Monday Morning Critic – On The Commercial & Critical Failures Of Atlas Shrugged Part 2

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Every Monday morning, InsidePulse Movies Czar Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings an irreverent and oftentimes hilarious look at pop culture, politics, sports and whatever else comes to mind. And sometimes he writes about movies.

I generally tend to avoid looking at box office grosses because they’re usually used to justify positions on film out of desperation. The first is as justification for why a film is good or why it’s bad. It’s one of those “reasons for dumbasses,” as I like to call it, or “Argumentum ad populum” as the logical fallacy is called. When people discuss the “but lots of people paid to see the film” or “but no one watched it” as reasons for arguments for a film’s quality (or lack thereof) they’re using this argument and it’s generally crap. A film is good or bad; the people who do or do not see it don’t indicate whether or not a film is good or not.

If we judged a film’s quality in part by how many people went to see then The Avengers would be the greatest film that’s ever been made, even, in a lot of people’s eyes. I thought it was garbage but obviously my opinion wasn’t the prevailing one. It’s going to get a sequel, blah blah, because it made enough money and enough people thought it was worthy of one.

Which is why the failures of Atlas Shrugged Part 2 on both a commercial and critical failure after failing on both levels the first time around fascinate me.

The first time around I enjoyed Part 1 but it lost a ton of money and got horrible reviews for the most part. It’s one thing to make a sequel to a film because you made a ton of money or because the people who saw it adored it. It’s another to make a sequel for no real reason, which is what Atlas Shrugged Part 2 felt like. With a smaller budget based on the look of the first compared to the second, and a cast that’s been nearly completely replaced from the first, the sequel was made and dumped into theatres without a lot of fanfare. And it responded accordingly in the box office number for the weekend, which wasn’t impressive at all.

To me it felt like the film was made because the people behind it felt compelled for no good reason, that the film’s overall message of “Capitalism, fuck yeah” was more important than finding a market for it. It’s one of the amusing things about this week’s box office report; with all the things prepped to make this a surprise hit like 2016: Obama’s America it fell as flat as the first film.

A Movie A Week – The Challenge

This Week’s DVD – Anonymous

It was odd watching Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous, mainly because there was lingering sense that eventually his “I’m going to blow some stuff up” mentality in film-making is eventually going to come out. But interestingly enough it didn’t as he brings a straightforward look at a film destined for controversy amongst Shakespearean scholars that asks a simple question: Was William Shakespeare really the author of the plays that bear his name?

Emmerich says no and points to Edward de Vere (Rhys Ifans) as the true author, painting Shakespeare as a guy who just got really lucky and rode this to fame & fortune. Throw in a whole bunch of conspiracy theories about the era and you have an interesting take on the events but not necessarily a historically accurate one. The film is essentially a more serious version of Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter but as a film it’s quite good.

I reviewed it back when it was released theatricallyand my opinion remains the same. Quite a good film, definitely worth the view, though it isn’t anywhere near the

Strongly recommended.

What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 Pints of Bass Ale and community college co-eds with low standards at the Alumni Club

Alex Cross – Tyler Perry takes his dress off to play a butch action hero.

Skip It – A Tyler Perry film without overt Christian overtones? Eek.

Paranormal Activity 4 – More with video cameras and such.

Skip It – Can this series just end? Honestly.

Hating Breitbart (Limited Release) – Apparently it’s a biopic about Andrew Breitbart, the recently deceased political pundit and founder of Breitbart.com and others.

See It – In today’s political climate I’m curious to see how this plays out; Breitbart was a right wing firebrand and I’m always curious to see what kind of insight we can get into the man.

The Sessions (Limited Release) – John Hawkes can’t move his body but wants to score. Helen Hunt is down with cripples, apparently.

See It – Hawkes has been getting rave reviews, including Oscar talk.

Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings his trademarked irreverence and offensive hilarity to Twitter in 140 characters or less. Follow him @ScottSawitz .