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Out: Being Shallow

Kim Hollis: Do you think that Confessions of a Shopaholic is one of the films most directly adversely affected by today's economic climate?

Tim Briody: Yes. As I posited in the Friday numbers column, in this wintry economic climate, do people want to see a movie about a self-professed "shopaholic?" We want escapism! Not to seethe at the attractive women who buys everything in sight.

Brandon Scott: I doubt that had anything to do with it, to be honest. It was a movie that just didn't have any real cache. I think it is what it is, in truth.

Shane Jenkins: Eh, I'm still blaming the casting of Isla over the content. If this were a Reese Witherspoon movie, no one would have cared about the consumerism. We probably even would have called it "escapism" when it performed well.

David Mumpower: I've got Tim's back in this tag team affair against Brandon and Shane. I absolutely think that the movie's premise, already annoying, was decimated by real life events. Who wants to go to a movie to see a woman struggling under the weight of seemingly infinite credit card bills? They get enough of that at home. People want fat guys on Segways, not hot chicks seeking out better accounting practices.

Kim Hollis: I think there's some truth to the fact that people don't want to see someone being economically stupid in the climate as it exists today. This was very poorly timed.

Really, you'd think that villainous banks is a concept whose time has come.

Kim Hollis: Clive Owen's The International failed to materialize as a Valentine's Day compromise choice, grossing only $10 million. What went wrong with this Sony release?

Brandon Scott: The trailer in the theater was horrific. The star is not bankable, though I like him as an actor. Even having Naomi Watts held little interest to most, and she was all but hidden in the trailers as well. This was, wisely I suspect, looked at as standard fare in a crowded marketplace. Why not see Taken over this if you had the choice, and I think that's what people did. Now Clive Owen and Julia Roberts should see much better results in next month's Duplicity. Owen isn't cut out to be a star/lead here and I don't think he really cares, either. Now, he would have been a good choice for Bond and that would have made him a star, but at the same time, I still don't see people turning out for Daniel Craig in anything but Bond movies. Stardom is a finicky thing to understand.

Shane Jenkins: I'm a fan of The International's director, Tom Tykwer, who also gave us Run Lola Run and the best segment of Paris je t'aime. He's one of the true stylists working in cinema today, but if there's any visual flair in The International, they've done a terrific job of hiding it in ads. This looks like a by-the-numbers corporate thriller, so much so that a few weeks ago I was willing to swear I had seen this movie already. If there's anything special about it, then the dreadful marketing campaign is to blame.

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