April 19, 2004

I’m not sure what I have to add to the discussion this weekend’s box office. While Len Klady felt that both Kill Bill V2 and The Punisher performed beyond expectations, they weren’t beyond my expectations. The success of KBV1 was notable for its repeat business in the face of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and other October films chasing the same demo. Miramax, easily the
smartest company in the business at exploiting niche opportunities (when they are invested heavily enough), strapped Volume 2’s P&A onto the back of the V1 Home Entertainment release and also, as noted last week, sold the movie that people who loved Volume 1 wanted to see.

In terms of pure business, this is a variation on the classic Miramax Oscar strategy, in which they squeeze the theatrical release advertising and the Oscar advertising into one big blurred three-month marketing bonanza. Warner Bros. tried to pull off the same thing with Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, but suffered from diminished enthusiasm for the third film in the series. With 20/20 hindsight, the genius move would have been to release The Animatrix theatrically in August, serving as a bridge to the past and the future. They didn’t need to use The Animatrix to get enthusiasm for Reloaded going and they ended up firing a very powerful bullet without getting the maximum out of it. Again… 20/20 hindsight is wonderful to have.

But I digress…

Though I can already hear the shrill screams of, “He’s looking for something bad to say so he can maintain his bias against Quentin” ringing in my imagination, I should point out that Friday estimates had Volume 2 at around $10 million for Friday, which would make the weekend total, whatever it turns out to be “officially,” a bit disappointing in that context. Wherever this leads at the box office, the film will be a financial success, as the overall project will be close to being in the black on revenues from the first film (including ancillaries) alone.

As for The Punisher, with due respect to the hard charging team at Lions Gate, sticking to this release date was stoooooopid. I wouldn’t be surprised if as much as 50% of the audience for The Punisher this weekend also saw Volume 2. I can’t imagine that there is a long list of people who chose The Punisher over Volume 2 straight up. And even more than KBV2, The Punisher is a one-weekend movie… it desperately needed to maximize its start. And even if it could have come closer to Bill’s number, it was assured of not maximizing the weekend. My completely subjective guess is that Punisher cost B2 as much as $5 million this weekend.

And my guess is that Universal distribution and theatrical marketing is just happy that Connie & Carla is home entertainment’s “problem” to deal with now. The film is no My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but actually, Home Entertainment can have a major win with this title, which will find it impossible to hold many screens after Van Helsing opens, but is quite good enough to become a must-own for the retirement crowd. (I’m sure that Roy Disney would be tickled to buy one for himself and for Mic-key Eisner.)

Speaking of C&C, it was the film that opened the Ninth Annual Palm Beach Film Festival, complete with an appearance by Nia Vardalos and director Michael Lembeck. (Rumors that Dame Edna Everage was in the crowd were unfounded… the locals just look like The Dame… the locals who are not under 16 and semi-nude at the malls out here all the time.) And it was a love fest, much as it had been for My Big Fat Greek Wedding when that film opened this festival. Nia was charming and accessible and everyone had a good time. And the movie… well… uh… it didn’t hurt.

Like so many festivals that are not meant to be “the next Sundance,” Palm Beach is looking for its niche. What the have found so far is new filmmakers. Only a handful of titles came to the festival this year with theatrical or even home entertainment distribution set up. The good part of that is that you could find something that is really, really new and undiscovered. And the downside is that you could watch a lot of movies that are really, really new and deserve to be undiscovered.

As always, the documentaries have a festival advantage. If you choose your subject well, a badly made documentary can still be quite interesting. One such title here is Lolita: Slave to Entertainment, a film about a “killer whale” at the Miami Seaquarium that has been stuck in a relatively tiny tank by herself for over two decades. She spent around a decade in a similarly small space with another whale named “Hugo,” who passed away over 20 years ago, which means that she has been captured and doing tricks for fish for over 30 years now. She could live another 20 or so… if you can call that living. The film forces you to confront a lifetime of attendance at water parks with no small amount of shame. And you leave the theater resolved not to go back again anytime soon. But in terms of the quality of production… its sincerity overwhelms its skill.

Feature films rarely get the benefit of that doubt. At the heart of any feature, there is the suspension of disbelief. And a badly made film can simply make that impossible.

I can’t say that I have seen a home run feature at the festival this year. But three, so far, have really peaked my interest in their directors. Cuba Libre is a movie that I got to see early in its life, before it locked picture. The director, Juan Gerard, is a long-time column reader, so I do have a soft spot. But the guy, who has become a filmmaker after establishing a career as an architect, has a wonderful, gentle touch as a director. And when the film, which stars Harvey Keitel, Gael Garcia-Bernal and Iben Hjejle, suffers, it suffers from fighting the director’s natural lyricism. He’s made a memoir and I am afraid that the effort to make it make more sense to audiences, especially in slightly clunky narration, keeps it from being all it can be. But for a first-timer, Gerard shows a surprising sense of subtlety. He has not only watched the right movies… he has stolen the right ideas from them. And we all know, the best director is the thief with the best taste. It is the transformation of those little thefts into the personal that make those robberies a pleasure to watch.

Marylou Tibaldo-Biogiorno does her very best Ed Burns with Little Kings, co-writing, producing and directing Little Kings, a movie about Italian guys with and emphasis on the “I” that you would assume was made by a guy who has gotten a little perspective on his life as a dog. Shot digitally, the film sometimes gets a little too freehanded, but Tibaldo-Biogiorno shows real skill with the camera and with her cast of no-name actors. She’s not quite Eric Eason, but the film bears some comparisons to his Manito. With a budget and a crew, Tibaldo-Biogiorno is likely to deliver real intimacy and charm for any producer looking for a young director who already has aesthetic assurance. Now, this movie, in and of itself, would be fortunate to find a cable deal, to be brutally honest. It is on video, it is filled with unknowns and the general premise feels more than a little familiar. But this is a director worth checking out.

Heather Robinson’s Casting Adrift is an out of control farce. It is relentless and never quite as funny as it wants to be. However, it is one of the most ripe remake opportunities I have seen at a festival lately. The story is about a crazy pop star that is willing to pay the stars of her favorite defunct soap to get together and make a movie for $2 million apiece. Of course, they are all out of work and in need of money more than their pride. A variation on Soapdish, one of the most underrated comedies of the last decade, the opportunity to bring a half dozen drama queens, male and female, together for a while with high stakes consequences is a good one. And Robinson’s cast is good too, though perhaps a little too good. They have the scent of unfairly washed up actors, whether being a leading man who is a little too short, a vixen who is just too old, an ingénue who is not quite beautiful enough for movies, etc.

Tomorrow, a look at the Girls of Ipanema, a small bikinied doc that shows more than you’d expect.

In the meantime, we go together like shabba, labba labba, dinga da ding ga ding….

READER OF THE DAY: ANOTHER DP writes: “In the words of Michael Jackson "You are not alone."

Everything you said about Kill Bill 2 was dead on. Unlike you, I did enjoy Part 1 very much, but this one is a bloody mess. I was appalled by how benign and pointless Bill's Superman speech was. Did Tarantino run out of things to say? Compare this to the Walken/Hopper scene in True Romance and tell me that Tarantino isn’t coasting here.

Michael Madsen was the only actor in the film who seemed to be a real character and not a caricature. I actually thought that his performance was the most moving thing about the movie. Even though he buried Uma Thurman alive, you still couldn't help but love him.

And the eyeball gag was a scream.

Otherwise it's a disaster. The critics have clearly lost their minds over this one. Masterpiece? Brilliant? What is everyone smoking? The audience I saw the movie with left quieter than after watching Schindler's List. And this is after they'd just seen a supposedly rip-roaring Kung Fu action film.“

And once again, STARSKY’S PARTNER writes: “I loved Kill Bill Volume Two. You want to know why? For all the reasons you hated it. David Carradine was brilliant. He delivered his lines magnificently. He very much reminds me of an evil version of his Kung Fu character Caine. He deserves an Oscar nomination for the movie. The dialogue is memorable. My girlfriend and I saw an advance screening on Thursday night and haven't stopped quoting dialogue from the movie ever since (and not one quote from the Superman monologue). You felt disconnected by the story, I was utterly and completely absorbed by it. You're cheering for The Bride. Budd and Elle Driver are interesting characters. Budd has a great scene with Bill near the beginning that is not only full of great dialogue, but also genuine emotion. The feeling in that scene is very real. As for the Pei Mei sequence, that I suppose you hated, it was fun. (DAVID NOTE: No I didn’t hate the sequence at all.) I cannot convince someone who didn't think it was fun that it was, but for me it was fun. The movie's long conclusion is as thrilling to be as the conclusion of Volume One to me. By this point we have gotten to know The Bride and care about her. What is odd is, that we also like Bill. We have seen Bill do awful things, and yet we still like him. The ending of the movie is perfect and hits just the right note of happiness and sadness.”

E ME: After Friday, the ratio of pro-to-anti letters re: KBV2 shifted dramatically. I am still quite interested in letters supporting QT’s vision here. If you want to make it about me, that’s fine, but I am really interested in what you love or hate about the work.