[HN Gopher] What's it like to star in a flop?
___________________________________________________________________
What's it like to star in a flop?
Author : edward
Score : 23 points
Date : 2021-12-17 07:01 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| jerf wrote:
| Sounds a bit like the work I've done for a startup I eventually
| knew was dead, followed by the position I was hired into for a
| contract that never went through... but at least I didn't have an
| _audience_ for those!
|
| (That dotcom burst thing _suuuuuuucked_.)
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| As if there's any critic who would work for The Guardian or Times
| whose opinion matters. It'd be like caring what Kotaku has to say
| about games
| dhosek wrote:
| I found it fascinating that the London theatre business is such
| that a play _must_ continue running for a minimum period
| (described in the article) even if it 's a failure. That's really
| bizarre.
|
| In my younger childless life, I used to go to the theatre fairly
| often and even had a Goodman subscription. I don't think I ever
| saw anything that would have qualified as a flop or even an
| artistic failure, but the Chicago theatre scene is pretty
| vibrant. While we lived in Los Angeles, we went to the theatre
| less often, but again a pretty vibrant theatre scene although not
| as risk-taking as Chicago (many smaller venues seemed to be
| actor-financed productions meant to catch casting directors'
| eyes, but none of these actor-producers had Ed Wood-like
| blindness to bad production, at least none that I saw).
|
| My sense is that New York is a lot more risk-averse, especially
| in the main stages. Perhaps things get more daring in smaller
| venues in the outer boroughs?
| flooow wrote:
| I went to see Manor at opening night. I thought it was OK, I was
| entertained. Was weird to find out (just now!) that it had got an
| absolute mauling in the press. It makes me wonder if I have
| terrible taste, and to what extent the 'quality' of a work of art
| is constructed after the fact by a social in-group (the critics).
|
| Relatedly, I've started watching movies at random, without
| reading reviews before or after, to try to develop a sense of
| what _I_ actually enjoy. Whether I have any real critical
| faculties at all. Perhaps it is all just received opinion. I re-
| watched League of Extraordinary Gentlemen last night though, and
| can confirm that it is in fact bad.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| > I thought it was OK
|
| This may be enough to justify harsh reviews. If people are
| going to spend several hundred dollars to see a live show, it
| better be an amazing show, something they'll remember for life.
| If people want to see something that's just okay they can watch
| a movie and not regret their loss of time and (nowadays very
| little, if on a streaming service) money.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a bad movie that is
| curiously extremely entertaining IMO.
| gilleain wrote:
| This makes sense if you consider 'quality' and 'enjoyability'
| on two separate axes:
|
| - High quality and enjoyable? A classic.
|
| - Low quality but enjoyable? A personal favourite.
|
| - High quality but boring? Critics choice that no one
| watches.
|
| - Low quality but boring? Obvious trash.
| Jenk wrote:
| For an example of the polar opposite, I thought Drive[0] was
| exceptionally high quality, yet not even remotely
| entertaining.
|
| It made for some nice screencap wallpapers, though.
|
| [0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780504/
| celim307 wrote:
| Drive was made purely for the ambiance and aesthetic.
| Basically a music video for vaporware soundtrack, or the b
| roll you see behind the lyrics on a kareoke machine
|
| I enjoyed it
| flooow wrote:
| Somehow I always remember it as being good escapist fun, but
| it isn't really. But I'll probably watch it again in a couple
| of years' time.
| w0mbat wrote:
| There was a London West End musical life of Leonardo Da Vinci
| which the critics hated, partly because it featured a fictional
| female love interest when Leonardo is generally believed to have
| been gay. It was financed by the island nation of Nauru using
| proceeds from its guano fertilizer business, prompting every
| critic to say they had found a way to turn crap into crap.
|
| My Dad told me about another West End disaster called "Fire
| Angel". Every West End theatre has little signage areas out front
| where they put press quotes about the show. Even with a terrible
| show they can always quote critics saying something positive,
| even if it's only about one song or one actor. However, no review
| said anything good about the show, so the signs all had snippets
| like "Fire Angel is a musical" - The Times.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-12-17 23:00 UTC)