I’m not really here today.

That is to say, I am in San Francisco for a couple of days and I wrote this early Thursday for print on Friday.  So, I feel a little rushed and in the wrong time.

The weekend at the box office should be of minimal interest.  Spider-Man will drop significantly and that is not a bad thing.  A 60 percent drop-off would still make for a record-breaking second weekend for a movie that wasn’t opening the weekend before a holiday.  One has to wonder why Sony is throwing another teen film directly into the Spider-Man wake this weekend.  Could it be their way of dumping the thing?  Weird, considering that Joe Roth is exercising a lot of quiet power over there these days and the movie comes from his Revolution films.  On the other hand, its placement could be the built-in excuse for The New Guys’ failure.  And let me ask this… if another studio had The New Guy coming out now, don’t you think they would be doing a more aggressive job of exploiting the Spider-Man connection to the zero-to-hero comedy?  Can’t you see it?  “He’s was just another geeky teen… and then, something bit him!  (music crescendo) “Ouch!”  (Eddie Griffin line)”  Who knows?  Maybe they have a shot of someone seeming to bite someone and maybe there is a bug getting squished and who knows what else they have to play with.  But they aren’t going to do anything in-house to let the Spider-buzz pass.

The only major box office question this weekend is whether Unfaithful can make a significant dent in the marketplace aimed at adults, many of whom may have made their monthly trip to the cinema last weekend.  One thing Fox doesn’t have to worry about… there was no moviegoing fatigue doe to crowds coming out for Hollywood Ending last weekend. 

And now… a slightly edited column that was meant to run on April 22.  It’s amazing how much has happened, in the business and in my life, in the three weeks since… and how little has changed.

BACK FROM BERMUDA:  I feel a lot like Peter Riegert at the end of Local Hero today…

Ironically enough, Riegert was at the first Bermuda International Film Festival I attended and we never really spent any time together.  My loss.  I had the best time in Bermuda yet this time out.  The weather was spectacular, the people were, as ever, smart and silly and thrilled to be there.  And soon after I arrived, I was asked to serve on the dramatic jury with Rex Reed and Martha Plimpton.  So I freed myself of other responsibilities (like writing the column) and did my Bermudian job and saw a lot of movies and rode my scooter from one end of the island to the other and partied until morning on the beach, in the pool, in some rooms… yes, it was a blast. 

Flying back on the plane, I tried to separate the vacation value of my experience from the “what the hell am I doing in L.A. when places like this exist and I could be happier there flipping burgers” part of the experience.  It’s not easy.   The calm of island life helped to heal the still-sore wounds of the professional rape I suffered in Miami.  But it also reminded me of how much I love film, filmmakers and the passion that drives people to try to succeed against all and any odds in this business. 

Yet, I work in a universe where we are getting farther and farther away from the work.  On my side of the game, we sanctimonious types point our fingers at the industry, complaining that films are becoming product and that we poor “critics” (the “reviewers” are too busy going to junkets to care) are suffering.  Yet, we keep compounding the problem.  It is as if we can’t see that we are becoming as much a part of the problem as the ever-expanding marketing budgets and the dumbing-down of screenplays to reach the biggest audiences.  Because we are human and because the ego stroke of real criticism is becoming subverted more and more by the speed of the internet – no matter how poorly that speed is used – we are adapting the ways we behave to keep getting stroked while we diminish not only ourselves and our values, but by becoming even more effective parts of the machinery. 

It’s the same as with the studios.  The industry is getting more and more fiscally ill as the hype about how great movies are doing gets louder and louder.  We are in the Movie Cold War and Mutual Assured Destruction reigns.  Unfaithful may be a brilliant counter-programming move for Fox, an adult(erous) thriller right between Spidey and Darth, but the P&A is still guaranteed to be over $30 million with a budget that has to be around $60 million.  Sony is bringing five films, representing an investment of over  $500 million before marketing, to the market in 11 weeks time.  And the biggest profit player of the year, without question, will be George Lucas because he owns his film and will make money across the entire globe when he has a hit, unlike virtually every movie made at the studios these days, where hedging against massive losses has led to every film being hedged against massive profits as well. 

The renegades of the past, companies like Miramax and New Line, have become players in the global conflict.  Am I thrilled that New Line decided to make the Lord of the Rings investment?  Yes.  And do I love some of the higher budgeted Miramax product?  Absolutely.  But the idea of making real money on films that have small budgets and which are marketing for under $15 million is now limited to a very small slice of the industry.  Sony Classics’ Tom Bernard and Michael Barker have been smart enough not to respond to the cash cow that was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by trying to overbuild their division.  They took their win and kept working on the business that they know so well.  Likewise, Fox Searchlight, after going a little wild a few years back, have kept the belt tight, even at the expense of a bigger release schedule.  Paramount Classics has kept it close to the vest, but they also haven’t faced the challenge of an oversized hit to tempt them to overspend too much.  But for every example of sanity, there is a very bright mini-major topper out there who decided to go for the brass ring and ended up bloodied and wondering what happened.

Now I wonder, how I wonder, who’ll stop the rain?  The Movie Cold War will continue until someone stops.  But no one will.  They’re all going to distract themselves by fighting for Academy Awards, which were actually worth more than the cost of their campaigns on a few years ago.  And until an “evil empire” or two crumbles, nothing seems like it will change.  I pray that I’m wrong.   But so long as even $25 million films have $40 million marketing budgets, anyone who tries something different seems like to be run over and left on the side of the road, fools for trying. 

But back to my “peeps.”  I was unfortunate enough to get e-mail while in Bermuda so that I could keep up with Jeff Wells’ insane efforts to review Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of The Clones before seeing the film based on his personal feelings about the filmmaker – who he does not know – and his life – in which Jeff is not a participant.  But he knows someone who has worked extensively with George (note the use of the first name for a man whose hand I have shaken twice in my life), therefore he can not only do marriage counseling and career counseling for this aging, bearded man, who accomplished more by 35 than any group of ten movie journalists have accomplished in their entire creative lives, but he can review a movie that he hasn’t seen.  To that, all I can say is, “Bill Broyles = Apollo 13, Entrapment, Cast Away, Planet of the Apes.”  Please push “A” for “Unfaithful will be great,” “B” for “Unfaithful will be crap” or “C” for “I really can’t be sure what Broyles will mean to the film, except that I know he can write, but Adrian Lyne hasn’t made a really good movie in a long time and maybe he has again or maybe he hasn’t and the film will only be as good as watching Diane Lane get naked, which is pretty good, but can’t be credited to the screenwriter.”

But hey, Jeff has his issues and he’s been beating the “George is over” drum for years now and until George does a charming, good-natured DVD track for an old movie – like Costner did for Bull Durham – George is dead meat.  The greatest assault on Jeff would not be to beat him mercilessly, but to give him Lucas’ chin and a mirror.  Suicide or surgery would be minutes away. 

If only Jeff were the biggest disconnect.  On the flight back from Bermuda, I got a whiff of the stench of Rick Lyman’s New York Times report on Spider-Man and the internet.  In the classic moonwalk that journalists now do, he led with “Though it is dangerous to count box-office chickens before a film opens…” and then proceeded to use Robert Bucksbaum, whose business is to get people to pay for information that he’s gleaned from other sources and then misinterpreted, as one source and Ain’t It Cool News as the other to suggest that Spider-Man will open big.  What is that?   A press release re-written?  Estimates of a $70 million opening started the day the film set the May 3 date, where The Mummy Returns opened to $68 million last year. 

Not only that, Lyman plays into the overtly false notion that opening weekend numbers have anything to do with a film’s quality.  Opening weekend is nothing but marketing, except in very, very rare occasions.  And even then, the effect of word of mouth is almost never felt until Sunday.  The most hyped “bad buzz” opening of all time is Batman & Robin, which opened to $43 million and the most hyped “good buzz” opening of all time is Titanic, which opened to under $29 million.  The first got to $107 million domestic.  The latter got to $600 million.  Tell us about the pre-release buzz again.

Of course, I’m a little pissed that Lyman chose to promote Ain’t It Cool… again!… instead of me.  But that’s the petty bullshit that we fall into when we are in this game.  I didn’t send my review to everyone I knew for hype’s sake.  Harry was very nice to put up a link to my Spider-Man review on his site, as were many others.  But is this really what it’s all about?  Is that really why I spend my time thinking about and writing about the business?

But it got worse!!!!   Stories in Time and Newsweek about Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of The Clones made me want to cough up lunch.  At least Newsweek had Devin Gordon, who has no pretense of being a film critic, writing their ridiculous story.  But Richard Schickel’s descent into the mire is stomach churning, essentially breaking any of the traditional rules of being a legitimate print critic by offering a very specific opinion of a film that’s a month from release based on a script and an entertainment writer colleague. 

But let’s start with the Newsweek story.  First, Gordon has some factual problems.  The Phantom Menace is not the fourth highest grossing film of all time… it is number three worldwide.  It is number four domestically, number two without the two Star Wars re-releases.  Next, Gordon, as a feature writer, becomes a film critic.  “An early draft of the script read by Newsweek showed ... improvement.”  And since when did a feature writer at Newsweek know shit about screenwriting?  And not having been part of the screenwriting process, how does Newsweek know anything about the process between Lucas and co-writer Jon Hales?  Answer: They don’t.  

At Time, they got access to Lucas and you can hear the slapping of the flesh.  They compare Lucas to Homer.  They extend the illusion that Lucas didn’t know that there was negative reaction to The Phantom Menace in many circles, somehow just becoming aware after inviting a parade of geeks to the ranch for private preview screenings that have led to review embargoes that Lucas is rolling out at his leisure.  (Be sure that Time did not get access to Lucas and then assure us that “Clones seems poised to get the series back on track – and provide an exhilarating two hours of serious fun” without Lucas approving the “it’s not a review” review.)  They embrace the illusion, just as Newsweek did, that George Lucas was responding to criticism by bringing in a second writer and adding more action.  The notion doesn’t pass the giggle test.  Three years ago, the argument was that Lucas was too headstrong and isolated to make a better film.  Now, he’s a pawn in the web wars.  Please!!!  The biggest change in this year’s Lucas is that he removed the hand going up Yoda’s ass (the puppet has been mostly replaced by CG) and stuck it up the media’s ass.

It’s taken a few years, but the smartest of the players, led by DreamWorks and now Lucas, have figured out how to make the power moves in a world in which one has to not only shove publicity down the media’s throat, but they have to convince us that we are sneaking around behind their backs. 

What Time and Newsweek know is what Lucas, in one case, and Lucas’ associates have told them as unnamed sources.  Suckers!!!  Has anyone ever seen a more contrived, more transparent effort than the current one to tell the geeks who care, “This Star Wars movie is going to be better than the last one?”  Yet, media outlet after media outlet is screaming about their singular status, offering insight into a film that they think they have seen through their great internal connections… yet the “insights” could all have been written by studio flacks.  This is the new game! 

Let me offer this clue… when the dominatrix has the whip handle up your ass, he/she is in control, even if he/she’s only doing it to you because you are paying him/her.

(David Note:  As of Wednesday, May 9, Matt Drudge was running a link to the “first American review” of Clones, making himself the flip side of Lucas, misleading people in the other direction.  First, the first review was Harry Knowles’ and it was weeks ago.  Second, there were a number of near-reviews, which were all more skilled than Roger Friedman’s rumblings, up before Friedman’s piece.  But, most importantly, Drudge is clearly looking to hurt Lucas, as he was clearly looking to hurt A Beautiful Mind, while promoting a friendly fellow journalist.  Worse, Friedman’s piece is incredibly sloppy, doing what galls me most, which is to take a personal opinion and expanding it to “critics say” after having a chat with three like minded friends outside of the theater.  A limited survey should be acknowledged as limited.  And these post-game analyses are often quite different than what ends up in print.  I remember the night “we” sat around trashing The Time Machine and then saw one of “us” give it one of its few positive reviews.  Journalists have the right to have an opinion.  We are abusing that right when we claim to have everyone’s opinion.  Anyway, back to the past…)

I’m sure I’ll be in a better mood tomorrow and have more details about Bermuda.   Right now, I am disgusted by this business and I am shamed by whatever I may have done – since we rarely can see our complicity as we participate – to help get us here.  Help us, Obi Rog… you are our only hope.

E ME:  Sorry for going over the deep end, but Bermuda was like a very healthy industry enema and I feel like I’m being force fed a hundred industry Big Macs that will clog my colon again, just as I was feeling good.  (This feeling usually leads to my best or my worst work as a columnist.)  What’s the biz shoving down your throat these days?