The Hot Button by David Poland

Monday, 11 January 1999

WEEKEND REVIEW

Surprise! There was not too much excitement at the box office this weekend. A Civil Action took the top slot with what Disney says is the best non-Titanic, non-Star Wars January weekend in history -- $14.5 million. Pretty good, but not overwhelming. Much like the movie. Everything else went pretty much as I expected, except for Mighty Joe Young reversing positions with A Bug's Life. However, the drops were even more severe than I expected. Patch Adams was off 37 percent, falling to $12 million and second place. Stepmom dropped 45 percent, falling to $8 million and third. So I guess You've Got Mail should have been happy to lose just 44 percent to fall into a tie (at least until the final figures come in later today) with Stepmom at third. The Prince of Egypt dropped 48 percent to $5.8 million and fifth. And these are all hit movies.
The second five (really the second six, with a tie for 10th) wasn't much prettier. Mighty Joe Young's relatively strong 42 percent drop lifted it to sixth, with $4.7 million, passing A Bug's Life, which fell 49 percent to $4.5 million and seventh. In eighth, the one ray of sunshine -- Shakespeare in Love was fairly successful in its expansion to 632 screens with $4.2 million for a solid $6,646 per screen average. (For reference, A Civil Action did $8,047 per on 1,802 screens.) In ninth, The Faculty dropped just 47 percent, which for any horror film would have to be considered a victory in this weekend's B.O. climate. Enemy of the State and Star Trek: Insurrection shared 10th place, each film falling 38 percent, each film making $3 million. At least until Monday afternoon. Look for tie-breakers here and in the heated Stepmom/You've Got Mail competition.
In happier news, perspective on this weekend is very attractive. The Prince of Egypt neared $75 million, Patch Adams neared $85 million and You've Got Mail passed $90 million. And Disney, who had six of the Top 10 films, between Miramax and Buena Vista, watched A Bug's Life pass $140 million and Enemy of the State pass $100 million in addition to the strong performances of A Civil Action and Shakespeare in Love. On the downside, neither Mighty Joe Young or The Faculty seems destined to hit $50 million. MJY cost approximately $110 million with Prints & Advertising and the Williamson/Rodriguez Project (as The Faculty was once known) cost about $60 million with its P&A, which was actually higher than the production costs.
THE GOOD: The Company Formerly Knows as the Evil Empire did the right thing last Friday and took the heat for a real problem in their video release of The Rescuers. The recall happened Friday, but that didn't keep everyone from the tape. (Love that 'Net!) If you want to see what made it through, check out a terrific site called Urban Legends. Go to http://snopes.simplenet.com/disney/films/rescuers.htm for the page, which includes freeze frames that include nudity, but not graphic sex of any kind. (Thanks to AICN for finding the link first.) Here's the full story on the recall: In 1977, someone at Disney stuck a photo, which looks to be a Playboy Playmate, in a window that The Rescuers were flying by for two frames. Back then, video was not a major business, and no one would ever see the photo while watching the film at regular speed. When Disney released the video in 1992, it was from a print that didn't include the frames. (I believe the studio because it would be so easy to check, there would be no point in lying about it.) But in trying to improve the quality of the new video, they went to another print. And with that came the breasts. Someone in-house fessed up about the 22-year-old stunt and the recall was made. Disney's spokesperson now says that every frame of every animated release will now be screened for "anything." Not exactly the Touch of Evil re-issue, but then again, Janet Leigh is no Zsa Zsa Gabor. (Thank goodness.)
THE BAD: The Brad Pitt stalker who was arraigned on Friday? I know her. Young Athena Rolando, 19, used to be the hostess at a restaurant out here on Sunset Plaza called Chin Chin. She was blonde at the time, subtly tattooed, tongue-pierced and very beautiful. (Don't judge her looks based on the news footage.) In fact, she almost worked for roughcut.com at one point. She was looking for work, and I offered to let her work as a transcriber for some of my interviews, but she flaked out. She was probably out buying maps to stars' homes. She was an odd girl who didn't want to be seen as a typical Hollywood bimbo. She always told everyone she didn't want to be actress. She would play the stock market, even though she had a low-paying job, always hoping to start a small business of her own. And now, that's all she really can do. If she really did want to be an actress, she is done. She's famous now. Famously insane. And while that could get her a career in porn, the best choice is probably to leave L.A. and to start that life she talked about. Somewhere else.
THE UGLY: Today, a return to the old Two Movies Equal feature. I'm doing it because of a typo I made in writing the box office report. Meet Joe Black + Mighty Joe Young = Mighty Joe Black. Brad Pitt stars as the most boring monkey in the world. After growing up in the jungles of San Fernando with only Claire Forlani to play with (shown in real time), women are drawn to Joe's Hollywood home and fall asleep in his bed after watching home video of Joe and Claire playing. With Charlize Theron as the movie star who deserved better and Anthony Hopkins, who decides to quit acting, divorce his wife and throw out his VCR after hearing about the 11-and-a-half hour running time.
THE CHAT: This Wednesday, it's two hours of back-to-back Movie Chat exclusively at Yahoo! Chat. First up, the director of Virus, John Bruno. That's 6:00 pm.m ET/9:00 p.m. PT. And at 7:00 p.m. PT/10:00 p.m. ET, young Ali Larter from The Faculty. So, what's scarier? An alien invasion that controls our machines or a 17-year-old in a whipped cream bikini? Find out this Wednesday night.
JUST WONDERING: Has anyone else noticed the alarming rise in the number of young women having astrological images tattooed just about the Norge line (the place right over the rear end crack that has marked refrigerator repairmen throughout time)? I finally figured it out. They want men to think that the sun rises and falls in their asses. Well, that may be, but just stop already. Please. Get a bad haircut or something. Tattoos and rumors about homosexuality are forever.
QUOTE WHORING USA: For A Civil Action: "John Travolta's least puffy look since Urban Cowboy!" "Duvall hasn't been this cute and quirky since Deep Impact!" "Everything else this month sucks! Go see A Civil Action!"
HAPPY TRAILERS TO YOU: Since I have been in way too many screenings this week and not enough theaters, I'll leave today's comments to Barb: "I just saw a really bad trailer for Arlington Road with Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins, that convinced me that I don't have to waste my money going to see it, because I already know the whole plot. It started out looking like it might be fairly decent, and had an interesting kind of conspiracy/paranoia vibe working. Bridges suspects that his new neighbor, Robbins is a terrorist bomber. Now I like both these guys -- Robbins has done some interesting work, and I think that Bridges is underrated -- so I'm thinking 'Hmmm... This might be worth a look.' Just then, the trailer not only changed tone altogether but completely spoiled the plot! It revealed that... [David Note: I edited this out to avoid being as bad as the trailer]... Unless there are major unrevealed plot twists in Arlington Road, which I doubt based on the trailer, I probably wouldn't even bother with a rental! I'm just not sure what Robbins and Bridges are doing in it. Maybe they needed the money. Maybe Bruce Willis was busy."
BAD AD WATCH: I've got to go with the ads by Universal for the small re-release of Out of Sight. It lists all of the critics who put the film on their Top 10 lists. Hmmm. Something was missing. They got the Fresno Bee. Three critics from the Boston Herald. A bunch of Canadians. Where was I?!?! I'm deeply hurt. I still love the movie. I won't be taking it off the list. But, geez. I love working for roughcut.com because I get to tell the truth as I see it, but being on the 'Net leaves me behind the Fresno Bee? Ouch. (And I'm sorry, Val fans. Paul Wunder and Bonnie Churchill headlining your At First Sight ad is not, I repeat, NOT a good sign.)
READERS OF THE DAY: From Pete: "I noticed in the letters from readers about movies that kids at the movies was a recurring negative theme. I would like to counter that. I have a son who is now almost 3. Once he was able to leave our then-apartment, we took him to the movies all the time. We figured out that once he fell asleep we roughly had a three-hour window to do whatever while he slept. In the almost ensuing year, we only had to walk out of one movie (which we did so immediately) because he woke up and started crying. The point of this is that an infant can be taken to the movies provided that the parents are [considerate] to the rest of the audience. Another recurring theme in the letters was the subject of bad prints. This is not a problem that escapes L.A. or for that matter the Westside of L.A. Today it's rare that I actually see a good print of a film in the theater. Recent excursions to see Shakespeare in Love and The General are prime examples. The prints were horrible. However, I am guilty of not complaining about it. (I could make good excuses, but what's the point.) I believe that this is a problem that the industry should examine and attempt to do something about. What they need to do is to go into the theaters and check on their prints after the first week rather than just before the run begins."
And this from JT: "David, I was hoping that you would correct one of your ROTDs on his BIG misquote. Ken wrote that Steven Spielberg said 'no black man ever fought in that war.' WRONG. What Spielberg really said was that blacks and whites were not grouped together at that time of the war, and that the setting for SPV was in a region that had only white troops. This is absolutely true."

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