WEEKEND REVIEW

Before I get to the box office, I want to welcome the newest contributor to VoicesOfHollywood.com.  Her name is Amy Berg and her beat is… well, her beat is pretty much whatever inspires her.  (Sound familiar?)  This week, her first story is about the Robert Blake thing and the surprising effect that a little death can have on civilians.  Amy is the new weekly columnist, but not the last.  Got to the front page to get to her story, To Live And Dine In L.A.

And now, back to regular business…

Okay, so Shrek didn’t quite explode as loudly as I was expecting.  But then again, it did open, according to Sunday’s $42.1 million estimate, right in between what most were estimating and my oversized $49.8 million shot in the dark.  And it is now the second highest opening animated film ever, behind Toy Story 2  ($57.1 million) and just ahead of The Lion King ($ ). The opening also bests DreamWorks’ previous best start with Gladiator ($34.8 million), just last year.  Not bad.

Enjoy if for the week, DreamWorks.  Pearl Harbor is coming.  Nonetheless, look for Shrek to actually improve its numbers in next weekend’s holiday derby.

The Mummy Returns dropped an estimated 39 percent, but that’s actually stabilization on a film that big, after dropping 50 percent last weekend… especially up against a family movie like Shrek.  The film will pass $150 million sometime during this week.  A Knight’s Tale estimated a 35 percent drop, not looking like it’s headed to $80 million domestic.  And Angel Eyes opened to an estimated, but still soft, $9.5 million.  Looks like Lopez’ constituency is a little more gun shy (no pun intended) after they paid to see The Wedding Planner just a few months ago.

THE GOOD:  How much better was IFC’s Closing Night coverage at Cannes compared to the opening night?  Well, in the first 30 seconds, Roger Ebert and Annette Insdorf gave us more information about the festival than I think Michael Musto and Veronica Webb did in their entire show.  When Agnes Varda arrive and Ms. Insdorf mentioned it, it occurred to me that Ms, Webb would have likely thought it was Rhea Perlman until her producer corrected the error. 

One thing that was apparent from the red carpet program was that the festival embraces the breast version of “If you’ve got `em, smoke `em.”  In this case, it’s, “If you got `em, show`em.”  As intense as the Oscar fashion rush is every year, there is a lot ore fashion going on in France.  I guess that isn’t much of a surprise.  While the Oscars feel a bit like an enormous high school prom, Closing Night at Cannes is a bit more like a really nice night out.

The film you’ve never heard anything about and whose filmmakers you don’t know that you will be seeing advertised with the “Palm d’Or” laurels is The Son's Room, the fifteenth film from Italian director Nanni Moretti.  You may have heard of one of his other films, Caro Diario, which was released here in America in 1994.  (Moretti won Best Director at Cannes for that one.)

Familiar American names split this year’s Best Director award, with Joel Coen winning for The Man Who Wasn’t There and David Lynch for Mulholland Drive, a TV show that didn’t go here in the U.S. and which will now likely get a domestic release as a film. 

The biggest winner was the Austrian-French film, The Piano Teacher.  Isabelle Huppert won for Best Actress, Benoit Magimel. Won for Best Actor and the film took the Best Picture runner-up award.

In the end, as in the first days, everyone seems to agree that Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now Redux was by far and away the best film at Cannes this year.   There was no controversial embrace of a film like Dancer in the Dark.  There was no big, florid disappointment that paled next to its party like Vatel.  (The New Line party for Lord of the Rings was the only major buzz event other than Apocalypse in  the entire 10 days.) 

Cannes decided to embrace American film once again and this is the thanks they get… one of the least inspired festivals in memory.  Maybe we’ll do better next year.

THE BAD:  How little news is there out there?  You’ll know when you get a look at Sunday’s coastal puff pieces for this week’s Pearl Harbor opening.  From the right coast, there is the New York Times’ piece on Jerry Bruckheimer, entitled “Jerry Bruckheimer: A Showman Turns to War to Knock 'Em Dead.”  Geez, I’m already cheering for the guy and I haven’t read word one!!!  (You can read it here – if you have your free New York Times subscription.)

Meanwhile, on the left coast, The L.A. Times’ Bob Welkos (a fine human being), does an up close and personal with Michael “The Misunderstood” Bay.  Did you know that Michael Bay is now a genre unto himself, “like a Hitchcock or a Capra?”  (Wait… give me a second to compose myself before I continue.)  Did you know that Michael Bay… you know, the one who had Harry Knowles take an early look at sketches for Pearl Harbor… thinks that “there are only 50 people on the Internet?”  Uh-huh.  And did you know how frustrating it was for Bay to be stuck with the largest greenlight budget in the history of film?  (“It’s tough when you made the studio so much money.”)  Oy!  Such a martyr! 

You know, I am not a big Bay hater.  I’m not a fan of spin and Bay and Bruckheimer are spin geniuses.  Armageddon brought $550 million into the worldwide box office and saw only a small profit from all that theatrical revenue.  (Probably about $30 million profit on that $550 million, with the real money being made on home video and other ancillaries.)  That film, along with Warner Bros.’ Batman & Robin, changed the studio attitudes about mega-budget spectaculars.  If Armageddon wasn’t so expensive, Michael Eisner wouldn’t have been so anal about setting the budget for Pearl Harbor so “low.” 

Anyway, the Pearl Harbor breakeven is about $400 million worldwide.  (Don’t forget the mega-P&A and the large amounts in deferred payments.)  And it seems to be a mortal lock to get there.  And so it goes.

The L.A. Times story is here. And for the record, not to be outdone, Rick Lyman of the New York Times already did his Michael Bay story on Friday.  (Click here.)

THE UGLY:  I really don’t have anything here, but Randy does…. “Michael Bay's die-hard supporters would bleed from their ears if they read David Thomson's devastatingly unfavorable comparison of Pearl Harbor to Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity.

Especially harsh is the observation that despite strict Hollywood censorship, Zinnemann was able to portray the sexually-charged lives of G.I.s in 1941 Hawaii that Bay had absolutely no intention of acknowledging--we wouldn't want to tarnish the image of the Greatest Generation, now would we?  It would be much safer, I guess, to portray them as marble-shitting paragons of virtue than as real human beings.

To quote Thomson:  "...the thing I find most striking and alarming is the honest notion that all the "characters" were simply and completely dedicated to the idea of serving their country, their flag and their

uniform and the subsequent idea that no one was ever intent on surviving or getting his and her rocks off."

Gee, I hope all those explosions make up for the battalions of bland, sexless ciphers filling the screen.”

BAD AD WATCH:  Does it creep anyone else out that Disney hired Martin Sheen to do the new voice over for the Pearl Harbor TV spots?  Why not kick in another $500,000 and get Clinton? 

JUST WONDERING:  Did anyone else think that the most interesting thing about the closing episode of The Sopranos was the subtle introduction of Fairuza Balk in what is sure to be an interesting role for next season?

READER OF THE DAY:  Creedence writes: “I always thought Cannes' competition to a worthy indicator of thoughtful quality films so how on earth can Melanie Griffith be awarded a lifetime achievement award???

Ask anyone to name a film she's appeared in and they might reply Working Girl but other than that how many memorable films has she been in?

I’m looking forward to The Oscars to see Pauly Shore receive the lifetime achievement award now.”

And this from The New Yawker:  “Saw Shrek this afternoon and was thoroughly impressed. DreamWorks

has hit the animated homerun they've longed for and it's nice to see a movie that is going to appeal to the mainstream in a big way and is also a great film. It really is magical to see something appeal to young and old alike. Corny maybe, but true.  My 7 year old brother was transfixed and I laughed my first genuine guffaws in a theater in a long time.

As for Michael Bay, I'll see Pearl Harbor and I'll leave it wishing it had been handled by someone more competent I'm sure. All ofhis films are slick but always stop quite a distance short of greatness. Aside from bad dialog and comic book story lines (the budget is irrelevant to me) my #1 annoying Bayism is his fetish

for colored graduated filters . Those orange and tobacco skies from The Rock et al are laughable and are nothing more than a signature from a hack who's run out of ideas. He doesn't even use them properly! (He’s not alone… if you've seen Tony Scott’s Top Gun, watch for the scene with Tom Cruise knocking on Kelly McGillis's door and the graduated filter is still in place even though there's no sky in the shot!) Tsk Tsk I suppose we deserve what they keep feeding us.”

E ME:  I guess Michael Bay is the topic of the week, like it or not.