“philistines, foes of art, craven bottom-liners, vulgarians” ... and us

A dis­pir­it­ing por­trait of the cur­rent com­mer­cial cinema from Mark Harris in GQ:

Such an unre­lent­ing focus on the sell rather than the goods may be why so many of the dis­pir­it­ingly awful movies that stu­di­os throw at us look as if they were planned from the poster back­ward rather than from the good idea for­ward. Marketers revere the idea of brands, because a brand means that some­body, some­where, once bought the thing they’re now try­ing to sell.

[From The Day the Movies Died: Movies + TV: GQ]

This is sadly a must-read for any­one who still enjoys going to the pic­tures but is won­der­ing why they still bother.

Interestingly, this is the third GQ art­icle I have linked to here in the last 12 months (Shatner and Shandling) and yet I still main­tain my sub­scrip­tion to Esquire and haven’t actu­ally bought a GQ in nearly 15 years. I may need to reas­sess that.