Bloomberg Irked by Movies and Media

Dave Allocca/STARPIX, via Associated Press Don’t save him an aisle seat: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg with a famous actor and local-economic-revenue-generator in July 2012. The mayor has little use for movies, at least in his personal life.

To the long list of modern-day vices that can irk Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg â€" sugary sodas, plastic foam, overzealous Tweeters â€" add one more: going to the movies.

Mr. Bloomberg, who is easily bored, has never been much of a cinephile, even boasting to a friend that he had watched fewer than 10 films in his life.

After taking his companion, Diana Taylor, to see “Les Misérables” at an Upper East Side theater on New Year’s Day, he emerged sounding kvetchier than usual.

“I sat through an hour of trailers, and every one was stupider than the other,” Mr. Bloomberg complained to a writer for M magazine, a new men’s fashion quarterly, in an interview that! was published last week. “And then there were these ads for video games â€" for adults! And you want to know why we’re dumbing down politics.”

In his public life, the mayor is a tireless promoter of the film industry in the city, which together with television production generates about $7 billion a year in economic activity here, according to his office.

Hollywood, however, was not Mr. Bloomberg’s only target.

“The public gets its information from the media, and the media is a shell of what it was before,” Mr. Bloomberg said, explaining why he believes that today’s politicians find it harder than ever to lead.

“They used to pay for reporters and editors with experience, and for lawyers, but all that’s gone, because the economy of the news business is so bad; they’re dumbing it down,” he continued.

Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images Mr. Bloomberg, third from right in back row, at the premiere of “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” on July 6, 2010, which he had earlier proclaimed “Sorcerer’s Apprentice Day” in New York.

“I don’t see any difference between a newspaper on the Internet and a blog. It confuses everything and takes away the difference. People are getting their news from sitcoms and from movies with a political agenda. They’re even getting information from games!”

(It should be noted that Mr. Bloomberg himself owns a media empire, including a financial news service, several magazines and a television station. His company is expanding ! and he ha! s been rumored to covet The Financial Times.)

Mr. Bloomberg has previously complained about social media’s effect on government, notably during a trip to Singapore. Nowadays, “there is an instant referendum on everything,” he said in the M interview. “I’m worried how government can survive this.”

The interview, conducted by Terry Golway, has not yet been posted online. The print article is accompanied by an illustration of Mr. Bloomberg wearing a kind of Victorian barrister’s outfit and deems him “the man with no term limits.”

M magazine is edited by Peter W. Kaplan, the former editor of The New York Observer.