March 3 , 2003

I finally saw something worth seeing… it was 25 years old.

The UCLA Film Archives and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office are presenting, for the next three weekends, a specially selected group of “Chinese Martial Arts Films,” aka cool kung-fu flicks that you saw in places like 42^nd Street in the 70s.  Opening night, introduced by Quentin Tarantino, with directors John Woo and Curtis Hanson on hand, features Executioners From Shaolin, a 1977 flick from director Lau Kar-leung. 

Coooool!

Quentin’s intro was almost as long as the 99-minute movie.  But you could feel the love.  This flick tells the story of a survivor of a destroyed Shaolin temple who plots revenge against the evil destroyer over decades.  The bad guy has a special gift.  He can move his most vulnerable spot, his testicles, at will. Worse, when you try to kick them, he is able to grab your foot with his “void,” making you vulnerable to final attack. 

Will his balls ever be found?  You’ll have to see the movie. 

These films are, apparently, going to travel around the country.  And I suspect a DVD release in time for Christmas next year.  But try to see them on a big screen.  It’s all kind of fun. 

NETWORKS GONE WILD:  Is it just me or does the milk mustache ad with that anorexic woman from The Bachelorette require a double take before you realize that it’s not a really sick ad for the series or a parody by Hustler?  As it turns out, America’s granddaddy reality show, The Real World, is having their most sexually promiscuous run ever.  And on Showtime, they have what is probably going to be their first real hit series, Family Business, a kind of Osbornes of porn.  And Playboy has a long-running series that is much like Big Brother, except the challenges involve having sex with all of the roommates on a regular photographically available basis. 

JUST WONDERING:  Can Martin Scorsese do anything without being handed an award these days?  What an amazing coincidence!

BOX OFFICE:  The estimate for Cradle 2 The Grave ($17.1 million) puts the film a little below DMX standards.  But there was some mail questioning whether the DMX theory holds up.  We’ll see in a month.  Will the $50 million trend continue?  Maybe he’s just a good luck charm, like Anthony Anderson.  Maybe not.

The Miramax Magical Thinking that always seems to happen this time of year – it must just be these great movies – continues, as Chicago reports an estimated drop of under 10 percent.  Long time readers of this column know that I have been a strong believer in the idea that studios sometimes set a target and then work backwards, figuring out what they need to achieve their “goals.’ 

Chicago, which dropped 35 percent last weekend, would never have passed $150 million with even 20 percent weekly drops the rest of the way.  With what would be remarkable 20 percent weekly drops, the film would still top out at about $135 million.  So is it any surprise that it is suddenly dropping by 10 percent?  The amazing acceleration of Chicago seems likely to put it over the company’s projected $150 million mark the week after it wins the Oscar.  And you can be sure that the film will pass Grease’s record-for-a-musical record $160 million.  (The film picked up another $28 million in re-release.) 

You see, Chicago is that kind of phenomenon.  It’s not being spun at all.  And Shakespeare in Love’s $100,290,000 mark is not stretched either.  Or Gone in 60 Seconds’ $101.6 million or Vanilla Sky’s $100.6 million or Prince of Egypt’s $101.4 million or Con Air’s $101.1 million or Scream’s $103 million.  It never happened in the 1995 box office year when Jumanji, Casper, Die Hard: With A Vengeance and Seven all topped out at more than $100 million and less than $101 million.  Coincidence.  I swear.

There’s no point in fighting City Hall, I suppose.  Armageddon really did crawl to $201.6 million, I’m sure.  There was no targeted effort to reach $200 million.  Never happened. 

Some things in life are counterintuitive.  Some of you will remember that I doubted the second weekend drop on Titanic.  The ultimate phenomenon of that film suggests that I was wrong.  I’m still not so sure.  Sometimes a spark ignites a fire.  Sometimes a coincidence is a coincidence.  And sometimes, studios target figures. 

AWARDS:  There was no real surprise in the Producer’s Guild going for Chicago on Sunday night.  (Do you think there will be a lot of press about Miramax killing off the musical when stupidly conceived box office failures rear their head like Inspector Gadget starring in The Music Man?)  But Rob Marshall taking the DGA Award is one of the great surprises of the season, akin to Marisa Tomei taking her Supporting Actress win for My Cousin Vinny.  It’s not that the movie isn’t popular and that his work deserves credit for that success… much like Tomei’s.  But what happened?

Harvey Weinstein is quoted in Entertainment “Asking The Question Takes Away Any Responsibility for The Insipid Answer” Weekly as saying that Rob Marshall was basically willing to step aside so Martin Scorsese could win his lifetime achievement award for the bouillabaisse of a movie called Gangs of New York.   (Which, amazingly, will pass his previous domestic high-grosser, Cape Fear, the week of the Oscars.  Love those coincidences!!!)  I guess senators just don’t stay bought anymore.

Did they oversell The Italian Stallone or did Scorsese and Polanski cross each other out or did Rob Marshall really do the best job of directing anyone saw this year?  You tell me.

READER OF THE DAY:  OH SAY CAN YOU Z writes:  “Right now Hollywood seems to be in the middle of a comic book phase, ready to start a cycle of musicals, (which will probably very quickly crash and burn), and three years after the fact, jumping on the big Gladiator style epic bandwagon. How many of these competing huge budget, casts of thousands, and CGI up the butt movies are going to cross the finishing line, esp. since several of them seem hell bent on filming in Morocco, a part of the world uncomfortably close to Iraq. And how large IS the audience demand for sand and sandals epics? Do we really want to see Leo and Brad and Colin prancing around in the dunes with an assortment of camels, damsels in distress and CGI enhanced battalions?

Is LOTR proof that audiences want to see old fashioned Hollywood spectacle or is it just their love of Tolkien? Will Troy succeed due to the fantasy aspects of the story and the Alexander projects crash because they're too historical? And just how gay are the dueling Alex's gonna be? (not very, is my guess). And as for the musicals, how many will get green lit and actually made before the first big bomb detonates and ends the whole cycle?

And why is Guys and Dolls getting made before Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Les Miserable, Miss Saigon, Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Mamma Mia! or Urinetown, The Musical? Guys and Dolls is already a movie for chrissake!!! Oh, and on everyone's lists of actors suitable for musicals, don't forget Jeremy Northam...he sang the hell out of his Ivor Novello songs in Gosford Park. Of course, he's not big box office and looks like Hugh Jackman's big brother, but actually that could work to his advantage... And better yet, instead of filming a bunch of Broadway musicals, wouldn't it be more fun to create some new original musicals with new music....(take that Moulin Rouge) Isn't it kind of sad the only original movie musicals we've had for 30 years, are Disney animated films?”

NiCO writes:  “I was thinking about Roman Polanksi's film Tess today and was surprised to see (thanks to imdb.com) that it was nominated for 6 awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and WON Cinematography, Art Direction-Set Decoration, and Costume Design (in a year that featured Raging Bull and The Elephant Man).  What's funny is that this was in 1981, only a few years after Polanksi fled the country.  So why is everyone so shocked that The Pianist was nominated this year, and can't see how the Academy would possibly award him?  If they're still that disgusted by Polanski's acts, don't you think they would have been even more sensitive 20 years ago? 

I haven't seen Tess mentioned in one article during this whole controversy.  Surely Tess wasn't some all-time masterpiece that could not be ignored.  It definitely wasn't a personal story about the Holocaust.  And we all know directors of best picture noms are snubbed every year; you don't think if the academy had a grudge against Polanski they would have hesitated for a second to overlook him and recognize the rest of Tess' crew?  Or this year, would it have been hard to substitute Polanksi's director nom for Peter Jackson without having to rationalize it?  The only reason he hasn't been nominated since Tess is that he hasn't done anything of Oscar caliber since, with the exception of Death and the Maiden, which was basically a filmed play.   

It's pretty clear that had Polanski been making great films this whole time, he would have been nominated on a regular basis.  Samantha Gemier is right on the money when she blames the media for making a circus out of it to begin with.  It was the media coverage that likely caused the judge to rethink the plea bargain, for fear of the bad P.R.  The media is to blame for making The Pianist's nominations a controversy, when it's really isn't.  Gemier also pointed out that Polanski isn't the only person to pour his heart and soul into the film, and that to overlook it for personal-political reasons is an insult to all the actors and technical people as well.  The Academy doesn't care, the victim doesn't care.  Why should we?  It's the moron who reads the story in a tabloid about a foreign director molesting a girl 25 years ago and thinks not only should the film be banned, but the director should be dragged back to America and tortured for the rest of his life.  Hopefully the Larry King show will ease the mind of anyone afraid to vote for or support Polanski and The Pianist.

Personally, I don't think the direction in The Pianist is anything miraculous, but the film itself is arguably more deserving of Best Picture than the other 4 nominated films.  It's the only one of the 5 where the whole is better than the sum of its parts.  The Academy can still give Scorsese the pity award (which the other nominees aren't any more deserving of, if you really think about it), while giving Polanski the production/Best Picture award.  Should make for a nice night, but you and I (and everyone else reading this) think it probably won't happen.  Then again, you never know, and that's why we watch, always on the edge of our seats.  There's still 4 weeks of muckraking and whitewashing left...”

E ME:  Muck and wash away!