Ten years ago James Cameron‘s Titanic had been playing for one week (it opened on 12.14.97) and had made $28 million and change. Nobody knew how far it would go or how deeply it would connect, but I suspected — as did a lot of movie journalists and industry types who were invited to the first wave of screenings — it would be huge.
I had first seen it on a rainy afternoon in late November on the Paramount lot. I took Matt Drudge as my guest, and I remember feeling shaken and moved as I walked back to my car in the early evening. I didn’t share my feelings with Drudge nor he with me, but we were both a little beside ourselves. I knew in my heart of hearts that 93% of Titanic was only good (or pretty good), but that the last 15 minutes were heartbreaking, and that the final sequence was a levitation.
Nobody will ever feel the Titanic vibe the way a lot of us did back then. It was ruined, in a sense, by the worldwide mob loving it so much. The more popular it became with K-Mart Nation, in fact, the less affection I was able to feel for it. Or express my feelings for with any freedom. I feel as if I’ve been living in a Titanic gulag every since. The hip backlash kicked in a month or two later, and now it’s hard to find anyone in the intelligentsia who will admit to even liking it. It’s a deeply despised film.
And yet the negative feelings about it — almost all of this coming from know-it-all film snobs — over the last ten years have convinced me with more certainty than almost anything else that I’ve seen and felt over my 27 years of writing about movies that the smarty-pants crowd is sometimes deeply full of it.
Titanic didn’t make more money than any film in the history of motion pictures because it provided cheap emotional junk-food highs to teenage girls swooning over Leonardo DiCaprio. It did this because it touched people (including my cranky, emotionally shut-off father) in a way that, like it or not, was extremely primal and shattering. I’m not going to explain the how and why of this. Everyone has their views pretty well sorted out about this film. I’m just saying that when a film that connects this strongly and deeply it has done something right.
At the very least Titanic provided a payoff in such a way that the first 90%, some of which was merely sufficient and some of which was admittedly mediocre, served as a mere preamble or build-up. The most affecting films always do something like this. They simmer and marinate and take their time with the various ingredients and themes, and then along comes the last 15 minutes and it all starts paying off like a slot machine.
Obviously you have to watch these films to the end or the whole effect collapses.
I was friendly and talking occasionally with Owen Wilson back then, and I told him over and over how great the finale was. I took him to a Titanic screening about a week or so before it opened, in the very same Paramount lot theatre. He hated it. He left the theatre without saying a word less than 30 minutes in.
“The filmmaking is so good and so well-polished that it crowds out the humanity….there’s no air…and the Vanessa Redgrave thing at the end is the writer-giving you a kind of [‘this is what it all meant’ wrap-up] thing that you feel you ought to have as a moviegoer. ..it’s kind of condescending, in a way, and I didn’t like that at all.” — Boston Globe critic Wesley Morris on Joe Wright‘s Atonement.
There’s no getting around the fact that a certain “hmmm” factor is clouding Atonement‘s Best Picture prospects. The British romantic period drama is one of my definite ’07 favorites and a very likely Best Picture nominee, but four times today I’ve read or listened to naysaying opinion — a pan from A.O. Scott‘s pan in today’s N.Y. Times, another one from New Yorker critic Anthony Lane, a mezzo-mezzo video report from the Boston Globe‘s Morris and Ty Burr, and a report from a friend who attended last night’s L.A. Atonement premiere and says some viewers felt it didn’t quite nail it or ring the bell that it should have.
“Really?” I replied when I heard the post-screening report this morning. “That was a fairly consistent view, you’d say?” Yeah, that’s what I was hearing from some people, my friend said.
This has brought me to the brink of concluding that Atonement (which looked like a Best Picture front-runner after Toronto but began to do a fade in early November and then came inching back a week or two ago) is starting to look like a limping thoroughbred. Maybe. It’s not Charlie Wilson’s War by a long shot, but at best it’s now even-steven with No Country for Old Men, and it may start to sink even further if at least one critics group doesn’t stand up and give it a Best Picture prize within the next three days.
Atonement getting dinged by this and that critic doesn’t mean that much, but No Country hasn’t gotten dinged at all — the respect is growing and growing among all interest and age groups — and I think that means something. There’s always a vague corollary between critics and Academy/industry opinion when it comes to high-pedigree year-end films. I don’t want be an alarmist, but if Atonement doesn’t get a Best Picture trophy from the L.A. or Boston critics on Sunday or from the New York Film Critics Circle the following day — and particularly if No Country sweeps these three — it’ll be in real trouble.
In other words, the Best Picture race may well be decided by Monday afternoon. Did I just write that? Yes, I did. It may be in that the dye will be cast on a certain level. (Note: I’ve always preferred the metaphor of a spoonful of dye being dropped into a well or a bucket of water than a pair of dice being flung across a craps table.) I’m not saying that the Atonement shortfall (if and when it happens on Sunday and Monday) will decide things absolutely — obviously it won’t — but it will nonetheless cast a certain light and define the situation in a way that will make the pro-Atonement argument a little harder to sell.
Here are the first, second and third WGA “Speechless” video spots, conceived by George Hickenlooper and Alan Sereboff. WGAW chief Patrick Verrone has given Deadline Hollywood Daily‘s Nikki Finke an exclusive internet window as a reward for her ceaseless pro-WGA strike coverage.
Laura Linney, Sean Penn, Harvey Keitel, Holly Hunter
Three new videos will show daily throughout Thanksgiving weekend — morning, afternoon and evening. The ones up so far — the first with Holly Hunter, the second with Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss and third with Sean Penn — are pro-level efforts with very high-quality black-and-white resolution.
Hickenlooper is slated to shoot a spot with Woody Allen soon. For purely selfish reasons let’s hope it goes up before the strike is settled. (I’m predicting a resolution by mid-December, or certainly by Xmas.)
“Speechless” #1: (cast) Hunter, Mahadeo Shivraj, Allyson Sereboff, Ashley Smith, George Hickenlooper. (creative team) Hickenlooper, Alan Sereboff, Kamala Lopez, Jill Kushner. (technical team) Joel Marshall, Justin Shumaker, Anthony Marinelli, Clint Bennett.
“Speechless” #2 : (cast) Benjamin, Prentiss. (creative team) George Hickenlooper, Alan Sereboff, Kamala Lopez, Jill Kushner. (technical team) Joel Marshall, Justin Shumaker, Anthony Marinelli, Clint Bennett.
“Speechless” #3: (cast) Sean Penn. (creative team) George Hickenlooper, Alan Sereboff, Kamala Lopez, Jill Kushner. (technical team) Joel Marshall, Justin Shumaker, Anthony Marinelli, Clint Bennett.
(In honor of the the limited opening of Todd Haynes‘ I’m Not There, a repeat run of my 9.11 Toronto Film Festival review): Anyone who says this isn’t an essential film to see — not just for the portions that “deliver” but the ones that are radiantly, eye-poppingly alive — is operating without the DNA of a true movie lover…it’s that simple. This is a great poetry-weave film, a reanimation of ’60s spiritual-cultural energy like no feature I can recall, and a magnificent head-tease that is always arresting, even during the fumble portions.
It’s not all-the-way fantastic (20% or 30% drags and meanders and sometimes confounds), but I’m saying for sure that you can’t not see it. You can blow it off when it opens theatrically and wait for the DVD, sure, but this will probably incur the suspicion of trusted friends and colleagues. Honestly, do you want that?
I knew Haynes had taken a huge bite going in with this ultra-ambitious patchwork exploration of Bob Dylan‘s life and legend (spanning from the late ’50s to late ’60s), in which he uses six different actors (Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw) along with numerous styles and palettes to convey various aspects.
What I didn’t anticipate was his impressive use of montage that ties together the various strands and makes a kind of harmony out of what could have been serious chaos. Nor did I expect the magnificent detail in each frame, the always-brisk pacing and the sheer “fun” aspect.
An example of the latter is a Dylan-frolics-with-the-Beatles-in-”64 moment that’s absolutely hilarious in a kind of of Jacques Tati-meets-Charlie Chaplin-meets A Hard Day’s Night sense.
Did I mention this is Haynes’ absolute best film? That he’s pulled off one of the most exciting growth-surge displays of any directorial career, ever?
I’d heard from a friend at Telluride that I’m Not There is “an inside joke for Dylanologists” and okay, yeah, it is that…but for anyone open to full-crank cinematic stimulation it’s one of the most inventive and dazzling head-trip films I’ve ever seen. I went into it this afternoon with some trepidation, and then realized within minutes it would be much, much better than anticipated. It doesn’t really have much of a “thread” (by the classic definition of that term) and it loses tension from time to time, but when it’s “on” and rolling full steam it’s a wild-ass thing to behold.
On top of which it has to be seen for Blanchett’s knockout performance (captured entirely in black and white) as the Highway 61 Revisited/Blonde on Blonde Dylan. Forget Cate’s game performance in the catastrophic Elizabeth: The Golden Age and absolutely count on the fact that she’ll be nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the Haynes pic. Dylan fans are going to be blown away, but I can see others digging it as one of the best woman-playing-a man tour de forces ever put to film.
On one level her inhabiting of the ’65-to-’66 Dylan doesn’t feel entirely sincere — it’s a piece of performance art that feels a wee bit put-onny — but another level it’s psychologically “real” and shattering. For me Blanchett delivers as much of a knockout punch as Marion Cotillard‘s Edith Piaf does in La Vie en Rose or Jamie Foxx did in Ray, and perhaps even more so.
I’m speaking about much more than a physical capturing — the frizzy big hair, black shades, tight pants, Beatle boots and whatnot — or Blanchett’s spot-on imitation of his mumbly voice and guarded manner. I’m talking mainly about a convincing communion with that Dylan-esque otherness…that sense of odd, connected whimsy and all-knowing, tapped-in power that indicated all kinds of fascinating currents in the real guy.
Yes, the Gere-in-the-country portion (a chapter evoking the reclusive John Wesley Harding/New Morning era) slows things down a bit, but even this section has its odd carnival-like charms. I’ll admit I was feeling a wee bit anxious and impatient, but Haynes saves it somewhat by cutting back to the Blanchett, Ledger, Bale and Whishaw portions now and then and thereby creating a welcome whatever-ness that at least staves off boredom.
Will those who’ve never listened to a Dylan album or seen Martin Scorsese‘s masterful No Direction Home be able to get into this film? Probably not, but the Dylan-deprived aren’t going to see it in the first place so the question is moot.
I felt alive and tingly as I walked down Bloor Street after seeing this film early this afternoon. I was saying to myself “this is what it feels like to feel charged up by a movie, by transcendent thought, by ravishing lyrics…by the whole magilla.”
Last Thursday’s Washington Post poll convinced a lot of people that Hilary Clinton is probably going to win against Rudy Giuliani. The Post‘s hypothetical matchup between Clinton and Giuliani showed Hilary leading Rudy 51 percent to 43 percent. A legislator was recently quoted by Peggy Noonan as saying that “it’s all over but the voting.”
The problem for me (for many lefties) is that Hilary Clinton will almost certainly polarize more ferociously and draw more hate (and God knows what else) than Barack Obama would. Hilary might win, but Obama would be a better candidate, a better uniter and a better consensus-builder. We all know that what a rancid, butt-ugly general campaign it will likely be next summer and fall if it comes down to Hilary vs. Rudy. And I shudder to think what the right-wing crazies will throw at Clinton once she (presumably) lands the nomination.
Two worrisome thoughts, one voiced by elrapierwit on Kevin Drum‘s Washington Monthly blog (i.e. “Political Animal”) and a reader quoted on Andrew Sullivan‘s Atlantic Monthly blog.
The Sullivan reader addresses the Obama-regarded-by-righties factor: “Those who say the right will cook up a narrative about Obama just as poisonous and effective as the right’s Hillary narrative are wrong. Poisonous, yes; effective, no.
“I just had dinner with my father, and for several years I’ve avoided talking politics with him; he’s a highly intelligent man but he became a neocon 30 years ago and then, to my horror, a regular Limbaugh listener.
“He belittles every candidate I’ve liked by spitting out the Limbaugh-dictated putdown or some close variant thereof. Anyways, we were forced to talk politics because a friend noticed us and came up to our table and mentioned I am an Obama supporter. I was expecting some anti-Obama venom from my father, but it did not happen.
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Rudolph Giuliani
“Predictably, my father’s going to vote for Giuliani. But he agreed with that Peggy Noonan column from a few days ago saying that Obama is genuine and thoughtful, and he thinks he’s the only Democrat who can avoid being effectively savaged by Limbaugh and the talk-radio world because he thinks their insults don’t stick to Obama the way they stick to Hillary.
“Unscientific, I admit. But when you realize what a hold Limbaugh has over his dittoheads, it’s worth noting that they agree with every word he says about Hillary but they can’t help liking Obama. The reason, I think, is simple. There is an element of truth in the talk radio right’s portrayal of Hillary as a smug, self-righteous, phoney. Liberals and Hillary admirers hate to hear that, but it’s true — an element of truth obscured by a whole mountain of b.s.
“There is not, however, even a grain of truth in the Hannity/Limbaugh Obama slurs to date. The Obama/Madrassah slur won’t stick because it is not only not true; it’s not even ‘truthy.’ Obama is obviously a humanist in the best sense of that word and thus the polar opposite of a Madrassa fanatic. Nor will the slur stick about Obama being a champion of Afrocentric black power because he attends a church whose minister has those leanings.
“To the contrary, it seems extremely likely to me that if Obama steals the nomination from Hillary, a huge cross-section of the country will fall in love with him as a person, either right then and there or after his acceptance speech. That cross section will include conservatives who won’t vote for him but will still like him as a human being. Even those who think this scenario is not highly probable would acknowledge it is more than possible.
“And if they are being honest with themselves, they have to admit that It is simply not possible for Hillary to generate that kind of reaction. She may well win, but even if she does, most of the 49 or 48% who vote for her opponent will walk into the voting booth detesting her and will promptly come to detest her even more after her triumphal inaugural speech and ceremonies. If Obama can pull off a victory, there will be an entirely different vibe.”
El Rapier‘s comment: “[The] assertion that Hillary [has been] ‘made polarizing’ by the right is completely specious. No one can make an individual polarizing. Hillary is polarizing because she confuses power with leadership and is unable to create and build consensus within a diverse group of thinkers. That is why she is polarizing. She tries to drive issues without building a winning coalition.
“All you have to do is look at how she managed the proposed Clinton healthcare plan in the ’90s. It was a ‘my way or no way’ because she thought she had the power as First Lady to drive the agenda on her own terms without taking into consideration what the needs of others were.
“No one told Hillary to divide 500 people into 34 committees and demand they not say anything outside of the meeting nor take notes in the meeting. The right did not make her do that.
“No one told Hillary to take the fight to the Supreme Court on her terms for secrecy. Hillary conceived all of that on her own and she believed she had the power to force her ideas and agenda on others. The right did not make her do that. She simply lacked leadership and the ability to persuade others to the validity of her proposals.
“Hillary is far more polarizing than any other politician during her political era. She in fact is going to be a reason for all the old partisian bickering and long standing grudges to come back to the fore meaning nothing will be accomplished.
“Hillary has told people during her campaign for the Presidency that those not on board with her now will pay when she is the nominee. A hallmark trait of a vengeful politician not a leader.
“So nothing has changed. She is a fighter and a brawler. She is not a leader.”
The Heartbreak Kid was never tracking through the roof, but “it looked like $20 million” or something close to that. Nikki Finke reported late yesterday afternoon that this projection had been scaled back to $15 to $16 million, and now even that figure hasn’t been met. The Farrelly Brothers/Ben Stiller film did about $4,585,000 yesterday and is projected to earn $14,434,000.
That’s a bit of a stunner. Obviously people detected something in the ads and trailers that turned them off to some degree, but what? Marital discord, betrayal, embarassment, humiliation….something. I suspected that the film’s mysogynist element might hurt business after a few days in theatres, but I didn’t see a first-weekend shortfall. The reviews were pretty bad (some were downright hateful), but this is a very funny film at times. Anyway, a big downer for Peter and Bobby Farrelly (remember those Something About Mary days when they were the kings of screen comedy and Judd Apatow wasn’t?) and not such a good thing either for Ben Stiller. It’s a tough world out there.
Good new for Michael Clayton, though. Tony Gilroy and George Clooney‘s corporate thriller opened in 15 theatres, pulled down about a little $12,000 per screen yesterday and is looking at a $44,000 average over three days and a cume of $688,000.
Wes Anderson‘s The Darjeeling Limited expanded to 19 locations and will have earned $29,000 a print by Sunday night.
The Kingdom will be #2 with $9,471,000, off 45% last weekend’s opener. It’s not going anywhere. What does Jamie Foxx‘s quote have to do with the price of rice? Nothing, but the Kingdom shortall will almost certainly be affected by this.
The fifth-place 3:10 to Yuma will end up with $3,190,000. The cume will be about $48,700,000 by Sunday night. It will obviously top $50 million before it’s done, which is pretty good for a so-so western.
Into The Wild expanded from 102 to 135 theatres, and will take in about $9000 a print for a $1.2 million weekend cume.
The Assassination of Jesse James expanded to 61 theatres and will pull in about $6700 a print for a cume of $409,000. It’s pretty much dead. I did everything I could to spread the word about Andrew Dominik‘s superb film, but if the dogs don’t want to eat the dog food you can’t stop them. (That’s a Samuel Goldwyn-ism mixed in with something else.) I pleaded with HE readers to drag their reluctant friends to this film, but very few obviously did. The moviegoers of this country are like unwashed junkies, walking around looking for quick-fix, feel-good movie highs. They don’t read reviews, they don’t care about ’70s movies, they have no depth or patience with anything, and too many of them actually enjoy hanging around Disneyland pod-people environments like the Grove, which are being replicated in every city and country around the globe. It’s pathetic, and on top of everything else it’s going to be Hilary Clinton vs. Rudy Giuliani in the Presidential race.
Anyone who says Todd Haynes‘ I’m Not There (Weinstein Co., 11.21) isn’t an essential film to see — not just for the portions that “deliver” but the ones that are radiantly, eye-poppingly alive — is operating without the DNA of a true movie lover…it’s that simple. This is a great poetry-weave film, a reanimation of ’60s spiritual-cultural energy like no feature I can recall, and a magnificent head-tease that is always arresting, even during the fumble portions.
Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There
It’s not all-the-way fantastic (20% or 30% drags and meanders and sometimes confounds), but I’m saying for sure that you can’t not see it. You can blow it off when it opens theatrically and wait for the DVD, sure, but this will probably incur the suspicion of trusted friends and colleagues. Honestly, do you want that?
I knew Haynes had taken a huge bite going in with this ultra-ambitious patchwork exploration of Bob Dylan‘s life and legend (spanning from the late ’50s to late ’60s), in which he uses six different actors (Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw) along with numerous styles and palettes to convey various aspects of this unique life and legend.
What I didn’t anticipate was his impressive use of montage that ties together the various strands and makes a kind of harmony out of what could have been serious chaos. Nor did I expect the magnificent detail in each frame, the always-brisk pacing and the sheer “fun” aspect.
An example of the latter is a Dylan-frolics-with-the-Beatles-in-”64 moment that’s absolutely hilarious in a kind of of Jacques Tati-meets-Charlie Chaplin-meets A Hard Day’s Night sense.
Did I mention this is Haynes’ absolute best film? That he’s pulled off one of the most exciting growth-surge displays of any directorial career, ever?
I’d heard from a friend at Telluride that I’m Not There is “an inside joke for Dylanologists” and okay, yeah, it is that…but for anyone open to full-crank cinematic stimulation it’s one of the most inventive and dazzling head-trip films I’ve ever seen. I went into it this afternoon with some trepidation, and then realized within minutes it would be much, much better than anticipated. It doesn’t really have much of a “thread” (by the classic definition of that term) and it loses tension from time to time, but when it’s “on” and rolling full steam it’s a wild-ass thing to behold.
On top of which it has to be seen for Blanchett’s knockout performance (captured entirely in black and white) as the Highway 61 Revisited/Blonde on Blonde Dylan. Forget Cate’s game performance in the catastrophic Elizabeth: The Golden Age and absolutely count on the fact that she’ll be nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the Haynes pic. Dylan fans are going to be blown away, but I can see others digging it as one of the best woman-playing-a man tour de forces ever put to film.
On one level her inhabiting of the ’65-to-’66 Dylan doesn’t feel entirely sincere — it’s a piece of performance art that feels a wee bit put-onny — but another level it’s psychologically “real” and shattering. For me Blanchett delivers as much of a knockout punch as Marion Cotillard‘s Edith Piaf does in La Vie en Rose or Jamie Foxx did in Ray, and perhaps even more so.
I’m speaking about much more than a physical capturing — the frizzy big hair, black shades, tight pants, Beatle boots and whatnot — or Blanchett’s spot-on imitation of his mumbly voice and guarded manner. I’m talking mainly about a convincing communion with that Dylan-esque otherness…that sense of odd, connected whimsy and all-knowing, tapped-in power that indicated all kinds of fascinating currents in the actual guy.
Yes, the Gere-in-the-country portion (a chapter evoking the reclusive John Wesley Harding/New Morning era) slows things down a bit, but even this section has its odd carnival-like charms. I’ll admit I was feeling a wee bit anxious and impatient, but Haynes saves it somewhat by cutting back to the Blanchett, Ledger, Bale and Whishaw portions now and then and thereby creating a welcome whatever-ness that at least staves off boredom.
Will those who’ve never listened to a Dylan album or seen Martin Scorsese‘s masterful No Direction Home be able to get into this film? Probably not, but the Dylan-deprived aren’t going to see it in the first place so the question is moot.
I felt alive and tingly as I walked down Bloor Street after seeing this film early this afternoon. I was saying to myself “this is what it feels like to feel charged up by a movie, by transcendent thought, by ravishing lyrics…by the whole magilla.”
I finally saw Alan Ball‘s Nothing Is Private this afternoon, and there’s no question about it being smart, thoughtful and high-grade. It’s not 100% flawless (I had two or three speed-bump issues) but it’s certainly a sturdy, complex character drama that’s 100% deserving of respect. It’s obviously one of the most original, daring films about adolescent sexuality ever delivered by a quasi-mainstreamer. It’s also a sharp look at racism (and not just the American-bred kind) and a sobering portrait of the rifts and tensions between American and Middle-Eastern mindsets.
Nothing Is Private director-writer Alan Ball prior to today’s Cineplex Odeon public screening — 9.10.07, 1:40 pm
And all of this out of a fairly simple period drama, set in a Houston suburb around the time of the Gulf War, about a 13 year-old half-Lebanese, half-Irish girl named Jasira (Summer Bishil), and what happens as she gradually decides, under the fiercely oppressive watch of her Lebanese dad (Peter Macdissi), to explore/ indulge her budding sexuality with two older guys — a randy but nice-enough African-American high schooler in his mid teens (Eugene Jones) and a sleazy neighborhood dad in his early 40s (Aaron Eckhart).
It’s based on Alicia Erian‘s “Towelhead,” a respected novel that was published three or four years ago.
The word around the festival is that Nothing Is Private is a problem movie because of the sexual stuff, and the latter relationship in particular. (“It’s too shocking and disturbing to get a strong release…nobody serious will dare touch it,” one guy opined earlier today). But it’s not exploitation…not even a little bit. It’s a smartly written thing with all kinds of intrigues, balances and counterweights built into each character, and an earnest residue of humanity seeping through at the finish.
Even Eckhart’s character, scumbag that he is, has tics and shadings that make him more than just a thoughtless statutory rapist. Even Jasira’s dad, a dictatorial racist thug of the first order, comes off as somewhat sympathetic at times. And each one is his own way cares for Jasira. And despite the dark sexual currents (and as odd as this sound), it’s also a fairly amusing film. Really. It’s really boils down to being a “neighborhood folks and their quirks” movie that…okay, is a little bit icky in two or three scenes but isn’t nearly as icky in a general sense as you might expect.
Summer Bushill in Alan Ball’s Nothing Is Private
Ball is careful not to fetishize Bushill’s Jasira character in any way, shape or form. She’s naked in a few scenes (doing the deed, getting pube-shaved, etc.) but next to nothing is “shown.” Bishil was 17 or 18 when the film was shot (she just turned 19 last July), and Ball has been very, very careful about not including anything that might be construed as even a faint turn-on.
Her acting throughout the film is somewhere between fine and quite good for the most part, but she also has scenes here and there that feel underplayed and awkward. Plus she looks tiny as hell — she seems about as tall as a typical eight year-old — and that’s obviously discomforting, given the context.
And I wasn’t that big on Newton Thomas Sigel‘s cinematography, which is all shadowy and burnished and amber-lit. It seems affected. Surburban Houston neighborhoods are dull, flatly-lit places (I’m sorry to say I’ve visited them), and I don’t see the point of trying to make the film look like the Vito Corleone sequences in Gordon Willis‘s The Godfather, Part II.
There’s no distributor on board (as far as I know), but why isn’t there at least a bare-bones Nothing Is Private website? And why can’t I find any photos?
But this is a film that definitely deserves a better rap than it’s been getting so far. It’s Alan Ball-ish every step of the way, and for me that means highly observant, well-acted, piercing, occasionally trippy and respectful of human beings. There are two TIFF press and industry showings happening tomorrow, so we’ll see what happens.
I finally persuaded Phillip Scott Johnson, the enigmatic St. Louis-based creator of the widely admired movie-star montage called Women in Film, to give it up a little. I asked with two or three e-mails yesterday and he said very little, explaining toward the end that he doesn’t like talking about himself.
So I wrote back, “Oh, I get it….you’re looking to be the Silent Bob or Glenn Gould orCalvin Coolidge of internet YouTube maestros. The less you say, the more interesting you seem to certain people…right? I know that one. That works. It’s better than talking to everyone and being a blabbermouth, but you’re saying very, very little here. I mean, next to nothing.”
Nothing from Johnson yesterday but today he wrote back with the following:
“You nailed the thinking on not talking much. I’d rather be an enigma than a narcissist. I’m not as bad as I used to be though. Back in June when ‘Women In Art‘ was on fire I had no name, age, or location anywhere on the internet. I was completely anonymous. I was also completely insecure about being myself. A little success has eased those insecurities. I used to tell people [that] the more you know about me the less interesting I become.
“I’ve given two real interviews –one to ABC and one to the first blogger to figure out my name and location (i.e., a woman in Paris). Today I talked to ABC again. I believe they are going to feature Women In Film this Tuesday on a show called I-Caught. I gave them permission to use my real name this time. They briefly showed Women In Art on their first show two weeks ago but only called me Eggman.
“Nobody in St. Louis has spoken to me. So far, nobody here really knows who I am except friends and family. Only two of my co-workers even know I make videos. My boss doesn’t have a clue.
“I have been contacted by a lot of people all around the world but I generally either don’t respond or just say thank you. I’ve been contacted by television stations, print media, museums, film festivals, choreographers, universities… all sorts of people. Actually I was just contacted by CNN today and agreed to allow them to feature me on a show about user-generated internet content later this fall.
“My background: 40 years old, single, economics major with an MBA in finance. I work in corporate finance as a financial analyst/ database administrator. It’s boring, uncreative, and I generally don’t like it very much. I’ve been ‘artistic’ all my life. My mother is an artist. She does greeting cards, cartoons, and paints. I’ve dabbled in all sorts of things throughout my years — music, photography, art, videos — always as a hobby though. I actually used to make videos about 10 years ago with VHS technology and shared them with friends but it was hard to do given the limitations of the technology.
“While not a professionally trained artist or film-maker, I consider myself fairly knowledgeable on both topics. I’m a big fan of history in general including art and film history. I feel that Women In Art and Women In Film reflect my knowledge of both topics.
“Last summer I bought my first modern computer and finally got internet access at home. In September I logged onto YouTube for the first time and became immediately obsessed with it. I started trying to create my own content. I also did daily research on the industry of on-line videos — particularly YouTube.
“I’ve probably created about 40 different videos since then. Tried all sorts of different things — anything I found mildly interesting, [and] most of which are generally not that exciting and didn’t catch much buzz. I took most of them down once Women In Art got big back in May because I had art critics trying to analyze everything I did. Most were simple videos I made on a Saturday afternoon just to try new stuff out. Three months ago I had 10 subscribers to my YouTube channel. Today I have over 3000.
“I created both these videos with morphing software that cost less than $100. This was the first software I ever purchased and the first software I made any serious attempt at learning. Both took about two weeks each to make. I made Women In Art in early April and the “first” Women in Film in early May.
“After one month on YouTube Women In Art had 800 views. On the night of May 24th, I put a link up on digg.com in an attempt to get it noticed. This is a site where people post links to their favorite news stories and videos. I gave it the title “Amazing — Watch 500 Years of Art in 3 Minutes!!!” When I went to sleep it had 3 diggs and I thought “Oh well, I tried…better luck next time” When I woke up on May 25th it was on the front page top spot. It literally caught fire from there. In the next three weeks it was viewed 3 million times and was the most blogged video in the world.
“A couple of days after Women In Art got big I realized that I had to take down Women In Film. It was getting a lot of hits also and some of the comments pointed out the obvious — it was all caucasian. I knew in my heart it was racist by exclusion so I took it off the internet. I felt bad and didn’t want to be labeled a racist artist. I thought that version was gone for good until I realized a couple of weeks ago that one person had saved the original and left it on the internet. On top of that, it had gone viral. That was the version you saw first. I was upset and asked the guy to remove it. He completely understood my concerns and took it down.
“At first I was just going to shelve Women In Film and never re-release it. After a month I decided to redo it. But even after redoing it, I knew it would still be controversial. But then I thought ‘is controversy really such a bad thing? After all, I’m just reflecting what Hollywood put out there at various points in time.’ Yes, it could still have far more diversity in it. For example, I wanted to include Diahann Carroll and Michelle Yeoh but I just couldn’t find good enough high-resolution pictures of them. At some point, you have to decide that this is the list and this is what I’m going with.
“The modern stars where the hardest. There are so many good ones I left out and a few that I put in that perhaps don’t rise to the level of the other actresses (I won’t name names).
“Recently I bought some professional video software and want to try some new things with it. I don’t want to be labeled a one-trick pony so I want to move beyond the morph. Like I said before, I don’t want to get too caught up on looking back at what I’ve already done. It’s fun to be praised but it’s is also distracting and keeps me from focusing on creating new things. I need to use this as a stepping stone towards future success. We shall see. I figure the worst thing I could do is to not try at all. I’ve already come up with something that people seem to like. Surely, with some effort, there are other things out there waiting to be created.
“And that’s my story….”
I’d be lying through my teeth if I said everyone in the dysfunctional family known as New Line Cinema is sad or heartbroken over the departure of marketing president Russell Schwartz. A guy up to his neck in the mucky-muck called the news “great…a good thing for New Line.” A former New Line executive said everyone in the pipeline had known for months that Schwartz was a dead man, but when told of the actual axe-falling this afternoon he responded with an effusive “wow…it finally happened!”
Variety‘s Dave McNary wrote that Schwartz’s departure “did not come as a huge surprise…he’d been rumored to be on the way out since last year.”
Until Hairspray opened and made (as of last weekend )$78.9 million, New Line’s slate “had chalked up undistinguished box office results on such pics as Snakes on a Plane, The Nativity Story, The New World, Fracture, The Last Mimzy, Hoot, The Number 23, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny and Texas Chainsaw Mas– sacre: The Beginning,” McNary wrote. “During 2006, its top performing pic was Final Destination 3 with $55 million.”
Schwartz “is a very nice guy but he never had a clue about mass distribution,” said a marketing veteran. “He’s used to doing small art films…mass distribution is off his radar.”
The former New Line exec said “the marketing over there has been broken for a while, and the talk about Schwartz being on the way out has been happening for a good five or six months. They tried to hire a couple of people to replace [Schwartz] but they couldn’t make it work. There was talk at one time that he would partner up with someone and they’d both report to [New Line’s distribution/marketing president and COO] Rolf Mittweg, but no one wanted to come into that situation.
Rolf Mittweg, Russell Schwartz
“The company was split” over the Schwartz situation, the former exec said. “[Production president] Toby Emmerich and his camp wanted to get rid of him, and Rolf and his gang wanted to protect him.
“They had raised expectations so high for Hairspray — they really thought it was a $200 million movie — and its failure to get there may be a part of what happened today. The failure of The Last Mimzy didn’t help. There were people who thought Schwartz should go after the failure of Snakes on a Plane. There were some who said he should be out the door after Nativity went south. The fact that they finally stepped up and did this means they’ve probably got somebody in the wings to take his place.”
Schwartz won’t actually leave the building until the end of August, according to Variety, but where does this leave New Line’s Shoot ‘Em Up , which opens on 9.7? Probably unaffected. Whatever happens box-office-wise, it’ll come into the market- place boosted or depleted by certain Schwartz decisions about this and that. Schwartz, after all, will be out the door only seven days before it opens, according to Variety.
I spent most of this morning tapping out thoughts about that high-expectation prestige movie that I saw yesterday afternoon. I also did a phone interview with a real-life guy who’s portrayed by a major actor in this film. I searched around online for everything I could find out, and I mulled and mulled and mulled.
It’s too early to pull the trigger, but I’m going to be a coy tease and say at least this, which is that yesterday afternoon’s film is absolutely one of the ’07 Big Ones — a movie that will definitely be on the top of the list of Best Picture contenders. I felt I was swimming in holy water five minutes into it. It’s a supremely sad broken-heart movie, a gripping procedural and a monumental political film that never once steps onto overt political turf.
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