The man who brought us “JFK” – an unintentionally hilarious exercise in paranoia that implied Lyndon Johnson was behind the assassination of John Kennedy – is now making a film about the heroes of 9/11. Mickey Kaus – ever a master of understatement – worries that the studio (Paramount) might be “out of touch” on this. I’ll say. Somewhere around Alpha Centauri.
But there is something slightly more sinister in all this than what superficially appears to be a multi-million dollar misjudgment. In a statement released Friday (which we can assume was carefully vetted by the studio – Oliver is no Spielberg in terms of Hollywood power these days) Stone said of his film:
“It’s a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened and carries within a compassion that heals. It’s an exploration of heroism in our country – but it’s international at the same time in its humanity.”
“International.” I see. That couldn’t have anything to do with the box office, could it? Hollywood, for whom foreign ticket sales are greater than those at home, is ever mindful of how its movies play abroad. Even given his string of recent failures, who better to choose if you’re going to make a film about an American tragedy and don’t want to offend foreign sensibilities than delusional Oliver? Indeed, he can be relied upon to pander to them.
UPDATE: The release of this poll of Brits after their terror bombings of two days ago indicates Hollywood may have miscalculated bringing such a fuddy-duddy, pseudo-leftie as Stone aboard for a 9/11 movie.
ONE MORE THING: Of course, it is also possible that Oliver will pull this off and make a movie everyone will love. Here are my reasons: a. he has some chops as an action director (although maybe not as a writer anymore – that’s the first talent to go… takes more work); b. he reads the handwriting on the wall – every Hollywood movie director is first and foremost a businessman and Oliver’s career is in trouble; c. the studio will have him on a very short leash: no final cut, someone else’s screenplay.
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64 Comments
1. richard mcenroe:Spielberg is making a movie about what the terrorists of Munich went through. Oliver Stone is going to make an “international” “healing” movie about 9-11.
These people should not be trusted with their stockholders’ money.
Jul 9, 2005 - 7:52 am 2. Stephen_M:Well, nine bucks saved is nine bucks earned.
Jul 9, 2005 - 7:58 am 3. Stephen_M:Or is that twelve bucks earned?
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:03 am 4. Stephen_M:Any CPAs about?
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:04 am 5. Luther McLeod:Roger
Why do the studio heads persist in alienating better that half of their potential audience (in this country anyways?) You are correct, I’m sure, it’s all box office pandering for the ‘larger’ audience. Maybe we should move the UN to a nice little studio lot in Hollywood, it would make it so much easier for them to collaborate in furthering their one world/utopian agenda.
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:05 am 6. Dan Patterson:We live in the age of “yes, but…”. The hanging what-ifs that pepper conversations between academics and coffee-pot philosophers dilute the evil obvious in acts like the September 11th murders and the London attacks of this week. Those same ‘yeahbuts’ make movies about conspiracies and motivated-by-greed-capitalists, and write jingles about ‘teaching the world to sing…” The mugwumps that seek delivery from judgement don’t have to decide for themselves, they don’t put themselves in a position to declare one behavior superior to another because no choice is better than another choice. (Well, unless that choice involves killing an unborn baby, or a movie star makes a snide comment about the superiority of John Kerry’s intellect compared to that of George Bush, or Jimmy Carter is speaking about the wretched hegemony of the US, or maybe if there is an aid concert organized to eliminate poverty. Those things are obviously good vs. evil. I mean, come on! You know…?).
The evil present in the world will not be bowed by appeasment and it will not evolve into goodness through renaming. Stating that a murderous terrorist is now to be referred to as an insurgent doesn’t change the evil inherent in his acts; calling a pig a dog doesn’t change the character of either. The era of welcoming evil into our midst should be over but it will be a terrible battle to overcome the mistakes we’ve made so far.
The pod people of the science fiction story from the 50’s is a better analog to our war today than the space creatures that Tom Cruise battles. Creatures coming to earth for an extermination excersize are nameless and without human identification. It is easy and welcoming to name them as the faceless unnamed evil among us and do battle against an outsider foe, joined as one force against another. It is far more difficult when another human that walks and works among his fellow humans, then sits on a crowded bus with an explosive belt hidden beneath his culturally correct clothing and proceeds to kill and maim as many other people as possible. Because he was commanded to by some ancient sense of outrage.
Should we have Oliver Stone make a movie of those same sorts of murderers but with a keen eye to their motiviations and their anger? Shall we all gather together and have a conversation about what makes the 14th century tyrants so compelling? Maybe Stone and company could insert some witty bits about how those innocent souls lost to evil acts were complicit in their destruction because they enjoyed the fruits of the Founding Fathers and the Constituition of the United States of America?
Or maybe we could ask Stone and his ilk to STFU and read in public the commendations of men like Lawrence Joel and James Stockdale, may they rest in peace.
My prayers are with the victims of terror and their families.
Dan Patterson
Arrogant Infidel
The Holy City of Winston-Salem, NC
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:10 am 7. Kyda Sylvester:I think JFK is one great hoot ‘n holler of a movie and I love it. But I don’t want Oliver Stone to get anywhere near 9-11. Period.
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:12 am 8. RBMN:Who plays the part of the heroic anti-war socialist police officer, who convinces the formally callous stock broker (who got trapped with him for several hours) to visit Cuba with him (if they ever get out alive) of this fragile structure, which symbolizes the fragile nature of capitalism? You said this was an Oliver Stone film, so I just assume….
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:15 am 9. David Thomson:Oliver Stone? Even I wasnít sufficient cynical. The situation in Hollywood is far worse then I previously thought possible. These people really are crazy. The international market cannot be large enough to save the investors. This movie will be seen solely by the hard left. Michael Moore cautiously markets his films which cost mere pennies. His risks are next to nothing. An Oliver Stone film, however, demands a minimum investment of one hundred million dollars. No, I canít imagine how it can earn a profit.
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:16 am 10. LouMinatti:I’m reminded of “American Beauty”, a peculiarly vile movie that portrays middle-class Americans as pedophile slackers and closeted homosexual gun nuts. It was big overseas and won lots of Oscars awards.
Funny thing, though. I’m not aware of anyone who owns this “Oscar-winner” as part of their DVD collection.
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:21 am 11. Kyda Sylvester:The pod people of the science fiction story from the 50’s…
Oooo, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers–a B movie classic! Now I know what tonight’s entertainment will be. (And the 1978 remake wasn’t bad either.)
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:23 am 12. c:Of course, Stone has to do a take on 9-11. There’s no better conspiracy director on earth. He’ll do Moore proud by playing up the Bush family-Saudi connection, CIA-Mossad cooperation, and Arab righteous anger at the US. Maybe a key character will be a closeted homosexual whose secret ends up affecting national policy because of intolerant America. (Oh, sorry, Lou- I see you’ve already mentioned the closeted gay cliche.)
But Oliver may be too clever to be really explicit with a conspiracy angle, because subtlety, suggestions and whispers are far more damning. If viewers don’t keep their eyes peeled, they may even miss the faint outline of grassy knoll detonators in the far background and yarmulkes on men leaving the buildings just before the event.
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:31 am 13. kynna:I can’t imagine why a studio would get involved with something like this. Even if the foreign dollars are huge, it could be devastating in the US. Any actor who signs on to this is taking a big risk too.
This may be the death of Hollywood. It seems as if they just can’t believe that smug anti-Americanism might be the reason people aren’t paying ridiculous prices for their product.
Cut ticket prices and stop hating your audience so much. Then you might find money in both the international and US markets.
Jul 9, 2005 - 8:51 am 14. Duke:Paramount? I think their losses on War of the Worlds may cost a lot of execs their jobs. It’s going to have to make a record score in Europe and Asia in order to have a prayer of profit. Oliver Stone doing “9/11 the Musical” will work. This obscenity may not pass muster anywhere. Bush planned the entire thing, except he is too stupid so Cheney helped him, is a great plot. Hillary tried to stop him as did Michael Moore but the Right Wing juggernaut prevailed. BTW, as an aside, it may be the sagging box office is a result of movies that just aren’t American at all.
Jul 9, 2005 - 9:03 am 15. Kevin P:Roger:
Sigh. “International” means yes the 9-11 attacks were bad BUT lets explore the conditions that brought them about(hollywood translation- It’s our fault) and lets work on the root causes of this hate(Hollywood translation- It’s Israel’s fault).
Stone, noted Castro lover, is picked to examine 9-11. There are disturbing rumours that Spielberg is doing his film about the 72 massacre of the Israeli Olympic athletes from the angle of vengence is never the answer(Hollywood translation- It’s Israel’s fault and if they just ignore getting killed and never respond things will get better). Hopefully the rumour is wrong but if he try’s to equate the butchering of athletes by the pigs of black september to the IDF tracking MURDERERS down and removing them from the earth, God’s blessing to them for protecting us, I will scream. Roger, I can’t understand this need of Americans for self loathing. You would think most American Jews would give Israel the benifit of the doubt. Someone should write a book. “Hollywood- Why do they hate U.S.”
Kevin Peters
Jul 9, 2005 - 9:18 am 16. ptiusa:Watch for the name “Ward Churchill” in the “Special Thanks To” section of the closing credits.
Jul 9, 2005 - 9:29 am 17. Rick Ballard:Duke,
You really think that spitting on America continuously might have a negative effect on profits? You don’t think the Copperhaed 15% of the population can carry the entire news/entertainment industry?
Falling TV viewership, falling newspaper circulation, falling movie attendance and the MSM moguls hire Stone to do a 9/11 film. The phrase “Too dumb to live.” seems very apropos.
Jul 9, 2005 - 9:45 am 18. mrp:I close my eyes and imagine the rolling credits:
Screenplay ……….. Roger L. Simon
*
*
Whimsical Remarks …. Oliver Stone
Jul 9, 2005 - 10:21 am 19. Kevin P:Rick:
Whatever money it loses in America it will be picked up in international sales. The michael moore crowd will give it enough money in the States and it will blow up in Europe. It won’t make “Star Wars” money but it will turn a healthy profit. Unless, if Stone makes the film we all think he will make, a massive boycott of all Paramount fims is organized. Ditto for Spielberg if he puts out a P.L.O. apologetic. The critics will give these films such good reviews that many people will wander in out of couriousity. Miracles can happen and maybe these films won’t turn out to be self loathing drek but if they do what I think they will the only way to send Hollywood a message would be with a massive boycott of all the corporations films, not just Stone’s and Spielberg’s. You can only be spit on so many times before you do something.
Kevin Peters
Jul 9, 2005 - 10:22 am 20. jic:Kevin Peters – “Hollywood- Why do they hate U.S.” would be a good alternate title for *Hollywood, Interrupted*.
Jul 9, 2005 - 10:27 am 21. Lola:Haven’t the 911 families been cued to this film? They might not be happy with how their relatives are portrayed. Or anyone trying to make a profit off this terrorist attack.
Jul 9, 2005 - 10:34 am 22. richard mcenroe:Yeah, like it’s gonna do real well in the UK…
Jul 9, 2005 - 10:54 am 23. Svolich:Viacom is way behind, and this is their way of getting back in the game.
Last year, for example, they started out the year with Janet Jackson, and finished with Dan Rather and the forged Texas ANG documents. In between they had “The Stepford Wives” to chew on suburbia, and “The Manchurian Candidate” to go after corporate America and Republicans. So far this year they have done ANYTHING to take down Republicans, American traditions or beloved institutions.
So get cranking, Sumner!! You’ve got money to burn, you need to light a fire under those Neocons!! Remember, you’re only making movies for 40% of the country, leave “The Passion” viewers to everyone else!!
Jul 9, 2005 - 10:59 am 24. David Thomson:ìMiracles can happenî
Yup, and Shaq OíNeal is begging me not to humiliate him on a basketball court. Oliver Stone adamantly believes that we are the perpetrators of violence throughout the world. The Islamic nihilists are analogous to a small kid being daily victimized by the school bully. One day he picks up a baseball bat and hits his tormentor across the head. We deserved 9/11 according to Stone and his ilk. This theme will dominate the movie.
Will the film somehow earn a profit? I remain pessimistic because I doubt very much if it will bring in twenty million dollars in the United States. The rest of the world will have to buy at least eighty million dollars of tickets just for the movie to break even. This is not likely to happen. Even the inevitable dvd sales should not be able to save this turkey.
Jul 9, 2005 - 11:00 am 25. Rick Ballard:Kevin,
I would argue that a mass boycott is occurring today. It is not labeled as such and there is no organizational center to it but the falling numbers are indicative that a significant portion of the popuplation has decided to “Just Say No”. The market speaks every day and although we might prefer a sudden demise to a lingering death the end result is the same.
Eventually, falling profits and loss of market share will result in the replacement of the incompetents now running media companies. Some of their replacements will have the brains to reach into the creative cesspool and strangle the eels responsible for the current state of affairs.
Hopefully, there will be no positive reaction on the part of dying media until new media has grabbed a significant market share. I believe that it is reasonable to assume that the reactionaries at the top of dying media will be unable to react in the manner necessary and that new media will become a very good investment play.
Jul 9, 2005 - 11:05 am 26. Bostonian:Kynna: “Cut ticket prices and stop hating your audience so much. ”
They cannot and will not stop being who they are. I expect no change from any of these guys.
I will never let a cent of my money go to Oliver Stone or others like him. I won’t even see their movies for free. Screw ‘em.
Jul 9, 2005 - 11:16 am 27. David Thomson:Whoops, Kevin Peters is right! I have changed my mind. Oliver Stoneís film will likely be profitable. Michael Mooreís Fahrenheit 9/11 brought in two hundred million dollars. Stoneís piece of junk should be modestly profitable.
Jul 9, 2005 - 11:17 am 28. mrp:A few minutes ago, I wandered over to Cathy’s World web site to see if Ms. Seipp might have a comment on the Paramount project.
Nope, not yet.
Why the interest? Here’s why.
Oliver Stone: Class. Nothing but class.
Jul 9, 2005 - 11:25 am 29. Kyda Sylvester:Crime Library has a narrative of McLoughlin & Jimeno’s ordeal. Unless Stone has the two characters delivering discourses on the root causes of terrorism or the Zionist occupation of the Palestinian territories or capitalism as the root of all that is evil in the world to each other as they wait for rescue and struggle to remain alive, I can’t see how even Oliver Stone can screw this up. Yet somehow I feel he will try.
Paramount? I think their losses on War of the Worlds may cost a lot of execs their jobs.
Through last weekend War of the Worlds had earned over $200 million (including international receipts). How much does it need to earn to show a profit? Sure seems like a slam dunk at this point.
Jul 9, 2005 - 11:41 am 30. triticale:We need to ask ourselves “Why do they hate us?”
Jul 9, 2005 - 11:48 am 31. Kyda Sylvester:From mrp’s link:
At bottom, Hollywood’s famous liberalism is less a carefully considered political point of view than a vague policy of cultural feel-goodism.
The Left in a nutshell.
Jul 9, 2005 - 11:49 am 32. Terrye:What a bunch of morons. I mean who the hell do these yahoos think they are?
Let us go forth and preach to the American public and remeind them what crap we and our culture really are. But movies are not free. These guys do not do this as a public freaking service.
I informed my brother that Moore had made more money off of 9/11 than Bush ever will. In fact he is a product of the corporate entertainment industry that has a monopoly on movie making in this country and uses it to shove their bigoted and self serving idea of America down everyone’s throat. And people who hate America love it. Moore was a huge success overseas. Especially in the Middle East. Chances are the murderers who blew up London were Michael Moore fans. And now Oliver Stone wants some of that action.
Freaking hypocrites. They would lock their old grannies in a closet to die a slow and ugly death if there was a buck in it.
They think all they have to do is chant some power to the people crap and no one will notice they are rich and white and male and American.
Jul 9, 2005 - 12:12 pm 33. exguru:You couldn’t ask for a better comic than Chaplin, a better swashbuckler than Flynn, or a better actor than Howard DeSilva, a better screenwriter than Trumbo, or a better mystery writer than Earl Stanley Gardner, etc. Artists have been crazy in their politics from the beginning of time. Look at John Wilkes Booth. I always liked Sterling Hayden. The old adage is true: all they owe the public is a good performance… Oliver Stone has talent, real talent, which nobody can deny. But he should never be allowed to warp material about real persons, living or dead, or real historical event like 9-11.
Jul 9, 2005 - 12:14 pm 34. papertiger:I am still waiting for the biopic about the life and times of a pedophile con artist – who gained an army of syncophants by pretending to be the only authorised voice of God. And then proceeded to spread murder and depravity across the known world. Sort of a Middle Ages creates Nazism picture.
It’s bound to get plenty of foreign viewership.
Jul 9, 2005 - 12:31 pm 35. RadioMattM:Hollywood films really make money in the DVD market. That’s why you see many films at the video store that you never remember playing in theaters.
I, for one, will not put any money in Oliver Stone’s pocket.
Jul 9, 2005 - 12:47 pm 36. Kyda Sylvester:papertiger, please. Mohammed, Messenger of God caused quite enough fuss:
Jul 9, 2005 - 1:09 pm 37. mrp:Kyda-
Good pick! Here’s my favorite from the Catherine Seipp link:
[Oliver Stone] continued the lesbian theme later, while we were both standing outside waiting for the parking valets. “I think George Bush is a lesbian!” he said happily. “A lesbian in a dress! And high heels!”
Why is it that when a man doesn’t like another man the worst thing he can think of to say is that the man is really a woman? I find this particular display of misogyny trite and tiresome.
“That’s your fantasy,” I said.
“Are you calling me a…FANTASIST?” he responded, rather belligerently. Well, yes. Especially after he went on to say that he’d just returned “from Palestine,” where he’d been interviewing Arafat. I wondered if that was a package tour that included layovers in Utopia and Xanadu.
Jul 9, 2005 - 1:15 pm 38. Ben:Rick Ballard is correct — the boycott has started and nobody is talking about it. I know a lot of people who will not go to movies, and I am one of them. I received five free tickets to a local multiplex last December, and to date I have only had occasion to use one of them.
Jul 9, 2005 - 1:26 pm 39. nickpicker:Readers in here might not know this service:
http://boxofficemojo.com/
It details production and marketing costs, domestic and overseas grosses, and more.
Jul 9, 2005 - 1:32 pm 40. erp:Let him make the movie he wants. Movies don’t have to make money at home anymore. So he’ll make a movie that one billion Arabs will pay to see or buy DVD’s. Who cares. We have an open society.
Jul 9, 2005 - 1:41 pm 41. Jauhara Al-Kafirah:September 11th? What’s so special about September 11th? Nothing to see here. Pay no attention to that tall swarthy bearded guy with the towel on his head. He isn’t responsible. (Hands covering ears) I CAN’T HEAR YOU! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! BLAH BLAH BLAH!
Jul 9, 2005 - 2:08 pm 42. papertiger:Kyra
What do you mean fuss? A little mass hostage incident by those peaceful muslims.
Listen to this description of 1977’s Messenger of God.
: In accordance with Muslim beliefs, Mohammed could not be depicted on screen nor could his voice be heard. This rule extended to his seven wives, his daughters and his sons-in-law. This left Mohammed’s uncle as the central character (played by Anthony Quinn). In the completed film, actors speak directly to the camera and then nod to un-heard dialogue.
Talk about bending over backwards to cater to a fringe elements superstitions!
Mohammed could not be depicted on screen.
Are we to believe they had movie cameras and tape recorders in the 6th century?
Freaking aboriginal people have more understanding of the world in which they live then these moron sons of allah. We have been coddling this nonsence for centuries. Time to introduce the whole world to what and who mohammed really was.
If some crazy Muslim sleeper creeps are drawn out in the bargain, that’s a freaking bonus.
Jul 9, 2005 - 2:47 pm 43. PeterUK:Call me old fashioned,but isn’t a film about 9/11 utterly tasteless? It would be more fitting if this were deemed a subject that Hollywood could not sink its fangs into,ever.
Jul 9, 2005 - 3:07 pm 44. richard mcenroe:Kyda ó There’s no way to know whether WOTW is in the black yet without knowing the promotion and marketing costs, which are not yet available. I notice a drop-off in TV advertising for the movie.
The Hollywood clichÈ (at least when they explain why your profit participation hasn’t kicked in yet, is that a movie has to earn 5 to 1 to show a profit.
Also, keep in mind, box office grosses are NOT the money the studio sees. Theatre chains and subdistributors take a bite out of each dollar before it gets back to them. Of course, with a big release, the studio usually commands a sliding share of the box office, weighted towards the first couple of weeks. The next week or two will tell, depending on how fast the box office return drops off.
Jul 9, 2005 - 3:32 pm 45. Katherine:Several months ago I read an article at NRO in which the author suggested that the real reason Americans find so few movies worth watching these days is the movies are consciously made for the foreign audience (I cannot find the article right now). Hence the sparkling dialog that previously characterized good movies (Hepburn-Tracey et al.) was replaced with stilted phrases (Matrix) ñ they are easy to translate. Explosions are even better ñ not translations are required. Also, we do not see movies such as ìTwelve Angry Menî or ìMr. Smith Goes to Washingtonî because no matter how interesting for the Americans, they would bore the non-American audience. This article startled me at the time but now I am convinced that the author was right.
Now of course we see MM shamelessly chasing the foreign viewers and other Hollywood big guys following in his footsteps. I for one second do not believe that Oliver Stone will resist the temptation of making his newest into a story how BushitlerHaliburtonGlobalOilCabal perpetrated the 9-11 atrocity to seize power after stealing the election, introduce the theocracy and make all the oil execs and Saudi princes rich, while pushing all the honest American workers into grinding poverty.
I will not see this movie. I have successfully resisted all the Oliver Stone productions so far, and I do not feel any depravation. I will also not see anything made by Spielberg any more. I suspend judgment in case of Ridley Scott for his Black Hawk Down, though I have no intention of even renting his latest.
I am de facto boycotting most of the Hollywood latest productions. I find myself living a happy life on a steady diet of British murder-mysteries, from Inspector Morse to Midsomer SlaughtersÖ sorry, Murders (they feature a lot of corpses for a quiet British countryside!). Oh, and if anybody is interested in an exceptionally great murder-mystery series, I very strongly recommend Foyleís War. Set in WWII Britain, with Michael Kitchen in main role, it is simply superb.
Jul 9, 2005 - 4:22 pm 46. PeterUK:Katherine,
Give yourself a treat and get hold of The Lady Killers and The Lavender Hill Mob http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048281/
Jul 9, 2005 - 4:50 pm 47. mrp:Peter -
And Alec Guiness playing the title role in The Man In The White Suit.
Jul 9, 2005 - 5:39 pm 48. PeterUK:mrp,
Yes any of those,and “Passport to Pimlico”.Which reminds me I have a friend with all those…
Jul 9, 2005 - 6:01 pm 49. richard mcenroe:Rogeró Is that the same tight leash UA kept Cimino on with Heaven’s Gate?
Hey, look, at least we know who’ll have a seat with Carter at the next Dem National Convention, right?
PeterUK ó MrP ó And remember A Fish Called Wanda, directed by Charles Crichton, the last of the Ealing Comedy directors…
Jul 9, 2005 - 6:17 pm 50. Luther McLeod:Pretty biting take on an ‘interview’ with Stone over at http://varifrank.com/…scroll down, though the first post is interesting as well.
Jul 9, 2005 - 6:56 pm 51. Luther McLeod:Damn that priiew, http://varifrank.com/
Jul 9, 2005 - 6:58 pm 52. brian:this is a tough one. intellectual property rights v
world pirating of hollywood’s products. sorry hollywood i have no problem buying a bootleg dvd.
Jul 9, 2005 - 9:24 pm 53. Foobarista:I often wonder if someone will try a startup studio to ignore both Hollywood marketeers _and_ “indie” cooler-than-thou types to make American movies again, featuring themes other than typical indie fare featuring lifestyles of the young, wierd, and perverted.
Maybe such a studio could actually make a good 9/11 movie that ignored the but-heads and apologists, and dared to be patriotic in the old-fashioned way.
Jul 9, 2005 - 10:02 pm 54. richard mcenroe:Foobarista ó You have to write off the theatres; the Hollywood studios have those locked up. So you’re looking at direct to disk and download production and developing a new promotion and marketing strategy.
Hollywood has traditionally never acknowkedged it was losing its market until it was too late, so there is a window of opportunity for genuine innovation.
Jul 9, 2005 - 10:39 pm 55. Patrick Tyson:JFK is a great movie and the last film of positive note that Oliver Stone directed and, no, it isn’t because I think Jim Garrison knew what he was talking about or that Oliver Stone found it credible. It’s because it is superbly edited and scored (Stone’s strengths,) has a large and varied cast working in top form, and presents a conspiracy theory regarding a major event in all its multi-faceted incoherence without screwing up the internal logic that the best conspiracy theorists bring to the fascinating delusional constructs they produce.
But I digress.
Thus far this year I’ve seen one film that I thought worth the price of admission. Cinderella Man will earn domestically, it appears, more than the unbelievably awful Be Cool and a lot less than the even worse Monster-in-Law. In the next couple of weeks we’re going to be asked to pay good money to see a new version called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory of a just fine film from three decades ago and to see a remake, without Tatum O’Neal, of another just fine film from three decades ago. We’ve already, this year, been asked to pay to see a much inferior version of a just fine prison football movie from, yes, three decades ago. And when even the good directors aren’t making new versions of old movies and television shows they’re probably out making a movie about comic book characters—intentionally.
And then there’s software piracy. Want to know why movies with possible worldwide box office viability are more and more often being released pretty much simultaneously worldwide? You’re looking at it. Want to know a reason why overseas box office is taking on more and more importance? You’re looking at it. I was with a group of fairly frequent moviegoers today and two had already seen pirated copies of Batman Begins and War of the Worlds. No doubt last year there were many places worldwide where The Passion of the Christ opened in theaters where, on the same street, a shop or a kiosk was already selling copies under the counter.
The ideological always have and always will find the ideology of directors, actors, writers, etc., etc., etc. reason enough to support or to boycott particular movies or movies in general. It’s never mattered all that much and it doesn’t still. The great mass of moviegoers don’t care about the ideology behind the product or even its overall quality. They just want to be entertained and if they can be entertained at little or no cost to themselves, so much the better.
I love movies. Perhaps, were I a generation younger, I’d love video games and think movies had had their day…and I would be wrong. On the other hand…
The point here is that the protagonists’ attempts to revise the “script” of history in “T2″ parallel the director’s having to muck around with “T2″’s own script in order for Schwarzenegger to be in the movie. Multivalent ironies like this—which require that film audiences know all kinds of behind-the-scenes stuff from watching Entertainment Tonight and reading Premiere magazine—are not commercial postmodernism at it’s finest.
—David Foster Wallace
Jul 9, 2005 - 11:35 pm 56. Catherine:I would argue that a mass boycott is occurring today. It is not labeled as such and there is no organizational center to it but the falling numbers are indicative that a significant portion of the popuplation has decided to “Just Say No”.
I’ve wondered about that myself.
OTOH, there’s also the fact that……there’s nothing out there to watch.
I love TV, and I’d like to be watching it at night with my husband and kids, the way my family did.
There’s nothing on.
Christopher (age 10) wants to watch Trump and, now, FULL-TIME WRESTLING 24-HOURS A DAY.
The rest of his screen time is spent playing wrestling games.
The two autistic kids are still watching BARNEY.
Ed and I watch BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.
And that’s IT.
I’m consciously boycotting a lot of movies; I’m tired of the attitude, the implicit insults, the blah-blah-blah.
When the final STAR WARS movie opened with a scroll saying ‘war has broken out between the forces of evil and the forces of good, there are heroes on both sides’ I wanted to scream.
THERE ARE HEROES ON BOTH SIDES?
CAN’T YOU GET OVER YOURSELVES LONG ENOUGH TO SHOOT A NORMAL STAR WARS MOVIE?
BASIC PREMISE OF STAR WARS: THERE ARE NO HEROES ON THE OTHER SIDE.
And then the duel scene, where what’s-his-face, Ewen McGregor, says ‘The bad guys are super-bad, they kill children’ (or whatever) and Darth says, ‘From my point of view the good guys are the bad guys’——-Darth Vader actually uses the words ‘from my point of view’ in the middle of a laser-swordfight—-WHY AM I PAYING MONEY FOR THIS?
Talk about George Bush exploiting 9/11.
On another subject, I loved AMERICAN BEAUTY, every last minute of it.
I had planned to boycott, because I’d read all the reviews saying it showed the ‘dark underside’ of suburban life, and I don’t want to hear one word more about the dark underside of suburban life.
Please.
We ended up going one night when the movie we were trying to get into was sold out.
I can see why people think it’s about the dark underside, but it’s really not.
If I were still in FILM STUDIES I’d be writing about it.
The story is told from the POV of a dead person; all the scenes are drenched in his lighting, his emotion, his loss. He’s the ultimate unreliable narrator–he’s DEAD–and the crazed miltant neighbor & all the rest have to be read through that.
It’s a movie about death.
It’s no accident that the very next project Alan Ball went on to do was….. a TV series about death.
Jul 10, 2005 - 7:26 am 57. lump516:I’m not boycotting movies because they’re all anti-American, blah, blah. It’s just that very few movies are being made, in this country at least, designed to appeal to adults and those that are, at least by Hollywood standards, are movies about glossy NY-LA nitwits who have so little to do or worry about that they spend most of their time bed-hopping (movies like WHEN HARRY MET SALLY where the characters have jobs but we never see them WORK–they’re too busy faking orgasms in public places).
As for Oliver Stone, relax. America has always had a solid contingent of monied “radicals,” and the country has always survived intact.
Jul 10, 2005 - 8:51 am 58. Kyda Sylvester:Richard–I wouldn’t expect WOTW accountants to be writing in black ink just yet, but with $200 million gross receipts within one week of release it does seems to be headed that way. What does it mean when the studio pulls back its advertising? Good thing? Bad thing? Hollywood bean counters are so creative (just ask anyone whose contract includes a share of the profits), it’s hard to know when and if any project makes money.
I’m actually willing to give Spielberg the BOTD on his Mossad/Black September epic. This is not the first time I’ve read that the mission began to weigh heavily on some of its members (here btw is a Marine Corps officer’s fascinating Master’s thesis, THE ISRAELI RESPONSE TO THE 1972 MUNICH OLYMPIC MASSACRE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDEPENDENT COVERT ACTION TEAMS). The part I’m having trouble with is Tony freaking Kushner. I tried to watch the HBO production of Angels in America to see what all the Pulitzer Prize/Tony Award fuss was about. It was all but unwatchable. In fact it was unwatchable–I bailed after about 20 minutes.
exguru–I’m a big Sterling Hayden fan too. His performance as Jack D. Ripper was an absolute gem (he and Peter Sellers were a terrific team) and who can forget his title role in a film that may be in a genre all by itself, the kinky western (There’s only two things in this world that a real man needs: a cup of coffee and a good smoke). A grossly underused talent IMO.
Jul 10, 2005 - 8:57 am 59. Rick Ballard:Patrick,
Please start a blog and join PJ Media. I enjoy your comments on movies a great deal and find them very worthwhile. They are well thought, cogent and coherent. My compliments.
Jul 10, 2005 - 11:55 am 60. Dmac:Stone also made a nauseating little film called “Uncle Fidel” for HBO not too long ago. You can guess what direction that polemic devolved into.
Next up on Stone’s production docket: Natural Born Killers II – The Mao Years.
Dmac
Jul 10, 2005 - 2:31 pm 61. Dmac:Patrick -
Agree with you about JFK, but would you not also agree that American Beauty was really just a derivative take on “The Swimmer,” which I believe was released over 30 years ago? Hard to top both John Cheever and Burt Lancaster.
BTW, love Six Feet Under, bummed about its last year.
Jul 10, 2005 - 2:47 pm 62. Patrick Tyson:Dmac—
…would you not also agree that American Beauty was really just a derivative take on “The Swimmer,”…
What an interesting way of putting what I do think is the principle weakness of American Beauty, which I still thought one of the better movies of 1999. In my opinion, Lester’s metamorphoses (though a lot of fun) wasn’t really in character. More generally, I think Alan Ball writes more interesting female characters and, in 1999, I would have voted (if like our host I had a vote) for Annette Bening and Russell Crowe (The Insider).
Rick—
Thank you. Had I followed even a tenth of the career advice I’ve received over the years I would be writing about movies in particular and popular culture in general. However, I so dislike my own writing that that was never really an option.
Best.
Jul 10, 2005 - 10:27 pm 63. syn:At this point the only event which can save Hollywood from it’s insane self is complete bankruptcy…faster please.
Jul 12, 2005 - 8:10 pm 64. Ripper:Considering that Micahel Cimino has never been heard from since the disastrous “Heaven’s Gate,” why is Oliver Stone still working after the mega flop “Alexander”?
Jul 21, 2005 - 6:57 am