Rain Man certainly didn't test really well. If you look at it carefully, you have a disease autism … - Barry Levinson

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When you first start working, you take whatever job is offered, because you have to build your resume. But you don't think about what you're building.

Barry Levinson

Rain Man certainly didn't test really well. If you look at it carefully, you have a disease autism they didn't understand back then, they didn't know in the test audience whether it's okay to laugh or not laugh, because it's a film that's done in a way where, "Well, maybe I'm not supposed to laugh. " At the end of the film, Dustin Hoffman gets on the train and doesn't even acknowledge his brother. Not even a glance, nothing. That's why the studio said, "Can't you just have him look at Tom Cruise at the end of the film?"

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Even back in the '90s, I shot certain things on something that wasn't digital then, but it was on VHS with a smaller camera and we would up it to film.

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I don't see Sarah Palin suddenly spilling over to a wider group where suddenly they go, "Wait a minute, I've heard her message, and now I'm beginning. . . " It's not expanding it. A politician that doesn't expand from the base is not a good politician. So I disagree with all the talking heads that go "Well, she's a very good politician. " She's not! Good politicians expand, and she doesn't.

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I think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it's getting.

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If you test Iron Man and that audience doesn't respond well, you can be damn sure that there is something wrong with the movie that you have to address. Because they're expecting a certain amount of action, right? They want a hero. There are certain things that have to be compatible with the way the audience is thinking about it. If you take some other film, like No Country for Old Men, you can end up with all kinds of crazy reactions.

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Different reactions while film test screening doesn't mean even the audience thinks ambiguity is a bad thing. But if you're asking them right away to start checking things off, they don't know what to do. I think at their best, it applies to when the audience knows what it is. Then, when they say, "Oh, well, I thought it was too boring in blah-blah-blah part," then you better pay attention to it. It's like going for the hamburger. Better be the good hamburger I went for.

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