Posts Tagged ‘The Hangover’

2009's "Watchmen" made only a few million more than its budget. Is its "R" rating partially to blame?

In an article for Variety.com columnist Tatiana Siegel reports how lately Hollywood has been growing more and more averse to having their films stamped with an “R” rating. The topic gets introduced with the upcoming Clash of the Titans remake, which if you’ve seen the trailer or any commercials you’ll understand is supposed to have its fair share of violence.

Basically, the rule of thumb has been growing more and more into the overall standard. The bigger the budget, the less likely a studio will accept an “R” rating. The logic is of course that PG-13 ratings draw the widest audiences, which means the highest possible returns. Small budget films receive more slack (such as selective horror projects), but studios even insist that they shoot for PG-13 if possible (ex., Prom Night (2008)).

Some requirements are easy to satisfy. For instance, to avoid an “R” rating a film can only show violence against monsters or limited violence against people. If there is blood it must be limited, and if not it must be a different color than red – typically black. And of course, foul language must be kept to a minimum (the F word can only be uttered once).

Studios are more weary of releasing “R” rated pics lately because they’re failing to bring in big returns. Two recent examples are Watchmen and The Wolfman. Both cost over $100 million to produce but failed to make back their budgets with domestic grosses (Wolfman only managed to make back $61 million domestically, and even its worldwide B.O. failed to make it break even).

Screenwriters have stopped writing scripts that are intended to be “R” rated because studios are refusing to pick them up. However there are people within the industry who are willing to be more cavalier with raunchy material. Director/Producer Todd Phillips (The Hangover) supposedly told writer Phil Hay regarding the topic, “Write [the script] the best it can be. And we’ll figure it out later.” – Variety

What is your opinion on the “R” and/or “PG-13″ ratings? As a moviegoer, do you care about what the rating is of the movie you want to see? Do ratings affect which movies you see? What if a film is rated “R” but proves satisfying and entertaining enough to justify its ticket price?

Tell us what you have to say!

Quick Opinion: The movies mentioned by Siegel (The Wolfman, Watchmen, Prom Night) may not be the best examples to list on this topic. Based on reviews and audience reactions, as well as talks with friends, both The Wolfman and Watchmen‘s lack of success is not due to their being “R” rated. People seem to agree that The Wolfman‘s plot was too generic and its characters too flat, and seemed undecided about whether it wanted to be new or nostalgic. Fans of the Watchmen comics conceded that there was too much story to pack into a single film, which made the screen adaptation feel overstuffed and lack concentration. The remake of Prom Night suffered from arguably too little violence, and might have actually made more money had it shared the same “R” rating as its original. Because of how popular the horror genre is with teenagers, though, business logic tells you that you don’t make a product for a particular audience and then make it inaccessible to them (remember the No Admittance Under 17 “rule”). However, sometimes I think that studios who make horror films fail to recognize that there are plenty of horror fans over the age of 17 as well (in fact most of them). All in all, I’m convinced that it’s not the “R” ratings on certain films that are the issue, but the overall poor quality of those films and their inability to satisfy their audiences.

With "500 Days of Summer" (above) and "The Hangover" both being critically acclaimed comedies, which film received the bigger Oscar snub?

A recent Variety article by Glenn Whipp takes a (very) light jab at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by pointing out, as many have done, that comedies have yet again stayed out of the Oscars’ list of Best Picture nominations. Two pics he mentions specifically are 500 Days of Summer and The Hangover. The latter made the American Film Institute’s Top 10 of the year, and the former even made the Movie-Thoughts Top 10. Both films were critically acclaimed, with The Hangover earning 78% on RottenTomatoes.com and 500 Days of Summer earning 86%.

Whipp notes in his article that it is not the concept of comedy that the Academy has excluded, being that A Serious Man has black comedy, Up in the Air has spurts of humor, Up is debatably an action/comedy, and Inglourious Basterds is peppered with tongue-in-cheek fantasy.

So what’s keeping The Hangover away? Crudeness is no doubt the answer, but that’s only an explanation for its brand of humor. In other matters that the Academy judges, which include artistic quality and technical prowess, the film can be said to fall short. The topic of human interest (which couldn’t be a broader label) is another favorite of the voters, so if Judd Apatow’s 40 Year Old Virgin didn’t have a chance, then certainly The Hangover wouldn’t. But what about 500 Days of Summer? A smart, funny film about how to get over what you thought was a great relationship surely satisfies the Academy’s criteria, right? Apparently not. We are left to only guess, which is really all we can do.

This all begs the question of, if we were to consider these two films’ omission by the Academy a snub, which was the bigger snub? Leave your vote in the comments section of this post or via this site’s Contact page. Tell the world what you think!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zoe Deschanel in director Marc Webb's "500 Days of Summer," written by Scott Neustadler and Michael H. Weber

The Writer’s Guild of America has announced its nominees for the year’s  Best Original and Best Adapted Screenplays. The nominees for Best Original include the following:

500 Days of Summer (Scott Neustadler and Michael H. Weber), Avatar (James Cameron), The Hangover (Jon Lucas and Scott Moore), The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal), and A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen).

The nominees for Best Adapted include the following:

Crazy Heart (Scott Cooper – based on novel by Thomas Cobb), Julie and Julia (Nora Ephron – based on separate books by Julie Powell and Julia Child), Precious (Geoffrey Fletcher – based on the novel Push by Sapphire), Star Trek (Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman – based on Star Trek as created by Gene Roddenberry), and Up in the Air (Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner – based on novel by Walter Kirn).

Notable films that were not eligible for the WGA awards because they were not written under the guild’s jurisdiction were: District 9, Inglourious Basterds, The Road, A Single Man, and Up.

Source: Variety

A still from "Coraline"

The American Film Institute has released their choices for the top 10 films of 2009. The list comprises the following films (in alphabetical order):

Coraline, The Hangover, The Hurt Locker, The Messenger, Precious, A Serious Man, A Single Man, Sugar, Up, and Up in the Air.

Being that Up in the Air hasn’t yet been released into theaters nationwide, its inclusion on this list might act as great promotion and cause the film to have a bigger opening weekend than it would have. The Hangover might also enjoy boosted DVD sales.

Select groups representing these respective films will receive AFI’s awards at a ceremony in Los Angeles on January 5th.

Source: Variety

Quick Opinion: What the hell is The Hangover doing on this list? Certainly there were more deserving films that could have taken its spot in AFI’s top 10 of the year, such as Star Trek or Ingloureous Basterds, to name a few. But to play Devil’s advocate for a moment, many people have been lobbying for years for comedies to get more credit from organizations like AFI because while a successful comedy may not be “artistically superior” (as not every comedy can be Annie Hall) it nevertheless may be impressively effective in garnering the reactions its genre seeks to induce. To The Hangover‘s credit its reception was surprisingly positive from critics, and since its release it has penetrated pop culture thoroughly. Is this grounds for being mentioned with films like Precious, The Messenger, and Coraline? Tell us what you think.

The Ugly Truth

Marisa –

The Ugly Truth starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler debuted on July 24, 2009.  Like any other film, the usual slew of reviews appeared; according to RottenTomatoes.com only 15% of critics recommended the film.  While reading many of the reviews yields the impression that the film is a sign of the death of the romantic comedy, there is an even more interesting trend that becomes clear regarding the course language used in the film.  Quite a number of critics complained of the film’s vulgarity not because it was more offensive than the average film, but because it was so unexpected in a romantic comedy aimed mainly at women.
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