Little Miss Attila Goes To The Movies
“Bathsheba” (Yes, she named her pistol.)
An American Carol was scorched by a talking chihuahua at the box office last weekend, garnering a pathetic $2231 per screen, notwithstanding a concerted “get out the dopes” campaign by InstaCracker and others. Rather than conceding that watching Michael Moore get slapped while he is pooping just wasn’t all that funny, the preposterous Little Miss Attila, who is neither very “little” nor much of a “miss,” blames the movie’s epic thud on — are you sitting down? — a dastardly nationwide conspiracy by liberal teenagers working in shopping mall cineplexes:
Mpower pictures and Vivendi are starting to hear complaints about sabotage of An American Carol by employees of theaters that are carrying the movie. … What we know: in at least ten theaters nationwide, customers were sold tickets they were told were for An American Carol but turned out to be for other movies.
There you have it. An American Carol would have been number one at the box office if a bunch of pizza-faced, terrorist-loving, America-hating, leftist teenagers in cineplexes throughout The Heartland™ hadn’t fraudulently cooked the books to give it to that faggy little dog — and a Mexican dog, at that! With a beaner accent even!
Accomplishing this took, of course, weeks of planning, secret hand-gestures, encrypted codes on tickets, and a few black helicopters:
Obviously, this type of “error” sometimes requires collusion between employees–a way of marking the ticket so that you are sent to the correct theater, even though you’ve been sold the wrong ticket.
Which makes one wonder whether this pasty oaftard parading around as Little Miss Attila has ever actually gone to the movies before, since she clearly imagines that your local cineplex has someone usher you to your seat. Listen, Joy, here’s a free clue from SadlyNo’s special trove of clues just for you. They have signs in the theaters, and after the twelve-year-old tears your stub, you’re on your own and have to read and follow these gigantic signs everywhere.
Of course, the evil teens didn’t stop with the ticket switcheroo, but also engaged in a series of powerful Jedi warrior mind tricks to force potential Carol-goers to see the chihuahua instead:
• The theater suggested that the movie was rated R (its true rating is PG-13);
• Posters for the film are not visible inside or outside the theater;
• An American Carol is not on the marquee, even though the movie is playing there;
• The film title not listed behind the clerk in the box office, so you have to ask if that movie is playing at that theater, never mind that you checked on the internet and called in advance (this actually happened to me);
• Showtimes are given on the theater’s outgoing message machine for every movie playing except for An American Carol (this is also out of my personal experience: somehow the local four-plex only had showtimes listed on the phoneline for three movies . . . . hm);
• technical sabotage: image or focus issues, problems with sound, and the like.
I’m particularly fond of the alleged R-rating gambit, given that anecdotal evidence suggest that most of the twelve people who actually went to see the movie were about a half-century older than 16.
I know that getting hosed by a taco-breathed rat dog hurts, but these wingers need to toughen up and admit that An American Carol was the bigger dog, and not in a good way.
TEN WHOLE THEATERS!?!??!?! That’s like a liberal Star Chamber at work!!!
So in Miss Letilla’s world, a network of businesses is tying up its resources by stocking a product and then trying to keep people from buying it, just to thumb its collective nose at conservatives. I guess it makes perfect sense, if your entire worldview is based on spite.
(For what it’s worth, it’s typical in my experience for the ticket-ripper to mumble directions to the right theater. Maybe it’s a Heartland thing?)
Having been a movie theater projectionist, I’d just like to say that it’s likely that the focus, sound or image problems were likely the result of one or more of the employees being fucked up on dust off in the projection booth. Lord knows I usually was, or at least when I wasn’t drunk or smoking weed into the vacuum system in the spare projector.
I kind of miss that job.
>>technical sabotage: image or focus issues, problems with sound, and the like.
That describes every movie I’ve seen in a multiplex for, oh, the last decade or so. I have to admit the only movie I’ve seen in a theater the last few months is “Wall-E,” and it looked like hell. Should I assume the theater had a conservative plot and wanted to sabotage the film’s green message?
That picture of Little Miss Attila is rather troubling. Should Down’s Syndrome children really be allowed to play with firearms?
Of course there wern’t any posters.. Capitalism baby! They don’t spend thousands on posters for a film which is essentially just there to occupy an otherwise empty screen.
And what is with that picture? I thought only teenage boys took photos of themselves posing with a gun. And that expression.. It says “this fat, stubby vaguely penis shaped piece of metal gives me sexual satisfaction”
Posters for the film are not visible inside or outside the theater;
Same thing happened for IDIOCRACY. Fox tried to bury that, and that was part of it — no ad campaign whatsoever. In this case, I can assume AN AMERICAN CAROL’s distributor thought (rightly) it wouldn’t make a ton of money, so they didn’t put a ton of money into promotion. You will notice the ad campaign didn’t exactly tear it up until ten days before its release.
technical sabotage: image or focus issues, problems with sound, and the like
This is, as Jim said, my experience for nearly every movie I’ve seen for the past several years. And I’m a movie critic: I see at least 1-2 movies a week, minimum. Professional projectionists have a union, so most theaters just train dumbass kids to do the work instead.
Finally, the notion that any theater would BOOK and then SUPPRESS a movie — especially a FOUR-SCREEN theater — is fucking laughable in the extreme. Each of those screens needs to be making money ALL THE TIME to remain solvent, especially in a small theater like that.
Why not just not book the movie in the first place? Doesn’t that seem a more effective method of “suppression”?
I don’t know if they know this, but exhibitors are in the business to MAKE MONEY. They don’t care WHAT you think, so long as you’re opening up your wallet.
AAC had a “widest release” (shame about giving up fat jokes) in 1639 theatres leading to a 0.6 % error rate. Clearly the obivous conclusion is a secret cabal of teenaged jihadis bent on suicide bombing the most partioticest of all movies EVAH.
Also, what self-respecting (but repsecting no others) right-tard wouldn’t leave the theatre as soon as the cute Mexican dog movie started, and immediately demanded 1. their money back, 2. to speak to the manager, 3. their money back, 4. the person responsible to be fired and 5. their money back. In which case, the box office numbers are still right – nobody went to watch that turd of a movie, notwithstanding the presence of Sgt. Buck Frobisher.
Oh yeah — I did see a movie on Sunday, and the theater had An American Carol as prominently displayed as any movie around… and I live in Dallas, a major movie market. There were no “star” names on the mylar above the theater doors, but again, that’s down to the distributor.
Can you tell I get upset when people talk shit about the movie business out of ignorance?
um, maybe I’m being too logical, but for this to be a conspiracy, wouldn’t little Miss gun freak have to show that this happened ONLY to AAC and not to other films?? Otherwise most of this “evidence” is just teens at a minimum wage job screwing up.
Wheeee.
OMG! But whut abowt dose of us dat kant reed so gordly? Woodent da tocking kartune dawgs haf givven eet aweigh dat dis wuddn’t da RIGHT moovee?
Okay, so she thinks her readers are even dumber than I try to make them out to be. And also, “They may need your ticket as evidence.” Wheeeeee. OMFG – the crazy knows no bounds.
I eagerly await the compelling evidence of fraud that consists of pictures of movie tickets.
Okay, thing number one: what is it with wingnut women putting these pictures of “themselves” on their sites that bear no resemblance to them in any way at all? Did you see the pic that is supposed to represent McCann? WTF?! (See also: Little Debbie Schlussel.)
Thing number two: “Day By Day” is embedded at the top of McCann’s site, and I made the tactical error of reading it. I say again: WTF?! Is there anyone who can tell me what Muir is trying to say here? What’s the punchline? The same results could be had by having a hundred monkeys cut up the books in the New York Library and then randomly pasting phrases into the frames. It’s as if Muir is translating a comic strip from Mongolian into English after it has already been translated into Mongolian from Finnish, and he’s getting the lines fed to him over a ham radio during the height of the sunspot cycle.
I wonder, what must it be like to live in a constant level of paranoia and suspicion of sabotagery that rivals that of Fox Mulder?
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/an_american_carol/
The one positive review? “It’s better then Scary Movie 4”. Wow.
Judging from the comments above, Lil’ mz Attilah must be a liberatian*; clearly has no fucking clue how things work, yet DEMANDS everyone listen to her and follow her orders.
*Or, as I’m starting to refer to them, “B Arkers”
How much does a movie ticket cost in the US at the moment? For a new release but obviously crap film, I am guessing a national average of 10 or 12 dollars?
I’m trying to work out how many people actually went to see this stupid thing. Under 200 per screen it seems. Maybe about 20 people per showing?
Anyone got better figures to base an estimate on?
All I know is AAC was playing in my hick-ass town, but Religulous was not. So this Attila person can suck it.
angry mob,
$2239 per screen, at $10 average per ticket is 224 people per screen. Assume that the vast majority of those went to one of the two evening screenings on Friday or Saturday (for four “big audience” showings) yields about fifty people in the theatre per show – which matches with what a lot of wingnuts are saying (i.e. a couple to a few dozen of people in the theatre).
But, but…
The projectors fixed in place, the screen never moves and we have autofocus technology. How does this happen??
Technical issues tend to defeat my composure. I become Mr. Aggrieved Customer, stomping through the cineplex lobby, demanding to see the manager.
My favorite response? ‘Oh, it’s not us. They sent us the film that way.’
Not that even a tack-sharp, high-def, audiophile version of An American Carol wouldn’t suck goat testicles.
If they lose on November 4th, and lose big, I don’t know how on Earth I can survive at my job, if jobs still exist by then, and also laugh at these whining, sniveling, corner-trapped freaks 24 hours a day.
Hmmm… You know what? I really think that the most logical explanation is that there is a concerted effort to suppress ticket sales of An American Carol, since, well, it would make a lot of sense for minimum wage earning teenagers to spend a lot of time and effort with the dozens or so viewers to make it seem like there were only six of them. And bear in mind, no self respecting conservative works at a movie theatre and/or can be kept in the dark with no one the wiser.
Also, now that I think of it, when I was last in line at the concession stand, the twenty minutes spent trying to get a hot dog clearly was an attempt to minimize the political impact of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.
I eagerly await the compelling evidence of fraud that consists of pictures of movie tickets.
I’m looking at the kerning on my “Rachel Getting Married” stub as we speak. There must be liberal code hidden in there somewhere.
All your movie going experience are belong to me. Sir.
Assistant Manager isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Four years of film school for this?
I just passed a note to Miss Attila’s site.
She’d have trouble getting cast in a snuff film.
henry lewis:
It’s considerably more involved than that — cutting the reels together and getting the audio juuuuuust right. I can’t say much more than that, as I only witnessed and did not partake myself, during my many years managing a theater. But I can say you can TELL when someone who knows what they’re doing slices your films every week.
Isn’t digital projection the norm now? Seems hard to fuck that up, but a 16yrold on minimum wage can fuck up ANYTHING.
I havn’t been to a multiplex in ages, usually only going for opening nights of things like LOTR. Those are of course, very carefully organised events. Most of the time, they seem to be showing one popular new release, the rest of the screens are an afterthought, and theatre employees are nowhere to be seen.
American Carol is one of those films which is just an afterthought for the multiplexes, but no pretentious indie theatres would touch it with a bargepole either.
Those dastardly liberal cineplexes must have been using finagled Sequoia movie-ticket dispensing machines. Rise up wingnuts, and demand a paper trail!! oh…nevermind.
Has anyone considered the possibility that George Soros is involved in this? Noam Chomsky? Perhaps the Clenis himself? Surely there is a liberal mastermind behind this plot. Furthermore, this person is an experienced operative as evidenced by the diabolically clever step of disguising his work as the incompetence of teenage cineplex employees.
The good news is that the liberals feel so sure they’re going to win the election that they are diverting resources to suppressing a film nobody has ever heard or anyway.
Sweet pickled balls… How do you even respond to something like that? The investigative team? AAC fraud site? evidence? Seriously???
Although, this sets up a perfect scenario for monkey warfare. If you have tickets for anything, take a picture and send it to the investigative unit at AAC. Come on, people – these Conspiracy Theories won’t spread by themselves!
Isn’t digital projection the norm now?
Not currently, but that’s the future. Right now it’s a wee too expensive for everyone to make the big switch.
Also, I’d bet that in a month or so, we’ll see a gay porno titled An American Carl on the shelves of our local sex shop. Or our inboxes, you know what I mean.
If you have tickets for anything, take a picture and send it to the investigative unit at AAC.
I think I will do that. Thanks Ripley.
Also — I may not have been clear on this — most projectors are on auto-timers, so in a poorly-run theater no one’s even LOOKING at the thing when it starts. That’s why something can go wrong and stay that way till someone (always me, grumble) goes out and says something.
Sis boom bah! Me above. Me down here will also point out the online receipt generator:
http://www.smileygenerator.us/receipts/1/
You may have to screenshot the result.
Yes, a bit of over-reach on Ms. McCann’s part, but what do you expect from a woman who holds a revolver as if it were a shotgun?
Is that really her pic on the site? Not ‘shopped?
I went over there to see if I could find out, but couldn’t tell and didn’t want to wander around too much, making them think I cared.
An American Carol new marketing campaign:
“Buy the DVD. It’ll be a great Halloween gift.”
online receipt generator:
Awesome.
NCMcG,
The caption for the photo? She’s named her .357 “Bathsheba”. I guess she expects someone to steal it from her and then kill her with it or something.
The first comment in her post mentions that someone bought 150 tickets prepaid. If this is true on a widespread basis, it means that even AAC’s pathetic opening was artificially inflated by block sales, in the same manner that “conservative book clubs” boost sales of the latest nitwit wingnut polemic.
I like the idea of sending in a bunch of random receipts. I think I’ll send in a receipt I got at the grocery store for three sixpacks of yuengling. “the evil liberals took my movie money and bought BEER! THATS why the projection was so screwed up!!!@2!1!!”
“@2@” is the new “!1!”
It would be cool to see the grocery receipt for one of Rightous Bubba’s recipes, hint hint.
See, the cool thing about those recipes is that I don’t actually have to type them. I’m lazy that way.
It is Dwight Shrute in a wig. An Alkon-bad wig.
Also, Kelsey Grammer as Patton? Pfft. Patton had a driver.
So she did it on purpose.
This is the kind of thing that appears after the subject has gone on a kill-spree.
Already did this one…
I too alert the authorities in theaters when a movie is out of focus or the sound is too low or the audio and video are slightly out of synch. Spouse, daughter, son-in-law and I went to see the Batman movie at the local Imax when it came out. Tickets, costing a total of about $24,000, paid for online the day before to ensure a seat. Place was packed like a can of sardines, and dammit, the audio lagged about a second and a half behind the visual! I wanted to go suggest a technical adjustment, but we were smack-dab in the middle and it would have been like navigating through a mile-long coach-class airline row just to get to the aisle. So naturally I sulked through the whole thing. This is why I do Netflix on the big-ass TV at home.
that someone bought 150 tickets prepaid.
The Strange Case of the 149 Invisible Movie Patrons.
From MzAtilla’s comments:
The people doing that should be charged, convicted, and imprisoned for theft. They should have felony criminal records.
Sweet Jeezus, is there anything these people won’t 1) whine about and 2) try to fuck somebody up over?
(“up over”?! Yeah, I said it! And I meant it.)
what must it be like to live in a constant level of paranoia and suspicion of sabotagery that rivals that of Fox Mulder?
These yayhoos are way beyond Mulder. He could still laugh at things, if hauntedly. Plus he was more teh hawt.
I wonder that too, though.
Re: focus and other issues – in my moviegoing experience it’s rare for them to be technically screwed up. Might be because Utah tends to do very well with forms of entertainment that don’t involve alcohol, caffeine, or sex.
Are we really surprised that the mouth-breathers went to the theater with the intention of seeing American Carol, but decided to see the talking chihuahua instead?
Are we really surprised that the mouth-breathers went to the theater with the intention of seeing American Carol, but decided to see the talking chihuahua instead?
Now that you mention it, no. Maybe going to a movie out of a sense of political duty felt too much like voting or listening to a debate, so talking dogs it is!
This is the best right-wing imaginary scandal since the birth certificate. I wonder how that civil suit is coming?
Where do you find these people?
If you go to theatres on a weekday afternoon, you sometimes see groups of young adults wearing hockey helmets and laughing at inappropriate moments. Hey, they deserve entertainment just like anybody else. 150 tickets of AAC (at a twilight discount) would be a perfect tax deductible charitable contribution. I think I’ll photocopy my ticket stub to Celine Dion (Yeah, so what?) as I have no doubt no one believes anybody actually goes to see her.
As soon as I finish my reanimation machine, I’m going to send Zombie William of Ockham after these people. His brand of justice won’t be particularly swift–kind of a shambling totter, really–but it will be poetic.
😆
.
The amazing thing is that there are actually people in this country who can’t get enough of Kevin Farley raping his dead brother’s corpse for scale in Enterprise commercials that they’d actually shell out 10 bucks to watch this steaming pile…
Actually everything she’s complaining about can be blamed on the that that the movie distribution industry did everything it could to bust the projectionists’ union out of the theatres.
Dear American Carol producers. I went to see your great patriotic spectacle the other day only to learn that the butter in my popcorn was actually urine.
I ordered semen.
My elitist copy of Monday’s Variety tells me that An American Carol scored in 9th place. The wingnut’s article makes it seem as if it was edged in 2nd place. For the record, Hollywood heathens, here is the top 10 for the weekend:
1. “Beverly Hills Chihuahua,” $29 million.
2. “Eagle Eye,” $17.7 million.
3. “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” $12 million.
4. “Nights in Rodanthe,” $7.4 million.
5. “Appaloosa,” $5 million.
6. “Lakeview Terrace,” $4.5 million.
7. “Burn After Reading,” $4.08 million.
8. “Fireproof,” $4.07 million.
9. “An American Carol,” $3.8 million.
10. Religulous, $3.5 million.
When was the last time you even looked at the ticket the theater sold to you? You take it, walk into the lobby, maybe by food & drink, then go to the movie you want to see.
It doesn’t matter what the ticket says.
“Oh damn! I asked for ‘Burn After Reading’ but got ‘Igor’ instead! I guess I’ll have to see the cartoon.”
It doesn’t matter what the ticket says.
What are you? Some kind of anti-authoritarian? YOU MUST OBEY THE TICKET.
I was about to make the point Anonymous just did; once you give your ticket to the taker at the front door, no one stops you from going to whichever movie you want. Of course, if your goal is to pump up the numbers for a particular movie, then it does make a difference what’s on your ticket–I assume that was the main issue here.
Sweet pickled balls… How do you even respond to something like that? The investigative team? AAC fraud site? evidence? Seriously???
This would actually be a great publicity stunt for the movie, come to think of it. Wingers tend to fall into line and harden their views when they think teh liberals are after them. The people who go see AAC aren’t your typical moviegoers; they’re the kind of people who would reject anything that came out of the hedonistic liberal cesspool of Hollywood. They don’t really know that your average movie theater is overpriced, poorly-run, and prone to regular projection problems, so they can be convinced to attribute it to liberal bias. Set up a “fraud” email address (which will be ignored after it’s set up to generate appropriate autoreplies). Induce the wingnuts to feel like they’re rebelling against the liberal elite by going to see the movie. Get them to tell their friends to support this movie. Profit!
So how’d Expelled actually do?
Let me guess, in every single instance the “other movie” was Brokeback Mountain.
More evidence that this woman has never been to a theater:
Hands: Has anyone been to a movie recently where there weren’t “image or focus issues, problems with sound, and the like”?
I see no hands.
Anyhoo, I’m pretty sure we went through this when the first (and only) Left Behind movie hit the big screen.
They can milk this again in a few months when one of our wingy bloggers notices a DVD release dispayed ON A LOWER SHELF!1! or even takes home a copy THAT SKIPS!!!11/!
Ripley had a great idea. Tonight I will photograph my Weird Al Yankovic Straight Outta Lynwood tour tickets from 2007 and intertube them to the AAC Fraud Site.
Genius.
displayed…
Little Miss Attila has the hot scoop!
Little Miss Eichmann, Little Miss D’Aubisson, & Little Miss Idi Amin Dada were unavailable for comment.
Yup, nothing says “fear me, for I am an intellectual Titan” quite like naming yourself after one of the worst mass-murderers* of all time. Plainly, some minimal degree of historical literacy would be a big help, in that it’d make walking talking skidmarks like Little Miss A aware of exactly WHY the rest of us are laughing. Yeah yeah, I know, history, wingnuts, matter, antimatter. Sigh.
No, seriously – can you see some lefty calling themselves “Beria Jr.” or “Son Of Stasi”?
——
* Although Attila DOES deserve credit for originating the “3-Second Rule” as to dropping food on the floor – quite the innovation in etiquette – except that his version was the “24-Hour Rule” … & it was normal to let livestock wander into the living-room back then, too. Om nom nom nom nom!
This had better be an elaborate phishing scam.
Everything has to be a conspiracy, dontcha know, because they are right, we are wrong, and there must be some reason why their movies don’t make money, their love lives suck, and their financial schemes bring down the world.
The stupid burns hotter than the sun.
If there is a person out there who is so cataclysmically idiotic that they can’t find a cineplex playing the movie (I count are 4 in my local paper alone), make their way to the location, purchase a ticket for the proper movie and enter the proper theater, they need to be wearing a helmet.
They’re only a seagull’s shit away from becoming a talking chimp.
RB @15:55
haw haw!
They did this with Limbaugh’s crappy newsletter. His moonrocks were claiming that the liberals were hiding it on the magazine racks or putting it on a lower shelf. These goofballs really need to believe they are being persecuted and picked on.
I wanna know how many wingnuts bought tix for AAC then went to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua! I think a silent army of Rary Gupperts wanted to boost sales for AAC but didn’t want to go watch it because it didn’t have the real Michael Moore really tortured and really killed in real life. Really!
What’s the sound of a sheep exploding?
Even if it were true, 10 screens? Let’s be absurdly generous here. Assume there were 250 seats in each screen. $10 a ticket. Four screenings a day. Three days in an opening weekend. If every single ticket were sold but not paid for, the maximum lost revenue is $300,000. That’s some pretty lame sabotage, and that’s as generous as you can possibly be. More likely the film was showing in smaller screens, for less money, with much less than full attendance.
I own quite a few guns and the thought of naming even one of them has never, ever so much as crossed my mind.
She probably imagines herself as some kind of “warrior” like most of these freaks do.
Thank goodness for the dreaded negromuslimgayliberaleducatedjewimmigrantathiest. Otherwise the fRighties would be forced to get a life.
Well, you know wingnuts always name their “little soldiers”. Just ask Jesus’ General!
A fine looking woman, for a conservative.
>It is Dwight Shrute in a wig. An Alkon-bad wig.
OMG This is EXACTLY what I was going to say!!
Yipes.
I mean, not about the Alkon part. Just the “OMG it’s Dwight Shrute in a wig” part
And “Religulous” was one tiny notch below in box-office returns, though it opened on roughly one-third of the number of screens.
Free market, fuck yeah!
My God, those damn rethugs will blame ANYTHING THEY SCREW UP on the most flimsy excuses! It just boggles the mind!
No goper can ever admit a screw up, they are all just too perfect! Now that they have the Killa from Wassilla, it seems to be just getting worse! THAT ONE can never admit she’s wrong. She and her running mate and her husband, doncha know, are much, much worse than Bushco.
If only the Atttttilas of the world would care this much about sabotage in voting booths.
“An American Carol” is so bad even a wingnut publication like the Washington Times hates it.
I haven’t been to a cineplex in probably goin’ on three years.
Expensive, rude/apathetic/screw-up help, projection/sound problems, crappy movies to begin with that would probably look just as good on TV at home.
Nice to know that SOME things haven’t changed.
If you really gotta do that thing, though, you can sorta get your money’s worth by hopping over to the next screen as your movie finishes. You can even stretch one set of tickets into three films, if you’re good. Timing and being good at looking lost are everything, though. Also, best to avoid the mega-super-enormous sized soda unless you have a bladder like a camel.
What I find ironic in all of this is that the very same wingnuts criticize blacks for blaming their problems on white racism now blame some powerful liberal conspiracy for the poor showing of An American Carol.
Why wasn’t it screened for critics in advance? Because critics are all elitist liberals and thet would have just savaged the movie.
Why did it only come in 9th place? Well, because of liberal sabotage.
They have a plethora of excuses to explain away failure.
And “Religulous” was one tiny notch below in box-office returns, though it opened on roughly one-third of the number of screens.
“Religulous” also cost one eighth as much to make, meaning it’s already made a profit.
The picture needs to be large. I’m thinking 3 to 5 megs per; only high resolution photos will contain the detail needed to discern evidence of nefarious plots. We should probably take multiple shots from different angles. Send multiple copies too, just in case the teenagers from the movie theater are also evil haxxorz bent on stopping feedback to AAC.
I’m thinking 3 to 5 megs per; only high resolution photos will contain the detail needed to discern evidence of nefarious plots.
Yeah, we want to make sure we pass muster with the Little Green Footballs crowd!
I have actually read about this ticket-switching at movie theaters in the past, but it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the theater operator’s profits. Basically, the longer a movie has been in theaters, the greater percentage of the proceeds from ticket sales go to the exhibitor (rather than the movie studio). When a movie is first released, more of the profit goes to the studios, less to the theater operators. So if a theater owner wants to make a shady buck, when someone comes in wanting to see the new ‘Talking Dog Movie’, they can sell them a ticket for something that came out a month ago instead, and pocket the difference. Most people never look at the ticket anyway.
I have been going to the movies since well forever. I can’t remember ever even looking at a ticket stub and yet I have always seen the movie I went to see. Life must really suck for conservatives to get tripped up by such things.
Oh, dear.
I am having trouble deciding if my idea for a course of action would be a terrible thing to do, or the greatest thing to do.
I could send in a picture of my ticket to a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And I could include with this image, the story of my harrowing ordeal. “Well why wouldn’t an independent theater show An American Carol at midnight on a Saturday? And I got there and there were all these queers in their underwear simulating sex and throwing toast at the screen!”
When I go into stores that sell books, I stack left wing books over the right wing trash.
You’ll never find a copy of any Man Coulter book on the top of the stack in my Costco.
Wow, it feels really good to get that off my chest.
I won’t stop though. Evah!
I heard Scarah Palin’s reading list consists of Starbuck’s cups and Bazooka Joe comics, is that true?
Wait, so is she saying you should take a picture of your ticket stub which lists another movie? Isn’t that ticket stub exactly like the ticket stub for the other movie? An American Carol is asking for tickets which list another movie and believing people when they say they wanted to actually see that shitty movie instead?
send in a receipt for miller. it’s union made and owned by south african breweries. it’s the icing on the cake.
Just seen over at FOB LMA Conspiracy Base HQ Movie Paranoid Delusional HQ Central:
Vote Hottie. Not Snotty. McCain/Palin 2008.
(Hottie/Snotty text superimposed over photos of Palin/Biden)
These people are too stupid to live.
Apparently, some righty blogster claims that althoAmerican Carol played theaters it wasn’t listed on the marquee.
Well, I live in the belly of the beast — Los Angeles, baby! — and I remember seeing “An American Carol” prominently displayed on a big ole sign outside a local multiplex.
I remember, because I thought, “What the heck is that?” Seemed odd to have what appeared to be a Christmas themed movie playing this early in the fall.
And I’d heard nothing about it one way or the other, which was also unusal.
So in deepest liberaldom the title of “American Carol” was proudly displayed in 2-foot high letters — or at least, displayed just like all the other titles of the films currently running.
Big conspiracy, except where the pimply-faced attendents are likely to be most progressive, if they have an interest in anything besides video games.
She must love it when you guys call her out.
The post you linked to: 41 comments.
The other TWENTY posts on her front page: 41 comments.
So how’d Expelled actually do?
According to Boxofficemojo, it made $7,690,545, making it the 108th-highest grosser of 2008 so far.
I own quite a few guns and the thought of naming even one of them has never, ever so much as crossed my mind.
On the other hand, lots of guys I know name their penises. So.
I think Tim O. should be reported to the AAC Fraud Division. They may want to open a new investigatory branch.
Zombie William of Ockham
The idea of a philosophical zombie slasher movie fills me with gleeful anticipation.
An American Carol is asking for tickets which list another movie and believing people when they say they wanted to actually see that shitty movie instead?
That seems to be it. “Send us a photocopy of your Beverley Hills Chihuahua ticket and tell us you thought you paid for An American Carol — we’ll believe ya! Oh, and make sure you keep the original in case anyone asks for proof!”
Don’t know whether to laugh or cry, really.
When I go into stores that sell books, I stack left wing books over the right wing trash.
When I went to Barnes & Noble after seeing Religulous, someone had turned all the Obama books upside down. I told my mom (who went to see the movie with me) about this and she said, “That’s funny, I did that to the Bill O’Reilly book.” This must be the Universal Sign of Book Disapproval.
I only do the book swap when the books are nearby. I feel bad for the poor minimum wage schlubs who have to clean up after jerks who leave books in the wrong place.
I strongly suspect the filmmakers have been around the industry long enough to know this isn’t some liberal consipiracy – and I think they set up the web form and e-mail address as sort of a placebo to soothe the fans who are outraged at the film’s poor box office.
Not to be a kerner about it, but after checking out the form’s source code and the follow-up page it clicks through to, I seriously doubt that the form submissions go anywhere.
Likewise, I think the e-mail address is probably unmonitored.
But I can easily be wrong about these things, so those of you who sent them anything, please report back if you got a reply.
I worked at a movie theatre as my first job ever and what she’s describing sounds like the standard f-ups you get here and there.
Getting the wrong ticket happens all the time at the multiplex. Again, you just follow the signs and go to the theatre your movie is in. OR you know, explain to the cashier that they gave you the wrong ticket.
Signage: If they have the electronic marquees and there are a lot of theatres, sometimes you have to wait a minute for theatres 13-20 to flip over. I know when I went to get tickets for Kung Fu Panda, I had a mini-WTF moment when I couldn’t see it on the marquee. Must’ve been some conspiracy by people who hate pandas.
Likewise if a movie isn’t doing very well or isn’t expected to have high demand, they may only show afternoon matinees and leave the high ticket slots open for more financially sound offerings. And depending on your marquee system, movies that have already finished might not be showing up.
Posters outside: Reserved for the high ticket, high expectation movies. Hell, I’ve seen poster variants for things like Hellboy or XMen take up ALL the poster slots, when you know they are playing other things in the theatres as well.
Technical problems: Well, you know these things happen. Memorably, my viewing of Finding Nemo glitched right at a VERY dramatic moment, when the entire theatre lost power. Again, must be a conspiracy by people who hate clownfish. And turtles. And Ellen Degeneres. *
*I loved her turn in Finding Nemo. But you know…there’s an awful lot of Ellen haters out there. I wouldn’t put it past one of them to sacrificially capult themselves into the nearest substation in order to cause a power outage to keep people from watching Finding Nemo. It could happen.
Ten reported screwup from a nationwide release of a movie: YAWN.
“I’m particularly fond of the alleged R-rating gambit, given that anecdotal evidence suggest that most of the twelve people who actually went to see the movie were about a half-century older than 16.”
Hilarious! All the cool kids were clamoring to get into this patriotism-lecture-festival, but they were denied but a false rating.
Hey, Zucker! The market has spoken! You lose!
The Onion AV Club review:
There’s only so much wackiness to be mined from suicide-bomber jokes.
Several unexploded Scotsmen disagree.
I love the focus/image issues canard. I met a union projectionist many years ago (I was a friend of the manager of the theater), and the projection equipment was OLD – it even still had carbon-arc lighting. That guy would grind his own aperture plates, make up and break down films really quick, and never miss a changeover cue. He kept his job by being just that good. The only reason the projectionist liked (okay, tolerated) me was that my dad was an old union man and it was during the time of serious attack on union workers. He’d been showing movies for 35 years when I knew him, and he was about ready to retire. Now some bored kid out of high school is doing the same work. Imagine the QC difference. Truthfully, if I’d been in the projection booth of An American Turkey, I might have placed the wrong aperture plate on the last showing just to show the mike booms and other equipment that’s supposed to be masked off by the aperture plate (assuming it was shot flat 1.85:1). Who would be in the theater to complain?
The “fraud form” page has mysteriously disappeared from americancarol.com.
The “fraud form” page has mysteriously disappeared from americancarol.com.
Goddamn liberal webmasters!
RB: I just returned from reading the comments at LMA’s post. Indeed, that seems to be what they’re claiming.
Liberal conspirators never sleep.
I think it’s obvious from the 404 that the Apaches are at work again.
The “fraud form” page has mysteriously disappeared from americancarol.com.
Damn! The more I thought about that, the more I had to grudgingly admire the filmmakers for their evil cleverness. Just think of what you could do with a mailing list of guaranteed suckers who will pony up actual money for jingo bullshit!
*I loved her turn in Finding Nemo. But you know…there’s an awful lot of Ellen haters out there.
The reason there are Ellen haters is because there’s so much to hate. Jesus! I can’t stand that woman’s cutesy, irritating sense of humor. She’s a millionaire version of those secretaries that put cute cat posters on their walls.
The worst Ellen moment ever had to be that routine where she asked God why he created the flea, and pretended to have him on the telephone.
Jesus. Wept!
Look out! It’s Cheney in drag!
The first clue was the smirk.
The 2-3 people who are possibly still reading may be interested in the following, which is the daily box office of “An American Carol” stated as a percentage of the daily box office of “Religulous”:
Friday — 110%
Saturday — 110%
Sunday — 97%
Monday — 91%
My interpretation: The wingnuts did indeed paper the house for the opening of AAC.
(Data from Boxofficemojo. It is interesting that all the figures given for AAC are estimates, which I have never seen for a new movie on that site.)
You know, I think I hit Little Miss Whatsherface in the mouth with a Batarang once, that’s why it’s all lopsided. What can I say? She was waving this gun around, wearing weird colors, and spouting gibberish, so I just assumed that she was a third-stringer in my Rogues Gallery that I hadn’t gotten around to wailing on yet. Oops, my bad.
Yikes! What’s with the gun? She doesn’t need it. She could easily scare people away with that mug of hers.
Surely someone has the photoshop skills to put together receipts for pan-sexual furry scat porn (not that there’s anything wrong with that) made out to Bill O’Reilly…
About the technical sabotage. I swear every one of the last 3 movies I’ve watched have had some kind of glitch. I guess they are now sabotaging happy-go-lucky liberal movies as well.
I don’t want to seem like I’m defending this idiot or anything, but I think what she’s whining about is that because they sold the wrong tickets, for other movies instead of AAC, it wasn’t counted properly toward the box office, and that’s why the box office totals sucked.
I don’t understand how you could organize a conspiracy like that big enough to effect anything, but then again I’m not a stupid wingnut.
What have we learned from this?
• Theater employees probably took one look at the patrons and knew that even though it didn’t say it on their ticket, they were there to see the movie where people hit each other and things explode. I’m guessing it was the bumper stickers on their faces, or perhaps the racist anti-Obama buttons the men like to pin on their bare chests, that tipped them off.
• Those patrons who had a good time in the theater probably went home and said, “Man, I just about died when that little dog said ‘I have to doo doo’! Take that, Michael Moore!”
• When I asked the theater drone for a ticket to Hellboy 2, he gave me two tickets to Hellboy. Curse those liberals and their anti-Hell agenda!
• From reading the letters page where a commenter says that Little Miss Attila looks just like the big-eyed babe cartoon at the top of her web page, we can be fairly sure that they’re not too attentive to details and might have looked right at the words “An American Carol” and thought, “Shit, they gave me a ticket to that zombie movie!” (They were right, of course.)
• Little Miss Attila (“America’s Hun”) named the .357 “Bathsheba” because she hopes it will mate with her .38, “Solomon” and raise a little brood of derringers for her to love.
• The plan was for the movie to take in so much money that everybody would see that McCain is the right choice in November. And they would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for those slacking kids and that dog!
EXPELLED.. did $7,598,071 as of May 26 2008 [last date recorded on IMDB] Ben Stein. Schmuck.