Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this occasional column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business.
Bart: Critics don’t like to admit it, but the conditions under which you see a film strongly influence your opinion. Birdman is a good example: If you see a film like this with a pack of cinephiles like at Telluride, everyone gets every inside joke, and you instinctively go along with the crowd. I made it a point to see Birdman with a paid civilian audience and it was like screening it in a mausoleum. No laughs, just occasional grunts and lots of walkouts. Some reviews predicted Birdman “will captivate arthouse and multiplex crowds alike and send awards pundits into orbit” (the Variety review). Well that ain’t happening with the audiences; we’ll see about the awards.
Bart: Critics don’t like to admit it, but the conditions under which you see a film strongly influence your opinion. Birdman is a good example: If you see a film like this with a pack of cinephiles like at Telluride, everyone gets every inside joke, and you instinctively go along with the crowd. I made it a point to see Birdman with a paid civilian audience and it was like screening it in a mausoleum. No laughs, just occasional grunts and lots of walkouts. Some reviews predicted Birdman “will captivate arthouse and multiplex crowds alike and send awards pundits into orbit” (the Variety review). Well that ain’t happening with the audiences; we’ll see about the awards.
- 11/23/2014
- by Mike Fleming Jr
- Deadline
By Brian Hannan
With all the (deserved) appreciation of Zulu, it’s hard to imagine it was a massive flop in the Us. Independent producer Joe Levine planned a double whammy for summer 1963 – The Carpetbaggers, an adaptation of the sizzling Harold Robbins bestseller, and Zulu. He even arranged for Zulu to follow The Carpetbaggers into the prestigious Palace first run cinema in New York. Spending big, Levine, whipped up a huge marketing campaign for Zulu, which had notched up record grosses in the UK.
But the two films could not have been further apart. Where The Carpetbaggers stormed to $862,000 from 25 theatres in the New York area, Zulu could only manage $190,000 from 30 in Los Angeles. Zulu scored well in first run in Detroit (running four weeks) and Chicago, but was quickly (perhaps too quickly) consigned to drive-ins. Failure to find a niche was not for want of trying. In successive weeks in La,...
With all the (deserved) appreciation of Zulu, it’s hard to imagine it was a massive flop in the Us. Independent producer Joe Levine planned a double whammy for summer 1963 – The Carpetbaggers, an adaptation of the sizzling Harold Robbins bestseller, and Zulu. He even arranged for Zulu to follow The Carpetbaggers into the prestigious Palace first run cinema in New York. Spending big, Levine, whipped up a huge marketing campaign for Zulu, which had notched up record grosses in the UK.
But the two films could not have been further apart. Where The Carpetbaggers stormed to $862,000 from 25 theatres in the New York area, Zulu could only manage $190,000 from 30 in Los Angeles. Zulu scored well in first run in Detroit (running four weeks) and Chicago, but was quickly (perhaps too quickly) consigned to drive-ins. Failure to find a niche was not for want of trying. In successive weeks in La,...
- 1/29/2014
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
When Mike Plante decided he wanted to start a grassroots distribution company, he re-watched "Showman," the fast-paced portrait of film producer Joe Levine and his colleagues as they guide the release of "Two Women" to Oscar-season acclaim. "Those guys would just pick up the phone, booking every city, just talking to people and saying, 'I think this film would work for you,'" Plante says. "That's basically what we're doing, but ...
- 7/2/2011
- Indiewire
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