Getting Down to Basics With Beatty
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Beatty’s cogent observation in Mathews’ excellent bio article is timely: “. . . box-office grosses, film budgets and production problems demean films” and “box-office reports are promoting bad films.”
Clearly, the PR use of such statistics have become vulgar marketing tools.
When I was young, I used to root for Hugh McElhenny of the San Francisco 49ers. My focus was on Hugh’s awesome broken-field running. I didn’t know his salary or even care. Today, ask kids about basketball star Michael Jordan. They’ll fire off some stats at you, prefaced by the seven-digit figure of his enormous salary.
I suspect that some movie budgets are exaggerated to hype the box office. Whatever happened to quality for quality’s sake?
Michael Jordan is clearly a very great athlete. And Warren Beatty is a major talent in the entertainment world. Neither require “seven-digit hype” to sell their quality talents.
The “bean counters” who dominate sports, Hollywood and our society today ultimately demean the Jordans and the Beattys.
PHIL CAVAGNARO
San Bernardino
Only good movies
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