Bold Business Analysis

In the Business section of today's New York Times, David Carr reports that the "boomer moguls" (Spielberg, Geffen, et al) never achieved the total control of the movie-making process enjoyed by the first generation of studio bosses.

Stay awake, it gets better. The article's conclusion is worth quoting for the sheer beauty of its illogic:

The people who built the current version of Hollywood did so by coming up with movies that people felt compelled to see - not as a matter of marketing, but as a matter of taste. What was once magic, creating other worlds in darkened rooms, has become just one more revenue stream. The movies have been commoditized [sic] to even more lucrative ends, and the men who made it so will shift in their seats as the credits roll.

Now we know. The movies are losing money because thay have become "commoditized," and if they would just quit being so damn "lucrative," the audience would return. OK, it's a slow news day in August. But even the crickets work harder than this.