comment #1

High Chaparral says ...

You can't compare theatrical runs in an era with no home video market to today's DVD/Blu-Ray/download extravaganza.

comment #2

Matthew Lucas says ...

Here here!

comment #3

Wrecktum says ...

Yeah, comparing theatrical exhibition in 1967 to that of 2007 is pretty much a conversation killer.

Here's a question. The Bourne movies, all three of them, were very successful in terms of audience appeal and critical appreciation. Why no love from the Academy's major categories? How about Spider-Man 2? Harry Potter 3?

The studios, by focusing their Academy campaigns on specialty titles, are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to the long-term success of the Oscars. Now that people are talking about the lack of an Oscar bounce, maybe studios will finally stop spending millions of dollars pishing niche films and start focusing on the stuff that people actually see.

comment #4

CinemaPhreek says ...

As much as a I think the bad of the Oscars outweigh the good (a popularity contest to determine the best in art is the very definition of cognitive dissonance), there is a valid school of thought that says the PR associated with both all three phases of the Academy Awards (nomination, the voting and winning) exposes the general public to many films that they would otherwise not know about. Without the big-ticket studio flicks to pique their interest, many smaller films will remain the purview of cineastes like those on this board.

What even I myself forgets, the hoi polloi passively takes in releases by what's being advertised and what's being talked about by other non-cinephiles. The one time they will actively seek out info on movies other than asking the kid at the video store is watching the show.

Not to mention, the more MBA type studio heads think there is no Oscar bounce benefit to green-lighting certain types of pictures, the less likely there are to do it.

There's also a subtext of unattractive elitism to this "serf class" attitude. Do I really need to haul out the hoary "popular art form," "Shakespeare wrote for the masses" type arguments against this? How about this: while critics seem to wax nostalgic for 70's based on this perception that it had become intellectually accepted to discuss cinema as legitimate art, the majority of the filmmakers who produced it have repeatedly stated getting such general public acclaim was immensely satisfying after the struggles it took to make it.

comment #5

Lipstik Music says ...

Sean Penn missed the mark on 'Into the Wild' by saturating it with so much of Eddie Vedder's uneven music.

The point (or one of them) of being alone, in the wild, of solitude and nature, is about the sounds of nature. You don't have someone following you around with a croon and an acoustic guitar the whole time to provide a soundtrack and to direct emotional relevance.

If the movie had as much sound as No Country it would have been far better.

comment #6

CinemaPhreek says ...

Excellent point Lipstick, didn't occur to me until you said it. There were some also ham-fisted "studio picture" moments like the swirling 360 dolly around Hirsh that were distracting.

comment #7

le corbeau says ...

There's no doubt that this is half true.

It's also half true that Oscar has a love for bluehair movies (pass the Chocolat while I Find Neverland) and for middlebrow humbug movies (oh, The Hours I spent eating Seabiscuits and dodging Crashes in the Traffic along The Green Mile to reach The Cider House) which no one will want to see five years later, let alone 50. And that a certain healthy respect for what's actually connecting with the mass audience of this mass art form is a good corrective to that. An Oscar that nominated Walk the Line instead of Good Night and Good Luck, The Bourne Identity instead of The Hours, Elf instead of Mystic River, The Matrix instead of The Green Mile would be one that was both more in touch with popular taste AND choosing better movies.

comment #8

Wrecktum says ...

I'm sure this has been done a million times, but here's a list of the top rated films on Rotten Tomatoes with the highest boxoffice:

95% Ratatouille $206,445,654
94% No Country for Old Men $69,680,625
93% Enchanted $127,393,667
93% Juno $135,049,108
93% The Bourne Ultimatum $227,471,070
90% Knocked Up $148,768,917
89% The Simpsons Movie $183,135,014
87% Superbad $121,463,226
84% Bridge to Terabithia $82,272,442
83% Charlie Wilson's War $66,636,385

I think a case can be made that five of these films would make a nice slate of best picture noms. My personal five would be Ratatouille, Bourne, Juno, Bridge and No Country.

comment #9

corey3rd says ...

The Oscar bounce has been legally dead since Gladiator. It's all about moving DVDs. If you didn't see the film on the few weeks after it opened, do you really want to see a scratched print after the Oscars or just wait a few weeks to pick up the pristine DVD?

The people who really suffer during the shortened Oscar season are the ad reps at Variety and Hollywood Reporter. They lose out on an entire month of "For Your Consideration" ads.

by celebrating way too many low grossing films with unknown performers, the Oscars are becoming the Tonys. An celebration of the obscure. Would Bourne being up for Best Pic really brought in 10 million more eyeballs? How many of us really enjoyed sitting through high school assemblies that lasted 4 hours?

comment #10

Doug says ...

Just watched "The Bourne Ultimatum" again last night. It won the Oscar for editing but it should've won for directing, too. Paul Greengrass is a virtuoso. Has anybody ever directed three better movies in a four year span than "The Bourne Supremacy," "United 93" and "The Bourne Ultimatum"?

comment #11

Josh Massey says ...

From the action genre, John McTiernan has him beat:

1987's Predator
1988's Die Hard
1990's The Hunt for Red October

comment #12

BurmaShave says ...

As much as I love McTiernan, he is no Greengrass, especially when you throw in BLOODY SUNDAY. Arguably the director of the decade.

comment #13

MAGGA says ...

You can argue the merit of voting for "best" movie all you want, but if you have a show of that nature, it makes no sense to choose movies on any other basis than what you feel is the best film, not catering to the viewers of the telecast or anybody else. The voters must vote from the heart. Even though I still have som catching up to do I feel that There Will Be Blood, No Country, Zodiac, Jesse James and Once would be the ultimate line up for this year, and a great one in film history. They chose two of them and gave them many of the major awards, so more power to them. And seriously, Paul Greengrass? United 93 did not anger me or feel "to soon", it just felt like a completely pointless film to make. A recreation of a historical event based on a recording from the cockpit (which was only available after the film was released and contradicted the events portrayed in som, admittedly minor, ways) and some phonecalls, allowing us to feel what it must have been like on that airplane without offering any history or context or adding anything to the conversation about what September 11 meant. It felt like tragedy-porn to me, and good on the public for avoiding it. Now the Iraq-documentaries on the other hand...

comment #14

corey3rd says ...

when does McTiernan start his jail time?

comment #15

Gaydos says ...

If someone reached the end of Carr's article, as I did, without knowing the point of the article, which was what happened to me, please explain.

comment #16

corey3rd says ...

so RTN runs an old soap ad with a family wrapped in towels and the mom and dad say how they were able to see the Yankees afternoon game and a night showing of Chinatown without BO. You can't really run a product like that because a movie after three weeks is dead - and who needs a soap ad pimping a movie release begging to be put out on DVD.

comment #17

Arizona Joe says ...

"Into the Wild" will arrive shortly via Netflix.

I was looking forward to it, until I read about this surfeit of Eddie Vedder music. I agree with Lipstik Music, that just sounds horrid.

Some sort of original music, based on light, pastoral classical pieces would have worked much better because they would have cued the viewer's attention, and not vitiated nature and engaged the mind with vocals.

I agree that nature is about solitude and enjoying quiet, or the sounds of nature. However, films are about drama, and an aural void probably would not have worked. Light music giving the impression of nature probably would have been optimal.

I guess Sean Penn with his brooding, solipicism and smoking did not think that way. He liked Eddie.

And I am no shrinking violet when it comes to popular music. I saw Joe Strummer and Bob Marley. But I know over-hyped crap when I hear it.

As far as this talk of boutique films and serfs and changing Oscar viewing, that's just a sign of the times. We live in this fractionated world of digital delivery, and nothing is going to be the same.

There were a lot of fine films this year. "In the Valley of Elah" - as good as Wells said it was.

comment #18

le corbeau says ...

Corey 3rd, was that a T. Holly post?

comment #19

MAGGA says ...

Arizona Joe, I get the same impression, but let's both see the film before deciding if those directing choices were right.

comment #20

corey3rd says ...

that's my post and only my post. i haven't written the Party Favors column for over 20 years to get a "T. Holly" rip off quote. Google Corey and Party Favors and share the love.

comment #21

BurmaShave says ...

"It felt like tragedy-porn to me, and good on the public for avoiding it."

Most infuriating statement I've read on here in a long time. If I recally MAGGA you're not here in the United States, so maybe you just don't appreciate what you're saying.

comment #22

Josh Massey says ...

Can you really tell The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum apart? I liked both, but it felt like the exact same movie to me.

Each film of McTiernan's "trilogy" has the Bourne movies beat.

Of course, Bourne and United soundly trump anything McTiernan has done since.

comment #23

berg says ...

Has anybody ever directed three better movies in a four year span than "The Bourne Supremacy," "United 93" and "The Bourne Ultimatum"? ... posted above

ah, try Preston Sturges
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
Sullivan's Travels (1941)
The Lady Eve (1941) ...

ah, try John Ford
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
Stagecoach (1939)

oh course there's also Hitch and Hawks and Capra

comment #24

BurmaShave says ...

Yeah I always forget Hitch did VERTIGO, NORTH BY NORTHWEST and PSYCHO back to back to back. Unbeatable.

comment #25

bmcintire says ...

Looking through the top 10 of a handful of years from the 1970's, the Academy tended to nominate 2 or 3 of these films for Best Picture in any given year (much like this year). In 1980, the picture is similar, though you can extend the box office to the top 20 and get the same result:
1. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
2. 9 TO 5
3. STIR CRAZY
4. AIRPLANE!
5. ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN
6. SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II
* 7. COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER
8. PRIVATE BENJAMIN
9. THE BLUES BROTHERS
10. THE SHINING
11. BLUE LAGOON
12. POPEYE
13. URBAN COWBOY
* 14. ORDINARY PEOPLE
15. CHEECH & CHONG'S NEXT MOVIE
16. SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES
17. CADDYSHACK
18. BRUBAKER
19. FRIDAY THE 13TH
20. LITTLE DARLINGS

Major Oscar nominees missing from this illustrious list:
RAGING BULL
THE ELEPHANT MAN
TESS
THE GREAT SANTINI
STUNT MAN
TRIBUTE
GLORIA
RESURRECTION
MELVIN & HOWARD
INSIDE MOVES
BREAKER MORANT

Make of that what you will.

comment #26

MAGGA says ...

""It felt like tragedy-porn to me, and good on the public for avoiding it."

Most infuriating statement I've read on here in a long time. If I recally MAGGA you're not here in the United States, so maybe you just don't appreciate what you're saying."

True, but why is it so offensive? I do appreciate the importance and horror and tragedy of the actual event, but the film itself seemed like a test to see if you were able to put yourself through it again, but without adding anything to my understanding or even being accurate. Jeffrey Wells made a big point about cowards avoiding it, but when I saw it I wish I had. Exploitation might be a better word than porn, but either way I was commenting on a movie that was not needed, not the tragedy itself. I am actually pretty curious about why that is so offensive, so I hope for an actual explanation.

comment #27

High Chaparral says ...

The great thing about United 93 was that whilst discussion of 9/11 has morphed into a debate over war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, crackpot conspiracy theories et al, here was a film which reminded us that none of that shit mattered on the day.

Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances who by sheer force of will or faith or just pure adrenaline were able to do something, anything, to at the very least go down fighting. Literally.

The fact that it's portrayed so unflinchingly is what makes it a fitting tribute to those guys on that plane - just as the opening of Saving Private Ryan has to be that graphic and frightening and visceral to drum it home to those who weren't there what it might have been like for those who were. It's not 'porn', it's trying to be honest.

For all that it's also one the greatest horror movies of all time. Eli Roth and Rob Zombie can only dream about creating the tension, suspense, and stomach churning sense of inevitable doom that Greengrass manages here. I still remember sitting in the cinema drenched in a cold sweat.

comment #28

MAGGA says ...

Thanks, High Chaparral, but you last paragraph sort of makes my point. It's obviously more intense to watch something you know happened, but what does it teach us? Private Ryan was about war in general, and after those thirty minutes it discussed what was worth that kind of situation, what was worth fighting for, and the horror puts all war into context. United 93 simply described what took place in a horrifying manner, but it was recent history that no sane person had forgotten yet, and there was nothing that gave it any context or new meaning for me. It honestly felt like an endurance test only, and not really even a tribute, since we never got to know any characters. I know these are all seen as strengths, but I have yet to understand why.

comment #29

Dave says ...

MAGGA, none of us were on that plane, none of us were in those control centers. We hadn't "forgotten" those events yet, but no one had seen that viewpoint yet.

Personally, the greatest impact United 93 had on me was in giving me that same sick-to-my-stomach feeling I had on 9/11. It *reminded* me of how that day felt, and reminded me of the reasons why everything since has mattered so much.

Brilliant filmmaking.

comment #30

AJW says ...

What did Saving Private Ryan teach you about war? Here is what I learned:

1. If you fail to execute your enemy he will come back and kill you.

2. Anyone who carries a typewriter and (or?) speaks French is a sniveling pussy.

The rest of the movie is not worthy of the horror and terror of the Normandy invasion. Spielberg does not earn it.

comment #31

PerfectTommy says ...

Sorry, this is a little long, but I found this post at National Review's Corner interesting and it relates to the intial post:

How They See Us [Michael Ledeen]

My friend Christian Rocca, of the wonderful Italian newspaper il Foglio, recently did an interview that is worth thinking about. I've translated the main parts. If you want to read the whole thing in the original, go to Christian's blog and read the article "That's It". Meanwhile, here are the things that caught my attention:

Franco Zerlenga, retired professor of the history of Isalm at NYU, has some thoughts about America: “To understand the spirit of the age, where America is headed, you have to look at the Oscars. That’s it...In 1943 they gave the prize to ‘Casablanca’...everyone thought the war was going badly, but the film told the story of an American and a Frenchman who won against a German general, who was killed, and that movie showed the true feelings of the Americans of that time: they wanted to defeat the Germans, whatever the difficulties. And the artistic and intellectual community of Hollywood recognized that, and rewarded the film that best represented that desire.”

And today? There were lots of antiwar movies on the list, but they all lost. Instead, the awards went to “No Country for Old Men” in which, as Zerlenga says, “the Cohen brothers brilliantly tell the story of a lunatic terrorist who kills without giving any importance to life, paying no attention to human beings. The protagonist is the prototype of the terrorist who kills without wanting to assume any responsibility, flipping a coin, as if he were not deciding to take or save a life, exactly like the Arab Islamists. And, in fact, it won the Oscar.”

“Then there’s ‘There Will be Blood,’ which is not a movie about the birth of American capitalism and the dangerous spread of the Evangelical churches, but rather a film about Saudi Arabia and its Islamist madrassas. The oil men are no longer us, the oil men are the Saudis.”

“Then there’s ‘Juno,’ a pro-life movie about a little girl who decides not to have an abortion...Diablo Cody won for the best original screenplay, but really there is nothing original there. It’s subtle anti-abortion propaganda, but the Oscar shows that even in the most liberal sectors of America, like Hollywood, there is no longer hostility to these themes...In America, everything is possible, even a rat becomes a great chef, as in ‘Ratatouille.’ In Europe, they don’t want to see that in this country there is no single ideology. America is dynamic, open to the rest of the world..and in fact awards were given to Spanish and French actors, and Italian screenwriters. That’s it.”

comment #32

christian says ...

Woody Alen had a pretty spectacular reign also:

SLEEPER
LOVE AND DEATH
ANNIE HALL
MANHATTAN
INTERIORS
etc.