And so I ran, screaming, into the parking lot, in the wake of the midnight screening of Meet the Spartans, my eyes burning and my ears bleeding... OK, I'm exaggerating. A little. Truth is, I'm sure there are some circumstances under which I might have enjoyed this film. Like, I could be watching it at home. On DVD. While smoking some killer weed. While Salma Hayek sat in my lap and...
Nah, I have to admit, even that wouldn't help.
3 comments:
Even in the promo picture on your blog post, I can tell the guys' abs are enhanced with airbrushing, thus telling me that this is a film that totally embraces its own fake cheesiness.
Ugh.
One of the services provided by film critics like yourself, sir, is warning the innocent public off such film drivel.
Thank you for taking this bullet, Joe, so we don't have to!
Does the viewing public make the connection between a film having no reviews available on opening day and its quality? Or do they not care? Do you think more films will skip the critics' guantlet? And why is there a market for these lazy parodies? At least Zucker includes a few inspired bits in his more recent flicks ...
Toto: Good questions. Actually, when it comes to noticing what films get opening-day reviews, and which ones don't, I'm sure those of us who read (and write) movie blogs pay closer attention than the general public. On the other hand, I have noticed more newpapers running notices on Fridays to alert readers that, hey, guess what, this or that movie was not previewed for critics, so watch out...
Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if the day comes when studios refuse to preview anything but Oscar-bait movies and/or movies aimed at people who actually read reviews (or who can read, period). I'm old enough (55) to remember a time when opening-day reviews in newspapers, even the NY Times, were very much the exception, not the rule. Recently, while doing research for my master's thesis, I was amused to read so many NYT reviews of major movies from the '60s and '70s with sentences like this: "Movie X, which opened yesterday at the Plaza, is..." Almost like theater reviews of opening night performances.
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