Friday movie roundup – March 2
One of the reasons the studios give for making critics watch comedies at public screenings instead of press-only affairs is that they think we’ll have a better impression of the movie if we see it with an audience. The thinking is that laughter is contagious, so if the audience is laughing — and they always are, because they’re giddy at seeing a movie for free before it opens — then so will we.
What the studios have not yet discovered is that it doesn’t work. If we’re sitting through an awful comedy, hearing the braying laughter of those around us does not sway our opinion. All it does is make us think, “What are these idiots laughing at?”
I was reminded of this phenomenon Monday night while enduring “Wild Hogs.” It stars Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, AND John Travolta, which makes me wonder which of my nightmares will come true next. It also stars William H. Macy, who’s a really GOOD actor, and so it’s very sad to see him mired in this bog of awfulness.
The audience was vomiting on itself with laughter from start to finish. The more obscene, illogical, or juvenile the humor got, the more they howled. It was like someone set a monkey loose in a class full of retards.
Anyway, “Wild Hogs” is awful, but “Zodiac” is OK. It’s hampered by the uncooperative facts of the real-life case it’s based on, but it’s a well-made production.
“Black Snake Moan” opens today too, but I don’t have a review of it for reasons discussed in both the print edition of “In the Dark” (subscribe here) and the podcast version (listen here). I aim to have one posted by Monday, though.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:38 am
Eric, I’ve not seen Wild Hogs yet so I cannot comment on it, but the studios’ argument can backfire even more when their film is so bad you could hear a pin drop in theatre. I saw Epic Movie a couple of weeks ago, and you could hear people grinding their teeth and trying their best to find *something* funny. The lack of laughs somehow made it an embarrassing place to be.
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:07 am
When I saw a trailer for “Littla Man” earlier this year, the audience was absolutely howling over it. I sat there scratching my head wondering how it was even the slightest bit funny. What was that missing element that separated me from the audience?
I guess it’s the same element that makes me cringe while listening to a stand-up comedian spouting off a stream of profanity-as-jokes while the audience laughs, cheers, and eats it all up with wild enthusiasm.
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:40 am
From what I’ve observed about Hollywood, their best people are in charge of putting together movie trailers and commercials. They’re able to put the best parts of the movie together in a 30 second clip, while ignoring or glossing over the dumb stuff.
But when your trailer consists of
1.) A cow pie hitting a biker in the face
2.) A crow hitting a biker in the face
3.) Bikers trying to knock fists and one of them crashing
4.) A gay joke
AND
5.) Hint that there are racist jokes in the movie
your movie is really, really, really, really bad.
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:22 pm
So, I’m curious about the “Black Snake Moan” thing. I subscribed to “In the Dark” and completed my subscription. Was there a minty-fresh, brand-spankin’-new “In the Dark” in my e-mailbox when I finished? Alas, there was not. What gives? (Nice work, by the way, teasing something interesting that only subscribers can read about. Fine, fine, you got me.)
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Sorry if I misled you, Mr. Commentenstein. I didn’t mean to imply that subscribing would result in the current “In the Dark” immediately being mailed to you, though maybe that’s something we should look into. Right now we just mail it out once a week, and the subscription link was meant only to encourage people to sign up so as not to miss any future issues.
The “Black Snake Moan” story isn’t very interesting anyway; I just didn’t feel like rehashing it in the blog after already writing about it in “In the Dark” and talking about it in the podcast. Basically, it screened twice, and I missed it both times. The end.
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I won’t dispute William H. Macy’s acting skill versus John Travolta, but in your podcast you mentioned Macy’s Oscar nominations as evidence of how much better an actor he is than Travolta. I’m sure you know what’s next. Let’s not forget that Travolta was also nominated for an Oscar twice. I can’t support the first nomination, but I thought he was outstanding in “Pulp Fiction.”
March 3rd, 2007 at 2:16 pm
While I have a general disdain for hearing the word “retard” in any negative/derrogatory light, I’m afraid I must agree with your simile in comparison with some of my less-inspiring theater trips (the trailers for “Little Man” and “Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector” come to mind).
March 5th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
“It was like someone set a monkey loose in a class full of retards.”
Brilliant analogy. I almost sprayed Diet Coke all over my work monitor. Though no monkey is involved, the imagery you provoke in my mind is very similar to this: [Page has some naughty language.]
http://www.wtfsrsly.com/midgets.php