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March 31, 2008

Did This Sound Familiar To You?

There Will Be McCain?

Posted by poland at 04:46 PM | Comments (13)

Has Obama Learned The Clinton Rules?

The story of the presidential primaries is becoming clearer for the moment... there is way too much time between the last primary and the next ones... enough time to create endless havoc in the media and to send the country through 3 or 4 major news swings with no real benefit.

However...

It struck me today that the Obama folks have really pulled A Clinton this week with Pat Leahy coming out and calling directly for Hillary Clinton to step aside while Obama was saying, "She should be in the race as long as she likes." Like the race card that was thrown down by Gerry Ferraro and then danced away from by Clinton... like the effort to slow a wave of insider support for Obama by having James "This is not coming from the Clinton campaign, shucks" Carville call Bill Richardson "a Judas" for doing just that and nothing more... the "should Hillary withdraw?" story has become the lead story of the race for a week already.

There has been some push back. And The Clintons have tried to sell their "disenfranchised" spin. But people know the reality here. When you have Mario Cuomo coming out and saying that the two candidates should agree publicly that "whoever wins, wins and the other takes the Vice Presidential slot," that is closing in on an Obama endorsement. (It also reminds one that Hillary's longterm strategy could now include a run for Cuomo's old stomping grounds, the next Governorship of New York in 2010.) Of course, with Ed Rendell saying that he likes this plan, smart journalists should be pressing The Clintons on the question, "Would you accept a Vice Presidential offer from Obama if he were the nominee?' Rendell seems to be saying, "Yes."

It would be nothing less than rude for Obama to offer the slot to Clinton, especially after the debacle of her offering it to him, from behind in the race. But the press should be asking.

Anyway... it's interesting... and it's interesting strategy.

And it's amusing to watch Bill Clinton - who had pretty much wrapped up the Dem nomination weeks before PA voted in his 1992 primary push, and who after that vote had fewer elected delegates than Obama will and more than his wife will this year - talk about how the "conversation" made the party stronger. 13% of the PA primary vote went to Paul Tsongas, who had dropped out of the race a month earlier. The only conversation going on at that point was whether Clinton could beat Perot and Bush 1.

From The NY Times...
Many Democrats have publicly worried about the strength of a Clinton candidacy this fall, and Gov. Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania spent much of the past week criticizing his party's presumed nominee and arguing the case for an open convention at which other candidates could emerge.

But Ann F. Lewis, a Democratic strategist, said Tuesday, "I would say by now, those kinds of naysayers are irrelevant to the process."

James Carville, a top strategist for Mr. Clinton, suggested that the elected officials and party leaders who are superdelegates at the national convention, a critical bloc, would recognize the political reality.

Alluding to an earlier body of political wisdom, Mr. Carville said: "Mr. Dooley says the first thing the Supreme Court does is read the election returns. I suspect the superdelegates do the same thing."

Hee hee.

At least no one is saying Clinton should be getting out now that it's clear that Obama actually won Texas.

Posted by poland at 12:15 PM | Comments (9)

BYOB - Weekdays

Still Bermuda-ing...

I keep thinking I will sit down and write an opus, but the Bermuda International Film Festival, which is low on star power but big on international filmmakers this year, has kept me on the run - okay... walk, in shorts - pretty much all day, from films to wine parties to Dark & Stormies... hey, someone's gotta do it.

So... some space for you...

Posted by poland at 08:35 AM | Comments (33)

March 30, 2008

Weekend Estimates by Klady - Mar 30

Posted by poland at 09:46 AM | Comments (11)

AFTRA Waits For The Moment

AFTRA finally did what they have been itching to do/announced they were doing/were pressured into not doing all along... they severed - though they maintain they suspend, not terminate - their decades old relationship with SAG. They are now free to negotiate the deal that will undercut SAG that they wanted to make with AMPTP all along, as they try to take over a larger and larger piece of the SAG pie.

I covered this all over a month ago in a Hot Button column which got a collective yawn from Hot Blog commenters (except for one, who takes AFTRA's side in all of this) and the only surprise in last night's news is that it took so long. Clearly, AFTRA has learned a little about doing the controversial thing you wanted to do, but waiting for a moment in which you could blame the "other side" for forcing your hand.

But the real story is not about SAG and AFTRA here... it is whether this drama is going to create a SAG strike that might otherwise have not happened. The scenario is simple... AFTRA does a deal with AMPTP in the next month that undercuts SAG. Like the DGA deal - though I think DGA did a lot better than AFTRA will and started with more honorable intent - it will be filled with "progress," most of which was already won by WGA and DGA. But that will be the AMPTP argument. In order to keep growing the cable segment, they need these givebacks... in order to grow online, they need these givebacks, etc, etc, yadda yadda yadda.

Meanwhile, SAG will, for the first time in a serious way, have to confront the issue of crossover actors between the two unions. AFTRA was find it nearly impossible to continue to encroach on cable, etc, without their members who are also in SAG... just as runaway production was not an option unless SAG allowed The Canadian Rules to stand without any fighting back.

Given the now very short window - which you have to give some credit to Clooney/Hanks for recognizing - fighting on multiple fronts and making a deal that the most aggressive SAG members are happy with is going to be quite a challenge... especially with former SAG leadership still sniping from the sidelines.

Now Alan Rosenberg will need to not only bring together the internal SAG constituencies to agree to a contract that reflects WGA & DGA, but there will be another contract out there, designed to steal more work from SAG members who want their hard won residual and P&W dollars. (And is the Qualified Voting debate still bubbling somewhere at full heat?)

Going into this week, I would have put the SAG Strike possibility at about 10% - 15%. The AFTRA news, I am afraid, roughly doubles those odds.

Meanwhile... we are about to pass the "won't start a movie if we don't know whether the talent will walk mid-shoot" deadline as well (though some have already pull the brakes on).

Oy.

Posted by poland at 09:14 AM | Comments (15)

March 29, 2008

Friday Estimates by Klady - 3/29

So 21 will open over 21... which is good, because once people see this terrible waste of a great story on screen, they will not be doubling down. This is one of those movies that is so Hollywood by-the-book... so poorly constructed in its storytelling... so missing the boat in terms of the real drama of the story as evidenced by the book that the masterful, relentless sales job by Sony truly makes a Shinola opening out of, well... you get the idea.

On the other hand, The Weinsteins can't even open crap parody movies anymore... unless you want to argue that $11 million is good for Superhero Movie, an unneeded farce.

Stop-Loss was never going to open for one clear reason... Paramount didn't give a shit. Like Zodiac, the studio gave up on the film and a filmmaker they find "difficult" long ago and this still birth is the inevitable answer. Unlike Zodiac, Kimberly Pierce has no built-in rabid following, having squandered the momentum of Boys Don't Cry five years ago already.

And for all the "people don't want to see an Iraq" movie hum... bullshit. They will see the movie when The Movie arrives. In the meanwhile, the obnoxious choice of giving a movie a title that less than 10% of the world understands without an explanation with no stars who open and no clarity about what the film is about... an impossible sell. Sorry. Iraq was the least of their problems. And that is no judgment of the film... which I was not invited to see as far as I know. (It's possible that an all-media invite escaped my attention.) The film could be genius... but it means nothing at the box office if no one is inspired to go.

Posted by poland at 11:18 AM | Comments (38)

March 28, 2008

BYOBermuda

I am still having password issues with posting to the blog on anything but my iPhone.... we should have it worked out soon. I really don't want to write about the fine work at the LAByrinth Theater Co without some space and the ability to edit the piece properly.

In any case, I'm off to BIFF for the eighth year. Like many festivals, they are having a tough year with sponsorship... but the festival's interest in international cinema and emerging filmmakers will surely trump the less glittery celebrity line-up.

See you on the other side...

Posted by poland at 08:27 AM | Comments (38)

March 27, 2008

BYOB - Peace Zone

Hey...

I have had some computer issues, so I have just read the bloody mess around the fun conversation about the old HBO days when movies played 50 times and there were few other channels. (Homebodies, anyone?)

I will try to get it together on this end. Please use this space for good, not evil. Namecalling is weak, even when I feel the need to smack down a pompous regular now and again.

Be nice.

Posted by poland at 02:42 PM | Comments (37)

Theater... I Hardly Knew Her - Pt 1

An excellent day of theater in NY yesterday.

First, David Mamet's farce, November, about a president facing a losing second-term election and the infusion of last minute hope for... something. The show is a little deceptive for an audience that is all to eager to read Nathan Lane's desperate buffoon/survivor as George W Bush. But Mamet is after more than that here. November is a show that speaks more to the natural hypocrisy of the people who choose the life of high office, rather than any one buffoon.

With just a few minor edits, Lane could be playing the gay, eloquent, manipulative speech writer with Laurie Melttcalf as The President... especially with Hilary Clinton threatening to push her way into office, changing the rules as she tries to snatch victory from someone who has - for all intents and purposes - already won the primary election. And really, Dylan Baker could leap into either role effectively with either of his co-stars playing the dry, caustic, relentless Chief of Staff. They would all be quite different in each role, but the show would hold up. Really, no one is "doing" Bush here... except for being a screw up and being in Iraq. But this is not, say, Thomas Hayden Church or Kevin Costner as The President, bringing the good ol' boy to the party. (Actually, Lane is in a presidential election seeking last-man-voting Costner's vote in Swing Vote this summer.)

November is not going to win the big awards. It can't beat the size and scope of August: Osage County, the weight of Rock-n-Roll. Lane will get smushed by a Seafarer or someone we haven't seen yet. Metcalf will lose to an Osager. But, November is a show that audiences should eat up. It's broad, but it is whippet smart. And while August makes you laugh, but sends you out reeling, November is loaded with "did he really say that"s, but sends you out of the theater laughing about how slippery it all is.

Posted by poland at 11:43 AM | Comments (1)

March 25, 2008

I Could Have Cast All Night...

Okay folks... here is the challenge of the night.

A remake of My Fair Lady with Daniel Day-Lewis as Henry Higgins and Keira Knightley and Eliza Doolittle is in the works. So who would you cast to play Alfred P. Doolitle, Colonel Pickering, and the lovesick Freddy Eynsford-Hill?

My picks, off hand, would be Jim Broadbent, Willem Dafoe, and James Marsden.

Your turn.

Posted by poland at 11:09 PM | Comments (42)

BYOB - Travel Day

Eastward ho!

I'm heading to Pennsylvania, where I will be...

Just kidding. NY and then on to Bermuda for the Bermuda International Film Festival, my annual jaunt to the island of scooters, fish sandwiches, Dorothy's burgers, and quite a good little film fest. It ain't Berlin, but for a place with three screens on the island and a world of reasons to stay outdoors, they find all kinds of world cinema and fill theaters year after year.

But first, a stop in NY and a look at David Mamet's political comedy and Phil Hoffman's latest directorial effort.

And a long flight... so bring da noise, bring da funk...

Posted by poland at 11:01 AM | Comments (72)

March 24, 2008

It's The Backdoor, Stupid.

You have to hand it to James Carville… he smiles in your face as he slips in the knife (or tries to). On CNN today, in an interview that mostly consisted of him avoiding direct questions, he did admit that his “Judas” comment on Bill Richardson was intended to smear, that he felt it had that effect, and he was pleased to stand by the quote.

Why isn’t that the story?

How does Hillary Clinton get caught, not with a surrogate making some outrageous comment, but lying overtly herself… and not become the lead story of the day?

A: The press, like Clinton’s supporter, are so used to being lied to by The Clintons that it doesn’t feel like a story anymore.

Meanwhile, with little else they like, the Rev Wright issue continues to get the “will this go away?” treatment by the press… which is most easily answered by, “not if you guys won’t stop obsessing on it.”

But what this entry is really about is the “Obama ending the game early” lie that was Carville’s primary talking point and is the main thing the Clinton camp is pushing. After all, the only chance they have of trying to make any kind of argument that they deserve to have the delegate count overturned by superdelegates is to sell the idea that Obama has prevented Florida and Michigan from re-voting and that if he had “allowed” it, the race would be close enough to make it a toss up.

Carville’s analogy is that Obama wants to stop the game with 3 minutes and 3 seconds still on the clock. The simple response to that is that game play was stopped in the second quarter, that a jump ball was called (by the states and the DNC themselves), both sides agreed, and the game went on, with neither side getting an advantage. And now, the Clinton campaign wants to go back and re-jump because they are so far behind that they know they have zero chance of catching up or even getting close without winning those two jump balls long past.

Okay… maybe that isn’t so simple.

The simple answer is… Florida and Michigan are out of the game because they broke the rules, which both sides accepted months ago. Now, the Clinton camp, which no one thinks can pass Obama, even with those states, wants the cheaters reinstated because she needs any help she can to sell that she should win, even when she has lost.

And not only does she want them reinstated, but she wants to blame Obama… not the states… not the Republican Congress in Florida that callously voted the state out, knowing the votes would not count… not the Democratic election board in Michigan that moved dates after being told by the DNC that the votes wouldn’t count… not the likely inability to have a fair election in either state… not the unwillingness of anyone except for her supporters to fund a re-vote.

Once again, politics as usual… the lie instead of even acknowledging a more complex truth… the attack intended to hurt “the opponent,” who just happens to be the most likely nominee of the Democratic party.

Why did James Carville really scream, “Judas!” To warn off all the other Democrats who have been fence-sitting and who are ready to jump to Obama’s side, but who don’t want to be called “Judas” for a week of news cycle. But like any bully, people have to remember that he can only hold this power if people are meek. If more than one person stands up to these tactics, even James Carville cannot come up with a Last Supper table filled with attacks because people make up their mind in a way that doesn’t suit his team.

Posted by poland at 07:48 PM | Comments (30)

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Gross?

Richard Corliss is not altogether missing the point in his piece on “The Post-Movie-Star Era,” but what he is doing is analyzing a shift from a rather odd point-of-view.

Yes, there are fewer stars that guarantee a gross than in the past. Yes, there are fewer stars that can actually generate a box office opening with their names and faces.

Let’s look at the facts. Of the 28 films that grossed $100 million-plus domestically last year, half were driven strongly by stars. That includes Bruce Willis, who is not one of the Top 10 box office stars in the U.S. anymore, but is a key to opening a Die Hard sequel. That includes Nic Cage, who can’t make an art film huge, but is a master of action success, delivering 2 $100m movies. That includes Johnny Depp, Will Smith, Matt Damon, John Travolta (twice), Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, a rising Steve Carrell and the combos of Denzel & Russell, Chan & Tucker, and Pitt/Clooney/Damon.

What about the other 14 films? All but 4 of the 14 are children’s/family films. Of the others, 2 are R-rated comedies (Knocked Up and Superbad), Juno was as close to R-rated as a comedy can get, and 300 was its own odd phenomenon.

How about this stat? Of the non-star 14 films, 10 – yes, 10!!! – were either animated, included animation or were based on a cartoon or comic book.

And this… half of the 14 star-driven films were sequels or threequels. But of those, you really can only make the argument that The Machine was bigger than The Star – Pirates 3 and Evan Almighty – even though casting was surely a big part of the success.

But my conclusion is that the big grossers that didn’t come to the theaters pre-sold as high concept were films that were, indeed, sold by stars.

The problem with Corliss’ logic, to me, is that just because Will Ferrell failed to open Semi-Pro wider does not mean that his star is burnt out. It might be. Anything is possible. But he might have just gone to the same well too many times. He is likely to recover (especially as the film opened to 8 figures, even if that was seen as a disappointment).

Stars are not a lock. But like all other marketing tools – and that is what they are, much more so than acting talent – they have their uses and they sometimes work and they sometimes don’t and very, very few are 75%, much less 100%.

It is one of the bits of weak thinking we all fall into at times… being disappointed by the failure of something to live up to our ideals, when those ideals were never the reality at all.

The Top 28 list after the jump…

1 - Spider - Man 3 - $336,530,303
2 - Shrek the Third - $322,719,944
3 - Transformers - $319,246,193
4 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - $309,420,425
5 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - $292,004,738
6 - I Am Legend - $256,227,323
7 - The Bourne Ultimatum - $227,471,070
8 - National Treasure: Book of Secrets - $217,684,901
9 - Alvin and the Chipmunks - $215,760,497
10 - 300 - $210,614,939
11 - Ratatouille - $206,445,654
12 - The Simpsons Movie - $183,135,014
13 - Wild Hogs - $168,273,550
14 - Knocked Up - $148,768,917
15 - Juno - $141,099,121
16 - Rush Hour 3 - $140,125,968
17 - Live Free or Die Hard - $134,529,403
18 - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - $131,921,738
19 - American Gangster - $130,164,645
20 - Enchanted - $127,807,262
21 - Bee Movie - $126,631,277
22 - Superbad - $121,463,226
23 - I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry - $120,059,556
24 - Hairspray (2007) - $118,871,849
25 - Blades of Glory - $118,594,548
26 - Ocean's Thirteen - $117,154,724
27 - Ghost Rider - $115,802,596
28 - Evan Almighty - $100,462,298

Posted by poland at 07:04 PM | Comments (13)

Geek Get Their Movie... Kinda

After a long period of kicking and screaming, The Weinstein Co finally has given in to the very small audience that existed for Fanboys in the first place... at least on DVD.

The real question now is... after getting their way, will they pay to buy this DVD anyway?

Theatrical... if they get 30 screens, it will be a freakin' miracle.

The press release follows after the jump...

THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR ‘FANBOYS’

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (March 24, 2008) The Weinstein Company announced today that it plans to jointly release two versions of its highly anticipated film, “Fanboys,” on home video, with the Company exploring options for its theatrical release. In recent weeks, Star War fans nationwide have built a multi-tiered grassroots effort to voice their strong support for one of the earlier versions of the film, including a campaign which generated over 300,000 emails in support for the film. Based on the tremendous feedback and interest from the fans, today’s announcement will ensure both versions will be equally available within the marketplace.

Set in 1998, the film, starring Jay Baruchel (“Million Dollar Baby”), Tony Award Winner Dan Fogler (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”), Sam Huntington (“Superman Returns”), Chris Marquette (“Sugar Mountain,” “Joan of Arcadia”), and Kristen Bell (“Veronica Mars,” “Pulse”) is a heart warming comedy of a group of young, passionate Star Wars fans, drive cross-country to raid George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, and watch “Star Wars: Episode 1- The Phantom Menace.”

“Over the last few weeks we have received a tremendous amount of input from Star Wars fans nationwide,” stated Matthew Frankel, Chief Communications Officer, The Weinstein Company. “While the later version tested very well with audiences, the grassroots support we have received for the first version simply cannot be ignored. We are very excited to launch these two films and look forward to giving the fans the opportunity to see both versions.”

“Fanboys” is a production of Trigger Street and Picture Machine. Jay Baruchel plays the role of Windows, a junk food addict who’s dedicated his 150 IQ to a worthy cause: comic books. His nickname was inspired by his titanic window-like glasses. Dan Fogler plays Hutch, a guy who is a force to be reckoned with, a hot-head overflowing with piss and vinegar. Sam Huntington plays Eric, a guy who’s all business. He’s usually in a pressed suit and glued to his huge cell phone. Chris Marquette plays Linus, a boyishly handsome, extremely charming young man. But looks can be deceiving as this dude’s a geek and proud of it! Kristen Bell plays Zoe, a sexy firecracker with a great sense of humor.

The film is directed by Kyle Newman and produced by Kevin Spacey, Dana Brunetti, Evan Astrowsky and Matthew Perniciaro. The script was written by Kyle Newman, Adam Goldberg and Ernest Cline and Kevin Mann serves as executive producer.

About The Weinstein Company

The Weinstein Company (TWC) was created by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the brothers who founded Miramax Films Corporation in 1979. TWC is a multi-media company that officially launched on October 1, 2005. Dimension Films, the genre label that was founded in 1993 by Bob Weinstein, is also included under the TWC banner.

During the Weinsteins' tenure at Miramax Films the company released some of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful independent feature films which received 249 Academy Award® nominations and won 60 Oscars®, have generated billions of dollars in worldwide box office receipts and billions more in home video sales. In its history, Dimension Films has released some of the most successful franchises including "Scream," "Spy Kids" and "Scary Movie.

Posted by poland at 05:21 PM | Comments (6)

The Sting Of Irony

One of the non-pleasures of the mostly-old-news case against Anthony Pellicano - one still gets the strong impression that the government is waiting for someone... anyone... to crack - is that all the old players are being tortured once again. Papers are giving space to Grey vs Shandling, a decade old story of basic Hollywood bullshit, as though Shandling had gotten a single job fronting a movie in this millennium. Of course, the wet dream of the many, many people that Brad Grey has made into enemies - easily #1 on Hollywood's Most Hated List in 2007, and still in 2008 - is that Grey will lose his job, be sent to jail, and be forced to have an affair with a "development executive" that wants to develop more space in one of Grey's orifices. (Not in that group is that bastion of speaking truth to power, Nikki Finke, who was converted into a Grey BFF about a year ago. I agree that the testimony was boring… of course it was… the state has the same non-starter of a case we have been gagging on for years.)

In any case, today’s Special Guest Star is Anita Busch, the former editor of the Hollywood Reporter, star reporter at Variety, and part-time contract player at the LA Times, who was the face on the first big news break on Pellicano when someone left a fish on the broken windshield of her car with a threatening note.

What’s interesting about David Halbfinger’s story on Anita is that it clicks along, telling the story, being pretty supportive, explaining repeatedly how the greatest damage to Anita was how her colleagues reacted to her claims… and then… he offers a couple of closing items that do a pretty good job of explaining why so many of us questioned Anita’s situation. Here are some pull quotes...

“Since then, Ms. Busch has been stuck in time. She is consumed with the documents and details of her case. She still drives the same old car, and has never repaired a small hole inside it, hidden by the sun visor, where, a security expert told her, a listening device was likely to have been installed. Once in a while, she still starts the car from across the street, just in case.

She has sued Mr. Ovitz, on the notion that he put Mr. Pellicano up to making the threat against her, whether as retaliation for her articles or as a deterrent to future ones.

Unable to find permanent employment, Ms. Busch does research, marketing and other odd jobs. She has sold one piece of creative writing, but does not want to say anything more about it. ‘I don’t really want anybody to know what I’m doing,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to find a new career to love.’”

I, for one, didn't really doubt that something real had happened, though I reported on many who did. What I doubted was the level of drama that Anita brought to it. And here, again, she is still, according to Halbfinger, showing paranoia, acting bizarrely (suing Ovitz?), and basically, being dramatic.

Halbfinger quotes Busch pal David Robb, but doesn’t get a quote – and it’s not like the NYT refuses to quote sources without naming them “because they are afraid of a screaming, maniacal call from Anita” – from anyone who can say plainly what all of us who lived through the Anita Era know… there has never been a drama queen as dramatic as Anita in that kind of position of authority. Nikki has a similar pulpit now, though without the authority of a trade or newspaper. She’s only kept this job – unlike all the others – because Village Voice Media looks the other way and no one at the paper she kinda works for, The LA Weekly, is much willing to confront her, even when she is screaming at them.

I guess this is the part where I explain that when Anita did have authority, editing The Hollywood Reporter, she wrote what I felt strongly was essentially an editorial on Fight Club that was disguised as a news story, explaining her disgust with the film. Sources at Fox explained then and continue to assert all these years later that there was a serious threat of the studio withdrawing ad support from the trade.

Cooler heads prevailed, but in repsonse to my coverage and my unwillingness to back off of it, Anita decided to have the trade’s lawyer send what has since been laughingly called by lawyers, “the mother of all cease & desist letters” to me. I published the silly threat – still the only time in my career that anyone has actually sent a c&d – and never heard from the lawyer again. Anita called into my then-radio show on KABC, at my invitation, to explain her side, but refused to come on air after sitting on hold for 30 minutes, until the last 3 minute segment, which really was not enough time to even try to make her case. I actually felt bad for her… even as she was trying to make my professional life hard.

Anyway, part of me still feels quite bad for Anita. The mockery she received from colleagues was natural payback for a career-long habit of acting out on others. But for someone who was already insecure, it must have been hard. And even if it’s exaggerated, looking over one’s shoulder for this long cannot be fun.

Anita is a smart, attractive, challenging person. Even after all of our water under the bridge, I still sought her out to bring her aboard for an industry column. She would offer a great, opinionated but reported column. And even when I might disagree with her, I imagine that she would be a worthy read.

I hope she finds her next passion… and doesn’t forget why so many were so happy to see her run herself out of town.

Posted by poland at 01:50 PM | Comments (1)

March 23, 2008

A Good Quote About The Traditional Vs New Media

I finally got around to watching the last 8 hours of The Wire this weekend, an excellent, if still wildly overrated drama. One of the key sytorylines of the show was The Baltimore Sun and a journalist who made things up as a way to self-aggrandize and a management that looked the other way in the lust for a Pulitzer.

Anyway, as soon as I finished it, I went to Salon to read some of the - again - excessive coverage of the show. And I read Heather Havrilesky's interview with David Simon, Wire showrunner and former Sun reporter. There was plenty of interesting stuff and, like myself, Simon gives no pass to the majors based on what has often been a glorious past. But this is what jumped out at me to offer to you...

"The impact of the Internet is that it's pulling the froth of commentary and debate off the top of first-generation news gathering, leaving newspapers with only a first-generation role for themselves, which is not enough for them to sustain readers, and so they're losing young readers. By and large, excusing the fact that there are some first-generation journalists going out and acquiring new information directly for the Web, the vast majority of the Internet is reaction and debate and commentary -- some of it brilliant. But I don't run into a lot of Internet reporters at council meetings and in courthouses."

Pretty fair analysis, no?

ADD, Sun 7:50p - I just read David Simon's post-Wire-finale self-analysis on The Huffington Post and all I can say is, "Nice to meet you, friend." I am thrilled to have someone with all the experience that Simon has making many of the same arguments that I have been attacked for expressing in The Hot Button and here on the blog, year after year.

Yes, my opinions are in the frivilous arena of film industry coverage. But given that this is my business, I take it seriously, just as a city beat reporter takes the local politics or drug culture.

It has always been too easy to accuse me of grandstanding or jealousy or whatever. This does not mean that I am not open to those of you who actually disagree with the details of the issues I take with some Traditional Media outlets in some thoughtful way. I honor that. In fact, I crave it, as it helps to sharpen or dull my sense of things, most often to the better.

Another pull quote from Simon...

"We will all soon enough live in cities and towns where politicians and bureaucrats gambol freely without worry, where it is never a risk to shine shit and call it gold. A good newspaper covers its city and acquires not just the quantitative account of a day's events, but the qualitative truth and meaning behind those events. A great newspaper does this routinely on a multitude of issues, across its entire region.

Posted by poland at 04:44 PM | Comments (29)

Weekend Estimates by Klady

Posted by poland at 12:42 PM | Comments (25)

March 22, 2008

BYOB Weekend

I know... it's been a rather slow blog week for me... and Bermuda is just a week away...

Here is some space for y'all to put up when I shut up...

Posted by poland at 03:40 PM | Comments (69)

American Idle

I thought this was passingly of interest...

American Idol cleverly has converted the weekly show into a showcase for each performer's audience, making rehersal performances of the song done on the air available in full on Apple's iTunes, along with the video of the on-air performance. And they have been promoting this on air at least once every half hour... promotion worth millions each show.

Surprisingly to me, not a single song from this offering has cracked the iTunes Top 100 singles... at least not on the chart as I looked at it today.

Perspective. The most popular show on television still can't get a single to crack to Top 100 on iTunes.

The future is coming... but don't get caught up in the hype.

ADD, 7:52p Sat - A commenter wrote: "For the first week, Apple disclosed sales popularity among those Idol videos and songs they were releasing. When users were using it to gauge the popularity of the contestants and thus attempt to predict who would be booted off that week, Apple removed such information from iTunes at the request of Idol producers."

I have no independent verification of this and I'm not sure I believe it 100% - the excuse, not the person offering it in Comments - but this is significant as regards the post and should surely be taken into account.

Posted by poland at 03:35 PM | Comments (16)

Hillary Is The New Harvey

I know that I have been relentless about pushing Obama since I was "born again" about 6 weeks ago. I am a believer. But the main reason it continues to be an item in this blog is the relentless and reckless attack on Obama by the Clinton campaign, showing a willingness to scorch the Democratic earth rather than to consider waiting until Ms Clinton is 64, 68, or 72 (if an Obama VP ran after 8 years of Obama, it would be hard for her to race against the person until she was McCain's age) to run again.

Hillary Clinton, this season, is the Harvey Weinstein of politics. People are scared to death of giving up on her because she has returned from the dead so many times that getting bit in the neck is an eternal threat. The same was true for years with Harvey and the Oscars… until Cold Mountain didn’t make it. And it’s been downhill from there.

But while you can feel the Democratic base moving steadily to the Obama camp, wanting desperately to get on the band wagon and to get enthusiastic about their New Kennedy, there is enormous restraint still going on. They don't want to be an Enemy of Bill... or Hillary. The Clintons have been THE heroes of the D-movement since The Kennedys handed over the mantle almost 20 years ago. It's hard to say, "goodbye." Especially when you know that if you say "goodbye" too early, you could wake up with a political horse's head in your bed.

Just like Harvey...

As he was heading out the door - unwilling to accept a $400 million a year budget that half the town's wannabe distributor/producers, including The Weinsteins, would kill for right now - Harvey relentlessly worked to destroy Michael Eisner's legacy, kicking and spinning and even lying to make Eisner look the fool. And it took. And all the scoreboard in the world - do you even have to start doing math to see where Miramax under Daniel Battsek is versus TWC? - will not bring back Eisner's reputation.

No one wants to be attacked so severely when they have so little to gain by playing it straight. But the big name Dems should remember... silence now is support of The Clintons. And when Clinton loses this nomination, the now-silent big-names will get no credit for flocking to the nominee's side as they have to. The time to speak truth to Clinton power is now... even as a matter of simple politics.

But I digress...

I know that I will be accused of doing exactly what Clinton is doing by running this… but let me explain my thinking.

For the last month, we have seen what are likely the worst possible attacks possible against Obama, as both the right wing and the Clinton camp do not want to see this man nominated. There have been very few attacks from the right on Clinton and the Obama campaign, until this week, has played it all very close to the vest. (The new Obama strategy of letting others speak for him while he stands by the side of the speaker, looking shy, is a little odd, but it seems to be working ok. The Richardson endorsement means more to the news media than voters, though it does undercut the “Obama can’t speak to Hispanics” argument. Standing next to the guy comparing Bill Clinton to McCarthy was odd and right on the edge. But the same guy saying that Hillary Clinton was also a patriot, as defined by BC, was the right think to say… though news is not leading with that.)

The last, last, last ditch from Clinton could come soon, with her floating herself as Obama’s VP, turning the arrogance angle upside down, and forcing Obama to say, “no,” which would take the “good guy” angle away from him and really enrage her supporters and potentially make Obama look like more of a politician than the faithful might be comfortable with. It would be destructive for all… and only Clinton’s ego could keep it from happening. If she waits until after a statistically meaningless 10 point win in Pennsylvania, it will look desperate and not work. But before… it may be the only arrow left in that quiver.

In any case, I am offering something I just ran into on Google last night. It is a highly producer, often unfair, slick attack on candidate Clinton. And if you think the attack on Obama was brutal and that Clinton has taken every hit possible, take a look… and then tell me about how much easier the attacks on Clinton will be to withstand versus Obama’s baggage of Wright and the Chicago scumbag funder and the parsed single sentences taken out of context every week to try to slow Obama’s roll.

Posted by poland at 02:48 PM | Comments (47)

Friday Estimates by Klady

Horton Hears A Who is almost exactly in line with Ice Age's box office run, which ended up at $176 million domestic. Actually, it will be a bit ahead after the second weekend... but that will probably be made up for by the more front-loaded box office as years pass. I expect Horton to top $150m domestic and not quite to get to $175m.

The $200m mark is still elusive to anyone but Disney/Pixar and DreamWorks Animation... but Fox is by far the strongest third player in the field, pretty much completely on the shoulders and visions of one man, Chris Wedge. The money Rushmore in modern animation, so far, is Lassetter, Katzenberg, Wedge, and Miyazaki (the most undervalued with the stunning financial success of his work everywhere but America).

I'm sure that no one at Lionsgate could talk, even off the record, about how frustrating it is to be stuck selling "a Madea movie" without using Tyler Perry's best marketing tool... Madea. But Perry is desperate to "cross over" and he continues to make big profits with his films, so it is hard for the studio - as it would be for any studio - to push back. Still, you have to give Perry this... this will be his best "non-Madea" opening yet... even though Medea is in the movie. And that will be the discussion on Monday morning. Did the promise of Madea in some of the publicity draw that bigger audience or did the film make it without her?

Fox dumped Shutter, as they often do with little movies that just don't have "it."

Drillbit Taylor's marketing campaign was an uninspired as Owen Wilson's unwillingness to do press. And really, as hard as it is to open a movie without your star promoting it, there is no excuse. Movies open WITHOUT any stars who open movies all the time. Gerry Rich has done a pretty damned good job for Paramount overall. But his love of the "big head" one-sheet was replaced by the "big foot/big crotch" one-sheet here... and Owen Wilson is not a big enough star to sell a movie that way. Sorry. At the last minute, they switched up the campaign to try to go after the Superbad audience (a movie that was opened without stars... and even with Apatow's name, we found out with Walk Hard how irrelevant that really is... you gotta sell the movie!), but the impression was already made... the bad impression.

The sad story of the moment remains The Bank Job, which people love the way they loved The Italian Job, but could not take advantage. Expecting $100 million with Jason Statham in the lead was not appropriate. But barely cracking $20 milllion? That sucks. Lionsgate is a strong marketer in the genres in which they excel, but bottom line, they sold the movie like it was the direct-to-dvd of an I-Job sequel and never got close to the adults they needed to triple their gross. A shame.

Posted by poland at 02:01 PM | Comments (15)

I Am... Amazed

I didn't write much about I Am Legend when it was released in December. I was underwhelmed, but I had this very strong sense that seeing the film in IMAX was a mistake. I love IMAX, but as I learned tonight, this was a small, intimate film that happened to have some big effects, not the other way around... which is how they sold it and what IMAX suggested.

But what is extraordinary about the I Am Legend DVD is not only the beauty of Blu-ray... but the alternate ending... an ending that was so right that it is almost unfathomable why they dumped it for such a conventional choice. I can imagine the original ending confusing test audiences and leaving them longing for the more defined, heroic ending that was on the theatrical release. But... ugh.

SPOILERS IF YOU CARE

The "alternate" ending is a realization by the Will Smith character that he is trying to cure something that does not see itself as an illness. In one remarkable 3 minute segment, his character's years of personal sacrifice are reduced, on an emotional level, to the ugliness that societies have been prone to, thinking that we are "right" and that we are going to reach out to "fix" other cultures. He is, to not put too fine a point on it, a Dr Mengele character to these creatures... who show more kindness to him when they don't have to than he's ever shown to them.

Part of what is actually brilliant about it is that director Francis Lawrence and the writers don't try to overexplain it. They leave it universal and open to personal interpretation. But the core idea is unmistakable. It is all too easy to lose perspective and see others as animals who have "no higher brain function," whether they are Iraqis or Republicans or anyone with whom we simply disagree.

END SPOILERS

I don't know the story of how this movie got cut the way it did. And in a really unusual turn, there is no director's commentary on either version of the film. So, no help there.

But this movie, on the big screen in the living room, in living Blu, hit home in a way that the first experience of it didn't come within miles of. I'm at least a couple viewings away from throwing around the "m" word, but I am beginning to think that Smith, who thought this was an awards movies, might have been right... with this "alternate" ending. It's not a movie about the Empty NY effects. Really. The difference in the two endings makesevery bit as much difference as the transformative difference between Almost Famous and Cameron Crowe's director's cut, Untitled. Wow.

Posted by poland at 01:31 AM | Comments (17)

March 21, 2008

Chris Rocks

"Bush has fucked up so bad," he will posit to any and all congregants in braying loops of oratory, "that he's made it hard for a white man to run for president. 'Gimme anything but another white man, please! Black man, white woman, giraffe, anything!' A white man's had that job for hundreds of years — and one guy fucked it up for all of ya!"

And: "Each candidate tells you how humble they are. No, you're not humble! Do you know how big your ego has to be to say you wanna be president of the United States? Do you know how much Puff Daddy juice you have to drink? How many Kanye injections you have to take?"

And: "I actually think America is ready for a woman president. But does it have to be that woman? . . . She's gonna work in the office where her husband got blow jobs?! There ain't enough redecorating in the world she can do to change that! . . . There's one thing Hillary Clinton's better at than everybody else, and one thing only — and that's forgiveness! Hillary Clinton is the greatest forgiver in the history of the world. Even Jesus knows: 'You really good at fo'giveness. I mean, I talk the talk, but you walk the walk!' "

And: "Barack Obama — he's a black man with two black names! Barack. Obama. He doesn't let his blackness sneak up on you. As soon as you hear Barack Obama you wonder, 'Does he have a spear?' . . . He's so cool, too, man. I don't think he realizes he's a black candidate! When you're the only black guy doing something, people expect you to take it up a notch. If you're the only black playing basketball with a bunch of white guys — they expect you to dunk! . . . Barack has a handicap the other candidates don't have: Barack Obama has a black wife. And I don't think a black woman can be first lady of the United States. Yeah, I said it! A black woman can be president, no problem. First lady? Can't do it. You know why? Because a black woman cannot play the background of a relationship. Just imagine telling your black wife that you're president? 'Honey, I did it! I won! I'm the president.' 'No, we the president! And I want my girlfriends in the Cabinet! I want Kiki to be secretary of state! She can fight!' "

The Rolling Stone article

Posted by poland at 05:18 PM | Comments (47)

March 20, 2008

Munchausen Blu Syndrome

What an intense pleasure it was today to watch Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which is not only a minor masterpiece, but which - amazingly - defines its own life as a film in the story of the ultimate storyteller.

Munchausen was the movie that killed Terry Gilliam's reputation... and the last time I recall a movie being demanded by distributors when the studio refused to expand its release. Dawn Steel had just taken over at Columbia for David Puttnam, who greenlit the film, and in the great tradition of execs killing thier predecessor's darlings, she did all she could to kill Munchasen... which already had been through hell as its budget of $25 million had ballooned to double that.

Still... a truly magnificent story of a storyteller coming to the end of his legend in the face of the Age Of Reason. The magic of it and the themes still resonate today as we discuss the importance - or lack of importance - of Hope as a central issue in the presidential campaign. Jonathan Pryce is the embodiment of "reason," so fearful of the extraordinary that he executes a heroic soldier - played in one of his first film roles by Sting - for making all the other soldiers feel bad for not being as heroic.

Munchausen is also way out ahead of the grrl power movie movement, as the center of the movie is Sally (played by a pre-adolescent Sarah Polley), who not only pushes things forward with her faith, but even has to drag Munchausen, the great adventurer, along at times, when he starts to doubt himself.

It's such a joy to see the film in this closest-to-celluloid form of Blu-ray... even the flaws... maybe especially the flaws. Gilliam did the movie with a lot of models, puppets, in-camera effects and basic old school layering of effects (like Robin Williams' head flying around). But it's the moments of small genius that really dazzle, whether a city of moving buildings like the inside of a jewelry box or a waltz in mid-air with Venus (Uma Thurman) and two cherubs that is interrupted by Vulcan (Oliver Reed) or the giant Winston Dennis wanted to be petite or the teamwork of Munchasen's sidekicks or the life inside the theater in the "real" town... millions of tint, little, absolutely brilliant details. And they were all waiting, it seemed, for Blu-ray, so you can see every one.

I hate lists from media outlets. But The Top 100 Films For Blu-ray would be interesting. Really, it is the films that have that visual power that makes seeing every inch of that screen in magnificent detail a treat. The Kubrick films are that. No Country For Old Men is that. I can't wait for Bonnie & Clyde.

And today, Munchasen. Heaven.

Posted by poland at 09:46 PM | Comments (16)

March 19, 2008

Hey, Anglophiles Who Dig 1532 Sex & Intrigue!!!

Can't wait another 11 days to see the first episode of The Tudors, Season 2 on Showtime? Want to get into the soup?

Actually, this is the first episode of the series I've watched from start to finish. Pretty good. Not as much about sex as the ads suggest.

Go to this website and use the not-so-secret secret code "Royal" to get access.

Posted by poland at 09:49 PM | Comments (13)

Buying In Bulk

Word today (via Financial Times... see MCN front page) that Apple is negotiating flat rate access to all of iTunes is yet another major step towards the inevitable future of digital delivery... and an unspoken reassursion of the power and importance of the theatrical releases of movies.

Essentially, digital access in all media demands an open market. The theatrical experience is not open. It is only possible in a brick & mortar storefront. And because of qualities of that experience and the cost of delivering it, the will continue to be a strong lead market for film. But once you get to home experience, the game is completely different.

As with all things in this business, it will take time for the movie execs to see what is happening. But I will guess that less than a year after Apple starts a subscription model option for iTunes, we will see the first subscription model for movies and TV on iTunes. The big conflict for the TV model is who gets paid for what... and I don't mean the unions. How do you slice the proceeds of a NBC show, produced by WB, when the public is paying $50 a year to download all NBC shows? Then you can worry about the unions are paid on a rental that had no disc or tape to count.

As I keep screaming, The Internet is not a medium... It is simply a delivery system. The pay TV concept is the future of home entertainment. Choice and Speed of Delivery and Day-n-Date are not the new foundation, but premium options. How many people are aware that you can watch what they are watching in Beijing or Rio or Belgrad right now, simply by paying DirecTV a few more bucks a month? The world is already smaller than we realize... and only niches care.

By 2015, Flat Rate will be king. And sales of premiums will be where the big added money is. For another $1000 a year, you will have access to the vast majority of what's made and what's been made. If 20 million people buy into that, the industry will have $20 billion more to split up... or DVD again. Theatrical will be about the same... about $25b worldwide by then. Other ancillaries (including the vast majority still not paying $200 a month for cable/satellite) add another $40b. And that's just movies. And it is stable, the way corporations like it.

The thing about where you watch what you watch is not the story here... never was. It's the revenues and predictability, stupid.

(via iPhone)

Posted by poland at 10:58 AM | Comments (12)

BYOB - Wed

Hours away... the helm is yours...

Posted by poland at 12:06 AM | Comments (54)

March 18, 2008

Got 35 Minutes?

No set of sound bites pulled out of this speech can represent the power and insight of the whole.

Posted by poland at 11:34 PM | Comments (43)

More Politics...

The game on the Clinton campaign made itself apparent when at Hillary Clinton's news conference today, she "had not had a chance" to see Obama's speech... and went on to speak to substantive issues about Iraq.

This is all part of the game... get him talking about something damaging, pretty much irrelevant, and re-launched just a Clinton needed help... a year after it was discussed and dismissed as an issue by the media a year ago.... and then turn the whole thing into, "He's not talking about important topics" yet again.

This whole cycle, driven by the Clinton Campaign, is as bad as what Bush did to McCain in North Carolina 8 years ago and what Johnson - who was going to win anyway - did to Goldwater in 64 and, indeed, what the right did to Kerry with the Swift Boat ads.

We can only hope that the man under attack - the only one in this group who actually is winning the race when the all-out guerilla attack ran - will be able to recover in the month before the Pennsylvania election.

Today, my gut instinct is that the Clinton campaign dropped the bomb too early and that a month is a loooooong time for the wounds not only to heal, but to become a strength. And in that regard, the scummy tactics that tear down the party without thought to anything but a personal win after falling behind against all odds in the primaries, may become a blessing in disguise.

Only time will tell.

Posted by poland at 04:05 PM | Comments (38)

More Critics...

Sean Means offers that Media News Group, which publishes, by their count "57 daily newspapers in 12 states" now have 6 film critics working for the chain fulltime with the San Jose Mercury News critic Bruce Newman and Contra Costa Times critic Mary F. Pols heading out the door.

The 6 critics are:
Chris Hewitt | St. Paul Pioneer Press
Lisa Kennedy | Denver Post
Tom Long | Detroit News
Sean Means | Salt Lake Tribune
Bob Strauss | L.A. Daily News
Glenn Whipp | L.A. Daily News

Posted by poland at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)

Another Loss...

Arthur C. Clarke passed away at the grand old age of 90 in his beloved Sri Lanka, where he lived for the last 52 years of his life.

For movie fans, Clarke is "The 2001 Guy" and little else.

David Fincher has been planning a film based on another Clarke book. We'll see if it happens.

For me, he has settled into my consciousness as a friend of Roger Ebert's. The teo apparently had a lively e-mail relationship over the years. The relationship really began in the late 50s when as a member of the Urbana High School Science Fiction Club, Roger went to see Clarke speak at U of Illinois: Champaign-Urbana

In 2003, I was in the attendance when Clarke made a rare appearance - by telephone - at Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, along with Keir Dullea and Jan Harlan after a screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In one piece, Roger wrote - "At Cyberfest 1997, a birthday celebration for HAL 9000, who reveals in the film that he was born in 1997 at the university's computer lab. (There was a panel discussion featuring Arthur C. Clarke, live from Sri Lanka, on a huge screen over the stage; told by a panelist that HAL "sounded gay," Sir Arthur said, "I think you'll have to ask HAL about that.")"

In a Movie Answer Man, he offered Clarke's response to a 2001 question.

I am almost more sad that Roger is not able, for the moment, to give tribute to this man who meant so much to him, as I am by the loss of a 90 year old who lived a full life, most of it on his own terms.

Then again, there are few with that kind of vision.

Posted by poland at 03:32 PM | Comments (6)

Truly, Madly, Minghella

It's a very sad morning.

Anthony Minghella's first film, Truly, Madly, Deeply landed when he was 36. Just five features later, he is gone. Half of them were serious Oscar bait, generating 24 Oscar nominations and 10 wins, including Best Picture and Best Director for The English Patient.

But more importantly, Minghella was a good man with profoundly honorable intentions. As a producer, in concert with Sydney Pollack and Mirage Enterprises, they supported tough-to-make films from Noyce, Tykwer, Eyre, Lonergan, and most recently, Tony Gilroy's debut, Michael Clayton.

And to tread delicately, Minghella's partner, Pollack, has been quite ill for months, fighting through illness and rumors. Minghella, who has had health issues along the way, going first is a bit of a shock. And the idea of losing Mirage altogether in a hurry is very sad... the company didn't always deliver perfect films, but they were always getting behind ambition and ideas and has always been about more than business.

Hearing that he died from a hemmorage after a surgery to remove "a growth" on his neck, it is a reminder of how lucky we are to still have Roger Ebert amongst us, as he has spent the last 20 months or so recovering from a similar injury, caused not by his cancer, but by the weakening of his neck and vascular system in the process of the operation to remove it. (Roger is, fortunately, still moving towards a signficiant recovery after having spent the last year working in spite of it.) And in a similar turn earlier this year, we lost Dusty Cohl, a very close friend of The Eberts, while we were all more focused on Roger's recovery. It can give you whiplash.

Minghella's last film, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, has been sold off to Brit TV - premiering next week, I believe, while the Weinstein Co owned film has been shelved for the US in favor of being retooled as a HBO series.

I genuinely liked and admired this man. Damned shame to lose him.

Posted by poland at 08:44 AM | Comments (13)

March 17, 2008

Do I Hear...

Another Profiles In History auction is coming. Some odd stuff is on the block, including the first Thalberg Award ever given (to Daryl F Zanuck), Heston's sandals from Ben Hur, Halle Berry's leather battlesuit from X2, an immortal mask from 300, and so much more, including...

This very creepy model from AI. Ewwww...

Posted by poland at 11:13 PM | Comments (3)

BYO Civility

Feel free to use this space for whatever conversations come up.

But please... I have noticed a few people who seem to be spoiling for a fight and taking some otherwise valuable conversations someplace personal and petty.

Let's please vent our anger into our opinions and not get into the measuring of body parts.

Your turn...

Posted by poland at 10:51 PM | Comments (26)

More Critics Blood Spilt

SVA got his first exclusive for Defamer... more Tribune critics getting fired. Fun.

The scary part is not just good people getting fired, but that a company the size of The Tribune Co apparently having no real game plan for the future of this part of the franchise.

This, as best as I can tell, is the entire list of full-time Tribune Company film critics now, servicing 11 newspapers, 7 of which are legitimate full-out dailies:

Carina Chocano | The Los Angeles Times
Roger Moore | The Orlando Sentinel
Michael Phillips | The Chicago Tribune
Michael Sragow | Baltimore Sun
Kenneth Turan | The Los Angeles Times

Someone asked, "Who's next," regarding who would next be killed. And I can only imagine - sadly - that it would be Sragow, working in a non-movie market. If you look across the company's papers, the one who is most widely syndicated is Roger Moore, which probably makes him the safest. Firing the guy at the flagship - at least as long as Roger Ebert is working at the rival paper - is unlikely. And it is all too easy to imagine both Chocano and Turan being bumped, but replaced with someone more revered than Carina, but younger than Ken.

Soon, Tribune Co could have fewer full-time film critics than the much-questioned New Times empire, which includes the Village Voice, LA Weekly, and 15 other local alt weeklies.

Posted by poland at 04:16 PM | Comments (49)

March 16, 2008

Bitch vs Black on SNL

By the way, this is why the studios fought YouTube on copyright... so they could use the clips to both generate ad revenue and to sell other shows and products.

And for a twist in revolutionary thought... the corporations pushing this stuff off of the "democratic" YouTube also means that the WGA members who struck over the issue of web replays can get paid for the use of these clips... which they could not when they ran on YouTube. So... corporations good or corporations bad? Democracy freeing or democracy exploiting the worker?

Posted by poland at 01:35 PM | Comments (69)

Weekend Estimates by Klady

Not much more to add to this story.

A couple of small things struck me.

1) There are only seven movies in wide release right now with as many as 100 people a day buying tickets in each theater... not per show... per day.

2) Juno isn't going to hit $150 million, which seemed like where it was going back in the Oscar heat. Likewise, The Bucket List, which was at $75 million and still doing $5 million a weekend, will also land just over $90 million total. I would imagine that both are victims of the DVD window.

Posted by poland at 11:15 AM | Comments (6)

March 15, 2008

Killing Blu-ray

As you have read, I am excited by Blu-ray and I don't think it is overhyped. I do think that Sony underestimates how HD delivery of movies on cable and satellite, in an era of larger, cheaper hard drives, will be a market-inhibiting competitor.

That said, I just caught up with the NYT's reporting on Stan Glasgow, the president of Sony Electronics, and his recent NY media meetings (3/5). And I am in more than a little shock.

As I wrote when HD died, Sony must seize the opportunity to make this format fly. People will pay a $5 premium for the discs in return for the clear quality step up. But what is still a major factor in the way of the growth of the market into double-digit penetration is the cost of the players. (What makes PS3 the go-to player is the wireless updating of firmware, even more so than the gaming application.)

And here, Glasgow is not only crowing about controlling the market - bad press choice - but making clear that the cost of a Blu-ray player will not drop to $299 until this next Christmas!!! And that's still too high!!!

$199 by 2009! Still too high!!!

Until they deliver a $149 player, the market will continue to limp along, even with increased and singular visibility at retailers. Discs are already being discounted on Amazon and elsewhere, both to keep up with HD discounts and to deal with the price disparity with the ever dropping retail price for regular DVDs.

And really, however threatened Sony might feel about the Chinese knock-off artists, resting on their laurels is no answer. Sony NEEDS to come up with a $150 solution - or a $250 package that comes with 10 Sony Blu-ray DVDs - by the end of THIS summer.

They don't seem to understand the lesson of Apple and the iPod. Yes, it's great to control the market. But Apple controlled the digital music market by creating; 1. a superior product, 2. ease of use unlike anyone had previously experienced, 3. a sense of real value, both in the somewhat pricey product and with iTunes as a lower cost alternative to overpriced CDs, 4. a range of products within 18 months of the initial release of the product so more people could join the "revolution", and 5. access to the full value of the iTunes platform, even if your new iPod couldn't fit everything you owned.

Sony seems committed to forcing Blu-ray on quality improvement alone. They haven't even adapted the very clever duel format that allowed many HDs to play on regular DVD players as well, so buyers wouldn't feel they were buying something they could only use in one machine on one TV in their homes.

What is Sony's iPod here? The $150 single use machine that also has wifi updatability.

You have to make the product accessible enough that people who are ready to make the leap because of a movie – like No Country For Old Men or The Godfather Saga or the Indiana Jones series or a Shrek box or a Transformers or Criterion titles or whatever – don’t fear making the leap. $400 in an $80 DVD player world is a lot. So is $300.

But say you are going to spend $2000 on a new HDTV. So it’s another $200 for the DirecTV box… another $100 for your Sunday Ticket NFL package in hi-def… at least another $180 more a year for your satellite or cable package in HD… a new piece of furniture for your new TV maybe, $100 for each HDMI cable, maybe a home theater sound system, etc.

Are you really anxious to drop another $400 on a Blu-ray player when a significant number of the titles coming out aren’t on Blu-ray?

The biggest moment for Blu-ray will be Disney launching Sleeping Beauty, their first classic in the format. If Disney could bring them all out for Christmas, that would push things along handily. But they won’t. So parents, who know that their kids won’t know the difference, are less likely to make the leap based on one classic Disney title and Pirates of the Caribbean and Ratatouille and Cars (the only 2 Pixar titles in the format to date). And id Disney goes hi-def with The Disney Channel... well... deadly.

The whole effort would also be well served by people feeling good about buying a Blu for more than one room in their home.

Bottom line: $50 profit on each machine and a large group paying a premium for Blu-ray discs for years is a lot better than $100 profit on each machine and a small group passionately buying Blus and the whole thing being eaten by hi-def on your DVR and satellite/cable in less than 3 years.

This article screams, “We learned nothing from the Betamax or the iPod!”

Boo.

(P.S. Just spent the afternoon with Across The Universe on Blu-ray…a joy… perfect half-distracted/can’t turn away weekend fare, especially ramped up on Blu. Help us, Sony Wan Stringobi!)

Posted by poland at 06:56 PM | Comments (21)

Vamps?

Interesting NY Observer story on the heat around vampires in the teen chick lit business.

The only movie to take advantage of it so far is Twilight, which was made by Summit and which, for now, they will try to self-distribute, starring Kirsten Stewart and directed by Catherine Hardwicke.

Seems to me that The Lost Boys and Interview WIth The Vampire were more gay bait than girl bait. Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula was more an action film with a touch of romance than a grrrl fantasy. And Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, whether on film or on TV, was never really much about vampires so much as menstruation.

We are in a small lull in the teen girl horror/action market. But will vampires who romance-not-roofie young women show up relentlessly in 2009 until we get sick to death of them?

Posted by poland at 10:48 AM | Comments (13)

Blu-ray Getting Stronger

I was on Amazon.com, where they are pushing both hi-def and regular DVDs heavily these days, and noticed that No Country For Old Men was on their best seller list both in DVD and Blu-ray formats. Wow.

I always caution to be suspect of Top Ten lists at Amazon and iTunes, since volume is not noted, but still... for both formats to be on the list suggests some positive movement for Blu-ray, no? And then, when I went back to do this entry, the pre-sale Blu-ray of I Am Legend -and not the regular DVD - topped the chart.

Of course, those of us who have gone Blu are the most intense consumers of the films films that fit our demo. And I still think Blu is likely to be a short-window technology. But this suggests a step forward.

(it is only fair to note than in the Top 7 shown below, only 101 Dalmatians is NOT available in Blu. So while BSG and Stargate are very geek and Enchanted is big with the kids, they aren't breaking through in Blu the same way the two slightly older, slightly more make skewing titles are.)

Just a couple of days ago, a title that I am greatly anticipating on its 20th anniversary showed up from the studio... and it was the regular DVD. I'm thrilled to have it a few weeks early... and I was ready to rip the disc out of its contained and throw it in the machine right that minute... untill I saw it wasn't Blu-ray. And now, it sits unopened, as I wait for the Blu-ray. I want to see it in the best way possible and I am willing to wait a few more weeks to experience it that way, even if upscaling would look pretty good. That doesn't mean that I won't watch The Graduate upscaled, which I bought yesterday to watch, anxious to look at it again after reading Mark Harris' book. But I'm waiting on Bonnie & Clyde too.

Every time I put a Blu-ray in, I get that same thrill I got when I first got a DVD player and was buying gray market discs in New York, thrilled to hear Charlie Parker or Aretha Franklin or Mozart so cleanly with just a set of earbuds. And I already find myself prioritizing the pay-TV offerings, prefering the ones in HD (about 20% of the channels).

Of course, give me a movie theater experience any/every day...

Posted by poland at 09:57 AM | Comments (17)

Friday Estimates by Klady

Horton Hears A Who will push to get to Ice Age's opening number of $46.3 million, but will come up short. Still, it will be the best non-summer, non-holiday animation opening other than the Ice Age movies. It will also repesent Fox's fourth entry onto the list of 20 best CG animation openings, still the only studio to crack the Disney/Pixar-DreamWorks stranglehold.

The trouble with this film is that the film skews a little too young to have a bigger opening weekend audience, no matter how hard Fox shoves it down our throats. Fox could have pushed the quirkiness of the film to teens, but in doing so, might have turned off the parents of the little kids. Look for a touch more psychodelia in the second weekend ads to come.

10,000 BC may break even. But the film, picked up by WB for the 300 slot after being passed on by Fox and Sony, is relying on what will eventually happen in Japan and France to make a buck (and DVD, obviously).

The movie may be okay in the end, but the cautionary tale is there... cool CG imagery is not enough... it has to be the right CG imagery to capture the imagination of potential audiences. Conversely, the ads for the DVD of I Am Legend look better than the ads for the movie, even focusing on the CG images that were a problem for some... TV vs theatrical. Expect the film to be even bigger in DVD than its considerable success in theaters.

Never Back Down is the latest "urban" effort to undertrack. No real surprise there.

Universal's Doomsday reminded us yet again that not every studio can market every movie. The Neil Marshall movie would have been opened to double the number at Screen Gems. They just know how to sell the crap out of the female-led action movie. And Universal handing the film to Rogue to market wouldn't neccessarily have been better either, as they haven't had success in that genre. But isn't that the idea? Why rev up the machinery of the big studio to sell the non-Tomb Raider?

On the flip side, a movie like The Bank Job would have been well served by a big studio release... even though Lionsgate is great at selling small window films. Hitman did $40 million domestic... with a less known star than Bank Job.

And Jumper, ready to fall out of the Top Ten next weekend, reminds us that Doug Liman is still a very interesting (and often undisciplined) filmmaker - Jumper: The Series could be a big hit - but that he really needs stars to be put into the middle of his madness to give the marketers something to give to audiences to hang onto when they sell the wild ride.

Posted by poland at 09:14 AM | Comments (6)

March 14, 2008

The Return Of Box Office Hell

Posted by poland at 05:45 PM | Comments (8)

Funny Hate

I can't say that I am a big fan of Michael Haneke's near shot-by-shot English-language remake of his own Funny Games. But the anger so many critics seem to be feeling about it? I don't understand.

Much to my surprise and in spite of enough hyperbole at the top of the review to scare people away from getting to its strong ideas, Anthony Lane speaks to why remaking this 10 year old film offers a completely different series of subtexts that do not work in Haneke's favor when delivering a nearly identical film.

But as for others... when a film is meant to make you uncomfortable, and you are, has it not done its job... or at least enough of it not to deserve a beat down?

Posted by poland at 05:21 PM | Comments (56)

Defamed

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix..."

Perhaps using Ginsberg is overstating the case. But when Stu Van Airsdale heads out of his own business into yet another situation where he is truly a round peg in a square hole - Stu blogging Oscars? Stu doing Hollywood gossip? Are you f-ing kidding me?!?! - you have to realize that the hopeful lie of blogging for money is narrowing to the pinhole of reality it always was.

It's not so much of a shock. I have been seeing this ugliness coming for about 9 months... really, ever since Nick Denton was forced back to work at Gawker and soon after started interviewing any monkey who had put together a clever insult for the Defamer slot. (I love Stu's brain and I wish he were still working with MCN. I am willing to bet that we'd be paying him more than Gawker Media to do the kind of work he really should be doing instead of trying to pelt Hollywood from an ivory tower that will distinguish him from his down & dirty predecessor. But that's more water under the bridge.)

But it's hardly just Gawker. I have seen it on site after site, waiting for their payday. I have seen it as many known journalists are thrust into the cold world of joblessness, hopeful for a moment that blogging is an answer until they realize that $20,000 a year for working endlessly is no great shakes. I saw it during the Oscar season when studios were happy to pay MCN well for ad space, but showed little interest in smaller sites, even ones that were getting lots of attention from The Bagger and others. Others pretended to have paid ads when they did not. Others begged and cajoled to little success. Frankly, MCN is lucky to have the industry base we have and a flag set on the Oscar season for years now... or we too might be wondering what to do.

Stu's launch of his own niche version of MCN, more heavy on original content, was brave and passionate and smart... and too late. And by niche-ing NY, he limited his potential ad base to true indies, most of whom are struggling to survive right now. Even $500 for an ad is a lot for many of these companies and their movies.

And while I hate to bring up La Finke, please note how few site-specific ads have turned up on her page... after all those WGA writers in love... after all that publicity... after more positive mentions in mainstream media in the last six months than MCN has been afforded in over 5 years... and all she is running are the same ads from the LA Weekly. In her case, it is studios being afraid or unwilling to be associated with her ranting rage... even the 3 or 4 studios that feed her info on a daily basis.

And then we can start looking at the Traditional Media sites that muscled up for awards season and found out that not only was it hard to find a consistent audience, but that studios were not willing to pay premium prices to reach Oscar obsessives when what they were looking for was Oscar voters. How many TM sites have gone out buying bloggers only to find out that the content was better than the page views (or, in many cases, not)?

Let's keep in mind that MediaBistro.com, the big sale of last year, had established a brick-n-mortar business generating $5 million a year in revenues with the web as the doorway, but their classes as the cash machine that made a buy of 5 times yearly earnings make sense to someone. If someone was out there with $25 million for Gawker Media, they would now own Gawker Media.

It's hard out there for a pimp. My biggest concern these days is how many established writers I can hire for a price and what to do with all the content we could create. Is the cost - even the low cost - going to add value to the page... not just financial, but will people take the time in an oversaturated media culture to read smart, thoughtful writing on film? I have no interest in being in the Lindsay Lohan's tits business or claiming exclusives on every third story we bump into or making noise just to make noise.

Maybe we should take a cue from Karina Longworth, who reacted when it was suggested she could be better used by a more aggressive outlet by saying, "Not really... thanks."

I know that Stu and others have to do what they can to get where they are going. But much as I love him - and you can love someone without agreeing with all of their ideas - I am just blown away that he is now embarking on a further lowering of his standards in a job that he really isn't qualified for anyway (Stu knows about as much about pop culture as I know about being hip in Brooklyn).

I pray for the day when Stu grows into the role he was born... an arts commentator at the NY Times or Village Voice (may it live on) or Vanity Fair or Details or anywhere they want to get a movie-loving Andrew Sullivan for the future. He will surely kick me in the balls when he has a chance, if I am still offering my balls up for kicking. But that would be a pleasure, in its way. I don't mind fighting battles with angry young men (who look like mild mannered reporters). What I mind is watching so many kids prove themselves and then ending up starting out again at the Obits desk because they have to pay rent.

But so it goes...

Posted by poland at 12:45 PM | Comments (13)

Bring Your Own Friday Blog

The weekend is coming... does anyone old enough to spell care about Horton Hears A Who?

Does anyone really care about Garry Shandling's ugly divorce from T-Pel?

Wouldn't it be nice to skip to May?

Is there a reason why we have to be treated to an idiotic survey that states the obvious every single frickin' spring??? (The wider the audience interest - which things like profanity, nufdity, and the use of your brain limits - the higher the gross. F-in' DUH already!!!!)

Posted by poland at 12:22 PM | Comments (14)

March 13, 2008

Speeding Again

Warners takes the kid angle on with this effort, much more so than before... as they will have to in order to do strong numbers.
High-Def - Quicktime

Posted by poland at 06:44 PM | Comments (24)

The Real Clinton Scam (Of This Month) Emerges

As Gerry Ferraro continues to burn through her legacy, the real goal becomes apparent...

It's not the "Obama only got here because he's black" game so much as the "The Obama camp is equally responsible for going negative as we are" lie.

This is the theme that is being repeated time after time in the weeks since Ohio. And even Ferraro is now on that, as she "defends" her pro-racist/falsely-pro-feminist spin - which has surely been paid for by a Clinton promise of a position in the government for the now-irrelevant former trailblazer (who implodes this dramatically without a carrot at the end of the stick?) - is "THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN PICKED THIS UP FROM THIS TINY NEWSPAPER, ALWAYS TROLLING FOR DIRT, AND IS USING IT TO HURT US!!!"

Clinton's campaign is literally trying to drag the Obama campaign down to their level. And when Obama refused to bite on the various forms of bait, the Clinton campaign clearly decided to force the issue on the level of perception, making disharmony the daily dish in the media coverage. Fuck hope! We have hate! Everyone loves hate!

Let's get the discussion away from the unreleased tax and donors info... let's marginalize Obama in any way we can... even Eliot Spitzer is a great distraction and just more ugliness that draws attention to the idea that dirty tricks is just the way things are... grow up, Obama!!!

And I will say this... as I write this, it occurs to me how much this sounds like how Traditional Media has treated New Media over the years. Anger, Denial, Bargain, Depression, Acceptance. But unlike death, Acceptance leads to the future, for Media and for politics.

But personally, having been the subject of outright lies in Traditional Media (and for what reason? hurt feelings?) and "you don't matter" argument, and bargaining as the effort to take advantage of my work and the work of others on the web (without paying, of course... which mirrors the web media economy, but like studio film vs indie film, is just not straight play) and as I am now feeling terrible as I see the depression of many of my TM brethren (the ones who are not hateful just for the sake of it)... I have no tolerance for this shit. None. Sympathy, yes. But let's move forward... please!

P.S. Couldn't have said it much better than this...

Posted by poland at 12:38 PM | Comments (67)

BYOB Thursday - Long Week

Posted by poland at 12:28 AM | Comments (22)

March 12, 2008

The Political Crowther

The Geraldine Ferraro fiasco took on a new color for me as I listened to her continuing to refuse to apologize for her remarkable - not honest and no one dare says it - comments the other day in the - at least it wasn't a blog... but close - The Daily Breeze, a tiny local paper here, servicing primarily the white community on the wealthier west side of Los Angeles.

What stuck me was Bosley Crowther, who was so aggressive about trying to kill Bonnie & Clyde - the kind of power a NY Times critic had at the time, when it coordinated with the mindset of the studio bosses - that he destroyed his own career and legacy.

It's never just a review or just one movie you hate when things go that kind of dark. It's that moment when you get the feeling that a person in a position of authority is fighting off the future, unable to see just how destructive they are being, so myopic at the moment of attack that they can't see the misstep and cannot even think about withdrawing from the fight.

Even Ferarro's letter of resignation from the Clinton campaign was a disaster of sorts. She wrote: "Dear Hillary, I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what's at stake in this campaign. The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won't let that happen."

She's still right! And everyone else is wrong. She is the victim! Hillary is the victim!

Now, I am not a fan of calling "racist." And I have been known to be rather strident about using language straight out... like quoting someone saying "nigger" instead of hiding the truth behind the horribly PC "The N Word," which I believe gives way to much power to the word and too much cover for the people who still use such words to hurt others. (Regulars will remember discussions over the phrase "drama queen," and others.)

But Ferraro doesn't seem to understand how broad her comment really was. Saying that there is an overstated excitement amongst many voters that voting for a black man for president defines progress is to intiate a fair discussion. But then, if you were honest, you would have to say the same about Hillary Clinton being the first potential woman president (aside from Mondale getting eleted, dying, and it being GF).

The bigger problem is that she completely overlooks any positives for Obama other than race. And that is absurd on the face. And that defines racism... an irrational analysis of race and its effect.

I finally read the actual interview and the hypocrisy crested, causing me to right this entry:

Despite suffering from multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer that limits her energy, Ferraro said she is committed to keeping up an active speaking schedule and doing everything she can to help the Clinton campaign.

"I'm on Hillary's finance committee. I've done a fundraiser for her here at my firm. And I went and worked the phone banks before Super Tuesday. I have to tell you, this is a very emotional campaign for me," Ferraro said.

When the subject turned to Obama, Clinton's rival for the Democratic Party nomination, Ferraro's comments took on a decidedly bitter edge.

"I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama's campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against," she said. "For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Ferraro does not buy the notion of Obama as the great reconciler.

"I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he's going to be able to put an end to partisanship," Ferraro said, clearly annoyed. "Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship - that's the way our country is."

So... Clinton fights on in spite of the weight of sexism, but the black guy is only in the position that he has achieved because of inverted racism.

Pathetic.

And with it, a person I voted for... a person who has fought and survived and thrived against all kinds of odds... implodes and destroys her legacy and the good feelings many have for her.

Of course, many women who are violently supporting Hillary feel exactly this way. Their minority is the most affronted. And no doubt, many black Obama supporters also feel that Hillary is only where she is because she is a woman... as their minority has been the most affronted. All minorities tend to carry these chips on our shoulders at times. Surviving makes us tough and united in ways, sometimes, that are not so smart or attractive.

But we expect smarter thinking from our once and future leaders.

A damned shame.

PS: A Daily Breeze follow-up makes things even worse: "Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up," Ferraro said. "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"

Posted by poland at 04:42 PM | Comments (22)

March 11, 2008

If You Don't Think These Look Fun...

... you could just not like flash, you could hate The Wachowskis, or you could be dead.

International Trailer 1 | International Trailer 2

Posted by poland at 05:46 PM | Comments (31)

Lunch With... SXSW Thriller, Shuttle

Two of the cast members - Tony Curran & Cameron Goodman - and writer/director Edward Anderson of Shuttle sit down for a chat in anticipation of premiering at SXSW.

The interview

Posted by poland at 05:43 PM | Comments (0)

Already Less Important?

So after making little progress in the last decade of discussing it, the studios finally did what they would inevitably have to... they created a holding company to handle the purchase, distribution, and maintenance of digital projectors, agreed to fund it in a creative way and Voila!... about a third of America's screens will have digital projection before Summer '09.

The question is... does it matter anymore?

It is an absolutely significant business story. There is a lot of money to be saved by the studios via digital projection.

But will audiences care about digital projection, one way or the other?

My sense is that projection will, in most cases, be improved by this technology. It's not that great celluloid projection won't still be better... but most chains are running a lot of screens with one projectionist that is underqualified, underinterested, and overworked running projectors with too dim bulbs, imprecise sound, etc. The great LP on a great record player with great speakers may beat the quality of the electronic music file of a CD or an iPod... but most people had crappy record players and iPods kick their ass before you even get to the storage and mobility advantages.

But what do you think?

Posted by poland at 01:39 PM | Comments (10)

The Sole Survivor... Really?

How bad does a guy have to fuck up to get fired in this town?

Really.

Every once in a while, I am reminded just how ass backwards things are at so many studios, thanks to a deep disconnection from reality by corporate parents.

You know, the only reason Jeff Robinov is in his position at WB is because Lorenzo DiBonaventura made a ridiculous political miscalculation, getting himself fired in the process. L-DiB could have been fired at the time for cause - his last run of movies were hideous and expensive - but he wasn't. He was fired for acting out of turn.

Robinov oversaw arguably the worst summer ever for a studio in 2006 with Poseidon, Superman Returns, Lady In The Water, and The Ant Bully.

But he survived.

Last summer, he bombed with Lucky You, Nancy Drew, and The Invasion (all with female leads, by the way... kick a guy for being a bad exec, not a misogynist), while getting away with two middling comedies (No Reservations, License To Wed), the weakest of the Ocean's series, and - duh! - Harry Potter!

But he survived. And thrived, getting moved further up the food chain!

This year so far, Fool's Gold will do about 2/3 of what How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days did and 10,000 BC will be a money loser unless the overseas numbers are overwhelming. (Warners has cleverly gotten away from funding their movies, so how much WB loses is always up for grabs. But his bosses being clever financiers doesn't make Robinov a good studio head.)

But in his failure as a studio head, Robinov just keeps acquiring more power.

And now, it seems that New Line's weakest link, the very nice, very bright, not very good at making good or marketable movies Toby Emmerich will be left with the keys to what's left of New Line.

Are you kidding?

I can completely understand Time-Warner wanting to shrink New Line in order to eliminate duplicate efforts across their corporate holdings. The fact that no studio has been able to move stock price with internal success, failure, or cuts is another issue. But everyone is cutting back these days.

But Toby as the Boy King? Really?

I guess it's fun to pin the tail on Bob Shaye - NY-based Michael Lynne gets no media heat because the movie media doesn't really know him - but if you want to smack him down for directing The Last Mimzy, do you think you might not want to embrace the guy who wrote The Last Mimzy? (For our slow students, that would be Toby Emmerich.)

With all due respect to the executive who brought us such classics as Rendition, Martian Child, and Code Name: The Cleaner, could we simply be looking at the classic political ploy of hiring someone who is no threat to take your job?

Castle Rock has not been a good strategic relationship for WB since Alan Horn jumped from the production company to the studio (Michael Clayton being the exception to the rule this year)... and now, that's what people are saying New Line will be. God save them from the next Pluto Nash (the biggest loser ever, c/o Castle Rock) or such New Line classics as Hoot (the owl movie with the owls underground) or Runnng Scared (Horror Porn 101) or Tenacious D (big star with an unsellable project)!

If you were really serious about launching and funding a genre arm, wouldn't you go to, say... Mike DeLuca... or someone from Screen Gems... or someone from Lionsgate... or someone who had actually had significant success in genre? I mean, I am still thrilled that Toby greenlit Little Children. But really... all those people being fired and the guy most responsible for getting them fired gets to stay?

But that’s the thing… survivors survive, even when it makes no sense. So be careful what easy, grateful guy you keep by your side, Mr. R. Because when you screw up in some way other than making sucky movies, he will be there, as capable as he is now, just as happy to survive you.

Gotta love Hollywood.

(And before people ask... I have nothing against Toby.. or Robinov, for that matter. I am just pro-competence. Neither has not had a particularly good record in the job. And now, they're still failing upwards. It's that simple.)

Posted by poland at 12:36 PM | Comments (26)

BYOB Lives!

Posted by poland at 10:01 AM | Comments (15)

March 09, 2008

Sunday Estimates by Klady

Posted by poland at 10:49 AM | Comments (37)

March 08, 2008

Friday Estimates by Klady

So, in classic industry style, 10,000 BC went from being underestimated to overestimated to - shockshock - a dissapointment. This is the nature of a bunch of people obsessively pretending to know something when everyone is actually playing telephone, essentially looking at the same set of numbers interpreted through 20 different prisms and, in the end, guessing. Tracking is an inaccurate science. It has a purpose, but guessing numbers at the Friday canrnival is not one of them. Nor do Friday matinees always mean what they seem to. Etc, etc, etc,

Regardless, 10,000 BC will open to half what 300 did last year, as ia lmost always the case when a studio chases a phenom. I have no followed the campaign terribly closely, particularly because I was away for a key week of it, but I have noticed that the use of images got hotter and more compelling late in the game. Since that is all you have to sell, really, it seems to me that if they didn't have the images to sell early on, they should have pushed the movie back a bit. Sadly put, the CG animals look like something we all saw when they were selling Alexander. If that's all there was, Jeff Robinov screwed up by spending all that money and effort on it.

But the truth is, we all know that Jeff Robinov has been a mediocre top movie exec for years now, living off of franchises that are hard to ruin while making some of the most expensive misses in movie history. Maybe marketing - still without a chief - could have done better. But you have to have the images to sell. And any exec spending more than 100 million making and selling any one movie better be thinking clearly about how they are going to sell it going into the process. Last year's phenom + Mr Day After Tomorrow, which opened in spite of critics, who were mostly kept out, does not neccessarily + anything but mush.

Ironically, what Robinov has been best about, is making some of the smaller movies, like Michael Clayton, that don't need to be huge earners. WB has always been defined by the big movies, however... and the studio has become a bit inept in that area, saved only by the ability to lay off costs on sucker hedge funds.

Disney tried to market to the black family audience. Disney missed... though expect that $3.5m Friday to look closer to 14 than 9 when the weekend is over.

The Italian Job minus Wahlberg and Theron equals Why Jason Statham is still stuck doing action movies like The Bank Job.

And unless international is huge, Jumper at under $80 million domestic, is easily the biggest flop of the new year. It wasn't cheap. And it wasn't good. Doug Liman is a mad genius... but the demand that he include big names in future projects will be an absolute must for him to get any serious money from a studio anytime soon.

Posted by poland at 09:32 AM | Comments (18)

More Politics... Avert Your Eyes If You Must

The Canadian Broadcasting Co on the malicious spin of the dubious NAFTA story, which the Clinton campaign tonight once again claimed on CNN was "now confirmed."

Larry David, ranting harshly about Hillary answering that phone at 3am.

A look at the silliest mythology the Clinton Campaign is selling... that bigger states matter more.

And Gary Hart on Clinton "breaking the final rule," specifically, suggesting that her primary opponent is less qualified to be President than the man fronting the opposing party.

And a couple of things I have noted in research.

The only state in which Obama has had less than 30% of the vote... Arkansas.

The last time Obama had a state with under 40% of the vote was Super Tuesday, Feb 5. There are three contested states where he was under 40%, plus the fourth under 30%.

Clinton has been under 40% in 21 of the contests to date, including 7 under 30%.

There are 11 "big" states that have more than 70 delegates to offer so far. Clinton has won 6 on delegate count, Obama 4, and one tied (Obama won MIssouri by 1%, but tied in delgates). But if you add the delegates from those 11 states only, Obama still leads the count by 776 to 760.

Here are those 11 states, the percentage differential, and the winner, in order of the size of the voting disparity.

Georgia - 35 points, Obama
Minnesota - 34 points, Obama
Illinois - 32 points, Obama
Virginia - 29 points, Obama
New York - 17 points, Clinton
Massachusetts - 15 points, Clinton
New Jersey - 10 points, Clinton
Ohio - 10 points, Clinton
California - 9 points, Clinton
Texas - 4 points, Clinton (Obama won the caususes 56 - 44)
Missouri - 1 points, Obama

The only two states where Clinton beat Obama that had also voted for Bush in 2004 were Ohio and Texas, where Clinton won by two of her three narrowest margins... 10 and 4 points. Obama beat Clinton in three 2004 Republican-winning states: Virginia, Georgia, amd Missouri... by 35, 29, and 1 point(s).

Facts, not speeches.

Posted by poland at 01:08 AM | Comments (16)

March 07, 2008

IFC Takes The Stairs

The Reeler luvs steaming up his glasses with rage... and he often picks odd targets.

IFC announced a deal with Blockbuster this week for a 6 month overall exclusive and a 3 year rental exclusive on its titles. And Stu had an aneurysm.

He brings the wrath, at first, over the damage the deal might do to mom & pop video stores. He compares the deal to The Weinsteins' deal with Blockbuster. And finally, he hits on the real lead of this story. But first, let me speak to the other two issues.

1. Mom & Pop are already dead. This won't help, but the high quality specialized stores are not going out of business based on IFC's 30 DVD titles each year. Non-issue.

In addition, with all the services Blockbuster is trying to offer, no one needs to be shut out of access to these titles because of this relationship. It's not as though rentals were so much more expensive at Blockbuster or they didn't have a rent-by-the-pound window like NetFlix. I can't be upset with Blockbuster for trying to cultivate the higher-level movie fan. And if they would spend the money to help Criterion go hi-def, I'd be thrilled to see a deal made there! The idea that we should be snobs about where we get our art films is kinda obnoxious to me. Blockbuster is just another window.

2. The Weinsteins have always played the DVD/Video game... and were even sued by Blockbuster years ago for abusing the automatic deal that Blockbuster had with Disney, buying titles for nothing and force feeding them to Blockbuster for big profits. It's a silly argument.

MGM has been in business these last two years based almost exclusively on their Showtime Pay-TV window paying more than any indie could get. Maximizing the revenue for each window is the only way for indies to stay alive.

The basic thing is, IFC Films has been in financial ugliness for years and it wasn't long ago that they were all but escorted out of the theatrical distribution business altogether. There is a reason why Sony Classics is the only major-affiliated Dependent still buying the smaller titles at festivals. The margins are too tight for the Searchlights and Miramaxes and Vantages of the world. We just saw a couple of days ago that the production and marketing costs of the average film from a Dependent is now OVER $70 million dollars... and that is without counting the money coming in from outside financers.

I can't rage at IFC for staying in business. It is a lot easier for me to get angry at Mark Cuban for playing hide-the-salami with his franchises and, indeed, kicking IFC in the balls when he can for reasons no more worthwhile than avarice. Cuban has the theaters, the distribution arm, and the money to be The Man Who Guided Indie To A Real Future... but instead, has chosen to play the role of shopkeeper. But IFC, while corprately parented, is fighting to keep a niche alive, aside from rentals on NetFlix and life in 100 truly great M&P video stores across the country.

But there is this...

If IFC is giving exclusives to their films to Blockbuster and Blockbuster is editing them to fit the "no NC-17" rule while making the real versions of these films unavaulable to the public, THEN we have reason to be really, really angry. And frankly, that might be the end of IFC, not the salvation. Because no matter how desperate the situation, can anyone imagine Gus Van Sant allowing a film like Paranoid Park not only to be edited at all for censors, but seeing his vision of the film effectively censored completely in the US for 6 months to 3 years? Who will sell IFC movies?

But I don't know this to be the case. And neither does Stu.

And if they put one finger on 4 Months, 3 Weeks, And 2 Days or Paranoid Park, I'll be right there on line with Stu with the pitchforks and torches.

Posted by poland at 02:06 PM | Comments (8)

March 06, 2008

Lunch With... Stephen Chow

The discussion... with the translator workin' overtime...

Posted by poland at 11:53 PM | Comments (6)

BYOB - 3/6/8

I am still getting used to being back in Los Angeles... amuse yourselves if you must....

Posted by poland at 02:22 PM | Comments (25)

Really Worth Your Time

Mark Harris' new book, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, is one of the movie books everyone interested in the industry and how it works needs to have on their bookshelf.

I have been sitting on my thoughts about