And the 2015 award for "Bad Timing in Cinema" goes to...

June 19, 2015 9:31 AM

United Passions started out as a FIFA vanity project telling the story of the men who helped found the organization. Then one month before the film's release in theaters, Fourteen FIFA officials were arrested on corruption charges (previously) and president Sepp Blatter announced he would step down from his post. Now, in the wake of incredibly dismal box office and rock bottom ratings on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, Both director Frederic Auburtin and star Tim Roth (who portrays Blatter in the film) have publicly come out against the film and apologized for their involvement.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI (49 comments total)

A guy in a top hat suggests a football World Cup and everyone laughs, and then someone says 'Wait... he's a visionary!'
posted by colie at 9:38 AM on June 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

More like someone says, "Wait, we could make enormous amounts of money off of this!"
posted by Sangermaine at 9:39 AM on June 19, 2015

Depardieu has been synonymous with greed and selling out for a while, but Tim Roth made me sad.
posted by Behemoth at 9:41 AM on June 19, 2015 [12 favorites]

*click*

Hey Gerard Depardieu was involved. I wonder what his take on it is.

*scroll*

"Only Gerard Depardieu bothered to show up at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival"

Sounds about right.
posted by griphus at 9:41 AM on June 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

Oy, poor Tim Roth.
posted by gwint at 9:43 AM on June 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

I have downloaded this to view. I absolutely had to after it was described to me as The Room with footballs. I'll see you on the other side.
posted by jaduncan at 9:46 AM on June 19, 2015 [5 favorites]

Frederic Auburtin opens up about the $30 million pro-FIFA film that grossed only $918 in the U.S.: "Now I'm seen as bad as the guy who brought AIDS to Africa or the guy who caused the financial crisis."

Or, you know, just some dude who made a shitty film.
posted by billiebee at 9:47 AM on June 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

Oh, and poor Sam Neill. In United Passions as he watches Jurassic World's opening weekend. His agent told him he'd be playing in a film full of dinosaurs in a world of corruption. I can see the confusion.
posted by jaduncan at 9:49 AM on June 19, 2015 [31 favorites]

Haha, this sounded so gloriously, gloriously bad. I would have loved to have gone to see this with someone but unfortunately the only people I know who would have truly enjoyed its badness have long since moved away to other parts of the world.
posted by Nevin at 9:52 AM on June 19, 2015

I absolutely had to after it was described to me as The Room with footballs.

To be fair, there are indeed footballs in The Room, just of the handegg variety.
posted by Dr-Baa at 9:53 AM on June 19, 2015 [11 favorites]

They can maybe make some of their money back with a RiffTrax release or a "We won all the Razzies" special edition... I do wonder how much of the budget for the film was bribery or kickbacks to Fifa friends, though.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:58 AM on June 19, 2015

Frederic Auburtin opens up about the $30 million pro-FIFA film that grossed only $918 in the U.S.: "Now I'm seen as bad as the guy who brought AIDS to Africa or the guy who caused the financial crisis."

Just a touch more embellishment, and he'd be the film director's equivalent of diving in soccer.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:07 AM on June 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I thought The Room was The Room with footballs.

This is more like one of those vanity books about how so and so rose from humble roots to form Very Important Corporation (VICorp. (tm)), building on his homespun values like fair dealing and honesty, and so became a rich and successful plutocrat while still remaining a decent person and wonderful husband and father adored by all who knew him and most who did not. For example.

I think they're actually ALL titled The American Dream...
posted by Naberius at 10:11 AM on June 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

I love that the title sounds like a Harlequin romance novel.

Also, naming the porn version will be super easy; you could go with United P-Ass-ions OR Untied P-Ass-ions. Really, the work of the erotica titling industry has been done for them.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 10:17 AM on June 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

...because the world needs nothing more than a pornographic film about corrupt, aging sports administrators.

Oh God they're going to name the main character Sexx Bladder and make it a peeing film, aren't they? When this is inevitably made, I mean.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 10:20 AM on June 19, 2015 [12 favorites]

JOIN

Joao Have-a-lunge, Sexx Blatter, and Jules Rimetjob

IN

UNTIED P-ASS-ions
A Foot/Ball Film

I'll stop now. I'm really sorry.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 10:23 AM on June 19, 2015 [29 favorites]

In case anyone was like "I wonder what being married to Mrs. Pterodactyl is like?" It's like that. Seriously, half that material was work-shopped in e-mails I received yesterday.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:26 AM on June 19, 2015 [57 favorites]

Seriously, half that material was work-shopped in e-mails I received yesterday.

Just the first comment! I hadn't looked at the IMDB page before so I didn't know the names of the characters (except Sepp Blatter) and Foot/Ball was a stroke of genius that occurred to me only as I was typing. Also you're a huge jerk.

PTERODACTYL OUT.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 10:28 AM on June 19, 2015 [29 favorites]

This is the sort of movie you get when neither Spielberg nor Spielbergo are available.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:30 AM on June 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

How does any movie earn this small an amount? Did it open on only 2 screens or something?
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:36 AM on June 19, 2015

10, I believe.
posted by jaduncan at 10:37 AM on June 19, 2015

Roth admitted he took the job for the money, saying it helped him out of a "financial hole,"

Roth's previous film to United Passions was the equally dire sounding Grace of Monaco. Must have been some hole. At least he also did Selma last year.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:43 AM on June 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I won't begrudge those in the entertainment industry an opportunity to earn some money. I just hope the paychecks have already been cashed.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:46 AM on June 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

Roth was brilliant in Selma, BTW.
posted by vibrotronica at 11:10 AM on June 19, 2015

Bulgaroktonos: Seriously, half that material was work-shopped in e-mails I received yesterday.

I would like to subscribe to this newslist.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:14 AM on June 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

I've taken shitty jobs because I needed the money. Heck I'm typing this from one of them.
posted by octothorpe at 11:15 AM on June 19, 2015 [7 favorites]

Nine hundred and eighteen dollars! They could have raised more money by selling a 1986 Chevette.
posted by KathrynT at 11:17 AM on June 19, 2015 [13 favorites]

I live right down the street from the Shirlington 7, the Arlington, VA theater that made $161 for the movie on opening day. I kind of wish that I had gone to see it there, just to say that I did and be part of history! But then I think about Quatar and FIFA and decide it was a good call not to.
posted by gemmy at 11:35 AM on June 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

A Sepp For All Seasons
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:01 PM on June 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

"United Passions" to me sounds like something that United Airlines would title its employee orientation training film.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:05 PM on June 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

Poor FIFA. Blatter et al. saw the box office for Zero Dark Thirty and concluded that the movie-going public had an appetite for ham-fisted propaganda.
posted by grounded at 12:09 PM on June 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Nine hundred and eighteen dollars!

The $16 million the film cost really was just loose change behind the sofa cushions for Blatter. FIFA's cash reserves are currently $1.4 billion, which although it's not Apple, is still quite serious money.

If only we could have a Scorsese movie about 'FIFA Supergrass' Chuck Blazer starring Brian Blessed - or Depardieu.
posted by colie at 12:13 PM on June 19, 2015

$918? That's over 30 times as much as Zyzzyx Road made!

But that was intentional, and they only showed the movie once a day, at noon, for six days (February 25 – March 2, 2006) at Highland Park Village Theater in Dallas, Texas.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:17 PM on June 19, 2015

You know what's the sad thing? FIFA could have well done a quality vanity film if instead of whitewashing the Havelange/Blatter lines of corruption, they hired a competent director, say, Senna's Asif Kapadia, give him access to the FIFA film archives (they used to do a two-hour official film of the world cup, and they were usually gorgeous, filled with shots that were rarely used in TV broadcasts because they were terrible to follow the action), access to former players and staff and tell him to do a 2 hour theatrical and a 4 hour cut of FIFA's history.


Also, considering the movie barely had any extended theatrical releases, and in countries like France (y'know, the country where FIFA was born into) went straight to disc, I think it's more likely the US distributors saw the news, put it on a few cinemas, and hoped to cash in the controversy, forgetting that even if the movie was any good, it wouldn't fare much better.
posted by lmfsilva at 12:23 PM on June 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Gooby!
posted by stevil at 12:37 PM on June 19, 2015

access to the FIFA film archives

Yes I remembered a fantastic film of the 1982 World Cup, all shot on gorgeous technicolor from multiple angles and with a classic BBC-style clipped voiceover and packed with fascinating stories from behind the scenes - check this bit out and see how it draws you in!
posted by colie at 12:43 PM on June 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

Gooby!

I watched that entire trailer and I still can't believe that movie came out in 2009. Everything about that screams "1992!" to me.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:45 PM on June 19, 2015

I absolutely had to after it was described to me as The Room with footballs.

Oh, hi, bribe money!
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:52 PM on June 19, 2015 [6 favorites]

There are so many good re-quoting options!

Joao: How was work today?
Horst: Oh, pretty good. We got a new potential location for an upcoming match and we will make a lot of money.
Joao: What location?
Horst: I cannot tell you; it's confidential.
Joao: Aw, come on. Why not?
Horst: No, I can't. Anyway, how is your sex life?

Sepp: I did not take a bribe, it's not true! It's bullshit! I did not take a bribe!
[throws water bottle]
Sepp: I did *not*. Oh hi, Joao.
Joao: Oh, hey Sepp, what's up?
Sepp: I have a problem with the media. They say I took a bribe.
Joao: What? Didn't you?
Sepp: [sits down] No, it's not true. Don't even ask. What's new with you?
Joao: I'm just sitting up here thinking, you know. I got a question for you.
Sepp: Yeah?
Joao: You think other people like to take kickbacks like we do?
Sepp: What makes you say that?
Joao: [gets up] I don't know. I don't know. I'm just... I'm just thinking.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:20 PM on June 19, 2015 [12 favorites]

So FIFA is now officially significantly worse than both Scientology and Ayn Rand.
posted by Fnarf at 1:40 PM on June 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Worse than Scientology? Whoa there, have they gone as far as to harass and silence those who criticize them? Well, we'll see what they do to reviewers of this movie, as Scientology has even attacked film critics who reviewed the take-down documentary, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:24 PM on June 19, 2015

This sounds like Roth's equivalent of Oliver Reed's “Clash Of Loyalties”.
posted by acb at 3:32 PM on June 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh God they're going to name the main character Sexx Bladder and make it a peeing film, aren't they?

Shtupp Splatter
posted by Sys Rq at 5:32 PM on June 19, 2015

> I kind of wish that I had gone to see it there, just to say that I did and be part of history!

The important thing is to be on the right side of history. So feel good about yourself: You were a member of the record-setting crowds not attending the opening of this release.
posted by ardgedee at 5:54 PM on June 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

At least this article explains the title. I was wondering why they didn't at least give it a catchy title, but okay: it's a play on United Nations. Except... "nation" and "passion" don't rhyme in English. But they do in French! So we can conclude with a fairly high degree of confidence that the English of whoever chose the title is heavily influenced by French -- not at all surprising for FIFA. If only they'd done a better job vetting it as English.
posted by No-sword at 8:18 PM on June 19, 2015

So it would have worked better if it was pronounced "United Paytions". That figures.
posted by Etrigan at 5:06 AM on June 20, 2015

At least we're getting some good review quotes out of this film.

The Guardian: "Even without the current headlines, United Passions is a disgrace. It’s less a movie than preposterous self-hagiography, more appropriate for Scientology or the Rev Sun Myung Moon. As cinema it is excrement. As proof of corporate insanity it is a valuable case study."

The Village Voice: "As propaganda, United Passions is as subtle as an anvil to the temple. As drama, it’s not merely ham-fisted, but pork-shouldered, bacon-wristed, and sausage-elbowed."
posted by Tau Wedel at 7:15 AM on June 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Depardieu has been synonymous with greed and selling out for a while, but Tim Roth made me sad.

Me too. I haven't paid attention to him in years, but heard he's on a major American network television show and major American network television is unfathomably terrible so I shouldn't have been surprised he was in, what was clearly, a FIFA commercial passed off as a film.

I'm sure Italian Spiderman is way better.
posted by juiceCake at 5:05 PM on June 20, 2015

Hey, Italian Spiderman gave way to Danger 5, one of the best things on TV of the past years.


Maybe this could be followed by Offshore Passions, a movie of the past few weeks in FIFA. Ask Roth if he's willing to play corrupt International Professional Soccer Association president Josef Burkhalter.
posted by lmfsilva at 5:04 AM on June 21, 2015