CSotD: Striking the Set
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In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a national strike going on today to protest ICE, with the slogan “No work, No school, No shopping,” and Matt Davies suggests some alternatives: A quiet walk on the beach alone, communing with nature privately in the forest or skipping a movie along with everybody else.
Melania: Twenty Days to History opens today, and I suppose the national strike will cut down on the number of people going. Or maybe it won’t affect it at all.
I was going to embed the trailer, which is a minute and seven seconds long, capturing the best parts of the hour and 44 minute documentary, but it’s not embeddable. However, you can see it here:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1C8dPderXp
It’s not surprising that the trailer is not shareable, since the press was barred from viewing the film at its premiere.
Repressing the trailer and barring the press from a big fantastic must-see movie seems counterintuitive, but it’s a very modest film (How modest is it?). It’s so modest that Rolling Stone reports that two-thirds of the crew have insisted on having their names removed from the credits.
Can’t get more modest than that.
However, that Rolling Stone article also describes the chaos on the set, and enough rumors leaked out ahead of time — we’ll be watching for the lawsuits — that cartoonists were able to provide reviews anyway.
Sheneman inadvertently suggests how they could have saved some of the $40 million Amazon paid for the privilege of making the film, simply by doing the whole thing in Slopovision. The trailer includes several close-ups of feet in pointy shoes and surely AI could manage that.
As Jimmy Kimmel said, “Not since ‘The Terminator’ has there been this much excitement for a movie about a European cyborg.”
And Wexler predicts that her accent will make the film unintelligible for a great many viewers, and you can’t really fix that in post-production, though they might consider closed captioning.
Now, granted, all this is unkind humor, but she’s keeping $28 million of Amazon’s cost for herself and that should ease the pain no matter what the reviews are like. Assuming there eventually are reviews.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film is booked into 1,778 theaters in the US and 3,000 total worldwide, a record for a documentary, though it’s been pulled from distribution in South Africa, where Trump’s false claims of attacks on white farmers make him highly unpopular.
Despite Margulies’ suggestion, it’s not likely that Iran is among the 20 nations in which the film is scheduled to be screened. However, Amazon has spent an additional $35 million promoting the film, despite which, with or without help from Tehran, it is expected to have a weak opening. And go downhill from there.
There was a time, back in the ’70s, when small-scale moviemakers indulged in a practice called “four walling,” in which they rented theaters in exchange for the ticket revenues, which paid off for The Adventures of the Wilderness Family and the first Walking Tall movie, both promoted with heavy TV commercial buys.
That was also about the time major producers quit letting theater owners preview films before booking them. This may be a case where theater owners will wish Amazon had gone retro, one way or the other.
But however things turn out for the theater owners saddled with this magnificent film, Horsey is correct that Bezos fully anticipates getting his $75 million worth out of the venture, one way or another. And, yes, there are many at the Washington Post who dearly wish he’d be equally pragmatic with his investment there.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Both Clays suggest that, even if the movie has a weak box office, it may still be useful for providing incentives for people to cooperate with the Trump administration, and the Trump administration itself has already cooperated by turning out, either for the premiere or for a pre-premiere screening at the White House, certainly on a voluntary basis and not at all because anybody was taking attendance. (In the military, they refer to this as “mandatory fun.”)
Though there were a few surprising no-shows, according to that Newsweek report:
Several key Trump family members skipped the event. A representative for Eric Trump confirmed he and Lara Trump did not attend. Barron Trump was also absent. Ivanka Trump, Tiffany Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not appear.
I think Kristi is still in time out.
Barron’s absence pokes a hole in John Buss’s prediction, or at least part of it. Voight might still volunteer to buck up her spirits with a statuette.
Though if neither the Motion Picture Academy nor Voight comes through, Venables suggests another reliable source of golden statues and medals.
I’m about 150% sure this Craiglist ad is a spoof, but if it somehow turns out to be real and you can get to Boston this weekend, there’s also this: When I was 18, I took a date to a movie and she kept wanting to make out during it.
The movie was In Cold Blood, which I take as proof that you can make out during any movie, and especially if Jeff Bezos gives you $50 to be there.
And if you don’t tell your date why you’re there, you can keep both shares.
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