LA Times: Thanksgiving Weekend, `A Losing Race'

The LA Times says the last few days may go down in the books as the second-best Thanksgiving weekend ever at the box office. The Times also surveys a cross-section of consumers about how they watch movies, and why they go to the theater.

Another Times piece, from last week, suggests that "the era of moviegoing as a mass audience ritual is slowly but inexorably drawing to a close, eroded by many of the same forces that have eviscerated the music industry, decimated network TV and, yes, are clobbering the newspaper business. Put simply, an explosion of new technology — the Internet, DVDs, video games, downloading, cellphones and iPods — now offers more compelling diversion than 90% of the movies in theaters, the exceptions being "Harry Potter"-style must-see events or the occasional youth-oriented comedy or thriller."

The headline of Patrick Goldstein's column: "In a losing race with the zeitgeist."