[Jonathan Rosenbaum]Movie Wars : How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See(pdf){Zzzzz}

Is the cinema, as writers from David Denby to Susan Sontag have claimed, really dead? Contrary to what we have been led to believe, films are better than ever—we just can’t see the good ones. Movie Wars cogently explains how movies are packaged, distributed, and promoted, and how, at every stage of the process, the potential moviegoer is treated with contempt. Using examples ranging from the New York Times’s coverage of the Cannes film festival to the anticommercial practices of Orson Welles, Movie Wars details the workings of the powerful forces that are in the process of ruining our precious cinematic culture and heritage, and the counterforces that have begun to fight back.

Publisher: Chicago Review Press; 1st edition (July 1, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1556524064
ISBN-13: 978-1556524066

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
"Consider what might happen if Roger Ebert couldn't find a single movie to recommend on one of his weekly shows," Rosenbaum asks provocatively in this freewheeling critique of the American movie industry. Arguing that American moviegoers are consistently denied the right to make up their own minds about what movies to see, and even how to think about them, he reveals the powerful influence market researchers, production studios, advertisers, film critics and publishing concerns ("the media-industrial complex") have on how films are made, marketed, released and reviewed. Citing such diverse examples as George Lucas's draconian exhibition contracts for The Phantom Menace (which bound theaters to a lengthy run regardless of audience size), distributors' offers of free film junkets to bribe critics and the use of canned reviews and industry-sanctioned lists of "the 100 Best American Films" written by "professional blurb writers," Rosenbaum drives home his point that there is far more commerce than art in American film. Occasionally, his arguments are overheated (the fact that film festivals are often popularity contests is no surprise), but for the most part they are well-supported and potent, and successfully address broader questions of consumer culture and capitalism. Rosenbaum's journalistic style makes this animated treatise accessible to film buffs who want to know more about how movies get made, while his sound arguments make it a good bet for academic readers as well. (Nov.)

Review
“Movie Wars is a cherry bomb in the lap of critical complacency and orthodoxy—and a bold challenge to the movie industry. . . . This brief text is packed with more ideas than any other film book you’re likely to read this year.” —Premiere


“The work of a tough and principled critic whose insights into movies in the age of tie-ins and Disney are as rude and witty as they are sharp, Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Movie Wars is a bracing job of cultural muckraking.” —Tom Carson, the Washington Post

“Jonathan Rosenbaum is the best film critic in the United States—indeed, he’s one of the best writers on film of any kind in the history of the medium.” —James Naremore, author of Acting in the Cinema


“Rosenbaum's journalistic style makes this animated treatise accessible to film buffs who want to know more about how movies get made, while his sound arguments make it a good bet for academic readers as well.” —Publishers Weekly

“Movie Wars is invigorating in the way it argues not only that movies of lasting value are being made all the time, but also that movies can actaully enlarge an audience's comprehensionof the world.” —Vue Weekly


“Essential reading for anyone who cares about movies.” —Martha P. Nochimson, Film Quarterly

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Movie Wars: A Book Review
By Harvey S. Karten on December 19, 2000
"MOVIE WARS: How Hollywood and the Media Conspire to Limit What Films We Can See," by Jonathan Rosenbaum: Chicago, a capella, 2000. Review by Harvey Karten film_critic@compuserve.com.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, film critic with the Chicago Reader, is on the left politically as one can easily see from his latest book, "Movie Wars." His central position is that while we have a free press in the United States, the capacity to go to virtual or actual book stores and find just about anything we want to read (particularly in the giants like Barnes & Noble and Amazon), we do not enjoy such freedom in choosing our movies. Rosenbaum expresses a belief in the wisdom of ordinary moviegoers who might like to take in screenings of important films but who, thanks to the power of the so-called movie industrial complex, are often unable to do so. In other words, the big studios and the large newspapers, TV and radio stations scheme with one another to push certain movies our way and to discourage our viewing of others they do not wish to market.
Of all the evidence he supplies, what got me (as a film critic) thinking most is Rosenbaum's contention that the media and the big studios in effect bribe supposedly impartial critics to push certain films. Since recognized movie critics, particularly in areas of the country like New York and L.A., are given free access to hundreds of movies each year, some might be tempted to cooperate with the studios and write fluff pieces out of gratitude for the invitations

Essential for those who take cinema seriously
By "printersrow" on December 17, 2000
Jonathan Rosenbaum takes cinema for what it is and what it could be. The author is a passionate movie critic, who believes passionately in the power of the "movement-image." He writes weekly reviews in the Chicago Reader. He might be the only critic I know of in the US who actually DEFENDS certain movies. His highly vitriolic discussion of the practices of major movie studios is refreshing and right on target. Rosenbaum's exploration of the socio-economic and cultural reasons why US audiences cannot easily access foreign movies leads him to a larger reflection on the very nature and/or possibility of an "American" cinema in the age of globalization. Rosenbaum vehemently criticizes the current status quo and the US film industry for treating movies as disposable commodities and the audiences as hapless consumers. He also shows how the "entertainment-industrial complex" has taken over the shaping of the public's taste through mainstream media outlets. Rosenbaum argues forcefully against the cliche that so-called art movies - and those who enjoy them - are hopeless elitists. As a matter of fact, in the book he discusses Starship Troopers and Orson Welles' Ambersons with equal interest. He makes the case that movies can tell us crucial things about the world we live in, or in other words that movies - foreign, US, artsy, indie, whatever - matter because of their ethical value. A vital, and extremely minoritarian position nowadays. In summary, a very lively and at times very funny book, which considerably enriches the discussion on cinema. Invaluable in the era of the E! channnel.