06.06.06
The Break-Up and Over the Hedge
I can tell it is finally the summer movie season. No matter what show time I attend, every theater is packed wall-to-wall with people that have nothing to do with their summer vacation time. The string of blockbusters continues and I had the opportunity to take part in the mindless fun over the weekend.
The first film, Over the Hedge, is a CGI cartoon that was worth my hard-earned dollars. The new wave of animation is losing its magic. Ever since the studios figured out how to produce slick cartoons at a fast rate, they've compensated their runtime with fart jokes and little content. Hedge is a film that made me laugh out loud not from crude humor, but from the personality of its cuddly critters.
The story revolves around a pack of wild animals that wake from hibernation only to discover that materialistic suburbanites have taken over the area. Their solution? Take advantage of consumerist America and get in on the overindulgence of goods. The merry animals steal everything from households including junk food, energy soda, and a digital camera/printer set.
The previews market this as a film packed with nasty burp jokes, and that is quite a sad thing. When a film that is earnestly charming has to promote itself as crude to attract fart-loving America, then my worries for the state of this nation continue to increase. Over the Hedge is a film with personality that stops when it is about to get excessive, and takes advantage of its talented voice cast including Bruce Willis, Gary Shandling, William Shatner, Wanda Sykes (surprisingly not too annoying) Steve Carrell, Nick Nolte, Allison Janney, and Thomas Haden Church. If you are like me and found yourself frustrated by the lackluster delivery of Madagasar and Robots, then do give this one a chance. There truly is hope for animation.
Grade: A-
If you've been following the box office newsletters, America's new favorite couple, Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Anniston, were seen across the nation in The Break-Up this weekend. By "new favorite couple" I mean the subjects of gossip from people that hate their lives so much that they need to worry about the lives of beautiful people (Ok, that was mean, but I'm not taking it back). From the previews, I thought this romantic comedy showed hope. Jennifer Anniston is about as unversatile and tame as performers get, but Vince Vaughn is there! This guy's goofy, loudmouth antics never get old for me. Plus, he re-teams with Swingers and Made pal Jon Favreau. How can it go wrong?
Unfortunately after a strong beginning, the film goes into excessive break-up territory. Sure…the title should make that evident. However, the filmmakers should know there is only so much bickering a third party can handle. Once these main characters get rolling, the fights never stop. By the fourth or fifth uncomfortable fight scene, I was automatically tuning them out like I do any other loud couple in public that decides to broadcast their dirty laundry.
Despite a strong supporting cast including Joey Lauren Adams, Jon Favreau, Jason Batemen, Judy Davis, John Michael Higgins, and Vincent D'Onofrio, the real focus is on the couple. Comedies about break-ups can work. War of the Roses is a prime example. However, The Break-Up tries to keep a nice balance between sweet and nasty that messes with my head. It left me with that awkward sensation where I question whether or not I want to laugh. It has its moments, but I can only suggest a video rental for this one.
Grade: C+
01.03.06
The Stench of B.O.
The current competition between Kong and Narnia could play out in any number of scenarios. Personally I’m hoping for full-on, bare-knuckled street brawling, followed by some late-night drinking and wallowing in self-pity, with it all coming to head in some earth-shattering make-up sex.
I think the wild card in the whole matter rests on two aspects. Firstly, how long will movie-watchers keep the two blockbusters in theaters? As we’ve seen, year after year, the Christmas season tends to leave leftovers throughout January and February but, increasingly, moviegoers seem to have shorter and shorter attention spans, in which case the first quarter of 2006 could make for a dreary one.
This leads to the second factor: with the constant decrease in the box office and ever-growing sales on the DVD side, how quickly will the respective studios let the films drop out of sight so they can rebuild excitement for the video release?
I guess this is as close as us cinephiles are going to get to an Ali versus Frazier for awhile, so here’s to the the battle raging on!
Another interesting thought on the Narnia vs. Kong duel: How nice must it be to be WETA right now? They’ve been top-dog of FX companies since that whole Rings business went down, but now they hold ownership over both box office bombshells, which I guess makes the “make-up sex” comment seem a bit incestuous…
01.02.06
Box Office News
Now here is something I did not expect at all in the domestic box office. Peter Jackson’s long awaited King Kong is getting its ass handed to it by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I love to make the occassional box office prediction, and I can usually detect a guaranteed smash from a mile away. However, this turn out is a curveball. People were speculating that Kong would make so much dough that it may even be the highest grossing film of all time. Boy were they way off.
Anyway, while Narnia is somehow making more money here (I’ve heard it is due in part to large Christian organizations), Kong has managed to make $400 million worldwide. At least this won’t be a failure for Jackson.
In the upcoming January dumping grounds, how will this box office play out? Will Kong make a comeback? Will Narnia continue its Christ-like rule? Will the gay cowboys of Brokeback Mountain spring out of nowhere on their Jan. 13 wide release with big money? Stay Tuned!
01.14.06
DVD/Multi-Plex Mania (cont.)
Posted in DVD, box office, comments, movie news at 8:25 am by Ben
To further the discussion of releasing DVD and in Theaters simultaneously, I think it comes down to two primary aspects: money and the movie going experience.
From a financial point-of-view, releasing a movie in both markets is an experiment worth trying. With the box-office in a steady free fall, the benefits of theater distribution are slowly dissipating. It’s an expensive process…the cost of creating 35mm prints of a film reach in the millions alone and adding in distribution deals with theater chains and promotions easily exceeds the amount many films cost to make in the first place.
Then the film actually reaches theaters and can be made or broken by the audience reaction. Stealth is an excellent example. Sure, it was a bad idea in the first place but this sorry excuse for a film was made on a production budget of $135 million. Once released in theaters it went on to fall out of the box office top 10 within two weeks, earning only $32 million in its entire theatrical run.
When released on video, however, Stealth was a completely different story. In it’s opening weekend on video it debuted at #3 on rental charts, renting over 7million copies in one week alone. Nearly 8 weeks later, it still rents over 1 million copies a week, on average.
Taking into consideration the significantly less expensive process of digitizing film and producing DVD’s, this is a much more financially sound process for studios to undertake.
Now, for the movie going experience. In my opinion, simultaneous release still leaves open the possibility of catching your favorite flick in theaters, which can be both a positive and negative experience. My fear is that if the video release of films proves more financially beneficial for studios than the theatrical release, the studios will release fewer and fewer films in theaters to maximize their gains, after all this is almost strictly a business to them. While I do agree that negative theater experiences are becoming more predominant, a positive theater experience remains one of the most enjoyable escapes available and, all in all, I would hate to be refused the opportunity to see great films in theaters.
Who knows what will actually come of this experiment. We’re all painfully aware of how slow Hollywood is to break out of their conservative and antiquated system, so perhaps this will disappear faster than it ever came about. I guess we’ll have to stick around to find out.
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