Hooray for Commercialism....

When you're young and oblivious you don't weight the gravity of things.  You simply view things at surface level. Never taking into account the given pros and cons of things.  For me, I watched the business world with a passive eye.  Corporations align, eh.  Nothing to do with me doesn't make ripples in my world.  Except now, the ever shrinking world of single entity companies and corporate alliance has forever changed the shape of a medium that I love; film.  When AMC and Loews got together, I was happy in my obliviousness.  I was all too happy to walk into a shiny new multiplex with a big red AMC logo on it and hand over my ten bucks.  Except now AMC is a self sustaining corporate beast that feeds on everything in sight.  And this corporate beast, born on the snacks of other smaller competitors, has created a one dimensional distribution landscape akin to something out of "Lord of the Flies."  Those with the backing of the Hollywood machine rule the jungle.  Meanwhile, unknown film makers with ambition and creativity integrity end up as poor Piggy did; dead at the bottom of a hill, a boulder squashing them from high above.  And that boulder has an AMC logo emblazoned on it.  And if it isn't bad enough that AMC controls an ever shrinking theatrical distribution landscape. The corporate beast has set its sights on alternative film competitors like Landmark Cinemas.  Apparently, AMC now wants a piece of a film market that it has virtually snubbed its nose at; that market being independent cinema.  I don't know about you but I love film and it sickens me when AMC has the audacity to champion itself as a hub for indie films.  Bear in mind, this is the same company that has made a policy of holding smaller and better quality films to a "perform or else “quota.  In other words, show me your film can make money or we'll have to make room for the mindless drivel that the masses usually eat up with a knife and fork.  AMC is no friend to independent cinema and they never have been.  But then again, what am I getting upset about?  Independent cinema is dead anyway.  Don't believe me.  Have you seen IFC and Sundance lately?  And please don't throw films like "Juno" or "The Descendants" at me to rebut my argument about indie cinema being dead.  I love those two films immensely but those are mainstream Indies.  There's a difference between an independent production that's financed by say, a division of Warner Brothers and an indie production financed by a novice film maker with a lot ambition and little cash flow.  Sadly, all of that corporate alignment that I was once oblivious to; I'm aware of it now.  I'm aware of it every time I watch what IFC and Sundance have mutated into.  I'm aware of it when newbie film makers who actually have a story to tell have no outlet in which to express themselves.  In closing, I ask this?  Is there ANYTHING sacred these days?  The Oscars are nominating raunchy comedies and opening their doors to anyone with the bare minimum of film related competency.  Sundance, once a grand alternative indie channel is now running fluffy exposes on some Carrie Bradshaw wanna be fashion designer.  I surrender to the beast.