War of the Worlds scared the taste buds off my tongue. I don't think it's as deeply unsettling to anyone else, because I have a very particular fear of armageddon movies (especially ZOMBIE armageddon movies). But it disturbed me enough to keep me awake lying in bed for two hours.
Despite its role in freaking me out, I am pleased as pie that it's raking in money as well as generally solid reviews. Why? So it will finally shut up the so-called "Hollywood commentators."
I really don't have a beef against Hollywood celebrity gossip. I think it is a harmless secondary effect of the American movie industry. It's sweet without substance, like cotton candy or certain sewage fumes: powerful on arrival but swiftly dissipated. Does anyone remember the Meg Ryan--Russell Crowe affair? Do I remember the quarter of a reuben sandwich I stowed away in the styrofoam box in the back of the fridge before I left for vacation? Just barely.
However (however) I take offense to celebrity gossip when it turns its targets on an actual film. And last week there was some douche on CNN (CNN had decided to play a 10-minute story on Tom Cruise's antics on rotation. This on the day when Iran had just elected its hard-line dark horse) who was telling the newscaster that it was fairly certain that Tom Cruise's craziness could be chalked up to the probability that War of the Worlds was not good at all. In fact, he went so far as to predict that it was going to become the biggest Hollywood flop of all time. The evidence? Speilberg was requiring reporters at advanced screening to sign privacy statements not to write about the movie until opening day.
Besides the fact that bad movies don't have privacy statements, they just don't screen the movie, it doesn't matter that this commentator was talking out of his ass. It offended me that he was predicting the failure of War of the Worlds with a certain glee. It was like this guy wanted the movie to fail. And I think that's what it was--- this leech couldn't wait for a failed blockbuster to give him and his trade a juicy epilogue to the summer's hottest celebrity gossip story.
Somehow, bashing War of the Worlds offends me more than bashing a single celebrity like Tom Cruise. I think Tom Cruise has a right to be crazy, but he brought a shitstorm on himself (and with 20 years in Hollywood behind him, you'd think he'd know how to handle himself better in the press). But War of the Worlds had done nothing, except running a marketing campaign that was, to me, spectacular in its self-restraint. Furthermore, there are hundreds of people who work on a movie like that, and how maddening can it be to know that you've crafted such a dead-on movie and to see some E! jerk call it a flop just because he earns a paycheck everytime a celebrity sneezes without a Kleenex?
Ultimately, I should feel sorry for the Hollywood commentator, because in the end he is a guy, I bet, who hates the movies. I imagine him sitting in a theater, watching the best films of the year, and being bored, yawning, checking his cell phone which he never bothered to turn off.
Despite its role in freaking me out, I am pleased as pie that it's raking in money as well as generally solid reviews. Why? So it will finally shut up the so-called "Hollywood commentators."
I really don't have a beef against Hollywood celebrity gossip. I think it is a harmless secondary effect of the American movie industry. It's sweet without substance, like cotton candy or certain sewage fumes: powerful on arrival but swiftly dissipated. Does anyone remember the Meg Ryan--Russell Crowe affair? Do I remember the quarter of a reuben sandwich I stowed away in the styrofoam box in the back of the fridge before I left for vacation? Just barely.
However (however) I take offense to celebrity gossip when it turns its targets on an actual film. And last week there was some douche on CNN (CNN had decided to play a 10-minute story on Tom Cruise's antics on rotation. This on the day when Iran had just elected its hard-line dark horse) who was telling the newscaster that it was fairly certain that Tom Cruise's craziness could be chalked up to the probability that War of the Worlds was not good at all. In fact, he went so far as to predict that it was going to become the biggest Hollywood flop of all time. The evidence? Speilberg was requiring reporters at advanced screening to sign privacy statements not to write about the movie until opening day.
Besides the fact that bad movies don't have privacy statements, they just don't screen the movie, it doesn't matter that this commentator was talking out of his ass. It offended me that he was predicting the failure of War of the Worlds with a certain glee. It was like this guy wanted the movie to fail. And I think that's what it was--- this leech couldn't wait for a failed blockbuster to give him and his trade a juicy epilogue to the summer's hottest celebrity gossip story.
Somehow, bashing War of the Worlds offends me more than bashing a single celebrity like Tom Cruise. I think Tom Cruise has a right to be crazy, but he brought a shitstorm on himself (and with 20 years in Hollywood behind him, you'd think he'd know how to handle himself better in the press). But War of the Worlds had done nothing, except running a marketing campaign that was, to me, spectacular in its self-restraint. Furthermore, there are hundreds of people who work on a movie like that, and how maddening can it be to know that you've crafted such a dead-on movie and to see some E! jerk call it a flop just because he earns a paycheck everytime a celebrity sneezes without a Kleenex?
Ultimately, I should feel sorry for the Hollywood commentator, because in the end he is a guy, I bet, who hates the movies. I imagine him sitting in a theater, watching the best films of the year, and being bored, yawning, checking his cell phone which he never bothered to turn off.
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