Tuesday, March 20, 2018

NYT smears Woody Allen (Ava and C.I.)

THE NEW YORK TIMES lied the country into an illegal war and it can’t stop lying.
It’s never offered an apology.
The closest anyone got to that was Maureen Dowd’s column calling out Judith Miller.
It continues to lie.  Reading WSWS, we see that it also lies about Woddy Allen.

The Times is leading the charge on this as on every front of the sexual misconduct campaign. A January 28 article was clearly looking for a negative answer to the question in its headline, “Can Woody Allen Work in Hollywood Again?” It observed, “Hollywood says it’s done with Harvey Weinstein, James Toback, Kevin Spacey and other figures ousted for misconduct through the #MeToo movement. But what about Woody Allen?”
The article, by Melena Ryzik and Brooks Barnes, gleefully noted that Allen’s last four films “have flopped at the North American box office, taking in a cumulative $26.9 million—roughly half of which goes to theater owners—while carrying a collective $85 million in estimated production costs, not including marketing.


Actually, we got 27 in cumulative box office domestic.  And we didn’t grade generously.
 
Here are the last four films Woody directed:
MAGIC MOONLIGHT 
$16.8 million budget
$10.5 million domestic box office
Total box office $51 million (domestic and international)
IRRATIONAL MAN
$11 budget
$4 million domestic box office
Total box office $27.4 million
CAFÉ SOCIETY
$30 budget
$11.1 domestic box office
Total box office $43.8 million
WONDER WHEEL
$25 million
$1.4 million domestic box office 
Total box office $15.2 million 
Woody Allen’s domestic gross is usually around $12 million.  This is not new.  This is his average and that’s been the case since the 70s.  It’s always been true, since the 80s, that his films made more from home rental and purchase than it did from box office.
It’s also always been known that his films do better overseas.
So why wouldn’t you include the international box office?
If you do, the total budget for the last four films is 82.8 million and the total box office is 137.4 million.
Oh, lookie there, Woody brought in more in ticket sales than his budgets.
Woop, you’re a whore, Melena!  Woop, a lying whore, Brooksie!  
  
Now we’re not dealing with anything new above.
This is the whole issue from day one of the big studios.  This goes to net and to gross and to creative accounting that lets the studios hide profits and so much more.
But the reality is that Woody’s film, in their initial theatrical release, bring in more in ticket sales than is spent on budgets.
That’s too much reality for the whores of THE NEW YORK TIMES to deal with.
Again, domestically, his films have always performed better on home media.
We found it really interesting that the paper’s two whores focused on Woody’s last four films.  Didn’t you?
There’s a reason for that.
If they’d gone with the last five, they’d have to include BLUE JASMINE.
Budget?  18 million.
$33.4  million in US ticket sales and, when domestic and international are combined, the film sold $97.5 million in tickets.

When you want to lie, you distort -- NYT did that most infamously with Janet Jackon's album sales when they attacked her after the 2004 Super Bowl performance.  They have no ethics, they're whores.

Woody Allen is prestige, like Bob Dylan.   His last album to sell well was MODERN TIMES (2006) which went platinum in the US (and in Canada and the UK).  Both 2009 releases (TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE and CHRISTMAS IN THE HEART – the first went gold in the UK, the second went silver), TEMPEST (2012, silver in the UK), SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT (2015, no certifications in any country),  FALLEN ANGELS (2016, no certifications in any country) and Triplicate (2017, no certificates in any country).  It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t sold a studio album in the US since 2006.  He’s a prestige act meaning that his name is supposed to be a draw and his signing is supposed to indicate that the label wants to pursue art and not just sell units – which is attractive to recording artists.  

Similarly, Woody Allen provides instant prestige to any studio he’s signed with.  No director has directed as many Academy Award nominated performances: Diane Keaton (ANNIE HALL – won the Academy Award), Cate Blanchett (BLUE JASMINE – won the award), Mira Sorvino (MIGHTY APHRODITE, won Best Supporting Actress),  Maureen Stapleton (INTERIORS, nominated for Best Supporting Actress),  Mariel Hemingway (MANHATTAN, best supporting Actress),  Michael Caine and Dianne Weist (both won, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress),  Martin Landau (CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, won Best Supporting Actor), Judy Davis (HUSBANDS AND WIVES, Best Supporting Actress),  Jennifer Tilly and Chazz Palminteri (BULLETS OVER BROADWAY, nominees for Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor),  Dianne Weist (BULLETS OVER BROADWAY, won Best Supporting Actress), Sean Penn and Samantha Morton (SWEET AND LOWDOWN, nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress) and  Penelope Cruz (VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA, won Best Supporting Actress).  That’s fifteen performances nominated for Academy Awards.  That’s amazing for one director.  That’s part of the prestige.  And that’s before we get to the number of times he’s been nominated as a writer or a director.

Again, it’s a prestige issue.

Prestige?  Something THE NEW YORK TIMES doesn't possess.







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