There's something to be said for Commercial Cinema

Let me say a word here for commercial cinema: though I've obviously been a huge fan of indie movies and of world cinema, most of which is state- or grant-supported, there's something to be said, too, for the need to earn your keep by attracting an audience that wants to watch your movie. Obviously, commercial cinema produces some amazing bombs and you wonder who would ever have been dumb enough to invest money in such films as Somewhere? or I Love You Philip Morris? And commercial cinema also leads to an incredible dumbing down of most movies, as too many reach for the widest possible audience, as do radio stations, rather than finding a right audience, and too many depend on cartoons and special effects, which can show worldwide without any need for translation or dubbing. OK - but what do you make of a movie like the multinational art film "A Talking Picture" but the legendary, 90+ year old Portuguese director, di Oliverias (I know I have his name wrong - I'll look it up)? A mother takes her daughter on a cruise from Lisbon to Bombay, they stop at many sights - the Parthenon, Pompeii - and the mother explains the history to the daughter, and on and on! I could literally not bear to watch more than 30 minutes. This looked like a really bad episode of Globetrekker. Turned it off; read a brief synopsis that tells me this turns into some kind of thriller, with a bomb aboard the ship. OK, great - do you think, Mr. writer-director, you might have wanted to do something to captivate or entertain or pique the interest of your audience sometime during the first 30 minute?! This is a great, or terrible if you will, example of too many people allowing a legendary director to have his way because nobody really cares if anyone ever watches this film. Maybe it ends up being a good movie, but I'll never know.