Yes, the tripling of annual cinema output has brought us more awful movies like, , and, which all got a whopping 0% on
The famous screenwriter had a saying about the ability of the movie studios to predict what would be a critical or commercial success: "Nobody knows anything." Waldfogel calls this "Goldman's Law," and he thinks it's important in understanding why opening the floodgates of new content hasn't left us only with a sea of duds. If you look at features alone (and not documentaries), there are now at least three times more movies being made every year than there were in 2000.ĭon't see the graphic above? Click here: Growth of U.S.-Origin Movies "Nobody Knows Anything"
YouTube, created an unlimited number of "theaters." As a result, "We've seen just an explosion in the number of movies made," says Waldfogel.
Digital technology changed all that.ĭigital cameras and editing software made production crazy cheap. And then once they were made, the limited number of movie screens created a distribution bottleneck. In the old movie system, Waldfogel says, it was prohibitively expensive for most people outside the major studios to make quality movies. We should note that Waldfogel does try to measure the quality of movies from a few other angles, too.) (Assigning the job of valuing a culture's output to a site called In contrast, the 100th-best movie wasĭon't see the graphic above? Click here: Critical Acclaim Of Top Movies On Rotten Tomatoes (1998-2017). Psycho, scored only 38%, an atrocious score. The 100th-best movie, a reboot of the movie This is especially apparent for movies at the bottom of the list. He finds that up and down the list, movies are getting rated higher. Waldfogel crunched the numbers on the 100 best films every year according to the movie-rating site His data provides evidence that the number of great films (as judged by both the majority of critics and average moviegoers) has exploded since digital technology helped reinvent the film industry in the early 2000s. But Waldfogel argues that cinema really is better than ever.īeing an economist, he does it with data. It seems like every week there's another superhero movie or reboot or sequel-or prequel to the sequel. It's part of a broad media revolution-in music, in books, in TV, and, yes, movies-that economist Joel Waldfogel calls a "digital renaissance," which is also the title of. Yet, basically, it's an internet film and a perfect symbol of Hollywood's dramatic transformation over the last twenty years. Netflix, which bought the rights to distribute the film. Roma apart is it went almost directly to streaming on Shot in black and white, it's a slow-burn, foreign-language flick that lacks A-list stars and a big budget. It's also a film that doesn't quite fit the typical Hollywood mold.
Roma is a gorgeous and evocative film about the joys and struggles of an indigenous housemaid named Cleo. That set off the 'jealous mother' and 'mother killed the girl'! Now after the murder, Norman returned as if from a deep sleep.NOTE: This is an excerpt of Planet Money's newsletter. Fred Simon: When he met your sister, he was touched by her. Therefore, if he felt a strong attraction to any other woman, the mother side of him would go wild.ĭr. And because he was so pathologically jealous of her, he assumed that she was jealous of him.
Now he was never all Norman, but he was often only mother. At other times, the mother half took over completely. At times he could be both personalities, carry on conversations. So he began to think and speak for her, give her half his time, so to speak. Even treated it to keep it as well as it would keep. So he had to erase the crime, at least in his own mind. most unbearable to the son who commits it. Matricide is probably the most unbearable crime of all. Now that pushed him over the line and he killed 'em both. and it seemed to Norman that she 'threw him over' for this man. His mother was a clinging, demanding woman, and for years the two of them lived as if there was no one else in the world. Now he was already dangerously disturbed, had been ever since his father died. you have to go back ten years, to the time when Norman murdered his mother and her lover. that is, from the mother half of Norman's mind. Now to understand it the way I understood it, hearing it from the mother.