The Business Of Movies
Jun 25 2012

Good movies provide such wonderful and safe escapes from our daily worlds into world’s dreamed up by others or into accelerated views of someone else’s “true events.”  They speed up the mundane and let you experience a gamut of emotions that people typically experience over decades in a couple of hours.  A friend of mine who has been writing scripts for years in Los Angeles recently sent out an explanation as to why the movie John Carter, which I didn’t see, flopped after much anticipation that it would do really well at the box office.  The reasons had a lot to do with marketing and business execution.  No matter what industry you are in, you can’t escape the fundamentals of business, timing, and a little luck.  Now for a quick review on some movies I’ve seen recently:

Rock of Ages.  It’s based on a Broadway musical, and I liked this more for the music than the actual storyline.  It was fun to see famous actors (Tom Cruise reinvents himself again) and actresses playing the parts of rock singers and their groupies.  The songs were from my teenage years. I knew all of them and they triggering an array of memories and feelings.

Hysteria. A really good, somewhat comedic take on the guys who invented the first electric vibrator for women after determining that manual stimulation was just too cumbersome to “cure” women of alleged hysteria.  It wasn’t until 1952 that the “hysterical” diagnoses for women was removed from the medical field.  It’s hilarious what they labeled as women’s symptoms of hysteria (i.e., wandering womb)!

Madagascar 3 – Europe’s Most Wanted. I love most animated movies.  This one was good, but still not as great as the first one.  Polka dot, afro, polka dot…

Brokeback Mountain. I rented this because I had never seen it during it’s big hype period.  I was expecting the relationship between the two cowboys to be more subtle but it was right there in your face.  It was an interesting story but mostly irritated me at how selfish they were given the other people in their lives.  I’m glad it lost to Crash for best picture that year.

New Year’s Eve.  I also rented this one and it was as I expected.  Full of stars.  Not great acting.  Sappy, unrealistic ending, but good for a few smirks.

Men in Black 3. Great movie.  Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, and Josh Brolin are great actors.  Will Smith is one very talented dude.

The Raven. Named after one of Edgar Allen Poe’s poems.  This was a morbid and dark movie and very much like Poe’s poems and writings.  It was a bit too morbidly uncomfortable and depressing for my taste.

Casa de Mi Padre.  A Spanish cowboy movie starring Will Ferrell.  A strangely funny, yet awkward movie.  Very cheesy, but many scenes made me laugh out loud.

Sliding Doors.  I watched this on Netflix.  It stars Gwyneth Paltrow and shows two different timelines of her life based on whether she caught a certain subway train or not.  It reminded me of how gullible most of us women are when it comes to what men do, say, and don’t say.  It was a little Woody Allen-ish.

I’ve seen a few others this year and rented some more as well, but I can’t really recall what they are right now.  The next movie I want to see is Brave.  I think that one will be a box office hit…they have marketed it very well so far!

Author: Aruni | Filed under: movie reviews, music | Tags: brave, brokeback mountain, casa de mi padre, gwyneth paltrow, hysteria, madagascar, men in black, movies, new year's eve, rock of ages, sliding doors, the raven, tom cruise, will ferrell, will smith | 7 Comments »

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