Hard News: Just Friday
171 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 Newer→ Last
-
The last Nicole Kidman movie worth seeing?
Margot at the Wedding (2007) -- she and Jennifer Jason Leigh play excruciatingly dysfunctional sisters.
-
The Others, The Hours, Birth, Dogville, even Cold Mountain
I'll give you The Hours and The Others. The rest should have died in development. Cold Mountain also has the distinction of having not one, but two 'red light' actors in lead roles (actors whose names automatically kill the film - Nicole Kidman and Jude Law in this case).
I haven't seen (or even heard of) Margot at the Wedding, so won't comment.
a good bet
Well, that's what it seems to be more or less all the time. But I would suggest that anyone who had anything to do with greenlighting 'we're here to help' should find another career. There are some scripts that you can tell have three legs from the first five pages.
Unfortunately, there are too many gamblers in the film industry who don't know how to read the turf or understand the form guide (to stretch this metaphor somewhat), and unfortunately, some of them are playing with public money.
-
Funny that you should mention We're Here to Help. Given that it was a bigger bomb than The Ferryman, once international sales are taken into account, I wonder why Coddington didn''t get stuck into it? Perhaps because it has Rodney Hide in a heroic role (as played by Michael Hurst).
Newsprint, I've been meaning to rent Margot at the Wedding. Was made by the guy who made the excellent The Squid and the Whale.
Rich, of course film-making is a gamble. Many thought Lord of the Rings was a colossal gamble, which is why so many studios turned it down. Some thought Titanic would be the biggest bomb in history. The question of whether public money should be subsidising the arts is one I guess we have to disagree on.
-
Funny that you should mention We're Here to Help. Given that it was a bigger bomb than The Ferryman, once international sales are taken into account, I wonder why Coddington didn''t get stuck into it? Perhaps because it has Rodney Hide in a heroic role (as played by Michael Hurst).
Heh! And with the IRD shaping to take revenge on tarnished libertarian hero Dave Henderson, best not to go there.
Directed by Baz Lurgi . . . It's called 'Australia' ffs. If that ain't a clear signpost that suggests the director's ego is raging out of control, then I don't know what is.
Xavier Herbert's Poor Fellow My Country disembowdlerised by a team of hairdressers. Great Southern Bland.
Men they chunder. Women too. -
Rich, of course film-making is a gamble. Many thought Lord of the Rings was a colossal gamble, which is why so many studios turned it down. Some thought Titanic would be the biggest bomb in history. The question of whether public money should be subsidising the arts is one I guess we have to disagree on.
Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree that public money should be used to fund local films - it is extremely important that local stories are told. They become part of the fabric and fibre of national identity, so I'm quite happy for public money to be spent producing something uniquely kiwi - 'the price of milk', say. Rather than films becoming some sort of homogenised McCulture funded by Hollywood.
But it is possible to make films telling local stories relatively inexpensively and imaginatively.
Yes, LoTR was a huge gamble. Most of my respect for Peter Jackson is based on the fact that not only did he make a decent fist of the films, but that he managed in the first place to persude a studio to fund back-to-back shooting for a big...no, make that huge-budget fantasy epic that would total 9+ hours of finished product. I don't think most people 'get' quite how hard it is to actually get a film (any film) to the shooting stage of proceedings, let alone something of that magnitude. I'm not really surprised so many passed on it.
Compare and contrast with, ooooh, lets say 'The Golden Compass' [coughnicolekidmancough]
What I am surprised at, though, is that someone picked up the script for 'we're here to help' (for example), and didn't almost immediately throw it across the room. I find it utterly baffling that someone would think 'hmm, this could be a goer, let's give them some money'.
While it isn't easy to read a script and pick the gold from the dross, it isn't hard to spot the total dross and ditch it, either.
-
Rich:
I'm no great fan of Nicole Kidman, but I find it interesting that when a film she's in tanks she's "box office poison". Her ex-husband, on the other hand, hasn't headlined a a break-even film this millennium that wasn't directed by Steven Spielberg, and he's running a studio. (Whose first greenlit project, Lions for Lambs, was an unwatchable dog BTW.)
And with all due disrespect, what is the obsession about opening weekend grosses in the United States -- apart from the insularity of the LA-NY media axis that is? Someone should tell the Americans that they make up a little under 5% of the human race.
-
I'm no great fan of Nicole Kidman, but I find it interesting that when a film she's in tanks she's "box office poison".
I woudn't actually go as far as to say she's box office poison - she's just insanely overpriced for what she can deliver, and most of the time she doesn't deliver.
She is, in my opinion, consistently bad (by which I mean very occasionally ok, but mostly bad). This is why upthread I (somewhat facetiously) asked if anyone could name the last half-decent film she's been in.
Although she is occasionally in something decent (I loved 'The Hours'), her ratio of 'stinkers' to 'decent' is notably heavily weighted towards stinkers. While every actor has stuff on their CV they prefer wasn't, in her case it's mostly dross. Without actually going out and crunching the figures myself, I'd say quite a bit more so than a lot of other 'stars', male and female. But she still commands a stellar price tag.
Someone recently (might have been imdb, can't find the link) worked out the cost/profit ratio of a number of male and female stars - their price tag rated against how well the films they were in did at the box office. In the female category, she was number one in the 'least bang for buck' category by quite some way.
In short, she commands an excessive price tag for what she can supposedly deliver as a star who can 'open' a movie.
And yes, she's not the only one wearing the emperors new clothes. I was quite delighted when her crazed, cult-obsessed short-arse ex was summarily fired by the studio, but that particular bout of hollywood sanity was unfortunately short-lived. There's plenty of other overpaid empty balsawoods* out there. Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, etc.
My comment about 'The Golden Compass' is quite possibly very unfair to her - having read the book, I can actually see her suiting that role quite well. I haven't seen the film. But my point on that was more to compare and contrast the LoTR film adaptions (wildly popular) with the 'Dark Materials' (single) film adaption (about as popular as cancer).
Both a very popular set of fantasy books. Decent subject matter, reasonable characters, almost guarenteed audience. One suceeded spectacularly. One tanked spectacularly. For one, the gamble paid off. For the other, it failed.
Like Philip said, no-one knows anything.
I've got no particular axe to grind with Ms Kidman, I'm just bemused that she can demand the sort of sums she does, and still not be short of work, even in an industry as crazy as Hollywood.
WRT the opening weekend thing, this is taken as a good indication as to whether a film will break even/make a profit, or not. It is extremely rare (but not unknown) for a film to gain popularity through word-of-mouth after the opening weekend, and for box office receipts to go up (rather than down). If a film doesn't 'open' (especially if it's supposed to be a big-budget blockbuster), the studio, having projected the future till receipts from the opening weekend, will go into damage control mode to minimise ongoing costs: pulling it from screens, slashing ongoing advertising, etc. For example, they won't promo a film overseas as heavily if they think the return isn't worth it.
*lightweight and wooden
-
...she's just insanely overpriced for what she can deliver, and most of the time she doesn't deliver.
Aren't they all?
-
I wonder the same thing as Mark. Hasn't the success of films like 300, Transformers, LOTR et al shown that you don't need big name stars to deliver at the box office?
-
If you look at the opening weekends, here:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/
then it's dominated by fantasy/comic-book adaptations aimed at teens, and not that star-dependent. Heath Ledger's profile might have made a small difference to The Dark Knight's BO (as Variety would put it) and Johnny Depp's to the Pirates movies, and Harrison Ford's obviously to the last Indiana Jones, but otherwise it's about concept rather than star. Then again, would I Am Legend have done US$77m in its first weekend if it starred Joe the Plumber rather than Will Smith?
Generally Steve you're right. But that Kidman film Australia is a different kind of movie and pitched at a different audience -- older, women generally, and less likely to go to the movies every weekend and see whatever's just opened and has a lot of CGI in it. So stars matter for those films.
And Craig, yes, the US is less than 5% of the world's population but it's where these films open first and widest -- and where a good or bad buzz is created -- and it would still be the largest English-speaking market in the world. But there are plenty of people who think that the reporting of weekend grosses as news is inane and possibly destructive to a more marginal film's long-term chances. I'd tend to agree with that. And to bring it all back to Coddington -- it would be nice if she'd tried to assess some of the films named in that NZFC report as art rather than judge them as commerce. At the risk of repeating myself and boring everyone, films like Rain of the Children and Out of the Blue.
-
And to bring it all back to Coddington -- it would be nice if she'd tried to assess some of the films named in that NZFC report as art rather than judge them as commerce.
Hear hear. I'm happy with NZ movies making money and being a commercial success. I'm also happy with the Film Commission supporting quality NZ movies, which might not bring in the big bucks.
Both things together is ideal, but either one out of two also works out OK.
-
I wonder the same thing as Mark. Hasn't the success of films like 300, Transformers, LOTR et al shown that you don't need big name stars to deliver at the box office?
'No-one knows anything' is your watchword for any of this stuff. And if you happen to be a studio mogul who is about to make a multi-million dollar decision on a project, not having the faintest idea if it's going to be a sucess or failure (because no-one knows anything, including you) is a scary prospect.
So the decision-makers at the top of the tree cling to what they think they know (in the teeth of all available evidence), which is that stars* open movies. That is, that people will go and see a film with a star in the lead role just because of the star - the actual plot, subject matter and all the rest of it is irrelevant. The star puts bums on seats.
If anyone is interested in knowing a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes, I recommend William Goldmans 'Adventures in the screen trade'. It's quite fascinating.
* star in this context means someone who, by the nature of their being a star, is incapable of playing a villan. Or someone with flaws or depth to their character. They are 100% straight arrow, 100% of the time.
-
Which is why Tom Hanks and Will Smith probably have the most dependable starpower right now. Tom Cruise, not so much. A lot hangs on Valkyrie. Cruise as a good Nazi in an eyepatch?
-
would I Am Legend have done US$77m in its first weekend if it starred Joe the Plumber
It might have been more popular with Republicans.
Generally Steve you're right. But that Kidman film Australia is a different kind of movie and pitched at a different audience -- older, women generally, and less likely to go to the movies every weekend and see whatever's just opened and has a lot of CGI in it. So stars matter for those films.
Yeah, true. It’s kinda funny that in a way the supposedly more serious fair is often more dependent on ‘big names’ than the “fantasy/comic-book adaptations aimed at teens”-type stuff. What could be more superficial than that?
-
Of course they're not sold as big names, they're sold as Great Thespians who can Really Act. Meaning, you take a perfectly good script, insert an overrated A-lister to ham it up and chew the scenery, and 99 percent of the target market never knows the difference.
-
Would I Am Legend have done US$77m in its first weekend if it starred Joe the Plumber?
It might have been more popular with Republicans.
In my opinion, there's a rather nasty sub-text to 'I Am Legend' anyway.
New York (i.e. the liberal east coast): A violent, dangerous place full of degenerate sub-human beasts.
Small-town America: A homely place full of good, Christian, God-fearing folk who keep to the old ways and worship at the white wooden church before eating a helping of apple pie to give them enough strength to toddle off and pop caps in anyone who looks a bit different. Erm, I mean, zombie vampires. The only way they can defend their true christian lifestyle is to barricade themselves inside a huge concrete fortress and keep the outside world on the outside by use of superior firepower.
Man the walls, men! Those Emo kids and queers from New York are coming back! Show no mercy!
-
would I Am Legend have done US$77m in its first weekend if it starred Joe the Plumber
The more germane question is whether it would have done that kind of business without a big ticket marketing that goes on. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a trailer for that film run during the Superbowl -- the priciest piece of advertising real estate in the US?) I'm pretty meh-some about Quantum of Solace -- which would have been a pretty good film it had been directed by someone who could stage and cut together an action scene for shit. But you've got to take your hat off to the relentless PR machine the Bond franchise can crank up.
-
The only way they can defend their true christian lifestyle is to barricade themselves inside a huge concrete fortress and keep the outside world on the outside by use of superior firepower.
And from where, in time, the American civilisation will regrow from its (supposed) true source just as it did in the first place, reinforcing the idea that history shouldn't, maybe even couldn't, run any other way.
Or maybe it's just that the dynamic of modern zombie films pushes characters into isolation, rather than population-rich cities, for survival reasons? Hell, I can't choose between them, so maybe both are true - I do have a liberal arts degree after all.
-
But what about the christian zombies?? No-one ever considers them...
-
But what about the christian zombies?? No-one ever considers them...
Precisely. After everyone else knocks each other off Zombie Jesus and his meek flock shall inherit the earth.
-
Don't forget the Hare Krishna Zombie:
http://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Dead-Krishna-Zombie-7-Inch/dp/B000UU8JEO -
Craig, marketing may or may not have pushed I Am Legend over the line but it did nothing for The Golden Compass. According to Variety, the total brand-backed spend -- ie with all the burger tie-ins and so on -- was around US$120m on top of a US$150m budget. New Line was spending like they had Lord of the Rings IV on their hands. And then they only pulled in US$70m domestically. Those were massive gambles they were taking. And if it was as easy as saying this star does it or that marketing spend does it, every film would be a winner. Which brings us back to that William Goldman line.
You're right about Bond -- it's a confidence trick played on the movie-going public every two years. Those are very ordinary action movies at best.
-
Or maybe it's just that the dynamic of modern zombie films pushes characters into isolation, rather than population-rich cities, for survival reasons?
As a big fan of George Romero movies (I haven't seen I am Legend) that's just simple Zombie er... physics.
Lots of people means lots of future zombies. Out in the middle of no where, no humans, no potential zombies.
Unless it's Shaun of the Dead, in which case. obviously, a pub with glass windows is ideal!
-
You're right about Bond -- it's a confidence trick played on the movie-going public every two years. Those are very ordinary action movies at best.
My point was that if I want a migraine I'll ring my mother -- it's cheaper and takes less time. Marc Forster is a genuinely talented, if wildly uneven, film-maker but he either can't put together a visually coherent action scene (which is bad enough) or can't be arsed (which is worse). Neither can Christopher Nolan -- and I seem to be the only person on earth who found The Dark Knight ludicrously over-rated and at least 45 minutes too long.
I quite like the early Bond films -- and wonder if the fact they were made on the proverbial shoe string. United Artists were only willing to chance a million on Dr. No -- which, even when adjusted for inflation, wouldn't get an arthouse flick off the ground today. Not dated particularly well, admittedly, but at least there's a shortage of gadgets and picture postcard photography.
-
I think you're right about both Forster and Nolan -- they simply aren't action directors. There was a big argument amongst critics in the US last year around The Bourne Ultimatum, shot on handheld and edited to hell. It gives you an adrenalin rush or a jolt but you simply can't get a sense of who's doing what where and to whom. Action should be about choreography -- these films are like shooting a 30s musical in a bunch of handheld close-ups with no wide shots of the whole chorus line.
Compare with a well-staged and coherent action sequence by Steven Spielberg, John Woo or James Cameron -- the latter would be the master in my view, especially in Aliens and the first two Terminators.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.