The Hot Blog

Good Point

Shawn Levy of The Oregonian writes:

"The irony of this rewrite is that Hornby's Fever Pitch, about Arsenal, the Red Sox of English football, ends in the mid-80s with Arsenal's stunning double victory in both the league season and the national cup -- two separate competitions. In effect, reality has forced a rewrite that will make the adaptation more faithful to the original book! Another miracle!"

Betwitched, just in time for Halloween!

The Man Abides

"In some movies there comes a moment of truth when the flickering images either scatter apart irreparably or bind together like a dream. Perched at the edge of coherence or maybe just our personal orthodoxies, these films can be undone by a clumsy line reading or the most minor hitch in logic."

The Review

Oscar Buzzed

Desperation for buzz… as desperate as the New York Times for assigning a story about desperation for buzz?

The idea that Phantom of The Opera is the “hot buzz Oscar film,” a notion pretty much started here at MCN a few weeks back, is hardly desperate given the history of the Oscars.

It is easy to scoff at the idea of a Joel Schumacher film starring three relative unknowns. But a look back at the last 25 years of the Oscars turns up Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Amadeus, Platoon, The Last Emperor, Driving Miss Daisy, The English Patient and The Lord of The Rings as eight winners with no major stars at the time of release. (The one exception is Peter O’Toole, in a supporting role, whose three previous roles had been in Supergirl, Creator and Club Paradise. He was, remarkably, not nominated for an Oscar.) In addition, all eight are period movies and only half of the directors had previously been Oscar nominated for directing when nominated for these films, Peter Jackson only for the first film of the trilogy.

The show has sold over 80 million tickets worldwide, which augers well for the box office and like the last two Oscar winners, LOTR:Return of the King and Chicago, it is swathed in familiarity.

The Oscar season has started, like it or not. But the only major difference between this Oscar season and others is that some many of the films HAVE been seen… not that so many films have not been seen. This time last year, the winner and Master & Commander had not yet been seen. But either had Cold Mountain, Monster, Something’s Gotta Give, The Last Samurai, Mona Lisa Smile or House of Sand & Fog.

There are five big films still to come… and they will all be seen in the next three weeks or so.

Looks Like There Is A Reason...

... why Dakota Fanning can't star in The Bad Seed remake.... she's already in one...

The Trailer

One Good Thing About The Grudge

The trailer for Boogeyman kicks some serious trailer butt... maybe the best thriller trailler since Texas Chainsaw Massacre....

Monday Night's MCN Screening

Xan Cassavetes Talks About Her Film, Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

I love doing these events, but last night was especially thrilling, as we were able to present two tremendous documentaries that will be seen widely on TV, but which may not get the on-screen opportunities they so richly deserve.

Hundreds of people came out to the Pacific Design Center to see the story of how one man created, with a great deal of help, a groundbreaking yet never repeated movie-lovers paradise on cable, while the second film showed how one person can make a difference in even the most challenging lives of children. Both films' heroes had big wins and big losses, but the passion made their journies stand out with singularity. And the passion of the filmmakers equally so.

I'm only sorry than Zana Briski wasn't there to hang out with Xan Casavettes... two women who have the passion to make things happen in this often all-too-comfortable world of the arts. (Born Into Brothels co-director Ross Kauffman, a great guy, would have been fun to have too... just not as fun...)

The next four films in the line up: The Sea Inside, Beyond The Sea, The Phantom of The Opera and Alexander... phew...

Gotta say...

This trailer , in and of itself, marks a major change in the Oscar race.

Ray's trailer did it for Ray... now this trailer suggests that there is a new front runner in the Oscar race.

When Armond Hits It...

I read Armond White of The New York Press every week. I rarely find myself just agreeing or disagreeing with him. My response is usually, "he's so right and he said it better than anyone else" or "he's completely nuts."

This week, in reviewing Ray, I think he hit it out of the park. He's also a little nuts, obsesing on his dislike for Michael Mann's Ali. But in the end, while I have shortcutted it, all too often repeating, "it's too long," White gets to it...

"Committed to balancing chronological order with signs of personality, screenwriter James L. White avoids the bad taste and disingenuous omissions that ruined other recent black pop bios. But Charles' extraordinary story eventually becomes mediocre when it ought to soar—or confront the contradictions of the music biz (remember Little Richards' appearance at the end of the Frankie Lymon flick). White relies on the hoariest bio-pic clichés to depict the gestation of Ray's artistic highpoints (such as the inspired recording of "I Got a Woman," "Hit the Road, Jack," "What Kind of Man Are You?" and the Modern Sounds of Country and Western album). This reduces Charles' art to a consequence of mundane events (Ray's lover's quarrel with his women) or as a mere gesture of banal expediency. It is never acknowledged as the product of truth-telling or mysterious genius. In this sense Ray commits many of the faults of the bio-pics that preceded it. Its significance is in Taylor Hackford's maneuvering past the genre's many ideological obstacles. Thus, I've presented its negative virtues. Ray remains conscientious but unimaginative."

Conscientious but unimaginative... ouch. But accurate.

A good movie... but it never quite dares to be great. And that is a shame, given how much real talent, from the actors to the director, is involved.

Ducking The Shark Tale Total

For some reason, one of the blogistas feels that I have avoided Shark Tale's failure to fail completely after a September estimate that it wouldn't hit $100 million.

I was wrong. On the other hand, what I have been avoiding was a repeated analysis of what a mediocrity the numbers are. The wall known as The Incredibles leaves the shark story one more reasonably open weekend. Given that, Shark Tale is unlikely to pass A Bug's Life (Pixar's lowest grossing title) as the eighth highest grossing CG animated film ever and even if it does, it will come up short of Ice Age.

Is that the horn you want tooted? I'm underwhelmed.

It's no Team America, but $160 million for Shark Tale is a step above embarrassing, not a cause for a parade... except perhaps for Chris Wedge and Fox, who have Robots on the way.