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September 30, 2007

Das Vaknifeya

In Eastern Promises, Cronenberg takes on Knight’s fairly-traditional-on-the-surface story of the Mafioso with a heart of gold, the Mafia family he works for and is working his way up through, and the blonde innocent who forces him to make decisions about doing the right thing. It gets more complicated than that, but that description will get you through the first half of the film. What makes it more than expected, initially, is Knight, who is so interested in the details of the lives into which he is looking. Story twists are all supported because, it seems, Knight twists only to push the characters into more complexity, not the other way around.

Cronenberg takes the story and up the ante.

The rest...

Posted by poland at 01:53 PM | Comments (11)

Just Making Sure...

After some blog commenters accused me on not writing about movies and only business, I wondered if it was true... after looking at the last month of blog entries, my guilt was relieved.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead
I'm Not There
Lars & The Real Girl
Margot At The Wedding
Married Life
Mother of Tears
Redacted
Reservation Road
The Savages

Atonement / Elizabeth: The Golden Age

And from The Hot Button, The Brave One

There are other bits and pieces out there, but these are the ones in some depth...

Posted by poland at 01:06 PM | Comments (33)

Docs

Kim Vonyar does a nice job starting down the doc road for the year in Cinematical.

But she misses the most important doc of 2007 by a country mile... Tony Kaye's best-ever-in-the-category Lake of Fire.

If you think I am exaggerating, go see the movie. It's no cuddly Moorian tour of abortion clinics with wacky right-wingers out on the lawn, happy to be humiliated by a celebrity.

If you haven’t witnessed an abortion, see this movie… you will have done so by the end, including sorting out the pieces of the fetus to make sure that all the parts are out of the mom. It’s unpleasant enough to make you wonder whether Mr. Kaye is against legal abortion. But the human kindness he shows the women who are shown in the film going through the whole process makes you realize that he is after bigger fish here… he is after truth.

You may see a film designed to demand your opinion on this issue in future. But after seeing Lake of Fire, you will have gathered the detail to consider the issue without someone trying to tell you what to think. And what more could you ever ask from a documentary?

As Shoah is to the Jewish Holocaust… as Ken Burns’ doc series was to the Civil War… as The War Room is to the modern political campaign… Lake of Fire is to the issue of abortion rights. An epic, defining, and singular achievement. And there is no question that it should win Best Documentary come February. It’s not that there won’t be some excellent films, some of which I have not seen yet, that deserve consideration. But surely none will be as ambitious and as successful in fulfilling its aspiration as Lake of Fire.

Also…

It is an annual key to look at the IDA DocuWeek screenings, which usually produce 2 or 3 of the ultimate nominees… and invariably at least one film and filmmaker very few people have seen or heard of (I have included the name of filmmakers who have been Oscar nominated, won, or were short-listed:

The Price Of Sugar
Nanking (Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman)
War/Dance
Hear And Now
Protagonist (Jessica Yu)
Steps To Eternity
Salim Baba
Sari's Mother (James Longley)
Angel's Fire (Fuego De Angel)
Gene Boy Came Home
Kurt Cobain About A Son
Larry Flynt: The Right To Be Left Alone
We Are Together (Thina Simunye)
Chops
Taxi To The Darkside (Alex Gibney)
In The Shadow Of The Moon
A Promise To The Dead: The Exile Journey Of Ariel Dorfman (Peter Raymont)

Posted by poland at 11:39 AM | Comments (38)

Klady's Sunday Estimate - Sept 30

Posted by poland at 11:32 AM | Comments (31)

September 29, 2007

Klady's Friday Estimates

If you are looking for history this weekend, the last weekend of September will find you The Rock in The Rundown ($18.5m start) and Disney releasing The Guardian ($18m start) . Or perhaps you like Remember The Titans ($20.9m) and Open Season ($23.6m) and The Corpse Bride ($19.1m).

Actually, last year it was Open Season vs The Guardian… and they actually opened a little behind the Friday of both this weekend’s The Game Plan and The Kingdom. ($6.2m last year vs $6.3m yesterday for the family films and $5.8m vs $6.1m for the actioners) In other words, if you were a studio distribution exec and you expected a much better result, you were in a fantasy world. People can’t wait to rip into the box office these days in a hyperactive media universe that is filled with people who really don’t know much of anything about it. But as any head shrinker would tell you, repeating the same behavior and expecting a significantly different result is what crazy people do.

Good Luck Chuck continues to track slightly ahead of Employee of the Month… another example of behaviors repeating in a niche business, in this case, the Dane Cook biz. Replace Jessica Simpson’s boobs with Jessica Alba’s flat belly, blonde for brunette, slutty for sweetie… incremental variations. Next one may be down a little or up a little. But so long as you are budgeting the films to be in profit after around $40 million in worldwide gross, you are golden on these.

3:10 From Yuma continues to play strong, which is inspiring Lionsgate to get more and more serious about awards season. Eastern Promises is already close to dead at the box office instead in spite of incredible reviews, though The Brave One has to be an even bigger commercial disappointment.

Posted by poland at 12:29 PM | Comments (25)

September 28, 2007

Hot Button - You Are What You Emulate

Truly original films are a rare commodity. They always were. But upon passing its hundredth birthday, the film industry is evolving in the way all the other arts have. There are plenty of remakes, but more interestingly, there are now more and more films that involve high quality talent, with high end aspirations, that can be tracked back to earlier film, particularly the early 70s era of independent minded studio magic.

There are two different forms of this phenomenon. The first form is film that flatters past greatness by Evolutionary Imitation. Those include:

Network + Erin Brockovich + Syriana = Michael Clayton

Days of Heaven + Heaven's Gate + McCabe & Mrs. Miller + Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid + The Long Riders = The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford

In the first case, there is story subtext in the first act that is clearly reflective of Network. I completely believe Tony Gilroy when he admits he admires the film and when he says he wasn't cribbing. In the case of Jesse James, there are a variety of wildly familiar style points that Andrew Dominik has built into his own vision of this not unfamiliar story.

The other form, which I find more interesting, are the Completionist Films, such as:

Prince of The City + Superfly + Hoodlum + The French Connection + Mr. Untouchable = American Gangster

Hotel Rwanda + Shooting Dogs + Shake Hands With The Devil (the doc) = Shake Hands With The Devil

The rest...

Posted by poland at 04:16 PM | Comments (3)

Box Office Hell - Sept 28

(updated Fri night with EW and BO Prophets)

Posted by poland at 11:21 AM | Comments (15)

How Do You Know A Studio/ Producer/ Filmmaker Is Staining Their Jockey Shorts?

They show their Oscar-chasing art film to Fantastic Fest or Butt-Numb-A-Thon, where they know they control the dispensing of opinion, before they show it in less tightly controlled circumstances....

And sometimes, they even get a sweet kiss from a trade blog...

Posted by poland at 11:03 AM | Comments (100)

Maybe Some Bionic Writers?

I watched Bionic Woman tonight... and I have to say... zzzzzzz...

And not the way something like Desperate Housewives just isn't my taste. This show is trying so hard to be yet another version of Heroes that it is little more than a bunch of mediocre action and tough talk. What makes Heroes work (at least in the first season) was the sense of mystery. You liked the characters and you wanted to know how it all came together. And about half way through the season, it was, like, "Get On With It!" And they did.

This one has the Matrix sequel problem... in the pilot there is already no where to go... the woman gets bionic and already knows how to use all the tools. And so the drama? Bad on one shoulder and Worse on the other?

This show may be the biggest hit out of the box to crash and burn by season's end.

Posted by poland at 12:00 AM | Comments (49)

September 27, 2007

Not New, But...

Posted by poland at 10:24 PM | Comments (8)

Who'll Do It?

It occurred to me last night...

The battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is hot and heavy... both companies are willing to spend millions to get studios to join the effort on one side or the other...

The biggest challenge for the marketers is to get people to, finally, commit to buying these machines.

And what group would be an obvious key demographic for the players involved? How about 6000 members of The Academy and the 9000 or so people who are in guilds, groups, and media who also get screeners?

Of course, the majority of these folks can afford to buy machines if they so choose. But getting them/us off the dime is a challenge.

So what if either Sony, on the Blu-Ray side, and Microsoft on the HD side made a play to make sure that those who get 50+ screeners this awards season get them in traditional DVD AND in the High Definition version of their creation?

If I have 20 of the top movies of the year sitting on my shelf in one of these formats, even if I can just pop in the regular DVD, isn't the temptation to consider a new player increased significantly... especially if I have the hi-def TV, which this demographic has more in larger numbers than most?

It's the old razors and razor blades concept, except that in this case, the cost of the initial razor is what is prohibitive... and if you can get them to buy the razor at all, there is an incremental value to selling these blades instead of the old one... but the bigger issue is not making a fortune on DVD "razors," but market share for these players, which is life and death... especially to the Japanese business model.

Of course - and not entirely unfairly - some of you will think I just want a bunch of free High Definition DVDs on my shelf. Guilty.

But had I not recently joined the hi-def game. After a week with a souped up DVR – 1T hard drive attached to my DirecTV DVR - I already have 13 hi-def movies sitting there that I am looking forward to watching. Do I really NEED a Blu-Ray or HD player?

Is it worth it to a guild or Academy member who isn’t worrying about making rent to spend a few hundred bucks to catch the wave of the moment AND to see Atonement or No Country For Old Men or Across The Universe or Sweeney Todd or Into The Wild in the best way possible over Thanksgiving dinner? Aren’t a lot of those folks right on the edge of making the choice to go HD – unlike people not waiting to buy coded Cinea machines – and isn’t this a great opportunity to push them? And wouldn't this be the best way -other than on a movie screen - for voters to see these movies?

Yes, it would be more expensive and production issues are surely even more problematic than with regular DVDs. (Piracy is mostly a non-issue as the pirates are not in the HD business yet.) But the financial interests on the side of the two manufacturing sides are much bigger drivers than any hindrance. Moving the A-list demographic has got to be too tempting for them to just leave for next year… right?

Posted by poland at 12:25 PM | Comments (24)

September 26, 2007

Do You Know The Way To Chevalier?

I have tried conventional means to find Wes Anderson's Hotel Chevalier on iTunes... but nope.

However, this link on Defamer got me there and the same link came back to me when I "Send To A Friend"ed it to myself.

Odd.

The link opens my iTunes program to Home-Movies-Short Films-Fox-Hotel Chevalier... which doesn't exist if you go, for instance to Home then Movies then Short Films... there is no Fox link available at this time.

Really odd.

Does Fox Searchlight want it to be mysterious and hard to find? Or is it really just meant for the wank sites?

Posted by poland at 06:01 PM | Comments (24)

GREAT News for Hot Blog Fans!!!

(The following came from a promotion house... a few minor edits are italicized)

HOSTILE: PART II -
UNRATED (HACK)'S CUT

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is gearing up to release the Unrated Director's Cut of Hostile: Part II which (abuses) Lauren German, Bijou Phillips, and Heather Matarazzo onto DVD and Blu-ray. The "shocking(ly hateful)" sequel will be available to own on both formats as of October 23rd. Of course I could go into more detail as to the insane amount of extras this release boasts (like the Cat O'Nine Tails With Lube In The Handle and the How To book on stalking those teen bitches who won't give you the time of day in history class), but I figure it would be best just to let you hear it from the (genius auteur's) mouth himself.

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE:
ELI ROTH breaks down the HOSTILE: PART II DVD releases (with utter sincerity/contempt)

OHHH.. and don't forget to brush up on your Slovakian!

Posted by poland at 05:15 PM | Comments (20)

Agreed

For weeks, said Mr. Ross, NBC producers and executives had declined to comment for his piece. Then, last Wednesday, NBC News president Steve Capus had publicly questioned Mr. Ross’ motives in an interview with USA Today. “I chalk this up to the usual network silly competitiveness, in a territory that deserves much more of a serious handling,” Mr. Capus told the paper. “The competitive wars right now are at a very high level. That’s fueling this.”

To NYTV, Mr. Ross batted down Capus’s implication. “Implicit in that was that we’re all in a club and we shouldn’t criticize or report on each other,” said Mr. Ross. “I don’t think that’s the way you should operate. It’s like the blue wall of silence with cops.”

The rest of the piece...

As I have always said, it is not "Us" vs "Them." It must be "Us" versus bad reporting, abuse of power, and sloppy arrogance, whether it comes from a corporation, a studio, a media outlet, or a colleague. We do not become journalists to tell part of the truth.

And as is said in American Gangster, if you "turn in that kind of money," the other cops won't trust you. They think you are the kind of cop who turns in other cops who take money (illegally). Cops kill cops they don't trust.

Of course, when policing your fellow police, you do have to check yourself and your motives... often. You have to challenge yourself. And when you fail - and we all do - you have to be willing to eat your pride and take the hit.

But at least you can look in the mirror and be horrified only by new lines and soft spots... and not a rotted soul.

Posted by poland at 02:12 PM | Comments (2)

Gurus O' Gold: The Early Days

The Full Charts...

Once again, we have launched Gurus o' Gold for the awards season. This year, there is a bit of a shake up in the line-up, which we are trying to address for those who are not on this chart this season… more on that next week.

What strikes me most about the chart is that the picks, for the most part remain pretty conventional, even though conventional wisdom ends up being only about 60% right most years. And of course, to paraphrase the famous Peter Guber story, why don’t we all just pick the 60% that’s right?

Striking is the support for Juno, the hot title out of Telluride which continued to be warm in Toronto. Equally, the shyness around Lars & The Real Girl and The Savages is fascinating. Is a snarky comedy about a pregnant teen really what The Academy is waiting for? Might be!

It’s also important to remember that we are still early in Phase One, aka Getting Nominated. Do The Gurus really think that Marion Cotillard is the one to beat to win Best Actress? Probably not. But is she the surest bet for a nomination? Perhaps.

Then there is the massive issue of Lead vs Supporting, especially this year. Phillip Seymour Hoffman has three movies for which he will be contending, two lead (The Savages and Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead) and one supporting that no one has seen (Charlie Wilson’s War). And is Cate Blanchett as Dylan #5 in I’m Not There a Supporting Actress or a lead? How about Charlize Theron in In The Valley of Elah? Is John Travolta a Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, or Supporting Actress?

My most interesting experience in filling out my ballot yesterday was that I found there were more than 10 movies that I wanted to say were “in the race.” I believe in my 10, but I also believe there are other films that could come on as we go through the season. I believe that the team behind the great The Diving Bell & The Butterfly will fight hard for the film and could succeed. Same with There Will Be Blood, which I haven’t seen.

Charlie Wilson’s War is in my #1 slot with utter ambivalence, since it could be off my list in under 3 hours… but it still has more elements that suggest a potential lock than any of the films I have seen, loved or not. If Paramount Vantage finds a nice audience for Into The Wild, it becomes a lock. If not, not. Lumet’s very harsh, but very good Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead could shock amongst voters who revere the aging master. I do feel that there will be at least one “light” nominee and I think that Lars has a better tone and less direct competition than the other two options… but as a test run for Sidney Kimmel and the antithesis of the fumbling of MGM in recent years, it could just plain flop.

There are some very good films around… so much so that not a single person went for nomination machine Jack Nicholson for Best Actor for The Bucket List. How far has Rob Reiner fallen for that to happen? How forgetful are we “gurus” when not staring a title in the face?

And so it begins… no follow-ups for more than a month. Though 20 Weeks to Oscar is just weeks away… here we go…

Posted by poland at 12:54 PM | Comments (51)

Last Word On The Removed Entry

A new day, new information on the allegedly hacked e-mails that Roger Friedman has now said are, "all fake."

Frankly, I have no idea whether they are fake or not. There are details in the e-mails, which for someone out to embarrass Friedman, me, and others mentioned would be odd to fake the way they are faked, such as leaving out the actual names of certain people who are referred to and actually are friends of Roger's in situations they may well have encountered. (I will not be naming them here. No one else needs to have added embarrassment.)

In any case, the thickening of the story is that they whole mess apparently came from TMZ.com. Yes, the great success. The great and important step forward for the internet, owned by Time-Warner and AOL. Sister company to Entertainment Weekly and People. The company that has people talking about Harvey Levin as though he is now something other than another scumbag who is happy to live off of the pain of others as a gossip monger.

It has long been a tradition in my work on the web to own ugliness by acknowledging it and moving on. And in this case, just because it is embarrassing to me that anyone - whether the people named in these e-mails or some con artists - would spew these kind of absurdities, it is no reason for me not to treat them as openly as I would were it someone else and I was posting on principle.

So... here is the offending excerpt about me... I note again that Mr Friedman has called the e-mails fake and I can confirm that every single fact about me – offensive or not - in the alleged exchange, other than the fact that I once worked for Entertainment Weekly, is false.

From: rogerfriedman@XXX.net
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 11:09 AM
To: xxxxxx@aol.com
Cc:
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Mel Gibson

Well, you are more curious about David Poland than me – perhaps you guys should go out instead! . Well, let’s put it this way: David wasn’t fired because of his awful writing – though he should have been. Apparently, David had an addiction to “spankin’ the ham” in the bathroom. One day, Owen Gleiberman caught him and let’s just say that Mr. Poland invited Owen to the party and he refused. Owen was pretty offended. After Poland was escorted out of the building a week later, the IT dept. found a lot of pictures on his computer – you know, ones with naked men– and let’s just say that Mr. Poland has a thing for young black men.
RF

Well, adjust my original comment. Roger or whomever's opinion of my writing at EW - which anyone who has ever had a working relationship with EW knows is worked over by editors until it looks nothing like the original reporter's writing - is an opinion and therefore, cannot be false on its face.

Anyway, the point of getting back into all of this is that again... TMZ.com... Mainstream Media if there is any... funded better than most newspapers are these days... ran this shite without contacting me or EW or Roger Friedman or Sharon Waxman or anyone else being libeled or having their privacy invaded, if indeed these are Mr. Friedman's e-mails. And it is inexcusable.

This notion that you can publish this kind of thing and then pull it off your website when someone complains – and you know you have no journalistic leg to stand on – and that it’s all okay because it’s now off your site, is a load of crap.

At the very least, TMZ should do the right thing, follow up on the source of the alleged e-mail chain, and follow up on the gossip they have spread from whatever sleaze dreamed them up and publicly apologize to everyone who has been abused by the lies.

As best I can tell, to sue TMZ in America, I would have to be able to prove intent. And there is weak standing to sue Roger, even if he wrote these e-mails, because the exchange was intended to be private and there is no indication that he leaked them intentionally, so the damage he would be responsible for was minor.

As I indicated before, there is another web personality who has also repeatedly made up nasty lies about me in private e-mails and circulated them to people in the industry. In that case, the attacks are more clearly intended to do damage to my professional reputation and are equally clearly of this person’s personal creation and not a rumor started by some other idiot and passed along. Still, a lawsuit is a tough road and a restraining order, beyond the time involved with that, would require future enforcement. An even bigger nightmare than being lied about.

Of course, there is the addition oddity of people who should know better, who are grown ups and have been in media for years, who see all of it as a joke. Laugh it off. Ha ha. Only people who haven’t been on this side of it find it funny. And how do you tell people who find something amusing that it is not amusing at all? The disrespect that people show by willingly disregarding the feelings of people who are trying to simply be treated fairly is mind boggling sometimes.

All of which comes back to the finger wagger in me, who wants to scream often about the degradation of how we engage in discourse, starting with the media outlets that are best built to be above that fray… which includes Time-Warner. CNN should not be in the business of giving the audience what it wants any more than the world is better off for a site like TMZ to be an amalgamation of all things gossip.

The good news is that sunshine still disinfects and I expect that TMZ, with its hideous TV show and the gaping maw that all this attention has created for it and the website, already jumped the shark. It’s not going anywhere. Not now. But when the TV show goes the way of Celebrity Justice next year and AOL realizes there is no way to monetize the web site alone to cover its cost of production, the budget cuts will start and the slow, steady, very AOL march towards Entertainment Asylum II will begin.

It couldn’t happen to a sleazier website.

Posted by poland at 10:48 AM | Comments (21)

September 25, 2007

I Removed A Comment

I am now wasting time, which I hate, on some form of idiocy which I feel compelled to police.

As many of you know, my policy is not to remove comments and I have never banned anyone from this blog.

Tonight, I came home to an entry that claimed that Roger Friedman's e-mail had been hacked and that there was some absurd crap about me, Sharon Waxman, and others in some alleged e-mail gossip session he had with some guy.

I removed the comment for two reasons. 1) The attack on me is so factually inaccurate on its face - forget the insane, libelous part - that allowing myself to be in a position to somehow defend a charge like this is insane. 2) I have no idea whether these e-mails really are Roger Friedman's and if they are not, they are a form of libel against him... also unacceptable.

I have sent a note to the poster and will eventually find out whether the e-mail he is registered under is real or not. And I will have to waste more time trying to find out where this alleged set of e-mails came from and may be published.

In addition, if the e-mails are real, the apparent rumor about me is so absurd that even Roger wouldn't make that up... but there is someone who might have. And that makes me heartsick. And it's not Jeffrey Wells, who spins reality, but doesn't tend to lie about other people.

There is another professional gossip who has overtly lied about me and my behavior in the past. Ah, to live a life of getting restraining orders. Not a life I want to be living. But it certainly makes me more and more sympathetic to the actual public figures who live with this every day.

More as it develops...

Posted by poland at 11:42 PM | Comments (17)

BYOB 2 - Bring Your Own Blog

Posted by poland at 06:24 PM | Comments (30)

September 24, 2007

A Semi-Anonymous Voice, Craving Notice

The funniest things about Peter Bart’s latest missive about bloggers are that, 1) He thinks he has “blogger friends” that somehow represent a deep truth about the internet, and 2) he is such a fan of throwing stones in his glass house.

He writes, “The new lexicon of blogdom is all about traffic, not about ideas. Bloggers are into "tagging." They are obsessed with "link bait." A hot item is useless unless it can be linked and Drudgified. Any hack can blog items about all the young celebrities who are self-destructing. The first sentence, however, had better start with Lindsay Lohan climbing out of her limo without underwear.

The bloggers I know are so hungry for attention that they suffer from attention deficit syndrome. Their blogs have become a narcotic: The highs are downright beatific. Then the numbers come in and they trigger the low.”

Apparently, Peter Bart doesn’t know anyone who has made a financial and critical success of their blog. (And don’t even get me started about "the low" of traditional journalists who realize their “exclusive” isn’t really exclusive after all. Of course, this never stops hacks in either medium from claiming the exclusive anyway… because if you say it enough, some will believe it… which also helps define Mr. Bart’s column this week.)

But the truth is that most of Bart’s “blogger friends” are likely people who work for him and are concerned about keeping their jobs and know that proving their worth will be connected to their numbers and the perception of their value, which is directly related to other forums where their bosses can see they are being valued in the community. As an aggregator, we have long been on the more pleasant side of this, able to drive both traffic and perception of value for “bloggers,” even more so in Traditional Media than with small blogs, who are, amusingly, far less obsessed with “success.”

A Drudge link is a much bigger boost than an MCN link, obviously. A Drudge link pretty much guarantees tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of clicks. One popular industry gossip blog, based on the numbers they claim, must get at least 50% of their clicks from Drudge. Of course, Drudge linkage is not purely earned. Not only do Drudge & Breitbart have grudges – many a decade old – but they make other choices, like supporting Box Office Mojo, a site whose operators are said to share the rightwing political beliefs of Drudge and his financial supporters.

Of course, this is no different than media has been forever. A story in the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times or USA Today can be worth its weight in gold to a wannabe IPO or business in need of a boost. And while the coin of the web seems to be click-thrus, the real key, as in all areas of business, is perception. What is the secret to being seen as “successful” on the web? Get an editor at a major to think you are The Shit. A few stories about your business and zoom… you are Gawker… terribly “important,” but not actually financially successful enough to sell itself for tens of millions of dollars. Or, for that matter, you are Salon, still scraping to survive after all these years of quality work and perceived importance.

Yes, working a website is like having a newborn for the first time, the experience of working exclusively on the internet is something you learn as you go. There is no manual. For those of us who were there from the early days, there was no precedent.

Like most people having their second child, once they have learned from their early years, they gain perspective and are less compulsive about the experience the next time out. True, there are people who will never be anything but nervous parents. But if you able to find balance, the experience changes quite a bit and very different concerns emerge.

“Blogs,” as we know them now, are less than a five year old phenomenon. We are still years from any real maturity to the form. (We will know we are reaching real maturity when the entire culture is no longer defined effectively by one word, “blog.”). Maturity which will lead, I imagine, to a lot less blogging from Traditional Media such at Variety.

You see, those of us who have been around this block, even with significantly fewer financial resources, have come to understand the nature of the beast (at least, as it lives now). So we know that, for instance, having 8 blogs without significant audiences on Variety.com is simply a bad idea. We have seen iFilm try to build a business in this style with bulletin board technology… and fail. We have seen Gawker build five major blogs, a raft of barely living ones, and a parade of ones that have been dumped. And here at MCN, we have experienced some very talented people who simply have not committed to the format, which makes maintaining an audience impossible. Even those who have committed have had a hard time building an audience without turning into the kinds of gossips that get so much attention for a few months at a time. (As soon as I start identifying myself as an insect, I will know it is time to find a new life.)

It is, further, a sign of immaturity in this game to be obsessing on your traffic. First, if you need to obsess on it, you don’t have enough traffic to obsess about. And second, if you are obsessing on the various ranking services that are out there for free, you are obsessing on bad information. All of these services are based on samples that are dependent on self-selection. They do not and cannot track your actual traffic. If you care, I suggest you get a service to track your own traffic and read that. It’s expensive, but if you want to sell ads, you have no choice. (Please also note, people who talk about how much traffic they have all the time probably have less traffic, in perspective to other sites, than they are leading you to believe.) But again, the novelty in figuring out who is linking to you from Peoria and Budapest and Venezuela wears off in time. I used to get a few IMs a week about some weird site that was sending thousands of people to our pages. Now… almost never, though we are linked by other sites more than ever.

Excitement Exhaustion is the same phenomenon we have found with personal web logs. Unless someone is showing off their body, maintaining interest in their lunch, buying, and bathroom habits is not easy. Of course, these “blogs” are what people like Peter Bart would have you believe define the “blogosphere.”

But there is a bigger problem with Bart & blogs. If you read Variety’s blogs, they are mostly about Variety. If a story breaks, you can be sure that you’ll have a chance to read Variety’s take on it. And… if you are on a Variety page… who cares? It’s not that Variety does not do a good job in its niche… and that is the ultimate irony… that Variety is, unlike, say, The New York Times, not a full-service journalistic outlet, but every bit the niche play that, say, Movie City, TV City, and Theater City News would be… but it is not an outlet where one seeks either deep or dark truths about the industry. It is, first and last, a trade magazine… not that there’s anything wrong with that. And with that limitation, the only way to make the web work for that product is to get on the web horse and drive, drive, drive that traffic in a focused, coordinated way. Variety.com is not a place to hang out and is unlikely to ever be that. And giving someone a blog on Variety.com doesn’t make that person a personality the way being given a slot on the NYT Op-Ed pages does.

Bart closes, “Here are all these folks sitting at home on their computers, and what's the biggest thing on their mind? Traffic.”

And what’s the biggest thing on the minds of Variety staff… and LA Times staff… and ABC staff… etc, etc, etc.? Selling ads so they can all keep their jobs, sit in the office on their computers, get health insurance, and go to a lot of parties, dinners, etc. paid for by the company.

Finally, a word about “folks sitting at home on their computers.” I have worked full-time, paid real salaries, for Entertainment Weekly and TNT’s roughcut.com, both of which had lovely offices. I worked at home for each. In the case of roughcut, when I took over the editorship, I moved the offices to Los Angeles. We paid a lot of rent for a lovely suite of offices in Larchmont Village. And my office… it was most often empty… because in a modern world, the only people in media who need offices to go to are people who, a) cannot get their company to pay for the office expenses at home, b) have to be managed closely, or c) love staff meetings.

Yes, there is an advantage to community in a business and part of me wishes I could assemble the entire MCN team once a week. They would feel more connected to me and Managing Editor Laura Rooney and one another. But the whole, “they are working from their bedroom” schtick is more avoidance of reality as well. Harry Knowles, for better or for worse, knows more about what is going on in his film niche than any one reporter at Variety or probably anywhere else… from his big chair or his bed and his wheelchair, which have been located in Austin, Tx for most of the last decade he has been on the web. If you want to have a serious discussion, we can talk about how he uses that information or how conflicted he is. But the only thing other than a telephone and a computer connecting most people in “Hollywood” is lunch a couple of times a year, at best. If you want to have a serious conversation, get serious, Mr. Bart.

All that said, Variety is allowing one of its writer/bloggers to participate in MCN's Gurus o' Gold for the first time this season. So maybe Bart gets it more than he lets on - maybe he realizes that for the same reason he gives prime space on Variety's online film page to Retrack, Movies.com, and Moviefone - and realizes that all of these mediums, mature and immature, are all driven by getting the word out and that it is a fight. That would make sense coming from the man who kicked his main rival, The Hollywood Reporter, in the groin by stealing their main blogger, Anne Thompson, and their editor, Cynthia Littleton... who is now blogging for Variety.

(Note: This 1700-plus word blog entry was written after some serious consideration of Mr Bart's column and the industry as a whole. How considered and deeply thought out do we think Mr Bart's 555 word column - which is loaded with automated links to old Variety stories about keywords their computers pick up - was?)

Posted by poland at 02:30 PM | Comments (13)

September 23, 2007

The Darjeeling Short Lands A Week Before The NYFF

"Hotel Chevalier" represents a novel approach to generating buzz for "Darjeeling," a quirky film from Fox Searchlight that doesn't have a powerhouse marketing budget. The main film is about three brothers -- played by Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody -- who take a comic "spiritual journey" through India after their father's death. Like Mr. Anderson's past films, the new picture isn't easily summarized or boiled down to an easy selling point.

"Hotel Chevalier," meanwhile, is a prequel of sorts that was made a year before "Darjeeling" even began filming. It takes place entirely in the Paris hotel room of Mr. Schwartzman's character and includes information that later becomes relevant in "Darjeeling." The short film's premiere will be Tuesday night at Apple stores in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Santa Monica, Calif. Then, starting Wednesday, it will be available as a free download on Apple Inc.'s iTunes Web site.

Before a recent press screening, Fox Searchlight, which says it has no financial stake in "Chevalier," distributed a statement from Mr. Anderson saying it was his goal to "get every person who goes to ["The Darjeeling Limited"] to see the short first." Mr. Anderson may have a hook: The short co-stars Natalie Portman, who appears in an extended nude scene -- but whose character makes just a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in "The Darjeeling Limited."

The Rest...

Here is the LAT version...

What is fascinating and inaccurate in both stories is the degree of sex and nudity. As I wrote before, there is no full frontal anything. The most sexy moment with Ms Portman is a pose she strikes with her rib cage bared and showing through her side, and her butt extended, but pretty much a profile with all the naughty bits covered. It is less nude than the pregnant Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair... not much different than Johanson and Knightley on the cover of same.

But that misstatement won't do any good, since people will have the short on their computers by mid-week.

Weird.

And Anderson's goal should be to get all people who see the short to see the film, not the other way around, no?

Posted by poland at 11:19 PM | Comments (11)

Sunday Estimates by Klady

First note, A Correction - Len Klady's Friday Estimates had The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford at 15 screens when today, he is at the 5 that has been reported elsewhere. Our apologies to our readers.

And then...

Nothing a whole lot else to talk about.

The big exclusive openings of Into The Wild and Jesse James are very nice… and harbingers of any possible follow-ups. For Wild, it could auger Thank You For Smoking ($25m dom) or Little Miss Sunshine ($60m dom), both of which opened with higher per screens on 5 and 7 screens. Or it could be Sideways ($72m) or In Good Company ($46m). Or, of course, it could be something else all together. I still haven’t written in any depth about this film because I have been waiting to see it again and have missed it all too many times in all too many places. But I think Good Will Hunting/Traffic kinds of numbers are possible for this film… but it will mean the audiences taking control of the film’s future.

As for Jesse James, it’s an odd number historically. The happy answers (for those who seek happiness here) are The Full Monty, The Last Emperor, and Wag The Dog, which went on to awards runs and grosses around $45m domestic. But most of the answers for movies opening to this kind of number are not so happy. Immortal Beloved, Surviving Picasso, Branagh’s Hamlet, Michael Collins, Dancer In The Dark… all around this number. Notably, Across The Universe did a similar per-screen number on 23 screens… so make your assumptions accordingly.

Meanwhile, Transformers has hit the second run circuit strongly and is looking greedily at Shrek The Third's #2 slot for the summer and cracking the $700 million mark for worldwide gross. (Currently about $4 million away.)

Also, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has become the second highest grossing film of the series worldwide with $929 million. Spider-Man 3 became the #1 Spider-Man all-time worldwide while being #3 at home. Pirates 3 is Pirates #2 worldwide (and #1 for the year so far) with $960 million. Same with Shrek The Third, doing $780 worldwide, $140m behind S2.

And quietly, Stardust has accumulated over $37 million domestic, more than 4 times opening, and plenty to make the film a financial success - albeit just for hitting black - for Paramount, which paid zero towards the movie's production, though they did have significant US P&A commitments. Just 5 or 6 million behind the domestic numbers for License To Wed and No Reservations, it is not a black eye for Paramount at all – though these are not the kinds of numbers DW movies have been getting - and should stop appearing as such in news stories about the studio. It’s made more than Zodiac or Next and cost the studio less than either.

Posted by poland at 01:01 PM | Comments (30)

September 22, 2007

Friday Estimate by Klady

As is so often the case, both tracking and box office weight guessers underestimate the junk and overestimate the quality stuff. If there is anything consistent about tracking and its misuse, it is this.

Look for the Resident Evil sequel to open a bit better than the last sequel, assuring – you guessed it! – a fourth RE film in the Milo Jovovich franchise that has been in profit before DVD each time out and will be again here.

I’m not a great believer in either Jessica Alba or Dane Cook as box office draws, but a mid-teens opening for Good Luck Chuck (specifically, anything over $12 million) would make this film a Top-Five-for-September opening in any year this millennium. For example, the clear box office power of Reese Witherspoon has lead to a $16.4 million opening (Just Like Heaven) and a $6.3 million 4-day (Vanity Fair) after her career defining $35.6 million opening of Sweet Home Alabama in 2002. Anyone actually expecting more out of these two or Lionsgate with a romantic comedy would be your basic b.o. fool.

Lionsgate’s history of comedies released in this quarter in recent years consists of Employee Of The Month with $11.4 million and Waiting with $6 million… both seen as positive surprises and part of defining Lionsgate’s mainstream comedic effort, which is Dane Cook, Ryan Reynolds, and/or Larry The Cable Guy combined with an actress that boys want to have sex with. And as far as Ms Alba, she has had two openings driven by her in her entire career before this weekend. Honey opened to a remarkable $12.8 million and made her bankable. Into The Blue was dumped and opened to $7 million, which made her questionable. And this opening reminds us that actresses who become best known for being eye candy and very rarely worth much at the box office, though they look great on wild postings with vanilla ice cream dripping on their chins and about to take another lick of the cone. So subtle.

Apaprently, Focus Features decided that they would be pleased to recreate the $31 million domestic gross of Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, using pretty much the same release pattern as that film. Unfortunately, their Cronenberg film, Eastern Promises, will be about $3 million or about a third behind AHOV’s first thousand-and-a-half screen release weekend. Could the movie be heading to a $20 million total? Very possibly. And maybe that’s all there is in a film about moral complexity and the Russian mob. And really, looking at Viggo’s career, aside from Hildago, which was sold very effectively as a family film, these numbers are about right… the exception, 33% better, being AHOV.

Superbad will pass Hairspray on the summer box office charts this weekend and is on its way to passing Adam Sandler’s Chuck & Larry to be the Lucky 13 for the summer.

Finally, Sony is reporting $650k on 276 screens for Across The Universe... which is... decent, but not encouraging. The hope is for word of mouth. Unfortuately, the best word of mouth they have is from the over-50 set. Good luck to them and here's hoping Julie Taymor finds a producer they trust one of these years... her genius needs trustworthy reins in a big way.

Posted by poland at 12:52 PM | Comments (25)

September 21, 2007

Question Of The Day - Wither DreamAmount

How many errors of fact can you find in this very tardy L.A. Times article on DreamWorks vs Paramount?

Okay... now how many events of spin can you find in the piece, which after a Brad Grey interview is interestingly willing to shove the blame on poor, old, crazy Sumner?

I don't have the time to deconstruct right now... but it's coming.

I will offer my favorite piece of spin before I post and run... In seven years of an 8% distribution deal with DreamWorks Animation (already 18 months old, btw) that Paramount paid for in an additional high 8-figure transaction, Paramount - Ms Eller argues - could earn as much from each DWA movie as it did from Shrek The Third for a seven year potential total of $800 million.

WOW! The giant hairy balls on that one!!!

The story in all these stories, my friends, is who is telling their bestest versions of the stories and who is allowing it.

Posted by poland at 05:52 PM | Comments (4)

Box Office Hell

Posted by poland at 02:58 PM | Comments (9)

22 Weeks To Oscar - Post-Toronto Column

It would be easy to shrug this notion off and say, “every movie is about seeking insight.” And you would be right on the surface level. But what really struck me about this year’s line-up is that these are not love stories (at least not with a second person). And these films are not seeking an easy answer that makes it comfortable for the audience. The dead parent films end, obviously, with death. And what I think you may have heard as resistance to some of the other films is a mark of fine work aesthetically, but ambivalence emotionally. The question for many of these films is just how much wreckage you can deal with, as an audience, and still think the light found at the end of the tunnel is a “happy ending.”

Even two of the films that are getting love as ripping good yarns - Atonement and Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead – are stories that really challenge you to walk out of the theater smiling about anything but the quality of the films themselves.

The Rest...

The Chart...

Posted by poland at 02:49 PM | Comments (155)

Darjeeling Preview Limited

I will get into The Darjeeling Limited a little later, but...

Perhaps the most reportable part of the film was the little 5 minute (roughly) pre-film film that Wes Anderson did with Jason Schwartzman that was shown last night at the Fox lot screening of the film... and is not expected to be a part of the theatrical release of the film.

The short takes place just before the brothers get on the train and features on of Schwartzman's Jack's ex-girlfriends... played by Natalie Portman. Yes, internet geeks, another Natalie Portman scene involving sex, a naked Portman, and no frontal nudity.

But it is actually quite compelling... almost as though Anderson is painting Portman, as so many artists seem to want to do. You have Mike Nichols view of her, The Wachowski view of her, Wong Kar Wai's view of her, etc. And the way Anderson uses her here is particularly painter-like... quite compelling... quite beautiful... quite sexy... but not about the personal bits.

Ironically, this is the part of the film that the internet will most desire... and will probably have to wait for DVD to see... unless Searchlight is cleverly going to let this segment loose on the web... where it will serve as a rather approproiate preview of the bigger film.

What wasn't compelling, by the way, is that the short was played as though it was the feature and we were "treated" to a 10 minute break afterwards before the main film began. That felt rather pretentious. But the model for this - which may or may not be in Anderson's lexicon - is Monty Python's The Meaning of Life which had a short before the film which eventually invaded the feature a little over an hour into the movie.

Either way, nice to see anyone pushing the form in the mainstream.

Posted by poland at 12:22 PM | Comments (5)

September 20, 2007

BYOB 1 - Bring Your Own Blog

A not-new, but newly structured idea for this blog.

I'm not going to bother telling you to be nice every time or saying much of anything.

It's open space to initiate whatever chat you want to have with your fellow commenters. I will try to keep one open and near the top of the page often.

Enjoy.

Posted by poland at 02:11 PM | Comments (66)

Just A Little Sneak Peek

Had a very pleasant chat today with Lars & The Real Girl director Craig Gillespie and his star, Ryan Gosling. The whole conversation, along with another chat with co-stars Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson, will be online in a week or two. But for the moment, here is a snippet with Ryan in glorious QuickTime.

Posted by poland at 12:29 AM | Comments (35)

September 19, 2007

The More Things Change...

I believe Mr. Scott actually gets his image even closer to the Rockwell...

Posted by poland at 06:46 PM | Comments (5)

Armond Does Jesse

Every once in a while, I feel like Armond White is speaking for me in ways that I don't speak.

Here is an excerpt of his review of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford...

There’s a tremendous gap in Dominik’s film knowledge: He doesn’t know—or understand—the transforming postmodernism of Walter Hill’s 1980 historical myth, The Long Riders. When Hill’s Robert Ford (Christopher Guest) aimed his gun at his idol and pronounced, “I Shot Jesse James,” it also evoked American mythology (including the title of Sam Fuller’s 1949 feature) to the nth degree. Dominik does little more than recreate the fake, burnish historicism of Road to Perdition.

Posted by poland at 01:37 PM | Comments (28)

Ya Know...

Does it tell you anything that even Denise Brown is sick of obsessing on OJ?

The Simpson Case: Episode Two - Crazy Vegas Memorabilia Shite is a sequel I would really rather no watch. It’s almost like the drug dealing movie (aka, every one) in which the drug dealer explains that the system can’t afford to shut down the machine because so many allegedly legitimate people are sucking off the teat.

There is something deeply sad when I am getting the vibe that real-life celebrity crime is really just another television category, like sitcoms or hour-long dramas or cop shows or game shows or on a local level, police car chases, that will from now on ebb and flow as the mood of the public determines its importance.

Hell, Entertainment Tonight even has Marcia Clark in the arraignment court like an angry ex-wife hanging around to watch the guy who stiffed her on alimony getting his comeuppance.

I have acknowledged before… I Tivo The View every morning to watch their Hot Topics segment. The voices of middle aged women who are not professionally political are rarely heard on TV. It interests me. I am always happy to hear people conversing in a serious way. I watch Fox News Channel when the moment strikes me too. I even put up with Michael Medved in the car when I drive around L.A.

I gather niches. For the most part, I am a niche journalist. And it’s a very small niche, really, even if almost everyone outside of it constantly wants to ask questions about it.

And I have to admit, it hurts my brain a little when I try to parse out something like Barry Manilow refusing to sit next to right-winger Elisabeth Hasselback on The View. Self-censorship or good taste or a strong conviction? And now that he has decided to do the show – which had the good taste not to play that game – has he become enlightened or does he just need the show that is second to Oprah in reach to his core audience of women?

It makes one all the more admiring of Sean Penn’s trips to Iraq, however odd they may seem on the surface. At least he is living his convictions. But then, in other cases, especially on the environment, we see such public bravado and private hypocrisy… how do we find footing anymore?

But mostly… can’t we raise the bar for discussion a little higher? Please?

Posted by poland at 11:13 AM | Comments (21)

September 18, 2007

Paramount Pays $600m For 3 Yrs Of DreamWorks, But Can DW Find A Billion To Put Par In The Rear View?

A rather stunning 38 minute conversation with Viacom Philippe Dauman, Viacom, Inc. President & CEO, chatting at the Goldman Sachs 2007 Communacopia Conference. You would wonder, through most of the chat, whether Viacom will still be in the business of owning a full service movie studio in the years to come. The focus was almost completely on the ongoing efforts around the company’s cable divisions and not the movie business. And reasonably enough, Dauman has seemed to make real inroads in focusing and building those mature businesses with new, creative, and opportunistic ideas.

But what about Paramount?

The studio, aside from DreamWorks, has released six films this year that have grossed just over $185 million domestic… or in rentals (roughly $100m), less than the cost of just advertising those six films domestically.

On the DreamAmount side, $606 million domestic out of four films, plus $321 million domestic on Shrek The Third, which Paramount has no ownership on at all, generating distribution fees of about $32 million.

Dauman did not speak to (and was not asked) about DreamWorks until about 26 minutes into the conversation. DreamWorks, he said, “has served as a bridge for us… from a point in time where we need to build up our pipeline to the future. What did we acquire with Dreamworks? We acquired their library, which we modified to dramatically reduce our purchase price. We only had about $600 million into the deal. We filled in holes in our organization. We built up our international organization. By the way, international organization of Paramount has tremendous potential as we move forward, including distributing third party product. It brought us a slate of movies which represents the most successful year in DreamWorks history and happens to be under our ownership. And it brought us all the projects in development. And the sequel rights to all of the projects in the portfolio, including Transformers.”

“Steven and his team have the right to leave, if they choose, at the end of next year. At that point if there someone who steps in with a billion dollars, two billion dollars, stepping into the Paul Allen role of a decade ago, to start a movie studio from scratch, it’s a possibility. And we are planning for that.”

“The financial impact to Paramount first and especially to Viacom overall, would be completely immaterial if someone, in the event, somebody turns up to help them start a studio from scratch.”

The entire DreamWorks section of the conversation lasted about four minutes.

Equally odd... a discussion of whether Paramount will be able to renew their Showtime deal... you know, the one with the cable net also owned by Sumner Redstone. Oy.

And on the HD choice - “We felt that HD TV had lower price hardware. We felt it was important for us to commit to a platform. In our company, we always look to the consumer first. That would be another example of it.”

“We’re not married for life to anyone… I’m all about monetizing everything that we have as much as possible.”

(You can listen to the whole thing here)

Posted by poland at 11:23 PM | Comments (6)

When Does Sony Go This Way?

MGM announced today that they would have their very own HD channel on DirecTV this fall, following in the footsteps of Universal, whose Universal HD channel combines movies and TV shows from the studio catalog with some NBC sports programming, all in HD, supported by ad sales. The studio already has the ad-supported Sleuth channel, which is loaded with the studio's decades old catalog of cop shows and thrillers.

Disney, Fox, and Paramount already have a load of channels in the cable space, branded in various ways, though aside from FX, which uses the Fox catalog a but like used goods in combination with new shows, and Disney, which is kid branded, the studios are not the brands.

As the only major with no network, cable or broadcast, Sony needs to start heading in this direction sooner than later. Television is the next step for internal use of libraries, which are losing value due daily to limited distribution options on cable and a DVD glut. And really, so people who like Wheel of Fortune worry that they might be watching an hour of 20 year old episodes each day... or does that excite them even more?

Also - I must admit that my "giant DVR" comments in the past have been bouyed farther by my own experience of the last couple of days. On returning to L.A. and my new-ish HD DVR, which has a frustratingly small amount of space for programs in HD, it took all of a $200 external hard drive and a wire from the back of the DirecTV DVR to make over 100 hours of space available for my use. And if I had spent a couple hundred more, it could just as easily have been 200 hours. And the drive? It's the size of a quality paperback and makes no drive noise at all.

I know that most people are too intimidated to even figure out what an eSata cord it. But the outlet was on my DVR for a reason. The future is coming. And when I can watch The Bourne Ultimatum at home in HD in November (or whenever 3 months after release is) for an extra $10 a month on the satellite bill, it will be here.

Posted by poland at 06:13 PM | Comments (20)

The Push For A Multi-Billion Gross, With Thousands Dead

Posted by poland at 05:20 PM | Comments (5)

Apologies From Telluride

Interesting…

The leadership of the Telluride Film Festival felt compelled this week to send out an apology by letter to festival pass buyers – aside from 3600 individually sold tickets, averaging less that 40 per screening over the course of the weekend, passes are the only way to get in to see movies at Telluride – for turnaway screenings.

We all knew this was an issue while we were at the festival. Some took the position that this was part of his festival every year and that if passholders simply made plans smartly and showed up early enough for screenings, they would be seeing everything and not whining. Others felt that the festival had screwed up their experience of the expensive movie weekend utterly. All of this was exacerbated by this being the first year of Bill and Stella Pence dropping out of leadership, functionally replaced (as co-founders can’t ever really be replaced) by Gary Meyer and Julie Huntsinger.

My position is somewhere in the middle. The e-mail notes that there were no more passes sold this year, though there were rumors, unspoken to, that there were more Patron and Sponsor passes sold/given out this year than in years before. One of the screenings that caused ire was held in one of the festival’s smallest venues and almost no one who wasn’t a Patron or Sponsor passholder got in. In my experience at the festival, I never recall seeing more than 20 or so Patrons lined up at any one movie.

In this same regard, mea culpa, since the one perk that the festival offers to the media - which pays its own way 100% to the fest, including purchasing passes, travel, accommodation, etc – is a few printed Patron passes that in combination with our Festival passes allow us to maximize our opportunities to cover the films. In years past, I have never used more than one or two of these. This year, I used every one, especially to get into the smaller venues. So I got the advantage, but more significantly, I felt a need to take it often this year just to navigate the fest and see the films I felt I needed to see.

The reality for Telluride is that those Patron passes, $3500 versus $680 for a Festival pass, are important to help keep the festival financially viable. And the selection of theaters is not changing much. So with four smaller theaters of 135 – 250 seats (three of which are permanent local spaces, albeit not all movie theaters by nature) and an increasingly hit-oriented mindset, even amongst fans of quality indies, you can see the problem, especially when the festival has a mistaken idea of which films might be in greatest demand.

Towards that end, the festival made two mistakes this year, in my opinion. First, they increased the number of movies showing. Telluride is perhaps the only festival in the world that could actually add titles and maintain its quality standards. But part of what has always made Telluride special is that if you went to all the screenings you could, you would always see more than half the films that were at the festival. As a result, people would make more challenging choices and films like The President’s Last Bang would suddenly be popular hits of the festival. (To be fair, The Band’s Visit was in that category this year, though it also arrived with Sony Classics distribution and played the nearly full 500 seat Chuck Jones Theater in the annual unannounced pre-opening slot on Thursday, so it had a hand up.)

Speaking of Sony Classics, another phenomenon, that TFF cannot really change, is that the Dependents have eaten the indie market – as discussed in some depth in yesterday’s Toronto column – and the power to position changes. For instance, while Sony Classics put all seven of their TFF films (almost a quarter of the program) in the main program, Fox Searchlight chose to bring Juno and The Savages to the festival as TBAs, not on the normal program. Both were problematically popular. The single most popular film at the festival, Paramount Vantage’s Into The Wild, was on the schedule, as was Vantage’s Margot At The Wedding.

Searchlight’s strategy was a great success for them and with studio relations with Toronto continuing to be an issue – TIFF will often give a film less advantageous position at the fest if the film lands at Venice or TFF first – others are likely to clamor for TBA status over a straight slot in future. It doesn’t always work. Magnolia’s Redacted, the Brian DePalma Iraq film, had a lot of heat for its first screening, but then slowed in spite of Venice accolades, and was a pale spot in Toronto. Wayne Wang’s doc accompaniment to A Thousand Years of Good Prayer didn’t catch fire.

Second, this year, for some reason, was not an easy year from which you could recover if you got shut out of your film. If, for instance, you were trying to go to a 9am movie on Saturday and didn’t get in, you were likely too late to get to the films at three other venues, unlikely to get into the tiny La Pierre theater that acts partially as an overflow for one of the big theaters, leaving you with 30 minutes to get to one of the fest’s small theaters in hopes of seeing a heavy Chinese drama or seeing a 1943 film... not that there is anything wrong with that. But when you have no choice, an interesting choice can feel a bit like being fed medicine instead of expanding your perspective. Or your next option was an 11:30 film. Given that you only have five slots a day, realistically, feeling like you have lost one can be very frustrating.

Anyway… we are in a challenging period for film festivals, even the major ones, even the beloved ones. I don’t really feel that the Telluride situation – sure to draw mockery from blog commenters who are, understandably, seeing it for the minutiae that it is if you are not a participant who spent thousands for the experience – is any kind of failure. The growing pains have little, it seems to me, with the changes in leadership. With whatever small discomforts, Telluride is still one of the best festival experiences in the world.

Posted by poland at 01:46 PM | Comments (5)

September 17, 2007

USA In Canada Today III

As I posted last week, USA Today continued and finished off its TIFF panel today.

And again, honored as I am to have been asked, I hate to leave 500 words of a little more perspective floating in my e-mail outbox or to repurpose them without acknowledging that they were inspired by USA Today's request. So...

Friday Edition

Wrapping Up Toronto is surprisingly easy… because not a whole lot happened this year. Of 20 Galas, only 2 or 3 are expected to have any significant commercial impact in North America. The sales have been small and strategic more than inspired. And with an assist from the Jewish New Year, the festival’s half insane/half comatose nature was made worse than ever, as the festival emptied out dramatically on Tuesday.

The surprise hits out of the festival remained Juno and Lars & The Real Girl to the end, representing both ends of the indie spectrum. The first is from Fox Searchlight, a studio Dependent that has a fantastic track record and found that their new Jason Reitman movie would be ready months before they expected it. The second is from the newly built-up Sidney Kimmel Entertainment with the freshly returned from the sidelines legend Bingham Ray leading the charge. Both films are challenging from a marketing standpoint, so finding a non-festival audience for both is going to be tough, though possible. Awards interest is also a big possibility for both.

The most interesting case study coming out of the festival could well be Sidney Lumet’s Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, which is a very dark, very classical thriller with great performances, aimed right at the Academy age group. The question will be whether ThinkFilm, better known for their docs and cutting edge indies than their mainstream features, will be able to deliver the adult audience this film delivers for.

The films that came into the fest with good buzz mostly left with good buzz: The Diving Bell & The Butterfly, No Country For Old Men, Into The Wild, and The Savages all did well and all have a lot of work ahead of them to build their awards and commercial futures. The Brave One, Eastern Promises, and In The Valley Of Elah split critics, were well liked by audiences, and arrived in multiplexes before the festival ended. And there were split decisions on “director’s films,” I’m Not There, Lust, Caution, The Visitor,

The disappointments from the fest are less clear, since each film that seems to have died has at least some support from some powerful voices. Across The Universe was 4-star raved by Roger Ebert, Elizabeth: The Golden Age got raves from some international critics and one trade, and the Woody Allen movie… well, it got a lot of attention because star Colin Farrell gave $10,000 to a homeless man. Rendition took some body blows as well.

The nature of Toronto is for each niche group to see the festival only through their perspective. Media interested in awards season launches and new commercial finds are in one group. International film lovers are in another. People who are seeking out the most challenging indies are another. And the Midnight Madness crowd is yet another. TIFF ’07 was least successful this year for the first group – our group – and that is what most people who were not participating will perceive.

There were just enough interviews, just enough celebrities, and just enough good films to make the argument that the money editors spent to send their reporters here was well spent. But it will be an argument. The biggest story of TIFF ’07, for those of us on the higher profile track, may be all the movies that didn’t use TIFF as a launching pad this year. But then again, it may be a good thing that the festivals is left to the others… the folks who are just here to love the movies.

Posted by poland at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)

The Toronto Wrap 1

In an internet driven era, full of fire and speed and the ultimate in misleadingly independent minded hype, the word "good" is similar to the word "neat," as spoken to Madonna by Kevin Costner infamously in Truth or Dare. "Good" has no value to those who are desperately hungry to be "great."

But before you start pointing fingers at the studios or the increasingly self-limiting domestic theatrical distribution system or The Great Unwashed, I would argue that we should look first at both our expectations and what filmmakers considered "indie" are actually making these days.

The rest...

Posted by poland at 10:44 AM | Comments (16)

Home Again

Sometimes I forget that coming home is a group process with you all nearby...

Los Angeles didn't change in the weeks I was gone on the fest circuit. Surprise!

I did come home to my three-pack of Fox Searchlight awards-bait movies. Not only can I listen to that song from Once over and over and over again (all in one viewing), but the packaging is smart looking at environmentally friendly. I would actually be thrilled to see every studio model their packaging on this packaging.

The first half on my Toronto wrap will be up in the morning.

I now feel the need to rev the awards season engines. 20 Weeks is just a few weeks away and Tuesday night is the first of the "didn't see it in Toronto" screenings.

I have intended to write a piece about the Toronto premiere, Nothing Is Private, a very, very challenging film that is not the kiddie porn that some silly people wish to tag it as. Tomorrow is another day...

Of course, the first priority is to catch up on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

(P.S. Apologies to TWC for tagging them with the delayed and unhappy distribution of Mr. Woodcock in Saturday's box office comments. It's actually another bad experience that New Line can blame - unfairly - on Russell Schwartz.)

Posted by poland at 12:55 AM | Comments (10)

September 16, 2007

Sunday Estimates by Klady - Sept 16

Posted by poland at 11:07 AM | Comments (28)

September 15, 2007

Klady's Friday Estimates - Sept 14

This will be Jodie Foster's weakest mainstream opening of the last decade aside from 1999's Anna & The King, which opened the week before Christmas, which is traditionally a grower slot, not a show-er slot. The question over at Warners will be whether they played this one right. The film is not actually "Death Wish With A Chick." It is more complex than that. But how to sell more complex? More importantly, how do you sell to women, for whom Foster is an embodiment of power? Power is great, but do they really want to see her shoot bullets? After all, she is a strong woman in previous films who doesn't end up firing the gun. Interesting.

Meanwhile, what is The Weinstein Co getting out of Mr. Woodcock? Damned near the same thing they got out of School For Scoundrels. Even The Bad News Bears didn't open much better. Clearly there is an audience who wants to see Billy Bob Thornton hit people in the balls... but it is a specific and limited group. The difference with Bad Santa? It turned out to be a really good film. But at the start... similar numbers.

I guess someone knew Dragon Wars was opening... not me.

As for Across The Universe and Eastern Promises, you're going to have to find more than 250 people per screening on fewer than 25 screens each to impress me that you have anything other than high profile talent that people have some interest in seeing.

The Taymor/Beatles film has some good ammunition in the Fab Four and the thumbed Ebert, who raved the film. I expect to see a lot of towns like Toronto, where the critic at one paper gave an absolute rave and the other nearly threatened to burn down the cinema. Sony has a challenge on its hands and whether the movie is actually good or bad (it's both, actually) has little to do with it. Is there an audience that will pay to see a really complex, beautiful, star-free (domestically, at least... the stars of significance are mostly European) film... will the teen girls show up... or are they just going to wait for that DVD? I don't get the feeling that this is MTV's movie of the season... but then again, I have been in a country where MuchMusic dominates MTV for the last couple of weeks.

In the Valley of Elah is the sad story of the weekend, drawing fewer than 100 people per screening of the film on Friday. It is a film for adults, who are notoriously slow to get to the theater, so it will do a little better as the weekend progresses and perhaps over its run. But the must-see is dusty. Crash, by the way, opened on 1864 screens back in 2005. So comparisons are impossible.

I bow to the holding power of The Bourne Ultimatum.

And the quick death of Shoot 'Em Up once again proves one of my favorite theories... The Geek 8. Unfortunately, this time it was The Geek 5.7. However, the film's marketing never found a single reason for a woman or non-geek adult to show up for the film. And unless you are happy grossing under $20 million, you HAVE to find another segment, no matter how strong you feel in the geek universe. (I'd be curious to hear from AICNers about why they think that even the geeks didn't show up in full force for this one.)

Posted by poland at 04:23 PM | Comments (35)

September 14, 2007

Looking At Toronto 3

People aren't exactly tip-toeing around 9/11 anymore, are they?

One of 3 such outdoor layouts of pirated DVDs on Spadina. The newest titles on Friday afternoon were last weekend's releases.

By the way... the most popular running gag at TIFF this year was for audience members to cry out, "Arrrrrrrr" when the piracy warning was on screen before movies.

Kill Bill is "Still Ill" on the streets of Toronto.

Posted by poland at 11:58 PM | Comments (10)

Box Office Hell - Sept 14

Posted by poland at 11:44 PM | Comments (3)

Desperately Seeking Seeger

In spite a long (as in "from the beginning") relationship with TIFF, the Michael Cohl produced doc, directed by Jim Brown, Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, a Weinstein Co release, was completed after Sundance and now, released in exclusive release in three cities before the end of TIFF '07. So the only appearance of Pete Seeger at TIFF this year is in another Weinstein Co movie, Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, in which Seeger goes nuts when Dylan goes electric.

I first wrote about the film last April after the film played Ebertfest. Roger gave the film a 4 star review in today's Sun-Times.

And this from another Chicagoan...

"In this deeply touching and powerful documentary, we discover that Pete Seeger not only is the most influential folk singer in the world but is as American as apple pie - only more nutritious. This is the
first portrait of Pete the artist, the husband, the father and the most courageous of Americans. He hated bullies no mater how official they were and proved so during our most traumatic movements -
endangered freedom of speech and thought, civil rights and a civic environment.

Just remember - whoever or wherever you see a young guy or girl, with banjo, chest high, and singing freedom, Pete, like Kilroy, has been here." -- Studs Terkel

It would be nice for this film, so much of the moment, to find a place with ticket buyers this fall.

Posted by poland at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)

The Brave Directing One

Posted by poland at 09:59 AM | Comments (2)

Sex As A Weapon

What struck me most about Ira Sachs’ Married Life was the actors. The film is basically a four character piece approximating the style of 40’s noir, often threatening to bring forth modern notions, but then choosing not to, limiting just how interesting the experience will be. Chris Cooper is sublime, as always. He just isn’t capable of walking through a film. Patricia Clarkson has become a true master of the camera. You can actually see her using the angles and light with her own instincts sometimes. Rachel McAdams finds yet another character to play who is completely different than what she has done before.

But it is Pierce Brosnan who really struck me in the film. He is finally aging into the time where he can be a better looking Fred MacMurray, circa the Wilder period. He has been such a good lucking guy that he has never quite looked relaxed on the big screen. But here, really for the first time, he does. (The Matador is a good performance, but a self-parody, which is easier.) It is easier to imagine that he will have a significant third act in movies now.

The movie really isn’t bad. The muted response here is probably because critics were hoping for something as challenging as Sachs’ 40 Shades Of Blue. It’s not. Also working this angle at the festival is Francois Ozon’s Angel, which is so close to the vest that audiences are afraid to laugh through much of the film’s dry satire of Southern Gothic films. The lead character, Angel, clearly is a Barbara Cartland type who really thinks she is Scarlett O’Hara. In Married Life, you keep waiting for the moment that McA’s character expresses that she really wants a guy who wants her sex and not just her nursing… something that is expressed, again relatively subtly, by Clarkson’s character.

It’s funny. Sachs’ movie is daring mostly in that it argues that romanticism is a failed idea. Explosive sexual chemistry overwhelms the search for romantic love for all but one character in the film. And sexual deceit is what wins the day, without judgment. Interesting… but I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Posted by poland at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2007

SUPER DUPER EXCLUSIVE-OOPER

Auditions for the Wonder Woman movie have hit full stride... here is a shot of a very powerful blogger (who cannot be named for legal reasons) who took some time off of her blog to get a costume together and perform for Joel Silver... and if he doesn't hire her, she's going to make his life hell!!!

Posted by poland at 11:29 PM | Comments (24)

Space... The Final Place To Argue

Discussions are breaking out in other entries... so here is a place for random internal discussions...

As always, try to be civil.

Posted by poland at 10:14 PM | Comments (39)

Waste Not, Want Not

The good folks at USA Today asked me and a bunch of other folks for their take on what is what at TIFF this season. A group piece ran on Monday, but the Friday piece didn't run, so I decided to run what I sent in here.

A fest round-up is due on Friday for publication Monday... interesting how the focus shifts...

================================

Sunday AM Edition

The two surprise hits of the festival so far are Jason Reitman's Juno and Anton Corbijn's Control, both of which came to the festival with distribution. Both are films about young people, one who appears to be out of control, but who is pretty much on top of it and the other about someone who people thought had it all together, but melted down and before his 24th birthday. The new star of Juno is writer Diablo Cody, while the talk of Control is both the director, best know for his videos, and his young star, Sam Riley.

On the Oscar scene, things have been muted so far. Elizabeth: The Golden Years launches Sunday night. The impact of No Country For Old Men has been a bit muffled by the fact that it was already raved in Cannes. Atonement, which also launches Sunday, is under pressure after not winning in Venice, but if it does well here, that will become irrelevant.

The awards buzz on Eastern Promises has been overwhelmed by discussion of the nudity of Viggo Mortensen in the film.

Wed Edition

The buzz films in the middle of the festival have been two more sexually themed films, Craig Gillespie's Lars and the Real Girl and Alan Ball's Nothing Is Private. The first threatens to be perverse, but turns out to have a gentle heart of gold. The second turns out to take perversion to a new level for two acts before turning into a more complex piece. However, since Nothing Is Private is, whatever you ultimately think about the content, about sex and a thirteen year old girl, it has already become the sexual Fight Club of the festival and probably the year... it is so disturbing in its obsessive interest in bodily fluids and men completely comfortable with making sexual advances on a 13 year old, that Ball's trees will be lost in the forest of horror, even amongst those who would have a real interest in the ideas he is chasing.

The big news in that area is the muted to outright hostile reaction to Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The negativity is not unanimous. But it is no minor distraction either. Plenty are projecting crafts nominations for the film's sumptuous costume and production design. And hiding behind Cate Blanchett's nomination coattails is not a dangerous position to take.

Atonement is playing well, though the bloat of its third act is making some wonder whether it really deserves the kind of awards expectations that were standard for Merchant/Ivory for years. This team also had a Pride & Prejudice bandwagon, which did well, but not as well as Best Picture.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly didn't go Gala, but it is playing like gangbusters here, as it did in Telluride.

Roger Spottiswoode's Shake Hands With The Devil would be a hot awards title if it were not coming on the heels, as all Rwanda movies now do, of Hotel Rwanda. It is a significantly better film, but Hollywood has moved on to other atrocities.

And Sidney Lumet's Before The Devil Knows You're Dead has been drawing raves from critics who attended advanced screenings and has the promise of a legendary director taking his last big lap around the awards track. (Don't tell Lumet... he'll start telling you about the next film he's making.) The film arrives Wednesday and so, those who are left after the Rosh Hashanah clear-out, will know more next time.

Posted by poland at 09:53 PM | Comments (19)

20 Weeks - That Took A Long Time!!!

I can't believe it took until today for someone to notice that Sean Penn's Into The Wild didn't end up on the Oscar charts last week.

It is NOTHING but an stupid oversight... and frankly, I have no idea how I managed it. My first reaction when I read a commented on this blog to that end was to assume they were missing something. But it was I.

As I have otherwise written, a real believer that the film is not only in the race, but has a significant chance to make it into the Final Five.

My apologies to you and to all at Vantage. The corrected chart is now up.

Posted by poland at 04:07 PM | Comments (11)

Can Lars & The Real Girl Be This Year’s Little Miss Sunshine?

I saw just under an hour of Lars & The Real Girl a few days ago, having to run out to see another film whose last TIFF screening I had to catch while here. The film was charming and odd and unexpected… the perfect mix for a surprising Toronto Film Fest success.

But when I got back to the film in full today, I was taken somewhere that the first 55 minutes didn’t prepare me for. Lars & The Real Girl is the Feel Good movie of the season.

The basic set-up is that Lars is a freaky shut-in, so disconnected that he can’t even be drawn into his brother and sister-in-law’s house across the lawn (he co-owns the house, but chooses to live in the separate garage) for breakfast or coffee. Ryan Gosling follows up his shiny performance in Half Nelson with a polar opposite here. You can feel Lars’ shoulders hunching and his avoidant focus in every moment.

But the The Real Doll shows up. And it doesn’t seem to be a sex thing. Lars treats the Real Doll, named Bianca, with love and respect. And in turn, others seem inclined to do the same thing.

That’s where this plot description ends, but that gimmick – she’s a doll and they are playing along – is good for an awful lot of laughs and sighs. And then the film starts exploring what is really going on with Lars… and it goes from really quite amusing to a film that starts moving towards a simple grace that touches greatness.

Ironically, Lars, like Juno, the other hopes-to-be-Little Miss Sunshine film this season, could be accused of being somewhat God loving, aka right leaning. In Juno, the teenage girl carries her baby to term. The argument – which seems to forget the term “choice” – is that somehow not getting an abortion at 16 is an exclusively right wing notion. In Lars, the core of the ice-cold northern Midwestern town (which I don’t think is ever specified, though we see license plates, which I guess I should have registered) that helps Lars with his situation is from his church. They are an accepting group, led by a tough older woman (Nancy Beatty as Mrs. Gruner) who opens her heart with the perspective of someone who has seen so much. And when the priest wonders whether to allow Bianca into the church at all, he wonders What Would Jesus Do… and you can be sure rejection is not the answer.

Even more ironically, Lars was written by Nancy Oliver, who is credited with 8 episodes of Six Feet Under (I don’t know how that shop worked… sometimes 8 episodes is really just 8, sometimes the team works over one another’s scripts and then agree to who gets credit for however many), the show created and exec-ed by Alan Ball, who is unfairly under journalistic machine gun fire for his TIFF film, Nothing Is Private. (More on that film later.) Oliver went sweetly and gently to the heart. Ball took out the straight razor.

The supporting cast of Lars & The Real Girl is sterling. Emily Mortimer and Paul Schneider as Lars’ immediate family are naturally relaxed and comfortable together and Mortimer does pregnancy with ease. (They are also both very funny without selling the comedy too hard.) Patricia Clarkson is the embodiment of sweet, healing understanding as The Doctor (who also does psychology… you have to do that as far north as they are). And Kelli Garner does her best to stick out her teeth past the lips she usually features, shoulder shrugs away her bust, and does anti-make-up to try to be the perfectly iced America geek girlfriend wannabe. (She’s seen here
with a more glamorous look with an unidentified gentleman.) She succeeds and is as sweet as imaginable in the role.

And leading the whole parade is director Craig Gillespie, who must be thrilled to have this to distract from the long-delayed Weinstein release of Mr. Woodcock, his first film. I haven’t seen the other film, but his work here is simple and solid, and he has to get more than a little credit for every performance hitting its mark so solidly.

It would not be shocking to see Ryan Gosling nominated for Oscar for a second year in a row for this completely unexpected turn that becomes more complex as the film continues. (There is a beat where Lars experiences a moment of clarity and you can read it on Gosling’s face in a performance moment that is both tiny and absolutely stunning. The best of what Gosling offers.)

The biggest challenge is to the newly muscular Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, functional distributor MGM, and new Kimmel aesthetic captain, Bingham Ray. Both Fox Searchlight and Paramount Vantage have fully functioning majors behind them and funding is a impulse buy. Last year’s efforts by the Yari Group for the popular The Ilusionist fell short, a year after indie Lionsgate got Crash all the way to the win. So we’ll see.

But I had that warm, glowing feeling as I sat through the third act of this film… it is so gentle and loving and human. And isn’t that what drove the oddball LMS to an Oscar nod and Indy Spirit win last season? At the very least, Nancy Oliver is going to be seeing Diablo Cody at a lot of awards shows for the next five months.

Posted by poland at 03:00 PM | Comments (8)

September 12, 2007

The Should Be Retitled Sidney Lumet Project

It’s too much for people to hang onto the title, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead. It’s very poetic and all, and the movie opens with the part of the quote that has already been left off, “May you be in heaven half an hour before…,” but still. If 5% of the movie going populace comes up with the title right, it will be a miracle. (Find Me Guilty had a similar problem, actually.) Maybe “The Devil Knows” or more appropriately, “The Devil You Know.”

But I digress before I even start…

Sidney Lumet’s 45th film is a classical addition to his oeuvre. Lumet is no stranger to complex narrative, but here, in his 83rd year, he is playing with time sequencing to tell a story that is more complex than almost any that others proclaimed for the effort have tried, yet narratively clean as a whistle.

Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead is the story of two brothers (Phillip Seymour Hoffman & Ethan Hawke), terribly desperate in completely different ways, though both need money. That is about all the detail I want to give up about this film in terms of story.

The supporting cast starts with Marisa Tomei, who at 42 is pretty close to the embodiment of what men over 40 dream of finding in a woman who is “age appropriate.” Really, she’s never been sexier. And it’s not just the nudity… it is the energy she brings to her scenes. She wants to be loved, in every way, and seems to be willing to be okay with anything else that comes up short, so long as she gets that. It is a high bar for some men, I guess, but who wants anything much lower than that? (Certainly few women I have ever met.)

A sidebar family of Brian F. O’Byrne, Aleksa Palladino, and Michael Shannon are excellent. Rosemary Harris plays a very small role, though she always radiates. And it’s always fun to see Leonard Cimino turn up in a film.

But the primary trio are the brothers and their father, played by the great Albert Finney. (The last time Finney worked with Lumet he got an Oscar nod for Murder on the Orient Express.) Ethan Hawke is at his best here, playing, as he does best, a loser with just enough looks and oddball charm to get by. He is scruffy and unwashed and quirky and scared of his own shadow from the start to the finish of the film. On the other hand, Phil Hoffman has climbed about ¾ up the corporate ladder, his suits pressed, his tie matching, his hair combed. What’s made him desperate? He’s not anxious to tell anyone. He just wants to take action and move forward. Finney is old and casual with the feeling of a retired gentleman. He hasn’t been a great father… and still isn’t. But his beliefs are rock solid.

As in The Savages, Hoffman is beyond reproach here, though the skill with which he works through the comedy of the other film is pretty spectacular. Here, the fireworks come two or three times, and in a way we have never really seen him deliver before.

This is not a perfect film. Lumet’s career is so astonishing that it is pretty tough to place this in a specific section of the pantheon. I would say that it’s his best film since Q&A, which was a passion project he both wrote and directed 17 years ago.

The thing that is so compelling about this film is that it makes the audience work for it. The time narrative jumping back and forth and between different character’s perspectives (there is no Rashomon comparson – though Lumet did a version of that for TV in 1960 - as everyone sees the events in the same objective reality) keeps you trying to figure out what has happened as well as what is coming next. Even little pieces, like an oddly timed phone call that doesn’t identify the caller, are presented and re-presented, filling in the gaps and constantly feeding the satisfaction audiences love while testing them, which they also love. Some moments you are ahead of… some you don’t see coming… some resonate differently emotionally depending on the perspective.

Interestingly, the one thing that is not clarified is the fate of a couple of the characters, which I will admit, left me wanting. (As I arrived back at my computer, I suddenly wondered whether there was a tag at the end of the credits that explained. I both hope there was (it would tie the bow) and that there was not (because I missed it).

In any case, the film is quite clever… the kind of movie that adults really enjoy and kids don’t much bother with. And the tone is pitch black, which is another challenge in terms of butts in seats. But definitely another worthy addition to Lumet’s filmography.

Posted by poland at 11:19 PM | Comments (5)

Watching The Watchers: TIFF 07

Posted by poland at 09:51 AM | Comments (1)

5 ¼ Grams

That’s the weight of a movie that can’t decide whether it is a weighty personal drama or a thriller and ends up being less that any one thing.

There were those of us who felt that Hotel Rwanda was powerful as the first movie about the horrors of the Rwandan genocide, but played a bit like a TV movie with high wattage performances. And now, the question of whether Terry George is really an Oscar caliber director or whether he just found the right story at the right time. The first answer came in the form of Shake Hands With The Devil, Roger Spottiswoode’s feature that tells the story of General Romeo Dellaire, including a bit at the hotel in George’s film, and stands head and shoulders above the earlier film. The second answer came with the squirmy sit through Reservation Road.

If you ever want a confirmation of just how talented (if unrestrained) Alejandro Gonzalez Inurritu and Guillermo Arriaga are, watch 21 Grams and then watch Reservation Road, which really is a kissing first cousin of that film. Giving Reservation Road more credit than it deserves, one could say that the difference is that 21 Grams makes a very distinct choice to explore emotion more than the thriller elements while RR spreads itself too thin by trying to do both. But it is more than that.

Terry George takes three excellent actors to put at the heart of this film… and gets less out of them – in a very emotional situation – than almost anyone else has managed. And Ruffalo, Phoenix, and Connelly are working their asses off. Then, aside from Elle Fanning and Mira Sorvino, who acquits herself well in a near-nothing role, he surrounds them by real mediocrity in the acting ranks. The kid actor feels like a kid actor. The cop feels real, but gives us nothing to hang onto. The boss at the law office is a solid TV guy who delivers a solid TV guy performance.

But the biggest problem is the script. It just never finds a clear idea to work. The best idea, in my opinion, is the meltdown of Joaquin Phoenix after we get the impression that his wife will be the one who completely loses herself in her son’s horrible accidental death. How do people survive this kind of loss… or can they? Really, the only reason for the Ruffalo character to be in the film for more than a few minutes – and by the end, he really seems to be the lead – is to give the thriller part a way to exist. But it really refuses to take hold until so late in the movie that you have already moved past it. And much like the troubled Rendition, the answer ends up being so on the nose that you feel like you wasted your time with these people.

If they really wanted this to be a thriller, they needed to make it a little less easy. But the need to maintain ambiguity in the name of the personal drama makes that tough. The film doesn’t want to create a good guy or a bad guy – an idea I think is completely worthy – but it doesn’t find a way for the two ideas to live together… say, the movie really having the feeling of a clock. They try to establish one in the third act, but again, too late to be trying that then.

The film is less ambitious than Elizabeth: The Golden Age, so it’s not quite as frustrating. But in a festival of many very good, but few great films and not too many clunkers, Reservation Road one falls into one of the rare columns… not the one that Focus Features wants it to.

And now, we will wait for another film to see whether Terry George is a real director or on his way to episodic TV.

Posted by poland at 09:37 AM | Comments (5)

September 11, 2007

Watching Toronto Too

Quell Savage

Lionsgate, subtle as a NC-17, invites folks to take home Jessica Alba dripping cream

The great Pages bookstore on Queen

The Sony Classics Wonder Twins after launching 7 films in the first four days of the fest

Posted by poland at 11:12 PM | Comments (43)

September 10, 2007

Looking At Toronto

Li'l Kristen Stewart & The Black Clothes Battalion

The Argento Family

Waiting For Celebs At The Intercontinental

Power Publicists Pound Their Way Through

Two Major Heads

Ryan Gosling Heads Off Into The Sunset

Posted by poland at 05:28 PM | Comments (8)

September 09, 2007

Rough Night At The Working Title Corral

It's late, but I'll throw these two logs on the fire before trying to get some sleep before a 9a screening...

We finally got the first real shock of the 2007 Toronto Film Festival today. Elizabeth: The Golden Age is tarnished on an epic level.

I’ll keep it simple. The movie has way too much story, way too few places where an audience can link in emotionally, an absolute waste of a parade of excellent Oscar-nominated and winning actors including Clive Owens, Samantha Morton and this time, even Geoffrey Rush, enough music to choke an iPod, and a hyperkinetic parade of cool, but logic-free shots that at some point feels like you are choking on The Scott Brothers’ leftovers.

Todd McCarthy clocked the running time at 114 minutes. It didn’t seem that long…though it felt much longer.

And The Great Cate, who may well win an Oscar for her turn in I’m Not There this year, is called upon to pull her goodies from her bag of tricks, but really, she too often feels like a mannequin with a string that Shekhar Kapur pulls whenever he wants a power acting moment. Now do that great power scream… look pained… brighten up your eyes mischievously. You can’t really complain about the performance, but any awards talk will be for Cate being Cate, since her role here simply doesn’t demand a single new curve or twist out of this brilliant actress.

I can’t say it was the most painful movie I have seen this year, this month, or this week. But simply put, it’s not good. It will get a Costume nod and maybe production design and in a desperate chase for women to nominate, maybe Ms Blanchett can still go lead here and Supporting for her Dylan. But I really, really loved the original. And this one, for all intents of purposes, is much more in the troubled vein of Kapur’s The Four Feathers than of my beloved Elizabeth.

Universal still has American Gangster and Charlie Wilson’s War in the quiver. This one’s not a borderline call.

And then…

I finally caught Atonement. And it was good.

But it is not great.

Keira Knightley’s face is great. Again, the costumes are great. And the tone is arch.

But is this a great movie? Would it fit into a Top Ten of Merchant/Ivory films? Does it spread itself too thin to establish itself as more of a movie than it really is?

This is no déjà vu of Pride & Prejudice. There is a romantic subtext, but the foreground is serous and misery laden most of the way. You can tell from the images that Joe Wright has improved as a director… but he still isn’t a director who can wrangle magic from simple images.

Keira Knightley is at her most restrained and elegant here. She is, in a much better way than Ms. Blanchett in E2, a mannequin in this film… or really, a flesh hanger. She is endlessly in clothes that hang tightly to her curves and drape seductively over the rest of her. She really looks, for the first time on a movie screen, like a woman and not a beautifully gangly girl. The performance is all restraint until she gets around to asking directly for love, lust, or some combination.

But again, is it a great performance?

The story of <