August 20 , 2004

It's been a crappy week for THB, hasn't it?

Isn't it ironic that the column anniversary comes up in the dregs of the summer? Next week will be better… promise. There will be an anniversary column, a Fall Preview, a first look at Toronto and actual movie reviews… yes, there are some movies that I will finally be able to write about next week!

This weekend, most of you will have your first chance to get a look at Open Water, a movie that I really like. But my warning to you is not that you should be afraid to see the film, but that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and don't go to the theater expecting to see the movie they are selling in the commercials. You will be let down. It is a really good, tense, clever art film. But it is not Shark Week on The Discovery Channel.

And Without A Paddle is about as funny as a silent fart. Steven "Little Nicky" Brill puts his able cast through the ringer, squeezing out about one joke per guy. Seth Green is little. Dax Sheppard is wacky. Matthew Lillard is too old for this shit. High school at 26 eight years ago in Scream was a reach. Nothing is pretty about an aging adolescent with a walker.

Like most of my colleagues, I have not seen Exorcist: The Beginning aka Another Reason to Celebrate Paul Schrader For What We Think He Might Have Done Because Someone With A Lot Of Money Was So Stupid We'd Prefer Anything To The Crap We're Stuck With.

It's a long title, but a good one. For purposes of marketing, the studio has cut it down to Celebrate Stupid Crap.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Can anyone play The Bad Seed other than Dakota Fanning? Isn't it time that little munchkin killed a few innocent people?

OSCAR BYTE: There is a second mortal lock in the Best Actor category, joining Jamie Foxx in Ray. I'm not going to name names yet, but this will be his second Oscar nomination in the last five years.

BACK IN BASH: There is a minor wave of residual Michael Eisner bashing going on at Slate this week, with a Mike Ovitz At Disney piece by Kim Masters and then a piece by Daniel Gross that compares Eisner to Kim Jung II. Both pieces are legit. But the timing is kind of funny. And the Gross piece seems intent on avoiding anything remotely positive about what's been going on at the Mouse House. There are still big issues, but the reason why the heat is off is that earnings are up, even with a brutal first seven months at the box office.

The press has, for the most part, jumped off the Disney bashing bandwagon. They stabbed Eisner with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast. So instead of acknowledging reality - which is that we in the media don't really have that much power - those who hope to rise up and slaughter any calf they see as golden tend to retreat when the intended victim regains strength.

The funny thing about Eisner and Disney is that this is a natural cycle. The Eisner Issue will come up again in early January when the annual stockholders meeting gets into range again. That too should not come as a surprise. And the same things that Eisner had to contend with earlier this year, he will have to contend with again. Will there be a legitimate succession plan by then? What is the fate of Miramax/Dimension to be? Will there be a new Pixar deal? Will there be a new hit or two on ABC's schedule or will Lost be an Alias-like ratings mediocrity without the hot chick?

The real question for industry watchers to be looking at is whose sad story will be the hot topic throughout the fall? There are plenty of candidates. The MGM deal is beginning to stick to the bottom of the pot. DreamWorks Animation IPO is relying a lot on Shark Tale and Father of the Pride and neither seems to be a lock… and really, if Katzenberg spins off and Geffen is already at home, what is DreamWorks SKG?

The "new" Paramount hasn't really found an answer to what it's going to be yet. With Mission: Impossible 3 postponed until at least 2006 (follow the screenplay!) and War of the Worlds highly unlikely to make next year's summer schedule, there is only one mega-title (Lemony Snicket) that anyone at the mountain can hang their hat on over the next fifteen months or so. Aeon Flux may or may not be the Catwoman of 2005. But does Sherry really want to have to answer for Sahara when it shows up next March?

On the stable side are Fox, which had a surprisingly strong summer this year and is loaded up with comic book movies and sequels for next year, and Universal, which looks to remain stable with the new NBC bosses so long as no one tries to greenlight a big period action movie anytime soon, like say, a Stephen Sommers version of Flash Gordon starring Ashton Kutcher. Warner Bros. is seriously loaded for 2005 with big movies that don't involve sand or sandals. And any changes to come at Sony are likely to come out of their deal with Revolution expiring and perhaps from an MGM addition, but not from any shake-up of the core team… and God knows then media would never go after Joe Roth.

So who will be the next cat to be chased by the media dogs?

Parker, Stone, Spongebob & Count Olaf suggest that Paramount will be able to control their destiny through the fall. So look for a lot of eyeballing of DreamWorks Animation and if weakness is shown, expect some quick pouncing, even though most of the media are rooting for the team over there to live and be well. Or perhaps the 500 or 600 professionals who are about to get dumped into the studio job pool in the next few months will be enough of a story in and of itself.

READER OF THE DAY: THE CON responds to yesterday's 15 Weeks of Summer column: "I take exception to the idea that "Dodgeball" or "Anchorman" are more adult than "Spider-man 2" or even "Harry Potter" #3. Adult is not synonymous with vulgar. Actually, quite the opposite. It is the teen comedy syndrome found in these comedies that repulse adult viewers and convince them to avoid taking their children to them. I speak from the unfortunate experience of believing that "Dodgeball" was suitable for my family. Fortunately my son, 11, was too young to understand the homophobic and racist humor in the film. But I could enjoy "Spider-man 2" and "Harry Potter" as an adult AND with my family. That is the way movies were when I was growing up - "The Sound of Music", "Singing in the Rain", etc. were great, playful and inoffensive. You want to know why Shrek 2, Spider-man 2 and Harry Potter 3 made such a grand profit? It's because we, the audience, felt they had earned our money."

E ME: Did you survive this movie weekend?