Last week Bill O’Reilly observed that two ideologically contrasting movies were about to be released. One was the liberal bashing “An American Carol“ in which O’Reilly has a small part ( Note to BO: There are no small parts, only small actors minds). The other was Bill Maher’s docu-comedy “Religulous.” O’Reilly, whose analysis of media is notoriously shoddy, couldn’t help but speculate as to the reception these films would receive:
“It will be very interesting to see which movie wins at the box office. Will the pagans score big? Or will the first conservative satire ever clobber the atheists?”
Apparently the Pagans and Atheists have prevailed. At least they didn’t get clobbered. After a week in general release the two films are virtually tied at about $4.5 million. However, Carol opened in 1,639 theaters while Religulous opened in only 568. So Religulous outperformed Carol on a per-screen basis by over 300%.
These results must surely be unwelcome news for O’Reilly (and God). As for Maher, O’Reilly advises him to “pray for a long life.” O’Reilly even takes a swipe at Oliver Stone’s precarious salvation status. Stone’s biopic of George Bush, “W.” will arrive at theaters next week.
“I’ll make a bold prediction: Many critics will love it! Can you imagine anyone sticking up for Mr. Bush at this point in time?”
I’ll make a bold prediction too: Many critics will hate it! I know, I’m really going out on a limb. The fact that O’Reilly thinks that a negative review equates to “sticking up for Mr. Bush” shows just how deeply degraded his cognitive skills have become. He can’t seem to comprehend that critics may base their reviews on their impressions of the film’s qualities. And O’Reilly has previously expressed his paranoid perspective of the film critics community as being hopelessly liberal. He arrived at this conclusion because a majority of critics whom he asked about their ideological leanings declined to answer. Therefore, in O’Reilly’s dementia, they must be clandestine socialists bent on ripping America apart.
It must be getting harder and harder to be Bill O’Reilly – an egotistical demagogue who can’t seem to win even with God on his side.
Update: After four weeks in release, An American Carol has earned $6.9 million. Religulous has earned $10.7 million. So Religulous has earned 55% more despite playing in one third the number of theaters and costing one tenth the amount to produce.
Also worth noting is the fact Maher’s movie was in the black the first week it was out. An American Carol cost something like $20 million. Its inbred humor will only register with the Rush Limbaugh crowd so, unlike most Hollywood fare, it can’t hope for overseas ticket sales to bale it out.
Regarding Bill’s prediction critics will hate the movie I predicted on my blog Fox News would start whining they’re a bunch of upset libs. All I can say is share the critics’ misery by watching the painfully unfunny trailer for yourself. Available on my blog or search YouTube for it.
Good point. Religulous cost only $2.5 million to make.
Gee, I see I used the wrong form of bail. Perhaps I’ll do better this time. 😮
O’Reilly, IMHO, has a huge problem trying to excuse An American Carol’s horrible box office. The usual red herring it’s the liberal mainstream media [critics] torpedoing it belies O’Reilly’s own egomaniacal fantasies of how big he is, his show is, and Fox News is in general which favor it. Not to mention he and Fox News like to sneer the mainstream media is irrelevant because all of America is sick of their spin so they bypass them preferring right thinking [blue] blogs and non-mainstream sources like his beloved Fox News or talk radio. Note his buddy Rush Limbaugh, the king of right-wing talk radio, has shilled the movie through his microphone.
Duplicate this logic for any spin he devises to explain the popularity of liberal fare like Oliver Stones’ W.
O’Reilly can’t have it both ways. He can’t masturbate his massive ego bragging nobody’s watching other cable channels and trumpeting how dominant Fox News is while whining he and Fox News have little to no influence in the world when reality turns sour.
I can’t predict critic reaction to W other than note the trailer doesn’t look very interesting to me – and I’m one of the so-called “Bush haters” Oliver Stone is marketing to – so I assume they’ll pan it as well.
However, I will stick out my neck to predict I don’t think W will burn up the box office numbers. I doubt trying to sell a politically polarizing flick, narrowing your audience, is savvy business practice. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s an overseas market for a movie mocking an unpopular US president.
Goofed again. 🙂
Red not blue blogs.
This reminds me of when I was a little boy and my father gave me a stuffed elephant he bought durinq a trip to India.
It had an obvious flaw in it. The story goes it was intentional because Indian craftsmen didn’t want to attempt to produce anything perfect because it was an offense to God. Only God is perfect.
Subconsciously I’m following that practice. Doing a darn good job of it too! 😉
What is funny about conservative parody is that it isn’t funny. They should know by now, the O’Really types, that parody is not their thing.
At least it shouldn’t be, because when they parody themselves, they show how they really are. There is a thin line between the fiction and the reality.
FOX had a show that was meant to rival comedy centrals “The Daily Show”. A parody of conservative TV I guess. But I would also gather that they saw too much of themselves in it, and thusly, canned it.