Reactions to story from Cinematical

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  The horror

  http://km-clear.blogspot.com/2008/04/horror.html
  21 days ago in km-clear · Authority: 3

  I'm a little late posting this thought. It's been with me for a few weeks, ever since the news reports started appearing on Americans' lack of interest in Iraq themed movies. Some say that's because Americans are so upbeat about the war's progress that any whiff of criticism doesn't resonate. Others seem to gloat about how patriotic Americans are snubbing the anti-mainstream, un-patriotic Hollywood depiction of a military behaving badly. Pesonally, most of these movies I am not the least bit inclined to see, but not for a lack of interest in the theme but because they got bad reviews. However, "Stop Loss" received mostly good ones and it's on my list for when it is out on DVD or On Demand. I can't bear the ads and trailers at the Cineplex so tend to stick to HD at home. At the same time that Americans are rejecting the Iraq war movies, they are rejecting horror porn. Any connection? In the mid to late 1940s, a new genre of cinema emerged in post-war Italy that would influence filmmakers from France to Japan. The neo-realists shot films that were so raw in their depiction of the poverty and hard scrabble lives of society's powerless that few people could bear to watch. After WWII, upbeat American musicals made them feel better. And how could it have been any different? Hollywood's body of work on Iraq is at this point far from the art and achievement of the neo-realists. But maybe the phenomenon of audiences staying away is the same. Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter -- those are the winners at the box office today. No gore, all fantasy. I wonder if there is something else going on. If there is any morality in this world, it would provide us with a collective guilt for sending so many to their deaths for no apparent good reason and with virtually no sacrifice of our own (yet). God forbid we should want to be reminded about that at the movies. (Painting: Goya's Saturn)
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  ANOTHER ANTI-WAR FILM TANKS AT THE BOX OFFICE

  http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2008/03/29/another-ant...
  43 days ago in Right Wing Nut House · Authority: 603

  This blog post originally appears in The American Thinker  Will they ever learn? Another anti-war movie is tanking at the box office. Overnights for Friday show the film “Stop Loss” garnering an anemic $1.4 million for a projected $4 million opening weekend. This despite a huge build up and massive ad campaign with great reviews from movie/war critics.Not one Iraq war movie has been anything close to a financial success. In fact, it is fair to say that every single anti-war film to date has lost its shirt:  In the Valley of Elah (2007) – $6.8 million. Redacted (2007) – $.06 million. The Kingdom (2007) – $47.4 million. Rendition (2007) – $9.7 million. Lions for Lambs (2007) – $15 million. Home of the Brave (2006) – $.04 million. (HT: Cinematical)“The Kingdom” – a drama about the FBI investigating a terrorist attacks on Americans in Saudi Arabia - ended up getting about half its $80+ million budget back in receipts. It’s actually an exciting film and doesn’t even mention Iraq (although the last scene shows a moral equivalence between terrorism and our efforts to stop it). But the blockbuster “Lions for Lambs” ($15 million gross) which starred Hollywood heavies Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Robert Redford (who all agreed to forgo their usual huge salaries for a percentage of profits from the film) earned back far less than half its $35 million production costs. And director Brian De Palma’s hysterical anti-war, anti-military depiction of the rape of an Iraqi girl and the murder of her family depicted in “Redacted” was so bad it never even made it into general release. And that from an “A-1” Hollywood director. So why are anti-war films tanking? Here’s one take from an industry analyst: “It’s not looking good,” a studio source told me before the weekend. “No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It’s a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this conflict in a dramatic way because the war itself is something that’s unresolved yet. It’s a shame because it’s a good movie that’s just ahead of its time.” “Ahead of its time?” Moviegoers “not ready” to see Iraq War movies? Allahpundit scoffs at that notion: They keep making ‘em even though we keep not watching ‘em, which shows you how committed they are to the message and/or fearful of testing that “America’s not ready yet” hypothesis with a pro-war flick. Check out the trailer for this abortion if you missed it last year. One shopworn anti-war contrivance after another, right down to the cringeworthy graphic of a tattered flag. No wonder even the left doesn’t want to sit through this crap. Allah is off base suggesting that Hollywood places more importance on the anti-war message than on the idea that the film will make any money. If there is one place in the United States where money is worshipped more than in Hollywood, I can’t think of it. When a production company spends $80 million on a film and loses nearly $40 million, the chances of them getting backing from a major studio to make another film is severely reduced.  This alone is motivation to make a film they are pretty certain will make money.That $40 million in losses is real money. Even losing half that is a catastrophe. The exception to this was probably De Palma’s “Redacted” (Cost: $5 million of DePalma’s own money) where the director admitted he wanted to instruct the American people on how to feel about the war and ended up making an incoherent mess of a movie that even anti-war critics panned.  What’s the problem then? Insularity is one explanation. The liberals in Hollywood believe everyone thinks the way they do about the war because their friends and associates all believe the same things. They think their wildly leftist worldview is mainstream. Another reason most of Hollywood believes making anti-war films will rake in gobs of money is the success of such films in the past. “Platoon,” “Coming Home,” “Born on the Fourth of July” – all grossed very well at the box office. (If they had noticed that John Wayne’s “Green Berets” did pretty well also, they may have had second thoughts.) In Hollywood, nothing succeeds like success.   Finally, as Allah points out, Hollywood refuses to make any movie that could be construed as “pro-war” or “pro troops.” I am not as convinced as some are that such a movie would do boffo business at the box office. I think Americans just wish the war would go away at this point and want nothing to with either a pro or anti war movie. I may be wrong but war weariness seems to be the dominant feeling about Iraq among the American people and spending $7-10 bucks to watch something they wish would just disappear – even if they are supportive of our efforts in Iraq – just doesn’t seem logical to me. There are many explanations for why Iraq War films are doing  badly as this article in the Washington Post demonstrates: Film historian Jonathan Kuntz of UCLA points out that most memorable war films appear many years after a conflict ends, when the nation has had time to reflect on the experience and a historical consensus emerges about the war’s successes and failures.The classic films about Vietnam—starting with “The Deer Hunter,” “Coming Home” and “Apocalypse Now” in 1978 and 1979 and ending with “Born on the Fourth of July” in 1989—came out years after the last U.S. serviceman had left the battlefield. “M*A*S*H,” which was essentially an anti-Vietnam film but set in the Korean War, was released nearly 20 years after the Korean armistice. But the outcome in Iraq remains an open question, with America’s military commitment to the country under constant debate. There may be something to that. We all may be too close to the political arguments and the emotional investment in defending or opposing the war to be able to see the war as a diversion or as entertainment. Eventually, we may reconcile our feelings about the war and place it into the context of our national narrative. Until then, it appears that the American people just want to be left alone.
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  Stop-Loss: Overwrought but Good-Hearted

  http://celebritychatters.com/stop-loss-overwrought-but-good-...
  44 days ago in Celebrity Chatters · Authority: 8

  It's an oft-lamented fact that movies about the Iraq war don't do very well — either in box office sales or with audience favor in general. There are plenty of reasons for this, but the fact is it's a challenge for filmmakers to put out movies about a controversial war that isn't yet over. With Stop-Loss, the filmmakers have attempted to make the topic more appealing by getting MTV on board, using popular good-looking young actors and featuring plenty of quick-edit montages set to rap songs. The main characters in the movie are also relateable and familiar, just regular guys, playing with their techie devices, engaging in silly banter. This is presented right from the start, with a mock-amateur video in which a group of soldiers jostle each other, trade good-natured insults and sing along together as one of them, Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), plays his guitar. The action moves quickly to a bloody, violent conflict into which Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Philippe) inadvertently leads his group of soldiers. Some of the men don't make it out alive, one is severely injured and all the others are thoroughly messed up by the experience. This is the basis for all that comes afterward, so read more
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  REEL Issues: Iraq War Movies

  http://thereeladdict.com/reel-issues-iraq-war-movies/
  44 days ago in the REEL Addict · Authority: 16

  REEL Issues: Iraq War Movies March 28th, 2008 Over at Cinematical they have an interesting discussion going regarding the recent slew of Iraq War movies. Though the original author (Gene Novikov) spent most of the article questioning whether these movies have been the failures they are being made out to be, his prompt at the end of it regarding why people are maybe avoiding these films and not making them successful - at least at the box office - has inspired many intelligent, interesting and revealing responses from visitors of the site.  Definitely worth checking out. Personally, I actually do avoid these films generally because, well, I know war is bad. I don’t need a film to convince me of that. Most of all, I don’t want to be spoken down to, like I don’t know war is horrible and bad things happen it, and that somehow these movies are going to change my entire perspective about the world. I’d be seriously shocked to hear that anyone who did see these films suddenly had their eyes opened. Read the rest of this entry » Leave a Comment |
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  Daily roundup

  http://thepoint.breakpoint.org/2008/03/daily-roundu-17.html
  45 days ago in The Point · Authority: 102

  "McCain's Evangelical Problem" "Clinton Says She Erred on Bosnia Story" "White America's Blind Spot" "China slams jail door on Olympic dissent" "Pressed over Tibet, China Berates Foreign Media" "Discuss: Iraq War Movies and Their Box-Office Deaths" "Get Ready to Step Up, Dad" "A Vote of Allegiance?" "Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling" "Hallelujah, Yet Again" "Eaten Alive" "Resist the princesses"

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