Hollywood (hol' ee' wud) n. hype?

What exactly is "Hollywood Hype"? How do you define it?

Does it matter?

Does it work?

Do you trust it?

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r66

A relentless corporate-driven media machine which strives with tricks and treats to incite a craving in the masses for its product similar to the suavest of drug dealers via a need to know and have culture bias and the stimulus of the basest human responses.

Yes

Yes

No


Note:the Question(s) were a bit vague since they were dependent on the answer of the first.

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"When I said my quarters were cold, I did not mean "Oh, I think it is a little chilly in here. Perhaps I'll throw a blanket on the bed." No! I said it was cold! As in, "Oh look - my left arm has snapped off like an icicle and shattered on the floor!"

It's marketing... some of it weak some of it really good. I've seen a number of 'hyped' films that I thought weren't nearly as good as I expected them to be. Buyer beware.

Does it matter? Sure, it represents the free market

Does it work? Usually

Do you trust it? Almost never now. I just go to what I think looks like a good film. I'm wrong sometimes but you win some, lose some. BTW, it's impossible to please everyone. Some of the films I HATED (Gladiator, Hannibal, Armageddon etc) others loved.

I admit, it tends to work on me. If the hype is big enough, I'm usually willing to take a chance on the flick. To be honest, I find I'm not too often disappointed. Usually I find that when a film has not only a big budget, but a big marketing budget, it tends to have some genuine weight behind it. I think we're getting higher quality films than we were a few years back. People are adapating to special effects, and they tend to want more.

The closest thing resembling a failure to live up to hype that I can recall is Men in Black 2. Other than that, most of the big "event" movies (Spider-Man, LOTR: FOTR, Harry Potter, etc) have been fairly deserving of their hype.