Posted on 10/02/2024 8:54:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh released his bitingly comedic documentary, Am I Racist?, in early September to great acclaim, vexxing film critics and industry insiders who see themselves as the exclusive gatekeepers of the silver screen.
The movie’s surprise success—even while facing vicious left-wing attacks—stood in stark contrast with the failure of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, a sci-fi political drama with an anti-Trump political subtext that opened over the weekend with neither critical nor audience acclaim—despite its bloated budget, all-star cast and abundance of Hollywood hype.
This pattern may signal a shifting trend in consumer sensibilities. Prior conservative-friendly films, such as Angel Studios’s Sound of Freedom, have exceeded box office expectations, while movies and television series deemed exceedingly “woke” have continued to fizzle.
That includes Disney’s most recent addition to the Star Wars canon, The Acolyte, which drew backlash from loyal fans for its preoccupation with feminist and LGBT virtue-signaling.
By aggressively alienating conservative viewers, leftist Hollywood studios “are leaving plenty of money on the table, and we’re happy to come in and take some of it, because, at a minimum, you are explicitly refusing to serve 50% of the audience,” Walsh said, according to Variety.
Am I Racist?, an irreverent look at how “diversity, equity and inclusion” proponents fail to grasp their own hypocrisy, raked in $4.5 million on opening and has a 97% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Walsh, who incurred leftist notoriety with his previous documentary, What Is a Woman?, goes undercover in the film as a progressive interviewer, meeting with prominent DEI speakers like White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo.
The movie, which cost $3 million to make (the expenses paid to so-called DEI experts are a running joke throughout the film) had grossed more than $11 million as of Sept. 30, according to Box Office Mojo.
Meanwhile, Megalopolis made $4 million at the box office in its opening weekend and has a 34% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The film—a $120 million passion-project decades in the making for the Godfather director—is a cautionary tale about a fragile republic, susceptible to greed, corruption and fascism, with a plot that loosely transposes the fall of the Roman empire into a modern setting.
Unfortunately for Coppola, his film failed to impress most critics, who thought the message was obfuscated by too many ideas.
While the movie tried to be nominally inclusive by casting Trump-supporting Oscar-winner Jon Voight, Coppola wasn’t shy about connecting it explicitly to the current U.S. political landscape, insinuating that democracy hung in the balance with the upcoming Nov. 5 election.
“Men like Donald Trump are not at the moment in charge, but there is a trend happening in the world, there is a trend toward the more neo-right, even fascist division, which is frightening,” Coppola said, according to Deadline.
I haven’t seen “Am I Racist” yet, but I’m a white male so I have seen most of it.
I don’t recall megalopolis having an “anti-Trump” vibe.
If it had it would certainly be getting good ratings from the critics.
Hollywood spending $120 million on failed movie with Anti-Trump propaganda is still considered to be value for money.
I don’t know where it comes from, but they seem to have unlimited money for leftist projects and corruption
why else would they have given the Obama’s $140 million to do nothing but attach their name to garbage documentaries?
I’m not watching it unless the Jon Voight car is in it.
lolz
Do you mean John Voight’s LeBaron?
Yes, that one!
Doesn’t he spell his name “Jon” ?
John Voight, the periodontist.
Ah.. George has his pencil
Am I Racist is in theaters now. That is a first for Daily Wire films, which have previously been siloed behind the paywall on the website. It also got a wide release, which is remarkable. If it is in your area, go see it. We do a lot of complaining about the leftist tilt of the film industry, so it behooves us to support a good conservative film when one appears.
We saw it a couple of days ago. It is solid and funny in parts. A lot of people are calling it a Borat style mockumentary. Not having seen the Borat movies, I have to punt on that, but my sense is that it is closer to a straight documentary, Matt Walsh’s funny disguise with the wig and manbun notwithstanding. Basically, he puts a microphone in front of people, asks them simple questions, and lets them talk. The DEI types come across as total idiots, but you already knew that. And he engages in some pretty great trolling.
Getting Robin D’Angelo to pay reparations to one of his crew, who is blackish, is outstanding.
The film was released September 13 and made back its $3 million cost the first weekend. It is now approaching 4x its budget. It is in record breaking territory for a documentary and may end up as the top documentary of the year.
Viewer ratings are extremely high. Obviously conservatives are turning out. The interesting angle to me is the obviously orchestrated blackout by the critics. As of now, there are only 12 critics reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and all are from the little guys — the YouTube freelancers, etc. The big thing to note is that NOT ONE of RT’s “top critics” has reviewed the film — or if they have, RT isn’t publishing them.
NOT ONE. For the top documentary of the year. That’s not a coincidence and it’s not just the dominant LeftWorld tilt of the tribe. That’s an organized, disciplined silencing. One would ordinarily expect a scattering of contrarians, a few independent thinkers, and a slew of lefty critics who review the film to savage it. But ZERO reviews from the top critics? Impossible unless an order has gone out and is being enforced. I’d like to know the story on that.
RT is not independent. It is owned by Fandango (Comcast) and Warner Bros Discovery.
Matt Walsh has been pointing out that several major liberal publications have indeed reported on the film, but with pieces written by news or feature writers. NONE of the movie critics from those same publications have reviewed the movie. Occam’s Razor suggests either that RT has put out the word that the critics will lose their platform if they touch it, or alternatively, RT is simply refusing to print top critic’s reviews. But the censorship seems to me to be obvious.
40 times less? Who writes this crap? Forty times $120 million is $4.8 billion. $120 million less $4.8 billion is a negative $4.68 billion. 1/40th the cost maybe. But not forty times less.
Thank you.
n times less meaning 1/n as much went from advertising claim jargon (ad claims are not subject to literal interpretation in court, that’s why they use them.) to political statements. I kind of prefer that idiots do use them because they unmistakably signal their unnumerate idiocy and intention not to be held to what they say.
I think you misunderstood the article. The Coppola film cost $120 million. Walsh’s “Am I Racist” was made for 40 times less, which means it cost around $3 million or a little more to make.
According to the article, Am I a Racist cost $3 million to make. Megalopolis cost $120 million.
$3 million * 40 = $120 million.
$120 million / 40 = $3 million.
Seems like the math is okay to me.
Getting Robin D’Angelo to pay reparations to one of his crew, who is blackish, is outstanding.
“MLK said a lot of things!”
The tension between “white centricity” and avoiding “cultural appropriation”.
White people are oppressors and there is nothing they can do about that (so why are we here again?).
It is amazing not just that reviewers are not reviewing it, but that so many publications that the “top critics” are employed by are writing articles about the movie. There is no way that is not deliberate.
The math and the phrasing are both incorrect. 40 times less of something is not the same as 1/40th of something. Times is a multiplication term. 40 times 120 million is 4.8 billion. 4.8 billion from 120 million is negative 4.68 billion. You can't logically say something that cost 3 million is forty times less than something. Mathematically, forty times 3 million is 120 million, but if you took 40 times 3 million and subtracted it from 120 million, you'd have zero. Logically and mathematically incorrect.
Agreed. And I would expect more to come out about this story. Not all the RT top critics are leftards. The majority undoubtedly lean left because that is the sea from which they are mostly recruited and in which they swim, but the best of the breed, first and foremost, are serious about film and want to do serious criticism, because they all understand that propaganda movies are almost always garbage. (We can allow a few exceptions here.) They will follow the story where it leads, and parodies, spoofs and mockumentaries should be in their wheelhouse. The really good ones will try to keep overt politics out of their reviews unless they are specifically criticising excessive politicization in a movie. A few might even be clandestine conservatives, and more probably identify as libertarian or independent. Some are proudly contrarian.
Many of them grok what has gone wrong with Hollywood and understand that alienating half the country in the interests of ideological fetishism compromises artistic integrity and is suicidal for the art form that they love.
Getting unanimity out of this crowd is unthinkable without some serious thuggery behind the scenes. For all I know, some of the top critics actually have reviewed Am I Racist and RT is simply refusing to print the reviews or is perhaps even threatening them with a loss of access to the platform. How, for example, can The Atlantic publish a long article on Am I Racist — which Matt Walsh thought was reasonably fair — while The Atlantic’s film critic refuses to review the hottest documentary of the year? I’m wondering if one or more of the top critics will break omerta at some point. Or if Matt Walsh will be tipped off and blow the whistle. Something as yet unrevealed is going on.
Uncle Frank!
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