Chris Marquette Message Board

Wow, I read that quickly and thought you said take a picture of him in tight boxer briefs (or something to that effect). He does stand in front of the mirror in his tighty whities in Mandy Lane.

Yup. Posted here:

http://www.chris-marquette.com/forum/vi … php?id=501

It's also on the main site:

www.chris-marquette.com

About Chris - Interviews

Excellent! Post back with the direct link when it's up so I can let Tony know, and he'll link back to you.

Figured I should start a new thread for this:

http://www.chris-marquette.com/forum/vi … php?id=500

This must have been at another screening than the one I attended. Most films are shown several times. Nothing like that happened at my screening and this is the first I've ever heard about this. "The talk of the town?" I devoured all the press I could and never saw it mentioned.

I can only tell you how I got it out of my head. I happened to have seen about a half dozen films in a row at Sundance which were all very dark. This was just one of them. By the time I'd seen a few more I'd pretty much wiped it from my mind. So, for me, the solution wasn't seeing happy, lighthearted films. It was seeing more horrific and gruesome ones. Of course, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that nor would I have chosen to do so. That's just how it happened.

That said, don't say I didn't warn you. I've been trying to let people know how difficult it is to watch for a year and a half now (I'm not talking about in my review). It's the only film I've ever seen which I've specifically told certain people they should NOT see. I've never done that before or since and I saw over 500 movies at festivals since the start of 2006 including some pretty awful ones.

One way that people have been able to deal with it is to post on the IMDb boards. Sylvia's mother actually posts there herself and she has a website. She also has a MySpace for Sylvia, as does her real-life sister. I've posted and replied on all of them on various blog entries and such and had them all write to me personally. Having Sylvia's mother or sister actually write and tell you how much they appreciate your comments is a big help.

I'm so glad you got to see it. Your reaction is pretty much word for word what I wrote in my review (a year and a half ago!) and what I've been telling people privately. It's the only film I've ever seen which I told my mother not to watch.

My review

It premiered May 15 on Showtime and has been showing over and over. I posted the schedule at several sites. Sorry I didn't get over here to post it -- there are at least 10 sites where I posted it at and it's hard to keep up with them all and remember where it might be of interest.

It's on five more times this week on the various Showtime channels as well as On Demand, if you have that. 

An American Crime schedule

I've never really understood the difference between rap and hip-hop myself. I think they're basically the same thing. Hip-hop rhyme sounds good to me.

Lord knows I appreciate non-conformist work and certainly have seen plenty of decent films that didn't necessarily have a traditional narrative. But this one felt like it had no story at all to speak of. I would like to have seen at least one character arc. Instead there were essentially vignettes, glimpses into these peoples' lives during the course of one day. Not that its a bad thing for the viewer to have to deduce who they are -- where they come from and where they're going -- but I just didn't feel like much effort was made at all to flesh out any kind of story here. I was hoping for a protagonist, someone I could care about, someone whose actions or behavior would touch me, either positively or negatively. It just felt, as you described it, more like a documentary or reality show where a bunch of cameras are following some kids around.

Well, I said I wouldn't review the film and I'm breaking my vow already!

I will admit that I did find it charming, though. It was certainly entertaining. And I'm not saying it was a bad movie. I was just hoping for more. Maybe you have to be stoned to really appreciate it. Alas, my druggie days are behind me.

I'll have to try and remember what Mike told me. The main thing I remember is that it was all essentially improv. I don't think anything he did was scripted.

Sweet! She did a great job with it, too, posting little teasers. That's the best way to do it. And I'm glad she pointed out that you do not need a MySpace account to read them. A lot of people think you do and sometimes that's the excuse they use for reposting them. They do need to sign up in order to post comments, but that's exactly what Mike's people want and why they posted it there. As a result, they've been deluged with requests and he just passed 2000 friends. That blog post alone has 128 comments and the blog itself has over 30,000 views even though it only has 9 posts.

Thanks again! :grovel: :hug:

Well that sucks. Do you have a copy of what you'd posted? At least she took down the thumbnails and publicly thanked you. 

I don't know anything about it, what email was used, whether or not it's set to notify via email, or if anyone even checks it. I do see now that she posted his YouTube link on their "Links" page which, fortunately, has his official site and MySpace as #1 and 2.

Yup. I mentioned that a couple of posts back, that it was in both that banner as well as the header.

Thanks so much for stepping in and speaking up. I thought that about the Luke pics as well. Maybe she just figured that's the role he's most known for, which will be true until Twilight comes out. So it does make sense, to some extent, although I agree that he looks much better in many other pics.

It's not the one I wrote. I don't know where they got it from. It looks like they or someone else wrote it. The filmography looks like it came from IMDb. It's odd, we have a very good bio and filmography and would gladly let them use it as long as they give credit. Then at least we'd all be on the same page. But it is a fansite, at any rate, and I suppose they can do whatever they want as long as the info isn't taken without credit or is incorrect.

They posted the comment at 9:26 AM. I saw it 2 hours ago and emailed her at 2:52 (it's 4:46 now). I don't think she's read it yet. I have a feeling I know what will happen but I like to run everything by her before I act.

They'll definitely need to do at least 3 things right away:

1) Remove those Mandy Lane pics -- they are definitely spoilery.
2) Change their tagline so it doesn't say they are the "only" source for Mike info.
3) Remove the blog posts and post links only. A couple of lines as an excerpt or brief synopsis in their own words is okay -- that's how Lexicon does it.

It will take awhile to look through all the galleries but I took a quick look and what I saw so far all comes from other sites -- the films' official sites, IMDb, Wire, etc. They may not be able to snag them from there and put their own tag on them but that's not our responsibility. I didn't, at first glance, see anything exclusive to me or Mike.

The more I think about it the more I'm baffled as to why they didn't approach us about it before. Obviously they aren't trying to be sneaky about it -- they "broke the news" in a comment on his MySpace. I'm 100% positive they think they are doing a good thing in thier eyes. They just need to learn some of the rules.

I think it might be a good idea for you to post about it. After all, it would probably educate others as well. Then if they get something more official from Mike's people they will be prepared.

Thanks!

Same here.

This is the banner they posted in a comment on Mike's MySpace:

Obviously the tagline is a problem. Although I'm sure they meant no harm. Between you and me they ought not be posting the blog entries in their entirety, either. They need to do what Twilight Lexicon does, which is simply post a link to the blog entry. That's just common internet courtesy. They've been notified about both.

Ahh...the $21,000 question. Or $200+ million, as the case may be.

You basically got it right. The ones who lose are the ones who paid for it (the producers/production companies). The distributor loses as well. In this case, of course, the distributor in the US is also the lead production company, but they are factored in separately.  Yes, it becomes a tax writeoff. It has to be, just as if you invested in a business that failed or you lost money in any particular tax year. Weep not for WB, though, as parent company Time Warner makes plenty in profits in any given year to offset the losses.

Typical marketing costs for a major Hollywood movie are about half their published budget (on top of production costs). For example, a $200 million budgeted film (production costs) can easily spend another $100 million on marketing for a total cost of $300 million. Some films double their budget in marketing costs.

I don't know exactly what SR's costs were but marketing never tops production costs. I've just never heard of that.

If the production budget was actually $120M, I can see marketing being $80M for a total of $200M. I think the estimates of a $300M total are based on the idea that the $120M published production budget is low. Some are estimating that production costs actually reached $180M or so. In that case, another $120M in marketing is possible which would equal $300M.