October 8 , 2004

Welcome to the end of Tardy Week at The Hot Button.

You see, it's all been a great plan… I've been writing columns in the morning as an experiment… okay… busted… lying…

My physiological time clock has been shifting and the ability to get enough focus to think about everything and expel some ideas at 1 am has been compromised. Ultimately, this column, the Hot Blog and Movie City News have all been themed around the weird vibe and disconnection that the last few weeks have embodied.

Even this weekend's box office… Shark Tale got their big opening and will probably win the weekend, regardless of a generally blah reaction to the film from anyone over seven.

Friday Night Lights has some funky cool TV spots, but the target audience seems awfully close, by way of the spots, to Crazy/Beautiful or… dare I speak the name?… Blue Crush… another really good (I am assuming about FNL, as I have not seen it) sporty teen-y film with some edge and no clear hook with which to reach beyond the core audience. This could well be one of those rare weekends where the highest grosses come out of Dallas and Houston and not out of New York and Los Angeles.

That Taxi thing… oy! Smells of metallic fish. And I gather Fox's booking plan for the film is designed to make quick work of the top "urban" venues, based on Queen Latifah's draw and to not worry so much about the Jimmy Fallon… um, cough, uhhhh.. audience. (Don't worry, Jimmy… Eddie Murphy survived Best Defense. You won't be playing the foreign-accented villain of Deuce Bigalow 3: Direct-To-DVD for at least another 5 years.)

Then there is Raise Your Voice, which could end up upsetting Taxi for the four-spot just because it is so specific a targeted audience, though I have to say, I haven't seen much advertising from New Line on this one. There hasn't been a You-Go-Girl teen star movie released in October… as far as I can tell… ever. So it is new turf. There have been "woman's films" released in October… mostly to bad results. Such star-studded and decently reviewed turns as Love Affair, White Oleander, Only You, How To Make An American Quilt and Beloved all opened to less than $8.5 million. Pay It Forward, The Story of Us and Riding In Cars With Boys all were between $9.5 million and $10.5 million. The biggest October "girl" opening of all time is Serendipity's $13.3 million. But it all makes sense when you realize that New Line has stuck Hillary Duff in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre spot.

New Line has jerked around in the teen girl market for a couple of years now to little result. The movies just haven't been, ironically, New Line enough… meaning that they are not genre enough. Hilary Duff in Raise Your Skirt is a homerun. Combine Mandy Moore's performance in MGM/UA's Saved! with Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Texas Christ Killers comedy does big bucks. But the last feel good youth musical to open an October was Music of the Heart, which never got to $15 million domestic.

So there you are… all angles and no straight lines. You know I love angles, but they are only interesting in contrast to the straight lines.

Have a great weekend. I'll be seeing Team America Fuck Yeah! and will try to go see Friday Night Lights before the Monday rooster crows. And this afternoon, I get to chat with Zhang Yimou… so it's not all bad, is it?

READER OF THE DAY: DAN OF CAN writes: Enjoy your movie opinions, not always right but well reasoned. De gustibus nil disputandum, however.What's 'right' anyway in the realm of opinion.

As for the late Rodney D., one perfectly creepy of piece of casting was the Dangerfield dad in Stone's delirious Natural Born Killers. As if the topic wasn't ugly enough, Stone piled on the garish TV show, leisure suit larry colours. Family pathology meets the sitcom. Stone ain't subtle but after throwing thousands of darts, you're bound to hit the bullseye once in awhile"

And this from MERRILY SHE ROWS ALONG writes: "Loved the letter from The Historian [Reader of the Day, Oct 7] Why? Because like him/her, I'm also a film lover and an historian.

It pleased me that A Beautiful Mind was used as an example. I've seen too many idiotic critics condemn the movie for not including every little controversial possible aspect of Nash's life. I've read the book... Nash's possible homosexual episodes are not at all compelling. Among the geeks of academia, experimentation was and is rampant. To make the film all about possible encounters would have been the lie, not the truth of his life.

I've even seen the film condemned for not including all 30 years of his madness. I can only conclude that either those writers are naive about filmaking, or they have an agenda. I don't mind critics who failed to embrace the movie on artistic grounds.

I loved Master and Commander because of it's historical realism, even though it was a fiction. I disliked Troy because it was a fiction badly disguised as history.

Biopics are always tricky to make. If one is too reverential and literal, they rarely work. Just give me the essence of a person, please. This is why historical fiction often works better than biographical.

We have several biopics to see this fall. I'll be there, with my skeptic's glasses on, to see Ray, The Motorcycle Diaries, Kinsey, Alexander, The Aviator and the Bobby Darrin film.

We have several historical fictions to look forward to as well... Kingdom of Heaven is one I'm particularly anxious to see. Ridley Scott always makes the effort with his histories...and he does know how to entertain.

This week? Last week? I haven't had any desire to go to the theater, even though we Floridians need some diversion. Tonight, I'm watching the Nil By Mouth DVD I rented.

Sky Captain? I don't know a single person over 30 who was interested in seeing it. The future of film for adults does not lie in the direction of animation as a substitute for sets and action. A pure animation film, like The Triplets of Belleville or Finding Nemo, can enchant anyone."

LE FRENCHIE writes: "I'm not too kind on biopics - basically I think they're contrived mixtures of 'true stories' and film challenges. The old dilemma: 'slices of life vs. slices of cake.' The only biopic I can think of is that monumental one which only existed in Kubrick's brain: Napoleon. Ok it's only fantasizing about what this Great Director could have done (to nail the genre?).

The funny thing is none - or so - of the common elements you checked out for the plain real biopics of the fall season.

GRAB A SLICE: Kubrick's Napoleon was to be a 180' womb-to-tomb narration showcasing vignettes of the-Great-Dictator-to-be's Teddy bear (would Spielberg have dared?) and the building up of this lonely and boiling inside character. Eventually Kubrick's project was shelved partly because another biopic centered on Waterloo bombed.

THE BACKSTORY: Except for the closing shot back on the rosebud bear the script goes straight forward, thanks to the kubrick-trademarked voice over.

IMITATE OR ACT? Being Napoleon for 6 months with Kubrick going up to 70 takes... it's the role of a lifetime (in an asylum). Way above Tony Perkins and Malcolm McDowell's spell!

DEAL WITH THE PERSPECTIVE OF TIME: Kubrick had done more fact checking than any campaign staff could ever spin. The problem wouldn't have been the historical accuracy but the queasy empathy for Napoleon. Yes, he was a man too.

All in all I had a dream that some day all flicks will be marketed as 'based on a forged story.'"

E-ME: Will your end be week or strong?