Tag: Venice Film Festival

Any awards release with political overtones faces a conundrum: To win the Academy Award, it must court Hollywood liberals, which can mean alienating the ticket-buying public at large. That's when news spread that the movie had omitted a real-life scene: Armstrong planting the American flag on the moon. Right-wing outrage was immediate and helped ding the picture at the box office, where it failed to draw a crucial male demographic and earned a muted $44 million domestically. What's intriguing in this isn't just how politics suddenly and explosively intersected with an awards-season release, it's how the studio failed to punch back. Universal execs could have argued that the film is a celebration of an American hero; they could even have offered to screen the movie at the White House (a risky strategy, admittedly, if the president didn't end up liking it). In several tight best picture contests, the more overtly liberal contender won. Deer Hunter won best picture. This year, several liberal-minded pictures will jostle for an edge, and that means they'll have to underline their politics without alienating ticket buyers. The same is true of Universal's Green Book, which opened Nov. 16. While a liberal message clearly gives a movie an edge, how much of an edge is unclear.