Weekend Estimates by Klady – September 20
Cloudy With A Side Of Meatballs is a next step for Sony’s animation division. Their fourth animated film of the current era (since 2003), this is the best opening by more than 20% and looks to be the first $100 million domestic grosser as Sony keeps pushing to join the big leagues of the animation producer/distributors. It is – with little competition – the biggest September opening for an animated film.
About 2/3 of the opening was in Real D or IMAX, which represents around $7 million in extra dollars because of 3D premium pricing…. which is almost exactly the difference between what Sony opened Open Season to vs Cloudy. Hmmm…
So the the good news for Sony is that the number is up substantially. The bad news is that they aren’t expanding their audience for animation much, if at all. Their movies are well liked, but somehow, they are not finding the broader appeal that Disney/Pixar and DreamWorks have mastered and which Fox has found in the Ice Age series and even oddballs like Simpsons. It has to be a little frustrating on a corporate level.
The Informant!‘s opening number is also a bit of a mixed bag. The number is pretty good – especially given the low cost of the film – but not breathtaking. The movie is an oddball, easily one of the year’s best comedies, but not in a conventional way. It reminds me a bit of Syriana, which also had a well-known star in an unusual role. Warners did a couple of word-of-mouth exclusive weeks (5 and 9 screens) which led to an $11.7m wide break. They probably should have tried that here too. It might have added a few million to opening weekend. But Syriana’s $51m domestic total seems like a total that Informant would be satisfied with. Damon and Scott Burns are still right in the Oscar nomination hammock, but $35m – $40m is probably where this one is headed.
Jennifer’s Body coming in behind the Universal dumper, Love Happens, is a bit of a shock. The big misstep here probably started with handing the Fox Atomic movie to Big Fox and not forcing it on Searchlight, where they would have worked it longer and harder. Bottom line, an Amanda Seyfried movie that no one knows Amanda Seyfried is in because the media is all Paris Hilton on Megan Fox – something she honestly seems to be trying to avoid – is a movie that is going to get you Paris Hilton results (and really, $12 million for the May release of House of Wax is about the same, in spirit, as $6.7m in September.)
I think the movie is a mess, in spite of good performances by almost everyone, including Ms Fox, who shows actual promise as an actual actress. Still, that doesn’t mean that it should have been able to be sold to the unknowing masses. They buy shite all the time.
The answer, I think, might have been a much more sophisticated publicity effort with Fox herself. Yes, she can be a challenge to the studio. But the reinvention of her brand, as opposed to “you might see her b-cups, horny boys!” is what she is clearly after and might have helped the movie. It seems to me that the audience they missed – and was key to this film’s success – was teen girls. They ID with Seyfried more than Fox and if the film was publicized as a horror film made by women, starring women, for women – the old Screen Gems stalking horse – they may well have doubled this number. Watch Fox Searchlight pull that together for Whip It, which also has the advantage of being a much better movie. But look for a lot of Drew Flower Power – including a wide range of female voices and types in the cast – to make the film the biggest hit with grrrrrrls since, well, Juno.
ADD, 11:18a – TWC just sent along the news that based on this weekend’s estimates, Inglorious Basterds just passed Pulp Fiction as Tarantino’s top domestic grosser.
Ironic that Matt Damon is opening a Soderbergh movie on the same weekend that Brad Pitt leads the way for QT’s biggest movie ever. Hmmm… I wonder what studio would like to have a Brad Pitt movie for next March that won’t be making them MONEY because they took their eye off the BALL… hmmm…
Good to see Mayweather V. Marquez made some decent coin. I would have preferred if they did the Belfort/Franklin as well, I think we’ll be seeing a lot of Vitor in the future, great fighter.
I see “The Informant!” maxing out at $25 million. Long legs with a mature audience is countered by what is going to by absolutely putrid word of mouth. I liked the film–didn’t love it–but the crowd of like 8 I went with all hated it. And the bad vibe coming out of the theatre wasn’t good. People just don’t get it. And I’m not sure I should have either.
What happened to BRIGHT STAR?
Buzz off of festivals, solid reviews, Awards Cinematography, Cornish, etc. possible (I know its very period and materials are not great)
Could they have killed it opening weekend?
Challenging expansions/holds when you wind up with an $10k screen average. Why 19 screens in week 1? NY, LA and TOR only coming off TIFF might have been more than enough. Why would you open 6 screens in LA? Pasadena and Irvine? Should have been exclusive, or maybe 2 runs in LA (Arclight & Landmark). Opening week should have been tighter because of the nature of the film, the amount of films out there, and their lack of marketing support.
Really 120 screens in week 2? Will be challenging after a $10k screen average opening on 19 screens. Not the traditional indie art house release plan and marketing support. Long time to go before any award discussion/recognition can help them. I fear first film out of the gate for Berney will be DOA from a box office perspective before it has a chance to gain momentum. Terrence Malick, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn cant come soon enough. Maybe company will have figured it out by then.
Having said that, you would still want to see $20k screen average for this opening to be
David: thought this was Sony’s third CG animated movie (after Open Season and Surfs Up)… am I missing one?
Monster House, Mr. F.
Ah — Monster House wasn’t actually a Sony Animation release… though Imageworks did the CG work. (It was motion-capture.)
Though it looks like Animation did Open Season 2 direct to video… which I had never heard of until just now.
(I should have said that Monster House is in the same category as Polar Express and Beowulf were: Robert Zemeckis motion-capture projects that Imageworks did the CG for, but Sony Animation had nothing to do with)
An “Amanda Seyfried movie”? Really? Wo is that, and what kind of cache does that name have? Does the target audience of this film care that Seyfried is even in this movie?
I’d really love to know how many people here — even frequent readers — had to go look up Amanda Seyfried on IMDB.com to remind themselves (or even find out for the first time) who she is.
Joe: she’s one of the best things about the series “Big Love.” (Whose audience is probably diametrically opposed to that of JENNIFER’S BODY.)
She does great work on it.
But, again, I wonder how many people here didn’t know that until you told them. Seriously.
I don’t know who Amanda is but isn’t Megan Fox the lead of this film anyway? All the press and clips I’ve seen from the film is of Megan. Megan plays the title character, no?
In theory…but apparently Seyfried has much more dialogue and screen time. Same thing with “Love Happens” apparently…Eckhart is the lead and Aniston is more secondary…
BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY = BOO-YAH.
CANNOT WAIT. TROY DUFFY = GOD.
I would like to see a double feature of Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
if you have to run to IMDB to find out every little thing, isn’t that cheating?
Joe: not only do I know who Amanda Seyfried is, but I also remember her from Veronica Mars. Ironically enough, someone else from VM stars in Jennifer’s Body as well. So, Joe, got to take it up a level.
Has anyone seen Joel Schumacher’s LG horror flick (“Blood Creek”) that got unceremoniously dumped into a handful of bargain houses this weekend? It’s the same ignominious “cheap seat” fate that befell another LG horror flick (“Midnight Meat Train”) last summer.
I can’t believe I never heard of “BC” before this, especially since Schumacher has directed a number of movies that I really, really like (“Tigerland,” “Phone Booth,” etc.)
Michael Fassbender from “Basterds” and “Hunger” is one of the few recognizable names in the cast.
Yeah, Seyfried is definitely the actual lead in Jennifer’s Body: the movie is primarily from her POV. Even when we leave her character, we’re rarely following Jennifer, but rather her victims.
Seyfried is terrific — she was the dumbest of the mean-girl trinity in Mean Girls, and, yes, Lily Kane from Veronica Mars. Her being in the abysmal but apparently beloved Mamma Mia is what led me to think Jennifer’s Body could break out, a much smaller scale version of the way that Reese Witherspoon turned up in several mainstream movies before really busting through with Sweet Home Alabama. I guess maybe her Mean Girls costar McAdams is a better comparison, actually (funny that they both played sixteen-to-seventeen year-olds in that movie; five years later, McAdams plays late-twenties parts all year, and Seyfried is still pretty much playing the age she did in Mean Girls and on Veronica).
But she’s barely highlighted in the JB advertising; Megan Fox may be on more magazine covers, but it’s possible that Mamma Mias $145 mil got Seyfried far stronger goodwill from certain segments of the audience than the $700 mil combined of the Transformers movies. So, yeah, Joe, people might not know who Seyfried is, but it was sort of the marketers’ job in this place to let them know, hey, this is that cute chick from that movie you liked last year!
Oh wait, that would be name-checking, and cause audiences to stay away in droves, because there’s nothing audiences hate more than movies they like.
Jesse, you really think that the people that went to see Mamma Mia would have any interest in Jennifer’s Body?
No, Jesse, what’s driving people away from “Jennifer’s Body” is the Academy Awards reference. “Smackdown” and “Monday Night Raw” are more honest than the Oscar show.
The teen girls who enjoy a good horror romp are likely many of the same who went with their mothers or female friends to see Mama Mia last year. Amanda Seyfried has a following, if only in the “oh, I remember her from and really liked her in…” vein. I’m personally a fan, have been since Mean Girls. Point being, as a marketer, you use every weapon in your disposal, and Fox in my opinion ignored a pretty potent one. And Chucky, I think the Oscar reference was intended for comedic effect. It’d be the same if the poster for Indiana Jones 4 had ‘from the Academy Award-winning director of Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan’. It’s true, but it would also be pretty funny. Frankly, it was my favorite part of the overcrowded poster.
I skipped “Jennifer’s Body” in Toronto since it was opening before I got home. Finally caught up with it today and was very pleasantly surprised.
Seyfried is fantastic (she’s great in “Chloe,” too), and the movie itself is a lot of fun–a nice comeback for Kusama after the virtually unwatchable “Aeon Flux.” Along with “Drag Me to Hell,” it’s easily the best horror flick I’ve seen this year. And J.K. Simmons is a hoot as the unctuous high school teacher.
While it’s hardly in the same league, “JB”–during its best moments anyway–reminded me why I love “An American Werewolf in London.”
There were only three other people at my 4:10 matinee. Very sad.
“No, Jesse, what’s driving people away from “Jennifer’s Body” is the Academy Awards reference. “Smackdown” and “Monday Night Raw” are more honest than the Oscar show.”
chucky, were you a shaken baby?
The thing about Seyfried… yes… she is not a big star at this point… but they did make a movie with her in the lead and they are making more of them.
Studios are in the business of MAKING stars, not sitting around and waiting for them to happen. This incarnation of Megan Fox is what you get when you do that. And it’s not her fault at all.
Seyfried is an odd bird too. Second banana goddess, really. So maybe she can’t become Julia Roberts either.
They sold JB based on what they felt they had. But as I said at the top, they missed the core market. Girls will go to movies based on premise. Mila Jovavich opens Resident Evil only. Kate Beckinsale opens Underworld only. Does anyone know who starred in The Exorcism of Emily Rose… and did you notice that they completely discarded the name actors they had in the advertising?
The Amanda Seyfried Movie was not the obvious choice, but it would have been the way to hit a wider audience… especially since “boys going to movies starring women whose boobs they want to see” is not really working anymore. We get too much on the web. Lindsay Lohan stripping did no business. Jessica Biel stripping went straight to DVD.
Jennifer’s Body was a girl movie sold as a boy movie, losing both audiences at once.
movieman… ginger snaps… seriously… that film is almost worthy of a An American Werewolf in London comparison… much, much, much better than JB.
Well, at least Diablo Cody can take comfort in the fact that Toni Collette won the Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy for The United States of Tara.
Just to be clear: Yes, I know who Amanda Seyfried is. But, again, I wonder how many other folks do. Even folks who are regular visitors here.
“Does anyone know who starred in The Exorcism of Emily Rose”
Jennifer Carpenter. Who went on to star in Quarantine.
Point taken, but let it be known I did not have to go to imdb to check.
carpenter, linney, wilkenson. i think i may be the single fan of ’emily rose’ (imdb is for chickenshits)
I thought Laura Linney starred in Exorcism of Emily Rose.
carpenter is also on ‘dexter’ (at least the series playing here at the mo, goodness knows it might be old)
I knew who was in the movie too… not the point.
Emily Rose opened to $30 million.
The sold a courtroom drama with some horror moments as the second coming of The Exorcist for girls.
P.S. US of Tara is unwatchable.
What’s IMDB?
But speaking of “Mean Girls,” what happened to Lacey Chabert?
David: Well, obviously, Emmy voters don’t agree with you. I guess Toni Collette should be grateful you can’t cast an Emmy ballot. She’ll be in trouble once some cable network starts running your interviews.
Hey! No more Emmy spoilers! It’s only 6:45 out here on the Left Coast.
I barely remember “Ginger Snaps,” Dave. I vaguely recall thinking that it was OK at the time (didn’t they make a straight-to-dvd sequel?)
Hell, I could forget all about “Jennifer’s Body” in a couple of years, too. But its blend of snarky dialogue, gallows humor and gruesomeness felt very “AWIL” to me. And the love story between Seyfried and that dude who plays Chip was far more touching and emotionally credible than it needed to be (vis-a-vis the Naughton-Agutter romance in “Werewolf”). And because I believed in them, Seyfried’s revenge had true emotional resonance.
Hey, Leah: can I join your “Emily Rose” fanclub? I’ve always considered “ER” to be an egregiously underrated movie, if just for Linney and Carpenter’s exceptional performances. I also remember being impressed by the fact that it was one of the few studio films in recent history that treats religious faith seriously.
Ethan-
Lacey Chabert was the bride in this spring’s “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.”
Lacey Chambert works enough to pay the bills, but that’s about it (she had a large supporting role in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which I happened to watch last night). She also does and has done a lot of voice over. She’s Gwen Stacey the surprisingly terrific Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon that’s been around for two seasons.
hell yeah, movieman, another fan of ‘exorcism of emily rose’!
that’s a good point about the very serious approach to religion and faith the film takes; the tone is never mocking or dismissive of the religious elements or supernatural overtones in either the ‘real life’ segments or the courtroom drama, which i think serves to make the film as effective as it is. the concept of exorcism is approached almost scientifically in the courtroom ‘re-enactments’, which i found quite fascinating)
scott, is that spider-man cartoon you mentioned the one in which neil patrick harris does the voice work for peter parker/spidey? my son loves those, they really are quite wonderful
I’m waiting for Lex to make a Party of 5 (as in 5 fingers) reference to Lacey Chabert…
Nope, Leanz. That one (called I think just ‘Spider-Man’) aired for one year on MTV in 2002. The new one (it premiered on the CW and went to Disney XD for its second-year) is even better. Very character-driven.
Amanda Seyfried was also memorable in ALPHA DOG, one of the most awesome movies of the decade.
Lacey Chabert gives me a Party of Five in my pants.
Jennifer’s Body = FOUR-STAR MASTERPIECE. SEE IT.
That demands a rebuttal:
Jennifer’s Body = 2-star mixed bag. Good in individual moments, otherwise an incoherent mess (one of my friends that I saw it with suggested it was something rammed into production during the writers’ strike but desperately needed another draft or five).
“Incoherent”???? In what way? I defy you to list three things that made no logical sense within the world the film created. Really, a guy who spent half the summer jizzing over “Drag Me To Hell” like it was THE BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR has problems with THIS narrative? IT’S THE SAME TYPE OF MOVIE, only one has a wink-wink fanboy-fave director for whom you’d likely excuse away just about any quirk, indulgence, cutesiness, or lack of cohesion. (I liked that movie a lot too… just saying I have NO IDEA how you could like that but not Jennifer’s Body.)
Anyone who disses this flick SIMPLY LACKS THE WILL TO BE ENTERTAINED.
(spoilers)
1. Why was there that fire in the bar? After escaping from it, Needy and Jennifer run into the band again, with no reference made by anybody to the carnage that they all just escaped from. They could have just as easily hung out in the bar, gotten drunk, and then bumped into the band on their way out (which would have made more sense in terms of justifying…
2. Why did Jennifer go off with the band guys into their rape van? In the movie the best guess is that Jennifer has suffered some kind of bump on the head that we never actually see. Her motivations are completely unclear.
3. What happened at the end with the broken ‘BFF’ necklace? How/why did that have the effect it did (briefly taking away Jennifer’s strength and flight abilities?) I can see that this was going for a thematic link, but within the world of the movie it just sort of happened unconnected to anything that made sense.
4. At one point Jennifer says ‘I’m dating a cop’ or something like that, referring to the guy she talked to at the bar…who died in the fire, like 45 minutes earlier in the movie.
5. Needy is awfully forgiving of and blind to Jennifer’s various slaughters. This makes sense given their unhealthy relationship, but the movie does a poor job of connecting the dots and building this into a relationship and characters that make any sense.
6. Why put J.K. Simmons in the movie and then give him hardly anything to do except play with his wacky fake hand?
7. Why set up an interesting location (the waterfall that goes into the whirlpool) and then never pay it off? When I first saw that place, I said to myself, ‘okay, that’s where the climax of the movie’s going to happen’. And then…it was just an image floating in the movie unconnected to anything else.
You’re right, DMTH and J’sB are similar movies. But one is made by somebody who knows how to make a movie, and one was made by semi-competents.
Oh, here’s another one:
8. If I’m a girl in a rape van, and trying to think of ways to avoid being raped, telling the potential rapists “I’m a huge virgin” does NOT make sense. Telling them “I’m a huge slut and I probably have chlamydia” makes sense.
That is weird about Joel Schumacher’s movie. Never heard of it. In a way it’s too bad…beyond the Batman movies I tend to like his movies. And the irony is, if he had directed the Batman movies at all like he directs his others and not gone for shitty camp, then they may have been good too.
1. It’s called being HORNY. Fox Power is so vagged up for Brody her unleashed hormonal hotness causes the place to catch fire. The film plays off of female anxieties and traditional gender roles and the repressed longings of young women, and within the supernatural realm of the movie, it’s fair to think that Fox has such a wetty that it transfers to the real, sort of like Carrie White’s powers, and causes the fire that sets the movie in place.
2. See #1.
3. This is so obvious, the only way you could not understand it is to have never spoken to a woman, like, ever, or to not understand them at all. GRRL POWER. BOW.
4. Caught that too, didn’t care, Jennifer is so spaced out it’s likely it didn’t register with her at all.
5. See #3.
6. He ruled. Certainly better used here than in EXTRACT, and the audience I saw it with laughed at his every moment.
7. DID YOU PAY ATTENTION AT ALL? The waterfall pays off big-time, Brody chucks something down there that Seyfried finds and sets off the AWESOME FINAL CREDIT SEQUENCE.
8. You’re more perverted than me to even wonder that.
9. THEY USE “VIOLET” BY HOLE, WHICH IS AN AWESOME FUCKING SONG and that alone makes this the top 3 movie of 2009.
KASUMA POWER. BOW TO THE FEMALE DIRECTOR.
I also will point out that time will be VERY KIND to Jennifer’s Body… Read the tweets up in the right corner of Poland’s page here. The crowds love it… those who see it are liking it. It’s unfortunate a bunch of sexist assholes and sheepish public are too anti-Diablo and anti-Fox to give the movie a fair shake. I’ll give McDouche props, even if he’s wrong about the movie, for at least going to see it instead of writing it off like a smug asshole and going to see some stupid fucking kids’ movie cartoon.
Again, TIME WILL BE KIND. “Carrie” is considered one of DePalma’s masterpieces, and this is in the same ballpark. And if “Heathers,” of all campy motherfucking tee-hee snark bullshit, can be considered some kind of “classic” twenty years on, then “Jennifer’s Body” could become an immortal classic.
For the record, very big Schumacher fan here also — EXTREMELY underrated director whose colorful and interesting career has unfortunately been overshadowed by the fanboy hate for his two admittedly awful Batman movies.
Since many of us are in L.A, just in case anyone cares, it appears his BLOOD CREEK is playing at a theater in Norwalk. I have NO idea what or where Norwalk is, and know nothing about the movie, but the dude made D.C. Cab, Shrinking Woman, St. Elmo, Lost Boys, Tigerland, 8MM, Phone Booth, Flatliners, Phantom and Falling Down, so he deserves some props. If I can figure out what or where Norwalk is or if my car will make it there, I figure I owe the guy a curiosity view out of respect.
“P.S. US of Tara is unwatchable.”
Disappointing to hear you say that Dave. Any reasons as to why? Personally, I’m loving the show. The performances are standouts and there is some really great writing going on there.
hmm, lex, pity all your ‘girl-power’…
(and btw, your ‘see #1’ reply to jeff’s point #2 is pure creepy male gang-bang fantasy, no normal horny high-school girl really wants to fuck a succession of strange men in a van, and don’t tell me they do because i’ve been a girl my whole life and i know girls, and don’t tell me ‘but cody is a chick and she wrote it’, because chicks pander to the patriarchy on a regular basis and diablo is no diff)
…in which you are suddenly ‘in the know’ about and supportive of womanhood is cancelled out by this:
“I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL looks funny as FUCK. Watched that trailer six times and each time was ROLLING.
Finally some shit that gets it RIGHT.
TUCKER MAX = AWESOME.”
can’t have yer cake and eat it too, mate
crap, meant to say me a schumacher fan as well, he’s got moxie. always have time for the schu
SCHUMACHER POWER.
Leah, you’d have to see the movie, but Fox’s vag literally starts an inferno. It happens.
i have seen it (i was referring specifically to jeff’s ‘why does jen get into the van?’ point and your response ‘because she’s horny’ as the reason, nothing to do with the fire)
Sorry Lex, none of your points add up.
1. The fire starts because she’s horny? So she has some kind of Firestarter-esque pyrokinetic ability, on top of the later demonic possession, that is never explained and never returned to later in the movie? That’s a stupid explanation. The fire starts because of a shockingly bad screenwriterly coincidence. I can imagine ways a better filmmaker would have taken this concept and made it work. Kusama is not that filmmaker.
2. No, she’s obviously unhappy and distressed (at the fire?) and for reasons unknown to me her distress at the fire makes her think that she should go off with a bunch of strange guys? I’m sure it made sense to somebody sometime but it doesn’t make sense when you’re actually watching the movie.
3. The concept might have made sense on the page. It doesn’t make sense in execution.
4. No, that just read as a flat-out mistake.
5. You forgive it, I see bad filmmaking and weak characters. No further argument possible.
6. It was a waste of his time. Granted, he did as much as he did in Extract, which was also a waste of his time, albeit less gimmicked-up, which means Mike Judge wins because anybody can make a fake hand funny.
7. Yeah, I saw that. It was lame and anticlimactic. When a movie has a bottomless pit, I expect a character to go into it, not a mere prop. A better movie would have had a better payoff – like, for example, why didn’t Jennifer want to go after Adam Brody and co. herself? That would have been a nice bit of female empowerment, but nope.
8 & 9 et al. You’re an idiot.
Carrie is a great movie. Heathers is a pretty good movie. Jennifer’s Body is a movie that’s a few script drafts and a better director away from being in their league.
Just to be totally fair, there were a lot of scattered moments in the movie that I did really like – the whole death of the goth guy, and his performance; the dialogue exchange “I’m not even a backdoor virgin, I had to stay home and sit on some frozen peas” or however that went; the genuinely tender relationship between Needy and her boyfriend.
But basically, I can’t remember the last time I liked a movie that used the ‘let’s start the movie at the end and explain how things got that way’ screenwriting strategy. It’s almost always awful.
BACKDOOR VIRGIN LINE = FUCK YES. Hot as HELL, I’ve been thinking of it for two days. DIABLO CODY writes like a chick version of LexG. THERE IS NO DENYING she is cool and knows what the public likes. Even when I read her EW dronings, it’s like the closest thing to LexG in all of pop culture. Anybody who follows the LexMan knows that I could’ve written like 3/4 of this movie.
Also, Jeff, I appreciate your trying to make some points and all, but at the end of the day, what you suffer from is called USCitis. I have lived in LA for nearly fifteen years, and almost to a person, everyone I’ve ever met, ever, who’s passed through the “hallowed halls” of your alma mater is always so permanently snide, unimpressed, detached, holier-than-thou, “I could do better,” never enjoying fucking ANYTHING made after 1988, always talking up THE GOONIES or Star Wars or Raiders or some early Zemeckis/Spielberg/Lucas shit, completely indifferent to ANY change in cinema, any directorial indulgence, any element of “personal” filmmaking that doesn’t have the popcorn-munching masses in mind.
What the FUCK do they teach at USC? Some Clockwork Orange-style Ludivico NOTHING IS BETTER THAN 1986 cheery AUDIENCE PLEASING shit? Every USC grad EVER is all into blanding shit down FOR THE MASSES and NEVER LIKES ANYTHING EVER. (Yeah, I realize LOU Y. CADDYSHACK is an exception, but he seems like he got more out of acting classes than film directing/writing shit.) Like, WHY DOES EVERY ASSHOLE IN L.A. have to be so PERMANENTLY FUCKING SNIDE about EVERYTHING, EVER?
On the East Coast, in NYC, Boston, Philly, Pittsburgh, you name it, people LOVE MOVIES and LOVE COOL SHIT and have INTENSITY and ANGER and GUILT and SEXUAL LONGINGS and like movies about that kind of thing. Everyone in L.A. either wants to be some BAD SCI-FI WRITER, or they want to be the next fucking Altman, all snide and whitebread and smug and ABOVE IT ALL.
Can’t anyone just be HONEST with themselves? Like, I would LOVE to read a Jeff McDouche screenplay, and see if he’s willing to bare ANY of his longings, lusts, obsessions, intensities. I bet it’s ALL IMPERSONAL and mass-marketed, just like every USC motherfucker ever.
Jennifer’s Body is the work of people wearing their heart on their sleeve, not people being smug HATERS, which is what everyone in L.A. is.
To quote CAMERON DIAZ in ANY GIVEN SUNDAY:
NO INTENSITY.
Lex, considering that, of all the people that I attended classes with at USC, I was pretty much the only one who had any appreciation for DePalma or Fulci or Sam Fuller, and am very consistent in my disdain for mass-marketing, you’re pretty much as off-base as you could possibly be. And I’m sure you know that.
As a rejoinder, Lex, one of the problems I have with you is that you are INCREDIBLY touchy when anyone dares to criticize anything that you take as your pleasures. You’re the most self-centered person on earth, and everything you’re not into is TERRIBLE and unmanly and to be avoided, and everything you like is THE BEST EVER and above all criticism. Get some goddamn perspective.
Let me try to answer these issues…
“1. Why was there that fire in the bar? After escaping from it, Needy and Jennifer run into the band again, with no reference made by anybody to the carnage that they all just escaped from. They could have just as easily hung out in the bar, gotten drunk, and then bumped into the band on their way out (which would have made more sense in terms of justifying…”
The band (and SATAN!) started the fucking fire. Part of their Satanic pact involved becoming famous, and the fire and their subsequent song for the tragedy enabled them to do just that. It also continued the whole 9-11 tragedy mockery subtext they had going, starting with the 9-11 shot glasses.
“2. Why did Jennifer go off with the band guys into their rape van? In the movie the best guess is that Jennifer has suffered some kind of bump on the head that we never actually see. Her motivations are completely unclear.”
Her WHOLE REASON for going to that show was to fuck the lead singer, because she thought he was cute on Myspace. This was covered.
“3. What happened at the end with the broken ‘BFF’ necklace? How/why did that have the effect it did (briefly taking away Jennifer’s strength and flight abilities?) I can see that this was going for a thematic link, but within the world of the movie it just sort of happened unconnected to anything that made sense.”
Yeah, can’t defend this one much. Just made for an image. Their psychic link is never explained either.
“4. At one point Jennifer says ‘I’m dating a cop’ or something like that, referring to the guy she talked to at the bar…who died in the fire, like 45 minutes earlier in the movie.”
Firstly, she’s clearly dating more than one guy. Second, she’s possessed by a demon that doesn’t necessarily know everything she knows.
“5. Needy is awfully forgiving of and blind to Jennifer’s various slaughters. This makes sense given their unhealthy relationship, but the movie does a poor job of connecting the dots and building this into a relationship and characters that make any sense.”
Um, okay. It makes sense but it doesn’t. I’ll leave this one.
“6. Why put J.K. Simmons in the movie and then give him hardly anything to do except play with his wacky fake hand?”
Probably as a favor, and maybe he only had one day free? Same reason the Asian girl who was the abortion protester in Juno got a small role.
“7. Why set up an interesting location (the waterfall that goes into the whirlpool) and then never pay it off? When I first saw that place, I said to myself, ‘okay, that’s where the climax of the movie’s going to happen’. And then…it was just an image floating in the movie unconnected to anything else.”
Why not? You admit that it just fucked with your expectation. And as Lex pointed out, it did pay off in a more minor, less expected way.
“8. If I’m a girl in a rape van, and trying to think of ways to avoid being raped, telling the potential rapists “I’m a huge virgin” does NOT make sense. Telling them “I’m a huge slut and I probably have chlamydia” makes sense.”
Arguably. But not a deal-breaker. Certainly if you go on enough blind dates in this town, you’ll find that inexperience is rarely a turn-on for the other person.
LYT:
1. So Satan was onboard with them and helping them out even before they performed their virgin sacrifice to him? I guess he can do that, but it makes things a little confusing.
2. There’s obvious discomfort and confusion on her face when she’s getting into the van. Come on people, this is stuff that’s actually on-screen.
4. This sounds like a rationalization.
6. I missed that it was the same Asian girl. Well done.
7. There are two ways to misdirect an expectation: the way that makes it clear the filmmakers knew what they were doing all along, and the way that looks like a disorganized mess. I vote for the latter here.
8. Rapists aren’t looking for sex partners with a lively sense of give and take.
Oh, and to clarify, my question for #1 isn’t ‘how does the fire get started’ as much as ‘why is there a fire in this movie at all’? Simplify the structure by abandoning the fire and the accompanying satire on small-town grief and you have a movie that makes more sense character-wise and gains focus theme-wise.
Fuck all this semantic BULLSHIT.
I’ll give you the reason why EVERYTHING happens in this movie:
1) Because MEGAN FOX IS HOT and AMANDA SEYFRIED RULES and DIABLO CODY IS AWESOME and IT LOOKS AND SOUNDS COOL and IT ALL GIVES LEXG A GIANT FUCKING BONER, so FOUR FUCKING STARS, no argument.
2) HOLE “VIOLET” is one of the BEST SONGS EVER WRITTEN and if MCDOUCHE wasn’t HEADBANGING and TACKLING MOTHERFUCKERS in a front-row Arclight mosh pit, he wasn’t getting the GRRL POWER FEMINIST AWESOMENESS OF THIS MOVIE AT ALL.
LEXG: THE WORLD’S GREATEST FEMINIST. I should teach WOMEN’S STUDIES AT USC and be AWESOME.
CODY POWER. BOW TO HER.
“I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL looks funny as FUCK. Watched that trailer six times and each time was ROLLING.
Finally some shit that gets it RIGHT.
TUCKER MAX = AWESOME.”
make sure you put that ‘essential truth’ on your application for ‘women’s studies professor’, lex
“Her WHOLE REASON for going to that show was to fuck the lead singer, because she thought he was cute on Myspace. This was covered.”
LYT, that’s true, and that explains why jen goes and why she might get into a van with HIM — but having her get into a van after a disaster by herself with a pack of dodgy-looking strangers IS silly and poorly conceived and could have been handled so much less laughably; too many of those eye-rolling moments in one movie and you’re in trouble
Let me take a shot at Jeff’s questions, even though Lex and LYT both answered some of them satisfactorily. Although, yikes, Lex, I cringe a little at backing you up when you talk about how awesome Tucker Max is. That trailer is not funny at all. It’s not even Hangover funny, which was about 80% less funny than most of the world seems to think.
1. On a screenwriting/thematic level, the fire in the bar seemed to be there for a number of reasons. One, to disorient the characters and make their separation easier. For those purposes, I agree, you could’ve just had Jennifer ditch Needy and go off on her own, but then the movie does use the fire for a number of reasons: to give both girls (or rather, Needy and Demon Jennifer) a traumatic event to respond to very differently; to give the Killers-ish indie band a catalyst for their fame, and a funny exploitative counterpoint to the genuine trauma Needy and Jennifer go through;
2. I’m to understand that she’s supposed to be sort of dazed in the wake of the fire, and sort of reverts to something she knows (or thinks she knows) she wants, to hang out with the guys in the band.
3. I didn’t notice the BFF having a direct physical effect
I’m certain a savvy modern feminist like Diablo Cody only has contempt for folks like Tom Leykis and Tucker Max, which would put her far from your fan base Lex. But don’t stop believin’…
Thanks, Jesse, for your follow-up, and a lot of your points are well-taken.
The thing of it was for me that ultimately there were too many moments that didn’t quite ring true that ultimately I was thrown out of the movie. A few things like that I can forgive, but ultimately the accumulation overpowered the movie, for me.
Except for one thing – “gorgeous-looking”? Really? I saw it at the Arclight and thought it was pretty run-of-the-mill in its cinematography.