News
Fests Serve Up 'Self-Punishment' Films
By Robert Marich
Oct. 2, 2009 – A New York Times article about movies in the New York Film Festival concludes that “watching them is a high-minded form of self-punishment.”
Is it any wonder that the indie-sector is singing the blues when it churns out-self indulgent movies that are painful to watch? The media landscape is loaded with enticements for movie goers, so get ready for audiences not to embrace “festival films that drift into sulfurous climes” – another characterization by the New York Times article by Stephen Holden.
The New York Film Festival gets some of the finest films available and its offering is indicative of prestige film fests elsewhere.
Marketing to Moviegoers: Second Edition analyzes audience reaction to film genres, movie selection decision making and film advertising/promotion messaging strategies in its lengthy chapter on creative advertising. On what not to do, the book notes that a series of Iraq-Middle East-themed films bombed at the box office. Hollywood talent churned these out in quick succession in 2007, presenting a global view from its perch on Sunset Blvd.
“They were serious and hardly ‘feel good’ films that audiences seek for entertainment,” notes Marketing to Moviegoers: Second Edition. “These included Redacted, Rendition, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, The Kingdom, Grace Is Gone, A Mighty Heart, and Taxi to the Dark Side."
The book continues, “In its year-end box-office report, a USA Today article stated, ‘Look at the lowest-grossing movies of the year, and they are littered with stories with something political to say.’ In the case of Lions for Lambs, the star wattage of Tom Cruise and Robert Redford illuminated a meager $15 million in U.S./Canada box office in what was said to be a $35 million production released by MGM.”
In its write-up of the film festival, the New York Times notes that Lars von Trier’s Antichrist is “an infinitely sad depiction of a couple’s grief after the death of their little boy, who falls from a window while they are making love, (that) suddenly turns into a highbrow horror film….Antichrist, which suggests a Bergman film run amok, is wide open for ridicule. Yet it is indelible. It reinforces the reputation of Mr. von Trier, its Danish director, who has called it ‘the most important film of my entire career,’ as one of world cinema’s most foolhardy provocateurs.”
Whoopee… Lars reinforces his credentials.
For full text, click link below:
www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/movies/02fest.html
www.marketingmovies.net/chapters/chapter-1-creative-strategy-for-marketing/
www.marketingmovies.net/news/hwood-miscalculates-with-politico-films/