Nobody Knows Anything, For Real This Time

William Goldman’s famous Hollywood aphorism “Nobody Knows Anything” has never applied with as much profound depth it does now.

Hollywood as a collective definition is composed of several large interlocking systems, all designed to create, produce and distribute entertainment content. Most are being crushed by the coronavirus lockdown. Going through the process beginning to end:


• Pre-production is still going strong. TV writer’s rooms are staffed via video conference, and scripts are still being optioned. Projects are still being greenlit, and everyone is positioning for the days that will follow COVID-19.


• Productions are dark. Thousands of film and TV show production companies are shut down, crews on furlough, sound stages empty, equipment unrented. Film and TV Production are collective endeavors, ones that require a lot of close contact (for example: during shooting, an average cinema camera rig has three sets of hands on it) so it won’t be safe for a long time. News and some forms of reality TV have the edge here: “American Idol” is experimenting with a remote contestant format, which is better than nothing.


• Live theater is utterly dark. Hamilton is playing at precisely zero venues worldwide.


• Streaming services and cable are doing incredible business right now. Industry leaders are worried about the medium-term health of this sector: If the astounding level of unemployment continues, subscriptions to streaming services and full-service cable will start to dwindle as people find them increasingly unaffordable.

• The big hit to Hollywood: Film Exhibition. Movie theaters are closed, and the prospects of movie-going returning to prior levels any time soon is increasingly uncertain. In fact the very survival of movie theaters is in doubt: AMC may be looking at bankruptcy protection (something they do once a decade or so, but still).

Movie-going has been derided constantly in the age of streaming as a dinosaur, a relic of the pre-television industry. This is what most of this post is going to concentrate on, because I do not think people really grasp how absolutely vital the movie theater ecosystem is, and how losing them will profoundly affect almost every other aspect of the entertainment industry.

Studios operate on a “tentpole” model: big, well-publicized films released to thousands of theaters worldwide and provide revenue through box office sales for other productions. To turn a profit for these films, which are generally budgeted over $100 million, huge theater capacity is required, hundreds of thousands of butts in seats. Marvel, the newest large studio, operated on the tentpole model 100%. Others operate downmarket, packaging independent films made on modest budgets.

But all this machinery has stopped.

I’m offering two prognostications for the future of the motion picture exhibition industry, both on the extremes.



FULL RECOVERY SCENARIO



A seating diagram programmed to create a safe space around each sold seat.
A mix of singles, 2s, 3s and 4s shown. Nobody is placed in the middle of a row
so they do not have to pass close to anybody else. Capacity is reduced 75% to 80%.

When the states start slowly opening up theaters again, social distancing guidelines can be put into effect to assure patrons who are going to be VERY VERY NERVOUS about going into a darkened windowless room full of strangers.

The way I came up with (which no doubt the theater chains are implementing) is centered around the fact that most theaters are based on reserved-seat ticket sales. When a block of seats is purchased, the seats around them are condemned for the screening to maintain a 6-foot defensive space. If strict contact rules are allowed— two parties per row to eliminate close passing for the aisle, which is always ass-to-face— theaters can be filled about 25% of capacity. This does not allow for full sellouts, but it is at least equal to a modest weekday crowd.


During these first few weeks or months people will likely be treated to low-budget fare. Independent films, genre comedies, horror films: films with modest budget and the possibility of getting a return even in lower-capacity venues. Studios can and will reserve their large-budget tentpole films until they can get enough screening capacity to make releasing them a worthwhile risk. (a lot of big-budget films are frozen in post-production as well: visual effects houses are not operating, and a film the scope of something like Avengers: Endgame can’t be finished off on somebody’s iMac at home.)

Once the curve is safely flattened theaters can go back to full capacity, though it remains to be seen if people will feel confident enough to pack themselves into sellouts for quite a while. Some late-summer big-budget releases— the sequel to Wonder Woman being an example— are sticking to their release dates, betting the huge audiences are just waiting for the all-clear.





Bravely sticking to a mid-August
release date. Notice it's already
been moved down from June.

COLLAPSE SCENARIO

Major chains, empty but still paying huge rents for their their multiplexes, go out of business. Theaters that survive see persistent poor box-office as people, still spooked by COVID-19, stay away.


Without a way to recoup investment for big-budget films, the studios release them streaming at a loss. Streaming and on-demand represent a revenue source, but compared to theatrical release box office it’s tiny, ancillary, in the old days a way to slightly round up the numbers.

If the financial downturn continues and people cancel subscriptions, even this outlet will become even more problematic. Without a path to profit studios will eventually stop green-lighting big-budget films entirely. For movie geeks who hate comic-book movies this sounds heavenly, but remember that big films finance small films. The Lord of the Rings trilogy financed a decade’s worth of modest-budget New Line films.



Without theaters, the theatrical distribution system will collapse. This will create chaos: non-chain theaters that managed to stay open will have nothing to screen. Drive-in theaters, the only healthy subsection of the exhibition industry, will collapse as well when they run out of films to screen.



This bleak scenario ends on your TV: Streaming, on-demand and TV will be the only outlet for scripted entertainment. The big franchises will likely be broken up into series and miniseries. Cable and premium, already increasingly turning to series to attract viewers, will start to shrink: many of the add-on premium channels show endless theatrical films, and with that source of content gone add-ons like Starz Action and Showtime Comedy will start vanishing.



The other problem is the eternal conflict: Hollywood versus The Internet. If the theater industry collapses, the Internet wins— and never forget the old hacker battle cry: “The Internet wants to be free.” People naturally EXPECT films to be cheap or even free when they’re on TV. Additionally, any film put out on streaming is available for torrent download within hours. In my job as a post-production profession I’ve always advised indie filmmakers to only put your films on streaming platforms when all other revenue streams— festivals, optical media— have been exhausted. Once it’s online, you’re done making money off it.

 But with all the eggs in the TV screen basket we’re back to the ability of people to pay for these services. If hard times persist, many of them will end up cancelling, which will drive revenue even lower.

Well, those are the extremes. I think the reality will be somewhere in-between: some chains will close, some big-budget films will be canceled, and it’s going to be tough to make a living in Hollywood for a while.

But really: nobody knows anything.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: Regular People Can Be Heroes Too

Rogue One: a Star Wars Story has been called the first “standalone story” set in the galaxy far, far away. This is only partially true: it tells the story of the theft of the Death Star Plans, essentially paragraph two of the opening title crawl from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) turned into a movie. Two other classic films got this “retroactive prequel” treatment: The Thing (1982) had a 2011 follow-up which told the story of the Norwegian Antarctic research station which discovered the alien spaceship and initially thawed out the shape-changing alien. Oz The Great and Powerful (2013) chronicled the events which brought a carnival magician to Oz and set him up as the ruler of the Emerald City.

This new film, directed by Visual Effects artist turned director Gareth Edwards, is a very satisfying action film and one of the finest additions to the Star Wars universe yet. Co-scripted by Tony Gilroy (writer of most of the Jason Bourne films) Rogue One is a gritty, serious, surprisingly dark caper film. It tells the story of group of ragged fugitives and hardened resistance fighters gathered by a desperate Rebel Alliance and given the task of somehow disrupting or stopping deployment of the Death Star, the Empire’s terrible new weapon. Along the course of this film we see this task change and evolve due to changing contingencies, and in the end this modest little spy story becomes a tremendous and consequential battle against the Empire as bold as any in the preceding films.

The Death Star never looked so evocative.

It is without a doubt the most beautiful-looking Star Wars movie yet made. The monumental visuals that we saw glimpses of in The Force Awakens— Rey climbing out of an immense wrecked Star Destroyer, Starkiller Base— are perfectly integrated into Rogue One. A Star Destroyer floats serenely yet menacingly over a walled city. The Death Star, creating an eclipse as it crosses in front of a sun. A pitched battle incongruously playing out on a warm tropical beach.

There is also a lot of fun stuff in Rogue One. It is set in the early days of the Empire and the film is rich with callbacks and easter eggs. Look hard enough and you will see crowd scenes filled with characters and creatures from other Star Wars movies. Senator Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) has a part to play, as does Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) a surprisingly major character considering the actor has been dead for 22 years.

K-2SO, voice and motion capture by Alan Tudyk. This droid
is the 21st century update to C-3PO. Instead of a fussy,
mannered, somewhat feckless British butler, we have
a very capable robot with a habit of gracelessly
saying everything it thinks. K-2SO provides the
funniest and suprisingly touching dialog in Rogue One.

My favorite moment from the film— the scene which shows how unique this franchise installment truly is— happens early on in Rogue One. Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), our main protagonist, has seen her mother killed and father apprehended by authorities literally dropping out of the sky, in the form of Imperial stormtroopers lead by Senator Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). Having witnessed this, and being a life-long fugitive from the Empire, Jyn has led a criminal’s life. The scene I love takes place on Wobani, at an Imperial labor camp. Jyn is sitting in a transport, being taken to or from some job site, covered with dirt and in worn-out clothes, ankles shackled to the floor. We then see other prisoners, looking dirty and defeated, sitting around her. We then see an Imperial Stormtrooper guard sitting on a bench near the hatch— his white armor smeared with grime and dust, body language broadcasting as much depression and defeat as everyone else in the transport. This is the moment where I realized this was truly a street-level story. We are not going to see the machinations of royals and elites: we’re going to see how regular people live in this universe-- those working for the Empire, those fighting it, and those who are simply caught in it’s grip— and how some of them will themselves out of this obscurity and rise to heroism and greatness.

Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones): Fugitive becomes hero.

Science Fiction author David Brin has long criticized the Star Wars saga as an exercise in anti-democratic cinema: they concern themselves with the internal conflicts of a single dynastic family. Every other Star Wars franchise entry has centered on the Skywalker clan, a bloodline created by The Force itself which has had a strong hand shaping the history of an entire galaxy and all the creatures in it. Even last year’s The Force Awakens is primary about a new protagonist joining the search for Luke Skywalker with the help of Luke’s brother-in-law Han Solo. Much of the fan speculation about Rey is how she is related to the Skywalkers: is she a daughter? a cousin? Obi-Wan Kenobi’s granddaughter? Or— my favorite crazy theory— is she a clone of Luke Skywalker, taken from his hand lost in Bespin, probably found still clutching the same lightsaber that Rey takes up?

In any case, the main franchise storyline is about a family of highly superior, Force-empowered individuals, fighting for governmental power over an entire universe of essentially powerless citizens. Rogue One isn’t about these people at all. It’s about the people they oppress: the Rebel troops Princess Leia sent to their deaths, Luke Skywalker’s wingmen blown out of the sky, the innocents on the planets Darth Vader and his grandson Kylo Ren had a hand in destroying. Because it’s a story about ordinary people fighting for freedom from the oppression of the Empire, it is both a noble and inspiring hero’s saga, and a tale of the frailty and ambiguity of ordinary lives.

33rd Razzie Awards Noms Announced

Taking their usual place of (dis)honor the day before the Academy Awards nomination announcement, the snarkmeisters behind the Golden Raspberry Awards announced the 2012 candidates this morning. Most of 'em are the usual suspects-- but I have to admit this year's five ignominious Worst Picture Noms movies are unusually novel.

Those Worst Movie nominees (and bear in mind, I have seen none of these films):

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 - Alright, it made over $800 million dollars in total BO, but I'll agree that's no reason not to believe it's terrible. It also nailed ten other nominations. There is a reason the Razzie people go after a film like this, one that is crafted for the low expectations of a YA-oriented audience: it has to do with the fanboy nature of the Razzie nominating body. As I have noted before, these are the same folks that thought that The Last Airbender was a worse cinematic affront than Sex in the City 2.

Battleship - Well-deserved. It's one thing to take a line of toys and fashion a franchise of brick-stupid movies out of them. It's quite another thing for an injection-molded plastic board game to be the inspiration for an insanely overproduced effects epic. Okay, they're not different at all, really. Still: why?

Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure - This prefabricated Teletubbies rip-off went down as one of the biggest bombs of 2012: made for $20 million, it took $445,000 opening weekend. It sounds absolutely ghastly, and it garnered some of the funniest reviews I've read in a while.

That's My Boy! - I've mentioned elsewhere that Adam Sandler is getting a bit too old and sour to do his mugging act in his movies anymore. I was proven right and wrong in 2012: he played Jack and Jill in Jack and Jill, so he could both shamelessly mug and be his own dour straight man. In That's My Boy! Sandler plays the estranged, degenerate jailbird dad of Andy Samberg. Adam trots out his gross-out Party Boy persona for this character-- but the problem here is the puckish charm that made this persona at least palatable in past movies is all but gone now. In cases like this, you're supposed to compensate for having a charmless protag with superb, witty writing (i.e. Bad Santa). Nope.

A Thousand Words - This long, long, long-delayed Eddie Murphy film garnered an amazing rating of ZERO percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It was the effective and anticlimactic end of the High-Concent Redemption Comedy sub-genre (Liar Liar, Groundhog Day, Click, etc.).

Back to the Razzie Awards Press release: I read the 2012 noms on the LATimes website, then tried to follow the link to their website. Razzies.com is a terrible, terrible place: crowded, ugly layout, counter-intuitive navigation, infested with ads and pop-ups. I would almost believe it was created to be awful on purpose.

Regardless of the remarkable fecklessness of their web presence, the Razzies serve an absolutely vital function: they're one of the few checks on unbridled ego and hype-induced delusion left in the motion picture industry. The AMPAS, the AFI and MPAA should underwrite the damn thing.

The Razzie Award ceremony is apparently a fun, low-budget affair-- one where actual, A-list nominees sometimes appear. Sandra Bullock showed up for the 2009 awards, accepting her Golden Raspberry for All About Steve. The hilarious part: apparently Sandra walked out toting the original Golden Raspberry Award prototype. The Razzie officials eventually had to ask for it back, in exchange for the standard $1.98 gold spray-painted plastic award.

Jon Versus Kim, Smart TV versus Stupid TV

There is a fascinating exchange going on via the entertainment news, one that speaks volumes to the cultural conflicts raging through television and, by implication, the larger world. It's a war of words in a fight that is measuring the very viability of intelligence in public media.

It all started last week, when handsome, handsome actor Jon Hamm talked to Elle (UK) about the sad decline of public culture:

We’re at a place where the idea of being elite is somehow considered a negative. Whether it’s Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated. Being a fucking idiot is a valuable commodity in this culture because you’re rewarded significantly. Incuriousness has become cool... It's celebrated. It doesn't make sense to me.

This is what I consider a lovely bit of portable wisdom. It ties in the latest trend in FNC/RNC name-calling (in 2012, "elite" is a GOP obscene epithet, even though the candidates could objectively be called nothing else) with the depths of reality TV, where there is nothing more telegenic and ratings-grabbing than the combination of wealthy people acting like total fools.

The point Mr. Hamm was making was quite clear-- but in doing so he also made a huge tactical blunder: he mentioned Kim Kardashian by name in public. There is no opportunity for public exposure too insignificant or obtuse for her to pursue. So of course, she weighed right in (via Twitter, which is about as thoughtful a medium as she uses):

I just heard about the comment Jon Hamm made about me in an interview. I respect Jon and I am a firm believer that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and that not everyone takes the same path in life. We're all working hard and we all have to respect one another. Calling someone who runs their own businesses, is a part of a successful TV show, produces, writes, designs, and creates, "stupid," is in my opinion careless.

At this point, you could step back and call this whole thing entirely superfluous-- the opinion of an actor being rebutted publicly by a… by a… I guess you could call her a reality-television personality. Anyway, some might see the antics of the Kardashians are harmless entertainment put out by people willing to make their private lives public in lieu of something that requires actual talent.

(I'm obviously taking Jon Hamm's side here-- especially when Kim claims to be someone who "produces, writes, designs, and creates." There are all sorts of levels of that kind of thing, and her level of reality-TV creativity is risible. The only creative guy in reality TV is that keyboard guy who puts the cymbal crashes on all the bug-eyed revelatory shots-- and, steady paycheck or not, the poor bugger probably contemplates suicide on a weekly basis.)

But that's not what this publicly conducted argument is actually about-- this is the inside view of an epic fight: The Battle for Television's Soul. On one side is scripted television: written and created by studio-level artisans and professionals, expertly produced, expensive and risky. On the other side is reality television: created by pandering cable-level producers, shot on the fly and cheaply, calculated to sensationalize the lives of the privileged and stupid. On basic cable, Reality TV tends to outdraw scripted shows: on the big nets, it's pretty much 50/50, "American Idol" and it's ilk versus everything else.

"Mad Men" is the standard-bearer for Smart TV:  Crazy melodrama aside, It takes great pains to recreate the world of the 1960s and explore the societal and cultural changes under way in that era. Watching it is often a history lesson, and we can glean much about how modern society was shaped by the larger conflicts raging in the subtext of every episode. Jon Hamm is the star of that show, and it's obvious to any viewer that the cool intelligence of Don Draper flows from him organically.

"Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and all the other grubby little satellite shows in it's orbit are, of course, the apex of Stupid TV, escapist, disposable entertainment. The intricacies of the human condition are indeed on display on Kardashian-centered entertainment, but in a debased form: envy, backbiting, awe in it's trashy McMansion splendor, and petty conflict. If it has any redeeming social value, it must be at such an ultra-sonic level of irony it's only understood by ironic dogs.

These shows often out-draw "Mad Men" in ratings. This is what motivated Jon Hamm to speak out: he and his show are on the parapets of traditional Hollywood, watching the hoard of Kardashians and Snookies and Real Housewives coming right at them. Notching an arrow in the bow and and letting fly is preferable to being overrun.

Jon Hamm did, in time, realize his tactical blunder, and via "Inside Hollywood" issued a response to Ms. Kardashian's barbed tweet. Don't call it an apology-- He's not about letting Reality TV off the hook anytime soon:

It’s surprising to me that it has become remotely a story… My quote was simply about that version of television and that version of American culture being celebrated. It’s not something that I particularly enjoy. The quote was obviously taken out of context, but I said what I said. I just wish it had been reported correctly. I don’t know Ms. Kardashian; I’ve never met her (and) I would never say anything personally about somebody that I’ve not met. What I said was meant to be more on pervasiveness of something in our culture, not personal, but she took offense to it and that is her right.

I'm sure it'll end here-- Too many big words for Kim to possibly match.

ADDENDA: Kim may be done, but apparently her proxies want to get in on this ginned-up "feud." Ms. Kardashian's best friend Jonathan Cheban has gone on the record with this reposte: "Jon Hamm just needs to shut up and stop being such a mad man." Um... zing, I guess.

The Year Oscar Begged For Help

The Kodak Theatre, before.

I mentioned earlier that if The Artist won best picture it would be an indication that Hollywood has fallen into terminal narcissism and given up on caring about the outside world. I was wrong: it was an indication of something far more alarming.

Indeed, it's too pat to suggest that the Oscar telecast was more narcissistic than usual. Narcissism is the lifeblood of the awards telecast: it's what kept the lights on in the "'Your Name Here' Theater" (Billy Crystal's reference to Chapter 11 Kodak), suspended the Cirque du Soliel acrobats up in the air, paid for the overstuffed goodie bags in the pre-awards luxury lounge. I misspoke here: goodie bags are over-- not very image-friendly in these class-divided, tough times. Now there are discreet "gift suites" set up in key hotels in Hollywood, full of amazing stuff nominees and celebrities can get their hands on-- no charge, free, gratis, thank you for being you. So if you're gonna be in Zanzibar the next few months, say hi to Adrien Brody, who was given a $35,000 resort vacation there at a gift suite. He was neither a presenter nor nominee. So when they say "it's an honor just to be nominated," this is what they're talking about.

It may have seemed to some like a boring, remarkably short Oscars (shortest in 30 years!) but you didn't have to look very hard to see a complete and articulate subliminal message, repeated over and over the entire evening. No courting kids, no young hosts (were James Franco and Anne Hathaway even there?), no Facebook or Twitter or mention of YouTube or anything like that: just a basic, existential subtext:

Gee, what's been covered up?

"Get off your butt and go see a movie!"

The big winners: The Artist and Hugo celebrated the nascent days of the film industry, the invention of film language and the advent of sound in the glamorous days of the silents. "See how amazing and historical movies are? Impressed? So get off your butt and go see a movie!"

Cirque du Soliel did an entire acrobatic dance dedicated to the experience of getting off one's butt and going to see a movie.

That weird montage of older movies near the beginning-- all of which are much, much better than anything nominated this year: "remember these? Now, get off your butt and go see a movie!"

Tom Sherak, head of the AMPAS, made a short and dull statement. Guess what it was?

Even Angelina Jolie's mile-long leg had a freighted meaning. She wasn't just showing off her gam: Jolie is Hollywood glamor personified, and that winking leg flashed a semaphore to a vast movie-going audience: "Want to see more? Then get off your butt and go see a movie!" (J-Lo's semi-exposed areola may have also had something to say to this area, but not quite as convincingly.)

The motion picture industry is in trouble. box office is down, attention-getting films are more expensive to produce, profit margins and therefore production slates are slimming. It may not be apparent when watching the Oscars, but Hollywood has a lot of experience in image management. There was a shocking column by a screenwriter in the New York Times last week which outlined how dire things are getting for those in the middle and lower rungs of Hollywood-- foreclosures, bankruptcies, careers evaporating as production gets cut back or exported.

Which leads back that unified, existential cry for help, which ran under the proceedings like the recurring audio feedback that plagued the whole show. And it's hard to ignore the fact that everyone was gathered in the Kodak Theatre-- the bankrupt former pillar of The Industry, victim to the digital technology which is gnawing at every level of Hollywood, from mighty L.A. basin studio to tiny Valley adult-film shingle.

Okay, that 's a bit apocalyptic-- It was still a very amusing, glamorous night. I got to watch it at an Oscar pool party thrown in a loft apartment in downtown San Francisco, with big wraparound views of the city and the bay. Amazing. There were about two dozen folks there, all charming and nice. I got to show off a little screenwriter wisdom, such as the difference in "&" and "and" in screenwriting credits. Somebody else won with something like 17 correct picks. I have never, ever won an Oscar pool.

But Does HAL Have an Intel Inside?

Thought it was high time I start contributing to this thing again!

What brought me out this time: Local high-tech jurisprudence. Good ol' Apple, that beloved corporate juggernaut, is trying to block sales of Android-powered Samsung tablet computers in some countries, claiming copyright infringement against the iPad. Same old story, really-- but Samsung's lawyers have sprung back with a remarkable defense. They pointed out that Apple itself swiped an idea over 40 years old. There were devices nearly identical to iPads in use in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Quoting Samsung's filing:

Attached hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of a still image taken from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey." In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers. As with the design claimed by the D’889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table's surface), and a thin form factor.

I did not notice this until now-- and it's amazing how right they got it-- all the way back in 1968! (the image here is an amusingly photoshopped deal I found online: in the film, the pads are made by IBM.) I'll bet if you can get a hold of some tech-savvy kid and make him or her watch 2001 (at 143 minutes, a tall order), and ask them what Bowman and Poole are watching BBC 12 on, they would be more interested in what brand of tablet they were using to do so.

Kubrick hired a lot of scientists, futurists and engineers to design the look and feel of his film. No doubt one of these guys (and back then, it had to be a guy) thought the future of TV would look like a clipboard with a video screen. They didn't totally nail future technology, though: The often-seen square-format computer displays in the film are more akin to data readouts, rather than GUIs (graphical user interfaces). In one scene an astronaut is seen scribbling data down on a yellow legal pad, and HAL dispenses hard data on a punchcard (this scene got some scattered laughter at the last screening I attended). And though today's solid-state SATA swappable hard drives bear a striking resemblance to HAL's logic core modules, I'm afraid nobody has yet figured out how to make them transparent.

Steve Jobs is just a few years older than me, and grew up in Mountain View, California. He was 13 years old when 2001 came out-- and it's even quite likely he saw it at the Century 21 on Winchester, same as I did. It likely made just as deep an impression on him as it did me, though I have to admit his inspiration was quite a bit more profitable than mine.

ADDENDA: About three hours after posting this, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple. No need to take this blog personally, Stevie...

March Oddments

••• It's strange to be witness to another entry in the "biggest flop of all time" contest. Of course, we're talking about Mars Needs Moms. Sometimes Hollywood just sneaks 'em out: yet another bouncy, kid-friendly computer-animated 3D flick, with some mild laughs in and cool-looking stuff in the trailer. Then it premieres, and the opening weekend comes and goes, and it racks up a few million in ticket sales. At this point, it shares a surface commonality with the majority of films on Dan's Weekly Box Office Report: It opened wide, a few people saw it, big deal. But then the news breaks wide in the trades (and the New York Times: read it before the whole news site vanishes behind the paywall!) that the damned thing cost the studio $150 million and two years to make.

What? $150 Million? Didn't somebody once say that CG movies would eventually be cheaper than live-action films? Do you mean to tell us that Mars Needs Moms, which is based on a children's picture book by Berkeley "Bloom County" Breathed, cost as much to make as Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King? Really? I once wrote an article praising Dax Shepard that pointed out that his cute little film Employee of the Month (2005) cost $10 million to produce and it eventually collected $30 million in first-release BO: a modest profit, but a profit nonetheless. Did anyone at Disney (who rarely step in the horse exhaust as badly as this, might I add) realize they could have used that motion-capture and compositing money,  made fifteen Employee of the Month movies (covering five seasons worth of employees) and raked in nearly half a billion dollars?

••• I think I have a little crush on a cartoon character (again): Cheryl (or Carol) from "Archer," a TV-MA animated Cold War spy-spoof on FX. Strong recommendation for this show: It's slick-looking, flash-style animation, with handsome, realistic character renderings (it looks a bit like a Saturday Morning version of "Mad Men") and some of the sharpest , funniest writing of any current series, period. It shares a heritage between creator Adam Reed's heady earlier series, particularly "Sealab 2021", and, of all things, "Arrested Development" (Jessica Walter, Jeffrey Tambor and Judy Greer do voices on it).

Anyway, Cheryl (or Carol, voiced by Greer) is the secretary for Malory Archer, the head of ISIS, the spy agency at the center of the story. She is amazingly, mind-bendingly stupid. That's her, drinking rubber cement. She has displayed her near-total lack of intelligence at various times-- to quote her Wikipedia bio-- by "trying to turn on her computer by typing O-N on the keyboard, wondering aloud who brings Jewish people their Christmas presents and thinking that a website can tell her whether she's pregnant." She defies a trio of armed police officers trying to arrest her by yelling "You're not my supervisor!" At the end of an episode that deals with cancer non-stop (it's very funny, I assure you) she leans over to another character and asks "what's cancer?"

It's always a kick to see a character who is set up to be an ignoramus, because if it's written and performed well, you're both amused and a little bit stunned. Cheryl (or Carol) as a character reminds me a bit of Larry, Darryl and Darryl from "Newhart" (1982-1990), who had the ability to throw down absolutely amazing non-sequiteurs. But Cheryl (or Carol) is better because she's smoking hot as well. No Uncanny Valley in "Archer," no sir. Full episodes are available on IMDb.

••• The awful events unfolding in Japan make a mockery of any comparison to fictional disaster or fictional anything, really. Having said that, I should point out that I'm not the first person to draw the most obvious comparison, or at least one that is culturally appropriate: Godzilla. A raging force of nature that destroys indiscriminately and lays waste with a plume of radioactive fire. It's so terribly apt that one could almost see it as science-fiction time loop, a 50s monster inspired by events that occur in devastating cadence half a century later.

But there is another icon from Japanese culture that truly gives me hope for the beleaguered people of Japan: Domo. He's NHK's mascot (and mine too, kinda): a squared-off, stubby-legged monster with beady eyes and a huge, toothy square mouth. Check him out: he's cute enough with the napped fur and outreaching arms, but he's got teeth. Big sharp pointy ones. There's an unlikely mix of winsomeness and determination to him. He always shows his mouthful of shark-like teeth to the world, almost like a challenge. Any culture that can produce a little character that embodies such a dichotomy of cute and tough can internalize these qualities, and they can do anything-- And that is something we at Hang A Lantern On It definitely believe.

"Skins" Proves Teens are Immortal

The American (kinda) version of the UK teen drama "Skins" had it's hour-long premiere on MTV last week. As it wasn't aimed to my demographic, I had planned on ignoring it-- even though widespread moral panic is building over it, and advertisers have been marching away from it one by one. But when I read a review in the Washington Post that said it had no redeeming social value, well, I just had to see it. That's strong sauce!

The main character in "Skins" is Tony, this new century's Ferris Bueller, and the bunch of Hollister model-looking high-school-age kids in his orbit. He and his friends conduct themselves in most ways in the manner of hard-core hedonists, much as Ferris did-- but he was about cutting school to go to Chicago, not getting his friends laid, trashing nice houses, stealing cars, treating adults with undisguised contempt, and dealing stupendous amounts of weed. (then again, it was Ferris' dumb idea that lead to the destruction of Cameron's Dad's Ferrari, and therefore Cameron's implicit, offscreen murder.)

It's a strange-looking, strange-sounding show as well. "Skins" is, as mentioned, a remake of a British show of the same name, and as far as I can tell the scripts have not been altered one bit for American audiences. So the dialog is chock-a-block with English slang (like the word skins itself, which means rolling papers) and Clockwork Orange-like cadences that sound bizarre coming out in American inflections.

Make that Canadian inflections: It's set somewhere in America (Baltimore, I read) but it's shot in Canada, an often torrid show set in the cold, bland interior and exterior spaces of greater Toronto. I did not detect any vowel risings among the pale, pale cast, but the Canadian-ness of it all just makes the British dialog even weirder-sounding. This all means "Skins" may be thought of as an apocalyptic "DeGrassi," or "6teen" if it had imitated "The Jersey Shore" rather than "Friends."

Folks out there are afraid that "Skins" is some form of child pornography. It ain't: It's a teen drama with teen actors portraying teens who are obsessed with sex, not a vehicle for distributing illegal images of naked kids. Still, considering the ages of the actors, they are skirting the edges of the law: If there is a nude scene with an actor under the age of consent, it's technically child porn, and from the look of things on "Skins" it's just matter of time.

And yes, the amazing thing about this show is how it shows kids doing irresponsible, even dangerous kid stuff without consequences-- an after-school special from hell, a nihilist "Sweet Valley High." From the Hayes Office to broadcast TV standards and practices, moral balance has been a bedrock requirement of popular entertainment. The good are rewarded, the evil punished, actions have consequences.

But the funny thing about life is there often aren't consequences. Plenty of mobsters die in their own beds at age 99. Don Draper had raw eggs cracked into his Caesar Salads for years, and he's only gotten healthier. It's impossible to prove, but I'll venture a majority of petty criminals are fairly successful-- Maybe only the greedy or stupid ones get caught. Perhaps consequences are merely a social construct, how we pattern-seeking human beings find ways to make sense of a chaotic world. We seek authority and the certainty of morality in a Godless universe where morality is as substantial as a moonbeam.

And what are consequences to teenagers? Teenagers, bless 'em, think they're immortal, that they'll live forever. This is the key to understanding "Skins," a show that just confirms this conditional worldview. As a fun coincidence, this widely held teen belief is also the reason why, in times of war, teenagers get drafted.

Just food for thought.

Today in super-obvious movie news

LA Times:

Online critics name "The Social Network" best picture

I suppose this could have alternately been headlined "Today's 'to a person with a hammer, everything is a nail' news."

A few days ago, after the tag of some show like "The Middle," I witnessed the following commercials run in order (verified via my DVR):

People's Choice Awards Show promo (:15)
Critic's Choice Awards Show promo (:15)
Ad for toilet paper coyly featuring animated bears in woods (:30)
Golden Globe Awards Show promo (:30)

These first two I have barely heard of, nor have I heard of the Online Critics dealie referred to in the lede. Amazing that someone keeps creating more awards and awards shows-- it's as much of a growth industry as film festivals were pre-2008.

I wonder where it's all headed, especially when one considers the overall number of motion pictures being distributed slips a bit every year. I can see a time in the not-too-distant future when the number of released films and awards for them coincide exactly. Then we'll be in feel-good heaven where, as in elementary school athletics, everyone wins!

Giants in World Series, Viewers or Not

The San Francisco Giants are in the 'ship for the first time since 2002, and everybody up here in the Bay Area has contracted World Series fever. The fever manifests itself as an obsession with black and orange, which are also Halloween colors, a fine coincidence. Tickets for the series are commanding recession-defying prices: about half the seats at AT&T Park are controlled by ticket brokers (i.e. scalpers) and the prices start at about $800 for SRO. That's standing room only, nearly a thou for just making a turnstile crank around once.

The Giants (who trounced the Northeast powerhouse Phillies for the NL pennant) are playing the Texas Rangers (who creamed the Northeast powerhouse Yankees for the AL crown): neither of these franchises have ever won the series in their current home towns, and the Rangers have never been there at all. By all indications, this matchup will likely make for a very memorable championship.

The whole thing is being carried by FOX, as they usually do. So when a team from the #7 TV market faces off with the team from the #12 TV market, what do the FOX execs expect? A ratings disaster, of course. More wailing: why, oh why, can't it be the Yankees, Red Sox, the White Sox or even the Dodgers? Even the recently trounced Phillies (from TV market #4) would have done it!

Oh, for God's sake. Jeff Sullivan of SBNation.com said it best:

Ratings. Everywhere, people are talking about ratings. The Yankees versus the Phillies? That would get good ratings. The Rangers versus the Giants? That won't get good ratings. At least, not as good as the Yankees versus the Phillies. I don't know from whence all this sudden altruistic concern for the well-being of the FOX broadcasting company has come, but people are making a big deal out of this. They think that everyone at FOX headquarters must be miserable, and they're hoping against hope that millions of viewers on the fence will end up tuning in.

(He goes with some fine suggestions as to how Fox can boost ratings, such as put Jane Lynch in it or mislabel the series as an NFL game on on-screen guides.)

Great sporting events will attract great ratings. The World Cup broadcasts did very, very well and featured nothing even remotely resembling home teams. The 1991 World Series between the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves was highly viewed, because it was a seven-game nail-biter. And the Giants-Rangers series is going to be unique: I for one am not going to worry about how FOX is going to fare. They'll do fine.

And how does all this add up against the NFL, that dreadnought of American sports broadcasting, capable of flattening anything in it's way? The hugeness of the NFL's ratings compared to MLB has been a long-running trope. It's also a semi-invalid comparison. A Major League Baseball team plays over 160 games a year: a pro football team, around sixteen games. This becomes simple viewership math: all other things being equal, you get more people watching something if that something happens less often. This also gives baseball a stronger regional loyalty, and thus less stellar national ratings, than football (but allows for huge annual attendance totals, like the three million plus for the Giants: Football teams have only 8 or so home games, which the owners compensate for with jacked-up seat prices and TV revenue sharing).

There is also a qualitative difference between the pastimes: as FOXSports commentator Ken Rosenthal points out, baseball is "devoid of two NFL staples - violence and gambling." Right on.

So in summary, let me leave you with this food for thought: GO GIANTS! FEAR THE BEARD!

The Real Story

"And never forget, we're the real story." - Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks), Broadcast News

Every nightmare you have about the televsion news business may be coming true, right now, in Brazil. Via the BBC:

Police in Brazil say a TV crime show host accused of ordering killings to boost his ratings has gone missing after his arrest warrant was issued.

Wallace Souza, also a local congressman, had enjoyed parliamentary immunity until last week when the Amazonas state assembly expelled him. A search is under way, with airports and roads from the city of Manaus in the Amazon region being monitored.

Mr Souza has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing.

The case made headlines around the world when the police accused Mr Souza of being involved in drug trafficking and ordering killings to increase the popularity of his TV programme. As well as being a former TV presenter, Mr Souza was a popular politician elected to the assembly in the state of Amazonas with a large majority.

However, his expulsion following a vote last week meant he lost his parliamentary immunity and now it appears he is on the run, after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

The authorities in Amazonas claim he ordered several killings in order to get rid of his rivals, while afterwards TV crews from his programme would mysteriously arrive at the crime scenes before the police, enabling them to secure graphic footage.

Wow, talk about your worst-case scenarios! Imagine this happening here, with Keith Morrison of Dateline NBC in the place of Souza. I'm not sure what purpose this will serve, but it sure is fun.