Good, Not Great

This was supposed to be the intro to my Slumdog Millionaire review. It became so long I decided it merited its own post. The Slumdog review will appear later Thursday, under separate cover.

I've seen Slumdog Millionaire twice. The first time was day before Thanksgiving, the week after the movie opened in Boston. I liked the structure, and I enjoyed it as a director's movie (which is odd - I'm more a written than visual kind of gal), although even then I remarked to my mother that I found Slumdog slightly overhyped.

Ten weeks later, Slumdog had won just about every award out there, and it seems to be on its way to an Oscar trouncing Sunday. My movie buddy Patricia had yet to see the film; meanwhile, I wondered if I'd missed a sprinkling of the fairy dust that would result in me salivating as much as many other critics.

My second viewing only enforced the feelings I had the first time around.

Will I be OK with the inevitable Slumdog victories Sunday, namely Best Picture? Yeah, I guess. I'm rooting for Danny Boyle to win Best Director. Slumdog is much better than The Reader and the endless inertia known as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. (That review is coming Friday.) It isn't Frost/Nixon or Milk, though. Patricia's one-word description hits upon many of my Slumdog gripings: "contrived."

Yes, but Can They Make Money?

As Michelle and Liz inquired, what are the box-office prospects for some of these movies?

Alas, Tribeca doesn’t have that great a track record. Transamerica, from 2005, remains the most successful money-maker to date, with $9.5 million in ticket sales and two Oscar nominations. In the past two years, a documentary has made the Best Documentary roster at the Oscars, with Taxi to the Dark Side winning for 2007.

Of my baker’s dozen, Savage Grace and Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot have release dates of May 30 and June 27, respectively, but subject matter and odd opening time likely will hurt both. Why not save Gunnin’ for Labor Day, during the Elite 24 tournament, or either the start or finish of college-basketball season? Baghdad High and The Zen of Bobby V will play on cable television later this year – HBO for Baghdad, ESPN for Bobby V – which is where both belong, as does Milosevic on Trial. (That’s played on TV overseas.)

If the Weinstein Co. picks up Trucker, expect a loud Oscar push for Michelle Monaghan. She’s very good, but not quite that great, and Harvey no longer has the Midas touch. I’d love to see Fighter receive a U.S. release and be marketed to a teen audience, but sadly, I’m not sure people can accept reading subtitles if it isn't Chinese kung-fu. (Fighter is Danish/Turkish kung-fu, though. ...) Could Theater of War ever attract anyone outside New York? Its subject matter seems limited, and it feels like a two-week run at Film Forum. I’m not sure how This Is Not a Robbery would work in a theater - TV would be better, but where? The same goes for Eden.

The Africa trio – Kassim the Dream, Pray the Devil Back to Hell and I Am Because We Are – has the biggest hurdles. No matter how much critical acclaim they receive, how much star power is behind them, how much they’re in the news, Africa documentaries simply don’t do well at the box office. Kassim has a better chance because it has the viewer friendly sports angle, but even that probably won’t be enough. Documentaries, while chic, don’t attract audiences these days, likely because the outside world is weighty enough. They’re worth a release, but an eager viewer and his or her friends need to spread the word the first week, before the movies disappear to DVD.

Breaking up Tribeca's gloominess

Let's just say this wasn't the cinematic comedic conclusion I expected.

At the end of my weekend comedy experiment, the funniest movie I saw was, er, um, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

Yes, the stoner comedy. No, I was not stoned, drunk or even loopy from movie-watching yet. It did prove my theory, though: Comedies come across much funnier when viewed in a large group.

That’s a bit of a lie. I should say “comedies come across much funnier when viewed in a large group at Manhattan’s Union Square theater” because my screening the night before of Baby Mama in Bayonne, N.J., didn’t provoke the laughter I thought it would. In fact, I laughed more when I was by myself the day before while watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

That proved surprising for a number of reasons, not the least of which is my documented dislike of things Judd Apatow. (I read in last week’s Entertainment Weekly that the man has been involved in 13 projects over the past three years. Judd, take a vacation. Please.) Many reviews suggest Forgetting Sarah Marshall isn’t as strong as Knocked Up and Superbad. Still, I liked the awkwardly endearing Peter (Jason Segel, who also wrote the screenplay) and his Dracula musical, the Owen Wilson-esque Paul Rudd, and especially a rare fleshed-out Apatow female lead (Mila Kunis). The titular character remains an underdrawn cipher, but I guess I can’t have everything. Most of all, I guffawed shamelessly, even though I was one of only seven people in the theater.

While my Sarah Marshall experience blew half my theory out of the water, I figured Baby Mama would redeem the other portion. After all, I think Tina Fey is great, and I like Amy Poehler well enough. Yet I came away disappointed with the pleasant but predictable story of uptight yuppie Kate (Fey) and her “white-trash” surrogate, Angie (Poehler). Picture a 100-minute sketch between Liz Lemon and Amber, the girl with one leg (except here she has two). What’s more, people in my audience didn’t really laugh - they giggled politely in spots, their amusement escalating only with the DMX-spouting doorman (Romany Malco).

How, then, did I end up at Harold and Kumar the next afternoon? Well, I was on a date, and the documentary we’d planned to see was canceled, and Union Square was the nearest theater, and H&K was at the most convenient time, and … oh, who am I kidding? Sandra knows the truth: The trailer made me laugh like a loon. We’re led to believe in a North Korea/al-Qaeda terror cell! The official Duyba impersonator appears! Neil Patrick Harris plays himself and imagines unicorns! I seriously doubt this flick would work for me on DVD, but in a theater with 200 other hysterical 20- and 30-somethings, it’s pretty close to comedic bliss.

Segel and Harris co-star in the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother. Maybe that should be the next comedy breeding ground. When can we look forward to Let’s Go to the Mall: The Robin Sparkles Story?

How to See a Movie, Lisa Style

I've been thinking of writing this entry for a while. A screening of Semi-Pro in March - seriously - and my lack of reaction to it, despite my love of Will Ferrell, gave me some ideas for a test.

With all due respect to my friends and family, my ideal movie-viewing partner often is … myself.

I like a lot of indies, documentaries, and/or mediocre-looking movies with one redeeming element. I told several people recently that Hope Davis is one of my two favorite actresses. I received a lot of blank stares. This makes me sad. (I see a Hope Davis essay in my future.) The point, though, is that I can’t tell someone, “Hey, I want to check out the new Hope Davis feature,” as most people have no idea who she is. By going to a theater alone, I also don’t feel as great a need to justify why I would spend $10 to see a poorly reviewed George Clooney flick. (Leatherheads, BTW, was much better than I expected, particularly when it stuck to the newspaper angle. Oh, and I didn’t pay for it; I had a free movie pass courtesy of my AMC Moviewatcher membership.)

I like the darkness enveloping me, and I feel more smothered in solitude. In addition, I enjoy drinking my fountain soda and eating my contraband snack with nothing around me except my stuff. And, well, to be honest …

The best part about going to the cinema alone is that I don’t have to have someone yammering in my ear or asking questions in the middle of the flick. I’ve never admitted this to my offending friends and family members, and now I’m confessing it in a blog entry: You know who you are, you know I love you, but I really cannot stand it when you smack my arm midway through a crucial scene to ask me where it’s being shot or how you know that actor. Write the question down and ask me when we’re outside! Look, I paid good money to sit in this theater! Furthermore, these days, at least half the time I’m taking notes.

That being said, I have two exceptions to the “me, myself, and I” rule: summer blockbusters and comedies. I’m not much of a big-budget bonanza person, so if I have to see one, I’d rather have someone take me. At that point, I also realize the plot usually doesn’t require much focus, so I won’t be as irked if you comment on Will Smith’s ears. As for comedies, I believe I’ve read studies about this, and it’s true: They’re funnier in a group. A related case in point: The Mena Suvari-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live in 2001 was iffy at best, but seeing the dress rehearsal made everything hysterical, and it wasn’t just the Janet Reno cameo. A lot of the so-called recent classic comedies - Old School, Mean Girls, Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin - failed to amuse me at all. I’ve seen Clerks three or four times, and the only time I liked it was at a seven-person party at my house.

With several comedies coming out in the next few weeks, I have decided to test a theory. I will go to two well-received movies, one on my own on a weekday after work and the other on opening night with a friend. I believe I’ll enjoy my second movie experience more because of the audience angle.

Using Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, I have chosen to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall alone on a Thursday afternoon at the mall and Baby Mama with my 16-year-old sister on Friday night - opening weekend, no less - in Bayonne, N.J. Let’s see how the experiment works, shall we? In the meantime, what’s your ideal viewing scenario?

Experiencing Eve with Celeste Holm

It's been almost 24 hours since the experience below, and I still can't believe this happened.

After standing in line for Tribeca Film Festival tickets for four hours Saturday, I wasn't sure I wanted anything to do with cinema for the rest of the day. It was in the mid-70s and sunny, a Yankees/Red Sox game was on, I was wearing a cute new jacket - why would I want to spend my evening in a theater watching a movie I already own? Well ...

Hundreds of people, including the Village Voice’s Michael Musto, lined up Saturday night on a side street in the gritty Journal Square section of Jersey City, N.J. , to watch a movie. It wasn’t just any movie, though: It was All about Eve, one of the greatest films ever (and my No. 7 all-time favorite). As if that weren’t enough, the print was from the Fox archive and screened at one of the remaining movie palaces in the country, the 3,000-seat Loews Jersey, which opened in 1929. What’s more, we had preshow entertainment, live pipe-organ music. AND Celeste Holm, the only living Eve cast member (she turns 91 at the end of April), presented the flick to us and did a Q&A afterward.

The cost for all this grandeur? $6. Seriously. Popcorn and soda were $1 each.

Had I died and gone to cinema heaven?

In introducing Eve, film professor and author Foster Hirsch stressed that it was a “talking” picture. Indeed, Joseph Mankiewicz’s Academy Award-winning screenplay - one of six Oscars Eve won, including Best Picture - includes some of the most memorable lines around. Everyone knows “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,” a statement Bette Davis delivers with such bite before a life-altering party. That party featured a sparkling Marilyn Monroe as a starlet, and her performance garnered her a seven-year contract at 20th Century Fox. However, Hirsch told us that none of the original Eve reviews even mentioned the woman Holm described as a “fuzzy young duckling.”

In addition to the “seatbelts” comment, Eve’s screenplay contains notable quotables aplenty. Some are poignant: “Funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on the way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman,” Davis’ stage diva Margo Channing muses as she reflects upon her storied career and stormy relationship with director Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill, later Davis’ husband). More often, the words are tart, as one might expect from an ode to theatrical life. “What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end,” Birdie (Thelma Ritter) sneers upon hearing Eve’s (Anne Baxter) sob story of Wisconsin and a deceased war-hero husband. She’s the only one not initially taken in by Eve Harrington, the seemingly naïve newcomer to New York who manipulates her way into the lives of Margo, Bill, scriptwriter Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife, Karen (Holm).

Many of the best quips come from … well, why don’t we let him introduce himself? “My name is Addison DeWitt. My native habitat is the theater. In it I toil not, neither do I spin. I am a critic and commentator. I am essential to the theatre.” Addison finds Eve intriguing, but he doesn’t drink her Kool-Aid. “You're an improbable person, Eve, but so am I. We have that in common,” Addison archly observes in a riveting confrontation. “Also a contempt for humanity, an inability to love or be loved, insatiable ambition - and talent. We deserve each other.” Addison’s portrayer, George Sanders, won the Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.

It’s no surprise, then, that when Hirsch asked Holm whether she recognized the brilliance of Eve’s screenplay, she replied, “Well, yes. I can read.” For all the homages and remakes, the wordplay of All about Eve still stings almost 60 years later. Brilliance.

More from the Cinema Files

This goes a little further into comments from the past week.

As I noted March 26, I wouldn't pay $35 a ticket for the concept proposed by Village Roadshow, especially when you consider that food is not part of the package. Like Patricia, I have paid higher prices for special-event screenings: as much as $18 for films at the Tribeca Film Festival, $22 for Metropolitan Opera screenings or $25 for Dreamgirls at the Ziegfeld. However, all of these were unusual and worth it.

I absolutely can justify the cost of a film-festival viewing (although I'm happy Tribeca is cutting costs this year): Not only do you see a movie, but you also have a Q&A with someone affiliated with it, and you're getting a product to which you often otherwise would have no exposure. I've discovered some fabulous documentaries thanks to my past two years of volunteering with Tribeca, such as The Saint of 9/11, The Heart of the Game and The Devil Came on Horseback.

The Met Opera screenings, currently priced at $22 (please don't go up!), also are worth the money. When Jen Roberts and I went to one last year, it was our first exposure to opera. People from 12 to 82 were at our sold-out showing of The Barber of Seville. We really could appreciate the acting, something I couldn't do nearly as well when I attended an opera later that year, and we had interviews and tidbits to entertain us during intermission. Terry Teachout, the theater critic for The Wall Street Journal, extols the virtues of seeing opera in a movie theater in this column here.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120673472354572541.html

Unlike most of you, I don't have a cool place to see a movie; I just go where the showtime is most convenient to where I am. However, I will make an exception for the Ziegfeld, an amazing old-time theater with velvet and chandeliers and an enormous screen. This is where the celebrity-laden NYC premieres take place, where people lined up for days in 1999 to buy advance tickets to Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. It's also where I paid more money for a movie ticket than I ever have before - and it was worth every penny.

When Dreamworks rolled out Dreamgirls in December 2006, it started with a two-week "special engagement" at the Ziegfeld. The movie screened once a day, at 8 p.m. For $25, one received a 64-page glossy book about the movie, a laminated ticket and a chance to ogle costumes from the film. As it was right before Christmas, I took my 15-year-old Beyonce-loving sister as her present. I'd give the movie itself three stars, but the experience was a four-star one. As in a live theater, the audience applauded when people came on screen. The many gay men in the theater sang along with Effie (Jennifer Hudson); in fact, I had to buy the soundtrack to actually hear Ms. Hudson, Beyonce and Eddie Murphy. I also laughed when Erin decided the Dreamgirls story was in fact about Destiny's Child - man, is she young. She has no idea who the Supremes are.

That night was worth $25. It even may be worth $35. But nothing Village Roadshow could offer would be.

A Matter of Faith

When I posted my All-Time Favorites list in January, a few people expressed disbelief at my No. 1 choice, Dogma. I told them I'd write a post explaining it someday. Since I watched the movie against Monday, I decided it was time to write.

Warning: At exactly 1,000 words, this is the longest thing I've ever posted. Consider it an essay.

The first time I saw my favorite movie of all time, I didn’t even like it that much.

My friend Jen, then living in Oakland, and I watched Dogma on a rainy November afternoon in a near-deserted theater. We both came away disappointed. A month later, a couple of my friends took me to a packed New York City screening. I found the movie a lot funnier then. (This also proves my theory that comedies work much better in a crowded room, but that’s another essay for another post.)

As with many loves, my appreciation for Dogma grew over the years, but it was our fifth encounter that really solidified my adoration. Those same NYC friends who sponsored that Dogma viewing for my birthday ran a book club earlier this decade. For some reason, one month Paul suggested we should read the Gospels of Mark and Luke, so I decided to watch Kevin Smith’s ode to the Catholic Church to enhance the text. That was the first time I saw past the one-liners and the who’s who cast to really listen to what Smith was saying. I realized: Dogma ultimately is a story of faith. Look past the f-bombs and the carnage, and what you have, in fact, is a really spiritual film.

Bethany’s spiritual journey is, in a way, my spiritual journey. Like Bethany (Linda Fiorentino), when I go to church, it’s more out of habit – and while I haven’t actually written my grocery list, I have been to known to brainstorm the rest of my day. Early in Dogma, Bethany muses to her fellow abortion-clinic worker that she doesn’t think she has any faith left. Liz (Janeane Garofalo, who Smith said he wishes he’d cast as the lead) replies that faith is like a glass of water: When you’re young, the glass is small and easy to fill, but as you get older, the glass grows, and the same amount doesn’t fill it anymore. Bethany declares that she thinks God is dead.

Yet for all her cynicism, Bethany wants to know the comfort of God watching out for her, a feeling she had as a child. That’s an emotion with which I can identify, particularly when I’m at my most bitter. Bethany and I pray before we go to sleep, and we have crucifixes hanging by our beds. Bethany has a startling knowledge of her religion, and it’s not just because of “something out a Charlton Heston movie,” in spite of what the angel Metatron (Alan Rickman) moans. She wants to know what God is like; it’s a question she asks of those who have encountered Him … er, Her (Alanis Morissette). By the end of Dogma, Bethany grasps what the 13th Apostle Rufus (Chris Rock) has told her – that it’s better to have ideas than beliefs. “You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier,” he says. It’s a thought worth remembering.

Ah, Rufus. Rock (the funniest presence in Dogma) and Salma Hayek’s muse Serendipity have some of the most intelligent dialogue in Smith’s satire. Of Catholicism, Serendipity says, “You people don’t celebrate your faith. You mourn it.” How many times have I thought that! When Bethany questions whether another religion has it right, the Muse replies, “It doesn’t matter what faith you believe in. It’s that you have it.” As for Rufus, much of his dialogue is quotable and important, particularly during the aforementioned beliefs/ideas comparison. He talks of God’s dislike of what is carried out in His name, “especially the factioning of all the religions.” This leads to the difference between ideas and beliefs: “Life should be malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea generates that. Beliefs anchor you to a certain point and limit growth; new ideas can’t generate. Life becomes stagnant.”

On Monday, I had my ninth viewing of Dogma, as part of the New Directors/New Films alumni series at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theatre. This time, I decided that Smith hasn’t been given enough credit as a director. Sure, the look is crude, and the special effects (the credits note a wing sculptor and a feather painter) can be cheesy, but in fact the movie is one giant Easter egg hunt.

Of course, one finds the trademarks of many Smith films – tributes to Star Wars, love of all things Jersey, recurring actors, and naturally stoner “hetero life-mates” Jay (Jason Mewes, hysterical as the profane accidental prophet) and Silent Bob (Smith) – but this time Smith adds some sight gags. The church Bethany attends? “The Laboured Voice of God.” The scene transitions are done the same way as Star Wars, wiping instead of cutting to the next scene. Most of all, there’s Mooby.

On their way to a church in New Jersey in order to exploit the plenary-indulgence loophole, the renegade angels Loki (Matt Damon) and Bartleby (Ben Affleck) stop at a McDonald’s-like corporation called Mooby. Smith makes the invasive presence of the golden cow known throughout Dogma with hats, posters and dolls, all randomly dispersed into the film. The Complex Corp., Mooby’s parent (having bought the concept from a California mother and housewife), ironically has its headquarters by a church. Loki’s rants against idolatry and greed sound like something out of Ralph Nader’s campaign, while Bartleby’s musings about fallen society could be spoken by any disillusioned or disappointed clergyman or old-timer. “I remember when it was a sin to eat meat on Fridays,” Bartleby observes. While I don’t, I certainly know a lot of Catholics who do!

For all his characters’ outward crassness, Smith is a man of faith. He thanks God before anyone else in the credits, and he gives special mention to all four Gospels for having inspired his work. (See, I had a reason for reviewing Dogma during the Gospel book club!) He consulted with a church and a school while working on the screenplay. Honestly, I feel closer to God and my Catholic faith after seeing Dogma than I do after watching The Passion of the Christ.

$35 a Ticket? Really?

The following article appeared in Daily Variety today. Now, I love going to the movies. More often that not, I will pay $10, $11, $12 for a ticket rather than wait for DVD because I like the experience of being in a theater. I love being enveloped by darkness, and I like splurging on teeth-rotting fountain soda (although I've switched to Diet Coke from regular). I like seeing something ahead of the crowd. Most of all, I simply cannot focus on films as well at home. In recent weeks, I've watched the Kate Beckinsale version of Emma, The Bridge on the River Kwai and My Darling Clementine on DVD. They're all classics. I couldn't tell you what any of them were about.

However, this plan from Village Roadshow is lunacy. Sheer lunacy. Among other things, I just sneak my sushi meals in, and I'd probably do the same with mini bottles of wine (if I drank wine). Ooh, should I have said that? Will I be carted off to jail now?

How do the rest of you feel? P.S. I'm surprised the initial rollout doesn't include New York or Los Angeles.

FROM VARIETY: A recession may be looming, but a group of investors thinks Americans are ready to pony up $35 for a movie ticket.

Village Roadshow Ltd., Act III, Lambert Entertainment and the Retirement Systems of Alabama pension fund have partnered to bring the luxury cinema circuit Village Roadshow Gold Class Cinemas to the U.S.

The partners will spend $200 million to build 50 theaters nationwide over the next five years, with the first two venues set to open in South Barrington, a suburb of Chicago, and the Seattle suburb of Redmond in October. Others are planned for Fairview, Texas, near Dallas-Fort Worth, and Scottsdale, Ariz.

Each complex will sport theaters featuring 40 reclining armchair seats with footrests, digital projection and the capability to screen 2-D and 3-D movies, as well as a lounge and bar serving cocktails and appetizers, a concierge service and valet parking.

But the circuit will especially push its culinary offerings -- made-to-order meals like sushi and other theater-friendly foods from on-site chefs (a service button at each seat calls a waiter).
Moviegoers will have to pay extra for any food they order, however.

The Burbank-based company's hoping to attract 10 million "upscale and affluent" consumers per year to its theaters that will be housed in high-end shopping centers and malls. Each complex will typically house eight screens.

"It's a new way to go to the movies," said Graham Burke, managing director and CEO of Village Roadshow Ltd. "It's like what Mercedes is to a Toyota or like flying first class in an airplane."
Village Roadshow founded the Gold Class Cinemas chain in Australia in 1997. It has since expanded to other countries, including Singapore and Greece.

Company execs said bringing the chain to the U.S. is a "natural extension" of the brand.

"The demand for luxury moviegoing in the U.S. is very strong, and by working with our partners, we are delivering on that demand in a way never before experienced by the American consumer," said Kirk Senior, CEO of Village Roadshow Gold Class Cinemas.

In addition to its initial complexes in Illinois, Washington, Texas and Arizona, company also plans to build in California, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania and New York.

Gold Class Cinemas won't be the first luxury theater circuit in the U.S. Regal Entertainment, Cinemark, National Amusements and Sundance Cinemas offer similar services, including high-end food and concierges, at much cheaper prices of around $12-$18 per ticket.

Idea is that plushing up the current moviegoing experience will encourage auds that typically stay home to watch movies via their pricey home theaters to venture out again. But it's also a way for exhibs to make more money: Concession sales are kept by theater chains, while a little more than half of each ticket sold is split with the studios. Selling sushi and a glass of wine will command higher prices than popcorn and soda.

There are an estimated 300 high-end multiplexes operating in the U.S.

If the recession is stressing out some businesses, exhibitors aren't sweating just yet.

Entertainment has long been shown to be recession-proof. And that's exactly the attitude Village Roadshow is taking.

"This is a top-end experience," Burke said. "People want to get away from their blues. I don't think the recession will affect it one iota."