I’m busy today preparing to hit the TCM Classic Film Festival, which opens tonight in Hollywood, California with a gala screening of a digital restoration of the 1983 restoration of the 1954 “A Star is Born.” Also screening tonight is the 1931 Frank Capra obscurity, “Dirigible,” an underrated Howard Hawks science-fiction comedy starring Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, and a newcomer named Marilyn Monroe, “Monkey Business” as well as an outdoor screening of 1949’s silly but fun (if memory serves) “Neptune’s Daughter.” That one features swimmer turned musical comedy star Esther Williams alongside a very, very pre-Khan Ricardo Montalban and comedian Red Skelton. The cool part of this is that Ms. Williams, and a real-live water ballet, are included with the price of admission. (I should add that single entries for the fest are very much on the pricey side, starting at $20.00. Students get in for half-price, so I suggest enrolling quickly.)
That’s just tonight. Below are trailers for a some shows I’m personally looking forward to catching. We’ll start with the closing night screening of probably the most significant film of the festival, the new and finally fully restored version of the original science fiction extravaganza, Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.” (I’m slightly bummed to see this, like “A Star is Born” will be screened digitally. Assuming that celluloid prints of the new version exist, which may or may not be the case, that’s really how it should be shown.)
Easily the most ‘net hyped movie of the year not based on a Marvel superhero or collection thereof comes out this weekend, and while a monster hit isn’t expected, there will be some very long faces at Lionsgate if the comic-book adaptation “Kick-Ass” doesn’t collect at least about $20 million. I think they’ll be okay.
Indeed, if I were to bet, I’d expect the film to exceed expectations, if not this weekend, then later on in the run as the word of mouth among younger filmgoers gets out. True, as Jolly Carl DiOrio points out, it’s R-rating is a bit of a deterrent to the younger teens who’d no doubt love to see it but will have to come up with some clever maneuvers to check out this ultra-violent action non-super-powered superhero comedy any time too soon.
Of course, there’s more than a hint of controversy around “Kick-Ass.” It raised some hackles on its earlier British release and while getting mostly solid reviews, did so again stateside with a somewhat surprising one-star review from Roger Ebert. He seemed genuinely saddened and not amused by the spectacle of ultra-violence being meted out by, and later visited upon, the character of Hit Girl played by young superstar to be Chloe Moretz. Kenneth Turan, who’s often in the running for the title of the nation’s second most respected/well-known critic, admitted to being just a touch disturbed, but liked it and even declared it a pop-culture phenom. The interesting part is that Tarantino-negative Turan, who cites “Kill Bill” in his review, was utterly horrified by the violence in that film (the piece, or pieces, he wrote about it seem to have disappeared off the ‘net), while Ebert was beyond thoroughly amused.
It’s tempting for me to engage in a long speculation about other movies they’ve reviewed — a long time ago Ebert was somewhat similarly moved to anger by the finale of “The Dirty Dozen” but, much more recently, he defended, in amused but guarded fashion, “The Devils Rejects.” But all there really is to say that what disturbs us, or doesn’t, and whether it does so in a good or bad way, is a highly individual and idiosyncratic matter and it behooves all of us critical types to remember that. Anyhow, whatever controversy there is will no doubt only feed the beast and expectations are for it to go from anywhere between $20 to $30 milliion this weekend and almost certainly taking the top spot.
The other major new release this week is Sony’s “Death at the Funeral,” a Neil Labute-directed remake of an identically-titled Frank Oz-directed British comedy from just a couple of years back with a primarily, but not exclusively, African-American cast. (Or, as Carl DiOrio would put it, the cast “skews to urban demos.”) Since the African-Americans in question are Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, and Danny Glover while Dominican-American Zoe Saldana, white dude James Marsden and little person Peter Dinklage make for a bit of added diversity, this R-rated comedy should play well with a reasonably broad audience.
Jolly Carl says “a debut in the high-teen millions seems doable.” Still, with possible strong showings for holdovers like “Date Night” and “How to Train Your Dragon,” the box office results could be close on Sunday. While the reviews are not at all particularly good, the original did better with reviewers but didn’t exactly make critics do handstands.
In limited release, we have actually too many interesting small movies to mention this week including the amusingly titled “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead.” (Shame the trailer isn’t as amusing.) However, “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” looks to be one of the bigger documentaries likely to come out for a while, while the social satire “The Joneses” with David Duchovny and Demi Moore is dividing critics in general, much as it divided our own David Medsker in particular. According to Box Office Mojo, it’s getting a relatively large first week for this kind of film with 192 screens.
Commercially speaking, the premise of Fox’s PG-13 rated “‘Date Night” seems right on the money. NBC Thursday night comedy dream team Steve Carrell and Tina Fey are a married couple with children in a humdrum relationship rut who, through a case of mistaken identity, wind up fleeing from criminals and repeatedly running into a perpetually unshirted Mark Wahlberg and other dangerous obstacles to their peace of mind.
It’s been some time since a true wide appeal mainstream comedy aimed at adults and also possibly younger comedy fans of both genders has hit the theaters. “Hot Tub Time Machine” obviously skews more than a little male and more recent films, like “She’s Out of My League,” are clearly aimed at a somewhat younger demographic. On paper, the thing seems destined to do extremely well with a potential to elicit the three words sweetest to a studio suit’s ear “four quadrant picture.”
Still, not everyone is thriller. Our own Jamey Codding found the movie a lot more entertaining in principle than in reality. Director Shawn Levy of the “Night at the Museum” franchise is getting by far the best reviews of his career over in Rotten Tomato land, but that is not as impressive as it could be given his rather rotten critical track record and many of the critics seem to be simply praising the considerable comic skills more than the movie as a whole. As for the box office gurus, a solid but not super-dramatic opening somewhere significantly south of $30 million but probably north of $20 million is predicted by the mysterious voices in Jolly Carl DiOrio‘s ear.
Of course, the comedy faces some fierce battles ahead with more grim-faced previously released films, most especially last weekend’s top picture, Warner’s “Clash of the Titans.” Like many poorly reviewed genre pictures, it’s expected to drop off by as much as 60%. Moreover, the catcalls from a geek-heavy audience made newly picky about 3-D thanks to James Cameron‘s innovations appear to be depressing turn-out at the pricey 3-D screens. Still, even with a really big sophomore drop off, it still has a very good shot a winning a second weekend in a row, though the win could well be as ugly as Medusa herself.
Also debuting this week is a Christian-themed heart-tugger, Vivendi’s “Letters to God.” It’s somewhere between a large limited release and a very small major release as it will be in just under 900 theaters this weekend, according to the mighty Box Office Mojo theater count. No reviews are out yet to speak of, but I noticed even the Christian user reviews on IMDb are a bit muted, noting that the acting is in a bit better than on prior films from the same team and the movie is “professional.” High praise.
Not to be glib — which is a way of me preparing you for the glibness ahead — but with the usual church-based marketing push, this one should do okay preaching to the converted. I guess, as a secular Jew, I sort of feel like I see an awful lot of essentially Christian movies, they’re just not marketed that way or noticed because about 95% of Americans are actually Christian. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Despite an atmospheric and a mega-creepy trailer that I love and strong trio of lead actors — Christina Ricci, Liam Neeson, and Justin Long — the death-obsessed, R-rated horror thriller from Anchor Bay, “After.Life,” is leaving the large majority of critics as cold as the grave. With only 41 screens for a film which should have a wide appeal for horror fans, an early demise seems likely for this morbid but apparently non-gory tale. I personally hope Ricci, a terrific actress who I haven’t seen in a while in anything, has better luck soon.
I love movies, that blend multiple genres. I get even more interested if one of those genres is a musical. Still, the more chances you take the more you risk ending up with something like the genuinely godawful trailer for an insane looking mishmash called “El Dorado” over at Bloody Disgusting, which in this instance is way more disgusting in an aesthetic sense than it is bloody in a literal sense.
It’s so bad in an non-entertaining way and kind of depressing way that I can’t bring myself to inflict it on you here, despite a cast that seems to promise something genuinely unusual. That includes the final appearance of David Carradine, who surely deserved better — but then deserving better in late career films is certainly following in the footsteps of his legendary dad. Still, you can heck out the horror-musical Blues Brother tribute or whatever it is over at Mr. Disgusting’s place if you’re in the mood for a cinematic train wreck, and we all have that impulse.
Instead, I am presenting a couple of minutes sheer insanity that is actually entertaining. Ladies and gentlemen, if you think you’ve seen everything in grindhouse-era movie madness, see this and be amazed and amused. The great Bernie Casey IS “Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde.” (NSFW in a red-bandy, partial frontal nudity kind of a way.)
You’ve got to wonder what Robert Louis Stevenson would have made of that.
I’m not sure how I wound up there, but this morning I found myself reading Jonah Weiner‘s thoughts about James Nguyen’s “Birdemic: Shock and Terror,” the latest “so bad it’s good” production to find some success as a midnight movie and to get more than its share of coverage for so doing. Then I watched the ABC News video which I will present without further comment, except to apologize for the small size of the image. (ABC’s player won’t permit altering the size, for whatever reason.) You might also want to check out this amusing BBC item about it as well.
Okay, so now it’s time to talk about something I’ve learned about the movie world and frequently expressed verbally, but never online.
In my travels around the very lower rungs of the film world, I’ve noted that there are exactly two ways to have a career as a filmmaker. Be extremely well focused, productive and hardworking — being hard working to the point of actual madness won’t hurt, if you and your loved ones survive it — be very smart, passionate, creative, thoughtful, and lucky and you might have a decent-to-great-career.
The other path still involves hard work, or perhaps simply a truly bad case of ADHD and/or mania, and no particular amounts of intelligence or creativity is called for, though passion and luck are still required. But here’s the secret to the second path — no matter how badly something turns out, you must never entertain the thought it might actually be bad. When you ask your best friends what they thought of your script, if they start to look down and change the subject, you must assume that they are doing that because the script is so good they are beyond words. If you’re of a nastier disposition, assume they’re jealous. If you’re somewhere in between, assure yourself that they’re simply unable to comprehend what you’re going for. Can’t blame them if for not being as brilliant as you are.
The next step is to use your honest passion to persuade clueless and/or desperate crew and actors to be in your film for little or no payment and, if you can’t afford to self-finance, get star struck dentists or CPAs to “invest.” When the film is completed, ignore the three awful reviews you were able to garner and dwell on the fact that your film was an official selection of the Rancho Cucamonga Film Festival. Do not notice — much less learn from — your mistakes. That would involve not being delusional, and you need your delusion the way a shark needs teeth.
At this point, you will perhaps be able to find bottom feeding producers who will note that you’ve been able to complete a film — a real achievement in itself. They may then choose to pay for another film for reasons of their own. If not, there are always more dentists and CPAs. The beauty of video technology is that you need fewer of them than you once did, though you’ll also have more delusional competition than before, too.
And then, my son or daughter, you may just have a career. Not a brilliant career, but a career. I have seen this happen with my own two eyes. How do you think Ed Wood kept on working throughout his life, writing novels and screenplays and directing movies despite the fact that he had absolutely no talent for any of it?
But what do you do if your film has the kind of luck that “Birdemic” is enjoying and becomes a midnight cult hit? What if theaters nationwide are full of inebriated youth laughing derisively — an indignity that never quite happened to Ed Wood, though I’m sure he could have used the cash? Do you bow your head in shame all the way to the bank and make off for an island paradise, never to be heard from again? No, because if you had any shame, you wouldn’t have made that terrible but funny movie in the first place. You might have, in fact, made something boring, and that’s the worst fate of all for a movie. Much better to have created something truly memorable.
Nguyen appears to have trademarked the phrase “Romantic Thriller” and declared himself the “master” of it. That takes some balls™.
