Assange flick The Fifth Estate branded 'WORST FILM OF THE YEAR' Julian Assange hero flick The Fifth Estate has proved the year’s biggest film loser. The Benedict Cumberbatch helmed vehicle black listed by the film’s real-life muse made just $6m worldwide on a budged of $28m. That means the film recovered just 21 per cent of the cash spent by studio DreamWorks and its owner Disney. The …
I actually saw it, and didn't think it was propoganda at all. It seemed to be a fair biography of the other guy who setup wikileaks and isnt the arrogant gloryhound that assange is.
It was even fair enough to show him at the end slamming the movie.
In my experience, if someone doesnt want you to see a movie, then you should see it. I thought it was very good.
It's more that (most) Americans won't pay to watch a movie in which Americans are made to look stupid.
I mean they rewrote history (U571) so that it was Americans that nicked the Enigma because that's what sells in flyover-land.
Couple that with the undeniable fact that Assange comes across as a bit of a douche and you have a recipe for a disaster
The NSA has been gathering records of "online sexual activity" and visits to pornographic websites "as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalising others through incendiary speeches", the Huffington Post reports, in a story co-written by former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald and based on an NSA document provided by Edward Snowden.
Why is it that the NSA thought that allegations of sexual activity could harm the reputations of its opponents?
I watched that on DVD with my kids, sometime after all the hype and scorn poured on to the cinema release, and I rather liked it. I've never read the books though, so maybe that helps?
It says something when the first second post on an article is fuck-all to do with the article's subject (who this Assmange fella again??)!
I think the real problem is no-one actually cared enough to go see it.
Or maybe just didn't understand the title? I saw adverts for a film called "John Carter" and only noticed them because I remembered reading the books as a teenager and wondered "is it that John Carter?" For people who'd never heard of the books the title was plain daft, they could at least have tagged "of Mars" on the end.
It did have 'of Mars' in the shooting title, but then Disney's market research wonks decided that 'of Mars' would turn off women and it would do badly at the cinema. So they dumped the two words and it did disastrously at the box office - despite being completely splendid. Ahhhhh Deja Thoris....
Being a bit of a Burroughs Buff myself, I did watch John Carter: fearing the worst, hoping for the best. It was shockingly not bad. Disney took no more liberties with the books than Mr. Burroughs did (It was a serial written for profit, and there were some aspects of the books that were only written to up the sales numbers), the costumes in the movie even closely resembled the ones in the books. The ones in the illustrated plates not the 'costume' described in the text.
First off an admission - I haven't seen the film and nor am I likely to. Quite frankly from what I can understand there's a significant lack of lasers, phase cannons, Uzi 9mms, warp drives, quantum influx inhibitors, TARDISes etc, for my liking.
However, if the film sucks then it's as a result of the script writers, producers and director screwing up. An actor can only work with what they're given, and if you give them a turd a good actor like Cumberbatch can probably work with it and polish it handsomely, but it's still a turd, and it still stinks.
...Does Benedict Cucumber do a decent Aussie accent?...because his ' Ethnic' one
in the "Wrath of Khan" debacle ( Khan was a Middle Easterner, wasn't he?) was none
existent as was his skin tone....or was he playing Sebastian Khan the Old Etonian
megalomaniac from cricklewood?.....just cannot believe they shat on the original.
BLASPHEMY!!! Darryl, BLASPHEMY i say...look the fact of the matter is this....
....Cucumber cannot act...i'm always aware, whenever i watch him, that i'm
watching an ACTOR, ACTING, not a CHARACTER being portrayed by an
ACTOR, and if you're going to remake any kind of filmic 'Scared cow' you
should stop and think twice... The Fog, The Thing, King Kong all 'Rebooted'
and didn't improve on the originals in any way....and who the hell does Peter
Jackson think he his? How dare he remake King Kong.........anyway...er...oh yeah
Barry chuckle is a better Actor than Cucumber....so there...
>the original Mexican guy was?
Wow I guess Europeans get the prior mystique of Ricardo Montalbán even less than Americans get Benedict Cumberbatch (so overrated). I suppose Fantasy Island didn't make it over there. Ricardo had to be the inspiration for the Dos Equis most interesting man in the world commercials. The dude had a six pack in his seventies. Honestly Cumberbatch pretty much ruined Khan the best Star Trek bad guy. They could have done so much better on the casting. Ricardo could act circles around Cumberbatch but then so could Britney Spears.
Thank you asdf, for a moment i thought i was a man alone but NO it seems there are
others who are not as beguiled by Cucumber as the masses of the Reg are.
For the record: over pronounciating your vow'els is NOT acting, but the by product
of slick marketing for the 'Dummed Down Generation'......i mean.....it ended with a fist
fight.....a...fist...fight!!! The original Wrath ended with the birth of the Genesis Planet
and the Death of Spock.....a fist fight.....Matt Berry would have made a better Khan
than Cucumber....just imagine that...Matt Berry saying the line "I AM KHAN".
Cucumber is just another RADA ROBOT.
asdf, I'm Canadian, and I used to watch Fantasy Island and the Chrysler LeBaron commercials (Rich Corinthian Leather!). Ricardo always seemed like a punchline.
Not saying Cumberbatch is anything spectacular, just I don't think he was any worse than Montalban
He had a lot more charisma than the Cucumber. Won't say he was the greatest actor ever but I am sure he would be a hell of lot more fun to have a beer with. Besides its not like the original casting was all that great either. William Shatner is the definition of overacting.
Well, I saw it because of the controversy, and because I liked Cumberbatch in Sherlock. Americans can't tell most Aussie accents from generic Brit, so if it was off I (USA) couldn't tell, but I thought the movie was a solid B movie, a bit slow, a bit repetitive, but it laid out the main conflicts without coming down on either side.
It also had NO promotion, I only heard of it because I searched to see what else the actor was in. In America, no promo, no movie.
You know, you've actually hit on a good idea. Netflix should have a 'Critically Lambasted' or 'Genuinely Awful' category. Some of the funniest things and/or interesting ideas are hidden in terrible movies, but it's too hard to go looking for them, too much selection. A reverse star rating system would be nice.
I've seen most of Pacific Rim, it was good enough that I'd watch it again on a Friday night to see the ending. Admitedly my Friday night film sessions tend to be rather drunken and often include films that are so bad they're almost good. Almost.
Of course its no Mona Lisa.
What about the Diana one? Is it worse than that? I haven't seen either.
Oh but I did see a trailer for Ben Stiller's latest last night. Mitty. A special ten minute mega-trailer inviting me to a preview screening. Where he talked for almost five minutes, telling me how pleased he was with it. And almost bored me as much as the next 5, with the alleged best bits from it. Maybe I'm being unfair, as I've not seen it, but I think I'd rather watch Assange for 2 hours.
Ummmm.... Mrs Abloke and I went to see the Diana Movie (It was her turn to choose the movie :/ )
To my surprise, I have to say it was a long way from the worst film I've ever seen and I have no doubt whatsoever that it was infinitely better than *anything* M.Night. Shamalaladingdong has done since "6th Sense"
Here is a synopsis of every single M.N.S movie....
It was a dark and stormy night.... the rain lashed the windows... the wind howled around the edges of the cottage, rattling the shutters.... the candles flickered in a draft.... So I stayed in by the fire with a nice cup of cocoa.
As for the topic on hand, I suspect it was a flop because on the whole people *really* don't give a stuff about the whole wiki leaks nonsense; most of us having more important things to worry about.
The film was reviewed as ok, just a little dull.
The problem is that it set Assange up as a hero, some kind of modern day information-based Robin Hood fighting the black-hats for the good of all mankind. Whereas, in my opinion at least, he's a dislikeable, arrogant a$$hole who feels that laws and rules of society are optional.
Oh, and a bail-jumper, too - let's not forget that.
Point of order - it wasn't "the worst film of the year", it just is the worst financial flop of the year. Good movies sometimes fail to make their budget back, crap films often make squillions - the film industry kinda sucks like that...
There's a fair number of people of think Assange is a narcissitic jerk and the last thing we need is a film about him. And that's among the Wikileaks <i>supporters</i> - who are in favour of more government transparency etc. Then, of course there are also the people who weren't even in favour of the leaks, apart from their views on Assange's personality. I can see why the film didn't do so well...
If you overlook the whole rapey thing and the fact that he's trapped in a tiny building, I'm still not convinced there ever was a story there.
If Assange had been a journalist and had published this info he'd probably win a few awards and his checked baggage would always be getting lost. The whole crux of the narrative is that somebody outside the regular channels published a bunch of 'sensitive' information. That's it. The story couldn't have been less exciting.
The only thing Assange deserves credit for is being able to keep his name in the public space for so long. That's really a hard thing to do, especially when you aren't somebody people are really interested in. It was inevitable he would end up in a tight spot as to maintain interest his stunts had to grow progressively nuttier and you can only ride that wave for a short time before you're washed up on the beach.
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