Karina on SpoutBlog

Under discussion:

Swept Away  (2002)

Yes, that Madonna. The one who essentially hammered the final nail into the coffin of her acting career by convincing husband Guy Ritchie to cast her in a remake of Swept Away, whose influence then led said husband to further imperil his own filmmaking career by making Revolver, which apparently amounted to “one long advertisement for Kabbalah” in Ritchie’s patented Brit-gangster clothing. Now seemingly adhering to the adage that if one wants such a thing done right, she’s got to do it herself, Madonna has directed a long short/short feature called Filth and Wisdom. According to Variety, it’ll premiere on the Panorama sidebar at the Berlin International Film Festival in February.

This story back in May described Filth as “a comedy based on the star’s own experiences,” about an “Indian chemist owner, a Jewish businessman, and a failed ballet dancer who becomes a pole dancer.” The same story said the film would likely come in at 30 minutes; according to IMDb, the current cut (which is apparently in English AND Russian) is more like 45. IMDb also informs us that the film stars Richard E. Grant and Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello, who apparently appear in the band’s entirety as themselves.

I don’t have anything else to say about this. I would rather watch the video above and just sort of guiltily sink into deep nostalgia for 1990.

Under discussion:

Back to the Future  (1985)

Days of Heaven  (1978)

In a Lonely Place  (1950)

The Women  (1939)

The 25 titles to be inducted in the National Film Registry for 2007 include some of my favorite films: George Cukor’s The Women; Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven; Nicholas Ray’s pitch-black In a Lonely Place; and, of course, my favorite franchise film of all time, Back to the Future. The full list, as well as thoughts from NFR advisory board member Dave Kehr, can be found here; see an extended clip from the Ray film above.

Under discussion:

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story  (2007)

The biggest box office news of Christmas weekend was the utter failure of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Sony launched a wide and varied marketing campaign, the film was fairly well-reviewed (earned a 78 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and yet, it only managed to gross $4.1 million over three days. That’s $1,547 per screen, so assuming tickets sold at an average $10, and each theater hosted roughly five screenings a day, that adds up to about 10 ticket buyers per show per screen. This would be a crap opening under any circumstances, but it’s expecially crap considering that it ends a long winning streak for producer Judd Apatow. So what went wrong? Let’s go to the blogs:

• Nikki Finke quotes a rival studio exec with the snipe, “This shows Judd Apatow is not god. Sometimes you can be too clever for your own good.” Her own diagnosis? “The problem was the movie skewed overwhelmingly male, but that guy audience went for action-adventure and sawe National Treasure and I Am Legend instead.”
• Leonard Klady at The Hot Blog offers six possible reasons for Walk Hard’s failure. Perhaps most damning is #6: “A running series of ???Cox??? jokes that were barely funny the first time, much less the 3000th time??? unless third graders are suddenly in the market for mock biopics.”
• Pajiba offers the Apatow fan perspective: “Walk Hard is that movie everyone thought would do really well, but that no one actually wanted to see. Indeed, my Apatow credentials are pretty well known, but I just had no interest. None. I guess the Apatow backlash now begins.”
• Jeff Wells is one of many who blames John C. Reilly’s lack of star power. It didn’t seem to be a problem for Seth Rogen or Michael Cera, but in any case: “It’s funny, clever, sharp, absurdist..what happened? My theory in a nutshell: (a) people figured that a spoof of Walk The Line and Ray wasn’t vital enough to see in theatres, and (b) John C. Reilly isn’t a star, doesn’t put butts in seats.”
• Finally, for Defamer, it all comes down to anatomical detail. “Judd Apatow gets his first taste of box office disappointment–something that surely could have been avoided had the marketing better highlighted the film’s frequent close-ups on a flaccid penis.” Meanwhile, sister site Idolator seems personally offended to have been embroiled in said penis-less marketing, branding Walk Hard the “Snakes On A Plane of parody biopics, the ‘hey let’s make a movie comprised of references to old bands and then aggressively market it to music bloggers because surely they will BRING THE NEWS TO THE PEOPLE’ flick.”