Mischief is important: When Fikri’s movie opened in cinemas on November 15, its Allociné page posted a press rating of 3/5 based on reviews written by professional film critics. Within 24 hours of its release, however, the user rating had slumped to 1.4/5 – a score bad enough to all but guarantee a commercial fiasco.
“This phrasing was a terrible mistake…”
Sorry guys, we didn’t make the new rules. But those are the new rules.
Embrace Hollywood!
Rick McGinnis reviews Napoleon… “while silently pleading with the screen at every outrageous yet cinematic fabrication…”
Read it just for the great writing.
“We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide…”
Sorry, guys, I didn’t make the new rules. But those are the new rules.
Embrace Hollywood!
“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.“ – Michael Moore.
“The Marvels” hit theaters over the weekend and had the distinct honor of having the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s worst all time opening weekend at the box office. The all woman led film featuring women super heroes combatting a female villain has been criticized, with many saying that the female forward film’s failure is due to it starring three women.
Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani led the film to box office disaster as it grossed just $47 million—the picture was expected to bring in well over that and had a budget of $300 million. Deadline had projected $140 million. It was intended as a sequel to Brie Larson’s “Captain Marvel” which grossed over a billion dollars in 2019.
The film’s casting choices earned it the reputation of being woke, though director Nia DaCosta said those criticisms are an “unnecessary distraction.” Film consultant David A Gross said “This opening is an unprecedented Marvel box office collapse.”
“put a chick in it and make it gay!”
“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.“ – Michael Moore
As I reported last Friday, the irreverent and often hilarious show South Park took a swing at the infection of woke culture in the arts and took specific aim at Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy and Disney. The clips of the show alone went viral across the internet, sparking a very unwanted conversation for Disney about the direction it’s gone and the bad will it created with audiences.
But amid all the voices commenting about Disney, Carano’s words were the loudest as her post on X contained an insider’s look at, not just the state of Lucasfilm, but the terrible weakness and insecurity of its studio head, Kennedy […]
Carano revealed that, during her employment with Lucasfilm, she was asked to unfollow certain accounts on Twitter because they’d said some bad things about Kennedy. Carano saw this as an issue because she knew that being in the public eye meant getting haters, but Carano also saw these people as opportunities to win over new fans. Moreover, some of these “haters” were actual fans of Star Wars that felt the universe had gone in the wrong direction, and that their criticisms were worth listening to.
But Kennedy didn’t just ignore them, she actively had these fans attacked, causing one of the worst collapses of a fan base in history.
South Park vs Disney
Die must die.
How Many Deaths Has Walt Disney Been Responsible For Worldwide?
Denial of objective truth is one of the signs of a society’s downfall.
Embrace Hollywood!
“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.“ – Michael Moore.
Embrace Hollywood!
“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.“ – Michael Moore.
Old Tales, Retold
It is, it has to be said, a strange way to promote an upcoming remake of a children’s classic – to wheel out an actress who boasts of having “hated” the original film, made by the same studio, and who disdains much of the story on which it’s based. And who does so seemingly on-message. Especially when the future of Disney, its very existence, is looking uncertain.
And as The Drinker and others have noted, the glib and joyless ‘strong female character’ trope now sounds much more hackneyed and cringeworthy than a tale in which unlikely friends are made and love is found, and in which a malevolent, magic-wielding queen is chased by dwarves and an entire forest of critters, before being crushed under a giant boulder, rightly, and then devoured by vultures.
Embrace Hollywood!
“Pure brain cancer in movie form” – a movie review for the ages. (h/t Maikeru)
I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Writing Overlords
“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.“ – Michael Moore.
The first draft is the most lucrative step in any feature writer deal. A rule of thumb is that a “rewrite” pays two-thirds of a “first draft.” So if you’re being paid $75,000 for a rewrite, you should expect to get $100,000 for the first draft. In practice that gap tends to be a little bigger but for our purposes, two-thirds is a good benchmark (Remember that calculation because it’s going to become very important later on in our discussion of A.I.).
“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
History and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer: A review by Rick McGinnis at Steyn Online.
Cardi Vanilli
Cardi B has a drink thrown at her onstage. She throws her
2 things:
1. Cardi B encourages degeneracy, criminality & trash behavior. Don’t be shocked when your “fans” behave the way you tell them to
2. The song didn’t stop. Y’all listening to an iPad
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 30, 2023
Embrace Hollywood!
“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.“ – Michael Moore
…Barbie goes to plasticine hell. Diversity hires America Ferrera and Issa Rae give abominable speeches about Latino and black feminist sacrifice, and Rhea Perlman appears morphing Barbie inventor Ruth Handler into Ruth Bader Ginsburg. New Lizzo and Billie Eilish songs provide feminist equity. Things get more child-unfriendly when Gerwig tosses in terms such as “irrepressible thoughts of death,” “Proustian flashback,” and “patriarchy anxiety.”
Embrace Hollywood!
“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.“ – Michael Moore
Former Paramount CEO Barry Diller delivered a grim prediction for Hollywood on Sunday, warning that the industry is facing an “absolute collapse” if the Writers’ and Screen Actors Guild joint strike extends into the fall.
“What will happen is, if in fact, it doesn’t get settled until Christmas or so, then next year, there’s not going to be many programs for anybody to watch. So, you’re gonna see subscriptions get pulled, which is going to reduce the revenue of all these movie companies, television companies, the result of which is that there will be no programs,” Diller said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday. “And at just the time, [the] strike is settled that you want to get back up, there won’t be enough money.”
Well, that’s a story I suppose.
The “W” Word
A Snow White with darker skin literally makes no sense, of course, because she was quite literally Snow White, named after her abnormally White skin. “The fairest of them all,” I seem to recall. But whatever. My objection is not particularly that the races were swapped, but by how tediously predictable doing so was.
Groomer Kingdom
Disney has all-but-killed Star Wars and Marvel, Pixar appears to be on life support, and the new Indiana Jones has brought a scimitar to a pistol fight.
What high-priced IP does Disney have left to squander?
Judge them by the company they keep.
Starflation
How much would you pay to see a Taylor Swift or Beyoncé concert? I couldn’t be bothered in any event but price doesn’t seem to be an object for quite a number of concert goers these days. I’ve heard similar things from a friend who looked into purchasing tickets for an Adele concert in Vegas recently but changed his mind after seeing the prices.
A perusal of ticket-purchasing sites makes the sticker shock clear. On reseller Stubhub, the cheapest seat for a July Taylor Swift show in Seattle is $1,200; tickets for an August Mexico City show cost $500 each.
“I had to get nine phone numbers for three different accounts on Ticketmaster under three different credit cards,” said Joel Barrios, a Beyoncé fan in Los Angeles. He spent about $7,000 on three U.S. shows for himself and friends – as well as another $6,650 for several shows in Europe.