SoulHonky

Maybe it's me but if you're trying to legitimize your new fangled way of distributing major motion pictures, it might be a good idea not to go with something that seems like porn on just your second go-around. Steven Soderbergh and Mark Cuban have teamed up to try to revitalize the Hollywood distribution game by releasing films simultaneously in theaters, on DVD and Pay-Per-View. The first film was Bubble which nobody saw. The new film is called "The Girlfriend Experience" and stars porn star Sasha Grey. I'm not really sure what her deal is besides the fact that she was recently in the video for Birthday Girl, a Roots song that I believe was left off of their latest album.

While the inclusion of Grey and the synopsis "life through the eyes of a 10,000 dollar a night hooker" is sure to help the film on the pay-per-view angle, I just don't see how it's the best idea since the theatrical hopes seem to be limited. Granted, Soderbergh did make his name with Sex, Lies, and Videotape so I may be rushing to judgement but it just seems like he's basically making straight-to-video films for the 2929 Entertainment deal. Personally, I don't think the idea works all that well to start with but making these art house films with a questionable theatrical draw makes even less sense. If Soderbergh isn't going to try to make something along the lines of his Ocean's movies, this venture is dead. His experimental films don't have much of an audience in the first place.

Plus the timing is terrible. Even if the film is an absolutely harrowing glimpse into life in the fast lane, most Americans will probably think to themselves, "Yeah but she made ten grand in one night."

Posted by SoulHonky at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Step 1: Mention your key attraction up top. In this case, it is J.J. Abrams. It's also smart not to mention the specific things he's worked on since saying "Lost", "Mission Impossible III", and "Cloverfield" will probably turn off more viewes

Step 2: If you are contractually obligated to put lesser people on, make sure their names are hard to read and their credits are even harder to make out. In this case, the writers from "Transformers" are credited below Abrams. I'm sorry but you really don't want many people knowing that the people who wrote a film so ridiculous that it almost made watching fighting robots unenjoyable are attached to your project. Maybe Michael Bay rewrote most of it but still the stink remains. (Sidenote: I tried to watch Transformers again since it's on cable and simply couldn't get through it. It is just beyond stupid and doesn't hold up after the initial "Oh cool! Starscream's ripping up fighter jets!" viewing)

Step 3: Don't have the poster actually explain anything and also add a couple of random yellow dots which will have Lost-ies blogging for months about what they could me and what they might be an allusion to.

Step 4: These guys apparently ignored this step but they probably should have done a little more with the title than spending 3 minutes playing with layer effects on Photoshop.

All in all, it's a nicely made poster and looks like the type of show that I'll ignore even though a handful of people at the office swear by it and won't stop discussing it at lunch. 

Posted by SoulHonky at 08:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Summer Box Office is upon us even though summer hasn't even begun yet. Studios have been moving up the release dates for most of their films and in the last few years, May has become the blockbuster month. This year would seem to follow suit with Indiana Jones opening in the last week of May and Prince Caspian opening the week before (with Iron Man and Speed Racer taking up the first two weekends).

The one thing that seems odd to me is that opening up the summer films early basically negates the whole supposed strength of the summer season. The going logic is that summer is a better time to open films because kids aren't in school. But since these films are now opening while kids are still in class, wouldn't that seem to say that blockbusters don't require an absence of pencils, books, and teacher's dirty looks?

As usual, this summer is packed to the gills with films. And, as usual, May is the beginning of the film season. The first four months of the year are basically empty. Wouldn't it make more sense to move some of these films that are going to be lost in the summer to the beginning of the year? Personally, I see The Love Guru and Get Smart as struggling to find their place in the summer slate but they would have been the best thing in the beginning of the year. If braindead crap like 10,000 BC and Meet the Spartans can make solid money in February and March, imagine how much cash Mike Myers could bring in.

Still, it seems like Hollywood has convined themselves that films must stay in season so we're probably going to be stuck with the typical set-up for 4 months, blockbusters for 4 months, leftovers for 4 months, and Oscar bait (with a few blockbuster films tossed in) for 4 months. In Hollywood, the most common sense usually lacks common sense. 

 

Posted by SoulHonky at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought I'd start spreading the Hollywood "wisdom" I've learned over the years to the six or so people who actually look at this site. The first saying isn't just based on the entertainment business, I've actually heard it from an auto mechanic as well. It's something that holds true for pretty much everyone.

"There's three things: fast, cheap, and good. You can only have two."

While it seems like a simply saying, it almost always holds true. If something is going to be good, it's either going to cost money or take time. Currently, it seems like Hollywood has been going for fast and cheap. While Hollywood films aren't exactly "cheap", the studios are scrimping at the core of these films, the script.
In "Adventures in the Screen Trade", William Goldman talks about many of the writing gigs he had in Hollywood, many of them lasting over a year. He worked on the script for "All The Predident's Men" for something like 16 months. The only time that happens today is when a film is put into turnaround. With a hot property like "President's Men", the studio would likely rush into production and (as is growing more and more commonplace) even start shooting before the script is finished. Sometimes it can work out but usually "working out" means that a film looks marketable enough to have a solid opening weekend, not that it is actually a good film.

Posted by SoulHonky at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)