Friday, 12 November 1999

WEEKEND PREVIEW

Well, it's a two-tiered weekend. Pokemon and Light It Up both opened Wednesday and it's hard to figure out which will be less satisfying to audiences. We know that kids who love Pokemon will love Pokemon no matter how stiff and poorly animated and that kids who love Usher will love him no matter how stiff and poorly animated. (Cheap Shot Alert!) Actually, Usher and the rest of the cast of Light It Up is fine, especially Forest Whitaker. But Craig Bolotin probably needs to have his pen broken and his Directors Guild card cut up before he does any more damage. It's not a real big surprise that Bolotin took a seven year hiatus since he got hot as a writer in the early '90s. You see, his hot streak consisted of Black Rain (perhaps Ridley Scott's worst movie ever), Straight Talk (perhaps James Woods' worst movie ever) and That Night (perhaps C. Thomas Howell's...okay, he's made a lot of crap...can't blame that completely on Bolotin, though that turd did serve as Bolotin's directorial debut). You can see why he went into seclusion. And word has it that Bolotin actually thinks he is a kind of genius. Well, it would help if he understood some of the basic rules of camera movement. Dark lighting and smoke is not directing. Bolotin strands his cast on visual island after visual island. I mean, he can barely shoot a two-person scene, much less a six-person sequence. Of course, these things are forgivable in a small, smart movie that maintains its convictions. No such luck here. There is one scene and one performance (Robert Ri'chard) that rises above the ineptitude. Hopefully, you'll catch that 10 minutes on cable one day.

Since these two opened on Wednesday, the box office is already coming in. Pokemon opened to a massive $10 million and change. And Light It Up managed just more than $320,000. For the complete look at the numbers game for the weekend, check out Box Office Extra after noon eastern time.

I'm a fan of Anywhere But Here, as you can read in the column I wrote up in Toronto after I saw the film. Yes, it gets sappy. Yes, it gets into high drama at times. Yes, there are leaps of logic. But Portman and Sarandon (in that order, amazingly) really drew me in. Maybe it was because they got ice cream at the same Baskin-Robbins I frequent. But more likely, it was the balance of the people they created. I laughed with these women and I felt their pain and I understood their plight. And Portman stands to be something we haven't seen around these parts in a while...a great beauty who is a real dramatic actress, not making us love her on personal charm, which is the magic trick of the movie star, but with her focus. Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie are similar, but not. Ryder carried herself with a just-below-the-surface sensuality throughout her early career and kept it in a corset for much of the rest of the way. And Jolie is just too sexy to get past. Sorry. Such is the weight of excessive curves, from her lips down. On the other hand, we all saw Portman struggle with the weight of Queen Amidala's make-up, hair and accent earlier this year. So, perhaps she can be slowed down. I hope not. Again, great time for young actresses. I only wish someone would write better roles for them.

I don't know whether I've written about The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc in any depth yet. Wait. Now I've looked back through my column search engine and found out, no, I have not. Hmmm...so where does that leave me? Hedging, I suppose. The Messenger is a beautiful movie. Luc Besson, whether he is conscious of it or not, has put his estranged wife, Milla Jovovich in two straight roles in which she barely gets to speak. He treats her like a silent film actress, all eyes and image and style. He gives John Malkovich the interesting opportunity to play a fop and then doesn't really give Malkovich the chance to show his transformation. He trusses up Joan Craw... Faye Dunaway's head so we spend almost as much time watching the blue vein which leads from her eyeball to the hood of her cowl as we do listening to her evil ways. And Dustin Hoffman, whose character name has been changed four times by my count, should have finally been, in my opinion, named The Jew or The Devil. I am generally not sensitive to issues of Jewish stereotyping in movies. You don't see much of it. But when New York Dustin turns up to torment Joan and he's the only obvious Jew in the movie, you have to wonder. It's not like the Catholics or the Protestants do much better. The Messenger loves God but hates all churches. But Hoffman played like a joke to me. And you have to know how much I love watching the guy work. But I haven't really spoken to the overall movie, have I? Well, the action scenes are great, except for the overtly fake body parts that occasionally show up. There were a bunch more of them, in the first version I saw, which is why I'm really hedging. The first version I saw was about 30 minutes longer than the final cut. The improvement was significant. But did it mean that the movie is now good? Probably not. The Messenger is a miss. It's worth a trip to the cinema as a film lover. There are little gems in there. Besson can do some magic. But he hasn't been able to make a complete movie that works since La Femme Nikita. I liked a lot of The Fifth Element, but it is hardly a complete film. And so...

Which brings us to Dogma. George Pennacchio and I will be talking to Kevin Smith live this Saturday and a good host should make a guest welcome, right? This is where the borders between this column and the radio get difficult to traverse. Nonetheless, I will stick with my concerns about Dogma and give Smith due respect on Saturday. The truth is, watching him interviewed repeatedly about this film, I have seen a calm, smart, slightly beaten man whom I have come to respect above and beyond the work. Nonetheless, here's my review of his film from Toronto. (Click here)!

Last, but surprisingly not least, is Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey, which had a hard time at the Toronto Film Festival. I'm not quote sure what the audience was expecting, but what I saw was my second favorite Egoyan film after The Sweet Hereafter. Perhaps it's because it seems so much more evident in this film that Egoyan wants to be the next Dennis Potter. I haven't talked to him about it, but I'm pretty sure that Bob Hoskins is more than a coincidence. (Hoskins played the lead in the original version of Potter's Pennies From Heaven.) This film mixes media the way that Potter did. It lives in bright darkness the way that Potter did. And it doesn't look for a happy ending. The one failing that Egoyan has is that he is less willing than Potter to tell his audience what he's really saying. Where was Hopkins' character from 16 - 35? In any case, this movie is the story of two people drawn into things that they just don't understand. They balance precariously on the edge of control, one more self-determined, the other floating in the wind. They are each other's destiny, the same way the alcoholics find other alcoholics. Both Felicia (played well by Elaine Cassidy) and Hoskin's Mr. Hilditch have to take this journey together. And it's not clear. And it's not traditional. And it's imperfect. But I thought the journey into their pain and fear was well worth the trip. It's not the greatest film of the year, but it was no disappointment for me. But then again, I love Potter's work. Perhaps more than any other writer of his time. He was brash. He was mysterious. He was in constant pain. And he was fearless when delving into the human psyche. Egoyan couldn't have a better role model.

THE GOOD: This has become a big fat column today, so I am going to save my Sleepy Hollow comments for Monday. All I'll tell you now is that there is a millennium bug in Sleepy Hollow and he makes our Y2K worries look like a walk in the park. This one does more than keep you from your brain (your computer). This one takes your whole head. More on Monday.

THE BAD: Well, it took me until today to get around to the Jodie Foster/Hannibal story and by the time I'm here, Foster is already backing off of what she said in W (that she wouldn't be doing Hannibal). Well, it seems a bit stupid to say "I told you so" when I failed to print those thoughts earlier. But I wold have told you so. When I hear that someone is in or out of a major film project based on a conversation with someone at an outlet like W, I immediately assume a) the person was probably blowing off steam and b) the comments made were probably not intended for publication. Think about it. Is Jodie Foster going to make a $20 million decision in the florid pages of W magazine? Anyway, my guess is that Foster wasn't happy with what seems to have been rough treatment of Clarisse in the David Mamet draft of Hannibal. But that's changing and not at Mamet's hand, though I want to once again dispel another misconception, which is that Mamet was fired off Hannibal for his work. He essentially walked after one draft to go shoot State & Maine, which got greenlit for a quick start just a few weeks before he delivered his draft. That may also explain why the draft isn't, for what the buzz is, quite up to Mamet standard. Anyway, now everyone will wait for the next incarnation. Foster is important to the movie and Ridley Scott & Co. will bend as much as they can to make this work for her. No real news yet here, gang.

THE UGLY: I've been hoping that Sony could rise above and make Charlie's Angels work despite mounting time pressure. But besides trying to put wings on Lucy Liu, the studio has now taken an action that worries me deeply. They brought in producers Betty Thomas and Jenno Topping. Now, I don't think there's something inherently wrong with this producing pair. But their specialty is fast & cheap. Sometimes it's great. Sometimes it's not. But you will notice that none of the stories about this movie have included the name of the previously announced director, the video maven, McG. Is Betty Thomas about to take over the Angels' reins? Dear God I hope not. The one thing that I really wouldn't want Charlie' Angels to be is hyper-TV and that's Thomas' specialty.

OSCAR FOLLOW-UP: Still looking for more women, in particular, with Oscar potential. Annette Bening's name has come up a couple of times and while I have defended her performance repeatedly since I think the entire film is more theatrical than most, she is always the one person in the movie that people single out in conversation with me as a bad performance. I disagree, but I don't see a consensus at the Academy. The one new name in the mix was Diane Lane for A Walk On The Moon, a movie I still haven't seen since I first had the chance last January. Could be. She'll need to launch a campaign, but she is a veteran and very charming and could campaign her way into a nomination.

Other question marks brought up by readers were nominations for Bringing Out The Dead (too tough for audiences to nominate, maybe cinematography), a Best Picture nod for Man On The Moon (I've lost faith in the nomination, I must admit, in the heat of some weird media reactions, though I would still have the film in that slot personally), a Bruce Willis nomination for The Sixth Sense (big star, they'll reward the "little people") and finally, Snow Falling On Cedars, which is almost unwatchable from start to finish. It's like a trip to Ingmar Bergman's dentist. No one really asked about Cider House Rules, since I pretty much indicated why I think it's a miss, but who knows. This may be the kind of marginal movie that Miramax could have gotten nominated in the past. And if there is a Miramax backlash to come - and you can be sure that every damned entertainment writer will be selling that story to their editors if there is no Best Picture nod to Miramax - it could come here in the form of the Academy resisting being sold a weak movie in a year with more than 5 truly top-notch films to pick from.

BAD AD WATCH: A reader hit a good off-note about an ad, so here is Ben: "I wanted to ask if you'd seen the The Green Mile poster? We've been laughing about it here in the office this morning. I didn't read the The Green Mile, but I know Hanks plays an executioner, so whywhywhy would they have chosen that awful photo of a rosy-cheeked, beatific Hanks gazing reverentially upwards into some kind of angelic white light? It doesn't even look like him! I thought it looked like a bad Norman Rockwell imitation; a co-worker said it looked like Kyle McLaughlan done up in a bad anime-style.

And the tag line? "He didn't believe in miracles, until he found one. And then he believed. In miracles. Because he found one. A miracle."

Ugh. I wouldn't want to go see this based on that poster. It amazes me that a multi-million-dollar investment would be sold with such a goofy poster. I wonder if Frank Darabont and Tom Hanks approved this? Who shares the blame for a bad advertising campaign? Maybe Castle Rock can find Chris Pula and fire him, just to have someone to blame."

READER OF THE DAY: This one comes from Marty (not Scorsese): "Snickers is the favorite in the chocolate race over the weekend. The drop in peanut-consumption as of late looks to be coming to an end, and people really are hungry for some of that rich caramel flavor.

Twix has caramel as well, but aren't we all a little sick of that crunchy flavor? And really, with a chocolate coating THAT thin, I think it's highly unlikely that it will capture the top spot.

Mars, the reigning champion, looks set to give up its crown - at least according to all the tracking polls. (According to CHOC-CROQ, only 13% thought they'd be likely to buy themselves a Mars bar this weekend). I warned you readers about it's regular staggering 10% drop over the past few weekends and this time it really should be taking the final dive.

In the soft drink department, Coca-Cola looks to recapture the top spot, but industry speculators seem to think its days are numbered. People are hungering for sweetness, and Pepsi have brilliantly played into this hunger by adding sugar to their formula. A spokesperson for Pepsi Cola said they were "highly optimistic" for their future weekend revenue increase.

Funny. And this from Mr. Bill: "Yes, by all means, "Uncle F*kka" for Best Song. If it gets nominated, they'll have to do one of those wretched production numbers to present the song. This year they could redeem all the terrible ones from the past by doing "Uncle F*kka" up right.

Picture the "South Park" creators, Matt & Trey, dressed up as two MIB types, and a hundred South Parkateers, little tykes, wheeling around them on stage, dressed as their favorite "South Park" characters. Throw in a James Bond-ish swagger to the tune, and a very retro "Man From U.N.C.L.E. F*kka" would knock 'em dead. Enter, stage right, the new Bond BMW, driven by Pierce Brosnan, carrying a very stylish Oddjob version of Mr. Hat, to finish the tune...then focus on Terrence & Philip:

Terrence: "Philip, I believe that 007 has just FARTED! His gas has a license to kill!"

Philip: "Ha Ha! Yes, Terrence. Q's fitted him with a special Anal Death Ray! Mr. Bond, you're a real Man From U.N.C.L.E. F*kka!"

Well, we can hope for that much entertainment, can't we?"

And this came from Chicago Joe (minus the showgirl): "Hey, its every self-respecting movie fanatic's right, nay duty, to produce a top 10 list and to elucidate on its sublime insights at holiday parties. Likewise it is our duty to reveal to said party goers the silly flaws of the top 10 lists of others. We must show that our formerly revered fave critic "must be losing it", and that Jonathan Rosenbaum is a complete a**hole (although we secretly recognize that he's damn good).

Then we have to do the Oscar picks. If we've done a good job livening up the room with some passionate discussion, we'll be asked for them. What's the point of being the movie guy in the crowd anyway? What the hell else are we supposed to talk about at holiday parties? It's that or football kids, and I can't control that discussion."

E ME: Boy, it's been a big week for us around here. Lots of movies to go to this weekend. What are you anxious to see? And what did you think after you saw the object of your desire?