Madonna’s film flop?

What happened

Pop icon Madonna’s directorial debut Filth and Wisdom, which received mixed reviews when it premiered recently at the Berlin Film Festival, may bypass theaters and be released online. “I’ve been speaking to iTunes about releasing it through them,” she told Variety. “I want the most amount of people to see it as possible.”

What the commentators said

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Madonna said that she didn’t “want to rely on her pop goddess status to sell the movie,” said the blog Holy Moly, and that she “decided to dispense with the hassle of a theatrical release.” Who does she think she’s kidding? Everybody knows that straight-to-Internet is “the digital age version of straight-to-video.” Why doesn’t she just admit that her movie stinks?

Actually, Madonna’s movie isn’t “so bad,” said Helen Oldfield in a Guardian Unlimited blog. “The film is put together reasonably proficiently, the Ukranian gypsy hero is lively and likeable,” the “music is good, there is a happy ending for absolutely everyone involved, and it’s blessedly short (81 minutes).”

Either way, releasing it on the Internet doesn’t seem like a good idea, said Eric D. Snider in the blog Cinematical. Filth and Wisdom would be only “the second” movie released on iTunes—“Edward Burns’ Purple Violets holds the distinction of being the first.” But “Apple isn’t exactly forthcoming with the numbers” on Burns’ film—“they only site stats when they’re really impressive.” And “how many people download movies from iTunes at all, let alone ones they don’t know anything about? Would you pay $14.99 for” Madonna’s movie, “sight unseen?”