April 12, 2004

Jesus!

That was one ugly weekend at the box office. The five - count `em, five - new releases totaled only 23% more than the three-day gross for week seven of The Passion and weekend two of Hellboy.

The only film that can be considered even close to success is Johnson Family Vacation, a film with bigger hopes that turned into a pure genre play, generating and estimated $9.2 million over the weekend and $11.6 million over five days. But that still kinda sucks, doesn’t it?

I guess you could try to credit critics with warning people off of junky movies, but when you consider that the least revenue went to the best reviewed of the quintet, you can throw that idea out of the window. No, this Monday morning is the perfect time for 20/20 hindsight and some serious backseat driving.

Disney could have saved itself a lot of aggravation and a few million in interest by just releasing the version of The Alamo that they weren’t thrilled with back in October. Bottom line… no one wants to see that story. Not without stars and not without a clear dramatic hook. The original trailer idea, selling the concept of a lot of regular guys fighting for something more important than their selves, was a good one. But it didn’t make it to the final push, likely because a decision was made that the best shot they had was to try to emphasize the limited star power that does exist in the film. Again, the truth is that even if the movie was a lot better, without an eight-figure opener like Russell Crowe, it just wasn’t happening.

Likewise, the star-studded The Whole Ten Yards floated to the top of the lake like the dead fish that audiences could smell from miles away. When the punchline of the TV spots was Kevin Pollack chewing scenery in some horrible prosthetics and, even then, there was not a laugh to be found, you just know it was over. I haven’t seen the film, but I feel pretty good about assuming that more than half of those who coughed up even the lame estimated $6.7 million would like to have their money back. The scariest thing about this opening has to be that it is less than a million more than the epic disaster of Serving Sara, which not only got Gigli-level reviews, but was released in the dumpster of zone of late August. In fact, the entire domestic gross of this sequel could be about the same as the opening weekend of the original. Matthew Perry doesn’t have a film career. It’s time for him to start looking for supporting roles in art films. And Bruce Willis needs to find some shit to blow up in a hurry.

Ella Enchanted just never found its sea legs. It surely seems that there should have been more than $6.1 million out there for this teen girl targeter. Maybe one could blame the $9.4 million of disappointing ticket that scarcely opened The Prince & Me just last weekend. The challenge for Miramax was significant. Anne Hathaway was in a big hit a couple of years ago, but she is not an established star. The film didn’t get the months of hum that Shrek got, helping it escape the ghetto of the satirical. And the materials from the film clearly were not strong enough to inspire Miramax to pay for an all-out marketing blitz.

Finally, Fox’s The Girl Next Door suffered the dreaded Titan A.E. curse… falling through the cracks between its targeted markets. In this case, it was a fairly hard-R rated film that was being marketed almost exclusively to teen boys, most of whom are at least technically unable to buy tickets to the film. I paid to see the film at a multiplex at Northwestern University that did sell out of a late Friday show. But that one screening earned almost as much as the film averaged for the weekend in the average theater in America.

The problem with the sell, in retrospect, was that the female audience, which as it turns out should enjoy this film, was probably thrown by the “she’s a porn star” schtick of the core sell. Meanwhile, a cast of leads who are little known probably kept the Fox marketing team from being more aggressive about breaking out the supporting characters made up of actors who are completely unknown.

The only film of the five openers to manage a “fresh” rating from RottenTomatoes.com, The Girl Next Door still just barely made that cut. But that said, my feeling is that this is a film that defines the kind of simple, straightforward film on which it is reasonable for studios to take a risk on an inexperienced director.

Luke Greenfield, whose big prior credit is The Animal, is quite untalented. I mean, this thing is a mess. One instinct is to look at the cinematographer, since the film looks terrible and has the feel of a first-timer who couldn’t settle on a clear style, even one of simplicity. In this case, that’s Jamie Anderson, who is quite experienced. He shot Terry Zwigoff’s ragged Bad Santa, but the ragged look seemed a part of Zwigoff’s style. He also shot Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which does not come with such a built-in excuse. Likewise, Greennfield’s D.P. on The Animal, Peter Collister, has brought his smooth style to various other glossy studio projects.

What Greenfield did bring to the table, along with casting director Mali Finn, was a nice eye for talent. The emerging star of The Girl Next Door is not Emile Hirsch or Elisha Cuthbert, but Tim Olyphant and a young man named Chris Marquette who is the best of John Cusack’s comedic soul and the real life Cameron Crowe. Apparently, he is a regular on Joan of Arcadia. A great indie project that could turn into a commercial hit would be a comedy starring Marquette and Ginnifer Goodwin as real kids who find love. These two are home-run hitters and grab all attention every time they are on screen.

This film steals liberally from the real Cameron Crowe, Paul Brickman and even Brian DePalma, whose window strip from Body Double is recreated early in the movie. They say that the best directors are the thieves with the best taste, so Greenfield deserves some credit for that. But the Cameron Crowe soundtrack recreation, song for song, gets a little aggravating after a while.

But the thing about The Girl Next Door is that its whole is much, much better than the sum of its parts. This film is no Risky Business… Hirsch, who is quite good, is no Tom Cruise... and Greenfield is no Paul Brickman. Tim Olyphant, who is also getting raves in HBO’s Deadwood, just plain tears it up and Greenfield has no idea how to maximize his good fortune. The story structure is as clear as a glass of Guinness.

But it’s fun.

The odd thing is that the T&A that is in the film is oddly unnecessary. The one woman that we really want to see naked, Ms. Cuthbert, turns out to be the most modest porn star of all time, going topless a total of zero times. In fact, the film is remarkably coy about sex in general. And that is one of its charms. It is shy. It is kind. Of course, the places this movie could have gone with a little harder heart… well, that might have taken it to the next level. But that was not to be.

Recalling last week’s column about the interesting choice of Tim Story to make The Fantastic Four, the numbers for The Girl Next Door are unlikely to create that kind of opportunity for Greenfield at Fox. But I wouldn’t object to him getting another film to direct. I would choose a cinematographer and an editor very carefully and there is no way I would give him anything but another teen comedy. But this is a director who may improve, showing a touch inside of that genre. Any other kind of job would be outright scary.

Anyway… Titan AE opened to $9.4 million and was one of the troubled films that was regularly cited as keys to the dismissal of Bill Mechanic at Fox. That’s more than 50% better than The Girl Next Door. Of course, T.G.N.D. cost less than a third of what Titan A.E. cost.

Still… there is no joy in Mudville this Monday. Mighty Fox and Disney and Searchlight and Miramax and Warner Bros. (where they release Elie Samaha’s anal whittling for a fee) have struck out. Next weekend, Miramax, Lions Gate and Universal get their at bats. The Punisher indeed.

READER OF THE DAY: TEA & SYMPATHY writes: “I experienced near-perfection at the movies this weekend. Like some rare celestial event, the planets were in perfect alignment for Gabriele Salvatores' "Io non ho paura (I'm Not Scared)" at New York's Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

I knew nothing at all about this film going in. A friend said it was "about a kidnapping or something" and feeling nostalgic for my adolescence in Toronto when we would discover magical unheard of foreign films at the Carlton Cinema based only on a poster in the lobby, I was game.

From the opening sequence in which a group of children run through a southern Italian golden wheat field, I sensed I was in for something special. Stunningly photographed by Italo Petriccione, brilliantly directed by Salvatores and masterfully acted by young Giuseppe Cristiano, I was mesmerized for almost two hours.

I don't want to reveal any elements of story because of the wonderful discoveries that come from a blind viewing, but I will say that this film illustrated what is wrong with so much of the drivel that comes out of Hollywood. Remarkably, "I'm Not Scared" is a thriller, a mystery, a crime story, a family drama and a coming-of-age tale. It's about parents and siblings and childhood friendships. It's frightening and tender and funny. Its emotions are all spot-on and real. The amazing thing is it wears all of its hats exceptionally well. Most Hollywood films are lucky to get one element right which is why we end up with films like "Tears of the Sun" that are great ideas executed badly in the hope of appealing to some base, dumb common denominator. Instead of children that act and speak like children, we get the sickeningly precocious Dakota Fanning mugging for the camera in performances so sweet they make your teeth hurt.

I'm afraid I've already oversold this absolute gem of a film. It's just so hard not to sing the praises of something so lovingly crafted. It seems that I'm required to wade through three hundred pieces of merde to get to one "I'm Not Scared." It's the one in several hundred that keep me going to the movies.”

E ME: Boy, that reads like a publicist wrote it! But who knows? It’s a good film, so… wade away!