Dissapointing hyped films

Where's the hype? Neither of these films were really hyped by the studio. There were the usual ads but I can't remember any hype.

"Monster" has two great performances and is, to me, enthralling in its examination of a serial killer. Whether I would return to the film often is unlikely and I wouldn't recommend it to those who aren't tuned in to the kind of film.

"The Girl With the Pearl Earing" is likely more engrossing to those who are into art other than just a passing interest. It is extraordinarily faithful to the actual life history of the painter and wonderfully acted. Can't say I was dissapointed in either movie and, again, I don't get the characterization that either film was "hyped." Good reviews are not hype. Hype is used by studios and promoters to sell the films.

Try "Meet the Fockers" for successful hype for a basically average comedy.

Hahaha.I was very dissapointed in Meet the parents.Its so annoying because the cast in brilliant I dont want it to be naff.
Havnt seen Meet the Fockers yet.

Your right, they wernt hyped.Maybe I just over expected greatness from them from things like Charlize getting an Oscar and many people saying Scarlett Johanson is the 'next big thing'.

The only one I ever saw who bordered on "hyping" the movie "Monster" as, among many other critics was totally captivated by Theron's performance, was Roger Ebert. I agreed with him on this one. An electrifying performance in a film that truly is difficult to watch. It did make me understand the psychopathic killer more than I had before.

Scarlett Johansson is a natural actress -- she doesn't force her performances and that's refreshing. Her and Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation" were the whole movie. The script was good, but not that good -- it was the two actors who made it real. I connected with the circumstance of being off in a foreign place and encountering a relationship that was spur-of-the-moment but actually timeless. Two ships passing in the night (or Sinatra's "Strangers In the Night")
but not self-consciously realized. Many on this forum found it boring. Perhaps because maybe they are boring?

I wonder how many positive "reviews" are paid for by the studios, and written by unscrupulous reviewers, though.

Which isn't to say that either "Monster," or "Lost in Translation" weren't good films, in my opinion, however. I thought they were both excellent films, although Johansson was the weak point in the second. She was over her head playing a late-twenties graduate student.

She was better suited for the role in "The Girl With the Pearl Earing," playing the slack-jawed ingenue.

I liked her performance in her supporting role in "Ghost World." Minimal lines, all attitude.

I developed the biggest crush on Thora Birch after seeing that film. That film was her tour de force.

Well, Infra, your being another consumate film buff, I do really respect your opinion and I realize that there are likely reviewers that could easily be studio stooges. Sometimes when Ebert (who I generally respect) writes a review that just doesn't make sense, I am startled.

Johansson is so young -- give the poor girl a chance. She's garnered some envious roles and I doubt it's the Hollywood casting couch (maybe the wives of all those aging producers are finally putting out to their husbands?) Yikes, what does one do? Nothing.

The Blair Witch Project was interesting, but overhyped.

It was word-of-mouth, not the studio that originally began hyping "Blair Witch" and the box office was a big surprise to the filmmakers, the releasing studio and perhaps because it was so different and the movie-going public (especially the average age attending the multiplexes which is probably around 18) thirst was for some entirely new. It opened to very mixed reviews and I haven't looked them up. I don't see it as necessarily a "hyped" movie either.

(It's present day status is that of a cult classic, methinks).

Thank you for that compliment, LW.

I hold your opinions in the same esteem.

About Johansson, I feel she was too young for the "Translation" role. I didn't buy what they were trying to pull-off. With that said, I still liked that move a whole lot. It was more a reflection of Sofi Coppola's character, and it shone through dazzlingly.

Maybe Johansson just needs a few more years to mature. Birch is just two years older, and her performance drove "Ghost World."

I agree with you about "Blair Witch," and the way it was hyped--by word-of-mouth--rather than driven by the studio. That movie fell so flat for me.

"The Blair Witch Project", a truly disappointing hyped film.

"Lost in Translation" was faithful to real life -- open-ended and with no real ending (punctuated by that whisper from Bill Murray into Johansson's ear). I was comfortable in "what they were trying to pull off" and I love the script. The characters all came off as true-to-life, maybe unfortunately that many parts of real life are platitudinous. The question is, did it make a good movie? I think it did and the idea that Johansson was much younger was part of the core of the story. Because we know her real age is superflous.

Word of mouth is not technically "hype," as hype traditionally comes from those who create the art or sell the art. I sell art that is mainly aimed at an audience who are decorating their home or office. We try to stay clear of hype as people are getting very sensitive to being convinced to buy by being onslaugjhted with false rhetoric and enthusiasm (which nearly 100% what hyperbole really is). Hype is extraordinary exagerration like "a mile high sandwich." I can't find any original promotion of "Blair Witch" that could follow that standard, although the word-of-mouth might have been that, "It's a mile-high movie."

The newspaper ads after the film became a big hit probably did resort to the usual word bytes that are reaching towards being over-the-top in order to increase the audience even higher, so I suppose in that case you're right. A lot of people went because it was such a surprise hit and were dissapointed. Time to wake up and smell the coffee regarding the average age and demography of today's multiplex audience. It can cure a lot of the symptoms left over from racing to the multiplex with only limited ammunition as far as opinions about a movie.

What I was referring to by "what they were trying to pull off" is Johansson as a twenty-eight year-old grad student. That was laughable, and it came through in the parts she had to speak. Her real age would have been superfluous had she had the maturity to pull-off her role. In my opinion, she lacked it.

Whether it comes from a movie studio, or the adolescent street, hyperbole is hyperbole, which I prefer to define as "extravagant exaggeration." I don't know about describing hyperbole as "false rhetoric" when we're talking about something as subjective as movie opinions--unless an opinion was paid for, or otherwise insincere. Word-of-mouth isn't necessarily hyperbole. In the case of "The Blair Witch Project" the word-of-mouth was.

I don't off-handedly dismiss a movie based on demographics; I'm not so prejudicial. Had that been the case, I never would have seen "Napoleon Dynamite" which I thought was absolutely hilarious.

Hmm, you must not know any California girls!

I thought she played 28 perfectly (and I don't remember where she was suppose to be from).

Much as I like playing games with semantics, we're going to have to agree to disagree here.

Even though I do not particularly like "Blair Witch."

The commercial I saw for it says that it was "scary as hell" and some other things such as "scariest movie." I suppose it was after it landed as a hit.

Perhaps it's too obvious to mention--Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace; I don't know how old you folks are, but I was one of those fools who had spent the nearly 20 years between Jedi and Menace anxiously awaiting the Star Wars prequels.

you must be really disappointed.

I don't like the prequels either. The only thing I liked about the first one was the flow in the lightsaber battle.

I think we've sufficiently hashed over on these threads the dissapointment in the "Star Wars" prequels. They aren't bad movies, but they aren't as good as the original three and even with Part III attempting to return to the genre of space opera, I'd like to keep in my memory the thrill of seeing the first film, taking friends who hadn't seen it. This was, in the end, like taking friends to ride on a new super roller coaster. Look at the core idea of all the films and there isn't much there. Sorry.

Honestly most hyped films are a disappointment it is very hard to meet expectations, it is always the less hyped films that I like the most since I go in with very little expectations such as Motorcycle Diaries, whereas the Star Wars prequels{sorry for bringing them up again} set such an immense bar for themselves that it was nearly impossible to reach. At the end of the day though hyper generates $$$, and taking your audience by surprise rarely does.

Hype is often just as unsuccessful as it is successful -- witness the past 19 weeks of dissapointing box office for the industry. I loved "Motorcycle Diaries" and the kind of rhetorical hype that accompanies the release of hopeful blockbusters is just a bit too obvious. Even the teenage audience has caught on, but some films survive and make money by the law of attrition. One that is a complete embarassment was "Alexander," supposedly an "artistic" approach to the historical epic but it turned out that most intelligent movie-goers merely found it campy. I don't think we'll seeing Colin Farrel as a blond anytime soon. Just as a test, I put on the DVD of "Tigerland" and witnessed one of the best debut performances as a lead in the last twenty years.

"Alexander" truly was a disappointment, I expected far more from a film chronicling the life of one of my favourite historical figures, and the rift between Farrel's performance in "Tigerland" and the latter is large. The film industry really has been in the doldrums as of late, quite a bit of it is blamed on piracy, but I think the industry has itself to blame for a lot of it, simply look at recent film releases. Batman Begins was expected to alleviate the industries current state though it didn't quite do that. You can also partially blame hype for the industries current performance since many are so overwhelmed by promotions, and advertisements that by the time the film comes out one is sick of it. Take War of the Worlds for example, all the nonsense about Tom Cruise on Oprah, and his relationship with Katie Holmes was overdone.