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November 30, 2008

Gurus o Gold - Darkhorses

The full charts...

Posted by dpoland at 07:58 PM | Comments (18)

BYOBox Office

Not at the real computer, so you will have to get numbers on front page, but here is some space to discuss...

Posted by dpoland at 10:18 AM | Comments (34)

November 29, 2008

Bagger Goes (A Little) Native

My favorite person to read during Oscar season is David Carr. Too tired of it all to press his nose up against the glass, he sees the dirt in the corner of the panes and keeps it all in perspective.

And then, his first two Hollywood missives of the season… well, he seems in real danger of getting NYTimes-itis. What’s that? It’s when New York Times reporters start to think that they are experiencing is the reality and not, primarily, a function of the obsession of execs and publicists to get ink in “The Paper of Record” and the willing-to-take-the-sarcasm-to-get-the-column-inches seduction that makes getting worked feel like your getting some good juice.

David Carr is, as far as I can tell, still David Carr… a talent unique enough for The Paper to not quite know how to get the most out of. (The idea of others pushing stories in The Bagger space utterly misses the point. No one goes there for comprehensive coverage… they go because they love The ‘Bagger.)

But the publicists? They have figured him out a lot better than they did when he landed on the scene a few years ago. Gossip schmucks like Roger “The Weinstein Controlled” Friedman are at home on whatever couch and buffet Peggy Siegel lays out for him. But a guy like Carr shouldn’t be within a sirloin’s throw from Ms. Siegel more than 2 or 3 times a year if he wants to keep his magical perspective.

When Carr writes, “profligacy remains the default setting for the silly season,” it is a function of what rooms he is being put into, not of the reality of what guys like Peter Bart, and yes, myself, are experiencing. Congratulations to the NYT breaking new ground by selling a massive 800x350 ad to Focus which rolls out to an 850xhalf-a-page. It is very possible that NYT is one of the few ad selling orgs that is up in revenue, in no small part because they are willing to run page eaters like that. But Variety lives and dies on Oscar ads and the buys are down, without question. A great big part of that is not only studios narrowing their buying range and budgets, but there being a whole lot fewer players in the game than in years past.

Gone are WIP, New Line, and Picturehouse. DreamWorks is no longer forcing Paramount to buy extra ads just for their pictures, as they have in past years, so Rev Road buys are part of the regular Paramount/Par Vantage push. Not buying in a hurry are Fox (Australia only… happy to let Searchlight run with Slumdog), Sony (Seven Pounds will or will not emerge on its own), and Disney (even with their publicity-heavy Wall-E push). Universal, in a move that does not effect Variety, has decreed that it would not make internet buys that were not connected to Traditional Media this season. Sony Classics is not spending like they did in the year of Capote, with little shot at a BP nod and lots of shots at acting nods, with or without big ad buys. The Weinstein Company keeps rolling the start date on potential ad buys back further into December, no likely to start spending unless The Reader gets critics awards traction (and I don’t mean NBR). MGM/UA is not buying for Valkyrie. IFC is not spending much on Che’ by Oscar season standards.

That is a significant drop in players who are playing from last years and years past. The core buyers are still buying. But when studios cut budgets by 10% and 20% on their awards budgets… well, a 20% drop in ad sales at Variety can mean layoffs and lots of them. And at The Hollywood Reporter, which has been aggressively targeted for destruction by Variety, a 30% drop could mean the end of the paper as we know it.

Yes, Paramount/Par Vantage will roll it out bigtime… but even they are cutting back some. And what The Bagger seems to miss is that these “private parties” are the most cost effective expenditures of the season. Cheap compared to say, the cover of Variety. Putting talent, who they have for a limited time, in front of as many voters and journalists as possible is the goal. Keep in mind the Oscar on Rachel Weisz’s mantle, which she won exclusively by being in person for a month in Los Angeles and charming the hell out of everyone she met. (She actually is that delightful… but that’s another entry.) Kate Winslet, who gave David the worst quotes I have ever heard from her – she works hard, but she does get tired – is another fantastic person in the room, when she really likes the movie.

Oscar season, even when spending actually was more profligate, is a lot about who those resources are used. Talent availability tends to be the most limited asset. In Peggy Siegel Land, talent flows like water from an open hydrant on a hot summer day. David is watching the kids, happily dancing around in the spray, cool and giddy, while he is missing the drop in water pressure in the fourth floor of the apartment building where the 90 year old is trying to get enough hot water for her bath. (The prior similar story was when Paramount execs, who are as likely as not to be chopped up, reconfigured or sold in the next 2 years, and others doing the cash flow bravado dance, were lying through their teeth.)

It’s a sophomore thing, even in his fifth year of covering this insanity. The Carpetbagger column is no longer a lark, but rather one of the prime places – perhaps the most prime slot - that publicists in this game target. Of course, Carr knows when someone is trying to reach around to milk him. He’s no innocent. But having been around this particular hoedown for a while, I am intensely aware of that moment when publicists figure out what they think your vulnerabilities are. Much of the pushback I get, especially from colleagues, is in response to my publicly expressed anger that comes from when I feel like we in the media are being played or “managed.” Most of the people in this game are happy to be in the room, managed or not. Such is my professional arrogance… I’m not having any of that… even when the “managers” are people I genuinely like.

Of course, the tricky part is that there is a large group of publicists who don’t want anything to do with people they cannot “manage.” And I’m not talking about people who are lunatics that are untrustworthy under any and all circumstances. And I‘m not saying that everyone other than myself is a puppet. All I’m saying is that there are not a lot of people with the ego strength of a Paul Haggis or an Ed Zwick or an Anthony Minghella who want to sit down and talk in depth even after you have told them that you are not a big fan of their most recent work. I walk that line very publicly and very explicitly. But all journalists in this realm of access chasing have to deal with the issues in this regard.

But I digress…

Money will be spent. Clothes will be leant. Celebrities will fly in private jets. Ads will be sold. But the illusion that the Oscar season is not currently under the same cloud that, say, sub-prime loans were a few years ago, is just that… an illusion. Studios are cutting back. ABC is trying to cut back. The Academy is quaking in its economic boots. Variety cut back on awards season staffing at the same time they tried to raise their prices significantly. LA Times also cut back, even without being able to raise prices. Other media that has spent heavily on the season is cutting back on travel, etc.

The Bagger is the most fun because he has been looking behind the curtain over these years without much at stake. And that changes a little each year. All I am saying is, make sure that when you pull back that curtain what you see is not yourself… because that is a scary moment indeed. And not nearly as much fun.

Posted by dpoland at 01:38 PM | Comments (32)

You Have A $150 Million Movie... Now What?

Only eight movies before Twilight have cracked $100 million domestic from distributors that were not studio-affiliated. And the only company in that group that are still seriously in the distribution business is Lionsgate. And they got their one movie in 9-figures from Miramax, a Disney division. Avco, Newmarket, Orion, USA… all gone. IFC does occasional theatrical releases now, but is primarily working the new media angle.

So, congrats on Twilight, Summit… and watch your ass.

I don’t know how Avco went down. Newmarket couldn’t collect on some percentage of the massive gross for The Passion and Mel got the lion’s share anyway… sending Bob Berney out and into Picturehouse and Newmarket back into DVD. Orion got big and then crashed in a mighty blaze as the economy and some expensive titles went bad. And USA was a Barry Diller pie-of-the-puzzle that ended up being mushed into what became Focus Features. IFC just couldn’t deal with the massive costs of marketing primarily for theatrical with arthouse product.

So what of Summit, whose #2 all-time grosser (of just 6 releases) is the $25 million domestic for the Sean Faris classic, Never Back Down? (#3 is the $12.4 million for the 3D bug comedy Fly Me To The Moon.) Is Twilight going to be their Passion of the Christ or March of the Penquins or My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Or, as Chicago would sing, is this only the beginning?

I hate to kick a company when it’s up, but I don’t see the next Twilight (well, literally I do) or even their Good Night, And Good Luck in the hopper.

I don’t know how much trouble they will have getting 100% of their rentals on Twilight with only The Brothers Bloom as motivation for good behavior on the part of exhibitors. On the other hand, they are already a more stable operation than Newmarket was. And the number on Twilight will not be as overwhelming/tempting to exhibitors willing to make mischief. (On the other hand, cash flow is an issue everywhere right now… even for guys like Phil Anchutz.)

I do wish Rob Friedman and everyone at Summit the very best. They have done a great job on Twilight… which will be the third or fourth biggest film of the season and still get a lot more attention for that success than any of the films that do better. But the feast/famine thing is very, very dangerous. Tread lightly, even in the light of this great success… that’s all I’m sayin’.

And on the flip side, there is a reason why studio machines roll on. Warner Bros. has dumped two of the most successful films of this season, Twilight and Slumdog Millionaire. And no one is getting them out of the business. No one is getting fired for incompetance. After all, they have The Dark Knight, a film coming directly out of time-Warner's ownership of DC Comics, the kind of relationship which independant companies cannot afford. Instead, the indies wait around hoping to get Marvel dregs. And Harry Potter & Batman team up to erase all mistakes, no matter how massive. Taa-dah!!!

Posted by dpoland at 12:47 PM | Comments (37)

Friday Estimates by Klady

Tracking aside, why would anyone be surprised by the opening of Four Christmases? Last year, Fred Claus got the worst possible reviews on the planet and with Vince Vaughn and the brilliant but not-box-office Paul Giamatti, and opened to $18 million. But even more interesting, This Christmas opened to a $26 million 5-day over Thanksgiving last year. The year before, Deck The Halls (does anyone even remember that film existed?) opened to $12 million. In '04, the widely slammed Christmas with The Kranks opened to $22 million.

And look at the marketplace. If you want to go to a light comedy that is not for children, what are your options? This is the only movie out there. And then, add on the interest in Christmas movies. And then add Reese Witherspoon to Vince Vaughn. (I would say that WB learned the lesson last year that keeping Rachel Weisz out of Fred ads was a mistake... but 1) they didn't make this film, and 2) there was no way that Reese Witherspoon, clearly a bigger rom-com draw than Vaughn, wasn't going to be front & center here.)

Similarly, on the down side, who is so very shocked about Australia?

I mean, you know that the studio is not thrilled. If the film opened two weeks ago, as originally scheduled, this is the kind of weekend they would be expecting a Weekend Three for this film, not opening. But that said… Nicole Kidman hasn’t delivered a $20 million opening with her own box office muscle in four years, since The Stepford Wives. (And that was, unfairly, seen as a flop opening back then,) Hugh Jackman has NEVER opened anything to over $10 million where he was the main money man. And he, too, had a good opening for a Bale/Jackman movie, The Prestige, which was considered disappointing at $14 million two years ago. Since then, it’s been The Fountain and Deception, both opening under $4 million.

Australia is, really, a Baz Luhrmann play at the box office and neither star here is box office heavy enough to take it further than Luhrmann. Moulin Rouge!’s wide expansion (four weeks in) did $13.7 million and the movie never had another weekend over $8 million, even with an Oscar nomination. Fox’s hope, as it was for Moulin Rouge! ($57m domestic total), is overseas, where MR! did $120 million. The problem this time is that even with $150 million worldwide – and Australia: The Country could kick $10 million or more into the total for this one than it did for MR! – the movie is still in rough shape vs. a significantly bigger budget. So if Peter Bart wants to know where the ad dollars for the Oscar push are – and he does… he DOES! – they are on Tom Rothman’s calculator, on which he doesn’t spend $20 million or more, digging a deeper hole than the one the movie is already in.

Whatever some think of Rothman, he is not one to chase awards for big dollars. Do you now how much MR! made at the box office after it got nominated? $250,000. Master & Commander did better, $8.6 million, but it was still less than a 10% bump in the domestic gross. Rothman most likely missed a Best Picture Oscar nod for Walk The Line by not pushing a bit harder with more cash… but still did $13 million more with the movie after the two leads got their noms without spending the extra cash. So… what would you do? (You don’t get to answer, Pete.)

Speaking of fiscal caution, Lionsgate did a great job grabbing Transporter 3 from Fox after Fox established the franchise… and basically ran the same campaign that Fox ran twice… and looks like it will land somewhere between the first two films in terms of three day for what is surely a smaller investment. Brilliant. I don’t know why Screen Gems didn’t do it. After all, if sloppy seconds on Bond are good enough…

Fox Searchlight: The Rice/Gilula Years doesn't have a very good record of November launches. In the last five years, only Kinsey cracked $10 million domestic… and just barely. ($15.6m domestic for In America is their best November-launched gross since Waking Ned Devine in 1998… under other management.) but with Slumdog Millionaire, they seem to have a winner to break that streak. The release is not unlike Devine, though a bit faster paced… and about 40% higher grossing already. Devine was an Oscar-push film, hoping to follow in the footsteps of The Full Monty. It did not. But Slumdog is looking at lot like Monty, screenwriter, accents, and all. And Monty got the same four nods - Picture, Director, Screenplay, Score – that a lot of people think Slumdog is heading for… no actor noms, even though that group of actors have been American movie and television staples ever since.

And finally, today Twilight should become the 410th $100 million domestic grosser of all time. I hadn't realized how long that list had gotten.

Posted by dpoland at 11:15 AM | Comments (13)

November 28, 2008

DP/30 - Kristin Scott Thomas

The star of I've Loved You So Long

Posted by dpoland at 12:47 PM | Comments (4)

DP/30 - Michelle Williams

The star of Wendy & Lucy

Posted by dpoland at 10:44 AM | Comments (5)

November 27, 2008

A Ben Button Quickie

I want to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button again before really digging into it. (Idiots who think that "yay" or "nay" is the same as a review deserve the shallow level of thought they embody.)

That said, what is intensely striking about the film, for me, besides the beautiful imagery and fine performances is that there is virtually no conflict in the entire film.

And I think that is what Fincher is chasing these days, artistically. Zodiac, which had more conflict, was certainly trying for a similarly minimalist aesthetic.

It is not an easy task... to make an epic drama with no central or even much secondary conflict. And I am not really sure whether he made it or not.

What I do know is that Slumdog Millionaire - still anticipating Gran Torino and Seven Pounds - is clearly the frontrunner in the Oscar race right now. In this season of mixed feelings, Ben Button is most likely good enough/big enough to be nominated... but is unlikely to win anything in the top categories.

If there is an Ambiguity Bowl, there will be a fight between Button and Rev Road for a Best Picture nomination, while clearer players like Slumdog, Milk, and Frost/Nixon seem much easier to build constituencies for.

And by the way... this film is NOT Forrest Gump in any real way. Everything that made Gump what it was, whether critics or memory likes it or not, is not in evidence here. And that is schmaltz and a character in the lead who while passive is actually an unstoppable forward moving object who pushes through a lot of real obstacles, which Ben Button never has to do in this film.

More next week, after another look…

Posted by dpoland at 03:40 PM | Comments (29)

Review - The Trouble With AUSTRALIA

I love Luhrmann.

I do. I think he is one of those directors who has incredibly good taste, loves to walk on the tightrope without a net (his logo at the top of Australia includes the line – paraphrased – “A Life Live Without Risk Is A Life Only Half Lived”), delivers images and conceits that no one else can manage to imitate effectively, and entertains the crap out of me pretty much every time out.

But Australia, sad to say, is a major malfunction.

I see two major problems with the film. Time, as in “he didn’t really have enough time to figure out what this thing really was” and Hubris, as in “I can’t believe he didn’t realize that he couldn’t deliver on every idea he wanted incorporated in this film without it being 3.5 hours and being much better designed around its tonal shifts.”

The Australia you are seeing in television commercials and the trailer… it’s in there… but that is not the movie, for the most part. It is the third act of the film, essentially. Just yesterday, I was writing about how wild first acts often make third act recoveries indefensible in film critics’ minds. In this case, unlike something like Fight Club, the third act isn’t just a logical extension of the first act or the second act. It is, to some extent, a different film.

Of course, the first act may or may not turn off critics and/or audiences. We’ll see. In the nation of Australia, I suspect that audiences will love it. Why? As it turned out, seeing the great Toronto documentary, Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (which pretty much ends with the Max Max series and doesn’t get to Priscilla: Queen of the Desert or Simply Ballroom), was a good prep for the first act of Australia… because classic Aussie comedic exploitation writ HUGE is mostly what the third act is. And in that context, it makes a beautiful stench.

The “creamy” half-aboriginal/half-white child who is the center of the movie – let’s see him in some ads! – starts to tell us the story of himself, the Lady from EngLAND (Ms. Kidman) and The Drover (Mr. Jackman, as a cattle driver, called by the Aussie colloquialism). And every beat is caricature. Kidman is comedically uptight. Jackman is impossibly rugged and beautiful. The heroic Aboriginal Grandpa is right our of Weir, but lit light a Chanel spokestribesman. And the beautiful little kid is spunky and insightful and ready to live his story.

We see Kidman walk into her outback house, surrounded by dirt, with a tense walk that seems out of the silents. You’re just waiting for the muted “wah wahs” on the trumpet. Jackman enters in the full Eastwood, taking on (and besting, as you know it must be) an entire bar of rude rowdies. The villain is without mustache… but twirling goes on anyway. It’s all played at outback farce speed. The great Jack Thompson plays one of his classic drunks… but he is so rheumy that even his rummy feels way over the top and lacking intimacy until his next –to-last scene. The only thing missing is Bruce Spence (who shows up later), Barry Crocker (who isn’t on the imdb cast list, but could well have turned up in some scene as an aging snoot), and Barry Humphries, in drag or out.

And right then, within 20 minutes, I knew that this film was 90% unlikely to be an Oscar nominee. No, that is not all that counts. But this expensive movie could use the support of a nomination, at least for the U.S. Box office in Australia should be more forgiving, I expect. But the biggest problem in this regard is misleading expectations. I knew, right then, that if the film didn’t snap out of it in a huge way, many audiences – especially the Academy audience, seeing the film in a stampede of other hopefuls - would reject it right then. “We were sold a period drama and we got a wacky Capra-on-acid thing with a kid we didn’t even know was in the movie at the center of it all.”

The tone shifts significantly at about the 80 minutes mark. But for me, while it was not too late for redemption – regardless of many wonderful and wondrous images and ideas up until then – there was a big problem at the heart of this thing. As I write, the child, Brandon Walters, a small 10 when the film was made, is really the center of the film. And more significantly, the issue of half-breed children and The Lost Generation really is the heart of the film. But it’s a romance. But it’s a cattle drive action film. But it’s really a political film about racial tolerance.

Luhrmann might have been able to pull this off with another six months before release. It is a brutal task. Very few directors have the talent to keep all of those diverse balls in the air. It takes a gift for shortcuts and distractions, which Luhrmann has. But it just doesn’t come together here. But unlike any of his other films, you can sense ideas jumping in and out without much support. Hell, in the third act, a MAJOR transition involving the villain of the film is done is a montage. Huh?

Is it a movie about this great romance of discovery… the classic Out of Africa deal with more comedy? Or is it this Weir/Noyce thing about enlightenment? I would say it feels like “too much vermouth” or “not enough vermouth,” but what it really feels like is “why are 20 maraschino cherries in my martini” or “Mommy, my Shirley Temple tastes like he put gasoline in it!” And that, I am afraid, is the kind of thing that a great filmmaker can work out in post. But Baz did not. Not this time.

The film was cut by Dody Dorn and Michael McClusker, both Fox veterans, both Oscar guys, both know their way in and out of fixes. (Dorn, I believe, cut both versions of Kingdom of Heaven for Fox… the much superior original version released on DVD.) But they didn’t have the time this time.

There are many delights to be found amidst the wreckage. Luhrmann is a master of the visual and there are magical images, even when they seem to make little sense in the film. There is a scene, for instance, where a contraption becomes very, very dangerous. But the audience has no way of knowing this… unless they know how the contraption works in real life. Now, the threat to life is beautiful in its way. But as storytelling, it fails to let the audience in on the danger and doesn’t get the benefit of surprising us when it takes the step. While you are gazing at some great visual work (shot by Mandy Walker, working a feature with Luhrmann for the first time), you’re also scratching your head about how and why it is happening the way it is.

If you have any attraction to either Ms Kidman or Mr Jackman, Catherine Martin dressed them to within an air bubble of their skins. You will never see Ms. Kidman look more like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, in spite of a wardrobe that doesn’t uncover much. It is like Ms Martin took body casts of the two, took the fashions of the time, and made sure that the audience was, either consciously or unconsciously, aware of the exact shape of the butts, the chests, and the lines in between in a way that was as close to naked as clothes can be (sans naughty bits).

Ms. Martin’s production design is also first rate, with an intriguing blend of reality and hyper-reality in the bigger picture period sections.

The ending, much rumored about, is a non-issue. It works fine. It could have been something else and worked fine. But by the time you get there, the emotional swivel headedness of the film will have worn out most people. Every time it states its intentions and delivers upon them, it hits it out of the park. But it just doesn’t happen often enough. And when it does, far too often, it feels like a karaoke of great films that did these scenes better, whether the work of John Ford, Lawrence Kasden or Jim Cameron, amongst many. Pastiche is a key element in Luhrmann’s toolbox, so normally, I would overlook this as an issue. But I couldn’t overlook it… I wasn’t getting nourishment enough from what I was being fed to be in the reverie that great work – especially Luhrmann’s – creates.

I would LOVE to see what Luhrmann could come up with given another six months in the cutting room. I think it might be the odd, but truly powerful film he had in his head after that work. This is not a matter of slicing up something that already works to make it work less well in the name of running time, as was Kingdom of Heaven or the edit of Almost Famous. This is a movie that is not yet well defined, however accomplished. And man, that is frustrating… like Godfather 3 frustrating.

Posted by dpoland at 01:45 AM | Comments (36)

November 26, 2008

Documentary Short List

I was away when the list of 15 was released by The Academy…

“At the Death House Door”
“The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)”
“Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh”
“Encounters at the End of the World”
“Fuel”
“The Garden”
“Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts”
“I.O.U.S.A.”
“In a Dream”
“Made in America”
“Man on Wire”
“Pray the Devil Back to Hell”
“Standard Operating Procedure”
“They Killed Sister Dorothy”
“Trouble the Water”

And what I have since heard is some whining about neither Religulous or Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired being included.

There are plenty of things wrong with the doc system at The Academy. More significant – and equally borderline – than those two is Waltz With Bashir, which was disqualified, essentially, for choosing to go to the NY Film Festival in October. This precluded a run in NY, which is demanded under the current rules, to qualify before September 1.

But about those other two… Religulous isn’t really a documentary to my eye. I guess this opens the discussion of whether the Michael Moore films are really docs or whether they skip into the genre of first-person narrative.

As for Polanski, it’s really simple. To quote a press e-mail from ThinkFilm: “ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED aired on HBO on Monday, June 9th. THINKFilm’s theatrical release will begin in New York on July 11th at the Angelika, and in Los Angeles on July 18th at the Sunset 5. It will expand nationally throughout the summer.”

That’s just not what The Academy sees as a theatrical doc. TV first doesn’t work. I do think they should rethink television releases in Europe that make their way to U.S. theatrical. And I do think they should rethink what is allowed about when you can go to television after a theatrical here in the U.S. and still qualifying.

But if you don’t see Religulous as a doc (any more than Borat), the #1 grossing doc of 2008 IS on the short list – Man on Wire – and it will probably win the Oscar, as has been the tradition. The only other $1 million-plus doc – Gonzo, from last year’s doc winner, Alex Gibney – didn’t get on the list. #3, I.O.U.S.A. is there, as is #4, Trouble The Water. Of course, by the time you get to #4, you’re talking about a $466,000 domestic gross.

There is plenty of glitter on the shortlist as well. Werner Herzog, Scott Hicks, Steve James, Errol Morris, and Stacy Peralta are all there.

So… lots of opinions about what other films belonged on this list and why things were left off, but this notion of the incestuous doc committee being flawed in ways it used to be flowed don’t really hold up to scrutiny.

And here is a Driving With David interview from Peralta’s film, Made In America…

Posted by dpoland at 11:13 AM | Comments (19)

Thankful '08

It has been a year of much turmoil in this country and in both industries of filmed entertainment and journalism. So much so that a list of my film pleasure thanks seems insanely indulgent. And unfortunately, in this year, far too limited. But it has been a tradition for a long time and one that gives me some perspective and no small amount of pleasure. And so…

Things I Am Thankful For – Episode 11: 2008

I Am Thankful For the regular reminders that this industry is not just business or just show, but a place for artists to aspire to greatness… or at least, to the search. More and more I find that those of us covering the industry have become the cynical, art-hating group and that the artists (Bob Koehler would hate that I use that term, but I believe that artistry is in the effort of expression not the judgment of the result), often overpampered indeed, have become the ones trapped by “our” expectations and not the boundaries of their own skills and efforts.

The rest...

Posted by dpoland at 09:48 AM | Comments (7)

November 25, 2008

BYOB - Return to L.A. (again)

I'll be out of circulation for the next 20 hours or so... everyone play nice... have some conversations that are smarter than The Hot Blog deserves!

Posted by poland at 12:44 AM | Comments (55)

Raddon Resigns

I don't have the time to get into this in any detail, as I am about to catch a plane. And to quickly throw something up would be unfair. But I wanted to leave a space where people can discuss it if they like. And here it is...

Posted by poland at 12:42 AM | Comments (22)

The Two Big Take Homes Of IDFA

The films here in Amsterdam have been quite good. I am sad to be headed home before seeing more of them… many, many intriguing titles will turn up in the second half.

But the two clear home runs for me were nearly back to back. Both were, not shockingly, by veterans.

First, Vikram Jayanti has a new-ish film (international premiere) called The Agony & Ecstasy of Phil Spector. The reason it’s just new-ish is that it premiered on BBC2 in the UK on October 25. (The digital view, which was available for a week after the showing, is now unavailable.)

The film reflects the genius of Vikram in a couple of ways. First, he got the interview. This is an elaborate, insightful, challenging interview with Spector in the midst of his first trial in Los Angeles. Amazing. I have no idea whether there was an agreement that this would not be seen until after the trial, either way. And I don’t know if or when we will see this film in the United States, especially with Spector back on trial. But he got a virtually impossible interview from a guy while the guy is in the middle of a fight for his life.

Second, there is the style that has made most of Vikram’s work so special. He is not – with the exception of the HFPA doc – invasive. He let’s the talking heads talk, but his sense of how to handle supporting images and sound is very special. Here, he gets – inevitably from Spector himself, who controls all of his materials guardedly – all kinds of footage and music that he lets play almost completely in every case. There is an instruction as to the purpose, but I would second guess that Spector made the call. Still, Vikram makes it into a reverie. There is something so compelling about the magic of that music and decades old images combined the sordid, sad tale of a genius who is somehow hanging onto his legacy by a fingernail.

Whatever your take on Spector going in, this doc makes him seem both crazier and saner than you will expect. And while Vikram offers the structure of the trial – leaning more towards Spector’s “innocence,” I would say – this is not a movie about the trial. It is, not unlike The Kid Stays In The Picture, about the man and his perception of himself and his work.

The film is most felt like was Jayanti’s Julian Schnabel Looks At Hell, which was never shown in the U.S. and may or may not have been shown on the BBC, which paid for the production. Schnabel withheld his signature from a release at the last minute, even after – not unlike Spector – making his archives and a lot of very personal stuff available to the documentarian. I have no way of knowing what really went on between the two men, but the result was the loss of a very trippy, arty, masterful doc by Jayanti.

The Spector doc is revelatory in many ways. The man, if he says so himself, is a genius and an icon. He is also a classic whack job. But there is also sanity in the insanity. There is also crystal clarity in ways that can be shocking, but compelling. And the use of the music and images from the past… again… it virtually opens the heart so that the audience cannot simply linger in the heady wackiness of what the man is saying. We also feel him, whether we really want to or not. And that is a great accomplishment indeed.

AND

The other film is, if they jump through the right hoops and don’t get caught airing on television too early, a surefire Oscar nominee for Doc next year. Kim Longinotto’s Rough Aunties, an IDFA World Premiere, is an emotionally overpowering look at a group of women in South Africa that serve as a support system for abused and molested children called Bobbi Bear. These are not just chattering class aspirants to do-gooding. These are serious, grown-up women who see the world well beyond their yards and are unafraid of getting their hands dirty in order to help others.

There is also one male in the gang… a policeman assigned to the group, it seems, who goes out on calls with them and processes their claims against the abusers. He is a classic big, chunky, white cop guy. And you can see all the pain in his eyes that the women feel. He is a generosity in the film by Longinotto… one of many. She is not trying to sell a narrow point here… she is telling the whole story… and the whole story is like spilled liquid, everything seeping into everything else unavoidably.

One of the most unusual, but fascinating, things in the film are two instances of major stories in the history of the group that are directly connected to two of the “aunties.” And the same passions and caring comes forth in support of the extended family as it does for absolute strangers.

The group is led by a white woman, of some means, but not great wealth. She started the organization on a thin shoestring. Her right arm is another white woman, who serves as the manager of the operation. There are many people working/volunteering for the group, but three women, all black, are the next tier of leadership in the group. Each has their own issues and history. Each exposes the strong, bloody, beating hearts that they bring to the organization.

Longinotto is of the Masyles camp of “as it happens” documentary. There is no clear story structure or time frame for the film. There are no gimmicks… no voice over… no talking heads. But amazingly, it feels like you have experienced, by the film’s end, a pretty complete range of the effort. There are shootings, beatings, rapes, and most importantly, kindnesses.

The movie is also a sure-fire remake as a feature film, guaranteeing at least one Oscar nomination for the white female leads, and as likely, for the supporting actresses. Judi Dench constantly came to mind when looking as the head of Bobbi Bear, Jackie Branfield, though Ms. Dench is probably too old for the role now. Maybe Helen Mirren and Julie Walters can team up again. And the fact that these white women are truly color blind in South Africa… this is a key to this doc and any remake. It can’t ever be maudlin or self-satisfied. These women are rough aunties indeed. The honest, not “dramatic” portrayal of the black women who are hands-on co-leaders of this group… it’s everything. It is their world that these white women have walked into with some great intentions. It’s a really tough line to walk – and every sentence in this graph that delineates races makes me a little itchy – but as I see in so many films that have a heavy element of race in them, good intensions can become too much drama and not enough real. This doc is magic because you know what is in the hearts of these people.

After the screening, the “rough aunties” were there for a Q&A. We were in the second row, just feet away. And they were so happy and proud to be there. But when Jackie made eye contact with me, as I was smiling, I was so uncomfortable, because the only real thing I could do would be to walk up to her and hug her and cry and thank her for doing what so many other people just talk about. And this is true for all of these women.

One thing I can do – and you can too – is to make a donation to the organization at their website. They are trying to raise $400,000 to built a house to serve as longer-term, but still temporary housing for victims, where the will be safe and not have to be shoved back into an uncaring system – as all government systems of size tend to be – while they are still just starting to regain their strength after suffering serious abuse. This should be something that can be funded, even in this economy, quickly. When the movie hits the world, I suspect they will have the funding for a second building or maybe a third.

You may know Kim Longinotto from her earlier films Sisters in Law (Oscar short-listed, but not nominated) and Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go, amongst others. She found a great story here to which every person can relate. Even though South Africa has so many specific issues, this movie is universal and somehow, more relevant than ever. Great work.

Keep an eye out for this one. The title is a distraction from the masterful, gut-wrenching, uplifting tale inside. Distributors should buy it and someone will almost certainly make a feature film out of it.

Posted by poland at 12:35 AM | Comments (4)

November 24, 2008

Quickie on Hancock Blu

When the disc arrived, promising two versions (and a free digital download), I threw it in the PS3 immediately and took a look.

Yes, the infamous sex scene is in the “uncut” version. And I do think it was too cartoonish, but that they idea was absolutely viable. In a way, what was missing was some clarity that this either happens to Hancock all the time... or that he avoids contact for this reason (amongst others) and that this girl connects with him in some unique way or fulfills a specific need... other than the normal one.

As I recall, most of the other variations are small, but include a different take on “the kiss.” I will take a proper look on my return. But it was a reminder, again, of how smart the film really is and how it really is a precursor to the wave to come around Watchmen… which Hancock will never get credited for.

Posted by poland at 09:12 PM | Comments (1)

Huge Blu Breakthorugh

I haven't seen this anywhere else, but the Financial Times is reporting this morning, "Wal-Mart will sell the first sub-$130 Blu-ray player in "Black Friday" holiday sales this week after the Thanksgiving holiday."

The announcement is part of a story on how (foolishly) Hollywood is counting on Blu-ray to revive the ongoingly slacking DVD market.

Ain't going to happen.

The promise of Blu-ray is much, much smaller than the DVD cash boom. However, it is something and if it adds 2% or 5% to the current market, that will be critically important to an industry that is about to find itself seriously crunched... not because of the content or the lack of an audience or challenges from other media, but because the price of production and distribution is just waaaaaay too high to maintain any kind of reasonable margins at studios. I do not expect audiences to notice too much of a change. In fact, it should all look better and better. But internally, at the studios, agencies, and in the pockets of stars and unions, things are tight and getting tighter. And we are, I would guess, still looking at a short-term correction of over 25% more... and long-term changes that will cut the cost of the industries output by as much as 50%.

But I digress...

Assuming this is accurate, it is HUGE for Blu-ray. Sony has been saying that $300 was the target for this X-Mas and $200 for next X-Mas... and both of those are blown away by an under-$150 machine THIS Christmas.

The real story here, which I will pursue if the WSJ and NYT haven’t laid them out before I return to the U.S., is when and how Sony made the decision to make this possible. They own the technology, so they have controlled the rights to production, and thus, the price. This option to drop the price point has always existed, with the hardware making very inexpensive machines possible. But Sony has not pulled the trigger… until right now.

Why?

Perhaps the answer seems obvious. And perhaps it is. But to me it becomes one of the stories of the year when Howard Stringer goes on record saying, “We knew Blu-ray was slipping away and the over-the-wire/satellite HD opportunities were improving quarterly, so we had no choice but to go from the Betamax model to the VHS model.”

At this price range, Blu-rays will sell. They are competitive with decent DVD players, upscale your regular DVDs, and offer the Blu option, with Blu-ray discs not too much more expensive than the traditional (at least in new release… catalogs remain cost-prohibitive in comparison).

The real big question is whether we will see a Sony-branded Blu-ray (including wi-fi) at under $250 soon.

Posted by poland at 01:29 AM | Comments (22)

TypePad

I came up against an odd TypePad re-registration a few days ago... was frustrated... and then it seemed to go away...

I will look into it when I return to the States on Tuesday night.

Until then, my apologies is there are any issues.

Posted by poland at 01:16 AM | Comments (2)

Old Man Thinking... Again!

The Times of London ran a story this morning about David Kirkpatrick (formerly of Paramount and Hollywood Pictures) launching, with MIT, a $25 million project to “save the old-fashioned story.”

Why?

Because he has one friend who has read The Great Gatsby every year since her college years and finds that she no longer has the patience to get past page 200. Also, he texted someone during a screening of Indy IV, “something I would never have done as a young man.”

Yes… well let’s not dwell on the absence of the technology or that he had very different responsibilities back then… he offers the real issue.. he’s no longer a young man. He is part of a $25 million investment in a study of why we don’t consume media the same way when we are older than when we were younger.

There is no question that the way media is ingested has changed dramatically. And indeed, reading novels is less popular than it once was. Things will change.

But what has not happened - in spite of endless accounting by the press of the inevitability of it happening – is people making movies with cell phones, loads of genius filmmakers coming out of the digital era, and an end to reading at all.

From Harry Potter, on screen and on the page, to Twilight, we continue to see the proof… it’s not the medium, it’s the message. The medium can be the message. But mostly, people still care about the message.

And as we age, we stop going to movies is such numbers, our urge to read the same material over and over again gets slighter (not unassisted by so much more availability of new, fresh materials that were not as readily available even a decade ago… and which will be even easier to access in 10 years), and out stomach for the interests of the young become virtually non-existent.

Movies are alive and well. The skewed perspective there is based on commercial cinema becoming so expensive to make and market that returns that were seen as winning a few years ago are now seen as a disappointment and not worthy of corporate investment. Aside from some peaks and valleys, the box office for quality adult films hasn’t changed much, though the baby boomers aging has led to some breakout box office hits “for adults” that would not have happened a decade ago or even in the vaunted 70s.

When Kirkpatrick makes the shopworn claim about 80s Paramount hits like Top Gun, An Officer and a Gentleman, Footloose and Witness, that, “None of them would have a chance of getting made now,” he is showing both arrogance and ego.

Footloose is being remade right now. The other three would all be made by most any major studio with the right stars. Witness would be made – for almost the same exact budget, if not more – with 90% of the budget pre-sold to foreign markets with a domestic commitment by Searchlight or Focus.

I am sure that Kirkpatrick is both honorable and earnest, but…

The fact that storytelling is now available in more mediums by a wider variety of storytellers with a much wider range of ethnicity and other features (gay/religion/race/etc) does not mean that storytelling is threatened… unless you are watching from the porch of your Malibu home, wondering why it isn’t like the good old days.

(There is also this response from a Times writer.)

Posted by poland at 01:01 AM | Comments (5)

November 22, 2008

Friday Estimates by Klady - 11/22/08

I believe that the Passion of the Christ had the previous record for the best all-time day by an indie release with a $33 million first Saturday. That film opened on a Wednesday, softening their Friday... but that doesn't mean much when looking at just how huge this Twilight opening is. History would suggest a significant Saturday drop, but as I always point out, with numbers like this, everyone is guessing. At least one of Harry Potter's November opening weekend records ($102.7m) is safe... but the other two ($88.4m and $90.3M) could be in danger. The best non-Potter start in November - The Incredibles' $70.5m - seems like dead meat.

Bolt will improve significantly on a $7m Friday... but the number will still end up being rather disappointing for Disney. Even Chicken Little opened to $40m. It may be the recession... it may be too much noise... it may be unclear marketing... hard to guess... but not a thriller.

Posted by poland at 09:03 AM | Comments (58)

BYOB - Weekender

Posted by dpoland at 03:34 AM | Comments (24)

November 21, 2008

IDocFeatAmsterdam - Day Two, Pt 2

Today was much more reflective of where so many dogs are these days... great ideas or great production or a great subject... but oh so rarely the combination of all of them.

It does seem that "just going to movies" is not the full picture of IDFA (aka The IDFA). Serious as they are about docs that aspire to changing the world, the social aspect seems to be a major part of this event. After all, they have a dance party every night.

Posted by dpoland at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)

15 Weeks to Oscar

It is that ambivalence that has made a near-lock out of Slumdog Millionaire, which would be seen as a strong underdog in other seasons, but as one of the few films that truly wears its heart (and movie love) on its sleeve, it has stepped into a front-running role. Anticipation for Benjamin Button and even a fear of Australia are similarly based on the idea that they will pull the trigger in a big way. (The love and fear of Luhrmann remain unavoidably within millimeters of each other.)

Which brings me to Revolutionary Road, one of those “not-quite” films of this season.

One of the misfortunes of being at a Q&A after seeing the film the first time was listening to each of the actors talk about things in the novel that were very important to them… which were not seen in the film.

And in that, a central thesis about why the film really fails to knock it out of the park. It’s got a serious case of Mendes-itis. This is the condition in which it looks great, is perfectly cast, well performed… and somehow has none of the soul it keeps screaming at the audience that it wants us to feel it has.

I don’t just blame Mendes. The screenplay, by Justin Haythe (whose only other credit is the equally emotionally-stinted and utterly unwatchable Redford/Mirren/Dafoe disaster, The Clearing) has its moments, specifically when Michael Shannon is the madman who tells the truth of everyone’s soul. But it misses the mark completely when it comes to capturing the keys to the story we are watching. It’s like we are expected, as an audience, to simply fill in the backstory for ourselves. But unlike a tale like Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe – a movie this film feels like it desperately wants to be - the lack of detailed backstory does not end up defining the story that is right up front.

The rest...

And the charts...

Posted by poland at 03:15 PM | Comments (30)

BYOB Weekend - 112108

Posted by poland at 08:13 AM | Comments (19)

DP/30 - Marisa Tomei

Oscar winner Marisa Tomei, now up for another Oscar in The Wrestler, talks about her work in the film and throughout her career.

The video after the jump...

Posted by poland at 12:45 AM | Comments (4)

IDocFestAmsterdam - Day Two

The day is just beginning, but I am already pleased to be able to read Baz Bambigoye in print in the Daily Mail (he has a shot of Kate Hudson in Nine that still looks like used goods)... and many of the other Brit papers. The obsession with the UK version of Cloris Leachman is starting to slow, though the older gent who quit is now causing the BBC to refund the telephone expenses of all who voted for him this last week.

Sad to see that Clive Barnes passed. I was not really in sync with Barnes, but a great old pro who will be missed.

The last two movies last night were, again, quite good. Epperlein & Tucker's Bulletproof Salesman is more subtle than either of their earlier films. The film about an German armored car salesman/manufacturer traces the path of the Iraq War and in his very specific field, the need to evolve from bulletproof to bombproof. Tucker, whose voice I recognize, though he is not in the film as a character, is along for the ride, literally. What's it like to be in a car with people shooting automatics at you? We now know, thanks to Mike. This husband/wife team continues to do fascinating work, outside the margins. Their first film, Gunner Palace, was the first of its kind. But since then, their interest in the kinks of the individuals who live in the war zone has been completely compelling.

This was followed by Citizen Havel, which was a perfect capper to both the Iraq film and War Room Redux. The film was very much in that Maysles/Hegedus/Pennebaker style of being a fly on the wall... only here, instead of documenting the supporting cast, the center of this film is the head of state. Keeping it lively is Havel's personality - cheerful, goofy, vain, direct, repetitive, and undistracted by his own flaws.

This is the kind of film that ages with you... more layers as you think about it more... because it is not directly about his story so much as it is about a man in that very unique position. When he waffles on issues, he seems like every guy at a kitchen table trying to hash something out. When he makes the same joke about a foreign head of state for the fourth time, it is still charming because he is still selling the joke as well as telling us something he thinks is profound. When he prepares to have photos taken, he is like any family leader at a Sears Photo Studio, wondering if he looks good in that shirt.

If there turned out to be a theme for the day, it was the breaking down (and building) of mythologies. High profile people and stories from perspectives that were unexpected.

The only oddball remains the audition piece from Brazil, which, as I think about it, has elements of Spike Lee's Girl 8... which also left me wondering.

On to the day... there seems to be some sun up in the sky... really enjoying this town... even having not gone to visit the Red Light District yet... can you come here and not? interestingly, another huge buzz story in the UK is about new efforts to penalize men who go to legal prostitutes who turn out to be human trafficked "slaves." The issue is controversial, even there, with other women's issues not getting as much buzz, though many feel they should. But it does seem like people are waking up to the shockingly large issue of women being trafficked around the globe.

Posted by poland at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)

November 20, 2008

DP/30 - Eddie Marsan

The co-star of Happy-Go-Lucky

Posted by dpoland at 02:10 PM | Comments (3)

IDocFestAmsterda

(3:53p) Yes... this was an iPhone oddball cut off thing... use it as BYOB space if you like...

Posted by dpoland at 08:28 AM | Comments (2)

IDocFestAmsterdam - Day One

The festival hasn't officially begun yet, but they decided to screen during opening day, in the dayparts, to decidedly soft results. I've been in 3 films today and seen about 40 ticketholders.

Still, two of the three films were great to see... and one was interesting, even if I still don't know what it quite was.

The great ones were Solo - the tale of a man trying to cross the Tasmin, the ocean between southern Australia and New Zealand... in a solo kayak - and Return To The War Room, a Sundance Channel look back - by Pennebaker & Hedegdus - to their landmark doc about the 92 election.

Solo is in the style of Touching The Void, though in place of recreations, we get actual footage of our kayaking hero. There is also a distinct Grizzly Man feel to it all. It's not quite the filmmaking effort that the other 2 were, but still, enormously compelling stuff.

War Room Redux is all joy, though it now feels short an hour on how the crew handled being the media leaders around the Obama run.

The oddball was Playing, a doc consisting of auditions that blur the lines of reality. Like I said... not really sure what the endgame was meant to be, but it felt, from early on, like a concept that could lead somewhere profound... Though not so much this time out.

About to start the new Tucker/Epperlein doc, Bulletproof Salesman...

More later.

Posted by dpoland at 08:28 AM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2008

BYOB Wednesday

Y'all loaded up the last one.. here's more space... can we keeps the CAPS to an occasional screed, please? (Though it is great to see you all fighting without abusing.)

I will write on Rev Road from something other than this iPhone, but the short stroke is that it doesn't make it to the very serious ambitions that it aspires to... Mendes just isn't a hard guy (even if he gets another young actress to show her boobs for no reason)... He is a curveball guy and the reason why the Michael Shannon performance kills is that he is the only person whose inner passion we really get... he is the Cold Mountain Zellweger of the piece... had Mendes had the cajones to show the look on Leo's face when he is having sex, not for something sexy, but so we could see what his inner angst is, then you would be on the road to Virgina Wolfe or August: Osage County or even Mad Men, my son.

Posted by dpoland at 11:26 PM | Comments (96)

Amster, Amster... Dam, Dam, Dam

The most striking thing about wandering about on a first jet-lagged night was how rich the film culture is here compared to Los Angeles. And keep in mind, the doc fest doesn't launch for another day.

I count no fewer than 6 theaters running classics of cinema, from Satyajit Ray to John Waters to Downey, Sr. And the mainstream houses are loaded with "art house" fare as well.

We killed a total of zero pedestrians and bike riders on the way to the hotel, so that was a plus too.

Posted by dpoland at 11:08 PM | Comments (6)

November 17, 2008

BYOB - Traveling

I’m heading to Amsterdam this afternoon for the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. I have heard nothing but good things about the event and my schedule of films is already overflowing.

As a result of the trip, I will miss the semi-first screenings of some Oscar screamers next week. (I might get around to telling you what’s wrong with the soul of Revolutionary Road later this week.) So be it. All of these titles will be there when I get back. By then they will folded, spindled, and mutilated – for better or worse – and they will still be waiting to be defined by the only people who the entire awards apparatus really cares about… the Academy voters.

That said, I am really looking forward to breathing other air for a bit. As I have written before, I am exhausted by smart, kind, generous people doing stupid, thoughtless, selfish things to one another in the name of ego and fear.

That and the cold, the rain, the canals, and the Van Goghs…

There will be updates... just not sure when... so please be nice to one another...

Posted by dpoland at 12:45 PM | Comments (147)

Media Silenced

There were Gay Marriage protests all over the globe this weekend... undercovered by media… but in Los Angeles, I kind of understand, given the wall-to-wall coverage of fires all over the area.

But where is the reporting from the LA Times, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter on what is undeniably a news story, the Rich Raddon situation at LAFF/FIND?

This morning, Eugene Hernandez posted a “first person” story about it, which makes, as far as I can tell, indieWIRE only the second higher profile media outlet to write about this at all. And that was a personal piece, including a private conversation with Rich, which – with due love and respect to Eugene – bordered on journalistic pandering to mention at all.

I understand why the establishment papers in Hollywood would agree with FIND that this discussion is best swept under the rug. After all, LA Times is the title sponsor of the Los Angeles Film Festival. And the trades… well, not only do they make money doing Special Issues around the Independent Spirit Awards (which depend, in part, on the cooperation of FIND), but they are always ready to run from a real news story.

My ambivalence about the use of "witch hunt" and "blacklist" is quickly evolving into some real disappointment in some of my favorite and most respected people.

This is what a McCarthyesque take on this would be – Rich Raddon… we know you are a Mormon… so you much be pro-Prop 8…. tell us how you voted or you’re out… and if you tell us you voted for the prop, you’re out… and if you tell us you voted against the prop, you have to tell us about a few people who you know voted for the prop, or you’re out.

You cannot have a witch hunt if witches really exist. You cannot have a blacklist because you are expecting the people who you work with and support with your efforts to be respectful of your concerns about losing your civil rights.

As for the idea that there should be no litmus tests… that is a self-delusion, at best. It is true that as President Clinton took actions that actually damaged the gay community (don’t ask, don’t tell) and sexually subjugated a young woman (using the feminist dogma of employment hierarchy as regards sex), liberals chose to stand by their man because he brought other liberal elements to the table… he was better, it seemed, than any Republican.

But that didn’t make it okay.

If President Obama’s first pick for the Supreme Court was a raving liberal with great credentials, but was against any form of union or marriage for gays and was anti-choice, the White House would be burned to the crowd rhetorically. An unquestionable betrayal.

No one with political priorities can claim there are no litmus tests… only that we will try to apply them with some restraint.

And back to the “private conversation” thing… again, I think the world of Eugene Hernandez. But if Rich Raddon wants to talk to the media, he needs to be at least some of the way on the record. And if he wants it to be private, no one needs to know about it. By saying that he spoke about it, but not being able to report on it, the story gets further pushed away into the land of excuses not to report on it… “Well, he’s not really talking… though he’s really sorry.”

Time for Rich Raddon and FIND to step up and tell their story. It is time for the LA Times and the trades to step up and act like news organizations and not just ad spaces and report on a story that’s 5 days old already.

Think about it. What was the effect of McCathyism? Not conversation. Silence.

Studios didn’t talk about their choice to follow the blacklist.

Newspapers didn’t keep a running tab of those who were being put out of work.

It all got swept under the rug.

And now, it’s liberals sweeping… trying not to do the wrong thing… doing the one thing that cannot be excused… trying to avoid legitimate debate. Whatever side you are on, that is the most dangerous choice of all.

Many terrible things have been done at the point of a gun… but many of them could have been stopped… had someone simply spoken up and at least started the conversation.

Posted by poland at 10:38 AM | Comments (14)

November 16, 2008

DP/30 - Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy

The director and the screenwriter of Slumdog Millionaire

30 More Minutes wth Danny... with the Slumdog Millionaire stars...

Posted by dpoland at 01:55 PM | Comments (10)

One Last (I Hope) Thought On Prop 8

The greatest irony is that so many feel so bad for a nice young man with a family because he might, at some point, lose his job because he helped fund the Prop 8 effort..

But he will not lose his right to work.

If people in the film festival business choose not to hire him under the circumstance, it will be because of a specific action he took, not because of what religion he is or how he has sex.

We can argue all day long about the meaning of his choice and whether his action should be subject to a response. But what we can't argue is this...

All that gay America is asking is that they be held to that same standard that he is... to be judged and perhaps limited by their actions, not who they are.

Posted by dpoland at 11:16 AM | Comments (52)

The Biggest Change Since The Election

The discussion of post partum blogging came up before the election, so I thought I would speak to it...

Really, I'm just not watching a minimum of 5 hours a day of political shows, reading 15 websites, clicking on Sullivan hourly, checking HuffPo and Politico, and jonzeing for NYT editorials at 8:58p PST.

The TV in this house is off, in general, a lot more often than it has been for months. I don't feel the need to fill the time void with different entertainment. My Blackberry is working less hard. And I am trying to push myself to watch some of the fine films that have been piling up in recent weeks, while my focus has been elsewhere.

Prop 8 has not actually been very time consuming, except when the Raddon thing became a full day activity or I have been caught in protest traffic.

And Obama's "I'm not President yet, folks" thing has helped us all back to sanity. I would not want to be scheduled to screen for the first time at Sundance on inauguration day.

Posted by dpoland at 10:35 AM | Comments (3)

Weekend Estimates by Klady

Sony is reporting that Quantum of Solace opened to $70.4 million.
* All-time best opening ever for the Bond franchise
* $23 million stronger than Die Another Day.
* Worldwide to date, Quantum of Solace has earned more than $322 million
* #1 in each of the 73 territories where it has opened
* Japan, Australia and Spain not open yet
* Exits run 54% male and 46% female. 58% over 25. 42% under 25.

Top per-screen of the weekend... Slumdog Millionaire (no "s")
Is it a good number?
Juno opened to $413,869 on 7 screens last year... result, $143 million total.
This is not quite as good. But...

The month of November is looking very,very muscular. Bond is easily the biggest non-family opening in the history of the month. Madagascar 2's strong opening made the 1-2 only the second Novemeber with two $60m-plus openings in history. The #3 opening in the first circumstance - 2001 - was Shallow Hal with $22.5m. Expect both Twilight and Bolt to crush that next weekend. (Heck... Role Models almost matched it.)

The only time there were four November openings of as much as $30 million was 1999. That should be matched next weekend and could be beat with the opening of Four Christmases the week after.

Posted by dpoland at 10:07 AM | Comments (48)

November 15, 2008

Has Lindsay Lohan Become Paris Hilton?

I was looking at the top headline in Yahoo! Entertainment News... Lindsay Lohan hit by flour because she was wearing a fur in Paris... and it struck me...

Is Lindsay Lohan famous for anything but being famous anymore?

For a moment, it seemed she was a real movie star. She could open and support movies.

But it's now just short of 3.5 years since she's been in a film that grossed as much as $21 million or opened to as much as $7 million.

She is no longer a movie star. Period.

If she ever becomes one again, it will be because she earns the status back with a movie or two that actually have some popular heft. Her next two films do not have studio distribution. And she has not had a job at a studio in two years now... and the one network job she got, she lost.

I guess this is not fresh news... but it just really hit me. Waste.

Posted by dpoland at 12:33 PM | Comments (78)

Friday Estimates by Klady

What is there to say? Bond is following Batman in the "we loved the reboot, so we are showing up in record numbers for the next one." Unfortunately, I don't suspect that the crowds who loved Casino Royale will be quite as thrilled this time out. But the opening will have the effect Sony is seeking, not just for this film, but more importantly for the next film or two or three, which they do not have distribution rights to... yet. This kind of show of muscle says to Broccoli and Wilson, "We are the place for you... how can you put yourself in MGM's hands when you don't know what they can do and you know that we can kick ass for you."

Changeling continues to run in near-lockstep with Flags of our Fathers (the distribution pattern varies them slightly).

Perhaps the biggest story amongst the holdovers is The Secret Life of Bees cracking $30 million. The film has passed Quarantine and Nick & Norah to be the biggest grossing under $12 million movie of the fall season and could be on its way to passing the Tyler Perry entry, The Family That Preys. It looks like it will also outgross Changeling. Like President-elect Obama, it seems that this film, once ghettoed as a “black women’s film” has found the white women’s audience as well. Don’t be surprised if Fox Searchlight refocuses some energy on this film for awards season as well, as they are looking at a performance in the box office range – as of now – of a Michael Clayton, The Queen or Babel.

Posted by dpoland at 09:39 AM | Comments (45)

November 14, 2008

FIND On Raddon

It took all day to get to this...

The Film Independent Board of Directors has issued the following statement:

"As a champion of diversity, Film Independent is dedicated to supporting the civil rights of all individuals. At the same time, our organization does not police the personal, religious, or political choices of any employee, member, or filmmaker." issued at 7:48p on a Friday night.

With due respect to all involved... it feels like a cop out.

I didn't need Rich Raddon to go. I didn't need him to stay. There is a lot of complexity in this situation and I don't really know how I would feel in time, either way. But faced with a very real issue and a chance to make a statement of some weight, the FIND board issued nothing but a textbook platitude. And that is unfortunate.

I'm going to reserve further comment, as I am sure that the intentions of the board members who pushed for this were good. To presume otherwise would be unkind. And I think we've all had enough of that for one day.

Posted by dpoland at 11:04 PM | Comments (15)

Blog... BYO Blog

Posted by dpoland at 01:36 PM | Comments (27)

Who's Watching The Watchmen?

Posted by dpoland at 01:28 PM | Comments (67)

The Raddon Debate Moves Into The Boardroom

LAFF's Rich Raddon tendered his resignation last night...

And FIND did not accept it.

So this morning - right now, actually - the LAFF board is meeting about how to move forward.

In many ways, I am encouraged by this becoming a decision to be made by a group and not by one person, whether the person under fire or the top of FIND, Dawn Hudson. It is an opportunity to debate these issues in some detail and, surely, with great passion.

This is, no doubt, a tricky slope. Can a person who works in a community with a strong history of supporting gay (and other minority) rights survive while differing from the group politically? Isn't that at the core of freedom of ideas?

On the other hand, isn't one reasonable price to pay for the expression of one's freedom to get a response from the other side?

Did Mr. Raddon show cowardice in trying to exit FIND rather than fighting for what he believes?

One group will debate that this morning... and an answer may or may not be forthcoming. But in choosing not to accept Raddon's resignation, Dawn and those she consulted took a leadership role. Rich Raddon will not be simply swept under the rug.

If the FIND board believes in transparency that they should make their positions known... not in single-voiced unity, but in some way that suggests the range of opinions on this issue. I know it would be an onerous burden on many of the board members who don't want the exposure of expressing their politics in public. But that is where the win is, in my opinion. Until we can have these debates in public, without the lies of a political campaign, and then come together as groups united for other purposes as well... well, until then, it's National Guardsmen walking little black kids to school. And whatever your minority, it would be nice to think we are past that.

it will be discussed and

Moving on...

In last night's post about Raddon's contribution to "Yes On 8," the comments seemed to line up on either side of a few issues...

1. Prop 8 was either "the protection of marriage" and not intended to remove any constitutional rights OR a statewide referendum to remove civil rights from a targetted group.

2..Guys like Raddon are either being abused for expressing their political rights or they are reaping the fruits of backstabbing key constituencies in their workplaces.

3. Either you hang onto the "people's will" idea of the vote and other votes like it nationally or you see it as a fundamental constitutional issue that isn't really up for debate.

I wonder... Has 40 years of black civil rights made America color blind? (And before you shout, “Obama,” look at how close an election where the republicans logically should have lost 45 states was.) And if it were up for a vote, would blacks have gotten such rights?

Seeing Milk again last night, I was struck again by how smart a guidebook to this whole entanglement Harvey Milk's story is. He saw what the vulnerabilities of "the straight world" were and he also refused to bend to the cautious efforts of the most financially powerful members of the SF gay community of the time. He came before, "I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it!," but in his ways, he said it loud and proud every day.

It is treacherous territory when you swing, as a movement, from fighting to get something to being enraged when you have something taken away. Moving forward is more easily swallowed and a lot less threatening than the anger that can explode when you respond to being forced to take a step backwards... and whether you think gay marriage is important or not, and whether you think gay America needs further legal protection or not, one must admit that Prop 8 was a step backwards for gay America.

Posted by dpoland at 11:36 AM | Comments (31)

November 13, 2008

Prop 8 Battle Hits Hollywood's Indie Community At Home

The buzz story of the day is not going to go anywhere pretty...

The Festival Director of FIND's LA Film Festival, Rich Raddon, came up on a “Yes On 8” donation list this morning. $1500.

Rich is a well-liked guy. He is not secretive about being a Mormon. And he could end up losing his job over this.

FIND's position is that no one can be fired from a job over their religious beliefs. So Rich is still employed.

And I must say, positions amongst FIND insiders are widely varied. The phrase "witch hunt" has been used... as has "I can't see ever sitting down at a meeting table with him again."

And so… the question is now one that a lot of people in the Los Angeles indie community must answer directly… how do we all – gay, straight, and otherwise – feel about seriously damaging careers of people just because we disagree with them politically? How far into people's beliefs will we go before we decide that we must respect the rights of everyone, not just those we agree with? And if you are a hard-liner on Prop 8, how can you forgive?

These are the times that try people's souls... and as cynical and gamey as Hollywood is, these questions are being pondered with passion and sincerity all over town.

(Also... a theater director resigns over a similar issue)

Posted by dpoland at 04:10 PM | Comments (61)

DP/30 - Mickey Rourke... The Wrestler

Posted by dpoland at 01:19 AM | Comments (13)

November 12, 2008

And Now, Prop 8's Direct Challenge To Sundance

John Aravosis's AmericaBlog has chased down another significant "Yes on Prop 8" financial supporter... the CEO of the Cinemark theater chain, in for $9,999.

And with that, Sundance (and the media, in particular) will face its first real and direct challenge... as Cinemark owns the Holiday Village Cinemas, where many of the press screenings are during Sundance. In fact, it is the only real theater - the rest are built in ballrooms for the purpose - used for press screenings during the festival.

So now we have something real on the table. Are those of us in the media who are supportive of the constitutional rights of gays in Americsa obliged to pass on any screening in the Holiday Village Cinemas (where, ironically, I once saw liberals enraged because the great neo-Nazi doc, Blood in the Face, was not clear enough about being anti-Nazi). What about the indie publicists, most of the male species of which are gay? Do they work that cinema? Do their cliients just say "no?"

And Sundance will actually have to answer what is now a real question... will they financially support a theater in their group of theaters that is led by a Prop 8 financer?

I have to answer the question myself as well. Right now, I would lean to making the statement by joining any boycott of the Holiday Village. There are other options during the festival. Nothing plays the HV exclusively.

Can Sundance move forward without those 3 or 4 screens? It is easy to imagine a shift away from the HV costing the fest at least half a million dollars in the cost of building yet another new temporary cinema (or cinemas) in a town that is already pushed to the edge of available space. But it might be worth it. It would be a mighty statement. And Bob Redford can probably afford it... even if it comes at the worst possible time for any festival in a period of vanishing cash sponsorship.

(And btw... the Sugarhouse Theater in SLC... used for some screenings... also Cinemark.)

Posted by dpoland at 08:08 PM | Comments (66)

And The World Goes 'Round

Why don't you get honest coverage of the film industry very often?

Patrick Goldstein writes: "Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary"

So... as so often is the case... a blogger attacks and attacks and attacks for no journalistic reason and the result... he gets what he wants. In this case, another free lunch.

Why? Because Tom Rothman wants to head off attacks on his most expensive production of the year at the pass.

But Patrick is hardly the only one who plays this game and Fox is hardly the only studio that plays along.

This is the same issue, at its core, as the embargo discussion.

I talk to studios all the time about how treacherous the publicity landscape is these days. And if you want to know why, it’s simple. Squeaky wheel. Grease.

The endless repetition of the lesson is that the loudest whiners get the most attention and that anyone who would respect studio edicts is likely to be an afterthought. There are a few who walk the line effectively.

For the record, I have made no requests of Fox about this film, a week before it will be shown to the media. I have been denied nothing and was, actually, offered access to whatever I’d like, had I been scheduled to be in L.A. next week.

Gossip about the film being changed at Fox’s request was and is idiotic, even if it were true… which I believe it isn’t. But why is anyone beating the drum on this a week out? How desperate are we to fill blog inches?

We in the media have gotten so paranoid and fearful of our own vulnerabilities that even in the biggest outlets in the world, we are seeing more attention to being first than to being right. And the studios have responded, for the most part, but dealing only with what is directly in front of them, solving the immediate problem, and moving along without much lingering memory of what has happened. (And the media, whose job it is to have perspective, has even less memory of anything other than what got them what they wanted.) As a result, they keep getting screwed the same ways over and over and over again.

We have become a schoolyard of seven-year-olds… not even high school…

You want to know what the future of Australia in the awards race is? You won’t find out in the L.A. Times, online or off. You will find out when the movie is seen and a consensus that is bigger than any one, two, or six of us starts to develop. You will find out at the box office over Thanksgiving. You will find out in the critics awards announcements and the Golden Globes nominations and the BFCA nominations and all the moments that define the season. You will find out when the Australia disc hits Academy mailboxes... or doesn’t… in Blu-ray… or not. Etc, etc, etc…

But let’s keep rolling that log. This one says it happened… then it didn’t… then it did… who cares? Is the movie good? Do audiences like it? Do Academy members like it?

The irony of all of this is that The Mainstream Media is becoming even more the The Internet Mob than The Internet Mob ever was. They are more rabid, more abusive, more likely to break rules, more likely to trade favors (without saying it out loud, of course), and just more of everything that was cute when the web was an infant, problematic when the web was a maturing child, and is now irrelevant on some level, since They have become Us only uglier than we ever dreamed of being.

Truth is, the Internet mob has had to fight for the traction it got over the last decade while the Traditional Media was, for the most part, pissing all over the web and its output. That fight forces its participants to grow up and to deal with the limitations of having to work for everything… of having to deliver or get fired… to build real trust in order to work with studios. And in this year, we have become the adults while the former grownups have become a bunch a whiny, nasty, spitting babies, just starting to learn the lessons that The Internet Mob spent the last decade learning.

To put too fine a point on it… it’s Obama v McCain all over again.

Of course, me writing this makes me Not The Obama. He was smart enough not to put up those red flags for the other side, so they could learn faster by more quickly recognizing their own mistakes of habit. On the other hand, the egos on the other side are so big, they are just beginning to recognize that before they can ever win again, they will have to seriously rethink it all.

The studios too… but they spend so much on advertising that they can afford to screw up publicity all day long and not pay a price at anywhere but the dinner table.

And so it goes…

PS, 5:55p - Ain't It Anne News prematurely ejaculates on Benjamin Button in Variety... you know, the trade paper... the one that holds up the traditions of the industry?

This doesn't mean that Ben Button is anything less than great... a "review" from a "spy" is not any more inherently inaccurate than accurate. But Variety has become the sleaziest player in the entertainment media game lately... breaking embargoes, printing "spy" reviews, overwriting stories instead of correcting them, etc.

I have no objection to Anne or anyone else writing that they heard good or bad or indifferent out of a SAG NomCom screening. But running an anonymous "friend" as a "review?" Bullshit. Just bullshit.

Posted by dpoland at 01:28 PM | Comments (14)

BYOB - Humpty Hump

Posted by dpoland at 11:28 AM | Comments (26)

November 11, 2008

Left Out Detail...

I am a big fan of August: Osage County, Tracy Letts' brilliant play of modern southern (Southern Oklahoma, in this case) family strife and scab-shredding healing.

It is hard to imagine the money role of the mother getting past Jane Fonda. I'll take Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maris Tomei, and Gwyneth Paltrow to block. If he’s well, Steppenwolfer John Mahoney is a lock to play the father. And while it is hard to figure where Malkovich could fit in, all the male characters could easily come out of the Steppenwolf pack as a way to placate the stolen sunshine from the great actresses that performed it on stage. Todd Fields should direct… if he can stand working with Harvey again.

But what intrigued me was the press release/news in Variety that fails to point to the detail in The Weinstein Co producing the movie that was 100% clear to me the first time (of 3) that I saw the show. The Weinstein Co is one of the producers of the stage show. Harvey Weinstein doesn't do those deals without strings.

When Boeing-Boeing is finally converted into a movie again - Zeta-Jones, Paltrow, and Zellweger opposite Jack Black and the genius of Mark Rylance (unless they, God forbid, replace him with Ben Stiller) and Meryl Streep as The Maid... my guess - it will be a Weinstein Co production. And TWC will be grab a co-producer credit along with movie rights holder Fox on any Young Frankenstein musical film. And when the TV version of Rock-n-Roll gets done... same deal. And that was just the last season of TWC money spread out (very smartly) on Broadway.

I hate to rain on the TWC parade of "It's all good," but this one was a lock from the get go. The idea that it's a big Oscar season surprise... nothing but show biz, baby.

Posted by dpoland at 05:47 PM | Comments (13)

That Would Be The Butt, Ben

So.... as everyone is clamoring about Brad Pitt being chased into his Benjamin Button SAG NomCom screening last night, a tiny bit more insight. When asked what making this movie was like, David Fincher responded, in his Fincheresque glory, "It was like getting my first rim job."

Meanwhile, Paramount will wait 10 days between this first event screening and their first press screening after claiming for months that they LOVE this movie, which was said by some attendees of last night's screening to be more Gone With The Wind than Forrest Gump. If either holds true, Paramount wins. (I'll be seeing the film on Thanksgiving Day... first window after that first screening, apparently.)

Rollout for the last few Oscar hopefuls is hot and heavy in the next next week (and change):
Saturday the 15th - Revolutionary Road
Wednesday the 19th - Australia
Thursday the 20th - The Curious Case of Bennjamin Button
Monday the 24th - The Reader

The last two awards craving, but so-far unscheduled launches are for Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino and Will Smith's Seven Pounds.

Posted by dpoland at 05:00 PM | Comments (14)

Franchises Change

I was just writing a comment in the Bond entry and I thought... this is really a full entry.

In BondLand, it's Connery vs Moore... late Moore... the middle guys... Brosnan, where they also got more Late Moore-ish... and now this reboot, where I think they got too into going arty with this one after hitting just the right note with the last one. They kinda need Frankenheimer... and he's not available.

In Batman, it was the TV show to The Killing Joke to Burton to Schumacher's gay fantasia (that even gays hated) to the beloved Nolan.

It's almost indistiguishable in Harry Potter.

Will Sony commit franchise suicide with a middle aged Spider-Man instead of going out and finding a new director and star?

How lucky were Back to The Future and Lord of The Rings to have closed-ended trilogies?

Would another director have been better with Indy IV?

And is it time to go back to the Alien well?

Posted by dpoland at 01:00 PM | Comments (56)

November 10, 2008

Review - Bland, James Bland

I don’t actually a lot to say about the new James Bond movie.

It is, more than any other Bond (except Moonraker, I suppose) a sequel.

The Bond catchphrases are gone.

Sex is downplayed.

Etc, etc, etc.

But I really had just one major problem with the film… the action sucks.

Marc Forster is a talented, smart man. But for anyone to say that this is a Bourne Lite action film is to insult Bourne.

They hired a number of the second unit team from Bourne. So elements of the car chase at the opening may seem very, very familiar. Except that Forster, a man with artistic tastes, has had his editors, Matt Chesse (his guy) and Richard Pearson (one of the Bourne guys) cut everything in extreme close-up, whether it’s the cars bumping, the bumpers crunching, or the glam slamming.

But it only gets worse.

Every time a new action sequence came on, I crossed my fingers and hoped that it would be better. And each time, it was more real… and more boring than the last. Even a very well conceived boat chase ends up being shot with such an emphasis on getting the real Bond on the boat that the distance that would have obscured his face but given us some perspective on the stunts was lost.

And a Bond film without great action is… uh… nothing really. Not even xXx.

I was perfectly fine with the script. The new Bond girl is stunning. The hot redhead ends up naked, but not to her (or our) best advantage. Forster seems to have a crush on some of the locations.

As Strother Martin might have said, a director’s got to know his limitations. This is not Mr. Forster’s bailiwick. Give him an indie action movie with a $14 million budget and the need to be really creative and lead with the script and he might be brilliant. But Bond needs action skills more than it needs acting skills. Martin Campbell remains the very best modern Bond director, using both skills with just the right finesse.

The box office will probably go up in any case. The last film was truly loved and that should give this one a boost out of the gate. You would never know from the ads that the movie is cut with much the same speed and style. But at least it’s over quick.

=====

Forster speaks about the action, a bit, here...

Posted by dpoland at 10:34 PM | Comments (86)

Voynaristic - Female Nudity

Okay, you pervs (and others)... here is a topic to titalate... from Kim Voynar, MCN's newest star...

Although I recognize that there will be any number of men who will go to see The Wrestler because exploitative websites like Mr. Skin tell them down to the minute just when they'll get to seeTomei's bare breasts on the screen (and that's a subject for another column), I would argue that in the case of The Wrestler, Tomei's nudity is absolutely relevant to the story. The whole point of Cassidy's character revolves around both the way in which she exposes and exploits herself for the sake of a buck, and the way in which the men to whom she's exposing herself view her as "too old" to fulfill their sexual fantasies (also disturbing in and of itself for what it says about both the male sexual obsession with young girls and the way in which men, as they age, become "dignified" while women become "over the hill").

For us to really feel the impact of Pam's awareness of her own exploitation in her stripper persona, and in particular the way in which she evokes that despairwrenchingly onstage in the film's final act, we need to have earlier felt the way in which she accepted (or rather, told herself she accepted) that exploitation as a means to an end. The audience needs to cringe as Tomei writhes on stage for the kind of men who slip dollar bills into stripper's thongs, needs to feel tension as she's taunted by a pack of young men for being too old for them to pay her for a private lap dance, needs to feel the pain of that moment when, after years of taking her clothes off for a living, she suddenly feels utterly vulnerable, naked, and exposed.

The rest...

Posted by dpoland at 10:16 PM | Comments (32)

Cool Image

This image floated in from AFI Fest today. I had a great time with Tilda, but what really struck me about this image was how very Jarman it looked to me... more so if there were feathers and dancing and fighting... but AFI isn't releasing those images.

Posted by dpoland at 10:14 PM | Comments (3)

Why The Daily Beast Will Soon Be Sued

It's always amusing watching the past rear its ugly little head again and again.

This struck me when I notice Anne Thompson running a video embed from The Daily Beast that was nothing more than a direct steal by The Daily Beast of The Onion's online video content.

BZZT!

The Daily Beast seems to have missed the period in which people were trying to embed other people's content on their sites with frames that not only had the logo of the site grabbing someone else's content on a wholesale bases, but often, advertising, creating revenue off of someone else's work... a.k.a. stealing.

This was shut down by many cease and desist notices, which if they have not already started hitting The Daily Beast, will soon start arriving... as soon as someone notices.

It's one of the fascinating pieces of etiquette developed on the web. How much content is a hat tip... and how much is theft?

Our policy at MCN has not only been to link outright to anyone with content, using minimal pulls on our site (when we use any), but also to look for the originating source of anything we post. This comes us, for instance, when we find a LA Times story that we don’t notice until it turns up somewhere else on their syndicate. When we can get the original link, we prefer that.

As with so many things on the web, the issues of where the moral lines fall in a newly minted internet media world are still in play and can be kinda blurry. But it seems pretty clear to me… you don’t wrap someone else’s hamburger up in a package with your name on it and try to get a second sale on it with the burger maker seeing nothing for their effort but a few more eyeballs.

Posted by dpoland at 01:54 PM | Comments (1)

Hot Button - Doubt: Review Part I - Spoiler Free

Reviewing Doubt really requires two different bits of discussion. First, there is the movie and its overall structure, skill level, etc. Then there is the question of what the movie is actually telling the audience… which is a matter of no small controversy.

First things first…

Doubt is an adaptation of the stage play, written by John Patrick Shanley, and here, adapted for the screen and directed by Shanley as well. I saw the film twice as a concession to the producer’s concern about launching prematurely in a last minute fill-in as opening night for Los Angeles’ AFI Fest. And while the two viewings will be more relevant to the second half of this review – the arguments about content – they did change my perspective on the filmmaking as well.

The film stars Meryl Streep in a rather brilliant performance, if too subtle for those who love something a more stage-y. The performance grew on me the second time around as the accent played less of a role and her cautiousness about where the boundaries as a nun became more pronounced for me. Phillip Seymour Hoffman gives a performance that could not have been any better.

The film sets up the proposition of the entire film crisply with an opening sermon about doubt. From the get-go, it is offered that doubt, in spite of the discomfort that it attends it for the individual, is not a weakness, but a much-needed strength. It is the lack of doubt that is truly dangerous. Part of the challenge for the audience – especially the first time around – is to remember that point… and if you are not inclined to agree, then to challenge yourself to learn the truth in its wisdom.

The rest...

Posted by dpoland at 01:34 PM | Comments (7)

Hot Button - Doubt: Review Part II - Spoilers

Part 2 of this review is really a discussion of what I feel actually happened in the story of the movie Doubt.

ALL SPOILERS, ALL THE TIME

I would really not suggest reading any of this entry until after having seen the teh film or the stage play. But when people do, I suspect we will have a lively conversation about what we all think really did happen... and what did not.

Here is the SPOILER discussion of Doubt...

Posted by dpoland at 01:30 PM | Comments (1)

BYOB Monday

It's a new week... whatcha got?

Posted by dpoland at 08:31 AM | Comments (44)

November 09, 2008

DP/30 - Slumdog Millionaire's Danny Boyle, Dev Patel & Freida Pinto

Posted by dpoland at 08:49 PM | Comments (6)

What Would Harvey Do?

There is a kinda crazy idea out there about boycotting the Sundance Film Festival and even more so, Utah skiing, in response to Mormon funding of Prop 8 here in California.

Let me be even more direct. The idea of pressuring Sundance or Redford to abandon this year’s festival and their 8 figure commitment to move an event which cannot be realistically moved is stupid.

Cruel, really. Festivals are in as much financial trouble as anyone and they tend to wear their liberal politics on their sleeves. There are plenty of people to rage at, but the Sundance Film Festival is not on that list, no matter where the location happens to be at this moment.

And the idea of boycotting members of a religious group because they gave money – in good faith, however wrong headed – to the other side of a campaign for a vote is exactly as stupid as attacking Iraq because it was filled with brown people who look and speak, to the American eye, a lot like the people behind the attack on the World Trade Center.

I understand the perception that Mormons follow their leaders without much questioning. But we don't know what every individual feels about this issue. And Mormons didn't cast the votes that made it go the way it did. Wouldn't it seem absurd to boycott Baptists or religious Christians or blacks... or whites for that matter?

And the idea of boycotting a state, with the intent to damage its economy, because some of the residents of that state believe you are immoral because of their religious beliefs… well, I’m sorry… it is incautious bias as evil as any and it is smearing, just as others would smear gay America.

Equal rights for gay America means, in part, being hated by some percentage of the population… same a blacks, hispanics, jews, catholics, and everyone else, from the obese to the myopic to the red-haired. You want it, you got it. Get used to it. It’s wrong, but we’ll be working on it long after we have our first gay president. (Unless… hmmm… you gotta know that someone has floated that closet…)

THAT SAID…

What would Harvey do?

It’s right there in Milk. The neighborhood businesses in The Castro - once an Irish neighborhood before it became a central home for gay San Franciscans – who supported the gay community got to enjoy the power of the financial power of the gay community. Those who were anti-gay lost the financial support of gay SF… and closed their doors.

The real opportunity here is to work a bit harder than John Aravosis, the blogger who started this buzz, and to actually target the individuals who were funding the Prop 8 effort… and their businesses, many of which are likely to be in Salt Lake City and Park City.

In Aravosis’ blog entry, not the AP story, he is specifically targeting Brent Andrus, who contributed $20,000 to Yes on Prop 8 and who used to work for and now owns some Marriot Hotels.

The Huntington Hotel Group website is – ha ha – “down for maintenance” right now. (More likely, the wave of anger was being expressed on the website all morning.) But here is the problem… according to a 2005 HHG document, cached on Google, Andrus’s company does own a number of Marriott franchises, primarily in California – direct hit – but not in Utah.

More specifically, the “host hotel” of the Sundance fest is the Park City Marriott, owned by Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc., of San Clemente, CA. Will it turn out that this company is owned by someone who funded Prop 8 as well? Perhaps. (It seems that “Sunstone” is also the name of a Mormon community organizing structure.) And if so, I would agree that Sundance should make a real effort, even at the costs of scores of thousands of dollars, to get out of that hotel and to not cause a moral dilemma for fest participants.

But that would be a specific call to action, not a general one. The Hotel is not owned by Mr. Andrus or anyone who has been directly tied to a large donation to Yes on Prop 8. The CEO of the company that does own it (Sunstone Hotel Investors), Robert A Alter, did give money to Mitt Romney... but he didn't give money to projectmarriage.com, which is where Andrus' $20,000 contribution was sniffed out by Aravosis. This is the problem with guilt by association. It doesn't prove that Alter is not a Prop 8 guy... but there is no proof that he is. Or that all of Marriott deserves to have Prop 8 weighting it down financially.. All there is here is some indication that Alter is probably a mormon.... which is no more of our business than whether he is gay.

But I digress...

Essentially, a movement against those who deserve disdain from INSIDE Utah… while at the Sundance Film Festival… with the media there in force, all looking for stories to write… with even one or two reasonably high-profile examples of Park City business people who sent money to California for ads… that becomes a massive story.

Movie City News will spend a lot of money in Park City to cover Sundance this year. I will be happy to pledge, right now, that we will not spend a dime that money in businesses that were financial supporters of California’s Prop 8.

So… activists… make that list. Make it honestly. Don’t tell me all Mormons are evil or that the entire state is off limits. But if a local gas station company is owned by a Prop 8 funder… we will fill up elsewhere. If a local restaurant or grocery or ski shop or taxi service… anything like that… if the owner sent money to California to strip gay Californians of their rights… I will be honored to not support that person with my business and to be as loud as I can about making that choice.

Breaking a window may cost a few hundred bucks to repair. But multiply that loss by hundreds or thousands of lost customers and you have made a real impact.

I will look for that list…

Posted by dpoland at 02:45 PM | Comments (38)

AFI Jury Awards

JURY AWARDS

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE COMPETITION
GRAND JURY PRIZE: ACNE
SPECIAL MENTION: NIRVANA

INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
GRAND JURY PRIZE: KASSIM THE DREAM
SPECIAL MENTION: THE LAST DAYS OF SHISHMAREF

INTERNATIONAL SHORTS COMPETITION
GRAND JURY PRIZE: THE LEGLESS BOY CANNOT DANCE (EL NINO SIN PIERNAS NO PUEDE BAILAR)
SPECIAL MENTION: THE APOLOGY LINE

AUDIENCE AWARDS
FEATURE: A NECESSARY DEATH
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: KASSIM THE DREAM
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: THE WORLD WE WANT
SHORT: BUSCO PERSONAS: THE FACES OF COLUMBIA’S WAR

Posted by dpoland at 01:38 PM | Comments (21)

Weekend Estimates by Klady

The Friday Estimate to Sunday Estimate disparity on Madagascar 2 was striking. Looking at history, doing - based on estimates - just 28% of its business on Friday, it isn't wildly out of proportion. Ice Age 2, which had a $68 million start, did 32% on its opening weekend on Friday. On the other hand, Wall-E, which had an almost identical opening to M2, had 37% of its opening weekend business on Friday. Kung Fu Panda ($60.2m start) had a 34% Friday

My guess is that Badagascar 2 plays younger than some animated movies. So, less Friday and more Saturday and Sunday.

If you are wondering, this is a 25% opening increase from the original, which was also a summer release. Kids clearly want to move it, move it. This opening is the 11th animated film ever to open over $50 million (interestingly, there are no animated openings at all between $48 million and $60 million). Only one film to open in this group has failed to crack $200 million domestic (Ice Age 2) and that film was in spring without the benefit of the long Thanksgiving family weekend looming on the immediate horizon, albeit with Disney’s Bolt joining the crowd in two weekends.

Really nice start for Role Models, topping spring hits Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Baby Mama. Both of those films were released by Universal and, clearly, they have put the lessons of those releases to very good use here.

Zack & Miri will be Kevin Smith’s biggest film ever… easily. Next time, you can be 100% sure that whoever is funding will make sure that the title will not have anything in it to scare off business from women.

Soul Men joins The Man as the only films starring Samuel L Jackson with 2000+ screen openings that did this little business. It is a bit of an oddball stat, since there are other weak openers on Jackson’s resume. But what is striking is that this was a mainstream comedy that simply failed to sell itself to the black audience, which is out there for this kind of film… even if they are afraid to ghettoize themselves. There is more money out there than this for this movie.

Posted by dpoland at 12:35 PM | Comments (19)

November 08, 2008

Friday Estimates by Klady

The Badagascar sequel launches with a 20% opening day jump. Will this mean a $56 milion 3-day? We'll see.

Roel Models rolled out remarkably well, really. Better than Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist or The Houe Bunny on opening day with what feels like a lot less of a push. The number is also a little higher than Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Baby Mama. which arrived from the same releasing studio, Universal, with more noise and more star power (including the endlessly name checked Judd Apatow). Impressive. I would, perhaps, have a better take on the movie had the studio invoted me to a screening. So if it is as bad as that normally suggests, even more impressive.

The uninspired release of Soul Men joins the junk pile of Weinstein titles that seem like they could have done better.

Saw 5 is still running a little behind Saw 4 and should stop in the mid 50s. If things stay in line, foreign will be about $10 million more than domestic, so over $100 million worldwide sees sure, no matter how bad the films are getting.

Fandango is pushing their agenda - "Twilight accounts for 63% of all ticket sales on Fandango, the nation’s largest movie ticketing destination, outpacing those of High School Musical 3 at the same point in that film’s sales cycle (two weeks before release date)."

Twilight surely hopes this is meaningless, in that HSM3 will not hit $100 million.

Posted by dpoland at 08:41 AM | Comments (81)

November 07, 2008

What's Wrong With This Picture?

At least four of these women qualify as historic beauties of the screen... yet... there is nothing in this image that makes me care a whit about seeing any of them in Nine... not even Judi Dench, who is near undentifiable... and of course, they just didn't bother to light the sex bomb character played by Kate Hudson. And with due respect to Fergie, seeing the lines of her inner thighs makes me want to ask her to shut her legs, not spread them further. And the all-black thing on a black stage doesn't play as anything but a bad party at a bad Los Angeles film festival... or the road company of the Pussycat Dolls.

Of course, the thing that is really missing is Daniel Day Lewis in a white suit... which the black and white idea can't work without... and who provides the life to all of these women in his memories.

No doubt, there will be some good in this film... but this is about as underwhelming a first image for TWC to kick out to the world as I could have ever imagined.

Maybe Rob Marshall is trying to get into the closet.

Posted by dpoland at 02:07 PM | Comments (37)

BYOB Friday

Will be posting soon... but here is some room to talk about the weekend to come...

Posted by dpoland at 12:51 PM | Comments (88)

November 06, 2008

How Patrick Goldstein Thinks

I found his blog entry this morning illuminating.

As usual, the naked emperor-in-his-own-mind is making pronouncements from his broken down soap box, a blog, about the horrors of "bloggers."

"Anyone who doesn't believe that the Oscars haven't been thoroughly hijacked by a gang of daffy, clown-suit-clad Oscar bloggers making endlessly moronic best picture predictions just hasn't been paying attention."

As this painful issue often inspires in him, Patrick is off on a McCain/Palin style rant of fact-free bitter slamming the details of which he would condemn with a similar fury if confronted by them in one of them thar' Oscar blogs.

Does Patrick really think that “the Oscars haven't been thoroughly hijacked?” I don’t think so. I think he feels that his annual Oscar columns, now seen as one-day-and-bird-caged in the grotesque wave of endless chatter about Oscar, online and off, have been devalued and thus the role of “responsible journalists” like himself has been hijacked.

He’s wrong, of course.

First, he was never very insightful to begin with. Give me the albatross of Phantom around my neck and I can defend it, even though I shouldn’t. But Spanglish? Ouch.

And if "Oscar boggers" had hijacked the Oscars, we/they would have an awful lot of power, no? He can't really mean that.

And does he really think the endless best picture predictions are moronic? Check back when he posts his own and the match at least 3 of 5 with what has been this “moronic” collective wisdom for a couple of months now.

I think we can all agree that it has become too much. But you don't have to follow everything. God knows, I don't. And those I don't read very often won't let me forget what an elitist jerk I am for not digging into every nook and cranny of the web for today's insight. Oy.

But this is where Patrick really exposes himself… because it’s not just him protecting his turf (which he really, really needs to)… it shows how narrowly he has come to think.

Does that really mean that after they're dazzled by "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" or enraptured by "Slumdog Millionaire," that they'll react by saying -- try to hear the robotic tone of this voice in your head -- "I know that was a wonderful movie, but I must remember there are more serious matters in the world than a wonderful cinematic experience. I must vote my political conscience during this important Oscar season."

Uh, no.

And no one has said that but you.

I am sure that if you had written what Anne Thompson and Kris Tapley and, indeed, I had suggested about the relationship of Prop 8 and/or the presidential election, you might have meant it as you mockingly wrote it.

I can only speak directly for myself, but I think it is fair to guess that the other two (and any others on our “moronic” bandwagon with this idea) agree that, 1) No one is talking about Milk winning Best Picture because of Prop 8, and 2) No one is suggesting that more than a very narrow swath of people will discount other movies of great quality to embrace another based exclusively on some bent idea of politics.

Perhaps I have been spared Patrick’s WOOD (Wrath Of Our Day) because I actually feel that Slumdog Millionaire's positive nature and movie-movie excitement has a real chance to win the day (having not seen Ben Button or grovelled at Fincher's feet like some "real" "journalists"). Again, for me, none of the prognostication right now is about who is going to win… until some freak occurrence like a performance that feels like it can’t lose (see: Charlize Theron).

But equally wrongheaded of Patrick is the argument that no one votes our of something like political conscience. That’s just untrue. And it doesn’t make them robots.

As shown in so much of his coverage, Patrick has become the John McCain campaign of movie journalism. He is forever focused on the base, but can’t see that there is a whole world of different ideas out there… some of which suck… some of which are brilliant… some of which are completely beige.

Jews do vote for “important” films about jewish issues. Gays do vote for “important” films about gay issues. Not every jew or every gay person. But yes, many do and many will. The question we “morons” try to figure out is how strongly those voting blocs might feel and in turn, how big they are.

There are jewish-themed films this season that absolutely will not be serious Best Picture contenders. For one thing, there are three, with The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Reader, and Defiance (in order of release). But for another, no, jews will not simply vote for anything about sympathetic jews. But don’t believe for a second that we are not paying more attention to those films, that they are not in the Oscar race in part because of that, and that if rejected, it will because they weren’t good enough, not because – as happens to so many films – they can’t muster enough people to realize that they exist.

As for the specific of Milk… the gay percentage of members of The Academy, whatever it is, is not likely to be enough, in and of itself, to give any film a Best Picture nomination. However, like blacks for Obama, they will be a key constituency for that film to have any chance to get a nomination. As in the presidential race, the issue of an enthusiasm gap is very, very real in the Oscar race… probably more so than in national politics.

There was a question a few weeks ago about how Milk would play with gay audiences. If they were just 50/50 on it, it would probably be in awards season trouble. The Prop 8 situation not only repoliticizes the movie in a very intense way, but the specific storyline being so reflective of the events in the film make Milk even more accessible, not only to gay audiences, but to all audiences.

And, if Focus handles it right, the Prop 8 situation will narrow the enthusiasm gap for a film about a gay man coming out of the closet 40 years ago, moving to San Francisco, becoming a local pol, wining some fights, and being killed in an act of private rage 30 years ago. What was a period bio-pic is now about what is happening TODAY. And that will inspire a lot more people to see it, whether in theaters or in Academy households, putting the DVD in the machine.

And from there, it’s all about the movie.

If the movie is not worthy, it will not get support.

But if the movie is worthy (and I would say that it is a masterpiece of a moment, writ small, as is Van Sant’s way), it will have a real chance.

And when Academy members make their nominating votes and have to make a list of five films, they will consider everything. If they feel Slumdog and Button are locks and Milk is their third favorite film, som might well put Milk in the first slot, followed by the other two, to give it a better chance of being nominated. If Milk is one of a few films that they are not 100% on, the politics around Milk may give it an edge in pulling it out of that pack… as might the Penn performance, the period element, or some other thing we aren’t thinking of. And vice versa, by the way. If someone thinks Milk is just a gay rights polemic of some kind or that Penn’s performance is all there is to watch in the film, they will downgrade it.

But we don’t all think like you, Patrick. Sorry. Honestly, I seem to recall you having a broader mind a few years back. But lunch by lunch with agents and studio execs and hack producers trying to get you to peddle their wares, you seem to have forgotten that ideas do not live and die in your cul de sac… except when they are in your word processing program… you BLOGGER!

Posted by dpoland at 12:40 PM | Comments (25)

17 Weeks To Oscar

Four of the “Five To Watch” are Oscar Insider movies. Two Kate Winslets (5 noms), one Leo DiCaprio (3 noms), a Daldry (2 noms), a Nicole (2 noms, 1 win), a Luhrmann (Moulin Rogue, 8 noms, but no Best Director for Baz), and an Eastwood (10 noms, 4 wins, 4 BPs. 1 honorary Oscar).

Ironically, the current conceptual frontrunner, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is comparatively Oscar impoverished. Up front you have David Fincher (no Oscar nothing) and Brad Pitt (1 Supporting Actor nod, for 12 Monkeys, 13 years ago). Beyond that, you have big bait in Eric Roth (3 noms, 1 win), Cate Blanchett (5 noms, 1 win), and Tilda Swinton (1 nom, 1 win).

Of course, Fincher is a f-ing genius. Pitt was a great young actor who got caught up in being a movie star and tabloid celebrity. And the material is an epic tale of time, so…

The rest...

The charts...

Posted by dpoland at 12:18 PM | Comments (64)

BYOB - Day 2

I had a great time chatting with Tilda Swinton at AFI last night, where she was honored for her breadth of work and invited an entire audience to come to Scotland for her film fest. Tonight, The Wrestler hits the AFI at the Mann's Chinese. This afternoon, spending some Slumdog time. Tomorrow, more Mickey time. Busy, busy, movie, movie.

What's floating your boat?

Posted by dpoland at 12:06 PM | Comments (33)

Correction: Obama Is The Third Black President

The Man, 1972

Posted by dpoland at 11:48 AM | Comments (6)

November 05, 2008

"Bruno" Gets Into The Middle Of Prop 8 March

And didn't want the news cameraman getting his antics on tape...

Funny idea or rape of a serious political debate?

Posted by dpoland at 06:45 PM | Comments (36)

Obama Is Second... The First Black President

Posted by dpoland at 05:40 PM | Comments (4)

Reading Is TubDemental

The Wesintein Co sent out invites to The Reader this afternoon, starting with screenings the Monday before Thanksgiving...

Posted by dpoland at 05:19 PM | Comments (4)

MILK It.

*************SPECIAL BULLETIN*************

Proposition 8 Protest Rally & Street Closures - Wednesday, November 5th

As deeply disappointed as we all are that California voters passed Proposition 8, we must not allow that disappointment to linger. This vote is a temporary defeat in the long march toward equal rights for all citizens in America.

Please join me for a protest rally tonight at 7 pm on San Vicente Blvd between West Hollywood Park and the Pacific Design Center (647 N. San Vicente Blvd. West Hollywood CA 90069) as we move forward towards restoring equality for all in California.

San Vicente Blvd, between Santa Monica Blvd and Melrose Avenue will be closed tonight starting at 6 pm. San Vicente south-bound traffic will be directed to make left or right at Santa Monica Blvd. Signs have already been posted to help divert traffic.

For more information about tonight's rally, please contact (323) 848-6460.

So what does this have to do with movies? (Yes, that is now the primary focus of this blog again)

Milk, however overstated by The Hollywood Reporter last week, has been trying to stay clear of the election cycle, as have movies like Frost/Nixon, Twilight, and even James Bond. The two political movies in this group were clearly concerned about mixing fact and fiction, even though both these films are based on the true stories. But getting heard above the noise of the election is very challenging. Twilight and Bond have both worked their bases effectively. But the big ad money is just rolling out now. And indeed, Milk is a case where the movie is opening in three weeks and change, is presumably more review driven than many films, and wants to keep the wave from breaking so early that there would be no froth three weeks from Friday.

But the moment is the moment. And the success of the anti-gay-marriage Prop 8 in California is, stunningly, a mirror reflection of one of the central stories of Harvey Milk’s life, as told in Milk. Proposition 6 looked to give the state the right to fire teachers for being openly gay and even those who “supported them” (whatever that means). The movement was directly connected to Anita Bryant’s crusade, which started in Florida.

Milk was the catalyst to fight this prop… which was certainly even more heinous than this year’s Prop 8. Obviously, it was not all Milk, but he was a central voice in both the fight and the strategy behind the fight.

It is, perhaps, the failure to have a central figure and a more aggressive approach to fighting this proposition that allowed the proposition to be turned into a choice between God and Godlessness.

I do not agree that Focus should have somehow given up control of their interest in this film to the idea of using it as a political weapon in this election cycle.

But I do feel that we are now on the other side of the looking glass and that it would be the best idea, both commercially and aesthetically, to connect the story of Harvey Milk to the story of California today. This film about a powerful series of events thirty years ago is, to its credit, as much about today as any movie that you will see this year. (In an odd way, even more so than W.) The power of the individual – gay, straight, white, black, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan or whatever – to change the world IS the story of the moment… the story of Obama… the story we all want.

Gus Van Sant or some who work with him should be out shooting the rally in West Hollywood and The Castro and anywhere else they take place and the real world of 2008 should be going into TV spots and a trailer contrasted with the real world of 1978… let Harvey Milk speak for us all. Let the spectacular Sean Penn performance speak to today.

I have been saying for a while that Prop 8 winning in California would be a big win for Focus and this movie. I don’t think anyone at Focus is pleased that they have this advantage. They would surely prefer that Prop 8 had lost… as Harvey defeated Prop 6.

But the moment is on them. And they should take advantage. It may feel dangerous, but the truth, I think, is that they have never had a chance to make this film as commercial and accessible as they have right now. And the film deserves it.

So I say, “go for it.” You have to give them hope…

(P.S. And for mysef, thanks to fortune that this issue makes a nice transition from all the politics back to movies...)

Posted by dpoland at 11:34 AM | Comments (16)

Sweetbitter

A beautiful night for America...

but here in California, we showed that bias and fear are still well within our grasp. The "gay marriage ban" passed by about 5 percent.

I do think that under Obama we will see legislation to make civil unions a national right. But still... the smarmy lies used to scare people into denying the rights of a minority with more financial clout than political power... not the best of us.

And yes... there will be some political remainders here... but the focus on movies is about to land again.

Posted by dpoland at 07:42 AM | Comments (75)

November 04, 2008

Obama Wins

With 207 electoral votes already projected for closed states... add CA's 55 electorals... and Washington State... and you have passed 270. Game over.

And he is going to win VA... and others...

Why the networks haven't called it is beyond me.

It is done.

Posted by dpoland at 07:02 PM | Comments (76)

BYO Gloating...

Posted by dpoland at 06:01 PM | Comments (30)

A Change Is Gonna Come

I am a bit of a mess today...

With due respect to the big, angry cynic who lives in my head and wants to cut everything down to the pieces that make sense... with due respect to the politics of all of it, including Obama's calm veneer as a safe black man and shrewd mechanic... with due respect to all of those who believe just as passionately about the political arguments coming from the right...

It is about hope.

It is about a nation so tied up in knots about race and religion and sex and difference.

It is about more that spouting hopeful words.

It is about a very real change... in my lifetime... from my father, who was born in 1917 and died in 1997 and who embodied all the dichotomies of living through that kind of change, to me... for the first time in America since the end of Vietnam and the revelations of Watergate...

We are moving into the next era four to eight to twelve years early by what seems to be our normal pace as a nation. That is an act of unusual maturity for this country.

It may not be true of everyone, but you can feel it out there... America is feeling something... America is choosing to take a chance on a guy who is not a machine candidate... a guy who turned the Democratic machine upside down... and we are rejecting fear - although has been pounded into our brains for over 7 months, by candidates of both parties - and we are, today, choosing hope. Real hope. Really different. Really beyond imagination.

When it ends, when there is a victory moment, assuming it’s Obama, I think even the hard, angry men and women of the right (which is not to say all the people of the right) who will lose a lot by losing this election, will feel that stirring in their hearts. It may be the wrong choice… but it is a choice to move forward.

With that, we have the chance of surviving our worst instinct at human beings. We are a step farther away from the mindset that seemed to be moving us inextricably towards our self-destruction.

And now and in the years to come, Obama will have to deliver to keep that hope alive.

But tragedy tomorrow… celebrate tonight. This is no small moment for America.

Sam

Otis

Al

Seal

Posted by dpoland at 12:10 PM | Comments (17)

Why McCain Lost

"I was there when we fixed Social Security and I'll be there when we fix it again."
John McCain, Grand Junction, CO, Election Day, 11:42a, pst

Posted by dpoland at 11:43 AM | Comments (2)

A Right... A Responsibility...

Posted by dpoland at 08:21 AM | Comments (26)

November 03, 2008

Every Time I Think I’m Out…

So… I am a bit tired of writing about it and talking about it and I am pretty sure that the answer to it, ultimately, is a private answer.

But today I found myself called out by Patrick Goldstein, suggesting that I broke embargo on Milk.

Ironically, this came after an hour or so of me complaining loudly to a rep of Focus Features about the full review of Milk that was released by Variety today - more than two weeks before full reviews were allowed by the studio - by agreement with Focus, which I didn’t know about when I agreed to hold my review, but not my comments about the film. Had I know that this was how they were going to go, I would not have agreed to the rules to which I agreed.

But this stuff rolls uphill and downhill. Patrick thinks he should fairly be triggered by a combination of me (and presumably, other web writers’ comments) and the full Variety review. In this blog, in comments, Jeremy “Mr Beaks” Smith posted the embargo demand that he had been subjected to, which did not include allowing him to comment before a longer review.

Here I am, following the rules I had been given, and pissing others off. Here I am, watching Variety follow the rules that they had negotiated, getting pissed off at the studio for hanging me out to dry. Perspective is everything... but it should not be that complicated.

Some of this is really simple to me. There is NO reason why the trades should be allowed an earlier review date than ANYONE. They are no longer primarily a trade magazine. They are a website. And many more people read their reviews on-line than will ever open any of the 50,000 copies of the daily paper they print. Moreover, the increasing pressure from the trade to be first to review can only be explained by the sense that it is in their competitive interest to be first. Fair enough. But that also means that if they are allowed this advantage, it is a clear disadvantage to everyone else.

And why?

Traditions. Old traditions whose rationale is no longer legitimate.

Yesterday, I wrote a somewhat ambiguous blog entry about (in part) all of this stuff when after two days of embargo negotiations with all critics in Los Angeles for a movie that was shown widely for the first time last week NOT to be written about until press viewers saw the film again on a celluloid print, someone at the LA Times broke that embargo… though he had no actually been embargoed because he was not put into the film by the regular media channels… but he did know about the embargo everyone else was under…

This came on the heels of two full-out embargo breaks by Variety on another film; one from a feature writer/blogger who saw the film for an interview and reviewed it unexpectedly (which is why she was not officially embargoed) and the second from someone who has not been a daily writer until recently… and who studios don’t quite yet know how to handle. (This is the second incident of this from him in the last two weeks.)

And don't even get me started on the recent spate of private e-mails from long lead press screenings being run before the movie has been seen by most of the press, much less written about, in long or short form. You don't think that's bad? Then why do the authors of the e-mails want their names hidden?

This problem is made more dramatic by the awards season, in which studios are showing many movies well before their actual release dates. (Frost/Nixon was more of a freak situation with its early London appearance.) It also happens when the studios are dancing around showing their big summer movies, when tensions are incredibly high for all involved.

And I am sympathetic to the studios on this. I know it is hard. And there are many masters to which even the highest level of execs answer.

But it is time for the studios and the journalists to sit down and to come up with a workable answer that addresses the realities of how things have changed. Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are blogs with reporters working the same beat as other blogs. Patrick Goldstein is a blogger and the LA Times is printing more immediate info via blog than any other way. There are people who cut a bigger swath with what they write and people who cut smaller swaths. There are people who play by the rules and others who intentionally flaunt the rules.

I am comfortable with rules, even if the cut down on my access… because I have wasted way too much time for too long fighting these fights. I am honored to be the blocking back for the internet movie writers of the world – and God knows, many of them resent me and choose to believe that I have been breaking down walls for the last decade only for my own benefit – but the big boys are now on the web turf and we need to find answers that really work… for everyone.

I addressed some of this in the response I posted to Patrick’s blog, which I reproduce below the fold…

I, David Poland didn't have Focus come down like a house of bricks on me because Focus' very specific instructions were followed to the letter.

I, too, am not thrilled by the Variety break today because it, as you state, goes against my understanding of the structure to which I was agreeing. If the comments were negative, the response would have been exactly the same... except for private e-mails of agreement from some of those involved.

And in your case, Patrick, the studio doesn’t (I don’t think) see you as a film critic in any real way, so even though you are now blogging, those rules are different too… which creates a whole additional set of problems for both the studios and the rest of the press. Variety, via non-critics, have become regular embargo breakers without any regard to the rules everyone else is laboring under. And just this last weekend, a Los Angeles Times blog broke an embargo that was carefully negotiated by the film’s publicist, but was gotten around because the journo came to the screening with a ticket that didn’t come through the publicists… so he could claim he wasn’t informed. (Added Note by DP. 4:39p: I am not saying that this was a ploy by the writer... just that the circumstances came down in his favor because this edge came to pass, purely by chance... even if he knew that others were being bound and that this was the studio's preference.)

It’s complicated, but it’s time to seriously address these situations.

Let me be 100% clear. I have argued - and did, just this morning - that studios have a right to decide what they want to do. But that said, as we are all in a business that involves trust, they should have some real transparency on the issue of embargoes. Variety is now primarily read on the web... so they should have no competitive advantage on review release dates... they are not the two-headed semi-private purveyor of industry info now... they are a consumer targeted website.

If the studios want to keep changing their review embargo policies – and I have been negotiating review dates on almost every awards movie and most high-profile mainstream releases for a few years now – they should at least be clear about what the structure is. And frankly, if they are determined to continue to offer an unfair advantage to the trades – or to me, if you feel the advantages I am sometimes offered to be unfair – I would suggest that a boycott of that film or that studio is in order. But for most, this is cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

What is really the most fair is for studios to have no more than three review release dates. The distinction between what a “review” is and what a “write about it” is must be thrown out. If they want early web buzz, let everyone who is seeing the film write something… perhaps with a word limit of 250 or 350 words. If they want to let the trades and others write well before release, set a date and let everyone try to get into that group as they will. And certainly, the idea of the release date being sacrosanct for reviews is now unworkable… unless the studio holds everyone to no reviews until then… strictly.

The hard part of this, for me, is that when I argue about these issues with studios, it is assumed that I can be placated by being given privilege. But that is not what I seek. I seek an honest, uncomplicated, relatively fair system.

And studios have worked with all kinds of agreements with all different kinds of writers for a very long time. We are now in a place where Variety, in Anne Thompson’s blog, is running e-mails from “friends” about their opinions of long-lead screenings that are no accessible by Variety’s critics or most of their writers. Pure Ain’t It Cool News. Full circle.

Time to think it out… like adults.

Posted by dpoland at 04:27 PM | Comments (15)

Bring Your Own Opportunity Not To Talk Politics

Almost there, folks... then we can get around to Madagascar, Bond, Bolt, and Twilight.

Posted by dpoland at 12:13 PM | Comments (32)

My Last Word On It... I Think

It was only four years ago that I harped on what was so wrong about the Dems in these elections and what was so right about the Republicans… Ahnuld having the titanic BALLS to go on stage and be a proud Nixon Republican. They made the affirmative argument, however wrong it was. That is what people want. The Republicans have been making noting but excuses for months now. And Obama makes, for the most part, the positive argument. And that’s why he will win, in spite of a strong Republican base and what I believe to be a 5% racist-won’t-vote-for-a-black-man. In the end, Obama is about hope… and McCain is about fear. Hope wins.

Posted by dpoland at 12:05 PM | Comments (5)

They're Already Trying To Impeach Obama

The link...

Posted by dpoland at 11:55 AM | Comments (4)

The Election Cycle In 1:30

Posted by dpoland at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

Monday Monday... Can't Trust That BYOB

35 hrs...

Posted by dpoland at 08:39 AM | Comments (43)

November 02, 2008

What's With The Repeating Choice To Claim To Look, But Not Hear?

It turns out Ms. Palin missed the full experience of watching Mr. McCain on “Saturday Night Live.” She boarded her charter plane at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, just on time to watch the show, an aide said, but the audio on her television wasn’t working. NYT

Posted by dpoland at 07:48 PM | Comments (5)

Someone's Fascinating Recap Of The Season

From this website, unsigned... for the entire season from beginning to today, take a look after the jump....

Posted by dpoland at 07:08 PM | Comments (2)

A Few Little Notes

I would estimate that over 90% of the audience that came to the Chinese to see Che' last night stayed for the second half of the film. For a relatively last minute addition to the program, the ticket sell-out, and the intense scramble for the small block of giveaway tickets showed a lot of passion going in. And I heard a lot of passion, 4.5 hours later, coming out.

Next…

I now expect embargo breaks on every movie from Variety, the L.A. Times, and others to be done on the whim of whatever excuse they can cook up. I also expect zero response, aside from a lot of loud complaining with no penalty, from the studios.

There are a combination of things going on with this. First, people who have never claimed to be critics and as feature writers were not writing about every event they were given access to the next day. Second, some people really care about being first… more than honor or respect… certainly more than they care about how their abuses affect other, less empowered journalists. Third, studios are overwhelmed by the circumstance changing, are creatures (as ever) of what they have done for years and decades, and really have no facility for responding in an effective way. And fourth, some of these folks scare the hell out of the execs who spend a good part of their time – no matter how high on the food chain – trying not to get surprised, humiliated or yelled at.

This is above and beyond the desperation of the bosses at these media oulets to beat the internet at its own game. (Good luck with that, pals.)

From my position, I get advantages and I get screwed... more the former than the latter, but plenty of both, especially this time of year. But you know, I am pretty much done with being the moralist because week after week, more and more people who I genuinely like and respect are forced to dance and lie and to try to escape the basic rules of expectations of cause and effect.

Frankly, I would rather keep liking most of these people than wasting a lot of time bitching at them when they already know full well that I am right, they are just trying to get along in what feels like a tough situation, and when all my bitching can lead to nothing but hard feelings… certainly not anyone stepping up to the once major outlets or even to some idiot internet based writers who continue to lower the bar for everyone else who toils on the web, which now includes all of those once major outlets.

I am trying to curb my instinct to react to this petty crap. It’s hard. And smiling widely with shit pushing its way through your teeth isn’t very attractive. But so be it.

The noises of the dying are only comforting if you are at peace with the loss. And I certainly may join the ranks – now the majority – of writers in this town who are going to lose more and more, faster and faster. Things change and none of us is above the changes of the eco-system we live in. This award season - as the WGA Strike did, as the HFPA shutdown did, as the SAG unknown has – is going to leave a lot of bodies on the deck.

Sadly, not all of them will be the ones who deserve to go, at least by my standards. Because cockroaches will outlive us all… for them, outliving morality and standards barely requires the twitch of an antenna.

Next…

I am quite conscious that I will wake up with minor post-partum depression on Wednesday. And if the baby dies in childbirth, well… who knows?

I believe in America. I believe that people know… they know on some other level. I can’t say that I am thrilled with the mainstream tastes of this nation. We often disagree, both on the great stuff they hate and even on the schlock that I love (and vice versa).

I am much more fearful of the “smarter” America. We are the ones who are willing to bend the truth into a pretzel so it matches our beliefs.

but given where we are, if Obama doesn't win, it will be something "they" saw in the man and not just all the ugliness and fear being thrown up around him.

Next…

The Sarah Palin prank call from Quebec is scary for two big reasons. One, the fact that they could get through the media veil when major outlets cannot… wow. But moreover, Palin talking to the fake Sarkozy was as on message, lacking in directness, and disconnected from anything other than being cheerleader cute as ever. And that scares the hell out of me. That is how you talk to a world leader? Like he/she is your public? Like he was Nick The French President? There was not a single second of adult, direct, frank, conversation, suggesting to a (potentially) other head of state that you were serious about the future of relations between the two nations.

I’m not saying she didn’t do a great job fending off a come on by a foreign head of state… but that is what happens in bars, not Oval Offices… or at least I hope so.

Posted by dpoland at 04:20 PM | Comments (7)

Joe The F-ing Idiot

Anyone want to defend this moron now?

Posted by dpoland at 02:48 PM | Comments (23)

Blu-ray Trick Or Treat

So... got the Hancock Blu-ray, which is Sony's first to go for this differentiating idea. (Speed Racer was the first from Warner Bros and I believe that Juno was the first Blu-ray with Digital Copy from Fox, though I never got theirs to work.)

I actually feel that if “free” Digital Copies are exclusive to Blu-ray, it can help the pitch for the digital future.

Also this weekend, Amazon started running a deal for a $300 PS3 (via discount), if you buy four Warner Bros Blu-rays at the same time. And unlike some of the old deals, it’s not you picking four movies from a very limited number of titles… it’s any Amazon-sold Blu-rays from WB.

I expect Sony to do at least as well soon… if not better. Given the economy and the life of Blu-ray under no small threat, I would be chasing the $250 price point (or lower) right now… but fill it up with a demand of 5 or 6 Sony discs purchased (at a consumer cost of anywhere between $100 and $160).

Do a Bond deal, with the 6 “old” Bond Blu-rays, Casino Royale and a pre-buy of Quantum of Solace and a PS3 for 400 bucks.

Do a Sony Classics package of any 6 of the SPC Blu-rays and a PS3 for $350.

There was an argument somewhere that Blu-ray is already dead… and that is too easy and too premature. I don’t disagree that they are behind the 8-ball and they have to move a lot faster to get the hardware into more homes, as the higher price for the discs just isn’t enough to deter people. You can rent Blu-ray and for 3 or 4 dollars more than DVD, you can buy. And it is much, much better. That said, there should be a second tier price of, say, $15, for product past its prime.

But if the price point ever gets to $150 and a decent upscaling player – and the PS3 is one of the best upscaling players and updates with technology by ethernet or wi-fi – is $100, Sony should be able to make that sale. And if they can get families that buy 4 or 5 discs a month to make one of those – the real cool visual one – a Blu-ray buy, the habit will take hold.

Add to that an increasing ability to deliver actually compelling content with BD-Live, particularly with Disney going deep into it and Sony re-issuing their hot older Blu-rays with the technology on the discs, and you start to have a viable community.

But this all starts with having a machine in the house. Until then, we’re just jerking around.

(PS – I intend to check out the “unrated” edition of Hancock, which promises more, previously unseen footage… but not the earlier cut, I don’t think. But I am very, very curious.)

Posted by dpoland at 02:14 PM | Comments (10)

Images, 110208

Saturday - The Director celebrating Che' At The Chinese, afterparty

Sunday - Practicing for Tuesday at the bagel shop

Posted by dpoland at 01:04 PM | Comments (0)

Weekend Estimates by Klady

Wrong I was... HSM3 nimbly leapt over the cutting stick... by a lot. Perhaps the tykes were scared off last weekend by the threat of crowds... perhaps there is a lot of repeat business... perhaps a 65% drop doesn't suggest anything other than a huge must-see followed by a drop made more dramatic by Halloween.

Kevin Smith leapt back to a pretty average Kevin Smith opening.

If you don't like Michael Clayton as a comparison to Changeling... how about W., which had a similar per-screen opening wide. How about Flags of Our Fathers? $10.2m on 1876 screens for $5,461 per. Final gross, $33m domestic.

Not a lot else of interest. Eagle Eye keeps crawling towards $100m. Synecdoche, New York is still showing muscle on 9 screens with an estimated $9360 per. And Body of Lies has proven to be a sequel to Proof of Life and The Beach.

Posted by dpoland at 11:38 AM | Comments (12)

November 01, 2008

Another Day, Another Misleading Drudge Headline

Today's All Caps Headline:
ZOGBY: MCCAIN MOVES INTO LEAD 48-47 IN ONE DAY POLLING

What you see when you click on the link to Zogby...

There is an excited bit of writing by Zogby at the top, but the numbers remain the numbers. I am assuming that Drudge is continuing to sell the "Zogby Traditional" poll, which no one but McCain supporters seems to think is relevant.

Of course, the real show of desperation is the kitchen sink approach, which Drudge also offers...

My favirote is the "testy moment" story, which certainly would suggest that Obama isn't like you or me...

CHICAGO (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama got annoyed with the media Friday as he tried to walk down a Chicago street with his 7-year-old daughter, Sasha, who was dressed up in a shiny costume for Halloween.
A pool of national photographers, reporters and a video crew traveling with Obama quickly covered the spontaneous moment.

"All right guys, that's enough," said Obama, wearing a casual outfit and sunglasses in the early evening.

He and his daughter were walking right toward the media on a public street.

"You got a shot," he told the photographers. "Leave us alone. Come on, guys."

He told the media to get back on the bus, referring to the vehicle where the traveling press pool often waits for him.

Obama then crossed the street with Sasha. At least one video cameraman who was not part of Obama's traveling press corps followed him for a while. Obama grew visibly irritated.

He and his daughter then began jogging, and even running, to get away from the media.

They ended up out of sight at a friend's house, where they were headed all along.

Posted by dpoland at 12:20 PM | Comments (31)

Bond Busts Out In UK

LONDON: 1st November, 2008

QUANTUM OF SOLACE
SHATTERS BOX OFFICE RECORDS
WITH £4.94 MILLION OPENING

QUANTUM OF SOLACE, the 22nd James Bond adventure, has made Box Office history on its opening day in the UK, taking a staggering £4.94m and making it the biggest Friday opening of all time. This shatters the previous record held by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which took £4.025m.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE, the latest installment from the longest running franchise in film history, has also beaten the opening day figure for the last Bond movie, Casino Royale,
which took £2.9m on its opening day.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE opened in 542 cinemas in the UK and Ireland on Friday 31st October and will release in the US on November 14th.

Produced for EON Productions by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, QUANTUM OF SOLACE is directed by Marc Forster and stars Daniel Craig as the legendary secret agent, James Bond. With a screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Oscar® winner Paul Haggis, the film picks up the storyline just one hour after the end of CASINO ROYALE, marking the first direct sequel produced by EON Productions.

Posted by dpoland at 12:14 PM | Comments (9)

Friday Estimates by Klady

Changeling seems to be targeting the Michael Clayton trajectory of last year. But alas…

Last weekend, it did $489,015 on 15 screens to Clayton’s $719,910 on the same number, about 68%. And though the expansion for Changeling is smaller than Clayton’s last year (1850 to 2511, about 25% fewer screens), the separation remains about the same on the Friday expansion day - $2.3m for Changeling to $3.3 million for Clayton, or 70%.

Clayton was pretty much played out for a month or two before it got its Best Picture nomination, grossing $39.4m until that day. So the good hope for Changeling is about $27.6m total without a Best Picture nod. More realistically, it will be out of theaters by mid-December and gross about half-a-million less domestically. Jolie has a good, if not spectacular, record with overseas numbers – all but 3 of her career films have done more than 50% of their business overseas, including A Mighty Heart – so total theatrical on the film should be around $55m - $60m.

Hate to jump on the negative bandwagon, but this is Kevin Smith’s worst opening day in a long while. And I think a lot of it is that branding a Kevin Smith movie has always included Kevin Smith. Elizabeth Banks is a good and lovely actress who has not found anything to make her bankable yet. And the mythology of Seth Rogen is that he is what opens… but he too is very likeable and talented, but his success in drawing audiences has been as a writer… it’s the movie, stupid. Whoever has money in Green Hornet should have dropped one in their shorts this morning… that’s exactly the kind of project where things go sideways, whereas Zack & Miri’s budget was certainly low enough to take this theatrical miss to DVD black ink.

The drop on High School Musical 3 is epic… and completely befitting last weekend’s numbers, where the Friday must-see was massive and the rest of the weekend went soft. I think more than a little of this has to do with Halloween and the first two films being television events, not movies. But HSM3 could well leap up into the top 2 or 3 – probably not the top spot – before this soft weekend is over.

Posted by dpoland at 12:13 PM | Comments (10)