Movies: August 2006 Archives

Of all the lies and dramatic posturing being lobbed between Tom Cruise's defenders and the studio that just broke its ties with the superstar, Viacom/Paramount boss Sumner Redstone's assertion that "we don't think someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot" is probably the dumbest statement made by anyone who's supposed to be in the creativity business.
The first half of it, anyway. I have no doubt that Cruise's overbearing offscreen behavior of the past year or so has cost Paramount some ticket sales. Women, his most avid fanbase for a couple of decades, have been turned off in droves by - well, the four or five televised outbursts that I had a good time laughing at like everybody else, but am utterly bored with whenever they're referenced now.
But that's fiscal damage, not creative suicide. And whatever you think of Cruise personally - control freak, religious fanatic, the guy who's holding poor little Katie hostage, whatever - the only reason anybody cares about him in the first place is because a lot of us enjoy his work. And the last time I checked, he wasn't slacking on his fierce commitment to deliver the best work that he possibly could.
Mission: Impossible III, his "disappointing" summer blockbuster that triggered the rift with Paramount, was far from a perfect movie. But it was an interesting, ambitious take on the action espionage genre, like both previous installments Cruise starred in and produced. Writer-director JJ Abrams - whom Cruise chose after a long and painstaking development cycle - brought a new intimacy to the franchise that depended as much on good acting as it did pyrotechnics. And Cruise both delivered on the added, anguished thespic demands and gave a plot-hauling star turn, as well as expertly pulling off some death-defying stunts most stars would leave to their doubles.
You may or may not have liked this approach to the franchise, but you can't say that MI:3 was just another lazy sequel. There is never anything slack about a Cruise performance, whether he's stretching his abilities in daring new directions (Collateral, Magnolia, Jerry Maguire), letting great directors do whatever they will with him to fulfill their vision (Spielberg most successfully in Minority Report, Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut, Stone in Born on the Fourth of July), or channeling his charisma and energy into saving grace notes for misbegotten efforts (Last Samurai, Vanilla Sky).
To me, that's all that really matters about Tom Cruise, and why I'll still look forward to every movie he makes - unless the movies give me reasons not to. I'm sure I'll also enjoy making fun of any megalomaniacal outbursts that come from him in the future, and will share wicked laughs with friends over the embarrassing rumors yet to be cooked up about him - until they become as tedious as the current overworked crop, anyway.
But jeez, shouldn't good movies be the primary thing fans, studios and stars want? I know that sounds simplistic and, in today's irrational pop culture, utterly unrealistic. But that doesn't make it wrong. And it makes a star with the creative vitality of Tom Cruise an even more valuable asset.

Well, you can blame everything from overhyped Internet interest to the title to people just not being much in the mood for airborne fright films in these terrorism-troubled times for Snakes on a Plane's disappointing box office debut.
But let me suggest one thing that wider evidence seems to indicate might have earned the Sam Jackson cult item a few million more bucks - and a lot more respect: they should've screened the mother#%@&*! thing for critics.
SoaP got a majority of positive reviews after it opened late last Thursday night. They just couldn't be printed in time to make the Friday newspapers, where both critical OKs and the very mention of the movie would likely have had the same effect it does on most films: convince thousands of fence-sitters that it was worth spending their money on.
Some fright films released earlier this year that did have the courage to let critics preview them, such as Hostel and The Hills Have Eyes, enjoyed better opening weekend attendance than the uber-promoted SoaP did. Admittedly others, like the acclaimed Slither, did not, and unpress-screened horrors such as Underworld:Evolution and When a Stranger Calls opened a little better than any of the movies mentioned above.
But evidence is accumulating that even the supposedly critic-proof segment of the moviegoing public is getting the message that, if there ain't reviews on opening Friday, the movie's gotta suck. The Duff sisters disaster Material Girls had a pitiful opening of under $5 million this weekend; it wasn't shown to critics. The previous weekend's Zoom and Pulse also suffered embarrassing debuts without benefit of reviews, good or bad. Step Up, on the other hand, made a surprisingly strong, $20 million-plus bow over the August 11 weekend (about $5 million more than SoaP did a week later); it wasn't exactly a critics' darling, but anyone who wanted to could read a review of it on opening day.
Of course, many other factors influence these recent results; Step Up, for instance, was heavily promoted on MySpace, which makes the Soap-related cries of R.I.P. for Internet movie marketing seem a bit premature. But one thing is looking more and more plausible: the idea that movies of a certain genre or aimed at an undiscerning target audience don't need reviews is just what it has always been, a marketing fad that's destined to fade.

Well, so much for that.

The riotously hyped “Snakes on a Plane�? essentially crash-landed over the weekend: The venomous vipers at boxofficemojo.com declined to even grant it the No. 1 position on the chart, declining to count its $1.5 million gross on Thursday evening as part of its weekend take.

Boxofficeguru.com was a little more magnanimous, giving it the coveted No. 1 slot for its $15.3 gross, ahead of “Talledega Nights�?’ $14.1 million. Still, that was almost half of the $28 million the website forecast the film to earn over the weekend, and the guru couldn’t resist adding a little insult to injury: “Of the 62 films in history that have opened in 3,500 or more theaters, 61 have grossed more than 'Snakes' on opening weekend,�? it reported.

Which just goes to show that the Internets are good for at least one thing: Obfuscating the degree of actual interest in any given subject under a mountain of hype. In other words, one guy’s private obsession with getting invited to a movie premiere does not a movement make.

There’s one benefit of this anemic turnout: It’ll be that much sooner that we’re spared everyone citing that #@+#@&$%*$ line from the movie.

It's one thing for TMZ.com to send videographers into the world to pester celebrities outside of nightclubs in hopes that they'll be drunk enough to issue forth some kind of tirade against, oh, say, Lindsay Lohan and her naturally red hair. It's quite another for an ostensibly reputable TV newscast -- oh, who am I kidding, putting "reputable" and "TV newscast" together in the same sentence -- to dump sad news on celebrities busy preening merrily on the red carpet of a premiere.

And yet, that's precisely what KCAL's Dave Clark did last night at the Pantages: Button-hole celebrities for their reactions to the death of Bruno Kirby. It's a fairly amusing and eminently lazy piece, incongruously combining Kirby's death -- which, let's face it, probably in the scheme of things doesn't deserve this much air time -- with a puff piece about the premiere of a musical, juxtaposing big red-carpet smiles with expressions of sorrow.

It excels as an exercise in measuring spontaneous emoting from people who didn't really know the guy (why bother hunting down his onscreen co-stars when there's a random pile of celebrities amassing in one place?), however, with Jennifer Tilly's gape-mouthed response (they worked together, sort of, as voices of CGI mice) -- "Omigod, are you kidding?" -- the most dramatic. Robert Davi (ID'd in the piece as "Robert Dabi" -- fading fame's a bitch, innit?) ruefully shakes his head for the cameras more than he ever would have in real life because he understands that's what's expected of him. Lorenzo Lamas is a veritable fount of information: "I had no idea he was ill," Lamas says, confessing that he never worked with Kirby but "I liked his work." You can almost see the gears whirring in Lamas's brain trying to place the name, the face -- and he succeeds, noting accurately that Kirby did both comedic and dramatic roles.

Clark's next assignment: Asking red-carpet trollers what they thought about the capture of JonBenet Ramsey's killer, or just offering them current-events quizes in general.

New trailers and interviews for "Snakes on a Plane" have been posted on Yahoo. The multiplexes will be jammed all weekend, thanks in part to those who will feel the need to see it multiple times and can't wait until it goes into rotation with "Rocky Horror" at the Friday midnight shows. Let the games begin:
-- Count the Samuel L. Jackson "M****rf****in'" lines
-- Spot the rubber snakes
-- Spot the animatronic snakes
-- Name that breed
-- Who's really afraid and who's faking it?

"Sweeney Todd," the ultra-dark Stephen Sondheim musical about a murderous barber in London, is a step closer to a big-screen adaptation with DreamWorks and Warner Bros.' announcement today that Johnny Depp will play the baddie and Tim Burton will direct. Brilliant choices, if a bit obvious given the duo's collaboration on such eerie productions as "Edward Scissorhands," "Ed Wood" and "Corpse Bride." No word yet on who will play Mrs. Lovett, Todd's accomplice who turns his throat-slit victims into meat pies. No doubt Burton is having Helena Bonham Carter check her calendar. Now the ego-wounding speculation about Depp's ability to deliver Sondheim's challenging baritone-bass songs can begin.

Well, they can't quantify whether or not the latest terrorist air threat affected attendance of the new 9-11 movie or not. "World Trade Center" earned $19 million over the weekend - a far better number than "United 93" opened at in April - and has made about $27 million since debuting Wednesday. Hard to tell whether Thursday's liquid bomb scare kept anyone from going or got more people interested in the movie.

But then, "WTC" mostly takes place in a hole in the ground. The real test of whether this new round of air travel jitters can influence theater attendance will start this Friday, when the much anticipated "Snakes on a Plane" finally opens.

A few weeks ago, I presciently (in hindsight, anyway) asked "SoaP's" director, David Ellis, if he thought all the loony Interntet fan mania his serpents-in-the-sky thriller was pre-generating had anything to do with a desire to psychologically innoculate ourselves against air paranoia by championing /goofing on a cheesy fantasy jetliner disaster.

"It could be," noted Ellis ("Cellular," "Final Destination 2"). "Films like 'United 93,' 'World Trade Center,' I'm not ready, personally, to see those movie, though I understand that they're really powerful stories that should be told. This movie, I think, is fun and it doesn't hit home because it's non-specific about a certain event that destroyed America. At the same time, this movie has been nine years in the making; it was just about to be greenlit when 9-11 happened. Then they said, 'We're not makin' a friggin' movie about terrorists putting snakes on a plane.'

"I worry about it. I don't know what the box office is gonna do. But to me, the box office isn't as important as that the people that go have fun, that they escape what's going on in the world - because it's f---ing horrible right now - and that they actually have fun."

Europe’s answer to YouTube is dailymotion.com. I’m trying to direct you precisely to a cool site, but you know how the language barrier works.

This should link you to a neat little Charlie Chaplin parody, which finds the Little Tramp in SpielbergWorld. Just click on what seems obvious. Pay attention to nearby links and you can find a nifty parody that plops George W. Bush in one of Chaplin’s most controversial roles, in his 1940 film “The Great Dictator.�?

Variety Children's Charity is filling its non-profit coffers with some choice Hollywood items sold through eBay, notably The Shirts worn by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in "Brokeback Mountain." The latest offerings for sale include a shirt worn by Samuel L. Jackson in "Snakes on a Plane." It goes up for bid at 5 p.m. PDT today, and the e-gavel comes down on Aug. 21. No doubt the price would soar if the shirt features authentic eau de flop sweat.

So, America: Which film would you rather see: A seriously silly comedy about NASCAR, or a seriously manipulative drama about a terrorist attack on our country so traumatizing that 30 percent of the nation can’t even remember when it occurred?

Apparently, the answer is “Talledega Nights.�?

I don't know where to begin with this. Does this mean moviegoers distrust Oliver Stone (a reasonable enough assumption), or that they don't want to confront the horrors of our past - and, given recent events, our present? Or that Will Ferrell has, by ignoring current events, become our man of the Zeitgeist?

So I've been spitballing this whole making-flights-even-more-miserable-even-though-we-already-have-to-put-up-with-crappy-service-high-fares-late-arrivals-oh-and-of-course-the-whole-dying-in-midair-thing and have cooked up a number of ways to profit from it (some of these might actually work):

*Nonexplosive water kiosks ("Guaranteed NOT to explode!") in airports.

*Rental laptops onto which the contents of your computer has been securely downloaded that you pick up at the airport or your hotel. When you leave, you download any additional information you've added securely back on your computer at home and erase the rental of all your contents.

*Since toothpaste is another forbidden substance, Everkleen (TM) Dentures that fit over your teeth and whose interior is coated with a toothpasty substance that keeps your teeth clean throughout your entire trip.

*Solid vacu-packed bricks of alcohol that revert to liquid when exposed to poorly recycled air, so you can calm your nerves on your flight.

*Fake-beer-gut carry-ons that one wears under baggy shirts or mumus. (Also helps prevent unwelcome attentions from fellow travelers!)

*A company which arranges for disparate individuals to combine and rent private jets which don't have to adhere to FAA regulations, so you can bring any damn thing you want on the plane.

*Fake "clear" plastic bags with facades depicting contents that appear to be innocuous but in fact contain all the newly banned stuff.

*A deep-profiling service that does extensive background checks on people and, satisfied that the person is not a terrorist, issues them an ID card that gets them past security checkpoints quickly.

*An X-ray machine that can see into the souls of those who pass through and divines those who have hateful intentions. (Of course, Dick Cheney could never fly commercially again, but still...)

Think you know Los Angeles? A certain short film site, turnhere.com, could prove otherwise. These 3- to 5-minute neighborhood profiles have been created by locals, and even after living here 23 years, I've learned a lot from watching them. Click on the West Hollywood section and you'll get tours of landmark restaurants, trendy spots and crime scenes. The Glendale/Pasadena page segues into Atwater Village, Echo Park and other locales. The Valley, unfortunately, is under-represented on the site. The films showcasing Tarzana, Sherman Oaks and North Hollywood could stand some company. Where's the walking tour of Toluca Lake, home to thousands who actually work in the business and know something about shooting and cutting movies? Or the history of Van Nuys? Maybe a cruise in a convertible along Mulholland? A peek at the Craftsman houses of San Fernando? Come on, people. Grab your cameras and get busy.

The online crucifixion of Mel Gibson – death by a thousand short parody films – has begun. And though this is one of the first I’ve seen, I can’t imagine seeing many better in the coming days.

And, by the way, tonight at 10 p.m. Comedy Central reruns the "Passion of the Jew" episode of "South Park," Trey Parker and Matt Stone's hilarious response to Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," which features the spectacle of Mel freaking out in his tighty-whiteys, waving a gun and driving insanely. And Cartman attempting to revive the Nuremberg rallies.

So DirecTV has hired Leonard Maltin to tout their pay-per-view movies. I’m loathe to pick on Maltin, as he’s one of the nicest people I’ve met in Los Angeles – and certainly, one of the most genial film critics in town – not to mention incredibly knowledgeable about all things Hollywood.

(Though seriously, can’t he share his workload with a few other people? With “Entertainment Tonight,�? other TV appearances, his syndicated radio program, the perennially bestselling compendium of reviews, books of film history and magazine work, he’s the busiest man in show business, moreso even than Alan Nierob.)

But I think we can all see the problem here. Maltin’s a serious, legitimate critic, DirecTV wants people to shell out cash to see their pay-per-view flicks and some of them simply aren’t worth bothering with.

So Maltin has a thin line to tread here in providing recommendations for the movies listed in the above link. And Maltin’s diplomatic non-raves for a number of the films suggest his deep ambivalence. Herewith, his excerpted quotes for the pay-per-view lineup, followed by what likely was his next thought.

“Nanny McPhee:�? “I think kids will eat this up.�? … “and parents will vomit it back out.�?

“October Sky:�? “Celebrates the American can-do spirit.�? … “in as hackneyed and klutzy a manner as is humanly possible.�?

“The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: “I encourage you to check out this sleeper of 2005.�? … “because, after all, someone’s gotta see it, and it ain’t gonna be me.�?

“Match Point:�? “No apologies are necessary for this contemporary drama set in London.�? … “but ticket refunds would certainly be in order.�?

“The Family Stone:�? “The kind of movie that belies my frequent observation that ‘they don't make 'em like that any more.’�? … “and makes me wish they really didn’t make ’em like that, now or ever.�?

“Glory Road:�? “It doesn't seem to matter that you know how it's going to end. You still get caught up in the drama of the game.�? … “if you’re an easily manipulated sop.�?

“Shopgirl:�? “A comedy of character and social observation.�? … “and utter dramatic inertia.�?

“The New World:�? “I knew that this wouldn't be an ordinary rendering of the story of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas.�? … “but I did expect it to be vaguely interesting, and, seriously, Colin Ferrell? Has Terrence Malick lost his mind? Wait – don’t answer that.�?

“The Greatest Game Ever Played:�? “A wonderful film that deserves to be discovered and enjoyed.�? … “deserves it, but let’s face it, it ain’t ever gonna happen.�?

“The End of Violence:�? “There are moments in this movie that leave you with your jaw on the floor.�? … “if one of the broadly drawn, violently unhinged characters in the movie actually enters your home and tears your jaw from your skull.�?

“An Unfinished Life:�? “A good-hearted film I'd recommend to anyone who appreciates great screen acting.�? … “but not to anyone who likes competent scripting or even merely adequate direction.�?

“Jarhead:�? “If you know to expect something out of the ordinary, I think you'll appreciate the film as I did.�? … “with a bottle of tequila.�?

“Syriana:�? “There is a lot to keep track of, but I wasn't confused. In fact, I was mesmerized.�? … “by my utter incomprehension.�?

“Last Holiday:�? “Queen Latifah has a wonderful screen presence.�? … “in some movies. Here? Don’t be silly.�?

Greg Hernandez of the Daily News examines the cost of public celebrity stupidity in today’s paper, niftily finding a way to sweep Suri-ously nutty Tom Cruise under the umbrella currently shadowing Mea-Culpa Mel and Looped Lindsay, but politely ignoring Britney Spears’ ongoing travails. (But she’s not a movie star, you argue? Have you seen “Crossroads?�? Oh, you have? Well, OK.)

Not to diminish or trivialize the rancid vitriol spewed by Mad Mel early the other morning, but does it strike anyone as odd that when someone whose career consists a lot of shooting guns filled with blanks at other actors vomits forth a fusillade of hateful, alcohol-drenched invective, there are cries that he is no longer morally capable of shooting guns filled with blanks at other actors, yet when a presumably stone-cold sober political pundit slags the widows of men killed on Sept. 11 and cavalierly announces without providing any proof that a former U.S. President is gay, TV news divisions seem to have no problem with continuing to encourage her bile?