60 Minutes Overtime Looks At The Private Letters That Informed The King’s Speech

Gurus 8 Days Out…

There still may be some changes. Just adding in the last few late votes, for instance, pushed Melissa Leo back into the top Gurus slot in Supporting Actress.

But if The Gurus are right, just 3 days before balloting closes, the scoresheet the next morning will look like this…

The King’s Speech – 4 Oscars – Picture, Actor, Original Screenplay, Score
Inception – 4 Oscars – Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, Art Direction
The Social Network – 3 Oscars – Director, Adapted Screenplay, Editing
The Fighter – 2 Oscars – Supp Actor, Supp Actress
Toy Story 3 – 2 Oscars- Song, Animated Feature

And getting 1 Oscar each….

Black Swan – Actress
Inside Job – Documentary
In A Better World – Foreign Language
The Wolfman – Make-Up
Day & Night – Animated Short
Wish 143 – Live Action Short
Alice In Wonderland – Costume
True Grit – Cinematography

And with half an Oscar each (the Gurus have them tied for the lead)…

Strangers No More/The Warriors of Qiuang – Short Doc

Perhaps My Favorite EXCLUSIVE Photos Ever

Here are the lot of them.

Just… Too… Funny.

It could be a Screen Gems production in Toronto, an indie in Budapest, or a stage in downtown LA doing a very special episode of a CW show.

But it’s a load in of some castle interior in New Zealand, so it’s worldwide news!

Coming up next, a look at Peter Jackson’s t-shirt drawer!!!

Friday Estimates by Unknown Klady #4

Well. They got that out of their system.

I am Number Four is the first release from DreamwWorks 3.0. (Or maybe, DW sees this as 4.0, thus the title of their first film… hmmmm…) Thirteen and a half years ago, DreamWorks SKG launched with The Peacemaker, grossing $4 million on opening day. This time, it’s a similarly mediocre, but not disastrous $6.1 million. The difference between this film’s open and Eagle Eye‘s $9.8m launch day may well be Shia LaBeouf. Both films were directed by DJ Caruso. Both films feature a lot of flashy-looking stuff. But Shia playing against type here might have been a home run instead of a single hoping to leg out a double.

Welcome back into the pool, DW.

Of course, if Number Five is alive and Number Four is a bore, it’s Liam Neeson looking for someone (himself) in the #1 slot for the day with Unknown. It’s Jaume Collet-Serra’s third picture for Warner Bros and Liam Neeson is doing for him what Paris Hilton (House of Wax) and a creepy girl (Orphan) couldn’t… breaking him out of the $12m opening weekend groove.

Warners smartly did a marketing campaign that felt as much like Taken as possible. They haven’t disappeared Diane Kruger and January Jones, but they aren’t emphasizing them either. Taken opened to $9.4m. All-in-all, WB did well for themselves here. Though $100m isn’t realistic here, there should be enough of a gross to make the movie fairly profitable.

Fox brings us the third new release this weekend, which is also the third in its Big Momma series… the one where Martin Lawrence hands the keys to the series over to a new kid. But you would never know it from the ads. Regardless, it hasn’t taken. The first film opened to $7.7m, the second to $8.4m… and now this one to an estimated $4.7m. Maybe Brendan T. Jackson isn’t very funny in drag. I don’t know. But you would think they would have a better shot at a young audience with some new energy. Instead, it’s Martin Lawrence getting caught naked in his fat suit… again. Sigh.

Sandler had a decent hold, Gnomeo had a good hold, and Justin Bieber dropped a spectacular 70% by Len’s Friday-to-Friday estimate.

The King’s Speech is the only Oscar Best Picture still in the Top 10, holding strong and on course to pass $100 million this weekend. TKS passed The Social Network on Thursday, as expected. That makes TSN the #6 grosser amongst BP nominees. The only good news for the film is that unless there is a major upset, it looks like the domestic gross for The Fighter will remain behind TSN in the battle of the two sides of the Massachusetts tracks.

Come Monday, this will be the second year in a row with five of the ten nominees grossing over $100 million domestic.

Seriously?

“This allows the critics to stay at a remove from their readers, to stay in control. To pontificate from their high ivory tower of authority. It ignores the new order of the day, which brings critics onto a more equal footing with their readers.” Anne Thompson

When did the authoritative voice become a subject for disdain from the over-40s?

Many of us choose to engage often with our readers. But “the new order of the day?” Was there a manifesto I didn’t read? Was Jeff Wells emboldened by his Social Security checks?

How about this as a notion… the only reason the New York Times critics are taken seriously at all is not because they work for the Gray Lady, but because they aren’t out there slogging in the shit with everyone else as though they had nothing better to do?

These two are some of the last left who are allowed to just do their jobs and not be twitter monkeys, jumping on command, trying to appease the masses. God bless them. I wrote about what I thought was a bit of overreaching in their race piece. But apparently Anne – and many others – would have them opining on everything all the time… like the rest of us idiots have found ourselves doing.

I was here first. First daily movie column on the web. The only daily movie column anywhere other than Army Archerd’s industry-friendly Variety fixture. I knocked it out every day. 2000 words a day for years. I chose e-mails to run every day. Usually, I picked ones that challenged my perspective. Sometimes I responded. Sometimes I just allowed another perspective onto my turf. I engaged readers in such an open and aggressive way that it was occasionally frowned upon by Mr. Ebert and Ms. Dargis alike. I took them both very seriously. But I still battled. My nature, I guess. When blogging landed, I eventually launched the blog which soon ate the column. I’ve been through the transition in a way that very few can claim to have experienced. And I’ll just say, the longer the blogging thing goes on, the more I appreciate restraint.

Critics do not belong on an equal footing with their readers. No one is saying they are gods on high. But if they have no authority, why the hell would anyone read them? And this is coming from a guy who doesn’t read many critics at all. I expect a lot before I hand over the mantle of authority to someone… and never just because of where their shingle is hanging. Never.

I LOVE gathering opinions on the blog. Even the rage can be helpful at times. But while we should all respect differences of opinion, some have to stand up and say, “I know more about this than you. You can disregard me, but I will think you are wrong. Sometimes, I will have disdain for your ignorance.”

I’m not saying that people shouldn’t like or hate what they like or hate. This is mostly a subjective issue. But there are some objective standards and some people are conscious enough of them or able to parse them smartly enough to be worth extra consideration.

Roger, God bless him, has a huge advantage over any other film blogger. He’s f-ing Roger Ebert. Does Anne think she could sell crap from Amazon in her tweets and keep her credibility (or perhaps, her job)? But Roger is above. He’s earned the place. And he doesn’t throw off the robe. He looks good in it and while ever humble, he wears it daily.

How great is it that Manohla and Tony are going to take their time and consider their answers before vomiting them out onto the web? God! And consider the history. “Ask Manohla” was a big LA Times hit – same set-up – and grew Manohla’s web value… and they killed it will a content wall. There was a brief flirtation with it at NYT, but it too had wall issue. So now – ironically, within what may be months of the next wall – here we go again.

They should live and be well.

And I think Anne – and many others – long for the days of taking a deep breath before hitting “send” to their editors, to their colleagues, and then, days, weeks, or months later, to their readers. Yeah, sometimes the soup was so filtered that it had no flavor. But man, wasn’t it great to let the soup cook long enough so the flavor could mature? Not enough of that these days.

Thor Trailer #3

BYOB Weekend

Is Bieber Abortion Correction Better Or Worse?

“I really don’t believe in abortion,” Bieber says. “It’s like killing a baby?” How about in cases of rape? “Um. Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I guess I haven’t been in that position, so I wouldn’t be able to judge that.”

Corrected!

“I really don’t believe in abortion,” Bieber says. “It’s like killing a baby?” How about in cases of rape? “Um. Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don’t know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven’t been in that position, so I wouldn’t be able to judge that.”

“I DON’T KNOW HOW THAT WOULD BE A REASON”

?????

He doesn’t know how rape might be a reason to consider an abortion?

Seriously?

This is the improvement?

Are they going to run another correction so he can explain how some women really like rape and want it?

JEEZ!!!!

Thor…

This is a much more promising trailer than the first one that starts with all the Asgaard stuff. Unfortunately, that promise is that this could be a movie so bad that it’s fun to laugh at…

The Film Delivelution: 21711

Maybe I need to start a separate blog for all of this…

Today, Redbox released a confirmation of experiential history that is music to the ears of the studios… There Is A Sucker Born Every Minute.

Just when the value of libraries was bottoming out, here comes Redbox and Amazon (not in that order, really), to follow Netflix and TV-centric cousin Hulu into the sucker bet of paying a truckload for content at least six months after theatrical release.

Ironically, with the half-a-brick and a schmear of mortar nature of Redbox, the company could make significant inroads into Netflix’s business, though the emphasis would have to be on more current titles rather than the depth of the library… which is how many people prioritize their Home Entertainment experience.

The big question is which studio(s) Redbox (which might be RedAmazon in this deal… or not… we’ll see) is going to offer for streaming. Are Columbia and Disney going to land via Starz at Redbox and not back at Netflix? Will Warners dip their toe into this deal while they continue to experiment with a wide variety of their own delivery systems and not worry so much about cannibalizing HBO? Is Comcast ready to turn a corner with Universal Studios and/or The Law & Order Streaming Channel? And when will Fox/News Corp make their big streaming play? (Note: Yes, I am aware that the tentacles of all of these companies are already out there and carry some obligations… time heals all content leases, especially at these prices.)

I think that Redbox Streaming needs at least two of the majors’ libraries to be competitive with Netflix. So you’re probably looking at a $500m – $600m outlay for streaming from Day One of the new version of Redbox. Big dice.’

On another front, the WSJ has a good story about the NFL and its labor issue. Unlike the film industry, this battle is about the rich getting richer, on both sides.

What struck me, in terms of movies, about the issue was that this business too creates new content every year, but aside from the individual pictures, doesn’t have a whole lot of growth in it. The NFL is a high margin business. The Film Industry is a low margin business. But ticket prices in both are pretty much maximized. Licensing has pretty much, except in some very specific cases, been maximized.

The technological revolution for film is near an end, in terms of the potential for savings in the physical side of distribution and production. The expansion of digital projection continues over time, but it isn’t hard for the industry to pinpoint when it will be at over 95% of screens. Digital production saves in some areas, but has not proven to be a great opportunity for studios to cut costs.

Very much like the NFL – though this is not explicitly laid out in the WSJ piece – the last great evolution for theatrical distribution was the bankrupting and rebuilding of the multiplexes in the 90s. That’s what accounted for an upsurge in ticket sales, now seen as maxed out, for the NFL. And in the movie business, it allowed exhibitors and distributors to wildly reimiagine how movies are released theatrically.

Unlike the NFL, where a stadium’s max capacity is about 90,000, a studio mega-release will now have as many as 40 to 50 MILLION seats available in North America alone over the opening weekend. An normal wide studio release these days has over 10 million seats available on opening weekend. The NFL has just one game a week and maximum possible sales are about 1.4 million tickets.

Obviously, the movie business outsells the NFL on tickets sold… but by design, the emphasis on opening weekend and these massive inventories, chasing 25% attendance in the best of cases, seems like more opportunity for the film business to grow ticket sales than there is.

Still, the revenue potential for the film business, like the NFL, is pretty well fixed. Film has growth spurts in revenue, but it’s a business that can only have real growth when there is some new anomaly expanding the market.

Big circle, but, the piece on the NFL is about how the owners are desperate for growth and there is no more to be had… so now they are trying to force the players to give up some of what they have so they can count the givebacks as growth.

The illusion in the film business is that because “anyone can make a movie” these days and there are so many films out there, its an open system. But in fact, major studios and their Dependents work in a closed industry, controlling the vast majority of distribution channels and available revenue and only doing full distribution (theatrical and post) for 100 films a year or less. All told, 127 films were distributed to as many as 1000 screens during the course of their domestic theatrical release last year. More than 500 films had theatricals. The revenue from the 127 films represented about $9.8 billion of the $10.1 billion domestic theatrical box office. There about about another 30 movies from majors, dependents, and the few large indies. Included in this are three Oscar Best Picture nominees, The Kids Are All Right, 127 Hours, and Winter’s Bone. But you get my general point, I hope.

6 majors and 4 major indies release an average of 15 films each per year through all of their distribution arms and eat over 98% of all theatrical revenue. That is not an open door business.

And if growth paces inflation or is a little behind inflation or a little ahead… it’s splitting hairs. This is a mature industry and real growth is a rarity. For the last 30 years, it’s been Home Entertainment and foreign theatrical that have grown through technology and investment. But we are facing a time when the last boat is leaving and it will be harder and harder to fix the game without it being quite transparent. Fighting Net Neutrality is the next big frontier for business to try to treat what should be a public right in a civilized country as a for-profit piggy bank.

The streaming world will be a boon for a few years… 2 or 3.

And then, once things shift into a subscription model for all post-theatrical and post-premiere TV, the only real game left in town will be pricing of the packages… which should be very lucrative for studios. But the illusions of the past will be gone. And there will be nowhere left for the super successful companies to hide… little chance of the existing companies to lose their shirts… and a door as closed as the NFL.

Let’s just hope that the NFL and the Film Industry are smart enough not to start cannibalizing themselves just because there is no obvious growth.

Fauxst Look: Adrienne Palecki in Wonder Woman

BYOB 2/16/11

And More LA Oscar Banksy…

NOTE: According to TMZ, the billboard painting was removed this afternoon by the billboard company. I’m still trying to figure out whose billboard it was… but one thing is now clear… it wasn’t Banksy’s. Unless, of course, this is a stunt also.

“Brutal and Sustained”

I started this on Twitter, but I’m feeling like some other perspectives and room for depth would be worth engaging.

NPR has now acknowledged that it decided to pull down comments on the Lara Logan story because many were mean-spirited and tended to blame the victim, who is, without any doubt in my mind, Ms. Logan.

There is also a fellow (not a “guy,” a scholarly fellow) at NYU School of Law, Nir Rosen, who has now left the school because of how he tweeted about the situation, first mocking Logan for trying to one-up Anderson Cooper and then, ““jesus christ, at a moment when she is going to become a martyr and glorified we should at least remember her role as a major war monger.” He also joked at one point that the assualt was wrong, but that it would be funny if it had also happened to Anderson Cooper. (It would not be funny… but I get the sarcastic tone, which was probably a kind of self-abuse regarding his earlier tweet.)

My feeling is that the whole situation has been inflamed by the language in CBS’s press release on what happened. Please read it for yourself.

I don’t need to know the details of anyone’s assault. If they wish to keep it private – side from a debate on how not-reporting can allow a predator to continue being a predator – that is their choice and not mine or anyone else’s to debate. Moreover, I don’t think that the public should be encouraged to speculate about the details.

The CBS press release, though clearly it was not their intent, is a fuse-lighter. “Brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating” is extremely aggressive language. But at the same time, it is not detailed language. And while I am not personally interested in those details, at least until sharing them is (or isn’t) of some comfort to the victim, the language encourages speculation about what degree of assault it was and how sexual it was.

Moreover, the language of her “saving,” is blurry. “Saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.”

Remember, this is a press release from a network. Am I too cynical think we are likely to hear the details of this saving on 60 Minutes before summer?

There is no mention of medical treatment or hospitalization, only that she went to the hotel and then to her home. It’s not a point of debate. She didn’t have to be hospitalized to have suffered a serious assault. But it’s another question left hanging, especially in light of “brutal and sustained.”

Look… if one man grabbed her boob as she looked for her crew, it was a sexual assault and she is a victim. Period. End of story. I’m sure it was worse than that.

But the coded language and the lack of much detail, while sensitive to the victim, is a mistake in a press release. To my eye, if Ms Logan is not ready to discuss or make public what happened to her, CBS should have written something to the effect of, “Lara Logan suffered an assault in the crowd insanity in Egypt. She is safe and recovering from the events in her home in the US and asks for privacy until she determines if she will address this publicly.” The End.

And if they were going to offer that there was a “brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating,” and that it took Egyptian women and 20 soldiers to save her, I don’t understand why they are too shy to use the word “rape,” if there was a rape or multiple rapes. Why is a major news organization using coded language?

Again… it’s none of my business. And Bill Clinton did not have sexual relations with that woman, as he defined “sexual relations.” And “don’t ask, don’t tell” got more gays kicked out of the military than the harshest version of the closet did.

The culture LOVES to speculate. Some people will speculate kindly and others unkindly. But generalities – even ones that seem obvious to some – are a misstep in this cultural climate. And it leaves people – none of whom should be speculating – discussing what happened to this woman as though they were friends (or enemies) of the family.

But what do you think? Does the use of extreme, but coded, language helpful or a mistake?

Ebert & Siskel: The First Show

The one in which they express their disappointment in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest…

The video embed is after the jump because it autostarts every time you come to the page and I can’t find any code to stop it.

Read the full article »