November 3 , 2003

October was another rather bizarre month at the box office…

There have only been two movies to break the $100 million mark that were released in the month of October. Both films were phenoms of a sort, with Meet The Parents grossing more than 5.5 times its $28.6 million start and The Ring grossing more than 8 times its $15.2 million start.

As with the summer season, October 2003 has been remarkable for the number of big dollar openings, scoring 5 of the best 9 all-time. There are some other striking stats about October. For instance, Scary Movie 3, now the biggest October opener ever and likely to be the third October release to break $100 million, is only the fourth sequel in history to open to more than $13 million in the month. The others were Red Dragon, Blair Witch 2 and Kiss The Girls. Eight of the 19 films to open in October with more than $15 million are thriller/horror flicks.

But back to what first struck me… another unusual number of big openings, only to see most of them come up short. School of Rock, which is well loved, well-reviewed and wide open for people of all ages will not get to $100 million. Five weeks in, they are $7 million behind Week 5 of The Italian Job, and School of Rock is about to lose a boatload of screens to the new November movies. Kill Bill, Volume 1 is performing better than I expected and will near $75 million. Texas Chainsaw Massacre has held strong, but will still have to fight to get close to $100 million. And Brother Bear is just getting started.

But the question is, how much did Kill Bill cannibalize Chainsaw or vice versa? How much did Good Boy take out of School of Rock’s coffers?

Isn’t it distinctly possible that the second biggest winner in October will be Gothika, which got out?

Seven films have started in October and made more than $70 million domestic. This year, five more will be added to that list. So if Hollywood can do that, can it do more? Could each $70m have been an $80m? Didn’t School of Rock stink of $100 million? Why didn’t it get there?

The November load is coming. Hollywood Cannibal Massacre anyone?

READER OF THE DAY: Two readers today who disagree with me. Both include SPOILERS!

The first is STOLEN MOMENT: “I finally saw Kill Bill last weekend. I turned around and went again last night. I went back and looked at your criticisms of the movie and:

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

This movie was everything I hoped it would be and more. With the possible exception of Finding Nemo, Kill Bill is easily the most thrilling experience I've had at the movies this year; it's not even close. I'm sure you've read reviews ad nauseum about the film at this point, so I'm just gonna make a few comments regarding some of the opinions you published a couple weeks back.

Do I really care about Uma Thurman's/The Bride's character and do you really believe in her revenge? Um, yes. Did you see what happened to her in the first minute of the movie? That's more motivation for the lead character that we are fed than in the first two hours and thirty minutes of Once Upon A Time in the West, a film that obviously had a heavy influence on QT's own crazy revenge flick (the water trough was a note perfect homage to the great Sergio Leone). . Do we really care about Charles Bronson's character and do we really believe in his revenge? For two and a half hours there is absolutely no reason given for Harmonica's arrival in town, why he plotted to buy the land out from under Frank, and why he must square off against him, not until AFTER their duel do we finally get even a whiff of what that revenge is all about. When it's all said and done we don't know where Harmonica came from, why Frank murdered his brother; hell, we know zero about anyone's history or motivation in that movie. This has zero impact on my enjoyment of OUATITW, a movie whose lack of plot or subtle story structure has not kept it from being in the top 50 all time over at the IMDB. Go figure.

The few critics that panned Kill Bill never gave the movie a chance. They went in looking specifically for Tarantino's famous "dialogue", and multi layered time structures and sub plots, and were let down when they didn't get Pulp Fiction Part 2. Which is funny, considering the efforts QT made to tell everyone for the past few years that this was in the tradition of grindhouse cinema, movies with very little if any plotting, movies that relied on mood, tone, set pieces, and music to elicit a reaction in the viewer. It's called Kill Bill for crying out loud, that's all you need to know about the story to have a good time with it. The actors sell the material completely, and the overwhelming style is the heart of the viewer's enjoyment of the movie. And by the way, Bill's entrance in the movie has now been built up to the point of perverse excitement. I guess we'll have to wait until part 2 to hear all about the Third Man references.

You said that the movie was slow and lacked style. You gave kudos to Robert Richardson and Sally Menke for the style that's in the movie. I cannot stress enough how strongly I disagree with this. Dave, go peek at the rough first draft of the Kill Bill screenplay that's been online for the past two years. The sheer amount of detail included in the screenplay is staggering; Richardson himself states repeatedly in the current American Cinematographer how finely detailed and specific Quentin's vision of the film was. The screenplay includes complete camera placements and movement, specific musical backgrounds, character motivations, and all kinds of things that you never see in standard screenplays. All things that were part of Tarantino's vision. You are severely shortchanging Quentin's work in this regard. The style IS the substance, or how do you account for a screenplay containing relatively little plot, but over 229 pages in length (my hard copy goes to page 240).

You didn't like noticing the DePalma reference. Once again, the point is most definitely NOT to notice the resemblance to any scene to any other particular film! How did you feel about the Kenji Misumi references? The Battle Royale references? The Lady Snowblood, Dead and Buried, Master Killer, Chinese Boxer, and Black Lizard references? Did you notice those too? Doubtful, but see how not knowing these references has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on your experience of seeing Kill Bill? Didn't it bother you as much to see those ridiculous Jedi council meetings in the first half of Reloaded? I'm sure you noticed them. What was the point exactly? That the Wachowski's like the Star Wars Films? I won't hold that against them. Quentin is the mix master of the movies. He takes this and that, and makes it his own, to great effect.

Is the movie hurt by being cut in half? To a degree. at least the two parts were thought up as one story, as opposed to The Matrix, which obviously was meant to be one film; the other two are obviously tacked on for a big time cash money smash and grab. Is the Matrix worth paying three times as much as any other movie? I found the cliff hanger ending of Kill Bill to be quite effective.

Kill Bill delivers exactly what you'd hope in any great movie. It's entertaining, it's absorbing, it's moving, it's funny and heartbreaking. The sound, the set designs, the music, all of these elements are truly exciting. I found Kill Bill to be an electric experience at the movies, and I cannot wait to see it again.”

The second is THE LIME & DA COCONUT, who writes: “Funny how both films are super stylish in their own way, fairly exploitative and almost exactly the same in structure. But the original knew that momentum only works when there's something at stake. It knew that less is more... that the hardest part in any storytelling is getting us to buy into a world... the rest should be easy peezy.

But when those kids started their "Weekend At Bernie's" thing with the dead girl in the van, all credibility shot out the back with that bullet. It WAS an intense experience to be sure, like getting your cavities filled at the dentist office. But true terror has more in common with beauty than ugliness.

Slouching through this soulless update of an American classic, I knew that true vision is what separates the two. To really believe in the material -- not just the effects it may have or how to best make a viewer brown his pants -- is to really, really love your story. And yet there's plenty of care to be found in the remake: the Fincher-esque camerawork and scoring, the lead actresses' lithe physical presence. But where is the finesse? The love? The conviction? The movie is effective in the way movies don't want to be... the mechanical way... without challenge or consequence. Like a blind rape instead of a good nasty fucking.

Great horror is not about getting the big shocks to work for the audience. It's perfecting the quiet little moments between the jolts. To add some sense of urgency. This, probably the worst big movie of the year, is a simple case of trying too hard without aiming for anything.

Some expect more.”

E ME: Is your week to come a week to remember?