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The Interview Bombs In US, Kills In China, Threatens N. Korea
First time accepted submitter twitnutttt (2958183) writes "While it has been broadly panned in the U.S. as not very funny, The Interview is surprisingly getting good reviews in China. And the North Korean government's fears of the threat posed by this movie are apparently merited: "It is powerful because it depicts Kim Jong-un as a vain, buffoonish despot, alternating between threats and weeping that he's been misunderstood. The people around him have all the signs of fear you might expect with a despot — they second-guess his likes and dislikes. Maybe he — and they — were right to fear the film. North Korean defectors sometimes smuggle USB sticks with films and soaps into the closed-off country, and there is a view in the south that these are a particularly powerful means of undermining the regime in Pyongyang. If that's so, The Interview might be a good candidate for inclusion."
If you've seen the movie, and have your own reactions, please label any real spoilers out of courtesy.
It may be an unfunny movie, but reports are that in the limited number of theatres it has been relieased in, the shows are sold out.
That's hardly "bombing".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
This ain't charlie chaplin folks, it's a guy who built a career on man-boy humor and dick jokes. The fact that North Korea is so offended by this only confirms how absurdly immature their fearless leader really can be. A chubby Jewish guy almost toppled the whole charade with toilet humor.
'The Interview,' Greeted By Sold-Out Shows, May Net Millions This Weekend
'The Interview' Opens to Singing, Sold-Out Crowds as Sony CEO Explains His Decision to Show Film
'The Interview' Draws Sell-Out Crowds After Sony Flips On Release Cancellation
New York showings of âThe Interviewâ(TM) sell out
Oh yeah, it's "bombing" in the US alright...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
You want a good movie mocking a dictator?
Duck Soup. It's like a thousand times as good as the Interview.
and acting was pretty bad although it was funny 1/3 of ht show. Basically it was border line Borat style shock comedy. The guy playing Kim Jong did the best acting vs the main stars.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
"It is powerful because it depicts Kim Jong-un as a vain, buffoonish despot, alternating between threats and weeping that he's been misunderstood. The people around him have all the signs of fear you might expect with a despot â" they second-guess his likes and dislikes. Maybe he â" and they â" were right to fear the film. North Korean defectors sometimes smuggle USB sticks with films and soaps into the closed-off country, and there is a view in the south that these are a particularly powerful means of undermining the regime in Pyongyang. If that's so, The Interview might be a good candidate for inclusion."
If nothing else, it's rather sad that Seth Rogen and James Franco are able to have a bigger impact on North Korea than sanctions and every diplomat and US president since the end of the Korean War.
This sounds like Nobel Peace Prize buzz to me. ;-)
It's a movie that includes Seth Rogen!
What did you expect? A new Schindler's List?!?
I don't see why only disliking stupid jokes is a liberal-only thing. It seems more like what is and is not funny is subjective.
While I'm almost embarrassingly rich thanks to a wealthy family, I've never understood the US obsession with wealth as an indicator of anything except... that a person has cash or other material assets. There are many ways to become rich, and almost none of them involve much productivity, let alone effort.
The North Korean regime's survival depends on keeping its people completely uninformed. Here's an article about how even a little bit of information about the outside world can destroy the carefully constructed myths that sustain North Korean society: http://articles.latimes.com/20...
"About two years ago, a North Korean who worked in the state fisheries division was on a boat in the Yellow Sea when his transistor radio picked up a South Korean situation comedy. The radio program featured two young women who were fighting over a parking space in their apartment complex.
A parking space? The North Korean was astonished by the idea that there was a place with so many cars that there would be a shortage of places to park them. Although he was in his late 30s and a director of his division, he had never met anyone who owned their own car.
The North Korean never forgot that radio show and ended up defecting to South Korea last year."
The article is old, but I don't think things have changed much in North Korea.
But not enough to justify a pair of full-price tickets. I will give it this; it was better than any Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey movie I've seen.
Why is all the good stuff already modded 5, when I have mod points?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
is revered as a god, I can see an awful lot of North Koreans trying to sneak a look at this movie. it could potentially be a game changer for them to see how the world looks at their perfect leader. Might even topple the government. Probably not, but one can hope.
invade North Korea, depose the North Korean government, and depose & disarm the North Korean military, and once they stabilized it, hand it over to South Korea
...Except China likes having North Korea as a buffer zone between it and the much more democratic and western-aligned South Korea.
Having a crackpot dictatorship on its borders helps China's own citizens from getting to many 'crazy' ideas in their head -- "Look how great we have it here!"
When you can download or watch it for free. I have never gotten the people around here who say piracy doesn't hurt sales, of course I am going to seek the cheapest method possible to get it. I don't give a shit about DRM/IP/etc.. I am cheap and not some evangelical mission.
Because you wouldn't have bought it anyway, duh.
Mod parent up. Piracy has always been a non-threat. Pirates don't buy. They're never a missed sale, they're simply a no-sale.
...it's about what we've come to expect from Rogen and his pals. In parts hilarious, disgusting, inane, chaotic (well, most of it was that...), thought-provoking, puerile and brilliant. Not unlike reality.
I'd say Last King Of Scotland but that's hardly a comedy...
relevance to Slashdotters: Dana Scully is in a supporting role! :)
Is it just me who found the title for this submission a little strange, especially considering the hackers threatened to bomb the theaters which'd show the movie? I initially misread it into thinking they actually did it somehow.
"Pirates" are not definable in absolutes like that. Some studies have shown they are the biggest consumers of both paid and "stolen" media.
Saying they are simply a non-threat/no-sale is just as intellectually dishonest as when the RIAA/MPAA claim every pirated copy is a fully lost sale.
That isn't entirely true. North Korea is not well suited for agriculture, and due to the war and mismanagement the economy is a mess, but it has large ore deposits. Mining is a significant component of the economy even now, and with good management and investment for infrastructure (such as adequate electrical power) could grow considerably.
I've never understood this one, a blockbuster is a great movie while a bomb is a bad one. But a blockbuster is a bomb. WTF?
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Hardly. They obviously believe the product has some value or they wouldn't have stolen it.
Worth downloading != worth paying money for.
Piracy is convenient.
Downloading - a few minutes of my time to start the download. Then after it finishes (which is very fast usually), I can watch the movie on whatever device that has enough processing power and a screen, at any time having full control of it.
Going to the cinema (in general) - need to drive to wherever the cinema is, at a specified time, watch it with a bunch of strangers (that may include screaming children), no control whatsoever - cannot pause the movie to go to the toilet, cannot rewind a few seconds to rewatch a scene I missed, cannot increase or reduce the sound volume, cannot even have a conversation with whoever I came to watch the movie (assuming I did not come alone) during a boring part. Forced to watch ads before the movie. Cannot bring the food that I want (that is not sold (at high prices) in the cinema). The movie has to be recent enough to still be showed in cinemas.
Going to the cinema (this particular movie) - All of the above but include traveling to the US, getting a hotel room etc.
Buying a DVD/Bluray - Better than going to the cinema, but still have to go to a store that sells them, have to sit through a bunch of unskippable ads.
Time from "Hey, let's watch a movie! Which one? [googles some previously unheard of movie] This one." to actually watching it:
DVD: 30 minutes - 1 hour (assuming the store is open), days (if the store is closed).
Cinema: 30 minutes - 3 hours (assuming the movie is being shown in cinemas and the cinema is open), days (if the cinema is closed), undefined (if the movie is not shown in cinemas).
Download: 5 - 30 minutes (my internet connection is up to 500mbps).
Oh, and Netflix is not available in my country in case you were going to suggest it.
So, see, even if the tickets for the movie (or the DVDs at the store) were given away for free, downloading would be the preferred option.
I think he's saying that a restaurant reviewer who goes into a burger joint and shits all over it in his review because they didn't have sushi is probably not adding much useful information to the review-o-sphere.
I don't like most childrens movies because I'm an adult and I find them childish. But if somebody was paying me to write informative reviews and I had to review a kids' movie, I wouldn't spend a lot of time bemoaning the simplistic plot line, limited charater development or overly bright color pallette. Complaining that the latest Disney Princess movie didn't have the same set of elements that made No Country for Old Men appealing sort of misses the point. It's not even sensible enough to be considered wrong.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"