October 16, 2002

If yesterday’s column featuring The Mill Valley Film Festival eluded you, you can find it here …

I spent a part of Tuesday night experiencing The Ring.  But there are some other media horror shows to discuss first.

The New York Post reports that Madonna’s publicist Liz Rosenberg is calling the critical reaction to Swept Away “a public hanging by the critics, an assassination.”  I’m not so sure that Madonna’s acting career qualifies her for an “assassination.”  But the irony is that the Post does some unnecessarily unkind tap dancing on Madonna’s acting grave.  They make the fallacious argument that Swept Away was the worst performing studio release since 1995’s animated Arabian Knight, which took in only $320,000 on opening weekend, compared to Swept Away’s $354,052. 

However, if we are into the business of playing games with numbers, Swept Away opened better than Bowling for Columbine, which opened with $209,148.  Of course, Columbine was only on 8 screens to Swept Away’s 196.  But Madonna’s car wreck actually had a better per-screen this weekend than Lion’s Gate’s The Rules of Attraction.  Miramax’s Dimension, which has released much bigger movies than Screen Gems, released Below this weekend to significantly worse results than Swept Away.  ($201,431 and a $1198 per screen on a similar 168 screens.)   24 Hour Party People, a quality film with excellent reviews, never had a better weekend than $183,000 for MGM. 

Make no mistake, Swept Away would be better Flushed Away and the box office is no source of pride.  But Liz Rosenberg has a point.  If entertainment writers really want to get nasty, they should be bemoaning that in the end, Swept Away will likely gross more than some really good films, like 24 Hour Party People, Me Without You, CQ, Elling, Time Out, Crush and Nine Queens.

POTTED:  AP headlined an unfortunate story about the great Richard Harris being hospitalized with a horrifying headline: “Harry Potter Actor Hospitalized.”  That ain’t right.  (The story is here.)

FIRED:  Is anyone else suspicious of two 70s TV actors (Dennis Patrick and Teresa Graves) dying of smoke inhalation in two separate house fires in less than a week?  Creepy.

BAD IDEA:  Shrek as a Broadway musical.  Let that linger in your brain for a minute… Shrek as a Broadway musical.  Lion King, yes.  Beauty and the Beast is a bit of a reach.  But Shrek?   I could see it as a musical review… topical jokes… but a road movie as a Broadway musical?  Oy!

HARRY & THE STAR WARS ARREST:  According to Harry Knowles, the guy who was arrested with Star Wars materials is not the guy who showed him Attack of the Clones last March.  In a feat of Knowlesian logic, Harry also now claims that the investigation into the theft which led to this arrest proves that the video he saw was not known about by Lucas or LucasFilm.  Of course, it proves no such thing.  If the guy who stole stuff from LucasFilm is not the guy who showed Harry the film, and if the film–on-tape did indeed go back to LucasFilm, the very real possibility that the leak was intentional still exists.  If you follow Harry’s logic, LucasFilm owes him large, since there would have been no investigation into this theft were it not for Harry’s unrelated hotel room screening of Clones and thus, no arrest.  No biggie, but I thought a small clarification was in order.

DUMPING:  The L.A. Times’ Patrick Goldstein did a good, if incomplete, column on movie dumping yesterday.  If you didn’t see it, read it here. I’ll give you my take on the issue tomorrow.  And just for the record, crediting Todd McCarthy for being the central figure in getting The Quiet American released this year is a laugh riot.

THE RING:  I’m sorry to tell you, but if you have read the rest of the column, you’ll be dead in seven days.

But that won’t bother DreamWorks… they’ve got a legitimate hit on their hands.  And they won’t need Tom Hanks to get them to $100 million.  All they have is a discount Nicole Kidman.  (Sorry, Naomi… I’ve been calling for your stardom since you outshined Lori Petty in Tank Girl, but you need to find a way to separate yourself from your Nicole-ness… it is almost jarring at times in this movie.)   But they also happen to have a director, Gore Verbinski, working right in his wheelhouse and an old-fashioned piece of storytelling that is terribly original in this era of quick cuts and short fuses.  The Ring  is this year’s The Others with a bigger launch.

I don’t want to tell you a single thing about the story and I would suggest that if you don’t want to know that you be very, very careful about reading reviews before you see the movie.  Not knowing any more than the trailer and ads told me was one of the joys of the experience. 

What I will tell you is this.  Watts does the job… even if she does look eerily like a shorter Nicole.  Seeing Jane Alexander was thrilling for me and I am looking forward to some great performances now that she is an “old lady.”  Many of her affectations as an actress are gone and she is ready to become a Jessica Tandy with a heavyweight punch.  Also, Brian Cox turns up and, damn it, in a very small role, he actually outdoes Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter performance in Red Dragon.  Really great work. 

And then there is Verbinski.  This director showed enormous promise with light material in Mouse Hunt and then got kind of bogged down with a less interesting screenplay for The Mexican.  Verbinski is a stylist and he shouldn’t be making straight-up star vehicles.  His Pirates of the Carribean should be a party.  Here, he shows a level of restraint that is as compelling as his moments of high drama.  With the right material, Verbinski is a director who can deliver.

$36.5 million for Red Dragon was an October record.  The record is meant to be broken.  This weekend. 

READER OF THE DAY:  HER DIVINENESS writes:  “Wanted to make sure you saw the Calendar piece yesterday on Cleanflix - I thought it was one of the best pieces I've read on the issue, balanced and well thought-out and well written. As a lawyer I am thoroughly convinced Cleanflix is creating derivative works that are not covered by the fair use doctrine, and as a movielover I'm on the side of the directors who are correctly stating that the "clean" versions are not their films, but it was interesting to read direct quotes from Cleanflix users and to get their point of view.”

And this from JEFF OVER SEATTLE:  “I just watched "The Rookie" again last night. And while you have to drag me kicking and screaming into sentimental, weepy Disney flicks, this one really got me... again. I was choked up and cheering, and I am not easily moved. What is it about this film that sets it apart from other flag-waving nostalgia flicks? Performances. A solid script. Spectacular cinematography. The great Carter Burwell.

And I'll be damned if Dennis Quaid's performance isn't Oscar worthy. When the film came out there was some positive buzz in this direction, but now, nada. Any chance Disney would mount a comeback for the film and remind people that Quaid did career-topping work in this film? The movie works because of his heart-and-soul performance, and the convincing supporting work of Rachel Griffiths and Brian Cox. It deserves better than to be lost in the fog of last spring.”

E ME:  Anyone else want to push for Oscar nods for an overlooked spring movie?