Here's the last sentence in the opening paragraph of Dennis Harvey's (positive) review of Lakeview Terrace:"But as a queasy examination of black/white dynamics, poised between character study and genre piece, director Neil LaBute's latest is likely to score medium B.O. closer to that of 2002's "Changing Lanes" than starry hit "Crash"."
That seems to imply that of the two social dramas, Changing Lanes did merely ok box office while Crash was a big hit. Well, let's look at the numbers:
Changing Lanes - 2002 - domestic BO - $67 million - global BO - $95 million
Crash - 2005 - domestic BO - $54.5 million - global BO - $98.5 million
It took me all of two minutes to confirm the fallacy of the above statement. Yet Dennis Harvey, of the great and powerful Variety just assumed that Crash had made more than Changing Lanes because the latter got less press coverage. And he couldn't be bothered to spend two minutes confirming his lazy assumption. Such sloppy punditry shouldn't be tolerated at any publication, let alone a major media outlet such as Variety.
Oh, and to top it off, Sura Wood of The Hollywood Reporter apparently gives away the ending at the conclusion of an otherwise spoiler-free paragraph at the beginning of the review. Thanks people, really!
Scott Mendelson
Always thought Changing Lanes was an underrated film and that Affleck held his own in that one.
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