The Troma guys are claiming that weekend ticket sales for Poultrygeist, Night of The Chicken Dead tallied $12,000 for a single-screen showing at Manhattan’s Village East Theater. This is the highest per-screen haul of any film playing anywhere this weekend, they say. A press release says that Poultrygeist was called “a masterpiece!” by an Ain√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢t It Cool poster, and that CHUD’s Jason Pollock has called it “the best film Troma’s ever produced, without a doubt.√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ǭù
I’m mentioning this because the Troma people have never made anything I’ve wanted to see — ever — and in part because I wrote a treatment and half of a script in the mid ’80s called Killer Chickens. The word “half” in the last sentence is one reason why I’m a columnist and not a screenwriter.

We’ve all felt that peculiar irritation that kicks in when news of yet another “special collector’s edition” DVD of a classic film (single or double-disc…same difference) is announced. I say to myself “no, I won’t fall for it…screw those greedy DVD distributors trying to milk me for the second or third or fourth time.” Then I read that the new release will provide a “restored” and presumably improved transfer, and I’m hooked. Even if the transfer on a DVD of the film that I own looks perfectly fine. Because I’m a sucker for any upgrade.

Especially, I should add, if the film is in black and white. I’m a total fool for that luscious silvery sheen. My biggest orgasm in this regard is that Columbia/TriStar Home Video release of Anatomy of a Murder, which came out eight years ago.
Lionsgate’s new two-disc DVD release of High Noon has “what appears to be a reliable report, though unconfirmed, that it will include a new transfer of the film, restored by Paramount,” according to a posting on the Amazon page by DVD aficionado “Sanpete.” He writes that “lack of agreement between Paramount and Lionsgate prevented the earlier release of a restored transfer,” adding that “the current and older DVDs are only of average video and audio quality.”
I haven’t verified the new transfer assertion, but knowing deep down that I’ll probably spring for this disc when it comes out on 6.10 is a real bee in my bonnet. To my fairly sophisticated eyes, there’s nothing the least bit problematic about the version that I presently own, a “collector’s edition” mastered by Republic Home Video and issued in ’02. But I know myself and what’ll happen when I see this on the shelf. I’m a junkie without brakes or discipline.

Taking advantage of last weekend’s first-anywhere screenings of Sex and the City (New Line/HBO, 5.30) for junket press here in Manhattan, N.Y. Daily News feature writer Colin Bertram blew off the embargo and ran a spoiler-free valentine review in today’s edition.

I talked this morning to a journalist who saw it here also, and if you merge his reactions with Bertram’s I’m getting the sense that it’s not too bad. Lacking the constitution of a stand-alone movie, perhaps, but enjoyable enough on its own terms.
The dividing line (no surprise) is that fans of the HBO series are liking it more than non-fans. A quick read-through of Bertram’s piece tells you he’s definitely among the former. But if you read it twice and pick it apart line by line, he really doesn’t say very much.
He concedes that the film suffers from “initial awkwardness” but this “quickly disappears” as director-writer Michael Patrick King and his leading ladies — Sara Jessica Parker‘s Carrie Bradshaw, Kim Cattrall‘s Samantha Jones, Cynthia Nixon‘s Miranda Hobbes and Kristin Davis‘s Charlotte York Goldenblatt — “hit their stiletto-shod strides.”
“The four women turn in sensitive, solid performances,” he writes, although Parker and Nixon “shine particularly bright.” Shouldn’t that be “brightly”?
The real joy of SATC: The Movie “lies in the return of all those things that mass television syndication has stripped from the series in the intervening years,” Bertram declares. “The ‘Oh, my God, they did not just do that!’ moments, the nudity, the swearing, the unabashed love of human frailty and downright wackiness. Snappy, verbal sparring punctuates the laughs and more than a few shed-a-tear moments.”

My source’s comments were put more plainly. “No one dies…that rumor about Mr. Big or someone else dying in it is bunk,” he says. The movie “is basically the same as the show. It’s like four episodes squished into one thing. It kind of works if you liked the show, but I was never a real fan of it.” Women journalists at the junket “liked it,” he allows, “and…you know, people who like the show are pretty okay with the movie.”
I asked if there was any thematic deepening or movie-ish story tension or a sense of completeness — anything that makes it feel less like a continuation of the series and more like a sturdy enterprise with its own bones. My friend hesitated. “Uhmm…I don’t know,” he finally said. “It’s very up and down. It doesn’t really resolve things [in the way that strong films do]. There’s lots of funny material. It basically undoes a lot of stuff, and then puts it all back together. Clearly they had a lot of ideas and [the film shows] they could have gone back and done another season of the show.”
What about nudity? “There’s lots of that, but not from Sara Jessica Parker. Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon do most of the nudity. Nixon has a Lust Caution moment.”
Fox 411’s Roger Freidman saw the film the night before last, and says in today’s column that “it’s going to be a very, very big hit. Women wept, cheered. It’s the Neiman Marcus catalog on steroids.”
“Is it really possible to revisit the past?,” Bertram begins, paraphrasing the movie’s voice-over. “And will old friends and situations still be as dear to our hearts? Thankfully, the answer to that Carrie-esque musing when applied to the big-screen version of Sex and the City is a resounding yes.”
In short, the Sex characters and that robust top-of-the-world vibe they carry around is still warming Bertram’s heart. Great…but what does that mean for the rest of us? What could it mean? The answer is provided between the lines, but the general drift I’m getting is that the film not particularly painful for non-invested types.

Iron Man did $37.9 million yesterday, and is on track to finish Sunday night with $93.9 million. (This presumably includes Thursday night’s business.) Made of Honor is projecting $15.5 million for the weekend, and Baby Mama will come in third with $10.3 million — off 41%, a not-great-but-decent hold. Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo will be fourth with $6.4 million. And Forgetting Sarah Marshall with come in fifth with $6.2 million.

Forbidden Kingdom will make almost $4 million. Nim’s Island will be seventh with $2.7 million. Prom Night will finish with $2.4 million, 21 will make $2 million even. 88 Minutes, the Al Pacino embarassment, will make $1.7 million, but it’ll also have a cume of $15.4 million by Sunday night. There are many superior indie films out there that would be delighted to make one third of that amount, all in.

I don’t know what this is about or what the shot is, but Ted Kotcheff‘s First Blood (’82) is going to have a special nationwide one-time-showing at dozens of first-rate theatres on Wednesday, May 15th. Following the film, the alternate “Rambo dies” ending will be shown plus an “exclusive, never-before-seen interview with Sylvester Stallone on First Blood, the new film and the iconic Rambo series,” etc.

In other words, people are being asked to pay theatre-ticket prices to see a great movie plus some extras that they can see just as easily on the First Blood special edition DVD. I personally love the idea of re-watching the best Rambo film ever in a tip-top theatre with a good crowd, but at the same time I’m scratching my head. I’m fanatical enough to pop for a ticket but who else will? Under 25s who saw the last Rambo (the one that came out last January) who’ve never seen the first one and can’t be bothered to rent it…right? Who else?

The totally expected deal for Guillermo del Toro to direct The Hobbit in two parts has been signed, sealed and delivered. It’ll be a New Line-MGM joint production that will eat up four years of Del Toro’s life. Obviously a good gig, obviously an excellent choice, and congratulations to a beautiful human being on a very fine score.

But if you ask me there’s a downside to this deal. It means that Del Toro, a truly gifted director with the power to be a 21st Century Luis Bunuel or better, won’t be making any adult-market, real-world-grappling, artistic-growth movies in the vein of Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone for a long, lonnng time. He’ll be Hobbit-ing until at least 2012 and probably into 2013.
Del Toro’s will be moving to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Peter Jackson — arrghhh! — and his Wingnut and WETA production teams. The two films will be directed back to back, with the sequel which will deal with the 60-year period between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The marketing team for Speed Racer (Warner Bros. 5.9) is facing an ironic challenge. It’s basically “a kid’s movie,” as a critic friend recently confided, but the tracking, according to Fantasy Moguls’ Steve Mason, says the biggest interest levels so far are with the over-25 crowd who grew up on the animated versions in various media.

There is therefore “every reason for Warner Bros to be concerned” about the Wachowski Brothers latest, Mason writes. Total awareness is at 77%, but un-aided awareness is sitting at a mere 5% and definite interest is only at 29% — certainly an issue of concern. As Mason points out, even 20th Century Fox’s What Happens in Vegas, another 5.9 opener that feels to me like a whatever thing, is doing better on this score.
Kids never show up on tracking very strongly, of course, but Speed Racer is a very costly event picture that’s kicking off the summer season. It needs to generate a lot more interest among younger males over the next two weeks or the crestfall factor will be huge.
I for one am fascinated by the visual textures in this thing and therefore consider it a must-see, but I don’t count very much in the big scheme. The target audience is going to pay to see this thing or not based on the ads and trailers alone…or not.

The closer Barack Obama gets to the Democratic nomination, the uglier this thing is getting in racial terms. That Republican-funded North Carolina TV attack ad I saw today that tried to “Willie Horton” Obama was nothing sort of breathtaking. When was the last time in which the racial-attitude cards from the hunkered-down regions were laid more plainly on the kitchen table? The early to mid ’60s? As one MSNBC commentator said today, there are people out there who “made up their minds about [voting for an African-American candidate] back in 1957.”

Illustration by Tom Tomorrow

Is there any way to interpret Hillary Clinton‘s strategy but to say she’s clearly playing this situation (along with her ace-in-the-hole gender loyalty card) for all it’s worth? At the end of the day the ugly-duck reality is that Obama, who has to despise his opponent with every fibre of his being, may have no choice but to offer Clinton the Vice-Presidential spot. You don’t have to like or even respect someone to cut a deal with them. But would she take it?

A guy who knows a guy who’s on the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull team has passed along #2’s impressions of the finished film. I’m not 100% comfortable running them, given the obvious fact that #2 is a coward, cowering like an eight year-old girl behind the creased khaki slacks of #1, as well as a shill and a spinner, but here goes anyway:

Bondage & discipline: Cate Blanchett‘s Agent Spalko

“I felt compelled to write, having just read Anne Thompson‘s 4.17 Variety column which states that ‘the advance buzz on Indy 4 is getting damaging enough that Lucas and Spielberg may want to reconsider the current strategy of waiting until May 18 to show the film…that’s a long way off.’
Composer John Williams, Guy #2 says, was initially correct on the Indy 4 running time of 140 minutes, but the film “underwent belt tightening and has been receiving customary tweaking for its final mix.”
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull “is the best of the Indy sequels,” he declares. “Steven Spielberg‘s helming puts the imitators (The Mummy, National Treasure) to shame. There are many breakneck set pieces, with a protracted jungle chase being particularly memorable. As well as being evocative of the truck chase from the first movie.
Harrison Ford, he claims, “gives his best performance in the role, not only physically belying his age but layering in welcome poignancy. More than before, audiences will be rooting for Indy. Shia LaBeouf makes essential contributions. Chemistry between he and Ford is palpable, yielding some nice character comedy.
“Jones is particularly beleaguered throughout the adventure, making his predicaments all the more entertaining.
“The film has the strongest supporting cast of the sequels. They all raise the bar. Ray Winstone amuses and fascinates, but the strongest impression is left by Cate Blanchett‘s Agent Spalko, a characterization that achieves instant cult status.
“Hopefully, the surprises in this film can continue to be guarded. Eventually, these spoilers will get out, but it would be shameful for reviewers and bloggers to reveal an ending that any longtime diehard fan of the films could only dream about. Expect a particularly resounding reaction in the theater.
“Kudos to screenwriter David Koepp for pulling all this together on the page. This will easily be the biggest hit of the year.”

Despite Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull composer John Williams having said in that recent You Tube video clip that the film is “seven reels long [with] each reel being 20 minutes,” and therefore 140 minutes give or take…it’s not. Producer Frank Marshall called Paramount publicity today to inform that the film is maybe a tad over two hours including credits. So Williams was blah-blahing…whatever.

Speaking of Peter Falk, the following is a true story, witnessed first-hand by myself: It was ’83 or ’84, and I was in a quality hardware store on a Saturday afternoon somewhere in deep Hollywood. And suddenly I heard laughing and joshing coming from two or three guys standing around the checkout counter, which was just out of sight. Then I heard some guy say, “Heyyy…detective!” with the other guys laughing like he’d just said something truly brilliant and inspired.

And then I saw Falk coming down the aisle next to mine, angry and exasperated at being ribbed in such a coarse and lunkheaded way. He said “Jesus!” at least twice, although it may have been three times. He said it with a mixture of agony and disbelief, as if to say “these assholes are unbelievable…really fucking unbelievable” And the chowderheads who were Colombo-ing him didn’t give a damn how rude they were being or how stupid they were making themselves look. All they knew or cared about was that Detective Colombo was in their midst and they were going to have fun with this while it lasted. They were like children having fun heckling a gorilla in a cage at a zoo.
There are guys like this all over, in every country. But the guys like this who live in Pennsylvania will probably be voting for Clinton or McCain.