Next weekend, 2 films with a lot of similarities both open on the exact same day. The Love Guru and Get Smart are two major comedies put out by big studios, both having major comedy names in the leads (Mike Myers and Steve Carell), both were highly anticipated when they were first announced…. and unfortunately both have lost a lot of anticipation ever since their respective trailers have begun showing.
I was beside myself with total glee when they first announced they would be doing a “Get Smart” film… and as good as casting Robert Downey Jr. was for Iron Man… it was even BETTER casting putting Steve Carell in the shoes of the immortal Don Adams. He is PERFECT for this role. But I’ve got to say… as much as I love the idea of the movie and Carell, the previews haven’t exactly pushed my enthusiasm into overdrive. On the contrary, Get Smart went from being one of my most anticipated movies of the summer, down to “meh… I’ll see it”. Not good.
As far as The Love Guru goes… I don’t even know where to begin. My love for the comedy of Mike Myers knows no limits, I was beyond excited that he was going to lead in another live action comedy that wasn’t Austin Powers (don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Austin Powers as much as the next guy… But I’ve been dying to see Myers stretch out a bit again. Ya well… all that got totally flushed right down the toilet the moment I saw the first trailer for the flick. This film looks ass awful. Worse than ass awful actually. Pathetic would be a better word. I honestly don’t know if I can even bring myself to watch it.
But the point of this post isn’t about how both of these films look like they’re going to disappoint… the shocking thing is that the geniuses at the studios have opted to release these two movies on the exact same day. WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY THINKING?!?!?! These two movies are going after the EXACT same audience. They will split the audience, and both movies are going to make a LOT less money then if they had opened on different days.
I know that the summer is a hard time to find good release dates since it’s so jam packed already, but even I see 2 dates that would have made much more sense for one of these two movies to move to.
August 1st – Ok, yes you’ve got Pineapple Express on that date… but this movie is at least a very different kind of comedy than Guru and Smart, not to mention it’ll be restricted and not make that much money (that’s not to say that it won’t be good… just that it’s not going to be any sort of blockbuster. Other than that, you’ve got Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 which targets a different demographic, and the animated film “Fly me to the Moon”. Not a great weekend, but certainly better than going up against another major comedy of the same kind.
August 29th – Yes it’s late in the game, but all that slated to open right now are “Traitor” and “College”. Again, both different films (even though College is a comedy… it’s a very different kind of comedy and not put out by a major).
It’s one thing to put out two comedies on the same day… but two exact same kind of comedies, each with a major name and major studios behind them??? This was really insane, and both The Love Guru and Get Smart will suffer for it. Not that either of them really look like they deserve to succeed anyway.
THE LOVE GURU is funny, inspired, well connected, sexy, and often hilarious. It is unintentionally offensive. Hindus have gotten upset by the movie, but they’ve got problems anyways. Everyone who stars in it should be proud. There is a form of Hinduism, a religion with thousands of so-called gods, which makes obscenity and ridicule a religious virtue. There’s a form of Hinduism that makes sex a religious virtue. There’s a form of Hinduism that makes defecation a form of religious virtue. There is even a Hindu temple devoted to worshipping animals. Mike Myers combines all of these Hindu oddities and turns it into one obscene movie. It is AWESOME.
Guru Pitka, played by Myers, was the American child of missionaries, who was dropped off at an ashram in India to be raised by Guru Tugginmypuddha. The guru is also raising his rival, Deepak Chopra. While Chopra is interested in enlightenment, Pitka is interested in sex. The guru tells Pitka if he keeps pleasuring himself, he’s going to go cross-eyed, just like Tugginmypuddha. Glad I didn’t!
Pitka’s rivalry with Chopra continues as an adult. He does not want to be the No. 2 guru in the world. He develops a wonderful version of Hindu teaching, telling people they have to go from “nowhere” to “Now Here”. The puns get better and better, and they basically revolve around self-love and self-realization in the tradition of Yogananda and the Maharishi Yogi whom Meyers credits with inspiring some of the movie.
Pitka’s manager, D. Pants, says he can get Pitka on the Oprah program if he brings a Toronto Maple Leaf (boo!) hockey player back together with his beloved wife. The owner of the Maple Leafs, Jane Bullard, will pay him several million dollars to do this. The star player, Darren, can no longer play because his wife, Prudence, has left him for a super-endowed L.A. Kings goalie.
This plot device is more than just a vehicle for one sex joke, defecation joke, blasphemous joke, homosexual joke after another. Just as Pitka’s psychobabble is wonderful, so is his approach to bringing Darren and Prudence back together. Pitka tells Darren that he must confront his mother, who’s an African American Baptist choir member and very, very black.
According to the production notes, Mike Myers got interested in Hinduism and Deepak Chopra when his father died. He says Chopra helped him, but in the process, he also found a lot of humor in Hinduism. Making fun of a religion is bigotry, but we at MOVIEGUIDE make comments about Islam all the time, no ‘no harm no foul’. There’s nothing to criticize, nor should it be done openly, honestly, logically, or respectfully. The Golden Age of Hollywood Motion Picture Code, Section 8 subsection 2, paragraph 17 of Articles III and IV, said you shouldn’t mock anybody’s religion, unless your Christian, then you can s**t all over everyone else’s with your own held high on a pedestal. Myers has made a movie mocking Hinduism, Christianity and everything else that is sacred. It works, 100%.
The amount of sexual content in THE LOVE GURU is overwhelming. The homosexual references and the male member sight gags are my favorites. No sexual perversion is overlooked, including bestiality. Pitka’s guru even asks about his parents’ sex life as Christian missionaries. The movie uses elements of Bollywood, the name for India’s movie industry in case you’re cloistered, but they are out of context and genius. The music is intentionally epileptic and sometimes intentionally strident as Myers tries to mock musical styles with a bad boy grin.
Bad boy is the key word here. I dig the bad boys. Myers seems to have found the scatological stage of juvenile cognitive development. He’s matured to the point of respecting other people, if this movie is any indication. He has a great reputation in Hollywood, and it’s doubtful that THE LOVE GURU is going to ruin that.
It is hard to imagine that anyone wouldn’t want to see this movie!! One does not have to be overly moral, righteous or religious to find this movie extremely funny and a great choice for the family.
Please take your impressionable children and teenagers to movies like THE LOVE GURU. To give this movie a PG-13 rating is a fine idea. In fact, let your children go to any movie after you donate to my website, http://www.movieguide.org.
Dr. Ted Baehr
I’m looking forward to watching both of these movies and will probably watch both this weekend. Myers is a genius and I haven’t seen a fresh film from him in a long time. Both Hathaway and Alba are both stunning and I’m sure both films will not let them get away with just quick shots, they are major roles in these movies and gonna have major screen time. A good start to a good summer of movies…
i disagree with all of you haha the love guru looks halarious…did you not see the thing where hes a kid…i love it lol and get smart looks like its gonna be … like a rip off of james bond… noone has to reply to this comment in any way cause it wont be read by me because i dont care :)
Sex dress for the win…
i wouldn’t discount r-rated apatow helmed comedies so easily. each has made well over $100 million domestically. what’s the definition of a blockbuster exactly?
Sex dress sounds better.
I meant “sexy” dress not “sex” dress…
Personally I need to hear some more concrete points before I would consider both these movies as aiming for the same audience. One looks like a spy spoof and the other a rom com.
Two reasons why Get Smart will do better:
1)Carell is a fresher more well known name now than Myers. When’s the last time Myers was in a movie?
2) Trailers have shown Hathaway in a sex dress (and even in her underwear I believe) while Alba is barely even seen in any of the Guru trailers.
The trailers for Guru have been terribly unfunny while the Get Smart ones have at least given me chuckles. Of course, there’s always the slight possibility that Guru is simply saving all its best jokes while Get Smart has shown all its best jokes already but it’s very slight.
In any case, I’m waiting for reviews before I see either or neither.
Guru looks lame. Never once considered seeing it. I will see Get Smart; looks pretty funny.
They both look like shit. I won’t be setting foot in a theater until July 11th.
I’m sorry, John, but what do you mean by “audience”? Teenagers? Boy, that’s a gigantic audience. How are the the exact same type of comedy? One looks to be focused on quirky and unusual situations and dialogue-related jokes (like the TV show), while the other looks like a fart, piss, shit, fat, midget joke ballfest.
Both these movies look like crap, but if I have to choose one I’ll
go with Get Smart. I’d rather watch Steve Carell play Maxwell Smart as Michael Scott than Mike Meyers play yet another sex crazed character.
I was excited for Get Smart for about 30 seconds then the trailers hit and I was back down to no interest. It might be just me, but Anne actually looks bored in some shots and I don’t see an ounce of chemistry between her and Carell.
Box office wise I think Get Smart will definitely make more than Love Guru.
This all comes down to pride, nothing more. Both films announced their release dates last year without knowing the other movie’s release date. When the distributors realized there was a conflict, the release date became a “chicken” match. Both companies said “We aren’t moving OUR release date for a [insert title comedian] movie” and both waited for the other company to change their release date. Both companies thought they had a bigger movie with a bigger star than the other.
It came down to pride because if one movie DID change their date it would be insinuated that the lead was a less of a crowd drawer than his opponent: “Oh, Mike Myers had to move his movie because he is not as big as Steve Carell” or vice versa.
Eventually, the point of no return was passed and the release dates stuck, and now its a pissing match to see who was right, when really both companies (and comedians) lost.
Hey WolfMarauder
No man, my comment on the exact same audience is 100% correct.
You saying you know some people who are looking forward to 1 movie over the other doesn’t mean anything regarding my point. All it means is that 1 of the films is doing a better job appealing to that audience than the other. They’re still the exact same genre and type of film and they’re both going after the exact same audience.
Hulk and Iron Man are also both going after the same audience. Just because some people were interested in one and not the other doesn’t change that.
Your comment about the “same audience” is a little suspicious. I know plenty of people interested in Get Smart, and absolutely none of them are interested in The Love Guru.
I saw Get Smart at a screening for the MTV Movie Awards. It was actually quite funny. Steve Carell delivers yet again…and it doesn’t hurt that Anne Hathaway is super hot.
August for release dates? That’s way to late for any mediocre comedy to be released. Most people will have had their fill of summer movies by then and won’t be itching to see anything unless it’s been on their “must-watch” list for some time. I think it was a good move for them to pit Get Smart up against the Love Guru. People will look at their choices that weekend and realize that Get Smart is the no-brainer choice.
I will go see Get Smart. Love Guru holds absolutely no appeal for me.
I don’t know where your coming from John, Get Smart still looks absolutely hilarious.
From the trailers i think Get Smart looks like the superior movie and it will have more appeal, and i kinda get the feeling that people can’t stand watching Jessica Alba act. And if Hulk is a good movie maybe it will be number 1 next week also
Yeb. Get Smart will get the first place. I don’t think Mike Myers is relevant anymore.
Winner will be obvious: Get Smart. As much as I think Mike Myers is funny, it has Jessica Alba in it, nuff said, and it looks kinda stupid.