I’m assuming by the lack of e-mail over the last few days that everyone had a very restful, angst-free Thanksgiving holiday. I had hoped to catch several flicks over the long holiday but only managed to see one, Unbreakable. I have to admit that I enjoyed the film. I was a big fan of The Sixth Sense, and although I had guessed the twist ending long before I saw the film, it still had me totally captivated. I knew how Unbreakable was going to end as well, but I didn’t feel that my experience was ruined because of this knowledge.

Unbreakable is not as strong as The Sixth Sense, but it is certainly worth seeing. There are several moments in the film that I absolutely love. Sound design is so often an aspect of filmmaking that is neglected by young directors. A killer soundtrack does not equal great sound design. M. Night Shyamalan knows how to use sound to give a scene life. Shyamalan is not a perfect director. Unbreakable is by no means a perfect movie. But Shyamalan is young, really young. Imagine what he will be capable of doing when he hits middle age. I’d love to hear from those of you who’ve seen Unbreakable. Send me a spoiler-free mini-review, and I’ll post it in the next Civilian Voices.

And now, more importantly, it’s your turn to speak. DKJ starts off our post-Thanksgiving column with a rundown of the modern movie-making process...

"I am surprised that most of the Civilian Voices are complaining about the poor quality or lack of good movies being released in 2000, without mentioning the now more-complex process a movie goes through to get made these days. First, a movie usually starts out as a one-line tag phrase: ‘Miami Vice meets Seven crossed with The Matrix!’ Then a director is attached to the project; then some A-list actors jump on. Now it has enough ‘hype’ to get greenlit by the studio and given a $60 to $100 million budget. Now they hire someone to write the script; then 10 other people do separate rewrites. The script doctor does a go-through. Then the final script is delivered and the studio tells the director that he or she has a ridiculously short time to complete the film so they can get it out for the summer or winter season. It goes into pre-production, production, and then, finally, post-production. And the studio gets it. They make their cuts to ensure that the film will make the most money. Then it is ‘tested’ and more cuts are made along with some reshoots. Then the MPAA says ‘cut this’ if you want that favorable money-making rating for this film. Then it is finally released. With all this going on, is it any wonder that most films this year are bad? "And the ‘quaint,’ smaller, ‘underachiever’ films that most of us are discovering to be real gems are the ones the studios dumped early after production to cut their assumed losses. They are rewarded with little or no hype and advertising. No wonder they don’t have a chance at the box office." -- DKJ

Do you agree with DKJ? Are there too many cooks spoiling the movie? Would films be better if fewer people had a say about how to make them? Let me know your thoughts on the subject, won’t you?

Kenneth H. sent me this e-mail a while back, and I haven’t been able to run it until now.

Sorry about that, Kenneth. So, without further ado...

"Seriously, I’m back after a long break from roughcut.com and David Poland’s Hot Button. It’s like this every October when England gets all the U.S. summer back catalogue from the end of October to the beginning of December. There are so many movies that a lot of good stuff gets missed, as the big studios think we don’t have the Internet in Europe and don’t want to watch what you’re seeing when you see it. Oh sure, give me the big, good movie six months later, when I could just buy the DVD instead! "I have to tell you, Little Nicky hasn’t even been released here yet (maybe another week or two), and the poster is the worst marketing campaign I’ve seen this year. It’s unfair to the film, but I don’t have two hours and $12 to waste ‘making up my mind about it.’ If I was right and it was a bad film, the studio gets my money anyway. Sure, the ads tell you who’s in it and the story in the marketing tagline, very efficient. But how cheap is the studio to do the fake graffiti on just a photo of the star? Forget it. Jim Carrey at least had the balls to offend a vulnerable minority (schizophrenics) to get people interested in his comedy star vehicle Me, Myself and Irene. He had the sense to play it straight the rest of the time and show some range with Man on the Moon (only released this year in the UK) -- which Adam Sandler hasn’t. Whether it’s the end for him depends on whether he’s in the $20 million club yet. If he isn’t, he’ll get another chance, which he hopefully won’t **** up as he can be brilliant, as seen by Wedding Singer --but you only get one debut... "Young, up-and-coming directors? Bryan Singer just keeps rising after X-Men, and his one flop was still quality work (Apt Pupil). It was a Shawshank Redemption kind of flop: the story was fine, there was enough free advertising generated by the court case, Ian McKellen was excellent (Brit Bias -- sue me), Brad Renfro equally good, but nobody showed -- a shame. Actually, my other two people to watch are commercial and pop-video directors. It’s not fair to say their movies will suck because of their roots. You may look down on Con Air and Replacement Killers as just action movies, but the latter’s my most-watched DVD, and I caught it in the cinema on its all-too-brief release (so I made up for it by watching the DVD 9 to 10 times). What Antoine Fuqua and Simon West both need to do is up the output. Unless Bruckheimer or Joel Silver’s producing, you tend to wonder where the hell they’ve gone. Jury’s still out on The Wachowski Brothers, despite providing us with the better sci-fi film of 1999 [The Matrix]. "The best film ad campaign this year in the UK was The Yards -- just the actors’ faces on a black poster. Nothing else, apart from a praise-quote in capitals. No idea what the movie’s about. But I’m hooked. I want to know more. Hence, I watch the movie. Done deal. Closely followed by The Way of the Gun, which did the same thing but in red and with both stars. Another must-see. Just zipping back to last Xmas, I know it’s an established franchise which I would have seen anyway, but the first teaser poster for Bond 19 (The World Is not Enough) with Brosnan in shadow was simply brilliant. Amazing what a difference 10 years makes. The Bond trailers pre-GoldenEye were basically awful. "And I think the better question to ask about the presidency is which movie stars would best play Gush and Bore in the movie of this current real-life electoral farce that hopefully ends today. I thought American politics wouldn’t get any funnier than Clinton, but this blows Clinton and Lewinsky right out of the water." -- Kenneth Henry London, UK

Good question, Kenneth. Who would make the best George W. Bush in a feature film about this year’s crazy election? Who would play Al Gore? Cast your vote by sending me an e-mail with your cast list for Thursday’s Civilian Voices.

Another letter that’s been sitting in my mailbag way too long comes from Mexico. Luis C. raises some questions about Dogme 95...

"I’ve been thinking about it the last few days. How much time would it take for the Dogme 95 movement to stop being a novelty? Yes, we’ve seen digital cameras, budgets practically nonexistent, and vanguard stories. But what’s beyond that? Artistic recognition? Perhaps, but not that much in America. Jennifer Jason Leigh, who won the best actress award at the Tokyo International Film Festival for the latest Dogme film, The King Is Alive, is poised to receive rave reviews outside of America, but what about in her own country? Perhaps the only way Dogme 95 would last would be for American actors to take on the experiment themselves. I think that more American actors would like to try being hip and trendy and do their own Dogme movie. And once that happens, would the Dogme movement survive Hollywood? "The Dogme movement is destined to become a fashion, and the only way for Dogme filmmakers to save themselves from that is to hold their artistic boundaries and not let anyone surpass them." -- Luis M. Cabrera Mexico

What is your opinion of the Dogme 95 movement? Will it become fashionable for big stars to appear in films that use only natural lighting, no makeup, and existing props and locations? I’m leaning toward no. Natural lighting and no makeup do not make movie stars look good. Movie stars do not want to look bad. Unless they are pretty darn sure they’ll get, at the very least, an Oscar nomination. Anyone out there agree or disagree? You know what to do.

Isaac B. is our next Civilian Voice. He questions a certain Hollywood starlet’s right to be called, well, a starlet...

"Since I can’t comment on last weekend’s openers, I’ll talk about something else. I recently read a hysterical rant by Harry Knowles at Ain’t It Cool News in which he denounces Warner Bros.’ plans to make a live-action Scooby-Doo. When he started cutting apart Freddie Prinze Jr. (as Fred?!) and Matthew Lillard (as Shaggy?!) it reminded me of something: what the hell has Jennifer Love Hewitt ever done that was so damn important? "Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against her personally. But if you look at her career, there’s really nothing there to justify all the power, press, and fame. A quick check of her record on the IMDB shows that, other than her supporting role on Party of Five, there’s nothing there but box-office bombs (Sister Act 2, House Arrest), critically panned nonsense (Can’t Hardly Wait, the I Know What Your Breasts Did Last Summer series), and a bunch of cancelled TV shows (including her own spin-off, Time of Your Life). Anybody else know someone like this? And doesn’t it make you appreciate Reese Witherspoon even more? "On a final note, congrats to Dave Poland for getting mentioned on Ebert and Roeper at the Movies! They were talking about web sites with movie content and Ebert recommended The Hot Button." -- Isaac B.

Case in point -- Tara Reid. I have nothing against Tara as a person. But, aside from being engaged to another inexplicable celebrity [MTV VJ Carson Daly], what has she done? American Pie was her only big film. And Tara wasn’t the reason anyone went to see that movie, was she? Yet there she is in every other magazine. Tara Reid’s publicist is worth every penny. She knows how to keep Tara in the limelight now, so that she will get more roles. So that she will really be given an opportunity to show her acting chops.

Do faux celebrities make you crazy? Or do you think that keeping yourself in the spotlight is just another way to insure a successful acting career? And what about that live-action Scooby-Doo? Freddie Prinze Jr.? Matthew Lillard? Zoinks!!

I end today’s column with two more folks who want to voice their picks for Best of the Year. First up, John L. with his choices for Best Actors and Actresses...

"I completely agree with so many of roughcut.com reader Howard’s picks. Every member of the High Fidelity cast rose to the occasion, as did the trio in Keeping the Faith, a very under-appreciated film -- so much smarter than your average ‘romantic comedy.’ A couple of other performances that may get overlooked are Sanaa Lathan in Love & Basketball, Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in X-Men, and Jim Caviezel in Frequency. "All in all, I agree that it has been a relatively weak year." -- John Lacy

And finally, Kevin McCarthy (no relation) gives us his picks for the five best films of 2000...

"The following are the five most enjoyable movies I’ve seen so far this year (in no particular order): Butterfly Jesus’ Son High Fidelity The Girl on the Bridge Ghost Dog "Granted, I’m biased against movies I view as solely ‘entertainment’ -- I can get that with reruns of Seinfeld. I wanted to be moved, to think, to be challenged, to see something different, or at least something portrayed uniquely. Bamboozled deserves mention for subject matter alone -- unfortunately the movie derailed about two-thirds of the way through." -- Kevin McCarthy

That’s it for today, folks. Like I said, I didn’t receive very many e-mails over the holiday weekend. I’m sure you were all busy spending time with your families and, according to box-office estimates, seeing The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. But it’s time to start cranking out those Civilian Voices e-mails again. There were a lot of great topics brought up in today’s column, and I’d love to post your thoughts on Thursday. Don’t make me bring out the clown again. She’d really like to be around to spend Christmas with her family. Keep those e-mails coming, won’t ya?

 

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