Ernest Goes to Camp Mr. Bee’s review

 

Hello and welcome, I am finally here to review the next Ernest movie, or more accurately, the first actual Ernest movie. The last time we looked at the beloved mechanic, which was 2 years ago, was with “Dr. Otto”. Now “Dr. Otto” can barely be considered an Ernest movie considering that Ernest only makes a short appearance at the very end. Just to clarify the release date for “Dr. Otto” is a little obscure, if I was going by the video release date “Dr.Otto” would have been 1992 after “Ernest Goes to Camp”, but I’m choosing to go by the theatrical release date 1985 even though there was no theatrical release that we know of. Now with that out of the way let’s kick off Fall with a movie about a traditional Summer activity that did not happen this year. 

Background

This movie was released in 1987 and was directed by John Cherry. There is not much other information on the movie, but one interesting thing is, the actor that played the Chief in the movie, Iron Eyes Cody, is also known to play several other Native American parts. Throughout his life, he claimed to be of Native American descent, but after his death, however, he was revealed to be Italian, with no Native American blood in him. Is it just me or does knowing this fact make the movie not age well?

Plot

Ernest is a maintenance guy at a summer camp, and he dreams of being a camp counselor. The camp is chosen to get some kids from a reform school. The counselor that was assigned to these kids ended up breaking his leg, putting him out of commission for the summer. Ernest is given the job! That’s not all, an evil mining company wants the land that the camp is on, and will stop at nothing to get it. To thicken the plot, the camp is located on an ancient Native American ritual site. On a side note, there is a minor subplot with the two camp chefs trying to make a dish called “Eggs Erroneous.”

Opinion

Let’s begin with the good stuff, the acting is pretty good throughout the movie, the jokes for the most part hit their mark, and there is not much to say on the technical end. Now with all that said, the plot of the evil businessman wanting the land has been overdone; don’t get me wrong, overdone plots are fine if used with a fresh idea (if you go by the “hero's journey” theory there is only one plot ),unfortunately there is nothing unique about this plot. The subplot, making “Eggs Erroneous”, while funny at times does not add anything to the movie and could be cut out without taking anything away from the story. Also, in my opinion the constant use of the word “indian” makes the movie dated and makes me feel slightly uncomfortable at times.

Overall I give Ernest Goes to Camp 3 out of 5 stars. About average.

 

Thank you all for reading this, I hope to have my review of the next Ernest movie before this post turns three.

Goodnight and Bee Happy!™

Mr.Bee

 

copyright 2020 Bradley Entertainment All rights belong to Mr. Bee and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.

images courtesy of The Walt Disney Company and

Mango Bollywood respectively.

a Local Theater on the The theatrical window

Hi guys, In the time I finished and posted my last blog, I got a response back from the owner of the Cinema Saver, a second run theater in my area. So without further ado, I will share his response with you. 

“ While AMC and Regal may well recover from this pandemic due to their foreign ownership or foreign financial backers, we don't have that luxury.  The film industry has long wanted to release VOD much closer to the theatrical release date to make greater use of their advertising.  Actually, Disney has been in the forefront of this push and they're obviously the biggest dog in the business at this point.  We are wondering how this will affect us as a second run theater.  Will the VOD release push up the secondary market for theaters like ours?  We're thinking that's not likely.  We've been able to carve out a niche in that time period between when a movie leaves the first run theaters and before it comes out on Blu-Ray or on one of the streaming services.  If that shrinks (and it has over the years) we're very likely to feel the squeeze.  The pandemic has given the film production companies a chance to test the waters of even skipping movie theaters completely.  When the movie industry comes out of this terrible time the landscape is sure to be different.  We guess it's just a matter of how things evolve. “  -Cinema Saver

Thanks again to the Cinema Saver for your response. To everyone else, when movie theaters reopen or if they have already reopened, I encourage you to go local.

Goodnight, and Bee Happy!™ 

Mr.Bee   

2024 Update,

last year the Cinema Saver closed for good, a tragic casualty of the post-COVID Moviegoing landscape.

Are the Movie Theaters Dead? Part II

                                        

Hello, It has been 6 years ago today since I started my blog. A lot has changed since I started my blog, and that my friends, is the understatement of the past 6 years. The last blog I posted back in June, was about the current state of the movie theaters, that blog is now outdated despite the fact that it is less than 2 months old. So, I have decided, in true Hollywood fashion, to put out a sequel while the paint is still drying on the first one. First, I will begin with something that I never expected to become outdated, and that is, the law that prohibits movie studios from owning their own theaters. Last week, the department of justice and a federal judge eliminated that law. If you are interested in my more in-depth analysis please check out my most recent episode of “In the Mind of Mr. Bee”. ((Go To my Facebook page)

Let’s move on, two weeks ago Universal and AMC made a landmark deal that could shorten the theatrical window to just 17 days. To more accurately understand this, let’s have a brief history lesson. The theatrical window is the amount of time between when the movie comes out in theaters to the time you can purchase it for your own viewing pleasure. This window came about sometime in the early ’80s when VHS tapes were the new thing, and during this time the theatrical window was a whole lot longer, we are talking almost a year! Sometime in the early 2000s, the window was shortened to about 74 days for digital and 90 days for physical media (DVD, Blu Ray, etc.), to about 3 months. This brings us back to today, or at least 2 weeks ago. The full terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, but the crux of it is it will see Universal movies playing in AMC theaters for 17 days or 3 weekends before Universal can put the movie on Video On Demand (VOD). Now, AMC and Universal have clarified a few things. Number one, Universal has said they will not be doing this for all of their movies, so there will be some that will be at the 90-day window. As to which of the movies this will be, we do not know and I am not sure Universal knows. Also, the movies will not necessarily be pulled after 17 days, meaning that a movie could be in theaters while you are able to watch it at home. Now AMC’s two biggest competitors (Regal and Cinemark) are against the deal. The CEO of Regal’s parent, Cineworld, blasted the deal, calling it “bad for business.” Cinemark’s CEO was a little bit kinder by simply "saying that shortening the theatrical window could have an adverse effect on their business." Despite being offered by AMC the other studios have yet to sign on to the deal. Granted, the CEO of Viacom (Paramount’s parent company) said that the theatrical window does need to be shortened, but he gave very little detail. A Lot of independently owned theaters are against the deal and fear that this will eventually put them out of business. 

Now let’s take a look at Disney. At the end of last quarter, while on a conference call with investors, the CEO Bob Chapek, announced that Mulan would be going to Disney+, but with a catch, there will be an extra $30 fee.  Chapek did make it clear that they are looking at Mulan as a “one-off event”, but you need to keep in mind that what Chapek says and does are two different things. Now before you get sticker shock over the price, let’s do the math; depending on the number of people in your party, you could pay that price or well above, for example, a family of 5 would be about $70 just for admission. Disney does have some problems with the numbers though, to understand this let’s break it down. Mulan has a $200 million budget, add in the marketing price (which they finished in March!). Disney has not released the marketing budget, but I would estimate that Disney needs to make $300 million to break even. Now with it being released on Disney+,  Disney will get 100% of the profits, so to break even Disney would need 10 million subscribers. On the surface, 10 million subscribers don’t seem like much, but Disney only has a 60 million subscriber base, which compared to Netflix’s 182 million subscriber base, it is a little high to expect to get 10 million subscribers to pay. Now, remember this is only to break even and an estimate on my part, so the number of subscribers needed could be even higher, but probably not much lower. If you are wondering why Disney is taking this chance, it was done on the day that Disney reported a loss of nearly $5 billion dollars, so it was a way to get the shareholders to “look the other direction” and it worked. 

In conclusion, the shortening of the theatrical window is inevitable, but will it be 17 days? Probably not, more likely the new standard will be 30 to 60 days. For the reasons I laid out, Disney's new “premiere access” venture will not become the “new normal” (crazier things have happened!) Just for the record no, I will not be paying the extra $30, but I would have gone to the theater. Starting next week Movie theaters will be reopening in parts of the US, and have already opened in most other parts of the world, but as for me and other New Yorker’s we must continue to be content with Disney+ and Netflix. This pandemic will be remembered for a lot of reasons, for me personally I will never forget watching a 130-year-old industry go haywire right before our eyes!

Goodnight, and Bee Happy!™  

Mr.Bee 

copyright 2020 Bradley Entertainment All rights belong to Mr. Bee and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.

 image courtesy of  AMC Theatres

Are the movie theaters dead?

Hello and welcome!  It has been almost four months since the movie theaters were mandated to close due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Now granted, in the southern part of the United States a couple of theaters (independently owned, mind you) have reopened. In a large portion of the globe and here in New York, the theaters remain closed with no opening date set. Many people online, as well as Wall Street bankers, are saying that the movie theaters are a dying breed. Now with all of this doom and gloom I would like to add my two cents to this discussion, and anyway it is something to keep me busy. For disclosure, I do not have stock in any theater chain, nor do I work for or have ever worked for a theater. With all that out of the way let us begin.

For the most part this is unprecedented. The last pandemic of this magnitude was in 1918, over 100 years ago. I did some research on the 1918 pandemic in regards to the industry and discovered that 82 theaters as well as all filming was shut down in LA, information regarding other places was vague. If you can’t tell by now, that number is a far cry from the thousands if not millions of theaters closed worldwide. Another thing to keep in mind is that movies were completely different back then, so trying to use this as historical precedence is faulty at best. Now, as I detailed in an essay that I did back in 2017, people have been writing the theater’s eulogy for decades. The first eulogy came with TV, cable and then with home media (VCRs and DVDs, etc ), and most recently streaming (Netflix, etc.). Now with the exception of streaming, we did not have a pandemic in play.  But besides that, I have a couple of reasons why I am not rushing to bury the theaters (and it’s not that I can’t find a good deal on a shovel). 

First of all the movies and shows on Netflix and Disney+ do not make a profit off of their content directly.  For example The Mandalorian or the upcoming release of Hamilton, both on Disney+, Disney is basically putting them on the platform for free, as it comes with your subscription. As far as the subscriptions go, you only pay once in a certain period of time, like my family only pays once a year. Just to be clear, I am not declaring doom on all the streaming services, as companies like Netflix are very profitable and content is very important to gain and keep subscribers. But, I do not see it as a steady release model to rely on 100%.

My second reason is the premium video on demand (PVD). Now for my readers that have no idea what I am talking about, it is when you pay a few dollars to watch a movie on a platform such as Amazon. Now during this pandemic, we have seen companies use this model as a way to release their movies, such as Universal with Trolls, and Warner Brothers with Scoob! Now Universal has reportedly made over $18 million on rentals on the first day. Universal has stated publicly that they will be doing “day and date” from now on, meaning that their movies will be released theatrically and digitally simultaneously, which has resulted in a war with the theater industry. I hate to be the bearer of bad news for Universal but I don’t think PVD is that profitable as a release model, on the surface it seems like it will be more profitable, because on a PVD release the studio will get about 90% of the sales, whereas, with theatrical releases, the studio only gets about half of the box office gross. But with PVD it all has to do with pricing. Like if Disney released the Avengers for $5 on Amazon, while people will jump for that, Disney will not be making that much of a profit, due to the Avengers having a $220 million budget. Now if Disney did a release with the same price as a movie ticket which is $15-$20, and the same amount of people bought as they did with the $5 (this is not counting families it is referring to individual people), Disney would easily make a profit, but people will not. With theaters, you are not only paying for the movie you are also paying for the experience, such as surround sound, etc. So overall I do not see it as a sustainable model after the theaters open back up. 

Now I would like to address the elephant in the room: AMC is nearing bankruptcy. They have furloughed all of their employees, including their CEO (that is just on paper, he is still working). The problem for AMC is that the pandemic came at the worst time: they had just completed a massive expansion and they launched a subscription service, which had just started to turn a profit. If not for the pandemic AMC would have been able to pay off their debts relatively quickly. Despite this, I have a hard time believing that the largest theater chain will go belly up. There are way too many companies that would lose money should AMC fail, not just studios, but also soda and candy companies, as well as malls. What I foresee happening in the studios will band together with the other companies and AMC will be bailed out or in the worst-case scenario sold (a studio can not buy it as this is illegal).

When the movie theaters open whether, in July or November, movie-going will be different. Billion-dollar movies will probably not be seen for a while. But when we finally get a vaccine, I believe that movie-going will return to relatively normal. I will update you on any new developments. 

Goodnight and Bee Happy!™

Mr. Bee

copyright 2020 Bradley Entertainment All rights belong to Mr. Bee and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.

 image courtesy of  AMC Theatres

streaming

 Hi! This was originally written as an essay for my film class way back in 2017 so the info may be a little outdated but I will be doing a new blog on this topic in the coming days enjoy  
  Mr.Bee 
The medium for watching films has dramatically changed over time. In the early days of film (the 1890s-1940s), the only way of watching films was at a movie theater. When the 1950s rolled around, television became another way of watching film. During the late 1970s, VHS and Beta came along followed by laserdiscs, DVDs, and Blu Rays came along much later on. However, movie theaters were all active during this time and doing better than ever. Yet, today, the internet and streaming movies might be slowly causing the death of movie theaters as they are currently known. With the advent of movies being viewed at home, theaters developed new gimmicks to continue to draw people in (such as widescreen and 3-d). However, with streaming, consumers do not have to just watch it on their computers or phones - they can watch it on their tv with literally the click of a button in its original aspect ratio. A major aspect that may signal the death of the theater is the price. For example, a month-long Netflix or Amazon streaming subscription is roughly equivalent to a single premium movie ticket and allows unlimited access to its ever-expansive library. Another factor is convenience. The turn-around time from theater to home is quicker than ever, so the consumer does not have to wait long to see “new” movies. Also, being able to access a given movie anytime allows flexibility to the consumer. In addition, the major streaming companies are making original content such as movies and series. For example, The Little Prince and Beast of no Nation are premium-produced movies available initially through streaming only. Whether or not streaming will truly cause the death of movie theaters is up for debate and only time will tell. This fact remains, in a very short time, streaming has become a legitimate threat to a 130-year industry.
 Bibliography

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/09/how-movie-theaters-are-striking-back-against-netflix.html

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/15/netflix-and-kill-is-streaming-hurting-movie-theaters.html 

copyright 2020 Bradley Entertainment All rights belong to Mr. Bee and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.

 image courtesy of  Positively Osceola

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