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July 09, 2008

The Long, Dark, Good Knight

I quite liked The Dark Knight.

Christopher Nolan and his collaborators quite carefully walked the line, as others have already noticed, between a classic movie cop drama and a comic book. This is inherently the strength and the weakness of the work. The mere effort to combine the two, combined with the degree of filmmaking skill involved, makes this film not only enjoyable, but somewhat important.

However, the schizophrenia of the effort is also what keeps this film from being a masterpiece on any level.

I am going to avoid spoilers in this review. Thing is, it’s hard to imagine that any more than 10% of the audience for this film don’t know the biggest “spoiler” is coming before walking into the theater. How it comes is, it would seem, the only surprise.

Anyway…

What Nolan is clearly reaching for is a Godfather-esque effort. You can feel all the corrections of his first film… all the improvements by spending more freely… all the “stuff we would have done differently.” And almost all of them are, indeed, improvements. Maggie Gyllenhaal in for Katie Holmes was a step up, though in the context of the two films, switching actresses was unfortunate. Either one appearing in both would have been better. And eliminating Wayne Manor and The Batcave for a penthouse and array of basement hideouts is a daring, odd, and nearly unspoken call.

Still, it speaks to Nolan’s agenda. This is not a Batman movie… this is a 2008 version of The Untouchables with The Batman as Elliot Ness, The Joker as Al Capone, much better toys, and, it seems, a topper.

Great.

But the topper is a bit unwieldy, in that it makes the film too long to sustain by pushing beyond the main story – DePalma and Mamet’s The Untouchables was 119 minutes – and too short to do the second push of Nolan’s thematic idea real justice at 152 minutes. Unlike many long films, the problem with The Dark Knight is that it is too short.

The movie works really well – however pitch black and undeniably inappropriate for any kid who isn’t over 12 or playing Grand Theft Auto with mom & dad’s blessing – in delivering The Joker’s mayhem in the first 100 minutes or so. (Actual timings were impossible as, for the third time in my career, my camera-free Blackberry, aka my movie watch, was disallowed from the screening.

Ledger is terrific, though the Oscar talk is pretty goofy… something I am convinced he would agree with were he alive. Ledger’s embrace of sheer mayhem and recklessness in playing The Joker makes for a perfect counterbalance for the sphincter-tight self-seriousness of The Batman, as played by Christian Bale.

But that is not where Nolan & Co are really heading. For all the magnificent IMAX landscapes and cool action sequences (this film is destined to provoke many discussions of who Nolan was stealing from, who he topped, and who he fell short of), Nolan’s real interest is in the bigger moral question that goes well beyond The Batman and The Joker. Faced with chaos, how will the civilians act? Who is willing to break rules and what is the cost of breaking them or nor breaking them? How close is any society from anarchy?

When it is limited to the two central costumed figures, it is pure Untouchables. “I have become what I beheld” translates quite directly to Joker’s “You complete me,” which also harkens back to Tom Burton’s controversial choice to have his Joker’s origin come down to “I made you… and you made me.” Moreover, The Joker suggests directly that they, as a pair, are nature in the Garden of Gotham, the immovable object and the unstoppable force.

But the “extra part” of the movie, the topper, is not about them, it’s about about collateral damage… real humans in a real city with real ambitions to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And that is where it feels like Nolan is forced – by time - to restrain himself. For the first time in the movie, characters have to explain themselves, over and over and over again. (Well, one in particular.) Strong ideas don’t seem as clear and complete as they do earlier in the film. And the keynote of the last part of the film is delivered by a character we really don’t know (though the actor will be familiar to everyone), while other grace notes are offered in montage.

I wanted that movie that Nolan was chasing. I really wanted that movie. But as is the nature of the dramatic arts, there is a mystical and undeniable gut feeling when you know that even the best film has come to its natural end. And in The Dark Knight, this occurs more than half an hour before the picture actually ends… maybe an hour… before the issue of collateral damage.

With $50 million and 45 minutes more to paint in – a second film containing about 45 minutes of this one – Nolan surely could have delivered his Godfather. He would have the time to more completely explore the powerful issues of how civilians and police and criminals and yes, even costumed folks, behave when they are in the midst of what feels like unstoppable anarchy. He would have the time to really give a proper middle to the story that is there to push past The Joker’s story. And most importantly, he would have had a bit more time to deal with Bruce Wayne and The Batman trying to come up with the right answer to it all.

From a purely business angle, this film will absolutely be limited by its content. Word of mouth about the personal and realistic violence of the film will keep women and younger kids out of the theater after opening weekend and waiting for DVD. And the length of the movie will cost a screening a day on opening weekend… more in big multis where four or five screenings a day will be lost. Obviously, there will still be plenty of room for a massive opening weekend gross. But the pre-word-of-mouth opportunity will be lessened. And no matter how good the film, the darkness will be a factor.

Had this been two 110 minute films, the box office for both would have been nearly identical, doubling the total revenue while increasing costs by roughly a third. A win all around.

But… The Dark Knight is what it is. And that’s still quite good… and explosively good for the base that is busting, waiting for this film.

There may be a director’s cut someday with the 30 minutes that was apparently in a cut as recently as two months ago. Maybe it will speak to these issues. Maybe not.

But The Dark Knight is a terrific film. And though it is an effort to be a retro, high quality crime drama in a cape and cowl, in looking back, it is looking forward and breaking new ground. It is the first big studio comic book movie since the pre-Superman: The Movie era to try to make more of less, while at the same time offering all the more that studios think they need to deliver.

It is fascinating that this is coming from the same studio in the same summer as The Wachowski’s latest groundbreaker. I believe that The Wachowskis got caught up in their Matrix sequels with an idea they didn’t completely know they were caught up in, with each of their three films arguing a step in the evolution of Neo, each episode closer tied to spirituality than the next. (Kubrick’s way of fixing this was to keep re-shooting endlessly… but the puzzle of Eyes Wide Shut still kept that masterpiece audience unfriendly.) The packaging of the central idea in the first Matrix film was so neat and the packaging in the second and third film so uncertain – you have to work hard for it – that it provoked rather than seduced audiences. Likewise, with Speed Racer, they busted the genre brilliantly, but potential audiences never got the real central idea – family, however structured, is everything and subsuming the personal for those you love is an honor, not a burden – and were distracted exclusively by the racing effects.

And here we have Christopher Nolan saying that you can do a straight drama with guys in wild costumes and live by most of the rules of straight drama. It is the skill and convention of Nolan’s action sequences that will keep audiences close to home as he breaks new ground.

Nolan is working with the same crayon box as The Coen Bros, bouncing from Blood Simple to Miller’s Crossing to No Country For Old Men. The Dark Knight is big time philosophy… which should get unanimous raves, since critics who don’t like to think too much will be able to understand it. (Some, like Peter Travers, will just want to be quoted and will hyperbolize as much as they can to win the quoting wars.) But still, it deserves some unanimity of support and appreciation. It must be hailed for both its ambitions and execution.

The Dark Knight fails to reach the highest level of the form – not the comic book form, the movie form – because it ultimately has to cut away from its ambitions and blow some stuff up real good. If Nolan had the opportunity to have a more even balance between explosions and ideas, it could have been that masterpiece that was prayed for.

A spoiler review will follow in a few days to discuss the many sequences and ideas worth discussing in depth. I’m going to see the film again before writing that one.

Posted by poland at 01:08 PM | | Comments (7)

July 08, 2008

Review - Greece Is The Word

The First Sin Of Musical Conversion!!!!

Hiring the stage director who doesn’t have the slightest idea how to shoot a movie and has no real understanding of why a movie is NOT simply the stage show on film.

And this is, simply, why Mamma Mia! is a pretty terrible movie.

Worse than Rent. Worse than Annie (a movie with three numbers that really work and an overall tone that does not). But it is one step better than the conversion of The Producers, as it is a jukebox musical and actually requires very little sophistication… just more than Phyllida Lloyd could deliver from behind a movie camera.

I had a hard time getting a handle on what exactly they were going for with this mélange of beautiful settings, terrible green screen (or whatever technique they used to leave massive lines around the actors’ heads when they were looking out onto the sea from the hotel), overt breaking out in song, 60-is-the-new-45 casting, big energy, little consistency, a stunning amount of obvious ADR-ed/dubbed dialogue scenes like we haven’t seen/heard in an American movie in a long, long time, and the bravest performance of Pierce Brosnan’s career since anyone who sings like that choosing to expose himself to the public is daring indeed.

After about 30 minutes, it hit me. They were making an AIP beach movie… Gidget Goes Grecian… How To Stuff A Wild Souvlaki… Marital Beach Party. It’s meant to be rollicking, cheesy, brain-dead good fun.

I’m not kidding. There is a distinct filmmaking style that suggests that they looked at these films as a template. (Exec Producer Tom Hanks has also shown his interest in that period, including with his own directorial debut, That Thing You Do.) The problem is that the filmmaking doesn’t deliver on that either. Ms. Lloyd just doesn’t know what she is doing with the camera. She leaves some very talented people hanging in the breeze as she fails to understand the language of film and how to support the ideas of her actors’ performances with how she shoots the images.

Really, there are only two moments that really fly. One, when Streep does a song on a mountainside with the sea as a background and, essentially, only three angles to cut between. And you get the feeling that this song was why Streep did the film – aside for one last chance to do a movie romp without having to play the smart-mouthed matriarch – and that it was shot exactly as SHE wanted it to be shot. (Attention must be paid!) Second, over credits, when songs are performed on a stage somewhere and the fourth wall is broken… there is real delight in the actors and they seem to be having real fun. But still, it is shot so poorly as to undermine a really great idea.

It’s kind of impossible to do spoilers for this film. If you have seen the ads, you know all the surprises. And that’s okay. Mamma Mia! has enough of a story to work. Really simple… girl’s getting married… girl wants to know who her dad is… she invites three candidates with three distinct personalities… door slamming, singing, and romance ensues.

One very clever idea is that The Girl, Amanda Seyfried, has two BFF girlfriends who mirror The Mother (Streep) and her two BFFs, played by Julie Walters and Christine Baranski. Unfortunately, instead of figuring out how to make this play throughout the movie, the younger duo, who never get to distinguish themselves, are pretty much dumped after the first quarter of the film. So much for that movie theme. Baranski and Walters are natural scene stealers and they pretty much steal the movie when they get a chance, Walters most of all.

But it’s not enough to say, “There is some good stuff so this is a decent movie.” Their performances and some wonderful moments in other performances are a distraction from the filmmaking mess that the movie is.

Amanda Seyfried and Streep get a ton of close-ups, so the make-up decisions by Streep’s personal make-up artist J. Roy Helland are a constant focus. And the way she is made-up and lit chance in scene after scene after scene. She is at her most beautiful when she seems to be trying the least hard to look 20 years younger and windswept.

Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos was an incredibly bad choice for this film. Not only is he inexperienced in dealing with aging beauties, but his only major American credits are Sony Classic’s Sleuth, shot with a slick, but harsh style, and 2nd unit on Batman Begins, where he clearly did good work, but mostly lighting plastic and metal. So the Streep variations may well be more his fault than Helland’s.

Zambarloukos clearly has a DP crush on Ms Seyfried, who is shot in such warm close-ups that you almost want to spread her face on your toast. The difficult part of that, however, is that as an audience member, you are tracking her bouts of acne on her chin throughout the movie. It’s not severe, but her skin is so luminous so often that when it does turn up, it’s a little shocking. And seeing it… is utterly unnecessary. Her skin is not the responsible party.

Speaking of Seyfried, who broke out as the doofus hottie in Mean Girls and ended up doing a lot of TV, including HBO’s Big Love as a daughter of bigamy, she acquits herself nicely. She is a beauty and she can sing. But she doesn’t pop in a special way beyond her looks and energy. You don’t walk out of the film saying, “Star.” You come out noting that she did a good job. You want to marry her and travel the world, not see her in any movie she does because she is so compelling. She may have that in her... but it would help to have Mike Nichols behind her and not Ms. Lloyd.

There is also an odd sense, at least for me, of Seyfried being a bit objectified by the filmmaking. The whole movie has an air of pleasantly relaxed morality and the costume design by Ann Roth does a really good job of taking it all right to the edge of exploitive or attractive or flattering. But Ms. Seyfried, who has a pretty spectacular shape, seems to be the only person running and bouncing in bikini tops or hanging out with three older men all day in nothing but her skimpy one-piece. As a guy, I was appreciative on some level. But as a film critic, it seemed to be a little out of character for the film. Even when the movie gets loud about sex, its spirit is PG. (The exception is one shot, during a musical sequence, of Christine Baranski dropping out of frame in front of a Speedo-clad 20something boy… a set-up for a joke that would have been less creepy if shot more effectively.)

I think Seyfried has a lot to offer and that she will, eventually, find a real breakout role. We still don’t know quite who she is and that is very much the nature of being a movie star. If any movie proves that, it’s this one. Baranski, Walters, Brosnan, Skaarsgard, and Firth are all playing their images. And Streep is at her best in this film when she finally lets loose with some Streep-isms... that laugh, that look, the sigh. I kept thinking to myself, “Damn it! Someone needs to write a great dramatic role for her soon… she’s been slumming for so long!” But Doubt is also coming this year and that may be one of her best. (Meanwhile, she should have taken Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, which would have probably taken the movie up in quality by 20% or more and perhaps won her another Oscar.)

As I just wrote, the trio of men are pretty much in their personal wheelhouses… though Brosnan singing is… well… uh… eh… brave.

It’s possible that Mamma Mia! will be a surprise break out in the vein of Sex & The City, but the problem is, I think, that it’s a tweener. Universal is not selling it as the out-and-out musical that it is. (Yes, people just break out into song and people dance in packs.) Ms Seyfried is beautiful and accessible, but the movie really isn’t about her and her girlfriends. And the age of the trio of parental-aged women is not S&TC 40s, but 50something. Who is the movie for? Who is going to show up?

I can tell you from the screening that there was enthusiasm, though one has to keep in mind that we were in a room loaded with people who signed up to come see Mamma Mia!. They were not show virgins. The good news for the studio is that they seemed to mostly be women and not so much gay men. The gay audience that wants to show up will show up. It’s not a very gay-friendly show and, actually, is a bit homophobic. But the gay audience is very discerning and wil either show or not based on materials and the reviews (perhaps the last group on under 50s - those under 50 - that is really critic-interested). But the female audience is the real challenge and teh real box office hope here. The straight male audience is not coming.

I like musicals. And I was ready to embrace the goofy fun of this film. But I could not. I blame that mostly on a failure to reconsider the show in any real way for movies by the producers, Lloyd, and stage writer/screenwriter Catherine Johnson. And even with what was there that charmed, Lloyd just had no idea how to take any moment from a 7 to a 9 or a 4 to a 7 or, most frustratingly, from an 8.5 to a 10.

If you want to do the work for a movie and love ABBA and feel desperate for something light (and probably, are over 40), you might have a good time at the film. I suspect that the box office will look a lot like The Phantom of the Opera, light at home and more forgiving overseas, where the popularity of the show and the music tend to drive more business. Unlike Phantom, the film will be given a pass by many critics, who are generally more forgiving of the flawed lightweight than the flawed heavyweight.

But unlike Rent, this film should have been easy to make work more effectively. (Rent carried the burden of being out of its time by the time it was made as a film, whereas the stage is much more period-friendly. Better choices could have been made, but the material was its own biggest enemy, no matter how thrilling on stage.) It has the light feel of Hairspray, if not the teen exhilaration. It has the “let’s put on a show” of Grease, but not as well supported a supporting cast or as iconic a song selection. It has the potential visual beauty of Evita, but a director who can’t begin to compare to the skill set of Alan Parker.

It’s not going to be anyone’s Waterloo, but it’s no mamma mia of a movie either.

Posted by poland at 12:26 PM | | Comments (5)

July 03, 2008

All The Glitters Is Not Hellboy II - The Review

I am already girding myself for the parade of discomfort that comes when I have a differing view on a film that has already been "positioned" by a few critics. Ironically, Variety, in fighting like mad and reasserting its ancient and currently unwarranted and illogical for studio “first” position, has become a definer of movie criticism again, even though the trade tends to miss the mark 90% of the time it goes particularly strong for or against a movie. It’s an interesting phenomenon. Todd and his minions are obviously well versed and think deeply about film. But whenever they get emotional – particularly Todd – they become remarkably misguided and lose focus completely. Yet, studios continue to indulge the tradition of letting the trades go first, often at their own cost, rather than allowing the open exchange of ideas start so that no one voice becomes defining.

Meanwhile, after being out for a few days when this film premiered at the LA Film Festival, I will be taken to task by those who disagree and want to disagree without having seen the film as mop-up boy, relegated to a discussion of why I have my opinions, as opposed to simply arguing opinion. Everything is either “contrarian” when you go against a small group of voices or “going with the crowd” if you are of a similar mind when you don’t see a movie “first.” This thinking becomes nearly impossible to fight when so many professionals really are either being contrarian or going along with the group. (not all, but many)

Of course, if you push to see a movie first, if only to keep your ideas about the film purely your own, you are obsessed with winning the race… because so many people are obsessed with winning the race. I would have to cop to having been one of them... about 5 years ago.

I should be as detached from the maddening crowd as, say, Manohla Dargis or Ken Turan or the lovely and talented and not heard from enough about the last 40 years of criticism Joe Morgenstern (detached though not unhinged, like Peter “You Can Quote Me About Hitler Being ‘The Best Ever One-Balled Jew Murderer Ever!’ So Long As My Name Is At Least 20% Of The Quote’s Type Size” Travers) and just put my head down and do the job. There is an elegant logic to that mindset. Interestingly – to me – it is quite the opposite of being a columnist or blogger, in which awareness of your surroundings is an absolute requirement of the job.

Anyway…

All of that seemed like an aside as I typed it, but it actually does match up with my concerns about Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which is a remarkably easy review to write…

Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army is much less formal, much more comic book, and ultimately a bit less effective for anyone outside of its core constituency than the first film in the franchise. If you know these characters, I have little to add, other than to tell you that this time, Hellboy faces a dark nemesis who seeks to break from the honorable tradition of his magical forest family and to destroy mankind for its sins, but his sister, who doesn’t fight but has the power of a puzzle piece, gets in his way. Hellboy & Co. are there to clean up the messes the resulting monsters create or become. If you don’t know the characters, you should rent or buy the first film, preferably in Blu-ray, or skip this sequel altogether.

Okay…

Here is a bit more about what I feel.

Guillermo del Toro is truly a bright, beautiful light in the industry. For all of his genius in the imagination of characters and creatures, his real power is in the drama of the misunderstood or broken coming to a place of love and peace, often through violent means. His best film, The Devil’s Backbone, is also his least effect-y film, though it is a ghost story. The second film in that trilogy, which he will likely complete after The Hobbit, Pan’s Labyrinth, has more magical stuff, but also comes back to the emotions of his “Dorothy,” not just amazement at the beauty of his visual ideas.

Here, with a second shot at Hellboy, he was at first constrained by Universal on budget, then not unlike Jackson/Walsh, he expanded his vision – and budget – because of his skill and charm and the studio’s urge to ride his very special train to its natural end. But there can be a problem with getting what you want. And Hellboy II suffers, in my opinion, from too much of everything.

I will warn you if any spoilers are coming… and if you haven’t seen the first film, you might want to skip this from here on, since I presume if you are reading this, you have familiarity with that movie.

From the time we enter the Bureau for the first time in this film, unlike the original, there is a kind of Men-In-Black-ization of the movie, with other paranormal creatures in passed doorways or down long hallways. And right there I thought, “Okay… maybe.” But as the movie pressed on, I was more and more aware of the size of the visual palette and less and less interested in the storytelling, the basics of which were there, but often seemed like the afterthought.

In other bad words, Guillermo Goes Lucas.

Unlike Mr. Lucas, it is pretty clear that Guillermo can come back to his best self anytime he wants. He is still young enough and still bursting with new ideas enough that he can make the adjustment, just as Peter Jackson did after he went off the rails a bit with The Frighteners.

There were also two character points that really distracted me through the new film. The first is not a spoiler… the second is, and I will mark it when I get there.

Abe Sapian, still played by Doug Jones, is now voiced by Doug Jones. And the truth is, Doug Jones ain’t David Hyde Pierce. The odd thing is, I would probably have been fine with Mr. Jones playing the character outright had the movie series started there. But it didn’t. As a result, I was distracted every time he spoke... and he speaks a lot more in this film. Moreover, with Abe as a much more significant character this time around – yay! – Mr. Jones, presumably with the collaboration of GdT, has made Abe less balletic than in the first film. So Abe feels like a very different character… less of a marked contrast to Hellboy, which was kind of the beauty of him the first time around.

MINOR SPOILERS COMING…


The Fire to Abe’s Water, Liz Sherman, is now living with Hellboy. And it is, not unsurprisingly, difficult. That is exactly the kind of non-effects exploration that Guillermo is all about and able to pull off with great skill. But it is filed down here to a few minutes and, as the movie progresses, an odd disconnect of Liz from Hellboy and from the movie. Until she becomes the “must save Liz” object, the relationship doesn’t really move us… and when that does happen, it really does move us.


SPOILERS OVER…


The title character of the film, The Golden Army, is beautifully rendered with puppetry in the opening of the film, one of the truly elegant segments of work. But by the time we get back to it being real in the movie, The Golden Army feels like the ultimate red herring. We really don’t need to see them brought to life to get to the end of the story. And story logic actually suggests that we won't. But of course, we will. And as with most of the big action in this movie, it is not a story driver, it is a set piece that’s really cool.

I know this is an odd distinction in big action movies. But the genius of the first Indiana Jones movies, for instance, was that every action sequence had to be fought past by Indy in order to get to the next part of the movie. It was the understanding of this that made the expedience of shooting the guy with the swords one of the great movie moments ever. It said, “We’re not just dragging you through set pieces because that’s what a movie is… if we can get right to it, we will.” And it worked brilliantly. In Men in Black, using the investigation thread to push the story, every alien they rousted led to the next alien which led to the big alien and the tiny universe… as well as to the education of Will Smith’s J. Here, not only in the end, but in earlier sequences, wonderous lifeforms seem to be thrown in Hellboy's way just to have a great big beautiful fight. You can't say they aren't cool. But if you took out most of them, the story would remain exactly the same. And in one case, there is a remarkable lack of story logic, as - dancing around the spoiler - Hellboy being occupied means that a key object in the story is absolutely vulnerable to being snatched... 30 minutes before it is eventually, inevitably snatched.

Del Toro reconfigures his heroes in this film, from one central hero, Hellboy, into a real team of three; Hellboy, Abe, and Liz. He then adds an otherworldly interoffice antagonist who can do more than cower like Tom Manning or pine for Liz like John Myers. Cool. But he has the problem that you have with a lot of team stories… it’s still called Hellboy. And as a result, the other heroes have to do a lot of standing around, not acting, to give him the stage for his heroics. And in the literalism of a movie, it doesn’t work as easily as it does in a comic. Yes, they all ultimately participate… like I said, Guillermo is a genius, not a schmuck. But there is an awful lot of “why didn’t they do that?” in this film. A lot.

All that said, the movie feels more like a comic brought to life than anything since Tank Girl, which this movie reminded me of more than once, oddly. And I think it will play very, very successfully with the comic book loving audience. It almost feels like it was made for them and their tastes with a happy disregard for making a movie that is really accessible for a wider audience.

This doesn’t mean it won’t find a wider audience, especially on opening weekend. But in many ways, this is a narrowcast movie right in line with Universal’s summer of The Incredible Hulk and Wanted. I’m not quite as confident that we will see that same $50m - $55m start that the other two got… but then again, no one really saw that number for Wanted.

There are some remarkably beautiful things in Hellboy II. That was a given. And as I say, the rough hewn touches are manna from heaven for the geek boys. (And unlike my criticism of the two Marvel movies, I don’t actually have the slightest objection to them reveling in every minute of this one.) Liz is a very identifiable character for teen girls. And the performances are pretty great all around, though as I wrote, I prefer a more elegant Abe… but that’s just me.

I love the first Hellboy… even more so after watching it again from top to bottom in Blu-ray. I didn’t need more, just the next step. But we got a lot more. As a story, it’s a little too big for its britches and a little too small to be epic. There are always holes in any story, but there were some here that I just don’t expect from Guillermo, who seemed to be a little to distracted by all those wonderful toys. Wait ‘til they get a load of me, indeed.

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

May 19, 2008

The Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Review (ALL Spoilers)

This is a SPOILER review page... or rather, SPOILER notes.

I'm not even going to post anything on this side of the fold. If you are ready to be SPOILER, proceed... if not, not.

You Have Been Warned!

Continue reading "The Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Review (ALL Spoilers)" »

Posted by poland at 01:28 AM | | Comments (9)

May 18, 2008

The Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Review (No Spoilers)

I’m going to leave spoilers for another review, though I would think that anything that indicates tone is spoiler enough for those who want to go into the film pure, as I chose to… as best I could, thanks to the NY Times.

And so…

The most striking thing to me about Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is that it is, in spite of claims otherwise made, a CG version of an Indiana Jones movie. And this changes a great deal about what was so very pleasurable about the first three films. Even then, post-Star Wars, they were throwbacks. Star Wars had many layered effects, but they had the limitations – beautiful limitations – of the pre-computer-driven effects universe. The Raiders franchise was about big sets and dramatic landscapes and stunts that were breathtaking, even if we knew that it wasn’t always Harrison Ford sliding underneath the truck.

We are still in the infancy of CG use at the movies, advanced as it feels. One of the recurring problems with all that visual power is that it gives filmmakers too many options. What does a director do? Well, they have a vision, they lead and army, but mostly, they fix problems. A movie like Speed Racer is really all about vision. There are problems solved, but all in the service of very clear, very detailed ideas. But on a movie like Iron Man, you really see the director as fixer… a big part of that fix being the freeing of Downey, Jr to riff and riff and riff and riff.

Steven Spielberg has been The Master Fixer. Jaws made him an instant legend with the shark that didn’t work. Close Encounters of the Third Kind is still beautiful, though quite simple by current visual effects standards, one of the biggest effects being a mountain of mashed potatoes. And even in Jurassic Park, which really ushered in the CG era, there was a limited number of big dino effects, which Spielberg used to ultimate effect, along with a parade of puppets and animatronics. Does anyone want to see Jaws with a CG shark? Does anyone need more than the light flooding the truck on the train tracks to get excited? Have the Jurassic sequels captured more heart by having more digital dinos?

On the other hand, I got into a similar whiplash situation with the most recent film in the Die Hard series. To me, a Die Hard movie, not unlike an Indiana Jones or Bond movie, is a regular guy in and extreme situation doing heroic and remarkable things, but never past the point of feet-on-the-ground, crazy-but-remotely-possible credibility. For me, Live Free Or Die Hard crossed that line with too much firepower, too much CG, too much of the incredible… just too much.

The magic of Indiana Jones isn’t dead… not with a senior citizen Harrison Ford (7 years older than when Sean Connery played his dad with a white beard)… not with the Nazis in the rear view… not with Spielberg also passing his 60th birthday. You can feel the Indy magic at various moments through this film.

However…

This simply is not the Indiana Jones film of our youths. It is not scrupulously light on CG effects and it often loses track of the storytelling while using the new medium to heighten instead of giving audiences the thrill of it feeling real. It gets distracted, sometimes in some very entertaining ways, from the formula that makes the series work. It adds characters that don’t reach past were the old movies went, but which demand excuses for their existence throughout.

One action sequence without much CG still offers a problem that feels as though it was created because the filmmakers were in the “anything goes” CG mindset. Thing is, if you do a major DG scene once amongst the naturalistic scenes, cool. But that’s just not the case.

The problem, aside from the CG, feels like it was lost in the story meetings. Someone needed to (or needed to better) sit down and work through the central storyline. What drives Indy through the story? What motivates the female villain of the piece? What can we do to make the motives of Indy’s sidekick more clear and natural? And do we get, in the Mutt character, a character who can really keep up physically with Indiana Jones… and if not, how can we make that failure fun… and any possible moments of overcoming it thrilling.

However…

There is plenty of entertainment in this movie. The skill with which Spielberg does many of the things he does is so far past some of the filmmakers who have made incredibly successful pictures, it’s remarkable. Not unlike Sex & The City (which runs 25 minutes longer), there are a lot of strings ties together in ways that are, generally satisfying.

I expect most audiences to be pretty happy with their Indiana Jones experience… especially the kids who haven’t ridden with the fedora and whip on a big screen before. (It kind of tells you how unbalanced things are at Paramount that the first three films were not re-released theatrically this winter and spring, like Star Wars was. Even if the run was half as successful as the Star Wars events, there was plenty of room in the last few months and it would have been a true pleasure to see them on screen again.)

It’s not a terribly movie by any standard… though there are some terrible moments. The issue of the Crystal Skull storyline that irked many pre-release critics is, to my eye, not a problem. I do have some problems with it not being quite as fun as I would have liked…. but more on that in the spoiler column. Shia LeBeouf survives this movie, though the idea of him “taking over” the bullwhip makes me indecisive about laughing or crying. LeBeouf is charming, but he is still a child actor and that hasn’t changed. If it changes in the years to come, who knows? But right now, he is blown off of the screen by Ford… as is appropriate in this film. (He does not come close to the level of energy that River Phoenix’s cameo at the top of the last film did.)

One of the funniest thoughts for the industry interested is that Spielberg suggests that the Paramount mountain is filled with furry little rodents.

The biggest problem, besides the CG, that really struck me watching the film a second time, was that they never quite figured out what being in his 50s (or his 60s, in reality) meant to Dr. Jones. The first film had the underscore of the romance with Marion. The second had the underscore of the still single professor investing both in his carnal side with the blonde and his parental heart, saving kids. The third film was the grown Dr. Jones as hampered and tehn empowered by being his father’s son.

There are some big story points in this one, but how Indy is different is not one of them. Yeah, he’s older. They keep telling us and him. But what motivates a guy of his age to keep going out there? You don’t have to linger on it for page after page of dialogue. But the girls aren’t painting “I heart You” on their eyelids anymore, some of those he has traveled with are dead of old age and other things, and if he is willing to, say, do this for an old friend, wouldn’t it be more interesting if it was more difficult to drag him in and ore exciting if finding his groove got him really excited again? Alternately, wouldn’t his desire for things men imagine having when they are nearing 60 be interesting?

This is mostly subtext, but it matters. It all becomes one with the whole. And watching the film, there is that feeling of “but what if?”. To argue the film isn’t good is kinda silly. But it is definitely a few disciples short of a last supper.

Posted by poland at 11:36 PM | | Comments (5)

May 15, 2008

Comments On Sex & The City (Though There Really Isn't An Embargo)

New Line has made the Lord of the Rings of Chick Flicks… not that it’s anywhere near as good, emotional, artistically made or worthy of box office or awards…

IT’S 2 HOURS AND 25 FUCKING MINUTES LONG!!!!

I’m not kidding!

Michael Patrick King didn’t make an extended episode of his series, Sex & The City… he made a whole damned season shoved into the phallic sausage casing of a near two and a half hour long epic of been-there-done-that.

That said, I am revising my box office estimates for the film to about double what was being bounced around the studio just a few weeks ago. In the last decade, I have never seen the New Line screening room this full… not for Rings… not for nothing. If the fire marshall had shown up, at least a dozen women would have been thrown out before they could show the film. And it was 88% women in the room. And 8% gay men. And me.

This movie will open big. Prada opened to $28 million. Look for this number to be more like $40 million. And for a total anywhere between $95 million and $125 million. I have no idea, really. And amazingly, for this comedy, based on a TV show, New Line could be costing itself millions in the first two weekends with this looooooong running time.

But I haven’t said much of anything about the film…

We were asked, before the screening, not to give away the surprises in the third act. And I won’t. But SURPRISES?!?!?!?! Really? To anyone who had ever seen a season of this HBO sitcom? Impossible!

I would be willing to be real money that if you took a poll of people who had seen at least one full season of the series, asking them for the 10 surprises they might suspect will happen in this feature film, at least 90% would get all 5 of the actual “surprises” in the film.

You want a review? Watch the DVDs of the series. There is not a single idea in this film that was not conceived, discussed, and beaten to within an inch of its life during the run of the show on HBO. Not ONE!

Nor was there a tick or a schtick or a flick that these four very good actresses haven't done to within an inch of my vomit reflex on the show that isn't recalled here... with little more. Maybe... maybe... SJP exhaustion make-up is the only new thing... but maybe they already did that... I know Mr. Broderick has. (All husbands have.)

And let me add this… Mr. King is perhaps the worst writer of dramatic dialogue that I have witnessed so far this year. Sparkling wit… yeah, he can do that. Drama? Horror. The only genuinely emotional moment I experienced in this film came to pass in a moment where the characters actually shut up for a couple of minutes and had what seemed to be a genuine moment. And yes, King wrote that too. But whoever told him to fill his movie with at least 50% an effort to be dramatic was very, very confused. It’s not what he does well.

Have I mentioned that this movie is not a spritely 98 minutes… or a long 110 minutes… or two frickin’ hours followed by long credits?

And of course, we get another utterly meaningless penis sighting! Thank God for women (and gay filmmakers) being able to objectify men just like men have always objectified women! That penis was really a major political moment for cinema!

And by the way… there was some gossip report about Kristin Davis NOT doing a shower scene in the film. She did the shower scene… wearing skin colored latex over her darker fleshy bits. Yawn. And we do get, as usual, to see everyone but “Carrie” have sex. Yawn redux.

This may, however, be the first time a release of excrement actually has its own music cue. You know, The Theme From Bridge Over The River Kwai, Princess Leia’s Theme, Diarrhea Joke! Fantastic stuff! Or as the movie tells you itself, “really, really funny!”

I expect the reaction of women to be much the same as the reaction to the last six episodes of the series. Some will be disappointed that it wasn’t more adventurous or profound. Some will love it because it is familiar and on-the-nose as a refrain of Happy Birthday (“Oh my god… I sang Charlie instead of Charles, like everyone else!” is about the level of complexity.) Some will wonder why all their friends are watching this crap.

But in a summer where Anne Hathaway is playing with boys and Meryl Streep is in a movie that Universal is now trying to sell to the High School Musical set with the unknown blonde girl and there is not really a single film for women of all ages all summer long… this one is going to be a big, stinky hit.

Can’t wait for Sex & The City: The Movie: Episode Two – The Same Shit One More Time For 3 Full Hours in 2010 in which Samantha is actually in a coma through the whole film and appears in a total of four scenes with Sarah Jessica Parker, blinking out her dirty jokes, with a catheter that looks a lot like a dildo and makes her blink really fast when it is turned on.

Really, really funny.

Posted by poland at 10:33 PM | | Comments (17)

May 07, 2008

Speed Racer Review

Dancing on the cutting edge is a unique challenge. Just pushing the envelope can draw attention, but as we often see, it is really easy to get caught up in simply stunting.

The Wachowski Bros have turned expectations upside down in four of their five films so far. First, in Bound, they pushed the lipstick lesbian into a studio movie before anyone else, with a lot of flash and style (the style not being as breakthrough, as it was reminiscent of some of The Coens’ work.) The Matrix defined action for years after its release, melding Asian cinema with kink and American grime (with an Australian accent). And while there were some critical brickbats, The Matrix Reloaded pushed the envelope even further in new ways, building image creation ideas that still have not been topped.

And now, Speed Racer.

Speed Racer spins some people’s heads right near off their axis. But to be unable to see the complexity of the imagery is to fail to appreciate the depth of what The Wachowskis are doing here.

The Matrix took a lot of ideas from Japanese anime’, but kept its feet on the ground, allowing for the fantastical, but keeping most of the film in the mind’s eye of real people. The first rule of Speed Racer is that we live in a world of all kinds of visceral inputs and we have learned to leap from one to another… why can’t we do that in a movie?

The actors are real, including the scene-stealing monkey, Chim-Chim. But very little else, except the pancakes, is. And while the racing scenes – which is probably most of what you’ve seen, if you haven’t yet seen the film – are exciting and brain-straining and have what, to me, is the desired movie effect… they have you shifting with the vehicles in your movie seats… it is the more intimate sequences that are at the heart of Speed Racer.

You will know whether this is a movie that will stay in your heart early on, when young Speed imagines himself racing. I won’t give away what the imagery of the scene is, but if you find yourself as charmed as delighted as I did, put on your seatbelt, because you’re in for a great ride.

The story is simple. The Racer family is Pops and Mom and Rex and Speed. They are one of the last truly independent racing teams in the world. Speed, like Rex before him, is recognized as one of the great emerging drivers in the world. Will they sell out to the massive corporation… or not?

That’s pretty much it.

But you are already into some strong stuff, because The Wachowskis are not satisfied to make a simple action racing movie. The moral dilemma of good and evil and how you choose to live your life is there in every frame. For some, it’s redemption. For others, it is proving themselves. And for others, it is about holding onto ideals so tightly that they have lost perspective. And they aren’t shy about embracing the power of love in their film. The love of parents for their children, children for their parents, sexy but not sexual love between young men and women, and the love of family in general are at the heart of this film. There is no winning of The Race just to win a race. The stakes are high and then higher and then higher again.

The core of it all is family love and commitment. Speed Racer is, amazingly, a Pixar film with a bit more aggression. But if you felt it as Marlin went to find Nemo or were elated when Remy’s family came to save his butt in the most unexpected way in Ratatouille, you will feel The Racers.

Then there are the bad guys.

In a cartoon universe of bright colors and impossible physics, it is hard to create a villain that can not only talk a lot, but can break through the visual clutter. The Wachowskis do it by, again, raising the stakes.

And really… who can resist ninjas?

Did I mention... Speed Racer is a whole lot of fun.

You could complain about the car not looking like they are of a realistic weight (they look at lot more so in IMAX), but that complain loses relevance when you realize – as you have to – that reality is not where these races live. They are you and your best friend playing with Matchbox cars on a rainy Saturday, racing and smashing and crashing all over.

The fights are the same way. And the same way one of you would inevitably play a little too hard and smash a toe or slam your head into the wall or otherwise do Boy Damage, your mom and dad are there to make you feel better when you do… only it’s Speed’s Mom and Pops. Spritle and Chim-Chim are everyone’s irritating precocious brothers. Trixie is every boy’s fantasy of a girl who is loving and sexy and able to handle a wrench when need be.

And did I mention, the visuals will blow you away. You truly have never seen anything like it before. And just when you think it’s too much, some new idea comes flying at you and you are blown away all over again.

The Wachowskis did what all smart filmmakers who are looking for a way to bring familiar music alive and renewed do. They hired Michael Giacchino, who takes the themes of the cartoon and makes them both familiar and new to us, while adding plenty of his own new music. And the credit sequence, as in most of Giacchino’s films, is a treasure trove of stuff that didn’t fit into the film, but is well worth the sit through many, many credits. In this case, that includes a new version of the old theme and a pop tune built around the Japanese version of the original theme.

The cast is pretty much perfection. Emile Hirsch brings a light touch to Speed. The Christina Ricci/Susan Sarandon similarity in looks as Trixie and Mom makes for some good Oedipal goofiness than no kid will ever get. Who else but John Goodman could be Pops Racer? And Paulie Litt is a perfect Spritle, but equally good are the kids who play Young Speed and Young Trixie, Nicholas Elia and Ariel Winter.

There is a great cast outside of the family as well. Matthew Fox kills as Racer X, embodying the stiffness of the cartoon character. Roger Allam, who you might recall from V for Vendetta, is the smiling snake oil billionaire, Mr. Royalton. And The Wachowskis fill the film with international familiar/unfamiliar faces, like Moritz Bleibtreu, Richard Roundtree, Togo Igawa, the original She-Devil Julie Wallace, and Korean pop-star Rain.

But it is The Wachowskis who are the stars of Speed Racer. Their use of the virtual camera is well beyond anything we have ever seen in a movie theater before. The topper to that virtuosity, however, is the most shocking thing about Speed Racer… it’s a truly great family film, even if it is 10 minutes too long. It’s a sweet CG treat in a retro summer. While there is zero question that it will be burning up TV screens in family homes for decades to come, I actually think that it will stick with adults of discretion long after the stomach ache of sweetness wears off.

Posted by poland at 11:09 AM | | Comments (5)

January 02, 2008

Best, 2007

The road to a Top Ten list was a little more complicated this year than in year’s past.  For instance, I usually start with my Worst ten list.  But really, I don’t feel qualified to make a Worst 10 list this year.  I just haven’t seen most of the horrible movies this year.

This is not to say that I don’t have films I hated.  It would have to be a tie between Redacted and Evening for the title of Film I Most Loathed in 2007.  But would it be fair to say that either film is the worst of the year?  Nah.  I mean, it’s easy to note that Lions For Lambs was utter crap and a failed effort on so many levels… but its effort was too apparent to dismiss it entirely.  Am I really going to take out my disappointment in Elizabeth: The Golden (Out)rage to that level?  Can I dismiss the occasional charms of Dan In Real Life enough to shred it as the most shockingly derivative and wrongheaded film to come out of the Disney stables in years?  No!  Not when I didn’t see all the other crap out there that may well have pushed these failures to the side.

The big story of 2007 really, in critical discussion, is the Trilogy Of Critical Onanism; (in order of jerk off) The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, Zodiac, and There Will Be Blood.

The challenge of this trio, for me, who feels that all three films ultimately fail, has grown as the year has progressed.  It is easy to dismiss one… less easy to dismiss two… and silly to keep dismissing as the third rolls up on you.  Making it harder, on the face of it, is that all three are truly exception efforts on the production side.  And in the case of There Will Be Blood, I have to start with the admission that if I were to pick one act of one film as the very best of 2007, this film’s opening act would win hands down.  And yet…

These films are not exercises in the purely aesthetic that many casually attribute to Tony Scott (the filmmaker, not the critic).  I do think that Andrew Dominik’s ambition exceeded his grasp by no small distance.  David Fincher was, I think, simply after something that didn’t connect with me on any emotional or intellectual level.  And PTA… well… his unwillingness to finish what he starts is the most frustrating aspect of one of our most talented filmmakers working today… and one cannot excuse it as a failure, as he is just too damned talented to not be able to write a third act that fits and doesn’t require supporters to flop about like landed fish in order to rationalize what just doesn’t work.

So why is all this LOVE out there for these films?  Generalizations are forever a bad idea, but my instinctual response is that critics feed on the ambitions and drink in the visual power of these films like hungry survivors of a desert plane crash.  I think there is also an urge to send the message to “Hollywood,” where all three films were funded, that this is product that critics will support and support passionately. 

It’s not that critics are upset that the three films combined will be challenged to pass the opening weekend of Alvin & The Chipmunks… it is, perhaps, more that “they” like the fact that financial success is elusive.  It’s not that No Country For Old Men, which will surely gross more than the combined trio, is not getting critical love.  It’s that praise for No Country is easier than finding a photo of a drunken Spears girl.  Inevitable commercial failure is a perverse enhancement to the pleasure.

Speaking of failure, here is a quick rundown of some of the box office realities of 2007.

There is a reason for distributors to court critics for the support of their more challenging films.  If a critic can deliver just 125 people to theaters to buy tickets, their effort alone could have represented 5% of the gross or more for 27% of the films on this year’s domestic release schedule (140 releases out of a total of 528). 

Sure, there are some crap movies down there, but there are high quality titles in that 27% as well this year, such as Operation Homecoming, Primo Levi’s Journey, The Prisoner, The Protagonist, Quiet City, Syndromes and a Century, and The Trials of Daryl Hunt.  And it even includes the lowest grossing studio film of the year, Warner Bros.’ Rails & Ties, which managed just $22,136 in a 5 screen release. 

Moreover, 229 of 528 films released this year grossed under $250,000.  263 of 528 grossed under $500,000 (minus TWBB, which is just starting its run).  And 292 of 528 under $1m.

So, the entire industry of films grossing over $1 million in America consists of 236 films.  60 films grossed between $1 million and $5 million.  30 films grossed between $5 million and $10 million.  44 films grossed between $10 million and $20 million.  58 films grossed between $20 million and $50 million with just 5 of those from independents (4 of those 5 from Lionsgate). 

That leaves 43 total films to gross over $50 million… three from Lionsgate, all under $65 million total domestic.  Disney had eight, DreamWorks and Warners six each, Universal and Sony five each, Fox had four, New Line had three, MGM had two, and Paramount had one. 

Every major but Disney had a bomb grossing less than $10 million and every dependent but Miramax had at least one miss gross less than $1 million. The highest profile bomb was DreamWorks’ Things We Lost In The Fire, which had an 1142 screen launch… which proves once again that quality is not the first issue with bombs.  Whether you liked that film or not, you must find it silly to compare it to, say, I Know Who Killed Me, which grossed more than twice what this quality drama did.

But back to criticism…

This year, I have 35 films in contention for my Top Ten.  Three of the films were mentioned in last year’s Best column as undistributed films that I would have placed on my Top Ten then.  I am pleased that they were ultimately released, though grosses of $25,317 (for Lake of Fire), $31,856 (for Day Night, Day Night) and $354,812 (for Wristcutters: A Love Story) cuts me to the quick. 

As District B13’s $1.2 million run last year proved, it’s hard out there for an indie… especially when, unlike B13, you have a real challenge in making the argument to an audience for why they want to see the film.  Let’s just say that the 70,000 people or so who saw Lake of Fire and Day Night, Day Night experienced films that stir passion and debate as profoundly as any films they will ever see, before or after.

Oops… slipped into box office again…

My list of Runner Ups

Continue reading "Best, 2007" »

Posted by poland at 08:59 PM | | Comments (0)

May 06, 2002

Spider-Man Opens & Early Bourne Review

What does the estimated $114 million start for Spider-Man mean?

Why beat around the bush by writing about anything else first, even if Mike Ovitz’ exit from AMG is a bigger story in the overall framework of the industry? Of course, your never-modest correspondent might point out that the Spider-Man story is really just an extension of the ongoing insanity in this industry as covered in this column for the last couple of years in particular.

The story of this weekend is not likely to be one that lasts very long. It’s not so much a matter of Star Wars: Episode Two beating the Spider-number in two weeks. The truth is, it is really up to George Lucas and Fox to decide whether the record falls. Yes, I am saying that George Lucas can decide for himself whether he wants to have the next record-breaking opening. All he and Fox has to do is to allow enough theaters enough flexibility to show Attack of the Clones on more than 6000 actual screens, just as Sony did on this opening weekend. (The screen count/per-screen statistic is now the most abused number in box office analysis.)

Everything else that LucasFilm and Fox have done in preparation for Clones is right on target. Besides masterminding the buzz on the supposedly independent internet and newsmagazines, they have now taken the amazing step of opening the media floodgates by screening the film for the press this Tuesday, more than a week before opening night and close enough to the Spidey opening to shift the buzz a full week ahead of schedule. There have even been reports that Fox has released the embargo rules – something they have since denied. However, the fact that the alleged memo freed the press to review as of this Wednesday – the day after the press screenings – suggest that it was real… and that Fox is expecting the door to open regardless of what the rules are.

After all, what else can be expected after last week’s Time Magazine review by Jess Cagle, which misleadingly suggested that Time’s film critic, Richard Schickel, had seen and approved the picture, and the parade of internet reviews that has started appearing, as per LucasFilm’s plan (they all saw the film weeks ago). Don’t even get me started on the most clever (ab)use of Ain’t It Cool since DreamWorks used the site to beat the Gladiator drum early.

But what about Spider-Man? Oops… I already forgot about the record-shattering weekend. Spider-Man is a good movie. The most amazing part of this weekend’s record-breaker – and I know some of you will get a quizzical look on your face when you read this – is how quiet it was. Yes, there was a whole lot of cross promotion and hype. But it was nothing in comparison to the Harry Potter hype… not even close. More pointedly, I was floored by how easy it was to get into the movie this weekend. My nephew, who went to see Spidey as part of a birthday party on Sunday, was amazed by the line that snaked down the street. But it was a third the size of the lines for Episode One and a quarter the size of weekend lines for Batman. And seats were available for a 4:15 show. You’ll notice that most of the “look at these sell-out” stories are about Saturday.

Sorry, Spider-Man just isn’t one of those industry-changing franchises. Of course, it’s not X-Men either… solid but not stunning. It’s a terrific franchise. To my mind’s eye, it’s a better franchise than the Harry Potter franchise (fewer percentage players with smaller percentages for the those who exist). In some ways, it is better than the Lord of The Rings franchise (it’s not limited to three films and the sequels don’t inherently have to feel like continuations).

But it’s just not Star Wars or Indiana Jones or even a Batman. It just isn’t. The $411 million worldwide scored by Batman thirteen years ago would likely be over a billion these days. Of course,
the production and P&A costs would be treble as well.

Remember, the film whose record Spider-Man just broke, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, had a hard time passing the $300 million mark domestically after a $90 million opening weekend and no major franchise opposition (Lord of the Rings) for over a month. And while Lord of the Rings opened with a little better than half the number that Potter did, their final domestic tally will be separated by less than $10 million total.

Titanic, the highest domestic and worldwide grosser of all time, opened to under $29 million. And Star Wars: Episode One, which opened to less than $65 million, a number that lingers in the record books behind four separate openings from last summer (Pearl Harbor, Planet of the Apes, The Mummy Returns and Rush Hour 2), but still became the fourth highest grossing film domestically, the
second highest domestic grosser ever if you don’t count re-releases and the third highest grossing film of all time worldwide. We can all whine and bitch about Jar Jar Binks, but understand something… audiences did not turn their backs on The Phantom Menace and its box office was not a phenomena of a massive opening weekend. Episode One was the leggiest franchise movie since Jurassic Park hit in 1993… back when second-run houses actually made money and a film could run for over a year in first and second run.

Of course, I feel a little silly dissing Spidey just as it becomes the first film with a $100 million weekend. But it’s about perspective. Sony execs are quite smart not to start guessing, as Warner Bros. execs did, that Spider-Man could end up doing Titanic numbers. They know that a domestic haul of $350 million is more likely and that $400 million would be a stunning triumph in today’s (or any day’s) marketplace. Chasing Titanic’s $1.8 billion theatrical haul will require a true freak of movie nature. Harry Potter is now #2 all-time, coming just short of the billion-dollar mark. Think about that. The number two film of all time is more than 44 percent behind number one.

So, does Spider-Man have a legitimate shot at $1 billion worldwide? Not really.. Attack of the Clones is the only film with a legitimate shot at the billion mark this year. My bet is that the next Harry Potter movie will drop slightly and the next Lord of the Rings movie will rise slightly. If there really was
a disappointment factor on The Phantom Menace and if Attack of the Clones is really that much better, making up the $78 million that TPM was short of a billion shouldn’t be that difficult. Additionally, Clones has the advantage, as did Spidey, of a 50 cent ticket increase across much of the nation marking the start of summer. When you are talking about these numbers of tickets sold, the increase can account for $5 million to $7 million in additional gross on opening weekend and as much as $50 million in total gross numbers.

Oh yeah… Spider-Man. Look for a final number between $650 and $750 million worldwide. And there is nothing wrong with that. Anyone who writes about next weekend being a disappointment when Spider-Man slides to $52 million is an idiot. And when Attack of the Clones opens to $78 million - $97 million with Thursday included – anyone who writes about Star Wars being in trouble is also an idiot. I anticipate
that Lucas and Fox will plan a huge, but not record-chasing opening and plan on being the leggiest film of the summer, outgrossing Spider-Man by $100 million or more domestically and by $200 million or more in
foreign territories. That’s the plan I anticipate. The reality? Who knows?

Continue reading "Spider-Man Opens & Early Bourne Review" »

Posted by poland at 11:25 PM | | Comments (0)