The L.A. Times' has a today about sequels and their demands.
He lays into the usual suspects -- the studios and their beancounters and all the lazy slobs in the audience -- but then he spanks a number of gifted filmmakers who, in his opinion (and, all right, mine), are wasting their time cranking out "Sausage #2," "Sausage #3," and so forth.
Steven Soderbergh ("Oceans Eleven"), Bryan Singer ("X-Men"), Christopher Nolan ("Batman Begins"), and of course Sam Raimi ("Spider-Man") are some of the visionary directors Goldstein calls out for making arrant product, after which he goes after the big fella himself: Steven Spielberg, who's just about to start shooting "Indiana Jones 4." On the other hand, Goldstein talks to Wayne Kramer, director of " " and a guy who apparently has turned down a number of offers to make movies with numerals attached.
He's the source of the quote up top. And you, very likely, are saying, "Wayne who?"
Scariest nugget of information in the whole article?
Harrison Ford is about to turn 65.
Everyone carps about sequelitis and the death of originality in movies, but you know what? Originality isn't in the studio business model, and it never has been.
This morning all the suits in Hollywood are grinning fatcat grins because the model has been once more proven sound.
" " cost $260 million or so to make, is getting mixed reviews from and even , and so what? The movie arguably recouped its cost in a single weekend: $148 million in U.
S. box office plus an additional $227 in foreign ticket sales equals a total of $375 million. Using , this puppy might just break even.
That's a record for weekend box office, eclipsing last year's $136 million for " " (and doubtless to be eclipsed next summer when " " opens on May 22, 2008). Friday's take -- $59.3 million -- broke the one-day record.
"Spider-Man 3" also opened on the greatest ever number of screens (over 10,000) in the most theaters (4,252), proof that Sony was aiming for the record books. (By opening the film last Tuesday in 107 other countries, by contrast, the studio was just hoping to make as big a pre-piracy profit as possible.)
It also meant that if you wanted to see a movie this weekend, "Spider-Man 3" was almost all that was playing.
The next film down the chart, at #2, was old standby " " with $5.7 million. The weekend's only other new studio release -- all others having had the good sense to get the hell out of Dodge -- was Curtis Hanson's gambling drama " ," which was a bug on the windshield of the Spidey 18-wheeler.
Seriously: "Spider-Man 3" made an average $35,000 at each of those 4,252 theaters. "Lucky You," at 2,525 theaters, could barely scrape together $1,000 bucks per house.
There was action down in art-house land, though, where the late Adrienne Shelly's " " debuted at four theaters and averaged $23,000 at each.
Boston will get this lovely little comedy on Friday, and it's worth the wait.
Here are the numbers. Leonard Klady's on vacation, but here's the .
Most of the population of the free world will be going to see " " this weekend. Conveniently, that frees the rest of you to do whatever niche programming or soul-searching you want. Not much else in movie theaters, unfortunately, unless you're a cycling fan (proceed forthwith to " ," in photo above, and I swear the movie's not as ridiculous as that outfit), a Euro-football junkie (" " at the ), or a gambling addict (" ").
That said, if you have a yen for adorable, calorie-free French comedies, " ," from reliable farceur , stands to make you very, very happy. At the very least, you won't hate yourself afterwards, and I'm not entirely sure you can say that about "Spider-Man 3".
the Coolidge at midnight, tonight and tomorrow.
God, I love that place.
At the , a retrospective of the films of Spain's , who's mostly unknown here while Pedro Almodovar hogs all the press. The filmmaker himself will be present at Saturday's 7 p.
m. screening of " ". Highly recommended.
If you're interested in Tibet, Buddhism, exotic cinematic tours, and/or eye-popping cinematography, the has some dharma unspooling with the ongoing screenings of John Bush's " " and the debut today of " ," which makes up in poignancy and visual impact what it lacks in drama.
Or you could go outdoors. It is May, after all.
The fuming over in yesterday's Times, in which the writer/co-star of "Chuck and Buck" and "School of Rock" basically says: "Yeah, I got off on crappy horror movies when I was young, but that doesn't make me the Virginia Tech killer, but maybe if I'd been wired differently it would have, so we in Hollywood should feel guilty about that and maybe pause for a brief moment of moral introspection before squirting more fake blood on the actress's breast."
In other words, this is a very muddled op-ed that wants to scold the entertainment industry (White's word choice, not mine) but is too timid to. At least the filmmaker acknowledges what everyone knows but no one in Hollywood dare admit: that movies influence behavior and that violent movies influence violent behavior.
Anyone with children knows this to be true. (I know it to be true: When I was seven years old, I watched a "Leave it to Beaver" episode where the Beav backs his parents' car into the street, turned off the TV, went outside, and did the exact same thing. Which wasn't really violent behavior, but, uh, it could have been.
)
Feebly calling for filmmakers to think twice isn't going to change things. Nor is government censorship. A ratings system better than the gutless wonder the late Jack Valenti spent his lifetime noisily defending would probably help.
So would parents who actually pay attention to what their children watch, and maybe even talk to them about it. (White admits his folks had no idea he was watching crud-classics like "Terror Train".)
The bottom line (which is all the film industry respects and understands anyway) is this: Take away the demand and you'll take away the supply.
But that requires individual solutions -- meaning you and me -- not mass ones.
Oh, and there still isn't any real proof that Seung-Hui Cho saw "Oldboy." Which makes the whole discussion moot.
Special Jury Prizes (i.e., second place) went to Reg Harkema's " " (Narrative Feature), David Redmon and Ashley Sabin's " " (Documentary Feature), and John Thompson's " " (Short Film).
If the jury prizes tend to reward filmmaking rigor, the audience awards generally favor pleasing experiences. This year's Audience Awards went to David Kaplan's " " (Narrative Feature), Logan Smalley's " " (Documentary Feature), and Cynthia Wade's " " (Short Film).
Special prizes: The Apple Programmer's Choice Award (presumably selected by the festival programmers) went to Steve Collins' " .
" The Dewars Collective Choice Award (voted on by scotch drinkers everywhere?) went to " ." The Best Marketing award was given to Naomi Greenfield and Sara Taksler's " ".
See you next year, everybody.
In early February, a heightened campaign to fight the epidemic of childhood obesity at a White House conference. The campaign, from the Department of Health and Human Services, tagged DreamWorks' computer animated character Shrek as the spokes-ogre to bring the message to America's kids.
Which I guess is like signing Robert Downey Jr. up for a few "Just Say No" public service spots. The of the has the big green fella all over the page, just in time for the May 18 release of "Shrek the Third," coincidentally.
The " " part of the site urges kids to get off their computer-surfing duffs and play for an hour a day. There are tie-in , too, which promote healthy eating habits while conveniently promoting the hell out of the movie.
The campaign does everything except teach kids how to spell "hypocrisy," because DreamWorks is at the same time using Shrek to shill for Snickers, Cheetos, McDonald's Happy Meals, and E.
L. Fudge Double-Stuffed Cookies, among others. As pointed out by the non-profit , there are 17 different "Shrek the Third" food promotions pushing 70 different junk foods to children.
Can you say "partially hydrogenated trans-fat," kids?
The CCFC wants you to , which after reading the the green guy is attached to, you may be inclined to do. At the very least, hiring an overweight troll to stump for healthier lifestyles is a bit of a head-scratcher.
Did Mumbles from "Happy Feet" not return HHS's phone calls? At least he could have talked up the benefits of fish.
("The Invisible" didn't screen for critics, but here's tomorrow's review a little early.
)
Directed by: David S. Goyer
Written by: Mick Davis and Christine Roum, based on a novel by Mats Wahl
Rated: PG-13 (violence, criminality, sensuality and language, all involving teens)
"The Invisible" is being tossed into theaters like chum for the restless weekend kiddies, and it'll probably be on DVD by next Tuesday. Let's call it for what it is, though: a fully felt, decently crafted teen B-movie melodrama, plenty preposterous in places but alive to the vibrant miseries of being young and misunderstood.
The plot sounds like "Rebel Without a Cause" grafted onto "Ghost," but in fact "The Invisible" is a remake of a 2002 Swedish hit, "Den Osynlige," which was based on an original novel. Duly Americanized, it's now the story of Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin, Tom Cruise's son in "War of the Worlds"), a rich, unhappy high school senior who becomes stuck between the living and the dead when he's beaten up by toughs.
His body lying comatose in the woods, Nick's spirit wanders the hallways of his high school and through the den of his chilly robo-Mom (Marcia Gay Harden), desperate to be noticed by anyone before he dies for good.
He throws stuff around; no one sees him. He screams his throat sore; no one hears. As the girl in his poetry class says, "It's a metaphor, dummy.
"
Interestingly, the only person who can just barely sense Nick calling from the netherworld is the girl who put him there: Annie Newton (Margarita Levieva), a jackbooted thugette with the trembling heart of a wounded bird. Annie hangs out with a career criminal (Alex O'Loughlin) and shakes down the kids at school, but you just know she's got a glossy head of hair underneath that knit cap, and "The Invisible" eventually lets it tumble down.
Annie ends up taking over the movie, and that is something different -- it's as if Natalie Wood's character in "Rebel" had put on the brass knuckles and stepped into the rumble.
Another young actress might play the part as the warmed-over Avril Lavigne clone it probably was on paper, but Levieva, a Russian-born actress with a wide face and distant eyes, accesses levels of doom and fury that keep going deeper. Nick and Annie become privileged lost souls, the only two who truly see each other.
That, of course, is the great, self-absorbed Topic A of adolescence, and from its title on down, "The Invisible" is hardly subtle about it.
On the other hand: a commercial allegory aimed at youth audiences? Why not? It's certainly preferable to the regurgitated horror junk filling most multiplexes.
If crime-drama cliches are present -- and they are -- they don't gunk up the works, because director David S. Goyer cares more about the movie's raw-boned emotions. He follows them to a few surprising places, too, with what might be described as stylish competence.
You're probably too cynical for "The Invisible," but maybe you know a person who isn't -- someone who feels the world looks right through them on a daily basis and scribbles feverishly about it in their journal. To them it will speak loud and true.
I like Ty's idea of renting an NC-17-rated movie in 's memory.
Valenti was an upbeat, tiger of a man. When I was in college, he came and spoke to the political union and it was striking how seductive he was as kind of politician. Being in a room with him, you got why he was such a successful lobbyist.
He was exceptional at his job, however complicated it was for the movies even as his organization politicized and implicitly moralized the movies' content. There's more to his legacy. But I have to go.
Moving on, the best film at the Independent Film Festival of Boston is playing this evening and Sunday: Julia Loktev's " ". This is a version of what I wrote about the movie in our festival preview.
News RSS