The Hot Blog Archive for October, 2012
DP/30: Cloud Atlas, screenwriter/directors Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski
Review-tini: Skyfall (Spoiler-Free)
I am not embargoed on this film… but it’s so early in the film’s domestic press rollout that a full review would do a disservice to other press, audiences, and the movie. And if you are looking to avoid spoilers – and you really should for this film – I’d avoid every review I’ve seen from the UK so far.
That said… here is what I do want to put on record.
This is, for me, Sam Mendes best work as a movie director. One could easily argue that American Beauty is a better movie. But for me, that was a very theatrical work with a very heavy influence coming from the late great Conrad Hall. Skyfall offers a stronger hand from Mendes than I have ever seen in his film work before. Mendes’ negative signature for me has been extreme story choices followed by pulled punches. Not here. This movie feels to be of one piece… of one attitude. That is a success for me. And the action, when he chooses action, is skillful… which I didn’t expect, even with great second unit support.
Roger Deakins continues to earn his stratospheric rep. This is the first Bond film shot on digital and while if you are looking to pick at it, you can certainly find things that suggest electronic cinema, you’d be obsessing on a couple of trees while ignoring the gorgeous, organic-looking forest. This may be the most visually pure Bond film ever shot.
Great supporting cast, many of whom are, so far, unexpected and undefined for audiences. Don’t want to spoil anything. But it’s a great parade of actors who never feel like they are lining up for another Harry Potter all-in event.
Also a lot of fun and not to be spoiled are Bond series references that are, in this 50th year of Bond, a pleasure.
This Bond film is, like the last two pictures really, an anti-Bond film. Bond continues to be a hard, brooding guy. And this film goes far deeper into the introspection… but unlike the last two, it gets very specific.
There is no sign of what we would traditionally think of as a Bond Girl. But there are some beautiful women. Costume Designer Jany Temime dresses the cast – Bond is in couture suits – impeccably… better than I remember in a series of film where everyone has always looked great. It feels fresh. And it sure doesn’t hurt to have Naomie Harris making Kim Kardashian look like an amateur on the curves circuit. (Naomie is the only person in the cast other than Craig to have her trainer listed in the credits.)
One of the great things about Brooding Bond this time is that the villain in the piece, Bardem, brings him to life. It’s like watching a great heavyweight fighter getting some real competition for a change and stepping it up. (The same is true of another actor in the film who goes toe-to-toe with Javier.) It is a pleasure – and it’s been a long, long time – to see the great actor used as The Bad Guy in the Bond film used for his strengths and not just to chew up scenery. The Uber Villain isn’t a traditional Bond villain with traditional Bond goals. As the third of three inward-looking Bond films, this one feels like the most effective in terms of that goal. (I’ll still take Casino Royale as the best of the three.) And by the time it is over, I felt satisfied about that journey.
And now, I am ready for the next group of Bond films that are bigger, brasher, funnier, and smartly back to the idea of a gadgety, fun Bond who has his martinis shaken, not stirred, sleeps with all the hot women, and blows some really cool stuff up. Happy to have Daniel Craig in the middle of that mix. And I’m not talking Moonraker silly. For me, the template for big, brassy Bond is Live & Let Die and The Spy Who Loved Me, where we first saw Jaws. Give me the dumb and the smart. Figure out a way to do wild gadgets that feel connected to modern reality. I don’t mind a remote control car, so long as it is used with a clear purpose, not just as a gag.
I’m looking forward to seeing Skyfall again – I’ll do a real review after I do – and to the future of the series.
12 Comments »Friday Estimates by Sinister Klady
Well…
The good news, of a sort, is that Here Comes The Boom, a movie that Sony was not even screening for editorial consideration until Wednesday, tanked. It will be Kevin James’ worst opening as a lead. Maybe the movie has secret charms, as it is directed by Frank Coraci, who is arguably the most skilled director in the Sandler stable (The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy). But this apparent rip-off of half of the box office weak, but brilliant Warrior, didn’t do any better finding an audience.
Finding that audience is Sinister, a new Lionsgate horror movie, this one written and directed by an AICNer. Good, creepy ads. No idea if the movie is interesting or a floater, but it seems to be headed for The Screen Gems 20, which is what I call a solid horror movie start, driven almost exclusively by clever advertising and not word of mouth, which is the standard for these films (whether or not the movies were very cheap or more expensive). Screen Gems, Lionsgate, and others have shown that you can open these movies to just below or just over 20 if your marketing pops. So this is a win for Lionsgate… and might be a bigger win, depending on the numbers on the film.
Taken 2 is off 62%, which will probably be around 55% for the weekend… which is about right for this repeat. I have only seen the last 20 minutes of the film. I suspect that I got enough out of that to say that it’s quite familiar… which is a compliment, really. I wasn’t expecting King Lear. Team Besson keeps the action strong and there are some really good actors taking big, healthy bites of scenery. You could do worse, if that’s what you’re after.
Of course, you could do a lot better, which brings us to Argo. I was going to write that this is The Movie for people who have been asking you, “Is there anything out there worth watching?” But the truth is, I would recommend 7 of the top 10 movies this weekend, with specifics reservations for each film. So we are in a good moment for wide releases. But Argo is certainly the best and clearest choice for people over 16. And I expect this to be a very leggy movie. The frustration is, I’m sure, for WB and the Affleck Brain Trust is that this movie is getting a lot of LOVE from the media, BA’s track record is strong as a director, and still… not quite the Town opening numbers.
Look. This started as and is a Smokehouse movie (Clooney/Grant Heslov). These are not the kinds of movies that have a star, like Affleck, running across roofs in Tehran, rolling and machine gunning down the Ayatollah before making a pithy comment. And thank God. But the numbers have been “disappointing” on all of these films. Good Night, And Good Luck did well against costs, but had just one $3m weekend… and just barely. The Ides of March opened to $10.5 with Clooney, and Gosling coming off of his biggest commercial hit. Even Michael Clayton never got to $50m domestic.
I’m just saying… much as I just wrote about expectations on horror movies… these releases have their own standards. Yes, the aspiration is for more. And if this is a $16m 3-day, I’m pretty sure Argo will end up over $50m domestic… perhaps as high as $65m. It’s a strong movie and will play strongly into weekends 3 and 4 and 5, as older people take a while to come out. But putting the real standard – profitability – aside as the primary focus, these are the movies we who love movies all should be out there supporting and not whining when they are not massive hits.
The other newbie is Seven Psychopaths, from the great Martin McDonagh. Tough movie to sell. It will be more than half way to In Bruges‘ domestic total by the end of this weekend. This too may have a glass ceiling. It’s complex, very dark, smart, funny, violent, brash storytelling. Terrific movie. But when all you can really hook into for the marketing pitch is, “Look… we put some of your favorite oddballs in a movie,” you rarely see a success by studio-release standards. On a film like The Expendables, the secret was to make an action movie you could sell even without all those veteran action stars… and then the stars add more. But not only can’t you explain Seven Psychopaths in 25 words or less… if you love movies, you don’t want to. If you liked/loved Looper, you are pretty sure to like/love this film. But nto a very good marketing tag… especially when the comparative movie is still in theaters competing with you.
Just look at the Top Ten. Affleck, Tartakovsky, Rian Johnson, Burton, McDonagh, Stephen Chbosky. A lot of frickin’ talent there. Movie culture is not only NOT dead… it’s in some really good hands… whether they got there as novelist/directors or coming in late to an Adam Snadler animated film, or if it was their childhood dream project. A good time to go to the movies if you are a true movie omnivore whose only real standard is “good.”
14 Comments »
Variety Becomes A Mail.com Property
You know how it sounds yicky to talk about movies as “product?”
Welcome to the new Variety… “a Penske Media Joint.”
I don’t live in Planet Penske, so I have no idea how Hollywood Life is doing. All I know is… I have never heard it mentioned by anyone or referenced online outside of when Penske is the story. Ever.
With due respect for the good folks that are still drawing checks from Movie|Line… does the site have any standing outside of the occasional link that pretty much every blog gets in the entertainment blogosphere? Has anyone living in 2012 rushed to Movie|Line to get insight into the latest story or movie?
TV|Line is a personal weblog with a lot of production value, right?
And Deadline, for all its endless self-hype and a personally desperate media happy to lap up the idea that they, toom might get paid some day, has never managed to scale its site into most than a single-sheet tabloid. The only clicks to additional content pages are driven by “More,” which is a narrow set of clicks for most of its content, and people reading comments, which seem, at times, more popular than the content of the site.
Make no mistake, the Mike & Nellie show works brilliantly in its context. Nikki is the ringmaster, but those two jump through the hoops and ultimately, that is the only reason a crowd still comes.
(It’s worth pointing out that in the hours since Nikki went on her “vacation,” there is no real difference in the amount or quality of content on Deadline.)
So what credentials does Jay Penske bring to the stewardship of Variety? He paid a relative fortune to enable a journalistic car wreck and then agreed to pay two trade reporters—the right ones—more than they ever had been paid to run free. That’s pretty much it. He also hired Lynne Segall, ad sales queen, who brought the profit center to Deadline… a print magazine that sparks Oscar Consultants’ sense of tradition of spending a fortune to put a piece of paper on voters’ coffee tables… which has always been said to have been fought by Nikki, who would, apparently, prefer to just spend Penske’s money without making any profit for him.
So what is Penske doing, buying Variety with a partner? The math is simple. He and his partner must be figuring that they can get their money back out, plus interest, in 6 or 7 years if they can maintain what exists. But they would prefer to cut overhead, making the existing entity more profitable, and perhaps even growing things. How? There is no sign of an actual idea there. And the trade business is in decline. It’s only going to get worse.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a business there. It’s just not a very big one.
And there is the BIG problem… which is, how do you differentiate, in a world that doesn’t care in the least where they link, between Deadline and Variety, especially when you have eliminated the idea of intense competition? The more Penske uses his lessons from Deadline, the more worthless Variety becomes as a unique brand. The one thing Variety does that Deadline really does not is criticism of film, TV, and stage. But Rotten Tomatoes seems to have that covered.
But this does remind us to wonder aloud whether Jay Penske is aware that Variety has already been cut to the bloody bone. This is not the fat, bloated, slow, cash machine that Peter Bart used to run.
The big piece of this puzzle that all of us Nikki obsessives have so far overlooked is Dan Loeb, who runs Third Point, the hedge fund that apparently has a major financial stage in this purchase. Loeb’s a 50-year-old right-wing, shareholder activist type. Third Point also owns 5.8% of Yahoo!, where Loeb is the guy who outed Scott Thompson’s resume lie, effectively shoving him out.
Penske is the face of this deal, but Dan Loeb is not the kind of guy who was going to invest more than $10 million and have Nikki Finke tell him how his business was going to work.
Was the NY Deadline event last week a chance for Nikki to audition for Loeb? Possibly. If it was, she clearly failed.
In the short run, separating Nikki from Variety means that Penske can, indeed, assess Variety as it now stands, with current staff neither jumping off the boat or being pushed off by Her Royal Craziness.
I see no sign of a big idea from Penske. But it could be that Loeb is looking to leverage this into something else altogether… like becoming a part of Yahoo! or becoming the FoxNews of Hollywood, a pedestal from which to preach a certain fiscal mindset to Hollywood.
And what happens when Nikki comes back to work? That’s the wild card. Will she play nice? Or will she become Penske’s Anjelica Huston in Crimes & Misdemeanors?
No idea, really. Does Finke have an out with Penske? She can surely find a funder/sucker if she wants to break it off. Where is Penske/Loeb’s “red line” on Variety revenues? How much will Variety dip into the Fleming of it all (as Penske pays him, not Nikki)? Will a dozen Variety reporters find a funder to the tune of $2m a year and out-Penske/out-Finke Variety?
The purchase of Variety opens the door for another entity to step up into the space. Sharon Waxman isn’t up to it. Some, like me, are not interested. The Hollywood Reporter is already being weighed down by its inability to get off the Oscar season industry crack pipe.
Interesting times.
The only almost guaranteed loser in all of this? Journalism. At least for now.
6 Comments »DP/30: E.T. 30th Anniversary Blu-ray, actor Dee Wallace
The Daily Show on Romney & Sesame Street
Certain to become one of The Daily Show’s best loved bits… epic.
1 Comment »Seven Psychocats. Um.
The redband version is here… not sure why embedding is disabled.
Weekend Estimates by Kladyweenie
Taken 2 is one of those movies. You know what it is. You can make fun of it being the same movie, probably not as good, all over again. And yet… you just have to go see it.
It’s easily the best Liam Neeson opening as the center of the film, behind only Phantom Menace, Titans, voice work as the Lion in 2 Narnias, and an appearance in Dark Knight Rises. Even if you include his bigger role in Batman Begins, T2 still tops it.
It’s also the 3rd best opening ever in October, behind only Paranormal 3 and Jackass 3D (both phenom franchises from Paramount). Though it is certainly worth pointing out, the only films to get to or past the $120m mark after opening in October are non-sequels (Meet The Parents, Shark Tale, Puss in Boots, Look Who’s Talking, The Departed, American Beauty, The Ring). I expect the same will be true of Taken 2… as in, nothing close to the $145m of Taken, which is Neeson’s best grosser as lead… again, behind those bigger movies that he was not the center of, this time with Batman Begins joining the list.
This is also Fox’s 2nd best domestic opening this year and 4th best dom opening in the last 2 years, behind only Prometheus, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and X-Men: First Class. Of course, the best of those was $55.2 million, so that might explain why “the international guy,” Jim Gianopulos, is now at the top of Fox movies by himself.
After a decent hold this weekend, it’s clear that Hotel Transylvania will be Sony Animation’s 2nd $100m+ domestic grosser after Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. (Those guys, by the way, are now working on The Lego Movie.) Now you know why DreamWorks is at Fox and not Sony. Fox has had a lot more success in animation overall, but Sony remains bullish on their future in this area, while Fox seems not to quite believe that there’s much life after Ice Age… and with DWA talking about 3 films a year, no room for one. Personally, I am hoping for a Genndy Tartakovsky feature film built from scratch. (He specifically wants to do a Samurai Jack feature.)
Pitch Perfect did well in its expansion this weekend. It didn’t bust out. But here’s the deal. It was inexpensive (under $20m). It didn’t have a “hot” commercial lead… unlike Kirsten Dunst (who’d fronted three high-profile movies in row before Bring It On) and Gabrielle Union (who had a lot of heat, especially with “urban” audiences). And with this expansion, we’re really in what would be a 1st weekend in other situations. So… if it dies off at $35m, it’s not a thriller. If it gets a little leggy and gets over $50m, you have to count it as a real success, both for Universal and the film’s rising producers.
Looper is rolling along nicely, if not thrillingly. But $100m worldwide seems very, very likely at this point and that makes it a hit. The window for the must-see buzz movies for adults out there is closing with Argo opening next weekend.
Frankenweenie opened about 42% behind The Corpse Bride. Why? The pitch. What was it? I don’t know what Disney intended to sell… no log line buzzing around in my head. You also have the basic problems with selling a dark kids movie, as Paranorman also suffered this year. But I am taking that into account… and this one is opening about 15% behind Paranorman, which didn’t have the Burton name to front the film. Which brings me back to… it looked beautiful… adults could fill in the dotted line to Burton’s other animation and even Edward Scissorhands. BUT… if I was going to the movie, what could I expect… aside from a dead dog coming to life with cool creepy stop-motion animation? No idea. Marketing fail.
I am convinced that Clint left $20 million or more in that empty chair on the RNC stage. Regardless of the politics, no studio wants to be releasing any non-doc where the lead is taking clear sides right before release. I haven’t seen the movie. I would probably like this movie. But I will not be seeing this movie until the disc lands on my doorstep. Someone I have revered for most of my adult life has made himself significantly less interesting. Very sad.
End of Watch is the biggest grosser that David Ayer has been directed, so a win for him. It’s a relentless hard-R movie, so $40m domestic or so is pretty good. And it was, allegedly, under $10m to make. But I can’t help but feel that this film hasn’t gotten its due. Critics should be talking about it more… but in the middle of the festival season, it’s been snowed under by higher profile movies and a parade of great foreign filmmakers offering up interesting discussion. I don’t think Open Road did anything wrong. It’s just hard to be this movie right now. Even Looper overshadows it, with Rian Johnson being a geek beloved, heat around Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and a bit more accessibility as a not-too-hard R.
And speaking of disappearances… The Master will be right on top of a lot of Top Ten lists this year. But man, did this epic effort by Paul Thomas Anderson and Megan Ellison and The Weinstein Company hit the wall in a hurry. In some ways, the fact that this film could well be the lowest-grossing film of PTA’s post-Sydney/Hard Eight career might help during awards season, as it will probably galvanize the film’s lovers in pushing it harder when the time comes. It’s now an underdog. Tough business.
53 Comments »Friday Estimates by Klady 2 (This Time They Have His Int’l Cumes)
No time to really analyze any of this, but I will quickly note that journalists still pushing the ticket sales, not box office meme are like Republicans trying to explain why the job figures aren’t real or that the polls are cooked. Counting tickets instead of grosses is not the new normal and remains an almost completely irrelevant statistic for studios. It would be overshadowed completely by revenue reductions on the Home Entertainment side, but those numbers are not reported, so you have repidiots obsessing on an obscure stat to try to prove a disinterest in theatrical because of their own disinterest.
September record opening last weekend. Possible October record opening this month… certainly the biggest non-threequel opening.
Decent hold for Looper, in spite of being right in the wheelhouse of the new chart topper. Hotel Tranny should drop in the mid-low 30s by the end of the weekend. Pitch Perfect‘s expansion is not gangbusters, but the movie is certainly heading to profitability, even without relying on international, where it could surprise.
Frankenweenie is doing about a third less than Paranorman, which is unfortunate, but reality is that animation is not a great bet when you scare off – literally – the parents of the under-10 crowd.
32 Comments »
