Posted on 12/28/2005 6:59:55 AM PST by bulldozer
These days, the film industry bemoans decreasing box office sales by crying about illegal downloads of movies. If all the major providers of peer-to-peer software had not been shut down, they might have a point.
Industries who think consumers are slaves to their products usually end up in this boat. The consumer goes elsewhere.
“Brokeback Mountain” has netted a paltry $4.9 million in box office sales, nearly identical to “Memoirs of a Geisha”. Both movies have been out for about two weeks. King Kong has earned twenty times more in only eight days of apish reincarnation.
Here is a wake-up call for Hollywood: Nearly one-fourth of viewers gave Brokeback Mountain an “F”, while 69.4% gave it an A, leaving no middle-ground. We can easily guess who these votes came from on both sides of this tin coin.
Golden Globe elites went into plebian parinirvana over the idea of two married cowboys rustling something more than livestock on the range. Monkeys go “ape” seeing themselves in the mirror, too. A “Gone With The Wind” this is not.
The business model for film distribution is changing rapidly in ways Hollywood is loathe to admit. With cable and satellite, viewers do not need to waste money going out to see movies they do not really want to see, out of sheer boredom. We can more easily surf cable to watch the best of the worst, in far more comfortable surroundings, with our favorite snacks just a few steps away. The box office and DVD rentals merely give us time to figure out what we really want to see.
Hollywood no longer has a monopoly on entertainment. The internet and video games are where celluloid ex-pats now reside.
Consumer dollar-votes are most instructive. The fish now know the difference between a real worm and a fake one with a hook on it. We are no longer addicted to seeing the latest insult to family values just so we can pretend we are hip while complaining about it at lunch.
Shock entertainment will be an increasingly marginal market. Those who wish to be successful in film and television will look to the great box office hits, shows, and the legendary acts for new foundations for the film industry.
David R. Usher is President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition
They're just trying to fleece us with that stuff about cowboys rather than shepards...shameless, how they're pulling the wool over our eyes...
"Birth of a Nation" could just as well have been called "Birth of the Klan." It is very racist and portrays Klansmen as the heros of the picture.
That being said, the cinematography was far ahead of its time and it was the best selling silent movie ever made.
Actually, your calculation is just about right. However, I believe Brokeback Mountain will do better than your $30M prediction becasue all left-wing Democrats will go see it to advance the "gay" gender and aceeptance. However, like Michael Moore's film which garnered $125M, it did absolutely nothing to help John Kerry gain the POTUS. Fact is, Mr. Moore and John Kerry were soundly defeated by a meager $100K ad place on limited TV by an organization known as the Swift Boat Vets.
I still haven't seen
any TV spots for it.
Far as I can tell,
its best word of mouth
are these endless daily threads
where Freepers chat up
the film every day.
Half the Freepers "complaining"
must be PR flaks
pumping up the buzz.
What a director -- The Hulk,
and then gay cowboys . . .
Baptist Ping
>>I wish everyone would STOP saying these two perverts are "Cowboys", they ain't. Yhey're two sheep herders, also know as "Shepherds".
And I wish everyone who repeats this mantra as if it were gospel took the time to read the story before spouting their ignorance.
They're cowboys. They meet one summer while herding sheep, but one's a ranch-hand and the other's a rodeo bull-rider.
Who's Oscar?
What I don't understand is with all those sheep around, why are they jumping each other?
The film glorifies the 19th century Klan. It is full of abhorrent racist stereotypes. It is a brilliant example of cinematic techniques, but some of Griffith's other film epics are easier to watch today (try Intolerance or Orphans of the Storm).
King David would not be impressed...
Probably impale 'em on his sword.
Or wannabes...
Taking it kind of personal are we?
Seriously, who really WANTS to read this thread. Much more fun just to post and make inane comments.
Thanks for the ping.
The bad news...this thang opened in my local theater. ;o(
The good news...it's the only theater in the area showing it.
yes, inane comments are the norm on this topic.
People act like there was never a play, book or movie that dealt with immoral behavior before.
We wouldn't have much art if it were all about warm, fuzzy happy christian families.
The obsession with this movie here is astonishing.
It has nothing to do with that.
This "movie" is just Hollyweird propaganda gutter-trash, nothing more. There is no interest in this subject by the overwhelming vast majority of Americans. It is just an attempt to normalize the abnormal.
There is more interest in this movie on this website than any other.
It's insane.
People lie about whether or not it's successful (it is, for a movie of its size and distribution) and they feel threatened by its existence. It's nuts.
Have there ever been plays, movies, books about immoral subjects? Well, let's see... Lysistrata, Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, MacBeth, Psycho, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.
It's a story, and a good one. I read the story when it first appeared, but I haven't yet seen the movie (though I probably will when it's available in my area).
People try to compare it to King Kong or The Passion as if it's a contest between worldviews. It's not. It's a small movie. It depicts a universal theme (forbidden love) and it's probably the 10,000th movie to do so. The Freeper obsession with this flick is just weird.
Okaayyy... if you say so.
It depicts a universal theme (forbidden love)...
No it doesn't. It depicts two queers swapping spit. There's nothing loving in that act, more like self-hating.
And Oedipus Rex depicts incest, and Silence of the Lambs depicts murder and Hamlet depicts both.
If you only want to see movies about your own life, go show the Super-8's in your basement. The rest of us are adult enough to understand that human frailty is a mainstay of story-telling.
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