I'm a guy. A straight guy. And so, I hated Moulin Rouge. (aside from the cinematography and costumes, which were breathaking, making it the cinematic equivilent of Star Wars Episode I)


So has anyone seen this? It's getting really mixed reviews, and I'm not really encouraged by the idea of unqualified people (Bono and Joe Cocker excepted) singing weird versions of sacred songs for 2 hours (didn't these people see the Sgt. Pepper movie? ), but I'm wondering if anyone's seen it who isn't a film snob or paid movie critic.

I'm tempted mostly to see Bono sing "I Am The Walrus," but I think I can still wait for the DVD if that's the high point of the flick. One review basically said "It somehow makes you hate the Beatles by the end of it." Ouch.

Then again, it can't be worse than when the Bee Gees did it.

I seldom rely on reviews. It is one that I'd like to see in theater, but I doubt that our shitty 8-plex Kerasotes will bring it in. That means I'll have to drive an hour either way (north or south) to catch it. Therefore, I may also wait for the DVD.

Cher

Reviews aren't the absolute truth or anything, but if you read a bunch of them for the same movie, you can at least get an idea of whether something is worth seeing if you're on the fence. Definitely wouldn't read much into one or two reviews of a movie, but if there's a whole bunch of them saying something is amazing or awful, that's usually a sign.

It's just too bad that movie tickets are priced to the point where it's tough to justify taking a chance on a flick like this...the closest major theater to me is up to $10 on weekends; plus $2 each way for the train, plus god forbid we want to munch on something while we're there...it's about $30 to take Lauren to a flick. I like going, but it's tough to justify it more than 3 or 4 times a year, unfortunately, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Not sure why theaters don't have some sort of scaled pricing...the general public are like lemmings; they'll pay whatever theaters want to see Spiderman 12 or Transformers, but a film like Across The Universe that (if it turned out to be really good) could become a sleeper hit just based on word of mouth, but would need people to actually see it first. The whole one-size-fits-all pricing thing just always struck me as a little odd, since there's so many crap movies that come out. (I mean, really, Mr. Woodcock? Are you serious, Hollywood?) It's the same as iTunes...you can't run your business under the assumption that Emotional Rescue is worth the same as Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed. But I digress.


Back to the movie....I do know one person who got into some kind of free screening downtown for it, and said it was "alright," but knowing how obsessive I am about the Beatles, advised that "you might want to get really drunk before you watch it."

I think it looks like it will be really good. I listened to a few of the iTunes clips from the soundtrack and they sound good. It should be playing in Columbus this Friday, I am going to try and check it out.

One of the actress, Dana Fuchs is an amazing singer and does her own music that is good. www.danafuchs.com

I went to Columbus to see this last Saturday. The theater was almost empty, which kind of suprized me. Anyway, overall it was pretty good, not as good as I was hoping, but still good. And they did not ruin any Beatles songs but the people behind us did a pretty good job by trying to sing along.

I'm not into musicals much, but I do want to see this. I'm not sure if it's playing around here.. hmph.

reviews, good or bad, will rarely help or hurt the box office of a "big" well promoted movie, where they matter are on smaler, well made or underpromoted movies. great reviews and reviewers getting behind "little" movies like "little miss sunshine" (first one to come to mind) and offering them the exposure and press that they wouldn't get otherwise can make a huge difference.

ahh here we go once again, both beating the proverbial dead horse. just lower the price and everything will be just fine... steve, it just isn't that simple.

fwiw, the studios control the pricing, not the theatres. theatrical movies are done on a sliding "revenue sharing" basis. in most cases, especially w/large, major releases, theatres (or theatre chains) bid on releases months in advance, those that offer the lowest percentage "take" and can offer the distribution desired/needed, get the movie (that's why in larger cities you will usually see one major chain exhibiting a major release). on big titles, during the first few weeks of release, the studio may get upwards of 80-85% of the box office (the theatres largely survive on the traffic count to generate concession/arvade/etc sales), the longer a film runs the larger percentage of the box office the theatre gets, usually after 4-6 weeks their take maxes out at about 40-50% for the remainder of the run...

but this time, i do agree with you, sort of...i think the movie industry would benefit from a sliding scale type of pricing. it makes no sense to me that it costs the same to see a movie that cost $200m to film as it does to see one that cost $2m (it's costs less to build a kia than a mercedes, and they are priced accordingly). and it seems to me that the "risk/reward" of producing smaller movies would be much greater (which is why studios like "lionsgate" are prospering nowadays). but, no studio CEO has called me lately and asked my opinion either. as i told a studio rep many years ago, when we played $75+ for a new release VHS tape for rental..."i don't mind paying $75 for a movie starring sylvester stallone, but you are crazy as hell if you think i'm gonna pay 75 bucks for one starring frank stallone."

the studio philosophy is to "cost average" and lump everything into the same pool, big releases rarely make big profits. the standard rule of thumb is that approximately 50% of the production costs are budgeted for marketing, so a $200m release gets approx $100m in marketing. say the theatre's "cut" averages 25% over a 4-6 wk run (which is about the max these days), that movie has to do about $400 @ the box office just to break even (much of their "upside" on these type films come from post theatrical sources; dvd, pay per view, pay cable, licensing and other tv sales, along with the very profitable foreign box office, which has a very lucrative rev share model for them). say it grosses $450m, a $37m profit (after the theatres cut), that's only a little over 10% return on a $300m investment, not that good. but, a $5m movie (+ the marketing expenses noted above) that does $25m at the box office, nets about $11.25m (after the theatres cut) or a 150% ROI on $7.5m, that's where i'd put my money anyday. assuming i had $7.5m & and any studio execs cared what i thought...

there ya go, those are the facts of life, but flame/rant away anyway...

Soooo...you give me a bunch of shit and then write a 2nd paragraph saying you agree with me?

Besides, if your business model requires you to make hundreds of millions of dollars on ONE film...you deserve to go out of business. I UNDERSTAND your explanation, but I don't understand why it isn't possible to change the way the executives do things on the business end, if the finances are as f'ed up as they seem.

It's just the same bullshit with the music retail stores...if the labels didn't charge such a ridiculous wholesale price for discs, Tower Records would probably still be in business. Just seems weird to me they'd charge the same for a little flick like Little Miss Sunshine as they would for a "we spent all our money on sets and costumes so we couldn't afford a script" flick like the Pirates sequels. Little Miss Sunshine was so good and had such a buzz about it that it worked out, but I always wonder if there's other movies that fly under the radar because they don't have the same publicity or children's toy tie-ins as Shrek 8 or Transformers.

Just like OTR being on the same label (for awhile, anyway) as the Spice Girls...imagine if they hadn't spent all their money on the Spice Girls and had spent some of it promoting artists like OTR. The Virgin deal was good for their distribution, but I never saw any major evidence that they were getting any significant promotion from them besides a few ads in magazines. (I could be wrong, but if they did much else, I never noticed it)

You know more about this than me, but as someone outside the movie retail business, you can't help but see a poster or trailer for Good Luck Chuck and be like, "They spent millions of dollars on this...really?"