Every Monday morning, InsidePulse Movies Czar Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings an irreverent and oftentimes hilarious look at pop culture, politics, sports and whatever else comes to mind. And sometimes he writes about movies.
With 2010 in the books, and 2011 going forward at Warp 10, I think it’s time to look back at the year gone by to see what we’ve learned. We’ve gone a bit nutty by looking at the best of the year with films, et al, but I think there’s a lot to be learned by looking back at the year gone by. It’s one thing to look at just what happened in the quality of the final product that ended up reaching screens big and small, and with box office grosses, but I think there’s more to it than that. I think there are some lessons to be learned from the year that was that goes beyond movie quality and raw box office data.
What have we learned in 2010? Lots of things, actually, and as such I think they’re worthy of discussion.
1. Star power is officially over-rated
A bunch of guys hitting each other in the groin outdrew a film with one of the biggest assemblage of stars in the past couple years. Jackass 3-D may have had the power of 3D to lift its movie ticket price somewhat, but even throwaway parts in Valentine’s Day had big time stars in them. Tom Cruise in an action film couldn’t break $100 million domestically, which used to be an automatic in the first three weeks of release. Russell Crowe in two action films combined couldn’t beat the Twilight kids at the box office.
The power of the movie star to draw crowds is waning, if not near death. The biggest test will be the sequels to Men in Black and Bad Boys that Will Smith has en route for 2012. He’s perhaps the last great box office star for the summer film season that hasn’t had it blown back in his face. If he can’t open a film based on name, perhaps Hollywood will officially take notice.
2. The Bruckheimer Formula Isn’t an Automatic for Success
What happens when you take a nebbish leading man who isn’t quite a leading man, a first rate character actor of British or Australian descent as a villain, a handful of beautiful actresses slumming it and a leading man hamming it up and you’ve got all you need to make a summer blockbuster with Jerry Bruckheimer sans a script, marketing materials and a Michael Bay clone. It’s good enough that Bruckheimer got $350 million or so to make a Prince of Persia film as well as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. On paper it’d seem to be enough for success: one film is based off a hit video game franchise and the other has its origins in a beloved Disney video. So what happened?
Both films weren’t that good.
People knew this and didn’t pay to see mediocre films merely because they were available and advertised heavily, as the $150 million they made combined domestically is about $200 million less than they cost. Bruckheimer has a formula that’s seemingly paid off every time he’s used it but this past summer it didn’t quite work as well as it had in years past. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is all the more interesting because of it. In an industry that is seeing its ticket sales slow, and gimmicks like 3D wearing off, can a couple subpar performing films doom it for the man with the golden touch?
3. Original Ideas Work When Given the Right People
Animation has been taking plenty of massive risks for years but nothing was riskier than Inception in 2010. It had everything you could want, from a director coming off the biggest film not directed by James Cameron in the past decade to a cast that had no weak links, but selling people on what was essentially a heist film inside someone’s mind is kind of tough. But it was insanely awesome, thus people came out en masse to see it. Despicable Me and Megamind were both interesting ideas, making what would normally be a villain into a de facto hero, but did them so well that people came out en masse. What did all three have in common?
They had the right people at the right time behind the right idea.
It takes a bit of timing to be able to pull it off but Chris Rock’s old joke about if “you can’t get (x), and you can get (y), WAIT!” kind of holds up. If Christopher Nolan couldn’t have gotten DiCaprio, and all he had was Channing Tatum, Inception doesn’t work. I think we’re going to see a premium with casting to a higher degree than we’ve seen in the past; the right people make projects work at a higher level and with cost-benefit analysis meaning so much more than it has in the past it’ll play a much higher factor.
4. Celebrity Dysfunction is more interesting than celebrities themselves
The biggest stories of this year weren’t focused on films and film-related things, such as casting and whatnot. It was more about the dumb stuff they’ve been doing. Welcome to celebrity in 2010, where actually producing brilliant material isn’t as important as whom one is screwing.
5. Video on Demand could change everything for the indie scene
So far this year a handful of films have found niche audiences via the Video on Demand market through Amazon, Comcast, et al, to bulk up grosses that otherwise would have a hard time being bulked up if left to theatres alone. Imagine what will happen when one indie film opts to invest heavily in marketing a $7 ticket via Amazon to the right audience. We talk about Avatar being a game-changer in terms of how we view the look of a film, and how easy it is to get sucked into it, VOD could be the next big game changer for the indie world. We have the ability to stream films with no true delay in terms of time or quality, and home theatres are ridiculously good to the point where it’s a near replica of the movie theatre, that it’s almost surprising no one has made a serious attempt at bypassing theatres and going for VOD as a means of making a small budgeted film profitable.
A Movie A Week – The Challenge
This Week’s DVD – Family Guy Presents It’s A Trap
Sometimes you have to really respect an actor for allowing someone to bust their balls in a film with the voracity that Seth McFarlane ball shots Seth Green. This isn’t merely a DTV sack-tapping on part of Green’s career outside of Family Guy; this is a full on unprotected front kick to little Seth from his boss. And it’s really funny.
The third in the Family Guy spoof of the original Star Wars trilogy, this one follows Return of the Jedi to finish up George Lucas’s original trilogy of films. With a handful of other characters from the McFarlane universe of animated shows (The Cleveland Show and American Dad) joining those from the Family Guy universe to bring the weakest of the trilogy to life.
And the main thing I found amusing is that Seth Green’s career is really ripped on throughout the film. It must take a lot for an actor to allow the failings of his career to be used as cannon fodder for many of the film’s jokes but Green is a good sport and there’s some great zingers throughout at his expense.
The DTV release itself, which will probably be shown as a special extended episode sometime in the near future (once the DVD has officially maxed out its sales), is actually rather amusing. I’m a huge Star Wars but not as much of a Family Guy fan anymore. It’s gone from appointment television to being a “I’ll catch up on Hulu sometime in the next couple weeks” kind of show. It’s just not that funny but if it was as consistently funny as Seth’s take on the Star Wars trilogy it’d be more important viewing for me.
The film (I guess you call it that) is actually really funny and I’m still amused that George Lucas has been as accommodating to the show as he has been for this series. It’s one thing to prod ala Kevin Smith but that McFarlane just takes aim and riffs on the original trilogy by emulating it in a cartoon with the kind of love only a huge fan of it can provide. The attention to detail, and some rather clever use of ancillary characters from both universes, makes this a fun watch. It’s one thing to riff on the holy trilogy, but they do it with such style that it’s probably the best thing McFarlane’s done with the series.
Strong recommendation.
What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 Pints of Bass Ale and community college co-eds with low standards at the Alumni Club
Season of the Witch – The year’s first release finds Nic Cage as a 14th century crusader who has to take a witch to get killed to stop a plague. Ron Perlman tags along.
See It – Another weird year for Nic Cage, with this and Drive Angry as his main releases of the year. Like any Cage flick, it’s usually worth viewing if only because it has every potential to be a galactic trainwreck.
Do you have questions about movies, life, love, or Branigan’s Law? Shoot me an e-mail at Kubryk@Insidepulse.com and you could be featured in the next “Monday Morning Critic.” Include your name and hometown to improve your odds.
Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings his trademarked irreverence and offensive hilarity to Twitter in 140 characters or less. Follow him @MMCritic_Kubryk.
