Well…

When I set up the Weekend Guesstimates on Friday morning, I certainly intended to come up with a number for Goldmember.  I’d love to say that $71.5 million would have been my number.  It would have been somewhere between $40 million and $50 million, despite the tracking.  And now, we have another mammoth opening number to chew on for a week or two. 

One thing is clear to me.  Signs will win the box office race next weekend.  Between M. Night Shyamalan and Mel Gibson, this is the rare truly original project that should hit the box office like a pre-sold franchise. 

If Goldmember drops the same way that The Spy Who Shagged Me dropped - 47 percent – next weekend will, at best, deliver $37.9 million.  Of course, looking to the four films that have opened at numbers higher than Goldmember for insight about box office drops is futile.  Four of the films opened either near or on the weekend before holiday weekends.  The fifth, Spider-Man, had an opening so singular and faced so little competition on the follow-up weekend that comparisons feel fallacious. 

Road to Perdition and Stuart Little both reported drops under 30 percent.  Both films will, for the first time, face direct competition in the demographic groups that have been driving them heretofore.  Perdition meets Signs and Stuart meets Spy Kids.  Should be interesting.

Minority Report suddenly, mysteriously, reported its smallest drop to date this weekend, 30 percent.  K-19 dropped an estimated 43 percent, pretty much assuring that it won’t be passing the $50 million mark in North America.  And My Big Fat Greek Wedding passed the $35 million mark and now looks likely to beat major studio summer releases …  the extremely worthwhile About A Boy, the extremely pathetic Windtalkers and Enough, which lies somewhere in between.

GREAT NY TIMES WEEKEND:  There were three stories that were really worth the effort in this Sunday’s New York Times.  The first is a non-movie story, but one that informs anyone interested in the act of acting.  John Rockwell writes about the cast changes in the Broadway show, Proof, from Mary-Louise Parker to Jennifer Jason Leigh to Anne Heche… and the changes aren’t just typographical.  The story is here as long as you have registered for the NY Times… if you haven’t, it is free.

The second great story is from Adam Liptak, on the national desk.  It seems that in 1996, a law was passed keeping prison inmates from seeing R, NC-17 or X rated films.  The prisoners sued.  And lost.  But now, they are back in business, as an appeals court has reinstated the suit.  Even the inmates lawyer agrees that X-rated films are within the government’s right to legislate.  But R-rated films, according to him, are not.  And the line between Showgirls and Henry and June?  This is the stuff are epic litigation.  The story is here.

The lovely and talented Marshall Sella, who I had the pleasure of meeting in Bermuda this year, did a great story for the Sunday Magazine about the production of trailers.  Much like the actress story, it is really informative about artistic perspective… and a whole lot more.  It’s here.

SODERBERGHING:  I’m not sure exactly what’s going on… I’ll put a call into Miramax today… but the two Steven Soderbergh interviews I’ve read this weekend, one with the New York Times and one with the Miami Herald, are both printed, quite unusually, as straight Q&A.  Both are worth reading.  The Herald’s is here and Elvis Mitchell’s NY Times interview is here.

P.S.:  I’m happy to link to Rene Rodriguez’ interview, even if he stuck a shiv in my back every bit as decisively as an enraged inmate driven to distraction by the lack of R-rated films.  He did a good job on the interview and I’m sure that he remains, as he always was, a nice guy.   That didn’t keep him from lying or manipulating the truth in print.  Sigh.

THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE:  I feel like the nine millionth person to write about this unique event in documentary history.  There have been first-person documentaries before, but that first person is usually the filmmaker as well.  This film, made by Brett Morgan and Nannette Burstein, the dynamic duo that brought us On The Ropes a couple of years ago, still manages to be a Robert Evans auto-doc.  So much so, that it’s almost not a documentary at all, but more like a novel/film in the vein of Ragtime, combining one man’s fiction and a world of true life characters. 

The downside of the current media blitzkrieg that storms through Hollywood all day, every day, is that we know too much about our best characters.  There are a few great ones left, but there are already reams of print about them and it’s highly unlikely we will ever get the first-person story from Harvey Weinstein, Joel Silver, Scott Rudin, Jon Peters, Chris Pula, etc, etc.   James Toback should do a documentary about himself.  So should Kevin Smith.  Lynda Obst did a great job telling her tale.  David Puttnam has written a few great Hollywood books, but never exposed his own tale to us.  The Brothers Scott have a great story to tell, far more complex than their directing careers… but we’ll never get to read that story either.  Brian Grazer could do his own The Kid Stays in the Picture down the road… but I doubt we’d ever get the really good stuff.  Nonetheless, Grazer is still one of the town’s most fun “serious” interviewees.

The Kid/Evans puts it all out there… well, everything that he wants to talk about.  The movie has the style of the man… garish, beautiful, crude, effete, self-indulgent, self-effacing and perpetually in motion, despite a predominance of stillness. 

I recommend the film unreservedly for anyone who loves movies and the movie business.  It may not be a great document of history, but it is HIS story and as such, is an unmitigated joy.

SARAH SILVERMAN:  On Thursday night I went to see Sarah Silverman’s one-woman show, Jesus is Magic.  And once again, it was confirmed… Sarah Silverman is a genius.  Yet, there is something about her that is more compelling than her act.  I haven't found that with many comics.  I don’t know Silverman in real life.  But watching her work, there is always that feeling that she is funnier than the artifice she has created for herself. 

The leap to real stardom comes, in my opinion, when audiences connect with the real person.  And in Silverman's stand-up, it seems to be right there near the surface.  She brings you in close, but then pushes you away with the big punchline at the end.  She's kind of like Steve Martin, post-Wild & Crazy guy, doing The Great Flydini for friends before talking about modern art over dry white wine.  It's as though she thinks that what she wants to say is so shocking that she has to wrap it in a shock beat.  And it is shocking.  But she connects with the audience... and they will go with her, even if they think that licking jelly off her boyfriend's penis really did make her think of her mom. 

Silverman is funnier than Elayne Boosler or Ellen DeGeneres and Joan Rivers couldn't sniff her g-string.  The only ones I can remember in her league are Margaret Smith, Garofalo and maybe Paula Poundstone, when she was on.  But no one could/can figure out what to do with them outside of the clubs. 

Whoever figures out Sarah Silverman will have lightening in a bottle indeed.  

GETTING THE BARGAIN:  Do you think Kirk Kerkorian reads The Hot Button?  I don’t.  But just last Wednesday, I wrote “My advice would be to buy the stock now,” in a story about the falling stock price of MGM.  On Saturday, AP ran a story reporting that MGM would repurchase up to 10 million shares of its own stock.  And as bad as things are at the company at this point, I think the strategy is right.  The market drop has been so extreme that it is now below the actual value of the company, whether they release another film ever again or not.  Of course, they will release the upcoming Bond film and they will make money on that release.  Besides that, the future of new releases is unclear.  I’m not saying that the studio won’t release Barbershop, but that’s not a capital-F Future.  That future is so unclear, they had better wear shades. 

READER OF THE DAY:  There was a helpful note from a reader on Friday pointing out that The Country Bear Jamboree was closed in Disneyland last year and that the space will soon be used to house a Winnie The Pooh ride.  Let’s see how quickly Nikki Finke manages to use that to bash Michael Eisner over the head! 

Anyway, two takes on Austin Powers… The Hairy One writes:  “As I was watching Goldmember, I began to wonder why I found the movie so damn funny.  Minute after minute I began to laugh my ass off more and more.  Luckily I was by myself when I saw the move and didn’t embarrass anyone with the wild  movements and laughter I made as Dr. Evil and  Mini Me sang "It's a Hard Knock Life." 

Now, I understand that comedy is very subjective.  What makes me laugh could make someone else barely giggle.  Never the less, I realized what made me like this movie more than most is-I generally like these characters.  I don’t know how Mike Myers did it, but he somehow made me give a crap about Dr.Evil being, well, go see the movie.  Not to mention the evolution of the character of Scotty Evil.  These films are about the most genuine comedies I have ever seen.  Something about that makes me care and makes me laugh my ass off time and time again. I can understand that the whole world isn’t going to walk out of Goldmember as giddy as I was.  Yet, I couldn’t recommended this movie more.  Mainly because I think laughing your ass off is a important thing.”

And this came from Not Rob’s Brother:  “I'm really puzzled and bothered by Goldmember. I'm struggling to understand why lame jokes like meteors hitting genitalia and "E.Diddy" tattoos are throwing audiences into a state of hilarity. I had always thought surprise was one of the best ways to create a laugh. But here, in Goldmember, everything is expected (besides the opening sequence - Austin going John Woo, now that's different) - and still people were laughing uncontrollably. I hate to think that audiences like old, dumb, and easily guessable jokes. I prefer to think they like things they feel comfortable with. Jokes with friends are always funnier. Austin, and Dr. Evil, and Mini-Me in a bizarre way are America's friends, due to their extreme popularity. I wonder how the movie would have played had Dr. Evil been dropped, and Goldmember featured? Who knows. Despite all this, I had the feeling while watching - and maybe this is just wishful thinking - that the current is shifting. That this style and this tone is getting old. The youth of America is the pulse of the country's pop culture tastes, isn't it? And when George W. and these kids' parents are not just feeling, but loving, Austin Powers, don't we have to wonder how much longer kids are going to find this stuff cool?”

E ME:  Whaddya think?