Posted on 11/23/2007 6:52:38 PM PST by SmithL
Jabbar Magruder is an active duty Army National Guard sergeant who served 11 months in Iraq. He was hoping that stateside Americans would get a glimpse of what the war was like when several dramas featuring the Iraq conflict either in the foreground or the background hit theaters this fall.
Few have. Despite A-list casts - including Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones - and generally good reviews, war-related dramas tanked this fall at the box office, failing to attract a substantial audience during Hollywood's serious film season. And now, with the lighter holiday movie fare blanketing screens beginning this weekend, the cultural window to bring narratives about the war to multiplex patrons is closing.
The public apathy Magruder has seen toward the Iraq conflict seems to be carrying over to the movie theater. Part of that theatrical indifference can be attributed to a nationwide flatlining of box-office receipts this fall. Last weekend was the lowest-attended mid-November weekend in 14 years, according to Brandon Gray, publisher of the online box office monitor Box Office Mojo.
But to some Iraq veterans, like Magruder, who have tried to raise awareness about the war's perils, the apathy represents a larger disconnect many Americans feel toward the war. Implicit in the Redford, Streep and Tom Cruise film "Lions for Lambs" is a challenge to filmgoers to become impassioned about the war.
Few received the challenge; box-office gross for the film dropped 57 percent nationally last weekend, its second in theaters. Its two-week gross was $11.5 million, low for a film that cost a reported $35 million to make. "Lions" earned only slightly more last weekend than "Saw IV," the serial-killer bloodbath, which is in its fourth weekend.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
"America doesn't want to deal with Iraq, period," Magruder said. "There's just apathy.
No, America doesn't want to pay to have anti-American propaganda inflicted on them.
They’ll still be rewarded with more than their fair share of Golden Globes and Academy Awards - leftists always do.
I hope the idiot actors skipped the salary, and instead opted to take a percentage of the box office!
Bingo...of course the idiot leftists just assume that the unwashed masses are too stupid and/or apathetic to support their movies bashing our troops and our nation. Until they catch a clue and leave a little of their arrogance behind they will continue to lose huge quantities of money making trash...or are they just trying to pull a "The Producers" scam?
“Lions” earned only slightly more last weekend than “Saw IV,” ..................... There is the answer, they have to make a gory slash and gash Iraq war movie showing the AQ Jihadists slicing off heads and blowing up children. Buckets of blood splashed all over and then they’ll get more viewers. (Ever notice that the horror movies always have torture scenes, but you never see them using panties over their victims heads.) Where are the John Fords of today? Where are the movies like Wake Island, Battan, Air Force, Flying Tigers, Guadacanal, Objective Burma and Gung Ho, that were made 3 generations ago. More important, why don’t we have Frank Capra and a “Why we Fight” series? The Hollywood left seems to want to produce films more like “Mission to Moscow”(circa 1942).
How did “Lions” do compared with “The Kingdom”?
I know The Kingdom was a good movie. Although it wasn’t an “Iraq War” movie, it has the War on Terror theme.
I popped in on the set of “The Kingdom” over by the old Williams AFB housing right after they finished filming. Very impressive looking blown up buildings!
Lions for Lambs (cost $35 million ) - North American gross $12 million
Most of Hollywood is so delusional and self-absorbed they are incapable of producing anything but celluloid dogsh*t.
Spin, spin, spin. The public is mainly apathetic toward hate-America propaganda. A Saving Private Ryan-style film about the Battle of Fallujah would have a domestic gross in the hundreds of millions.
“Most of Hollywood is so delusional and self-absorbed they are incapable of producing anything but celluloid dogsh*t.”
“Despite A-list casts - including Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones -”
They think it’s all about “star-power”. Totally ego maniacal. Neither of those actors has had a hit in decades.
Joe Garofoli quoted two members of Veterans Against the War. His article was singularly deficient in assessing the ideological thrust of the movies. There may be a question why the anti-war crowd don’t flock to the movies; there can’t be any question why those who believe that toppling Saddam was the correct thing to do aren’t interested in a wholly negative portrayal of why the U.S. is in Iraq and what our soldiers are doing there.
This writer looked up Joe Garofoli at the SF Chronicle’s Web site. He’s a standard-issue lefty, cooing over Kos getting a columnist’s gig at Newsweek because he “critiques” Democrats & has encouraged Democrats to “challenge other Democrats in the primaries,” while knocking Karl Rove as columnist because he is “a party mouthpiece.”
And Garofoli’s most recent contribution to knowledge? A 292-word report on buddies of his in Marin County promoting a “Global Orgasm for Peace,” to occur simultaneously a few days before Christmas. Res ipsa loquitur.
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