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The Film Habit #22 - October 1, 2004 I really should make this column easier on myself. It’s basically a black hole that sucks the life out of me until I cough up an idea. If I were to devote it exclusively to talking about the movies opening this weekend, or to just answering reader mail, I’d have something built in to talk about. But since I insist on making it more personal, well that leaves me up a creek without a paddle. It’s not easy pulling a talking point out of my ass on a weekly basis, when I’m tied down with a dozen other things to write about on the site. To be honest, by the time Thursday rolls around, all my best ideas have been spent on reviews of crappy movies like Shark Tale
Yeah, I could make this thing easier on myself. Of course then it would be bland and pretty much like just about everything else out there being written on the internet. See, look at all the words I’ve spit out talking about nothing other than how difficult it is to talk about something? I’m a genius. Still, this week I could really use a Star Wars DVD release to rant about, or some major announcement regarding Roger Ebert’s colon to discuss. Instead I’m left drawing water from stone, in between calls to an insurance agent where I scream at him for refusing to cover the damage done to my car by the maniac who slammed into it out on Highway 635 under the Valley View overpass of doom. No, I really don’t care if the driver is in the hospital or has medical problems; quit trying to lay a guilt trip on me to get out of paying. Give me some money! I can’t afford a five hundred dollar deductible for a wreck I had no parting causing. The insurance business may be the only thing more corrupt than professional boxing. Excuse me while I weep over my once semi-beautiful, now finely crushed car. In a few minutes the horn will sound and I’ll slide down the brontosaurus tale and into my wife’s car with the gigantic, feminine flowers hanging from the review mirror to remind me that insurance leeches have not only taken my car from me, they’ve taken my masculinity. The Dream is Fading  What does Pixar have that DreamWorks doesn’t? Are their animators better? Are their writers better? Better executives? Do they have cleaner washrooms? Better elevator music? I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to nail just what that “thing” is down, but after Shark Tale is released and proves itself the disaster it really is, DreamWorks will be well on their way to becoming Don Bluth. Shrek is their An American Tail… does that make Shark Tale their Fievel Goes West? Or maybe it’s their All Dogs Go to Heaven. Either way, things are looking bad for the DreamWorks animation department; you can’t ride the farts of a big green ogre forever.
But it looks like they’re going to have to. The Madagascar trailer which I dug up today for BNN (and was subsequently pulled down by DreamWorks) isn’t exactly Monster’s Inc.. The thing is, with Disney’s kiddie department reduced to peddling Hilary Duff video’s there’s plenty of room for someone to go neck and neck with Pixar for king of the family entertainment world. DreamWorks has breathing room, only so far they haven’t bothered to use it. Yeah I know Shrek 2 made a ton of money, but sequels don’t really count. You’re just re-threading material while Pixar is building an ever increasing catalogue of timeless and respected characters. This year they’re bringing us the guaranteed amazing family of Incredibles. DreamWorks’ submission? Fish who like Jay Z and aren’t smart enough to figure out that since they live underwater, there’s really no reason to use elevators. me to choose sides. Pixar or DreamWorks? Those Dirty Internet Sites – At it Again!  Earlier this week I made the mistake of running this news story saying great things about the trailer for Mr. & Mrs. Smith that several websites besides us had leaked onto the internet. Actually, my assumption (and that of much of the movie web community) was that this trailer was intentionally released by Fox. It is after all on the Day After Tomorrow DVD. It was a GREAT trailer, so I lavished it with praise and then linked to one of the sites that was hosting the trailer so all of you could see it if you wanted to.
Fox didn’t like that. Not one bit. Today I came home to a threatening email telling me that running the Mr. and Mrs. Smith trailer on Cinema Blend was illegal and that I had to remove it immediately or face legal action. What??? How can I remove a trailer that I’m not hosting??? Clearly Fox didn’t even bother to look at the link I posted before throwing out random threats. They simply assumed that since Cinema Blend is one of those “evil internet sites” that if I ran a story on it, of course I must be hosting it. Ok, no problem. Look, simple stupid mistake. I replied to the email and politely explained that I could not remove the trailer since I did not have the trailer hosted on the site, and was merely reporting on the existence of the trailer elsewhere while saying wonderful things about their movie. Within seconds the Fox rep responded back with yet MORE accusatory demands, insisting that I must immediately remove the trailer from the site, and that while they are aware I got the trailer from someone else, that I am mirroring it on my site and that is of course, NOT ACCEPTABLE??? What? Fox?? Come on! Look, while I think it’s stupid that you try to stop people from showing your trailer to people I admit that it’s you’re right and I’m fine with that. And if you want to go out and hunt down all the evil doers spreading your trailer on the internet and thus promoting your movie for free for you, that’s your right, have at it. But please, before you start attacking “dirty internet sites” at least have the common decency to do a little research to make sure you’re attacking the right people. But no, the threats keep right on coming.  Oh don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that we would never do something like that. We would, and have. 99% of the time the studios don’t mind. If they do and ask us to remove something, I’m cooperative, because I have to be. But Fox is shooting nuclear missiles at innocent parties, apparently heedless to the kind of ill will they might be raising among the very people that a few months for now they’re going to be begging to give a good review to their film in favor of making a buck of a stupid trailer. What happened to trailers existing to ADVERTISE the movie that will make them revenue, not make revenue themselves? Here’s a funny thought: It was the internet, and sites like this on the internet that made trailers important enough that Fox can make some cash with them. Before sites like this, no one was buying the exclusive rights to trailers. Generally people pay to place ads, they aren’t paid to place them.
Right now it’s hard for me to feel anything but distaste for Fox and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I doubt they even care. My last email to them was slightly less tactful. The all powerful studio has spoken; they’ll swat us like a bug, whether they’re right or not. Far be it from them to apologize for making a mistake. Instead after being repeatedly informed that they are way off base, they’ve switched over to requesting that we remove even any links to the trailer… which legally they can’t even do. We’ll comply out of courtesy, despite being unfairly attacked (We don’t even HAVE to comply, legally they can’t stop us from simply linking to someone else’s website, of course if we don’t comply they’ll do the equivalent of blacklisting us at Fox), they won’t even thank us, and internet movie sites will continue to get thrown into the mud. They’ll make millions of dollars through a partnership they made with some vendor to give them exclusive trailer rights… and the big Hollywood machine tramples on. me to threaten legal action.. What to Watch New movies come out each week. I don’t see all of them, but still feel qualified to tell you which movie you should watch. Feed your film habit from my picks. This week, I give up and suggest something from last week. Let’s get this one out of the way right now. As alluded to above, Shark Tale opens this weekend. It’s not very good. The fish wear bling bling, they have hands, it’s a lot like Osmosis Jones only not as funny or creative. If you like hearing the song “Car Wash” over and over and over again then by all means see it. Otherwise go rent Shrek. Ladder 49 is a hum drum little firefighter movie that has a few great blazes but gets distracted with hiding Joaquin Phoenix’s gut. If you’re crazed for things that remind you of 9/11 I guess you might be eager to see it. I’m somewhat relieved that they didn’t blatantly release it that weekend and at least waited till now to release it. But that 9/11 we love firefighters vibe is what they’re going for and if you’re into that it’ll probably have you soaked in tears. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth a trip to the theater. I know since I had to make one. There’s some nice positive buzz out there for a movie whose name I still hate, I Heart Huckabees. The tagline dubs it an existential comedy which tells me that they aren’t targeting people who don’t like big words (or people like me who have to struggle to spell existential) as their audience. Normally a chance to spell badly would win me right over, but since it’s only hitting NY/LA this weekend, neither you nor I can rush out to see it. Wait around till it hits wider Oct. 22 and I just might make it part of your marching orders for that weekend.  This weekend I’m going to instead backtrack a bit and suggest everyone seek out Head in the Clouds. It’s opening a little wider this weekend which means a great many of us can find it if we want it. It’s also a terrible release weekend with absolutely nothing worth seeing in theaters. Under those circumstances I figure a ménage movie can’t hurt. It’s what I’ll be watching (in spite of Tiffany’s bad review), in the hopes that I can finally eviscerate the hideous image of Charlize Theron in Monster from my head. Charlize, I think that performance was a little too good. Well she’s back to being pretty, if we’re lucky she’ll prove to be just as good an actress with her hair washed as without.
Hey! Do you like working for free? Are you over 18? Do you secretly wish you could live the wild and exciting life of Michael Brody? You’re in luck. CinemaBlend.com is looking for writers, specifically the type interested in slogging it out on DVD’s or those with a flair for internet news stories. If you think you can capture the signature Cinema Blend style as a DVD critic and/or BNN reporter send me an with a few samples and we’ll talk. |
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