BOX OFFICE ANALYSIS 

1. Dolphin Tale: $14.3M – Family films rule. Shallow nihilism and conformity posing as “edginess” do not. Yet Hollywood keeps right on making them. Yes, someone somewhere is currently squandering millions of dollars on “Margot At the Wedding 2: Narcissism Is a Virtue.” They might not call it that, but you get the idea.

2. Moneyball: $12.5M – More proof the adult drama is not dead, just a certain kind of adult drama — like, say, “Margot At the Wedding 3: I Hate the parents Who Gave Me Everything.”

3. The Lion King: $11M – Never in a million years did I expect this kind of haul and I’m sure the studio would’ve been happy with half this. In fact, they probably chose to go with a re-release mainly as a way to gin up publicity and anticipation for tomorrow’s Blu-ray release.  But this is a fantastic film released late enough so that many of those who enjoyed the experience with their parents can now pass it on to their own children. Disney = magic.

4. 50/50 $8.9M – One of those neither fish nor fowl flicks people probably had a hard time grasping. Is it a comedy? Is it a tragedy? Is it a drama? I think the casting of Seth Rogen really threw people off. He’s only been associated with raunch-fests and junk like “Green Hornet,” so the fit was odd and the whole “cancer” thing certainly would’ve turned off his following to whatever degree he has one.

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Monday, November 22, marked the birth date of the great Hoagland Howard “Hoagy” Carmichael, 1899 – 1981. Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Hoagy wrote, or co-wrote, among many other tunes, “Georgia on My Mind,” “(Up a) Lazy River,” “Skylark,” the perennial amateur piano duet favorite “Heart and Soul” and of course, with lyricist Mitchell Parish, the immortal “Stardust.”

Artists as diverse as Bing Crosby, Willie Nelson, and John Coltrane have recorded “Stardust.” The haunting, jazz-tinged melody is rightly regarded as one of the high water marks of American popular song. It’s been said that one sign of a truly great song is that it can be successfully interpreted in a variety of styles, and while there is certainly no need to prove that “Stardust” is one of the all-time great popular tunes, I’d like to invite you to check out a couple of examples. Here are links to snippets of two of my favorite versions of this tune, one by Louis Armstrong from 1931, and the other, from 1957, by Nat “King” Cole. The two arrangements are wildly different, and the performers themselves, of course, formidable, yet Hoagy’s melody is the real star of both versions.

It will be of interest to Big Hollywood readers to know that in addition to being a genius songwriter, Hoagy Carmichael was also politically lucid. He was, from the time of his Indiana upbringing, a conservative Republican. Carmichael’s son Hoagy Bix once said of his father’s political views: (more…)

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Before we begin…

Perhaps it’s genetic and, because I’m Irish-American, I’m sounding like Joseph McCarthy when he railed against Communism with his Un-American Activities Committee. Plus, with a name like Moriarty, given that’s the “handle” for the major villain in the World of Sherlock Holmes, I’m doubly cursed.

My sometimes awkward efforts to trace the growth of communism in the American performing arts does not have the substantive weight of an historical scholar, but it does have my over-forty years of personal experience behind it.

In an almost childlike way but with plenty of time to ponder my past in film and theater, I offer up a truth that, for me, has only been glimpsed in depth by Glenn Beck. (more…)

Rather than proceed with the more obvious examples of Hollywood Left … as I had promised, films like Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Reds and Inside Man, I’m drawn to a much subtler message in the great classic Casablanca.

Perhaps every movie buff has tried to write – if only in his or her own imagination –  a sequel to that great film classic, Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

Rick’s advice to Ilsa in the last scene of the film, that the problems of two little people don’t amount to much during World War II?

How could true love be defeated by an obviously Communist father-figure such as Paul Henreid’s Victor Laszlo?

“That’s a hefty charge, Mr. Moriarty.” (more…)

We’ve come a long way since tough-guy Humphrey Bogart let Ingrid Bergman away in “Casablanca,” only to tell another dude, “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.” Or have we? 

Today, we’re living in the age of the “bromance,” where guys are no longer squinty-eyed, deep-voiced bastions of macho attitude like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne or Bogart were. Now, we’ve got dudes who wear pastels and have feelings, sharing how much they care for each other, even waking up together instead of with the girl they were lusting after in “Superbad.” 

Don’t get me wrong, these are mostly hilarious movies in which men are encouraged to be just a bit more sensitive. But one’s gotta wonder how far things are gonna go with the release of the new movie “Humpday,” which is now playing in “selected theaters” and is likely to stay that way no matter how “open minded” our society gets. 

The premise of “Humpday” isn’t focused on a workplace slogging through the midweek boredom of a Wednesday in Cubicle Land. No, it’s about two straight guys – one married, one single – who are really great, old friends – so great, in fact, that one of them dares the other to make a porno together for an amateur porn contest where the goal is to break creative boundaries.  (more…)

Should the Motion Picture Association of America retroactively slap an “R” rating upon To Have and Have Not (1944)? After all, the classic film famously depicts silver-screen debutante Lauren Bacall and future husband Humphrey Bogart–gasp!–smoking. The American Medical Association Alliance demands that films featuring smoking characters be given an “R” rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA already takes into consideration the tobacco habits of celluloid characters in determining a film’s rating. The AMAA’s demand would take that consideration from the MPAA, automatically assigning an “R” to any film depicting an ordinary, everyday activity normally conducted in the open when the cameras aren’t rolling. The ACLU hasn’t voiced objection, but what about Margot Tenenbaum? The Smoking Man? The Man with No Name? (more…)

In Doug TenNapel’s look at how politics undermine the enjoyment of modern day films, he writes:

…when a new trailer is released that takes place during the Iraq War[,] I turn to my wife and whisper, “Don’t tell me; it’s about a gung-ho soldier who wants to fight for the good cause of America then sees enough friendly fire and slaughtered children to gain a conscience that the whole war is a lie for oil.”

Don’t we all. (more…)