You might be able to fool the general public about the success of the Palin propaganda film "The Undefeated," but you CAN'T fool the movie critics!

Image courtesy of the amazing Love and Knishes.

From Box Office Mojo:

Normally, a movie with such poor box office would not receive story coverage on Box Office Mojo, but the furor over The Undefeated calls for an injection of truth.

Even before The Undefeated bottomed out in its second weekend, the movie was a bust in its first weekend, but its boosters latched onto two stats: per-theater average and ranking among political documentaries. The classic tactics of movie spin include bragging about per-theater average and declaring a high ranking in a niche category. The funny thing is that Undefeated's opening didn't rate highly on either front, making the spin extra-egregious.

Within the minor political documentary sub-genre, The Undefeated's $6,532 opening weekend per-theater average ranked 33rd out of the 91 limited openings tracked over the past 30 years, normalized for ticket price inflation. Among all documentaries, it was in the middle of the pack. Hardly worthy of hyperbole. Even if it had little to no advertising, Undefeated had far more media coverage than most other political documentaries and independent releases could ever dream of. The awareness was there.

Undefeated boosters ran with the notion that the movie's opening had the "second highest per-theater average of the weekend, behind only Harry Potter," but the movie was actually sixth in that metric. They also latched onto a press release about how The Undefeated averaged "above $11,000 in top markets." But averages are naturally higher in top markets (that's why they're "top markets") and, without context (how it compared to other movies' grosses in those markets), that was a meaningless statistic.

It's extremely myopic to believe that having one of the higher per-theater averages on a given weekend means a movie is a success, and The Undefeated's second weekend bore that out. Indeed, "per-theater average" is one of the most overrated stats. For limited releases, the most receptive locations are cherry-picked with the purpose to impress with a high per-theater average in order to book more markets. The fewer the theaters, the easier it is to have a higher average.

To put these numbers into further perspective: The Undefeated's ten theaters on opening weekend yielded 159 showings. Using the current average ticket price of $7.86, that means the movie played to an estimated 52 people per average showing or at about one-fifth to one-quarter capacity. In the movie's second weekend, which had 211 showings, the per-showing average attendance dropped to 15.

Damn, I like how this guy Brandon Gray left absolutely NO doubt that this movie was an unmitigated disaster. 


Not really much argument left is there?


Which makes THIS, seem just that much more pathetic.



The path to the White House runs through the theaters across America showing this film.

We need to sell those theaters out! No more excuses, no more complaints. Let’s show the world why we support her. Show them this film! We need your help to make this happen. We can’t sit silently anymore. Now we must act.

Special incentives:

Each Youth For Palin's Youth Brigade member will receive special rewards including $$ compensation and/or a donation to our group (your choice). special recognition, and other items.

Game On!

Personally I think that any parent who encourages their child to pimp this move for Snowdrift Snooki should be brought up on charges of child abuse.


It finally dawned on me who the Palin-bots who are refusing to see the writing on the walls about Palin's pathetic propaganda piece remind me of.  They remind me of those Japanese soldiers who stayed at their posts for decades because they did not realize the war was over.