Tag: Sony Pictures

The Interview Movie Review

It was a movie that never expected to lead breaking news updates on CNN, but by now we all know the fascinating journey that caused The Interview to debut in limited release and not its planned wide release Christmas Day. It meant this blogger viewed it on YouTube and not a large chain theater. And now I can finally strip away all the hype and controversy and simply let you know my feelings on the picture itself.

The verdict? Mixed. Quite mixed. The Interview is director Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s follow-up to their very successful (and better) first effort This is the End. As you’ve perhaps heard, it involves a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (Randall Park). The plan? Take little respected entertainment interviewer Dave Skylark (James Franco) and his producer Aaron (Rogen) to the homeland of Jong-un for a fluff interview and use the situation to take him out. The CIA is involved, including Lizzy Caplan (from Showtime’s Masters of Sex) as an operative.

Of course, not all goes as planned. Aaron develops a crush on Sook (Diana Bang), one of Kim’s top communications officials. Dave begins to bond with Kim over sex, drugs, Katy Perry (yep, you read it right), and their mutual perceived lack of respectability. In essence, Dave receives the real life Dennis Rodman treatment from the Supreme Leader which leads him to question whether Kim is really that bad of a guy.

Since this is a work from Rogen and his head collaborator Goldberg, we have an abundance of gross out gags. If you guessed Rogen has to shove a top secret device up his rectum at one point – take a shot! Some of the gags work while many others are all too familiar and fall flat. Rogen is his typical self, but he brings his teddy bear charm to a satisfactory level. Franco is another story. He’s a talented performer who is hit or miss in comedies. Here, his character’s smarmy demeanor comes off more off putting than humorous.

The Interview is ultimately not overly concerned with making grand political statements and more focused on hard R rated sight gags. The character of Kim, played with gusto by Park, is chock full of Daddy issues and an inferiority complex. There’s funny moments with him (his obsession with the aforementioned Perry is good for some belly laughs), but there’s nothing here that Team America: World Police didn’t handle on a more highly elevated satirical level. Early snippets of Skylark’s interviews with Eminem and Rob Lowe actually provide the biggest guffaws and they have nothing to do with the eventual plot.

There’s little doubt The Interview will be remembered more for its generated headlines with the Sony hack and North Korean government reaction that what is up on the screen. For fans of Rogen and Goldberg’s brand of humor, there’s just enough worthwhile to watch. However, they’ve done better work and while nothing they’ve made before or since is likely to capture worldwide media attention – The Interview seems bound to be regarded as a so-so entry in their filmography.

**1/2 (out of four)

The Interview Box Office Prediction

Well, whaddya know??

On this Christmas morning, it turns out my present to you on the blog is something I didn’t get to think I’d write this week: a box office prediction for The Interview.

At this point, everyone movie blogger and critic has written about the debacle that involved hacking and North Korea and Sony Pictures and the controversial decision to not release the Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy in theaters. I wrote my own post when it looked like the picture may not see the light of day and if you missed it, you can find it here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2014/12/18/a-canceled-interview/

And now – Sony has reversed course, to an extent. The Interview, in which Rogen and Franco play entertainment journalists sent on a mission to take out North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will premiere today in 331 independently owned theaters across the nation. The big movie chains are still not screening it. It is also debuting on numerous digital formats, including YouTube, Google Play, and Xbox which may divert some curious eyes from the theaters and to their laptops.

So what does that mean as far as its box office prospects? Well, that’s a tricky proposition but I’ll try my best. First, 331 screens isn’t many considering the average wannabe blockbuster comes to at least 2000 and often 3000 plus venues. In other words, think low. On the other hand, its per screen average should outdo the other holiday newbies that are rolling out.

With all the hype surrounding the movie (even with its less than stellar reviews – 5o% on Rotten Tomatoes), it should manage to bring out viewers who may not have even intended on watching it right away in the first place. Whether they do so at a theater they might not be used to going to or at home is a mystery that won’t be resolved until the numbers are released early next week. I’ll predict its limited release yields an average of over $10,000 per screen for an impressive haul.

The Interview opening weekend prediction: $3.1 million (Friday to Sunday), $4.4 million (Thursday to Sunday)

For my Unbroken prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2014/12/20/unbroken-box-office-prediction/

For my Into the Woods prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2014/12/20/into-the-woods-box-office-prediction/

For my prediction on The Gambler, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2014/12/22/the-gambler-box-office-prediction/

For my Big Eyes prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2014/12/24/big-eyes-box-office-prediction/

For my prediction on The Imitation Game, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2014/12/24/the-imitation-game-box-office-prediction/

A Canceled Interview

This Saturday, one of my blog posts would have been a box office prediction for The Interview, the Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy in which they play journalists tasked by the U.S. government to take out North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

So… that’s not going to happen. You may have heard of this movie in the last 24 hours or so. The recent Sony Pictures cyber attack that’s been garnering headlines all over the world has led to threats against any movie theaters screening the picture, which was scheduled to premiere on Christmas Day.

Sony Pictures made the unprecedented decision to pull The Interview from theaters after several large theater chains chose not to show it, due to safety concerns. I’ll leave it to smarter folks than I to pontificate on all the ramifications here. The best I can do is offer my brief insights.

First thought: we are truly in uncharted waters here. There have been plenty of controversial movies, but we’ve never seen anything like this. Here we have a major studio offering that will likely never see the light of day in major theaters. And it’s mainly due to the fact that a fascist dictator can’t take a joke.

The irony is thick, to say the least. The Interview purportedly deals with the issues of Jong-un’s reign in North Korea, albeit in humorous and low brow comedy fashion. It probably deals with his lack of allowing free speech in that territory.

And yet the actions of these hackers (allegedly stemming from the country he controls) has eliminated the free speech rights that our country was founded upon. It’s hard for me to come up with any other argument than this: the hackers won and they’ve set a precedent that is dangerous.

Threats against this nation are nothing new. Threats against movie theaters that dare to show Seth Rogen and James Franco satirizing North Korea… well, that is a new one. It begs the once ridiculous sounding question: what if a group of cyber terrorists decide they don’t want to see Fifty Shades of Grey in February? What if a dangerous faction somewhere in the world makes claims of action if we go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens a year from now?

Trust me, I’m no expert on security issues. However, I’m rather sure our government and financial centers of institutions are threatened on a very regular basis. We don’t stop going to them. And yes – our movie theaters are our entertainment centers of institution.

I have no idea whether The Interview is any good (early reviews indicate not, but there’s a lot of talent involved). The action taken yesterday guarantees one thing (security and political arguments aside) – the picture will be seen by a lot of folks who might not have intended to watch it originally. The term all publicity is good publicity should apply here. My guess is a VOD or Netflix type premiere will happen relatively soon and it will be massively successful.

The decision that faced the owners of theater chains and Sony Pictures forced them into an incredibly unenviable position. Still, my reaction is similar to many I’ve seen in the media. This just doesn’t feel right. We have a right to free speech in this nation. This covers everything from key political speech to the words written in a screenplay and filmed for a sophomoric Seth Rogen Christmas holiday release. And we should never feel compelled to surrender those rights to those who wish us harm.