November 8, 2002

Antwone Fisher had its Los Angeles premiere Thursday night and continued to build support for a big Oscar run.  The simple reality is that this is a solid piece of heart-tugging biographical filmmaking.  Add to that a great true story about the film’s fight to get made.  Add to that Denzel Washington’s directing debut.  Add to that, a really remarkable performance by a complete unknown in the title role.  And, finally, look at the rest of the field and Antwone Fisher is a likely finalist in the Best Picture race. 

It was a day of Oscar humming with input coming from no fewer than five different studios.  The subtleties of this five-month-long campaign are already pushing the envelope of comfort.  There is already backlash against one film that has been seen by fewer than 50 studio outsiders.   One studio is already substituting in one film for one that didn’t catch.  Another is grasping at straws to have any Oscar play at all.  Two films have been written off by the pundits – one because it hasn’t been seen and one because it is expected to be seen by too many people.  And one movie that may be too smart for the room has probably the best buzz from inside a studio that I have heard in a long, long time… true love of this film from people paid to make the effort. 

It’s exhausting.  No wonder Mark Gill looked positively giddy at this premiere party that he didn’t have to work.

I met with Randall Wallace on Thursday.  You know, ya really feel like a rube when you meet these guys and you find you really like them.  But damned if you can’t understand exactly why Wallace’s career has been so successful… all that passion for this work.  And all that passion for his film, We Were Soldiers. 

I’ll write about this in greater depth next week.  But Wallace and his film have become symbolic for me of the separation of film and real life that I find myself more and more dedicated to embracing.  A script is not a movie.  A person’s personal politics are not a movie.  The cost of production is not a movie.  A movie is a movie.  That work is what will live beyond all the stories, all the marketing and all the things that have to be done in this day and age to try to make a movie stand out. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I love all that other stuff.  But when it comes to sitting down in a dark room and watching what happens on that screen… the movie is the story.  And while our perspective may change, the movie will not.  Its artistry is the only rock in an industry of pebbles so light that they bob on the surface of the water.

Ironically, this week I’ve been getting a steady stream of angry letters over my Toronto review of Atom Egoyan’s Ararat.  Unfortunately, I can’t apologize for writing what I believed and still believe about the film.  Egoyan, who usually hides his sledgehammer in a big bag of feathers, made a movie without the subtlety or the sophistication that the very important subject deserves.  But I guess, for these people, not liking the film is the same as being an Armenian holocaust denier.  And that’s a shame.  Because, as I wrote in the review, I was more than willing to believe everything that the movie stated.  It’s all the more ironic in light of a movie like The Pianist, which presents the jewish holocaust with all the sophistication that Ararat lacks.

SIGN OF THE TIME:  MGM/UA’s Dies Another Day became the first movie to offer its trailers in six different languages from the various countries in which the film will appear.  I still want the Japanese and African versions…

WEEKEND PREVIEW:  There isn’t much to focus on this weekend.  8 Mile is the big opener.  Femme Fatale is the “I thought thy said it was dirty” release from Paramount.  Far From Heaven opens on six screens.  Bloody Sunday expands to 54.  Bowling For Columbine adds 60.  Punch-Drunk Loves adds 41 screens.  The Ring adds 119.  And Frida sextuples its screen count, adding 272.

WEEKEND GUESSTIMATES

1. 8 Mile- 2471 venues - new - $29.8 million
2. The Santa Clause 2 – 3352 venues - off 40 percent - $17.4 million
3. The Ring – 2927 venues – off 18 percent - $14.9 million  
4. I Spy – 3182 venues - off 48 percent - $6.6 million
5. Jackass – 2532 venues – off 52 percent - $6.1 million
6. My Big Fat Greek Wedding – 1975 venues – off 18 percent - $4.6 million
7. Ghost Ship – 2361 venues – off 49 percent - $3.5 million
8. Punch Drunk Love – 1293 venues – off 25 percent - $3 million
9. Sweet Home Alabama        - 2004 venues – off 38 percent - $2.9 million
10. Frida – 319 venues – n/a - $2.2 million

Femme Fatale – 1066 venues – new - $1.5 million
Bowling for Columbine – 222 venues – n/a - $1 million

READER OF THE DAY:  A reader wrote in about yesterday’s 8 Mile review and I responded, which seemed to clarify some of the fine print for him.  McG wrote:  “I find the review of "8 Mile" baffling.  From all accounts I've heard, it was an effort at making a semi-biography of Eminem's experience in the world.  I haven't seen the movie yet, so it remains to be seen whether I'll enjoy it or not but these criticisms seem way off-target.  How can you ask someone to modify their life experiences to fit neatly into a "fair", well-balanced view of society at large when they tell their story?  It's like attacking "Barfly" for any number of reasons for not portraying life as you'd like it to be.  Would you bring the same attack towards a movie portraying a black man's experience in a white world?  Maybe The Antwone Fisher Story won't be very "fair" to white people?  Would you criticize a movie where the men surrounding a female character all seem to be taking advantage of her?  I disagreed with your assessment of "Black and White" being a misogynistic movie simply because it was a movie ABOUT music and culture that was inherently misogynistic.  It's like calling a movie about Castro "fascist"!  I have the same disagreement here.  This is a movie about a young white man in Detroit trying to fit into a scene and an industry that is black-dominated.  His experience with black people and women are certainly going to be different than an older white man's experience with blacks and women in Hollywood.  It's about a genre of music and again, a culture that reflects the music and vice versa that is racially charged and yes, misogynistic.  That hardly seems to be a racist/misogynistic effort on the part of the filmmakers.”

I responded: “It's a fictional movie.  There is no suggestion otherwise, except in the media.  This is not A Beautiful Mind or Antwone Fisher.  Eminem didn't write this movie.  It's not based on his real life.  It's based on some elements of his life, yes.  But no more than that. 

Black & White is misogynistic because it had a prurient interest in the visual subjugation of young women... and hiding behind the idea that "this is the culture" is crap.  Toback is a dirty old man.  So is Larry Clark.  And their camera work lingers on the women they photograph as though looking for the right frame for a "tasteful Penthouse layout."  The misogyny of Black & White wasn't that men abused women or that there was an evil supermodel... the misogyny was in the direction.

It's very easy to forget that every shot is a choice.  Every image you see is a decision.  There are lots of ways to go.   With the exception - somewhat - or documentary and cinema verite, films are conscious manipulators.  8 Mile is the most cynical of movies because its goals are so blatant and its disregard for its character -outside of Rabbit - is so reckless.

Have you ever lived in Detroit?  South side of Chicago?  I have.  Blacks and whites live together and apart.  This movie in no way suggests that Rabbit's challenge is to make it as a white man in a black world.  Of course, that is the subtext for white viewers.  But the movie never fesses up to that.   His whiteness is the least of the issues he faces.  Yet, the movie happily degrades every black person in the film because our hero must be a hero.

If this were a biopic, my issues would be different.  There would be a lot more questions about what happened to his mother, his sister, his friends... but it is not.  It is a shallow, angry, self-absorbed, beautifully made excuse for a movie.”

E ME:  If that’s the truth, tell me, am I lying?