Is Hollywood running out of ideas or just afraid to try?

When I was a child and a teenager I remember that sunday was the highlight of my week. My mum would give me 10 Deutschmark, which were back then enough for a ticket and popcorn, and I would head to the cinema with my friends. Some movies transmited their story with such an intensity, that we would feel the magic for days. My fascination for story telling was born back then.

This is why the developement we are seeing these days pains me, as business is starting to overpower art in shocking dimensions. Of course movies and tv shows are business and where there is money involved a different way of thinking kicks in, but these days we are more and more experiencing what I like to call "movie-cloning".

Let me get this straight: I am not speaking of a remake of a 50 year old movie, that can be reinterpreted thanks to new technology or social changes. I am speaking of remaking a movie within 5 years of the original (sometimes even less). Don't get me wrong, a lot of these remakes are quiet enjoyable, but do we really need to get the same movie twice? Off hand I remember at least 10 movies, where this has been done in the last 10 years and the frequency is rising (By the way this is being done in all directions Hollywood picking up European Movies and viceversa).

I have a theory as to why this is being done: What has worked once will work twice! It is really a simply plan: Take a small movie, which has been received well and has received positiv criticts, put in a few well known actors and add some money to the original budget. The result is a bigger version of what has already worked. As you knew the movie worked before, you minimize risk and end up with a decent earning.

This being said the question has to be: Are movies barely another business or should they be art? Trust me, working in the economy sector I am not naive and I am well aware the most things revolve around money and making money, but still I wonder if people merely interested earnings should really get into movie making instead of telecommunications, real estate or whatever the booming sectors are these days.

Also when I say "art" I don't mean barely those independant movies shown is small cinemas with old fashioned movie posters on the wall. When I say "art" I am talking of the movies that accompany you for various days. The movies that make you laugh and cry with their characters,  movies that inspire you to do something you never dared, but always dreamed of.

Luckily there are still a lot of people making movies like this and this is my way of supporting them. As I fear that as time goes by the battle will become harder for them to fight, against the mere profit-hunting sharks.

You may not agree with me, but let me pop another question to finalize this article: What do movies like Star Wars, Titanic, Avatar and Lord of the Rings have in common? Before being made all were considered crazy ideas and the general opinion was that these movies were going to be financial disasters and fail, but what happened instead is movie history. So maybe some crazy or shall I say creativ ideas are worth the risk, even if money is involved.

Dear Production companies, please thinks about that!

Spain - Espana

Although I have been considering to write something about the current struggle in my home country for weeks I didn't dare until now. I might be spanish, but I grew up in Germany, which makes it rather difficult to have a true insight on the problems, nonetheless I have decided to write this essay, as I love my home country and its problems upset me deeply.

While considering to write this another issue, was the question in which language to write it, Spanish or English. English is the business language, but according to Eurostat data collected in 2007 46,6 % of the spanish adult population does not speak a foreign language. Taking into consideration, that economies are growing closer more and more, this creates a certain type of isolation. Companies operating on an international level often end up hiring people from abroad to make sure business communication works. For country with an youth unemployment rate of 46 % (Source: http://www.focus.de/), this is in my option rather problematic. Of course it is a great oportunity we have these days to work abroad in Europe without too much trouble, but for a country with such high unemployement the question has to be asked, if education is missing out on something, when it comes to preparing young people for their working life.
Although unemployement is a huge issue in Spain it is by far not the only problem. Because when taking a look at the employed population we have to notice for instance, that in 2010 the relation between the  highest paid and the lowest paid people was the second largest in Europe (source: eurostat; always using the 20% of the population at both extremes). This makes it obvious, that when talking about the average salary the number states is outside of reality. This "average" salary was in 2010 approx. 1.800 eur pre-tax per month (almost half the amount of the UK and Germany). Down the line this means, that a significant part of the population has to live with less than that. The so called "mileuristas" often have only about 1.000 eur per month to live on. If we keep in mind that the living expenses are barely 15 % cheaper than in Germany (according to http://www.ba-auslandsvermittlung.de/), we have to ask ourselves: How can spanish people manage the day by day? What money are they actually suppose to "invest" in the economy when we see these figures?

The so called informal sector is often considered a significant reason for Spain's economic problems. Although tax evasion is always a crime, the question in this case is:
Is there another option for the "mileuristas" to manage their live?

I could go on talking about various problems in spanish economy from the number of senators (more then in the US) to corruption and temporal contracts. What has to be clear to all of us is that the problems Spain is facing won't be solved in months but rather in years and each of us has to look at what we can do, as WE are Spain, the spanish people, not the government.