March 21, 2003

The future of the movies – yes, actual movies – looked a little better after Thursday.

Two films that have been left hanging as question marks presented themselves as world beaters.  The first arrived in an extended clip from the Universal ShoWest reel, which I finally got to see.  The second made me laugh harder than anything I’ve seen in a theater in almost a year.

The one Universal movie that is really set for 2003 that was not represented on the reel was Spring Break: The Movie, which is now in a hot and heavy release date battle with New Line and their reality-based spring break movie, The Real Spring Break.  Unlike most films with similar themes, these two are in a real life & death battle over who goes first.  In terms of quality, I’ll put my money on the New Line product, which is being made by Bunim/Murray, the company behind MTV’s The Real World, which has continued to be the show that understands the creation of storylines within a reality setting best of them all.  The Universal movie, which is being made by the people who make The Bachelor, is currently earlier in the release schedule.  But changes will come.

Now that I have dispersed with the dreck…

The Hulk looks f-u-c-k-i-n-g fantastic.  Universal got the message from the controversial Super Bowl commercial.  Not only wasn’t the CG work finished to a degree that the effects people were happy to show it, but the clips were so short that you really couldn’t get comfortable with the obviously CG title star.  More importantly, you couldn’t get a handle on the relationships that are so much what makes the prospect of an Ang Lee Hulk thrilling.  And in this longer clip, thrilling it was.  Besides the brief sighting of Hulk Dogs, which led to Ain’t It Cool nocturnal emissions, the glory of this piece was the three central characters, Bruce Banner, his father (Nick Nolte) and his girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly).  Now I have an idea of what these characters are feeling.  Now I can understand the idea of a father who is trying to come to terms with what his son has become even before his son can.  Now I can see Banner’s need for the love of this woman.

And the effects are so much more compelling in the longer form.  It takes a second for the eye to get used to the idea of this amazing creature, even if the muscle structure and the skin texture are amazingly well done.  Maybe more than a second.  But like all art that requires a moment of re-focusing, an audience adjusts and balance can be found if it is well done.  It’s impossible to know from this clip, but it feels like Ang Lee takes his time with the character in a way that we’ve never really seen in CG.  How many times have you seen a CG character in a long shot in which you can still distinguish the character’s actions.  I’m pretty sure the answer is never.    Never before. 

After seeing the Super Bowl commercial and looking it over in slow motion, I was comfortable that Lee would get it together.  After seeing this, I am convinced that The Hulk stands an excellent chance of being the best comic book movie ever made.  Thrilling.

The other clip that really made its case in a huge way was Seabiscuit.  The most surprising thing about the extended footage was that Tobey Maguire was the clear lead.  He seems to truly share the film wit Chris Cooper and Jeff Bridges.  This really is Gary Ross’ opportunity to step up.  This is his The Natural.  This is his shot at touching the hem of Coppola’s garment.  The cinematography by John Schwartzman looks spectacular in its range of warm browns and reds.  He’s in the Oscar race.  Chris Cooper managed to get me in just a couple of moments.  If he gets stiffed by The Academy this year, upset by Christopher Walken as now expected, look for him to be the early favorite for next year’s win.  Maguire looks solid.  Bridges is always solid.  And the story, about a bunch of broken people coming together to become legendary winners, has the right stuff for awards.

Now it’s up to the filmmaking.

Ironically, I felt like the clip was a little too long for the film's own good.  It wasn’t that any of it wasn’t good.  But at some point, the story was told and we got the feeling.  60 or 90 seconds less would have made for a better piece.  It’s always hard to say where that line gets crossed.  But regardless, the film looks like it has great potential.

As I’ve written before, 2 Fast 2 Furious looks better than the original.  I am not the world’s biggest John Singleton fan, but the idea of “going black” may turn out to be a stroke of real commercial genius.  Tyrese Gibson, who was kind of limited in Baby Boy, looks like a hardcore action star here.  Beautiful and charismatic.  But it is Singleton’s flashy, colorful – I have to say it – ethnic style is what changes the signature for the better here.  Everything just looks richer than the original. 

The only movie that looks like a true car wreck is Dr. Seuss’ The Cat In The Hat, which has the stench of those comedies where Robin Williams was allowed to go off script constantly and those were the moments that made it into the trailer.  Here Mike Myers, in a make-up job that is at once impressive and completely incomprehensible as anything other than a guy in make-up, seems to be improvising his way through a magical visual world created by production designing god turned director, Bo Welch.  I had issues with The Grinch, but ultimately, it did get around to telling the story of the book.  Unfortunately, The Cat In The Hat really, truly has no story.  There is a reason why The Cat In The Hat is not the beloved animated character that The Grinch was.  The story of redemption is clean and clear. 

Welcome to The Jungle could be an ugly clip package… but just keep saying The Rock meets Christopher Walken.  Too much fun.  If I’m cutting a theatrical trailer, I’d cut back on the Seann William Scott and focus on Walken and The Rock.  And for God’s sakes, you have one of the sexiest women in the movies in this one, Rosario Dawson… don’t deliver her as an afterthought.  But Walken and The Rock… delicious.

The Coen Brother’s run at a Hawks/Sturges combo platter, Intolerable Cruelty, looks like a home run.  Clooney is just beautiful… not as broad as Oh Brother, but still stylized.  Catherine Zeta-Jones makes a surprisingly viable Barbara Stanwyck.  And Billy Bob Thornton was a welcome site about halfway through the clip, which is not how I have felt about him in a while.  Even Cedric The Entertainer looks like a real actor giving a fun performance, giving Bernie Mac a run for his money.  With an October 10 release date, I assume that we’ll see the film in Toronto.  I can’t wait. 

You never know.  Honey may be Glitter: The Next Generation or Flashdance 2.  I was not encouraged.  But I am willing to remain open to the idea.

Love Actually was presented as a kind of music video to the song, “Love Is All You Need”.  The most overwhelming thing is that the movie seems to have more stars in it than an Irwin Allen movie.  But even in this odd format, you can feel the overpowering warmth of this movie.  It has the scent of Four Weddings & A Funeral, which might seem to be an obvious comment, since the movie is being made by Richard Curtis, who is the writer of most of “those” films and who is taking the director’s chair for the first time.  But how can anyone resist all these people in all these loving situations?  The film opens against The Matrix Reloaded, but looks like it will be a Thanksgiving favorite, perhaps for a second visit from many, with only Mona Lisa Smile as real competition for the holiday heartstrings.

Peter Pan starts well and looks beautiful.   Clearly, PJ Hogan has no fear of originality or imitation.  The guts to cast the film with non-star names (Jason Isaacs is great and recognizable, but not a movie star really.)  And after a while, the movie looks a bit like Hook.  But Hook would have worked had they had a script that really worked.  But they didn’t.  If Hogan does, he’ll have a hit.  One thing is for sure.  He is launching careers (Jeremy Sumpter and Rachel Hurd-Wood) of two kids that will be the fantasy romances of teens for years to come.  Elegant beauties, those two. 

All in all, a really strong will.  Bruce Almighty’s clip was the same trailer you have seen - if you care – and I’ve written about that before.  Johnny English and American Wedding are derivative question marks.  Who knows?  But The Hulk and Seabiscuit and Love Actually, aka The Ones They Really Care About, all look like major winners.  Intolerable Cruelty looks like a movie that we will all be loving for a long time and could be the most commercial Coen Brothers film ever, if its as smart about being dumb as this clip suggests. 

2002 was a pretty difficult year for Universal.  Their high grosser was The Bourne Identity with $122 million domestic.  The only other $100 million movie was 8 Mile, which opened huge and limped off the box office charts in a record-setting hurry.

2003?  The Hulk - $250 million.  Bruce Almighty - $143 million. Love Actually - $130 million.  Seabiscuit - $119 million.  Pan and Fast and Cat all have $100 million potential.  It should be a very good year for whoever buys the company. 

THE OTHER GREAT MOVIE:  You might have heard some negative buzz out of test screenings, but that would be bull hookie.  Christopher Guest’s A Mighty Wind is not only hysterically funny, but it is probably the funniest of all of his films in this series.  (Spinal Tap remains the category-creating monster of mockumentary.) 

You never know what was left in or taken out or how the film was shaped in post-production, but this film has the cleanest structure of any of Guest’s films, focusing on only three stories really within a very Guest-ian structure.  A legendary folkie producer has died and his three big finds are going to come together for a live show to honor his memory.  One group has become “The New” version of the classic group.  One trio seems not to have changed, except for hair, at all.  And the loving duo hasn’t seen each other in years, since she got married and he got insane. 

The thing that is really different here is the tight cutting.  There are over 13 major characters here and unlike in Guest’s other films, the comedy doesn’t come from waiting for the punchline after a long, patient set-up.  The biggest laugh in the film comes from a character with about five lines in the entire film.  And if I wrote the joke down on paper, you’d think I was nuts.  But in the context of the movie, it had the audience rolling in the aisles.  Eugene Levy plays a character we’ve never really seen from him – or anyone before.  Catherine O’Hara gets to show more range than usual.  Guest regulars Parker Posey and Paul Dooley and Fred Willard and Michael Hitchcock all have tiny roles, but shine brightly when we do see them.  Guest’s normal mode of creating dyads is broken here with groups of many sizes.  But even when he focuses, he tells the story, gets some laughs and moves along. 

And A Mighty Wind does not require that you need to know or care about old folkies.  (If there is one flaw, it is that there is no political folkie among the groups.)  No more than you needed to be into heavy metal to get Spinal Tap, be a dog show person to love Best in Show or be into community theater to laugh throughout Waiting for Guffman.  Terrific film.

READER OF THE DAY:  MR. CONSTITUTION writes:  “A middle reel upside down and backwards is not something that should have been caught by the processing house.  It's not a processing problem.  It's a mistake by the projectionist who put the platter together.

You're familiar with platters, right?  If not, it's worth a visit to the upstairs area at a multiplex.  It's an impressive sight.

Ten or so reels arrive at the theatre by UPS or whatever..  The projectionist removes the academy leaders and splices the reels together and feeds them onto the big platter, which, when they run the picture, in turn feeds the projector.  In this case it sounds like me of the middle reels was tails out, and got spliced in that way.

The theatre is right about it being difficult to fix once it's done.

Now the entertainment business unions are a pain in the ass (except for the DGA, ha ha), but the quality of the personnel is on the whole high -- except for the projectionists, which have always been the weak link.

When it's time for the print to move to the next theatre, he's supposed to carefully take the splices apart and break the film down again into 10 reels.  Sometimes they just chop out the spliced frame.  Sometimes they chop a few frames more.  Sometimes they rub the 8 or 10 feet around the spliced area on the gritty floor a while.  Sometimes they rewind a reel tails out -- which is what probably happened here..  Or refasten an academy leader to the print with adhesive tape instead of splicing tape so it jams the projector next time.

Standard practice is for the projectionist to check all that as he puts it on the platter, but sometimes they don't, even at studio screenings. Which is why I sometimes think I prefer screenings that aren't done from platters.  But then of course they miss changeovers.”

FuGC writes:  “After reading Not The Yankee's experience with City of God, i think i know what happened. It sounds like the person who spliced the film together, attached the 2nd reel the wrong way. Each reel must be attached to the next reel a specific way, or else you get the problem which this customer witnessed.

In regards to previewing movies before being shown as a measure of quality control, this can only take place if there is enough time. I'll give you my following view on the situation as i experience it, since i deal with both major and independent distributors.  Megaplexes & other theaters that show 1st run films, usually get their prints for studio films a few days before a film is set to open (unless it's a Wednesday opening). They have enough time to splice the film together, and watch it if they feel they need to.

Art houses are a different story though. They deal with a lot of independent distributors who usually have a limited number of prints available for any given film. What that means is they rotate their prints around the country (or state) to different theaters. A print will stay at one art house for a week, and then be moved to another the next week, and then another, and so on.

Megaplexes & major distributors generally have contracts with a delivery company which deals only in film delivery. One truck will deliver all new films to all theaters in a specific area a few days before a film is set to open.

Art houses & independant distributors don't have the resources (i.e. money) that the larger companies have. Indies can't make 5000 prints of one film, and send them to every theater that wants to show it.  Also, they will usually transfer films from theater to theater via good ol' Greyhound Bus Lines. What usually happens is this; The distributor calls art-house A on Tuesday, and tells them that their print of a film must be broken down and bused Friday morning to art-house B. Art-house A though, is more than likely playing that film until Thursday night. Which means that the film may not get broken down until 2 or 3 am. Then they take it to the bus depot Friday morning for delivery to the next theater. Depending on where it's going (could be the next closest city, or 200 miles away), it may get to art-house B an hour or so before it is set to open (one hour is an extreme case, it's usually 3-4 hours).

I don't know if this is what happened with this situation (and i'm not making any excuses for human error here), but hopefully this gives everyone an understanding of the differences between the megaplex and art houses. The problem with the City of God print was probably the fault of the projectionist who put the film together, but who knows, he may have been rushed. In a perfect world, all theaters would get their films in a timely manner, but that is usually not the case. Hell, even megaplexes will go through this problem once in while, especially with a film opening on a Wednesday instead of a Friday.”

NOT THAT JOHNNY ENGLISH:  “My wife and I went to Chicago about three weeks ago.  I went ahead while she stayed behind to finish something at home, and I wound up watching the previews by myself.  The sound was as though there was one

tinny drive-in speaker in one corner of the theater.  I love previews, so I complained.  The manager apologized but said as soon as the movie starts, the sound fixes itself.  My wife called me and said she couldn't come so I snuck into something else.

So Friday we finally go to Chicago.  It's in the same theater.  The preview sound is still horrible.  I complain.  The manager says it's been like that all day but it'll fix itself when the movie starts.  I tell him I was here three weeks ago and it did the same thing.  He got a bit sheepish at that point, lying to me it was only today's problem, and he said they've had repairmen look at it and they can't figure out why the previews don't work.  I asked if there are plans to fix it and he said no.  So in this Carmike 12 theater, only 11 screens get decent sound on the previews.  And let me tell you, with poor sound, The Core looks like one of the worst films of the year.

I know studios spend as much on marketing films as they do making them.  I would think they'd be upset to know a condition like this being left alone.”

E ME:  Go to the movies this weekend.  Get away from the television.  Get away from the war.  I now assume that the Oscars will happen.  And that is unfortunate.  14 Americans died Thursday without even being fired upon.  But Saturday, we’ll probably be in Baghdad.  Then, the real war begins.  But unless something very unusual happens after that point, Oscar will go on.  I’ll be watching.  And MCN will be covering all the latest.  We live in interesting times.  Write me about whatever you want.  Blessings to you and yours.