Vanity Fair: John Cusack's Viral Success Story ("War Inc.")

[Hissyspit]

http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/blogs/daily/2008/05/vicky-ward-john.html

May 30, 2008
CULTURE | MOVIES
Vicky Ward: John Cusack's Viral Success Story

Critics in the mainstream media scoffed, for the most part, at John Cusack’s low-budget didactic satire, War Inc., calling it heavy-handed and five years too late. The film struggled to get into festivals, finally making it into Tribeca this year. But on the Web, voices sang a different tune, calling War Inc. “prescient” and groundbreaking for its strange tonal shifts and for highlighting the morbid absurdity and immorality of the war in Iraq and those who profit off it. Writers such as Arianna Huffington, The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill, and even British artist Damien Hirst all gave blurbs for the movie’s Web site and Cusack’s MySpace page. Juno writer Diablo Cody interviewed Cusack about it for MySpaceTV, Vanity Fair quizzed him in print and online, and I talked with him on CNBC.

Despite the negative reviews, I found War Inc. innovative and subversively ironic. And it appears that early audiences are responding to it, too. Last weekend, the film opened in two theaters—one in New York, the other in Los Angeles—and grossed $50,714 after four days. Per seat, according to Cusack, who spoke to me a few days ago, its performance was second only to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The encouraging results may be proof of the power of viral marketing, an instance when the subculture becomes the culture. Today, looking bleary-eyed from London, where he is filming Shanghai for the Weinstein Company, Cusack used MySpace to talk about the success of his film and to ask people to go see it this weekend. If the figures are good enough, he said, the film will go national.

And if that happens, it won’t just be the anti-war message of the movie that is groundbreaking; War Inc. could become a model for a new, grass-roots type of marketing, in which a film’s potential audience (with a little help from the director) may be better able to advertise it than the so-called experts are. To me, that’s exciting. Just as the war’s main orchestrator in the movie, a capitalist played by Ben Kingsley, meets a gruesome end after running from an angry crowd, so too, if the drum roll is loud enough, can the views of critics be overruled by people who will see what they want to see, no matter who tells them not to.

Vicky Ward is a Vanity Fair contributing editor. Visit her Web site at vickyward.com.

[babylonsister]

1. Critics scoff at lots of things. They're only critics. Rec'd for a true patriot. nt

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. I have known a lot of "critics" in my day.

27 years in the music business causes that. Pathetic little creatures, really. Rock Critics tend to be rock star wannabees(Except for Lenny Kaye. He could walk it and not just talk it.). They are prima donnas who expect royal treatment from all concerned("Do you know who I think I am??!!"), come backstage, weasel their way into the dressing rooms, eat all the food, nearly drown themselves in the drink bucket, go on and on about how they love the band and the show and then go and slag the band, the tour manager, the show and anything else that moved near them.

The record companies then freak, start throwing recriminations about and kiss ass on the critics all that much more.

I shoulda been a critic. It's a sweet deal.

The only thing worse is a Boston Big Rock Station disk jockey. Especially the gay one when he was drunk. Which was usually. Oh, Myrtle. But that's a story for another time and besides, I hear he cleaned up.

If I ever have a son and he says he is going to go into the music business, I am gonna do him a favor: I am gonna grab him by the ankles and swin him into a brick wall till his head explodes. It will be the kindest thing I could do for him.

[Hissyspit]

3. kick

[siligut]

4. I have always adored John Cusack.

Synopsis from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0884224/plotsummary

A political satire set in Turaqistan, a country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former US Vice-President (Aykroyd). In an effort to monopolize the opportunities the war-torn nation offers, the corporation's CEO hires a troubled hit man (Cusack), to kill a Middle East oil minister. Now, struggling with his own growing demons, the assassin must pose as the corporation's Trade Show Producer in order to pull off this latest hit, while maintaining his cover by organizing the high-profile wedding of Yonica Babyyeah (Duff) an outrageous Middle Eastern pop star, and keeping a sexy left wing reporter (Tomei) in check.

[gateley]

5. K&R - Hope it comes to a theater near me!! nt

[galledgoblin]

6. five years too late?

well, sorta; I would have preferred to see it come out five years ago when criticism was "unpatriotic" and I needed a laugh, but I still welcome this film today.

[pitohui]

7. john cusack was making unpopular films five years ago, you just didn't see them

for instance the film, i think it's called "max," where it's pointed out how, um, sympathetic hitler could be -- is this a sly nod toward *, you be the judge :-)

seriously it's easy now for media to report on cusack being anti-bush/anti-war when it's cool to be anti-bush/anti-war, but when he was "prematurely" anti-bush well you didn't hear so much about it

my feeling is that cusack is one of the good guys but even he cannot fight a bought-off media, all he can do is keep swinging until one of the balls finally goes out of the park

[electricmonk]

8. Watched it online last week

I loved it and if it ever comes to a theater near me I'll go watch it again. If not I'll gladly pay for a legit dvd of it. DVD has a release date of July 1st but I imagine that would change if they get a national theater release.