Let me say at the outset that we are small players, and that we know it. Nothing said here changes our awareness of who David is and who Goliath is.
That said, here are some (industry standard) numbers for opening night: The Free Speech Apocalypse was #33 overall in the country. There were hundreds of films in theaters Thursday night, and FSA came in #33. We came in #5 with the overall per screen average.
There were about 50 documentaries showing around the country, and FSA was #2. And when you limit it to political documentaries, we were #1.
Yeah, but. If you had opened in all theaters you would not have gotten the same results. You just opened in “select” theaters so that the mom of everybody involved in making it could go. You are kvelling over the fact that when it comes to Calvinist Postmill Political Docs, you just won a hypothetical Oscar.
Not really. The rules are Hollywood’s, and not ours. We are using their charts and categories, not ours. And having done this limited release, on purpose, we are now pivoting to distributing the movie directly to consumers.
That is going really well also. But it is not going so well that we couldn’t use your help.
Bought or rented or whatever on Vimeo and looking forward to watching. I have to work up to it though–steel myself, as it were.
Just watched it. Gotta admire DW’s gumption and optimism. It’s courage and faithfulness really. The movie doesn’t say anything he hasn’t said here many times but it is an interesting attempt to reach a wider audience. Hope it works!
It did require some fortitude to watch. Until now I had successfully avoided hearing any Obama speeches. Ugh. And the ranting incoherent mendacity of the Brownshirt wannabes–yikes!
Cool. I look forward to watching it. My favorite way to watch movies is download on Amazon Prime but I didn’t see it there. Is it available on Prime?
How can we purchase without a credit card? Can we send cash or money-order somewhere?
I second the Amazon option.
Amazon instant video would be great!
Hmmm, it’s 2:12 pm east coast time 11/7/2015.
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If some of the words between these two post titles were switched around, the comment count may have come out more even.
I found it to be time and money well spent. Granted, it’s in my wheelhouse. Even allowing for that, it was still well done. Very surprised at the lack of comments, either pro or con.
It’s always funny that people demand free speech when they agree with the speech and demand silence when they do not. Go figure.
I quite agree. Did you see the film?
Mr. Wilson, I am not sure how familiar you are with Plato’s Republic, but after recently reading it for school, I was shocked and a little frightened to see his discussion on democracies (specifically in Book VIII). In a democracy, he predicts almost the same behavior your documentary seems detail: a demand for such high “tolerance” that no one’s view is tolerated. Because of this, he argues that democracies will inevitably devolve into tyrannies. Is the problem of the Free Speech Apocalypse inherent in democracies or can democracies be guarded from such tyrannical oppression?
One way to guard against tyrannies inherent in democracies is to not have a democracy, but a representative republic. But even a representational form of government can still fail when representatives are no longer held (by those they represent) to regard principles of virtue. If representatives too closely represent a depraved culture, then they are no safeguard either. Representatives should care for the virtue of the people more than the people do. It should be a higher calling. So the conclusion is that no external system, regardless of its perfection, can ultimately restrain the corrupt heart of man. God proved… Read more »
Somewhere, we dropped the ball.
That will be the subject of many a discussion some hundred years from now.
Alexis de Tocqueville noted the same thing about the narrow permissible range of public opinion in his notes on visiting America. Anyway, historically there’s no evidence that democracy is a stable form of government, especially the universal-suffrage type championed in the 19th century: the iron law of oligarchy appears to apply pretty consistently. Americans have often used “a republic not a democracy” as a slogan but they’ve been functionally interchangeable concepts since the Revolution. American democracy has devolved into tyranny multiple times; Lincoln and Roosevelt are the two outstanding examples. It’s not unreasonable to expect it to happen again. (I… Read more »
I just watched it (via vimeo). It was pretty good.
It doesn’t really look like a documentary. It looks like a commentary from Doug and Co. with some interviews with relatives, employees, some politicians and kudos from their own publishing house (Canon Press). Is that not kind of pathetic? Let another praise you and not the lips of your own mouth.