An Ode to the Drive-in Movie Theater

By Christina Rice, Senior Librarian - LAPL Photo Collection

One of the last times I went to a drive-in movie theater was in 1982 or 83 for a double feature of E.T. andThe Dark Crystal playing at the Foothill Theater in Azusa. As I recall, the asphalt was full of potholes and my folks had to move the car two or three times until we found a speaker that actually worked. Once the movies started, the screen was so dark that we could barely make out what we were seeing. E.T. wasn't a problem, since I had already seen it four times (I was nine years old after all), but had no clue what was going on in The Dark Crystal. Whenever that film comes up as a topic of conversation, which happens more often than you'd expect, I am not sure if I can honestly say that I have seen it.

Despite this memorable, though less than optimal experience, I really miss going to the drive-in. I have fond memories of curling up with a blanket in the backseat of the Ford LTD, where my older brother and I would actually watch The Jungle Book or Rocky II instead of fighting, which was our usual MO. And if the movie wasn't great, we could just sprawl out and crash while our parents still felt like they were kind of having a night out. Just driving past a drive-in would give us a cheap thrill, as we tried to guess what was playing on the gigantic screen while we zoomed by.

The very last time I went to a drive-in was to see Cannon Ball Run II (which seldom comes up in conversation). We were at a place somewhere in Orange County and I remember the screen being bright and visible while the sound came through some sort of hook-up through the car stereo. I was heartily impressed by this newfangled technology and figured the drive-in theater was keeping up with the times and would be a fixture for me to take my own kids to one day.

Of course I was a naïve youth at the time, and wholly wrong about the future of the drive-in movie theater. To look at a collection of Pacific Drive-In aerial photos taken by the Kelly-Holiday Company, which now resides at the Los Angeles Public Library, it's impressive to see the valuable real estate these cinematic playgrounds took up. The acres of space seemed ready to be eaten up by the surrounding tract homes or retail spaces. With the ever-growing landscape of Southern California, I guess their days were always numbered. Sure, there are a couple of holdouts like the Vineland in Industry and the Mission Tiki in Montclair, but they're far enough from where I live that going to them seems more like an event than a spontaneous night at the movies.

These days, with the talking/calling/texting that takes place in multiplexes, the drive-in seems like a pretty great idea. But that could just be me as a cranky adult pining for the potholes and broken speakers of my childhood.

George Clooney in hot water over Venice stunt

by Tom Kington in Rome

George Clooney sent hearts fluttering as he arrived at the Venice film festival in typical style this week, dressed in a white t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of his own brand of tequila and nonchalantly steering a water taxi to his luxury hotel.

But one Venetian resident was not impressed, and has demanded that city police take action against the star unless he is able to produce the required licence for navigating on Venice's canals.

The protest by local lawyer Mario D'Elia comes amid rising concern over chaotic traffic on the city's Grand Canal, following the Aug 17 death of a German tourist who was crushed when his gondola was hit by a water bus.

On Monday, Venice mayor Giorgio Orsoni issued a long list of proposals for calming the waters, including a clampdown on overtaking, steering too fast and talking on a mobile phone while navigating, as well as drug tests for gondoliers.

Clooney himself appeared to have been rattled by his brief excursion on the city's canals. When asked at the festival about his new space thriller Gravity, he said getting round Venice in a boat was tougher than being lost in space.

Sources at the Venice town hall told the Daily Telegraph that Mr D'Elia's complaint had been passed on to the police and that checks would be made.

A city coast guard official said piloting a taxi in Venice required a professional licence by law.

But one town hall official played down the prospect of Clooney ending the festival in jail. "Photos in the papers do not represent proof, so checks will be made," he said. "But if an offence was committed it would be an administrative offence punishable with a fine. And if it came to that, it would be the taxi owner, not Clooney, who would be fined."

'Idol' Judge Search Could Delay Show Production

by Kim Masters

Producers consider Harry Connick Jr. for the slot left open by Dr. Luke after the veteran producer offered Sony Music half his $12 million fee in an unsuccessful plea to let him take a judge's chair, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

The collapse of songwriter and producer Dr. Luke’s deal to judge American Idol was a tough setback for Fox, Fremantle and the show's producers that has left little time to fill a judge’s slot before the show begins taping, which originally was set for next Tuesday but could be delayed.

At this point, it appears that Harry Connick Jr. is likely to join the panel, though sources say Fox had hoped to add an industry professional to the mix rather than another celebrity. While Fox was said to be somewhat cool to the Connick idea, sources say there is reluctance to add another woman to the mix given friction last season between Mariah Carey andNicki Minaj, which didn’t play well with the show’s key older female demographic. Fox declined to comment on any aspect of Idol business.

Keith Urban and Jennifer Lopez reportedly have committed to judging this Idol season.

EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Luke Will Not Judge 'American Idol'

Luke's deal unraveled Friday, Aug. 23. Initially, Luke’s camp said he had come to a realization that Idol would demand too much of his time given his commitment to his label at Sony Music. (Luke’s Kemosabe imprint is home to songwriter-turned-solo artist Bonnie McKee, rapper Juicy J and pop-urban act Becky G.)

But sources say Luke, whose real name is Lukasz Gottwald, remained so interested in becoming an Idol judge that he continued to plead this week with Sony Music CEO Doug Morris to allow him to appear on the show. An insider says Luke offered Sony Music half his Idol fee, said to be about $12 million -- close to the $15 million Lopez is set to receive (and more than Urban earns).  For Luke, the sacrifice would not be great as he is said to earn more than $30 million a year from his music business.

PHOTOS: 'American Idol' Season 12 Finale in Pictures

But Morris did not relent, because Sony's competitor, Universal Music Group, holds the exclusive rights to American Idol recordings, and he did not want Luke, in effect, to help his bitter rival. A source says Morris, having allowed Luke to produce Katy Perry’s latest album for Universal, was unwilling to yield on this.

Meanwhile, sources say Fox and Idol producers are upset with CAA -- which collects millions in packaging fees on Idol -- for assuring them that Luke’s contract would allow him to take the job. When Fox attorneys examined the deal with Sony Music, they found that Luke was not free after all. CAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What Inspires Me: Flawed People And Underdogs

by Shane Snow CCO of Contently

I don't like Superman. He can't lose. Whenever I'm watching a Superman movie all I can think about is He's invincible. I'm not worried and I'm not impressed when he inevitably wins. To me, that's not inspiring.

The fact that you're able to read this — and I'm able to write it — on a computer with Internet means we've all hit humanity's jackpot in some regard. We're literate. We live in a time where technology has improved the quality of life dramatically over any other period in history. And we can afford to instantly access the greatest trove of information that ever was.

At a high level, we're all outrageously lucky. But despite our great fortune, we're all unlucky at times. We've all got problems.

Personally, I'm inspired by people who overcome bad fortune or circumstance to fulfill their dreams. Professionally, I'm inspired by people and businesses that do incredible things despite glaring flaws or environmental disadvantages.

These people remind me that, despite the things I complain about (setbacks, bills, stress, whatever) and what I consider personal setbacks (growing up relatively poor in a small town, mywife becoming mentally ill, being 5'9" not 6'2" (as superficial as that sounds), infuriating neuroses, etc.), someone else has had things worse and still became massively successful.

That's why I like flawed people and underdogs. They can't just work hard to overcome their obstacles, they have to work hard and smart. And that leads to amazing things.

None of us are Superman, and that's ok. Batman had his demons, and he was mortal. And he became awesome. Here are some of my favorite flawed people and underdogs who inspire me in my work as a journalist and entrepreneur:

If you want to be inspired that you can overcome your problems, just look at this list of incredible people who have Major Depressive Disorder.

Say what you like about their personal lives or politics or mistakes, people like the above remind me that when life gives you lemons, you can stuff them in your pockets (with help, if necessary), get back out there, and change the world.

What flawed people or underdogs inspire you?

What helps you overcome your setbacks?

Hollywood’s Biggest Bang for Its Buck

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

CATHERINE RAMPELL

Dollars to doughnuts.

Earlier this week Forbes had an article on the return on investment on this summer’s films, noting that some have still not collected box office grosses that exceed their original production budgets. “R.I.P.D.,” for example, cost $130 million to make, but has earned shy of $50 million at the global box office, according to Box Office Mojo.

The horror movie “The Purge,” on the other hand, cost $3 million to make and has grossed nearly $80 million worldwide. That’s a box office return more than 26 times the original cost. The Forbes article then observed that “Horror films are definitely Hollywood’s best bet in terms of turning a profit.”

So I decided to look at the data to see if that is usually true.

I figured it was too soon to calculate the box office R.O.I. for a lot of 2013 films, since they may still be running in theaters, so I pulled data on movies from 2003 to 2012 that grossed at least $2 million domestically. I then sorted them by genre. Here’s what I found:

Data shown refer to films with at least $2 million in domestic box office grosses. Most data comes from OpusData, with some select entries from Box Office Mojo.

The average movie earned 452 percent of its original production budget in global box office revenues, or about 4.5 times the budget.

The genre with the biggest box office R.O.I. was actually documentary, with domestic box office returns averaging 12 times the original production budget, and global returns at nearly 27 times the original budget. Of course, documentaries are generally much cheaper to make than other genres, averaging about $2.6 million in production budget versus $95 million for action films (unadjusted for inflation). So it makes sense that for the small subset of documentaries that do well (remember, these averages include only those films with domestic grosses above $2 million), the R.O.I. can be enormous.

Horror films did second best, earning on average six times their budgets when you look just at American box office returns, and about 12 times their budgets worldwide.

Some caveats: Remember that these are just box office returns (not all of which go back to the studio). Films have other revenue streams (including DVD sales, television rights, licensing for games, etc.) that have become more important over time.

And these R.O.I.’s are ratios, not raw dollar figures; documentaries may make a lot of money relative to their initial budgets, but the average nominal global box office for the documentaries in my sample is $24 million, compared to more than $200 million for action movies.

Finally, note also that some of the sample sizes are small, both because there were not many films in a given genre made over the last decade that made more than $2 million domestically (e.g., in the concert/performance genre), and because in some cases the production budgets are not made public. This appears to happen especially frequently for documentaries, unfortunately.

Here’s a table showing the count of films in each genre, and then then count of films in a given genre for which I was able to obtain production budget information.

Genre	Total films in genre	Total films in genre that I have budgets for
Documentary	78	23
Horror	129	113
Concert/Performance	8	6
Drama	488	357
Comedy	466	373
Thriller/Suspense	206	170
Romantic Comedy	122	88
Black Comedy	14	11
Musical	21	19
Western	10	10
Adventure	197	176
Action	221	190
All genres	1960	1536

Wednesday Cable Ratings: 'Duck Dynasty' Dominates + 'Modern Dads', 'Deal With It', 'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo' & More

Written By Amanda Kondolojy

August 22nd, 2013

Duck Dynasty was Wednesday's top cable program, with a 4.5 adults 18-49 rating, down from last week's  5.0 adults 18-49 premiere rating.  Modern Dads came in second with a 1.9 adults 18-49 rating. We only receive the top 100 cable shows for adults 25-54 for the whole day from our primary source, if you don't see your show it was not in that top 100 list. 

Selected Wednesday cable ratings: (all Live+Same Day ratings):

Show	Net	Time	Viewership (million, Live+SD)	Adults 18-49 rating (Live+SD)
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	10:00 PM	10.070	4.5
MODERN DADS	AEN	10:31 PM	3.973	1.9
Family Guy	ADSM	11:30 PM	3.141	1.5
Family Guy	ADSM	11:00 PM	3.114	1.5
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	9:00 PM	3.805	1.4
Big Bang Theory, THE	TBSC	9:30 PM	3.291	1.4
Big Bang Theory, THE	TBSC	10:00 PM	3.076	1.3
Big Bang Theory, THE	TBSC	9:00 PM	2.986	1.3
Big Bang Theory, THE	TBSC	8:30 PM	2.958	1.2
Robot Chicken	ADSM	12:00 AM	2.076	1.0
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	8:30 PM	2.592	1.0
American Dad	ADSM	10:30 PM	2.279	0.9
BIG BANG THEORY, THE	TBSC	8:00 PM	2.255	0.9
Robot Chicken	ADSM	12:15 AM	1.818	0.9
DEAL WITH IT	TBSC	10:30 PM	1.938	0.9
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	8:00 PM	2.179	0.8
AQUA TEEN HUNGERFORCE	ADSM	12:30 AM	1.545	0.8
HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOO	TLC	9:00 PM	2.054	0.8
CHALLENGE: RIVALS II	MTV	10:00 PM	1.337	0.8
Royal Pains	USA	9:00 PM	3.182	0.7
MODERN DADS	AEN	11:01 PM	1.585	0.7
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	7:30 PM	1.751	0.7
SQUIDBILLIES	ADSM	12:45 AM	1.310	0.7
Necessary Roughness	USA	10:01 PM	2.364	0.6
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	11:31 PM	1.618	0.6
American Dad	ADSM	10:00 PM	1.629	0.6
SpongeBob	NICK	5:30 PM	2.908	0.6
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	12:01 AM	1.502	0.6
SpongeBob	NICK	5:00 PM	2.910	0.6
FULL HOUSE	NAN	10:30 PM	1.965	0.6
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	12:31 AM	1.423	0.6
FULL HOUSE	NAN	11:00 PM	1.733	0.6
SpongeBob	NICK	6:00 PM	2.745	0.6
FULL HOUSE	NAN	10:00 PM	1.963	0.6
BRIDGE, THE	FX	10:00 PM	1.657	0.6
FRIENDS	NAN	12:05 AM	1.292	0.5
Futurama	CMDY	10:00 PM	1.040	0.5
SpongeBob	NICK	4:30 PM	2.612	0.5
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	1:01 AM	1.200	0.5
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	2:01 AM	1.172	0.5
Million Dollar Listing LA	BRVO	9:00 PM	1.350	0.5
Pawn Stars	HIST	8:00 PM	2.030	0.5
FULL HOUSE	NAN	11:33 PM	1.630	0.5
Only In America	HIST	9:00 PM	1.577	0.5
FX MOVIE PRIME	FX	7:00 PM	1.236	0.5
SpongeBob	NICK	6:30 PM	2.618	0.5
FULL HOUSE	NAN	9:30 PM	2.022	0.5
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	7:00 PM	1.300	0.5
Pawn Stars	HIST	8:30 PM	1.867	0.5
COPS	SPIKE	9:30 PM	1.399	0.5
FRIENDS	NAN	12:39 AM	1.131	0.5
Chelsea Lately	ENT	11:00 PM	0.987	0.5
LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SRS L	ESPN	8:00 PM	1.957	0.5
Pawn Stars	HIST	7:30 PM	1.580	0.5
SPONGEBOB	NICK	4:00 PM	2.226	0.5
JOE ROGAN QUESTNS EVRYTHG	SYFY	10:00 PM	1.108	0.5
BABY DADDY	FAM	8:30 PM	0.920	0.5
DUCK DYNASTY	AEN	6:30 PM	1.039	0.5
MELISSA & JOEY	FAM	8:00 PM	0.851	0.5
MINNIES BOW-TOONS	DSNY	8:25 AM	1.754	0.5
MICKEY MOUSE CLUBHOUSE	DSNY	8:00 AM	1.720	0.5
PARANORMAL WITNESS	SYFY	9:00 PM	1.029	0.5
PAW PATROL	NICK	12:00 PM	1.947	0.4
Top Chef MASTERS	BRVO	10:00 PM	0.953	0.4
FULL HOUSE	NAN	9:00 PM	2.026	0.4
Daily Show	CMDY	11:00 PM	0.882	0.4
HOUSE HUNTERS	HGTV	10:00 PM	1.659	0.4
Top Shot ALL STARS	HIST	10:00 PM	1.240	0.4
COPS	SPIKE	8:00 PM	1.106	0.4
NCIS	USA	7:00 PM	2.095	0.4
COPS	SPIKE	9:00 PM	1.349	0.4
SPORTSCENTER LATE       L	ESPN	11:00 PM	0.974	0.4
EXTREME COUGAR WIVES	TLC	9:30 PM	1.130	0.4
South Park	CMDY	9:29 PM	0.896	0.4
Castle	TNT	9:00 PM	2.132	0.4
PROPERTY BROTHERS (1 HR)	HGTV	9:00 PM	1.468	0.4
SEINFELD	TBSC	7:30 PM	1.016	0.4
COPS	SPIKE	8:30 PM	1.215	0.4
HOUSE HUNTERS INTL	HGTV	10:30 PM	1.779	0.4
Castle	TNT	10:00 PM	1.817	0.4
Cops	SPIKE	10:30 PM	1.161	0.4
NCIS	USA	8:00 PM	2.386	0.4
MYSTERY DINERS	FOOD	10:00 PM	1.309	0.4
Castle	TNT	8:00 PM	2.018	0.4
NCIS	USA	6:00 PM	1.819	0.4
Conan	TBSC	11:00 PM	0.850	0.4
Cops	SPIKE	10:00 PM	1.139	0.4
AMC MOVIE W STORY NOTES	AMC	9:00 PM	0.939	0.4
SEINFELD	TBSC	7:00 PM	0.856	0.4
MYSTERY DINERS	FOOD	10:30 PM	1.057	0.3
FUNNIEST COMMERCIALS: SUM	TRU	9:00 PM	0.943	0.3
LOVE THY NEIGHBOR	OWN	9:30 PM	1.047	0.3
NCIS	USA	5:00 PM	1.585	0.3
BONES	TNT	3:00 PM	1.124	0.3
SWAMP MURDERS	ID	1:00 AM	0.802	0.3
LOVE THY NEIGHBOR	OWN	9:00 PM	0.890	0.3
WICKED ATTRACTION	ID	12:00 AM	0.829	0.3
CEDRICS STAND UP	TVL	11:30 PM	0.916	0.3
EXES, THE	TVL	10:30 PM	1.273	0.3
Hot In Cleveland	TVL	10:00 PM	1.282	0.2

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Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2013 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.