Why wasn't this movie more popular in the U.S.?
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ivegottheskill — 21 years ago(July 30, 2004 04:22 AM)
I didn't think it was that bad. First of all, its supposed to be a comedy, so it won't appeal to everyone (hence probably why it didn't appeal to many americans with their wierd sense of humor).
As it is a comedy and isn't based on fact from the start, plot holes and the like have to be ignored. Just focus on the movie being a piece of entertainment (i.e. nothing more than moving pictures with sound) and its possible to appreciate other aspects of films such as this.
Soundtrack is cool as well
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aurelie_ledoyen — 21 years ago(December 31, 2004 10:37 PM)
This movie I hate to say, was too good for us Americans to enjoy..I myself loved it as a child of 9; it was just so funny..of course noone else around me had seen it, probably because they would'nt laugh at the asylum scenes or father-son dialogue in Young Einstein.
I loooved this movie but as for Best Film of 1988 I'd have to say it's a tossover between this one and Willow.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.~ Carl Sagan -
JahWoo — 19 years ago(January 18, 2007 12:37 AM)
i was ten whenit came outI think it was marketed towards kids because I remember being excited about itlol. I think i didn't get to see it until it came out on video.but..it was a movie I remember I wanted to see.
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KingNine61 — 17 years ago(September 20, 2008 11:17 PM)
Okay, so I.m necroposting. It happens. But I thought I'd throw some context into the mix and see what rises.
Then YE was released in the United States, the adverts for it billed it as a "runaway hit" in Australia. The land down under was very trendy here at the time. We had muscular Aussies pitching alkaline batteries, a line of Aussie hair care products was very popular and koalas and kangaroos were everywhere (not the actual animals, but images of them). Foreign films don't get wide release here very often (virtually NEVER back in the eighties) and I figured if this film is such a hit in Australia and it's released to American audiences IN THE THEATERS, it's going to be something special.
Wow, was I wrong.
I brought a date to it and I had to apologize afterward.
It isn't sophistication or intelligence for the reason why this film was rejected by American audiences, as this film is neither sophisticated nor intelligent. But whatever.
The French like(d) Jerry Lewis and we typically saw him as a total buffoon who did a telethon every now and then. Germans think that David Hasselhoff is a swell guy, but Americans see him as a walking punchline. A careless logician would conclude that there is something wrong with the French and Germans, but I don't think so. It's just that their cultures appreciate that form of entertainment for whatever reason.
Americans didn't like Yahoo Serious. So what. At least he has Australia.
KNAPF -
tyrDC — 17 years ago(January 13, 2009 12:13 PM)
There's also the notion that if it's made in a country other than the US it
must
be more high brow. Other countries make bad/ stupid/ and just plain awful movies too. Nowadays it's like when any comedy show out of England is immediately praised by American hipster types basically because liking British comedy supposedly adds to one's coolness credibility even if Brits themselves think the show is terrible. I think in general Americans did take this movie at face value- it was silly, schlocky and not exactly a high quality film. Just because it's "foreign" doesn't mean it gets a free pass. I liked this movie at 9 years old when it came out so does that mean at 9 I was an extremely sophisticated fim connoisseur? Doubt it, I thought Ernest Goes to Camp (an American movie) was hilarious too at that age and it's rated about the same as this movie- deservedly. Don't get me wrong, I like my campy movies like Army of Darkness and Buffy the Vampire Slayer but I would definitely not say that it's "too sophisticated" for some people to get. -
sanctuary_thirteen — 16 years ago(September 08, 2009 05:22 AM)
Honestly, after seeing this movie again for the first time SINCE 1988, I think this movie was at least 10 years ahead of its time. I realize in a lot of ways its just a dumb comedy, but in others, it shines.
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BillyBob72 — 9 years ago(December 18, 2016 08:33 AM)
I saw it in a theater in Fayetteville, North Carolina when it was originally released. This was before that town had mega-plex theaters with 20 screens, and they all had only 3 screens back then. So some movies just didn't get shown. But yet, they showed this.