A few years ago, I was talking with a relative. She was in her 80’s at the time. She put her hand on my shoulder and said, “You know, the last time I went to the movies was when they were showing Grumpy Old Men.”
What? That was in 1993!
She hadn’t been to a movie theater in about 20 years!
I know she has a bunch of girlfriends that she spends time with, and maybe movies just aren’t their thing, but when you look at the options on the big screen, do you really feel like paying good money for any of them?
So I thought, with your help, it would be fun to start a list of movies that you like.
We’ll try to keep these updated as best we can, and maybe on your own, or in your community movie nights, you can use the list we create to help you plan your next movie.
So please, participate!
Movies For The 55+ Crowd
Your Favorite Movies
Let’s get this list started.
It’s no secret that Hollywood today is churning out mega blockbuster after mega blockbuster. But they’re targeting a certain demographic, which is the 13-29 year olds.
Sure, they, or some independent producer will come out with the occasional film that really works for more than that crowd, but such gems aren’t always the easiest to find, especially if you’ve grown tired of fruitlessly checking the theater listings.
So let’s pool our collected experience together and make a list of movies that you actually enjoyed, so that we can share this with others in our communities.
The following is a brief survey. Please take a moment to answer these 4 simple questions. Notice, we’re not asking for or collecting any personal information. Let’s have some fun with this. If we get some good responses, we’ll post the results in a few weeks. So fill it out, and ask your friends to do the same.
Today’s problem with cinema
There’s a growing problem in movies today. Most of it started around the time that digital filmmaking became accessible to the masses. Suddenly, amateur filmmakers didn’t have to save up for a year, just to buy film stock and rent a cinema quality camera.
On top of that, digital platforms for releasing content has taken the world by storm, empowering anybody with a digital camera to challenge Hollywood for next to nothing.
While this might be great for some up and coming talent to learn the trade, it has also bypassed the gatekeepers that screen the scripts for quality, making it extremely difficult for the really great independent films to get noticed amidst the clutter.
To combat this tidal wave of low and microbudget films, the big production companies in Hollywood have shifted focus to producing films with budgets that no independent filmmaker could ever hope to achieve.
Where they once made plenty of movies with budgets in the $5 million to $25 million range, it seems like they keep pushing the bar higher, with budgets easily hitting the $1/2 billion range.
In order to make their money back, they have no choice but to target those who shell out the most cash in ticket sales and fan merchandise, which is the 13-29 year olds.
But just because the 55 and older crowd isn’t their main target audience, it doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy those ones, or that there are no other movies more to our tastes. They’re just not as easy to find.
So if you live in one of our awesome 55+ communities, you should check out your movie club. If you don’t have one, then start one. The theaters in our clubhouses are great places to meet.
After all, even a great movie is best when it is shared with friends.