Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
War films, what are they good for? — not box office
Iraq war films. They may be good for Academy Awards, but not for Hollywood’s b ox office receipts — not yet, anyway.
Ever since “In the Valley of Elah” hit movie theaters in 2007, we in the media have been writing stories looking at whether and when audiences might turn out in big numbers for films that in some way cover the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Several movies dealing with some aspect have come and gone in theaters with very little box office to show for it. The mostly low-budget movies include “Stop-Loss,” “Brothers” or even “The Kite Runner,” which had nothing to do with the current war but nevertheless was about Afghan culture. Even some big-budget films such as “Jarhead” (2005) or “The Kingdom” (2007), which feigned that they had nothing to do with the current conflicts but could not be watched outside the context of today’s headlines, failed to generate big returns.
So, with that as a backdrop and just coming off the Oscar victory for “The Hurt Locker” earlier this month, a good many movie reporters watched anxiously to see if this past weekend’s “Green Zone” could break the slump. It had a major Hollywood star in Matt Damon and top director with Paul Greengrass. The two had paired up before in two of the smash hit “Bourne” spy movies. It had all the makings of a box office smash, except that the story took place inside the US controlled green zone in Baghdad and covered the US military’s inability to find weapons of mass destruction following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The outcome: the movie flopped. You can read about “Green Zone” here and an interview with Damon here and this weekend’s box office story here.
It is obvious in Monday’s hindsight, that moviegoers still prefer escapist fantasy such as, “Alice in Wonderland,” over realistic war stories while the wars are ongoing.
Why is the box office for war movies interesting? Because in World War II, movies were used as propaganda films to pump up the war effort. Where Korea and Vietnam were concerned, it wasn’t until well after those conflicts ended that, generally speaking, audiences were able to watch meaningful movies about them. So, the question has been what about modern audiences and the current wars? And the answer is: overcoming whatever feelings people have about them, too, will take years.
from Tales from the Trail:
General Odierno gives “The Hurt Locker” friendly review
As the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno must have on-the-ground knowledge of the American military teams that defuse roadside bombs in Iraq.
So it seems like high praise, indeed, that he complimented the Oscar-winning movie "The Hurt Locker" for how it portrayed the sacrifices made by bomb disposal soldiers in the Iraq war.
"I think what I like about it is, it shows, first, the camaraderie that is required here, the tension, the risk that's involved in some of the jobs that we do here," Odierno said in an interview with PBS Newshour.
"I'm sure many people would say it could be a bit more accurate in some areas, but I believe it's a good representation of the sacrifice, dedication that it takes here in order to combat such a very difficult mission of terrorism and fighting a war on terrorism," he said.
"The Hurt Locker", an Iraq war drama about a team of bomb-defusing specialists, won the Oscar for best picture and placed Kathryn Bigelow into history books as the first woman ever to win the Academy Award for best director.
Photo credit: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson (Bigelow poses with her Oscar for "The Hurt Locker")
This was never intended as a political film. It is a film about soldiers and what an insane environment they have to survive in. The most moving part of the film to me was late in the story when the main character is back in the states, standing in the seemingly endless cereal aisle of a supermarket, one week after being in the desperately impoverished war zone of Iraq. That was the whole film, right there.
If you want political commentary on war, see Farenheit 911. If you want films about what war is for the soldiers, see Hurt Locker, Saving Private Ryan, Jarhead, or Apocalypse Now. Or enlist and see for yourself.
10 Oscar nominees, but who’s counting?
Back in June, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it would expand its list of best film Oscar contenders to 10 from five, then Academy President Sid Ganis told reporters doing so would “cast our net wider, and it casting that net wider, who knows what will turn up.” (Read about that here). Essentially, what that meant was the Academy wanted more populist fare among its nominees after years of seeing its membership favor low-budget adult dramas over box office hits like Batman movie, “The Dark Knight.”
Why is that important? The Academy knows that nominating popular movies helps boost the audience size for the Oscar telecast. Last year, when “Slumdog Millionaire” was on a roll at box offices ($141 million), more than 38 million people tuned in to the Oscars compared with 32 million the previous year when gritty drama “No Country For Old Men” ($74 million) won best film.
Luckily for the Academy, this year it has a box office smash and a critical hit on its hands in “Avatar” — the highest grossing movie of all time. But the film that pundits say is right behind is low-budget, art house flick “The Hurt Locker.” And heading into Tuesday’s Oscar nominations (read about them here), if you asked Oscar pundits who the top five films would have been, the would have said: “Inglourious Basterds,” “Up in the Air” and ”Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” The fifth slot may have been a toss-up. Then again, it generally always is.
The point is, all five of those films were nominated, and likely only the two — “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” — stand a chance at winning, pundits say. So, having 10 nominees may not have changed a thing. But that is what insiders think. You are the fans. What do you think? Did the 10 matter, and does it make for a more exciting show? Put another way, is having “District 9″ among the nominees, for instance, really going to change the thinking among the 6,000 or so Academy members? Maybe not. But how about “The Blind Side”? And do movies like those make you any more, or less, willing to tune in to the show on March 7?
