I don't usually do a rant of this sort, but in want of anything substantiative to talk about, I feel like doing a good old fashioned Fisking. There's this article I came across a few weeks ago, which smacks of usual misplaced nostalgia and ignorance about Hollywood's past, as well as more than a bit of sour grapes. Problem is, it's not the ranting of an IMDB broken record or even an idiotic op-ed by some neo-Bosley Crowther, but a published "news" article in Entertainment Weekly.
Let's see what Nicole Sperling has to say.
The Decline of Movies For Adults
The reasonable, non-jerk part of me can guess that Ms. Sperling is discussing serious dramas of the sort of that usually sweep the Oscars. The jerk part of me wants to lambast her for the apparent presumption that adults have better taste in films than younger audiences, which is highly dubious in my mind. And also point out that she could be discussing the sorry state of pornography with a title like that.
Give Robert Downey Jr. a glass of scotch and a suit made of metal, and lines will form around the block. But cast him as a newspaper columnist who befriends a cello-playing homeless man, and these days the only crowds gathering will be for the movie playing next door.
Seems obvious to me. What are you bitching about?
The latter Downey project, a onetime Best Picture hopeful called The Soloist, cost $50 million to produce and has grossed just $30 million.
Given the downbeat subject matter, director Joe Wright, and the less-than-great reviews, this is hardly a shocker, is it?
Reviews were less than rapturous,
There you have it. Critical reviews certainly don't determine a film's success, but with Oscar bait films like this they pretty much make or break them.
but producer Gary Foster thinks there was something deeper at play.
Gee, he's the producer of a film that tanked at the box office. Might he not have some sort of motive in making such an assertion?
''Audiences don't want to be reminded of the darkness in the world,'' he says. ''They want to laugh, get taken to space, watch things in a museum come to life.''
This is the sort of blindingly-obvious "insight" that comes from bitter producers of an unsuccessful film. And how dare audiences want to "laugh" at a film? Those bastards!
But what if your idea of entertainment involves more than watching Ben Stiller get slapped by monkeys?
You watch a movie with giant robots throwing each other around for two and a half hours?
The pickings are slim and getting slimmer.
Then watch a film that's on video (or to keep this blog semi-relevant, that you can download or stream on Hulu). Seems easy enough.
In the wake of high-profile dramas flopping at the box office — including Frost/Nixon, Australia, Revolutionary Road, and State of Play — studios are increasingly gun-shy about making movies that don't offer pure escapism.
Here's the pretty obvious answer: When have adult films ever been successful? I mean, I would definitely argue that The Godfather or Lawrence of Arabia or even Jaws are far more mature than Transformers 2, but as a general rule audiences preferring popcorn garbage over art pictures isn't something new. (Especially considering that said films, however good, are mass-audience crowd pleasers.) To pretend that audiences haven't flocked to drek since the beginning of cinema is the product of obvious, misplaced myopia.
Furthermore: I can't say I agree with the selection of films here as supporting your point. I haven't seen the latter two, but Australia is a fairy-tale/Western/historical epic while Frost/Nixon is an Aaron Sorkin-esque dramedy - hardly hard-hitting dramas whose riddles are only decipherable to dorky cineastes and eggheaded professors. Anyway, Australia might reasonably be considered a flop if you ignore that it made its money back overseas, but Frost/Nixon got only a fairly limited release, so deeming it a failure is rather a reach.
Even the frothy, adult-oriented caper Duplicity struggled to find a wide audience.
A movie with Clive "Woodboy" Owen and Julia "Horseface" Roberts, directed by the guy who did Michael Clayton, flopped at the box office? Shocker! I did like Duplicity but it didn't exactly scream blockbuster. Unless of course we're operating under the questionable assertion that Paul Giamatti + Tom Wilkinson = box-office gold.
One producer who specializes in dramas says the climate is as brutal as he's ever seen it: ''Anything that can't be sold as a genre film or wasn't conceived as a franchise is dead.''
I'm glad we didn't get this insight from a producer who specializes in comedies. Then it wouldn't have carried nearly as much weight.
Even projects that might once have been considered Oscar bait have fallen prey to executives' squeamishness. Paramount turned down director Bill Condon's planned biopic about Richard Pryor, with Eddie Murphy attached to star. Universal axed a drama starring Naomi Watts about a global activist.
Projects falling through isn't exactly news either. But thanks for bringing to our attention this obscure, esoteric, little-known fact that until now has been a secret to all but the most knowledgable industry insiders.
''With the economy being what it is, no one wants to get blamed for a failure,'' says one agent. ''If you greenlight something that's [totally mainstream] and it fails, it's not your fault. If you greenlight an adult drama and it tanks, you lose your job.''
So you're blaming the economy for the fact that nobody wants to see your pretentious Oscar bait? That seems the easy way out. Why not blame George W. Bush? Or global warning?
Who's to blame for the sorry state of the adult drama?
No one. Good movies get made in as much quantity as they ever have been. One just has to know where to look. Indeed, some of the box office drek you so contemptuously dismiss happens to be very good.
Filmmakers fault studio marketers for not effectively selling serious fare. Producers blame the studios for making poor choices and spending too much money, setting dramas up for failure
The fact that people generally don't want to watch movies about Kate Winslet as an illiterate and kids dying of cancer isn't enough? But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Meanwhile, some executives say the films themselves simply aren't compelling enough.
Well, that too. I can't exactly blame someone who wants to skip out on Milk or The Reader.
It also helps if you can give your drama the commercial hook of a genre film — like last year's hit Gran Torino, a meditation on tolerance wrapped in the guise of a movie with a gun-toting Clint Eastwood and a cool car. ''That movie worked because you could put a 30-second spot together where people said, 'Oh, that sounds kick-ass,''' says Foster.
Another shocker: some films are more easy to market! Particularly ones starring legendary Hollywood icons!
Universal seems to be following a similar playbook for their July release Public Enemies. The studio's great, heart-thumping trailer suggests an action movie more than a character-driven historical drama.
I have the benefit of hindsight which Ms. Sperling didn't, having seen the film in question, but it kind of is.
Likewise, judging from the pulse-pounding ads for The Weinstein Company's post-apocalyptic drama The Road, you'd think the film was The Road Warrior, not a somber tale of societal breakdown.
Again, I can't exactly get worked up over the fact that some producers and marketing executives are trying to reach the widest audience possible.
As bleak as things look for the adult drama, many believe the genre is simply in the midst of a cyclical downturn, and that it will eventually make a comeback.
Finally some sense and perspective. Although I'm still not convinced that "adult dramas" were ever all that popular. It's more an instance that audience tastes and expectations have changed somewhat since Star Wars and Jaws.
''People are turned off to stuff that's holding a mirror up to their lives,'' says one prominent producer. ''But that will all change when we return to a more solid economic footing.''
Or if you give movies like Frost/Nixon and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford proper releases, maybe more people will see them.
Producer Mark Johnson (The Notebook) agrees.
If that's an "adult drama" than Friends is a hard-hitting social commentary.
''You have to have faith in a mature audience,'' he says. ''The strike zone may be getting smaller and smaller, but if you throw it right, it can still work.''
Okay, I shall not mock you any longer, Mr. Notebook. You have perspective which the other sour grapes-douches completely lack.
His child-with-cancer weeper My Sister's Keeper opens June 26
I'm sorry, a "child-with-cancer weeper" is an "adult drama"? More like soap opera in my book. And are there more than three people left on Earth who would go see a Cameron Diaz movie?
just two days after a little robot drama called Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Gee, who do you think won that battle?
Mocking idiots is fun. I might have to do it more often.
No comments:
Post a Comment