Do film folk knowingly release badly made movies?

It’s a paycheck.

The way to recoup your investment is to get asses in the seats. It’s been a long time since anyone in Hollywood cared about quality. Go see the original – it was funny.

Did you ever have the misfortune of watching Ishtar? I assume it was released only because of Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman.

This from “Rotten Tomatoes:”

” A would-be road picture a la Hope and Crosby, the film is worth seeing for Hoffman’s and Beatty’s dry portrayals of down-on-their-luck ne’er-do-wells, and their earnest, off-key renditions of the film’s original songs. Additionally, the film was beset by production and budget challenges that are now the stuff of publicity legend.”

I think I did have the misfortune to see Ishtar and I remember its legend.

@dpworkin Was it? I was wondering. Not really my type of humor, but I could imagine this being funnily farcical if it were well-done.

@Blondesjon You answered a question! I’m honored.

@janbb: Hornered? Homered? Humored? Hammered? Hum a little. I’ll catch on.

She pointed to the stands and she homored. That’s why we call her The Babe.

@dpworkin: Not Marge?”

O.K. guys – I can see any attempt at productivity for this evening has now been thoroughly destroyed. And I am teaching a class next week!

On the other hand, call me the Babe and I’ll follow you home.

Luckily, I was within the edit period so your hochmes make no sense. Anyone for punness? You think New York can take on New Jersey – you got another think comin’!

You mean Jersey, don’t you?

Yeah, York.

Alas, poor York, I knew him well.

Darf min gehn in kolledj?

I think they do release steaming piles of crap intentionally. It’s all about making money and if people like to watch crap (which, apparently, they do), that’s what gets put out. I mean, they screen these movies and the ones that do well usually get released eventually. Those that screen poorly tend to not. So you gotta think that audiences out there are just loving huge steaming piles.

Incidentally, as @dpworkin said, the original was brilliant. Farcical, British humor, but I’ve seen it like 7 times and I still think it’s fantastic. Besides, Ricky Gervais is in it and he is hilarious.—-> See The Invention of Lying.

There’s a certain group of consumers who will go to any movie. And filmmakers depend on them, because almost all movies made are pure crap.

I was reminded yet again. Going to the theater is like Charlie Brown attempting to kick the Football that Lucy is setting. You always go in, thinking this time it might be good… but always walk out empty.

I just saw Alice in Wonderland, and this popular “brilliant” director Burton seems to have churned out yet another movie focused entirely on surrealist effect (and even some real good acting) but, per Burton style… no interesting storyline whatsoever.

I am so tired of the Hollywood formula of Reluctant Hero being drafted into a battle s/he doesn’t want. Battle ensues. Reluctant Hero is a victor. The End.

Tired of it!

And I’m also sick of movies that depend on the following formula:

1. Intro
2. Problem
3. Kiss
4. Fight
5. Chase
6. Lovemaking
7. Chase/fight/battle/explosions
8. Resolution/ The End.

Hollywood movies generally suck!

@Kraigmo You have to go to the movies with the same thoughts when I go. I pick what seems possibly the least suckiest movie, plan my day around it and just go to do something out of the house on a rainy day for example. This way if the movie sucks, I wasn’t surprise and I feel it at least got me out of the house. If it turned out to be better than expected than that’s just icing on the cake. But I agree. Most suck today and have very little surprise. Mostly I just go for movies with big special effects this way I got to see it on a large screen and its guaranteed to drown out any noisy people. Everything else I save for it to come out on DVD and if it sucks, I just stop it and watch something else.
@janbb I think they know but once money has been dished out they have no choice to try to make some money out of it.
Of course, dish out several small crappy movies and hopefully you can stay in business long enough till something great comes along. Not every movie can be a block buster.

They do this on a regular basis. Let us not forget the cinematographic tragedies that were “Glitter”, “Crossroads” and “EVERY SINGLE J-LO MOVIE EVER MADE” Especially Gigli.

@janbb- I saw the original 2007 version of Death at a Funeral and found it hilarious. Haven’t seen the remake though. Too bad I like Chris Rock.
@gailcalled- I have a soft spot in my heart for Ishtar because Dustin Hoffman’s character is named Chuck Clarke.

@AstroChuck: But did you actually watch the entire movie?

I can’t recall but think I did. I do remember it was pretty bad though. Still, I love Dustin Hoffman and it was cool he had my name; it was spelled the right way and everything!

I don’t think they do. Movies cost an incredible amount of money to make and no one invests that kind of money in something they know is bad. There are a lot of reasons bad movies get made and I’m not sure what all of them are. Sometimes movies are made to appeal to the lowest common denominator only to find that the lowest common denominator is not as low as they thought it was, sometimes people have every intention of making a reasonably good movie and it all goes wrong and they try to salvage what they can from it. Sometimes people make movies because another movie like it was successful but they try to copy it and don’t quite have a grip on what made the film they are copying so successful or don’t understand that there may have only been room in the film universe for just that one film. Who knows why Hollywood manages such a high crap to blockbuster ratio? They don’t do it intentionally. There’s just to much money involved and too many careers at stake.

The studio looked at a rough cut for Idiocracy and Mars Attacks, and in both cases they decided that the money spent for further tweaking of the movie, like making the scenes match and having a coherent story, would not add to the profit of the films. They then just released them without fixing the obvious problems. They did the same thing with last year’s The Men Who Stare At Goats. That it didn’t matter because I enjoyed all three movies is moot. They could have become classics with a little care.

@filmfann It just seems like such shoddy work at times. I am particularly sensitive to pacing; Chris Rock seemed like he was on downers.

I will look for the original on Netflix. I chose this because there was nothing else nearby and Roger Ebert, with whom I usually agree, said it was better than the original. I saw The Ghostwriter the night before – Roman Polanski – and that was very well made. Brosnan’s start turn as the Tony Blair character was worth going for alone.

@janbb: Oh, good. I saw the preview and was tempted. But those trailers can be manipulative. Thanks for the tip.

So we got action figures, t-shirts, labelled energy drinks, a video game adaptation in the works, some toys and books…

Do we have a scenario for the movie yet?

We’re workin’ on it.