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December 31, 2008

BYO New Year's Eve Blog

Add, 2:15p - Too good not to link... Fox is launching its Night At The Museum II trailer... at HappyMeal.com

Posted by dpoland at 01:53 PM | Comments (133)

Watchman Legal Papers

Sorry this is late... and yet more Watchmen... enough to choke on... but I finally got a look at the legal papers around the Christmas Eve finding by Judge Gary Allen Feess and it does speak specifically to a couple of the rumors that are being floated out there.

First, it states that the judge has found that Warners' primary argument consists of the notion that Fox never had any direct ownership or control to this material, therefore it didn't have the right to execute a turnaround agreement or to expect any compensation for the agreement it had.

This is one of the silliest arguments ever made and suggests complete culpability on the part of the studio... willfulness, really (as noted in the judge's August offering). Apparently, they have represented that they knew... and they decided Fox had no standing... at all... period.

Second, the judge finds that WB didn't even enter into an agreement with Larry Gordon until AFTER they had been notified of Fox's position on this. So this idea that WB innocently wandered into this situation and that Fox lay in wait for poor, innocent WB to invest heavlily in production before backdooring a claim is 100% false... if you believe the judge on the facts... which I think we have to.

Third, Warners' other argument - as though if their frst one was valid they would need a second one - is that, somehow, because Fox negotiated a turnaround and a quitclaim with clear rules agreed to by Largo, Gordon, and Fox, which did not include a clause forcing Largo to make the movie anyway (read that again, if you can do it without laughing), Fox gave up any claims to distribution rights they held.

Ahhhhh... ha.

Finally, there is the general argument that, somehow, the Largo/Fox quitclaim, which preceded the turnaround deal, made the turnaround deal irrelevant. But that really doesn't make much sense. Arguing that doing the turnaround deal was a mistake - which Gordon's lawyer is doing - is pretty lame.

So... repeating... the basic claim by WB - according to the judge, as a statement of fact - is NOT what their "it's not fair" publicity blitz has been about, but rather a claim that Fox gave up their rights with the corporate quitclaim... even though there was a turnaround agreement on the specific property pursued and signed after the quitclaim and that as a result, Fox has no rights, nor any ongoing interest, and should simply be told to go away, not even to get back the monies they spent on development. And the fact that after they gave up their interest in producing a movie, but had a deal to return monies against development in exchange for those rights and distribution rights, the deal itself - a failrly boiler plate thing - made all of their rights invalid because the deal not to make the movie led to not making the movie.

It's time for the geeks to start getting angry about being played by Warners on this one. I can't imagine that anyone really believes that either of Warners' central arguments hold any water whatsoever.

Worst of all... if Warners' had just paid the million or the $1.5 million or whatever Fox would have taken, this would have been over before it began. Instead, they rolled the dice and this is going to cost not less than 50 times that much. Look for WB to sue Gordon for their losses by summer. And watch Gordon escape that one by noting what the judge has noted... that they knew exactly what the paperwork said and made a terrible legal call that was not his call to make, however he represented the situation verbally or even in a contract indemnifying Warners.

And what of Paramount? Good question. Right now, they are just an "et al" in the suit and the question of "distribution" has not been specified as domestic or international or both. (And isn't the reason they ended up splitting with WB because they had so much money against the versions of the movie they never made... not unlike Ben Button? I could be wrong on this... there is probably some very specific story that I don't know and that one of you will offer... but "money against" films unmade... basic.)

Paramount needs the cash and it would be less than shocking if they ended up making some kind of deal to get their money out, take some profit down the road, and to, essentially, sell Fox the international distirbution rights with, esentially, Warners' money. The only problem is that there is no time for Fox to ramp up worldwide distribution in time for the March release. So could Paramount get paid a distribution fee and its costs and some backend and give the money rights to Fox. Sure. Why not? This could end up being a viable answer, as Paramount made a very wise investment, but can't really afford to see the money get tied up in multi-player court cases and delayed by a year or more.

But really... it's completely conjecture at this point.

Some of the paperwork...

Posted by dpoland at 12:24 PM | Comments (8)

Watchman EPK

Watchmen Exclusive

It is funny that this is on MySpace, a News Corp business. But it is not remotely surprising. Trailer Park on MySpace has the younger traffic that Watchmen seeks. Marketing is marketing is marketing. Strange bedfellows and all that.

Anyway... I must admit... the extended view, coming a few days after I devoured the hardback of Watchmen - my fourth or fifth reading - is a little dissapointing. It looks amazing visually, but more Sin City than the flawed, but deeper images of Gilliam or Burton. Matthew Goode seems like the one casting mistake... which is probably why he hasn't been talked about much. But it feels like it might be a symbol of what could be a problem with the film... all the visuals... no depth. And that would be a shame, even if it will also be a powerful experience. The lesson of The Dark Knight is not that bigger is better, but that giving the audience what it feels to be more depth counts for more than a little.

Still, $500 million worldwide seems uunavoidable for the spectacle alone.

Anyway... take a look... happy new years!

Posted by dpoland at 11:00 AM | Comments (27)

December 30, 2008

Watchman Myopics

I will be brief, since I think I've been clear...

It pains me to see smart people act like fools.

If any of you lent a friend $10,000 to start a business they needed $200,000 to really start and you had the understanding that if they ever got their funding, you would be paid back, and if not, you would own some percentage of the business... and your friend took your money, almost got funded but didn't, then ultimately did, but acted as though you didn't exist...

Money against film projects is as Studio 101 as it gets. I would be shocked if Drew McW doesn't have at least one writing deal over recent years that is not in turnaround and carrying the burden of what he was paid on it. I was a screenwriter for 2 years and I have one. Some of the best scripts ever are sitting unmade because of the amount that they have sitting against any future production. Superman Returns had over $60 million against it, but WB went forward because they hoped it would outdo that burden.

Studio 101.

And all this geek whining tells you just why the geek community is not taken seriously.

It's politicians talking morality and then getting caught with their dicks out.

There is nothing wrong with wanting Watchmen to come out and for creativity to reign over money. There's nothing wrong (except that it's mildly delusional) to believe that Tom Rothman is not just a more honest version of every other businessman in this game and that most would be thrilled to have his track record (or Mechanic's for that matter). But suggesting that something is wrong with Fox getting it's absolute, legal, moral, not remotely unusual due on this movie is infantile and/or intentionally self-deceptive.

That's all I'm sayin'...

And before you start telling me that I am in anyone's pocket, keep in mind... I knew this was going to happen almost exactly as it has the day I read the legal docs. It's not a borderline call. The only question is who pays what to whom. WB infringed on an existing contract and either maliciously or incompetently moved forward. Whoever compared it to Art Buchwald came close... but Fox is Buchwald and WB is Par... though Fox's claim is much more solid than Buchwald's. They wrote checks. They left it sitting like over 50% of written screenpllays sit in this business of turnarounds.

And the Fox Knew... Fox Should Have Pursued Earlier thing is utter bullshit. If your landlord doesn't ask for your rent every month and you get 6 months behind, does your obligation go away because your landlord didn't manage your finances and push you to act responsibly?

If "geeks" want to be treated like serious adults, they need to start banging on WB to eat their porridge and pay what they owe, so y'all can see Dr Manhatten hang out on Mars. If someone steals from someone you don't like, you don't just keep blaming the guy you don't like because he is "evil." Well... you do if you are six.

Posted by dpoland at 08:23 AM | Comments (23)

BYOBirmingham

Heading back to The Great Big Freeway today...

The year end seems less decisive this year... kinds rolling rather than just coming to a stop. Perhaps it's because I was at a bowl game yesterday, anticipating the college national championship in 9 days, the same day as tje BFCAees, with Sundance just a week later.

Perhaps it's because we are really down to 6 legit Best Picture candidates and ballots just went out. (Reminder - Though my sense is that it is really Slummy vs Frosty for the win, Phase Two is always a separate race and no one should forget that... including me.)

2009 is almost here... and scary as things are, hope is just 22 days away. There are no magic tricks, but as all of us have experienced at one moment or the other, it is small victories that keep us going through adversity... and I expect that the new president will offer that.

At least we are not Gaza Strip civilians caught between two very brutal political war machines, both of whom are sincerely convinced that they act out of survival instinct, both capable of doing terrible things towards that end.

Posted by dpoland at 08:00 AM | Comments (22)

December 29, 2008

Birmingham News

In the big cities and in the media in general, we have a hard time avoiding media myopia. I write about studios that spend scores of millions every couple of weeks to release new films, media titans like the TribCo, NYT, and USA Today, and worry about how big that big should be.

A year or so ago, I vividly remember looking at the Detroit papers during an airport wait and feeling like I had walked into a P.O.W. camp, they were so thin, pained, and hopeless.

A look at this morning's Birmingham News had a less shocking - how time and experience numbs - but equally scary reminder of the future. Section A... 8 pages... 4 locally reported stories on the front page. Not a single additional inch of reporting that wasn't off a wire service... the only additional local work in the section was the row of local editorials, about one- sixth of the 2 page, syndication-loaded op-ed section.

I know... hardly unusual out there. Birmingham ain't Detroit or LA or even many well loved smaller cities on America. But not only is the local news diet thin, but the narrowing of news sources is scary and the inevitability of a print paper, in a city with a clear division of web-accessing monied and print-at-best poor, going away BECAUSE there is so little non-wire reporting, is sad.

Posted by dpoland at 10:03 AM | Comments (5)

December 28, 2008

Weekend Estimates by Klady - December 28

2003 was the last time that Christmas was on a Thursday... or even more significantly, not as part of a Sat, Sun, Mon, or Tues. Like this year, that led to the an unusually horrible Christmas Eve. It's always a big off day, but the Top Ten gross for the day was millions lower than the other Eves in 2003 ($14.7m) and this year just $10.1m.

It's not a coincidence that this is also the first Christmas since 2003 with anything near the new release firepower that we saw this year. That year, it was Cheaper By The Dozen, Ben Affleck's attempt at a non-Ryan thriller, Paycheck, the Oscar chasing Cold Mountain, and Peter Pan.

They grossed $35.4m, $13.5m, $14.6m, and $11.1m in those first four days, for about $74.6 million combined. This weekend's foursome of $158.8m crushed that... more than double. Of course, the real estate eaten by LOTR:ROTK $64.6 million had a lot to do with that. This year's top holdover, Yes Man, did $22.3 million over four. That still leaves a $41.9 million separation between the Top Five (for four days) this year vs 2003. And the real pleasant surprises in there are the size of the number for Marley and the huge number for Ben Button.

The Button opening is, actually, Ocean's level big. For Pitt, this is huge. It's almost as big as Troy, but that was a summer movie. And - he said with a smirk - Troy was actually MORE expensive than BB. This number should lock in the film for a Best Picture nomination... though it was likely going to lock in with any number as low as half this opening.

Projecting forward, there is a real shot at the film better than doubling its current total by the end of the holiday, January 4. A total of $80 million by then would make BB easily the highest pre-nom December release grosser since the Rings era. Juno, which was the only other Dec release to be over $60 million when nom'ed post-Rings, was at $31.5m at the end of the holiday ($87m when nominations were announced). (The Departed and Ray were the only two others over $60m when nominated post-Rings, period.)

Going farther back, A Beautiful Mind was the last big non-Rings December Oscar release to be over $100 million when nominated - and Button is likely be the next - but Mind didn't go wide until after the holiday.

The reason this is really the biggest story of the weekend is that a domestic total of $170 - $200 million likely means at least $250 million overseas. $450m worldwide means the film will be profitable in theatrical. This means that no one else needs to be fired at Paramount for a while. (There is still likely to be some post-awards season talent losses.)

So mock the black tie premiere or the books or whatever you want about how they sold this sucker, but scoreboard is scoreboard. And unlike the Vantage "successful" cash drainers last year, this film, if things keep going right, has the scale to pay for its excesses. And that is an achievement indeed.

P.S. The other HUGE story is MGM marketing a loser, Valkyrie, to an opening that is stronger that Cruise-superstar drama openings like Vanilla Sky and Eyes Wide Shut. $200 million worldwide is almost guaranteed. I don't know that this will be enough for the film to be profitable. Many insiders say, "no." But it may be enough to keep investors from abandoning MGM and Cruise's UA play.

Posted by poland at 01:46 PM | Comments (51)

The Per-Screen Scam

I am kinda sick of seeing screaming headlines/alerts about movies that are opening to "HUGE" per-screen averages at the end of the year... all the more absurd as studio-level wide release marketing budgets are leading to these HUGE exclusive openings.

I get it... I get it. But it is a scam and journalists should be saying so.

This weekend it is a $64,000 per-screen average - estimated, of course - for Revolutionary Road. That's - get this - fewer than 350 tickets per screen than Frost/Nixon's HUGE opening. And what is all the box office maven buzz this week (coming, not surprisingly, from Rev Road HQ )? That Frost/Nixon is underperforming. (Not really fair... but another conversation.)

And then there are the pesky details... like I did the math and realized that Rev Road on 3 screens was mathematically incapable of grossing $64,000 per. Then I looked... it's in three theaters... on 5 screens.... which really makes it $36,400 per... estimated.

Oh.

The Top 10 per-screen launches this year until this weekend... and no, I have not yet checked for actual screen count for the others... I will as soon as I can.

Frost/Nixon - $180,708 - 3 - $60,236 - $2,659,000 - 12/5/08
The Wrestler - $202,714 - 4 - $50,679 - $648,000 - 12/17/08
Gran Torino - $271,720 - 6 - $45,287 - $2,619,000 - 12/12/08
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl - $220,297 - 5 - $44,059 - $17,657,973 - 6/20/08
Milk - $1,453,844 - 36 - $40,385 - $12,281,000 - 11/26/08
Slumdog Millionaire - $360,018 - 10 - $36,002 - $16,693,000 - 11/12/08
Doubt - $507,226 - 15 - $33,815 - $5,000,000 - 12/12/08
Changeling - $489,015 - 15 - $32,601 - $35,417,977 - 10/24/08
Rachel Getting Married - $293,369 - 9 - $32,597 - $9,785,033 - 10/3/08
Che - $61,070 - 2 - $30,535 - $108,961 - 12/12/08

Posted by poland at 11:03 AM | Comments (4)

December 27, 2008

A Quick Touch Of Clarity

Yes, I know that I repeat a phrase in the Ly entry...

Much as the ego stroke of everything at MCN being attributed as "David Poland's," this is a fallacy. I have not touched a single list this year (aside from forwarding those sent to me). Laura, Ray, and Kim have been driving that train. I, in fact, am still seeing a few stragglers before doing my real list... other outlets asking for early December opinions get early December opinions.

As for the chart, the philosophy behind the list that will top out between 200 and 250 lists has always been to mix the sublime, the mainstream, and even a few of the absurd. This has given the list a nice balance, in our opinion. Indeed, of you want the arty view, check out the very valuable indiewire and VVM polls.

(via iPhone)

Posted by dpoland at 02:43 PM | Comments (7)

Why Ly'?

The LA Times did a hit piece on Ben Lyons today... Saturday... two days after Christmas... pretty much a burial...

But what really struck me about the mostly cut-n-paste story was that there was not a single full-time critic quoted. Stu van Arsdale came closest to making the point that is basically missed by the existance of a piece like this...

Who Fucking Cares?

While it is, indeed, something to have a syndicated platform, powered by Disney O&Os, after four months of this embarrassing Disney experiment - though not close to being as embarrassing as Ebert's exit was mishandled - there has been ZERO impact by either host or the thumbless show. If Disney took the show out of prime slots in LA, NY, and Chicago, the ratings would be comedically low (as they are for the pater Lyons' show) and Disney would be "no commenting" instead of defending a show that was hamstrung not only by hack hosts, but by a lack of a philosophy behind the show or the meager prduction budget needed to have behind-the-scenes talent to drive the machine.

I intensely disagree that there is not a syndication movie review show that can work. Really, that is a stupid argument made only by people who don't understand television. The big mistake by Disney was thinkng that youth and cable celebrity was a way to draw. Dumb. If that were true, E! would not have programmed itself into a whorehouse and still be getting soft ratings and you'd all be talking about G4.

The shame is that opportunities like this - and Roeper... and Shoot Out, which never figured out how to turn so many good elements into the fun show it always wanted to be - poison the well for "the next show.". Not only is there a flop, but this will be a flop that signals that such a show should never be tried again. Maltin's show failed. Lyons Sr and Bailes will be on the deathwatch as soon as NBC has a few months post-At The Movies to see no ratings increase, Shootout is out at AMC. And while I love Elvis Costello and much of the Sundance Channel programming, they are signalling for TV what we see on fashion mags on the racks every day... why just have someone who can deliver when you can have a celebrity deliver with some built-in awareness?

Regardless... Lyons and Mank3 will be gone and forgotten soon enough... like Dixie Whatley and Bill whateverhisnamewas and so many others. Even Roeper, who like him or not had years sitting right there with Roger, was unable, with the support of Roger and other backstagers from the old show, was unable to get a show started that would have had the thumbs and all. No one wants that show. No one wants this show (but Disney wants to role the dice to try to hold valuable syndication slots). If it were a lame animal, we'd shoot it in the head.

But do we really need another column inch used to watch it shoot itself in the foot?

I don't.

(via iPhone... from Atlanta)

Posted by dpoland at 01:17 PM | Comments (14)

December 26, 2008

BYOB - Travel Day

Happy holidays... be nice to one another...

Posted by dpoland at 11:18 PM | Comments (55)

Oscar Watch?

As I just wandered into EW's attempt to knock off my video interview franchise (smart... and they spend more on production... which is lovely... and interestingly, have only seemed to have gotten the specific talent that I have not...), more sad was seeing Dave Karger's award blog called "Oscar Watch," which is the name that The Academy forced Sasha Stone to give up just a year or so ago.

How is it that a major media company is openly allowed to infringe on Academy copyright while Ms Stone's independent site is not? It is inexcusable.

I only wish that I had the money to give Sasha to litigate the issue with The Academy and then to go up against EW for the infringement, which clearly trades on Sasha's years of built up goodwill.

I have nothing against EW or Dave Karger (a guru) or anyone at Time-Warner. But I am a fan of fairness, felt that The Academy pressing its claim against Sahsa - as it once had against a secton of MCN - was reasonable on their part, and that giving up the name was the right choice for her. But not when some bigger outlet gets to walk in and steal the name, generic as it is, that she squatted on and built before anyone else was clever enough to do so. That just isn't right.

Posted by dpoland at 11:45 AM | Comments (52)

BYOB - After X

Still not ready to work, but here is some chat space...

According to Steve Mason, the Christmas Day winner was Marley & Me, followed by Ben Button, followed by Bedtime Stories. Valkyrie did over $7 million for the day.

I take Steve's premature estimijaculations for the 4 day with a big grain of salt, as I did his hyperactive post of 40 hours ago that Bedtime would break records. Doesn't mean he's wrong... just keep the salt shaker handy.

Posted by dpoland at 09:07 AM | Comments (22)

December 24, 2008

On Watchmen...

The judge has given a ruling... nothing really new for me to say... the only thing I find interesting is that both side must have pushed him for a quick ruling as delaying until the end of January would surely have led to an injunction on the release of the film... settle soon.. Fox wants money and a logo in front, not to distribute the film or to interrupt what seems to be a successful sell by WB... if you do anything because you think the geeks are going to rebel, you're idiots... just eat your porridge, WB and/or Paramount. You screwed up on Lawyering 101... clear your rights.

Hot Blog, 8/31 - "Once the judge decides - he may have already - whether Fox is owed money or not, he might grant the injunction just to move the settlement along... but more likely, he will tell the lawyers, in chambers, to settle the damned thing before he settles it for them."

He's now done that publicly.

This is not a complex case. Really. Judge Judy could have it done in under 30 minutes. She would either bitch out Fox for knowing and not saying anything before awarding them the full amount and a share of the profits or she would yell at Warners for not being more careful before handing Fox their interest payment and maybe legal fees and throwing them out. And as silly as that sounds, it's pretty much what's going on here. Either the pawn ticket was paid or Gordon/WB/Par threw a 20 on the counter, grabbed the property that was once theirs, and ran off with it, hoping not to be chased.

Pretty much what the judge found...

8/19
"And what, dear reader, of Paramount, the owner of the foreign rights to this project? And Legendary, which likely footed about 25% of the overall cost of the film?

300 did 6.6% more at the overseas box office than at home. The film is due for near day-n-date release in most of the major international markets. If Fox prevails, they have dibs on all of that too. So all of a sudden, even if the domestic/world split is 50/50, the math gets uglier for WB.

Made Up Numbers - $400 million worldwide. Fox gets 10% of the gross rentals... $22 million. $11 million of that is Paramount’s. $5.5 million is Legendary’s. But WB can’t take that money from them under their deals, it would seem likely. So, WB’s $55 in rentals is now $33 million (and $20m in distribution fees) against their share - about $90 million - in P&A and production. The $37m left over can surely be made up in DVD and other ancillaries, though again, WB is looking at a quarter of the revenue minus a full – guessing – 10% that it has to eat for all the funding entities and give to Fox. So you’re looking at about 15% of the post-theatrical net, putting the breakeven for WB at about $400 million gross from post-theatrical… Fox gets $42 million (minimum) for suing… Paramount has a more profitable movie than any they had this summer… and Legendary continues its current winning streak.

And if the movie actually did $400 million worldwide, but it was, say, a 55% international split, WB being forced to keep Paramount whole would mean that a very successful movie could be an actual money loser for WB, even factoring in distribution fees.

Brutal."

8/19, 2nd Entry
"There doesn't seem to be anyplace to turn for WB on this one. The 1994 agreement once again restates Fox's position and the agreement not only to a payment, but to a piece of the net profits (2.5%), and quite specifically "No Assignment," stating that the rights being assigned to Gordon and personal to him and that he can't assign rights to any party without Fox's approval."

Posted by dpoland at 11:00 PM | Comments (15)

'Twas The Night... Hollywood 2008

'TWAS THE INDICTMENT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
As Told To Inclement Bernie Madoff

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the town
Not a creature was comfy, even Will Smith was down;
The movies were sold with the studios’ care,
In hopes that more money soon would be there;
The execs were nestled all smug in their beds,
While visions of internets danced in their heads;
And The Dark Knight in Blu-ray, and Mamma Mia!’s sap,
Had just been released to end DVD’s nap,
From defaulting loans there arose such a clatter,
They sprang from the sleep to see what was the matter.

Away to the iPhone they flew like a flash,
Tore open the 3G and threw up the apps.

The bankruptcy pleas of the new-fallen co-s
Brought the fear of more red to business below,
When, wondering how much of life was a wager,
With a miniature role, for eight tiny majors,
With no new money driver, no cash flowing track,
They knew in a moment… they needed St. Jack.

More rapid than eagles, Valenti he came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Sony! now, News Corp! now, P-Mount and GE!
On, Warners! on Disney! on, MGM/ UA!
To the top of the summer! To the top of the fall!
Now make money! Make money! Make money all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the savior, he flew,
With the promise of cash, and pay-TV too.

But soon, in a twinkling, they’d hear what they feared
The slicing and shredding of each new idea.

As they drew in their hands, and were turning around,
Into the boardroom St. Jack came with a bound.

He was dressed in black tie, from his head to his foot,
And his diction was perfect, his deep drawl still put;
A bundle of goodwill he’d flung on his back,
But he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his glower was scary!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the hair of his head was as white as the snow;
The plight of the biz made him grind all his teeth,
And hot smoke encircled his head like a wreath;
He swore with a rage and he’d quote LBJ,
He shook, when he talked about “back in my day.”

“Costs are chubby and plump… be ashamed of yourself,”
And they laughed as he said it, in spite of themselves;
A lack of a quote and a twist of his head,
Soon let them all know they had so much to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And crunched all the numbers; then turned with a jerk,
And laying that finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, from the big chair he rose;
He sprang to his feet, ready to give a smack,
But away he did walk, like Winona at Saks.
Then they heard him exclaim, ere their egos he bucked,
"Happy Christmas to all, you morons, you’re fucked."

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

'Twas The Nights...
1998
1999
2003
2004
2005
2007

Posted by dpoland at 12:28 PM | Comments (1)

BYOB - Christmas Eve.... ahhhhh

If you don't get the reference, check the Top Ten lists...

Posted by dpoland at 09:04 AM | Comments (7)

DP/30 - Elsa Zylberstein, Co-Star of I Have Loved You So Long

Available on GoogleVideo
or in QT, after the jump...

Posted by dpoland at 09:03 AM | Comments (8)

December 23, 2008

Mamma Mia! Manly?

Great tv spots for the DVD of Mamma Mia! during football yesterday.

"You know she wants it! Be man enough to buy her a musical!"

Love that.

(And on a less manly tack, did anyone notice Oprah failing to do much promotion of Ben Button while milking Mr Pitt in a Ben Button episode, taped November 5? Odd. Did she like the film? I hate to be doggin' Da Button, but when Oprah can't get in her normal frenzy for your Oscar movie... well... "It's like nothing you've seen before" is not "I love this movie." Just noticing.)

Posted by dpoland at 09:08 AM | Comments (8)

December 22, 2008

The Superstar Studded Thundercats Movie

Posted by dpoland at 09:50 PM | Comments (22)

Imitation... The Sincerest...

Frost/Nixon took the lesson from Doubt this weekend and have come out swinging with new, much more aggressive spots for the film. Forget the subleties of Nixon trying to manage Frost and decided just how much he wanted to fall on his sword. This is now a mano-a-mano street brawl!!!

it aint the movie... but it might be a better sales choice.

It is one of the real problems with awards season. Marketers become respectful of the films. Too respectful. And they sell to too small an audience... a group of about 6000.

So good for you, Universal. Sell that dead president out. Make Frost look like he had some control of the situation. The movie works. Audiences will forgive you.

Next up, Milk. Wait for the gunshot... wait... wait...

Posted by dpoland at 09:40 PM | Comments (7)

Buh-Bye Strike... Buh-Bye SAG

The question for SAG is now… what will you do without a strike or a contract?

Today, SAG announced that it would delay the sending of ballots for a strike vote by two weeks. As Mike Farrell comments in a stunningly disingenuous, but occasionally dead accurate missive, “It appears that we’re now going to be paying for another ‘education campaign,’ this time one that will explain how important it is that this strike vote succeed.”

I agree with that particular sentiment completely. I think much of the rest of his “truthdig” release to be self-serving bull. He is as much a part of this problem as anyone when he refuses to acknowledge even the possibility that there is another side to the AFTRA merger position that is anything but insane and he spins many of his “facts” to fit that position, leaving out any offer of the reason why actions he doesn’t like were taken… well, except for crazy pills.

But on an attempt to “educate” SAG members to vote for a strike authorization, like the attempt to “educate” AFTRA members not to vote for the contract they signed – a virtual death warrant for SAG as we have known it for decades – is a disaster. And if SAG leadership spends more than the cost of one meeting doing it, they should be fired for that. Just idiotic. Either call the vote or wait, but selling the position is not what anyone needs. And it is a doomed idea.

It is easy to say that a “no” vote on strike authorization will decimate the union’s ability to negotiate. But we are past that. And it is easy to say that this whole mess could have been better negotiated. But that’s not really true either. The “right deal” died with the other unions, with AFTRA as the killing blow. I am amazed that AFTRA continues to behave in a completely predatory way and still, SAG members are out defending AFTRA as some sort of victim of the current SAG leadership. And when AFTRA eats SAG whole, which now seems inevitable, those same people who fought to give AFTRA more power earlier will blame Rosenberg for that also.

The “No Strike” forces have won… because in the end, the sentiment of no strike is the right sentiment, even if some have motives that can surely be disputed in high decibel levels. And there will never be a strike authorization vote or a strike.

So… what does SAG do now?

The question is, can Doug Allen and Alan Rosenberg be forced into signing the deal that is on the table? That is what I believe membership now wants, in the majority. (Yes, a guess on some level. But how many really dispute this… and is the vote delay anything less than confirmation from within?) Well, Rosenberg says he will do it if there is not support for a strike. So…

AMPTP has the offer of synchronized contract end dates for WGA and SAG in 2011 on the table… but history has shown us that once precedent is set, it doesn’t change much. So the idea that 2011 will bail SAG out is not too realistic. And by the end of 3 more years, it wouldn’t be shocking anymore for SAG to handle movies only and AFTRA to oversee all of television. This is where we have been heading since AFTRA started being more generous to producers of “taped” television that SAG was. This is where AMPTP is heading, it seems to me. It all makes perfect sense… to everyone but actors who want to make a living and will never be marquee stars. A merger will blur this more, but at some point, the interest of film actors will be discarded by a merger actor’s union and a movement to restructure will emerge.

Anyway…

I think it’s all over. A deal gets signed shortly after The Oscars. Doug Allen is marginalized or gets a settlement allowing him to take all the money and go get a job with some other union that’s going out. Rosenberg resigns. And on to the AFTRA merger.

And in all the in-fighting one very simple detail is forgotten. No one at SAG wins. AMPTP wins. 5 for 5.

Fuck.

Posted by dpoland at 09:26 PM | Comments (0)

DP/30 - Ellen Kuras - Director, Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)

Available on GoogleVideo
or in QT, after the jump...

Posted by dpoland at 01:23 PM | Comments (7)

BYOB - Brave New Week

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

DP/30 - Matteo Garrone, director of Gomorrah

The director of the 2008 Italian submission for Oscar sits for a chat with David Poland.

Posted by dpoland at 12:00 AM | Comments (7)

December 21, 2008

Weekend Estimates by Klady

The weather outside is a popular cliche'... really.

Estimates may defy accuracy today. We'l see. Klady has Yes Man slipping well under 3x Friday... the other two openers right around there. At least one premature e-estimacator has retracted estimates a couple of times over the weekend.

People sometimes ask why some of this premature stuff irritates me so. It's 3-fold. One, it's often inaccurate. But more importantly, the sense of mining movie grosses like they are baseball stats is something that has irritated many for years, as box office has become assured of a Sunday night slot on every news show (and now, ever scroll). But we are getting to the point where we won't wait for the news to happen before insisting we have the answer. This is not a situation where Traditional Media is doing a single bit of perspective reporting either. And those who are positioning themselves as experts are either completely ignorant of what they are really writing about or they are so busy trying to be first that they are doing a disservice to people who have a legitimate interest in what is going on out there.

And 3... the reason we have incredibly unclear and often no verifiable numbers in areas of new media is that there are so many irresponsible monkeys swimming around the pool in box office these days that the industry is dedicated to hiding every single number they can from her on in.

With due respect, this is AICN Syndrome. Reviewing test screenings has led to a test screening system that no longer works for filmmakers or the foolish execs that overvalued the numbers that came out of those screenings. And we don't know the real numbers on anything other than box office now because "analysts" dipped too deeply into the well and misunderstood the numbers they did have, creating problems for every studio.

And by the way... here is a touch of what may become news in the days to come... purchasing a web business should require a lot of due diligence work, as word around the box office moat is that a lawsuit for stolen proprietary information is being seriously considered now that one web entity has grown deep pockets. As I have written before, domestic box office that studios hand out each week is not proprietary information. If you have a website or newspaper, you can get on the weekend phone list. But when you are digging past the first 20 or 30 grossers, it is likely that you are using numbers from just one or two actual hands-on box office information brokers aka reporting services… none of whom give out that info for free. Claiming that you are reporting service does not make it so. And the rules of the game, which used to be a bunch of people writing things down in dank offices and filing stuff in cabinets, become quite different when there is real money at stake.

But I digress on my digression…

Look for Bedtime Stories to blow everything else out of the water from Thursday on through the rest of the season. Marley and Me could pass Yes Man right off the bat too. We’ll see what word of mouth on that is.

And look for a big Oscar battle to heat up in the next box office trenches as ballots go out this week. One studio Dependent in the valley sees some real vulnerability in another valley major’s presumed Oscar lock based on this weekend’s box office numbers… one that, might I point out, has chosen not to engage on this modern thing known as the internet, except as connected to Traditional Media.

Still, I kinda disagree. The bigger machine has to be careful about not marketing exclusively to Academy voters, which is what they have done. Meanwhile, the Dependent film has actually made their TV ads much more aggressive about highlighting the central conflict in the film… even to the point of being misleading abut the film. But that is how you sell tickets, kids.

All that said, the bigger film is really, really well-defined as an Oscar movie. They haven’t gotten any of their key wins – Actor and Picture - outside of Vegas. (To be fair, the Dependent battler has only landed for their show pony, Lead Actress, in Washington and Phoenix.) But both movies will be seen because of pedigree. And in my mind’s eye, the bigger one is much more in line with what Academy voters vote for… unless the Dependent can convince people that the bigger movie is “stiffing.”

Anyway…

Let me say this in closing. Gran Torino is a commercial movie. This whole game of big limited numbers is a joke. Same, really, with The Wrestler. That movie should be successful for Searchlight to the tune of over $40 million on the wrestling fan base alone. No, it's not a slam dunk, but Searchlight knows how to do that trick as well as anyone. It is a much, much easier sell – almost all around Rourke coming back and flexing muscle, rarely showing his face in TV ads - than Slumdog Millionaire. Doubt is a bit harder, but Streep is red hot and as I wrote above, they are running a very smart, very aggressive set of TV spots now… though it is still a less commercial play than either Gran Torino or The Wrestler.

I am actually a bit concerned for Eastwood’s movie. Maybe delaying a wide rollout works if he gets an Oscar nod… but if he doesn’t, they have wasted a lot of time and ad money and goodwill on the very commercial premise of Dirty Harry becomes Archie Bunker and learns his lesson from The Karate Kid.

Posted by dpoland at 01:29 PM | Comments (41)

December 20, 2008

Friday Estimates by Klady

One has to go all the way back to 2003 to find a pre-Christmas weekend that was not right on top of Christmas, creating a 4-day or 5-day weekend and that entails. Now, 2003 did have Return of the King burning things up. That level of film has not entered the market this month. But after that, grosses were $11.5m, $11.4m, $7.8m, $5.5m… the top one being the release of a new Julia Roberts movie, back when Julia Roberts seemed like an unstoppable force "in the right movie."

That’s more what this weekend looks like. And here is a look at where those films were on “this” Friday that year and where they got by the end of the New Year’s weekend.

Mona Lisa Smile - $4.1m to $50m
Something’s Gotta Give - $3.2m ($22m in the bank) added $59.2 ($81.2m)
The Last Samurai - $2.1m ($51.7m in the bank) added $38.2m ($90m total)
Stuck On You - $1.6m ($11.7 in the bank) added $19m ($30.7m total)

Obviously, every movie is different and the competition plays out quite differently every year.

In 2003, you had four films going wide on Christmas day. This year, we will have five.

In 2003, none of the four became Best Picture nominees, but only one was really going for it. This year, only one is really going for it, and most think it will get in. But, who knows?

In 2003, the total domestic grosses for the four films going into the market on Christmas were $138.6m (Cheaper By The Dozen), $95.6m (Cold Mountain), Paycheck ($53.8m), and Peter Pan ($48.5m). (And how eerie is it to have a family comedy – Bedtime Stories – a serious Oscar-y drama – Ben Button – a thriller – Valkyrie – and another family-ish film – Marley & Me – landing on the same day five years later?)

There really is not precedent that fits snugly with either Yes Man or Seven Pounds. Next Thursday, Marley & Me and Bedtime Stories seem to be coming down right on top of the audience that WB hoped to find for Yes Man. Benjamin Button seems to be landing right on top of the audience Seven Pounds is seeking as a weepie. So we’ll see. But neither opener this weekend looks on the face of it to be heading to $100 million.

The Tale of Despereaux does have some precise correlation, to Paramount’s Charlotte’s Web, which opened to $3.4 million on a Friday the week before Christmas. It had an extra week in the holiday season and ended up doing $83 million. The tail of Despereaux may be shorter… like $20 million shorter.

Posted by dpoland at 10:59 AM | Comments (26)

December 19, 2008

Confusion Abuse-ion

Crazy-Like-A-Buzzard Nikki Finke and her “sources” are at it again.

Who has a vested interest in trying to embarrass Focus, Universal, Disney, and Paramount with yesterday’s absurd attack on awards spending? Roll out the usual suspects… especially one who has changed tracks lately.

It is always fascinating how ignorant semi-journos roll out these weird, soft-brained attacks when the mood suits them… or when the source who wants an attack story printed calls them.

The “7 full page ads” stunt in the New York Times started with Universal’s efforts on United 93, two years ago. What I learned by – ahem – reporting the story after being alarmed by page after page of half-pages in that case was that the papers are all so anxious to sell ad space and to promote the idea of full page ads being sold that they are all doing deep, deep discounts in combination with buys in other areas and versions of the papers.

The stunt ultimately failed for United 93, but for weeks after it happened, the media and Academy members alike talked about the movie as a much more serious contender than it ever was. And for a movie like Revolutionary Road, opening next week – so unlike United 93, not drawing dead, 8 months after release – that is the target. It is clearly a movie that needs Oscar support. And it is slipping away. It is a Hail Mary, but it is one that we see every season in some form… and cost a lot less that rate card at the NYT.

And is anyone paying rate card for spreads in Variety these days?

She goes back to this well... or rather, the person trying to attack the competition goes back to the well to smack at Universal and Focus… as though the source for this non-story didn’t know full well how very cheap newspaper ads are, even the most expensive ones, compared to the network television buys being made for all of these movies.

Then there is this idiotic obsession with books being made around award seeking movies. Again… the fact that Nikki is out of the loop allows her to be ignorant to the fact that we all get big picture books from almost every major contender every single season. And when were those books commissioned? Last summer sometime… at the latest. These things do not come together at the last minute.

Am I supposed to send back the oversized books on The Dark Knight ($35, also Rizzoli) and Kung Fu Panda ($45)? Heck, I just got a hardcover copy of Watchmen… which I didn’t even know existed until it landed on my doorstep.

Likewise, the “book on Wall-E -- that's right, a book,” which is not really a book, but is really a beautifully bound, heavy pamphlet that is exactly like what has been sent out year after year after year by other studios… and again, those “books” have often gone out for movies that were dead as a doornail by the time the books went into the LA Times or Variety… but the deals were done, “the “books” were printed, and the distribution went forward.

Of course, as Nikki proved with the misinformation about Disney that she printed in the NY Post and which got her fired (along with her employers happy to find any excuse to fire her for being Nikki), numbers are not her thing. She zings about 1 of 10 papers going to homes in foreclosure, but the LA Times daily subscriber circulation is about 850,000… so her “told” figure of $675,000 for the subscriber drop of the “book” would price the book out at less than 80 cents per “book.” Of course, reality is that the “book” probably cost about 3 times that for about one-eight of the actual subscription base. Or about $250,000 spent.

And in other ignorant news, Nikki seems to be of the delusion that studios send these things out to everyone who gets the LA Times. Bzzt! Even the LA Times often sends its “specials” out to a limited number of zip codes. And that surely was the case with Disney, sending the book out to the “appropriate” Westside and Valley zip codes they were targeting.

And back to that Ben Button black tie premiere… having attended it, I can attest that the only thing remotely different about the event was that people were in black tie. And whether someone who wants to piss on the film likes it or not, Paramount got what they were after. Three days of photos of Brad and Angelina and Cate and everyone else in formal wear, looking great, surrounded by other people looking great.

Does she – or her string-puller – really think America cares about them having a black-tie premiere? Do they really think that the difference between a premiere and a black-tie premiere is the difference between sensitivity and dancing on the deck of the Titanic?

But the real context for all of this is that every one of the studios – and whoever is planting this story – is spending tens of millions on TV time, often $250,000 or more at a 30 second time.

Nikki is not the only one who gets worked up about studio expenditures on publicity when marketing and production are so much more expensive… expensive in a way that forces the studios to spend on publicity to try to make their sale in a cheaper way that just spending more and more on TV time.

It is two problems in one. First, you have the smear, which Nikki gleefully spreads, utterly ignorant of reality. Second, you have the difficult dance of studios that need to do what they do – sell movies – as best they can… which means spending a ton of money, whether staff is being laid off or not. (And anyone who thinks that assistants are the primary target for staff cutting is a silly person who cannot do math. Until you get to the very top – or if you have a top level protector - the more you are paid, the bigger the target on your back. Duh.)

There are things that make less and less sense as the budget nooses get tighter and tighter. I have been getting a lot of e-cards for the holidays from studios, for instance, and one troubled Dependent sent something in an envelope with their return address on a sticker instead of in a printed envelope. Small examples. But when a studio is opening a $130 million drama that is hinging on a Best Picture nomination, does anyone suddenly expect the studio to act like monks and not go all out to support the film?

Does a studio that is in legitimate danger of going out of business because it has no funding apologize for spending wildly on TV spots for its Dependent’s massively budget-overinflated thriller, praying for a $25 million-plus opening that could mean the film doesn’t lose tens of millions and sink the whole company as a viable business?

Paul Wolfowitz licking his comb before pulling it through his hair as he preps for a TV spot is funny… but it’s not what is wrong with the Bush Administration. Capturing and having Saddam Hussein killed didn’t make Iraq into a “good” war. And picking out these little, sometimes inaccurate excuses to attack studio marketing efforts is as irrelevant and minor as what Nikki looks like… a topic that often comes up when people are angry with her… but is NEVER the point. (And for the record, in our one meeting, Nikki looked perfectly fine. Not exceptionally anything, good or bad. A reasonably nice looking woman.)

Sadly, many of my colleagues have been drawn into the fun of Nikki's bush league pot-shotting. People love gossip. And the idea that Nikki has sold that what she is doing has anything to do with journalism makes it good clear dirty fun. Wake up, people. This way lies insanity. And you already know it. Stop allowing yourself the luxury of pretending otherwise. It just makes things worse and worse.

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

BYOB - Friday 121908

Ev'rybody's workin' for the weekend...

(Corrected, 5:52p, by the good lyrical graces of one of Hollywood's good guys.)

Posted by dpoland at 09:13 AM | Comments (83)

December 18, 2008

Life With Baz

“I’m still giving pushing it out.”

That was Baz Luhrmann’s take on my notion that he must still be sore from birthing Australia, finishing his mix on the film just five weeks ago, just before releasing the film.

And he is. He dipped into L.A. for a screening and a few sitdowns between his travels all over the globe to sell his latest film. He is completely conscious of some negativity out there towards his film, but he is also heartened by the box office, which is similar to Moulin Rouge’s at this moment in their runs. And he is anticipating a #1 opening for the film in the UK next week.

Baz remains on of the great enthusiasts of the movie world. During our chat, he expressed his admiration of many filmmakers and films. He recalls singing La Boheme with Francis Coppola and seeing an early cut of Eyes Wide Shut with Nicole and Tom, prefering the first hour to the rest. (He seems truly fascinated by Kubrick and particularly, the information filing system that he kept for Napoleon, his epic that never happened.) While quoting the Rolling Stones, Ron Wood walks by… but he isn’t friends with Wood… just a little with Mick.

He appreciates what he has been allowed to do, but he isn’t living with his head in the clouds. He can tell you how much profit there was in each of the movies he has made and where they drew the biggest, most passionate audiences. He marvels at his Romeo + Juliet becoming curriculum in schools and remembered going to, as it turns out, my high school in Coconut Grove, FL to interview teens about their perspectives as he prepped the film. (He also created some of Miami’s most beautiful architecture in Mexico for the film.) He remembers wandering down the very dangerous Grand Avenue, being warned against it, and suddenly realizing how close danger always is on certain cities, often the most beautiful ones.

Controversy about the end of the film? He shot three versions and wrote a fourth. He tested the various versions. Teen girls liked the idea of a death at the end of the picture. But they were the only group that did. It was out.

Asked directly about the idea that the film really isn’t finished, Luhrmann is not agitated. To the contrary. He could spend months, even years, working on the film. He still looks back at all of his films and sees ways that he could improve them in post. But that is not the reality we live in.

But it is the reality we live in that he seems most concerned about. He believes that the romantic notion of the world which drives all of his work is not only being killed off bit by bit in the modern era, but that it is necessary for us all to function at our best. People want to feel… people want that emotional journey… people love the romance that lives without cynicism.

When we talked about the broadly comedic first act of the film, without making the comparison, he made much the same argument as Spielberg did for the opening of Saving Private Ryan. Smack the audience into some level of excited confusion before rolling out the classic epic to pull them out of their shells of safety and to allow them to engage with the rest of the film.

He points out that while his other films have gotten a range of good reviews, he has never had a film that has gotten as many strong reviews from as many major outlets, from the NY Times to the LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Ebert, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and on. He doesn’t linger in the fact that half the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, whether from Top Critics or the entire throng are “rotten.” But that’s the romantic in him, isn’t it.

I had not really spent time with Luhrmann before, in all these years. I liked him more than I expected to. He was much, much saner than I expected him to be. He is an artist. And he expresses himself as one. But that is the idea, no? I wish he had a bit more time with his ambitions on this movie, but he is hopeful that the world market will turn Australia from a film that threatens to lose quite a bit to being one of his movies that makes a small profit.

He, intriguingly, seems to see himself as a Woody Allen with a much bigger, more visual canvas. He wants his movies to do well enough to allow him to keep making movies. He doesn’t expect to make a killing. But he knows he can’t afford to write anything off either. So he is out, crossing the globe, fighting for his baby. It’s lovely to see a man in love.

Posted by dpoland at 06:48 PM | Comments (9)

11 Weeks To Oscar

The Greatly Settled

Every year, I quote Bill Condon's notion - which has more resonance with his Oscar gig this year ... and less - of The Great Settling.

All the critics' awards and nominations are laid out. Screeners are in every Oscar voter's stockings. People go on their annual big vacations to wherever with the family and the discs in tow. And as the pressures from the hard push of the studios and press are relieved, cooling the situation, the films themselves creep into perspective. Nomination ballots go out right at Christmas and are returned en masse when people get back from their holiday to their lives.

But this year ... not so much.

The Rest...

The Charts...

Posted by dpoland at 05:18 PM | Comments (5)

SAG Strikes... With Nominations!!!

Dan sag it!!!

Razum frazum foon ba!

Oops… sorry… talking in frontier gibberish.

SAG announced their nominations this morning and there really, really, really was not a single thing that moved the needle a single inch.

Melissa Leo and Richard Jenkins staked their claims… as we all knew they would… and should. Unique congrats also to Amy Adams, Taraji P. Henson (also nom’ed for Ensemble in Boston Legal), and Dev Patel.

The Dark Knight was left out of something… and they are still going to keep marching towards the Oscars with the biggest war chest of all.

The “Honk if you love Robert Downey, Jr.” nomination sham for Tropic Thunder continues to be the biggest black eye on the proceedings with real performances in real movies by Edie Marsan and Paramount’s very own Michael Shannon in most danger of being forgotten in favor of a stunt.

Revolutionary Road was already dead, except for Winslet & Shannon... but those wheels will keep spining as long as, like one or two others, hope remains.

But it does tell you what kind of season it is when last year, SAG’s version of Best Picture, Best Ensemble, missed 4 of 5 versus the Oscars. (A year before it was 3 of 5… year before, 4 of 5… year before, 5 for 5 with 6 nominees). Expect these noms to be fairly close to Oscar, with one or two “misses” in every category.

And here is a special note to SAG… if you decide to strike… cancel your own award show. I know that it would be a showcase for your cause and you would be the only ones with a show for a while, etc… but it would be very ungracious to shut down the industry and to keep partying.

Posted by dpoland at 08:59 AM | Comments (36)

December 17, 2008

The Valkyrie X-Mas Special

Just when Hollywood was counting it out, Valkyrie takes control of the situation and creates the first-ever Hitlercentric Christmas musical special with all the movie's stars...

Posted by dpoland at 08:51 PM | Comments (4)

But What’s The Estimated Gross?

Box Office Mojo announced to its subscribers today that “Box Office Mojo has been acquired by IMDb.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc.“

Another step in the history of our little world.

Brandon Gray filled in for me at roughcut.com for a month or so back in the day, when he was still at USC, before his internship at Exhibitor Relations, and before he superseded ERC by adapting the box office data into a workable online database. I think Sean Saulsbury was involved from very early on as well. They also beat Variety, which has been the bible of box office, but also failed to adapt their power into an online play.

What Mojo’s sale reminds us is that it is not content, in the form of insight or analysis, that makes the internet boom in the largest ways. I still don’t think Brandon knows all that much about how the box office works. But he/they created the best tool in the world for following domestic box office. And that is invaluable. That is why they have become the box office reference bible for journalism and the industry that isn't paying for EDI.

I love being a content play kind of guy, but being a tool is far more profitable.

So congratulations.

And dear god, imdb, please do not try to double the annual subscription rate in order to try to force us all to use imdb Pro, a premium play that almost no one really wants. Do give us all some premium option to get both for a reduced price. But don’t make the thing so many want – box office, in depth, a decade old and older – into an overpriced commodity that will open the door to someone else taking the non-proprietary information and starting a site just like Mojo is now.

Posted by dpoland at 06:11 PM | Comments (20)

Seven Pounds

I really don’t feel like reviewing Seven Pounds today. I’m not sure that I will feel like reviewing it any day soon.

Why?

Because it is a “feel” movie, not an “intellectualize” movie.

As a result, I have been explaining, in private conversations since I saw the film, that it is exactly the kind of movie that critics will loathe and that audiences will eat up with a spoon. The irony is that this is also exactly the kind of movie that the very same critics would be messing their shorts over if it were in another language. Then it would be profound. Starring Will Smith, released by Sony, it is maudlin, predictable, wah wah wah wah wah wah wah.

Here is the nitty gritty. The movie doesn’t force feed you… you have to think… and you think about what’s going on through the entire movie. Will Smith is not 100% Mr. Likeable. Rosario Dawson gives easily the best performance of her career, in an award-worthy turn. And if you are at all willing to do so, you will cry at some point in the film.

Variety, as has become its custom, is writing about Will Smith finally falling from grace. Don’t believe it. Anne Thompson points out the negative reviews from both Scott Foundas and Variety’s Todd McCarthy and calls them “devastating.” They are not. But Anne clearly agrees with them, so I guess they are really important.

Todd seems to forget that Variety panned The Pursuit of Happyness. (Oh yes… and Anne and Todd’s “Che’ needs to be cut into one movie” sales pitch also looks profoundly insightful in light of the sold out shows in NY and LA this last week.) And besides completely missing the boat on Rachel Getting Married, Foundas is in the group of the very confused people not only failing to pan Gran Torino, but selling the idea that it is profound. So…

I was able to find a really positive review of a Will Smith movie in Variety. But I had to go all the way back to 2001’s Ali to do it.

Seven Pounds - "an endlessly sentimental fable about sacrifice and redemption that aims only at the heart at the expense of the head"
Hancock - "has a certain whiff of “The Last Action Hero” about it" (McCarthy)
I Am Legend - “eerie yet annoyingly larded with cheap horror-film shock effects” (McCarthy)
The Pursuit of Happyness - "more inspirational than creatively inspired -- imbued with the kind of uplifting, afterschool-special qualities that can trigger a major toothache" (Lowry)
Hitch - The One Somewhat Positive Review - "stitches together relatively few laughs... script can't sustain the premise -- and saddles the actors with some truly leaden dialogue... arid stretches" (Lowry)
I, Robot - "no excuse for the lack of freshness and personality in this $100 million-plus CGI extravaganza" (McCarthy)
Bad Boys II - "As overblown as it is overlong" (McCarthy)
Men In Black II - "sporadically amusing but awfully lightweight" (McCarthy)
Ali - "a picture that feels bottled up rather than exuberant" (McCarthy)

I have no doubt that many of you will hate this movie. It is a tear-jerker. It is emotionally and intellectually manipulative. It is sincere. And like I said... it is demanding.

But if any of those elements appeal to you, you will quite like the film. And if not, there are plenty emotionally false, restrained, constipated dramas in the market to make you feel smart without ever shedding a single tear.

Posted by dpoland at 05:09 PM | Comments (47)

Mamma Mia Latest "Record Breaking" DVD

This comes right on the heels of Mamma Mia! passing Titanic as the highest grossing film in UK history.

The Dark Knight reported 3 million units on its first day of release, though like opening day box office, the numbers for both of these films are skewed by internet and retail pre-sales, which are much more significant now than they were just a year or two ago.

The numbers for both films are excellent, though not beyond huge and not likely to crack Finding Nemo's DVD record of 28 million units or even Shrek 2"s 16m - 21.6m units (depends on when they were reporting and how you account for returns).

==================
Press Release

WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON MAMMA MIA! THE MOVIE TAKES IN “MONEY MONEY MONEY” WITHDVD RINGING IN $30 MILLION ON FIRST DAY

The Most Successful Film Musical of All Time Worldwide Becomes The Must-Have Home Entertainment Title of 2008

Universal City, California, December 17, 2008 – Consumers said “Gimme Gimme Gimme” to Mamma Mia! The Movie, the most successful film musical of all time worldwide, as first day domestic DVD and Blu-ray™ consumer spend totaled over $30 million. Universal Studios Home Entertainment sold over 2.25 million units of the Golden Globe® -nominated blockbuster on December 16, 2008. An unprecedented worldwide box office phenomenon, Mamma Mia! The Movie has already been proclaimed the fastest selling DVD of all time in the U.K. after first-day sales reached 1.6 million units, surpassing the previous decade-long record holderTitanic on November 24, 2008 by over a half-million units, or 50 percent of total sales.

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In the U.K., Mamma Mia! The Movie continued its winning streak, selling 3.2 million units in its first week, beating Titanic's 10-year record by 35 percent. In Australia, the DVD became the biggest DVD release of the past two years, holding the number-one spot for four consecutive weeks. The title is now poised to become one of the continent’s top- five DVDs of all time. It is also Universals’ biggest home entertainment release ever in Germany, with one million units shipped to date. In Nordic territories, the title has broken all industry records to date, with 1.2 million units shipped in its first week.

Posted by dpoland at 12:53 PM | Comments (10)

BYOB - Wednesday

Posted by dpoland at 12:31 PM | Comments (22)

December 16, 2008

More Cool, Very Expensive Junk

* $240,000 Mark Hamill's hero "Luke Skywalker" lightsaber from Star Wars and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
* $120,000 Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi original "C-3PO" droid helmet worn by Anthony Daniels
* $96,000 Second Draft Original Handwritten Manuscript of You Only Live Twice Signed ByRoald Dahl
* $96,000 Full-Sized Animatronic "Joe" From Mighty Joe Young
* $90,000 Signature "Wolverine" black leather battlesuit from X-Men

Here's the catalog from Profiles in History

Posted by dpoland at 07:56 PM | Comments (2)

Short Ends.... (Pt 3 of 2)

ALAN ROSENBERG'S STRIKE

It’s finally settling in… the possible SAG strike is Iraq all over again…

The corporatized industry has been attacked by the economy and Al MoPTP is looking to take advantage. Alan Rosenberg is President. He knows that his Nation of SAG needs to do something to show that it is still strong. The union has been under attack from the outside – AFTRA – for a few years and the internal forces splitting the union have become divisive to the point of a near civil war.

Rosenberg tried to get The Allies to support his cause, but one by one, they abandoned SAG in favor of their own interests and beliefs in what is reasonable. So if he goes to war, he has no choice but to go alone.

He tries to use the potential of a SAG strike as leverage to force AMPTP to give up their contracts of mass destruction, but they just keep thumbing their noses at him, empowered by both the other non-actors unions that are happy to be back to work and have contracts keeping them from joining a strike and by the AMPTP deal with AFTRA, which continues to own a larger part of the network turf that is at the heart of this fight.

A loud and angry part of his Democrat(ic) constituency is screaming that “going to war” would be a horrible choice, but they know, as does he, that a strike vote is likely to authorize his war. Checkmate.

Now the question is, will the man be pushed far enough into a corner that he will actually pull the nuclear trigger?

No one wants to be the person who lost the war. WGA didn't want to "lose the internet like it lost DVD." And Alan Rosenberg surely doesn't want to be the guy who let AFTRA eat SAG and to decimate the residual system because people start getting paid not on the principle of how large the group viewing the work it, but how the work is delivered.

And make no mistake. Once precedent is set, it doesn't move far. Not in three years. Not in thirty years. Just ask anyone who has been eating shit while the studios and major stars got FAT on DVD while the unions continued to get paid like DVD was an experiment.

Still, I have no sympathy for the idiocy in the NY meeting of the other night. This is not an issue of poor negotiation. What some people fail to recognize – and I think, many of the early “no strike” stars did see – is that this negotiation was never a negotiation, but a statement of the state of the union by AMPTP.

WGA didn’t get anything for its troubles. All they really did was to give a chance to the AMPTP companies to dump a lot of financially unattractive deals. And to emasculate SAG completely. The strike was, I am afraid, profitable for the studios. Even if one or two series lost the momentum that might have taken them to a third or fourth season that will now never happen… it all was fine for the studios and networks.

DGA didn’t care.

AFTRA made the final cut to the hamstrings of SAG.

Thing is, SAG needs very different things than WGA or DGA. And the whole simplification of the WGA strike – and thus any future strikes – to “New Media” has been brutal for SAG. Because it’s not New Media that’s so dangerous for the union and its members… it’s the disappearance of Old Media, specifically reruns. It’s not about not getting paid enough for the internet reruns… it is the destruction of the financial infrastructure of the middle class of actors as established over decades.

To be really clear… Paid once for shooting the show and the first network airing… paid a second time, in full, for the first network rerun… paid a half time for a second network rerun. So while there were no guarantees, a guest spot on a network hit usually meant 2.5 times your first payment before residuals from ancillary plays (or DVD sales) kicked in.

If the AMPTP wanted to double the minimum for the production of shows for Primetime and the rest, then the online rerun window would still lead to a form of rollback for many actors… but it would at least guarantee a working wage that would keep acting viable for a lot more actors. It wouldn’t keep NBC from getting down to 10, 9, 8, 7 or fewer scripted hours of drama/comedy a week.

But if you did 4 “major role” guest spots on network hour-long series a year and were paid $6,700 each for them (just above minimum… and sitcom minimum is about 60% of that), you could reasonably expect to make $67,000 a year ($40,200 for 4 sitcom appearances).

If reruns all end up in that 2.5 week window, already agreed to by AFTRA, you’re looking at $26,800 (about $16,100 for sitcoms). And even if the “reruns” run online for a year, you’re looking at a couple thousand more, if that, than these minimums.

You can still qualify for SAG Health Plan II if you earn about $14,000… but only after you have qualified for SAG Plan I for at least 10 years. Otherwise, Plan I requires you to earn at least $28,000 a year.

So, four “major role” spots on an hour-long and you still may not make the Health Plan.

Non-major roles pay less than half of this.

Of course, not every situation will be this Machiavellian. Many shows will still have reruns on network. But many others will not. But the comfort zone of what a minimal expectation is seeks to get a lot more pro-studio for the comfort of actors.

So what is the good answer?

I don’t have one. Alan Rosenberg has no direction to go that works. If they settle on a deal close to the one on the table for the last 5 months, he is a failure. If he leads the union to a strike, the gains will be minimal… the union could even be broken. If he keeps treading water, he is seen as a loud mouth who can’t deliver anything… and the union could easily be taken over by AFTRA leadership, who will sell the actors out for power.

There is no way to get AMPTP to move off of their position by much. None. That hope ended when WGA struck in November of last year, assuring that there would be no combined summer strike. DGA and AFTRA were easy pickings for AMPTP.

What would I suggest?

Focus on a few small improvements over what’s on the table… sell them to the public… have a SAG vote of confidence on those issues… squeeze the tiny concessions out of AMPTP… pretend you didn’t get reamed, like WGA.

A strike? Over by the Super Bowl, Rosenberg out, AFTRA merged… and AMPTP still wins.

AMPTP won before the fight really started. It was essentially over when WGA signed. Get over it. Don’t lie to yourself about 2011. Same problems. Unless the unions commit to one another, nothing will change. The only difference is that we will have a slightly clearer picture of the delivery systems of the future.

Being right? Not really on the table anymore.

Posted by dpoland at 05:15 PM | Comments (11)

BYOB - The Spirit Movies Us...

Posted by dpoland at 03:10 PM | Comments (46)

Short Ends... (Pt 2 of 2)

GOLDEN OLDIE - Why hasn’t HBO released a DVD of Robin Williams’ first and, it seems to me, best stand-up special, Off The Wall?

There is a clip on YouTube of the last part of the night when Williams dragged John Ritter up to the stage, but if you have gotten sick of Robin Williams, this performance would be revelatory. It was back before Williams became a meta version of himself, whether that is a function of his work or our perception. He was changing the world back then. I wish HBO would dig it up.

VOLLMAN’S RIDE OF THE VALKYRIE – I can’t help but to be profoundly amused by Mike Vollman, free once more of the corporate noose of Paramount, telling everyone, really, that they can just go F*#k Off with their entitlement issues.

A couple of weeks ago, it was the NYFCC and LAFCA, who were not shown the movie in time for their awards voting. Now, according to Patrick Goldstein – oddly choosing to lie mostly with dogs in his new internet life – Roger “Harvey’s Butt Plug” Friedman is whining about got getting a screening invite after telling a publicist associated with the film, "I'm going to hate the movie."

Well, duh.

There is not a publicist on the planet who Roger isn’t unofficially working for who wants that putz anywhere near their movie. If he is not with you, he is against you. And when he arrogantly tells you he is against you, the only possible reason for giving him access would be because you stupidly think you are going to turn this braying jackass your way.

Like other gossip columnists who rarely spread anything but bile – Roger does have some good contacts in the recording business, even though he tends to think anyone else reporting on “his turf” is stealing from him – the only way to spin the monkey is to give him some kind of access that makes him feel cared for. In this case, it would be a call from Tom Cruise. Not gonna happen.

So Vollman & Co took the position that most publicists would like to take, but are too politically fearful to take.

Likewise on the decision not to put the film in the fire of the awards season. It’s not complicated. Terry Press has taken a very strong position on the film and said, as only she can (imagining her... not quoting her directly), “It’s a Tom Cruise thriller… not an action movie… not an Oscar movie… not a year end limited roll out.” So why set yourself up to lose.

I have to tell you all… the only reason why 90%-plus of movies are screened for press at all is because we all whine and kick and scream like a bunch of frickin’ babies when movies aren’t screened for us. Yes, studios would like to say, “It’s a commercial movie… meaning, we are selling this thing with commercials… and we are not going to make a single dollar more if the critics, any critics, love it… and the only possible response to critics will be if they all seem to hate it and then, they might be able to hurt it.”

How many navel gazers have you read about movies not being as good as they were when “we” were kids? At least 50% of those memories are clouded by us being less sophisticated consumers when we were kids… just as our kids are now. Same as it m-f-ing ever was.

Frankly, the biggest mistake that they have made on Valkyrie, in my opinion, is showing it at all. It’s not about good or bad… it’s about whether the movie they are selling will be exposed as not being the movie that they are putting into theaters.

So a toast to Mike and Terry and all that roll with them. Valkyrie may be the end of the entire MGM experiment of the moment. But if they go, they are going down the way that allows them to look in the mirror when the red starts flowing. And if not… it will be the marketing, not the critics, and not even telling the critics to F-off.

COMPLETIONIST PICTURE BOOKS – Browsing at the book store, it occurred to me that I was seeing a publishing phenomenon driven by the internet phenomenon. There were a number of “complete” books of photos and images tracking the history of a particular outlet… particularly naked and semi-naked ones. One of the books, The Complete Book Of Playboy Centerfolds was about two-thirds the width of a magazine and every page seemed to be, simply, a gatefold from the magazine. (I assume there were pages delineating years and names somewhere in there… it’s not the kind of book you can browse through for long before women with strollers start moving away from you.)

Would this book exist if not for the internet, where you can get, I assume, all the Playboy nudity your hard drive can hold? It seems like there is a new Playboy book of some kind on the shelves each year. And there is an odd elegance to nothing but airbrushed nudes of a very specific size and style, through the years, showing different body parts in more or less detail, implants in and out, more air brushing, tattoos arriving, etc. As we are drawn into thinking about Bettie Page upon her passing, this kink in so less compelling.

But… again… why sell the milk if you can keep getting your readership to buy parts of the cow monthly? But you can’t. So, the milk is on sale, on its own, beautifully bound… and the book is well made too.

Posted by dpoland at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)

Short Ends… (Pt 1 of 2)

GIVE AWAY THE DAMNED RAZORS!!! – I am thrilled for WB and their big sales for The Dark Knight, on Blu-ray and off. But I would be really, really, really curious about where these alleged supermarkets selling the film on Blu-ray are. I haven’t found a single one in Los Angeles. (Maybe some of you have… would love to hear about it.)

I feel like I repeat myself a lot on this, but selling Blu-ray to anyone who has a Blu-ray player is a slam dunk… especially with non-Blu DVDs and/or digital downloads included. There is no doubt about the superiority of the format and the cost of just a few dollars more is not a real problem.

$400 players is a real problem.

If Sony decided to make the PS3, which is flailing (at best) as a game platform, and to make it THE Blu-ray platform of Blu-ray platforms… slash prices… and even take a $100 per unit hit on the deal to bring the next 50 million units into households at $200 million a unit… a half billion dollar hit… I think they could save Blu-ray and reinvigorate DVD for another few years.

BD Live may actually work some day. Great. Niche business, really. But if you can make a living selling razor blades, you need a market to sell to. And at these hardware prices – now just below the cost of a quality home computer – you will never have a big enough market. You will get a blip like Batman. Huzzah. A movie every gamer wants to own. Great.

But what will happen to Sony stock if Blu-ray dies, for all intents and purposes, in the next year, as digital television becomes the law and 1080p satellite and cable delivery become more than 505 of the market?

No more Betamaxes… ever!

SPEAKING OF BETAMAX - This one is a-ok!. (For best effect, don't try to switch channels too much.)

LAYOFFS – Beware the spin going on out there. WB is shutting down their NY publicity office this week. Yes, some of those jobs will be recreated in Los Angeles. Some will not. The Dark Knight healed many wounds. But economies of scale will continue to be pushed from above.

Sony cuts are said not to be targeting the movie division, but you never know. One of the big budget lines – at Sony and everywhere else – is marketing and that has been sliced back in ways that are very hard for those of us on the coasts, where we are soaking in it, to notice.

Fox should be relatively safe until May, when things will either get very good or very bad.

Disney went through their big cuts, though cuts that can be made “with a scapel” will continue there, as they will for all studios.

NBC/Universal continues to live in “anything could happen” mode. The lack of a buyer is the main reason why the division will not likely be sold anytime soon. But the infusion of DreamWorks will keep everyone on their toes. And the ongoing rumors about Focus will likely find themselves defined at Sundance, where there will be pressure to pick up more there than usual for less than usual. Focus is in a good position to capitalize on the dependent meltdown of the last year. We’ll see if they do. One thing we know about the current map is that treading water = death.

Vantage was dead a year ago and the only reason for it to continue on was ego and the vain attempt to pretend, for Wall Street’s sake, that the very publicity-successful financially disastrous division was worth keeping and that its top boss, being promoted, was a good thing for the company’s stock value.

Paramount’s next cuts – aside from sending many of the whip smart awards team scattering back to consultancies - will be completely dependent on the box office of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, then Star Trek, then GI Joe. Worldwide targets for breakeven on these films are something on the order of $300m, $400m, and $250m. There is a big chunk of profit expected on Transformers 2, a franchise that looks like the kind that will grow in its second time out.

But if Ben Button turns out to be a reflection of Gangs of New York (10 Oscar nominations, just under $200m worldwide), there will be additional first quarter cuts. New releases in the first and second quarter of ’09 should be a wash, with distribution money coming in from DW Animation’s Monsters Vs. Aliens and nothing else looking like a sure winner. Star Trek lands in May. If that movie only does $250 worldwide - $100 million more than any Star Trek movie before – the death watch for Brad Gray will start in earnest, but with Transformers 2 a pretty sure bet, they will probably have GI Joe to try to bail them out. If Star Trek does $500 million, the Gray regime will have until the end of the year to prove that they have a workable vision for the future.

Many people are hoping to see Brad Gray lose. But for the sake of the middle class over at Paramount, I am rooting for Ben Button to be a surprise box office killer.

Posted by dpoland at 01:52 PM | Comments (9)

December 15, 2008

DP/30 - Benicio del Toro - Che'

The interview
Available via Google
Or in QT (200mg), after the jump...

Posted by dpoland at 10:28 PM | Comments (5)

DP/30 - Man On Wire - The Producers

A chat with the Andrea Meditch & Maureen A. Ryan, two of the people who brought us the Oscar short-list doc, Man On Wire.

Posted by dpoland at 10:25 PM | Comments (20)

Because I Do Enjoy Crazy...

This has been coming over the e-transom, over and over again... and now, you can enjoy it!!!

IT IS NOT A SPAM, but if you received that message second and plus time JUST CLICK DELETE button and have a nice day. Don't feel bad, please understand original Scarlett's family very desperate to shout down that humiliating antichristian "actress" clones line career development. Hello dear Ladies and Gentlemen! I would like inform you that Scarlett Johansson (actress) actually is a clone from original person Scarlett Galabekian last name, who has nothing with acting career. That clone was created illegally by using stolen biological material. Original person is very nice (not d**n sexy),most important - CHRISTIAN young lady! I'll tell you more,those clones (it's not only one) made in GERMANY - world leader manufacturer of humans clones, it is in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Mr. Helmut Kohl home town. You can not even imaging the scale of the cloning activity. But warning! Helmut Kohl clone staff strictly controlling all their clones (at least they trying) spreading around the world, they are very accurate with that, some of them are still NAZI type disciplined and mind controlled clones, so be careful get close with clones you will be controlled as well. Original person is not happy with those movies, images, video, rumors and etc. spreading on media in that way it would be really nice if we all will try slow down that ''actress'' career development, original Scarlett will really appreciated that. Please remember that original Scarlett's family did not authorize any activity with stolen biological materials, no matter what form it was created in it was stolen and it is stolen. It all need to be delivered to authorized personals control in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Original Scarlett never was engaged, by the way! Her close friend Serge G. P.S. CONTROLLING ACTIVITY OF ANY CLONES IS US MILITARY OPERATION. H.R. 534, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003, was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on February 5, 2003. After discussion, it was passed on February 27 by a vote of 241-155. It now moves on to the Senate for consideration. This bill makes it unlawful for any person or entity to perform or participate in human cloning, or to ship or receive embryos produced by human cloning. The penalties are imprisonment of up to 10 years and fines of $1 million or more. These now join other nations as diverse as Norway, Australia, and Germany, which had already added cloning for any purpose to their criminal code. And in Germany where it carries a penalty of five years imprisonment they know a thing or two about unethical science.

Posted by dpoland at 10:23 PM | Comments (10)

Soderbergh Talks Che' Controversy

The cameraphone of it all is what it is... but still, interesting to see SS take on the discussion head on...

Posted by dpoland at 09:26 PM | Comments (31)

DP/30 - Josh Brolin - W. & Milk

The interview
Available via Google
Or in QT (200mg), after the jump...

Posted by dpoland at 04:18 PM | Comments (4)

Another Slap In The Face To Film Critics

So... a few years back, when the LA Times lost Manohla Dargis and decided that instead of hiring an experienced film critic, they would used Manohla's "slot" to hire a new editor from NY, they moved Carina Chocano from the recently hired role of television critic to be the new film critic, next to Ken Turan. Not a brilliant move. Carina never overcame her limited experience in film and as of a few weeks ago, both Carina and the editor hired in "the Manohla slot" are gone with the budget cuts.

Many of us have been discussing how sad it is that the LA Times, the theoretical paper of record in the city of movies, is down to one full-time critic.

So what does the LAT brain trust do this time? They move Betsy Sharkey and her “job slot” to a film critic slot… with even less experience in writing (or thinking) criticism than Carina.

Why?

I can only assume that she has a contract that doesn’t allow a clean “lay off” and that they need to move her out of the slot she had.

If the meanwhile, dozens of legitimate, highly experienced, probably-willing-to-work-for-less-than-they-used-to-work, critics out there considering how they can make more than $2000 a year blogging their criticism.

Due respect to Ms. Sharkey – who has certainly been anything but generous to me over the years – I will read her work as it starts to publish and, hey, maybe she will be smarter, edgier, and more interesting than anyone else who would have been available. Frankly, anything as good as “worth reading” will make me an instant fan.

But We are reminded, yet again… they really don’t get it. And there is a strong indication that they simply don't care... at least not about serving the reader... more so than keeping job slots or working through contracts.

Posted by dpoland at 02:46 PM | Comments (14)

December 14, 2008

Timing, Timing, Timing...

Wow… I must have been distracted by all the blood in the streets around here…

BFCA is having its televised awards show on a Thursday night… because, presumably, the Sunday on which people were returning from the holiday vacation or the Monday after seemed ridiculously early.

But I only noticed that after I saw a Golden Globes ad on NBC for January 11. January 11. Uh, January… 11.

Sure, it’s the earliest GG ceremony ever… but to a civilian eye, it might seem like just a few days earlier than years past. I guess last year’s earliest Globes ever (January 13) never really struck me as odd because I was too busy handing Kleenex to HFPA members and press that had already paid for new formal wear.

Year before, when the Globes were on Jan 15, it was the earliest ever too… but was still the top of the third week of January.

But now we are settling into The Globes being the second Sunday in January… no matter how close to the first of the year that is. That's where The People's Choice Awards used to live.

Of course, The Academy times its nomination voting deadline to beat the Globes night, no matter when it is. But The Globes went so early this year that The Academy gave up on that… nominations close the day after The Globes. Of course, 95% of ballots normally have been sent in before then, but who knows… there is no official announcement, so look for The Globes to make a stronger case as an influencer this year.

Anyway… I guess I should have noticed this earlier… but I didn’t. There is something about saying it out loud.

And it does seem, upon writing it, to be minutiae. And it is. But these are the kind of details that do make our little OCD awards season spin on its axis.

Posted by dpoland at 11:16 PM | Comments (6)

Give It To Bushie

You know... a guy has two shoes thrown at him... and comes up smirking... gotta kinda admire that kind of Maverickiness.

True, these are the only shoes that have come Bush's way that didn't end up in his mouth, but... seriously folks... tip your waitresses...

Posted by dpoland at 05:36 PM | Comments (58)

Blu-ray Discounting

An e-mail went out with some terrible Sony deals on Blu-ray that are too complicated and not nearly enough of a discount to attract anyone who isn't buying already. But as I looked around Amazon, I came upon this, which made me gasp and then laugh...

Product Description
BluCube: the best Blu-ray value on the market! A $299.99 VALUE!!
Twenty films in high-def 1080p, widescreen format, including: The Big White starring Robin Williams; Supernova starring Luke Perry; Category 7: The End of the World starring Shannen Doherty; Mortuary, directed by Tobe Hooper; Cruel World starring Jaime Pressly; The Colt starring Ryan Merriman, The Last Sentinel starring Katee Sackhoff, Mysterious Island starring Patrick Stewart; Beer League starring Artie Lange; Blackbeard starring Angus Macfadyen; The Poseidon Adventure starring Adam Baldwin; Final Days of Planet Earth starring Daryl Hannah; The Woods Have Eyes starring Frank Adonis; 10.5 Apocalypse starring Kim Delaney; The Final Patient starring Bill Cobbs; The Ten Commandments starring Dougray Scott; Salem Witch Trials starring Kirstie Alley; Salvage starring Lauren Currie Lewis; Angel in the Family starring Meredith Baxter; and The Curse of King Tut's Tomb starring Casper Van Dien.

Posted by dpoland at 04:54 PM | Comments (26)

Weekend Estimates by Klady - December 14

Not a lot new to say.

But I will remind again, the Che' per screen is, in reality, more than double that of any of the other films, as it is a 4.5 hour event, meaning 2 shows a day. It is an interesting inequity that NY is in the massive Ziegfeld and in LA, the film is in a 200 seater at the shiny, new Landmark... which also offered yesterday, a double dip of appearances by Benicio (as well as Laura Bickford, the screenwriter and another actor).

Ironically, the excellent per-screen by Slumdog MIllionaire is closest overall to Rab Ne Bana de Jodi, the actual Indian film in the market.

Really, all the limiteds who are awards trawling can be pleased... some more than others... but basically fine.

I will be accused of writing this because I am not a fan of Gran Torino, but think on this before making it about me.... is there any reason to do a 6-screen release for what is being sold as a wide release movie other than to spin the media? Realistically, you are looking at a movie that would have been no worse than the #3 film in the market this weekend if they were on as many as 1800 screens. So what are they vamping for?

Posted by poland at 12:10 PM | Comments (20)

December 13, 2008

MCN Exclusive - Che' Video Clip

Full size in QT after the jump...

Posted by dpoland at 01:23 PM | Comments (8)

Weitz To Vamp for Summit, Now Official

Release after the jump...

CHRIS WEITZ TO DIRECT
SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT’S NEW MOON

Los Angeles, CA December 13, 2008 – Summit Entertainment announced today that filmmaker Chris Weitz has been hired to direct the second film in the studio’s TWILIGHT film franchise. The film, NEW MOON, is based on the second book in author Stephenie Meyer’s blockbuster book series. The announcement was made by Erik Feig, Summit’s President of Production.

Weitz, an Acadamy Award®-nominated writer, director and producer, has a proven track record working with a broad range of material dealing with youth-oriented characters, fantasy and action. As such, he has the potential to bring alive in NEW MOON the dimensions and depth that fans will demand in the next installment.

Feig stated, “We love Stephenie Meyer's fantastic TWILIGHT series. Thinking long and hard about how to turn NEW MOON into the amazing movie we know it will be, and working with Stephenie Meyer to find the right candidate, we are thrilled to announce Chris Weitz as director of the film. Chris very much understands the world of NEW MOON and has the skill set required to bring the book to glorious life as a movie. We think he will be an excellent steward of Stephenie Meyer's vision.”

“I am honored to have been entrusted with shepherding NEW MOON from the page to the screen,” said Weitz. “The extraordinary world that Stephenie has created has millions of fans, and it will be my duty to protect on their behalf the characters, themes and story they love. This is not a task to be taken lightly, and I will put every effort into realizing a beautiful film to stand alongside a beautiful book.”

Weitz previously penned ABOUT A BOY, which led to an Academy Award Nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2002, and adapted and directed THE GOLDEN COMPASS (2007), which was nominated for two Academy Awards and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Additionally, Weitz co-wrote the 1998 animated film ANTZ and went on to produce the major box office success AMERICAN PIE and executive produced the film’s two theatrical sequels. Weitz also produced IN GOOD COMPANY starring Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace and executive produced AMERICAN DREAMZ starring Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid and Mandy Moore.

In NEW MOON, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is devastated by the abrupt departure of her vampire love, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) but her spirit is rekindled by her growing friendship with the irresistible Jacob Black. Suddenly she finds herself drawn into the world of the werewolves, ancestral enemies of the vampires, and finds her loyalties tested. Production on NEW MOON is scheduled to begin in the coming months and the studio is planning to release the film towards the end of 2009 or early 2010.

Feig will oversee NEW MOON for the studio along with Summit Entertainment’s Director of Production Gillian Bohrer.

Weitz is represented by WMA and by Alex Kohner of Morris, Yorn, Barnes & Levine.

About the TWILIGHT film series
The TWILIGHT film series stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart and tells the story of 17-year-old Bella Swan who moves to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her father, and becomes drawn to Edward Cullen, a pale, mysterious classmate who seems determined to push her away. But neither can deny the attraction that pulls them together…even when Edward confides that he and his family are vampires.

The action-packed, modern day vampire love story and blockbuster success the first film in the series entitled TWILIGHT was released in theatres on November 21st grossing $69.6 million domestically during its first weekend. To date the film has grossed over $142 million domestically.

About Summit Entertainment LLC
Summit Entertainment is a worldwide theatrical motion picture development, financing, production and distribution studio. The studio handles all aspects of marketing and distribution for both its own internally developed motion pictures as well as acquired pictures. Summit Entertainment, LLC also represents international sales for both its own slate and third party product. Summit Entertainment, LLC plans to release 10 to 12 films annually.

Posted by dpoland at 12:32 PM | Comments (7)

Friday Estimates by Klady

Not too much of interest this week. The Day The Talent Stood Still was always going to open. We'll see how long it lasts once people start talking to their friends about it. Nothing Like The Holidays is going to be dead in the midde of the six prior Overture openers, as it is on screen count.

In terms of the high profile exclsuive releases - 2 to 15 screens - Gran Torino was the strongest per-screen, but not by nearly as much as you might expect for a movie that is being sold 100% commercially. About 6500 people saw it yesterday. But almost 1400 folks went to do see Che'. And Doubt, 13,000. Even The Reader scored almost 4700 people per screen on Friday/Shabbat.

There is a real surprise in that Australia, which has been dragged through the mud before disappearing as a point of discussion, will actually be at almost the same exact gross as Moulin Rouge! after both were in 3 weekends fo wide release, with Australia perhaps going ahead.

ADD, 10:45a - I am told by someone with a vested interest that Che' sold out its entire Los Angeles weekend yesterday afternoon and that the movie, on its second screen, at NY's Ziegfeld Theater, was sold out an hour ahead of the start yesterday. The two theaters are doing two shows a day, the full movie, for $12.50/$12 NY/LA for the whole thing in this one-week qualifying run.

So doing the math, that works out to better than double the per-screen per-show that Gran Torino did. And keep in mind, this is after a number of promotional events on both coasts, including an AFI screening in a sold-out Chinese Theater a month or so ago, which is about the same size at the Ziegfeld.

I don't think we're looking at a massive box office hit here, but as I have been saying for a while, I do thnk there is $7 million or more in this film from people who really care about film. For Che' to get to $10 million in America would be a triumph for all film. And more importantly, there is a movie here that should be celebrated, for all of its successes and, if you so see it, failures. It is the kind of film that we in the chattering class all talk about wanting to see from American filmmakers. And is so often the case, it looks like the people who buy tickets will lead the critics to the an appreciation of what has been seen through an all-too-narrow lens.

CORRECTION FOR DUMB MATH ERROR, 3:35p

Posted by dpoland at 09:38 AM | Comments (17)

December 12, 2008

Interesting...

Two different headlines particularly caught my eye today.

First, it was this Silicon Alley Insider story about PS3 sales plummetting.

So why is the PS3 flopping so badly?

1) It's the most expensive console on the market, $150 - $200 more than its rivals. Even if you believe the video game industry is "recession-proof" (it isn't), a tanking economy makes consumers more price-conscious.

2) The PS3's big bonus is its ability to double as a Blu-Ray player. Too bad no one seems to care about hi-def DVDs. The differences between Blu-Ray and DVD are hard to see on a TV less than 50".

Ahhhh... it all fits.

The second story was a Variety piece with Joe Morgenstern, Ken Turan, Stanley Kauffmann, Andrew Sarris, and Richard Schickel reflecting on the state of film criticsm. But, as is so often the case in gatherings of O.L.D.C.A., the conversation leans to discussion of the good ol' days, but not so much about what happened to print film criticism or film criticism in general. (To be fair to the interviewees, they didn't write the story, edit it, or chose the questions.)

The most significant thing to nudermine mainstream film criticism, in my view, is the editors of papers and their publisher bosses no longer valuing the work of a film critic the same way they used to. There doesn't seem to be any sense of loss, aside from personal. at places like the LA Times when they narrow down to one full time film critic in the heartland of movie making. And with due respect to Ken Turan, for all of the harping about young-demographic chasing by the studios, can you tell us what your newspaper is doing by bending right over with a giant photo spread for the biggest film in the marketplace every single week?

That is the story at almost every paper, television station, and even on the bigger websites in the land. If it's not a newspaper wanting someone to buy the paper to read Critic X, it's webmasters wondering how to pump up the page views. As a result, the films that are written about are just as narrowed as the wide release movies. The films that challenge the audiences most are, generally, left to the internet to ponder in any depth at all and by critics who work that beat consistently.

Another part of this is the failure of the biggest paper to develop any real star critics. This doesn't mean that there aren't excellent critics out there. But you are in a small group indeed if you are slapping around the latest review from Desson Howe or Michael Sragow in conversation.... and those are two of the higher profile voices out there. Carina Chocano, however backwardly hired, was that kind of effort.... the wordsmith who isn't really a movie person. But while The New Yorker can coast with an Anthony Lane poking at movies as an excuse for his prose, the L.A. Times has a much wider readership from day one and needed Carina to be accessible.

Manohla is a great writer... but she is also utterly unpredictable. And that is the excitement of finding out what she has to say about a movie. It's not Manohla The Killer... it's Manohla taking it strong to the hoop every time, even if she hits the rim and blows the dunk in spectacular fashion.

I am not advocating anyone else getting dumped... but when was the last time anyone under 60 was recognized as being a voice on the arts at Time? It's not that they should dump the vets... but they all need a bullpen of younger folks pushing the new enevlope. Experience has great value. But so do new ideas.

Posted by dpoland at 04:47 PM | Comments (29)

BYOB - Weekender 1212

I forgot to mention...

The Day The Earth Stood Still is the worst movie I have seen from a studio all year... going away.

And that IS my complete review.

Posted by dpoland at 03:09 PM | Comments (50)

Gurus o' Gold - 12/12/08

The full charts... all Top 8 categories...

Posted by dpoland at 03:01 PM | Comments (3)

"Take Me Away From All This Death"

40 were taken out at Reelz Channel yesterday, as they cancelled the one heavily produced show they make, Dailies. Sigh.

As I write, more cuts at Paramount are being made. The NY office is taking the most significant hit versus department size. But jobs that were filled to fill the void left by earlier cuts are now being cut today. Paramount, of course, has a long history under current management of pre-Christmas firings.

You know, I am not terribly sympathetic to the bosses at Paramount these days. But on the other hand, when these firings are reflected in the glow of the Ben Button black-tie premiere the other night... not fair.

The public image and the private pain are always in direct conflict in this industry. People are being fired, in part, for fear of Ben Button losses… but the studio still has to turn every trick it can to make Ben Button work financially… and that includes Oscar… and with that, glamour. More people will consider spending money to go see Ben Button after seeing Pitt and Jolie on that red carpet than via straight ads or trailers.

For a critic, it is an odd thing to think, “I hope Ben Button succeeds,” not (just) because of the film, but because you don’t want to see more good people get slaughtered with no where else to go... people we actually know.

Weird times.

Posted by dpoland at 12:43 PM | Comments (1)

In Response To Gran Torino Raves

His sad true story wrings you out emotionally because it's concerned with both the deaths of young men… and what happens when the needs of those who survive clash with what society expects and politics demands.
Ken Turan

In his new film… Clint Eastwood says something new and urgent about... men who fight.
Manohla Dargis

Eastwood has made one of his best films -- a searching, morally complex deconstruction of the Greatest Generation that is nevertheless rich in the sensitivity to human frailty that has become his signature as a filmmaker
Scott Foundas

Stands with the best movies of this young century and the old one that preceded it: It's passionate, honest, unflinching, gripping, and it pays respects.
Stephen Hunter

These are all raves for Flags of Our Fathers... a film that resonates in our culkture as much today as it did the day before anyone had seen it.

I am an unyielding fan of Clint Eastwood's best work. And I am unafraid to say that the emperor has no clothes when he stands naked before us.

He has before, but not so much in what I consider his more personal films as a director (Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers, Million Dollar Baby, The Bridges of Madison County, A Perfect World, Unforgiven, White Hunter Black Heart, Bird, Pale Rider). For me, what differentiates Gran Torino from even the films in this group that I don't like very much is that it is so completely tone deaf about those around Eastwood's character... black and white and never gray, never real.

How disconnected from actual violence or actual gangs or actual poor people to embrace this portrait of his formerly white bread neighborhood? (The only character who seems real at all is the one who reflects a younger version of the Eastwood character, the barber.) Can anyone actually argue that Eastwood’s character’s relationship with the needing-to-grow-up next door kid is even as deep and profound as Mr. Miyagi’s with The Karate Kid (or more ironically, The Next Karate Kid)?

With all due respect, Gran Torino is a sitcom quality "get off of my lawn" movie with an incredibly likeable lead actor (which keeps it from being unwachable) and an Outer Limits ending that would be beaten senseless if any less revered director had dared to release it.

If you want to see a serious movie about The Institution and the reasons why we need to seriously consider change, go see Waltz With Bashir, which as an animated film is not a tenth of the cartoon that the unfortunate Gran Torino is.

Posted by dpoland at 12:04 PM | Comments (11)

Hugh Jackman

Nice.

Even in concept, the list was short. But Jackman was, once it went to The Academy for approval, the first choice. And everyone was good with it.

Clooney, Jackman, and... uh... who else?

There are many names that many people like or think would be fun. But who else can be trusted, be charming, be a good choice for men and for women, be attractive to a worldwide audience, etc? And he can sing, if there is a call for it.

The host of the Oscars is surely the most overdiscussed issue every single year. No one tunes in see the host. And for movie stars, it is problematic that the hosting job becomes one of the leading lights of a career, not unlike winning the Oscar... but unlike winning the Oscar.

The only downside here? Jackman is the front man for, perhaps, this year’s biggest money losing movie. And he’s following that up as the lead of, perhaps, the most contentious studio production of the year. Neither is Jackman’s fault. And in the end, it seems rather appropriate really… an appropriate definition of the industry right now… all that trouble in the face of all that talent.

The final question is why The Academy would announce what is considered a key announcement on a Friday, the day you release news you want buried. The answer, it seems, is gossip blogger Nikki Finke and her itchy trigger finger. Thank God this important news was leaked to the world prematurely! It will bring such comfort to those who were just laid off at Reelz and the thousands about to go in the auto industry.

Posted by dpoland at 11:13 AM | Comments (23)

December 11, 2008

DP/30 - Ari Folman - Waltz With Bashir

Posted by dpoland at 10:02 PM | Comments (1)

DP/30 - Ed Zwick - Defiance

Posted by dpoland at 10:01 PM | Comments (4)

12 Weeks To Oscar: The No Awards Awards

I held off writing this week’s column until after the Golden Globes nominations… and then… well… who cares?

Every year, we all beat the heck out of the HFPA members and then mine their nominations like we are going to find nuggets that matter. But we’re seeking fool’s gold… and get what we deserve.

Can HFPA help cement in a nominee here and there? Sure. But history tells us that the group’s nominations are no more influential than anyone else’s. There are just network TV lights when they give out their awards.

What really strikes me today is that it is time for someone, somewhere to start a No Awards awards show.

Would it really be so bad to have a night to celebrate the great work of a year without worrying about the detail work of who won in what category, but to actively celebrate the movies of the year?

What is there… 42 minutes in a network hour? So three hours – perhaps not all in one shot – leaving 126 minutes of time to celebrate the great movies of the year.

Do it like the BCS… “coaches” (critics) votes, seeding by way of “conferences” (genres or specific criteria, like highest grossing film of the year, top animated film, top foreign language film, top true indie), computer rankings based on Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, etc.

The rest...

The charts...

Posted by dpoland at 07:02 PM | Comments (4)

DP/30 - Dennis Hopper - Elegy

Posted by dpoland at 12:44 PM | Comments (5)

Globes

What can one say?

The town drunks are at it again.

The hard part about smacking the HFPA roundly about the head and shoulders is that they sometimes do something smart… like embracing In Bruges.

Then, the idiots give two nominations to Tropic Thunder’s supporting movie stars and not Best Comedy and you remember that this should be called The Golden Whores. (Ironically, I think Cruise was always a better supporting actor stunt candidate than Downey... and if they went that way, he could be Oscar nominated, I think.)

So… details…

I would estimate that in 10 picture nominations, HFPA will match The Academy on 3; Ben Button, Frost/Nixon, and Slumdog Millionaire.

I think that in all the bending over for the non-starting Revolutionary Road, the only sure nomination is the one they missed, for Michael Shannon.

I think that Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and Taraji Henson all deserve to be angered… and that at least one or two of them will be cleansed of the oversight by The Academy.

I think that Disney should not show up to accept the award for Wall-E, unless the film was DQed by new rules for comedy/Musical since Finding Nemo was, in fact, nominated. (The Globes do have rules... right?)

If I were Clint Eastwood, I would stay home and not sit there giving them star power while losing twice for song and score.

Congrats to Harvey Weinstein for being able to shove anything, with Nadia Bronson’s help, down this organization’s throat.

Looking over the entire list, the only two nominees who I think were actually helped by this were Viola Davis and Marisa Tomei in the very fluid Supporting Actress category… not because they were nominated, but because they were not NOT nominated. This is not a judgment of the work in any way… just the machinery. The nods for these two actresses are reconfirmation.

The most important thing that happened with these nods today is that The Academy should be reminded why it is THE ACADEMY and not just some television game show hosted by people with accents. Those of us whose noses are up against it for months every year are, unfortunately, prone to myopia. In the real world, The Academy is still not a group of panderers. Don’t start pandering for ratings… or trying to… or you too will someday be the lesser of all evils.

Posted by dpoland at 10:33 AM | Comments (35)

December 10, 2008

Review - Valkyrie

The problem with Valkyrie is really simple… it was a terrible idea when they started and nothing that a large group of very talented people did could overcome the core problem of this story. It’s a movie about a vain loser that doesn’t want to be about failure.

There is a way to make a movie about failure work. But that’s not what they were chasing here. It is supposed to make the audience feel like it was a valiant, heroic attempt, doomed to failure by fate. But in the effort to create a war time procedural of a coup – which is, again, the real story here... not some thriller about a plot to kill Hitler.

For the men of Valkyrie, killing Hitler is a means to an end. And the unfortunate element is that the eventual accusations by the state that the men behind this effort were more interested in obtaining power for themselves than in doing good don’t ring untrue… because the real stated goal of these men, to stop the war before the U.S. destroyed Europe utterly, is too ambiguous to really take hold in the middle of this drama.

But back to the loser…

Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg means well… but he is a fuck-up who gets people around him killed, over and over again. He is, in the end, exactly the kind of guy who you would not want to go to war with. He is so busy trying to do what he thinks is right that he barrels ahead without really knowing the reality he is facing. A well meaning jackass is still a jackass.

God bless Tom Cruise for wanting to play a one-armed, one-eyed cipher of a man. But he should have made this film with a European filmmaker on a European budget and put some real edge in it. Instead, he got an excellent filmmaker in Bryan Singer, who doesn’t do edge and does tricky, but not failure. Deadly mistake.

I don’t want to drag a cast of actors I really like through the mud, but much of the film played like a dated 40s movie with familiar Brits in funny hair and uniforms and an array of real non-English speaking Europeans trying to speak English (watch for the entire frickin’ cast of Black Book). In the end, I have to say, there is not a single performance in the entire film that I ever need to see again.

MINOR SPOILERS TO THE END

Finally, there is one major problem that dates this film completely, not unlike a movie about Brits killing off “wogs” being made now. If killing Hitler was all that important and they could walk a bomb into a room with Hitler without anyone looking in von Stauffenberg's briefcase (or presumably, the briefcase of any high ranking official who was allowed contact with Hitler), any man willing to die for what is repeatedly stated as being so very, very important, could have done the job at the expense of his own life with a gun, a knife, or even a bomb that stayed in that person’s control. Obviously, we are now engulfed with suicide bombers and this film is right around the time of the kamikazes. Perhaps that just wasn't seen as an option back then. But as in any film, we are meant to identify with the "hero." And me? I would have killed Hitler for the love of my country, my family, and hundreds or thousands dying daily at the hands of this man. Wouldn't you?

In this film, our hero is a man who has lost his arm, lost an eye, and is willing to risk his life to kill Hitler. Well... so long as risk means he might win in the end. By wanting to live more than to accomplish his task, he becomes just another loser talking big talk and not delivering. And worse, he then lies without knowing the full story, sacrificing others in his arrogance. (One character is sent away because he stands in the way with "too much" concern about the details... but turns out, if you think about it, to be much more right than our "hero.")

But it gets worse... we then spend nearly an hour on the post-Hitler-killing coup, where arrogant von aaS preens around like he is Al Haig after Reagan was shot. "I'm in charge... it's all okay... I'm in charge." He even hangs the guilt on another member of the team who actually wanted to be sure that Hitler was dead before putting more at risk. What a maroon! Except... he was right. And our hero was wrong. Oops.

Yes, the movie is “better than expected” versus some very negative buzz. But it is, in the end, not a good movie. And it was never going to be a good movie. For the tragedy of a failure to feel like a tragedy, the failure needs to admitted and, really, embraced. Failure needs to be the theme of the work, somehow. And here, they just looked the other way. Ach dung.

Posted by dpoland at 08:41 PM | Comments (45)

More Raddon Stuff

According to LA Observed, on Monday, Claude Brodesser-Akner, compared Rich Raddon’s resignation to The Hollywood Blacklist. (Here is the show for download... the comment occurs in the opening news rundown.) As a result, KCRW is making a public response on next week’s show in response…

"Last week listeners to this program heard an announcement by host Claude Brodesser-Akner purporting to be a (quote) ‘rant on behalf of the entire editorial staff of The Business.’

Well, a ‘rant’ is certainly what it was, in all the pejorative meanings of that term.

The management of KCRW takes editorial positions on very rare occasions. Management alone has that prerogative. In this instance, management was neither consulted nor informed.”

Interesting. And ironic, in that KCRW took the position that their problem with Brodesser is that he took control of the station’s editorial voice without consulting the management.

Lame.

I assume that the objection to CB-A’s comment is actually about comparing what happened around Raddon to The Blacklist, not that he had stepped on Ruth Seymour’s turf. So I actually would take CB-A’s side on this.

However… the basic argument remains a loser that insults the victims of the actual Hollywood Blackist.

It is certainly reasonable to take the position that Rich took a personal political and, perhaps, religious position on Prop 8 and that it should have nothing to do with his public life or his employment. That holding it over his head is unfair.

The other side is the argument that Prop 8 is a public abridgement of civil rights and as such, is so immoral that any support is unforgivable.

But beyond that… The Hollywood Blacklist did NOT see anyone losing work because Hollywood or people in Hollywood felt the politics of individuals were wrong. It was the interference of the United States Government and the climate of fear intentionally created by the government that threatened the well-being of studios employing the accused – guilty or not – and those unwilling to inform on others.

In fact, if Rich Raddon is comparable to anyone in this specious analogy, it is Elia Kazan, who informed in 1952, and kept on working. Certainly, he was a divisive figure from then on. People were split on his choice. His supporters got him his honorary Oscar. Some were disgusted by the choice by The Academy.

Demonizing those who stood against Raddon is as absurd as voting to remove the right to marry from human beings of any kind, short of some demonstrable damage that marriage might create (like birth defects, child abuse, etc.). But this particular choice is, simply, dead wrong as a comparison.

Still, Brodesser-Akner didn’t take much time to spout his “rant.” And he has the right to be wrong, I feel, in his airtime. And it would certainly be much more productive of KCRW to address the issue in a real way and not just by slapping back at the “rant.” In a very real way, their intention to “do good” does the same kind of damage as his intention to “do good.” Stop the cycle… with actual information and opinion and not just more putdowns.

And by the way, this was my exact position of Raddon. He and FIND should have spoken to the issue directly from the start. Instead, by isolating him and not being transparent, they kept the lid on the pot, it boiled more intensely than it would, and eventually, Rich went out when it boiled over.

It’s always the cover-up, not the crime… especially when no crime occurred. And Rich Raddon did nothing remotely criminal. Just like the Hollywood 10.

Posted by dpoland at 03:41 PM | Comments (3)

What It Means

Why is there so much variation in the critics groups?

Well, there are often all kinds of competitive politics involved. And, as we are sure to see tomorrow, with the Golden Globes nods, a lot of managing of votes in some groups.

But my basic instinct this season is that LAFCA and NYFCC and others just don’t have a long list of movies that really raised passions – in a positive way - to choose from. It’s not that these movies aren’t good or even great. But more than I ever remember, there is a nearly balanced group on either side of virtually every movie, loving, hating, and mostly, being ambivalent.

I love that Wall-E is embraced as the best film of the year… but really? Wall-E and The Dark Knight? From a critics group? Likewise, you can be sure that there were some members in NY and plenty of people in LA who would rather cut their wrists than see Milk honored as Best Picture. (I am a fan of the film.)

I do think that if Slumdog Millionaire was seen as an underdog on the level of Happy-Go Lucky that we would have seen a much bigger push for it in one or both of the groups. But it is not. And so, as an overdog, all the urges to take it down a peg get indulged.

But it’s really the entire list. Are they overdogs or underdogs? Ask me today… then ask tomorrow. Who knows what answer you will get each day?

Posted by dpoland at 01:36 PM | Comments (5)

BYOB - Wednesday

Posted by dpoland at 11:32 AM | Comments (62)

Annals Of Journalism, 12/10/08

In Variety, the top film story this morning is that Variety had a movie screening...

And Nikki Finke is dancing on her chain for Brad Grey, selling the notion that Steven Spielberg is now pals with Grey and that he went out of his way to support Ben Button. As is so often the case, the truth is buried in the avalanche of bullshit.

What really happened - oh, that pesky thing or actually being there - was that The Film Foundation, topped by Martin Scorsese, who is making his next film for Paramount, was the front charity for this event. I don't know what benefit the organization got, as there were no tickets sold, no indication of fund raising, and there wasn't any literature about the foundation distributed. But this is not unusual at ”charity” premieres. Scorsese couldn't make it. Steven came in his place. He gave a very nice speech about the efforts of The Film Foundation and how it should be supported and closed by saying - paraphrased days later - ""You being here tonight will help preserve so many classics... (pause)... including the one you are about to see now, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button."

And he went out the side door, as he had entered.

The first question being whispered around me was whether Spielberg had actually seen the movie... as he made no other references to it.

The guy did Scorsese a solid and now he is being touted by the CEO of Publicity as a big supporter of the movie. And maybe he is. But really, what the hell else was the guy going to say?

I was not going to write about this. It was a lovely evening, although the magic of black tie didn't translate into much more than clothing. But people were happy, Hollywood was Hollywood, and a honest effort was being made. I am not interested in attacking either Paramount staff or Ben Button. But when the hype-sell hits the wires, courtesy of the bosses who endlessly leave their publicity-focused employees slack-jawed by the information given to Nikki for ego strokes while with the other phone they are firing more people who are paying for bad decisions… well…

Finally... Patrick Goldstein continues to devolve into a braying jackass of self-indulgence, by writing a 542 word deconstruction of the LAFCA voting event yesterday, but still pretending to be above it...

"The move should drive the clown-suit clad Oscar pundits crazy..."

"Here's a few highlights from my spies in the room..."

"The biggest loser was probably..."

"(T)he awards raised some hopes and dashed some others..."

You know, I don't really care what you want to write about it. You want to obsess on one of the least contentious LAFCA votes in years, go to town. But you might want to at least wipe your mouth so you don't spit DNA over the entire internet before claiming that everyone else is a bunch of pandering whores. That is where you offend me, sir.

You remind me enormously of Richard Roeper, actually, taking a role that should see you leading, but so busy trying to position yourself above the maddening crowd (of other people trying hard to make a living) that all that is left of you is arrogance, unkindness, and the ignorance of self-inflicted blindness. I know you to be better than that. But you seem committed to a path from which you will not waiver, even when it is only a matter of not attacking others when there is no cost to you whatsoever. Fear of being small makes you small. We have all been there... but the idea is to stop when you get big. And for some reason, you only felt you needed to start being that way on the way down. T'is a shame.

Posted by dpoland at 08:38 AM | Comments (8)

NY Film Critics Circle

The meeting started at 6a, Los Angeles time, and continues on.

The group posts their winners to their website as they as selected, which is a pretty gracious way of not making it about who can Blackberry whom with info first. You know as much as I do when I know it.

So far (last update 9 minutes ago)...

Best Actress Sally Hawkins Happy-Go-Lucky
Best Screenplay Jenny Lumet Rachel Getting Married
Best Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle Slumdog Millionaire
Best Supporting Actor Josh Brolin Milk
Best Animated Film WALL-E
Best Director Mike Leigh Happy-Go-Lucky

With the exception of Wall-E, it seems like a "Don't Overlook" list as much as anything.

Mike Leigh and Sally Hawkins has been seen as endangered lately. (Leigh was runner-up at LAFCA and Hawkins is now a bi-coastal 2-for-2... suddenly making Kristin Scott Thomas the endangered species in Actress, especially if Kate Winslet The Reader gets voted in as a lead role, as it really should.) Anthony Dod Mantle is seen as fighting for a slot because he is not one of the American regulars... Brolin in Milk... Leigh as Best Director.

Spent a while with Brolin yesterday for a DP/30 that will post over the weekend... couldn't be happier for him. A great, understated performance that, like W., was a tightwire walk.

Anyway... ongoing...

===========
8:54a
Best Supporting Actress Penelope Cruz Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best First Film Courtney Hunt Frozen River

===========
9:26a
Best Foreign Film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Best Actor Sean Penn Milk
Best Documentary Man on Wire

==========
9:45a
Best Picture Milk

Posted by dpoland at 08:24 AM | Comments (4)

December 09, 2008

BYOB - Tuesday

No time to write about the schizo LAFCA nods (NYFCC tomorrow)... but plenty of space for you all to fight about it...

NOTE: If you are making as many as 20% of all comments over a given 6 hours... you are commenting to much.

Posted by dpoland at 03:09 PM | Comments (53)

BFCA Nods

Ah... the BFCA...

I considered resigning this week after seeing that this organization chose to embrace the failing hack version of what was once a show about criticism by having Lie-ons and What Would Grandpa Say? announce the award nominations. I haven't. Not yet. As a matter of principle, it is my instinct to do so, but I don’t want to be rash and I do see how all the organizations that deal with studios and networks to broadcast awards show are beholden to the notions of others. We’ll see how things roll. But I am embarrassed, for myself in association, and for my association, humiliating itself.

In any case…

The nominations are, as usual, right in line with the zeitgeist of the season. There are a couple of completely off the charts choices that seem to line up in the “let’s play six” categories, but I don’t want to embarrass anyone by belittling their nominations. I wouldn’t mind attacking those who engineered them, but the latter would do the former, so…

There is not a lot to glean from all this. Slumdog Millionaire will not be the top nomination getter from The Academy… but that doesn’t mean it won’t win. Benjamin Button, the biggest, most expensive film of the lot, will surely get the most Academy nominations, with every crafts group overwhelmed with the size and quality of the work… that that doesn’t mean it is a likely BP winner. (There is the real chance, however, that it will be one of those films that wins 4 Oscars for everything but the major categories.) Frost/Nixon, which didn’t score a nod for Michael Sheen - even as there was room for Robert Downey, Jr. in blackface and two Milk nominations – still scored Picture, Director, and writer… which are the elements of any movie’s success.

The one thing of note, here and in the Gurus voting, is that Doubt, while pushed aside early and often, has moved back up into contention as so many other films have fallen away as serious contenders. I don’t think it will win any Oscars, really. But you could well be looking at a film with 5 or 6 nominations.

The reason that BFCA is a good indicator for Oscar, in terms of nominations, is that the group is completely susceptible to the marketing efforts around the awards movies. Thinking narrows, fairly or unfairly, and the result is the same, year after year, no matter how many scream about the absurdity. The beat goes on.

Posted by dpoland at 10:22 AM | Comments (22)

December 08, 2008

Twilight Tidbits

It amazes me that this is already been so chewed over, but...

Kristin Stewart is 18 and Rob Pattinson is 21. There is no Harry Potter issue here. Crows feet may become an issue, but obvious aging is a non-issue. Obvious b.s.

Kathryn Bigalow is the obvious choice to jump in the fray. She is in business with Summit already, is an excellent action director, needs a commercial break, and is female (an issue, whether you want it to be or not).

Twilight is a great success... about on the level of National Treasure.

Now, quick...name the director of National Treasure... and did he direct the sequel?

If you know, you are in the minority... big time.

Just sayin'...

Posted by dpoland at 05:42 PM | Comments (73)

Leno Move: A Kick In SAG's Scripted Crotch

As head-scratchingly odd an idea it is to turn NBC Latenight into a 4.5 hour nightly franchise (with one hour of poker), plus 90 minutesof SNL on Saturday and another one hour poker round-up - here's a novel idea.. how about moving the NBC local news slot to 9:30, leaving the chatter uninterrupted and giving Conan a 30 minute jump on David Letterman - it doesn't seem that anyone else has noticed the real loser here...

The Actors.

Just as SAG has been limping through their non-strike, five more hours of the primetime that keeps those who are working regularly in business is being erased by NBC, at least for now. The 10pm slot, across the week, was the only one at NBC that had not been infected by the reality bug. Now, you're looking at four prime time hours of Football Night on Sunday and five hours of Leno at 10, leaving just 13 possible hours of scripted programming in prime-time each week. If Dateline, Deal or No Deal and The Biggest Loser stay on, you're down to 10 hours of a 22 hour primetime week that MIGHT have scripted programming.

This also means, AFTRA might have 12 hours to SAG's 10 in NBC Primetime.

2 Hours of Law & Order and a 2 hour comedy block on Thursdays... and you're down to 6 hours that need to be actively programmed.

Outside of summer, CBS has only 2 hours of reality programming these days. ABC has 6 or 7. And with a 15 hour weekly primetime, Fox tends to program reality into about 50% of the schedule (or slightly less less as shows cycle).

But 12 hours is a new landmark... one that should make SAG members cringe.

Posted by dpoland at 05:18 PM | Comments (19)

TribCo Ch 11

The irony is that the NYT story... is on a blog... and one that understands the web well enough to link to the actual filing.

Most would say this is no surprise.

Some clung to Barry Diller's notion that the film business - and thus, somehow, analogous industries - were making a mistake by "just" chasing profits at the cost of human talent. But what I see in both cases are mature industries that were overgrown with the revenues from areas that were not the core business... that are falling apart in a real way after showing an inability/unwillingness to adjust to the paradigm shift that did not come with "the next big new revenue generator."

Barry Diller is right when he suggests that killing off the middle management of studios without real cutting in other, more flagrantly excessive areas is wrong headed. (I'm pretty sure that's what he meant, even if others wish to extrapolate it into something grander.) But the truth is, both have to happen.

The film industry is grossly overbloated. Every single movie that a major studio makes costs too much. Some cost 5 or 10 times too much. Marketing has given up creativity - in many cases - for massive spending. DVD is dead... long live DVD. But while new delivery systems will grow and mature, they will not replace the huge bursts of revenue that sell-thru DVD did in the last sox or seven years... the money that made Hollywood into a fiscal crack whore desperate for its next hit of nine-figure-revenues, not matter how wonderful "the familty at home"/"movies that just made 10s of millions" was.

The part of the Diller speech that is less quoted is pointing out that studios have gone from a high-teens annual return in a good year to high single digits to, now, 4 or 5 percent... again, in a GOOD year.

The studios, whether they get it or not, have a vested interest in actors, writers, and on down the line to have a viable, working middle class again. There is plenty of money out there. Spending priorities just have to shift… and they are shifting already without intent, in an uncontrolled way, that does not benefit anyone.

In the newspaper industry, the infrastructure is incredibly valuable. And that includes layers of reporters. But the imagination to rethink how to use the resources that these papers can support just hasn’t emerged. It is a great challenge. But the companies that are in the very best position to make the conversion most effectively – like TribCo – are still working under the old paradigm of cutting instead of reshaping.

I was intrigued the other day by Anne Thompson suggesting that the job of transforming The Hollywood Reporter into a publication that can survive the next years was daunting. I would say that it is one of the great opportunities in media today. Because there is still infrastructure, even if the paper has become completely irrelevant. The truth is that Variety hasn’t become any more relevant, it’s just the bigger paper that worked harder and tougher to be the sole survivor. But they both still miss the core fundamentals of New Media… which, like it or not, is becoming the Mainstream Media. (Specifically, I would say that print, television, and radio are “Traditional Media” and “Mainstream Media” is a combination of many outlets, including some of the TM outlets as well as the internet outlets.)

Anyway… $5.4 billion in the hole, revenues on the decline, and filing Chapter 11 is not a fun place to be. It’s bigger than the often petty and personal attacks that line both the LA Times and the web.

In the end, the void that will be left by historical behemoths is bigger than anyone needs to fill. But not too many people or organizations are capable of giving up the ghost… until the fire is too hot to control. Unfortunate.

Posted by dpoland at 11:19 AM | Comments (7)

December 07, 2008

Why Fox's Bad Year Is "Not That Bad"

A commenter on another entry coughed this up...

"How are you any different than Nikki Finke when it comes to Fox and Vantage? There's no variation on your shtick, and it's not based on reality or facts. "Fox isn't as bad as you think." "Vantage is on the verge of collapse." You've been repeating some variation on those two statements forever, as if you say it enough times it will suddenly become true or be accepted as fact." Rothchild

Well... first the personality stuff.

Just because you say that I am not basing my comments on facts does not make it so. I offer facts out the buttocks over and over. If you don't care to believe the facts, that's your issue. Not mine.

So here we go again... please feel free to disagree with said facts and/or my interpretation... or just keep throwing mud. Your call.

Vantage is not on the verge of collapse. Vantage is, essentially, a former division playing out its pipeline. Is there some factual reason you disagree (other than "the studio or Nikki told you so")... or do you just want to bark?

As for Fox... again... details. Fox appears to have a very strong 2009 ahead. If X-Men Origins: Wolverine / Night at the Museum II / Ice Age 3 go into August looking like Superman Returns, Poseidon, and Lady in the Water, you can bet that I will be right there calling for Tom Rothman’s head... for cause... not over personality or a narrow view of his tenure's success.

The huge difference between the issue of Fox and the issue of Vantage is that the failure of one and the failure of the other are not comparable in any real way. Vantage was a start-up, focused on quality “indie” filmmaking and not necessarily profit. Vantage as a breakeven would have been a win for Paramount. But it lost a fortune, even though many of the movies were excellent and/or truly ambitious.

Fox, as a major studio, is in a completely different business. The studio is built to risk more, with less interest in quality than revenue, with the goal of bigger gains. (If I am sounding patronizing, my apologies… but you don’t seem to get it.)

No one year defines a major studio. It cannot. (Nor can grosses without the benefit of knowing costs or awards.)

And if you look at Fox over the last two years, it will be very apparent why. By year end, there is a real chance that Fox 2008 will have the identical domestic box office as Fox 2007. Yes, there will be seven more films this year, but that difference can mostly be attributed to movies that Fox’s financial stake in was significantly less than releases in years past (or not their money at all).

Of course, domestic box office is not the whole story. Foreign is, in most cases, more significant. But with two movies to go – one looking a lot stronger international than domestic – Fox is only $230 million behind last year’s film’s totals.

All that said, Fox will eat a lot of dollars on Australia and Meet Dave. They will take losses on X Files: I Want To Believe, and Jumper (in spite of $222m worldwide… I don’t believe their cost claim is close).

They will be highly profitable on Horton Hears A Who!, 27 Dresses, and What Happens in Vegas.

Pretty much everything else is marginally either a loser or winner, often because of the investment of others, whether Walden or Media Rights or some international deals. This was not as intended... so not a positive... but no disaster either.

And going back to year-to-year realities… Fox had home runs with some pretty iffy movies in 2007 (and I don’t hold Rotten Tomatoes as the ultimate arbiter of quality) and people were raving about how great the year was. Fox’s line-up this year made a lot of similar efforts… and pretty much every one tanked vs expectations.

This was a down year, no question. No one is going to give Fox a parade this year. Nor should they. But perspective is always called for.

One year you get a massively more successful than expected The Simpsons Movie. The next year, you get X-Files 2. (And yes... I am sure that YOU knew this would happen... zzzzz... yes, we should all be running studios instead of those idiots who do...zzzz...) You invest in M. Night Shyamalan and like everyone else has, you live with him doing as he likes… and you more than double his last film… but it’s still only his second film since The Sixth Sense not to get to $250m worldwide… so even though you are well into breakeven, it’s seen as another disaster. You have two rom-com cash cows… and no one is talking about anything but Sex & The City.

What is WB’s #2 film for the year? 10,000 BC. $269m worldwide. So… what’s the difference between that and Fox’s #2 film (Jumper, with $222m worldwide)? The difference, in perception, is The Dark Knight. Take Batman and New Line off of the WB box office chart and you have a bad year. Of course, you can’t take Batman off the list… and you shouldn’t. New Line, you must. (And what an irony that New Line will have 3 highly profitable films this year after being shut down.) But you need to keep in perspective that ONE success is often the difference between a bad year, a mediocre year, and a great year… in perception.

Want to go #3 vs #3 with WB vs Fox? Get Smart vs What Happens In Vegas. The WB title got better reviews and grossed $10 million more worldwide. Smart cost at least $50 million more than Vegas. So which would you prefer at your studio?

I’m not trying to just rip on WB. They did have The Dark Knight. And it counts. Just like Superman Returns counts… same idea… arty director for a superhero movie… money loser. Just as X-Men and X-Men 2 and X-Men 3 still count. Just as it matters who made the profits on Iron Man and who took the losses on The Incredible Hulk. So is Marvel the company of the future or is it an undisciplined spender in danger of overreaching? The facts, while not always embraced by the media, are still the facts… whether you like them or not.

And again… don’t get me wrong… it was a crap year for Fox. And Australia’s box office demise is the rancid cherry on top. (The reviews for The Day The Earth Stood Still ain’t going to send anyone to bed with a smile either.) There will be write-downs this year.

But when you start comparing it to Vantage… well, you can’t. Everything Vantage could have ever expected to happen in their favor pretty much happened. And they still lost a ton on money. And so, that experiment ended.

And if there is a reason for me to keep pointing at Vantage – forget the delusion that they are really a working business at this point – it is because they led an indie movement with their much higher rate of spending that was no small part of dragging the Dependents down and the true independents with them this last year. Great movies? Perhaps. But if you make There Will Be Blood and it gets the BP nomination and it wins Best Actor and you still lose tens of millions? Sorry. You know who could afford that? A major studio… with a few big dumb hits to support the loss. But it is a recipe for disaster if you are in the specialized business.

Back to Fox… Rothman (and the oft forgotten Jim Giannopoulos) were on top of the world last year. And this year they are the whipping boys. And this next year… well, we will see.

Perspective. And yes, facts.

Your turn.

Posted by dpoland at 02:41 PM | Comments (19)

Weekend Estimates by Klady

Posted by dpoland at 12:02 PM | Comments (90)

December 06, 2008

Surprise Opening Rides The Slumdog Wave

I ran into this amongst the new trailers on Apple.com. It's Warner Bros International owned... oddly smelling of an attempt to either capitalize on Slumdog Millionaire's audience romance... or to make Slumdog, building into a real hit, less special...

There is also a bit of the Stephen Chow feel, which has had some success for Sony. But the timing... and the last minute nature of the release, is confusing. Do they really have time to build this into something in just over a month? On top of that, it's opening against a real draw for the chop socky crowd, Searchlight's Notorious, as well as a mainstream comedy (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) and an indie one (The Brothers Bloom). Even more so, WB is opening a family fantasy a week later (Inkheart).

The release has been confirmed by WB, though there is no indication of it on WB's release schedule, including on the WB website, until this trailer. Odd.

(Here's the link.)

Posted by dpoland at 05:02 PM | Comments (13)

Cleaning Up Before Par "Toldja"

When Nikki Finke writes about Paramount, I pay attention… since she is getting her spun info from Brad Grey and John Lesher directly. Both men embrace a tradition of releasing bad news or unsettled news to media that will print what they want printed and that continues here.

Nice of them to blame Scott Aversano for being the sucker on the Twilight pass. His next rom-com is set up at Lionsgate. Shamberg/Sher’s closest picture to starting is set up at Grey rival CBS Theatrical Films (meaning that by the time it gets done, it will probably be a Paramount release), which is probably why the Par bosses are throwing this mud at them. And Misher’s deal at Paramount has long been exposed as farce, with three of his four pictures since the deal landing at Universal, the only film attached to Par at all being Peter Berg’s Dune… which is not likely long for that world.

In other words, all three were hamstrung by Par management and are now being positioned as being dumped instead of Par being dumped by them.

As usual, Nikki has no insight into what she is transcribing. I guess that is, when I feel it’s actually worth doing, my job. (Someone needs to report and not just mouth the gossip needing spreding.)

Today, Nikki offers a list of who is left with production deals at Paramount. She lists 13… but the list is actually a lot shorter than it looks by way of contracts.

Nikki fairly pushes aside the all-but-not-real deals for Robert Evans and Christine Peters. But she leaves such non-deals as Gary Sanchez, Ripcord, Dickhouse, Important, and Michaels/Goldwyn on the list, attached to big names, as though they are adding to or intended to add to Paramount’s slate.

Gary Sanchez – Ferrell & McKay’s company – has been signed to the now comatose Paramount Vantage since April 2006 and has produced not a single feature film involving either Ferrell or McKay directly under the deal with a total on none on the way.

Ripcord – Mike White’s company – delivered on flop for Vantage and is now in production on a film – from the Hess Bros of Napoleon Dynamite - for Searchlight.

Dickhouse (Team Jackass), Important (Team South Park), and Michaels/Goldwyn are all television driven deals that do not produce for the studio (the only film from any of these companies was Jackass 2 in 2006).

That leaves six deals that seem real in any way.

Brett Ratner’s company has not delivered anything yet, though Beverly Hills Cop IV is still “in development” with an eye to 2010, perhaps after a film for comatose New Line.

Karey Kirkpatrick’s company is for kid films and has not delivered anything without an additional boatload of producers.

Plan B is not just Brad Pitt’s company, but was Brad Grey’s company. That said, there are no Plan B films with distribution plans at Paramount right now, including the Pitt/Penn film for the great Terrence Malick. So, grain of salt…

Martin Scorsese’s company is making its first film for Paramount now. (The Departed was a Plan B… that was not at Paramount.) He is directing. But he only really produces docs for the studio, which is now esentially out of that business.

And then there were two…

Lorzeno di Bonaventura is on both Transformers 2 and GI Joe for the studio this summer. He is one of two real studio producers.

JJ Abrams is the second “real” producer on the lot for Paramount. Bad Robot is delivering one film a year to the studio. Last year, it was Cloverfield. This year, Star Trek, perhaps the most expensive film ever made by the studio.

Thanks for the impetus, Nikki... took all of an hour to report the actual facts behind the splash headline... and not nearly as inflammatory... darn.

Posted by dpoland at 01:00 PM | Comments (4)

Friday Estimates by Klady, 120608

Posted by dpoland at 09:13 AM | Comments (46)

December 05, 2008

Gurus Under Fire

They say all politics are local... so this self-indulgent perspective...

With the layoff of Glenn Whipp from the LA Daily News, we have now seen five once or current Gurus o' Gold laid off in the last year or so.

Five more have lost paying gigs during their Gurus tenure, two of which have led to other jobs and three of which have led back to personal websites. (Two more were always independents and one changed jobs, but in a clear move up the food chain.)

One Guru remains a freelancer, a potential victim of this economy at any time.

Times is hard... times is hard...

Posted by dpoland at 06:26 PM | Comments (21)

BYOB - Friday

Have at it...

Posted by dpoland at 01:20 PM | Comments (33)

Paul Benedict, RIP

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

December 04, 2008

If You Haven't Read It Yet...

Mark Harris' excellent look at the five films that were nominated for Oscar in 1968 is on sale at Amazon.com for just $17.61. It's more than worth it.

Posted by dpoland at 05:48 PM | Comments (1)

Born Into Brothels - 4 Years Later

It has been my good fortune to get to know the filmmakers of Born Into Brothels over the years. Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman started something that continues to grow, years later. Below is some content from the Kids With Cameras newsletter, including the Hope House, which has been a pursuit getting closer to becoming a life-changing reality each year.

You'll also see how this experienced changed the lives of two of the children, as one has now gotten into NYU and another who is in high school in Salt Lake City of all places. In this holiday season, you can have a direct effect on their lives as well by donating to their education, whether in a straight cash pledge or by purchasing items from the website.

We are just a few weeks away from what I suspect will be the next Sundance doc experience to change the lives of the people who see it, inspiring them to action, Rough Aunties. It's a good time to remember just how powerful film and the actions of a few individuals can be.

Posted by dpoland at 03:57 PM | Comments (2)

TypePad... Trying Things Out

The ongoing TypePad/TypeKey drama takes a new turn as we try to integrate the new product... for 24 hours... unless it works. Please try to comment here about how it is working.

Thanks.

Posted by dpoland at 02:20 PM | Comments (24)

13 Weeks to Oscar - The Year of Ambiguity

We've seen The Year of the Bio-Pic, The Year of the Big Director, The Year of The Indie ... but this year, it's The Year of Ambiguity.

But like years past, it is looking like the thing that it is the "year of" may turn out to be the thing that becomes the least Oscar celebrated thing of all.

Australia, Che, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Defiance, Doubt, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, The Wrestler ... all ambiguous in different ways ... some ambiguous emotionally, some intellectually, some morally, some in style ... but hard to nail down.

Great for critics. Crappy for marketing.

The rest...

And the charts...

Posted by dpoland at 11:51 AM | Comments (18)

Why Do Studios Do Cocktail Events For Press?

Someone asked me this last night at the Dark Knight event, which was very pleasant and saw all players in a lovely mood. (Mr. Nolan and I had a great chat about digital cameras and IMAX and the like... and somehow never felt compelled to ask about who would play what villain in a future film... oooohhhh. He did, however, knock down the rumor about shooting the next Bat-film in all IMAX, as the camera is still too loud.)

In any case, wire stories like this, from the AP, is why.

(And truth is, I do think the Batman window has widened as the season has progressed. So there!)

But this is an industry of cause and effect. And it is Dave Germain's job to do that story. And so it goes.

Posted by dpoland at 11:46 AM | Comments (18)

NBoRe

Wow... they read the lists of Oscar frontrunners and added Clint Eastwood twice. How important!

Slumdog Millionaire should be a little concerned about winning Best Picture from this group. 80% of the films film they have given the award to in the last decade have been nominated for a BP Oscar... but only 20% have been winners. They're almost as bad off a an Independent Spirit Award winner.

As always, the wealth has been spread. Some choices I love (like Brolin for Milk) while others are silly.

NBR is the idiot drunk at parties... who also happens to be your first cousin. You can't really pretend it isn't there, but taking it seriously in any way is a sign of brain damage.

Nods after the jump, if you must...

• Best Film: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
• Best Director: DAVID FINCHER, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Best Actor: CLINT EASTWOOD, Gran Torino
• Best Actress: ANNE HATHAWAY, Rachel Getting Married
• Best Supporting Actor: JOSH BROLIN, Milk
• Best Supporting Actress: PENELOPE CRUZ, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• Best Foreign Language Film: MONGOL
• Best Documentary: MAN ON WIRE
• Best Animated Feature: WALL-E
• Best Ensemble Cast: DOUBT
• Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: DEV PATEL, Slumdog Millionaire
• Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: VIOLA DAVIS, Doubt
• Best Directorial Debut: COURTNEY HUNT, Frozen River
• Best Original Screenplay: NICK SCHENK, Gran Torino
• Best Adapted Screenplay: SIMON BEAUFOY, Slumdog Millionaire and ERIC ROTH, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Spotlight Award: MELISSA LEO, Frozen River and RICHARD JENKINS, The Visitor
• The BVLGARI Award for NBR Freedom of Expression: TRUMBO
• Top Ten Films:
(In alphabetical order)
BURN AFTER READING
CHANGELING
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
THE DARK KNIGHT
DEFIANCE
FROST/NIXON
GRAN TORINO
MILK
WALL-E
THE WRESTLER

• Top Five Foreign Language Films:
(In alphabetical order)
EDGE OF HEAVEN
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
ROMAN DE GUERRE
A SECRET
WALTZ WITH BASHIR

• Top Five Documentary Films
(In alphabetical order)
AMERICAN TEEN
THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON)
DEAR ZACHARY
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED

• William K. Everson Film History Award: MOLLY HASKELL and ANDREW SARRIS

Posted by dpoland at 11:31 AM | Comments (7)

December 03, 2008

BYOB w/ A Question

Am I the only one who thinks that Rob Pattinson is going to have a very, very short career as a movie star?

Good looking kid and all, but he seems a little lost.

Posted by dpoland at 06:28 PM | Comments (50)

The Real Issue Of The Month

I feel like there is not nearly enough discussion about…

The SAG Strike Or Non-Strike

Here is my simple answer. SAG lost their strike the day that WGA struck last November.

I hate to be a dog with an old bone, but the idea of a late year, single guild/union strike is just not viable. I can’t speak for all years past, but I can certainly backup the argument in the current structure of this industry.

For all the rage, union/guild deals with AMPTP are, generally, a matter of process. Small victories are won and lost, but the studio side designs its game to allow for just enough for the guilds/unions so as to avoid painful strikes and/or the destruction of the unions/guilds under the weight of their own efforts to make greater progress.

But right now, we are facing real change, not unlike the United States economy. The cycle of getting fat and then being forced into severe fiscal diets has gone on for years, but the deep pockets of conglomerates have made it all too easy to overreach and now, is making the reductions that much more profound.

The evolution of online media is both a red herring and a major issue. But the unions have not been good about making the distinction between one and another, leaking either money or sympathy out of either side of the discussion.

The problem for SAG, from the start of the strike season, is that digital, in the form of reruns, is a real life and death issue of the community of working actors who are just barely hanging on. WGA was, to a great extent, worrying about making a good living. A significant number of SAG members are facing a much more direct threat to paying rent and having health insurance.

But all of this is now in the rearview mirror.

SAG couldn’t get WGA to wait… to develop a unified front… and now they are the last union negotiating. Nothing SAG achieves could have any direct effect on the other unions/guilds for years. So none of their goals will play as being in the name of the industry, only of actors.

The timing could not have been worse for SAG in terms of the ongoing civil war inside the guild. Alan Rosenberg and his followers are virtually forced to take the hardest line, because the reality is that if they show any weakness, the “other side” will regain control of the union, there will be an AFTRA merger, and the very real concerns that Team Rosenberg has about the contract extension that AFTRA already agreed to, will become the law, and an entire slice of working actors are likely to be pushed out of the profession for financial reasons.

Of course, people don’t want to think about all that. They just want to know… is there going to be a strike and will it mess with their life’s pleasures?

And the answer has to be, I don’t know.

What I do know is that a SAG strike will not be successful in achieving anything that is not already on the table or that AMPTP is already prepared to put on the table.

In my opinion, what SAG needs to do, at this point, is to pick some very achievable goals and to start promotion in the media to make their demands accessible. There is ZERO support out there for this strike right now. And SAG desperately needs the industry not to be just wondering about a strike and whether it will hurt the Oscars (in reality, this did nothing to move things along for WGA), but questioning why AMPTP won’t just make a few more concessions so that everyone can go back to work with confidence.

My fear is that Team Rosenberg, feeling cornered, will look at WGA – which didn’t get a deal that helped SAG achieve its goals – at least moving forward and authorize a poorly conceived strike. We may have already passed the point where SAG can avoid being eaten by AFTRA. But burning down the house is not going make things any better.

Posted by dpoland at 01:17 PM | Comments (3)

The Mythologies Of The Month

Okay… I am about sick of…

The WGA Strike Changed This Award Season
and
The Indie Shut Downs Might Change This Award Season

Neither the WGA Strike or the Indie Shut Down has had any palpable effect on this year’s award season, except, perhaps, to get in the way of one or two movies of potential (max) and to lead, somewhat indirectly, to a significant reduction in expenditures around the award season.

There is a story here… but it’s a year too early.

I believe that the strike atmosphere, much more so than the strike, led to a lot of the cutbacks we have seen from the studios. Of course, the overall economy and the fact that half of the six majors (are we counting MGM these days?) are owned by conglomerates for whom the film and television industry are not their primary business and that the other three have had great success from the corporate mindset built for minimizing risk is certainly the bigger issue. But the strike mentality led, I feel, to these risk-averse corporations looking at the machinery around specialized films and wondering why it was worth the investment, as the upside was so low. (Paramount was a one-of-a-kind situation.)

But if you look at The Awards Season, you see very much the same situation as in recent years past. Lots of Studio Dependents, a couple of majors, and no serious contenders from legitimate indies. This has not been a great year for overall quality of film, in my opinion, but almost nothing we are seeing this year started production or certainly active development during or just before the WGA strike. And the indie film cycle really starts with Sundance… and all of that was in post well before the WGA strike.

If you look carefully at the Dependent business, the situation at Fox Searchlight, pre-August, with a very, very light release schedule, even for them in a down year, may have been partially laid at the strike’s door. But probably not too much. Focus has had a full fall schedule with some big movies. Sony Classics is primarily an acquisitions company and has actually reaped the rewards of the competition slowing, eating Cannes alive this year. Miramax has had a pretty full schedule of 8 films with Doubt still on the way and prestige product from Mike Leigh and Fernando Meirelles.

And though they have been, essentially, shut down, both Warner Independent and Paramount Vantage are major players in this year’s award season. WIP’s Slumdog Millionaire is likely to be the division’s second BP nominee in its five years, even though it is now being release by Searchlight. And Vantage is in the game with Revolutionary Road, Defiance, the near-dead The Duchess, and even the missed-the-short-list American Teen. (And don't forget the pushed-to-2009 The Soloist.)

All that said, the future of the indie world will look very different indeed than the one we have experienced over the last decade. And I can’t say that I know what it will look like when it settles. We are all guessing.

For starters, there is the festival cycle.

Then, the pick ups. You can expect 10 - 15 pick-ups by Sony Classics every year, not all of which will get a proper theatrical and very few of which will see more than $1 million from the company upon the U.S. theatrical and DVD rights sale. Searchlight and Focus will pick up 2 or 3 apiece annually, for more money, with more likely aggressive distribution. And that’s that. 20 slots for Dependent buys… maybe.

The next tier of distributors is where it gets really blurry. There are bigger players and smaller players. There are companies that pay on time and companies that never seem to want to pay. And theatrical distribution beyond 3 or 4 screens is a question mark at virtually every one of these companies.

The next layer – and where I think the most action will be, as there is the most room for product – is the V.O.D., downloading, direct-to-Secondary-Platforms business. And what has not emerged as of yet is a business or even a business model that can turn this effort into significant enough revenues to return a production investment back to filmmakers, much less turn a profit for everyone involved.

The Indie Spirits reach a little more widely than The Oscars, but they are still living in the current/soon-to-die paradigm. They are still, ultimately, about television and even the lower profile films they embrace are films that have the highest profile from festivals and the sub-Dependent distributors. This is not to say that there is a lot of great stuff being missed, though there is surely some. But we are feeling the problems with the old paradigm now, as exhibited by the Indie Spirit nods yesterday.

Back to the studios…

Amongst the top contenders, going into this month, you have two very expensive films from Baz Luhrmann and David Fincher, two Eastwoods, a Ron Howard, Disney pushing their Pixar film, and a dark horse from Will Smith. How much more were you expecting?

Same as it ever was.

Posted by dpoland at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

Understanding Drama

Dexter, the Showtime series, was always good. But this season, in taking away the isolation of the Dexter character and forcing him into dealing with relationships, both in his public and private life, it has become, perhaps, the best show on television.

The first step came last season, as Dexter was also given people who knew his secrets. But this year, those relationships have become much more intimate because they are relationships of equals (of sorts).

A great lesson in writing.

Posted by dpoland at 11:50 AM | Comments (9)

Why Gran Torino Is Well Served By Awards Screener DVDs

Because comedies usually play better on television.

Posted by dpoland at 11:48 AM | Comments (8)

Prop 8: The Star Studded Musical

Posted by dpoland at 09:46 AM | Comments (1)

What A Mess Of An Academy Story

What A Mess Of An Academy Story

I was drawn to Michael Cieply’s story about membership in The Academy because of Patrick Goldstein’s exaltation of it.

Oops.

As a writer who has extrapolated millions of words of conceptual ideas from statistical info, the idea of Cieply’s piece is not unfamiliar. My problem is in the follow-thru.

For instance, he claims, “five years in, the revised system is also changing the makeup of the academy in ways that were not entirely expected, tilting it away from the Hollywood regulars and shoo-ins who once filled its actor-rich ranks and toward a more international and indie-film membership.”

Nevemind the line that follows - which is one of the silliest things I have read in a universe of writers obsessed with finding excuses for why studio divisions that have been labeled “indie” are placing more films in the Oscar races for years now – “That promises more Oscar contests fought among films like “There Will Be Blood,” “Babel” and “Little Miss Sunshine,” all recent contenders, even as the academy struggles to raise sagging ratings by making its annual televised ceremony more mainstream and commercial.”

Don’t let the fact that TWBB was the most expensive film of all the BP nominees last year and that Babel was #2 to only The Departed the year before get in the way of being tricked into believing the illusion of the studio indie!

But I digress…

How does the premise that there is a movie “toward a more international and indie-film membership” hold up in the piece?

Well… look at his the examples. There is Russell Smith, who is not only Lianne Halfon’s producing partner, but is Academy member John Malkovich’s partner in Mr. Mudd. Besides Mr Mudd being a truly important indie producer, it is a pretty international company, with films like The Dancer Upstairs, The Libertine, and Ripley’s Game to their credit. So why is Smith being held up in this instance? It’s not that he doesn’t deserve membership, but he is EXACTLY the kind of person that Cieply is claiming that the Academy is chasing.

(Later, I will get into some other other partner splits in Academy invites... they happen every single year... and when the media doesn't like the victim - see Bob Yari - the reporting is quite different.)

Is the New York Times really pushing to make an argument that nominee Adriana Barraza should not have been invited in and that Seth Rogen, who has never been nominated for anything, should be? (He also chooses to leave out the fact that Judd Apatow was invited to join last year.)

Is it surprising that nominees Ellen Page, Casey Affleck, Amy Ryan, and Saoirse Ronan were not invited to join The Academy? Yes. But what does Cieply think this means?

Apparently, he thinks it means that the Actor’s Branch is not being open enough with invitations. But in the context of the piece, what the hell does it mean? Does he think Seth Rogen should be in before any of them?

Any why doesn’t he look at the basic math… 20 acting nominations every year… how many were invited and how many were not?

(The invitations for 2008, 2007, and 2006)

Last year, repeat nominees in acting were Daniel Day Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Julie Christie, Cate Blanchett (2 nods), Laura Linney, Javier Bardem, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Tom Wilkinson.

That means only 9 acting nominees were not already members or had likely been invited… or less than a third of the general number of acting invitees each year. Seems like an easy get.

But The Academy Actors’ Branch invited only 7 total actors last year. Seven! When they, according to Cieply, usually invite roughly 28.

And the actors who were invited show no leaning towards Cieply’s alleged new bias at The Academy. Of the 7 actors invited in last invitation period, four were foreign born. But I think anyone would have to say that Sacha Baron Cohen and Jet Li are definitively in the “Buddy Hackett camp” more so than the elite indie camp. Ray Winstone’s run of The Departed, Beowulf, Indiana Jones IV, and Fool’s Gold would suggest that he is spending more time in the Hollywood commercial camp than not these days. And Marion Cotillard? Well… that is when you realize that the choices being made are not quite a cut and dried as Cieply would like to make them.

The American actors invited in were Josh Brolin (now a leading figure amongst younger actors), Ruby Dee (a veteran whose membership seems too slow in coming, in retrospect), and Allison Janney, a tremendous actress who also makes one wonder, as she is better known for television and stage than film and like other examples from Juno, seems to be the odd person out who became the odd person in.

This is all interesting, at least to me. It’s odd. And it does seem to suggest the Acting Branch having some oddball agenda, made odder by the failure to invite half the number of people they are normally allotted. This is an interesting, if industry navel gazing, story. But this is not what Cieply wrote about. And this is where I run into problems with New York Times editing on Hollywood so often. You read the story and they threw the kitchen sink at this year’s invites… and created a story that doesn’t actually seem to exist, but does seem to clearly fit the proposition that some have made, that there is some reason why indies (which aren’t indies, in reality) are getting more nominations than studio films and that the membership of The Academy is being skewed to achieve that result.

But it’s just not there in the facts.

So Cieply did exactly what McCain/Palin did in the election… they tried to build a case via guilt by association. Mr Smith is very tall… so is his first son, Joe… but his brother Bill is not… so clearly the mother was cheating on the father when she was impregnated with Bill. They don’t mention that Mrs. Smith’s family is mostly short and that it is not unreasonable to expect that her genes won the fight once… because if you mention that, you are undermining your hypothesis. But as journalists, the job is to sell that hypothesis with a read of the real and complete facts, not the convenient ones.

Or maybe you agree that Ruby Dee and Jet Li and Sacha Baron Cohen are obsessed with European indies and that this is all an effort to skew the survey by Tom Hanks, star of Da Vinci Code II.

And look at the full list of Actors Branch invitations from last year: Jennifer Aniston, Adriana Barraza, Steve Carell, Daniel Craig, Aaron Eckhart, Chiwetel Ejiofor, William Fichtner, Ryan Gosling, Jackie Earle Haley, Jennifer Hudson, Danny Huston, Eddie Murphy, Christopher Plummer, James Rebhorn, Michael Sheen, Maribel Verdu

Who is Cieply complaining about… James Bond or the two Dark Knight actors or the three foreign names on the list of 16? The odd thing that stands out to me is that it took that long for Eddie Murphy or Christopher Plummer to get in, invited along with Maribel Verdu, a wonderful actress who has had two high-profile American releases in her entire career.

I mean, yes, it is a big blurry mess. But simplifying it to within an inch of all loss of logic isn’t the answer.

Cieply throws out a foreign name and a woman (hmmm) to illustrate the choices in the Director’s Branch. But what is the real story?

In the last four rounds of invites, there have been 25 directors invited in. Twelve (Sergei Bodrov, James Gray, Michael Haneke, Kimberly Peirce, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Walter Salles, Alejandro Amenábar, Monte Hellman, Werner Herzog, Nicole Holofcener, Bennett Miller, Gavin Hood ) have been on the “arty” side. Thirteen have been pure commercial Hollywooders at this point in their careers (Doug Liman, Peyton Reed, Jason Reitman, Gore Verbinski, Marc Forster, Andy Tennant, Joel Zwick, Peter Berg, D.J. Caruso, Antoine Fuqua, Paul Greengrass, Simon West, Mark Waters).

But again… look closer! Of the twelve artistes, seven had major studio releases or were shooting studio releases when invited in, and an eighth is a classic filmmaker being invited in at the end of his run. (Also, another one is a female director, which is a narrow category that probably should be embraced and emphasized.)

Of the twelve “studio guys,” six made their bones in a major way in what would be seen as indies, with Joel Zwick having the rarest of things... a $200 million+ indie, Forster bringing indie thinking to Bond, Liman’s Go bring him and others to the studio world of excess, Greengrass’ handheld doc style film making him studio bait, Waters segueing from Parker Posey Land, and Reitman’s $100 million+ grosser being small enough for Indie Spirit wins.

So how is the story what is going on in The Academy and not how the business actually works? Who gets to judge where Gavin Hood goes after winning an Oscar for Tsotsi and then making Rendition and Wolverine? Is his South African heritage really what the New York Times is concerned about?

Another offensive assertion is: “Expansion among the executives, and to a lesser degree among publicists, occurred in part as seven Sony Pictures executives made the cut despite — or perhaps to help reverse — a long streak without a best picture nominee from its lead Columbia Pictures division.”

Wait. Is the New York Times really asserting that membership in The Academy are going to change the strategy of studios as regards The Oscars? Is there an ounce of proof in that? A micro-nano of proof? An intelligent idea?

And again, why is Cieply making assertions that in their own wording go against the facts? He argues that the executive ranks expanded, but this is, to a lesser degree because of publicists. But then he smacks Sony, who got in five publicists/marketers and three other execs over the last four inviting rounds... including the two heads of worldwide marketing, the two co-presidents of the studio, and the co-ceo of the studio. Is there a member of that group that Cieply thinks The Academy should leave out or that should have been superseded by a Buddy Hackett candidate?

What does turn up as interesting as you look at the last few years of membership offerings is the number of people who were invited whose companies are now, for the most part, out of the business. With due respect to Stephanie Kluft and Sidney Kimmel (Stephanie being the veteran of longer standing, though stepping up in rank at Kimmel), they have spots in The Academy that are not going to be rescinded because SKE fell on hard times. Same with Gail Berman, who is back in TV after two years running a studio. But what was the alternative?

And there are dozens of other anomalies. How does Heidi Ewing get in without her doc partner, Rachel Grady? How, going back a few years, do you really no invite in Bob Yari, whether you like him or not?

In the end, it is a bunch of committees making a bunch of decisions with a bunch of biases that make for a bunch of head scratchers. And there are many more interesting stories to be mined out of the list of invitations and non-invitations.

But The Paper of Record has the power to set in stone the notions that they decide are real. Even smart people like Patrick Goldstein is too busy enjoying the smackdown (“A charming, gregarious man when he's not trying to defend the academy's many missteps, Davis simply bobbed and weaved…”) to actually think about what the real story is. (Of course, had an evil blogger done the story, it would have been fullof idiotic missteps. Yawn.) And it passes because no one wants to fight about it. And this is how Sharon Waxman and her then editor, Michael Cieply, foisted the LIE of The Slump on Hollywood for years… and why some people still believe it happened.

Why isn’t the truth enough?

Posted by dpoland at 09:37 AM | Comments (2)

December 02, 2008

New Awards From BFCA Critics' Choice

The BFCA Critics' Choice Awards have eliminated one category -- Best Family Film (live action). A major reason given by the group for this decision was that studios saw this award as having little value to its recipients and little impact with moviegoers.

But there is a new category to replace it... Best Action Movie.

Quoting the BFCA release, the category reflects "the enormous importance of this genre to moviegoers and studios alike. Just as the BFCA has pioneered the Best Animated Film and Best Comedy categories, we are now happy to spotlight the finest filmmaking in this category which is usually ignored during award season."

Posted by dpoland at 05:57 PM | Comments (5)

Another Trip To The 4 Seasons

My second trip to the Four Seasons today offered two interesting things.

One was a chat with John Patrick Shanley, with whom I discussed Amsterdam as much as other things. But good stuff...

The other thing was finding out the the new Punisher film is directed by... OMFG... a chick.

Okay... I used "chick" for effect. But it was quite a surprise when I was introduced to a pretty, small brunette named Lexi... who was the director of Punisher: War Zone. It also turns out that she directed Green Street Hooligans, which has a strong cult following. (And she was a World Karate and Kickboxing Champion, so I better be careful with the "chick" stuff.)

When people wonder why there are not more female directors in Hollywood, I would answer that it is because not enough of them make movies like The Punisher, which is how a large percentage of male filmmakers break into the business... in action. So Ms. Alexander is a ground breaker, as was Kathryn Bigalow before her...

Posted by dpoland at 04:01 PM | Comments (34)

Assorted Tuesday

The insane week continues...

Spending some time with Waltz With Bashir's Ari Folman was a delight. The guy not only made a great film, but he exposed himself - it's his personal story - but didn't consider that much of an issue. He's a Israeli, so he is funny, loud, and direct. He's a liberal, so he thinks.about where the lines are where they should be. Video to come later this week or next...

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

Controversy seems to be swirling about my choice to wonder aloud why Milk (and Vicky Cristina Barcelona) were Indie Spirit snubbed. I don't enjoy stirring these pots, especially when I respect the films that were nominated and the chair of the nominating committee, Gail Mutrix. A lot. But even with the best intentions, the process has an odd lack of transparency. And this remains the subtextual reason, to my eye, why The Oscar is still unquestioned king of the awards jungle... it may be a popularity contest, but it is transparent as the day is long.

And for those asking, Che didn't qualify... too expensive. However, the failure of the organization to find a place in the proceedings - even while airing on IFC - to celebrate this film of the truest indie spirit that also embraces the size and possibilities of studio filmmaking... well... a show of flat-footed disconnection from the real value of the whole machine that they have created.

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

Beyond Peter Bart being one of the least skilled film critics I run into, I have to say that it is one of the most offensive notions ever that Slumdog Millionaire will be driven as an awards contender because of Mumbai.

Yes, I understand bringing the issue up. But the idea that this film, praised and loved everywhere it's been so far, for months before Mumbai, "lucked" into anything is dismissive and a nasty little response. And it is exactly the kind of narrow, biting notion that catches hold with some percentage of people because of how very simple-minded it is. Boo.

And if "hot" or "cool" is all he are reading into most of the writing about these films, he isn't reading very deeply.

Posted by dpoland at 10:51 AM | Comments (1)

Indie Spirit Nods

Why is it that the only real surprises at the Indy Spirit nominations (brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics this year) were what films qualified and what odd choices were made by committees to shoehorn things in?

The questions that emerge from this morning's annoucements are, as usual, about the mainstream features that are in the mix and virtually guarenteed to win because of the ISA voting methods, which are open to anyone who joins FIND. As a result, the most popular choices almost always win. Unless Rachel Getting Married pulls off a big surprise, this will be the first year in many with no Oscar BP nominee in the Indie Spirit race.

This year, the big questions are, why is Hurt Locker (a great take on the Iraq War movie and a possible breakout for Summit when it is releaed in Spring 2009) in this year's race? The simple answer is that it screened at Toronto and that is all that is required to be a nominee. But what possible value is there to anyone in having a film that no one will be able to see again until Sundance 2009 in a competition for last year's best?

And that brings up the other big question... Milk is nominated for 4 awards, so it must have qualified... but no Picture or Director. Huh? Is the film being penalized by a committee for being at the center of a FIND controversy or alternatively, is it being left out because Focus doesn't want to be a film that wins Saturday and loses on Sunday?

Of course, that bit of paranoia brings up why Vicky Cristina Barcelona isn't up for BP or Director either.

In the end, I think that the choice was made to make the Indie Spirits as indie as possible with the foreknowledge that any mainstream movie in the big categories will win... which may also explain the exclusion of The Visitor, which already made its money.

Again, all love to Frozen River and Ballast and my beloved Rachel Getting Married. But I would love to get through one ISA nomination list without wondering why the puzzle pieces don't seem to fit right.

Posted by dpoland at 08:24 AM | Comments (10)

December 01, 2008

Those Were The Days OR You Mick Kraut Gook Kike Spook Busted Ass Film

Boy, the way Clint Eastwood played. Films that made the Gold Parade.
Movie fans, we had it made. Those were the days.

Didn't need no ethnic slurs. Every step he took was sure.
Gee, our old Har-ry ran pure. Those were the days.

And he know who he was then. Right was right and men were men.
Mister, we could use a film like Unforgiven again.

Eastwood really filled the tent. Deconstructions paid the rent.
His calm hand could help us vent. Those were the days.

Gran Torino takes a spin. Saying “gook” out loud gets thin.
Hang yourself if you had money on this film for the win.

His temper short, but films were long. “Make my day” made a terrific song.
I don't know just what went wrong. Those Were The Days.

Posted by dpoland at 11:39 PM | Comments (81)

TypePad Conspiracy

I am sorry that TypePad sucks so badly right now.

I, too, am having a hard time with it. This is the magic of software improvements. They almost always make things worse.

Dumping TypePad would mean us rebuilding our entire network of blogs, which is not a small decision and would be a major undertaking. If things continue to go this badly, we might have to do so. But for now, I can only hope that TypePad will work out the bugs and stop making us suffer for their failed efforts at "improvements."

Posted by dpoland at 02:25 PM | Comments (20)

Why People Hate Junketeers

I saw, over on Defamer, this bit about what an asshole Phillip Seymour Hoffman is because he... ahem... dared to suggest the truth...

That it would be IDIOTIC for him to tell journalists what he thought the priest he plays in ths film Doubt did or did not do. And that it would selfish and missing the point entirely for "journalists" to run stories about what he thought the answer was.

The movie is called DOUBT, not "I Know What You Did In The Rectory Last Summer."

Doubt! The audience is invited to question what happened, not to be told by the actor what he thought happened, therefore somehow confirming or denying how they think about it themselves... which is the point of the experience.

I find it so incredibly offensive that idiots are indulged in trying to paint an artist who is trying to maintain the integrity of his work as a jerk. And no, I don't think Phil loves doing press. But give him a break. Even Tommy Lee Jones, the most notorious tough interview in the business, will give you a whole lot if he feels that you are being respectful and asking smart questions. Same with Morgan Freeman. But refusing to suffer fools gladly is not a sin... unless you are the fool.

Posted by dpoland at 02:04 PM | Comments (17)

20 Weeks : The Fate Of The Frontrunner

Along with, ”May you live in interesting times,” a new curse has developed into undeniable undesirability… “May your film run at the front of the Oscar pack!”

Dreamgirls, Flags of Our Fathers, Cold Mountain, 21 Grams, Charlie Wilson’s War, Sweeney Todd, Memoirs of a Geisha… all members of the Fraternal Association of Ritual Takedowns. These were can’t miss front-runners that missed. Each has a story. Each suffered as much from expectation as from the qualities of the films themselves.

The two other sides of this are, first, highly anticipated films that turned out to be epic disasters, including Rent, The Producers, Breaking & Entering, The Shipping News, Lions For Lambs, Rendition, and others. Second are the films that started as frontrunners and still got in with a nomination, but seemed dead to the possibility of a win, like Atonement, Ray, Seabiscuit, Gangs of New York, The Cider House Rules amongst them.

This year’s victims?

The rest...

Posted by dpoland at 11:30 AM | Comments (31)