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Under discussion:

War, Inc.  (2008)

An addendum on this post noted that War, Inc, the satire co-written by and starring John Cusack which I loathed but which has become something of a surprise spring hit, was scheduled to come out on DVD tomorrow after just seven weeks in theaters. I wrote:

War Inc['s DVD release] is notable only because First Look’s ridiculously tight seven week window from theatrical premiere to DVD street date looks, in retrospect, like another in a line of smart moves designed to capitalize on the film’s surprise cult appeal. Of course, the film’s box office potency faded as its release expanded, and if it had done less well in its first weeks, this would look a lot like a dumping, but that’s fodder for another, far more bitter post…

Ah, but then the target moved: shortly after that post was published, I got an email from David Hudson informing me that the film’s DVD release has been bumped to October. The move happened apparently quite suddenly––a number of outlets have published reviews of the film in recent days, ostensibly pegged to the original DVD release date, as the film’s theater count stayed steady this past weekend. Box Office Mojo currently has the title up as a release for tomorrow, although Amazon has changed their sales page to reflect a new release date of October 14.

So why the sudden switch? It could be due to a combination of a number of factors: the film is still doing sort of okay in theaters (though it doesn’t look like it has the legs to grow beyond its current count of 33 screens, it only dropped about 12% last week, to earn a per screen average about equivalent to that of certified summer sleeper The Visitor); there also may be a case to be made that it’ll be easier to sell DVDs of a political satire in the weeks immediately leading up to the election, than in relative lull in the campaign season (and a holiday week, no less).

But the exact thing that looked sort of brilliant about the seven week window plan––that First Look would be able to capitalize on more or less organic serendipity about the film, due to the fact that Cusack’s tireless talking head campaigning on its behalf has sort of worked theatrically, and would thus not have to spend extra money on a campaign surrounding the DVD––now looks like money down the drain. If the DVD reviews to come out in the past week are any indication (Steve Erickson called War, Inc “a lowest-common-denominator comedy, the equivalent of a Larry the Cable Guy vehicle for readers of The Nation“), the distributor will once again be forced to rely on creativity to sell their DVD in lieu of critical support. And creativity costs money.

Under discussion:

North by Northwest  (1959)

War, Inc.  (2008)

The most notable DVD release of the week* has to be the first season of Mad Men, which hits the street tomorrow just in time for newbies to get caught up on the AMC series before season two premieres in late July (it’s been available on iTunes for quite some time). I went on YouTube looking for clips from my favorite episodes and found the above fan vid, which focuses on Betty Draper (January Jones), the miserable model-turned-housewife of mysterious ad man Don Draper. I love it, if for no other reason than that it really draws out the way the show takes mid-century cinematic archetypes and weds them to real-seeming, endlessly multi-faceted characterizations.

This clip specifically highlights Mad Men’s Hitchcock allusions: the slate-gray, Madeline Elster-esque suit that Betty wears to therapy; Don’s spying, here symbolized by his employment of a home movie camera like something out of a cross between Peeping Tom and Rear Window; and my favorite, Betty’s fateful encounter with a flock of birds.

Betty is clearly based on the typical Hitchcock blonde-in-peril, a cool, vaguely shallow but anxiety-plagued beauty on the run from some kind of terror. Betty rocks the porcelain face with the furroed bros as well as Grace Kelly or Tippi Hedren, but she’s got virtually nothing tangible to fear (with the possible exception of her husband’s infidelities, but it’s made pretty clear that she’s certainly not the only girl on the block with that thorn in her domestic side) beyond her own sadness. She’s also got nowhere to go but the supermarket, and her only outlets for her tensions are sexual fantasies about door-to-door salesmen and a really weird relationship with the young son of the local single mom. It’s like a hypothetical sequel to North By Northwest, where Cary Grant’s character goes back to his normal work life in Manhattan and Eva Marie Saint’s moves into his suburban split-level and starts taking care of his kids. No wonder Betty drinks during the day.

*Unless you count War Inc, which is notable only because First Look’s ridiculously tight seven week window from theatrical premiere to DVD street date looks, in retrospect, like another in a line of smart moves designed to capitalize on the film’s surprise cult appeal. Of course, the film’s box office potency faded as its release expanded, and if it had done less well in its first weeks, this would look a lot like a dumping, but that’s fodder for another, far more bitter post…

Have you been following The Hollywood Temp Diaries? It’s an anonymous Blogger blog with the tagline, “I am one of those barnacles on the hull of the good ship ‘Hollywood.’ These are my stories.” Good stuff, especially if you subscribe to that dirty secret that most Hollywood jobs are just as glamorous and exciting as, like, working anywhere else. The blog’s author, known only as Temp X, has been drawing a direct line between the impending SAG strike and total global apocalypse for awhile. A couple of days ago, s/he posted a “videotorial” to hammer home her/his case, and for people like me who haven’t been able to get it up to care much about an actor’s strike, it’s the perfect vehicle for impressing the seriousness of the situation. More here.