The Hot Blog Archive for March, 2009

BYOBermuda

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The Daily Schizo

Reading today

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Why ANOTHER Attack On DreamWorks Animation?

ADD, 1:14p – Now Drudge has picked up this non-story based on a series of inaccurate suppositions. Un-f’ing-believable. Welcome to the media future that so many of us are thrilled to keep supporting… until it’s a pack of lies about our business.
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Once again, Nikki Finke is putting her ignorant self in the middle of DreamWorks Animation business.
Has she EVER known anything about how marketing and promotions work in this business… and has for decades?
First, she completely misstates the reality of a Monsters v Aliens Super Bowl promotion… that was underwritten by Sobe. Duh! You know how long marketers have piggybacked on new movies by paying for a lot of ads instead of paying cash for the public relationship? Longer than Nikki has been making shit up because someone with a grudge told her to.
Of course, Nikki has some guy named Rich Greenfield – yet another analyst who knows nothing about how this all works, but likes to guess and cast aspersions – who is making the stupid argument for her.
“Bank of America has apparently agreed to fund the incremental cost of a 3-D ticket.”
Apparently?
This is all a scheme to defraud the US government based on Jeff Katzenberg’s prior associations… APPARENTLY?
And then there is the idiotic notion that a bank promotion to increase the percentage of 3D ticket buys instead of just 2D – and where is the story about banks and other institutions subsidizing movie theaters by selling cut rate movie tickets for the last 20 years… uh… just because it’s not true shouldn’t stop it – is going to increase the box office for this massive wide release by some large amount. Besides this being a 100% shot in the dark, since this guy has no facts about how many promotional chits have gone out and can obviously have no idea how many will be used and/or in what context they will be used, he and Nikki continue to miss the real point because they don’t have a clue about how companies cross market and why.
This is Standard Operating Procedure.
Do they really think that BofA is paying DWA $3 or whatever the average difference is in tickets each time someone uses one of their chits?
And how legitimate is the company that guesses “Pali Research calculated that Dreamworks Animation is getting an average 3-D upcharge of $3.18 for Monsters vs. Aliens as opposed to the cost of an average 2-D ticket,” and sells it as a straight calculation… down to the penny?
Oy.
And this gem – “What’s incredible here is that DreamWorks Animation has been spending a fortune to market Monsters vs Aliens.”
Uh… hello… planet earth calling…
The problem that I have with this stuff is not that it is so incredibly misguided, but that some people take this stuff as news… including the first few commenters on Nikki’s gossip blog. And some poor idiot at the AP and Reuters will be forced to call up DreamWorks Animation and/or Paramount for answers to a non-question… and then, never do a story, because there is no story for a legit journalist here.
Gossip spreads. It doesn’t matter that it is false information, in some part because no one speaks to the lie because it is not actually a story. And thus, it becomes lore.
Enough already.

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Natasha Richardson Dies At 45

I don’t quite know where to put this one.
She could be a wonderful actress. Not always. Her career included some great and awarded moments, but she was, first and last, a working actress, not an acting legend.
Her family’s history matters… but does it really?
Her passing, coming as it has off of a minor fall on a bunny slope, has a randomness about it that is both shocking and so very not, in a world where people still die of starvation for the lack of a few dollars a month.
One cannot help but to feel terrible for those who were a part of her life, from the mother who gave her life to the children she gave life to, and to all of those whose life she touched in between.
I’m 45, I’ve hit my head less significantly than happens on any single play in an organized tackle football game, and now I am dead. On some level, it’s breathtaking. And yet, as we watch the media try to find a place for this… desperately unable to… pathetic in its fumblings… embarrassing the highest ranks of doctors who are willing to appear on TV while being unable to offer any real information when so little is available… the passing’s circumstances are so banal as to make one wonder what all the attendant fuss is about.
My experience of Ms. Richardson’s work started with Paul Schrader’s Patty Hearst, a film I see as greatly underrated, which also included breakthrough, career-tone-setting performances by Ving Rhames and Dana Delany. She was, in that work, profoundly vulnerable and sexy in a way that surprised me. Her stage work was discussed around the release of the film. But The Handmaid’s Tale, directed by the The Tin Drum’s Volker Schl

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A Quick Peek At A Remarkable Film

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SXSW Awards

The 2009 SXSW Film Festival Juries consisted of:
Narrative Feature Competition: Scott Foundas, Ted Hope, Kim Voynar; Documentary Feature Competition: Anne Thompson, Basil Tsiokos, Lois Vossen; Reel Shorts: Emma Gray Munthe, Dan Nuxoll, Caspar Sonnen; Experimental Shorts: Spencer Parsons, Luke Savisky, Sean Williams; Animated Shorts: Chris Eska, Steve Mack, Lars Nilsen; Music Videos: Stefan Arni, Siggi Kinski, Francis Preve, Adam Yauch; Texas High School Shorts: Bob Ray, Garret Savage, Bart Weiss.
For the 2009 SXSW Film Festival, 133 feature-length films were selected including 57 world premieres, selected 1,511 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,220 U.S. and 291 international feature-length films. The 2009 SXSW Film Festival Awards was hosted by Film in North Carolina. Film in North Carolina is a partnership between Creative Commerce Commission of Asheville NC, North Carolina Film Office and the Piedmont Triad Film Commission.
The 2009 SXSW Film Festival Award Winners:
Feature Jury Awards
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Winner

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BYOB – Almost Wednesday In The City

The city never sleeps… but I must…

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BYOB – Travel Tuesday

At the start of a long journey (26 days), I want to make sure the doors are locked, the electronics are off, that I have all the toys I need for the trip… and that things in here stay civil. It is on long trips like this when suddenly, one day, a bunch of e-mails start coming in, begging me to wrangle this commenter or that one.
Please… no drunk commenting… no boners… no bold and capped abuse.
I will not be truly unavailable for a few days… but I am hoping that all of you will set the tone the you would like to see as the tone for all, not to turn this blog space into your own personal soapbox.
Thanks… back in a few hours…

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BYOB – Monday

Civility.

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Another Shoe Drops

The Hollywood ReporterDirector Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” faded to second place with $13.5 million generated in 54 markets for an international total to date of $49.5 million. The adaptation of the comic-book series opened at No. 1 the previous weekend with a gross of $25.9 million.

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Ron Silver Passes

There are so many things to discuss about Ron Silver.
He was an extreme lefty who later went extreme right.
He have great performances that paved the road for higher profile performances in Schroeder’s Reversal of Fortune (Oscar for Jeremy Irons) and Mazursky’s Enemies: A Love Story (Oscar noms for both of the film’s actresses). He seemed like the only guy who could keep up with the screen stealing Jerry Lewis, who played his father on a 7th Ave arc of Wiseguy. For a while, he seemed like one of those guys who was in every movie.
He was a serious stage actor, with awards and nominations, and a commitment to that work… a man who knew how to use the tool of his voice, his energy, like few others who ever work the boards.
I have the pleasure of doing a long phone bit with him to talk movies on his radio show a year or two ago. I was all worked up, ready to battle his right wing ideas about media. But that wasn’t who interviewed me. It was a guy who loved the art… appreciated good work… wanted things to be good. He sounded a mess… and if you saw him in recent years, you know he looked like someone else utterly.
He really did spend his last 7 years in the showbiz desert after he swung to the right.
He will be missed.

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DP/30: SXSW – Spinterheads

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The Newcomer, Thomas Middleditch and The Veteran, Lea Thompson
The video interview after the jump…
Or download for your computer or portable device via the podcast here.

Read the full article »

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BYOB Sunday

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Weekend Estimates by Klady

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The stats on Watchmen are, simply, what they are. $43 million behind 300 after a second weekend, based on estimates. A smaller opening, but a 14% worse drop (54% vs 68%). $130 million domestic is, really, looking like a stretch at this point. Japan and Hong Kong are the only major international territories not yet open. Hard to be sure, but $150 million foreign seems possible. More seems a bit dubious, unless the reaction there is much stronger than it’s been here. It looks like my “ultimate” numbers from last week may turn out to have been too generous by as much as 10%.
And for the record, I didn’t like 300 any more than Watchmen… my position didn’t get dramatic, the push back from GeekLand did.
Race To Witch Mountain still looks like The Rock’s biggest star opening ever. (The Scorpion King was an extension of the Mummy franchise and Get Smart was a well-promoted, but supporting role.)
Slumdog Millionaire is now not only the #1 Oscar nominee from this last season, but is now chasing down the tough guys… Paul Blart and Clint Eastwood. In fact, if the DVD doesn’t kill it, Slummy has a real shot at becoming the #1 box office film to go wide later than November of last year. (Teen Vamp, Bond, and Mad2 are tops from November and since.)
This should remind us, again, of those Oscar Bump stories of six weeks or so ago… the winner got the bump… but even more so, the movie that asked for the bump got the bump. It’s not mythology. It’s math.
Have I mentioned Miss March? Has anyone?

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Friday Estimates by Klady

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So… Watchmen‘s 78% drop is exaggerated by the Thursday midnight screenings… I would guess that the number will come down to the mid-high-60s by the end of the 3-day, which is not thrilling, but isn’t horrible for a big opening either. “Nuff said,
Disney has to be very happy that The Witch Is Back. They have been cultivating a spring slot over the years and this number almost doubles the start of College Road Trip last year, is about 50% above The Shaggy Dog of three years ago, and is even an improvement on The Bridge to Terabithia. It’s even a better start than The Rock’s biggest hit as a lead, The Game Plan. So there is a real chance that if the kids like this one, it could be his first $100 million movie.
Last House On The Left is Rogue’s second best start ever, after last summer’s The Strangers. I have no idea who is paying for what at this point. It seems to be being released as a Universal movie. Is it a film they didn’t hand to Ryan Kavanaugh in the turnover? Don’t know. But it should be a nice bit of business for the studio.
Taken continues to hold remarkably well. Madea continues to push Tyler Perry further ahead of his previous films, cracking $80 million this weekend when none of the other have done as much as $65 million. Slumdog Millionaire passed Ben Button to become the highest grosser of the Oscar nominees this last Tuesday. And The Reader will pass Milk to be the #3 nominee gross either this weekend or sometime during the next week.
Overture is getting some nice response to Sunshine Cleaning on just 4 screens, but in a market where people older than 35 are looking for ANYTHING worth seeing.
(1:48p – Tera-title corrected)

61 Comments »

The Hot Blog

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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