I saw this yesterday and meant to comment on it--Stone Surprised by Poor Response to Epic

Oliver Stone Surprised by Poor Response to 'Alexander,' Blames 'Fundamentalism' in U.S.

[...] "I was quite taken aback by the controversy and fierceness of the reviews about a character we don't really know too much about," Stone told reporters in London Wednesday before the film's British premiere.

"I operate on my passion and sometimes I'm naive, I don't think about the consequences," he said.

"From day one audiences didn't show up," he said. "They didn't even read the reviews in the South because the media was using the words, `Alex the gay.' As a result you can bet that they thought, `We're not going to see a film about a military leader that has got something wrong with him.'" [...]

Well, this is obviously, patently false. Everyone knows that people in the South can't read, so this whole thing about not reading the reviews is just ludicrous.

It might not have occurred to Mr. Stone, but people might not have come to see the movie because it's getting pretty easy to spot a stinker. I remember seeing the trailers for it long before I heard any pre-release commentary about it, and I sat there thinking that it looked like an overdone pile of crap. The later reviews only confirmed my suspicion that it was an Ishtar-grade turkey, saving me the price of admission to go see for myself how bad it stank.

And since when did anybody ever care whether anyone in the South went and saw a movie?! It's not like they ever say, "Well, we tanked in L.A. and New York, but thank God we hit it big in Meridian!"

Silly, vain, man.
posted by Terry at 8:15:00 AM