Eccentric Flower:201002/Two Too Long

I.

John Scalzi writes "Why In Fact Publishing Will Not Go Away Anytime Soon: A Deeply Slanted Play in Three Acts." I could take exactly the same data and use it to write the same play but without the "not" in the title. Because Scalzi - well, I won't say he is wrong, but I think he's being overly optimistic. The key point where we diverge is right here in his dialogue:

I read that as "in the future, there's no way writers will get paid," because I believe that the bulk of the population - if they read at all - will be more than willing to settle for reading such content as they can get absolutely free, even if it means they have to make sacrifices in quality.

Remember, I don't think the average reader gives much of a damn about editing or consistency or even quality, or Dan Brown would not have a best-selling career right now. Stephen King, bless his heart, hasn't been well-edited in years, but his fans don't care. Most of the oh-so-precious Oprah-list type best-sellers could stand some serious editing (although admittedly, if you edited Franzen or Eggers their books would be about ten pages long once you took the garbage out).

And the amount of content amateurs are willing to produce for free simply boggles the mind. My wife writes fanfic. She writes fanfic which is, I think, of far better than average quality for the medium, and people love her work - because they do know quality when they see it, even if they won't pay to seek it out. She should be publishing for pay, which means she should be writing original fiction (charging for fanfic is problematic, of course, for copyright and moral reasons). I tell her this all the time. Unlike me she writes things people might actually pay to read. But she won't do it. Thus she is contributing to the problem.

That's not actually meant to be a fatal criticism. I'm glad to see her doing something she enjoys so much. I'm glad she's having fun. Nor am I suggesting that she stop! I'm just saying that every talented amateur who is willing to put content out for free is a nail in the coffin of the would-be professionals who are not willing to do so. I'm saying that we're shifting to an almost-zero-sum game where there will be two types of writers, those who are willing to give it away and those who aren't, and the ones who aren't will eventually just cease emitting fiction out of sheer futility/disgust.

(And, incidentally, this is why, in order to put my stories out for free, I had to admit that my desire to have people see them was greater than my desire to be a professional writer, or my loyalty to other professional writers. You see that I, too, am contributing to the problem - albeit in a tiny, tiny way.)

Never forget that we are raising a generation who do not understand - who honestly, sincerely, do not understand - why they need to pay for any content. They don't understand why their music can't be free and their web-streamed films can't be free and their stories can't be free and so on. These people are the future. They are what you must build and anticipate any business model on. Now tell me how you're going to make any money off these bums. (And don't say "advertising," because they hate that too and they have gotten very good at skipping it.)

Sorry. I just don't see a way to make it happen.

II.

So, the other day I was talking about the Best Picture nominees on Twitter, which I shall reproduce in slightly reassembled form for those who don't go there (can't say I blame you):

On the whole, not a bad slate this year, but if Avatar wins Best Picture, we should all demand a refund. And, yes, I saw Avatar this weekend. Visually stunning. Script not too insulting (has race issues tho). Fun ride. But v. v. predictable.

[At this point I was asked what I considered to be the best picture.]

I didn't see any of the Deep or Gritty four which are the sort of films that actually should get Best Picture, so I can't say.

It's the old debate: Does Best Picture reward verite? Does it reward script? Does it reward best entertainment experience? Traditionally, the award has gone to category #1 - those very verite, high-emotional-spectrum films which I don't ever see.

If it's type #1 then it's Precious, Serious Man, Hurt Locker, or An Education. Of those, Hurt Locker is the only one I might make it through. Up In the Air is good but shallow. Blind Side is glurge crap. District 9 is crap, period. The rest are actually fun and therefore ineligible.

[For definition of "glurge" please see snopes.com.]

For the record, I saw the fun ones: Avatar, Up, Ingl. B'terds ... and one which was not fun but I don't regret: Up in the Air.

If a film I actually saw wins Best Picture, something's wrong. The last time that happened was 2003.

[It was Return of the King, which is Epic but not really a type #1 Best Picture, and whose award was really a collective nod to the three LOTR films as a whole. Before that, the last time there was a Best Picture I saw was Gladiator, which was an utter fluke on the Academy's part, and before that, American Beauty, which was an utter fluke on my part, since normally there's no way in hell I'd see a film like that.]

[At this point several people started hollering at me about District 9. Amy D. said: "District 9 is crap? Inglourious Basterds is fun? You're breaking my head!" To her I replied:]

Ingl. B. is not a movie to be taken seriously on any level. Hence the "fun." If you try to parse it seriously, it fails. I.B. is Quentin fucking around with you. As for District 9, clearly I'm going to have to write an entry.

So, here's the entry about District 9. No, I didn't see it. And the funny thing is, I believe someone has been altering the universe without my permission. Because I remember reading Ty Burr's review of it and his being displeased with it. I remember reading Ebert's review of it and his being displeased with it. Both of these reviews have been mysteriously replaced with on-the-balance-positive ones. I remember Entertainment Weekly being rather harsh with it. But no, there they are near the top of Metacritic's list with a 100 score. Obviously someone or something is trying to screw with my head.

I did manage to find a couple of reviews which summarize how I feel about the movie, which is how I thought everyone else felt too until this week. The first one is from the Baltimore Sun, and here's the key block:

And from the Chicago Reader:

After finding those amid the general cloud of approval (shocking!) I went back to at least one review I know I read at the time to see how I could have been so misled - Ty Burr's, in the Boston Globe. And lo, I found this:

Um, so, this was considered a 75 review by Metacritic? Did they read the same review?

And Ebert, although generally positive, notes at the end:

The impression I got of the film was that it defaulted on any attempt to have a real message or point, except for a couple of places where the most obvious Apartheid Is Evil banalities were driven home with a sixteen-pound sledge, and, having delivered those requisite platitudes, was content to then degenerate into a slightly less slickly-produced knockoff of a Michael Bay movie.

Sure, I'm cherrypicking things which agree with me, but it's worth noting that even before I'd read any of the reviews, the movie struck me as a mess - like it didn't know what it was trying to be or do. And in general I heard only negative buzz, which is why I'm genuinely surprised to peek out of my cave now and see that it's on some of your personal best lists for the year.

I guess I must be missing something ... but since the movie strikes me also as a thoroughly unpleasant story to watch about unpleasant people and unpleasant aliens, I also am not very interested in having a look to see where I went wrong. Sorry.