Apparently, according to both 'Valentine's Day' movie review: Too many stars, too few laughs, by Stephen Whitty, and A Whole Lotta Interconnected Love, and a Whole Lotta Movie Stars, by Manohla Dargis, the only thing that Valentine’s Day had going for it was a bunch of famous faces.
I believe Whitty was a bit bitter about paying $10 to see “Valentine’s Day” (if he had to pay to see it, otherwise he must feel pretty sorry for the rest of the viewers that had to fork up the cash) and decided to goes full force and attacks the actors that starred in it. But when he takes a break from all that, he points out one positive aspect about the film: the film included some controversial topics. Such topics include a gay romance and also an interracial romance were included in the love story. But Whitty was sure to mention that these romances were not included free of charge, they came at the price of stereotypical humor.
Dargis also talks about the stereotypes, and basically ideologies, that “Valentine’s Day” fell into through the wide array of characters, including both rich and poor, different ages and races and even sexual orientation. The movie shows a male successfully owning his business while a female is struggling as a teacher. Fat people are the center of jokes, but the movie goes further in daring to bring up homosexual jokes as well.
But Dargis also brings up the point that with so many famous ‘actors’ (though I believe Dargis would be a bit tentative, and even reluctant, calling some of these celebrities actors), the movie is bound to bring in a large audience of different people. Bringing ‘actors’ from “Grey’s Anatomy”, “Twilight” or simply nice-to-look-at actresses, “Valentine’s Day” does a nice job appealing to a large audience. Dargis argues that even though the faces were familiar, this didn’t mean that they succeeded to benefit the performance throughout the movie.
One of the things to notice and hold on to is the statement that Whitty makes at the very end of his article: “The film will probably make millions anyway, based on that cast.” Actually, “Valentine’s Day” earned a total of 52.4 million (http://www.moviefone.com/new-movie-releases). Focusing on the economics of the media, this is the star system played out in its finest. The star system states that the biggest predictor that attracts viewers to a movie is the actors. Even if the movie doesn’t have a good plot, direction, or any other concept that has to do with a good film yet is able to get a wide variety of celebrity faces to fill in the cast, the movie is going to do pretty well. This seems to be what “Valentine’s Day” did.
Also, according to Whitty, a sequel to “Valentine’s Day” has already been announced. Another aspect of media economics is the idea of sequels and remakes. Although a sequel usually isn’t as good as the original (but if the original was this bad, how much worse could the sequel get?), people, hopefully, will be curious enough to go watch it, even to simply say that they saw it. Only time will tell if this view will hold true.
~Kimberly
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