So I’ve finally been watching Lost. Man does this show shit the bed in Season three. I’ve been hearing it rights itself, but that’s going to take some effort.
GAY VS. IMMIGRANT
I will give this to Sascha Baron Cohen: He managed to turn all three of his characters from Ali G into films. Linus didn’t get his own spin-off movie, yo, even if he should have.
Borat was something like a phenomenon, it was telling your body to come along. But that’s partly how comedies work. Here more and more people are hipped to the gag, and though Cohen will undoubtedly unleash some wicked bon-mots, the subject matter will likely be a turn off.
Borat managed to work partly because of the release pattern. Fox put it on 800 screens, and then the next week blew it up, so it had two weekends of huge business. It didn’t die on the vine after that, but that it was quickly becoming a cultural moment helped elevate it. But where Borat was an outsider, Bruno is a homosexual. And that’s completely different politics. The film will open, but I don’t think it will be part of cultural consciousness. Because the joke is party on the audience if they’re uncomfortable with their own sexuality. And the film will definitely press those buttons. Artistically, the film may very well be a success. But it doesn’t strike me as a film that will hit more than comedy buttons. And it needs to be a zeitgeist to transcend Borat. I don’t see it.
WEEKEND PREDICTIONS
Bruno will open, don’t get me wrong.
1. Bruno – $37 Million
2. Ice Age 3 – $23 Million
3. Transformers 2 – $22 Million
4. Public Enemies – $13 Million
5. The Proposal – 8 Million
All round numbers predicting! I Love You Beth Cooper was dumped, so it’s asking too much of an audience to expect much from it. See you Sunday.