The Hot Blog Archive for January, 2007
BAFTA Announces
The four presumed Oscar nominees – not Dreamgirls – get Picture, Director & Screenplay, as expected.
FILM
BABEL – Alejandro Gonz
Sadly…
We are in one of those periods where, as David Carr puts it, “the plot not only thickens, it morphs by the hour.”
Except that it doesn’t.
Lots of journalists want it to.
But, it doesn’t.
This is that time of year when Crash, The Pianist , and Munich are dead and Million Dollar Baby can’t possible beat The Aviator.
This is that time of year when people convince themselves that there is a real race between Felicity Huffman and Reese Witherspoon.
This is the time of year when they tell us that Mystic River has a chance to topple Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
Fernando Meirelles, Sophie Okonedo, Djimon Hounsou, Jim Broadbent in Iris
Looking For Meaning In The Guild World
It
22 Comments »Look To The Future On Berman
Many are enjoying the opportunity to dance on Gail Berman’s recently dug grave, citing the past as the reason for her exit. But the biggest problem with her tenure has not been her personality or her color coded production execs, but her basic lack of productivity… she wasn’t making movies.
It’s simple math. Paramount, Berman’s Paramount, has 5 movies on the schedule for 2007, including one 2006 holdover that continues to float on the schedule. DreamWorks has 7 films on the 2007 schedule.
Even Paramount Vantage has as many films – before any upcoming acquisitions – as Big Par.
And the current slate of films sure to be produced for 2008? Iron Man, controlled by Avi Arad. Indiana Jones, controlled by Steven Spielberg. An Italian Job sequel, a franchise on which she didn’t initiate the first film. The Spiderwick Chronicles is really the only “Gail Berman” movie.
Studios are and always have been like sharks… they need to keep moving because good and bad will always happen, but the promise of what is coming is what keeps studio heads alive.
Amy Pascal had a nightmare 2005. She switched marketing heads, got great openings from some horrible films, did great with her blockbuster titles, and all of a sudden she is the most secure (along with Rothman/Gianopulos) studio head in town with the studio’s best year ever and Spider-Man 3 on the way.
Ya gotta make frickin’ movies. You can be the devil walking and get away with it if you do. You can even make some super screw ups the turn the whole boat upside down and survive. Just keep thinkin’ about tomorrow…
Gail Berman died because regardless of all her other issues, she made ultimate mistake… she gave her bosses nothing to look forward to.
(And now, watch Stardust and Spiderwick be massive smash hits.)
The Meaning Left Out Of Children Of Men
There are a thousand little details from the film and from the book that can be used or not used, foreground or background. I don’t seek literalist filmmaking. But what I got from the book that I never got from the film is the power of people making choices about their lives. Whatever the circumstances of their lives, the film suggests a repeated sense of inescapable, inevitable forward motion and lack of personal responsibility in the choices of the characters, excepting Julian, (spoiler excised).
And maybe that is the core of my disappointment with the storytelling in the film. What I find compelling in films is people making choices and either taking or actively avoiding responsibility. And what this film seems quite happy to do is to allow outside forces to have a great deal more power than any human being. I don’t mind a film about the forces that push us around our personal chess boards. But there is a way of approaching the story that makes that the story and that is not how I see this film. I see it claiming the personal and disconnecting from it enough to create safety for the viewer, who also gets the benefit of all those pretty pictures.
Perhaps that should be enough. It is not for me. All the more after having read the book – the blueprint – and imagining what could have been with the same great actors and the same great director
The rest… spoiler laden…
Pre-Sundance
I’m not really ready to discuss Sundance much… but some of y’all seem to be chompin’ at the bit. So here is your own little corner in my own little room to say whatever you want to write…
21 Comments »It
I expect it from Jeff “Anything But The Blings & The Fags” Wells, but seeing a post on The Risky Blog just dropped my jaw. The headline is “DGA: Late Dates Killed ‘Pan’s,’ ‘Children’” and the idea is that since Jeff Wells got one e-mail from a director who is clearly in the Three Amigos camp and Sheigh Crabtree had two conversations with DGA members who agreed, we have reached the ultimate truth of 13,400 Academy members. This notion is even more stupid on its face than one old comic and Academy member saying he wouldn’t watch Brokeback Mountain being used as proof of rampant homophobia in the AMPAS.
I want to clearly and loudly say, “BULLSHIT.”
Every year, December releases are nominated by DGA (including this year). Every year, movies that some people loved but are not serious contenders for Best Picture at the Oscars get overlooked. Sitting here after the fact, spinning yarns about how our favorites
DGA Nominees
So what does this mean?
Nothin
The Amazing Mr. Weinstein: Factory Boy
I dragged myself out to see the
9 Comments »Bob's Sweet On Sweetland
A guy who has been a friend of roughcut and then a friend of MCN over the years in Park City – The Other Sundance Bob – has been shouting on the rooftops about the movie Sweetland for months. So in his honor, here is a link to the YouTubed trailer…
6 Comments »Can You Keep Your Pants On?
Here is the most overt mailing list grab I’ve ever seen attached to film. Send in your info and your name will appear in the credits of the Shortbus DVD.
Here’s the web page…
A Look At The Top Tens…
Only three films this year – United 93, The Queen, The Departed – got votes on more than half the Top Ten lists.
Only three films have an average vote – among films with at least 100 points – of over 7 points or an average vote between 3 and 4. They are Army of Shadows (7.722), The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (7.189), Three Times (7.05).
Seven of the Top Eleven average over 6 points per vote, led by United 93’s 6.649 average, then Dreamgirls’ 6.422, The Departed’s 6.328, Letters From Iwo Jima’s 6.275, Pan Lanyrinth’s 6.258, Children of Men’s 6.134, and Babel’s 6.056.
The low average title of the films with 100 points was Brick, with 3.147 points from each of its 34 votes.
The top documentary was An Inconvenient Truth, though the film had a surprisingly narrow lead of just 3 votes and 6.5 points over Deliver Us From Evil. The next two docs are well off the pace – Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, Neil Young: Heart of Gold – but at least they got more than 10 votes each. After that it thinned out a lot, as When The Levees Broke, followed by Iraq In Fragments, Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing, 49 Up, and Heart of the Game hit the charts with fewer than 10 of 250 votes apiece.
The top 10 foreign language films are Pan’s Labyrinth, Letters From Iwo Jima, Volver, Army of Shadows, Death of Mr. Lazarescu, L’Enfant, Three Times, Apocalypto, Climates, and Battle in Heaven. All of them got at least 10 votes. So much for the ascension of the doc.
The English-language True Indies couldn’t crack the Top Ten, though ThinkFilm’s Half Nelson is in at #12. The next is First Look’s The Proposition at #20. Remarkably, David Lynch’s self-distributed Inland Empire is at #21. Kino International’s Old Joy is at #22.
The Rest…
My Favorite Thing In A While
Thanks to Shawn Levy for turning me on to it…
Children Of Men Goes Viral (Heh Heh)
A grasroots campaign for Children of Men for Oscar is being pushed at Something Awful. com.
Someone got to the guy who posted this and explained that Oscar ballots don’t go out next week, but come in next week. My guess is that his enthusiam for an Oscar push has waned as a result. However, his love of the film has not. And who can argue with true movie love?
I still feel strongly that Universal has taken a bad beat on the accusations that they are burying a film that could easily sell. But still, a good video to watch… it claims there are spoilers, so be careful. I don’t recall there being anything that has not been shown in ads and TV clips.
Thanks to Our Miss Crabtree at RiskyBlog for the info…
Weekend Estimates by Klady
Last year at this time, Hostel opened to $19.6 million and the first four holdovers were off 39.1%, 49%, 27.9% (adding screens), and 41.8%. So this year
19 Comments »