Silk Bottom Line: Exotic imagery trumps storytelling in this period puzzler.

By Kirk Honeycutt

Sep 12, 2007

This dull movie's stars Keira Knightley and Michael Pitt are ill-suited to this period.

This review was written for the festival screening of "Silk."

Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO -- The arresting European and Japanese locales, period costumes, sets and props all seem poised for a much richer and more significant movie than "Silk" has to offer. You search its images, which seems to have more to do with mid-19th century methods of international travel than characters or events, for any sort of action to glom on to. Few movies ever have gone to such a length to tell so slight -- and, worse, unengaging -- a story.

Based on Alessandro Baricco's 1996 best-selling novel, this film by Francois Girard (who made the splendid "The Red Violin") stages a love story with an O. Henry ending against the world of the silk trade in the 1860s. It's an exotic world that requires a man to make a dangerous journey from France to Japan -- prior to the Suez Canal -- no less than three times, estranging him from his wife back home but creating a romantic obsession with a Japanese girl who lives "at the end of the world."

Stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley are ill-suited to this period. They are modern actors who feel out of time and place despite their costumes, and their talents are poorly used by this moody tone poem of far-flung loves. Audiences will find the whole thing an alien puzzle, filled with wondrous images that are little more than postcards from the past. Knightley's current popularity and the book's admirers may create enough buzz for a solid opening. After that, boxoffice looks to be light.
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Pitt's Herve Joncour appears headed for a run-of-the-mill military career until a trader named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) plucks him from the army to journey to Africa to buy silkworm eggs to replace those ruined by a mysterious disease in Europe. However, the epidemic reaches Africa before Herve does. So the only hope for the silk mills that has caused Herve's hometown to prosper is for him to journey to Japan, a country entirely closed to foreigners, to buy pristine eggs.

His three trips to Japan, each increasingly more dangerous, drives an unspoken wedge between him and his wife, Helene (Knightley), who remains childless. Meanwhile, in a snowy mountain village in Japan, where he is led each time blindfolded, for whatever reason, he falls under the protection of a powerful baron, Hara Jubei (Koji Yakusho).

The baron's concubine intrigues him. On his second visit he is gifted with his own girl of ethereal beauty (Sei Ashina). Their lovemaking is as photogenic as Girard can make it.

Even Baldabiou warns him against a third visit. A rebellion has broken out in Japan. Yet Herve's obsession with The Girl forces him to return. So again, for a third time, the film treats the viewer to the train trip from Vienna to Moravia, a caravan to cross 3,000 miles of Russian steppes, a boat ride in a smuggler's ship and that blindfolded horse trip up the mountain. It's a long way to go to get laid.

You learn little about the silk trade or these characters or the political tumult and war that make the journeys so tricky. All Girard and co-writer Michael Golding seek out are gorgeous shots of travel, exotic lands, the picturesque French village (actually shot in Italian towns), the silk factory, steaming bathing pools in Japan surrounded by snow and lovemaking at each end of the earth.

What a gorgeous coffee table book these images would make. But what a dull movie.

SILK
Picturehouse
Picturehouse presents in association with Alliance Atlantis/Asmik Ace Entertainment/Mesuda Film a Rhombus Media/Fandango/Bee Vine Pidctures presentation
Credits:
Director: Francois Girard
Writers: Francois Girard, Michael Golding
Based on the novel by: Alessandro Baricco
Producers: Niv Fichman, Nandine Luque, Domenico Procacci, Sonoko Sakai
Executive producers: Tom Yoda, Yashshi Shina, Akira Ishii, Camela Galano, Jonathan Debin, Patrice Theroux, Alessandro Baricco
Director of photography: Alain Dostie
Production designer: Francois Seguin
Costume designers: Carlo Poggioli, Kazuko Kurosawa
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Cast:
Herve Joncour: Michael Pitt
Helene Joncour: Keira Knightley
Baldabiou: Alfred Molina
Hara Jubei: Koji Yakusho
Madame Blanche: Miki Nakatani
Ludovic: Mark Rendall
Girl: Sei Ashina
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: R

Meet the Spartans Bottom Line: "300" was funnier.

By Frank Scheck

Jan 28, 2008

The many pop culture references cover up the lack of any real wit.

NEW YORK -- The latest misbegotten parody from the creators of "Date Movie" and "Epic Movie" brings to mind the joke about two elderly women exiting a restaurant. "Terrible food," one comments. "And such small portions, too," the other says.

Yes, it's an old joke, but no older than the plethora of lame ones in this mercifully brief (but not brief enough) spoof of the swords-and-sandals epic "300" that, minus the elongated end credits, has a running time of a little more than 70 minutes. It also wouldn't be fair to judge "Meet the Spartans" on a gag-to-laughs ratio because there virtually are no laughs. At an early Friday showing at the AMC Empire on 42nd Street in New York (naturally, there were no advance press screenings) the audience silence was deafening.

Writer-directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer basically reprise the tired formula from their earlier efforts, which is to throw in as many pop culture references as possible to cover up the lack of any real wit. Thus, this scene-by-scene parody of Zack Snyder's surprise smash hit features would-be comic riffs on, among other things: the films "Casino Royale," "Happy Feet," "Spider-Man 3," "Ghost Rider," "Transformers," "Stomp the Yard" and "Rocky": such TV shows as "Dancing With the Stars," "Ugly Betty" and "American Idol"; and numerous tabloid celebrities, including Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

The chief target of this parody -- which features Sean Maguire in the Gerard Butler role and such B-list performers as Carmen Electra, Kevin Sorbo, Method Man and Ken Davitian ("Borat") in the supporting cast -- is the homoerotic subtext of its inspiration. But the idea, which could have led to genuine hilarity, is wasted via all-too-literal sight gags. When one character refers to "painted-on abs," it's naturally followed by a shot of them being painted on. When another declares, "He's got a huge package," cut to a hunky warrior carrying, you guessed it, a huge package. And so on. And having the barely clad Spartans sing "I Will Survive" not once but twice is serious overkill.
To relieve the deadening tedium, viewers can amuse themselves by counting the product placements, which include Subway, Krispy Kreme, Dentyne Ice and Gatorade. If there were any justice in the world, consumer boycotts would ensue.

MEET THE SPARTANS
Fox
A Regency Enterprises presentation
A New Regency/3 in the Box production
Credits:
Director-screenwriters: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
Producers: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer, Peter Safran
Executive producer: Arnon Milchan
Director of photography: Shawn Maurer
Production designer: William Elliott
Music: Christopher Lennertz
Co-producer: Mark McNair
Costume designer: Frank Helmer
Editor: Peck Prior
Cast:
Leonidas: Sean Maguire
Queen Margo: Carmen Electra
Xerxes: Ken Davitian
Captain: Kevin Sorbo
Traitoro: Diedrich Bader
Persian Emissary: Method Man
Dilio: Jareb Dauplaise
Sonio: Travis Van Winkle
Running time -- 84 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13

The Darjeeling Limited Bottom Line: A train ride without laughs or charm.

By Ray Bennett

Sep 3, 2007

The film is overly pleased with itself and the characters are way too self-absorbed.

This review was written for the festival screening of "The Darjeeling Limited."

Venice International Film Festival

VENICE, Italy-- The whimsical and insightful charm that Wes Anderson and his filmmaking pals have displayed in such films as "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" curdles ruinously in the Indian sun that shines so brightly in their smug and self-satisfied new film "The Darjeeling Limited."

Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman star as brothers on what is supposedly a spiritual journey to the sub-continent. Their father has been dead for a year and their mother (a cameo from Anjelica Huston), who has found religion in the sub-continent, discourages a visit and warns of a man-eating tiger in the vicinity, although it is never seen.

The eldest brother, Francis (Wilson) has planned a detailed itinerary, however, that will allow them to see their mother and on the way hit all the key Indian sources of spiritual renewal on brief railway stops aboard the titular train. If it's Rajasthan, it must be enlightenment.
What ensues is like a third-rate Hope and Crosby picture with no big laughs and nothing to say as the completely self-involved threesome ride the rails in a circle back to their dull and uninteresting lives.

"The Darjeeling Limited" will need all the help it can get to find audiences beyond the stars' committed fans.

The pretensions surrounding this production begin with a 13-minute short film titled "Hotel Chavalier" that was screened ahead of the main feature at the Venice International Film Festival. It will be shown at other festivals and on the Internet, and be included on the eventual DVD, but it will not play in theaters when the picture is released.

Set in a hotel in Paris, the short film shows a brief encounter between the youngest brother, Jack (Schwartzman) and his on-and-off girlfriend (Natalie Portman). It has no significance though except as a platform for the great 1960s anthem "Where Do You Go to My Lovely?" by Peter Sarstedt.

The feature begins with middle brother Peter (Brody) catching the train at the last minute and joining his siblings in their first-class carriage. Childhood rivalries and irksome personality ticks immediately surface, although they all agree on the need for cigarettes and the best of India's over-the-counter medications.

The Darjeeling Limited is a train especially mocked up for the film, a hybrid of the old U.S. 20th Century Limited and the Orient Express with regional patterns and colors, and not remotely like the air-conditioned models of modern India. The boys jump off and on quite a bit and run up small hills trying to communicate with ancient spirits.

While Francis and Peter needle each other, Jack has sex with the train's attractive Indian stewardess (Amara Karan), no doubt because Schwartzman had a hand in the screenplay. They visit bazaars and temples, and in one excruciating sequence are involved in an incident on a swift-moving river in which a little boy is killed.

They stay for the funeral but appear oddly unmarked by the experience, being keen to get on with their search for mom. Huston shows up late in the picture as a kind of nun to explain why she didn't go to their father's funeral, the circumstances of which are revealed in a stilted flashback.

There's an interesting soundtrack with lots of excerpts from the scores to films by Satyajit Ray and Merchant Ivory along with some Kinks and Rolling Stones tracks. The colors are beautiful and well captured by cinematographer Robert Yeoman.

But when current affairs are in such a parlous state, it's almost unforgivable to make a film about stupid American men traveling abroad with not the slightest awareness of or reference to anything that's going on in the world. The film is overly pleased with itself and the characters are way too self-absorbed. There's never a man-eating tiger around when you need one.

THE DARJEELING LIMITED
Fox Searchlight
American Empirical Pictures

Director: Wes Anderson
Writers: Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola & Jason Schwartzman
Producers: Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Roman Coppola, Lydia Dean Pilcher
Executive producer: Steven Rales
Director of photography: Robert Yeoman
Production designer: Mark Friedberg
Music: From the films of Satyajit Ray and Merchant Ivory
Costume designer: Milena Canonero
Editor: Andrew Weisblum

Cast:
Francis: Owen Wilson
Peter: Adrien Brody
Jack: Jason Schwartzman
Rita: Amara Karan
Brendan: Wally Wolodarsky
Chief Steward: Waris Ahluwalia
Father: Irrfan Khan
Mechanic: Barbet Schroeder
Alice: Camilla Rutherford
Businessman: Bill Murray
Patricia: Anjelica Huston

No MPAA rating, running time 91 minutes

Beowulf Bottom Line: This is not your dad's "Beowulf," as Robert Zemeckis and his 3-D animation team have brought the heroic poem to vibrant life.

By Kirk Honeycutt

Nov 12, 2007

Ray Winstone and Anthony Hopkins bring the hoary classic to life.

This review was written for the theatrical release of "Beowulf."

What have they done to "Beowulf," everyone's least favorite Old English epic about a hero's battles with a monster, the monster's mother and an annoying dragon who turns up 50 years later?

Director Robert Zemeckis not only deploys 21st century movie technology at its finest to turn the heroic poem into a vibrant, nerve-tingling piece of pop culture, but his film actually makes sense of "Beowulf." In Zemeckis' hands, it's an intriguing look at a hero as a flawed human being.

Remember in "Annie Hall" when Woody Allen advised Diane Keaton, "Just don't take any class where you have to read 'Beowulf'"? As multitudes stand in long lines to see this movie, many may indeed be reading "Beowulf," if only to relish what Zemeckis & Co. have accomplished. In any event, those lines should last through year's end.

There are two sets of heroes here. One is the writing team of author/graphic novelist Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary (the nearly forgotten other writer of "Pulp Fiction"). They have genuinely solved the structural problem of the poem, written around 700 A.D. The link between the early battles of a young hero and his fatal confrontation with the dragon as an aging king is his temptation by the monster's mother who dangles wealth, power and sexual favors before his bedazzled eyes. Makes sense -- Beowulf's sins come back to haunt him.
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The other heroes are Zemeckis' "performance capture" and 3-D animation teams, who digitally enhance the bare-bones live action into a beguiling other world brimming with vitality. This new technique, which Zemeckis broke ground with in the visually impressive though dramatically weak "The Polar Express," comes to full fruition in "Beowulf," where myth becomes vigorous flesh.

"Beowulf" tells of a young warrior, Beowulf (Ray Winstone), who emerges out of a raging storm in a Viking ship to rescue a Danish kingdom ruled by old King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and his beauteous queen Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn). The monster Grendel (Crispin Glover), angered by the noise of singing and drinking in Hrothgar's great hall, has butchered many warriors.

Grendel is a thing of horrific beauty. He looks like a mummy with a contagious disease. He's a slobbering, puss-filled, bloody, drooling, hideously deformed giant with a lop-sided face and rotting teeth that can barely chew a man's head.

Knowing no weapon will defeat this monster, Beowulf sheds his clothes and waits for the next attack. In an epic battle, Beowulf rips off Grendel's arm. The now whimpering bully limps home to his mother's lair to die.

Grendel's mother (Angelina Jolie) takes revenge by attacking the hall following a night of celebration. She strings up the corpses of all of Beowulf's men save for his trusted lieutenant, Wiglaf (Brendan Gleeson).

Presented a sword by Unferth (John Malkovich), who initially doubted Beowulf's resolve, Beowulf enters the mother's grotto with its eerie lake. But rather than battle Beowulf, the mother sets out to seduce him, as she did Hrothgar years before.

Zemeckis is not afraid to indulge in moments of camp. Jolie's golden and nude temptress with a devil's tail strides toward her adversary in high heels! Grendel's whimpering about the Big Bad Man who tore off his arm reveals a pathetic mama's boy. The hero's constant assertion "I am Beowulf!" and Wiglaf's equally frequent refrain "You are Beowulf!" cry out for a "Saturday Night Live" skit.

But here lies Zemeckis' keen pop sensibility. He means to avoid Woody Allen's "Beowulf" by tapping into both the "Lord of the Rings" crowd and "Knocked Up" enthusiasts. The gruesome violence and male and female near nudity -- about as bold as a PG-13 rating will allow -- mixed together with ribald humor make "Beowulf" a waggish bit of postmodern fun. It may raise the eyebrows of English Lit professors but will quicken the pulse of everyone else.

"Beowulf" will roll out in the largest 3-D release of any film to date, including Imax 3D. While 2-D prints will certainly play well, Zemeckis has brilliantly designed the movie for 3-D, creating a strong depth of field and action in the fore, middle and back grounds in his more complex shots. Figures do blur slightly with heavy action or quick camera pans, but audiences will experience total immersion into the world of "Beowulf" best in 3-D.

BEOWULF
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. present in association with Shangri-La Entertainment an ImageMovers production
Credits:
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Screenwriters: Neil Gaiman, Roger Avary
Producers: Steve Starkey, Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke
Executive producers: Martin Shafer, Roger Avary, Neil Gaiman
Director of photography: Robert Presley
Production designer: Doug Chiang
Music: Alan Silvestri
Costume designer: Gabriella Pescucci
Editor: Jeremiah O'Driscoll
Cast:
Beowulf: Ray Winstone
King Hrothgar: Anthony Hopkins
Queen Wealthow: Robin Wright Penn
Wiglaf: Brendan Gleeson
Grendel: Crispin Glover
Grendel's mother: Angelina Jolie
Running time -- 115 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13

Elizabeth: The Golden Age Bottom Line: Once more Shekhar Kapur and Co. find fun and romance in 16th century English history.

By Kirk Honeycutt

Sep 9, 2007

Cate Blanchett returns as Queen Elizabeth

This review was written for the festival screening of "Elizabeth: The Golden Age."

Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO -- Queen Bess is back in fine form in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," the second of a potential three-part historical romance about England's Virgin Queen. Cate Blanchett has lost none of the brio that earned her an Oscar nom for 1998's "Elizabeth." Nor has returning director Shekhar Kapur toned down any of the energetic camera moves, pageantry or vivid colors he deployed to reformulate historical drama in the original movie. This is history writ large, presented in terms of larger-than-life personalities rather than changing political, social and religious climates. It's robust historical fiction, designed as movie spectacle, which calls out to toss aside dusty history books and join the fun.

Remnants remain from Hollywood's own golden age of historical drama. A musical score by Craig Armstrong and AR Rahman is virtually a character itself, huffing and puffing through nearly every scene, provoking tension and calling characters to action. Resplendent costumes, grand sets build in England's Shepperton Studios and architecturally magnificent locations all give a feeling of majesty. So the second "Elizabeth" movie should appeal to a broad age range, as did its predecessor. This unabashedly romantic epic from Working Title and Universal looks set to deliver boxoffice gold.

The good queen is now in her third decade of rule. No longer a young girl struggling to learn the ruthless ways of court life, Elizabeth is thoroughly at home with flattering wooers, fawning sycophants and courtly spectacle. (Indeed, with Kapur at the helm, her court looks like a circus with exotic humans, wild animals and nimble dancers vying for her pleasure.)
Storm clouds gather across the English Channel in Spain where King Philip II (Jordi Molla) assembles his Catholic forces to free England from its Protestant queen. This marks the filmmakers' attempt to contemporize 16th century European conflicts in a model resembling our modern struggle with religious fundamentalism. Elizabeth is seen here as the leader of the forces of enlightenment and liberality -- which is not entirely inaccurate -- against the religious intolerance and barbarism of the Spanish Inquisition.

In Michael Hirst (who wrote the first movie) and William Nicholson's screenplay, Elizabeth is a woman of action and sharp words rather than the historical Elizabeth, a notorious ditherer -- who nevertheless was a shrewd politician and social engineer -- and a ruler whose motto was "I see and keep silent."

Her circle of advisors has been reduced to one, the great spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham (a returning Geoffrey Rush). Her romantic interest falls on a person who was indeed a favorite courtier yet one historical gossip usually omits from her list of alleged lovers, the dashing explorer and author Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen).

The writers have moved up Raleigh's clandestine affair and marriage to lady-in-waiting Bess Throkmorton (Abbie Cornish) by several years so it can coincide with the legendary English defeat of the Spanish Armada. Raleigh plays a huge (and historically unlikely) role in this version of that battle but one that fits in well with the escalating drama of the Queen's personal and public crises.

That naval battle, recreated through all manner of movie trickery from digital effects to underwater action, is wonderfully staged and not too elaborate. (End credits even mention the use of footage from David Lean's "Ryan's Daughter," possibly those mighty waves crashing on a dark, rocky shore.) Blanchett in her glistening body armor astride a fine stallion overlooking the sea, delivering a great rally speech to the troops, gives the movie its most resplendent moment of sheer majesty.

Yet whether in her bath or glaring at underlings, Blanchett has made this Queen her own, a woman of fierce independence and thought, who only in her most private moments yearns for the male touch that she must deny herself. For virginity is part of her statecraft.

Rush is wily and self-contained as the spymaster while Owen as Sir Walter channels a toned down yet still quite debonair Errol Flynn. Cornish comes off a little too sweet and reserved for the rebellious Bess. The film never finds a way to fully utilize Samantha Morton as the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, and fudges Walsingham's own possible role in Mary's "treason."

All in all, it's a grand package of hearty acting, design and action with the only caveat being that unlike the first film this "Elizabeth" can no longer surprise us with its modern twists.


ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE
Universal Pictures
Working Title Films

Director: Shekhar Kapur
Writers: Michael Hirst, William Nicholson
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Jonathan Cavendish
Executive producers: Debra Haywood, Liza Chasin, Michael Hirst
Director of photography: Remi Adefarasin
Production designer: Guy Hendrix Dyas
Costume designer: Alexandra Byrne
Music: Craig Armstrong, AR Rahman
Editor: Jill

Cast:
Elizabeth: Clate Blanchett
Sir Francis Walsingham: Geoffrey Rush
Sir Walter Raleigh: Clive Owen
Bess Throkmorton: Abbie Cornish
Mary: Samantha Morton
Robert Reston: Rhyr Ifans
King Philip II: Jordi Molla

MPAA rating PG-13, running time 115 minutes

In the Valley of Elah Bottom Line: Another eloquent, sobering assessment of the State of the Union from the director of "Crash."

By Michael Rechtshaffen

Aug 31, 2007

Tommy Lee Jones never has been better.

This review was written for the theatrical release of "In the Valley of Elah."

Paul Haggis has not only avoided the dreaded sophomore slump, but the director and co-writer of the Oscar-winning "Crash" has returned with another bona-fide contender.

Ostensibly a murder-mystery set against the backdrop of the war in Iraq, "In the Valley of Elah" is a deeply reflective, quietly powerful work that is as timely as it is moving.

Further graced by an exceptional Tommy Lee Jones lead performance that would have to be considered one of the finest in the 60-year-old actor's career, the Warner Independent release is getting a little preliminary festival exposure at Venice and Toronto before opening in limited engagements on Sept. 14.

Strong word-of-mouth should ensure that the film plays well into awards season.
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For those not up on their Old Testament, "In the Valley of Elah" refers to the place where David slew Goliath. It's an apt metaphor for the battle undertaken by Jones, as a grieving father fighting his way through a bureaucratic quagmire in search of the truth, and by the young men and women who are facing insurmountable odds of emerging physically and/or emotionally unscathed from an increasingly controversial conflict.

Jones' Hank Deerfield is a former military MP who receives a call that his son, Mike (Jonathan Tucker, in flashbacks) has gone AWOL after returning from active duty in Iraq. When the elder Deerfield shows up in Albuquerque, N.M., to conduct his own personal investigation, it's subsequently discovered that his son has been a victim of foul play.

In his efforts to find out what really happened, Hank initially butts heads with Emily Sanders (a no-nonsense Charlize Theron), a recently promoted police detective who is fighting a couple of battles of her own -- against the close-knit military brass, and for respect from her colleagues, who make unsubtle intimations about her relationship with her boss (Josh Brolin).

As Hank stubbornly soldiers on, Emily eventually lends her support. As the two begin to piece together the events that led up to Mike's disappearance, Hank is also forced to take stock of his own belief system.

In part an adaptation of a Playboy magazine article by Mark Boal called "Death and Dishonor," the Haggis version is an eloquently written portrait of a man clinging to logic during a time of confusion and turmoil.

With equal amounts bravado, anguish and, ultimately, remorse filling the crevices of his world-weary visage, Jones never has been better; Theron also effectively portrays the multifaceted dimensions of a single mother and small-town detective whose tough exterior conceals a considerable amount of vulnerable self-doubt.

Making the most of the few scenes she has, Susan Sarandon is affecting as Jones' dutiful wife, while Frances Fisher does likewise as a topless bartender who provides Jones with some valuable leads.

Production values are equally accomplished, from cinematographer Roger Deakins' stirring visual compositions to production designer Laurence Bennett's tarnished Americana to Mark Isham's achingly poignant, string-laden score.

IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH
Warner Independent Pictures
Warner Independent Pictures presents in association with Nala Films, Summit Entertainment and Samuels Media, a Blackfriar's Bridge production
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Paul Haggis
Producers: Paul Haggis, Laurence Becsey, Patrick Wachsberger, Steven Samuels, Darlene Caamano Loquet
Executive producers: Emilio Diez Barroso, Bob Hayward, David Garrett, Erik Feig, James Holt, Stan Wlodkowski
Director of photography: Roger Deakins
Production designer: Laurence Bennett
Music: Mark Isham
Costume designer: Lisa Jensen
Editor: Jo Francis
Cast:
Hank Deerfield: Tommy Lee Jones
Det. Emily Sanders: Charlize Theron
Joan Deerfield: Susan Sarandon
Sgt. Carnelli: James Franco
Mike Deerfield: Jonathan Tucker
Evie: Frances Fisher
Lt. Kirklander: Jason Patric
Chief Buchwald: Josh Brolin
Cpl. Penning: Wes Chatham
Running time -- 120 minutes
MPAA rating: R

30 Days of Night 30 Days of Night - Bottom Line: A slack narrative drives a stake through the heart of this vampire frightfest.

By Megan Lehmann

Oct 18, 2007

Sheriff Josh Hartnett faces a cold reality when vampires invade his town.

This review was written for the theatrical release of "30 Days of Night."

A terrific horror premise goes begging in the garbled Halloween offering "30 Days of Night," an especially gory re-imagining of the vampire myth based on a hot-property graphic novel.

Director David Slade's follow-up to the pedophile revenge thriller "Hard Candy" -- which itself was a kind of horror show -- is set in an Alaskan frontier town that's plunged into darkness for 30 days each year, making it a subzero nirvana for a roving pack of bloodsuckers.

The vampires look great. And the story line sticks closely enough to the comic book by Ben Templesmith and Steve Niles to please their large fanboy following. But dramatically, the film is a shambles, with whiplash-inducing lurches in tone and pacing that make it seem as if portions were edited out of sequence. Those expecting a clever frightfest from Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures will be disappointed to find something more akin to an excruciatingly long Marilyn Manson clip.

Josh Hartnett, facial features as frozen as the landscape, is out of his depth as Eben, the sheriff of Barrow, whose citizens either flee for friendlier climes during the monthlong night or batten down and bear it. Eben's estranged wife Stella (an impressively committed Melissa George) is one of those trying to escape, but she misses the last plane out and is stranded as the sun goes down. Meanwhile, a filthy, babbling stranger (Ben Foster) arrives in town and, after trying to order a plate of raw meat at the diner, warns gleefully of impending doom.
The power is cut, telephone lines go down, dogs are savagely slaughtered, and the scene is set for the arrival of the undead. Their entrance is underwhelming.

Each barely glimpsed vampire attacks in a cheap-looking flurry of quick-cuts and overloud crash of discordant sound. It slowly dawns on the townsfolk that something is amiss. This buildup, strangely devoid of suspense or even continuity, abruptly plunges into an all-out feeding frenzy in which the bloodthirsty hordes sink their fangs into anything that moves.

Soon there's no one left but a small band of underwritten characters hiding out in an attic. It's here that the movie really falls flat. What should have been a claustrophobic, slowly intensifying siege sequence in the vein of John Carpenter's similarly snowbound "The Thing" becomes hopelessly scattered as Eben and his charges roam all over town, gathering supplies from a store, rescuing the odd survivor or performing gruesome mercy killings. The narrative gets slacker by the minute, pausing clumsily now and then for a character's backstory or some incongruous flirting between Eben and Stella.

But those vampires are something, adding a new variable to a legend that has grown musty with age. Faithfully adapted from Templesmith's drawings, they're feral and brutish and only vaguely human -- a different kind of creepy from the traditional gothic figure who seduces and charms before killing. They communicate in screeches and primitive gibberish, though the charismatic leader Marlow (Danny Huston) speaks a strange, guttural -- and subtitled -- language.

Taking into account the degree of difficulty in shooting a film set at night in the snow, the production looks distractingly phony with a couple of first-rate location shots serving to highlight the studio-bound appearance of the rest.

30 DAYS OF NIGHT
Columbia Pictures
Ghost House Pictures, Columbia, Dark Horse Entertainment
Credits:
Director: David Slade
Screenwriters: Steve Niles, Stuart Beattie, Brian Nelson
Based on the comic by: Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith
Producers: Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert
Executive producers: Joe Drake, Nathan Kahane, Mike Richardson, Aubrey Henderson
Director of photography: Jo Willems
Production designer: Paul Denham Austerberry
Music: Brian Reitzell
Co-producers: Chloe Smith, Ted Adams
Costume designer: Jane Holland
Editor: Art Jones
Cast:
Eben: Josh Hartnett
Stella: Melissa George
Marlow: Danny Huston
The Stranger: Ben Foster
Beau: Mark Boone Junior
Running time -- 128 minutes
MPAA rating: R

American Gangster Bottom Line: "Superfly" meets "Serpico" -- but without the flash.

By Kirk Honeycutt

Oct 22, 2007

Denzel Washington is the criminal and Russell Crowe the cop.

This review was written for the theatrical release of "American Gangster."

The title is catchy but misleading. Frank Lucas was less an "American Gangster" than an original Old Gangster in sable, a caricature in the tradition of '70s blaxploitation flicks.

He is in fact a real-life character, an apparently highly attractive person -- likable even -- who made millions by killing people and ruining lives with the powdered death of heroin. Going up against this all-powerful yet ghostly figure who operates outside the old Mafia networks, is Richie Roberts, an incorruptible cop from the street who is determined put him in prison. Director Ridley Scott takes on these familiar subjects, themes and characters with a keen eye for the social fabric, false assumptions, suffocating corruption and vivid personalities that make such a story worth retelling.

So this is a gangster movie focused on character rather than action and on the intricacies of people's backgrounds, strategies and motivations. Whether it means to, the film plays off a clutch of old movies, from "The Godfather" and "Serpico" to "Superfly" and "Shaft." But Scott and writer Steven Zaillian make certain their Old Gangster is original and true to himself and his times rather than a concoction of movie fiction. Consequently, the movie is smooth and smart enough to attract a significant audience beyond the considerable fan base of its stars, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.

You do sense in this movie that its principals are returning to safe harbor. After a discouraging foray into feeble comedy by Scott and Crowe ("A Good Year") and Gothic Southern melodrama for Zaillian ("All the King's Men"), these artists scramble back to an emotional naturalism more aligned to their sensibilities. Even for Washington, who seldom makes a false step careerwise, the film represents a welcome return to the larger-than-life villainy he performed so well in 2001's "Training Day."
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Zaillian, working from Mark Jacobson's magazine portrait of Lucas -- a heroin kingpin of Harlem in the late '60s and early '70s -- sets two men on a collision course. Lucas (Washington), a country lad from North Carolina, is the nearly invisible driver and right-hand man to Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, the most famous of Harlem gangsters. (So famous that this is his fourth movie reincarnation. Moses Gunn played him in "Shaft," and Lawrence Fishburne twice in "The Cotton Club" and "Hoodlum.") When Bumpy dies in his arms, Frank moves into the vacuum caused by his death with ruthless guile and a friendly personality.

Meanwhile, Richie Roberts (Crowe), a street-smart drug cop in New Jersey, is Frank's opposite: He can't help alienating everyone who crosses his path. His wife wants a divorce, insisting he leads a life entirely unsuitable to the welfare of their only child. Fellow cops shun him from the moment he brings in nearly a million dollars of recovered drug money. No one can understand why he didn't keep it, which says a lot about the state of policing in the New York/New Jersey area in 1968.

Frank's stroke of genius in the drug trade is to cut out the middleman. He flies to Thailand, takes a boat up the river in the Golden Triangle, makes a deal with a Chinese general, then arranges through an in-law to ship the kilos to New York in military planes coming back from Vietnam. His heroin, branded Blue Magic, hits the street twice as good and half as much as the competition.

It is so pure that dead junkies turn up all over New York. The police are baffled but look in all the wrong places. It never occurs to them that a black man is behind the scheme. Richie, whose whacked-out partner is one of Blue Magic's victims, is given his own task force. He finally targets Frank, but no one will believe him.

Frank flies under the radar. He hires only relatives -- a veritable army of brothers like Huey Lucas (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as well as cousins -- whom he sets up with storefront businesses that function as drug-distribution centers. He maintains a low profile and adheres to a rigid code of conduct. His major weekly outings are to church with his mother (the inestimable Ruby Dee) or to his nightclub with wife Eva (Lymari Nadal), a former Miss Puerto Rico.

Richie's major opposition comes from within. New York's anti-drug task force, the Special Investigations Unit, is rife with corruption. As personified by Detective Trupo (a strutting Josh Brolin), the SIU takes its cut right off the top.

In a story that ranges from the jungles of Harlem and Thailand to North Carolina backwoods, Scott is both hurried and leisurely. He covers a lot of territory, often in low-light levels and with the Vietnam War playing on background TV sets, soaking up the sordid atmosphere, including naked, surgically masked women cutting the dope -- so no one will steal anything -- and celebrities like Joe Lewis cheerfully slumming with the gangsters. The scruffiness of Richie's world makes a brilliant contrast to Frank's penthouse. Yet both worlds teem with moral ambiguity.

If there are no false steps here, there are few highlights either. Such films as "The Godfather" and "Serpico" contain iconic scenes and sequences. "American Gangster" contributes little. It's workmanlike and engrossing, but what sticks in the mind are Frank and Richie, not what anybody does.

The film concocts a final sequence in which the two finally meet and do a deal, the deal that apparently sprung Frank from prison to enjoy his old age: Frank rats out the SIU cops who shook him down, resulting in most of the unit going to prison. Richie ends up leaving the force to become a lawyer and eventually represents Frank. So "American Gangster" finally shows its true colors: It's really a buddy movie.

AMERICAN GANGSTER
Universal
Imagine Entertainment presents a Relativity Media/Scott Free Prods. production
Credits:
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriter: Steven Zaillian
Based on an article by: Mark Jacobson
Producers: Brian Grazer, Ridley Scott
Executive producers: Nicholas Pileggi, Steven Zaillian, Branko Lustig, Jim Whitaker, Michael Costigan
Director of photography: Harris Savides
Production designer: Arthur Max
Music: Marc Streitenfeld
Costume designer: Janty Yates
Editor: Pietro Scalia
Cast:
Frank Lucas: Denzel Washington
Richie Roberts: Russell Crowe
Huey Lucas: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Detective Trupo: Josh Brolin
Eva: Lymari Nadal
Lou: Ted Levine
Nate: Roger Guenveur Smith
Freddie Spearman: John Hawkes
Moses Jones: RZA
Nickey Barnes: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Dominic: Armand Assante
Mama Lucas: Rudy Dee
Running time -- 157 minutes
MPAA rating: R

The Brave One Bottom Line: Jodie Foster has a good shot at awards recognition in this flawed but still disturbing vigilante drama.

By Michael Rechtshaffen

Sep 14, 2007

Jodie Foster transforms from victim to vigilante after her fiance is killed.

This review was written for the theatrical release of "The Brave One."

Take "Death Wish" and retrofit it with a post-Sept. 11 sensitivity and you've got the essence of "The Brave One," a vigilante drama boasting a powerful Jodie Foster performance and carefully weighted direction by Neil Jordan.

Those considerable attributes go a long way in compensating for problematic plot mechanics that ultimately trip up the good intentions, especially in its portrayal of a New York that looks and behaves more like Charles Bronson's old stomping grounds than its modern-day incarnation.

While Mayor Bloomberg will unlikely be amused, the Joel Silver production, which is being screened as a special presentation at next month's Toronto International Film Festival, still should pack considerable appeal for fall moviegoers who prefer their hard-hitting vengeance served with a hefty side of introspection.

Foster turns in a compelling, emotionally raw performance as Erica Bain, the host of an NPR-type radio show titled "Street Walk," in which she shares the recorded sounds and her live thoughts surrounding life in the Big Apple.
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One early evening, Erica and her fiance, David (Naveen Andrews), are walking their dog in the park when they're savagely attacked by a group of punks. David's wounds prove fatal, and though Erica ultimately recovers after a prolonged stay in the hospital, she's left emotionally devastated.

Paralyzed by grief and fear, she obtains a gun, ostensibly for protection, but -- and here's where things start getting harder to swallow -- Erica unwittingly stumbles across additional random acts of violence and becomes a pretty decent shot in the process.

By the time she tracks down her fiance's assailants, Erica has become a full-fledged avenging angel.

In the interim, she also has found a sympathetic ear in NYPD detective Sean Mercer (an effectively pensive Terrence Howard), a by-the-book type grappling with his own moral dilemmas whose investigations might be pointing him in Erica's direction sooner than he's willing to act.

Watching "Brave One," it's hard not to think about "Taxi Driver," and if, somehow, Foster's child prostitute could have picked up 30 years later where Travis Bickle left off.

But where the Martin Scorsese film had that complex Paul Schrader script, Jordan's picture has to make do with a more conventional genre piece written by the father-and-son team of Roderick Taylor and Bruce A. Taylor, and Cynthia Mort, who was brought in to provide a more convincing female voice.

As with some of his best films, such as "The Crying Game" and "Mona Lisa," Jordan is less concerned about genre technicalities than he is with the moral choices those situations bring out in the lead characters.

In that regard, "Brave One" keeps things intriguing, with Foster's haunted, fiercely committed performance certain to garner awards attention.

Howard, meanwhile, makes for a thoughtful opponent in this curiously low-key game of cat and mouse, while Mary Steenburgen provides the right balance of authority and concern as Foster's radio show producer.

Behind the scenes, cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, a frequent Jordan collaborator, visually shrouds Manhattan in a foreboding dread, especially during those earlier, unsettlingly lit sequences leading up to that first vicious attack; and composer Dario Marianelli provides the discordant themes that fittingly reflect Foster's ever-darkening psyche.

THE BRAVE ONE
Warner Bros. Pictures
A Warner Bros. Pictures presentation, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, of a Silver Pictures production
Credits:
Director: Neil Jordan
Screenwriters: Roderick Taylor, Bruce A. Taylor, Cynthia Mort
Story: Roderick Taylor, Bruce A. Taylor
Producers: Joel Silver, Susan Downey
Executive producers: Herbert W. Gains, Jodie Foster, Dana Goldberg, Bruce Berman
Director of photography: Philippe Rousselot
Production designer: Kristi Zea
Music: Dario Marianelli
Costume designer: Catherine Marie Thomas
Editor: Tony Lawson
Cast:
Erica Bain: Jodie Foster
Detective Sean Mercer: Terrence Howard
David Kirmani: Naveen Andrews
Detective Vitale: Nicky Katt
Carol: Mary Steenburgen
Running time -- 121 minutes
MPAA rating: R

Jumper Jumper - Bottom Line: Doug Liman's new hyper action movie goes nowhere. Fast.

By Michael Rechtshaffen

Feb 13, 2008

"Jedi" pals Samuel L. Jackson and Hayden Christensen meet again in "Jumpers."

Hayden Christensen makes the transition from Skywalker to globetrotter in "Jumper," a sci-fi thriller about a young man who discovers he has a gift for teleportation.


The vehicle would seem to be a perfect match for Doug Liman, the man whose propulsive, hyperkinetic style has yielded a string of energetic hits, including "The Bourne Identity" and "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."

But for a picture steeped in wormholes and zippy trips via the space-time continuum, "Jumper" proves disappointingly inert.

All the state-of-the-art visual effects in the world can't compensate for spotty plotting and bland characters that prevent an intriguing premise from going the distance.

Given the director's proven track record and nifty-looking teaser trailers, the 20th Century-Fox release should come out of the gate running, but more discerning movie-goers may opt to look before they leap, resulting in returns that would fall short of the usual Liman mark.
Based on the young-adult sci-fi novels, "Jumper" and "Reflex" by Steven Gould, the film concerns the transcontinental exploits of David Rice (Christensen), who inadvertently finds out about his peripatetic prowess while back in school, escaping from a potentially fatal accident.

Once he gets the hang of things, he uses his teleporting powers to buy freedom from his abusive father (Michael Rooker) by jumping into a bank vault and jumping back out again with its entire contents.

That pretty much sets him up for life, spending his young adult days whizzing between New York, London, Paris, Cairo or wherever his whim -- and a surfable high-tide -- takes him.

But just as David picks up where he left off with his school crush (Rachel Bilson), he finds out he's not the only one with his particular talent when he runs into Griffin (Jamie Bell) while snooping around the Colosseum in Rome.

Griffin gives David a little history lesson about the centuries-old battle between the Jumpers and the Paladins, a secret organization dedicated to wiping them out courtesy of high-voltage contraptions known as tethers.

And leading the Paladin crusade is one Roland (Samuel L. Jackson) a man with snow-white hair and a strong personal moral code having to do with the Jumpers going where only God should go.

Or something like that.

It's evident that this is a movie with "The Matrix" on its mind, but where the Wachowski Brothers' movies came complete with a richly developed mythology, the "Jumper" back story is awfully muddy.

That's surprising given a lineup of writers including David S. Goyer ("Batman Begins"), Jim Uhls ("Fight Club") and Simon Kinberg ("Mr. and Mrs. Smith"), but then again, it seems as if huge chunks of story have been teleported themselves in order for the film to conform to a noticeably rushed, scant 90-minute running time.

What remains plays out like a (pricey) cable series pilot.

More dynamic performances wouldn't have hurt, either. Christensen brings a brooding intensity to a part that really required a charismatic energy to better complement the action, while his old "Star Wars" co-star Jackson fights a personal battle with that distracting 'do.

Bell's punky character allows the grownup "Billy Elliot" star to have a little more fun than the others, especially Diane Lane, who pops in and out a couple of times as David's long-lost mother.

On the technical end, while the film combines virtual effects with live location shooting in New York, Tokyo, Rome, London, Paris and Cairo (with interior work on Toronto soundstages), the end product somehow has all the dimension of a picture postcard -- admittedly scenic, but flat.

JUMPER
Fox
New Regency Pictures
Credits:
Director: Doug Limon
Writers: David S. Goyer, Jim Uhls, Simon Kinberg
Based on the novel by Steven Gould
Producers: Arnon Milchan, Lucas Foster, Jay Sanders, Simon Kinberg
Executive producers: Stacy Maes, Kim Winther, Vince Gerardis, Ralph M. Vicinanza
Director of photography: Barry Peterson
Production designer: Oliver Scholl
Music: John Powell
Costume designer: Magali Guidasci
Editors: Don Zimmerman, Dean Zimmerman, Saar Klein
Visual effects supervisor: Joel Hynek.
Cast:
David Rice: Hayden Christensen
Griffin: Jamie Bell
Millie Harris: Rachel Bilson
Roland: Samuel L. Jackson
Mary Rice: Diane Lane
William Rice: Michael Rooker
Young Millie: Annasophia Robb
Young David: Max Thieriot
Running time -- 93 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13

Baby on Board

My boyfriend insists on road-tripping to his parents' house every weekend. What can I do?
Posted Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008, at 6:52 AM ET

Get "Dear Prudence" delivered to your inbox each week; click here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)

Dear Prudence,
I've been dating a wonderful man for six years—he's compassionate, smart, funny, and successful—but there's a huge problem. Every weekend since we've been together (that's a lot of weekends), he drives back to his hometown—six hours away, each way. Mind you, he's not in college anymore. He's been out of school for well over a decade. He often gets irritated because he doesn't understand why I don't want to spend my weekends at his parents' home—they are neither sick nor elderly. I go along for the journey every couple of months, and it's nice, but it's a long trip, and it's not my home. Last year, we bought our own home together, and we are talking about having a family. But in the back of my mind, I get a vision of either him bailing on me every weekend to go "home," or us loading up babies for the weekly adventure of cramming into his childhood room. When I suggest he cut down on the trips, he gets defensive and doesn't understand why I think it's a bit strange. Do I suggest relocating our lives so he feels closer to home? Or should I relocate from him?

—Staying Home

Dear Staying Home,
Maybe your boyfriend has had one of those body-switching spells cast on him—like what happened to Tom Hanks in Big. He looks like an adult man, yet you're actually dating a 9-year-old. If he wears footie pajamas on his visits home, I will take that as confirmation of my theory. Obviously, you know that your boyfriend is trapped in a bizarre, smothering, psychological triangle with his parents. Yet for six years you have waved goodbye as he sets off every weekend in order to sleep in his childhood bed. You went ahead and bought a house and are talking about having children with him. So, do you have any thoughts as to what's wrong with you? I accept that your boyfriend has many fine qualities. But these seem outweighed by the fact that you two probably have never gone to a movie together on a Saturday night because he's at his parents' rearranging his baseball cards until his mother comes to kiss him goodnight and say, "Lights out! And no reading in bed with a flashlight!" I know it will be hard to get the equity out of the house you just bought because the real-estate market is depressed, but even more depressing is the prospect of spending any more time there when you know it will never be your boyfriend's real home.

—Prudie

Dear Prudence Video: Sick of Showers

Dear Prudence,
Three years ago, my husband announced that he had been having an affair for some time and was leaving me, our newborn daughter, and our son. After having somewhat recovered from this life-changing experience, we divorced, and he married this other woman. He gets to see the children regularly, as we still live in the same town. Since then, my daughter has been calling this other woman (we'll call her "Lori") "Mama Lori." She refers to me as "Mama Rosalind." I correct her constantly, and she eventually starts calling me "Mom" again after coming back from visits with her father. But she continues to refer to his new wife as Mama Lori, even though I've tried telling her that I don't know that person or just ignoring her comment until she uses the woman's first name only. My 7-year-old son even corrects my daughter. I have made it clear to both my ex-husband and his new wife that I am not happy with her referring to either of us in this fashion. My ex assures me that his wife understands my feelings, being a mother herself, and that my concerns are unfounded. I have asked repeatedly for them to remedy the situation, to no avail. Any advice?

—Just Mommy

Dear Just,
I can imagine how hard it must be to be civil to your ex and his new wife. And how maddening it is to have your daughter think of this home wrecker in motherly terms. But for the sake of your relationship with your daughter, let this go. Certainly, you can lightly correct her and say that you're "Mommy" and Daddy's wife is "Lori." But don't be obsessed with this, and don't let your frustration spill over to your daughter. A 3-year-old is too young to know why you are so upset at her innocent understanding of what it means to have two families. She will get it eventually—your son obviously does. But for now, your daughter is confused that after she has a nice time at Daddy's, when she comes home to you, you act angry. You could send your ex-husband a note saying you know you've discussed this before, and that you are all trying to do your best under difficult circumstances, but if your daughter says "Mama Lori" and "Mama Rosalind," it indicates how confusing this situation is to her, and you would appreciate if they corrected her. Then realize you've done everything you can, and don't let it drive you crazy. Your daughter will outgrow this annoying nomenclature. Until then, be confident that your little girl knows you're her only mother.

—Prudie

Dear Prudie,
It seems that every time I start to date someone, we go out a few times, get along great, have tons of fun, and then he just quits calling for no reason. My more romantically successful friends say there are all these rules that you have to follow to keep a man, like playing "cat and mouse," pretending to be busy all the time, making him chase after me, pretending to be only somewhat interested in him, etc. It seems like a lot of work to me and doesn't really help much since I keep getting blown off. I am 33 years old, so my attitude is to just tell a guy that I am interested and skip all of the stupid games. So far, neither way works. What does it take in today's society to make a relationship last more than a few dates? Are all of those games really a necessary evil?

—Blown Off

Dear Blown,
No, you don't have to abide by a series of rigid rules, but you do have to understand that when you start dating someone, you're engaging in useful courtship rituals. When you go to someone's house for dinner, do you walk in the door and say, "Where's the food, already?" No, you exchange greetings, have a drink, sit and talk, eat some hors d'oeuvres, and only then do you get summoned to the table. It sounds as if while the man you're dating is still on the cheese and crackers, you're ready to announce it's time to cut the wedding cake. When you say, after only a few dates, "I'm sick of trying to read all your subliminal clues. Do you or don't you have long-term intentions for us?" even if he was interested, he's going to be forced to respond,
"Now that you ask, no." Stop thinking of dating as a deceptive game, and think of it as an enjoyable way two people get to know if they really want to get to know each other better.

—Prudie

Dear Prudie,
I own an extremely successful small business. I have been tossing around the idea of taking my seven employees and their spouses to Mexico or the Caribbean on a four-night vacation—all expenses paid. This would be in addition to generous (typically 5 percent to 10 percent of yearly salary) quarterly monetary bonuses. I got this idea when I saw a successful dental practice doing the same thing a couple of years ago while I was on vacation. All of the employees wore matching shirts and genuinely seemed to be having a good time. As an optimist, I am often filled with delusions of grandeur about activities in life, but I just can't help thinking this is a great idea. What should I do?

—Generous Boss

Dear Generous,
I'm sure some people would love the idea, while some would feel they just can't say no. And once they got down there, probably everyone would have a great time (even if the baby-sitting arrangements were a pain). But how much better a time they all would have if you announced you were giving them extra vacation days to do with whatever they liked (and if you divided up the money you would have spent on the vacation and instead made it part of a year-end bonus). You sound like an enthusiastic, generous boss, and surely your employees are grateful to work for you. But you have a small office, and you all see one another every day, so for festivities, stick to the company picnic and the Christmas party.

—Prudie

Hollywood's New Zombie

The last days of Blockbuster.
By Edward Jay Epstein
Posted Monday, Jan. 9, 2006, at 1:03 PM ET
An endangered species Click image to expand.An endangered species

In 1998, at the dawn of the age of the DVD, Blockbuster made a decision that would change the future of Hollywood. Warren Lieberfarb, who then headed the home-video division of Warner Bros., offered Blockbuster CEO John Antioco a deal that would have made the DVD the same kind of rental business as that of the VHS tape, which, at the time, provided the studios with $10 billion in revenue. Lieberfarb proposed that Warner Bros. (which, along with Sony, was launching the DVD) create a rental window for DVDs during which sell-through DVDs would not be available for new movies.

With this window, Blockbuster, which then accounted for nearly half of the studios' rental income from new movies, would have had the opportunity to rent out DVD releases before they went on sale to the general public. In return, the studios would receive 40 percent of the rental revenues that Blockbuster earned from DVDs, which was exactly the same percentage they received for VHS rentals. In fact, it was Sumner Redstone, whose Viacom conglomerate then owned Blockbuster, who personally pioneered the revenue-sharing arrangement for video. Only a few years earlier, Redstone had told Lieberfarb, "The studios can't live without a video rental business—we [Blockbuster] are your profit." Yet, even though Lieberfarb was only asking that the same deal be extended to DVD, Blockbuster, perhaps not realizing the speed with which the digital revolution would spread, turned him down.

Nevertheless, Lieberfarb, determined to make the DVD a success, went to Plan B: pricing the DVD low enough so that it could be sold to the public in direct competition with video rentals. Wal-Mart, seizing the opportunity for an enormous traffic-builder for its stores, began selling DVDs like hot cakes. By 2003, the studios were taking in three times as much money from DVDs as they were from VHS videos (click here for the actual numbers). In this reversal of fortune, Wal-Mart replaced Blockbuster as the studios' single largest source of revenue. Other mass retailers followed suit, often pricing newly released movies on DVD below their own wholesale price to draw in customers who might buy products with higher profit margins, such as plasma TVs. Blockbuster, with no other products to sell, became a casualty of this cutthroat competition for traffic. Not able to match these low prices, its rental business was decimated.

The other shoe dropped with the emergence of Netflix as a major online competitor for what remained of the rental market. (Blockbuster turned down the opportunity to buy Netflix for a mere $50 million, instead entering a disastrous home-delivery deal with Enron.) Netflix signed up over 3 million subscribers by 2005 by offering DVDs that could be kept as long as renters liked for a monthly fee. To compete, Blockbuster had to do away with its single biggest profit-earner: charging late fees to customers who kept videos past the due date. It also had to invest millions of dollars in a copycat online plan.

Meanwhile, even after many Blockbuster store closings, the company was paying the rent on over 4,000 brick-and-mortar locations in the United States. Initially, opening new stores every week had provided Blockbuster with outlets for the excess inventory of used videos from old stores. The resulting proliferation of stores also provided a competitive advantage when most people rented videos and needed a nearby location to return them. But as people switched to buying DVDs or getting them by mail from Netflix, this plethora of stores proved a liability, leaving Blockbuster hemorrhaging red ink: $1.62 billion in 2002, $978.7 million in 2003, and $1.24 billion in 2004. Still losing money in 2005, Blockbuster had to renegotiate its loan covenants to avoid being forced into bankruptcy. By 2006, the company Redstone had bought in 1994 for $8.4 billion had a market value of under $700 million.

Blockbuster can "reinvent" its store business, adding new products, such as popcorn, candy, and video games, and clone a Netflix-like subscription business, but it still has the albatross of the huge monthly rent payments from its stores weighing it down. Even if it could manage to slip out of these leases, it would still have to contend with Hollywood's move to deliver its movies into homes and iPods via video-on-demand. Offering movies that could be downloaded directly by couch potatoes, as I previously pointed out, is the Holy Grail for Hollywood, since it both cuts out middlemen like Blockbuster and leaves studios in control over their own products.

As far the studios are concerned, other than collecting the money that Blockbuster owes them for past movies, the video chain has little relevance to their future. Viacom perspicuously divorced itself from Blockbuster by spinning it off to its shareholders, and, as one Viacom executive told me, "Blockbuster will certainly not survive and it will not be missed." It is another zombie in Hollywood.