When George Lucas made Star Wars, nobody cared about how it would do. In fact, according to the making of the movie documentary, 20th Century Fox was seriously considering shelving the project, but gave in to Lucas' persistence. Well as we all know, the original trilogy became one of the biggest (if not the biggest) cults in the world. And when the prequel happened, the original fans hated it. In my opinion, The Phantom Menace was crap, Attack of the Clones was slightly better and Revenge of the Sith just a few notches below Return of the Jedi.
When you look at movies that Bollywood released this year, the ones with less media coverage did better. I've heard better reviews for movies like 13 B, Dev D and Gulaal as opposed to a Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Billu or a Ghajini. While I haven't seen any of the movies, barring Dev D, I can rest my case about the media hype destroying the expectations of the common man.
So yeah, I guess why Juno didn't impress me is that didn't have anything that I thought that it might. It was fun, yeah; it had its moments, yeah, but that's about it.
If i were to play devil's advocate for the media (and yeah, I have no choice here since the media gives me food), I'd say that promotion is necessary to get the viewer's attention. But is promotion to the point of overhyping something that necessary? Certain movies like The Dark Knight made through the hype. But the hype was created only after Heath Ledger tragically passed away after shooting the movie.
So do you think the overhype makes it? I'd say no... :)
3 comments:
Very very true. Happens with me with a lot of movies given that I never manage to watch them as fresh releases.
my rule of thumb is don't watch a movie that overdoes the publicity....
chandni chowk to china , for example....
on the other hand, i much prefer word of mouth....
the key, i think, is trying to form your own opinion. movie critics are sharing their own view of a film. that's what they get paid to do, but we aren't getting paid to take their word as gospel. so why do we?
a few years ago, rowan atkinson appeared in an alleged comedy called johnny english. to say the movie was drivel would be kind. my time might have been better spent prying my nails off my fingers. still, the new york times reviewer liked it and i would be lying if i said that didn't dictate my decision to go watch it.
in the end, it's like everything else. you have to form your own opinion. in the case of juno, it was ok, but hollywood churns out such drivel nowadays that by comparison it was a charming little film.
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