Posted on 05/28/2006 11:30:50 PM PDT by dangus
The way I see it, Dan Brown should be very happy for Fandango, which allowed millions of theater-goers to see "The Da Vinci Code" before reading the reviews. Normally, movies don't crash, losing 57% of their audience in the second weekend. Especially not when the 2nd weekend is a holiday weekend and the first weekend was not. But normally people who see movies this stupid have already invested in their Jar-Jar Binks Happy Meal Action Figure. Go figure that the Happy Meal featuring a dead, naked museum curator with a pentagram scratched in his back didn't sell to well. (OK, I recycled that joke concept, but Da Vinci Code readers aren't known for having good memories.)
Come on, folks; the problem isn't Ron Howard or Tom Hanks. The problem is that you could read the entire 450-page book faster than you can watch the movie. I mean, I'm not saying that Brown is a devil-spawned, historically ignorant hack who simply makes stupid people feel smarter. But only because I'm alone at my keyboard and my cat kinda looks at me funny when I talk to her as if I expect her to know English.
I know, calling 60 million people "stupid" is no way to win friends and influence people, but by now I've used enough three-syllable words that I've lost most of them. My big issue is that the raves this story got proves how anti-Christian the nation's book reviewers are. Come on, this is the sort of book movie viewers should *warn* us about: "Caution: Put down this book and go smoke some pot. It will kill fewer brain cells and make you more capable of coherent conversation."
OK, Dan Brown fans. You don't have to respond saying, "it's only fiction." We all have heard that. First of all, Dan Brown has been all over all the talk shows insisting that the backstory is all true. But there's also something really nasty about making such horrific accusations of genocide against people in a backstory.
You see, backstories about historical peoples and characters usually are generally true. If they are preposterous, book critics will point it out, and knowledgeable readers' suspension of disbelief will be shattered, and they'll go tell their friends how stupid the book was. But Dan Brown's readers, apparently, aren't used to historical fiction, unless it's got that guy from the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" commercials on the front cover. Brown puts horrific slander in people's brain as little details, and the next time they hear those tid-bits, they say, "oh, yeah, I think I heard about that."
Some critics have pointed out how bad Brown's history is as if it were a product of his ignorance. This is not the case. Brown is quite well aware, I'm sure, that "Da Vinci" is not a name, as many critics have pointed out it isn't, but rather an origin. Please understand; he's trying to attract an audience which last read a book about Leonardo that was subtitled, "Heroes on a Halfshell."
As much as I'm picking on his audience for being nitwits, it actually is a simple truth that novels, since they contain far more information than a movie, can spend much more effort convincing people that something preposterous is actually believable. Many books I've read, particularly science fiction, have the more incredible portions of them toned down to maintain credibility. For instance, in the novel, "2010," we learned about plant life on Io by reading about how a Russian spacecraft was virtually devoured by a mobile plant; the novel could explain why Io might have mobile plants. In the movie, the crew thought they might have seen readings indicating a trace of photosythetic material.
There simply is no toning down the ridiculousness of Brown's story, because it's all necessary for the plot line. In the movie, it all seems so insipid that viewers apparently have been warning friends not to see it (as evidenced by its crash at the box office), if they are willing to admit to having shelled out $9 to see it in the first place.
However, most of those are children's flicks.
Narnia, The Incredibles, The Shaggy Dog, and The Pink Panther (yes, the one with Steve Martin), and Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit come to mind.
However, you have to filter out schlock like Over the Hedge, Chicken Little, and quite a bit of Disney, so your mileage may vary.
Cheers!
Dustin Hoffman would no doubt be thrilled that you mistook him for Richard Gere!
Bet Gere wouldn't be so happy about it. ;)
I guess you're referring to me, even though I haven't even seen the movie.
But using your definition, every movie sucks. They all drop off after the initial weekend.
Maybe they all DO suck. But by any financial measure, this movie is already a success.
Your wishful thinking doesn't change that.
Narnia, The Incredibles, The Shaggy Dog, and The Pink Panther (yes, the one with Steve Martin), and Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit come to mind.
However, you have to filter out schlock like Over the Hedge, Chicken Little, and quite a bit of Disney, so your mileage may vary.
Cheers!
Thanks! Roger that!
Why Over the Hedge?
Indeed, we are quite different. I was a cradle Catholic who left for 20 - 25 years in the wilderness of atheism and agnosticism. 2 weeks ago I reconciled with the Church after years of questioning and studying.
I had my share of similar issues, and found the answers to them quite easily. There are lay movements in the Church that focus on people like us the ones with questions and anger. V2 had a host of problems in the way it was implemented (these problems vex us still to this day but are being worked on), especially here in the US.
The harm of this movie is that it gives anti-Catholics more ammo against the Church. Unfortunately, so many lay Catholics do not know the Biblical facts and the history of the Church in order to defend her. Who was/is at fault? The Church, to a certain degree. But with the inflow of former Protestant clergy (& I don't mean to imply that the flow goes but one way) into the Church and lay ministry, I think the tide is starting to turn.
I remember hearing both the bad reviews and the good reviews of Fight Club in advertisements telling people to come and make up their own minds. I just checked the box office for it I didn't realize how poorly it had done because almost everyone I know has seen it. Apparently they waited until the DVD.
####Commercial success, professional failure####
That's a good way of putting it. Whether or not THE DA VINCI CODE is a success depends on which definition of success one uses.
Recall the abominable film FAHRENHEIT 9/11. Throughout the summer of 2004 we were told this film was a smashing success because A) it made money and B) it was going to defeat George Bush in the upcoming election.
Well, it did indeed make money. Being a documentary (allegedly) it cost relatively little to make it, and it earned a tidy profit. In that sense it was a success.
But all the hype about the film ending the Bush presidency went nowhere. News magazines put Michael Moore's bloated face on their cover, hyping him as some kind of presidential kingmaker. Liberal Democrat politicians attended F 9/11's world premier. Moore was invited to sit next to Jimmy Carter at the 'Rat convention. All summer long I listened to my liberal colleagues at work predicting that Moore's film would elect John Kerry, when the millions of people who saw the flick rushed to the polls to vote out the "incompetent boob" Moore depicted. Moore himself made the ludicrous claim that his film had a 100% effectiveness rate, meaning that every single person who saw the film believed it and would act on it at the polls.
But guess what? F 9/11 proved to be a total flop under this measure of success. Bush won re-election. The film, it turned out, just preached to the choir. It made no new converts.
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is a similar story. It cost little to make it, and it turned a tidy profit, so by box office standards it was a success. But the overblown claims that the film would "touch people's hearts" and "change people's minds" about the gay lifestyle were wrong. Like F 9/11, it preached to the choir. People this November will still vote to ban gay "marriage" on state referenda, just as they would have before BBM was released.
So, yes, THE DA VINCI CODE is a box office success. That can't be denied, though at least in America it won't do as well as predicted. I don't think it'll go much past $200,000,000, if it reaches that point at all. No doubt the people backing this film were hoping, for emotional and ideological reasons, to top THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. They won't.
But the movie is an artistic failure, and as such really won't have the negative impact on Christianity that those supporting it were hoping for. It'll preach to the choir (anti-religious bigots, airheads, etc.), but it'll have the philosophical impact of a Michael Bay "blockbuster" like ARMAGEDDON or PEARL HARBOR. Profitable, but lacking in quality or substance.
Same goes for the book, very infantile..but france will like it.
"It certainly wasn't the anti-"Passion of the Christ" as some felt it was going to be."
Yeh but Dan Brown can alter and besmirch the divinity of Christ in this garbage flick and makes big $$ doing it.
If he had made a similar film about the prophet Mohammed in a derogatory manner bet the radical Muzzies would be lusting for his chopped off head. With portrayed distortions of Jesus you get to make $$ and keep your head. Such a DEAL!
My point in mentioning Star Wars: TPM is that a movie can suck in spite of being a blockbuster. And the Da Vinci Code is hardly a blockbuster along the lines of SW:TPM. BO failure? Certainly not. But a 57% drop off is, in spite of your protestations, particularly poor. Especially when the 2nd weekend, not the first, is the holiday weekend. Given a normal Sunday, that's about a 63% drop-off.
Of big-release movies, these were those that were worse since 1980, out of about 2000 major releases:
Doom, 72.7%
The Adventures of Pluto Nash, 70.8%
Hulk, 69.7%
Elektra, 69%
Pokemon 2000, 68.3%
Final Fantasy, 67.9%
Timeline, 67.7%
Alien v. Predator, 67.6%
The Village, 67.5%
Pokemon 3: 67.1%
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, 66.8
Matrix: Revolutions, 66%
Battlefield Earth, 66%
Alexander, 65%
Solaris, 65%
Freddie Got Fingered, 64.5%
The Messenger (Joan of Arc), 64.2%
Dutch, 64.1%
Critters 2: The Main Course, 64%
Aeon Flux, 64%
Freddie v. Jason, 63.9%
Batman and Robin, 63.3%
2 Fast 2 Furious, 63%
Hardly a distinguished list. Notice that, with the exception of some of the last several, they were all "built to crash": 2nd-tier comic book cult favorites and slasher movies.
nicely stated.
I'm not going to beat this dead horse much longer.
The movie smashed all global records for an opening. It set records everywhere. If it closed right now, it would still be one of the highest grossing films in history.
It's perfectly fine for you to assail the content of the movie. Lord knows, it's only been done here in about 1000 threads so far.
If you want to pretend that nobody is watching it or that it will close in the next few days because of empty theaters, I guess I'm okay with that. That's your opinion and this place is all about opinions.
Global is the keyword. There is a huge populist (suckers)out there just ripe for the picking.
Don't let it be said that Americans stopped anyone from making a buck.
bump for later.
And it has no competition: It's virtually the first movie ever to open simultaneously around the world.
Fahrenheist 9/11..worked the same global market.
1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and DOCTRINES OF DEVILS;
"I don't see you all sitting around carping and sniping at George Lucas because "his x-wing fighters fly in space like there is actually an atmosphere!!!
You will see the difference if you think about it. George Lucas was a fictional character. On the other hand, for millions of us, Jesus Christ is the Son of God who lived a perfect, chaste, selfless life and was the Perfect Sacrifice to pay for all our sins. He then rose from the dead and lives today. Nowhere in Scripture is there even the slightest indication that He was married. It goes against His core purpose for being on earth. Remember, selflessness in Him was total, dedicated to saving mankind. I can't begin to tell you how offensive the precepts in The DaVinci Code offend believers.
So it's not petty to be unhappy when He is blasphemed. Nor is it petty to now wish a book/movie that does that to fail. Yeah, we might get grouchy and snarky about it, but we're human.
Besides, I've been here longer than you, nah-nah-nah! ;o)
O my Jesus,
how much you are still a sign of contradiction,
and some create such interesting masks
to clothe your reality.
For some,
the mask is you as a sign of ignorance,
being backwards,
unthinking,
unlearned.
For some,
the mask is you as an enlightened teacher,
a guru,
or the mask of a prophet,
the mask of a revolutionary
who lived and died and that was enough.
For some,
we see the true Light shining behind the masks man makes.
Help us see You,
stripped of all that we add or disguise.
O My Jesus
You are Emmanuel, God with us,
who joined us in love,
teaching and suffering and dying that we might live,
and might have that life abundantly
in your peace.
Teach those of us who love you
to show the world the face of our Redeemer,
this day, and always.
Amen.
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