I finished "Catfish" last night, which means I've now seen all three of the 2010 documentaries that drew a lot of attention for featuring events that might have been partially or completely fabricated. The other two are "Exit Through the Gift Shop" and "I'm Still Here," and in the latter case the filmmakers already have fessed up that nearly everything the audience saw in the film was staged or planned well in advance. Thus, "I'm Still Here" cannot rightly be called a documentary proper, but rather must be classified as a faux documentary, or a film done in a documentary style. Those involved with "Catfish" and "Exit" have managed to keep a lid on the truth, though the "Catfish" creators have a lawsuit pending against them involving music licensing fees, which may hinge on whether the film is really a documentary or not.
All three of these films tackle the heady subject matter of false perceptions and distorted reality. "Catfish" charts the course of an online relationship where one of the participants may be misleading the other. "Exit Through the Gift Shop" starts out purporting to be a documentary about street artists and the guerrilla tactics they employ, and then takes a hard left turn into possible fiction when the documentarian decides he wants in on the action. Finally, the most publicized of the three was "I'm Still Here," where Joaquin Phoenix spent well over a year doing his best to convince the world that he was giving up acting to pursue an ill-advised career as a rap artist, and had the results filmed. Staging a personal meltdown as a piece of performance art was a keen idea, but the execution was lacking. In light of recent events with Charlie Sheen, however, "I'm Still Here" now feels bizarrely prescient.
So it's fitting that the filmmakers wound up blurring the lines between fact and fiction in their depiction of these stories. What we see onscreen in "Catfish" and "Exit Through the Gift Shop" seems plausible, but there's the nagging sense that the filmmakers must have staged certain scenes or recreated events that are being passed off as more genuine and spontaneous than they actually are. Could they have really set up some of those shots in "Catfish" so perfectly, and gotten such quality audio on the fly? Was Thierry Guetta's transformation from amateur documentary maker to amateur street artist entirely his own idea? I'm with the skeptics personally. While I can buy that everything in "Catfish" actually happened, and that all the people we see onscreen are the real people who were involved, there are some events in the early going that feel reenacted for the benefit of the audience, perhaps also condensed or altered to fit the narrative. As for Thierry Guetta, the sequence of events in "Exit Through the Gift Shop" makes it very difficult to believe they weren't scripted, or at least outlined.
But does this have any impact on quality? In both cases, I think the tactics end up strengthening the films and their messages. "Exit Through the Gift Shop" pokes fun at the art world, where money and acknowledgment are enough to turn even the most artistically bankrupt individual into a superstar. It's the perception that a certain art style or trend is valuable that gives it legitimacy, and the film offers up the example of Thierry Guetta's alter ego, Mr. Brainwash, as someone who takes advantage of this. Whether Mr. Brainwash is real, or perhaps an amalgam of others, he's a perfect embodiment of what "Exit" views as the worst kind of artist, an unoriginal, derivative leech who profits from hype instead of originality. So while Mr. Brainwash and the events surrounding him may not be entirely authentic, they're certainly representative of an underlying truth. The approach itself can be seen as a teasing poke at the documentary art form and its oft stated aspirations of objectivity.
"Catfish" is a more straightforward, cautionary tale about the anonymity afforded by the internet, but also makes a case that sometimes that anonymity can be beneficial too. After spending eighty-odd minutes making the case for fictions sometimes being as important as truths, it would be hypocritical to begrudge the filmmakers a few tweaks of their own to reality. "Catfish" is undeniably gimmicky, ran a misleading marketing campaign, and the filmmakers come off very amateurish and none too sympathetic at times. And yet ultimately the film turned out to be such an even-handed, gentle exploration of the kind of bad situation we always see mined for its most salacious elements by the media. I found "Catfish" far more subversive and interesting than it billed itself to be, and though horror fans may have been bereft of the anticipated gore and splatter, perhaps not all of them left unmoved.
I liked both films, and after wrestling with it for a while, I respect what Joaquin Phoenix was trying to do in "I'm Still Here," even though it was terrible. We're in an interesting age of filmmaking, where the concept of reality has gotten more fluid and ambiguous. But I wonder if these new line-blurring tactics are really that much more harmful than the misleading editing and poorly supported arguments that other documentaries have offered in the past. I guess I'm not so concerned with what's real in these documentaries as much as I am with what is true.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
"Community" and the Joys of Meta
I know, I know. I'm so late. The "Critical Film Studies" episode of "Community" aired nearly two weeks ago, but it's taken me a couple of viewings to process my thoughts about it, and I'm going to get into heavy spoilers here, so I figured that it was safer to hold off until everyone who wanted to see it got a chance to.
So to quickly summarize, this was the episode of "Community" widely billed to be a "Pulp Fiction" spoof, with all the commercials and press material getting lots of mileage out of the cast dressed up as Jules and Vincent, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, Butch, Mia, and the Gimp. Jeff (Joel McHale) had the bright idea to throw a surprise "Pulp Fiction" themed birthday party for Abed (Danny Pudi), you see, Abed being the study group's resident media obsessive who prefers to communicate through pop culture references. Except that when Jeff comes to collect Abed for the party, Abed appears to be a changed man, suddenly wanting nothing more to have a nice meal in a fancy restaurant and have a "real conversation" for his birthday. Jeff takes him at his word, not realizing until after several courses and some serious oversharing that Abed and the entire episode have been spoofing another movie, the obscure 1980 art film "My Dinner With Andre," the whole time.
Usually I dislike misleading marketing tactics, but this was such a great example of a show using typical overhyping to its advantage. I was spoiled for the "My Dinner With Andre" references in advance, but I didn't expect it to keep going beyond the first scene. And going. And going. By the time Jeff (along with much of the audience) had the rug pulled out from under him, I had to marvel at how well we'd been tricked. There were some fun moments with the "Pulp Fiction" props, and the ending saw some quick reenactments that would make any Tarantino fan happy, but the bulk of the episode was taken up by "My Dinner With Andre." What's more, the writers used the scenario for some good character development. In the original film, Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn simply sit down to dinner for two hours and have a long, rambling conversation about life and art and other weighty subjects. Here, Jeff and Abed get to talk about their friendship and personal fears. Even without the layers of meta, the material is surprisingly funny and affecting.
There has been some grumbling that the "Andre" reference was too obscure for a general audience, but that was the point - Jeff didn't realize he was in the middle of another movie spoof and we weren't meant to either. I suspect the episode probably works better if you haven't seen "My Dinner With Andre." I have, because I happen to be that pretentious, and it was neat to see Danny Pudi's Andre Gregory impression and all the little in-jokes, but I didn't get to enjoy the confusion and the disbelief at Abed's sudden changes in behavior. I didn't get to have the big epiphany with Jeff and the rest of the audience when the jig was up. It's much more enjoyable to fall for an act that it is to spot one from the start. Ironically I gathered that viewers probably were supposed to get the multiple references to "Cougartown" Abed incorporated into his monologues, a show that I have no familiarity with whatsoever.
Despite its reputation for them, "Community" doesn't do these full blown parody episodes all that often, and rarely anything that hews as closely to its source material as "Critical Film Studies." I get the sense that the show has reached a point where it's poking fun at itself, and at the very act of making pop culture references. This may be getting too meta for some, but the reason I appreciate "Community" is because it's so ambitious and not scared of being smart. A full "Pulp Fiction" spoof would have been a lot of fun, (Would Abed have been Marsellus Wallace? Captain Koons? The Wolf?) but it almost would have been too easy. I've found that the better installments this year haven't been the splashier ones like the zombie episode or the astronaut episode or the Christmas special, but rather the ones that have adopted and critiqued various different narrative techniques, like the documentary episode, the bottle episode, and now the bait-and-switch parody episode.
Then again, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't gleefully anticipating the upcoming sequel to last year's "Modern Warfare" paintball episode. It's going to be a two-parter. And the season finale. And Josh Holloway will guest star.
Damn, I love this show.
So to quickly summarize, this was the episode of "Community" widely billed to be a "Pulp Fiction" spoof, with all the commercials and press material getting lots of mileage out of the cast dressed up as Jules and Vincent, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, Butch, Mia, and the Gimp. Jeff (Joel McHale) had the bright idea to throw a surprise "Pulp Fiction" themed birthday party for Abed (Danny Pudi), you see, Abed being the study group's resident media obsessive who prefers to communicate through pop culture references. Except that when Jeff comes to collect Abed for the party, Abed appears to be a changed man, suddenly wanting nothing more to have a nice meal in a fancy restaurant and have a "real conversation" for his birthday. Jeff takes him at his word, not realizing until after several courses and some serious oversharing that Abed and the entire episode have been spoofing another movie, the obscure 1980 art film "My Dinner With Andre," the whole time.
Usually I dislike misleading marketing tactics, but this was such a great example of a show using typical overhyping to its advantage. I was spoiled for the "My Dinner With Andre" references in advance, but I didn't expect it to keep going beyond the first scene. And going. And going. By the time Jeff (along with much of the audience) had the rug pulled out from under him, I had to marvel at how well we'd been tricked. There were some fun moments with the "Pulp Fiction" props, and the ending saw some quick reenactments that would make any Tarantino fan happy, but the bulk of the episode was taken up by "My Dinner With Andre." What's more, the writers used the scenario for some good character development. In the original film, Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn simply sit down to dinner for two hours and have a long, rambling conversation about life and art and other weighty subjects. Here, Jeff and Abed get to talk about their friendship and personal fears. Even without the layers of meta, the material is surprisingly funny and affecting.
There has been some grumbling that the "Andre" reference was too obscure for a general audience, but that was the point - Jeff didn't realize he was in the middle of another movie spoof and we weren't meant to either. I suspect the episode probably works better if you haven't seen "My Dinner With Andre." I have, because I happen to be that pretentious, and it was neat to see Danny Pudi's Andre Gregory impression and all the little in-jokes, but I didn't get to enjoy the confusion and the disbelief at Abed's sudden changes in behavior. I didn't get to have the big epiphany with Jeff and the rest of the audience when the jig was up. It's much more enjoyable to fall for an act that it is to spot one from the start. Ironically I gathered that viewers probably were supposed to get the multiple references to "Cougartown" Abed incorporated into his monologues, a show that I have no familiarity with whatsoever.
Despite its reputation for them, "Community" doesn't do these full blown parody episodes all that often, and rarely anything that hews as closely to its source material as "Critical Film Studies." I get the sense that the show has reached a point where it's poking fun at itself, and at the very act of making pop culture references. This may be getting too meta for some, but the reason I appreciate "Community" is because it's so ambitious and not scared of being smart. A full "Pulp Fiction" spoof would have been a lot of fun, (Would Abed have been Marsellus Wallace? Captain Koons? The Wolf?) but it almost would have been too easy. I've found that the better installments this year haven't been the splashier ones like the zombie episode or the astronaut episode or the Christmas special, but rather the ones that have adopted and critiqued various different narrative techniques, like the documentary episode, the bottle episode, and now the bait-and-switch parody episode.
Then again, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't gleefully anticipating the upcoming sequel to last year's "Modern Warfare" paintball episode. It's going to be a two-parter. And the season finale. And Josh Holloway will guest star.
Damn, I love this show.
Monday, April 4, 2011
So... "Sucker Punch"
I think I'd have felt more kindly toward "Sucker Punch" if it weren't so desperately trying to sell itself as a female empowerment story. Clearly, the primary concern here is not female empowerment - it's male titillation. Hence the petite, scantily clad female characters who are all of age but visually read as adolescents. Hence the fetish costuming, the sickly-sweet nicknames, and the fantasy sequences full of common video game tropes. A period heroine like Baby Doll would have no frame of reference for an inner fantasy world full of seedy bordellos, killer robots, and samurai warriors. Instead, if I had to guess, the inside of her head would probably look more like Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," a film with a far more female-friendly fantasy aesthetic that much of the target audience of "Sucker Punch" reviled on principle.
Honestly, I don't mind a fanservice-heavy film like this on a fundamental level. Guys have no reason to be ashamed of what they enjoy (within legal limits), and lord knows, girls have their own fantasy kinks that anyone familiar with the "Twilight" series can attest to. It's the laziness of the story and the hypocrisy of the sales pitch that drives me crazy. Nobody involved with the film seems to be able to admit that "Sucker Punch" is just a shiny, explode-y, campy burlesque show to make the fanboys happy. Zack Snyder's insistence on grafting a heavy moralistic message to the works feels like a desperate attempt to justify all the excess that has gone before. It's not necessary. It makes things worse.
What really surprised me was how badly the film's narrative is constructed. The story presents us with three levels of reality. In the first, we have a young woman of twenty (Emily Mortimer), who is framed for the murder of her sister by a loathsome stepfather, and shipped off to an insane asylum. The stepfather slips money to an orderly (Oscar Isaac) to forge the signature of a doctor (Carla Gugino) and ensure the girl is lobotomized. She has five days to escape before the lobotomist (Jon Hamm) arrives. Doesn't sound like a bad setup so far, does it?
The trouble is that all this happens in the opening five minutes, and we don't get to see any of the events between the girl's arrival at the asylum and the trip to the lobotomy chair. Instead, right before Don Draper is about to pound a spike into her brain, the film takes us into the girl's fantasy world, where the asylum is a brothel, and all the patients are imprisoned burlesque performers. In this world, the girl's name is Baby Doll, the orderly is the sadistic brothel owner, Blue, the doctor is a dancing instructor, Madame Gorski, and the lobotomist is a mysterious High Roller, coming in five days to deflower Baby. She plots her escape, with the help of fellow captives Sweet Pea (Abby Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung).
The third level of reality comes into play when it is discovered that Baby Doll's dancing hypnotizes and distracts any man who watches her. The girls take advantage of this by collecting items - a map, a knife, a lighter - for their escape during Baby's performances. But the audience never gets to see the dancing or anything else that's going on, because every time Baby dances, we switch to a highly stylized fantasy sequence where she and the other girls are heavily armed combatants fighting dragons and robots and steampunk zombie Nazis. Baby Doll also gets the help of a mysterious guru figure (Scott Glenn), who gives out fortune cookie wisdoms with the parameters of each mission.
These multiple levels of reality are badly tied together and end up undercutting each other. None of the heroines are well defined, and their attitudes and behaviors vary from level to level, so it's not clear how much of the truth we're actually seeing through these fantasy filters. No time is spent on characterization in the combat level. And since we only get abstract representations of what's really going on during many tense moments in the brothel, that story feels disjointed and missing key material. The pacing is terrible, falling into a predictable pattern of hyperkinetic action followed by increasingly unpleasant scenes of subjugation and abuse in the brothel. And of course, since the entire brothel fantasy is itself taking place in the mind of the real, nameless girl in the mental hospital, there's always a sense that none of these other characters are real or worth caring about.
I give Zack Snyder full credit for presenting some fancy visuals here, especially in the fighting scenes, but that's about all that works. The script is a mess, crammed full of every possible kind of nerd-bait with little rhyme or reason as to why it's being included. The characters are barely more than repurposed stock types from video games and exploitation flicks. I like many of the actors that appear, and I have to say it's gratifying to see Jena Malone not playing some troubled teenage boy's winsome love interest for once, but this feels like such a waste of their potential. Vanessa Hudgens and Carla Gugino are usually quite attractive, but you could hardly find them under the bad wigs and thick mascara. Malone and Abbie Cornish, who was so wonderful in "Bright Star," manage to occasionally pretend that they're in another, much better movie. As for Emily Browning, Baby Doll is such a collection of common fetish tropes, it feels like the costume designer and makeup artists deserve more credit for the character than the actress.
I haven't even gotten into the multiple contradictory messages about female sexuality and gender politics, but plenty of other bloggers have been taking those elements apart, and I think I've made my point that "Sucker Punch" was never really about girl power in the first place. It acknowledges the problems with the portrayals of women in these kinds of films, and gets meta about it a few times, but does little beyond that. I suppose that admitting your faults is the first step to correcting them, but the movie is a long way from being as progressive as Snyder thinks it is. If he hadn't hijacked the empowerment narrative and indulged in so much heavy-handed moralizing, I don't think "Sucker Punch" would have been a better film, but it wouldn't be in the middle of the critical firestorm it's weathering now.
Because if you're going to make a fanboy film, which "Sucker Punch" undeniably is from start to finish, there's no point in feeling guilty about it or pretending that it's anything else.
Honestly, I don't mind a fanservice-heavy film like this on a fundamental level. Guys have no reason to be ashamed of what they enjoy (within legal limits), and lord knows, girls have their own fantasy kinks that anyone familiar with the "Twilight" series can attest to. It's the laziness of the story and the hypocrisy of the sales pitch that drives me crazy. Nobody involved with the film seems to be able to admit that "Sucker Punch" is just a shiny, explode-y, campy burlesque show to make the fanboys happy. Zack Snyder's insistence on grafting a heavy moralistic message to the works feels like a desperate attempt to justify all the excess that has gone before. It's not necessary. It makes things worse.
What really surprised me was how badly the film's narrative is constructed. The story presents us with three levels of reality. In the first, we have a young woman of twenty (Emily Mortimer), who is framed for the murder of her sister by a loathsome stepfather, and shipped off to an insane asylum. The stepfather slips money to an orderly (Oscar Isaac) to forge the signature of a doctor (Carla Gugino) and ensure the girl is lobotomized. She has five days to escape before the lobotomist (Jon Hamm) arrives. Doesn't sound like a bad setup so far, does it?
The trouble is that all this happens in the opening five minutes, and we don't get to see any of the events between the girl's arrival at the asylum and the trip to the lobotomy chair. Instead, right before Don Draper is about to pound a spike into her brain, the film takes us into the girl's fantasy world, where the asylum is a brothel, and all the patients are imprisoned burlesque performers. In this world, the girl's name is Baby Doll, the orderly is the sadistic brothel owner, Blue, the doctor is a dancing instructor, Madame Gorski, and the lobotomist is a mysterious High Roller, coming in five days to deflower Baby. She plots her escape, with the help of fellow captives Sweet Pea (Abby Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung).
The third level of reality comes into play when it is discovered that Baby Doll's dancing hypnotizes and distracts any man who watches her. The girls take advantage of this by collecting items - a map, a knife, a lighter - for their escape during Baby's performances. But the audience never gets to see the dancing or anything else that's going on, because every time Baby dances, we switch to a highly stylized fantasy sequence where she and the other girls are heavily armed combatants fighting dragons and robots and steampunk zombie Nazis. Baby Doll also gets the help of a mysterious guru figure (Scott Glenn), who gives out fortune cookie wisdoms with the parameters of each mission.
These multiple levels of reality are badly tied together and end up undercutting each other. None of the heroines are well defined, and their attitudes and behaviors vary from level to level, so it's not clear how much of the truth we're actually seeing through these fantasy filters. No time is spent on characterization in the combat level. And since we only get abstract representations of what's really going on during many tense moments in the brothel, that story feels disjointed and missing key material. The pacing is terrible, falling into a predictable pattern of hyperkinetic action followed by increasingly unpleasant scenes of subjugation and abuse in the brothel. And of course, since the entire brothel fantasy is itself taking place in the mind of the real, nameless girl in the mental hospital, there's always a sense that none of these other characters are real or worth caring about.
I give Zack Snyder full credit for presenting some fancy visuals here, especially in the fighting scenes, but that's about all that works. The script is a mess, crammed full of every possible kind of nerd-bait with little rhyme or reason as to why it's being included. The characters are barely more than repurposed stock types from video games and exploitation flicks. I like many of the actors that appear, and I have to say it's gratifying to see Jena Malone not playing some troubled teenage boy's winsome love interest for once, but this feels like such a waste of their potential. Vanessa Hudgens and Carla Gugino are usually quite attractive, but you could hardly find them under the bad wigs and thick mascara. Malone and Abbie Cornish, who was so wonderful in "Bright Star," manage to occasionally pretend that they're in another, much better movie. As for Emily Browning, Baby Doll is such a collection of common fetish tropes, it feels like the costume designer and makeup artists deserve more credit for the character than the actress.
I haven't even gotten into the multiple contradictory messages about female sexuality and gender politics, but plenty of other bloggers have been taking those elements apart, and I think I've made my point that "Sucker Punch" was never really about girl power in the first place. It acknowledges the problems with the portrayals of women in these kinds of films, and gets meta about it a few times, but does little beyond that. I suppose that admitting your faults is the first step to correcting them, but the movie is a long way from being as progressive as Snyder thinks it is. If he hadn't hijacked the empowerment narrative and indulged in so much heavy-handed moralizing, I don't think "Sucker Punch" would have been a better film, but it wouldn't be in the middle of the critical firestorm it's weathering now.
Because if you're going to make a fanboy film, which "Sucker Punch" undeniably is from start to finish, there's no point in feeling guilty about it or pretending that it's anything else.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Anticipating Summer Movie Season? I Wish I Was
It's April, which means that summer blockbuster season is just around the corner. It seems to come a little earlier every year, with many big action pictures now crowding the first weeks of May, where they were once expected to wait for Memorial Day weekend, and a few like the fifth "Fast and Furious" movie even braving the tail-end of April. I was all set to write up a list of films I was excited for, but I'll tell you the truth. I'm not really feeling it this year. Maybe it's because I'm getting toward the outer reaches of the age range for the target audience for most of these films. Maybe it's because the inundation of sequels and reboots and retreads is getting me down. Maybe I've just gotten immune to the hype, or I haven't gotten over the endless string of disappointments that characterized last year.
There are a handful of movies that look promising. JJ Abrams' "Super 8," Jon Favreau's "Cowboys & Aliens," the Guillermo Del Toro scripted "Don't be Afraid of the Dark," and the "Fright Night" remake should be fun genre popcorn flicks. Festival favorite "Another Earth" could be interesting. Some of the August counterprogramming, like dramas "The Help" and "The Debt" sound all right, but information about them is scarce. I'm rooting for "Winnie the Pooh" with all my might. And if they can keep the juvenile toilet humor in check, I might be convinced to give "Mr. Popper's Penguins" a shot. However there are only three movies that I can say I'm really anticipating, two of them sequels - the final "Harry Potter" and the second "Kung Fu Panda" movie. In both cases, these are films following strong previous installments and doen't feel extraneous or unnecessary, unlike the bulk of the sequels coming out this year. Just looking at the list of upcoming second, third, fourth, or fifth franchise entries is depressing.
Was PIXAR's "Cars" good enough to warrant a sequel? Did we need another "Pirates of the Caribbean"? I guess "Transformers 3" and "The Hangover 2" were inevitable, but who exactly was clamoring for another "Spy Kids"? Or "Final Destination"? Or "Johnny English"? Or "Journey to the Center of the Earth"? Why have prequels for "X-men" and "Planet of the Apes"? Does anyone under the age of thirty even know what "Planet of the Apes" is? Thankfully reboots are scarcer this year, but we're still going to have to put up with advertisements for "The Smurfs" for a couple of months. And I would dearly love for the "Conan the Barbarian" reboot to be wonderful, or even just a good cheesy romp. But it's being directed by Marcus Nispel, whose filmography consists almost entirely of poorly regarded horror movie reboots like the 2003 "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the 2009 "Friday the 13th." So I await "Conan" with growing dread.
But wait, I hear you cry. This is the summer of the great superhero showdown, when DC/Warner Brothers and Marvel/Paramount will sending "The Green Lantern," "Thor," and "Captain America" to the multiplexes for the first time to do battle. You love superhero movies! And indeed I do, but my anticipation for all of these titles has taken a dive since last year. The biggest culprit was really "Iron Man 2," which was severely diminished by being rushed into production and used to set up the 2012 "Avengers" movie. "Thor" and "Captain America" may still turn out to be wonderful films, but I worry that their plots will be compromised, and the origin stories of these new superheroes will end up playing more like prequels to "Avengers." As for "Green Lantern," it's still the one that I think is the most promising, but the delays in getting marketing materials out - note the conspicuous lack of a Superbowl ad - is worrying. I haven't seen the new Wondercon footage yet, so I still hold out hope it will come out better than the bad buzz suggests. Oh, and I'd be remiss in forgetting to mention "Priest," another comic book adaptation with Paul Bettany, which looks like a low-rent, monochrome "Judge Dredd."
And then there's the comedic genre, which I have never have much luck with. "Something Borrowed," "Friends with Benefits," "Bad Teacher" "Bridesmaids," "Horrible Bosses" "Zookeeper," "30 Minutes or Less," and "The Change-Up" aren't doing anything for me so far. "Crazy Stupid Love" has the benefit of Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore, while "Larry Crowne" with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts looks cute, but these hardly ping as an event movies. Finally, the art house offers some possible reprieves. Woody Allen's latest, "Midnight in Paris," has a stellar cast that hopefully won't go to waste. The long awaited "The Beaver" with Mel Gibson is also en route and the buzz has been pretty decent - well, if you can stop cringing at the mention of Mel Gibson.
But what's the last summer film I'm really anticipating? Terence Malick's "The Tree of Life," which is getting a limited release at the end of May, and could steal some attention away from bigger movies. No matter how you slice it, this one's going to be an event, since pretentious cineastes have been waiting for the film for what feels like ages. Something as artsy as "The Tree of Life" may seem an odd choice for summer viewing, but in a year like this it stands out above the crowd and I'll take what I can get.
This is not to say I'm rooting for any of these movies to fail. I hope that I'm completely wrong about the majority of these titles, that my expectations will be exceeded, and we get a great summer at the movies. I don't want to see a repeat of last year, which left the whole industry miserable. There's only so much schadenfreude a girl should indulge in. But if worse comes to worst, well, there are a lot of films in the fall and winter that I'm looking forward to. And there's always next year, which is already shaping up to be a monster. But those are posts for another time.
There are a handful of movies that look promising. JJ Abrams' "Super 8," Jon Favreau's "Cowboys & Aliens," the Guillermo Del Toro scripted "Don't be Afraid of the Dark," and the "Fright Night" remake should be fun genre popcorn flicks. Festival favorite "Another Earth" could be interesting. Some of the August counterprogramming, like dramas "The Help" and "The Debt" sound all right, but information about them is scarce. I'm rooting for "Winnie the Pooh" with all my might. And if they can keep the juvenile toilet humor in check, I might be convinced to give "Mr. Popper's Penguins" a shot. However there are only three movies that I can say I'm really anticipating, two of them sequels - the final "Harry Potter" and the second "Kung Fu Panda" movie. In both cases, these are films following strong previous installments and doen't feel extraneous or unnecessary, unlike the bulk of the sequels coming out this year. Just looking at the list of upcoming second, third, fourth, or fifth franchise entries is depressing.
Was PIXAR's "Cars" good enough to warrant a sequel? Did we need another "Pirates of the Caribbean"? I guess "Transformers 3" and "The Hangover 2" were inevitable, but who exactly was clamoring for another "Spy Kids"? Or "Final Destination"? Or "Johnny English"? Or "Journey to the Center of the Earth"? Why have prequels for "X-men" and "Planet of the Apes"? Does anyone under the age of thirty even know what "Planet of the Apes" is? Thankfully reboots are scarcer this year, but we're still going to have to put up with advertisements for "The Smurfs" for a couple of months. And I would dearly love for the "Conan the Barbarian" reboot to be wonderful, or even just a good cheesy romp. But it's being directed by Marcus Nispel, whose filmography consists almost entirely of poorly regarded horror movie reboots like the 2003 "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the 2009 "Friday the 13th." So I await "Conan" with growing dread.
But wait, I hear you cry. This is the summer of the great superhero showdown, when DC/Warner Brothers and Marvel/Paramount will sending "The Green Lantern," "Thor," and "Captain America" to the multiplexes for the first time to do battle. You love superhero movies! And indeed I do, but my anticipation for all of these titles has taken a dive since last year. The biggest culprit was really "Iron Man 2," which was severely diminished by being rushed into production and used to set up the 2012 "Avengers" movie. "Thor" and "Captain America" may still turn out to be wonderful films, but I worry that their plots will be compromised, and the origin stories of these new superheroes will end up playing more like prequels to "Avengers." As for "Green Lantern," it's still the one that I think is the most promising, but the delays in getting marketing materials out - note the conspicuous lack of a Superbowl ad - is worrying. I haven't seen the new Wondercon footage yet, so I still hold out hope it will come out better than the bad buzz suggests. Oh, and I'd be remiss in forgetting to mention "Priest," another comic book adaptation with Paul Bettany, which looks like a low-rent, monochrome "Judge Dredd."
And then there's the comedic genre, which I have never have much luck with. "Something Borrowed," "Friends with Benefits," "Bad Teacher" "Bridesmaids," "Horrible Bosses" "Zookeeper," "30 Minutes or Less," and "The Change-Up" aren't doing anything for me so far. "Crazy Stupid Love" has the benefit of Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore, while "Larry Crowne" with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts looks cute, but these hardly ping as an event movies. Finally, the art house offers some possible reprieves. Woody Allen's latest, "Midnight in Paris," has a stellar cast that hopefully won't go to waste. The long awaited "The Beaver" with Mel Gibson is also en route and the buzz has been pretty decent - well, if you can stop cringing at the mention of Mel Gibson.
But what's the last summer film I'm really anticipating? Terence Malick's "The Tree of Life," which is getting a limited release at the end of May, and could steal some attention away from bigger movies. No matter how you slice it, this one's going to be an event, since pretentious cineastes have been waiting for the film for what feels like ages. Something as artsy as "The Tree of Life" may seem an odd choice for summer viewing, but in a year like this it stands out above the crowd and I'll take what I can get.
This is not to say I'm rooting for any of these movies to fail. I hope that I'm completely wrong about the majority of these titles, that my expectations will be exceeded, and we get a great summer at the movies. I don't want to see a repeat of last year, which left the whole industry miserable. There's only so much schadenfreude a girl should indulge in. But if worse comes to worst, well, there are a lot of films in the fall and winter that I'm looking forward to. And there's always next year, which is already shaping up to be a monster. But those are posts for another time.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Disney Dreams and "Waking Sleeping Beauty"
When I was younger, I went to a school dance with a group of friends and had a great time. It was only later in the evening, as we were all going our separate ways, that my best friend pulled me aside and explained that there had been drama going on all night between two of my other girlfriends who were fighting over the same boy. I'd been totally oblivious that anything like that was happening, and felt sheepish and little embarrassed. Some of the same feelings came up while watching "Waking Sleeping Beauty," a documentary that chronicles the Disney animation renaissance, from the early 80s up to the release of "The Lion King" in 1994.
As I've mentioned before in many of these blog posts, I was a Disney kid. I was exactly the right age at exactly the right time to be utterly swept up in Disney animation's return to glory in the 80s and 90s, and so became something of a life-long Disney obsessive. I'd read some of the literature about what was going on behind the scenes, and knew that the sugar-coated studio version of events was all a front, but most of the negativity involved the public sparring between Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg that went on during 1994. As far as I knew, everything had been going fine up until that point. So it was jarring to see how bumpy that preceding decade really was for the studio, all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into pushing feature animation up to those towering creative highs, and the personal tensions that were apparent between the three men who were so often the public face of Disney during that period - Eisner, Katzenberg, and Roy Disney.
"Waking Sleeping Beauty" was directed by Don Hahn and produced by Peter Schneider, who have credits on many familiar Disney features. The documentary is made up entirely of archival footage, a good mix of the animators' home movies, still photos, marketing material, news footage, and period interviews. Disney fans will also be gratified to see clips from in-progress versions of the films, recording sessions, and dropped musical sequences. Hahn provides much of the narration himself, but also turns the microphone over to many of the other players involved in order to let everybody have their say, even putting some of the unused audio on the commentary track. Because of the notorious lengths that Disney goes to in order to protect its public image and intellectual property, this is the first time that many of these stories have come to light, and there's still a sense of walking on eggshells at certain points. Perhaps the filmmakers were too close to their subject matter, as they do have a tendency to sentimentalize events and the nostalgia is awfully thick. Notably, Hahn only alludes to the larger fallout from Katzenberg's departure and the painful reversal of fortune for Disney animation that would occur over the next ten years.
But at its heart, this is the best look behind the scenes of Disney animation that I've ever seen, and finally helps to humanize many familiar names. It makes so much difference to actually be able to watch video of lyricist Howard Ashman, often described as one of the driving creative forces behind "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," and "Aladdin." He's showered with praise and affection by everyone in the film, but I appreciated the inclusion of some of the not-so-nice incidents too, like Ashman blowing up at "Beauty and the Beast" director Kirk Wise, cheerfully rendered in a series of caricature drawings. The film is also very good at providing important context and little details to many events in the studio's history, such as the failure of "The Black Cauldron" in 1985 being especially bitter because they were trumped at the box office by Nelvana's "Care Bears Movie." And when the animators get kicked off the Disney lot and relocated to Glendale, we're treated to video of them working out their frustrations by re-enacting "Apocalypse Now."
I urge you to see this film on DVD if possible, for the additional supplemental materials. There's at least a good hour of deleted sequences and full versions of certain clips. An encounter with a young Tim Burton, for instance, is absolutely hysterical when you see the whole thing. If I have any beef with the film it's that I wish we could have seen more of the animators. The only people we follow through those ten years, start to finish, are the executives. The narrative would have been strengthened by following one of the artists - possibly Don Hahn himself - through that time period too. Also for anyone who isn't a Disney nut, it's difficult to keep track of everyone in the film. I honestly wondered a few times if someone had mislaid some captions somewhere.
But these are minor quibbles. "Waking Sleeping Beauty" is a rare, candid look at what was really going on in the Magic Kingdom while the world was falling back in love with Disney. Some of it was magic, but a lot of it was shrewd executive brinksmanship, a changed corporate culture, and a small group of people working very, very hard for a a very long time. It's about time we got to see their side of the story.
As I've mentioned before in many of these blog posts, I was a Disney kid. I was exactly the right age at exactly the right time to be utterly swept up in Disney animation's return to glory in the 80s and 90s, and so became something of a life-long Disney obsessive. I'd read some of the literature about what was going on behind the scenes, and knew that the sugar-coated studio version of events was all a front, but most of the negativity involved the public sparring between Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg that went on during 1994. As far as I knew, everything had been going fine up until that point. So it was jarring to see how bumpy that preceding decade really was for the studio, all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into pushing feature animation up to those towering creative highs, and the personal tensions that were apparent between the three men who were so often the public face of Disney during that period - Eisner, Katzenberg, and Roy Disney.
"Waking Sleeping Beauty" was directed by Don Hahn and produced by Peter Schneider, who have credits on many familiar Disney features. The documentary is made up entirely of archival footage, a good mix of the animators' home movies, still photos, marketing material, news footage, and period interviews. Disney fans will also be gratified to see clips from in-progress versions of the films, recording sessions, and dropped musical sequences. Hahn provides much of the narration himself, but also turns the microphone over to many of the other players involved in order to let everybody have their say, even putting some of the unused audio on the commentary track. Because of the notorious lengths that Disney goes to in order to protect its public image and intellectual property, this is the first time that many of these stories have come to light, and there's still a sense of walking on eggshells at certain points. Perhaps the filmmakers were too close to their subject matter, as they do have a tendency to sentimentalize events and the nostalgia is awfully thick. Notably, Hahn only alludes to the larger fallout from Katzenberg's departure and the painful reversal of fortune for Disney animation that would occur over the next ten years.
But at its heart, this is the best look behind the scenes of Disney animation that I've ever seen, and finally helps to humanize many familiar names. It makes so much difference to actually be able to watch video of lyricist Howard Ashman, often described as one of the driving creative forces behind "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," and "Aladdin." He's showered with praise and affection by everyone in the film, but I appreciated the inclusion of some of the not-so-nice incidents too, like Ashman blowing up at "Beauty and the Beast" director Kirk Wise, cheerfully rendered in a series of caricature drawings. The film is also very good at providing important context and little details to many events in the studio's history, such as the failure of "The Black Cauldron" in 1985 being especially bitter because they were trumped at the box office by Nelvana's "Care Bears Movie." And when the animators get kicked off the Disney lot and relocated to Glendale, we're treated to video of them working out their frustrations by re-enacting "Apocalypse Now."
I urge you to see this film on DVD if possible, for the additional supplemental materials. There's at least a good hour of deleted sequences and full versions of certain clips. An encounter with a young Tim Burton, for instance, is absolutely hysterical when you see the whole thing. If I have any beef with the film it's that I wish we could have seen more of the animators. The only people we follow through those ten years, start to finish, are the executives. The narrative would have been strengthened by following one of the artists - possibly Don Hahn himself - through that time period too. Also for anyone who isn't a Disney nut, it's difficult to keep track of everyone in the film. I honestly wondered a few times if someone had mislaid some captions somewhere.
But these are minor quibbles. "Waking Sleeping Beauty" is a rare, candid look at what was really going on in the Magic Kingdom while the world was falling back in love with Disney. Some of it was magic, but a lot of it was shrewd executive brinksmanship, a changed corporate culture, and a small group of people working very, very hard for a a very long time. It's about time we got to see their side of the story.
Friday, April 1, 2011
A "Stone" With Serious Flaws
"Stone" wants to tackle deep and heavy themes, like morality, spirituality, crime, and punishment, but aside from making some broad allusions and belabored metaphors, really doesn't get around to business. In the opening scene, we watch a young wife summon up the courage to leave an unhappy marriage, only to be brutally coerced into staying, when her husband dangles their sleeping daughter out of the second-story bedroom window and threatens to let her fall. After the wife capitulates and the husband relents, the wife hurries to close the window, inadvertently killing a bee. This is easily the most interesting and effective part of the entire film, and it features none of the principle actors and is only briefly alluded to later in the story.
Several decades later, the couple is now played by Robert DeNiro and Frances Conroy, and are identified as Jack and Madylyn Mabry. Jack is a correctional officer near retirement, who interviews potential parolees to determine if they are no longer a danger to society. One of his final cases is Gerald "Stone" Creeson (Edward Norton), an arsonist who wants very badly to make parole, though he still refuses to admit to his crime and shows no remorse. Stone has a wife waiting for him, Lucetta (Milla Jovovich), who loves him so much that she would do anything to help him get out of prison. This includes seducing Jack and leading him astray, with predictably dire consequences.
"Stone" is primarily a character study of Jack Mabry, who is a stickler for the rules and procedure, faithfully goes to church with his wife every Sunday, and seems perfectly content. The intrusion of Stone and Lucetta into his life challenges his worldview. Jack's dark side emerges, first tentatively as he begins to question his faith, and then in more obvious and destructive ways. The breakdown of these moral boundaries and Jack being forced to confront his own hypocrisy should be plenty of material for "Stone" to chew on, but the film gets ambitious and tries to tie this to a deeper crisis of faith. And this is where it falters.
Most of spiritual elements in the film call attention to themselves but are never explored in any meaningful way. Rather, they tend to distract from the rest of the film. Religious radio programs and readings of passages from the Bible provide a lot of portentous background noise. At one point Stone has an epiphany and converts to a half-baked religion called Zukandor, which allows him to prattle on about alternate systems of spirituality and set up one of the primary metaphors in the film - that the coming of spiritual enlightenment is first signaled through sound. Hence the bee in the first scene and recurring buzzing noises on the soundtrack throughout.
The concepts found in "Stone" are engaging, and the actors are all talented and capable, but the execution is severely lacking. Too much time is wasted on establishing the mood and tone instead of tending to the development of the cold, difficult characters and predictable plot. It is not easy to empathize with any of the leads. Robert DeNiro adds what texture he can to Jack Mabry, but there's not enough there to make us care about his disintegrating marriage and existential turmoil. Edward Norton's Stone is a collection of odd characteristics that don't seem to fit together, not the least of which are ridiculous-looking cornrows and a thick, indeterminate accent that doesn't match his lovely wife's.
That brings us to Milla Jovovich, who gives the best performance out of the entire cast. Lucetta has some some interesting dimensions that Jovovich brings out perfectly, going beyond simply supplying a sexual presence and some passive-aggressive seduction tactics. It's clear that underneath the baby-talk and the innocent looks, someone far warier lies in wait. Having seen Jovovich stuck in wide-eyed ingenue and woman-child roles far too often, it was nice to see her expand on her usual screen persona. I wish she'd been given more to do here. Frances Conroy as the long-suffering Madylyn Mabry also makes the most of her few limited, but vital scenes.
I may fault "Stone" for being too ambitious, but at least its ambitions are honest. John Curran is a fine director, who was also responsible for the wonderful, underseen "Painted Veil." Writer Angus MacLachlan gave us "Junebug." Even if they were ultimately unsuccessful, they deserve due credit for trying to do something different and original with "Stone," which is more than I can say for a lot filmmakers currently churning out cookie-cutter crime dramas. "Stone" is a muddled mess, but I get the feeling it was on the right track to something better.
Several decades later, the couple is now played by Robert DeNiro and Frances Conroy, and are identified as Jack and Madylyn Mabry. Jack is a correctional officer near retirement, who interviews potential parolees to determine if they are no longer a danger to society. One of his final cases is Gerald "Stone" Creeson (Edward Norton), an arsonist who wants very badly to make parole, though he still refuses to admit to his crime and shows no remorse. Stone has a wife waiting for him, Lucetta (Milla Jovovich), who loves him so much that she would do anything to help him get out of prison. This includes seducing Jack and leading him astray, with predictably dire consequences.
"Stone" is primarily a character study of Jack Mabry, who is a stickler for the rules and procedure, faithfully goes to church with his wife every Sunday, and seems perfectly content. The intrusion of Stone and Lucetta into his life challenges his worldview. Jack's dark side emerges, first tentatively as he begins to question his faith, and then in more obvious and destructive ways. The breakdown of these moral boundaries and Jack being forced to confront his own hypocrisy should be plenty of material for "Stone" to chew on, but the film gets ambitious and tries to tie this to a deeper crisis of faith. And this is where it falters.
Most of spiritual elements in the film call attention to themselves but are never explored in any meaningful way. Rather, they tend to distract from the rest of the film. Religious radio programs and readings of passages from the Bible provide a lot of portentous background noise. At one point Stone has an epiphany and converts to a half-baked religion called Zukandor, which allows him to prattle on about alternate systems of spirituality and set up one of the primary metaphors in the film - that the coming of spiritual enlightenment is first signaled through sound. Hence the bee in the first scene and recurring buzzing noises on the soundtrack throughout.
The concepts found in "Stone" are engaging, and the actors are all talented and capable, but the execution is severely lacking. Too much time is wasted on establishing the mood and tone instead of tending to the development of the cold, difficult characters and predictable plot. It is not easy to empathize with any of the leads. Robert DeNiro adds what texture he can to Jack Mabry, but there's not enough there to make us care about his disintegrating marriage and existential turmoil. Edward Norton's Stone is a collection of odd characteristics that don't seem to fit together, not the least of which are ridiculous-looking cornrows and a thick, indeterminate accent that doesn't match his lovely wife's.
That brings us to Milla Jovovich, who gives the best performance out of the entire cast. Lucetta has some some interesting dimensions that Jovovich brings out perfectly, going beyond simply supplying a sexual presence and some passive-aggressive seduction tactics. It's clear that underneath the baby-talk and the innocent looks, someone far warier lies in wait. Having seen Jovovich stuck in wide-eyed ingenue and woman-child roles far too often, it was nice to see her expand on her usual screen persona. I wish she'd been given more to do here. Frances Conroy as the long-suffering Madylyn Mabry also makes the most of her few limited, but vital scenes.
I may fault "Stone" for being too ambitious, but at least its ambitions are honest. John Curran is a fine director, who was also responsible for the wonderful, underseen "Painted Veil." Writer Angus MacLachlan gave us "Junebug." Even if they were ultimately unsuccessful, they deserve due credit for trying to do something different and original with "Stone," which is more than I can say for a lot filmmakers currently churning out cookie-cutter crime dramas. "Stone" is a muddled mess, but I get the feeling it was on the right track to something better.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Is This the End of Fanboy Cinema?
The Internet has been buzzing about the underperformance of "Sucker Punch" at the box office this weekend, which came in second to the second "Wimpy Kid" movie. Everyone seems intent on tearing director Zack Snyder apart for the film's content, but I have not yet see the movie, so any sort of dissection of its merits from me is going to have to wait. Instead, I'm going to go the more meta route today and look at what the poor performances of "Sucker Punch" and the recent alien buddy comedy "Paul" mean for the future of fanboy cinema.
Roughly six months ago, when the highly anticipated "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" took a dive, I posited that the broader mainstream culture wasn't yet receptive to the tastes of the video-game loving, anime-watching, twenty-something Comic-Con nerd crowd. There would be other chances in the future, though, for this kind of movie to connect. The studios were still gamely trying to court the fanboy audience, and there were several high profile projects still waiting on the horizon. But then "Tron Legacy" only did so-so, "The Green Hornet" did even worse, "Paul" barely registered on anyone's radar, and now "Sucker Punch" is being excoriated for the worst excesses associated with its target audience. Does this mean that the studios will stop making films aimed at fanboys?
I don't think so. Looking back over the recent films primarily targeted at the young male audience, there haven't been many real financial disasters. "Kick Ass" and "Tron" both made their budgets back. "The Green Hornet" was a bigger hit overseas, and "Paul" was made for so little money, it's already broken even. Only "Scott Pilgrim" and "Sucker Punch" can rightly be called bombs, and they both had comparatively modest budgets, so the losses weren't that steep. "Sucker Punch" only had a price tag of $82 million, though the shock-and-awe marketing price probably pushes that figure up some. Many similar effects-heavy action films have budgets well north of $100 million.
The real issue here is that there hasn't been a big blockbuster that's been primarily driven by the comic book crowd lately. Sure, "The Expendables" and the various superhero films appeal to the fanboy crowd and enjoy solid attendance by the young male quadrant, but a significant portion of their audiences are female, or older, or younger, or generally more mainstream. Everyone is excited for "The Dark Knight Rises," not just the fanboy crowd. What we haven't seen is film aimed solely at that specific fanboy demographic that has become a moneymaker on the same level as something like "Twilight," which also plays to a similar audience - teenage girls.
Four years ago, the surprise success of "300" sent everyone scrambling to find the next big comic book hit, but as time has worn on and those hits failed to materialize, the craze has just about run its course. Perhaps the fanboys are more discerning or more difficult to predict, but the message that is coming across loud and clear right now is that they are not as dependable as they were once perceived to be. If the fanboys can't be sold on something like "Sucker Punch," which is stuffed to the gills with everything that could possibly appeal to the young male psyche, then the studios have no financial interest in making more movies like it.
This is not the end of fanboy cinema, but I suspect that future efforts will be scaled back in size and scope. We're not going to see another risky "Watchmen" level production any time soon, and only rarely a "Sucker Punch" or a "Scott Pilgrim." Kiss those dreams of a big-budget R-rated "Preacher" goodbye. We'll also no longer see marketing campaigns that solely pander to fanboy sensibilities. I can't help wondering if "Scott Pilgrim" would have attracted a bigger audience if it had pushed its more tender romantic elements at female viewers, instead of spending all the ad money trying to razzle-dazzle the gamer crowd. Oh, and Zack Snyder will keep working, but he's not going to be given carte blanche with the "Superman" reboot. I doubt anyone would give him final cut over a shoe commercial for the foreseeable future.
But is this a bad thing? I liked "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," and I appreciated the influx of original projects that the fanboy genre brought in, but it's been difficult to ignore some of the excesses. I have to say it's been nice to see the fanboy crowd's usual puffed-up sense of entitlement get deflated a bit lately. You can not argue that "Sucker Punch" has any kind of broad appeal when it enjoyed such a massive marketing blitz and still got KO'd by a no-frills kids' movie with a tiny $20 million budget. The truth is that fanboys are a niche audience, and the genre movies that they prize, full of sex and violence and mayhem, are niche films that should really be treated as such.
Roughly six months ago, when the highly anticipated "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" took a dive, I posited that the broader mainstream culture wasn't yet receptive to the tastes of the video-game loving, anime-watching, twenty-something Comic-Con nerd crowd. There would be other chances in the future, though, for this kind of movie to connect. The studios were still gamely trying to court the fanboy audience, and there were several high profile projects still waiting on the horizon. But then "Tron Legacy" only did so-so, "The Green Hornet" did even worse, "Paul" barely registered on anyone's radar, and now "Sucker Punch" is being excoriated for the worst excesses associated with its target audience. Does this mean that the studios will stop making films aimed at fanboys?
I don't think so. Looking back over the recent films primarily targeted at the young male audience, there haven't been many real financial disasters. "Kick Ass" and "Tron" both made their budgets back. "The Green Hornet" was a bigger hit overseas, and "Paul" was made for so little money, it's already broken even. Only "Scott Pilgrim" and "Sucker Punch" can rightly be called bombs, and they both had comparatively modest budgets, so the losses weren't that steep. "Sucker Punch" only had a price tag of $82 million, though the shock-and-awe marketing price probably pushes that figure up some. Many similar effects-heavy action films have budgets well north of $100 million.
The real issue here is that there hasn't been a big blockbuster that's been primarily driven by the comic book crowd lately. Sure, "The Expendables" and the various superhero films appeal to the fanboy crowd and enjoy solid attendance by the young male quadrant, but a significant portion of their audiences are female, or older, or younger, or generally more mainstream. Everyone is excited for "The Dark Knight Rises," not just the fanboy crowd. What we haven't seen is film aimed solely at that specific fanboy demographic that has become a moneymaker on the same level as something like "Twilight," which also plays to a similar audience - teenage girls.
Four years ago, the surprise success of "300" sent everyone scrambling to find the next big comic book hit, but as time has worn on and those hits failed to materialize, the craze has just about run its course. Perhaps the fanboys are more discerning or more difficult to predict, but the message that is coming across loud and clear right now is that they are not as dependable as they were once perceived to be. If the fanboys can't be sold on something like "Sucker Punch," which is stuffed to the gills with everything that could possibly appeal to the young male psyche, then the studios have no financial interest in making more movies like it.
This is not the end of fanboy cinema, but I suspect that future efforts will be scaled back in size and scope. We're not going to see another risky "Watchmen" level production any time soon, and only rarely a "Sucker Punch" or a "Scott Pilgrim." Kiss those dreams of a big-budget R-rated "Preacher" goodbye. We'll also no longer see marketing campaigns that solely pander to fanboy sensibilities. I can't help wondering if "Scott Pilgrim" would have attracted a bigger audience if it had pushed its more tender romantic elements at female viewers, instead of spending all the ad money trying to razzle-dazzle the gamer crowd. Oh, and Zack Snyder will keep working, but he's not going to be given carte blanche with the "Superman" reboot. I doubt anyone would give him final cut over a shoe commercial for the foreseeable future.
But is this a bad thing? I liked "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," and I appreciated the influx of original projects that the fanboy genre brought in, but it's been difficult to ignore some of the excesses. I have to say it's been nice to see the fanboy crowd's usual puffed-up sense of entitlement get deflated a bit lately. You can not argue that "Sucker Punch" has any kind of broad appeal when it enjoyed such a massive marketing blitz and still got KO'd by a no-frills kids' movie with a tiny $20 million budget. The truth is that fanboys are a niche audience, and the genre movies that they prize, full of sex and violence and mayhem, are niche films that should really be treated as such.
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