comment #1

jeffmcm says ...

Better to wait than to pull a Karyn Kusama and make Aeon Flux right after a small indie hit.

comment #2

OddDuck says ...

"Better to wait than to pull a Karyn Kusama and make Aeon Flux right after a small indie hit."

Ouch! That's pretty embarrassing. Girlfight was a great little modest film with tons of heart. How did she end up doing a craptacular movie like Aeon Flux for a followup?

comment #3

Mike K says ...

Don't any of these guys want to be Sidney Lumet? He didn't hit a home run every time, but he made more masterpieces than almost anybody.

What about PT Anderson?

comment #4

JD says ...

Most of the filmmakers in question are writer-directors and obviously that takes longer than simply directing (as Ashby and Altman generally did). There's certainly no way Alexander Payne is gonna be able to write a quality script in 2 months and keep up the film-per-year pace that Bonnaventura suggests. The other issue is that many of their projects get put in turnaround by the studios (ie. The Fountain, several Fincher projects, etc.). In the 70s, studios were developing projects of merit that filmmakers could stumble upon and shoot 6-8 weeks later. These days, filmmakers have to find or create all the projects themselves. The studios are bringing very little to the table, creatively. And even if they do own a worthwhile novel or script, they want it dumbed-down so that it appeals to a broader audience. PS - I Heart Huckabee's was not a disaster. It was precisely the kind of meaningful, eccentric, intellectually ambitiuos examination of society that thrived in the 70s. If you really want a 70s throwback, as Waxman implies she does, I Heart Huckabee's is a pretty great place to start.

comment #5

JD says ...

Mike K, Soderbergh is our generation's Lumet (and/or Altman), as far as productivity is concerned.

comment #6

MovieBob says ...

Count me among those who saw "Aeon Flux" coming a mile away. "Girlfight" was pure film-school NOTHING, just a reflexively-supportable premise and a decent debut turn in the lead. Kusama didn't do anything in the film to suggest she was capable of anything beyond making a low-budget "girl power" music video.

comment #7

Dixon Steele says ...

The answer is sorta obvious:

It takes MILLIONS of dollars to make movies and for certain directors (and their subject matters), studios aren't just lining up with blank checks.

Directing is a very competitive business. The studios make only so many movies a year (now less than ever). There's just not that many jobs anymore. Too many out-of-work directors, too few open assignments.

Which means that more and more, directors have to go the indie route and that's where the money comes in. Ever try raising $$ for a movie? It's painful. If you have, you know what I'm talking about.

Seriously, would you have over a sack of money to David O. Russell (and I'm a big fan of FLIRTING AND KINGS)?

And the cost of marketing a movie is often much higher than the cost of making it.

Like you guys, I LOVE movies. But it's become a shitty business, except for the few who breakout every year at Sundance.

comment #8

christian says ...

waxman's shallow book didn't inspire me to think she has a clue as to what a good director is.

she disses films that didn't make money. that's her yardstick of quality. she tosses off SCHIZOPOLIS in a few words, stating that its b.o. failure would hopefully prevent the snarkily announced sequel.

plus, as i've stated, she has yet to correct the david o' russell bullshit story about using a real dead body in 3 KINGS. she's a sucker.

comment #9

Doug says ...

It looks like David O. Russell IS getting a sack of money for his next film, "The H-Man Cometh." It doesn't hurt to have Vince Vaughn attached.

comment #10

corey3rd says ...

Woody Allen has never had a problem as a writer/director to keep up a healthy production schedule.

comment #11

Rob says ...

Yes, but so many of Woody's movies feel like he made them just to keep up the pace.

I think it's sad that Russell's Huckabees is considered a disaster - I love that movie.

comment #12

alynch says ...

Granted, Woody Allen's recent movies with the exception of Match Point haven't been very good, but I think it's quite telling that he managed to spend a good 25 years writing/directing a movie per year with almost all of them being very good or great. I think some of these filmmakers just have to be more willing to pull the trigger.

comment #13

christian says ...

and another of waxman's bad habits: she refers to I HEART HUCKABES as being "disastrous."

hey sharon, how about a qualifier? IHH cost 22 million, made 12 million in theaters and has been released twice on dvd, including a special edition. i don't know the amount made on home video.

but is the disaster that it didn't make 100 million?

i know a lot of people who truly do heart IHH -- i thought it was a lesser russell film, but clearly the voice of unique authors.

i never know what the hell waxman is talking about. bottom line, i suppose.

comment #14

corey3rd says ...

while it cost $22 million, it cost a lot more to market. And part of the $12 million stayed with the theater owners. There's a chance that it didn't make a dime for the studio during its theatrical release. The special edition was a good way to get the devoted to rebuy the DVD. But I don't recall the guys at WalMart calling it "the next Office Space."

comment #15

jeffmcm says ...

Woody Allen, like David Lynch and Robert Altman in his last few movies, gets a lot of his funding from European sources.

comment #16

Craig Kennedy says ...

It seems you can count on one of these "Whither Hollywood?" type articles from Waxman et al. at least once a month. She points out that the sky is falling and offers a handful of theories but never really establishes why. Next month it'll be some other story about how the business is going to hell.

The funny thing is, she kind of answered her own question at the very beginning of the column when she labeled Huckabees 'disastrous' and all she could say about The Fountain was that it quickly dropped from sight.

Like it or not, Aronofsky spent 7 years on Fountain and got punched in the nose for his troubles.

As others have said, I'm also troubled by the characterization of Huckabees as a disaster. It may well have been a financial failure, but a disaster implies it was deservedly so. Glad to see more than a few people defend it because I thought it was great.

Comparisons to the 70's aren't fair because the climate was totally different. Even so, except for MASH, I don't think Altman was exactly a box office wonderboy. Did Nashville even do all that well at the box office? By Waxman's standards, he's a disaster.

comment #17

christian says ...

that's my gripe with waxman. she equates box office with esthetic value. IHH lost money ergo disaster; RUSHMORE must be considred a failure too; SCHIZOPOLIS failure; FIGHT CLUB major disaster...the list is endless.

and CITIZEN KANE, major bomb-aroonie.

comment #18

The Movie Man says ...

Cj and Christian, I agree with your sentiments but I think there is another ingredient in the stew as well, and it's sort of implied in the article. Yes, there are funding problems but I think some of it is ego. They have a great success and don't want to risk tarnishing its perceived brilliance with another failure. That's the greatness of an Altman or an Ashby, they didn't give a fuck.

comment #19

berg says ...

you have to go back 5 to 7 years to Punch Drunk Love or Almost Famous to find a studio film as good as I Heart Huckabees (the original good Mark Wahlberg perf) ... NYTimes ... shite

comment #20

unsquare says ...

Well, I do think she has a valid point in the end about everyone's favorite Mexican directors... the community aspect can only help, and it sounds like that just isn't there (or isn't being written about) for most of these directors. Now... that'd be an interesting article... are there similar examples of other filmmakers pushing each other to work more and take risks? Rodriguez and Tarantino, maybe?

comment #21

JD says ...

I highly doubt that IHH cost a lot to market, as it was barely marketed. The movie cost $20 million, made $20 million internationally (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=ihearthuckabees.htm), and probably doubled that on DVD (both the 1-disc and 2-disc versions were released on the same day, by the way). Not a hit, but certainly not a disaster. Even The Fountain is only a minor disaster, as it channeled the losses of an aborted project into an interesting film that's sure to have a lengthy, profitable shelf life.

comment #22

JD says ...

And IHH is not "the original good Mark Wahlberg perf," berg. Try Traveler, Boogie Nights, Three Kings, and/or The Yards. He does great work in all of these. But yes, he's terrific in Huckabee's.

comment #23

jeffmcm says ...

As much as I love several of Tarantino's and Rodriguez's films, I don't think they really push each other into artistically 'risky' areas - if anything, they reinforce each other's more mainstream commercial sensibilities.

comment #24

Dixon Steele says ...

J.D. loved your spin on HUCKABEE and THE FOUNTAIN.

I hear the Bush Administration is looking for someone to spearhead their Media Comunications for the War in Iraq. You know, the one we're winning.

Feel free to apply...

comment #25

Dan Revill says ...

She seems to forget that a lot of the filmmakers of the 70s were working for the studios - Scorsese, DePalma, Coppola, Altman etc were given the green light by studio heads who weren't looking for the magic formula.

The system doesn't encourage auteurs on a good day. But I'd see any of those directors listed in the article in a heartbeat if given the opportunity.

And I think that The Fountain's gonna have a long shelf life. It may have not made a hundred million, but this is Aranofsky we're talking about - not exactly blockbuster director.

comment #26

jeffmcm says ...

So Dixon, what do you think is the 'truth' about Huckabees and The Fountain? I'm sure that both lost money, but I don't think either were really expected to be blockbusters either.

comment #27

christian says ...

but who demanded these indie directors be box office titans?

comment #28

corey3rd says ...

I sat through I Heart Huckabees and I really felt cheated at the end of that movie - on so many levels. and my date that evening let me know that she didn't like it either - on so many levels.

while we might not expect these guys to be blockbuster directors like Shawn Levy, for the amount of ink and attention they get, you'd expect they'd have a real following that cares enough to show up.

comment #29

donnyboy says ...

Why???

They have no craft.

They just want to be KNOWN.

When is anyone going to call Spike Jonze (not his real name) out for being Mr. Spiegal (his rear $$$$$$$$$$ name) what dickless fuck, along with the rest of this group.

comment #30

JD says ...

Woah, donnyboy. Somebody needs to relax. For the record, rumors that Spike Jonze is heir to the Spiegel fortune are false. He's from a normal middle class family, not some billion dollar empire. But I guess anyone with a Jewish name should be outed... because that's, what, immoral? And while you could argue that David O. Russell's aesthetic is (deliberately) rough, there's no way you can say Fincher, Aronofsky, PT Anderson, etc. have no craft. In fact, they have significantly more craft than many of the great 70s directors.

comment #31

fnt says ...

Gotta admit, it is a drag that a lot of the great directors don't work very often. But they can get by on the development fees from projects they're connected to and such.

For every one of them we have a Paul Greengrass, a Steven Soderbergh, a Chris Nolan. People who direct constantly. And it's generally quality -- or at least a quality experiment.

And Michael Winterbottom -- godammn, does he direct a lot.

comment #32

Ortega says ...

This is why I find Takashi Miike's case particularly fascinating. The guy must be doing what, three or four movies a year, has a hand in the scripts (if I'm not mistaken), and most of them are totally out there, without a chance in hell commercially here in the States. But they must be making money, or else he wouldn't still be doing them at such a pace. Granted, Japan's a whole other world cinematically speaking, but it would be interesting to see how the business is ran there. Are the movies so low-budget they recoup their investments in no time (some of them certainly don't look like they were made for pennies)? Is the audience for more edgy material more numerous over there than here? Just how the guy does it? Anyway, can't wait for PTA's "There Will be Blood". I have a good feeling about that one.

comment #33

Hallick says ...

"When is anyone going to call Spike Jonze (not his real name) out for being Mr. Spiegal (his rear $$$$$$$$$$ name) what dickless fuck, along with the rest of this group."

Who do you think this statement makes look more like a jackass, donnyboy? Spike Jonze or you?

And how about using a question mark in your question? And how about a capital W in the word "what", being as it's the start of another sentence altogether? Maybe an indefinite article before the word "dickless"? Did the bile leaking out of your mouth destroy those buttons on your keyboard?