Why hypocrisy? The studio had absolutely no faith that a small, hugely inexpensive dumb comedy starring three women (Parker Posey, Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch) could recoup its costs, while a tad more expensive one starring four nobodies (well, Bradley Cooper is sort of a star, I guess) is worthy of a prime June release and a huge influx of promotional dollars. They made the assumption that audiences wouldn’t see a juvenile farce starring women, and for some reason that gets under my skin and chaps my hide to absolutely no end.Do not misunderstand. Neither film is high art. Both are extremely stupid (the former following four guys after a disastrous night in Vegas on the eve of one of their party’s wedding, the latter following three 30-something High School and Collegiate losers given the responsibility of following the sheltered daughter of a powerful Senator to Spring Break), their plots barely a decent enough reason for the films to even exist.
But they do generate laughs, lots of them. There were moments during The Hangover where I almost fell out of my seat, while Poehler has a couple of scenes in Spring Breakdown so hysterical I literally spit up a little bit of Diet Coke (not that this is something I’m proud of). More, it knows when to say when, it’s 86-minute running time a whole lot more palatable it’s almost two hours long male-driven second cousin.
I had a chance to sit down with Dratch and co-writer/director Ryan Shiraki during the first week of SIFF and asked them if they thought Warner was making a mistake, and if the studio’s decision was based on maybe a tiny bit of sexism, in not releasing the film to theaters and shuffling it instead straight to DVD.
“We heard so many different reasons as to why we weren’t getting a release,” commented Dratch, “and I remember one of them along the way was that we weren’t big enough stars to open the movie and they’d have to put in like $25-million in advertising and marketing into it. Yet, on the other hand there have been so many guy comedies with lesser known [actors] that do get a release. I would think Parker Posey and Amy Poehler have some name recognition, even if I do understand [they’re] not quite Drew Barrymore or Cameron Diaz.”
“We had the bad luck of being born at the wrong studio,” added Shiraki. “That’s really what it is. We were conceived to parents that didn’t understand us. When we were at Sundance, we had two other studios that wanted to buy and release the movie and Warner Bros. for whatever reason said no.”
“It’s hard to demonize the studio completely. They did let us make [the film]. That’s a miracle in and of itself, for a studio to make a female driven comedy that cost under $15-million that also makes Harry Potter. I mean, here we are marching into the President’s office saying, ‘Hi there! We want to make a comedy, and we want to do it with no guys.’ And it was like, who are we kidding, and yet they let us do it.”
“At the end of the day, we can’t be like, ‘Fuck you, all!’ because they let us play for an entire summer and the let us make the movie and even when we were at Sundance they were still supportive of the idea of this movie, if not how to market it. It’s like any difficult parental situation. Love them, hate them, what are you going to do?”
Personally, I think both Dratch and Shiraki are being too nice. The Hangover is a perfect example of the sexism on display here on the part of the studio, one comedy getting the full media blitz while the other gets shuffled off into Best Buy bargain bin oblivion with hardly a how do you do. It isn’t right, not even remotely. Nonetheless, here’s one critic’s vote for Spring Breakdown to at least make a couple of DVD waves and find the audience it deserves.
"Spring Breakdown" hits DVD and Blu-ray today while "The Hangover" will be at a theater near you this Friday. (Below clip is R-rated - you've been forewarned.)
No comments:
Post a Comment