Enough With The Farrah Fawcett!!!

I meant to write this a couple of days ago, but…
Shouldn’t someone be saying, simply, Farrah Fawcett was a celebrity, but she was NOT a movie star… she was NEVER a movie star.
He movie career was about being a pretty girl in Logan’s Run, a topless girl opposite an aging Kirk Douglas in Saturn 3, being a celebrity in The Cannonball Run, recreating her stage performance in Extremities, and finally, being the most out-of-control drug user on Dr T & The Women.
Not a single one of those performances means anything today.
I thought they had left out Maurice Jarre, which would have been insane, but he was there at the beginning, stuck in a tech glitch so he was unidentifiable except by those who knew what he looked like 40 years ago.
And indeed, Michael Jackson didn’t belong there either… especially as they didn’t even highlight this year’s doc on him, but put up an image of him in his red coat from Thriller… oy.
But here is my list of six – not including Bea Arthur, who I thought was truly great, but made her only movie impact in Mame, recreating her stage role – who were not honored, but should have been… all more so than Farrah Fawcett.
Allan King – One of the great documentarians of all time.
Arnold Stang – Great and busy character actor
Zakes Mokae – Great and busy character actor
Marc Rocco – producer/director – Made a real impact, if not for many years
Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell – Great and busy Australian character actor
Jean-Paul Roussillon – Great and busy French character actor
I am sure that I am missing a few others. 92 Academy members died last year. Very few were honored. If Vic Mizzy, the man who scored The Ghost & Mr Chicken, didn’t make it because he was best known for The Addams Family TV theme, so be it. He may never be as famous as Fawcett, but his work will live forever. Her’s will not. So who has been more aggrieved?

SXSW Exclusive Sneak Clip – Gugino Sings in Elextra Luxx

Podcast: Shutter Island Questions

This is a rather unusual circumstance. Glenn Kenny, Bilge Ebiri, Katey Rich, and I were invited by 42West to have a taped conversation for a podcast about Shutter Island. We chatted. They edited. Here it is. 42West/Paramount does Super Movie Friends.
That said, we were not paid or perked anything in exchange and we were not asked to limit our conversation in any way. So I don’t feel dirty.
There are spoilers, in case anyone cares…

What made this film the largest Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio opening of all time?
Why should audiences see this film more than once?
What influences of classic cinema do you see in Shutter Island ?
Discuss the collaborative relationship between Scorsese and DiCaprio.
What does the twist ending mean? How does it affect your experience as a filmgoer?

Small Media World

News from Chicago that Richard Roeper is returning to radio in Chicago, sans the weight of film criticism.
What particularly caught my eye was that the guy hiring him, Drew Hayes, is also the guy who hired me to fill the slot, with George Pennacchio, of Rod Lurie on KABC in LA a little over a decade ago.
Apparently Drew had hired Richard before, in 1994, to do a

Other Side Of The "Idiot" Coin

Two stories that have been the subject of disdain for many in recent days have, it occurs to me, another side.
1. Variety Fires McCarthy & Rooney – The anger over a veteran who did nothing but deliver for the paper for decades being summarily dumped – even if I have had some major questions about a dismissive tone in recent years – is understandable and fitting.
BUT… when you think about the math, Variety does about 1200 movie reviews a year… and will be looking to pay between $100 and $200 a pop for them in future. Between salary and benefits, McCarthy’s expense as a full-time employee certainly costs the $120,000 that a year of reviews would cost at the lower price… and could be within $70,000 of the $240,000 that a year of reviews would cost at the higher price point.
There may be 3 papers in the country with a movie review budget line of as much as $200,000 total. And one of them, the LA Times, is part of TribCo, which spreads that expense and the cost of another 4 critics on other cities, out over a dozen papers, plus syndicates the reviews to papers outside of the immediate family of papers.
Now, the question remains, why should anyone pay to read Variety without at least a couple of established brand names fronting the massive number of reviews? What is the value proposition?
I can’t fully answer that, because as I have already written, I don’t see much of one. But that said, the argument that Variety’s news stories are less valuable than critics, particularly Todd, because the stories are all over the web has long been diminished by the fact that Variety’s reviews have been all over the web for years as well.
Variety faces a serious problem, in that reviews are a clear part of the unique proposition, but even when the paper is allowed – for no good reason – to review first, the reviews themselves are not valued so much as short-handed “Variety loved it” or “Variety killed it” amongst all but a small percentage of those interested.
Meanwhile, online film critics who make as much as $50,000 are extremely rare… about as rare as web-only businesses that offer medical and other costly benefits to their writers.
The strategic problem for Variety is real. They are finally coming to the realization that they are in direct competition with the internet and their print business is a loss leader, their only true differentiator.
Variety’s big mistake, after not adjusting to the new order of things years ago, was not transparently trying to find a place for McCarthy at their table while cutting costs as well. If he left anyway, there could be no worse press response than there has been. And facing the hard reality that some of the ugly choices that have been coming down for more than a year will continue, no matter what he did, McCarthy may well have been willing to take a senior position, reviewing but not managing, for half of what he cost before, but with free reign and free time to do anything other than review for any other publication, festival, or whatever.
This reminds me a bit of Disney’s bad behavior with Roger Ebert. Roger’s condition is what it is. But instead of behaving like mensches and smart business people, they nickel and dimed him to death and showed so little respect for what his legacy means that the whole thing ended ugly and thumbless. Roger likes money, but I think it’s fair to say that respect, honor, and legacy are more important to him.
What had been could be no more… but there are better ways to end an important relationship. And in this regard, it was an epic fail by Variety.
2. Crazy Redhead Interrupts Oscar Speech – She made the world a little less pretty for older Jewish ladies everywhere. But…
I don’t know the details of the relationships on this documentary. But, when I read Salon’s breakdown of what had happened, I realized immediately that I was privy to another documentary – which will remain nameless – that has similar complexities facing it.
The award-winning filmmaker – who will also remain nameless – shot the film and then, under some duress, allowed the wealthy funder – wwarn – to push him/her out with claims that what had been delivered was not good enough. There was a check of some size and a producer credit to seal the separation. The funder became the director of record. The film was submitted to prominent festivals and markets. And it was accepted. As it turned out, the version being accepted was almost exactly the “not good enough” version that the once-director had delivered.
If the film, for which the original filmmaker was paid off but was also unhappy to leave, won awards, it is not hard to imagine the original filmmaker wanting to get on stage, push the person that had usurped their position out of the way, and make a speech.
Don’t get me wrong… the woman in this situation may well be bat-shit crazy. But just because she had been disassociated with the project does not mean that she was not the true progenitor. Nor do her claims mean that she was.
There was another case, a couple of years ago, when a major creative participant in a doc was “dissociated” by ego-greedy folks. The behavior was clearly wrong. The funder, a still-prominent indie player, supported the bad guys, probably not knowing the true story. And in the end, a big financial settlement and a full re-association came to pass under a gag order (which is why all will go unnamed)… though the pleasure of being publicly associated with the film in its launch phase can never be recovered.
Suffering in silence is a big part of this business. If you need to complain in public, you have probably already lost the fight. But we all have to be careful of assuming that we can trust our eyes and ears when end-results occur in public… especially when what we see is an obnoxious redheaded older woman elbowing out a demur and emotionally-moved black man in a tux. Our eyes and ears may be right. But as often as not, they won’t be… at least not until we know, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.

Wednesday Night Clean-Up

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Moves To September – Whether it plays Cannes or not, my take is that the studio is way late in getting the movie’s awareness levels up. It’s been a long time since the original, Shia is not a lock, and Carey Mulligan may have a Oscar nomination, but she was in a relatively low-grossing Oscar movie and didn’t get much attention between the Sandy & Meryl Show and Gabby Sidibe’s coming out party. (Helen Mirren made even less effort to campaign than Mo’Nique.)
The April date was just 5 weeks away. You can launch a movie in that window, though it costs a lot. And if I were a Fox exec putting my toe in the water, I’m not sure I would find the temperature particularly inviting for this story right now. In a few months, who knows?
On top of that, the studio has fallen asleep a little on Date Night, which was scheduled a week away from WS2 and they are really high on the movie. A concentrated push on one movie is probably a really good idea for both movies.
DreamWorks’ Dragon – The new ad campaign is just “Dragon!” Training is a past formality. Good to see that Pete & Pete are quoted. I can’t think of anything that makes me expect less of a film these days.
Critics & The Hurt Locker – I am kind of amused that after Hurt Locker won and critics felt responsible, no one really noticed and now, the critics and e-writers feel compelled to tell everyone that they made the night for the war drama. From my perspective, I feel that the production team has been generous with thanks for months.
And I still make the argument that the success of Avatar won THL the Oscar, as it also created the singular focus of the critics groups. There is no secret cabal, but The Hurt Locker was (deservedly) anointed as the last best hope to keep Avatar/Goliath from winning. I have no doubt, no matter how much I love Locker, that the awards would have been spread around to Up In The Air, Precious, and Inglourious Basterds without the “threat” of the “big, dumb, massively popular” movie winning.
But again… glad for Bigelow & Co. And I feel they have been remarkably gracious.
Excitement – I haven’t really expressed how happy I was for Mike Giacchino, one of my favorite people in a town of bullshitters. And having spent some DP/30 time with Ottosson and Beckett, I was personally pleased for them. Really, it was one of the nicest groups of winners you could ever ask for in an Oscar season. Even Cameron and Landau, who have some edge, have been good, good guys throughout this process. Bigelow, Boal, Letteri, Docter, Fletcher… there is something about spending a bit of time and then, you get a sense, when they are up there, of how real they are. Lovely.

J Hoberman Resurrects A Critical Abortion

J Hoberman tracked down the actual Armond White review that suggested “retroactive abortion.” Oddly, the clipping was too small to read… so I blew it up…

Question Du Jour – The End Of Scorsese

For some reason, it just now occurred to me that the last line of Shutter Island and the key closing line of The King of Comedy are almost identical.
“Now, tomorrow you’ll know I wasn’t kidding… and you’ll think I was crazy. But, look, I figure it this way. Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime.”
“Which would be worse, to live as a monster or to die as a good man?”
And then, I started thinking about other Scorsese films.
Raging Bull closes with a quote on a title card: So, for the second time, the Pharisees summoned the man who had been blind and said: / “Speak the truth before God. / We know this fellow is a sinner.” / “Whether or not he is a sinner, I do not know,” / The man replied. / “All I know is this: / Once I was blind and now I can see.” – John IX, 24-26 / the New English Bible
Casino ends with: “But in the end, I wound up right back where I started. I could still pick winners, and I could still make money for all kinds of people back home. And why mess up a good thing?”
GoodFellas closes with, “I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.” (smile) (cut to Tommy shooting his gun at camera a’ la The Great Train Robbery) (Henry walks back into his suburban home)
Even The Last Temptation of Christ closes with, “I fought you when you called. I resisted. I thought I knew more. I didn’t want to be your son. Can you forgive me? I didn’t fight hard enough. Father… give me your hand. I want to bring salvation! Father, take me back! Make a feast! Welcome me home! I want to be your son! I want to pay the price! I want to be crucified and rise again! I want to be the Messiah! It is accomplished! It is accomplished.”
Every one seems to be about a man who has realized the dichotomy of his life and making a choice. Once blind, now seeing… for better or worse.
At the end of The Color of Money, Eddie finally sees what he is and decides to keep moving in that same direction. At the end of Gangs of New York, Bill The Butcher realizes he is at the end of his time and sacrifices himself to Amsterdam. In The Departed, Costigan makes his decision and while the story then takes the choice away from him, it finds another way to force Sullivan to face his truth before his choice is also taken away.
Have I missed this simple truth about Scorsese all these years? Are these all, in the end, the same story?

MPAA Numbers

The MPAA released their annual numbers into the wild this morning. You can read the pdf of the report for yourself here.
As always, the report is a little interesting… and a lot based on surveying, which I would never trust down to single digit percentages. The much discussed “average ticket price,” which obviously does not even try to answer the question of the average ticket price for any individual movie, is again based on a NATO number vs the Rentrack (formerly EDI) box office number.
In any case… a few points of interest.
Who is The Market?
According to the survey, which has been changed this year to – dubiously – include 2-12 year-olds and Canada, even though the survey didn’t include calls to Canada… oy… 50% of tickets are bought by the 10% of the population (appox 32 million people) that goes to the movies more than once a month. And 48% of the tickets are bought by the 47% of the population that goes to the movie less than once a month, but at least once a year.
And a noteworthy 32% of the population, by survey, go to no movies ever.
According to this survey, 66.2% of frequent moviegoers are between ages 2 and 39. Even though this survey was expanded to try to include under 12s, I would have to say that based on my experience, they are still – as the same companies do on tracking – significantly off of the real numbers. Chicken & Egging, it may well be that the failure to fully survey this age group (via their parents) is why the tracking for kid movies is so often so wrong. They are applying a bad model because of bad data.
But I digress…
If you want to know why Hollywood “obsesses on young audiences,” this stat is the reason. There is nothing wrong with the “survey-says” 19.8% of the frequent moviegoers that are over 50, apparently representing almost $1 billion at the domestic box office each year (and all over 50 ticket sales are estimated to be over $2 billion domestically). It’s just a smaller target. And as this survey doesn’t address, they are slower to get to the theaters, as a rule, than the younger audience, which is more intensely driven by marketing and “must see.”
Another state I found interesting was “Movie Frequency By Age,” which again, I wouldn’t trust down to single digits, but shows a clear increase in the percentage of population in each age group that does not go to movies at all, from 4% of 12-17s that never go to 16% of 18-24s to 26% of 25-39s to 32% of 40-49s to 44% of 50-59s to 58% of over 60s.
The ages of disproportionate movie going, by this survey, are 12-24s, who make up 19% of the population and survey says make up 34% of the tickets sold.
On The 3D Front…
MPAA is estimating, based on “Rentrak Corporation, MPAA incorporating Screen Digest and other sources” that the 3D business was $1.14b last year… which would be exactly 70% of the box office gross of the 16 films released in 3D (limiting income to 2009… so Avatar is “only” $282m). It may end up being accurate, but it doesn’t seem terribly precise, given that some of these films were released only in 3D and others were widely seen in 2D.
Why couldn’t the MPAA do a bit more analysis of a group of just 16 films? Because… they don’t wanna… not for the public to chew on.
I guess this is also the time to say… loudly…
HOW CAN THIS REPORT PURPORT TO REPRESENT THE STATE OF THE FILM INDUSTRY WHEN IT FOCUSES ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY ON JUST 35% OF THE THEATRICAL MARKET FOR MPAA MOVIES?
Yes, doing phone surveys that make MPAA look like it has a handle on the State of The Movie Union is much, much easier and cheaper in the US than internationally. But the report should be called, “Theatrical Marketing Statistics For 1/3 Of The Theatrical Business.”
Of course, the MPAA is endlessly considering the entire pie and not just the third. As with most of the serious discussions at MPAA, they are done behind closed doors and are not for “us.”
Invariably, even at ShoWest, the convention of exhibitors, the discussion of DVD revenues declining and the importance of theatrical is not shouted from the rooftops by MPAA, even as the misnomer that theatrical is only for the biggest and smallest movies continues to be repeated with embarrassing frequency.
I have no problem with this annual report on its face. But I do have a problem, invariably, with the promotion and repetition of these stats like they are the movie industry bible. It’s a survey and a few small bits of detailed information with some other details that are probably close to accurate, but are soft numbers. That kind of data can be helpful… but we must all be endlessly vigilant about knowing how firm the numbers we consider really are.

Post 5000 For The Hot Blog

The Hot Blog started on September 5, 2004 with an entry called, “Do I Need A Blog?”
5000 entries on the blog later and I still wonder some days.
I don’t know if that is because of or in spite of the near 140,000 comments.
The conversation continues…

Corey Haim, 38

Hollywood killed Corey Haim.
The saddest thing about a life like his, from the outside, is that the inevitability of his death was so apparent… and he died only when the audience was no longing willing to watch the show that was his demise.
Of course, virtually no addict is without fault of their own for which to take responsibility. Not every child star goes down this road. Not every addictis unable or unwilling to make change, even if it switching to a lesser addiction or addictions.
We were able to watch Haim, unable to clean up long enough to even take advantage of the best break he had gotten in years – a Lost Boys direct-to-dvd sequel – and every viewer who has ever seen an addict up close had to know that death was the only next step possible without serious intervention… the kind of serious intervention that few people are willing to visit upon a friend, much less a celebrity.
Some are lucky. Corey Haim wasn’t. He was fortunate enough and talented enough to have a career in front of the camera. But that luck ended 20 years ago with his last starring theatrical release, Prayer of the Rollerboys. Put that 20 years in the direct-to-dvd “we can get a few bucks in Uzbekistan, kid” desert up against the 6 high-profile years of his career, from age 13 – 19.
Corey Haim was as trapped as any waiter or waitress or valet or nanny who is getting a little extra work but still hasn’t had a character name in a film or television show…. only it was worse, as he felt the need to recover that early glory… he had tasted the blood and needed more… the money, the fame, the adoration. But even worse, he was kept on the hook – all a natural junkie metaphor – by just enough work, just enough success, to keep him from moving to Kansas and becoming a contractor.
You see this in older people who have had major medical setbacks. After a full and happy life, one major event can, as one recently said to me, make them simply lose their confidence. Some adjust to not being young and healthy anymore. Some can never accept who they no longer are and either push too hard or give up all together.
I have mixed feelings about this young man in the face of his death. I have a strong feeling that he may just be in a happier state now. After 20 years of struggling with career, addiction, and a clear sense of loss, it seems like his body just decided enough was enough, whether he died of an acute overdose or organs failing in the face of years of abuse. Some people are just so far down the rabbit hole that there is no coming back.
The loss of a talent like Heath Ledger is horrible and his death, a combination of medical stupidity and hubris, is stunning. But 20 years of being a dying light, quiet desperation wanting to be loud desperation wanting to be found and changed by outside forces… for me… that would be the ultimate torture. If “you” are going to kill me, kill me, and let everyone else heal without me tearing off the scab of their lives as I would of my life, every day I was still around.
The horror…

Hack Bites Blog… OR One Point Two Million Ways To Buy (Variety)

In this corner, the ever aggressive, often scummy, and clearly desperate Variety sales team.
In the other corner, an idiot whose skill at self-marketing is even less than his skill at filmmaking.
Joshua Newton will NEVER prove that Tim Gray included Iron Cross on his long annual list of early Oscar contenders in order to create a new client/sucker for the Variety ad sales team. And it’s probably not true either… though it might be.
No one on the Variety team is an Oscar season virgin. Any outlet that fails to include a potential ad buyer in their early Oscar coverage is setting itself up for having one less buyer. Gray does his annual forward-looking round-up in June, which is about when Variety starts its heavy sales push for the upcoming season.
This is where the arguments of the lawsuit filed today starts getting sticky and tricky. Was the inclusion of the film in that piece by Gray the chicken or the egg leading to the sales department calling on Joshua Newton?
Thing is, it is not that June 22 story that concerns me. I trust that Gray is serious about church and state and that even if the blur has been institutionalized, nothing he did there Is likely much more than smoke.
Where it gets uglier is…
1. Inclusion of the film in Variety’s screening series, which claims to be about quality. Did anyone even see the film before agreeing to include it?
2. “exclusive media partnership with Variety” – This is one of those scummy behaviors by Variety ad sales, in which they try to keep ad buyers from spending money anywhere else. Variety has used this tactic against The Hollywood Reporter for years… but also against sites like MCN, even claiming to potential buyers last year that they would buy ads on other sites for those potential buyers… even though they had not secured relationships with said sites.
3. “said she had begun lining up awards consultants to help get nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the British Academy of Film and Television Artists and others.” – A major no no. The idea that Variety was telling an ad buyer that they would somehow broker a deal with a consultant… presumably someone who was being paid to consult on where to buy ads for other, bigger buyers… oy. (Full Disclosure: I have personally suggested publicists, including awards publicists, to filmmakers who have asked me. I have never brokered such a relationship in any way. Moreover, MCN has never sold or offered an awards season package to anyone other than an established distributor or representatives of same.)
I am reminded of …And Justice For All, in which the letter of the law was being upheld, leaving the one truth teller out of order when, indeed, the whole system was actually out of order.
The Wrap and Huffington Post followed Variety’s dubious concept of connecting a screening series to ad sales. This is, by design, a breach of church and state for editorial and advertising. The screening series suggest to the awards voters that they have been curated in some way, when in fact, they are simply a part of the machinery of producing awards season revenue.
That is why MCN has never earned a dollar of profit on any screening, have not accepted any payment of any kind – studios rent the rooms for themselves – for the use of our screening mailing list, our on-site support, or for hosting Q&As since our first year of screenings… in which we asked for a couple of hundred dollars over the cost of the room for screenings, which didn’t quite cover the cost of on-site, non-MCN staff to check in attendees.
The practice of making a screening series part of an ad pitch should be stopped. It obliterates The Line and can come to no good. If you want to do a screening series, sell that. Either qualify the film or don’t, but be honest about the film’s status.
I have no sympathy for Newton’s complaint about the review that ran or making an investment in getting his film ready for release in 2009 in order to qualify for Oscar. And I have no problem with the ad sales dept using Gray’s piece as bait… or selling this mook on putting his trailer in the magazine for distribution, etc. If you have all that money to lose, you should know better. He is a grown ass man and no doubt, there are magic beans being offered to him every single day of his life. Deal.
But in as much as Variety either tries to create demand for ads where there is none or crosses that line of church and state by attaching value to a film without any legitimate basis for the valuation – short of, in this case, Scheider’s death – there is a problem with the behavior. I’m not sure its actionable. But it is surely contemptible. And it is equally contemptible when anyone engages in it.
I guess I should worry that I will enrage ad sales and they will gun harder for me in future, but I was told a story a couple of seasons ago that a top person in ad sales at Variety was told that I was calling them bad names… and it pleased them to no end. Ad sales is a dirty game. Nature.
PS – What a pleasure it’s been these last couple of days, reading breaking industry news in the NY Times, well reported and not overreaching.

More Anti-Leno Jackassery

I praise Josef Adalian often. As far as The Wrap goes, it’s value proposition IS Josef Adalian.
But man, he is bending over as far as a person can for the anti-Leno-istes, screaming “Leno’s Winning Streak Over: Dave Back on Top” after one night of ratings in which Letterman apparently topped Leno in two demographic groups.
I seem to remember the last time the media pushed the credulity envelope to make a ratings race all about demographic groups… it was Conan vs Letterman… and that lead lasted just slightly longer than the ONE NIGHT Adalian is now selling as a big victory… even though the overall rating still went to Leno… for the sixth night of six nights of Leno being back.
The NYT’s Bill Carter also did a piece on the Monday ratings, sanely headlined, “In Leno-Letterman Ratings Competition, a Split Decision.”
What neither story points out is that the Letterman rating is about 25% higher than normal… and that the Leno rating is pretty much the same as it was during the weeknights after the big Monday night return rating.
In other words, last night may well be as much of an anomaly as last Monday.
Any by the by, Leno’s viewership last night was 50% higher than Conan’s viewership before The Battle of Coco became a popular reality series.
As time goes on, if Leno ends up with about 4.5 million viewers on average and Letterman with 3.5 million – which seems about right – both sides will be uncomfortably happy with the long-term answer to all the unrest of a month ago.
Honestly, I don’t much care… I just hate aggressive efforts at disinformation. And that headline is nothing less than that.

More Fun With Dying Media… Tuesday Edition

Good afternoon Mr and Mrs America and all the ships at sea… let’s go to mess…
Dateline CriticVille…. as you may have already read, Leslee Dart is taking on the full force of the anger over Armond White being barred from tomorrow’s screening of Greenberg. This one really does seem to be personal.
Dart is telling the media (including me, but I am sick to death of reading leads like, “Leslee Dart tells me,” or some other self-aggrandizing telling of how important it was to her that THIS OUTLET knows the truth) that she made the call to keep Armond!

BYOB Tuesday 3910