October 7, 2002

You don’t really want to read about why Red Dragon came up $15 million short of expectations, do you?

Rhetorical answers aside (there is no clear answer… the marketing was fine and my bet would be Lecter fatigue combined with an entire cast of excellent actors who have never opened a film), I have something more fun to write about tonight… the coronation of Joe Carnahan.   

Who is Joe, you ask?  Well, some of you will remember Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane, a movie so low budget and hyperactive that Joe’s heavy run of publicity was shocking… until you met Joe.  The guy was honest, funny, self-deprecating… all-in-all a guy who was impossible not to root for. 

Some of you will remember that Narc got some nice buzz out of a fairly quiet Sundance this last January with Lions Gate on board and that Paramount got involved a few months after the festival, essentially picking up the film while keeping producing company Lions Gate’s name attached. 

All the way back in April, Greg Dean Schmitz’s Upcomingmovies.com connected the word Oscar to the Paramount pick-up.  But things have been fairly quiet since then, with the film skipping a trip to Toronto beside Paramount’s The Four Feathers and The Wild Thornberry’s.  That might have been a mistake, because in a Toronto of high profile disappointments, Narc would have an independent spirited home run on the level of Far From Heaven, Bowling For Columbine and The Quiet American. 

Sorry… forgot to write about the movie…

Narc is a classic police thriller.  Jason Patric has worked this territory before in Rush and, oddly, After Dark, My Sweet.  Ray Liotta has worked this territory before in Unlawful Entry and Copland.  Both men are fine actors who have made some bad, bad films and been reduced, except in the eyes of committed supporters like Neil LaBute, unsure box office and creative bets.

Forget all that.

Ray Liotta is now an odds-on-favorite for an Academy Award nomination with Paramount faced with the determination of whether he’s got a better shot at Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor.  Jason Patric, who plays a much more subtle role, has real potential for Oscar.  Both actors are now, in this little movie (under $5 million), all the way back at the top of their games. 

This is the performance I was looking forward to from Liotta after first being stunned by his turn in Something Wild, which still ranks with me as one of the greatest introductory performances by a new actor ever… right up there with Mark Ruffalo in You Can Count on Me and Edward Norton in Primal Fear. 

Patric, who I felt gave his best performance as a sneering prick in LaBute’s Your Friends & Neighbors, starts quietly but builds and builds and builds without ever going over the top.

And Carnahan… that guy… I was going to compare him to Robert Rodriguez, but Rodriguez has kind of stayed in the low-budget mindset.  Narc is a low-budget film being released by a major studio, but as you watch it, you realize that Carnahan is really only one small step away from making “real” studio films.  In fact, as you watch the film he makes progress, evolving from the trying-too-hard indie guy to a more self-assured director who knows how to hand the ball to his actors and to stay with them as they run wild. 

Narc will remind you of a lot of movies.  But somehow, Carnahan, who also wrote the original screenplay, creates a canvas that is more raw than expected while still not going into ultra-violence… he delivers a genre movie that turns in fresh ways without screaming to the audience that it is turning your head… he makes a guy’s film while still creating remarkably intimate portraits of two marriages in a very limited amount of screen time.

It’s a tough, tough movie…  violence, drugs and more violence.  And Paramount has a tough road to get Academy voters all the way on board on this one.  But come January, maybe before, there will be a Carnahan coronation.  He will only get better as he relaxes, which is usually the opposite of what talent has to do as it moves to the studio level.  Carnahan’s next film will be a Harrison Ford vehicle from Jersey Films and Universal called A Walk Among The Tombstones.  By the time the film starts shooting in February for a Christmas 2003 release, expect Carnahan to have an awful lot of heat around that big bald Sac-Town head of his.

It’s always a great feeling to sit in that screening room and to watch “it” happen.  Sunday was a good night.

BEAUTY:  I paid cash money this weekend to see Igby Goes Down because of David Edelstein.  As I wrote last week, I liked Moonlight Mile for much the same reasons he did not, naming it The Worst Film of The Year.  His Best Film of The Year was Igby… and so, it was more an experiment than a trip to the theater.  But first, there were two posters that floored me. . 

First, I saw Paramount’s one-sheet for Bloody Sunday, which tells the person who sees it absolutely nothing about the movie.  But man, is it gorgeous.

Then, I saw New Line’s one-sheet for About Schmidt, which tells you, in one image, everything about the movie.  Nicholson can get an Oscar nomination from this poster alone.  Wonderful, wonderful work.

ABOUT IGBY:  Blech!

I have come to really like and admire the work or David Edelstein.  But I think there are some movies that generate a reaction from critics that is about the critic as much as about the movie.  There is a definite split on Moonlight Mile.  So, would there be a similar split on Igby Goes Down and could I extrapolate that into some kind of working theory? 

Well, I really didn’t care for Igby.  I didn’t hate it as passionately as Edelstein loathed Moonlight Mile.  But I pretty much felt that Igby was a lightweight piece of undramatic psychodrama.  For me, it wasn’t smart enough, funny enough, powerful enough or demanding enough of itself.

It’s not that writer/director Burr Steers didn’t put together some great actors doing some excellent work.  The most outstanding thing about the movie for me was seeing Claire Danes as a woman for the first time… and finding her more beautiful and a more commanding actress than ever before.  But her character, like every other character who wasn’t Igby, gets short shrift.  Much like the horrible The Rules of Attraction, I would argue that it’s not enough for a movie to tell me something is wrong with the world and to assume that it has done something special. 

Igby’s perspective, unlike that of consistently critic-mentioned Holden Caufield, is so completely self-indulgent that he can’t even consider the world around him long enough to criticize anything but what is right in front of his nose.  Igby is not angry at the world.  He is not lost.  He is anesthetized. 

The most frustrating thing for me was that the film has so many interesting and complex characters. I wanted to know why Susan Sarandon’s character acted the way she did…it was almost more frustrating when some humanity started showing through her tough exterior.  I wanted to know more about Igby’s brother’s motivations.  (He is played by Ryan Philippe in an even more smartly tone-deaf variation on his Cruel Intentions work.)  Jared Harris gets little more than eyeliner to work with in his role, which is one more trick than is given Amanda Peet. 

Don’t tell me how smart you are… show me.

DUCATS FOR DOLLS:  Why do feature writers feel compelled to put he icing on their interesting hypotheses by misdirecting readers?  It drives me nuts!!!  I ran into one as I read last Sunday’s LA Times Calendar… which, of course, is now a part of the LA Times paid archives.  (I can understand charging for archived information… even if I don’t like it.  But charging for week-old information is nothing but greedy.)

The story by Lorenza Munoz is entitled, “For the French, Age Is Just a Number” and it hypothesizes that the French film world is somehow more emotionally healthy than the American film business because they appreciate and lead films with aging actresses.  And on the face of it, I agree.  Hollywood is cruel to aging people and doubly cruel to beautiful women over the age of 40… or 35… or even 30 in some cases. 

But while the subjective argument is completely valid, the objective argument is not.  Sorry. 

Munoz uses all these stats to make the point, so we know that she isn’t averse to these details.  In 2001, French-made films grossed $38 million in France, more than five times what they had generated in 2000.  So what does that tell you?  Well for one thing, from what I can figure out, about two-thirds of that figure came from one French-made film, The Brotherhood of the Wolf… which, not coincidentally, was the most expensive French-made film in history with a budget of about $45 million. 

Munoz acknowledges, without details, that an increasingly Hollywood-like financial situation in France could cause the industry to be more like Hollywood… meaning less “cultural.”  But it isn’t that complicated.  When producer Mark Johnson acknowledges that The Banger Sisters was hard to finance and that they had to stick to a $10 million budget and that Sarandon and Hawn had to be willing to do the movie for $500,000 apiece, that sounds very dramatic.  But you would be hard pressed to find more than a handful of French-made films of any kind with a budget much higher.   Amelie cost $10 million to make.  Can you imagine that film being made in Hollywood for less than $50 million?  $40 million?  $30 million?  I can’t. 

The fact is, we are quite spoiled around these parts.  If the studios could successfully run on $10 million movies, there would be a lot more projects for older women… and older male actors for that matter.  Or hadn’t we noticed that Paul Newman is now a supporting actor.  And was the 50-year-old Meryl Streep starring in the $37 million Music Of The Heart my imagination?  Meryl is also headlining The Hours and Adaptation this December. 

Don’t get me wrong.  There are not enough roles for women of any age.  It is inexcusable that these are fine young actresses who simply don’t have the roles available to compliment their talents.  (Judi Greer, Amanda Detmer, Claire Forlani, etc, etc, etc.)  But the playing field between Hollywood and France is simply different.  No French actress has ever been paid what Streep made for The River Wild or what Shirley MacLaine got for The Evening Star.  France has only had a handful of movies whose overall budgets matched or surpassed what Julia Roberts makes for one movie. 

More importantly, Hollywood has to reconsider what a $10 million movie is all about.  It’s not just aging women who don’t get opportunities. 

P.S.:  The comment attributed to Anthony Lane and seconded by Munoz that it is “not bloody likely” that we would see Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway sharing a kiss, as in 8 Women, is bogus.  Both actresses have shown absolute fearlessness about such things and while I understand that the idea is generally about Hollywood  and not specifically about the actresses, like the financial issues, it is an unfair reach.  It reeks of the narrow thinking it accuses Hollywood of indulging.  I’m sure that neither Guy Pearce, Hugo Weaving or Terrence Stamp could ever play tough guys in Hollywood after dragging it up in a movie.  No one would ever take Halle Berry seriously after she showed her boobs.   And Tom Cruise would never threaten his fan base by playing a foul-mother misogynist.  Not bloody likely.

READER OF THE DAY:  There were a lot of good letters about Ain’t It Cool, but I picked ROSEBUD as one of two reps:  “Nice deconstruction of the Harry/Moriarity/JJ Abramms mess on AICN.  Sharp, insightful and (at least attempted) balanced writing over all.

I drop by AICN two or three times a week.  Don't particularly like the sloppy layout, not a big fan Harry's "hype me first" writing style, or his occasionally obvious jumping into bed with certain projects.  Yes, I remember the "Armageddon" fiasco, "Godzilla"-gate, the "Spy Kids" suck up, and even got into a fairly heated private email debate with his large-ness (and I'm just referring to his ego here) over his overly enthusiastic raves /hyping about "X Men" when it came out.

The reason AICN remains on my rounds of media sites is:  amidst all the ego, fan boy loser geek flaming/talkbacks, sloppy writing, and sometimes obvious studio plants,  it often has nuggets of truth and or gossip that turns out to be (mostly) true.  Honestly, Dark

Horizons or Coming Attractions are both better sites (in layout as well as readability) but are often half a step behind AICN with "breaking gossip"(if you will).  As almost anyone who works in the film industry (as I do) will tell you, that is the real value of AICN.   As to AICN or any site having any "weight" with the studios, that is mostly a myth. There a "a few" executive types who think a bad review on AICN is a PR disaster, but most creative types (producers, directors etc) place little emphasis on what Harry and his colorfully named cohorts say.  Did the Moriarty Superman review have the execs at WB rethinking the whole project?  Maybe, but at no point do I think it was in danger of being scuttled because of this one review (would it really be so great if fan boy-centric reviewers had that kind of power?).

Interestingly, in the whole Superman fiasco that played out, no one got Moriarty's answer on what I believe is a perfectly fair question.  He absolutely trashed the Abrams (first) draft of Superman, which was his honest opinion to which he is perfectly entitled to but,   what if someone had done the same to the first draft of his just sold feature (which sounds a little like distaff "Universal Soldier" as described in the trades BTW).  As a screenwriter, he knows that first drafts contain a lot of garbage that needs to be thrown out/re written/edited down.  It seems kind of unfair to shred a script this early in the process, especially by someone who is a screenwriter himself.  Reviewing a mostly completed rough cut of a film or a shooting script is one thing, but to tear apart something as embryonic as a quickly written first draft borders on "cheap attention getting stunt."  Granted, Harry's mea culpa was even cheaper (not to mention cloying and annoying to boot) but my point is maybe the script didn't "need" to be reviewed at such an early stage in what will be a drawn out evolution.”

WENT TO WASHINGTON adds: “After following every gleefully awkward moment of the AICN-Superman debacle, I'd like to weigh in.  I visit the site regularly and am a big fan of Moriarty's writing (unlike the rest of the site, he usually takes an eloquent and consistent opinion.)  I enjoy reading his Rumblings very much.  On the flip-side, Harry Knowles is not a writer that interests me. (Well, that's not entirely true.  I sometimes jump into his reviews for the morbid spectacle of watching him spill bad grammar all over himself.  I usually can't get to the finish before the curiosity wanes.)

I believe that the biggest problem with Harry's reporting lies in impulse-control.  The fact is Knowles is extremely quick to react (and ever quicker to react in extremes.)  He seems to be missing the hardware to sit back and make objective decisions (or form objective opinions) the way most critics do.  Of course, he acknowledges this.  In his own words, he has developed a "style" of criticism which flows directly from who he is and what's going on in his life (but never approaches anything professional.)  He reports other stories in the same fashion.  The consequence is that damage control is a full-time job at AICN. 

The Superman script is an excellent example because it's so easy to imagine exactly how it went down.  Moriarty fired off his review to Harry and Harry (like the worst of his talk-backers) blew his top at the thought that someone could write (much less sell) a poor Superman script.  He has acknowledged how important Superman is to him and like most of the uber-geeks* who read his column, he loaded up his guns and pulled out the LA phonebook.  Immediately.  Impulsively.  An opinion piece was hammered out and information was provided about how to sign the on-line petition and where to confront JJ Abrams.  And all this before Harry took the time to sit down and read the script (which could've taken him only a few hours.)  All of this before Harry had time to form an opinion of his own.

(* In the interest of complete disclosure, I should acknowledge that I am one of said uber-geeks and that on the basis of Moriarty's column, I also lost enthusiasm for the movie.  On the other hand, I did not take it personally nor read it as a sign that it was time to draw arms against Warner.)

So what?  Harry is a hot-head.  He's quick to hammer the things he hates and worship the things he loves.  This is nothing new.  Witness Scooby Doo.  Witness the Freddy Prinze Jr rants that make the site a questionable place to visit at work.  Harry is a spirited movie-lover and God love him for it.  The problem is that as web-master, Harry cannot really afford to react like the talkbackers who visit his site.  Not if he wants to be taken seriously, that is.  And not if he wants people to keep reading his site for news. 

I gave up on the news long ago.  Now I read it for the entertainment.

E ME:  Did you ever write Jason and Ray off?  If so, when?  And what will it take to make you true believers again?