Producers and studios aren’t dumb. Geeks are the easiest lays in every sense of the word and AICN movie enthusiast Harry Knowles is notoriously one of the easiest, least discerning critics on the web. If your movie has at least a beginning and an end, chances are Knowles is going to like it.
Step one on how to create buzz for a film like Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” which has had its share of mildly negative buzz (it’s bizarre and hard to sell said THR, script reports are poor)? Pass the easy layup to Harry Knowles who apparently was invited to a way-in-advance screening.
Shocker is, he loves it and was suckered in tout suite (“15 minutes in, my mind was blown!”)
He calls it, “possibly greatest film yet,” and the director’s “most accomplished… work since Brazil.” Of Heath Ledger’s role he says, “Heath has a complete role. It is eerie. It is wonderful, but he is not necessarily a hero or a good person.”
Curiously enough he barely mentions the performances of Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law who replaced and finished Ledger’s role when he prematurely passed away before filming was done in January ’08. Pardon our skepticism. There’s no one more than us that would love to see Terry Gilliam make another great picture (it’s been a decade at least?) and achieve a full-on comeback, but Knowles is no taste barometer and his opinion is only an indication of having had his eyelids open during the screening. Other films that Knowles adored in recent years were “Speed Racer,” “Rambo” and cinematic wonders like “Semi-Pro, “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas,” and “Beerfest.” Hopefully it’s great, it would be at the very least, great for the legacy of Ledger, but we can’t help but make sure his thoughts have a disclaimer: buyer beware. [AICN via Vulture]