Movie Critic Assassins

To put it plainly, no one’s perfect, but Hollywood and subsequent partners had a real rough weekend. Once again glaring problems that have hammered Hollywood and its refusal to better its development became all too apparent. The five most glaring being:

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5. Critics backtracking with You Betcha.

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Regardless of your political background or belief, the major critic reviews on the documentary The Undefeated over last Summer were an industry embarrassment. Already faced with diminishing ranks as more newspapers dump the position of film critics to cut costs, the major critics gave the film a resounding 0 percent rating on rotten tomatoes.

The critics noted they found the film “one sided” and “bloodless” to its subject. Fair enough. The problem is the same critics had also been praising Michael Moore’s documentaries, films like Green Zone and Machete, and even gave a higher rating to the fictional documentary Death of a President. All were not only one sided but could be argued were even more so than Undefeated.

The unintended consequences of Undefeated’s reviews didn’t take long. Soon much of their audience turned on the major film critics giving them the label of “objective but only when it fits their own political visions.” Ouch. For the film critics desperately hoping to boost their audience ranks instead of losing more, this came as a decisive blow. Even audience members who disliked Undefeated called the critics take on the film overly harsh and soured on them for trying to portray the film as the worst of the year. They had seen a lot worse recently.

So now comes You Betcha from filmmaker Nick Broomfield (in picture) which bashes Sarah Palin. After the embarrassment of their Undefeated reviews, the major critics are trying to portray themselves as “objective” again by rating You Betcha with sub par reviews and critiquing more on its research and film technique. Quite the backtrack hoping to get audience support again. Is it working? A resounding no.  Here’s the reality film critics: its going to take a lot more than the reviews on You Betcha to convince your audience you have objectivity again and are not just political trolls.

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4. Captain America continues healthy overseas business.

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I actually did an essay on this months ago. The whole notion of Captain America not performing overseas because it had “America” in its roots was based on personal beliefs. In this they were “hoping for certain outcomes” rather than observing box office reality. For them the recent development of Captain America making more money overseas than even its domestic haul is embarrassing to their “analysis.” If you can even call it that? Innuendo mixed with political wishing mixed with potential advocacy fulfillment? Box office analysis is never easy to begin with, but too much of a personal stake was invested on this theory and should never have been framed as serious assessment.

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3. The Lion King 3-D release destroys all newcomers.

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Last weekend saw the re-release of The Lion King in 3-D and won the weekend easily with over 30 million in domestic sales. Yes you read that correctly. A film over 17 years old won the weekend. It will also challenge for the top spot again next week. This in itself wasn’t a surprise, I actually thought it would win in last week’s predictions. The problem for Hollywood is in how much more it made over everyone else. The film outperformed all recent new releases in Drive, I Don’t How She Does It, and Straw Dogs. The most glaring defeat was in how it trampled Hollywood’s “star loaded” Contagion by a 2 to 1 margin over the entire weekend. Lion King even accomplished this with a lower theater count of 2,330 compared to Contagion’s 3,222.

This shows a glaring problem with most of Hollywood’s film development. A film released almost two decades ago should not have more box office clout than stars like Matt Damon or Gwyneth Paltrow (who were only in their second week with Contagion).

As touched upon in my Hobbit essay, Hollywood is committed to developing their own version of films and shutting out any other diversity or older traditions we used to enjoy. The problem is, as Lion King just showed, its the diversity and older traditions that still bring the highest box office performances. What will the next excuse be? We understand that our films don’t make as much money but hey, we need only a “certain type” of film to be released these days? Sure. That will really bring in the revenue. Just embarrassing.

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2. Emmy ratings more of the same. Football dominates.

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Hollywood’s most glaring enemy of all: the men of Sunday (or Monday, Thursday…). The National Football League continues to broadcast its games on national affiliates across the country (now even including cable stations). In the past the ratings for Hollywood’s biggest award events, the Oscars and the Emmys, used to at least be somewhat respectable compared to the ratings for NFL games.

That’s not the case anymore. Last weekend’s Emmy telecast was sacked by a Sunday night NFL game whose ratings are notably increasing while the Emmys were more of the same.

For the much diminished Oscars: this year’s ceremony drew in 37.6 million viewers while this year’s Super Bowl grabbed an astonishing 111 million viewers. That was an increase from even its previous year’s record. They used to be closer but not anymore.

This is significant because the NFL continues to get criticism from Hollywood circles for not being more involved in political actions and social advocacy. Some has gone as far as to frame the NFL as somehow already being there. The NFL always responds the same way to such talk:  no politics – just football and more of what it audiences wants. This difference in opinion is why Hollywood does and will continue to struggle against the NFL’s much more successful audience model.

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1. 3-D’s day may already be ending.

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This problem is really a combination. After the success of Avatar, Hollywood assumed that even sub par films could make more at the box office as long as they were in 3-D. Turns out not to be the case illustrated by recent box office disappointments Glee: the 3-D Concert Movie and Shark 3-D. Some noted the problem as far back as June.

The other side of the problem is many of the major theater owners who’ve drastically increased 3-D ticket prices dating back to last year. The result has been diminishing 3-D audiences and drastic revenue decreases. These two factors have combined to appear to be killing off what Hollywood saw as its “saving grace” only a few short months ago. In the end: Hollywood has to learn that audiences drive everything in the box office business. Everything. If Hollywood wants to make more money, it needs to focus on satisfying the audience rather than keeping the industry as a whole on a steep decline.

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Sensei White Lotus

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“The 7.” We selected the best action/adventure trailers of Fall 2011. Check them out here….