39-578: Zero Effect is a 1998 American mystery comedy film written and directed by Jake Kasdan in his feature directional debut . Starring Bill Pullman as "the world's most private detective", Daryl Zero, and Ben Stiller as his assistant Steve Arlo, the film's plot is loosely based on the Arthur Conan Doyle short story " A Scandal in Bohemia ". Shot in Portland, Oregon and scored by The Greyboy Allstars ,
78-713: A camp sensibility lay behind the successful Carry On films , while in America subversive independent film-maker John Waters made camp films for college audiences with his drag queen friends that eventually found a mainstream audience. The success of the American television show Saturday Night Live drove decades of cinema with racier content allowed on television drawing on the program's stars and characters, with bigger successes including Wayne's World , Mean Girls , Ghostbusters and Animal House . Parody and joke-based films continue to find audiences. While comedic films are among
117-506: A B included Sommersby and Untamed Heart . A C-grade film for the year was Body of Evidence . As opening-night audiences are presumably more enthusiastic about a film than ordinary patrons, a "C" grade from them is – according to the Los Angeles Times – "bad news, the equivalent of a failing grade". According to Ed Mintz, "A's generally are good, B's generally are shaky, and C's are terrible. D's and F's, they shouldn't have made
156-530: A bloodthirsty spectator sport seems to have encouraged an even more brutal approach to film reviewing. I'm talking about market research firms like CinemaScore [...]. They have everything to do with the movie business and absolutely nothing to do with either the creation or the intelligent viewing of film. The filmmaker is reduced to a content manufacturer and the viewer to an unadventurous consumer." Ed Mintz rejected being connected to Rotten Tomatoes , and defended CinemaScore methodology of polling select audiences on
195-468: A detective movie than it is an interesting film". Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly rated it C+ and called it "a very shaggy and minor comedy". Geoff Andrew of Time Out London wrote, "Kasdan's is a very promising debut, its own dearth of feeling offset by able writing, engaging playing and a sure sense of pace." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale. In 2002, Kasdan attempted to resurrect
234-664: A film that opens in fewer screens can also contract with CinemaScore for a private survey, whose result would be disclosed only to the client. Some of these privately contracted surveys' results have nevertheless been publicly touted, such as the "A+" ratings for films including Courageous and A Question of Faith (both released by faith-based distributor Pure Flix Entertainment). CinemaScore describes itself as "the industry leader in measuring movie appeal". There are 35 to 45 teams of CinemaScore representatives present in 25 large cities across North America. Each Friday, representatives in five randomly chosen cities give opening-day audiences
273-601: A mysterious past. Zero becomes attracted to Gloria and they sleep together, compromising his trademark objectivity. He lets his guard down and tells her that his mother was killed by his abusive father, who later committed suicide. Stark pressures Arlo to reveal the blackmailer's identity so that he can have that person killed. Arlo must also deal with Zero's absurd demands on his time, which increasingly interfere with Arlo's relationship with his girlfriend Jess. Zero eventually discovers that Stark had raped Gloria's mother after she broke up with him. She later blackmailed Stark with
312-428: A positive review by a movie critic but disliked the film despite being a fan of Neil Simon , and heard another disappointed attendee wanting to hear the opinions of ordinary people, not critics. Mintz had not worked with polls or the entertainment industry, but decided to use his math and computer skills for a business surveying the opinions of hundreds of film viewers. A Yom Kippur donation card with tabs inspired
351-425: A pretty good indicator. I rely on it". Another said that competitor PostTrak was "much better...more thorough and in-depth". CinemaScore also conducted surveys for product placements , Anheuser-Busch , and Las Vegas casinos. As of October 2024 , a total of 118 films have received an A+ rating from American audiences polled by CinemaScore. Peter Ettedgui As of August 2024 , two directors have made
390-679: A separate genre, but rather, provides a better understanding of the film. CinemaScore CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas . It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data. Ed Mintz, who majored in math at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and founded dental billing software company Dentametics, with wife Rona attended The Cheap Detective in June 1978. He had read
429-444: A similar demographic. CinemaScore pollster Dede Gilmore reported the trend in 1993, "Most movies get easily a B-plus. I think people come wanting the entertainment. They have high expectations. They're more lenient with their grades. But as (moviegoers) do it more and more, they get to be stronger critics". In 1993, films that were graded with an A included Scent of a Woman , A Few Good Men and Falling Down . Films graded with
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#1732863064802468-419: A small survey card. The card asks for age, gender, a grade for the film ("A", "B", "C", "D" or "F"), whether they would rent or buy the film on DVD or Blu-ray, why they chose the film and whether or not they felt the film lined up with its marketing. CinemaScore typically receives about 400 cards per film; the company estimates a 65% response rate and 6% margin of error . An overall grade of "A+" and "F"
507-459: A weekly email subscription for cinephiles to keep up with reports of audience reactions. In 1999, CinemaScore was rating approximately 140 films a year, including 98–99% of major studio releases. For each film, employees polled 400–500 moviegoers in three of CinemaScore's 15 sites, which included the cities Las Vegas, Los Angeles , San Diego , Denver , Milwaukee , St. Louis , Dallas , Atlanta , Tampa , Phoenix , and Coral Springs . In
546-437: A year) received the top grade, including seven Academy Award for Best Picture winners. From 2000 to January 2020, there were 53 movies with "A+". As of July 15, 2020 , about 90 films have received "A+". From 2004 to 2014, those rated "A+" and "A" had multiples of 4.8 and 3.6, respectively, while C-rated films' total revenue was 2.5 times their opening weekend. Ed Mintz cited Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise as
585-466: Is 6.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "A promising debut for writer/director Jake Kasdan, Zero Effect overcomes its flaws with its off-kilter humor and likeable leads." Leonard Klady of Variety called it "scattershot entertainment that misses as often as it hits its targets". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated 3.5/4 stars and wrote that he was surprised by how involved he became in
624-422: Is calculated as the average of the grades given by responders. In this case, grades other than "F" are qualified with a plus (high end), minus (low end) or neither (middle). The ratings are divided by gender and age groups (under 21, 21–34, 35 and up). Film studios and other subscribers receive the data at about 11 pm Pacific Time . CinemaScore publishes letter grades to the public on social media and, although
663-607: The "two stars, it doesn't matter how bad the film is, they can pull (the projections) up". (DiCaprio's Shutter Island had a 3.1 revenue multiple despite a "C+" grade, and Cruise's Vanilla Sky had a 4 multiple with a "D" grade.) As of 2020 , 22 films have received an "F" grade. Vulture wrote that besides horror, Another type of movie features prominently on the list: let's call it "Misleading Auteurism". These are movies made by prominent, often Oscar-nominated directors that investigate risky and controversial subject matters and receive both praise and pans. But because of how
702-567: The character Daryl Zero for the NBC television network. He shared the screenwriting duties with Walon Green and directed the pilot. He was also one of the producers. The series was intended to be a prequel, tracing the early adventures of Zero as he and Arlo became a team. The pilot stars Alan Cumming as Zero and David Julian Hirsh as the Arlo character, renamed Jeff Winslow. The cast also features Krista Allen and Natasha Gregson Wagner . NBC did not pick up
741-423: The detailed data is proprietary, the grades become widely shared in the media and the industry. Subsequent advertisements for highly ranked films often cite their CinemaScore grades. Studios use the demographic data when marketing films. A studio might hope that a high grade helps the box office of a film with a disappointing opening weekend, or adjust a future film's marketing based on survey results for one with
780-515: The film industry due to their popularity. In The Screenwriters Taxonomy (2017), Eric R. Williams contends that film genres are fundamentally based upon a film's atmosphere, character, and story, and therefore, the labels "drama" and "comedy" are too broad to be considered a genre. Instead, his taxonomy argues that comedy is a type of film that contains at least a dozen different sub-types. A number of hybrid genres have emerged, such as action comedy and romantic comedy . The first comedy film
819-501: The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival . The film did not perform well at the box-office, grossing $ 2 million with a budget of $ 5 million. Daryl Zero is the world's greatest detective, but is also a socially maladroit misanthrope . Among his quirks is that he never meets or has direct contact with his clients, instead conducting business through his assistant, Steve Arlo. Throughout
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#1732863064802858-622: The film. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote of the film's focus on the relation between Pullman and Stiller, "For all its admirable ambitions, this loosely focused first feature has the makings of a better buddy story than detective tale anyhow." Jack Matthews of the Los Angeles Times called it "a confident first film and one of the freshest detective yarns to come along in a while". Ruthe Stein of The San Francisco Chronicle rated it 2/4 stars and called it "more an interesting idea for
897-619: The list four times: Jon Erwin (thrice with his brother Andrew (2015, 2018, and 2021) and once with Brent McCorkle (2023)), and Alex Kendrick (2011, 2015, 2019, and 2024). Two directors have made the list three times: Rob Reiner (1987, 1989, 1992), and Andrew Erwin (2015, 2018, 2021). The following directors have appeared on the list twice: Steven Spielberg (1982, 1993), James Cameron (1991, 1997), Robert Zemeckis (1994, 2004), Pete Docter (2001, 2009), Malcolm D. Lee (2013, 2017), Peter Berg (2013, 2016), Brad Bird (2004, 2018), George Tillman Jr. (1997, 2018), and Jon Gunn (2017, 2024). As of May 2024 ,
936-457: The meeting to deliver the final blackmail payment, Stark collapses from a heart attack and Gloria is compelled to save his life. She then flees the country with Zero's assistance. Released in January 1998 on Work Group , the official soundtrack for the film includes: Rotten Tomatoes , a review aggregator , reports that 66% of 56 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating
975-743: The most popular with audiences at the box office, there is an 'historical bias against a close and serious consideration of comedy' when it comes to critical reception and conferring of awards, such as at the Academy Awards . Film writer Cailian Savage observes "Comedies have won Oscars, although they’ve usually been comedy-dramas, involved very depressing scenes, or appealed to stone-hearted drama lovers in some other way, such as Shakespeare in Love ." According to Williams' taxonomy , all film descriptions should contain their type (comedy or drama) combined with one (or more) sub-genres. This combination does not create
1014-714: The movie industry works — the name of a director alone not being enough to get most people to go see something — they tend to be marketed as more straight-ahead genre films, resulting in a whole bunch of misled and pissed-off audience members. Vulture cited as examples of such F-graded films Steven Soderbergh 's Solaris with George Clooney , Andrew Dominik 's Killing Them Softly with Brad Pitt , and Darren Aronofsky 's mother! with Jennifer Lawrence . In an essay for The Hollywood Reporter , Martin Scorsese strongly criticized this type of approach by writing: "The brutal judgmentalism that has made opening-weekend grosses into
1053-400: The movie, Zero provides narration as he reads lines from his proposed autobiography. Zero and Arlo are hired by Portland area millionaire Gregory Stark, who has lost the key to a safe deposit box and is being blackmailed by an unknown person who forces him to follow elaborate instructions to deliver the cash payments. Zero quickly discovers that the blackmailer is Gloria Sullivan, an EMT with
1092-409: The movie, or they promoted it funny and the absolute wrong crowd got into it". Horror films consistently score lower; The Conjuring ' s "A−" was the first time a horror film scored better than "B+". CinemaScore's Harold Mintz said that "An F in a horror film is equivalent to a B− in a comedy". An "A+" typically predicts a successful box office. From 1982 to August 2011, only 52 films (about two
1131-415: The opening night, to see if the film meets the expectations of the people who most want to see it. He further defended the accuracy of their data and the correlation to box office results. CinemaScore's forecasts for box-office receipts based on the surveys are, according to the Los Angeles Times , "surprisingly accurate" as "most of [the company's] picks...are in the ballpark", in 2009 correctly predicting
1170-623: The pilot. Mystery comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor . These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending , with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the oldest genres in film, and it is derived from classical comedy in theatre . Some of the earliest silent films were slapstick comedies , which often relied on visual depictions, such as sight gags and pratfalls, so they could be enjoyed without requiring sound. To provide drama and excitement to silent movies, live music
1209-524: The president sought sponsorship from magazines and video companies. Brad Peppard was president of CinemaScore Online from 1999 to 2002. The website included a database of nearly 2,000 feature films and the audiences' reactions to them. Prior to the launch, CinemaScore results had been published in Las Vegas Review-Journal and Reno Gazette-Journal . CinemaScore's expansion to the Internet included
Zero Effect - Misplaced Pages Continue
1248-580: The success of The Hangover and the failure of Land of the Lost . Hollywood executives are divided on CinemaScore's accuracy. Rob Moore , formerly of Paramount Pictures , said Ed Mintz had an "absolute connection with the pulse of moviegoers". Jeff Goldstein of Warner Bros. described CinemaScore as "essential ... for the entertainment industry", and Dan Fellman of Warner said that the studio discontinued its own exit polling because of CinemaScore. Another Hollywood executive said "It's not always right, but it's
1287-604: The summer of 2002, CinemaScore reported that the season had the biggest collective grade since 1995. In the summer of 2000, 25 out of 32 films received either an A or B grade. Twenty-six of the summer of 2001's 30 films got similar grades, while 32 of the summer of 2002's 34 films got similar grades, the latter being the highest ratio in a decade. Since July 2014, CinemaScore reports its results also on Twitter . Usually, to maintain comparable sample sizes, only films that open in more than 1,500 screens are polled and reported on CinemaScore's website and social media. The distributor of
1326-438: The survey cards at theaters, polling began in 1979. CinemaScore at first reported its findings to consumers, including a newspaper column and a radio show. After 20th Century Fox approached the company in 1989, it began selling the data to studios instead. By the mid-1980s AMC Theatres used CinemaScore data when choosing films for its locations. A website was launched by CinemaScore in 1999, after three years' delay in which
1365-583: The survey cards given to audience members. The company conducts exit polls of audiences who have seen a film in theaters, asking them to rate the film and specifying what drew them to the film. Its results are published in Entertainment Weekly . CinemaScore also conducts surveys to determine audience interest in renting films on video, breaking the demographic down by age and sex and passing along information to video companies such as Fox Video Corporation. After employees of Mintz's dental company tested
1404-426: The threat of exposing him as a rapist, so he had her killed. However, she had already given birth to their daughter Gloria, who was discovered and raised by the hitman who killed her mother. Gloria grew up knowing that Stark was behind her mother's murder, and when her adoptive father (the hitman) contracted a terminal illness, she used the information to blackmail Stark, using the money to pay for medical treatment. At
1443-508: The use of comedy film to make social statements by building their narratives around sensitive cultural, political or social issues. Such films include Dr Strangelove, or How I Learned to Love the Bomb , Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and The Graduate . In America, the sexual revolution drove an appetite for comedies that celebrated and parodied changing social morals, including Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Fanny Hill . In Britain,
1482-414: Was L'Arroseur Arrosé (1895), directed and produced by film pioneer Louis Lumière . Less than a minute long, it shows a boy playing a prank on a gardener. The most notable comedy actors of the silent film era (1895–1927) were Charlie Chaplin , Harold Lloyd , and Buster Keaton , though they were able to make the transition into “ talkies ” after the 1920s. Film-makers in the 1960s skillfully employed
1521-417: Was played in sync with the action on the screen, on pianos, organs, and other instruments. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1920s, comedy films grew in popularity, as laughter could result from both burlesque situations but also from humorous dialogue . Comedy, compared with other film genres , places more focus on individual star actors, with many former stand-up comics transitioning to
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