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Author
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Topic: Anti-War Films Bombing...Hollywood Morons Nervous
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jwhop
Knowflake Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 15, 2007 02:22 PM
  
Movie goers are staying away in droves. Still, I wonder if Hollywood morons are getting the picture? Perhaps they'll get it when the cash runs out.Simpsons' exec. producer does Kennedy bill ad
By: Jeffrey Ressner
Nov 14, 2007 07:54 PM EST
Updated: November 15, 2007 01:08 PM EST
Tom Cruise and Robert Redford weren’t the only ones biting their fingernails after the Iraq war talkfest “Lions for Lambs” tanked last weekend at the box office. Several other Iraq-themed movies, from the Sundance Film Festival favorite “Grace Is Gone” (starring John Cusack) to Brian DePalma’s highly controversial “Redacted,” are opening within the next few weeks. Fellow thesps Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts have got to be more than a little nervous, too, since their own Middle East conflict pic, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” opens late next month. That film, directed by Mike Nichols and penned by “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin, is based on the true story of a freewheeling Texas congressman and his efforts to covertly arm Afghan mujahedeen during the early 1980s. (Nichols’ last overtly political outing, 1998’s “Primary Colors,” cost $65 million to produce but earned only $39 million at U.S. movie houses.) We grabbed a quick peek at an early draft of Sorkin’s screenplay and, while it’s much more ring-a-ding-ding than “Lions for Lambs,” there remain several elements that mainstream audiences might find less than riveting, such as dialogue about nonbinding resolutions, references to the House subcommittee for defense appropriations, old “Gunga Dan” footage of then-“CBS Evening News” correspondent Dan Rather and a two-minute apologia of sorts for Rep. John P. Murtha’s murky mix-up with Abscam. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6880.html IP: Logged |
Astralmuse
unregistered
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posted November 15, 2007 10:56 PM
quote:
Still, I wonder if Hollywood morons are getting the picture? Perhaps they'll get it when the cash runs out.
It isn't just anti-war movies that people are staying away from, it's movies in general. An article yesterday in the Hollywood Reporter stated that "Medium- to big-budget movies produced by the U.S. studios in 2006 are set to post pretax losses of $1.9 billion after five years of exploitation... A detailed title-by-title analysis was carried out for this report, which shows the trend accelerating further in the first half of 2007." (Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i875d36bea047f8cda99 ba7be07f34953) Hollywood cash is running out quickly regardless of subject matter.I am interested in seeing Grace Is Gone because James Strouse wrote the screenplay and directed it. Even though I'm interested in his work, I wouldn't pay movieplex prices for it - that one's looks like an on-demand candidate. I'm never interested in a Tom Cruise movie, nor one with Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts. Meh. IP: Logged |
jwhop
Knowflake Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 16, 2007 02:25 PM
You're probably right that Americans are staying away from big screens in general Astralmuse.I usually don't pay much attention to movies, except to note Hollywood is taking a boxoffice pounding and has been for several years. Perhaps it's their subject matter in general which turns people off but whatever it is, I'm for more of the same.  Sorry, I couldn't view your linked site...error message.
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Astralmuse
unregistered
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posted November 16, 2007 05:16 PM
Sorry about that goof! I fixed the link in my message above. quote:
... whatever it is, I'm for more of the same.
From the industry reports I've read, the bottom of the market is bound to fall in the next few years. Producers have been trying to keep the investments afloat by bluffing the return percentages and that's sure to catch up with them. I can't say that I want to see grips, set designers, writers, or the like out of work, but in many ways I am looking forward to the current system collapsing in on itself. The amount of money required to keep the star system in place is staggering, and I can't see how it's worthwhile - especially when the outproduct is so lame. I value entertainment, but not in the form of a Tom Cruise movie. It's crazy that he gets $75 million (!) for each lame-o movie and he doesn't even act.IP: Logged |
BiBi DeAngelo
Knowflake Posts: 538
From: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 16, 2007 10:30 PM
Your right... the movie's aren't doing as they were anticipated! Here is the imdbpro.com pages... (International Movie Data Base)...Lions for Lambs (2007) USA / 88 min
Main Details
Budget: $35M (estimated)
Opening Wknd: $6.7M (USA)
Gross: $18.2M (Worldwide) more »
Genre: Drama / Thriller / War / more » Does Tom truly get $75 a film... must have some good points on the back end.. and on video and digital release... I'll go search more for those figures... In just the last ten years...
tickets use to cost $3.50 NOW.. $8.50 to $10
depending on the time of the day you go see them. Thats darn near triple! IP: Logged |
jwhop
Knowflake Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 17, 2007 01:27 PM
Thanks for fixing the link Astralmuse. The linked story confirms your points.Good point too BiBi. Ticket prices have skyrocketed. Production costs include the outrageous contract money paid to what Hollywood considers movie..stars. I have a very different opinion about most of them. But, in my opinion, their problems are also a result of the content of their movies. Not to mention the fact many of those so called stars fancy themselves as domestic and foreign policy experts and never miss an opportunity to bash Americans and US policy on a range of issues. Most of us just wish they would shut the hell up about subjects way over their heads and sing, act, write and/or direct entertainment and leave the heavy lifting to those intellectually eqippted to handle it.  Most of us aren't up for being lectured by the most dysfunctional among us; those in an alcoholic or drug induced fog who cannot seem to get a handle on their own life problems.
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jwhop
Knowflake Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted November 26, 2007 12:39 PM
November 26, 2007
'Redacted Has no Impact
Ethel FenigThe latest anti Iraq war propaganda movie that Americans refuse to see,
[A]udiences are really avoiding “Redacted," De Palma's picture about US soldiers who rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, then kill her and her family.
"Redacted" - which “could be the worst movie I've ever seen," said critic Michael Medved -took in just
$25,628  in its opening weekend in 15 theaters, which means roughly
3,000 people saw it in the entire country. “This, despite an A-list director, a huge wave of publicity, [b]high praise in the Times, The New Yorker, left-leaning sites like Salon, etc.
Throwing all pretense of objectivity to the winds at taxpayer and listener supported National Public Radio, critic David Edelstein blessed the film with a twisted prayer. The reviews have been terrible, even from the director's champions. The defense -- that's me -- will concede almost every point. The movie is heavy handed and punishing, the acting stilted, but I think of it as a charcoal sketch of a movie, something scribbled furiously out of the director's sense of outrage and impotence. (But)I think it represents, along with many recent and imperfect films, from "In the Valley of Elah" to "Rendition" to "Lions for Lambs," a laudable, artistic response to an unpopular war.
DePalma and Edelstein can't seem to understand Americans view these"laudable artistic responses," as not quite laudable but boring, not really artistic but elitist and especially not a response but a piece of propaganda, especially on Thanksgiving weekend, . But don't shed any tears for the directors and stars of these bombs; though some may have lost their homes in the Malibu fire their movies are sure to improve the American balance of trade as the hate-America-first-unless-we-need-their-help-overseas crowd will gleefully patronize them in droves.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/11/redacted_has_no_impact.html IP: Logged | |
Lindaland
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