It Had To Happen… A Fallon Clip Worth Clipping

It’s just so silly and bizarre… but a fine duet. Might have been perfect if the host wasn’t there.

BYOB 1111

The Social Network, actors Jesse Eisenberg & Andrew Garfield

(Note: Earlier, I noticed that this outputted incorrectly and the boys had been “Abdul-ed.” A corrected version of the video is now up.)

Review: Morning Glory

It’s okay.

So here is the thing about Morning Glory… the script is a muddled mess. But there are strong indications that the muddle came from development and more specifically, from choices made after casting.

Rachel McAdams takes a movie star role for a change. I see a lot of stuff that she built into a vanilla character. She took the star vehicle and made it into a character role. Excellent. (And by the way, Ms McAdams now has a grown woman’s ass, throws it around uncovered in the film a few times, and is a sexier adult than she was a kid… even though the film seems to want to objectify Patrick Wilson more than her.) Roger Michell shoots rom-com as though it is more than rom-com. Excellent. Performances are uniformly very good, particularly Jeff Goldblum’s near-cameo.

But when you finally – and God, it takes a long while – get to the third act, you discover either what the movie was originally designed as… or what it could have been had the direction that was taken in the third act actually been in play through the entire film. Essentially, it’s Harrison Ford as the father figure to this hard-charging, ever ready with a pep talk, upbeat girl with a dream. And instead of allowing the first act to be the set up and then to play with this relationship through the second and third acts, the film tries to fit everything in… everything.

Diane Keaton is terrific in this role… but you get the feeling that she was the last piece of casting, a great female star who would add to the marquee… but the character she plays is not nearly as important to the story as McAdams or Ford… and there is nothing she can do about that. However, my guess is that they built her character up a bit and this left the film unbalanced. The alternate scenario is that is was a 3-person piece and that Harrison Ford’s rewrite ideas – he always has them – unbalanced the ship. But either way, the movie meanders for a long time, often in some very funny and/or charming moments.

You see, the movie is not about McAdams and her budding relationship with studly Patrick Wilson. It’s not about the frustrated female anchor of the morning show who just wants to have a chance to feel good about the job for a change. It’s not about a team of supporting players who finally come together to make the show a success in spite of the obnoxious anchors.

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Shalit Exits… A Poll On The Damage Left Behind

Gene, we can hardly believe that you were allowed such a position of significance for so long.

Good luck in future, but you will not be missed on air by anyone younger than you, except in the way an adult sometime misses Zotz or Wacky Packs.

The Town, co-writer/director/actor Ben Affleck

The Kids Are All Right, actor Mark Ruffalo

DP/30 Sneak Peek: Biutiful’s Production Team

Iñárritu… Mirrione… Prieto…. Santaolalla

DP/30: Testosterone Week!!!

We shoot a lot of DP/30s. And as it works out, we have a lot of male action to throw at you this week.

Today, it’s Armie Hammer, aka the Winklevosses of The Social Network. Tomorrow, Mark Ruffalo of The Kids Are All Right. Wednesday, it’s writer-director Ben Affleck, chatting with us about The Town. Thursday, we’re back to The Social Network with Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. And for the weekend, a quintet of Oscar heavy talent, with Alejandro González Iñárritu, his great cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, uber-editor Stephen Mirrione, the singular composer, Gustavo Santaolalla, and special guest star… and Executive Producer of the film we’re discussing, Biutiful, the one and only, everyone’s favorite valley boy, Guillermo del Toro.

It’s almost 3 full hours of conversation with guys who are incredibly talented and often surprisingly willing to say pretty much what is on their mind about their work, the industry, and their histories.

And this week, we’ll be out shooting at least 10 more half-hours… including chats with some of the great actresses being talked about for awards… an embarrassment of riches, really. It’s exhausting, but it’s an absolute pleasure for me.

So let’s gets started with the infectious charm of Armie Hammer…

Review: Unstoppable

It’s just this simple.

Ethan Suplee… funny fat guy… has to move a really long train a really short distance. He gets in the engine, starts it rolling, realizes he hasn’t switched the track and if he gets past the switch, it will take hours to fix the mistake. He jumps out of the slow-moving engine and runs to get the switch switched. But the gear shifts into high speed and the train starts speeding up. He can’t get back on. Runaway train. Giant runaway train.

If you think this is a spoiler, you are expecting too much story out of Unstoppable.

Meanwhile, Denzel & Cap’n Kirk Jr are in another train in another part of Pennsylvania, chatting about what it’s like to be old and what it’s like to be young.

The train is out of control. Eventually, our heroes go on a mission to stop it… pretty much the third act.

That’s it. Without the detail work, that’s Unstoppable.

Oh… and it may be the most entertaining movie you will see this year.

Huh?

Tony Scott. This is his train set and he shoots the living hell out of it. The seats rumble, small towns and smaller people are threatened, how can it be stopped, Rosario Dawson as The Level Headed Boss in the control seat fighting off the idiot from Upstairs, some guy chasing the train in a truck… and of course, Denzel flexing his charm and Chris Pine flexing his muscles.

You will not believe how fun watching this thing is. And how completely without nutritional value!

It’s 127 Hours without the threat of making you feel anything deeper than… “Hey, how are they going to stop that giant, f-ing speeding train?”

It’s Speed without the Dennis Hopper character.

It’s the most fun you can have without a handful of joints and a Spongebob marathon. (Note: I don’t even smoke… but I get the impression that if I did, I’d watch to watch Spongebob and keep the Magnolia Bakery delivery guy on my speed dial.)

If you don’t have a good time at this movie, you don’t want to have a good time at this movie. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… except you’ll die before your time being such a tight ass. (Did I just type that?)

But seriously, like it or don’t like it. I don’t care.

I feel like I am writing the same thing over and over… and am… because it fits the film. But this review is not nearly as fun to read as the movie is to watch.

Maybe if I try to do a Pete Travers pull quote! David Poland of Movie City News says, “All Abooaarrddd!!!!”

Nah. You’ll just have to go see the movie… and see it in a theater, where you’ll get the full Sensurround. It’s just a great old-fashioned, dumb, smart movie movie that everyone over 6 will enjoy, unless your dad likes to get a nap in the theater… that ain’t happening.

More Embarrassing Than Malcolm’s Chaps

I saw Patrick Goldstein’s headline about Will Ferrell headlining Forbes’ Overpaid Actor List…

Or should I say, their Requires A Dozen Page Views And No More Reporting Than Putting Box Office Mojo Stats In An Excel Spread Sheet And Running A Math Equation Without Actually Thinking For A Damned Second Overpaid Actors’ List?

There are a lot of people of dubious reputation and skill covering this industry, but I have to say, Forbes has become a garbage outlet with a great old name when it comes to these relentless and moronic charts. (Previous blog entries about dumb Top 5 lists pale in pedigree, and thus, in comparison.)

Patrick makes the mistake that so many people do… he engages in debate with someone’s sheer stupidity because some of the choices fit his perception of the world. But that’s not the point. The list is by its entire methodology, FALSE. (And is nothing but self-promotion that requires you to click through at least a dozen ad-loaded pages to see… there is no list offered.)

“We used data gathered for our annual Celebrity 100 list…”

Also bullshit.

“…to calculate each star’s estimated earnings on each film (including up-front pay and any earnings from the movie’s box-office receipts, DVD and TV sales).”

In the history of Forbes sucking up to the film industry to get readers, they have rarely gotten an estimate right.

“We then looked at each movie’s estimated budget (not including marketing costs, which are susceptible to accounting chicanery) and box-office, DVD and television earnings to figure out an operating income for each film.”

Not including marketing costs? Are they f-ink kidding? And they think the rest of the numbers are etched in stone somewhere?

“We added up each star’s compensation on his or her last three films…”

Also pulled directly out of their asses.

“…and the operating income on those films, and divided total operating income by the star’s total compensation to come up with a return-on-investment number. The final number represents an average of how much a studio earns for every dollar paid.”

And if a studio calculated numbers so lazily, they would all be out of business.

They also discount animation, which it’s true, is not always star driven… but in many cases, is marketed heavily based on the stars, who are paid a ton for sequels, particularly, because of the celebrity value to the bottom line. Think of how much DWA could have earned on Shrek sequels without paying eight-figures and back-end to Myers, Diaz, and Murphy. But they didn’t. And it isn’t a charity.

But let’s start with Victim #1, Will Ferrell. Not a very complicated story. He tends to hit every other time. But he also tends to make movies with pretty reasonable budgets against the numbers he delivers. He’s had one very expensive commercial miss in his career. It was last summer.

Forbes is dead wrong when it claims that his price requires massive hits to make money. I’ve been writing about the math on comic actors for 15 years. They are – they being Jim Carrey or Will Ferrell or Martin Lawrence or Ben Stiller or Vince Vaughn or Sacha Baron Cohen or Eddie Murphy or Adam Sandler, and a few others over the years – all worth the money so long as they make movies with tight below-the-line budgets. They are all too expensive when they start to make movies that require $60m – $100m below the line budgets.

By creating the arbitrary notion of this list being measured based on the last three films released… until last June 1 (LAZY! What other possible reason can they have for not doing a few hours of reporting on this before attacking people in print?)… they put Will Ferrell in position to count only one success and two down movies… the two worst performing movies of his starring career. Starting with Old School, Ferrell has had 11 relevant-to-a-commercial-analysis (meaning, starring) wide releases in his career. In his case, one should throw out Curious George, since it really wasn’t sold as a Will Ferrell movie. If there were Megamind numbers, they would be completely relevant, as the film has been sold as a Will Ferrell movie.

Elf is still the positive outlier. Worldwide, Talladega Nights and The Other Guys are almost the same gross, both around $160m. But Other Guys doesn’t count because it only opened three months before this list was launched. Uh-huh.

Between those two big hits, by comedy standards, three films between $44m and $69m (one a drama with a little comedy) and two over $128m, all worldwide.

Hollywood knows this. Hollywood can be stupid, but It is not blind.

Sony, which first got into bed with Ferrell by bringing him in to support Nicole Kidman and Nora Ephron on Bewitched, has made four movies with him as star, and the only one that didn’t hit $100 million domestic was the one dramedy. DreamWorks/Paramount also had a $100 million hit with him. Universal (which also suffered Kicking & Screaming in 2005) and an under siege New Line were the two companies that got rotten fruit from Ferrell. Semi-Pro just was a dud. And Land Of The Lost was that one example of Ferrell and a studio overreaching his box office muscle.

Calling him out as overpaid is just lazy and stupid.

#2 on the list is Eddie Murphy… always a popular target. And truth told, he had two car wrecks back-to-back in Meet Dave and Imagine That. He has vowed not to work at Fox again, not because he hated Meet Dave, but because he hated how they sold it and feel that they undermined its potential success. That doesn’t mean it’s fair, but it’s how he feels. Paramount, which released his last two non-animated hits, Dreamgirls and Norbit, gets off a little easier.

Norbit is a classic situation for Murphy. $160m worldwide, but media insists on painting it as a flop. $165m for Daddy Day Care is similarly dismissed.

Murphy may be at the end of his run. He’s going to have to make better choices if he wants to remain an elite. But he’s got another Brian Robbins comedy under his belt and he decided to make an ensemble comedy with Brett Ratner, Ben Stiller, and a bunch of good talent.

But to call a guy who hasn’t opened a movie – and that is what stars are really paid for – to less than $12 million in the last decade, with the exception of these two back-to-back disasters and the dumped Pluto Nash, is dumb. I’m not saying he is not vulnerable, but there is no reason to think he is “over” or, for that matter, overpaid for what he brings to the box office.

Denzel is the next STUPID name thrown onto this list. An actor who has been as consistent as anyone out there. His movies open to $20 million or more… the only exceptions this decade being the films he has directed and in which he wasn’t really the star. The number can go up, but he simply never misses.

And with the exception of Deja Vu, he doesn’t generate big (relative) numbers overseas. He just doesn’t. And every studio that hires him and funds his films knows this. His international has gotten a bit better, but he suffers the hard reality that black actors don’t tend to sell very well overseas. Every film that has cracked $65m overseas – with the exception of Deja Vu – has co-starred a major white star.

Budgets are adjusted to this. And Denzel is worth every penny he earns. He is money in the bank.

Seth Rogan? Seriously? Not even worth the time to analyze. He’s starred in five movies. Shut up.

Tom Cruise hit the superstar wall with Mission: Impossible 3 in 2006. He’s only made three films since. Lions For Lambs was a non-starter for all involved and no one got anything close to their asking price. Valkyrie opened to over $20m domestic and overpeformed expectations, hitting $200m worldwide to be somewhere around breakeven (due to overruns and a very expensive – for MGM at the time – marketing effort). Knight & Day… $257m worldwide.

It’s not $400 million… and that’s what “they” wanted. Yes. Most overpaid? Depends on what the deals actually were. As I just noted, LFL wasn’t a serious pay day. His percentage on Valkyrie, which he also produced, would be interesting to know… you can be sure that Forbes doesn’t know. And it’s possible that he made a little bit too much on Knight, if Fox pushed him into an upfront deal. But Tom Rothman isn’t known for throwing money at talent. So…

#6 Drew Barrymore – Hasn’t had a major hit since 2004. Easy shot. Her real pay rate on these films vs the ask is probably skewing the analysis.

#7 Matt Damon – Did not get his studio ask on The Informant! or Invictus, which did not underperform, even though Forbes characterizes as such. $122m worldwide was enough to make the film slightly profitable. Green Zone was a bust, absolutely. Probably is getting paid his rate on Contagion… and WB is probably happy to pay it.

#8 Vince Vaughn – Has opened four starring films out of five to over $30 million. Forbes, You are a moron.

#9 Adam Sandler – Again, only an idiot who knows nothing about the film business would put the comedy version of Denzel on this list. He hasn’t had a film in his comedy wheelhouse gross less than $100 million domestic in 3 days short of 10 years. Nine in a row. He has never once grossed as much overseas as he did at home. And Sony knows this. And his films and his paydays are budgeted accordingly. The below-the-line has grown a bit fat over the years, but he is still a cash cow that any studio would want. The four “misses” were for major directors working on their own steam (Judd Apatow, Jim Brooks) or budgeted to fit low commercial expectations (Paul Thomas Anderson, Mike Binder). He has a “put” deal with Sony that he really hasn’t ever abused.

#10 Jim Carrey – The one reasonable person on this list. He is the classic example of a great, popular talent who started getting interested in too-expensive productions. Still, in the last decade, he has had only two movies open to less than $14 million… the beloved arthouse film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Majestic, his one unmitigated flop… a drama. Apparently, if I Love You, Phillip Morris opened in the spring or the year before, he wouldn’t be on the list, since he didn’t take much money to make the low budget film.

Anyway… this piece – and almost every list they do at Forbes regarding the film and television industry – is an embarrassment. There is almost zero attention paid to journalism and basically, they pick cheap. big targets that will draw page views.

One of my “victims” responded last week that, yes, the reason to do lists is because readers like it. THAT’S NOT JOURNALISM, THAT’S MARKETING!!!

If you want to be a marketer, seriously, get the hell off of my lawn.

I don’t mind a little self-promotion. I get that. You have to do some. But when it comes to doing the work, DO THE WORK… or don’t. But this ain’t The Work. It’s tabloid trash… weak, malicious gossip. Enough already.

Budrus, director Julia Bacha

The Palestinian/Israeli conflict is one of the most divisive, intense political debates in the world. Budrus brings it down to the personal.

Another Nail In The Coffin For The Acting Middle Class

You know, this new AFTRA/SAG contract was never going to be a game changer. The big point of pride offered by “Unite for Strength” is that the negotiations weren’t contentious. Kinda like when a woman is abused enough by a thug to “unite” without any argument. It makes perfect sense that they leaked out this grease at 4am on a time-changing Sunday morning.

With a 2% a year increase in minimums, this United With AFTRA regime shows, again, that they don’t much care about actors who make minimum, even as the number of established actors forced to work for that number continues to increase. Of course, the game was already up when the last contract was pushed through, as those same actors are now facing the loss of most of their re-run payments.

Focusing on keeping Pension & Health solvent with increased payments is fine… but the bigger problem is members making the income cut to be eligible for the very good SAG healthcare plan. That was one place where the abandonment of the middle class by SAG took place.

I am fascinated that United for Strength has been able to create this fallacy that merging with/submitting to AFTRA is the moderate position when it’s a radical position. Thing is, they have slowly made this an inevitability. If you embrace AFTRA as AFTRA seriously undercuts what it took SAG decades to establish, then you end up with – and you now do have – serious competition between the unions.

AFTRA has become the studios’ choice, over SAG, for contracts with actors whenever possible. Why? Because they cut better deals for the studios/producers, at the cost of actors. It’s not complicated. But United and its ilk have conspired with AFTRA to undercut “Membership First,” authored the end of SAG as a sovereign union, and now, yeah, fighting off AFTRA is virtually impossible.

And that’s what passes for “moderation” these days.

Oy.

Weekend Estimates by MegaDueColoredGirl Klady

Megamind‘s opening is most fairly balanced against other fall animation openings. It’s #4 all-time in that regard and #6 amongst all non-summer animation openings. It’s not a world beater and I wouldn’t expect it to crack $200m, especially with two big family animated films due before the end of the year, but $160m wouldn’t be a surprise.

Due Date and For Colored Girls both did about what they should have. (*see yesterday’s column)

Amazingly, to many, Red is looking like it could outgross Paranormal Activity 2 domestically, although it will not be as profitable. Between this film and The Expendables, expect Hollywood to jump on the 90s nostalgia bandwagon. Welcome to middle age, geeks.

Saw 7:3D will be the second weakest grosser in the series, after Saw 6: Not 3D. The 3D did pay off, but the franchise that likes to claim its over is, for this generation, probably really over now. Look for the reboot in 2018.

Searchlight, about to break out with 127 Hours and Black Swan, tried to find an “audience movie” in Conviction, but the barrel went over the expansion falls this weekend, dropping 15% in spite of a 107 screen expansion (19%). The film will probably gross half of what Amelia made domestically. My suggestion to Ms. Swank… find some supporting roles in quality films with strong directors. Rebuild.

Life As We Know It continues to be my surprise of the season, heading past Killers, north of the $50m domestic line and into profitability. It will be the #3 of 4 post-Knocked Up films for Heigl, but you have to give her credit for delivering her audience.

Goodbye To Jill Clayburgh

Jill Clayburgh had one of those indelible, perfect, life-changing runs as a movie actor.

In 1975, Clayburgh had some profile, but at 32, hadn’t broken through. In 1976, she turned up in Gable & Lombard, as Carole Lombard. The movie was a miss, but the role fit like a glove. She also had a big hit that year, opposite Gene Wilder in Silver Streak, which was also the start of his legendary team-up with Richard Pryor.

The role playing the sandwich meat between Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson was a huge get at the time… though Semi-tough only semi-worked in 1977.

And then An Unmarried Woman, arguably the most influential feminist film of all time, right in the heart of the world changing its perspective. Clayburgh brought her glibness and beauty to the role… but she also brought a depth of quiet pain and triumphant resolve that really defined a big part of that era. Sadly for her and the film, two other movies that were also brilliantly defining the personal toll of Vietnam – The Deer Hunter and Coming Home – and it would be hard to argue that Oscars and other awards went to the wrong films and people. It was a truly remarkable trio of films and as much as Streep and Fonda breathed life into women who were having profound experience in the reflection of the men in their lives, Clayburgh cannot be forgotten as a woman who was fighting on a very different front, finding her own power and frailties beyond those of a man.

Clayburgh flipped it completely the very next year in the Alan Pakula/Jim Brooks-screenwriter minor masterpiece, Starting Over, which offered Burt Reynolds actually acting for the first time and made a comedy start of the previously-thought-of-as-too-stiff Candice Bergen. Clayburgh played a very different kind of woman on the verge. It’s Reynolds’ story, but it’s Clayburgh that made us believe that a shy, less-beautiful, slump-shouldered woman, even with a comedically runny nose, could be The Right One, the choice of the soul.

These triumphs led, as they often do, to high profile misses. It’s My Turn, opposite Michael Douglas, trying to be a certain kind of leading man between The China Syndrome and Romancing The Stone. First Monday In October, as 37-year-old romantic foil to the 61-year-old Walter Matthau. And I’m Dancing As Fast As I Can, a prescription drug drama that was just not raw enough or smart enough to work.

She made a Costa-Gavras movie, Hanna K, that came out in 1983, but the film, which was an early piece on that dealt with Palestinian-Israeli issues, would not be a triumph for either of them.

In 1989, it’s been reported, she started the battle with leukemia that she lost yesterday, 21 years later.

She would turn up now and again in shows, from Frasier to Ally McBeal, but nothing ever caught fire. She had a great role in Running With Scissors in 2006, but the movie sunk and the buzz around her performance with it.

I am 46. I remember discovering An Unmarried Woman on HBO in my teens, having had a crush on this woman after seeing Silver Streak in a theater multiple times when I was 12 and then loving Starting Over when I was 15. It was breathtaking. Not only her, but Bates, whose work I knew from other films, and Michael Murphy, who I knew from Woody and Altman, and the supporting cast, who have defined the idea of New York film actors for much of my life. I grew up with three sisters and a broken mother and amazingly enough, Paul Mazursky and Jill Clayburgh taught me a lot about women that I could never have figured out… at least not until decades later. I watched that movie a lot of times. I tried to figure out the subtext as I enjoyed the surface.

Clayburgh turns up, for a few minutes, in Love & Other Drugs, coming out in a few weeks. She teams with George Segal, as mom & dad to Jake Gyllenhaal. George seems to be in pretty good shape. He is also connected to Mazursky and I have gotten to spend time with both of them in recent years. The next time will be sadder for the loss.

Thanks for the memories… Jill Clayburgh will not be forgotten.