Quadrant over Quality

In the last three weeks, I’ve seen three new movies which have already grossed over TWO BILLION DOLLARS worldwide – Obsession, Disclosure Day and Spiderman: Brand New Day.

The truth is – I didn’t love any one of them.

It’s not that they were awful, it’s just that, well, meh.

I feel like I sound old. And why not? I guess I’m now on the old-er side.

But this doesn’t mean I don’t love those kinds of movies.

Meaning ones that can make lots of money quickly and appeal to broad swaths of what movie marketers term the four-quadrant audience.

Time to start math-ing!

This phrase has been floating around for decades and I’ve mentioned it before. But for those unfamiliar, it means:

Quadrant 1: Males under 25

Quadrant 2: Females under 25

Quadrant 3: Males over 25

Quadrant 4: Females over 25

A four headed monster

It can signal family-friendly, but not necessarily. There are dramas, sci-fi blockbusters, superhero, heartwarming comedies and horror films all included.

Not to be defensive (Note: Though what can you expect when you’re really far away from the minimum requirement in even the third quadrant), but I did tremendously like and almost loved The Odyssey, which has already grossed over ONE BILLION DOLLARS worldwide on its own in the last month.

Really I’m there for Samantha Morton

And then there was Project Hail Mary, an early hit this year I thoroughly enjoyed A LOT that is up to almost SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS internationally at the box-office.

Both of these have my admiration because they tried something a little bit different, developed their characters, have very few plot holes, offer a few earned clever twists and deliver an ending that feels real and earned.

Plus I mean… who can argue with Rocky?!

This is not the case for many films in the four quadrant system these days. Often they have plot holes the size of 30 foot bagels (Note: Just where were all of the other victims of those One Wish Willow toys in that Obsession town?). Or too many messy and unanswered pertinent questions (Note: Didn’t those Disclosure Day aliens have a planet that missed them?). And far too many Easter Egg drops from previous films, and so many Irving The Explainer plot backstory moments, that the diffused present day action can’t sustain enough momentum for us to believe or care much about anything happening in the present day (Note: New Spiderman makes one long for a new origin story of something or someone else that’s super… simple).

And yet, who can argue with TWO BILLION DOLLARS?

what plot holes?

That’s what the fans and the studios of these films could and would likely say.

The other day I flipped on to Turner Classic Movies and they were showing Annie Hall and I, like everyone since, was once again charmed by the wit, talent and originality of the forever missed Diane Keaton.

It’d been years since I’d seen this very simple yet unique love story that Hollywood and the country took to heart and I quickly remembered why it was a film I did love and continue to love.

Oh how we miss you Annie

It came out in 1977, a time when I was very much a member of that most desired QUADRANT 1 marketing demographic.

This was a time when major studios made and offered movies in lots of genres. Films that succeeded at the box-office that didn’t have plot holes the size of a giant baked good. Or were not overstuffed with homages and unanswered questions. And actually took the time, as some films that capture the zeitgeist do, to develop their characters and thoroughly earn their place in the hearts of millions.

Aside from multiple Oscar winning Annie Hall (including best picture), here are some other Oscar contenders that came out in 1977.

Ya ready?

Other best picture nominees (there were the proper mere five back then) were: The Goodbye Girl (a Neil Simon character rom-com), Julia (a serious politically-based drama), STAR WARS (a character-based sci-fi blockbuster), and The Turning Point (a show business based relationship movie set in the world of ballet).

Contenders in other categories include other films that moviegoers talk about to this day and that, in their time and by contemporary dollars, would be considered blockbusters.

Try this duo: Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Saturday Night Fever.

Here for this

It was also the year of Oh, God!, Pumping Iron, Slapshot, Eraserhead and New York, New York.

Sure, the #2 film at the box-office that year was the paper thin, low rent Smokey and the Bandit and #6 was the semi-coherent, movie-star bloated A Bridge Too Far. But there were lots of other offerings, SO many as a matter of fact, to even things out.

This is not a critique of the taste of the contemporary mass audience. People love movies and want to get out of the house to see something new. But they can only pick and choose from what the studios sell and the movie theatres offer them.

It just seems that if 1977 could give us Annie Hall, Julia and Saturday Night Fever – as well as Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and for god sakes, Smokey and the Bandit – that 50 years later it’s not too much to demand that studios, distributors and their billionaire patrons take the time to do a little bit better.

This is probably the best the studios can do

And that we all demand a hell of a lot more.

The Bee Gees – “Staying Alive” (from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack)

08.17.25

by notesfromachair

The Macabre of it all

It is not lost on me that that the only two TV series I’m watching at the moment are Wednesday and Dexter.

Though why wouldn’t you want to keep up with a snide, too-smart-for-the-room malcontent who can’t completely bend the world to her will despite her vast intellectual powers, or the dark passenger of good guy serial killers who only kills the bad guys?

So many of us are frustrated that well-reasoned, fact-based logic no longer works. And I’ll bet even more fantasize about the countless ways we could do away with the truly evil bad guys who are wreaking havoc on our streets, or from inside buildings of rarefied power.

Though, well, perhaps it’s just me.

Let’s face it, these are macabre times.

If you are of the baby boomer (1946-1964) or Gen X (1965-1980) generations it’s particularly strange to see U.S. soldiers in an airfield on their knees rolling out a literal red carpet to the president of Russia and all that implies.

From an ongoing nuclear arms race to a free democracy vs. autocratic dictatorship stance, the dangerous differences between us allowed polite constructive conversation for the good of the planet but never a glad-handing, subservient welcome wagon.

It’d be like Dexter greeting David Berkowitz, the Notorious “Son of Sam” killer in NYC in the 1970s, at a dinner party with a bear hug and a back slap.

At best, Dex would politely nod at him in order to keep the peace, and then spend most of the rest of the evening listening to suss out the danger and to quell any potential violence on the immediate horizon.

And if that analogy sounds like a reach, it should be known this season’s Dexter: Resurrection actually has our amiable anti-hero at a serial killer dinner party, assembled by a fictional tech billionaire played by Peter Dinklage, for his own amusement, with help from his icy assassin assistant in the form of Uma Thurman.

And yes, Dinklage wears a Doctor Evil suit

It seemed like a bit of a stretch at first, but as world and domestic events unfold in 2025 one can’t help but wonder how many secret confabs of real world baddies go unnoticed right under all of our collective noses.

Of course, it depends on what your definitions of bad and good; heroes and villains are. And for that definition I couldn’t venture a guess on anything timely enough to satisfy a majority of Americans, never mind the world’s population.

This is what happen when there is no longer an accepted baseline of what is acceptable in a country that is often touted as the actual leader of democracy in the free world.

We’re all tap dancin’ with Sutton because Anything Goes #hyuckhyuck

As for Wednesday, she lives merely on television, in a community of people who are “different” from the norm (Note: In her case, a school for gifted teenagers with supernatural power, aka Outcasts), located in a town of so-called “normies.” It’s a place her parents bring her to so she can be educated and thrive in a free environment and thus ultimately have a better life.

Sure, it sounds good on paper, but in practice…. well, let’s just say the school and the town is loaded with barriers of pre-judgement and predators, often coming from the upper echelons of power at the school itself.

Though not entirely.

And how can we be mad when the outfits are Bewitched levels of amazing?

Wednesday may be tough, smart and possess unique powers that could benefit those around her, but her difference proves too great. Her elders see her as a threat to the current social order and their futures. Too many in her community find her confidence and looks off-putting. And she does herself no favors in how little tolerance she has for any of it – or anything else.

At another time and in another place, she might even be referred to as “uppity.”

No one believes Wednesday Addams will always do the right thing or turn out to be one of the “good” ones once she is an adult. But a principle premise of the series is that she, and the rest of those society snap judges to be “outcasts” without any proof their differences equal danger and justify contempt, should be given a chance in a world that purports to run on freedom.

It’s the argument for democracy.

It’s the argument for immigrants.

It’s the argument for free and fair elections on an even playing field in a country that professes to be emancipated.

Just as no one believes Dexter Morgan, a guy whose skill at slicing up the human bodies of his victims into a dozen neatly wrapped freezer bags and then thrown into the nearest ocean or trash compactor, is the best role model we have for moral virtue and decision-making.

What’s scary is that these days, at the end of one of our maddeningly endless “news” days, their choices are beginning to look not half bad.

“Bloody Mary” – Lady Gaga (sped up via Wednesday)

notes from a chair

Tag Archives: star wars

Quadrant over Quality

The Macabre of it all