April 24, 2008
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Welcome to Hollywood, Tom Cruise.
After his move to head up United Artists with producing partner Paula Wagner in late 2006, the publicly ridiculed star hasn't been able to reheat his career--even through films produced by his own studio. Nearly six months after Lions for Lambs, a film whose flashy PR campaign screamed Oscar-hopeful, tanked late last year, he now finds himself in limbo over his next film, Valkyrie.
First, The German Government refused to support the film that tells the story of Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, Colonel who plotted to assassinate Hitler in the tail end of World War II. It was speculated that officials had denied the studio to film at the Bendler Block because of Cruise's scientologist status--"A professing Scientologist in the role of Stauffenberg is like casting Judas as Jesus," wrote journalist Josef Joffe--but the defense ministry cited concerns about the portrayal of postwar Germany in the film as the official reason.
The government reversed its decision in September and filming proceeded, but as reported in The
New York Times yesterday, United Artists recently decided to push back the film's release for the third time. This delay-approach is known to be the kiss of death for a Hollywood project. 2001's Prozac Nation famously took several rain checks on its theatrical premiere, only to end up in the straight to video-pile. Meanwhile, imdb.com's daily discussion boards contain numerous exchanges about the mysterious delays of allegedly upcoming flicks. Holdups of release dates sustain curiosity to a degree, but the final result of intra-studio arguments rarely delivers with critics or audiences.
After all, wouldn't studio heads be eager to push out anything that contains real promise of commercial or awards success?
According to The Times, bloggers are already predicting Valkyrie to be a tragic end to Cruise's shot at creative success with United Artists.
"United Artists’ future will depend on reversing a growing perception — fed by an Internet culture that publicizes notions once confined to lunchtime gossipfests — that the studio took a wrong turn shortly after Ms. Wagner joined Mr. Cruise," Michael Cieply wrote.
United Artists hopes to allegedly create a cushion with two or three other upcoming films, one of which won't feature Cruise in its lineup.
Artistic setbacks are, needless to say, the worst possible PR for Cruise, whose public image is already less-than desirable for present and future business partners. And in a culture where news of internal debacles reach potential audiences as they unfold, careless publicity moves don't just bruise movie projects--they can be directly responsible of their failure.
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April 17, 2008
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That the New York indie theater scene is drawing forced breaths and the gap between Broadway and off is more pronounced than ever is no news to arts-inclined locals. Sure, performers and writers are still everywhere, but Manhattan's astronomical rents are quickly molding its culture from gritty bohemia to hipster chic. Actors continue to flock to the city that historically belongs to them, and collective frustration builds. Besides an endless audition circuit and off-hours unpaid readings, a performer's most viable option is to partake in a theater festival or find a self-made audience online.
Title of Show, a meta-musical that will open on Broadway on July 17, found a fan base through both avenues. And it couldn't be more fitting that the show, written by its cast members Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, is about the thing itself: Writing a musical, against the pervasive forces of self-doubt, and submitting it to a theater festival.
After a successful run at the New York Musical Theater Fest in 2004 and Off-Broadway's Vineyard Theater in 2006, Title of Show has recently connected with a fresh following through eight 'webisodes' on its home page. In the spirit of the musical, these YouTube videos document its cast's efforts to get a Broadway contract. To date, the viewership of each episode ranges from 6,000 to over 17,000.
The idea for this method of self-promotion, writer/cast member Jeff Bowen says, sparked from the cast's shared antsiness about the future of their creation. A move from Off-Broadway to on was in the talks, but very much up on the air. "We were at a place where we didn't really know what was going on with the show," Bowen says, " and we thought, is there a way that we can set this ball in motion without having to wait for anybody to make a decision for us? So we just came up with the idea to go on Youtube, for the fans who had been asking what was going on."
The first episode sparked a multitude of fan emails, in which viewers wondered if a Broadway stint was truly a reality.
"We didn't know; we knew as much as we were telling our viewers," Bowen says.
As the cast added episodes, its fan base began to include viewers who didn't know of the musical but had caught on to the web series. Fan letters continued to drop in larger and larger volumes, and the show's soundtrack sales peaked. The large-scale interest, Bowen says, woke producers up to the show's marketability.
"[The web series] had everything to do with us going to Broadway," he says. "It definitely worked, it got the producers much more fired up about this new demographic who were coming in and didn't know anything about the show."
During the musical's 2006 run, some critics appreciated its earnestness and sass but found it too much of a theater geek's inside joke to resonate with the average patron.
What the creators would have said to the critics requires little guessing, "I'd rather be nine people's favorite thing than a hundred people's ninth favorite thing," Title of Show's autobiographical characters sing near the end of the musical.
As another self-made success story of the internet age comes true, the cast may have just done what even their most inspired lyrics didn't count on: Their creation, in a matter of months, has become a hundred people's favorite thing.
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April 10, 2008
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Over the past couple of years, Bravo network has accomplished a paradoxical feat by adding a highbrow-dimension to the reality television phenomenon. That I watch Rock of Love on VH1 every Sunday isn't likely to come up at an editorial meeting (in case you didn't know, the show documents Poison rocker Bret Michaels' quest for surgically enhanced true love), but sharing insights about the week's challenges on Project Runway or Top Chef is a perfectly acceptable way to pass an office lunch hour.
On the surface, Project Runway is a formulaic competition program, with weekly challenges and eliminations and bickering, frequently teary-eyed participants. But there's something about its serious emphasis on artistry that makes the show not just an opportunity to rest one's brain. Each week, the final verdict is based on the opinions of judges whom many of the contestants idolize; with all due respect to Paula Abdul, she is hardly the musical equivalent to Runway's visiting judge, Roberto Cavalli.
This week, however, Bravo lost this captain of its reality show lineup. Starting this November, The Weinstein Company-owned design show will move to Lifetime, a network known more for its clumsily executed original movies than critical nods.
Almost immediately after the story entered my google news feed, so did reports of an impending lawsuit. Bravo's parent, NBC Universal, apparently never agreed to this bizarre-seeming arrangement. According to the suit, The Weinstein Company had closed a deal with Lifetime without honoring a prior agreement that would allow NBC to match any purchase offer on Project Runway.
Bloggers are now reacting to the feud, wondering if the cult show will provide incentive for fans to turn on an otherwise mocked channel. "Is Runway sufficiently ready to wear on Lifetime?" wrote New York Post's Nicole Homewood. "Will you still watch?" she asked readers. Blogging Project Runway conducted an informal poll on its site and found nearly half of its readers to consider the show's move "a tranny mess" (an expression coined by season four winner Christian Siriano).
Despite Lifetime's solidified uncool-factor, it's doubtful that the network change will be enough to turn away loyal fans. Besides, the makeover might be Lifetime's long-overdue ticket to a more diverse audience.
"If Martha Stewart can make a K-Mart line work, maybe Lifetime can make "Runway" ferosh," MTV bloggers
wrote.
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April 4, 2008
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Roundabout Theatre Company, New York's largest nonprofit theater initiative, is to be commended for keeping Disney-laden Broadway interesting in recent years. Although its latest revival, Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, hasn't created quite as much large-scale buzz as Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights, this stunning production should be a must-see before it closes in June.
Loosely based on French artist Georges Seurat's creation of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, the musical is Sondheim's meditation on the isolating, narcissistic nature of art that somehow ends in liberation and immortality. Its humanity and hypnotic appeal happen almost in spite of these themes; there are, after all, few experiences more off-putting than watching a successful artist's lament on the tribulations of being misunderstood.
The story shows Seurat (or simply "George") obsessing over his painting of passersby in the park, visualizing hats, trees, infants and sailboats and eliminating details he doesn't like: a little girl's clunky-framed glasses, a former lover's new family unit. In the process, he loses his muse and finds himself incapable of returning affection for anything but the stiff figures on his canvas. The second act jumps ahead a hundred years, to George's great-grandson presenting a piece of modern art inspired by Sunday Afternoon. All that remains of George's artistic agony is his most famous painting that, thanks to the inspiration it provides, gives a purpose to his failed personal life.
Even in the special effects-laden world of Broadway, Sunday is perhaps the only show that I could, if forced, watch without sound. The purposely bare-bones story is moved forward almost entirely by its animated visuals that do something remarkable: Evoke a jaw-drop reaction in viewers who routinely watch cities turn to ash on movie screens. Thanks to breakthroughs in computer animation, the audience watches a painter envision a dreamy landscape on the stage's white backdrop. Boats move, dogs scratch their ears, and, over time, a lush public space turns into a riverbank populated by industrial buildings.
A careful listen reveals thoughtful lyrics ("You watch the rest of the world from a window while you finish the hat," George sings), but in the end it's the images that most deliver the meaning of Sondheim's characters. From the first, gray line that George's imagination draws across the blank stage, Sunday is an experience that makes us believe in the otherworldly power of visual art--and a Broadway musical with layers and substance.
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March 27, 2008
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At their most thought-provoking, works of art can provide a welcome news hook for resurfacing otherwise overlooked societal issues . Such is the case with two recent autism-related documentaries that delve into thedaily lives of affected children and their families. With their releases tied to the soon-to be commencing Autism Awareness Month, these films are generating notable media buzz.
This week, publications from coast to coast featured imagesof a smiling group of kids from Autism: The Musical that premiered on HBO on Tuesday. Directed by Tricia Regan, the film shows the rehearsal process of a musical production at a collaborative theater program called The Miracle Project. Although it highlights the unexpected abilities of an often misunderstood population, Autism: The Musical isn't all sweet and cuddly.
"It exposes you to a story that is not feel-good at all, but instead is full of stress and frustration and despair. It’s the story of what it’s like to be the parent of a child with autism or any other serious disability, a tale that deserves to be told even if it is difficult to watch," Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times wrote.
Lauren Thierry's film, Autism Every Day, has thus far earned less press--most likely because its screening date is not until next week and the host network, The Sundance Channel, is slightly less mainstream. Thephilosophical approach, however, is similar to Autism: The Musical. Living life with a disability can be upsetting, exhausting and isolating.
Roundups of the two films in the L.A Times and Newsweek used the opportunity to gather overall insight into the condition, and a recent NPR piece focused on a specialized school for autistic children. The disorder is making headlines again.
Alison Singer , spokesperson for Autism Speaks that funded the production of Autism Every Day, said that increased publicity can draw attention to the scope of autism: One in 150 children is diagnosed with the illness today.
"With that level of prevalence, everyone now is probably going to know someone whose life is affected by autism. And we want to create a more compassionate and caring community," she said. "So often families are telling us that instead of offering compassion and understanding if their child is behaving inappropriately in a supermarket or having a meltdown, families are greeted with scorn and disdain. We want people to understand that autism is a developmental disability and not the result of bad parenting."
Last year The New York Times called autism Hollywood's "disorder du jour," and the visibility of these documentaries might show that there is still more we need to know.
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March 20, 2008
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As more and more indie films enter production, less of them have a chance of being reviewed, writes Gregg Goldstein in today's Hollywood Reporter. There simply aren't enough critics to do the job.
In other words, the same access to do-it-yourself technology that's enabling aspiring filmmakers is cutting the number of paid newspaper subscribers and, consequently, the number of journalists (especially critics). On the one hand, small-time directors can feel more empowered than ever: finishing a film or a TV pilot means little more than splicing the contents of your digital camera together with affordable editing software and uploading the fruits of your labor to an online platform.However, even if your project secures a distributor, getting the overstimulated public to actually notice it might be more challenging. Not only are there more films (530 indie films opened in 2007, Goldstein reports), but there are fewer critics to give your masterpiece the thumbs up.
It comes as no surprise that the state of the newspaper industry is depressing. The annual State of the News Media report states that the industry lost 7 percent of its total newsroom staff in 2007. Circulation of dailies fell 2.5 percent, and ad revenue another7 percent. The demand for critics, consequently, isn't shattering.
While critics are certainly taking advantage of online mediums, their work isn't yet as likely to draw in audiences than a review in one's local Friday paper.
"We're not at a pointwhere Internet writers have the credibility of established media with proven records and editors," ThinkFilm's Mark Urman told Goldstein.
Goldstein points out that when Oscar-winning documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, opened in January, no review appeared in New York's major papers.
How much a reviewer's verdict matters to an average moviegoer is questionable. But when a shrinking fraction of a growing pool of films is being covered in the news, it's no wonder that the larger public is showing little interest in experimental fare.
Off-Off Broadway producers have been complaining about this for years. In case you haven't noticed, hardly any publication is writing about theater unless it stars Claire Danes or Patrick Stewart.
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March 19, 2008
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A recession might be inevitable,
but for the gilded film industry, this slump in the nation's psyche
might be good for business.
Last week, Reuters and the
AP connected a troubled economy with a well-fed box office. "Hollywood
thrives when the economy dives," David Germain of the AP wrote.
Germain also quoted figures from the National Association of Theater
Owners, according to which box office revenues have gone up during five
of the past seven recessions.
It could be due to post-writers
strike and post-Oscar jitters, but the industry is certainly feeling
optimistic. In his keynote address at a theater owners' convention last
Tuesday, MPAA chairman Dan Glickman beamed about the four percent growth
in box office profits between 2006 and 2007--an all-time high, he said.
"Everywhere I go, I see
the rifts in our world. But I also am reminded just how much movies
bring us together, whether challenging us to face significant social
issues or simply encouraging us to lighten up and share a laugh with
our neighbors," he continued.
Laugh being the key word these
days. If 2007's box office figures are any indication, Americans certainly
seem to crave escapism. The top-grossing releases of last year
were Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Transformers,
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Harry Potter and
the Order of the Phoenix--in that order. Films that scored Oscars
this year were bleak in theme almost across the board, and, perhaps
consequently, generated relatively little box office buzz. Juno
is the only best-picture nominee to have crossed the $100 million mark.
In a cruel twist, Worst Actor Razzie-award winner Norbit has
grossed more in ticket sales than four out of the five films nominated
for Best Picture (its box office tally is more than double of There
Will be Blood).
Perhaps the most widely quoted
example of film industry success and overall recession is the depression
of the 1930s, during which movie theaters sold several billion tickets
a year (2007's equivalent figure was 1.4 billion). Screwball comedies
and musicals paved the way for unforeseen spectacles: 1939's The
Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind.
World War II and film noir
were to follow, of course. But since our generation would rather watch
the extracted intestines of Saw IV than the subtle dread of
Michael Clayton, it's tough to imagine what we'll be watching when
we are finally gravitated back to realism.
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