I pretty much gave up on Hollywood a long time ago. I won’t support the Hollywood Limo Liberals who won’t support our troops and our nation.
Ace has this suggestion for the failing anti-war movie industry:
Want to make some money? Make a movie where Americans are the good guys and the terrorists are the bad guys. It’s not like there’s a shortage of stories that fit the bill.
Put a guy like Bruce Willis or James Woods or Gary Sinise in it — and that’s the kind of movie I’d go see.
What about tom hanks? Wasn’t he pro-American enough in Saving Private Ryan?
Kinda like “United 93″? Which grossed 30 mil off a 15 mil budget (might have made a tiny bit of money, in other words)
Kinda like “Black Hawk Down”? Which grossed 100 mil off a 90 mil budget (lost money hand over fist, in other words)
Kinda like “Die Hard 4.0″? Which grossed 139 mil off a 110 mil budget (again, bleeding money)
In other words, Ace is a know-nothing right-wing blowhard, just like you.
pwned by Shan
Maybe the pro-war contingent needs to make killing on a mass scale marketable, er,, more catchy -something like:
-World War II - Electric Bugalloo-
-Or a remake of the Green Berets with Pauly Shore and Ashton Kutcher?
Alien Vs. Osama? C’mon lets get brainstormin!!
Hey, all those movies made money in the US didn’t they? Your lib movies are toast in the US, but they make money when distributed overseas to France and Lebanon and such. Then, you demand an apology when someone calls you unpatriotic.
United 93 = $80,567,134
Black Hawk Down = $173,638,745
DH4 = $377,227,196
Although movies are “made” in Hollywood the financing comes from Wall Street. Will Lions make money ?? I really don’t care one way or the other, I will not be getting any of either its profits or its losses. Wall Street IS putting its money into Hollywood, it is willing to take some losses it expects OVERALL to make money.
Kind of like:
Die Hard 1-4
Sum of All Fears
Executive Decision
Patriot Games
Clear and Present Danger
Air Force One
The Rock (but maybe that’s a little thorny for you because the “bad guy” is a little shady)
The Siege
etc etc etc
That being said, Lions for Lambs does look like a fucking piece of shit, ham-fisted morality tale, and I say that as a liberal film student, so…fuck you Robert Redford.
the idea that the “…americans are the good guys and the terrorists are the bad guys…” is based on the same romantic, myopic, and downright childish good v. evil thinking that would spend well over two trillion dollars in order to get rid of a third rate novelist/dictator.
If you really think Americans are starving for good, old-fashioned patriotic movies, write a script, get some friends together, and make a patriotic indie film. Or shoot some rousing YouTube videos about truth, justice and the American Way. Nobody’s stopping you.
re: leftards cant count
Your figures are total box office, not domestic.
Your figures are total box office, not domestic.
Well, duh! Foreign box office is part of the gross, which shan deliberately left out in order to falsely portray these movies as losers.
Your figures are total box office, not domestic.
It sort of flips Yo’s comment on its head:
Your lib movies are toast in the US, but they make money when distributed overseas to France and Lebanon and such. Then, you demand an apology when someone calls you unpatriotic.
Who is it that needs an apology for being unpatriotic?
Seriously though the level of political discourse in this country is retarded… Does Ford need to apologize for being unpatriotic when they earn export dollars for American shareholders as well?
Frankly, I see Rambo earning about 100 times the revenue in Lebanon (as if that’s an insult) than whatever anti-war movie you’re talking about- none come to mind now.
Before I walk off with the argument framed for me…… tell me again what part of our occupation of Iraq, and probable attack of another country have to do with supporting our troops. What I hear when folks say that is,” let’s just keep letting the guys who took away constitutional rights and broke several FISA laws, lied about intel to get a war they wanted just keep on keepin on”. I guess since the troops are getting all the equipment and time off they need as well as after-care for injuries sustained in this adventure, all is well and the troops are supported.
Oh, on subject, what does anything Hollywood do have to do with reality?
LCC et al:
Most movies, especially big franchise pictures, almost always gross more on the foreign market than they do domestically, so a higher foreign than American gross really doesn’t tell you much about a movie’s success.
Oh, on subject, what does anything Hollywood do have to do with reality?
Are you seriously unaware of the influence that Hollywood plays in Liberal politics?
Seriously?
Take a look at the this list of the 100 Most Influential Liberals — familiar with these people on the list?
7. MICHAEL MOORE
9. OPRAH WINFREY
49. AL FRANKEN
61. STEPHEN COLBERT
70. AARON SORKIN
77. BARBRA STREISAND
81. JON STEWART
82. GEORGE CLOONEY
90. DAVID GEFFEN
100. ROBERT GREENWALD
(HINT: They’re all associated with Hollywood — actors, comedians, producers, etc.)
Most movies, especially big franchise pictures, almost always gross more on the foreign market than they do domestically, so a higher foreign than American gross really doesn’t tell you much about a movie’s success.
Oh, suck it up! Shan lied when he said that these movies only made a “tiny bit of money,” “lost money hand over fist,” and were “bleeding money.” In order to support his lie, he omitted the gross. This is the second time it has been explained to you. What ever your problems are, I’m not interested. You can continue to try to spin it any way you want, but it is what it is: these were successful movies.
I say again, “what in the world does anything that Hollywood does have to do with………. health care costs, open and honest government, food on my table, heating bills, daycare for single parent kids, proper care of wounded vets, ………..
Did you have a different reality in mind?
Even easier, how much effect does a movie have that you don’t see? How much did that movie change your life? Not real, is it?
If your argument is that some piece of celluloid is going to change a persons basic moral values or even their mind from whatever said persons plans were in the first place, you my friend are in Hollywood.
If Bruce Willis ever gets the movie made about Deuce Four, I will go see that.
I’ve only broken my boycott of the theaters once since 1990, and that was to see The Passion. I vote with my money, and refuse to give it those people, who will in turn fund the people in politics I want defeated.
Well T-Ray, movies have a big impact on society. For example, many veterans said that seeing John Wayne’s war movies inspired them to join the military. Also, what Hollywood portrays about us is seen by people worldwide, and accepted as reality, although we know it isn’t.
I disagree with Robbie on this, though. The amount of pro-american movies is at least the same or greater than anti-war movies.
I too am ex-military and have found few movies (especially blockbusters) to be very realistic, even if entertaining. I guess my next question would be, does our movie industry or our foreign policy make a better tool for others to gauge us as a whole? Follow-up questions for extra credit: Does my like or distaste of a movie affect refugee status of war displaced persons? Am I only allowed to voice one opinion of a movie or anything else for that matter? Can we use the profits from war movies to help our infrastructure since my tax dollars are going toward wars that movies are being made of? Should I tap your phones for an answer or just check back here later? LOL! I tell you what, more and more I consider the phrase ” May you live in interesting times”. One of the most interesting things for me personally is listening to someone who has taken away more and more constitutional rights from US citizens telling me to be afraid of someone else. Don’t THAT beat all? Blessings to all.
T-Ray —
First, thanks for your service.
Let me answer a few of your questions and address a couple of your points:
…does our movie industry or our foreign policy make a better tool for others to gauge us as a whole?
Sadly, the world judges us by both. But again, I don’t give a shit what the rest of the world thinks about us. Sure, it’d be nice if everybody thought we were swell.
But we shouldn’t jeopardize nor compromise our values, our security, nor our sovereignty just to make a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys like us better.
Does my like or distaste of a movie affect refugee status of war displaced persons?
No, the evil dictators of the world who seek ethnic cleansing or the annihilation of entire nations and the terrorists who want the entire world to submit to their religion (or they’ll blow up buildings, children, women, and anybody else who won’t submit to their cult of death) — these are the people who most affect war refugees. As they are the ones who caused them.
That you believe the US is primarily responsible for this is sad.
Am I only allowed to voice one opinion of a movie or anything else for that matter?
Obviously not, as you haven’t been censored here. And I doubt that our own Government has tried to silence you in anyway concerning your opinions either. Perhaps if you were to move to … I don’t know… let’s say Venezuela…and try to voice any opinion contrary to the party line, then you might have a problem.
Can we use the profits from war movies to help our infrastructure since my tax dollars are going toward wars that movies are being made of?
Typical liberal — wanting to tax specific free markets to pay for social welfare programs.
Should I tap your phones for an answer or just check back here later?
Sigh. You do know that the US Government isn’t tapping the phones of ordinary citizens, don’t you? Or did Keith Olbermann tell you that they were?
If I start making and receiving phone calls from suspect Islamic groups in Islamic countries, then I would hope that the Government was listening.
Listening to someone who has taken away more and more constitutional rights from US citizens telling me to be afraid of someone else.
Name one — just one — Constitutional right you have lost or been deprived of by this Administration. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
OK. Having friends in S. America (Venezuela, Chile, Argentina) I am told that things are not like several administrations are wanting us to believe. Cuba is a great example of this. I am startled that you are OK with the roll back of habeas corpus, and the breaking of FISA laws. Yes, we haven’t PROVED anything yet, but have we really gotten any answers to what happened where. BTW, that time I spent in the military was in electronics and the schematics of the AT&T tap is not selective. It can only grab everything or nothing. That right there is in violation of everything FISA was written for. Now if I personally haven’t had my rights infringed yet, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care that other US citizens rights have been trashed. It only means that it hasn’t happened to me yet, thanks in large part to not being the “wrong” color or religion.
Your opening statement says so much about what I personally see as a major problem. You “don’t care” about others. I ask, why should anyone care about you. It just seems so obvious that if the people of earth continue to think that there is something to “win” here, playing adolescent “mine,mine” games, there really is no change capable of happening. Before you start down the “oh, that’s not reality” thing, answer this for me; Are human beings capable of making decisions that they are cognizant of and responsible for? If so, can’t we begin to shape a new reality that sees all of us on a single island called earth. Singularly attached to one another by the planet we stand on. I mean, as long as there are “us and them” doesn’t that lock us into a never ending downward spiral until “there can be only one”.
Oh yeah, look to SoCal, Veterans Day parade. Some of my old shipmates were denied access to the Veterans day parade because as veterans with an opinion not in line with this administration’s they won’t be heard. That was close enough to me, for me. I understand a VFW group was denied participation as well, not sure of this, but GWB was at a VFW for veterans day interestingly enough. I just never imagined that the USA would ever be in the same league as the bad old Russian boogie men of yore. It looks to me like we are running their play book.
Let’s do a visualization right quick. Close your eyes and imagine what ethnic cleansing in Iraq for instance might look like. Now imagine what you as a all powerful, directed by omnipotent beings, person could do to instigate this vision. How might you prolong the conflict creating more and more desperate people? Did Iraq look like this before our rushing in to save those poor folks or after. This is all rhetorical of course. Just a visualization. The USA couldn’t be culpable in any of the bad stuff going on there. It’s the guys with turbans and brown skin, always. Never us. We are uncannily exactly right every time, go figure.
About the tax thing, just saying that I thought that some of my tax money might have gone towards my roads and such. Since it was being used elsewhere, and some people think that Hollywood and Government are connected, maybe a little money exchange is fitting.
OK,OK, I give up. I was being a big butt head in asking those nonsensical questions. I truly am surprised that they created thoughtful response. It speaks to your professionalism and passion, and that should not be made light of. You too can express your opinion without fear of reprisal and/or detention, because that’s what the Constitution is all about. Unfortunately I really think that logic and reason in debate or decision making are a thing of the past. It is only about power and force. I would find it hard to believe that anyone could convince me otherwise, but I have been wrong so many times before. I will endeavor to keep an open mind and heart. Blessings of peace and harmony to all.
Last thing, the question was which is a better tool for others to gauge us all by, movies or foreign policy? I get that people all around the world are free to form their opinions based on anything that their soul desires. I am curious which YOU think is a better yardstick.
I also agree that we shouldn’t surrender our values and morals to make a bunch of radical extremists act right in our eyes. Lead by example or follow in the tracks of previous bad behavior. Me thinks that the devaluation of principles and ideals should not happen for any reason. If that happens weren’t they just “quaint” talk to begin with?
Movies probably influence what people think of us more than our foreign policy. Most people who hate America hate it for what it is, not for what it does. Remember, the WTC was bombed in 1993, way before Iraq. And that ’s just one case out of hundreds.
The constitution is not a suicide pact, T-Ray. Sometimes it has been bended or all-together thrown out in times of war. That’s not to say that Bush has “usurped our rights.” For all the Left’s screeching, they can’t come up with one example where someone was unjustly shipped off to Guantanamo, for example.
As for values, sometimes you have to compromise them in order to win in the big picture. Most famous example-we sided with Stalin against the greater evil, Hitler. I think we can both agree the world is better off because of that.
This response goes to all who think movies affect war:
I think you are overanalyzing what the movie industry does for America. It is first and foremost for the entertainment. Hollywood does tend to make movies about the life and times of todays society including the political atmosphere. Movies are able to bring an understanding to issues that affect America, for instance movies like Syrianna and others. They are simply for entertainment and do have a way of informing people of what is going on. I am sure movies affect what people think of us but I do not think Hollywood uses movies that way. I believe that the movie industry is strictly for entertainment purposes and that we should focus more on reality than the silver screen. Movies can influence people but what happens in reality is what we should focus our opinions on.
Movies are able to bring an understanding to issues that affect America, for instance movies like Syrianna and others.
You must be on drugs.
In Respsonse tothe Leftard:
Take it easy, I was purely making a point that movies should not be taken so seriously as everyone in this blog seems to be making them. Movies are for entertainment. We can learn from them. They arent real but they can show situations that could be real and can show possible outcomes. You take politics too seriously.
I’ve given some thought to making a movie that caters to the Right Wing. There wouldn’t be much dialogue, or even much of a story. What it would have, though, is one scene after another depicting America’s military might in all its glory.
There would be lots of explosions (blow up some mosques, for example). Everybody likes watching shit blow up. There would be some scenes where towel-heads are tortured to within an inch of their lives - viewers would assume that the subjects are terrorists, but that wouldn’t really be made clear in the film.
After an hour or so of torture and explosions, there would be a climax of sorts where the American military who are still in the States go house-to-house rounding up citizens who aren’t sufficiently patriotic: people who whine about invading sovereign states without provocation; people who wonder how the government plans to pay for a billion-dollar-a-week war when it becomes clear that the oil-revenues-will-pay-for-it strategy proves to be a colossal miscaluclation; people who question why corporations with close ties to the American Administration are awarded no-bid contracts to pay people four times a soldier’s salary to drive empty trucks around the country that we invaded.
Upon rounding these traitors up, they would be corralled into the infield of a NASCAR track in Alabama and executed en masse by machine gun fire just before a race on a sunny Sunday morning. In acknowledgement of the Right’s commitment to the sanctity of life, this would be followed by a prayer to The Lord to save unborn fetuses.
This film would be a smash hit in the old Confederacy and Texas. It would make money hand over fist.
They arent real but they can show situations that could be real and can show possible outcomes. You take politics too seriously.
You take yourself too seriously and are ignorant to boot if you think crap like Syriana bring[s] an understanding to issues that affect America.
Put it simply:
“Studios expect that a film’s “domestic” (which the American film industry defines as the United States and Canada) box office gross revenue will exceed production costs. This does not make the film profitable: typically, the exhibiting theater keeps 45% of the gross, with the remainder paid to the studio as the rental fee. However, if a film has a higher domestic gross than its production and marketing costs, it will almost certainly turn a profit once the overseas gross is included.”
from wikipedia
Uhhh…JML, your LLL sarcasm aside, those aren’t towels on their heads, they are small sheets.
They are Lil’Sheetheads.
And I wouldn’t just machine gun down a bunch of tards like you, I would torture you first, by making you watch an entire forest of old growth trees being cut down, then blow you away.
/henh
wow, you sure showed him N2L
I know, junior, his script idea sucked.
I always find J.R. Dunn’s articles informative and well-researched.
Hollywood’s Red Decade.
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Sort of like Die Hard 1, 2, 3, or 4?
Left by Preston on November 12th, 2007 at 7:06 am