7 May 2001

THE BAD:  You know, if A Knight’s Tale was a low budget find, I could understand why critics might embrace the effort.  Brian Helgeland has attempted to mix the past with the modern and to charm us all the way.  Unfortunately, this would have taken an act of inspiration and a touch of genius.  And Helgeland displays neither with this film.  His efforts as a director are definitively inferior to the uneven, but sharp work in Payback.  And his screenplay is easily his worst effort ever, though I have never seen Highway to Hell, so maybe I’m overstating. 

Yes, Heath Ledger is great looking and charming.  And his peanut gallery of Mark Addy, Paul Bettany and Alan Tudyk offers genuine moments of humor.  Shannyn Sossamon is gorgeous… but she can’t act a lick. 

This cast will be the draw.  And they will draw a decent sized crowd, though I must say I was surprised that the sneak preview audience I saw the movie with on Saturday night was much older than I expected.  This was not a room of teens.  What that means to the box office, we’ll know soon enough. 

But the key to the movie is Helgeland’s idea of playing the medieval tale both ways.  Chaucer as a squire.  We Will Rock You playing at a jousting tournament… literally.   A traditional dance turned into something right out of She’s All That.  

None of that is nearly as horrifying as watching Rufus Sewell trying to make something out of a role that calls for little more than eye bulging and scowling.  All that was missing was him smacking his head in frustration every time rival Heath does something amazing again.

Yet, as I said at the top, if this were a film from an immature filmmaker, I guess I might feel that it was a success of sorts.  Someone aspiring with less than $10 million to spend would have been hard pressed to make a film that looks this good.  But someone could do it.  With the exception of some decent CG of lands long gone, this could have been shot at your local medieval times festival.  And there would be better jugglers and wenches.

THE UGLY:  Peter Travers is on a roll.  Columbia actually sent out postcards with Travers’ gushing review of A Knight’s Tale.  And though Travers could not have seen more than a handful of the summer crop, Rolling Stone is allowing itself to be tagged as having “chosen one cool summer movie!”  But Travers isn’t just sticking to quoting for a big summer film.  He’s also all over About Adam and The Golden Bowl.   Yipes.

AD WATCH:  When I arrived home last week and found a pizza box waiting at my door, I couldn’t quite figure out what was happening.   And then I saw that it was Warner Bros.’ Pizzeria, a promotional package for the summer films from the WB.  Cool.  But so not a WB thing.  And then it hit me… Debbie Miller and Jan Craft just put their first public stamp on Warner Bros. publicity, running the kind of promo stunt that we had become used to from their old digs at Fox.  So, now there is a third studio that will be amusing us on a consistent basis.  That’s a good thing.

READER OF THE DAY:  Along Came Joe writes:  “Did you notice the conspicuous lack of newspaper ads for Town & Country Friday, May 4? I can't remember the last time a major studio release droppeddown the memory hole so quickly (like, in its second weekend of release).  Oddly enough, there were huge second-weekend ads for The Forsaken and Night's at McCool's, two movies that had actually posted

LOWER opening-week grosses than "T&C." Geez. I can't help thinking that New Line really, really wanted to kill "T&C."”

And this from 72 Trombones:  “I wish I had never been a projectionist.  If I hadn't, I might enjoy a movie more often.  When will these nitwits in the booth learn how to properly frame a movie?   I am tired of watching movies that show the boom mikes held over the actors heads or cuts the subtitles off of great movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  I am tired of watching movies that are scrolled up so high that it cuts the actors eyes off in crucial scenes.  Yet, when you complain, they look at you like you don't know an f-ing thing.  Or, they get pissed of and go in and roll the movie up and down to show they did something, only to make it worse than before.  Occasionally, one will be so pissed off that they do it the entire movie.  When I was a projectionist, I appreciated someone telling me and I fixed it.  If they would just center the words on the green part of the trailer, they would get it right, but that must be too much to ask to do it right the first time because you know that they are so busy lingering in the lobby.  Do people in the audience NOT KNOW that the boom mikes are NOT a part of the intended visual?  Geez.”

E ME:  Did you see The Mummy Returns?  Will you see A Knight’s Tale?