Monday Morning Quarterback Part II

By BOP Staff

September 20, 2011

There went your fantasy football season (yes you, Kim Hollis).

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Kim Hollis: Since my main knowledge of Sam Peckinpah remains the Monty Python spoof skit, I didn't really know much about Straw Dogs at all, other than to know the title and that it was a Peckinpah film. I really,really like James Marsden, but I do have an aversion to that sort of extreme violence that Straw Dogs portrays. This was just a tough, tough movie to sell under any circumstance.

David Mumpower: Edwin has done an exceptional job in articulating the negative selling points this movie faced. I will say that when I saw the trailer, I was pleasantly surprised by it. Brett is correct that it is straightforward in nature yet there is a theme in this film that I consider perfectly timed. As we move further into the internet era, I notice more resistance from the manly men crowd who believe in a hard day's work involving physical labor. There is that stigma that if you do not sweat at your job, you are not working hard enough.

The Straw Dogs remake is sold as a clever encapsulation of this jocks versus nerds mentality where women are still prizes to be won and nancy boys like James Marsden do not deserve them. While everyone is right that he means absolutely nothing to the box office bottom line, I very much like this casting and I want to say that while the project has not succeeded at the box office, I am impressed by its daring. This is exactly the sort of title I wish we saw more in that it takes chances while promising a conventional storyline tether of "man protects family and home". All they failed to deliver was a good movie with a lot of box office potential. That sounds snide, but it is not intended to be. There are a lot of positives that will be lost in the end result.




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Fun fact: Matthew Broderick's 17-year-old movie (The Lion King) made $25.7 million more than his wife's brand new movie

Kim Hollis: I Don't Know How She Does It, the Sarah Jessica Parker "comedy," earned $4.4 million this weekend. Why didn't this film strike a chord with its intended audience?

Brett Beach: It wasn't for lack of selling, as I saw SJP pretty much everywhere in the last month promoting it. In its lackluster reception, it reminds me of the barely released Uma Thurman comedy Motherhood from a few years ago. The practical side of me says that there may not be a market for comedies about women wanting to have it all/struggling with having it all (especially if the characters have a tendency to reside in NYC's more tony neighborhoods). The snarky side of me wonders if some people thought it was a very special Twilight Zone-ish Sex and the City in which Carrie gets to see what life as a businesswoman/mother would be like, if she had married one of her other flames. It will probably make significantly less than Did You Hear About the Morgans?, which is saying something.


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