Friday, 20 August 1999

WEEKEND PREVIEW

When the eternal question of "What should I see at this weekend?" comes up, I am always reminded about how odd the studio's distribution patterns can get. We are in a marketplace with such overcrowding that good pictures get lost in the shuffle all the time in the busy seasons. Yet, there are about 15 weeks of every year when the answer to the question is to go through a list of the movies that have opened over the last 8 weeks, usually picking out art films that deserve more attention, because there is nothing but crap opening.

So, am I calling this weekend's wide-release trio of Mickey Blue Eyes, Teaching Mrs. Tingle and Universal Soldier: The Return crap? Not exactly. You see, I have only seen one of the three and it is not a crap sandwich, though it is also not very good. That one is Mickey Blue Eyes. It is a movie that suffers from Castle Rock-itis. That is to say, it has excellent performances, an interesting director and a little too much respect for the screenplay it suffers through. I don't think I'm giving too much away to say that a major character shooting a guy in the head and watching that guy bleed to death on that character's floor is not funny in a whimsical farce. In a Scorsese picture, it can be grimly amusing. In this one, it has the affect of a comedic whiplash. And everything after that cannot be taken as "cute," because a real person is dead and the threat of more real people dying is just not "adorable." Anyone who reads this column regularly knows that I love black comedy. But Mickey Blue Eyes was not made as a black comedy.

Add to that the trouble with any film that makes every plot turn on an absolute coincidence and you have more trouble. Again, this is acceptable on "Three's Company", but Hugh Grant, Jeanne Tripplehorn and James Caan aren't Jack, Chrissy & Mr. Roper. They are movie stars. Tripplehorn's performance, in fact, shows that she can be the type of comedienne that everyone has been trying to turn Tea Leoni into. The only enjoyment of watching Leoni do physical comedy is that she seems like she is in the act of sex while doing it. She's like a squirming lover. Tripplehorn is beautiful and sexy, but she can effect a comedic physical presence that has the simple bounce of a playful puppy while retaining her womanly strength. She showed this before in a movie that was even more terrible than this one, `Til There Was You. But they pushed it to hard, turning her into a real klutz. Watch Tripplehorn, if you ever see this film, traverse a bed in a hurry, hurling herself over the top of it in a sheer rush of energy. It is a little, meaningless moment and exactly why she is so good. Hugh Grant does his best Hugh Grant, but James Caan is wearing a character girdle, stuck as someone who makes excuses but never really gets to blow up. But that character's limitations are proof for my next accusatory pudding.

Castle Rock already made this movie nine years ago. It was called The Freshman and I loved it. Now, Hugh Grant is not a college student, but he is a fish-out-of-water and he is flighty enough to marry a girl after dating her for three months. Tripplehorn is not the enthusiastic gun moll that Penelope Ann Miller (in her one GREAT performance) was, but she is a Mafia daughter. And James Caan isn't Brando. I'm happy to see Caan as Brando, but Caan is stuck playing the same exact Brando role (albeit lower on the Mafioso food chain), having to cajole and play tricks to achieve his goals in the film. There are certainly variations in the theme, but in the end, Mickey Blue Eyes is like a Witness Protection Program version of The Freshman. It's the same thing but without the strut. And you hate to say that given the nice performances by a lot of the supporting cast members. (James Fox makes for a wonderful fop). But it's the truth.

As for Tingle and the new old Van Damme, I have not been privy to either and others I know who have wanted to go have been kept away. And you know what? I will not be seeing these for the radio show or for your benefit this weekend. As the old song goes, I haven't got time for the pain. Tomorrow, after doing the radio show with George Pennacchio on KABC-790 (which you can find on Real Audio on the 'Net), I am headed down to San Diego to see my beloved Miami Dolphins play an exhibition game with the San Diego Chargers. On Sunday, I rest. At least until I do Monday's column. And in about 11 days, I head off for Telluride and Toronto (T-n-T...get it?!) for those two festivals, on the road for 18 days in all. So forgive me for not piling on the dregs right now. This is as close to a vacation as I get.

For my box office analysis, click onto Box Office Extra after noon EST.

THE GOOD: I've written before about the Internet sucking up more talent from traditional media. This week, Alex Ben Block, the former editor of The Hollywood Reporter, got the gig editing a celeb site called eStar. Sure it's competition. Kind of. But this is the hot phenom of the moment. Jeff Wells is launching his Reel.com column today. Mr. Showbiz seems likely to hire a new Showbiz Confidential columnist who hasn't been a major on-line player before. And sales site after sales site is preparing to "go editorial" as they realize that maintaining traffic flow is no mean feat. What's good about this? Well, here at roughcut.com, a site paid for by a multi-national but allowed the absolute freedom of our convictions, we are one of the few places for true freedom of expression left on the Web entertainment front. Heck, we aren't even selling a portal like Go. We aren't selling you videos from every corner of our "editorial" space. We aren't even selling TNT. (Ironically, our involvement with WCW Wrestling is all about us picking up eyeballs, not the other way around.) As the Web becomes more and more corporatized, I am thrilled to be part of a site that stands outside of those boundaries. Which is not to say that there isn't good journalism going on at these other sites. It's just to say that I hope that roughcut.com, while still growing, stays as oddly pure as it is.

THE BAD: Brion James is a name that most of you probably won't recognize and whose face would be as familiar as the guy you sit next to at work. "It's time to die!" is probably his most famous moment in movies, though he ran the studio in The Player and broke Nick Nolte's chops in 48 Hrs., among so many character roles. He was also a guy, who after battling hs own demons, helped young actors battle theirs. He had a heart attack at only 54 years of age. Too early to go for any person, but especially for a man who seemed to just be starting the third act of his life as people in L.A. started to see him as an actor who could do more than be a tough guy. He will be missed.

THE UGLY: The line between news and gossip continues to bend. And as is so often the case, I can't blame the 'Net for this one. Mr. Showbiz picks up a piece off the Web about Dogma. They get it from newsaskew.com, a Kevin Smith dedicated site that Smith contributes to as if it were his personal site, which is great for his fans. So newsaskew.com has become the clearing house for Kevin Smith info and Dogma info with it. Okay. Mr. Showbiz picks up on newsaskew.com's feeling that Dogma is not going to be released by Lions Gate as has been rumored for months. The problem is, the Lions Gate deal was always a rumor in that the deal was never finished. Right before Lions Gate, the rumor was that October was picking up the film. Now, newsaskew.com is floating a rumor that New Line will pick up the film, but admits in big red lettering that "THIS IS JUST A RUMOR!!!!" Mr. Showbiz cites that reservation, but prints the rumor anyway and then cross pollinates it with an absurd bit of an Entertainment Weekly story about the transition over at Warner Bros. that asserts, foolishly, that Jerry Levin stayed purposefully away from Mike DeLuca and Robert Shaye for the Warners job because they are "the family rogue."

DUH! New Line is the "family rogue" because they have independent financing so they don't have to answer to Time-Warner anymore in the same way that Warner Bros. does. I have long been of the opinion that DeLuca or Shaye would be driven nuts by the corporate culture at Warner Bros. and will always be happier doing as they want at a smaller company that can distribute wide...in other words, at a company that looks just like the one that they have built New Line into. But beyond that, the idea that New Line picks stuff up just to be rebels is absurd on its face. New Line has outperformed Warner Bros. and a number of other majors in the last years doing as they like. There is nothing to prove by championing Dogma, unless their real goal is to move Kevin Smith away from Miramax and into New Line.

In any case, I have no problem with speculation. Even idle speculation. I just added some in the last paragraph. But what scares me is the blur. What is a rumor-driven Website and where is Mr. Showbiz and where is Entertainment Weekly and how do we all keep rumors from reading like fact if you can't tell the sources without a scorecard? Even this past week, I ran a story that the X-Men producer had said on a panel at The San Diego Comicon International that X-Men was moving to fall 2000. But that same day, I heard back from Fox that his assertion was wrong. And given the timing, I think it's clear that Fox never actually moved the film. But now the story that's going around, started by Variety, is that the movie was being moved "back to summer." But it never moved! The start date did, which started speculation, but a month shift in a start date would always be unlikely to move a film from summer into fall. The price might rise by $10 - $20 million to get all the effects done on time, but interest on a movie this expensive for the extra six months before release is near $5 million, effectively thrown away money. Anyway, the spin ran both ways. Cinescape worried about whether the film could be completed. And TV Guide Online runs the story as "Fox executives are so high on the project that they've moved up the release date from Christmas 2000 to summer 2000, Variety reports." Meanwhile, the real story is that there was no story...until there was a story. But no one can wait three days in this game anymore. Makes for some bad journalism.

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: It's a celeb fest at the American Cinematheque this next couple of weekends. Tonight, Charlton Heston and Leigh Taylor-Young appear before a 9:30 screening of Soylent Green. (Soylent Green doesn't kill people. People kill people to make Soylent Green.) Tomorrow, Marie Windsor appears before an 8:45 screening of The Narrow Margin. And Sunday, Marsha Hunt and Linda Christian front the 6:45 screening of The Happy Time. And on Wednesday, Kirk Douglas and Janet Leigh will be on hand before an 8 pm screening of the underrated The Vikings. And last but not least, Samantha Eggar, seemingly the last remaining living member of the Dr. Dolittle cast will appear after that film's 3:00 screening. For more info, go to the Cinematheque's Website here.

JUST WONDERING: Are you still reading your Andrew Sarris? If not, it's time to start by clicking here.

BAD AD WATCH: The Runaway Bride ad is like a lesson in critical obscurity, though maybe it's not so bad, since these aren't the same old quote whores. Sure, there's Joel Siegel and Gene Shalit, who will soon have surgery to separate their quote-spinning medulla oblongata. But KICU TV, Bloomberg Radio, MSNBC, KRIV, Real Detroit Reader, etc. Fresh!

READER OF THE DAY: Mean Gene The Dancing Machine wrote: "The possibility of finally seeing the Jason Bourne novels on the big screen, done well (there was a really bad TV movie starring Richard Chamberlain done about ten years ago), is one of the coolest pieces of news I've heard in a long time. Jason Bourne is like a combination of Rambo and James Bond with a lot more heart, which I know sounds weird but you have to trust me on this, and I don't think I've read a better character for adaptation to the screen. Doug Liman might seem like an odd choice for what's got to be a big action/thriller, but I agree with it. I love Swingers, but it's his filmmaking in Go that really makes me think he could pull this off. If it works, this could be one of the best action series ever, and it would push Liman into the elite of Hollywood directors."

E ME: I'm always interested in your experiences at the movies, new and old. Have you had it with Mafia comedies yet? And how much time do you spend thinking about "news" story sources as opposed to just taking it all with a grain of salt or taking it all seriously?