Karina on SpoutBlog

Under discussion:

54  (1998)

• Are today’s bloggy cultural critics a thorn in Whit Stillman’s side, either because or in spite of the fact that “we’re all just stealing Nick’s lines from Metropolitan“? Maybe the next time Stillman emerges in search of his shadow, we’ll find out. In the meantime, Matt Dentler says Cinetic is working on distributing Metropolitan online “in the near future.” Although, of course, Last Days of Disco remains all but unavailable…
• Related, sort of: Peter DeBruge writes of the “bootleg director’s cut” of 54, which restores Ryan Phillippe’s character to his original conception as an “overtly bisexual bartender, one of those erotic beings (like Terrence Stamp in Pasolini’s Teorema)…he woos club owner Mike Myers, makes it with record exec Sela Ward, kisses out-of-reach soap star Neve Campbell, gets frisky with best friend Breckin Meyer and then bangs his friend’s wife Salma Hayek in a bathroom stall.” You’ll allegedly be able to sample the excitement for yourself next weekend at the Sunshine in NYC, where Mark Christopher’s recut will screen at midnight.
• “Zacharek’s first assumption is that Godard’s films went downhill after 1967. I’ll be blunt here: Zacharek musters absolutely no defense or evidence for this position.” Another review of a review of Everything is Cinema; this time it’s Only the Cinema on the first of the NYT reviews. Via The House Next Door.

Nikki Finke made an interesting Freudian gaffe in this story on Midnight Meat Train’s dismal opening weekend. She quoted Lionsgate’s recent credit infusion as amounting to $340, about $339 million less than the actual number, but just $27 more than what Meat Train averaged on each of its 100 screens. As Finke notes, one of the reasons for the embarrassing take (besides, you know, a complete lack of advertising or reviews) is the fact that Lionsgate booked the film in dollar theaters and second-run houses. They also skirted major markets––in fact, the film opened nowhere near New York City. So not only was this film with a built-in audience (thanks to Clive Barker’s genre credibility) made nearly impossible for fans to find, but stuffing the deck with cut-rate houses Lionsgate made sure that even if the movie filled houses (which it didn’t). it would be a statistic impossibility for it to make any real money.

In her headline, FInke asks the question, “Why Did Lionsgate Dump Clive Barker Pic Into Dollar And Second Run Theaters?” She ultimately drops the vague suggestion that “the answer may well be studio politics,” but declines to offer new insight or information, beyond citing Joe Drake’s much-reported desire to migrate “away from this genre of films in favor of more mainstream fare like Tyler Perry.”

What’s implied in Finke’s write-up and others, but never spelled out, is that in order to complete Lionsgate’s transformation from a profitable house of ill-repute into a well-funded maker of wholly inoffensive middlebrow entertainments, the total failure of vestiges of the previous regime like Meat Train is so necessary that the studio couldn’t take chances on the whims of the ticket-buying public––this is a bombing that had to be engineered.

Under discussion:

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor  (2008)

• With its hybrid cast of Asian action stars and non-threatening all-Americans, if the third Mummy movie hadn’t performed well internationally it would have been perceived as a disaster. But domestically, the long-gestating sequel played as an also-ran to the still-stunning Dark Knight. The Batman movie is now about two-thirds of the way to matching Titanic’s domestic box office high water mark.
• Art Linson will produce and music video director Floria Sigismondi will direct a biopic on The Runaways, the 70s-etta all-girl punk-esque band that launched the career of Joan Jett. Jett will executive produce.
• SAG and the AMPTP are still talking. Still, no one cares.