B movies (The exploitation boom)

The 1960s and 1970s mark the golden age of the independent B movie, made outside of Hollywood's major film studios. As censorship pressures lifted in the early 1960s, the low-budget end of the American motion picture industry increasingly incorporated the sort of sexual and violent elements long associated with so-called exploitation films. The death of the Production Code in 1968 and the major success of the exploitation-style Easy Rider the following year fueled the trend through the subsequent decade. The success of the B-studio exploitation movement had a significant effect on the strategies of the major studios during the 1970s.

Cheesecake and choppers: 1960s

B movies (1980s to the present)

Cinematic exhibition of the B movie, defined as a relatively low-cost genre film, has declined substantially from the early 1980s to the present. Spurred by the historic success of several big-budget movies with B-style themes beginning in the mid-1970s, the major Hollywood studios moved progressively into the production of A-grade films in genres that had long been low-budget territory. With the majors also adopting exploitation-derived methods of booking and marketing, B movies began to be squeezed out of the commercial arena. The advent of digital cinema in the new millennium appeared to open up new opportunities for the distribution of inexpensive genre movies.

The B movie loses its place: 1980s

Movies@

Movies@ Ltd. is a cinema chain in the Republic of Ireland. The company opened its first multiplex cinema at the Dundrum Town Centre on 1 October 2005, with 12 screens. Other sites include the Pavilions Centre, Swords (11 screens) which opened in mid November 2006, and Gorey, Co. Wexford. A branch was proposed to be located in Salthill, County Galway (10 screens) in Autumn 2007, but has not yet opened.

The company bears some resemblance to the largest Irish cinema chain, the Ward Anderson group, in that it is a family owned business run by members of two families, in this case the O'Gorman family (who ran the Ormonde Cinema in Stillorgan) and the Spurling family who are also involved in rural cinemas, albeit having closed one (Enniscorthy) due to being in relative proximity to a Movies@ site.

External links

Movies (song)

"Movies" is a song by Alien Ant Farm, released as the first single from their album Anthology in 2001, then re-released to a larger audience after the success of "Smooth Criminal". Though it only peaked at No. 18 on the US Modern Rock chart, it remained on the chart for thirty-two weeks, five weeks longer than "Smooth Criminal" which hit No. 1.

Lyrically ambiguous, the song deals with images of young, independent kids salvaging relationships, inherent power struggles, finally letting go, and then (possible) reconciliation, practicing concepts of love, despair, and bargaining that adults have difficulty dealing with, and the resolution and “drama’ so well-written that it’d be worthy of a movie. “You won’t cry/I won’t scream” may be describing promises made in order to continue, or may be describing the final goodbye and never seeing each other again.

The original single version had two tracks, Wish, and Movies (the album version).

Music videos

There were three music videos made for this single, one, which was shot before the success of "Smooth Criminal" features a 'behind the scenes' style shooting of the video, with grips and lighting crew interrupting shots to fix equipment, while the band performs before a tacky Hollywood Hill backdrop.

1894 in film

The following is an overview of the events of 1894 in film, including a list of films released and notable births.

Events