THEATER FRAUD? Sabotage of An American Carol and Its Opening-Week Numbers?

cnredd · #1 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 02:59 AM

Quote:

Mpower pictures and Vivendi are starting to hear complaints about sabotage of An American Carol by employees of theaters that are carrying the movie. So far, ten theaters have been implicated in outright fraud regarding this movie.

Obviously, the producers and distributors would like to get to the bottom of this and find out the extent of any fraud, but they need our help to determine whether the problem is systemic, or confined to a few theaters in a nationawide release.

What we know: in at least ten theaters nationwide, customers were sold tickets they were told were for An American Carol but turned out to be for other movies.

Obviously, this type of "error" sometimes requires collusion between employees--a way of marking the ticket so that you are sent to the correct theater, even though you've been sold the wrong ticket.

As the customer, you'd have to actually read your ticket to check and make sure you weren't an unwitting instrument of this fraud.

If you suspect that this might have happened when you went to see the movie, please go double-check your tickets. If they have the wrong movie title on them, please take a picture of them and send them to the investigative team at An American Carol: fraud -- AT -- AnAmericanCarol -- DOT -- com . Please place the original tickets in a safe place and fill out the info on the AAC fraud site. They may need your ticket as evidence.

For more details on the investigation of various types of fraud against/sabotage of this movie please monitor the AAC Fraud Site.

Here are some subtler things to be on the alert for, in terms of attempts to suppress viewership / the appearance of viewership / box office receipts for this film. If you have noticed these irregularities with the theatres in your area please fill in the form at the AAC Fraud site, and leave their investigative team details in the comments section.

Examples:

• The theater suggested that the movie was rated R (its true rating is PG-13);

• Posters for the film are not visible inside or outside the theater;

• An American Carol is not on the marquee, even though the movie is playing there;

• The film title not listed behind the clerk in the box office, so you have to ask if that movie is playing at that theater, never mind that you checked on the internet and called in advance (this actually happened to me);

• Showtimes are given on the theater's outgoing message machine for every movie playing except for An American Carol (this is also out of my personal experience: somehow the local four-plex only had showtimes listed on the phoneline for three movies . . . . hm);

• technical sabotage: image or focus issues, problems with sound, and the like.

Free speech (unless it's something I disagree with)...

NOT surprised...

tristanrobin · #2 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 08:21 AM

sounds like a lot of whining about no business for a movie they wanted to make a lot of money on

that's show biz!

if it happened in ONE theater - I might concede that some boxoffice kids pulled a fast one.

but widespread - the way this article implies? - no way

Mikeyy · #3 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 08:26 AM

Read the story about the boy who cried wolf.

tristanrobin · #4 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 08:32 AM

Do you think reviews like this had anything to do with bad business?

All Reuters Movie News
"American Carol" an unfunny political spoof
Tuesday October 7 6:19 AM ET

Arriving at least one election cycle too late, David Zucker's "An American Carol" uses the less-than-original tack of using Dickens' Yuletide classic to spoof left-wing politics and provocateur filmmaker Michael Moore in particular.

Although it's refreshing to encounter a parody that doesn't use tired movie genres for inspiration, "Carol" squanders its comedic potential with a near-total absence of laughs. Audiences will be mostly stone-faced, though it's a pretty good bet that Moore will be laughing his ass off. The film opened Friday without advance press screenings, and earned just $3.6 million for the weekend, good enough for No. 9.

more: Yahoo! Movies: Movie News -

crazyflamingos · #5 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 09:48 AM

This sounds like a fake story planted as a publicity stunt to me.

foundit66 · #6 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 01:19 PM

Quote:

For more details on the investigation of various types of fraud against/sabotage of this movie please monitor the AAC Fraud Site.
An American Carol

If you click on the link, they are asking for people to COMPLAIN ABOUT the fraud.
The link shows NO FRAUD.

And some of the complaints???
"technical sabotage: image or focus issues, problems with sound, and the like."
Oh gee. And when I saw other films with glitches in them and had to alert the staff, I just assumed it was a SIMPLE GOOF-UP.
Instead, I guess I should have expected the left-wing media to be suppressing this via their covert ops...

Furthermore, if you read the replies in the thread, it's kind of embarassing...
"The people doing that should be charged, convicted, and imprisoned for theft."
Rrrriiiggghhhhtttt......

They went through the list from the bottom up and announced that "Hollywood Chihuahuas" won the box office! They could hardly believe it and were snickering about it. I remember thinking that seemed really weird that American Carol seemingly tanked while Hollywood Chihuahuas reigned.
While I think BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA is a crappy movie idea, it IS DISNEY.
They hyped the heck out of that movie, and this is the first time I have even heard of "American Carol".
The author clearly doesn't understand how his own ideology can be overwhelmed by the "kiddy" movie box office vote...

There have been cases where bookstores deliberately conceal or refuse to display books with right-wing themes. It's not much of a stretch to get from there to here.
On this general theme, I can't help but wonder if these guys even bother to THINK about what they are saying.
If a movie theater doesn't want to show a film, they have an amazing option open to them.
JUST NOT SHOW IT!

They LOSE money by reserving a theater to show a film that they try NOT to sell tickets for...

In reading all this, I can't help but think about how much right-winger neo-cons have chided liberals for the "you stole the election" crap.
And quite frankly, I agree with the neo-cons that the "you stole the election" crap is juvenile and stupid.

With that said, what goes around comes around...
And now we're seeing the FULL EFFECT of the right-wing neo-con childishness, with this perpetual "Oh! We're the victims here! When the media doesn't cover John McCain and Palin, that's bias!" junk while they ignore the facts of the situation...

If you google "American Carol" sabotage, you get a small handful web-sites that ALL LINK BACK TO MISS ATTILA
THERE IS NO NEWS REPORT on this, to which I can't help but hear the expected refrain of "that just proves media bias"

And you want to know something else funny?
If you look for the IP address of "Miss Attila", you can see that she is POSTING FROM BRITAIN.
Her web-site is British based...
Find IP address of a website - server ip lookup

Quite frankly, I think it's all a big hoax and some people have been had.
WHY would somebody in Britain be spear-heading a "box office problem" in the U.S.????

tristanrobin · #7 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by foundit66

There have been cases where bookstores deliberately conceal or refuse to display books with right-wing themes. It's not much of a stretch to get from there to here.

that's amazing to me.

I used to have a gift shop attached to our inn, and sold many books.
I would never order a book that I would try to conceal because of it's content. What would be the point of my buying that book to sell? If I refused to display a book for its ideology, I wouldn't have bought it to begin with.

What a crock.

bhkad · #8 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tristanrobin

sounds like a lot of whining about no business for a movie they wanted to make a lot of money on

that's show biz!

if it happened in ONE theater - I might concede that some boxoffice kids pulled a fast one.

but widespread - the way this article implies? - no way

The Obamabots are roaming free and unimpeded throughout this country and on the internet.

Quote:

"If you can't win by playing it straight why not cheat?"

--- Obamabots motto

The end justifies the means in their estimation.

Brown Shirt Hitlerians and you all think it is all good.

Wrong.

You Obama supporters may be sealing our fates with your blind zeal.

foundit66 · #9 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 05:01 PM

Does ANYBODY have any real proof of the validity of this BLOGGER's claim?

Does the fact that she is posting FROM BRITAIN mean anything about the potential validity of what she is claiming is happening in the U.S.?

The fact that she is the ONLY ONE REPORTING it, while a variety of others just repeat what she said?

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

The Following User Says Thank You to tristanrobin For This Useful Post:
crazyflamingos

The Following User Says Thank You to foundit66 For This Useful Post:
crazyflamingos