BTW, just a note about the start of the summer TV season.
Last week new episodes of Monk started airing on USA.
Tonight Sci-Fi is launching the new season of its shows Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica.
Category: Film and TV
Fantastic Four: Movie of the summer?!
A few weeks back, when the best film of the summer, Batman Begins, opened, I posted expressing my hope that its opening weekend might end the worst U.S. weekend box-office year-over-year recession in 20 years.
Well, it didn’t… nor did any of a slew of other highly anticipated movies, including War of the Worlds, Revenge of the Sith, Cinderella Man, Kingdom of Heaven, and The Longest Yard.
According to studio estimates, though, the 20-week recession was finally broken… and to add insult to injury, the film credit with the achievement is another comic-book super-hero movie that’s as terrible as Batman Begins is great: Fantastic Four. (Get the story.)
So, what’s the lesson here? Why did Fantastic Four — an ensemble film with no star power from a fledging director based on a venerable but only moderately popular comic book — outperform Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise, Batman, Star Wars, Russell Crowe and Tom Howard, and Adam Sandler?
More pressingly, why did a lousy, badly reviewed film with only two tepid action sequences, one-note characterization, awful casting, mostly bad acting, dreadful dialogue, trashy humor, and lame special effects outperform an array of films that outshine it on almost every level imaginable?
Was I wrong to conclude in my earlier post that the message of the box-office recession was that moviegoers want better movies? Is the lesson here that quality doesn’t matter after all? That Marvel fans are a more reliable (or more forgiving) market than DC fans?
First of all, a plug: Jimmy and I will be discussing this and other movie-related topics today on Catholic Answers Live.
Second, a little perspective:
- Fantastic Four’s opening domestic take of $56M is stronger than most of those other films — but not all of them. War of the Worlds actually opened much stronger, with a three-day opening weekend total of $64.5M — a figure that’s actually deceptively low, considering that much of its opening business wasn’t even in the Friday-to-Sunday period, since it opened on a Wednesday before the July 4 holiday (its six-day total was $112.7M).
- Batman Begins likewise opened with a three-day take of $48.7M, somewhat lower than FF’s $56M — but here too Batman opened on a Wednesday, so its opening business wasn’t all concentrated into that three-day weekend total. Batman’s five-day opening take was $72.9M.
- Fantastic Four isn’t single-handedly responsible for the end of the box-office recession. It was the convergence of FF plus continued strong performance from War of the Worlds and Batman, as well as other films. Had FF opened a month ago, likely it would not have broken the recession, and some other film would have.
- It’s still too early to certify FF a hit. The figure that really matters now is the percentage of dropoff in the next week or two. Batman has been holding up well over the weeks, slipping a very modest 35% this past weekend to a $172.1M If FF tanks in its second or third weekend, as so many films do these days, it could still be a box-office turkey.
Still, with all that said, the question remains: Why did this film do so well?
Here is what I think is an important part of the answer:
Until FF, the big movies of summer have all — quite rightly — come with warnings not to bring the kids.
Even properties with built-in kid interest, such as Batman and Star Wars, have been the subjects of media and critical cautions that these films are too intense for young kids. And they are — and there’s nothing wrong with that.
As a result, though, the family market has been neglected. Yes, there have been traditional “family films” like Herbie: Fully Loaded and Madagascar. But families seem to crave films outside of the “family film” mold, i.e., cartoon-style comedies (whether live-action or animated) about children / families or anthropomorphic animals, cars, robots, etc, flatulence humor, kicks in the groin, etc.
Based on its marketing, FF, supposedly a “funny family action film,” seemed to fit the bill. Its initial success, like last year’s National Treasure (also not a great film, although much better than FF), may suggest that family audiences crave the same kind of thrills and action as teenagers and young adults, but without the heavy violence or sexual content. In fact, families may be so desperate for acceptable fare of this type that they will even embrace movies that are mediocre (National Treasure) or lousy (FF).
Unfortunately, it also seems, at least at the moment, that it may not be necessary that the movie be actually family-friendly — only that it be marketed and perceived that way. With FF, a running thread of trashy exploitative content, mostly in connection with the character of Johnny Storm, keeps it from being family-friendly, but it didn’t keep the studio from marketing the film to families.
And families, at least this weekend, seemed to buy it. Time will tell if word of mouth prevents the strategy from working in the long run… or whether family audiences really are the suckers some Hollywood studios think they are.
Listen today to Catholic Answers Live for more.
Motion Picture Conclave
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — you know, the group that passes out that shiny gold statue called, uh, uh, Oscar!, every year — has elevated 112 artists and executives to voting member status.
"The invitees range from such recent Oscar winners as best actor Jamie Foxx, original score composer Jan A. P. Kaczmarek and animated short-film creator Chris Landreth to such executives as newly installed Paramount Pictures chairman and CEO Brad Grey, Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Michael Lynton, and Pixar Animation Studios chairman and CEO Steve Jobs.
"While the Academy adopted a new policy last year to slow the growth to a maximum of 30 new members annually, it was able to issue more than 100 invitations because of deaths and members opting for retired (nonvoting) status.
[…]
"Candidates for Academy membership are normally proposed by members and then considered by committees made up of representatives of each of the organization’s 14 branches."
In case you were wondering how Hollywood’s most elite yearly conclave works, now you know.
Monk Season 3 On DVD!!!
JUST RELEASED TODAY!!!
HIGHLIGHTS:
- Mr. Monk goes to New York City!
- Mr. Monk gets a job at Wal-Mart! (only without it being called "Wal-Mart")
- Mr. Monk goes on Jeopardy! (only without it being called "Jeopardy!")
- Mr. Monk solves the murder of Bruce Lee! (only without him being called "Bruce Lee")
- Mr. Monk takes medicine to cure his OCD!
- Mr. Monk is forced to live in a cabin . . . in the woods!
- Mr. Monk gets buried alive! (literally! in a coffin!)
- Mr. Monk goes to Las Vegas!
Plus!
Also, this season feature’s the much-beloved Sharona’s last episode (for now!) and the introduction of Monk’s new assistant, Natalie. If you’re a Natalie fan, be sure to get this season so you can obsessively document her arrival on the show. If you’re a Sharona fan, be sure to get it so you can obsess about the good times we had when Sharona was here. If you’re a fan of both Sharona and Natalie, get it so you can obsess about both!
Introducing Bennifer
On the off-chance that any of you follow our national reality soap opera As Tinseltown Turns, JimmyAkin.org can save you the outlay on next week’s People magazine. (Or, if you’d rather start up another Hollywood marriage betting pool, we’ll give you the scoop you need for that, too.) The couple known as Bennifer — Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, not Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, in case your People subscription lapsed recently — have married:
"Jennifer Garner has gone where no woman has gone before — down the aisle with Ben Affleck.
"The twosome, who are expecting their first child together this fall, exchanged vows Wednesday at the Parrot Cay resort in the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos.
"’They’re married and they’re expecting their first child,’ the newlweds’ reps, Ken Sunshine and Nicole King, said in a sparse but official statement.
"The surprise nuptials were attended by Garner’s Alias costar, Victor Garber, who looked on as the white-clad bride kissed her new husband following a sunset ceremony, per the National Enquirer."
Congratulations, many happy returns, stay together ’til death parts you, and all that.
Now. Will someone please tell me why this news deserved up-to-the-minute front-page coverage at Yahoo? I haven’t looked around at other news sites, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were breathless newsflashes up on those sites too. And another question: Why is this country so shallow that we must entertain ourselves through voyeuristic peeks into the private lives of people who are paid outrageous sums of money to pretend to be other people for a living?
The Freakanomics of Tinseltown…. Now that would be an interesting economic analysis.
Top 100 Movie Quotes?
The American Film Institute has released a list of what it considers the top 100 movie quotes of all time.
As you may guess from the image on the left, the #1 line was Gone With The Wind‘s "Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn."
To compile the list the AFI asked 1500 "leaders from the creative community, including film artists (directors,
screenwriters, actors, editors, cinematographers), critics and
historians." The "leaders" voted their favorites of a list of 400 nominated quotes.
The film with the most quotes was Casablanca, with 7 quotes, followed by The Wizard Of Oz, which had six.
I agree with most of the entries on the list (not necessarily the order they’re in, but their presence). Some, I don’t. For example, I don’t agree with Moonstruck‘s "Snap out of it!" It seems to me that for something to qualify as a movie quote, it needs to be something that people weren’t saying to each other All The Time before the movie came out. Folks have been saying "Snap out of it!" for far too long (and even in movies before Moonstruck).
I definitely agree with Patrick over at Southern Appeal, though:
My reaction: What no quotes from The Princess Bride, the most quotable movie of all time?
No quotes from The Princess Bride????
<lisp>Inconceivable!!!!</lisp>
Geeking-Out Vs. Vegging-Out
The NYT has some interesting analysis of how movies have changed in the last number of years, using the Star Wars franchise as an example.
EXCERPTS:
[V]ery little of the new film [Episode III] makes sense, taken as a freestanding narrative. What’s interesting about this is how little it matters. Millions of people are happily spending their money to watch a movie they don’t understand. What gives?
Modern English has given us two terms we need to explain this phenomenon: "geeking out" and "vegging out." To geek out on something means to immerse yourself in its details to an extent that is distinctly abnormal – and to have a good time doing it. To veg out, by contrast, means to enter a passive state and allow sounds and images to wash over you without troubling yourself too much about what it all means.
The first "Star Wars" movie 28 years ago was distinguished by healthy interplay between veg and geek scenes. In the climactic sequence, where rebel fighters attacked the Death Star, we repeatedly cut away from the dogfights and strafing runs – the purest kind of vegging-out material – to hushed command bunkers where people stood around pondering computer displays, geeking out on the strategic progress of the battle.
All such content – as well as the long, beautiful, uncluttered shots of desert, sky, jungle and mountain that filled the early episodes – was banished in the first of the prequels ("Episode I: The Phantom Menace," 1999). In the 16 years that separated it from the initial trilogy, a new universe of ancillary media had come into existence. These had made it possible to take the geek material offline so that the movies could consist of pure, uncut veg-out content, steeped in day-care-center ambience. These newer films don’t even pretend to tell the whole story; they are akin to PowerPoint presentations that summarize the main bullet points from a much more comprehensive body of work developed by and for a geek subculture.
The author then suggests that America may be in danger because it’s national culture is becoming dominated by a veg-out attitude that wants to enjoy life rather than digging into the geek-oriented details needed to sustain the good life.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)
Moviegoers to Hollywood: Make better movies!
The last three or four months have seen a remarkable sign of box-office slump: For sixteen consecutive weeks, domestic weekend box-office receipts have been lower than the corresponding weekends from the previous year, 2004. Added: That’s one week away from the record 17-week recession set in 1985 — "one box office record we don’t want," Exhibitor Relations chief Paul Dergarabedian commented this week.
It’s not just that ticket sales are down — that’s been happening for at least three years. But because ticket prices continue to climb, Hollywood seldom takes in less money each week on a year-over-year basis for more than two or three weeks in a row. (For example, during the same 16-week period in 2004, the weekend box office never dipped below 2003 levels for more than two consecutive weeks. Of course, as a friend of mine observed, the early part of last year might have been unusually strong due to the lingering effects of The Return of the King and the powerhouse presence of The Passion of the Christ.)
In any case, in the last 16 weeks not even the release of a the third and final Star Wars prequel could boost the box office to the levels it enjoyed a year ago. Nor could media blitzes, drummed-up controversies, or big names like Ron Howard, Russell Crowe, Adam Sandler, and Ridley Scott, Orlando Bloom pump movies like Cinderella Man, The Longest Yard, and Kingdom of Heaven to box-office success.
Hollywood execs, of course, are scrambling to point to all kinds of factors, from the continuing rise of DVDs and Internet use. But a few bold voices are wondering whether the problem isn’t the movies themselves. Amy Pascal, chairwoman of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s motion picture group, has a startling suggestion for Hollywood: Try making better films.
"We can give ourselves every excuse for people not showing up – change in population, the demographic, sequels, this and that," she said. "But people just want better movies."
Better movies. What a concept. Mrs. Pascal’s suggestion may not be the most popular advice in Hollywood — but it sounds pretty good to Paul Dergarabedian, who actually puts a positive spin on this view of things:
"It is much more chilling if there is a cultural shift in people staying away from movies… Quality is a fixable problem."
The reason I’m mentioning this now is that this week a movie opens that could turn around the box-office slump… and certainly deserves to. Batman Begins is the best Hollywood studio film of the year so far, in addition to being one of the best super-hero movies of all time, and easily the best Batman movie ever.
Considering the years of trouble Warner Bros had even getting this picture made, what with directors, scripts and stars coming and going on a regular basis, it’s amazing that it turned out so well. In the end, they did everything right: Instead of a schlockmeister director like like Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever, Batman and Robin), they got a gifted filmmaker, Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia); instead of casting a marquee name like George Clooney or Val Kilmer, they cast talented, brooding Christian Bale. And instead of making the villains the real stars of the film, they made the hero the star.
What’s more, the film has real-world relevance. The bad guys are a crypto-organization that wants to wage war on human decadence — but their methods include decapitating prisoners, instilling terror, and unleashing weapons of mass destruction on large metropolitan areas. Hm, sound familiar?
It’s a terrific film, though some viewers, critics and otherwise, would apparently prefer a return to the first two Tim Burton films, and don’t know what to make of a story in which Batman’s parents were killed by somebody other than the Joker, or where the film is more interested in character development and moral themes than colorful villains, big explosions, and campy dialogue.
One caveat: If you decide to go see Batman Begins this weekend, don’t bring the kids. It’s way too dark and scary for young viewers (a mature 10 or 12 would be the cutoff in my book).
Diff'rent Folks
Who would you think of if asked for a name of Greatest Child Star Ever? Wouldn’t you automatically think of those child stars who have made something of their lives, transitioning from the difficulties of child fame to make their mark as adults? Apparently, becoming a well-adjusted adult is not a requirement for being considered Greatest Child Star Ever:
"VH1 has named Gary Coleman No. 1 on its list of the top 100 child stars ever. Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin was second, and the Olsen twins were third.
"Coleman, now 37, was the precocious star of the hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, which ran from 1978-86. Coleman played Arnold, who along with his older brother Willis (Todd Bridges) moves from Harlem to live with an affluent white family in Manhattan.
"In 2003 Coleman joined 134 other candidates to run for governor of California. Arnold Schwarzenegger successfully replaced the recalled Gov. Gray Davis, but Coleman got a few more minutes in the spotlight.
"’This is really interesting and cool and I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it because I get to be intelligent, which is something I don’t get to do very often,’ the 4-foot-8 actor said then."
Coleman doesn’t get to be intelligent very often? Poor man.
Director-actors Ron Howard and Jodie Foster did manage to hit the top ten. But the article didn’t even mention Shirley Temple Black, possibly the iconic child movie star and a woman who made her mark not only in acting but also in the U.S. Foreign Service as an ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia.
‘Course, that’s small potatoes compared to running for governor of California in a come-one, come-all special election open to anyone with $3,500 and 65 signatures.
Diff’rent Folks
Who would you think of if asked for a name of Greatest Child Star Ever? Wouldn’t you automatically think of those child stars who have made something of their lives, transitioning from the difficulties of child fame to make their mark as adults? Apparently, becoming a well-adjusted adult is not a requirement for being considered Greatest Child Star Ever:
"VH1 has named Gary Coleman No. 1 on its list of the top 100 child stars ever. Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin was second, and the Olsen twins were third.
"Coleman, now 37, was the precocious star of the hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, which ran from 1978-86. Coleman played Arnold, who along with his older brother Willis (Todd Bridges) moves from Harlem to live with an affluent white family in Manhattan.
"In 2003 Coleman joined 134 other candidates to run for governor of California. Arnold Schwarzenegger successfully replaced the recalled Gov. Gray Davis, but Coleman got a few more minutes in the spotlight.
"’This is really interesting and cool and I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it because I get to be intelligent, which is something I don’t get to do very often,’ the 4-foot-8 actor said then."
Coleman doesn’t get to be intelligent very often? Poor man.
Director-actors Ron Howard and Jodie Foster did manage to hit the top ten. But the article didn’t even mention Shirley Temple Black, possibly the iconic child movie star and a woman who made her mark not only in acting but also in the U.S. Foreign Service as an ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia.
‘Course, that’s small potatoes compared to running for governor of California in a come-one, come-all special election open to anyone with $3,500 and 65 signatures.