Thursday, 5 October 2000

I was amazed at how few of you took up the fight from Wednesday's column... either way. A few of you did, quite passionately and a couple of you will get your say on Page Two today. In the meanwhile, if you want to see your thoughts in print, a load of you contributed to the first day of Civilian Voices without even knowing it. Don't worry if you wanted your anonymity preserved...we're just using first names and initials for overtly distinct names. But check it out. And start contributing. You can write in about subjects we discuss here or you can send in your film criticism or stuff about features or pretty much anything that you love, hate or just think needs saying. I'm not saying that you should stop writing me, but Civilian Voices is your forum to express yourself fully, three times a week. Use it.

SPEAKING OF EXPRESSION...: There's an interesting piece c/o Reuters writer Lee Chyen Yee about the new movie Life or Death that has become a box office sensation in China...or has it? Reading this story felt like a return trip to the mainland for me. All the feeling of something good happening with all the feeling of someone creeping around behind your back, waiting to mislead you. Weird. Take a look at the piece.

ALWAYS BET ON SPACEY: Some controversy has reared its head among the readers of this column as regards to the change of the male lead of Pay It Forward from a black man to a white man. You can read what the author of the book has to say about it by clicking here. Thanks to Dan for the 411.

BAT CANE: I'm thrilled to hear the news, assuming it's true, that Paul Newman will play the aging and retired Caped Crusader in Batman Beyond. According to Brit tabloid, The Sun, Newman openly spoke about taking on the role at some sort of fan event. Great, great call...if it's true.

NUMBERS VS. ART: Variety's Dan Cox and Jonathan Bing did an interesting piece on arthouse movies. The piece feels a bit like an attempt at competing with Inside.com, which I find eternally amusing since Variety has no real reason to feel this inferiority complex that it so clearly does. In any case, the boys start with stats...the kind of stats that are so completely worthless..."Arthouse box office is down a startling 15% this year. Since 1990, that market has fallen 31% to a projected $185 million (from 250 films) from $262 million (from 171 pics). And that doesn't even account for inflation." Then, they try to find meaning.

Of course, they lead with Bingham Ray's answer, which is to blame the influx of major studios into the arthouse business. The problem there is that the stats they opened with are based on a year (1999) that was heavily influenced by major studios and their arthouse divisions. There are three new arthouse divisions starting up this year -- Paramount Classics, Universal Focus and Unnamed WB -- and so far, they have accounted for 2 whole releases...with three more on the way this year. Woo HOO!!! Better watch those numbers!

The biggest nightmare in the piece is that Sony Classics (formerly Sony Pictures Classics) in now on the record as saying that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, "could ultimately see release on as many as 800 screens." That assures that the movie will be a missed opportunity. Ironically, that flies right in the face of another comment from Bingham Ray about the emphasis that some art film parent companies now have on the opening weekend, "You have to remove that angle," Bing told Variety, "That's one of the most detrimental ideas for opening a film." But there's the rub, for me. There are arthouse films that demand wide openings, just as there are mainstream films that need cautious, limited releases to build an audience. The point is, there is no magic bullet. Because there are Full Montys out there. Just because it was a fluke doesn't mean it isn't a valid aspiration. It just isn't a valid aspiration for every movie. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is, in my never too humble opinion, one of the great opportunities to Sony to swing for the fences and to create a phenomena, the way Miramax did with Life is Beautiful and Fox Searchlight did with The Fully Monty. This is EXACTLY the kind of film that Cox & Bing seem to be aching for...a movie that can reach beyond category and beyond language. But that will never happen if the studio doesn't believe in it.

There's more irony in the last part of the story, where Cox & Bing offer a big smoochy kiss to Sony Classics co-president, Tom Bernard. Now, Sony Classics has a lot to be proud of, especially come Oscar® time. But Sony Classics is just as guilty of failing to maximize arthouse opportunity as anyone. All About My Mother may have managed $8.3 million, but what about the well-reviewed comedy Me Myself I, which never got past $600,000? Sweet and Lowdown may have gotten a couple of Oscar nods, but is $4.2 million for a Woody Allen film a hit? The last film to do that little was Shadows and Fog ($2.7 million), a long-delayed film made in the midst of the Orion bankruptcy in black and white.

This is not intended to knock Sony Classics, though I do have some problems with their history of distribution choices. My point is, I think it's a cheap shot when Tom Bernard slaps at Fox Searchlight, saying, "Fox Searchlight is more like Tri-Star." Firstly, Tri-Star is the Sony arm that released such 100 million+ budget films as Terminator 2 and Hook. Yes, Fox Searchlight actually makes some of their movies in-house. But they have indie level budgets. They aren't out there trying to buy their way to success. (In the sense that they are overspending, as technically, all movie companies, arthouse film companies included, are trying to buy their way to success.)

Worse, the context of the comment was that it came after Mr. Bernard said, "It's the studio mentality: Buy 10 and have the 10th one pay for the other losses." Physician, heal thyself. Though it is reasonable to take Miramax to task for evolving out of the arthouse business, supporting budgets of more than $50 million and establishing Dimension as a teen sex and gore outlet, Sony Classics releases a lot more movies than any other art arm out there. Sony has 17 new films coming this year. Fox Searchlight has 5. Who is out there throwing spaghetti at the wall?

Bernard then goes on to say, "There are really very few people left in this business with a sense of what the arthouse business is and how to navigate the waters." Then I guess that he should be thankful to Fox for hiring Stephen Gilula, who used to run arthouse exhibition kingpins, Landmark Theaters.

The reason that arthouse movies are having a weak year is the same reason that studio movies are having trouble in 2000. It's the movies! They aren't hitting home. And the few special films that are out there aren't getting handled as well as they should be. It's not always the fault of the people marketing and/or distributing these films. What's the hot arthouse fare of the moment? Depressing films from Iran. Well, some of them are quite brilliant, but they are no fun for "normal" audiences. They are neither Run Lola Run or Waking Ned Devine or The Blair Witch Project (which, thankfully, went unmentioned in this article).

But the situation is rife with irony. If you want to create a foreign-language resurgence, you don't release an English-language version of Life is Beautiful, suggesting that there really is something wrong with subtitles. You don't release Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on a handful of screens, hoping to build it up, when it has the very real potential to blast past Life is Beautiful's record $58 million domestic gross for a foreign-language film. And you don't complain about the competition. You get creative and manage expectations and keep chugging along until the next fluke.

Anyway, read the story that started the rant by clicking here.

"Another ROTD Debate!!!"