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Damn! That's a shitty Friday cume for "Southland Tales."
Guess there's little chance of it ever making it to NE Ohio now.
No surprise re: "Cholera." If they'd actually had any faith in it, New Line would have platformed "Cholera" instead of their quasi-wide, end-of-the-year dump.
Newell is a fine director, but shouldn't they have gone with a Spanish director, and actualy shot the damn thing in Spanish instead of pidgin English?

Might Lions for Lambs wind up being the highest-grossing of the current crop of Iraq/Afghanistan movies? (I mean, not counting Charlie Wilson's War.)I know that's not saying much, but still...

Considering how poorly the current spate of war-themed films have done, I wonder how much longer they're going to make us wait to see Kimberly Peirce's "Boys Don't Cry" follow-up.
I can't imagine the film's distributer is exactly chomping at the bits to get it into theaters now...not that they were before the quick fades of "In the Valley of Elah," "Rendition," "Lions for Lambs," et al either.

Oops; yes "actually" has two "l"s.
My damn computer key stuck; guess I should have "previewed" before signing off on that earlier posting.
Sorry!

$13/$14 million is saying very little indeed, Joe.

But the main thing about the "Iraq movies" is that we have yet to see a good one, not so much that they are "Iraq movies."

The Kimberly Pierce movie has bigger problems than the perception of people not going to "Iraq movies."

Have you seen Peire's film, Dave?
What's the scuttlebutt?

Have you seen Peirce's film, Dave?
What's the scuttlebutt?

I would disagree with your blanket statement there, David -- I actually admired In the Valley of Elah -- but, then again, maybe the problem with these movies is, they haven't been bad enough. I mean, hey, look how much The Green Berets earned during the height of the Vietnam War. LOL. What we need is an Iraq War movie with serious ass kicking, gung-ho heroes, lots of explosions, and a good theme song. Oh, yeah, and a cute orphan kid.

Wasn't that called The Kingdom?

Selling dramas is not easy, whatever the subject. The date on Elah was disastrous and the marketing history of WIP is not a magical one. Yes, there are other factors. But I don't hear a lot of people pining for the failure of that flm to catch on, unlike something like Jesse James. (For the record, I far prefer the former to the latter.)

Ew, who would want to go see Southland Tales?

You know, I was joking -- seriously, just joking -- but now I wonder: If someone had released a rah-rah, gung-ho action flick about US troops kicking ass in Iraq within the first year of our invasion, would it have had a chance for scoring a Green Berets-type success?

BTW: This irony is too delicious not to share. I am typing this while on campus at UH. In the classroom next door, my students are watching another kind of war movie: Platoon.

Joe, the movie you're thinking of was released in March ad grossed $211 million.

Oh, I also wanted to add that I saw Lions for Lambs last night and thought it was pretty good. Not nearly as annoyingly didactic or one-sided as I had been lead to believe.

There was a movie about Iraq in March?

I thought Fahrenheit 9/11 came out in June?

Oh, I think he means 300.

Yes, a rah-rah gung-ho action flick about soldiers kicking ass in an exotic land. No orphan kid, though.

I knew he meant 300. The problem is that Thermopylae was exotic to the Spartan soldiers only in the way Paris was to Remy the Rat. Because wherever he came from was in the same land as Paris, just as Thermopylae was in the same land as Sparta. That garbled message, though, isn't Jeff's fault. I lay blame for it squarely on the progenitors of that execrable monstrosity.

It wasn't exotic to the Greeks, but it is exotic to American moviegoers, which is my point. It made a crapload of money because moviegoers was relieved to see a movie that made it okay to feel good about war again by filtering their anxieties through a filter of remote history and comic-book stylization.

Sorry, 'were relieved'.

Have you seen Peirce's Iraq film, Dave?
If you've heard any industry scuttletbutt, please share. I had naively thought that it was another one of those "extra-special" movies like "Jesse James" that was being endlessly tinkered with by its perfectionist director.

Terrible numbers for Southland Tales and Redacted, both averaging about $550 on their first day. Ouch, indeed.

Shame about Gregg Araki's Smiley Face. It coulda been a contender and it coulda done wonders for Anna Faris, who is apparently blisteringly hilarious.

Have we heard anything about the IMAX/3D/Regular breakdown for Beowulf?

"Who wants to see 'Southland Tales'"??
I can't believe that anyone would even dare ask a question like that on a website as fanboy-friendly as this one.
"Donnie Darko" is my pick for the best American movie of the decade (so far): anything that Richard Kelly directs is eminently worthwhile. I've been salivating at the prospect of this film since Manohla Dargis and Jim Hoberman first raved about it at Cannes 2006.
Sight unseen, I'd trade one "ST" for "Beowulf," "The Mist," "The Golden Compass," "I Am Legend" and "Alien vs. Predator 2" combined.

"Who wants to see 'Southland Tales'"??!!
I can't believe that anyone would dare ask that question on a website as fanboy-friendly as this one.
"Donnie Darko" is my pick for the best American movie of the decade so far; therefore anything Richard Kelly chooses to direct is eminently worth seeing in my book.
I've been salivating at the prospect of this film since Manohla Dargis and Jim Hoberman first raved about it at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
Sight unseen, I'd trade one "ST" for "Beowulf," "The Mist," "The Golden Compass," "I am Legend" and "Alien vs. Predator 2" combined.

***sorry for the double post; we are apparently experiencing computer problems at this end***

"anything that Richard Kelly directs is eminently worthwhile."

That's a very odd thing to say considering Donnie Darko was his only movie before Southland.

Yep, that's what I said, Kamikaze.
"DD" is my favorite American movie of the decade (so far); therefore anything Kelly puts his name on automatically engenders "must see" interest for me.
It was the same thing when the Coens made "Blood Simple" and Tarantino directed "Reservoir Dogs."

Aah, but that's not what you said. Interest to you and worthiness are completely different things.

Sorry for being pedantic.

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