THE OSCAR NUMBERS (as of today)
The Dark Knight – $531m
Wall-E – $224m
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – $67.7m
Slumdog Millionaire – $25.5m
Milk – $15.9m
Doubt – $15.5m
Gran Torino – $7.7
Frost/Nixon – $5.4m
The Reader – $2.5m
The Wrestler – $1.3m
Revolutionary Road – $690,000
Defiance – $39,100
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Saw The Reader (the only film on the above list currently on release that has been released this side of the Atlantic). Thought it was a good movie, but really, most of what is good about it is the material and the themes, rather than the film itself. Winslet is good (as she mostly is), Fiennes is fine (if drab, as he sometimes is), the young kid is good… but the movie suffers from a insipid score and visually is barely anything more than functional: the point and shoot school of filmmaking. Which is extraordinary considering Roger Deakins and Chris Menges serve as DoP. Stephen Daldry seems to be someone who discusses a good film but does not direct one.
Wouldn’t it be a blast if Winslet were not only to be nominated for both The Reader and Rev. Road… and then to WIN BOTH!
“Wouldn’t it be a blast if Winslet were not only to be nominated for both The Reader and Rev. Road… and then to WIN BOTH!”
A blast of whoopie cushion proportions since she’s the LEAD actress in both movies (regardless of what the studios and the HFPA twits say).
i’m a box-office asswipe but even to me that ‘marley and me’ 92 mil looks pretty darn impressive
What are the plans for expansion re: Defiance? It seems like an expensive movie to linger in limited release, especially with reviews like those.
Defiance goes wide on 1/16.
Defiance goes wide on 1/16.
(Don’t repeat on me, TypePad…)
Whoever decided on the Defiance release strategy needs to be shit-canned, though I suppose they were waiting for an Awards boost that never came. Still, a war movie starring James Bond and they let it languish like this? Fuckheads.
Please don’t take this as a slam against Valkyrie or Seven Pounds — two movies I liked a lot more than many folks who post here — but if I would have predicted here, even as recently as three weeks ago, that Valkyrie might outgross Seven Pounds — how many of you would have said, “Joe, it’s time for you to go to The Old Film Critics Home”?
Also: Why did a great movie like Cadillac Records get such a half-assed year-end release?
Joe, I think we’re seeing just how far Will Smith’s name can carry without a known premise behind him. Having seen, and thoroughly hated, “Seven Pounds,” I now know why the trailers were so vague. That said, there were people I know who didn’t want to see it based on the plot scarcities in the trailer.
On the other hand, I think you’re seeing the opposite with “Valkyrie” – a movie about trying to kill Hitler … that just so happens to star Tom Cruise. No doubt he pushed the film as hard as possible, but I think that bold, direct plotline sank into moviegoers’ heads, and they felt it would blend political and popcorn (which it does, albeit not particularly well).
In other news, barring a massive tumble, it would appear BB will become Fincher’s highest-grossing film yet.
Nick: But here’s the thing — I guessed the outcome of Seven Pounds after reading a few postings here and elsewehre (it’s Jesus of Montreal all over again) — but I actually appreciated the idea that along comes a Hollywood movie that doesn’t tell you everything about it in the trailer.
Bad movie or not, the fact that Seven Pounds’ trailer frustrated certain people seems more attributable to America’s shrinking ability to handle NOT being spoon fed every single detail and spoiler ahead of actually watching the movie.
Sometimes I get the feeling that we’re a nation of kids who’ve gone from not being able to sleep on the night before Christmas to people who have to get the printouts and pictures of every gift their parents ordered for them online sometime around AUGUST.
Even after finding out the storyline for Seven Pounds, I still have a fair bit of intrigue for it thanks in large part to that “vague” trailer and I appreciate the discretion of the makers.
“Sometimes I get the feeling that we’re a nation of kids who’ve gone from not being able to sleep on the night before Christmas to people who have to get the printouts and pictures of every gift their parents ordered for them online sometime around AUGUST.”
Uh, yeah.
“Defiance” was supposed to come out in September but got pushed back. Name-checking a couple of Oscar Bait box-office flops doesn’t help.
Totally agree with you re: “Cadillac Records,” Joe.
In fact, I said something similar on here last month when it opened.
If Sony had given the film an earlier release date (say, mid-October), it might have had time to build some (richly deserved) Oscar buzz for Jeffrey Wright and Beyonce’s terrific performances.
While I don’t think “CR” is exactly 10-best material, I was tickled to see it make Tony Scott’s top ten.
Well, I’d say most people, even adventurous cinephiles such as ourselves, would like to have SOME idea of what a movie is about before we plunk down our dough (especially if you’re footing the bill for more than one person, plus concessions, maybe parking, babysitter, whatever). With nothing else to go on, obviously lots of people opted to take a chance on the presence of Will Smith. Others, not so much. Considering the competition from better-marketed films, it’s not a bad showing, and the percentage drops haven’t been bad.
Joe, I’m with you on Cadillac Records. I don’t suppose it ever had a shot at big numbers, but it might’ve had a better run in the Fall. I also think critics kinda dropped the ball — it’s amazing to me that NONE of those wonderful performances have made so much as a blip in the year-end awards buzz. I can understand those who quibble about the historical accuracy of the film, but I really like Darnell Martin’s approach. The ensemble nature of it minimizes the reliance on biopic cliches — they’re not absent, of course, but neither are they overbearing. And she’s particularly great at capturing the sensuality of that music and the people who made it. What could’ve been a rehash or a sugar-coated slog is instead a rich, tasty treat. I’m glad it has found some champions, such as yourself, A. O. Scott and David Edelstein.
“Bad movie or not, the fact that Seven Pounds’ trailer frustrated certain people seems more attributable to America’s shrinking ability to handle NOT being spoon fed every single detail and spoiler ahead of actually watching the movie.”
Cloverfield. $40 million 3-day last January. Its about making a compelling case for what you don’t divulge with what you do divulge.
“Cloverfield. $40 million 3-day last January. Its about making a compelling case for what you don’t divulge with what you do divulge.”
Having looked at the trailer for “Seven Pounds” again just now, the only thing the audience can’t guess at for sure is Smith’s reason why. Other than that, you can pretty much tell What he’s going to do, and once you do that, you figure that Barry Pepper’s character is involved in the How. As far as teasers go, this one isn’t all that opaque.
I liked that the Seven Pounds trailer didn’t give it all away. Having said that, they didn’t make the rest of it look appealing at all. It looked ugly and confused and they didn’t pronounce the Dawson/Smith love storyline enough.
Cloverfield is a pretty different case by far – the trailers promised explosions, chasing, hot young vacuous actors, and those were all delivered – only leaving out the specifics of the big monster’s design. Seven Pounds, on the other hand, had no clear hook outside of ‘Will Smith does stuff, and people cry’.
Also, Chucky’s post above is a notch more insane than usual. So the revolt against ‘name-checking’ has spread to the people distributing the very same movie?
If Chucky ever responded to actual queries, I’d legitimately want to hear him rant about those “infomerical”-esque TV spots that have become de rigeur the last few years during Oscar bait season; You know, where instead of 30 seconds of clips from said movie, you get Brian Singer, or Eastwood, or Daldry, in talking-head blurbs telling you what attracted them to the project and what the movie’s all about.
I’m sure they’ve been around a lot longer, but I started noticing them around the time of “Mystic River” (where they seemed particularly aggressive), and I have to wonder if they’re really effective with the mass audience viewers, who tend to look with some cynicism at wealthy, famous filmmakers talking up why they’re so great.
Actually, I’m genuinely curious: Do they show those nationally, or is that just a local LA thing during certain breaks aimed at Guild members? Hard to fathom that a mill worker in Gary, Indiana, comes home, flips on the tube, needs to hear Stephen Daldry explaining why Kate Winslet is so great.