The End of the Road

The dusk-strewn view from the 13th floor of the Red Lion Inn in downtown Salt Lake City perfectly epitomizes the peculiar dichotomy that is the city itself. The azure blue fades into lavender and then into a smooth pink glow which serves to outline the deep dark silhouette of the not-so-distant Rocky mountains. When you track your eyes down from this majestic vista, they sweep into a cityscape that is, frankly, fuuuuuckin’ ghetto. It is devoid of industry, excitement, or even the slightest aesthetic reflection of its majestic background. Instead, there only exists an ironic acknowledgment of the shitbox lying at the western foot of The Great Divide — the grandeur of Brigham Young’s heaven ends with a rundown “Waffle Ho se.” (the ‘u‘ is mysteriously missing).

Okay, maybe I’m getting poetic and faggy, but I just finished two full months on a tour bus promoting the movie ‘I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL‘ and I’m feeling nostalgic about the end of the road. (note to reader: You can follow my journey and consequent sojourn into my own personal heart of darkness if you goto: http://www.youtube.com/beerinhell.)

Unfortunately, as most of you probably do NOT know, the movie has actually opened in select theaters. That’s right, it has. Don’t worry, if you weren’t aware of the movie’s existence, join the other 307+ million Americans who similarly had no clue. The public at large just didn’t know about it, and therefore, didn’t show up. Tada! Like magic!

With the limited budget for marketing and advertising we had for this indie film, we barely got the word out to the roughly 2 million plus people who had purchased and/or read the book, much less the remaining 305 million assholes cluttering up the U.S.

Still, the producers of the movie gave it a college try… literally. We gassed up a pimptastic tour bus and hit over 30 cities — most of them in huge college towns — premiering the film and seducing the 18-24 demographic into spreading the word with promises of t-shirts, beer pong kits, and meetings with the author, Tucker Max. And yes, in this context, ‘meeting’ can mean ‘giving a blow job to.’

“This was the best movie I’ve ever seen in my life!” was a common ejaculation from frat boys and sorostitutes alike after seeing the film at these screenings. Although in my head I couldn’t help but think ‘you are retarded or need to watch more movies,’ I was still excited it was making such a huge impression on these mentally challenged college children.

The film was screened for close to 15,000 people before the opening September 25th. The idea was that each person would tell their friend… they would tell their friend … and so on and so on, just like that classic Faberge Organic Shampoo commercial.

But, alas, the movie failed at the box office. Somehow, that buzz marketing fission reaction never quite happened. Maybe we were short one fresh-faced Heather Locklear. (She was sooo hot before she became a rocker slut, wasn’t she?)

So what happened?

Who knows and herein lies the rub. With any failure like this, Monday morning quarterbacks show up like… well, like Monday morning quarterbacks.

I mean, some are contending that, with the market as glutted as it is, it’s a sisyphusian task getting ANY movie seen, much less an independent film with no star names that revolves around a personality as polarizing as Tucker Max. Although ‘I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL’ was protested and some people claimed it was ‘ruining women’s lives’ and ‘promoting rape culture,’ in the end the film itself didn’t really generate any controversy…. probably because it wasn’t really controversial. I would even, scout’s honor, take my mom to go see it (what old person doesn’t love a great shit scene, let’s be honest?!). I guess the movie was sort of like Mitch Hedberg’s old band. “You either loved us… or hated us… or thought we were just okay.”

Others argue that the economy was at play for poor numbers. Still others thought the film’s fate was sealed by a crappy marketing team. Couple of folks blamed it on bad reviews. Many thought the reason for mediocre attendence was because the trailer blew freshly rotting leper balls (mea culpa).

The most obvious reason was also the hardest to admit. And that is, the film, while good, wasn’t good enough to generate the requisite word of mouth to make it a hit. The movie is funny and well-written with great performances, but, when all is said and done, the product was seen by a lot of people and still didn’t take off. It looks like some people tried the shampoo, worked it into a frothy lather, and told their friends: ‘Eh.’

For two months, no one, including myself, could seem to acknowledge the fact that the movie might not garner momentous word of mouth — the same word of mouth that catapulted ‘District 9,’ ‘500 Days of Summer,’ ‘The Hangover,’ and currently, the micro-budgeted ‘Paranormal Activity’ into box-office smashes. The idea that the film itself might not be enough was the big pink elephant in the tour bus… wearing a tutu, riding a unicycle, and juggling dildos.

Apparently, the film ITSELF wasn’t enough, because after 2 weeks and close to 100 thousand people seeing it, it seemed like the general populace was gently telling us: “We like you a lot, little independent movie… but we’re just not THAT into you….”

So I’m sitting here, last day of the whole tour….on the 13th floor…with the dead, and now darkened, Salt Lake cityscape spread out before me like a smallpox blanket. I’m drinking alone, a quaint and charming habit I seemed to have picked up on this tour. Tucker has just texted me, saying a bunch of HOOTERS girls want to meet him at a local bar. He wants to know if I’ll be going. Ugh. Hooters girls?! Sounds like the worst possible way to cap off this experience….

And of course I’m going.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 2:31 pm and is filed under All blog entries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.