Since "City of Angels" and "Ace Powers 2" were released on the same day, Elizabeth hoped that Eric could watch the movie with her two days ago, so Eric asked someone to wait in the downtown area of Santa Monica. A movie theater has a screening hall.
However, Elizabeth called Eric in the morning and flew to New York in a hurry without any reason. Although Elizabeth didn't say it clearly, Eric still roughly guessed what happened. At the beginning of the year, Murdoch visited Asia, and when he came back, he still brought back a certain woman, and now it is estimated that something happened.
Eric will not get involved in this kind of family affairs. Elizabeth returned to New York, and Eric did not return the booked screening room.
Some time ago, Warner's promotion of "City of Angels" was a gimmick of another "Ghost Love". Eric hadn't seen this film before, and he wanted to personally evaluate the quality of this film , so I took Natasha Henstridge together, by the way, as a relaxation after a week of work.
After leaving Firefly Studios, the two had dinner at the nearby Venice Beach before rushing to the cinema.
Guided by a staff member of the theater, Natasha Henstridge, holding popcorn and drinks, followed Eric into a luxurious screening hall with only a dozen seats, and saw Eric next to him Rick seemed to be in a daze standing by the sofa seat, and Natasha asked, "Eric, what's wrong?"
"It's nothing," Eric shook his head, and walked over to sit down on the sofa.
Natasha also sat down, Eric nodded to the staff member and said, "Let's get started."
The other party responded politely and left the screening room.
The lights in the projection hall dimmed quickly, and when the Warner Bros. logo appeared on the screen, Natasha asked, "Eric, is it a Warner Bros. movie?"
"Yeah, you don't think I only watch my own movies, do you?" Eric nodded with a smile, and then explained: "This is "City of Angels", played by Cage and Meg."
"Oh, I saw the poster." Natasha smiled sheepishly and said, "I thought you would take me to see "Ace Powers 2."
"Why do you say that?"
Natasha thought about it, she felt that she could often see "Ace Powers 2" and the other two movies of the Firefly system on TV or various billboards during this period, so she said: "This movie, it seems , make it hotter."
On the big screen, after Warner’s opening credits, the angel Seth played by Cage led a little girl’s soul into heaven, and then there was a conversation between the two angels about touch. Angels can’t touch mortals, and neither can mortals. Touched by an angel, the two live in the same space, but they are like two worlds.
Having been in Hollywood for a long time, Eric also found it difficult to appreciate a movie with a pure audience mentality. Sitting in front of the big screen, he would almost subconsciously analyze the pros and cons of a movie.
The beginning of "City of Angels" seemed a bit mediocre to Eric, and the subsequent soundtrack also seemed a bit abrupt.
In addition, although he and Cage are considered good friends, Eric still secretly complained in his heart. Now Cage plays an angel, which is a bit too inconsistent no matter how you look at it. This guy has passed the peak of his appearance, his hairline is like the sea at ebb tide, he is no longer as handsome as he could make nympho girls cry in "Moonlight" ten years ago.
Afterwards, the film's plot and narrative rhythm also seemed a bit chaotic and rushed. After watching it for about 20 minutes, Eric was completely relieved. At least, "City of Angels" will definitely not affect the three parts of the Firefly system. What a threat the movie poses.
When Eric took Natasha Henstridge to watch "City of Angels" together, in Chicago in the middle of the United States, Michael Wilmington, the resident film critic of "Chicago Tribune", also bought a ticket to enter "Ace King" Screening room of "Money 2".
If he hadn't submitted a film review of "Ace Powers 2" to the "Chicago Tribune", Michael Wilmington would never have bought a ticket to watch this kind of spoof movie. He has always preferred literary films.
Moreover, Michael Wilmington is really not in a good mood today, because during the day, he watched "City of Angels" with full expectations, but the result was only disappointment.
In the early publicity process, Warner Bros. wanted to create another "Ghost Love"-style romance film, but after watching "City of Angels", Michael Wilmington had a deep feeling for this film. If the evaluation can be described in one word, it is mediocre.
Whether it is a script without bright spots or a deliberately created tragic ending, it makes people feel very uncomfortable. As for the idea of angels and mortals, after "Ghosts and Ghosts", this idea is definitely not an innovation in Hollywood.
I think back then, Cage in "Ghost Love" and Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally" were so amazing.
But now, Michael Wilmington feels that "City of Angels" does not show the charm of the two Hollywood superstars at all, which is definitely a great waste.
Without buying snacks such as popcorn, and without bringing a notebook, Michael Wilmington sat down at a random place in the screening hall. He already had prejudices in his heart, so he didn't take "Ace Powers" too seriously. 2", as for the film reviews to be submitted, just write them down later.
Before the lights were turned on, Michael Wilmington still looked around. Although it was in the bustling downtown Chicago, this auditorium, which could accommodate about 200 people, had an attendance rate of more than 80%. Wilmington was slightly surprised.
However, Michael Wilmington was relieved when he thought about the large-scale publicity of Firefly, Fox and MGM in the early stage, regardless of the cost.
As a film critic, he naturally knows the film industry very well. In recent years, advertising marketing has become more and more important in the film industry. Correspondingly, the film release cycle has become shorter and shorter. Most commercial films have recovered more than 70% of the North American total in the first four weeks of film release. box office.
Because of this change, there have been fewer and fewer cases of relying on word of mouth to create box office miracles in the past few years, and the threshold for Hollywood film production has become more and more difficult. Killing the newly rejuvenated Hollywood film industry, but this general trend of the industry is obviously not something that anyone can easily change.
With these things in mind, the screening of "Ace Powers 2" has already started in the screening hall.
Elizabeth Hurley, the glamorous heroine of the first film, still made a guest appearance at the beginning, turning into a female robot and knocking Mike Myers out of the hotel room naked, running around. The film still uses the hilarious occlusion technique in the first film here, and the audience in the theater couldn't help laughing out loud with all kinds of funny postures.
As a film critic who has read countless films, Michael Wilmington is well aware of the various spoofs in the film, but the instinctive aversion in his heart makes it difficult for him to feel anything about this film.
After watching it patiently for dozens of minutes, Michael Wilmington was considering whether to leave the scene early. At this time, there was a section in the film where the heroine kept taking out all kinds of small things from the hero. , Once again, a series of laughter broke out in the theater.
Michael Wilmington looked around and recalled the tens of minutes he had just spent. It seemed that, on average, there would be a burst of laughter in the theater every two or three minutes.
Suddenly giving up the idea of leaving early, Michael Wilmington sat in his seat with peace of mind, but instead of focusing too much on the screen, he paid attention to the audience around him.
The uninterrupted laughter lasted for 90 minutes. Even when the subsequent subtitles came up, the audience did not get up and leave immediately, because the tidbits accompanying the subtitles at the end of the credits were still hilarious.
"Haha, it's so funny, maybe we can watch it again when we have time."
"Boji Shields is still hot."
"Peter and the others didn't watch this movie together, it was definitely a mistake."
"That Loben scene was really messed up, and I don't know if it will really be revealed during filming."
"Mike Myers is a fucking genius."
"..."
"..."
Walking out of the auditorium together with the flow of people, Michael Wilmington also seemed thoughtful as he listened to the comments of the people around him.
It is still difficult for him to give this film any positive comments. Compared with the first one, this time it just fired up a lot of old jokes again. However, making the audience laugh, at least, is better than "City of Angels", which is even a bit embarrassing.
All the way home, Michael Wilmington opened his laptop and was about to write a film review of "Ace Powers 2". When he remembered something, he closed the document again, opened his browser, and logged in to the Yahoo movie section.
Finding the page of "Ace Powers 2", Michael Wilmington glanced at the general evaluation of the film.
Yahoo Movies' evaluation system for movies is quite novel to many people, and it is divided into professional movie review ratings and general audience ratings.
Everyone knows that the Yahoo Portal is actually the online media platform of the Firefly system, so the fairness of this portal has always been questioned.
The film critics' score of "Ace Powers 2" is only 5.1. In Michael Wilmington's opinion, this may still be a bit high. Many well-known film critics have not been stationed in Yahoo Movies. Michael Wilmington has also received an invitation from Yahoo Portal, and he has not been stationed either. The professional film critics of Yahoo Movies either belong to the media of the Firefly system, or they are not very well-known. Whether these people can rate a movie without prejudice, in Michael Wilmington's view, is simply not possible.
Looking at the back, the general audience rating of "Ace Powers 2" is as high as 7.6.
Even though it had been expected in the screening hall, Michael Wilmington still felt that this number was a bit high. If he was asked to give a score, he would only give this film a 3 for the professional rating. As for the so-called popcorn index, he could only give a 6 for a passing evaluation.
I also looked at the ratings of "City of Angels", and the critics' rating was 6.3, just passing, but the popcorn index was even lower than that of "Ace Powers 2", only 7.3. Although he also doesn't like "City of Angels" very much, Michael Wilmington feels that the so-called popcorn index of "City of Angels" should theoretically not be lower than that of vulgar spoof films like "Ace Powers 2" .
Questioning the impartiality of the Yahoo portal, Michael Wilmington didn't think there was anything wrong with his own prejudice.
So he found several other movie review websites. Although the ratings of these websites were obviously different, the overall trend of movie reviews was basically the same. Film critics didn't like "Kings Powers 2" and barely approved "City of Angels", but ordinary audiences obviously liked "Aces Powers 2" more, but they didn't like "City of Angels".
Since the appearance of the film, the situation that film critics dominate the word-of-mouth of a film has not changed in North America. This is also the source of Michael Wilmington's sense of superiority in the face of "Ace Powers 2".
But at this moment, after flipping through several movie websites, Michael Wilmington suddenly felt a faint threat.
How can ordinary people dominate the word-of-mouth of a film? This is completely destroying the jobs of traditional film critics.
Due to this instinctive aversion and disgust, Michael Wilmington's sense of identity with the rise of "Ace Powers 2" also disappeared.
Re-opening the document, Michael Wilmington began to tap the film review of "Ace Powers 2": It seems that Mike Wells will never be able to get rid of the influence of "Saturday Night Live" on him. Not to mention, "Ace Powers 2" is yet another shitty movie made up of all kinds of rotten plots...
Neither "City of Angels" nor "Ace Powers 2" is a blockbuster movie. Although for competition, or for publicity, the two film companies have arranged premieres, but the film did not have a midnight show. .
So it wasn't until Saturday morning that reviews of both films went viral on a large scale.
Different from the initial rating of 7 points or above, after Friday's large-scale release, the critics' evaluation of "City of Angels" began to decline obviously, and the overall score can only barely maintain a passing line of 6 points or above.
In comparison, "Ace Powers 2" is much more 'simply', and the media critics directly dropped to the level of a bad film with 5 points.
However, although the North American media basically did not recognize the word-of-mouth of the two films, the first-day box office data of the two films surprised everyone, especially the first-day box office of "Ace Powers 2".
In Beverly Hills, 20th Century Fox CEO Joe Ross was awakened by the phone ringing early in the morning. He even thought he was still dreaming when he heard his assistant report the first-day box office data of "Kingsman 2". After repeated confirmation several times, Joe Rose believed it proudly, and quickly spread the news.
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PS: I made a mixed cut of the heroine and put it on Station B. Search for '[European and American Group Portraits] Those Flowers', and that video is it. (To be continued.)