Barney Rubble
Barney Rubble
Reply to  LineInTheSand
21 days ago

So incredibly tiresome.

“I’m finally allowed to like Freebird because Q’Antavious gave it a thumbs up!”

Bloated Boomer
Bloated Boomer
Reply to  Barney Rubble
21 days ago

Q’anontavious? Haha is this the son of a based and red pilled black maga boomer?

Bloated Boomer
Bloated Boomer
Reply to  Tom K
21 days ago

Yep, what is it with the oldies? I’m certain Kevin Michael Grace was talking about these “black guy makes minstrel faces at Stairway to Heaven” videos.
I’ve never heard someone under 70 even mention them.

I dont want to rag on Ray though, I like his comments.

Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre
Reply to  ray
21 days ago

I’m a rock ‘n’ roller from the best years, 1956 Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee, followed by the Rolling Stones, but not the Beatles . . . you get the point, but I’ve recently become quite fond of stuff from the 70s that I was too busy with having babies and jobs to notice. Now I like Lynrd Skynrd, Greg Allman (I know he passed 10 yrs ago), Bob Segar, Dire Straits, UB40, and other old videos I watch on YouTube. I do this instead of obsessing over what movies to go see.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  ray
21 days ago

Yep. What’s the big mystery?

Krustykurmudgeon
Krustykurmudgeon
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
21 days ago

it was difficult to find Benny Goodman on cassette/CD, that’s why

mmack
mmack
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
21 days ago

There’s a fellow Z links to (Kairos) https://www.kairospublications.com/blog who posits that 1997 was “Ground Zero” for the cultural decline that you speak of. His theory is that the consolidation of things like radio stations, record companies, etc. reduced the number of creative outlets to a few and less and less new and unique acts were appearing. Plus “big data” was starting to become available to allow creative businesses to tailor music or movies to a specific audience. How so? Make it bland, inoffensive, easy to listen to or follow.

RealityRules
RealityRules
Reply to  mmack
21 days ago

Yes. You also have the introduction of massive amounts of compression as a primary production technique in music. What this meant was that the dynamic range of the song is taken away by compressing the high and low dynamics closer together. This has the effect of making the song much louder. That louder forces everyone to make their song louder, (and also lacking dynamic spacing and depth), in order to compete. The loudest wins on a first listen. Why? Listening to the song with greater dynamic after those with less requires more effort. Also after being blasted with volume, the… Read more »

ray
ray
Reply to  RealityRules
21 days ago

‘In terms of pop music, the true genius of Les Paul was probably the high point’

He was the real deal, no doubt.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  RealityRules
21 days ago

It’s definitely true that a lot of the music starting around there fell to the Loudness Wars, but the simple fact is that almost all people think louder sounds better. It doesn’t even have to be a lot — turn the same chorus up 2dB and at least 90% will prefer the latter. And I don’t think that’s a conditioned response — I think its probably innate.

In other words, music shifted from what the artists and labels wanted to what the people wanted.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  RealityRules
21 days ago

RR-

Great post.

There are other popular technologies that have degraded music as well.

Auto-Tune for the purpose of correcting a singer’s pitch is probably the most egregious example. This technology was heavily abused in the late 00s and early 10s. I doubt there are many people listening to the popular singles of that era.

fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  mmack
21 days ago

I’d buy that theory, for sure.

Another factor for artistic decline is simple demography: less white people w/less hope.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  fakeemail
21 days ago

White population continued to grow up until at least 2010 or so. There were more whites alive then than ever before. May have tapered off slightly since. It’s just that non whites grew a lot more. A LOT more.

fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
21 days ago

I felt the same way; it “ended” somewhere around the 2000s. I think the Maguire Spider-man (cgi crap) was a sign of end of hollywood. Crazy thing, is that Britney Spears stuff is GENIUS compared today’s so-called musical offerings!

Nikolai Vladivostok
Reply to  fakeemail
21 days ago

I remember crappy pop songs I hated being pummeled with on the radio circa 2000 when working retail hell; hear them again now and they’re pretty melodic and pleasant. Like that Cher song. Now the modern rubbish I hear in the gym is much worse. Lyrics so dumb even a teenager ought to be embarrassed by them.
Mogged by Cher, that’s how bad it’s gotten.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
21 days ago

Art is culture. And both lag demographic and sociological decline.

For the record, I checked out of the pop culture in March or April of 1992. It was at that point that I could no longer find anything upon which I was willing to spend my money and my time.

Carl B.
Carl B.
21 days ago

There is no room for art of any kind in The Brave New World.

ray
ray
Reply to  Carl B.
21 days ago

The personal is fully political.

Filthie
Filthie
Member
Reply to  Carl B.
21 days ago

Or humour, for that matter…

karl von hungus
karl von hungus
Reply to  Carl B.
21 days ago

who needs art when you have soma

Clayton Barnett
21 days ago

My wife works at Home Depot and does not want any of those fuckers anywhere near her store.

Vizzini
Member
21 days ago

Of course, the content itself will soon be generated by robots.

In the long term, the dumbing down of the population through the “robot revolution” will be self-limiting. Eventually so much of the population will be ignorant savages that they will be unable to maintain the technology bequeathed to them by previous generations. The end game will look a lot uglier than Idiocracy.

TempoNick
TempoNick
Reply to  Vizzini
21 days ago

You know, that’s a good point. The Bible warns against idleness in many places. If machines start doing everything for you, your skills deteriorate, you’re learning through trial and error also deteriorates. Just look at people’s math skills since the advent of the calculator.

Mow Noname
Mow Noname
21 days ago

Next on the chopping block, after movies nobody watches:
Auto makers manufacturing cars nobody wants to drive;
Utility companies closing power plants and replacing them with systems that consume electricity; and,
Schools/ hospitals/ churches/ governments which eat taxes and produce…expenses?

My children study math, science, literature and history. Unfortunately, the most important skill I’ve taught them is how to field strip small arms.

mmack
mmack
Reply to  Mow Noname
21 days ago

Auto makers manufacturing cars nobody wants to drive;

Z Man needs a car rant for us to comment on, or a Friday podcast dealing with the frustrations and foibles of new cars.

And another Xirl Science Friday Podcast Z!

TempoNick
TempoNick
Reply to  mmack
21 days ago

They just canceled the spring’s car show here.

BigJimSportCamper
BigJimSportCamper
Reply to  Mow Noname
21 days ago

Great!! Next up – reloading.

RealityRules
RealityRules
21 days ago

Corporate America embraced White erasure and mass immigration because its sole goal is to grow the consumer base. Of course, there is never one faction. This faction of soulless ghouls fused with equally demented people who think White genocide will rid the world of evil and oppression. Of course the corporate ghouls, being simple minded dolts and psychopathic money grubbers, also saw this latter faction’s mission as the ultimate moral good. It lent weight and gave a moral sanction to their doing the ultimate evil – abandoning their own people, destroying their homelands, and targeting them for total erasure –… Read more »

TempoNick
TempoNick
21 days ago

A bunch of different things going on here. I will just list my pet peeves and you can agree or disagree. 1. Ugliness of the so-called stars. Watch any old movie and there is always somebody in there who catches your eye. I don’t know what it is about movies these days, but the women they cast in these movies, even the white ones, just don’t have anything about how they look that interests me. Not everyone, of course. Occasionally, someone will catch my eye, but not like they do in the older movies. 2. Too many trashy people in… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by TempoNick
Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  TempoNick
21 days ago

The uglification of women on screen had a lot to do with women casting directors trying to feel better about themselves. And women ticket buyers trying to feel better about themselves too.

It’s not that I demand actresses be drop dead gorgeous. Back in the day, many weren’t either. Just don’t stick some horse face up there and tell me she’s the most beautiful woman in the world.

Mike
Mike
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
21 days ago

Sarah Jessica Parker

Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
21 days ago

Watching the Democrat female contingent at the Trump speech to Congress the other night made evident that politics is show biz for the ugly. What a bunch of misshapen freaks — Tlaib, DeLauro, Pelosi with her shiny face lifts, and on and on. Waddle-assed Amy Klobuchar is so smug and certain of her intelligence. Then crazy man Al Green started waving that cane around. I would have thought the Secret Service would have nailed him to the floor, with his unhinged hatred for the President and the possibility that the cane concealed some sort of firearm. It was a sickening… Read more »

ray
ray
Reply to  Dr. Dre
20 days ago

lol

din c. nuffin
din c. nuffin
21 days ago

An advantage of becoming older than rust is that I’ve forgotten most plot lines of old movies. “Ben Hur” captivated my attention for about three hours just last week, and at the finish, I was thinking “They just don’t make ’em like that anymore.”

Steve
Steve
Reply to  din c. nuffin
21 days ago

Bearing in mind the new Trumpian anti-Woke zeitgeist, shouldn’t that be Ben Him? Don’t annoy Elon!

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Steve
21 days ago

It’s Ben Their. I can see the possibilities of a show named Ben Their, Done Thot.

Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre
Reply to  din c. nuffin
21 days ago

My Sixth Grade class got bussed into NYC to see Ben-Hur back in the day. One of the greats!

Gespenst
Gespenst
Reply to  din c. nuffin
21 days ago

The chariot race in Ben Hur was all live shooting and makes any CGI I’ve ever seen look silly by comparison.

RDittmar
Member
21 days ago

I’m not sure if it’s a symptom or a contributing cause to the death of Hollywood, but the disappearance of physical media has to be another nail in the coffin. They’ve created all these streaming services in a desperate attempt to nickel and dime you for access and nickel and dime you even further if you want to tune into an old Bond movie and as part of the desperation it seems that they’re trying to deny you access to a physical copy of your entertainment so you always have to go through them to watch something. It’s ultimately going… Read more »

Steve
Steve
Reply to  RDittmar
21 days ago

Yes, but…

I think it’s probably the other way around. And for pretty good reasons. While much of the older content is worth re-watching, the younger generations realize they never want to watch the new stuff ever again. Why pay $20 for a Blu-Ray that will just gather dust in their already too-small apartment when you can just rent it for a buck?

karl von hungus
karl von hungus
21 days ago

you touched on something that is more significant than you give it credit for. and that is the “long tail” effect. we have all the wonderful things made in previous times, without the need (or desire) for AI slop.

also, there will be user directed AI, and all it will be used for is scatalogical ends. think “Ow My Balls” and you are there.

Dr. Mabuse
Dr. Mabuse
Reply to  karl von hungus
21 days ago

there will be user directed AI, and all it will be used for is scatalogical ends. think “Ow My Balls” and you are there.

I’ve always liked Star Trek and had little difficulty suspending my disbelief to enjoy the plots. Except for one thing: the Holodeck in TNG. They always showed us people using it to simulate whitewater rafting, Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, or Sherlock Holmes and noir mystery plots. We all know that if such a thing existed, it would be used almost exclusively to produce porn fantasies.

Last edited 21 days ago by Dr. Mabuse
Steve
Steve
Reply to  Dr. Mabuse
21 days ago

We all know that if such a thing existed, it would be used almost exclusively to produce porn fantasies.”

Just say what you mean. Jeri Ryan and Marina Sirtis on endless loop. 😉

Ploppy
Ploppy
Reply to  Dr. Mabuse
21 days ago

They had to tone it down to stay PG but there’s that episode where Barclay stops showing up to Geordis meetings because he’s using the holodeck to make MILF porn with Beverly’s likeness. Guy had good taste.

Bitter reactionary
Bitter reactionary
21 days ago

I’m not an artistic person so I have no sophisticated critiques to offer, but I do have a personal theory about why our stories are so poor – aside from the usual (((problem))). I think it is because Westerners now, to an extraordinary degree, lead boring lives and therefore have nothing interesting to say, simply due to lack of experience. To use a film reference, in the old Blackhawk Down movie there’s a scene where the warlord character says to the captured pilot something like “None of you Americans smoke anymore. You all lead dull, uninteresting lives.” I think that… Read more »

fakeemail
fakeemail
Reply to  Bitter reactionary
21 days ago

it’s true. my ideal society would offer more to the working man then 9 to 5 drudgery he gets.

Trek
Trek
21 days ago

I’m not an artsy person, but I would love to see real movies and literature again. It doesn’t even have to be American.

terranigma
terranigma
Reply to  Trek
21 days ago

Like it or not, for better and worse, the new mainstream culture is Japanese and animated. Disaggregation is a form of death, so that mainstream is fractured and limited, but this is the best thing going today. Particularly for the young. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End might be the height of today’s mass culture. Even if you enjoy it, it is still better than you think. Saga of Tanya the Evil would be your fantasy war epic. Harry Potter is for the weak. Legend of the Galactic Heroes would be your slower, more thoughtful piece on politics and leadership. Psycho-Pass Season… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by terranigma
S K
S K
Reply to  terranigma
21 days ago

At least *mention* FMA: Brotherhood!

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
21 days ago

Uh, there is already a significant cottage industry of people on YouTube making AI-modified trailers.

Go search for something like, “Star Trek as a 40s film noir,” and see what is returned.

Harbinger
Harbinger
21 days ago

I can hardly wait to see the AI reboot of Idiocracy. How could it possibly be improved upon? The original had it all – morons, tech gone wrong, strong anti-White male overtones, diversity on ‘roids. All that needs be done is recast the [White, male] protagonist as a sassy, crippled, gender-fluid negress with an IQ of 180 and Hollywood will fall all over itself at the Academy Awards, sucking its own protuberances.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  Harbinger
21 days ago

Yeah, and President Camacho will be a dim White man who needs her to save him.

Epaminondas
Member
21 days ago

A review of “The Brutalist” which appeared in the Unz Review… https://www.unz.com/ejones/the-brutalist-america-turned-upside-down/

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Epaminondas
21 days ago

“(Director) Brady Corbet can now chime in with Kate Winslet, who said ‘now I’ve done my fucking Holocaust movie'”

Are Holo movies our replacement Christmas movies now?

Last edited 21 days ago by Alzaebo
jrod
jrod
21 days ago

At one of the parks in the neighborhood, some people with dogs gather in the evenings. It’s mostly the upscale suburban women and an occasional man. Last year I walked my dog up to a group of women and their dogs. One woman was proudly telling the others about some event. I asked one of the women what they were discussing. “Karen went to the Oscars.” Then she added, that Karen was there as one of the people who fill the seats when one of the celebrities has to leave their seat for some reason. I walked away thinking, “Well…..… Read more »

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  jrod
21 days ago

The seating version of “Stick a chick in it and make it lame and gay.”

Mike Tre
Mike Tre
21 days ago

“One of the runners up was a film called The Brutalist, which is about hideous architecture.”

Uh… I think it was about a little more than just that. LOL

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Mike Tre
21 days ago

A notable entry in the new America’s Holocaust genre.

I shouted out, “Who killed the Edelsteins?” After all, it was you.

Jack Boniface
Jack Boniface
Member
21 days ago

I’m looking forward to AI Bond films starring “Sean Connery,” with the plot and vibe of Goldfinger and Thunderball and the villains Blofeld and Spectre. As Trump said, it’s a Golden Age.

Member
Reply to  Jack Boniface
21 days ago

Well Amazon just bought the rights to James Bond. It remains to be seen if Bezos, who has taken notice that there is a cultural shift and began to rein in his employees’ fanatical hatred over at the Post, might decide that making a “classic” Bond movie might do far better than gay transgender Black Bond. If they were smart, they would reset James Bond back in his historical context and make them period pieces, because James Bond can’t be James Bond in Clown World, yet. I’d set the very first one in 1945, and have James doing his thing… Read more »

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Pickle Rick
21 days ago

That’s the problem with some of these franchises and using them as period pieces. I used to enjoy reading espionage novels set in the 1950s -but I read them in the 1970s. Anything pre-2000 is ancient history to most of AINO’s diverse population, and the last thing I want to do is continue to focus any attention on hollow victories in brother wars that never should have happened.

karl von hungus
karl von hungus
Reply to  Pickle Rick
21 days ago

what’s the over/under bezos casts himself as the new Bond? :p

Member
Reply to  karl von hungus
21 days ago

I guess casting himself as a Bond Villain would be a little too on the nose.

mmack
mmack
Reply to  Pickle Rick
21 days ago

Ernst Stavro Bezos. 👨‍🦲

When does he buy a secret underground lair beneath a volcano?

Barnard
Barnard
21 days ago

There is a partial explanation on the fake ratings in this DW article. The total number is calculated by adding the Nielsen measurement of viewers on ABC to live streaming viewers watching the ceremony on Hulu.  The streaming services start you on a program they think you will be interested in when you open them. They just defaulted people to the Oscars whether they wanted to watch it or not and then counted them as viewers. A good guess is that half of these 19.69 saw less than five minutes of the broadcast. I have heard no one talking about… Read more »

Krustykurmudgeon
Krustykurmudgeon
21 days ago

its interesting to look at who the top singers are for each age group. Drake is the most streamed singer with 109 billion streams of all the artists older than Drake – Eminem is with 54 billion of all the artists older than Eminem – Queen has 24 billion of all the artists older than Queen – Beatles have 21 billion of the artists older than the Beatles – Elvis and Frank Sinatra have 9 billion of the artists older than either Elvis or Frank Sinatra – Louis and Bing have 3 billion It’s interesting to look at the evolution… Read more »

Hokkoda
Member
21 days ago

It’s much worse than that. More and more people are simply tuning out. Most of society’s control mechanisms on behavior stem from media. Movies, TV, Social Media, etc. Those are being abandoned or fragmenting to the point that if you don’t want gays and trannies imposed on you…click…gone. In a practical sense, we are getting back to a world of free association. Talk to who you want. Shop where you want. Hire who you want. Watch what you want, including nothing at all. The death of the managerial state – all those funding cuts and bureaucrat firings – have been… Read more »

Lakelander
Lakelander
21 days ago

The last good movie to come out of Hollywood was THERE WILL BE BLOOD in 2007.

Hi-ya!
Hi-ya!
21 days ago

Maybe it’s cause I’m middle aged and am out of it, but are there any black musicians nowadays besides, ahem, rappers? When I was growing up there was prince, Michael Jackson Terrence trend D’arby and Toni, tone, Tony! And that don’t worry be happy guy and the dancing in the ceiling guy and the blind guy. I could go on, but except for John legend (and I don’t know his music) is there any good black musicians?!?!

what was the topic?

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Hi-ya!
21 days ago

Black guys who play instruments are nerds now. True since disco, which contrary to prog myth—in which disco was a great mega-corporate victory over whiteness—primarily displaced working black musicians. Hiphop was them taking the club back with consumer electronics.

Lenny Kravitz was the last one to become a real rock star. Thundercat is the only somewhat famous young black rock guy now, as far as I know. He does retro pre-disco stuff too (better played but much less interesting than Lenny’s).

Brandon Laskow
Brandon Laskow
Reply to  Hemid
21 days ago

Saw Thundercat play for free in Golden Gate Park last fall. He’s a freak but an awesomely talented musician with a great band. There are talented young black jazz musicians out there, none of them are going to have anything more than small niche fandom due to the genre. Jason Moran, Ambrose Akinmusire, Keyon Harrold, Kendrick Scott, many others. Some of these cats collaborate with hip-hop artists and most of them do make their blackness part of their presentation. E.g. there’s 41 year old trumpeter Chief Adjuah who up until a few years ago was Christian Scott. So there’s that… Read more »

johnmark7
johnmark7
21 days ago

I used an AI vocal for a song I’d written and it came out pretty well I thought. But on repeated listening, I lost interest in the vocal because it’s lack of true human feel to it became more apparent. This will be true for all art by AI after awhile. Even now, all those images you see on various sites and X generated by AI are obvious and obnoxious after awhile.

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
21 days ago

Thank goodness for Turner Classic Movies. Most of the stuff was made in the before times, and features heartfelt stories, or terrific set dance pieces, or beautiful white people, or all three.

I can’t think of anything made in the last ten years that I would waste my time watching or didn’t regret watching.

Last edited 21 days ago by Zulu Juliet
A Bad Man
Member
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
21 days ago

I hate to say it as I like classic movies too, but the notion that they were not a bunch of degenerates back then is just not accurate.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  A Bad Man
21 days ago

They just felt as if they had to hide it a little more. Then they won, turned mainstream America degenerate, and could let their own degeneracy show.

Steve
Steve
Reply to  Zulu Juliet
21 days ago

You can get any number of classic movies up even on YT. The Russian “ru” site does loads too that aren’t available on Western sites. Watched the original “Italian Job” with Michael Caine last week with my son. He loved it, as he did “Duel”.

Diversity Heretic
Member
21 days ago

Why do I have the feeling that the technological possibilities discussed in the last few paragraphs of the z-man’s post will appear first in the pornography industry?

Mister
Mister
21 days ago

Interesting speculation about the future of film. I don’t know what comes next but I know what exists now is a societal cancer so good riddance to bad rubbish.

Arthur Metcalf
Member
21 days ago

I love these threads. Boomer breakfast time. Half the comments: “I haven’t watched a film since Aught-One and it’s gonna’ shtay that way, dadgummit!” Like your grandparents weren’t saying the same in the 1960s and 1970s. Oh but they were wrong, aesthetic heights were crested by titans like Robert Plant and Don Henley, kid!

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

The thread definitely shows the age of Zman’s average reader. Thing is, I didn’t watch that many movies or listen to the radio even when I was a teen. Friends in the ’60s swooned over Bobby Sherman and I had no idea who he was. Yes, I’m familiar with music I heard all around me or that friends and siblings listened to, but on my own I couldn’t be bothered. I know some late ’70s music because I had a mad crush on a guy in a band when I was a college junior/senior. I watched a lot of movies… Read more »

Zulu Juliet
Zulu Juliet
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

Listen, whipper-snapper. I never said I haven’t watched anything since 2015. I said I have, and it’s all C-R-A-P. Now get off my lawn!

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Arthur Metcalf
21 days ago

I think this may be the greatest comment ever made on the Internet.

Last edited 21 days ago by Alzaebo
johnmark7
johnmark7
21 days ago

AI cannot begin to do what David Mamet or I can do with a script. Great dialogue depending on wit and originality is impossible for software.

usNthem
usNthem
21 days ago

The funny thing is, these hollywood (as well as various other entertainment) asswipes still think their opinion matters. The vast majority couldn’t give two s**** or f**** what any of those turds think about anything. F ‘em all.

Major Hoople
Major Hoople
Member
21 days ago

Speaking of which, a fellow on Twitter calling himself National Conservative, just posted the cast for a production of the Odyssey. It’s headed by some creature calling herself Zendaya, and it looks like a total freak show. Hollywood used to know enough to put men like Kirk Douglas or Burt Lancaster barechested in such productions.

Isleofview
Isleofview
20 days ago

Lucius Sulla try “The Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James.

trackback
21 days ago

[…] core porn flick. I wouldn’t even have thought about it but The Zman wrote about it today, The Death Of Hollywood. He argues that the main reason no one watches the awards shows is that most films today are just […]

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
21 days ago

Let me guess. No mention of Villeneuve’s Dune II on the Oscars.

Last edited 21 days ago by Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Alzaebo
21 days ago

Okay, Zman, you suckered me into googling the Oscars. Anora actually looks interesting…very “with” the modern zeitgeist. The mummies are trying to get one last drop of nostalgia-laden adrenochrome out of their victims. Emilia Perez? Jeebus. The last gasp of the Kamala era. Sicario this ain’t. And at least, consolation prizes for Dune II. They are definitely afraid of based. Did anybody notice the unique aspect of Dune? Not a whisper of abortion or “women’s rights.” Women in the far future are back to wielding power as only women can do. And, the unnamed subtext: the ultimate prize was not… Read more »

Last edited 21 days ago by Alzaebo
Bitter reactionary
Bitter reactionary
Reply to  Alzaebo
21 days ago

The casting decision for the emperor in Dune 2 was, in itself, so bad that not even a valid award system could overlook it. Wrecking the Chani character was even worse. It was visually stunning tho, I admit.