comment #1

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

Ugh. "Old Men Don't Like Teenagers" shocker.

Quite funny that, among all the countless other things that teenagers are held responsible for, the lackluster commercial performance of The Hurt Locker has become one of them. Damn those kids!

comment #2

Travis Crabtree says ...

"The Hurt Locker"? Is that a movie? Has it come out yet?

comment #3

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

Have they done any research into the marketing of The Hurt Locker? What publications/websites/TV channels it's being advertised on? Or are they just going to go with the "young people are stupid" excuse?

Pathetic misanthropic article.

comment #4

frankbooth says ...

I've seen those kids around. What's this doc called and what mall did they shoot it at?

comment #5

mitchtaylor says ...

There were teens at the screening of the Hurt Locker I saw a few days ago and, based on their in-movie comments, they did not very much enjoy the film.

comment #6

George Prager says ...

When did flip-flops become the in thing? I remember once in high school one of the Dead Head kids came into school one morning wearing sandals and he was almost lynched.

comment #7

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey: You can "old man" me all you want (which, by the way, wiil get your ass banned if you keep it up) but stupid is stupid and ignorant is ignorant and coarse is coarse. My years on this planet don't change the facts about under 25s as Robert's friend describes them -- i.e., averse to seeing anything that isn't the Big Movie of the New Weekend, and who gives their friends death-ray looks if they mention anything askew or unusual. I rant about dumbed-down youth culture all the time and it's because I'm older and biter abotu that...right? Bill Maher rants about dumb Americans and it's because he's older and that's all...right? No merit to his observations, it's all about age. Roger Ebert rants about dumbed-down youth sand he too is essentially venting his anger about being less young than the people he's writing about...right?

comment #8

nemo says ...

Anybody who thinks the average teens or pre-teens are anything other than the biggest conformists and mass-marketing tools on the planet has not spent any time around people that age recently.

Just yesterday one of my 11-year-old nieces left after a 3-week visit. It was like giving the most cynical marketing person in the world a direct pipeline into our house to pump a constant stream of nonsense into our ears about what crap 11-year-olds should throw away their parents' money on.

By the end of the first week we had to tell her she was forbidden to utter another word about Edward, Twilight, and vampires on pain of being hosed down with a squirt gun.

We don't have have cable TV, we place more severe limits on her use of electronics than her parents, we push her more to do real stuff like biking and swimming, and we push her harder to do homework every day (her math skills are terrible, even for her age), so after a week or two of marketing detox, the stream of commercialized babble issuing from her mouth did slow down a bit.

comment #9

MrTribeca says ...

A summer movie blockbuster is all sizzle, no steak. Yeah, same as it ever was. Move along, nothing to see here, etc.

comment #10

WJ says ...

I know that it's been said by many people before, but your hypocrisy is incredibly irksome. It may be a cliche of biblical proportions (indeed, if you went to Sunday school, it is), but you personal appearance is not the definitive indicator of intelligence. The fact that you got up and left when the "lower life form[s]" showed up says more about your vanity than those kids' intellect.

I appreciate your commentary on film and celebrity, but you occasionally come off as a despicable person.

comment #11

LFF says ...

If the marketing isn't gettng across maybe summit should be buying space on the XBOX live network? how many thousands of Call of Duty players are there? You'd think they'd want to see this movie.

I suspect the reason its not reasonating is that the movie has long talk-y sequences. If you don't do a paul greengrass and have that camera in motion every second, you lose the ADD generation.

comment #12

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

Wells, I was referring to Ebert as "old man" since he wrote the article in question.

The fact is there are myriad reasons why The Hurt Locker isn't doing gangbusters at the box office - the lack of stars, the Iraq War subject matter, the marketing campaign, lack of exposure in mainstream media, lack of screens that the movie is even playing on - yet for some reason Ebert has decided it's all the fault of stupid teenagers. It's absurd.

At least teenagers go to the movies and pay to see the blockbusters that keep the studios afloat. It's the old people who shutter themselves away in their homes and watch NCIS.

It's not like that many adults have been to see The Hurt Locker either. But of course it's the kids' fault that it's failing.

comment #13

JasonGeyer says ...

Hurt Locker isn't bring in the kids because: A) it's a terrible fucking title that tells you NOTHING about the film, and B) the marketing sucks.

If they promoted this like they're doing GI JOE, the kids would go. If they made it seem like really intense thriller, the kids would go. Look at how District 9 is getting buzz at this late date; I have no idea how it'll do, but at least they're making a push for it as an alien invasion thriller, not as an Apartheid morality tale.

If the studio wanted this to be a hit with kids, they would have made it a hit with kids. It just takes throwing money at it (i.e., GI JOE). It has absolutely nothing to do with the movie.

comment #14

drbob says ...

Bosh is 100% correct. (I'm not endorsing the "old man" epithets against Wells or Ebert). This movie is failing because of the marketing. If I didn't visit this site, I wouldn't even know it existed.

comment #15

62Lincoln says ...

The example cited here reminds me more of groupthink than 'dumbing down', although the two can certainly be entertwined.

Jeff, you seem to be back handedly (is that a phrase?) endorsing the type of 'individualism' that you decry as a Republican failing - at least you decry it as a failing in a political context - but endorsing same in this context.

Frankly, groupthink is a pet peeve of mine, and I regard it as a loathsome weakness of those individuals who rely on it for their feelings of validation and inclusion.

comment #16

winstonsmith says ...

My disgust for your writing has nothing to do with you being older and looking down at the tastes of teenagers, it has to do with your habit of dehumanizing the people you're disgusted with, e.g. "apes," "water buffaloes," etc.

One doesn't have to look far for examples of how this is typical of a fascist or eliminationist mentality. "Cockroaches" was the favored term a few years ago in Rwanda for the wrong tribe. You should keep this tendency in check. It's fucking creepy.

comment #17

SHR says ...

The Hurt Locker is a very good film but you people are making it out to be a masterpiece, a term that appears rather often on this site. Yes it is intense and effective as a slice of life in Iraq, well acted and mostly shot ok (the best sequence by far is when Ralph Fiennes is in the picture and the camera finally stops its anarchic movements), but come on----Perhaps older viewers are liking it more than younger ones but it doesn't seem as if they are attending in droves either.

comment #18

HAL8999 says ...

Blame the failure of Hurt Locker on the older, smarter arthouse audience. Summit DID spend to get them, with targeted TV, a month of newspaper ads, and even banners on sites like this one. And despite all that (plus rave reviews) nobody showed up.

How can you expect Summit to invest millions to reach teens when the millions they invested to reach the older audience hasn't paid dividends.

And really, the only reason Summit still exists today, to release a quality movie like this one, is because of the cash influx last year from (wait for it) Twilight.

comment #19

alynch says ...

Man, so some kids walked into a cafe started eating food and drinking beverages? I hate it when that happens. Thank God we non-apes have evolved past such barbaric behavior.

comment #20

Abbey Normal says ...

To me, The Hurt Locker is just like any other upscale, limited appeal, Oscar-bait release. I don't really get why everyone expected it to appeal to kids, or any mass audience. It's a downer movie. Yes, it has elements of tension and suspense, but it by no means is a "suspense" movie. It's a rather cold, blunt tale full of nuance and open-ended questions. Not to mention it's set in Iraq, which, as much as Wells hates to hear it, still turns off a significant chunk of the population.
A word about that: People on the coasts living in big cities like to tsk-tsk the general moviegoing publc for ignoring movies about Iraq. But the general moviegoing public lives off the coasts, in smaller cities and towns that, not coincidentally, tend to be the places that have borne the greater brunt of the Iraq war. This war, like most wars, was fought by the poorer classes who are more generally clustered in the big middle of the country. Is it any wonder they don't want to be reminded of this conflict that has so negatively affected them? Many of them know someone who has been killed or injured over there, and many more have loved ones stll in harm's way.
While I think it sucks that movies about or set in Iraq, which are important contributions to the discussion about the war, end up making no money, I think it's way too easy for someone who has no direct stake in the matter beyond their own moral/political outrage to disparage the taste of a group of people who may be dealing with more difficult issues than artistic merit.

comment #21

larry braverman says ...

I just went back and quickly browsed through a month from each year of HE, starting in 2005 (April to be exact)

I am amazed at how much the tone and subject matter of the posts have changed overall.

It's become much uglier. But has the world changed THAT much in the last 4 years?

Seriously, pick a month from the archive and take 5 minutes.

comment #22

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

I love the latest addition of "unmanicured toes" to the list of the teenagers' sins.

comment #23

Chase Kahn says ...

I'm 21 years old and I can't fucking stand people my age.

But anyway, "The Hurt Locker" is playing in 500 screens, it's set in Iraq, rated-R, marketing has been sparse (people I've mentioned it to have no idea what I'm talking about unless their avid film geeks) -- How could you expect any different?

I'm sure there are a small minority of people who simply CAN'T see it because it isn't playing near them.

comment #24

frank_delsa says ...

Really, why people keep on repeating that The Hurt Locker is an action movie that should appeal to kids, nevertheless?
O.K., I understand that it's directed by Kathryn Bigelow who did many great action movies in the past, but really, guys, Ebert, Wells, it's not an action movie. Strange Days is an action/thriller. Point Break is. The Hurt Locker is a dark and bitter character study of a man who might feel like he's close to losing his mind, and that ends on an extremely bitter note. It's a great movie, but 13 year olds prefer G.I. Joe? Gee, that's so surprising...
And Nemo, really, I mean I understand that when you were 11 you were spending your time writing dissertations on Sergej Eisenstein oeuvre, but, really not everyone can be a genius like you. When I was 11, in the second half 80, I liked Indiana Jones, and Star Wars and I don't know, The Last Starfighter. So cut that kid a slack, will you?

comment #25

Wrecktem says ...

One of those unpedicured apes will eventually start his own blog and will, in 40 years, decry teenagers and their tastes and manners. By that point Wells will be dead and will not enjoy the irony.

comment #26

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

I bet the parents of the boomers thought their kids looked like genuine retards when they were flailing around with flowers in their long hair at Woodstock. Now it's the subject of rose-tinted Ang Lee retrospective features and hailed as a cultural milestone.

I always find it funny how critics can only stomach youth culture when it's packaged to them in an awards-friendly film. Reading reviews of 8 Mile was hilarious when it first came out.

And whaddya know, the post following this one is a trailer for Fish Tank, a Cannes-approved look at coarse, crass chavs dancing in a manner most unbecoming for a young lady. Tsk.

comment #27

nemo says ...

"And Nemo, really, I mean I understand that when you were 11 you were spending your time writing dissertations on Sergej Eisenstein oeuvre, but, really not everyone can be a genius like you. When I was 11, in the second half 80, I liked Indiana Jones, and Star Wars and I don't know, The Last Starfighter. So cut that kid a slack, will you?"

Hey, I liked some crappy stuff when I was 11, when I was 21, and even now. But we cut her slack for a week, and that was more than enough. It was like having a non-stop television commercial playing in our ears over and over and over and over . . .

She and kids her age already give each other plenty of conformist reinforcement for their shared crappy tastes, which are eagerly exploited by marketing people. They need to experience push-back against that drumbeat of conformism, and they're sure not going to hear it from their little conformist peers. Or from the various media outlets that are trying to sell them something.

She got the same feedback from her 21-year-old cousin when she visited that side of her family. Her college age cousin told her after a few days that her constant prattle about highly commercialized music and movies and video games was extremely boring, and she should seek out some new interests.

At a minimum she should figure out that other people have other interests, and one of her jobs in a conversations is to learn something about their interests, even if she doesn't initially share those interests. There's a wide world out there beyond her little peer group, and one of the jobs of older people in her life is to sometimes push her beyond the limited boundaries of her present tastes.

It's OK for kids to eat junk food sometimes, but you're failing as an adult if you let them eat nothing but junk food all the time.

comment #28

Wrecktem says ...

Boy, you must be fun to hang out with, nemo. Bet that's the last time she'll come over for a visit.

comment #29

bryce_david says ...

When I was a kid, I watched any movie that played on TV, whether it was a WC Fields movie or a Blaxploitation flick or whatever because there were only a few channels back then (I'm 40). Todays kids and young adults grew up watching a bazillion specialty channels made specifically for their demographics. They watched the WB network, Nickelodeon, etc. They were trained from the day they were born to never think outside the box.

And the question is not teens/young adults not being anti-conformity. Since when is seeing a film like Hurt Locker something akin to anti-conformity? If it is, then we might as well pack it in and give up

The simple fact is that the youth of today have no intellectual curiosity whatsoever.

There's no excuse to say that you never heard of a film because of a lack of promotion when you have something like the internet. If you visit sites like IMDb on a regular basis than you would have heard of that or any other film.

BTW, I love the Eloi comparison.

comment #30

John Cocktosten says ...

I received further confirmation of the dumbing down of our system of public education. The source of this was unlikely; I watched the new "Woodstock" Blu-Ray. Specifically, I was struck by the quality of the average young festival attendee of 1969 as compared to what you would get today. They were able to articulate non-trivial thoughts, and also seemed calmer and less reactionary than a current festival-goer would be. And, into the bargain, there was nary a fattie to be seen.

comment #31

nemo says ...

I guess I would have tolerated her non-stop kid talk better if it had included a mix of stuff I half-way like and respect, such as Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket. But it was nothing but all Twilight, all Edward, all he's so dreamy, all the time.

Amazingly, my wife got the 11-year-old niece engrossed in watching a multi-evening BBC miniseries on DVD based on a Victorian-era Anthony Trollope novel. Bill Nighy played a sneaky upper-class cad. The 11-year-old actually understood most of the issues going on, and had interesting things to say about it. It was an amazingly positive development after a solid week of Edward is so dreamy.

I didn't know much about Trollope before we rented a few BBC DVDs, but he is a riot. His novels are structured like dramas, with a satirical undercurrent throughout. The Way We Live Now with David Suchet is like a Victorian-era version of the recent credit meltdown. Wonderfully cheesy behavior abounds.

Maybe I should have taken the 11-year-old to see The Hurt Locker.

comment #32

canthony says ...

This is my first post on here, though I've lurked for awhile; I'll probably regret it. But I do feel the need to defend the up-and-coming generations a bit. I'm in my late 30's, but I have a decent vantage on college-age students and their tastes-- I teach film, but I'm also the Dean of a residence hall (at an admittedly first-rate University) and so live with 250+ students (yes, pray for me). I don't see them as any different from students when I was in college; they come up with no knowledge of any films beyond the most populist multiplex fare (I never visited an arthouse theater until I was a freshman in college), and they do talk endlessly about the casting news for the next superhero franchise. But I've found them nothing but receptive about more challenging modern films--and even black-and-white classics, which are actually a more daunting sell--once you make the effort. I haven't found it difficult to get students to gather to watch and perceptively discuss "The Third Man" on a Saturday night, or "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" (not on a weekend, I'm not crazy). Maybe part of the problem is that someone needs to take the step and actually challenge them to expand their boundaries, but who does that?

I do think there's something to the argument that the Iraq theme of "The Hurt Locker" is uniquely unpalatable. I'll admit I had no luck arranging a trip to see it this semester--while I had no problems drawing a crowd for such non-blockbuster efforts as "The Wrestler," "Gomorrah," "Waltz with Bashir," "Sin Nombre," and "Toyko Sonata." Something hits too close to home.

comment #33

TL says ...

Nemo - keep fighting the good fight. And thanks for reminding me why I don't let my kids watch commercials.

comment #34

Alboone says ...

This really comes down to who we are as a society today. Hurt Locker is an existential action film. Kids don't want to think about their existence in the world in an open way. You gotta trick todays youth with creamy padding like Juno or something to get to them. Bigelow is very direct, she's not trying to waste your time with bullshit. The movie puts you in a spatial place of constant physical danger. Its tough to take. Me personally, I think its the best movie of the year. But try telling that to some automaton whose seen Transformers 20 times.

comment #35

COCO says ...

Ebert is a tought one....totally entitled to what he felt and recorded....I agree....but not all age groups
need to come down from the mountain......many
haven't even climbed it yet.....again it is the aware
factor....and then also peer pressure is acute plus
what is cool to see that week end.....so hard to
save all the good ones or even a couple great ones.

comment #36

tfresca says ...

I haven't seen a single tv ad for the Hurt Locker or one trailer put with any big movie this summer. The marketing of this movie sucks and shows that whoever is distributing it doesn't really believe in it as a mass market project.

comment #37

ZayTonday says ...

The Hurt Locker is NOT a "limited appeal Oscar bait" type of movie. It's a fucking balls to the wall action flick about a badass, batshit insane adrenaline junkie.

comment #38

Ulysses says ...

The Morlocks always scared the shit outta me when I was a kid. I'm gonna see The Hurt Locker on Wednesday, hopefully.

comment #39

dinovelvet says ...

Oddly enough when I saw it, an old couple walked out after about half an hour. There was a group of Asian late-teens there who seemed to enjoy it. One couple brought a teenage daughter, and I would have known if she hated it as I was sitting within earshot.

comment #40

MovieBob says ...

I'm probably about old enough to get on board with it but... no, seriously, fuck this sentiment.

Teenagers aren't any dumber now than they were when Jeff or anyone else was their age - and as a point of fact, on-average they're probably slightly better INFORMED today due to how much information their absorbing and how rapidly. They aren't the problem.

The problem is threefold: The unholy alliance between the short-term hires running the studios, the massive international megacorporations that OWN the studios, and the theatre owners. Doing business in this way has created an economic model whereby the only way for any film to make the money they want it to is for it to appeal to teenagers - the only people with disposable income who can afford to pack theatres opening weekend.

comment #41

TATE K. says ...

The next 10 years are going to be interesting in this country( 2 wars with no end in sight, economic collapse, a reduction in the standard of living). The social tensions that are building up now are set to explode in a big way. That's going wake everybody up in a big way, and not just the "apes".

comment #42

Terry McCarty says ...

Re this passage in Ebert's article:
"Of course there are countless teenagers who seek and value good films. I hear from them all the time in the comment threads on this blog. They're [also] frank about their contemporaries. If they express a nonconformist taste, they're looked at as outsiders, weirdoes, nerds. Their dates have no interest in making unconventional movie choices. They're looked at strangely if they express no desire to see that weekend's box office blockbuster.

"Even some of their teachers, they write, are unfriendly to them 'always bringing up movies nobody has ever heard of." If you hang around on these threads, you know the readers I'm referring to, including 'A Kid,' who writes so well that if she hadn't revealed her age (just turned 13) we would have taken her for a literate, articulate adult.

This isn't a new phenomenon. I'd say it has existed at least since, say, 1983.

The idea of "serious" mainstream or "art" movies being a sustained, enthusiastic topic of in-depth discussion with young people began to die around the time Ronald Reagan became President.

comment #43

Gaydos says ...

I have a cure for this depressing "Don't trust anyone under 20" miasma: go to an anime convention. My daughter is 13 and I sort of hung around the fringes of Fanime in San Jose and the big AnimeExpo in Los Angeles. These kids are so cool, plugged in, creative, adventurous, playful, curious, funny, wired in to global culture, the only thing I can compare it to is 60s Brit invasion when odd haircuts guitars and 4/4 beats saved a bunch of us from the Frankie Avalon tripe we were being fed. There's my prescription. The bill is in the mail....

comment #44

Rich S. says ...

Compare and contrast:

"They were huge roly-poly apes, these guys. A lower life form, breathing heavily and wolfing down donuts and slurping down drinks, all wearing cutoffs and sandals, some of them sitting down on the counter seats with their dumb-ass expressions and stupid-ass butch haircuts and shaved heads and huge Abominable Snowman feet with absurdly large and unmanicured toes."

"One thing I could never stand is to see a filthy, dirty old drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blerp, blerp in between as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see anyone like that, whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real old like this one was."

comment #45

kamichojin says ...

Nice! Rich S. FTW.

comment #46

Stringer Bell says ...

Jeff: next thing you'll tell me is that these kids then went to a Del Monte factory and pissed in cans of green beans. HOW VILE!

comment #47

Baron Munchausen-by-Proxy says ...

Why would one deduce this - "School had let out, I gathered" - in the middle of July?

The sole "low-rent cafe" across from Fairfax High on Melrose is the pizza-subs place, which is a known (and obvious) teen hang-out place. If you had moseyed two blocks further East on Melrose, there are plenty of 'high'rent' actual cafes - with web access - with clientele more to your liking.

What you encountered was a bunch of kids, who don't fly away to fancy vacation locales, hanging out in their 'home turf' being completely casual and free.

Which is an unremarkable phenomenon well-noted in the culture since before you were a child. Hell, you've written sepia-toned posts here celebrating your own youth doing the same thing.

"Hurt Locker" just has a terrible promotional campaign and distribution pattern.

comment #48

Terry McCarty says ...

Baron Munchausen-by-Proxy wrote:
"Hurt Locker" just has a terrible promotional campaign and distribution pattern.

Probably because Summit's hoarding its ad dollars for the release of NEW MOON--for which I saw an underwhelming trailer last week.

comment #49

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Ohhhh, that's hilarious, Rich.

Viddied well, oh my brother, viddied well :).

comment #50

free games says ...

A summer movie blockbuster is all sizzle, no steak.

comment #51

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comment #54

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comment #55

raudensah says ...

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comment #56

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