19 July 1999

THE CHAT: We have Paul and Chris Weitz coming to chat on Thursday. If the names don't sound familiar, think Pie...American Pie. They'll be chatting at 10pEST/7pPST.

HAPPY TRAILERS TO YOU: The new trailer for The Fight Club really grabs the audience. One thing seems certain: David Fincher is throwing everything and the kitchen sink into what seems to be the most intensely visual experience headed for the big American screen since Coppola's Dracula. Yes, even freakier than The Matrix. Intense. Beautiful. Smoky. Now I'm really ready for the movie. And I'm going to have to wait until freakin' October. Argh!

BAD AD WATCH: First, the two page ad by Disney for Inspector Gadget isn't a bad ad. It's really pretty clever. The ad is like the Mad Magazine fold-overs that have forever lived inside the front page of that magazine. Of course, you don't get much more than more advertising when you fold this one up, but variety is always welcome. Also, this film has had me reassessing the use of The Disney Channel to sell a movie. What a tool. As I was on the phone with my sister the other day, my eight-year-old niece walked into her room and wanted a Youngstown CD. Who is Youngstown? My niece shrugged. I happened to have caught a moment of the Disney promo for this movie on The Disney Channel and now know that Youngstown is the Backstreet Boys wannabe group that fronts Inspector Gadget's sure-fire-hit single. Amazing.

On the bad side, I don't think that New Line has any idea in the world how to sell Drop Dead Gorgeous. At least, not in print. Besides the quotes from a series of people you've likely never heard of (except for QW Prince, 60-second-man, Jeff Craig), the print ad that ran Sunday tells me absolutely NOTHING about this movie other than it has two hot young babes and two hot post-adolescent babes. I really like this movie. And the trailer works for me. But this ad...oy! This is not just some comedy. This is a smart, vicious 90 minutes of raging estrogen and bile that actually allows women to be funny and tough. It's a movie that is willing to admit that obtaining your dreams can be half effort and skill and half carefully chosen weaponry. I fully expect it to be too complicated to be anything more than the great lost comedy of the summer of 1999. But I expected a better push from New Line, the studio that moved the film from the spring into the more intense summer marketplace. Maybe they're just afraid of selling teen violence. Too bad.

READER OF THE DAY: Ryan offers a rather different point of view on Eyes Wide Shut. I couldn't disagree more, but ROTD isn't about me. It's about your voices. (Even though the majority of e-mailers this weekend liked or loved the film.) Here's Ryan's e-mail: "I saw the much anticipated Eyes Wide Shut. As most know, it was Stanley Kubrick's last film. The man died, I believe, when he saw the final cut. If there is one thing I could tell you to do it would be to AVOID this film. No, I am not a religious zealot offended by gratuitous - jack rabbit style - scenes of intercourse or ample footage of cleavage (all unfortunately lensed on grainy, soft stock that is frustratingly non-polished). In fact I'd recommend you see a REALLY offensive film - South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut instead. At least you'll laugh, sing and have a good time. Eyes Wide Shut is a torturous, shy of three hours affair.

The entire time I was marvelling at the amateurish nature of it all. The pretentious, pseudo-psycho content. And to think that so much time was spent on getting the right takes, when more of it could have been spent on trimming around half the film to tighten it. As it stands, it's a completely jism-free juggernaut. The infamous "orgy" scene most have probably seen after dinner on "Entertainment Tonight" is a complete joke. There is a "ritual" that runs some 5-8 minutes accompanied by some grating chanting and synths and after that the only music seems to be a repeating piano motif similar to those employed in Halloween. A mysterious figure appears, something is revealed or whatever, there's a sharp piano chord along with it. Eye roll inducing indeed.

Perhaps if Tom Cruise had hacked his way into the bathroom with an axe and stuck his face through the hole announcing "He-ere's Tommy!" there might have been an inspired moment. Instead he loafs around by himself and gets into several situations where sex would be the culmination of things...Only for a telephone to ring and set him off into other similar setups then switching the movie into some gumshoe drama. A sad last film for Stanley Krubrick. But I'm sure people will see it anyways. Maybe even some will like it (those who connect with its pretensions no doubt). I'm going to watch my Kubrick Collection The Shining vid now...

E ME: Genius or junk? If you hate a movie that others think is truly important art, will you go back and pay again to see if you were wrong? Will you remain open to it? Or if you disconnect with a piece of art initially, are you gone forever?