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
The butler was perfect.
---
Armand: Al, you old son of a ****! How ya doin'? How do you feel about that call today? I mean the Dolphins! Fourth-and-three play on their 30 yard line with only 34 seconds to go!
Albert: How do you think I feel? Betrayed, bewildered... wrong response?
----
Albert: I'm leaving you my stereo..
Agador(crying): I don't want it
Albert: My red boots…
Agador: I don't want them.
Albert: And my wigs…
Agador: Which wig?
Question: I remember watching these movies in film class and I don't remember anything being said about "Birth of a Nation" being sympathetic to the KKK...Do you have info regarding this?
That was a great movie - with a gay theme! It showed love betweeen two men. Oh the horror! Its the end of the world.
I wonder how many people here bashing Brokeback Mountain have actually seen it.
And as far as the FX (I assume you are talking "The Shield", "Rescue Me" or "Nip/Tuck") and HBO ("Sopranos", "Deadwood") are concerned, there is a HUUUUUUGE difference between graphic sex/violence/language on these shows and the dreck on the big screen. If you can weed through the "filth", you'll find some pretty good writing and acting with a view not terribly different from average Joe American. Not the anti-American, anti-family screeds we get from George cLooney, Michael Moore-on and Rob "Meathead" Reiner.
And, in most of those series, people like those characters didn't marry the schoolmarm, drink tea at 4, and tut-tut the children when they did something wrong. The "filth" is, for better or worse, a somewhat accurate approximation of the way those people are in real life.
"“Brokeback Mountain” has netted a paltry $4.9 million in box office sales, nearly identical to “Memoirs of a Geisha”."
Howls, Bruce. Howls of derisive laughter.
Rule 1 is applicable not just at the University of Wallamaroo, but throughout the human race.
And the astounding arrogance that propels a Westerner to write a book called "Memoirs of a Geisha." Unbelievable.
'Birth of a Nation' IS a cinematic milestone. It was the first epic. The camera work was revolutionary for its time.
I normally get queasy just thinking about movies about gays, because except for ones like "The Birdcage", they just try to ram the PC-view of their lifestyle down your throat. The only other movie I could recommend in this genre would be "Philadelphia", which is more about AIDS, and even that one goes a little overboard trying to lay a guilt-trip on the audience.
Good news/bad news:
McDonalds currently has "Chronicles of Narnia" toys in their happy-meals.
In response, they're planning "Brokeback Mountain" toys at Buggery King...
:) Fletcher J
"The only way that Mel Brooks got away with it was having half the cast be homosexual. This movie would have been picketed by the 'gay rights' lobby otherwise."
Hunh? Have you seen this picture?
The way he got 'away with it' was by pushing the (true) stereotype of the flamboyant theatrical male homosexual to a ridiculously funny -- but not untrue and not unkind -- extreme.
Gary Beach DID look exactly like the Chrysler Building in that dress and tiara in the 'Keep it Gay' number. What's to picket about?
OK, the lesbians should still hate Mel for 'Shirley Markowitz'. That was mean. BWAHAHAHAAHA
This incarnation of the Producers (more than the original Mostel/Wilder piece) has always been a big ol' love letter to the musical theatre. And like it or not, anything that promotes the musical theatre is good for gay people.
If you never get to see it onstage (and preferably in New York), you can see this movie and get a tiny inkling of what all the cheering was about.
You have FRMail
Production budget
was $13mil. It has made
almost eight million.
It will probably
break even in theaters,
and maybe profit
as a DVD.
Film buffs will want a copy
for novelty sake,
and gays will want one
as a kind of memento.
If a budget's low,
almost any film
can be Corman-ed into a
small profit at least.
Bearback isn't doing so well, but no matter Hollywood loves it and that is all that matters. It will win an Oscar even though it has bombed in the theaters!
People just aren't as threatened as much by flamboyantly gay characters, they are more comic relief than anything, like watching a freak show, they aren't trying to be considered "normal." They know they are different.
But now you have a movie where you have two straight-acting males are involved, and that changes things. Now they are trying to create the illusion that what they are is "normal." And that's why BBM is different than The Birdcage.
"The old women scenes made me cringe....."
You have to be Zero Mostel to pull that off.
May I offer you a Pirin tablet? ;-)
Ledger screwed up bigtime. After "The Patriot" he seemed headed for stardom.
It's obviously too late to recommend he talk the studio folks into running "Casanova" before "Gone With the Sheep".
Good point. I was hopelessly addicted to HBO's "Rome", which had plenty of filth and bad language; but the story was very compelling (ok, James Purefoy..sans clothing..I peeked)
Actually, nothing first-hand. I have not sat through it. But every review I have seen mentions it is a landmark film, and that it has racist overtones. I took it as a given, but as I have not seen it I will have to say it is second-hand info.
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