Whatever It Takes

Monday, May 7, 2001

We at Chucklehound are pleased to announce the first in our demos of our patent-pending, excrutiatingly scientific viewer focus groups, meant to provide movie studios with an exact prediction of how the film will fare. The method is surprisingly simple: find a small viewing sample that perfectly meet the target audience requirements for a given film, then extrapolate their enthusiasm for the film to the population at large based on the estimated percentage of the American population that also matched the target demographic. Simple.

So, without further ado, let's begin.

The sample audience for this film consists of two subjects, Subject A and Subject B. Both subjects fall in the upper end of the highly desirable 13-25 year old demographic bracket. Both have shown an apparently unending willingness to see teen films of all types, from teen angst comedies (She's All That, Drive Me Crazy) to teen horror (The Rage: Carrie 2, Halloween: H20) and, more importantly, claim to actually like these films.

Both subjects were devout viewers of Freaks and Geeks so are increasingly more likely to enjoy a film featuring James Franco than would the majority of the American public. Further, Subject A harbors a lingering positive attitude towards Shawnee Smith (based more on her work in Who's Harry Crumb? than her work in recent bad sitcoms like Becker), and, while Shawnee isn't actually in this film, Marla Sokoloff is indistinguishable to the naked eye and should play upon these positive feelings. Subject B was a regular watcher of Doogie Howser, MD, so presumably will respond well to the Neil Patrick Harris-esque acting style of this film's leading man, Shane West.

Fabulous. We have clearly identified and acquired the correct targest audience. Let's listen in to a few choice comments from their viewing of the film.

Subject A: If you're already committed to having a giant penis in your film, why not have nudity?

Subject B: How did this get made?

Subject A: This is really bad.

Subject B: No, this is painfully bad.

Subject A: I laughed a few times. Well, I suppose I was laughing at the movie, not really with it...

So, multiplying the enthusiasm shown (1 on a scale of 100) by the size of the demographic group, we can conclusively predict that this film will make somewhere between eight and nine million dollars domestically.

Maybe we should have run this piece a year ago....

Rating: D- (Somewhere between "really" and "painfully" bad)

Reviewed by Padgett Arango
Contents
The Hills Have Eyes 2

Hostel Part II

Six Degrees

Shark

Jericho

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Justice

The Hills Have Eyes

Love Monkey

Out of Practice

Head Cases

Crunchwrap Supreme

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Batman Begins

Garden State

Hero

13 Going On 30

LAX

Starman

quirkyalone.net

Kill Bill, Vol. 2

Line of Fire

We Shall All Be Healed

Happy Family

Arrested Development

Love Actually

A Minute with Stan Hooper

Tarzan

Karen Sisco

Stop All the World Now

Cold Case

Skin

10-8

Joan of Arcadia

Eve

Luis

Lost In Translation

House of 1000 Corpses

Bubba Ho-Tep

Darkness Falls

Pirates of the Caribbean

The Amazing Race

Treasure Island

FearDotCom

Adaptation

To Hit Armor Class Zero

Without A Trace

8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter

Life With Bonnie

JalapeƱo Cheeseburger

The Mothman Prophecies

Happy Campers

The Man Who Wasn't There

Kiss of the Dragon

Josie & the Pussycats

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Dr. Pepper

Know By Heart

Waking Life

L.I.E.

Thirteen Ghosts

Earthlink presents Chang and Eng

New York and Country Bar

Change

Motivation and Water Tower Grammar

Crossing Philly

Makeout Club

Undeclared

The Gap

The Abolition of Work

3000 Miles to Graceland

Kolobos

Duets

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Diesel Sweeties

The Cold Six Thousand

The Grilled Stuft Burrito (Rebuttal)

60 Second Wipeout

The Patriot

Grilled Stuft Burrito

Cowgirls

Crystalline

Frankenfinger E.P.

One Force Down

Shake

Both Our Secrets

Happy Birthday Captain Columbus!

Fight Club

Whatever It Takes

Committed

That Skinny Motherfucker with the High Voice?

Joe Dirt

The Veggie Whopper

Taco Bell Nachos

Palmetto

Godzilla vs. Monster Zero

The Terror of Mechagodzilla

To The Center

Infiniti+Infiniti

American Psycho

The Del Shredder

What Lies Beneath

The Cheesy Gordita Crunch

Bring It On

Chill Factor

Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars

Bad Company

The Blair Witch Project

Hyacinths and Thistles

Lake of Dracula

We'll Have a Time

Home Depot

Snow Day

The Virgin Suicides