MSNBC Asserts: “Fake Dragon Tattoo Trailer Is Fake”
But – NYT: Sony Sez Probably Pirated Off U.S. Screen, Using Same Evidence
Oh, Wait – Salon Has Precisely The Same Conclusions!
While – THR Quotes A Buncha Bloggers And Cites Unnamed Sony Spokesperson With No Direct Quotes
Plus – “From a media perspective, it’s dealing in bad faith. Web sites and studios have an implicit agreement to work on the latter’s schedules; we withhold obviously pirated or leaked material until an authorized, theoretically superior version is available. It basically reduces us to another Hollywood marketing arm, but at least we have the prerogative to tell you if the campaign is stinky or ineffective.”
Vanairsdale On The Implications If It’s All A Salander-Fashioned “Hack”
Archive for May, 2011
MSNBC Asserts: “Fake Dragon Tattoo Trailer Is Fake”
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011Papaya King Goes H’wd
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011Teasing Mia Hansen-Løve’s UN AMOUR DE JEUNESSE (nudity)
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HLhW39kE-4&feature=player_embedded
Christopher Borelli Profiles Cartoonist Ivan Brunetti
Monday, May 30th, 2011
Chris Borelli writes a lot of swell profiles for the Chicago Tribune. I’m acquainted with cartoonist Ivan Brunetti, the subject of this piece. It’s very good, let’s start by saying that, and I’ll helicopter into the middle of an anecdote:
“Ivan Brunetti is cringing.
He is a Chicago cartoonist and illustrator, swooned over by peers, beloved by his students at Columbia College, revered by a fervent cult of admirers, and coming into his own. At the moment, though, he’s cringing. He’s cringing at this story, at the picture, at what you think of him, at the nice things people say about him. He doesn’t think he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as his peers: His best friend is the celebrated cartoonist Chris Ware; another good friend is cartoonist Daniel Clowes (“Ghost World”), who, like Brunetti, spent some formative years in Hyde Park. When I mention these guys, he cringes.
“Because I feel like a fraud most of the time,” he said. “I haven’t proven myself the way those guys have. I should feel lucky, right? I don’t. I’m constantly complaining. Most of my problems are caused by myself.”
One day I told him I wasn’t exactly certain when this profile would appear in the Tribune. “It’s a floater,” I said.
“Like a turd,” he replied quietly.”
Can Mayor Emanuel Make Chicago A Rahm With A Filmmaking View Once More?
Monday, May 30th, 2011Originality/Hangover/LAT
Monday, May 30th, 2011I don’t mind the LAT riffing on an idea I offered up repeatedly in the last few days… that The Hangover: Part II has opened so big because audiences were happy to see the guys back, doing pretty much a minor variation on what they did last time (ratcheting up the harshness), and that WB marketed to exactly that.
But I wish they didn’t make such mincemeat of the idea, trying to turn it into a trend piece.
Just the facts…
Zeitchik offers, “Those (sequeled comedies) that succeed tend to hew very closely to their originals.”
Of course, Zeitchik already threw away Sex & The City 2, last year’s example of a carbon copy of a well-known product whose opening dropped 46% from the first film domestically.
Last summer was light on sequels AND comedies, but note that non-comedy sequels Iron Man 2 opened better than the first with pretty much the same schtick, but The Karate Kid hit the jackpot by changing up the formula dramatically.
Evan Almighty is as freaky a possible example as you could come up with (aside from Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans), as the second movie not only was without the then biggest comedy star in the world, but completely dumped the original’s successful premise. If you remember, the pitch for Bruce Almighty included Bruce getting the power of God from God, but endlessly pushed him blowing a girl’s skirt up, making Jennifer Aniston’s breasts bigger, and a dog peeing in a toilet on his own. The sequel was about a good man called on to save the world and going all The Santa Clause as he becomes Noah. DQ!
Night At The Museum 2 wasn’t a major variation from the original… except by date. It went from being a holiday movie to being in the heat of summer competition. But all the major characters were back… they just added a couple more. The sequel also suffered from something many sequels of all stripes suffer from… a great idea that was a bit played out. NATM is still an important film to museums. But the idea of the stuff in the museum coming to life was exciting… once.
Bruno also suffered from a chance in the playing field. Borat was completely unexpected. Bruno was unavoidably anticipated. Borat indulged our xenophobia, but was also quite gentle. Bruno was about homophobia and media insanity, but all that really got notice was the gay… which also, by the way, turned some homophobic audiences off. Audiences could think Borat was an ass, but not feel concerned that they would be called out for it. Hate Bruno and you could be on the wrong side of political correctness. But on the most basic level, Bruno was NOT a sequel to Borat… at all… anymore than Bridesmaids is a sequel to Get Him To The Greek.
On the flip side, Meet The Fockers was not a direct copy of Meet The Parents. In fact, it was strongly driven by love of the original, but the very strong addition of Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman, who not only added star power, but added a whole new set of character relationships. They were as accepting of their son’s new family as DeNiro was not. Third time around, when they moved forward without Hoffman, they went back and added him at the last minute because his absence was not testing well.
Look… ALL sequels… and most “originals” are variations on a very, very familiar theme. This was the key to “high concept” fillmmaking… a phrase you rarely hear these days.
There are two kinds of sequels, those that extend the story and those that repeat the story with some variation, usually a small one. American Pie extended the story the second time, which meant a big opening, and then a third time, when it opened well, but not nearly as well as the first sequel.
In the Austin Powers films, which Zeitchik mentions as a repetitive, things changed in a copy of how Bond changed, changing female leads both times. But in the third film not only added Michael Caine (hat tip to Indiana Jones), but loaded up on celebrity cameos for the first time.
Ghostbusters II did less than half of what the original did domestically, though it opened to double.
The king of comedy sequels, Eddie Murphy, has been all over the place with sequels to 48 Hrs, Beverly Hills Cop, The Nutty Professor, and Doctor Dolittle. Only Dr. Dolittle 2 did less on opening weekend the second time around. But only Another 48 Hrs grossed more than the original domestically… by $2 million… 8 years later. I don’t think anyone can say that any of these sequels changed much at all.
Martin Lawrence did it three times (House Party, Bad Boys, Big Momma’s House), but only the one in which his partner, Will Smith, emerged as one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, did better the second time around. Again, all were near carbon copies. Bad Boys 2 doubled its gross domestically but cost at least 8 times as much to produce and market.
Three Men & A Lady… getting the gang back together led to a bigger opening and less than half the domestic gross. Rush Hour was much bigger the second time around… and grossed less than the original the third time around. Analyze That couldn’t match the original in opening or total. Miss Congeniality 2 opened bigger, but grossed less than half the original domestically. Crocodile Dundee II had triple the opening and 40% of the domestic total. Porky’s 2 opened about the same as the original, but grossed less than a third of the first. Wayne’s World 2 opened to less and grossed less than half the first film. City Slickers 2 opened weaker than the original and grossed about a third. Even the Ocean’s movies… all started about the same domestically… and each made progressively less.
And I think I have now covered every sequeled comedy in which at least one of the films grossed at least $100m domestic. (Please feel free to offer any films I might have left out. But I think I got them all.)
It’s kind of amazing, really, how few comedy sequels there are. Twenty-one in history on this list with one of the two films being a 9-figure grosser. And I will tell you why, in general. A big comedy hit is magic in a bottle… not just concept and effects. Sequels almost always cost a lot more than the original, the odds of hitting again are low, and making the second movie reasonably good is even less likely.
What you see a lot more of is the repetition of teams and leaders. So you have Apatow, Ferrell, Carrey, Sandler, Farrelly, Murphy, etc. Adam Sandler has NEVER made a sequel… yet many would say that every Sandler movie is virtually a sequel. Same with Will Ferrell. Carrey’s only sequel was to Ace Ventura, early in his movie career.
I’d love to see the Anchorman sequel… but I understand the studio’s position. It would likely cost a LOT more and the odds are that it would, no matter how good, make a little less than the original.
The times you do see them take the leap is when the first film was a wildly overachieving underdog, like Meet The Parents or Ace Ventura or, for that matter, Sex & The City. Then the more expensive sequel is, say, the normal price for a comedy with a big comedy star, and the hope for it to be a much bigger film is there. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes not.
And interestingly – I just arrived at this notion as I was writing – this fits The Hangover too. A $35 million movie that grossed $475m worldwide with three non-box-office-names is catnip. According to reports (unconfirmed by me) the sequel still cost less than $100 million to make. So cut the gross in half and there is still no money lost. Match the gross and make very good money (given the back end). Top the gross and make mega-bucks.
Each movie is its own proposition. There are good decisions and bad. But there is no trend.
BYOB 53011
Monday, May 30th, 2011
Postering The Descendants
Monday, May 30th, 2011International Trailer: One Day
Monday, May 30th, 2011Former Manager Jeff Wald On His “Gritty” “Grisly” “Harrowing” Life As A H’wd Drug Addict
Monday, May 30th, 2011PBS Will Add Commercials Inside Programs
Monday, May 30th, 2011Cinematographer John Bailey On Joseph Nicéphore Niépce And “The World’s First Photograph”
Monday, May 30th, 2011Orson Welles does a magic trick
Monday, May 30th, 2011Just. Because.
“Timeless Taboos: Why 19th-Century Novels Appeal To Filmmakers”
Monday, May 30th, 2011Wilmington on Movies: Meek’s Cutoff
Monday, May 30th, 2011Meek’s Cutoff (Three and a Half Stars)
U. S.: Kelly Reichardt, 2011
Meek’s Cutoff, like the Coen Brothers’ True Grit, is an art film Western for a contemporary audience, and an unusually good one — made by a director and writer (Kelly Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond), who show a real feeling for what it must have been like to cross the American western plains along or near the Oregon Trail, westward toward California, in frontier times, mostly without maps or guideposts, and apparently without the U.S. Cavalry to come riding to the rescue.
The movie takes place in 1845, when the West was not yet won, and when in real life, a much larger wagon train wended its way along the Oregon Trail, and split into two groups — one of which continued on, guided by Meek.
In the movie, the splinter group gets lost (which happened in real life) and — or so Raymond and Reichardt imagine here — they capture a Native American who speaks no English (Rod Rondeaux). As supplies grow short and water begins to run out, and as the ox-drawn wagons seem more and more fragile, some of the travelers want to kill their captive, whom they suspect of guiding them toward an ambush. Emily, who no longer trusts Meek (she‘s not alone) wants to save the Indian, and trusts that he will guide them to a water hole.
That’s the story: Will the Native American save these pioneer-interlopers, or not? There’s genuine drama and mystery in the question, because there is an element of truth here, because the film’s unusual style keeps undermining our expectations — and because the Meek‘s Cutoff episode, though at least partly historical, is not really familiar history.
Reichardt’s movie, based largely on fact, is executed without theatrics or pumped-up drama. The men of the train are often shaggy and trail-worn; the women wear no makeup and bonnets that hide their faces. The trailmaster/guide (Bruce Greenwood as Stephen Meek) is a bearded blowhard. There‘s a solitary Indian (Rondeaux) and he speaks no English and is, for the travelers, an utter cipher.
But the drama and the terror are there, in every eerie and unhurried long shot of the three wagons (this is a minimalist wagon train) edging their way through the unpopulated wilderness, surrounded by an empty landscape and covered by a burning sky. This is a Western that attempts to imagine the West as it was, or in some ways to craft a counter-myth, a balance to the movie myths we know.
It works. Reichardt and Raymond (who also collaborated on those two modern Oregon-set movies, Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy) largely succeed in convincing us that their world is real, or as John Ford was fond of saying, “the way it happened” — even though this is the first Reichardt movie that boasts a cast well-known to moviegoers: not just Michelle Williams (who stars both here and in Wendy and Lucy) as Emily Tetherow, and Greenwood as Meek, but Will Patton as Emily‘s husband Soloman, and Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan and Shirley Henderson among their wagon train companions, the Gatelys and the Whites.
Many of these faces are familiar, but they’re not glamorized. Often, thanks to the bonnets and beards and the absence of close-ups, we can barely recognize them. They’re all good though, and Williams, Patton, Rondeaux and Greenwood are often wonderful.
Meek’s Cutoff has been compared repeatedly to Terrence Malick‘s films, high praise since a rare, new (and brilliant) Malick picture, The Tree of Life, is now gloriously on our screens. In mood and approach, Meek is a bit reminiscent of Malick — though this work, more modestly scaled (and budgeted), falls short of Malick’s sometimes overwhelming spectacle and lyricism, and though Malick’s own “Westerns” have been more modern (Badlands and Days of Heaven) or even more Eastern. (A New Land, like Ford’s pre-Revolutionary War-era movie Drums Along the Mohawk, “reads” like a Western.)
Ever since River of Grass in 1994, Kelly Reichardt has been one of the mainstays and prime artists of American independent moviemaking. She’s at her best here. From the moment in the beginning when we see the wagons ford a river, clumsily and soggily (and without the glorious imagery of the river crossing in Wagon Master), she and her team fashion and record this old/new world with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of pure, hard vision and honesty.
Still, even though Meek’s Cutoff may seem like a change-the-rules revisionist western, it’s also made with a sure knowledge of what attracts us to the genre, and why, for such a long time, the movie Western was able to keep endlessly reinventing itself — and may be reinventing itself again. Here, in Reichardt’s and Raymond‘s hands, and in the hands of their fine, unselfish, and far-from-vain cast, the Western certainly seems alive again.
Not everyone will like Meek‘s Cutoff, if course; not all viewers will have the patience for it. But it’s a haunting, perceptive, sometimes lovely little movie. If you’re a truly adventurous buff, try to see it. Go West…
Hobbit Double Feature Gets Entitled
Monday, May 30th, 2011Maya Lin On Making The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Monday, May 30th, 2011SIFF Roundup: Hold Review Haiku
Monday, May 30th, 2011Every year at SIFF, we have a slew of “hold review films,” about which we can only write 75 or fewer words. This year, just to make it more fun and challenging, here are some Hold Review Haikus for your enjoyment.
What’s that? You have nothing to do today? Feel free to pen a haiku for one of your own faves and leave in the comments …
3
Two by two by two
Variations on a theme
Polyamory
The Cathechism Cataclysm
Priest, roadie, school girls;
Mark Twain would never dream a
crazy trip like this.
(more…)
4 Day Estimates by Wolfpack Klady
Monday, May 30th, 2011
Fallacy first… the idea that this is some kind of bad number for Kung Fu Panda is silly. It’s the biggest Memorial Day opening for an animated film, about a million over Madagascar. Were you hoping it would break that record AND show a 25% 3D bump? Okay. But that isn’t really reasonable. Memorial Day Weekend is not a great animation weekend, which is why so many of the big summer animated openings are the week AFTER Memorial Day.
Animated grosses are about the multiple. Panda has 3 more weekends until Cars 2.
Hangover 2 shows the power of a well loved original, whip smart marketing, and sequels. ‘Nuff said. Let the record show that this idiot estimated a $110 million launch before it came on tracking.
Pirates 4′s drop was… not good… not hideous. International saves Disney’s bacon.
Another strong hold for Bridesmaids, even against The Hangover. Remember when movies got roll over business from sell outs? Not so much anymore. Bridesmaids deserves credit for strong word of mouth.
And Thor is still swinging, so far the 3D success story of the domestic summer.
