The Hot Blog Archive for April, 2009
The Lonely Journey Of A White Suit In A Shit Storm
I sometimes forget the realities of the business I earn a living in… and then, yet another piece about raging bloggers and raging Traditional Media that obsesses on the personalities and not the work… and I am reborn.
I forget to appreciate that unsexiness of having an actual business that has earned its weight and more for the last five years without becoming a gossip blog or resorting to some of the bad choices that have forced some Old Media into New Media. Admittedly, ego lurks. It’s not really fun to see stories (even nasty stories) about all the new, unproven sites on the block – almost all of which will be out of business by this time next year – while no one in media can be bothered to notice the one business in this grouping that actually works for the industry, drives significant traffic daily to all the other sites without ego, and consistently turns a profit. Yawn. Much more fun to do the mud-wrestling story.
Why aren’t they throwing dirt my way? Thanks for not throwing dirt my way.
After a dozen years online… after all kinds of ego breaks… after all kinds of fights, public and private… I realize that I am peace when I am doing the work I choose to do, not worrying about others. But it is hard not to get involved (or want to get involved) in the soap opera of it all.
Sigh…
Back to work…
Review: Heckler
I think Jamie Kennedy is a talented guy… and I think that he reached a level at which his reach exceeded his grasp.
That said, he and a TV director/producer/writer named Michael Addis made a doc that is now running on Showtime that is more than a little worthwhile. It’s called Heckler and apparently, it’s sat around for a couple of years looking for some kind of distribution… which it never found. Apparently, it premiered at AFI in Los Angeles in 2007… and that was that. There are five Rotten Tomato reviews, only one from a major outlet (Variety).
But it should be seen.
In fact, for people in the business of being critical, it should be absolute required viewing.
It’s not masterfully made, shot, edited, or conceived. But wading through this content is worth well more than the 80 minutes, as it is not just about hecklers, as we know them from comedy venues, but Kennedy – stinging from the well-deserved slaughter of Son of the Mask, a movie so bad that I am loathe to bold it – makes the leap to the idea that critics, particularly film critics, are also hecklers of a kind.
While there are not more than a couple of lame attempts to interview comedy hecklers, heckling film critics get more of a chance to offer their position. I’m not sure that they really gave our breed a fighting chance, but the main representative for modern criticism is Devin Faraci… who has some smart stuff to say… and then turns around and confirms all the worst fears of internet criticism by attacking Leonard Maltin. And it wasn’t that he attacked Leonard, who had dismissed Devin’s site as being quote-worthy. It was how he attacked Leonard… and that he didn’t show the smarts to respect Leonard’s decades of commitment to the form and to then slam his opinion instead of making it personal.
But I digress…
The film is dominated by people who have been hurt emotionally by film critics. Joe Mantagna wants to kick some ass… and the film covers Uwe Boll actually kicking ass. And these critics of critics are often unfair. And they are also often right on target.
Two of the most intriguing moments take place as Kennedy reads harsh reviews of his work back to internet film critics… and we watch the critics squirm or smirk or try to appear placid. I don’t know these guys, but I do know that feeling. To sit with a filmmaker – and I’m not talking about someone on Jamie Kennedy’s on-the-run fun level, but serious filmmakers – when they know that you don’t like the work they just did is very, very, very uncomfortable. But it is when you have to sit in the soup of your creation… as the filmmaker does when he/she reads the reviews… that you find out whether you really stand behind the words you have written and offered in some form of publication.
Seriously… if you are prepared to really think about how the human side of criticism feels today, online and off, you need to see this imperfect, self-aggrandizing, fascinating film.
For the record, here is my “Worst of 2005” commentary about Son of The Mask:
1. Son of The Mask – How can one even describe just how bad this sequel is? Jamie Kennedy is to Jim Carrey as milk is to bourbon. Alan Cumming tries to camp it up in the villain role, but can’t even get a good bite of the scenery without being undermined. Traylor Howard was directed to sleepwalk through the film. The wacky story in which a second mask is found never leads to a second mask being used at the same time as the main mask. It’s not funny. It’s not charming. It’s not cool looking. It’s humor is gross without being gross out. It looks like it was cut by Baz Luhrmann’s editor on the very last day of a month-long cocaine bender. (Note: No inference that anyone is using illicit drugs is intended by that metaphor.) The film reached the heights of irritation, boredom and incompetence all at once. Impressive.
And here is the trailer for Kennedy’s film…
Portrait Of The Last Moonshiner – "I got a 2" —- and a 6" tongue and knows how to use both of 'em."
In our DP/30, Johnny Knoxville refers to an interview he did with a moonshiner from Tennessee last October, describing the man as, “a ribald old codger and one of the most unbelievable som
DP/30 – Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi
Director Ian Olds, winner of the Truer Than Fiction award from the Independent Spirit Awards in 2006 for Occupation: Dreamland, which he made with his directing partner Garrett Scott, is back with a remarkable story about one of the guys who facilitates access to locals, including the most dangerous terrorists, and what happened when the reporter he was working for and he got kidnapped in Afghanistan. It is, if you will, a more dramatic and less America-obsessed perspective on the Daniel Pearl story… A Different Mighty Heart: The Doc. Most importantly, it reminds us that life in a war zone is more complicated than anyone thinks… even for the people who know “the rules” best.
The video interview with Ian is after the jump.
Sometimes A Banana Peel Is Just A Banana Peel
Variety’s Pamela McClintock is a smart reporter… but I am always gobsmacked when I read news – in this case, some release date shuffling 8 months out – that makes perfect sense… until a reporter tries to turn it into a trend piece even though it doesn’t fit.
This week, everyone is still revved up on the box office success of a few first-quarter titles… so Fox dating two movies in Q1 ’10 is suddenly about Paul Blart. Uh, no.
The first film, The Rock as The Tooth Fairy, was separated by one week from a stop-animation film, also from Fox, going into Thanksgiving. One of them had to move. Dwayne has had three kid-oriented films successfully open on what used to be considered off dates; Race To Witch Mountain in March and The Game Plan and Gridiron Gang in September. Between moving the Wes Anderson stop-motion into the wilderness of Q1 – where a 3D Beauty and the Beast will be strong in February and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland should be a big winner in March – and moving The Rock into January, where it will be the only family movie opening, get the advantage of MLK weekend, and be clear of Chipmunks 2 by almost a month… no contest.
Does it hurt that Paul Blart did almost $150 million on that date? No. Was there a much better or more obvious date out there before this move? No.
As for Date Night.. well, first I love that Variety is going all the credit for March openings to 300… since Date Night is so like 300. But seriously, the truth is that it was Fox that re-opened March for business with Ice Age in 2002 after Enemies at The Gate and The Mexican kind of shut down that slot as an Oscar/drama window in 2001, the year after Erin Brockovich both did big bucks and got nominations out of what had become “the serious spring slot.” And a tip of the hat to the 2001 success of Spy Kids, though it was a March 30 opening.
But getting back to Date Night specifically… which is actually opening in April, making 300 and Ice Age irrelevant… Mean Girls was the top grossing April launch in 2004 (albeit April 30)… Sin City, Scary Movie 4, and Disturbia kept the month strong for teens in 2005-07, and in 2008, we got both Baby Mama and Forgetting Sarah Marshall building a landmark for this very specific Fey-ian, Segel-ian, Apatow-ian kind of film that Date Night is. This year’s March 20 release, I Love You Man, is right there too, making a similar number to its predecessors. And March was out of the question for Date Night, given that Sony has a Sandler/James/Chris Rock film slotted in there now… right in between the Feb slot that Sandler has done so well in (Wedding Singer/50 First Dates) and the April slot of Anger Management.
Ah, slotting!
The Fox Atomic Press Release Lands
DEBBIE LIEBLING TO REJOIN TCF; AND FOX ATOMIC DIGITAL TO BE INTEGRATED INTO FOX FILMED ENTERTAINMENT
Atomic to cease to operate as independent production division
Sumer Survey #2 Results
BOX OFFICE GROSS
QUALITY
DP/30 – The Wild & Wonderful Whites Of West Virginia
I have been looking at a bunch of docs and features that will shortly be premiering at Tribeca and the first thing that’s clear is that it’s a very strong year for docs.
And what else is clear is that The WWWoWV is going to be one of the best, most talked about, best remembered docs of this year. I don’t want to appear to damn any other film with faint praise as I whoop it up for this one… but DAMN… this is The Shit.
For me, this film combines much of the formalism of The Maysles with the rock and roll of Nick Broomfield. Many will have a hard time believing what they are seeing, before, during, and after the film. But it’s real. And as you will see in the DP/30 conversation, the director and “The Jackass Guys” didn’t go into this as some kind of crazy joke… they are serious about The Whites and they are serious about documentary as a form.
Okay… enough from me.
The current trailer for the film is here – in censored SFW form – and here – in uncensored NSFW form.
The interview with the director and two producers is after the jump… and also downloadable for your computer or portables on DP30.com.
UPDATE: Battle Of The Gossips
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!
Has the world gone INSANE?!?!?!
Is ANY sense of shame gone?
3:56p – (Un)Trustworthy Trades: Rumor-Monger
“(Mike Fleming) today posted the rumor that film label Fox Atomic may be closing. No matter if it turns out to be true: this is irresponsible.”
5:19p – EXCLUSIVE: Fox Atomic Shutting Down
“I’ve just confirmed that Fox Atomic will cease to operate as an independent production division.”
Are any of you who defend this NUTCASE as a legitimate journalist paying any attention? Are the studios paying attention?
Are you people who feed the gorgon getting it? Will you ever open your eyes?
And let me note this before the apologists start sharpening their swords, as usual… I have been in business for more than six years. My business hired more people in the last eight months while others have been laying people off. We are not a business the size of Variety. But we were not a business the size of Inside either… and I still have a thriving business and Inside has been out of business longer than MCN has existed. My job is not directly threatened by Nikki Finke, unlike many other people in this game who have a boss to answer to and quarterlies to worry about.
This is an issue of principle, not personal animus. Nikki has been aggressively abusive to me in private conversations all of this town, but so what… she can get in line.
But this is where we are… people will not think past their gossip-loving brain-dicks or thrilling at the prospect of building a monster that they think they can control and use to their own ends, as though the trades and feature-laden magazines were not full of enough opportunities to be whored out… and as a result this whack job without a moral compass feels comfy writing that someone else is a piece of shit for running gossip at 4p and then claims the same story as an exclusive at 5:30p.
“Shitty to report rumors when no one has been told.” Apparently, everyone was notified in that hour and half, right?
PS – The follow-up to this was The Strike Queen running excerpts from a 4p Variety story as her own news at 4:40… and then running an “Update” that was also right out of the Variety story.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!
People have to stop whining about The Evil Internet and deal with the crap that is right under our noses. The medium is the medium, but it is individuals who poison the well for everyone else.
Love Nikki all you like… but let’s not delude ourselves into believing, for even a second, that this has anything to do with journalism.
==================
4p Sunday – Little has changed in a month away from the daily journo-whoredom grind.
This afternoon, La Finke is SCREECHING about Variety’s Michael Fleming “scooping” her on the official closing of Fox Atomic… but she knew… she just didn’t tell… because even though she runs true and false gossip on a regular basis, she is a virgin media princess when someone else beats her to it.
Stupider even… Fox Atomic has been all but officially shut down for a year already. The division of the division has had their name on product for three years… and released just six movies, including a whopping total of ZERO last year. Woo Hoo!!!
Was there hope that the Peter Rice perk division (for not going to Paramount) might turn itself around under Debbie Liebling? Sure. Then Miss March made under $5 million and 12 Rounds did $11.3m. Game over. (Did you think that a mid-September release for Jennifer’s Body was a sign of belief in the product? Did it occur to you that Juno started its run at film fests in August ’07, five months after production ended… and that Jennifer’s Body finished shooting more than 11 months ago? Should I mention that I Love You Beth Cooper finished shooting over a year ago as well… and that the Heroes phenomenon is over, making a Hayden Pants sell brutal on any outlet other than Perez Hilton?)
Fox Atomic has been a walking corpse, much as Paramount Vantage now is, for well over a year… and this fighting over who gets to pronounce the corpse dead first – and Fleming did a nice job of making it sound a lot better a situation than it has been – is pathetic… especially from someone whose primary ability to “scoop” is based on running rumors of who is being fired next and then squealing “Toldja” like the pig (moral, not physical) she is.
And those of you in the talent community that think she is your friend, does it bother you at all that she slams the work of people who write, direct, and act in movies… that she hasn’t even seen? Fake journalism… not even good gossip.
Maybe we should ask Patrick Goldstein what the kids in his neighborhood think? Or even better… maybe Slate can hire some freelancer to extol the virtues of media piracy because that’s what he wants.
My city screams…
Weekend Estimates by Klady – 4/19/09
So, will 17 Again be a slightly smaller He’s Just Not That Into You, an dead-on Race to Witch Mountain or a slightly bigger Bride Wars? This is roughly where this Zac Efron fluff(er) fits. Somewhere between an eventual $60 million to an eventual $95 million
I Must Admit…
As trailer footage goes – and there is some form of trailer here after the cute car break-up scene – this material suggests that Transformers 2 will be a major improvement on Transformers 1. They seem to have gotten more serious about making the CG autobots more the emotional cartoon characters they were meant to be. And even in such snipped clips, Bay seems to have figured out how to give the CG creations visual space to play in, instead of everything being about close-ups of gears.
I was not a fan of the first film, but this one may really not suck… it could even be great summer fun.
*Exclusive* Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Footage from Bay Films/Michael Bay Dot Com on Vimeo.
