DO 2012’s NEW RELEASES PROMISE A BOX OFFICE COMEBACK?

In the New York Times story I wrote about earlier today, there was this quote:

The good news for Hollywood is that the first quarter of 2012 looks much stronger than the same period this year, when studios had little to generate audience excitement.

Warner has two sequels — “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” and “Wrath of the Titans,” while Sony has a prominent remake in “21 Jump Street.” Disney will re-release “Beauty and the Beast” in 3-D, followed by Fox’s 3-D re-release of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.” And Lionsgate will weigh in with its highly anticipated “The Hunger Games.”

So two re-releases, a sequel to a flop (“Journey 2″), and another remake of an ’80s television show rank as reasons for Hollywood to be optimistic?

The link in the title looks at the box office slate for the first three months of 2012. Take a look. Anything excite you?

What most struck me about those thirty or so titles was an almost complete lack of movie stars.

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MIRAMAX TO LAUNCH FACEBOOK STREAMING VENTURE

While Miramax already has a deal with Netflix, this is still a fascinating move on the studio’s part. Warners, Universal and Paramount have already moved onto Facebook, as well.

On a less horrifying scale, Netflix is legally doing to the film and television business what Napster did to the music biz. Napster created an entire generation (and the most important generation to music-sellers) who got used to getting their music for free. The industry has never recovered and likely never will. What Netflix (and Redbox) have done is gotten us used to paying next to nothing for our home entertainment. Higher-priced outlets like Hollywood Video went out of business and Blockbuster Video’s been forced to offer similar pricing in a last chance effort to save itself from a fire sale.  

Studios would love to use a social media monster like Facebook to go directly to the public and marginalize the Netflix’s of the world, but I just don’t think it’s going to work. They might pick up a few pay-per-view hits along the way, but will it make up for the cost of advertising and the start up — not to mention the effort? I doubt it.

Hollywood can keep trying, but if I were a betting man I’d bet that the Netflix genie is out of the bottle and that in five years you either deal with the Streaming Devil or find yourself on the sidelines.

PIXAR ANNOUNCES TWO NEW NON-SEQUEL FILMS

This is wonderful news.

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Standing up to imperialism has often been a theme in Hong Kong martial arts cinema, and given Hong Kong’s history, it’s easy to see why.  Hong Kong is a city that has long struggled with its own identity.  For a time, it was not part of China, and the city’s natives certainly weren’t considered British either.  China is a nation that spent an incredibly long stretch of history being governed by foreign powers, it’s ironic that now they hold the majority of our nation’s debt.  But Hong Kong was a city that spent almost the entire twentieth century as a British colony, and as the specter of Communist Chinese takeover loomed in the nineties, both Hong Kong’s identity and future seemed uncertain.

It was out of this cultural context that Tsui Hark’s classic martial arts epic Once Upon a Time China was released, an action-packed tale of the culture clash between east and west in 19^th century Hong Kong.   While the film’s protagonist, Dr. Wong Fei-hung, is a folk hero that has been portrayed in countless films, Jet Li’s version of the character helped reinvigorate Hong Kong kung-fu movies and would come to be his definitive role as an actor. Li’s take on Wong redefined the role of the intellectual warrior who must defend his countrymen against foreign tyranny.  Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, which is a continuation of a TV series called Fist of Fury, is the latest in this tradition. (more…)

[Editor's Note: This list is arranged in no particular order. Read Part I here.]

6.  “Nuclear weapons are awful.” – Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

There are probably a few inventions that have saved more human lives and prevented more suffering than nuclear weapons.  The wars since World War II, when we quite properly dropped two A-Bombs on Japan and ended the slaughter, have been a mere shadow of what they would have been without our thermonuclear arsenal.  That’s just a fact, and all the posturing about the “insanity” of deterrence in this inexplicably beloved movie can’t change that.  You should love The Bomb.

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Of course, Dr. Strangelove provides a better idea than nuclear deterrence by wholeheartedly embracing anti-missile defense.  Nah, just kidding.  The film advocates nothing except ironic detachment, essentially abdicating any responsibility and simply complaining about a strategy that, well, worked.  And let me be blunt – it just doesn’t hold up after all these years.  There, I said it.  Except Slim Pickens – Slim will always rock. (more…)

Selecting the stupidest liberal messages in movie history is sort of like trying to pick the world’s most annoying rapper – the competition is intense.  There are just so many candidates, and they each suck so badly in their own unique way.

Any attempt to pick the worst of the worst is bound to disappoint someone.  This list by no means contains all of the hackneyed, parochial, and just plain obnoxious bits of liberal received wisdom that the Hollywood brain trust has spewed forth over the years.  For every nitwit insight on the list, there are dozens more floating around the nether reaches of Netflix, waiting to annoy the unwary.  No doubt the commenters will find many more.

So, here my top ten in no particular order:

1. “All American Soldiers are psychos.” – Platoon (1986)

It’s pretty obvious that the American soldier is the greatest force for evil in all of human history – or it would be, if all you watched were post-Vietnam War Hollywood movies.  It seems that to most of the hacks in Hollywood, the mere act of donning an Army uniform turns you into a bloodthirsty killing machine with an appetite for murder.  And that’s not just on the battlefield.  In American Beauty (1999), the conservative Marine neighbor not only abuses his wife and son but murders people because he’s secretly gay!  That’s a liberal stereotype trifecta – they probably think it makes him a prime candidate for King of the Tea Party. (more…)

[Editor's Note: This list is arranged in no particular order. Read Part I here.]

6.  “Being exploited is different from being empowered ” – Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Often too-easily dismissed as a raunchy teen sex comedy, Fast Time was a tremendously influential and important mirror on young America in the early 1980s.  The fact that it is gut-bustlingly funny – Sean Penn’s turn as surfer/stoner Jeff Spicoli remains his only role where he doesn’t annoy me – seems to overshadow the serious undercurrents, as does the ample nudity culminating in the unforgettable swimming pool scene starring the glorious Phoebe Cates.

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However, there is a very, very dark undercurrent to this movie that provides a serious lesson to young people.  Jennifer Jason-Leigh’s Stacy is a pretty but not-so-bright 15/16 year old who does not understand the difference between love and sex.  In a world of absolutely no parents (not a single one is ever seen), she tries to find love (or at least attention) by basically trying to have tacky sex with every guy she meets – and it’s heartbreaking.  She’s not “empowered” – she’s used.  The ugly scene where she loses her virginity to a guy in his 20s in a Little League dug-out staring at graffiti reading “Surf Nazis Must Die” is a better repudiation of the “hook-up” culture than a hundred lectures.

After scaring off the one guy who actually likes her for herself by trying to bed him too, she seeks comfort underneath his skanky pal.  A grim, humiliating encounter in a pool house leaves her pregnant and she immediately seeks an abortion.  Regardless of one’s stand on the life issue, one cannot be anything other than horrified at how the fact she sees herself as literally nothing but a mere receptacle leads her to feel nothing at all about her decision. (more…)

We conservatives spend a lot of time criticizing Hollywood’s failings, calling out its errors and pointing to its hypocrisies – and this is entirely appropriate since so much of the crap spewing out of the Tinseltown cookie cutter is borderline commie nitwittery masquerading as profundity.  But if nothing good ever came out of Hollywood – if everything it produced hewed to the same lame party-line pinkoism rejected everywhere except in Westside L.A., university faculty lounges, and Washington, D.C. – we all would have stopped paying attention long ago.

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And many conservatives have.  Many of us have thrown our hands in the air and opted out of popular culture completely, exhausted from enduring liberal sucker punches buried within crummy flicks about magic robots battling Dick Cheney vampire clones that we pay $12.50 to see in theaters maintained at the hygiene level of your average bus station men’s room.  You can hardly blame them for giving up.

But as tempting as it is to withdraw from the battlefield, to dig in and hope it somehow changes, surrender was never an option.  This is our culture, not theirs.  And they don’t get to control it. 

The fact is that among the detritus of American popular culture, there are voices of sanity.  Sure, they are nearly drowned out by over-praised hacks like Aaron Sorkin and over-indulged clowns like Oliver Stone.  Yet, occasionally, Hollywood has allowed positive, conservative messages to slip through. (more…)

“Pulp Fiction” is the best movie ever. Let me explain. Actually. I don’t believe that there is a best movie ever, or even a best year ever. But when “Pulp Fiction” is on, and I watch, at some point during those 154 minutes it will dawn on me, “So, this…is the best movie ever”. I have been overheard saying this during viewings of “Jaws,” “High Plains Drifter,” “Bad News Bears,” “Casablanca,” “Goodfellas,” three different “Star Wars” movies (Yes, three — I cringe at the Ewoks, but love Luke’s ascent to badass), “Unforgiven,” “The King of Comedy,” and many others films.

“Pulp Fiction” had the feel of an event movie for college-aged kids. “Reservoir Dogs” and “True Romance” had developed cult followings in frat houses and dorm rooms everywhere, and the buzz surrounding “Pulp Fiction” strangely intensified after it won the Palme D’Or at Cannes. There aren’t many mainstream hits to be found on the list of films to win the Palme D’Or between 1990 and 2009. Some great movies, but nothing approaching the level of fun Tarantino injects into three interwoven stories of L.A.’s criminal underbelly. I don’t recall, for example, midnight showings of Jane Campion’s previous films complete with party atmosphere and booze the weekend that “The Piano” opened, at least not in Athens, Georgia. But the weekend “Pulp Fiction” opened, the Georgia Theater unspooled “Reservoir Dogs” to a raucous crowd who cheered when Tarantino’s name danced across the screen. He was more than a director, he was a rock star. His movies have continued to be events, which sometimes works against him. (more…)

In Part One of this two-part series, I described the widely varying treatment of renowned directors Jafar Panahi and Roman Polanski by the leftist Hollywood establishment vis-a-vis their arrests and incarcerations, Polanski for child rape, Panahi for mere dissent. It is merely the latest chapter in a long and sickening history of the Hollywood Left’s willful blindness to and even profiting from the McCarthyite persecution and dire straits of creative film artists in Iran revolting over a stolen election, while child rapist Polanksi gets the Oscar treatment with regard to calls for his release and freedom.

But before I get into the stomach-churning details of the Hollywood Left’s shattered moral compass vis-a-vis directors Polanski and Panahi and other Iranian film artists, I would like to take a moment to honor more of the true heroes who have spoken out loudly on Mr. Panahi’s behalf and signed petitions for his release. The National Society of Film Critics. The Boston, L. A. and  Toronto Film Critics Associations. Arin Paul of the New York Times. Filmmaker Ken Loach. Rutger Wolfson, director of the Rotterdam Film Festival. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. Human Rights Watch. French Minister of Culture Frederic Mitterand. Iranhumanrights.org. The list really is long.

Of course, noticeably absent from those petitioning and publicly calling for the release of Mr. Panahi from his unjust tomb-like captivity in Tehran are all of the prominent Hollywood A-List petitioners for Polanski. So Mr. Polanski’s arrest for child rape is worthy of international pressure and outrage, but famed director Jafar Panahi being tossed into a crypt in Tehran on “unspecified charges” is not? Welcome to Lefty Hollywood. And it only gets worse. The most tragic case of Jafar Panahi is yet one more sorry, perplexing and infuriating chapter in leftist Hollywood’s incredible blind side to any human rights violations in Iran, never mind only those perpetrated against Iranian filmmakers today. (more…)

The payoff for sitting through a dozen craptacular releases is that one movie where you actually say, “Damn, that was worth the $11.50 and the kidney I spent to see it.”  As a modern moviegoer, you must be an eternal optimist.  You must hope against hope that the trailer you liked didn’t contain every single good scene and funny joke in the movie, and that the reviewer who raved isn’t covering up some pinko agenda that’ll make you choke out on your Goobers. 

You have to believe that out there somewhere is an action movie director who knows what a tripod is.  That there is a young lead actor who has never starred in a CW television series about beautiful but sensitive teenage male models with supernatural powers.  That there is a comedy screenwriter who can imagine a “funny” situation not involving a bodily fluid.  That Michael Cera will one day play a different character.

In that spirit, a spirit of Pollyannaish hope in the face of overwhelming evidence indicating that Hollywood’s product will almost certainly continue to demonstrate that evolution is a two-way street, I present ten movies that are coming within the next six months that might actually be good – or at least not make me throw things at the screen and slap around the ushers. (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…)

With this year’s Academy Award season over and the next one already into act II, both winners and losers, or rather, award recipients and award non-recipients, have already begun taking stands on undiscovered political issues and digging their heels in deeper on those already known and talked about. 

Does anyone benefit from this? Is there a payoff? Does the world become a better place? Or is it all about career, being in the limelight, and publicity?  (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…)

President-elect Obama’s election and inauguration is a victory for wisdom in the war against ignominious hate. President Obama will inherit a nation which, by the unwavering commitment of President George W. Bush, has taken the steps necessary to stop Terror Inc., in its tracks. Hollywood Studios which, let us not forget, remain on Al Qaeda’s hit list, have continued to produce films of protest to the former President’s war policies and defamatory to his character. They thrive and get rich by hating him. Rather than support our President and our troops, rather than vilifying our enemy, Hollywood has in the main chosen to vilify those sworn to protect it. Hollywood has indeed changed. Let’s compare Hollywood’s response to WWII to its response to 9/11 and our war effort.

Classic and contemporary Hollywood feature films about America’s heroic contribution to victory in World War II are legion. My favorite three classics are “Casablanca,” the splendid “Victory at Sea” (NBC TV), and “The Longest Day.” During, and for some time after World War II, most American filmmakers celebrated the American fighting spirit which, once awakened, crushed Nazism, defanged the Imperialist Japanese and corralled Communism. Then, American film critics were generally supportive. A glance at reviews published about “Victory At Sea,” contemporary with the series’ release in 1952, are illuminative. The New York Times praised the series for its “rare power”; The New Yorker pronounced the combat footage “beyond compare;” Harper’s proclaimed that “‘Victory at Sea’ [has] created a new art form.” The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Harper’s sing praises of war! The horror, the horror. (more…)