Just like in our lives, celebrities die also. It sounds mean, it sounds stoic, but it is true, but being a little too addicted to blow can apparently kill a celebrity also, I mean, with their bodies apparently harvested out of pain killers to look so young all the time, eventually they gotta go also right? Well, I really do not want to continue sounding this mean, but lets face it, we all seem to drop what we are doing when someone like Heath Ledger goes.
When a film somewhat capitalizes around controversy to an actor or crew members death, I feel that the general public starts respecting the film more than it would have otherwise. I mean, sure, it does take a certain awareness of both critical and commercial respect for a dead actor to have a film become even more critically analyzed, but the general public doesn't usually see how poor or rich the film's effort to remain entertaining are.
Take The Dark Knight for instance.
This film was not good because Ledger died during post production, it was great because he was perfecting his craft in a film. There is no real explanation for why this film was great, there are just some great films that exist, and this film is one of them. People don't know a single thing about the batman franchise have seen this film and stated it was a well made, gripping film. Here is the argument though, did this film do better because of Ledger's death though? In my opinion, no. Just by seeing the first film, I knew they were gonna market the shit out of The Dark Knight, it did well because it had hype.
Now lets take a look at The Crow.
There are fat, emo, goth shits all around this film, who swear to it with one hand on the dvd case, and the other holding a clove cigarette. I am not arguing that this film is not good, I have always found it entertaining, it had an awesome soundtrack, and who the hell doesn't like Ghostbusters alumni Ernie Hudson. But this film has been stated by the producer Jeff Most, as originally being shot to be straight to VHS. As the story goes, which is well known now in film circles, is that the gun handler for the film was let go, so the stunt coordinator was put in charge of preparing all the blanks. Being given this responsibility, he had failed to safely check all the firearms, and Brandon Lee was shot and killed during filming. The rest of the movie was filmed with a stunt double, and Lee's face was digitally (and quite impressively) superimposed over the stunt double's face in many sequences. Lee, who was son of legendary martial artist Bruce Lee, was brought to media attention after his premature death, in part due to the fact that his father met an early death also. The film was released, and gained a cult following after. Without this film, there would be no market share for Hot Topic.... damn you James O'Barr. Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Were it not for the death of Lee, this film would not have been as popular as it is, and in reality, it is not really that great of a film, just a decent graphic novel adaptation.
In 2002, and shoddy adaptation of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned was released, and again, piss poor writing, shit pacing, and dreadful acting by the usually unwatchable Stuart Townsend(League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) was involved. One thing the film had going for it was the involvement of R&B start Aaliyah playing one of the primary characters. Now singers (with the exception of Mark Whalberg) are not meant to act, but she was on a roll with films like Romero Must Die, and I must say, she was drop dead gorgeous. But this film again, horrid. It literally swept the box office up the week of its release as a commercial success, but critical dismay.
I may not serve the best examples up here nor are my arguments substantial enough to be considered scholarly, but just take a second to think about any film you may have seen that had a "Dedicated-to" sequence at the end, and was the film even that good? You tell me.
In 2002, and shoddy adaptation of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned was released, and again, piss poor writing, shit pacing, and dreadful acting by the usually unwatchable Stuart Townsend(League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) was involved. One thing the film had going for it was the involvement of R&B start Aaliyah playing one of the primary characters. Now singers (with the exception of Mark Whalberg) are not meant to act, but she was on a roll with films like Romero Must Die, and I must say, she was drop dead gorgeous. But this film again, horrid. It literally swept the box office up the week of its release as a commercial success, but critical dismay.
I may not serve the best examples up here nor are my arguments substantial enough to be considered scholarly, but just take a second to think about any film you may have seen that had a "Dedicated-to" sequence at the end, and was the film even that good? You tell me.
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