Cinema Sunday: Sorry, the Theater Is Closed

Whoops! 

No Cinema Sunday for today.

The journey towards writing what was going to be today's post about this week's movie selection took many diversions, including deciding which movie I was going to write about, doing research on those movies which took more time than i expected and finally coming up against running out of time to write about either of them. 

Kind of a "everything that could go wrong did go wrong" kind of a deal. 

Much like the movie industry itself. 

With theaters closed as a result of pandemic lockdowns, the very idea of a "movie industry" seems rather quaint. 

Big ticket movies finished and ready to go push impatiently against the gates, desperate to run free among the multiplexes once more. 

Some studios are getting a bit antsy holding on to these films, wanting to find some way to get them to market and make some damn money on their investment already. 

It seems Disney is pulling the trigger to release the live action Mulan on Disney+. If you're already paying for Disney+, you're not getting Mulan for free.  It will set you back about $30 to rent it.  

$30 sounds like a lot to rent a movie. But if a family bought tickets to see Mulan in an actual movie theater, it would still set them back about $30 or more. 

Theater owners are pissed. One theater owner posted a video of himself smashing a Mulan display with a sledgehammer. 

People paying for Disney+ are not happy that Disney wants them to pay extra for Mulan. And $30 is way more than other Video On Demand options  charge.  

I believe it was William Goldman who once said of the Hollywood film industry executives, "Nobody knows anything."  And in this strange time of pandemic lockdowns, studio execs know even less.  Everyone is still scrambling to figure out what works. 

In the coming weeks, Cinema Sunday will spotlight a 2017 spy thriller, a 2020 documentary on a 1980s rock 'n' roll band and we'll go back in time to 1930 for another Marx Brothers classic. 

Until next time, stay safe and remember to be good to one another.