December 28, 2005

MOVIES YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN, BUT DIDN'T 2005

The truth is, 2005 was a fairly crappy year at the movies.

Every year, people seem to be shouting about how bad things were and every year I seem to come up with more than 30 movies that I really cherish. This year, 20 seemed like a bit of a reach. And I don't think that even on that list there are 10 that I can imagine chewing on a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh time. And while many people are "one viewing and out" people, I am not. For me, true greatness is when I can find inspiration and excitement the seventh, fifteenth, twentieth time… when I can't switch that channel when it come up on TV.

Sin City has its values as an exercise and a movie experience, but it makes Dick Tracy look deep as Proust by comparison. But even a movie I really enjoyed, like The Wedding Crashers, not only isn't as memorable as, say, Animal House, but it won't stand up to time as well as The 40 Year Old Virgin. And Stealth? You're lucky you didn't see it!

Anyway… more on this as I get into the worst and the best lists in the next couple of days. Today is Movies You Should Have Seen. And shocking though it is to me, that list too is much reduced from years past.

Truth is, most of the mainstream films we would normally be discussing as underperformers had solid numbers or even overperformed this year. Did someone expect to see high-grade pulp like Four Brothers to do $75 million, much less more? Was a low-budget kids film like Sky High ever meant to do $64 million? Crash did $53 million. I can't even complain about The Constant Gardener's $34 million or A History of Violence's $31 million.

Should Hustle & Flow have grossed more than $22 million? Yes. But is that $3 million film really a miss at that gross? No.

Quality underperformers like George A Romero's Land of The Dead, The Upside of Anger, King Fu Hustle, Lords of Dogtown, Bride & Prejudice and Millions all did more than $5 million and all had problems being sold. But somehow, I am not bleeding for them. Unless you live in a very small town, you had your chance, someone you know took the chance, and you decided not to go.

The list of big studio dumps this year was higher than usual, as for some reason studios decided to release movies that they didn't want to and to not slough off some titles to their Dependents. The major studio low this year was Paul Schrader's Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist, with a domestic total of $246,708. The film played on 110 screens, so the prints alone cost more than $660,000. Ouch.

Fox had Little Manhattan, which grossed $385,373 on just 35 screens. DreamWorks has The Prize Winner of Defiance, OH… $627,8444 on 41. Universal took Inside Deep Throat from Focus, but it made Cinderella Man look like a smash, doing $683,852 on 27 screens. Much messier for Universal was First Descent, which managed only $750,805 on 243 (print costs, more than $1.5 million). The controversially dumped Duma looked like a success in this crowd with $860,437 on 42.

Between $1 million and $5 million were WB's A Sound of Thunder ($1.9 million), Fox's Supercross ($3.1 million) and Stay ($3.6 million), and New Line's King's Ransom ($4 million).

That brings us to the first truly underseen film from a major this year, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a better than average (perhaps better than that) comedy thriller from Shane Black with an award-worthy performance by Val Kilmer and a star-making turn from Michelle Monaghan. Still, even with a Cannes launch, a Toronto Film Fest re-launch and Joel Silver at the reins, $4.2 million. If you didn't go, you should have. And when you see it on cable or DVD, you will regret not having made the effort, even if the film isn't your very favorite.

Once you cross that line, you can only look back at smaller films, almost all documentaries or foreign language films.

Perhaps the poster child for coming up short this year was Murderball, the endlessly raved and audience-awarded doc that came out of Sundance, was with muscular doc handler ThinkFilm and which had a promotional deal with MTV. They still couldn't get past $1.6 million. That makes it the eighth highest grossing doc of the year, behind another underperformer, the brilliant Grizzly Man ($3.2 million).

Other docs that deserved better: Gunner Palace ($600,000), Ballets Russes ($412,000), Protocols of Zion ($160,000), Darwin's Nightmare ($100,000), Reel Paradise ($30,000), The Last Mogul ($16,000) and Twist of Faith ($8,000). Of the nine docs mentioned, four doc short-list or nomination slots.

Then there are five foreign language films that pop to the top of my list. There were 93 foreign languages films released in the U.S. this year. The high grosser was King Fu Hustle, which managed a little over $17 million for Sony Classics. #2, Downfall, earned less than a third of that. Tough market. High Tension dubbed and chased teens… not a miss. Walk On Water did a pretty solid $2.7 million for an Israeli film. No other foreign language film has hit $2 million.

But my frustrations did less.

In the million dollar range were the fairly commercial My Summer of Love from Focus and Paradise Now from Warner Indie.

Then you have the thriller, Oldboy, which was praised and geeked, but still stopped at $710,000.

The magnificent Kings and Queen was buoyed by a touring retrospective of the filmmaker… and still, only $290,000.

And the brilliantly kinky and crazy trilogy of Asian terror, Three… Extremes, made only 88,000.

It was a year of upheaval in the art house world. How do you make money with foreign language films? The answer remains in play. And the doc mania is generating more quality docs than quality box office results.

But as years with shortfalls go, 2005 wasn't really to bad. Get your Murderball on DVD.

E-ME.