每年的暑期通常是商業(yè)片泛濫的時候，這些不追求內(nèi)涵只注重票房的影片又被稱為“爆米花電影”（Popcorn movie），意思是適合邊吃爆米花邊喝可樂，消磨時間時看的電影。這種影片通常集合了多種商業(yè)元素，如當(dāng)紅明星、知名導(dǎo)演、眩技特效、巨額投資，甚至全球同步上映等等。

我們并不排斥商業(yè)片的存在，許多經(jīng)典的商業(yè)片不僅至今仍被影迷津津樂道，還推動了電影本身的發(fā)展。然而時至今日，片面追求票房收入的趨勢使得越來越多的所謂大片變成了一堆堆“華麗的垃圾”，甚至反過來阻礙了小成本高質(zhì)量電影的發(fā)展。

暑期電影的路越走越狹窄，長此以往，其出路又在何方？

THE SUMMER of 2008 is shaping up as an unusual one for me. I’m actually looking forward to seeing several of the films on offer.

After all， who wouldn’t want to see the first Indiana Jones film in nearly 20 years， the wonders the gifted 1)Guillermo del Toro has cooked up for Hellboy II: The Golden Army， Russian director 2)Timur Bekmambetov’s American debut in Wanted or what director 3)Christopher Nolan and Batman 4)Christian Bale have in store for The Dark Knight?

Even comedies are looking more promising than usual. Will Smith as a 5)grumpy superhero in Hancock， Steve Carell as secret agent Maxwell Smart in Get Smar and Adam Sandler as a Israel agent turned Manhattan hairdresser in You Don’t Mess With the Zohan look to be ideally cast (fingers crossed， of course， about the movies themselves). And a new picture from Pixar (this one’s about a robot named WALL#8226;E) is always the best bet of any season.

It used to be that every summer held this high degree of anticipation for me. In fact， I used to look forward to everything coming out， no matter what the season. Though critics are often

6)derided as people who don’t like films， the truth is you couldn’t have this job unless you cared passionately enough about movies to sit through the waves of nonsense that routinely get tossed at today’s audiences.

But over the last few years， I’ve noticed a change in what the studios were doing with the

summer， the season Hollywood counts on for

making most of its money. In a business in which the average cost of making and marketing a studio film is more than $100 million， the summer movies have been tailored more and more to the mindlessness often associated with the tastes of young males， still Hollywood’s most loyal audience.

This youth-pandering has become so relentless that it has 7)put a crimp into one of my favorite rituals: walking through theater lobbies in the spring and looking at the posters for upcoming summer films. In some years things got so 8)dire that I couldn’t find a film I even wanted to see， let alone review.

As if this tendency weren’t bad enough in and of itself， it began leaking into and infecting the rest of the year. The reality is that， except for the 9)ghettoized adult window in the fall， this dumber-is-better attitude is threatening to take over all of the major studios’ output. Not to put too fine a point on it， but the summer is killing American movie culture.

With corporate owners demanding predictable profits， the studios have understandably narrowed their focus to the kinds of undemanding entertainments favored by the 25-and-younger audience that dominates theatrical attendance. And they are not just doing it during the summer， they’re doing it almost year-round.

In all likelihood that tendency is even contributing to the nationwide loss of film-critic jobs that’s been so commented on of late. With so many films coming out that don’t really demand serious examination， and an

aging readership that is going to fewer and fewer movies， newspaper editors in cities where (unlike Los Angeles， New York and a few other places) films are not an

10)intrinsic part of local culture are probably figuring

that it’s not worth the expense of paying anyone to examine them. And if critics go， the mechanism for encouraging audiences to go to good small films， for creating a demand for alternatives to what critic 11)Richard Schickel has called Hollywood’s “big clanking machines” goes with them.

Is there any way out?

If this summer turns out the way it might， it could encourage the studios to give films to people who could actually do a good job of writing and directing them， not just to the latest music video or commercial phenomenon who likely as not has as much interest in the human condition as a stone. As always， it would help enormously if the adult audience did its part to patronize intelligent films， even at the risk of going to ones that they might not like.

The kids who made 12)Prom Night the No. 1 film in the country a few weeks ago didn’t 13)agonize about how satisfying it might be or whether perhaps a more involving film might be

14)coming down the pike the following week. They saw the name and they went. That’s why another Prom Night movie is probably in the works and the people who made 15)Stop-Loss are trying to figure out why their audience didn’t show up.

對于我來說，2008年的夏季會很不尋常，因為對今年要上映的一些電影我居然會心懷期待。

畢竟在相隔近20年之后，有誰不愿意觀看第一部印第安納#8226;瓊斯系列電影的續(xù)集呢？還有天才導(dǎo)演吉爾莫#8226;德爾#8226;托羅精心制作的《地獄男爵2：黃金軍團(tuán)》，俄羅斯導(dǎo)演提莫#8226;貝克曼貝托夫的第一部美國影片《通緝犯》，或者克里斯托弗#8226;諾蘭和“蝙蝠俠”克里斯蒂安#8226;貝爾通力合作的《蝙蝠俠前傳2：黑暗騎士》？

即便是喜劇看起來都比以前要值得期待。威爾#8226;史密斯在《全民超人》中扮演脾氣暴躁的超人、史蒂夫#8226;卡瑞爾在《糊涂偵探》中扮演特工麥克斯韋#8226;精明，而亞當(dāng)#8226;桑德勒則在《別惹佐漢》中扮演以色列特工跑到曼哈頓去做發(fā)型師，看起來演員陣容都很完美（當(dāng)然了，還是交叉一下手指，祈禱影片本身也不錯）。還有皮克斯的一部新片（這部影片講的是一個名叫WALL#8226;E的機(jī)器人）在任何季節(jié)都是最可靠的選擇。

以前每年夏天，我總是對影片抱有很高的期待。實(shí)際上，我過去常常對上映的每部影片都很期待，不論是在哪個季節(jié)。雖然電影評論家們常常像不喜歡電影的人那樣極盡嘲諷，但實(shí)際上除非你對電影極其癡迷，否則你是沒辦法耐著性子看完現(xiàn)如今這一堆堆通常讓觀眾惱怒不已的無聊影片的。

然而在過去幾年里，我發(fā)現(xiàn)各個工作室夏季檔期的影片發(fā)生了一個變化——在這個季節(jié)里，好萊塢希望能盡可能多地賺錢。對于這樣一個每部影片的制作和推廣成本平均高于一億美元的行業(yè)來說，夏季電影越來越傾向于迎合不愿動腦子的年輕男性的口味，他們?nèi)匀皇呛萌R塢最忠實(shí)的觀眾。

這種拉動年輕人市場的做法是如此地堅持不懈，以致于妨礙到了我最鐘愛的習(xí)慣之一：在春季檔期行走在電影院的大廳里，觀看即將到來的夏季電影的海報。有幾年情況特別糟糕，我甚至找不到一部自己想要看的電影，更別說寫評論了。

就像這種趨勢本身還不夠糟糕似的，它還開始擴(kuò)散并影響了其余的檔期。事實(shí)上，除了秋季專為成年人開設(shè)的窗口以外，這種沉默是金的態(tài)度正在威脅著那些主要工作室出產(chǎn)的影片。我并不是想上綱上線，不過夏季電影正在扼殺美國的電影文化。

由于公司的所有者要求可預(yù)期的收入，各工作室自然就會將他們的注意力縮小在那些要求不高的娛樂片上，以滿足那些支配著電影院入座率的25歲以下觀眾的喜好。而如今他們并不僅僅在夏季檔期這樣做，全年的情況都差不多。

而且十有八九，這種趨勢甚至還會導(dǎo)致全國范圍內(nèi)影評從業(yè)者的流失，最近人們對此頗有微詞。太多正上映的影片并不真正需要嚴(yán)格的審查，而成年的觀眾越來越少看電影了，對于除了洛杉磯、紐約和其他一些地方以外的城市的報紙編輯來說，電影并不是本地文化固有的一部分，所以他們可能認(rèn)為不值得花錢去請人來給電影寫評論。然而如果沒有了影評，那么鼓勵觀眾去看小成本優(yōu)質(zhì)電影，以及要求對影評家理查德#8226;?？藸査^的好萊塢的“叮當(dāng)作響的大機(jī)器”進(jìn)行改革的機(jī)制，也都會隨之而去了。

有什么辦法能夠解決嗎？

如果今年夏天趨勢有變化的話，還是有可能解決的，因為它能鼓勵工作室將影片交給那些確實(shí)能夠?qū)懗龊脛”静⑸瞄L導(dǎo)演的人來制作，而不僅僅是迎合最新的音樂電視或者商業(yè)趨勢，那些片對于人類處境的關(guān)心可能同對一塊石頭的差不了多少。同往常一樣，假如成年觀眾能夠盡其本份去支持有思想內(nèi)涵的影片，即使是冒點(diǎn)風(fēng)險去觀看他們可能不喜歡的影片，那都會是極大的幫助。

數(shù)周前，孩子們讓《燈紅酒綠殺人夜》登上了美國的票房榜首，他們并不為這部電影有多好看，或者接下來一個星期是否有一部更有深度的電影可能會上映而苦惱。他們只是看到了這部片的名字，然后就去觀看了。這就是為什么另一部類似《燈紅酒綠殺人夜》的影片正在籌劃之中，而拍攝了反戰(zhàn)片《止損》的人則在試圖找出為什么他們?nèi)狈τ^眾的原因。