Geezers at the multiplex

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Old People, Old Stars: Hollywood's New Hot Demo Is Saving the Box Office

No?  Ok.  Maybe the Hollywood Reporter’s not at the top of your hit parade. So,  short version quick.  Hollywood has noticed that even though they’re getting old, Baby Boomers still like going to the movies.  Which is good.  But the assumption, apparently, is that now that they’re geezers themselves, what they want to see up on the screen is other geezers.

This year, Fox is premiering its Christmas Day comedy Parental Guidance -- starring Billy Crystal, 64, and Bette Midler, 66, as a couple left in charge of their grandchildren -- at the AARP film festival, which runs Sept. 20 to 22 in New Orleans, in advance of the film's Christmas Day opening…

Parental Guidance isn't the only studio picture making a major play for older moviegoers on Dec. 25 -- that same day, Paramount has The Guilt Trip, a road-trip comedy starring Barbra Streisand, 70, and Seth Rogen. The studio has two other films that are designed to woo older audiences: Robert Zemeckis' Flight, a smart thriller starring Washington, opens Nov. 2, and on Dec. 21, Jack Reacher, starring Tom Cruise, who just turned 50.

This get tied in with The Expendables 2 being a big hit and Hope Springs a modest one.

Speaking as a geezer who loves movies: I'd rather see The Avengers again than watch The Expendables 2. I'd rather watch Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway or Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield than Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones. I'd rather see Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr than Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones.  I went to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel not to see all those great geezer actors performing but to see that particular collection of geezer characters cavorting in that particular setting. And, no disrespect to Dame Judy Dench, I much preferred Bill Nighy as a romantic lead in Wild Target in which his leading lady was Emily Blunt. I much preferred Emily Blunt, in Wild Target and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen in which her love interest was Ewan McGregor.

I can't wait to see Robot & Frank but I'm going to see Robot and Frank not Susan and Frank Langella.  And Trouble With the Curve is on my to see list because it has five things that make a movie great - Clint, baseball, Amy Adams, baseball, and Amy Adams. It also has Jason Timberlake, which makes it problematic, but it isn’t less problematic because it also stars John Goodman.

Are you catching my drift?

I don’t go to movies to relive my lost youth or to kid myself my youth isn’t really lost.

I go to the movies to see good stories well-told though moving images and to see beautiful people doing sexy, exciting, and heartstring-tugging things

I don't go to the movies to see geezers for the geezers ' sakes.

I go to see good actors of any age act.

Other geezers might have different tastes, and I never underestimate Baby Boomers' fascination with themselves.  You can't tell us often enough that we aren’t really getting old and that all the things we longed for when we were twenty are still coming our way now that Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are about to take away our Medicare---love, sex, a permanent state of cool and eternal happiness based on love and sex.  And, by the way, I’m convinced that Boomer rage at the fact that that's not true is one of the forces driving the Tea Party movement. But I'd still bet that more geezers are looking forward to The Master, The Hobbit, and Les Miserables than are to Taken 2.

Cloud Atlas, Looper, and Flight all star fading boomer heartthrobs - fading male heartthrobs, notice. - but I don’t think those movies are going to be hits just because boomers want to see Tom, Bruce, and Denzel.

Skyfall is its own special case. Daniel Craig isn't a geezer, Judi Dench is, but the attraction isn't either. It's Bond, and every generation of moviegoers since Dr No has made its separate peace with 007.

By the way, if you want to see Tommy Lee Jones playing opposite a fellow boomer, I recommend In The Valley of Elah.  Jones plays a grief-stricken father of a soldier trying to solve his son's murder and Susan Sarandon plays his wife. Charlize Theron, though, is his real leading lady (but not, interestingly and thankfully, his love interest) and she delivers a terrific performance as the sheriff who's had this mystery literally dumped in her jurisdiction and reluctantly investigates.

And RED was a fun flick.

Doesn't need a sequel though.

Your turn.  What new movies are you looking forward to?

Comments

[Ken Houghton]

I am--well, will be, if I make it to the cinema before it closes--as happy as anyone to see Jim (Ballard) end up with Princess/Ella.

But I admit being happier when The Joker ended up with Annie Hall than when he started the film with...well, whoever it was. (Yes, I could look it up, but whether it's One of the Chicks from that Legal Show or The Bad Girl in Sex Lies and Videotape really doesn't matter.)

I suspect Bill Nighy (62) would be fun in bed, even for Emily Blunt (28), but while Wild Target has been in my Netflix queue for months, I've never been able to convince myself to see it. (Ewan McGregor [41] at least "has a huge talent," as viewers of Velvet Goldmine know.)

Perhaps it's just that it's no secret I would leave my wife (age not listed at IMDB) for Jenny Diski (65; age not listed at IMDB), but what is conspicuously missing from your list are roles for older actresses. Apparently, sex films between aged men and young women are fine, but we're still in the mode where we have to pretend Dustin Hoffman (26 at the time) is Severely Younger than Anne Bancroft (30 at the time).

Unless they, like Barbra, are playing The Mother, in which case an age difference only slightly more severe than Nighy-Blunt (Rogen is 30) is acceptable.

[Fran in NYC]

I saw Hope Springs and enjoyed it very much and it wasn't because I felt whatever Boomer ego I have was being massaged. It's a movie about a very specific marriage of 2 very specific people. I highly recommend it as a good movie on any level.

The story covers some very pointed aspects about a long taken-for-granted marrige that I can understand moviegoers not seeing as entertainment and not willing to spend time & money on. So they will miss 3 excellent performances and a few well-presented perceptions about human nature. And lovely scenery in Maine.