By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is
Today
Losers
The Oscar bloggers: You’d think after the millions of words they wrote pontificating about the Oscars they could’ve come up with a better pick for best picture winner than “Dreamgirls.”
Dec 5
Favorites
“Dreamgirls.” 4-1: A faithful adaptation of the 1981 stage play not-so-loosely based on the rise of the Supremes, this lavish Condon-directed all-black musical is handsome as entertainment can be, loaded with infectious music and accomplished performances, especially from supporting actress favorite Hudson, who earns the right to any comparisons with the role’s originator, Jennifer Holliday. The film’s craft will earn it a boatload of nominations. Its chances of a best picture victory depend on whether the academy, which has a soft spot for showbiz stories, will embrace a crowd-pleaser that isn’t daring or original. In other words: Does the soul outweigh the schmaltz?
Also of Note –
Winners
Paramount Vantage’s John Lesher: It’s a big leap from being an agent to a studio chief, but when your first release (“Babel”) becomes a best picture nominee, you’ve done a great job of putting your company on the map.
Please make note… the film was greenlit and produced before Lesher came to the studio. It was handed to him by Brad Grey (also a “loser”). And the film will lose tens of millions.
Losers
David Geffen: You patiently wait 20 years until the right filmmaker comes along, assemble an all-star cast, carefully woo the media, earn plenty of admiring reviews, win a Golden Globe and then
Well, he can’t lay blame on bloggers alone – his very own paper was front and center in the Dreamgirls hype game. And as you point out, he also had it as a potential nominee; say what you want about the movie but no one could have predicted an outright snub. He ought to have said — Paramount for allowing the Dreamgirls hype machine to go into overdrive; that’s what killed it.
He also probably should have clarified it to say: “Oscar bloggers who said Dreamgirls would WIN.” There is a big difference between saying it will get nominated and it will win. IMO. Hell, it could still win in a write-in vote. š
Complain about devoting an entry to Goldstein/the Times two days in a row? Hells no. Christ, you should devote even more attention to the Times, specifically the unholy trinity of Turan, Chocano and– well, maybe just those two, since Kevin Thomas rarely gets assigned a real movie anymore, just the Sunset 5 gay coming-of-age comedies that seem to be his beat since they stopped making Freddie Prinze Jr. and Melissa Joan Hart movies.
But, yeah, as for their critics, is Crust full-time now? Because considering it’s the movie capital of the world and they have two enormous blowhards in Old Man Turan and Ch-TWOP-cano, and now Crust doing anonymous duty, it still seems they farm out A LOT of big movie reviews to “Special to the Times” guys that come off as interns who make a quick 50 so Turan needn’t see something that isn’t etched in bronze and at the multiplex to boot.
But I think you’ve said pretty consistently that you like Goldstein’s column. I certainly do; This seems a little out of character for PG. Maybe like you said the other day, it’s just palpable how reluctant he is to do Oscar prognostication and it revealed itself here with this disingenuous dig.
I just realized the two rants of that post don’t connect; My glue of a point was to be that they ought to just have Goldstein review a movie here and there.
Christ, the dude works ONE DAY A WEEK. He knows his stuff and he knows the biz inside out; I’d much rather read his humorous take on THE MESSENGERS or SEE NO EVIL than whoever the part-timers are that seem to get stuck with those choice assignments.
Entertainment writers are so stupid sometimes, it almost makes my head hurt.
Dreamgirls made 100+ million, nominated for a lot of awards, is selling a boatload of copies of the soundtrack, yet the media says it’s a loser because it didn’t get a Best Picture nomination.
What is wrong with these people?
Movies are made to make money. Awards are icing on the cake.
There’s a quote in EW from a producer about the oscar race, something about being glad when films don’t get nominated because they can just go back to making money. I wish more producers posessed that kind of honesty. The Weinsteins turned the oscar race into some kind of “who has the bigger dick” contest, and it’s never really recovered.
Oscar nominations no longer equal a substantial box office boost. The sooner the studios realize this and stop spending ungodly sums of money on them, the better off the industry will be.
Why was DREAMGIRLS so quickly shuffled off the big screens in LA? Is this some conspiracy, or did interest in it plummet that fast? Mind you, pretty much everything shy of PRIMEVAL gets an extended run on quality screens in Los Angeles, but the other day I called MovieFone to see what prime locations were still running THE MOST NOMINATED FILM OF THE YEAR.
Angelenos, excited about hitting any of these second-run houses for DREAMGIRLS? (Some of which are perfectly fine little rooms, but hardly a movie palace befitting one the true big movies out there…)
Highland 3
Mann Chinese 6
Beverly Center
Burbank AMC 8 (the tiny one in the shopping mall)
Granted, it was at the decent-enough Pacific theaters in Pasadena and Sherman Oaks, but to be sent packing from the Arclight– which seems to hoarde all the big ones during Oscar season– seems like a bit of an indignity, and I’m pretty sure the giant Burbank 16 is still making space for FREEDOM WRITERS.
So why is it in second-run houses while it’s still in Oscar contention and doing reasonably okay at the box office?
The Chinese 6 isn’t really a second-run theater. I’m assuming Dreamgirls has simply been shoved out by the flood of new material and stronger holdovers like Pursuit of Happyness and Night at the Museum.
Why does this fucking guy still have an editorial position at the LAT? You’d think he’d have embarassed himself enough at this point that they’d reel him in. SERIOUSLY.
And I actually agree fully about the “Dreamgirls” sentiment. Indeed, there are other victories outside the world of film awards.
BABEL has made $100 million dollars worldwide – I’d hardly say it will lose “tens of millions of dollars.” So maybe they “break even” but they earn prestige for the company by landing 9 Oscar nominations in the first year under Lesher’s leadership. I guess it all depends on what we consider winners and losers. He certainly did “put Vantage on the map.”
According to previously run stories, John Lesher represented the director of Babel for years and sold it to Paramount while he was still an agent at Endeavor, and then fought to get it back when he took his post as President of Vantage. It wasn’t just handed to him.
Yeah, Dreamgirls seems like a success all round except for that pesky Best Picture snub, but really, the only people outside of maybe Geffin and Condon who that really matters to are Oscar procastinaters who can now use it as “precedent”. In fact missing out is probably going to help the film in the minds of moviegoers. I would wage that in 20 years time people will watch that movie and then scratch their head as to why it didn’t get a BP nod. And then they’ll wonder “What’s this Babel movie? Never heard of it.”
And I didn’t even thing Dreamgirls was all that.
Babel is budgeted at $50M and grossed $104M worldwide so far.
Dreamgirls is budgeted at $70M and grossed $120M so far.
Both these movies have spent a lot of money on advertising and Oscar campaign (but probably Dreamgirls something more).
So, why Babel will “lose ten of millions” and Dreamgirls will “make a lot of money”?