You might assume that over the course of his forty-some year acting career, Al Pacino has probably won enough Oscars to stock a whole trophy room, but actually he’s only won once. It was for his performance as a blind, pissed-off, ex-military man with plans to kill himself after indulging in a weekend of fine food and fine escorts in Scent of a Woman. The movie was kind of a big deal back in the early 90s, getting nominated for a bunch of awards and winning everybody’s grandma and grandpa’s hearts in the theaters. Plus, Pacino had a catchphrase in the movie – “hoo-ah!” – which got referenced and quoted (to an annoying degree) for years after.

In 2009, Ramin Bahrani made a movie about a similarly pissed off old white guy who has made a conscious decision and an appointment to kill himself called Goodbye Solo. It didn’t have any name actors like an Al Pacino, and it didn’t manage to win any awards that you’ve ever heard of, but it was really good anyway. So much so that I think it’s a shame that it never got any play with anyone outside of the movie snob crowd.

What do they have in common?

Well, the most obvious connection is that both of these movies deal quite a bit with suicide. Both of the main characters are proud men who have lived a life of isolation and have gotten to the point where they’re incapable of making connections with other people. Walls are up, defenses are on high alert, and despair has reached its boiling point. But there are also some similarities among the secondary characters. In Scent of a Woman, Pacino’s character is toting around a young prep school kid (Chris O’Donnell) who’s on scholarship and is babysitting a blind man as an odd job. In Goodbye Solo the suicidal character (Red West) falls into a tenuous relationship with a Senegalese cab driver (Souleymane Sy Savane) who becomes an unlikely roommate. There are class issues going on with both characters. They’re both struggling to make it in worlds where the odds are stacked against them and they have to hustle twice as fast as everyone else to make their place, and they’re both oddly supplicating when relating to the other protagonists.

Why is Scent of a Woman overrated?

While Scent of a Woman is a movie that has its charms, it’s also a movie that hits you over the head with a brick. The prep school is full of sniveling, two-faced villains, and seemingly for no reason. There’s a subplot where Chris O’Donnell’s character witnesses some other students pulling a prank on the school’s headmaster that leads to a public trial and a moral quandary that O’Donnell wrestles with. He has to decide if he snitches and gets favors from the headmaster or if he keeps his mouth shut and gets expelled from school. The kids who pull the prank are cocky little shits to the ninth degree, the headmaster is an unbelievably conniving jerk, and they all just look like comic book villains. Not only isn’t their one-dimensional villainy necessary to the story, it’s actually harmful. O’Donnell’s conundrum would have been far more complex and affecting if they were three dimensional characters who were all just involved in an awkward situation.

The movie couldn’t possibly have made more of a melodramatic display of the Pacino character’s impending suicide. Every moment that he and O’Donnell share together is so visibly crafted to lead to uplifting and insightful catharsis that the film self-sabotages. And Thomas Newman’s pandering, manipulative score just underlines the efforts. Insight and inspiration should be the pleasant side effect of effective storytelling, when you make it the goal you start to look phony and you make it hard for the audience to put their trust in you. As soon as I feel a calculated effort to tug on my heart strings I tune out of what I’m watching. As a filmmaker you have to woo me, lull me into a place of complacency, and then strike with your hard hitting sales pitch. Scent of a Woman doesn’t have the subtlety of approach to fully achieve its lofty goals.

And nowhere is the blunt nature of this movie more apparent than in Pacino’s performance. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very engaging, and largely he’s the reason to watch this thing; but this movie is where Pacino went over to the dark side. This is the performance where he realized he could stop acting, start yelling, and coast on persona alone. Even though he’s fun to watch, he overpowers everyone else on the screen, he chews up every scene and spits it out, and he leaves his co-stars with nothing. And, yeah, I get it, Chris O’Donnell doesn’t really have much to give as far as verbal sparring goes, but that’s another problem with the movie. O’Donnell is a blank page through 90% of this. He’s such a timid, vanilla dope that he’s hard to relate to. He spends the whole movie whining about teenage social issues and then when real life and death stuff starts happening in front of him, he sells it like it’s no more grave than spilled milk. This movie needed a kid who could charm in his naiveté and could add some gravity to the suicide stuff. O’Donnell wasn’t it.

Why is Goodbye Solo underpraised?

The biggest reason to watch this movie is that the characters are so rich, real, and relatable. Unlike Scent of a Woman where it’s the Al Pacino Show and everyone else just has to stare wide-eyed as he speaks in quips, this movie makes sure that the grumpy old man and his unlikely friend are both interesting. Watching a back and forth between two people on equal footing is so much more layered an experience than watching one guy show off. The acting here is on another level as well. Savane’s character is a real fast-talking huckster type, always hustling for that extra dollar, and generally that’s the sort of character that I can’t stand, but Savane is so charismatic and open that you can’t help but fall in love with him over the course of the film. And Red West is basically the anti-Pacino here. He gives nothing, he’s silent for huge stretches of the film, but every second that he’s on screen he has you captivated and wondering what’s happening inside of his head. This is a clinic in minimalist acting. West just lives in his character’s skin and at no point does it feel like you’re watching a performance.

The storytelling here is on a whole other level too. This movie hits the emotional heights of Scent of a Woman without exerting 1/10th of the effort. It doesn’t tell you as much about its characters, it doesn’t beg you nearly as desperately to buy into what its selling, and yet I found it to be at least as captivating. The last ten minutes of this movie, when you finally come face to face with the inevitable suicide that builds throughout the film…it’s some of the most gripping cinema I’ve ever seen. Comparatively, the suicide scene in Scent of a Woman is well-acted, but it feels so much less authentic and so much more like an Oscar clip. There’s something to be said for brevity and economy of effort when it comes to your storytelling as well. Goodbye Solo gets the job done in an hour and a half, whereas Scent of a Woman lasts well over two hours and doesn’t manage to develop anything requiring the extra investment of your time.

Evening the odds.

Scent of a Woman paints in broad strokes and is aiming itself at a wide audience. I have some quibbles with the movie, but I think that generally it accomplishes what it means to well, and I’m not saying that Goodbye Solo should be seen and loved by as many people. Goodbye Solo is a challenging art film that makes its bones with subtlety and nuance. It’s really only going to appeal to a small portion of the moviegoing audience. But those that it does appeal to, it’s going to absolutely knock out. It’s the difference between a shotgun and a sniper rifle. Scent of a Woman is a shotgun spraying buckshot into a crowd. It’s going to effect a lot of people, but generally everyone is going to walk away from it and move on afterward. Goodbye Solo is only going to hit one person in the crowd, but it’s going to knock them dead. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to everyone, but I hope that as many people who might be susceptible to its charms as possible eventually get a chance to see what it has to offer.

Open up your eyes with more Over/Under

Here’s yet another upside to the Akira shutdown (beyond the immediate benefit of the project hopefully just not getting made in its current, bizarrely tone-deaf state) – its star Garrett Hedlund is negotiating for a role in a film that actually sounds somewhat suitable for him. Imagine that!

Variety reports that, with Hedlund’s schedule currently much more open post-Akira-shutdown-gate, he’s negotiating for a role in the Coen Brothers‘ next film, Inside Llewyn Davis. The film is already set to star Oscar Isaac in the titular role, and follows the character of Davis, a 60s folk singer based on Dave Van Ronk. While Hedlund’s role is not yet specified, the film is set during the 1960s in New York’s Greenwich Village and will likely be populated with a number of characters that, like Isaac’s, will be based on famous performers. While Hedlund might have underwhelmed in Tron: Legacy, his singing work in Country Strong was lovely and more than capable, and he exhibited a true country twang that should cross over nicely to a folk singer role.

The film will also star Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman, Jeanine Serralles, and F. Murray Abraham.

Hedlund will next be seen in Walter Salles’ On the Road adaptation, which co-stars Kristen Stewart and Sam Riley. Hedlund will be play Dean Moriarty, author Jack Kerouac’s pseudonym for Neal Cassady. While I cannot say I am excited for that film, I’m curious to see what sort of work all three leads can turn in for a film that seems primed to exhibit talents they’ve yet to get a chance to really show off. [Variety, via Cinema Blend]

Universal Pictures will turn a century old on April 30, and in advance of their 100th birthday, the studio has trotted out a new (shiny!) logo that touts their triple-digit age. Why they didn’t get Willard Scott to do one of those Smuckers Jam birthday label shout-out things on The Today Show, I simply don’t know, but there’s still time! Of course, that new logo is neat and all (and, again, shiny!), but what’s most exciting about this news is the studio’s announcement that they will also celebrate their centennial with the restoration of thirteen of its most famous films.

THR reports that the studio has restored All Quiet on the Western Front, The Birds, Abbott and Costello’s Buck Privates, Dracula (1931), the Spanish-language Dracula (which was filmed on the same set at night), Frankenstein, Jaws, Schindler’s List, Out of Africa, Pillow Talk, Bride of Frankenstein, The Sting, and To Kill a Mockingbird. The studio plans to release the restorations throughout 2012. Many of the restorations will be sold in “collectible book style packaging with memorabilia.” Moreover, Universal is reportedly quite happy with the work on previously damaged films, particularly when it comes to crisper sound in Frankenstein and “appalling graininess” in To Kill a Mockingbird. Also, fans of Out of Africa can breathe a sigh of relief – as “Meryl Streep loses a weird wobble in her walk possibly caused by projectors that enlarged the sprocket holes.” I wish it was Universal’s 100th birthday every day!

Regarding the new logo, Universal Studios President and COO Ron Meyer said, “It didn’t change the logo in a way that audiences wouldn’t completely understand, but it brought us up to date.” Ron, I just can’t argue with logic like that. Meyer continued, “A hundred years is a real milestone. And, I mean, what could be more important than movies? Seriously!” No, Ron, seriously?

We will also see an animated version of the new Uni logo with their next animated outing, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. And, with Universal’s panache for making film-appropriate logo variants for certain films, we can expect to see that new logo with a few tweaks for fun throughout its use (something like The Flintstones’ Univershell log0).

While reporting on a new studio logo might sound a touch fluffy, we here at Film School Rejects are just buckwild about studio logos and title cards – don’t you remember Matt Patches’ epic variant logos piece from April? No? Nooo? Here, check it out again.

It seems as if Lindsay Lohan might be most comfortable playing anyone but herself. Lohan has constantly imitated Marilyn Monroe in photo shoots over the years, and the actress was long attached to Matthew Wilder’s Linda Lovelace biopic, Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story. The film seemed stalled out due to the Lohan commitments that could never come to fruition. Lohan was dropped from the project in November of 2010, and Malin Ackerman stepped in to the role shortly after. So, if you can’t be Marilyn and you can’t be Lovelace, who can Lohan be?

If a report from Deadline Hampstead is to be believed, Elizabeth Taylor. I’m sorry, what?

The outlet reports, quite bizarrely, that Lohan is “in early talks for the female lead in Lifetime’s original movie Elizabeth & Richard: A Love Story, chronicling the enduring love of movie icons Taylor and Richard Burton, whose fiery romance was the most notorious, publicized and celebrated love affair of its day.” The film has been written by Christopher Monger, who also penned the Temple Grandin biopic and directed the forgotten Hugh Grant-starrer The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain). Let’s parse that – Lindsay Lohan might play Elizabeth Taylor in a TV movie written by a guy most famous for writing an award-winning film about a high-functioning autistic woman who loved animals. Well, okay, you’d think Monger would be getting better work, but them’s the breaks, I guess.

Lohan has, in gentle terms, not had the easiest go of things in the last few years. She’s been in and out of rehab and jail, and her continually poor decisions have been meticulously chronicled by the press. Lohan has often proclaimed that she wants to work, but her personal life has intruded on her ability to get (and keep) jobs. She has recently appeared in Machete, starred in the straight-to-TV-and-DVD flick Labor Pains, had a character arc on the now-cancelled series Ugly Betty, and completed work on InAPPropriate Comedy (once known as Underground Comedy). That is a dismal collection of gigs.

Of course, one could argue that Lohan’s life in the spotlight could prepare for such a film that focuses on another famous starlet who rose to prominence from a child star while often being in the public’s eye. But, of course, one could also argue that Lohan’s talent is still incredibly unproven (how long are we going keep pointing to Mean Girls and The Parent Trap as examples of her chops?) and to cast her as one of Hollywood’s most beloved icons is stupid at best and insulting at worst.

American horror master Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Poltergeist) has contributed substantially to modern classic scarefests and what we consider to be a the standard American horror canon, so it’s interesting that his latest film, Djinn, was filmed entirely in the United Arab Emirates and uses a menace straight out of Arab folklore and Islamic teachings. The film follows “an Emirati couple (played by Khalid Laith and Razane Jammal) return from a trip to the United States only to discover that their new apartment has been built on a site that is home to some malevolent beings.” Seriously, everybody needs to put some time into investigating just what their homes are built on.

But Djinn might be encountering something even more terrifying than issues of architecture – STYD reported just last week that the film might not see the light of day, as rumors held that “someone close to Abu Dhabi’s royal family has seen the movie and does not appreciate its portrayal of the UAE and considers the movie to be politically subversive, and that they’ve paid off the studio’s chairman, Mohammed Al Mubarak, to bury it…Two other film companies even offered to buy it outright, but the chairman refused to hear their bids.” But after that story was posted, another site got official word from the studio that held that “These rumours are unfounded. Djinn is in active post-production, and Image Nation looks forward to releasing the film in theatres later this year.  As for offers, there have been no formal offers were made for Djinn.” Looks like this one might be a wait-and-see.

While we wait, check out the film’s first long-form promotional trailer after the break.

Per Wikipedia (the source of all important information I need at a moment’s notice), “djinn” (or “jinn” as they are more popularly known) are “genies are supernatural creatures in Arab folklore and Islamic teachings that occupy a parallel world to that of mankind. Together, jinn, humans and angels make up the three sentient creations of Allah. Religious sources say barely anything about them; however, the Qur’an mentions that Jinn are made of smokeless flame or ‘scorching fire’. Like human beings, the Jinn can also be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent.” Evil, ohh, please let them be evil! They look pretty evil here!

And, it is just me, or does that apartment building setting remind anyone else of Poltergeist III? In a good way, of course.

Of course, Djinn does not currently have a U.S. release date, but let’s hope we see it soon rather than later (or never). [MovieSushi, via STYD and FirstShowing]

It’s really about time that the Sundance Film Festival honored perennial indie it-girl Parker Posey with some kind of, well, some kind of something! Wait, what? Posey has appeared in over a dozen Sundance films? Including one this year? Sorry, but for the star of Party Girl (a film I will defend until the day I die, falafels and rain-soaked books forever, amen), we really need to do something much, much bigger. An awards-hosting gig? Yes, yes, that will do just fine.

Terrible and bizarre reporting gimmick aside, the Sundance Institute has today announced that Posey will serve as of host of this year’s Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony. The ceremony will take place on its traditional day – the last Saturday of the festival (this year, that’s January 28) at 7PM and will be available via live-stream to those not able to attend the festival. As ever, the Awards will be followed by the Closing Night Party, which is basically a good excuse for everyone still in attendance at the festival to get roaringly drunk and talk to each other (it’s also a bad excuse for everyone to get roaringly drunk and talk to each other).

In addition to the announcement that Parker will host, the full list of the festival’s six juries has also been revealed. Names that will not surprise you – Fenton Bailey, Shari Berman, Cliff Martinez, Anthony Mackie, Cliff Martinez, Lynn Shelton, Mike Judge, and Dee Rees. Names that might surprise you – Justin Lin (director of Fast & Furious and Fast Five, and oh, pipe down, I know he directed Sundance film Better Luck Tomorrow, just go with me here). After the break, check out the full listing of all of this year’s jurors, along with biographies that should give you a taste for just why they were picked for the gig.

U.S. DOCUMENTARY JURY

Fenton Bailey
Fenton Bailey made his Sundance Film Festival debut in 1998 with the documentary Party Monster. He later co-wrote and co-directed a narrative version of Party Monster, which debuted at Sundance in 2003. Fenton has gone on to produce and/or direct seven films launched at the festival, including Inside Deep Throat and, most recently, the Emmy^®-nominated documentary Becoming Chaz. In 2010 he produced the Emmy^®-winning documentary The Last Beekeeper, and in 2011 he produced and directed the Emmy^®-nominated Wishful Drinking.

Shari Berman
Shari Springer Berman is an Oscar- and Emmy^®-nominated filmmaker. With partner Robert Pulcini, she wrote and directed American Splendor (Grand Jury Prize, 2003 Sundance Film Festival; FIPRESCI Award, Cannes Film Festival; Best Adapted Screenplay, Writers Guild Awards and Best Adapted Screenplay Nomination, Academy Awards^®). Cinema Verite, Berman and Pulcini’s most recent film, received nine Emmy^® nominations including Best Movie, Outstanding Directing and a win for Best Editing. Their first film, Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s, won Best Documentary Feature at the 1997 Hamptons International Film Festival.

Heather Croall
Heather Croall is the Director for Sheffield Doc/Fest, the premiere documentary event in the UK and regarded as one of the best documentary events in the world. Heather was previously the director of the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC), where she developed the innovative matchmaking pitching initiative MeetMarket.

Charles Ferguson
Charles Ferguson directed and produced Inside Job, which won the Academy Award^® for Best Documentary Feature in 2011. His first documentary, No End In Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and won a Special Jury Prize. The film went on to be nominated for the Oscar in 2008. Charles is the author of four books, including High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner’s Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars and Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World (co-authored with Charles Morris). He is currently working on a book about the global financial crisis, to be released by Random House in Spring 2012. Charles is the founder and president of Representational Pictures, Inc.

Kim Roberts
Kim Roberts is an editor of feature documentaries. Her recent work includes Waiting for Superman, Food, Inc., Autism the Musical, and the upcoming Last Call at the Oasis. Kim won an Emmy^® for Autism the Musical, her third nomination. She has received two Eddie Award nominations from the American Cinema Editors, and a WGA nomination. Her other films include: Oscar Nominees and Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winners Daughter from Danang and Long Night’s Journey into Day, Two Days in October, The Fall of Fujimori, Lost Boys of Sudan, Daddy & Papa, A Hard Straight and Splinters.

U.S. DRAMATIC JURY

Justin Lin
Justin Lin’s solo directorial debut, the critically acclaimed Better Luck Tomorrow, premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and garnered a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize. In April 2003, the film went on to make box office history as the highest-grossing (per-screen average) opening weekend film for MTV Films/Paramount Pictures. In 2009, he directed Universal’s Fast & Furious, which reunited the original cast of the franchise and sparked new life for series. Justin then directed the critically-acclaimed fifth installment of the franchise, Fast Five, which has become one of Universal’s most financially successful movies of all time.

Anthony Mackie
Anthony Mackie is a classically trained actor who studied at the Julliard School of Drama. His work spans the stage and screen. He was discovered after receiving rave reviews while playing Tupac Shakur in the off-Broadway Up Against the Wind. He earned IFP Spirit and Gotham Award nominations for his performance in Rodney Evan’s Brother to Brother, which won the Special Dramatic Jury Price at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, as well as best feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. He also played Sgt. JT Sanborn in Kathryn’s Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, a film that not only earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination, but also earned Academy Awards^® for the Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing and Best Writing.

Cliff Martinez
Cliff Martinez began as a drummer for several bands during the punk era including the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Dickies. He later scored Steven Soderbergh’s first theatrical release, 1989’s sex, lies, and videotape, leading to a longstanding relationship which includes Kafka, The Limey, Traffic, Solaris and Contagion. His credits also include Narc, The Lincoln Lawyer and Nicolas Refn’s Drive.

Lynn Shelton
Lynn Shelton was a stage actor until attending graduate school in photography at the School of Visual Arts, at which point she became an editor and experimental filmmaker. Her first narrative feature as a writer/director, We Go Way Back, won the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance in 2006. Her second, My Effortless Beauty, premiered at SXSW and earned her the Acura Someone to Watch Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Humpday, her third feature, was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival as well as the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Your Sister’s Sister premiered at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival and is playing in the out-of-competition Spotlight section at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Amy Vincent
Amy Vincent is an award-winning cinematographer. She has worked with Kasi Lemmons on Eve’s Bayou, Dr. Hugo, Caveman’s Valentine and with Craig Brewer on Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan, and the recently released Footloose. In addition, Amy’s work has garnered prestigious awards, including the 2005 Sundance Film Festival Cinematography Award for Hustle & Flow and the 2001 Women in Film Kodak Vision Award.

WORLD DOCUMENTARY JURY

Nick Fraser
Nick Fraser has served as the Editor of Storyville since it started in 1997. After graduating from Oxford he worked as a reporter, television producer and editor. His publications include a biography of Eva Peron, The Voice of Modern Hatred, and The Importance of Being Eton. Storyville films have won more than 200 awards, including four Oscars, a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and several Griersons, Emmys^® and Peabodys.

Clara Kim
Clara Kim is Senior Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center. She was formerly Gallery Director & Curator at REDCAT in Los Angeles where she organized residencies, commissions, exhibitions and publications with international contemporary artists. She was co-curator of the international biennial Media City Seoul 2010 and organized a global forum on independent spaces called State of Independence in 2011. She has sat on juries for Creative Capital Foundation, Artadia Artist Fellowship, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and Louis Comfort Tiffany Award; is on the advisory board of East of Borneo; and is the recipient of fellowships from the Warhol Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council.

Jean-Marie Teno
Jean-Marie Teno has been producing and directing films on the colonial and post-colonial history of Africa for over 25 years. His films are noted for their personal and original approach to issues of race, cultural identity, African history and contemporary politics. Teno’s films have been honored at festivals worldwide: Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Yamagata, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Liepzig, San Francisco, and London. Teno has been a guest of the Flaherty Seminar, an artist in residence at the Pacific Film Archive of the University of California, Berkeley, a Copeland Fellow at Amherst College, and has lectured at numerous universities. He was a Visiting professor at Hampshire College in 2009.

WORLD DRAMATIC JURY

Julia Ormond
British actress Julia Ormond received the London Drama Critics’ Award for Best Newcomer in Christopher Hampton’s Faith, Hope and Charity. She starred in the epic Legends of the Fall, played the lead role with Harrison Ford in the film Sabrina, and starred in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In 2010 she won a supporting actress Emmy^® Award for her role in the HBO Movie Temple Grandin. She is the Founder and President of the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking (ASSET), which works with corporations, NGOs, government officials, and individuals to create the systemic change needed to eradicate slavery at source. Julia is a former United Nations Goodwill Ambassador against Trafficking and Slavery, and the founding co-chair of Film Aid International. She can currently be seen in the Weinstein Company’s My Week with Marilyn in which she plays actress Vivien Leigh.

Richard Pena
Richard Peña has been the Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Director of the New York Film Festival since 1988. At the Film Society, Peña has organized retrospectives of Michelangelo Antonioni, Sacha Guitry, Abbas Kiarostami, Robert Aldrich, Roberto Gavaldon, Ritwik Ghatak, Kira Muratova, Youssef Chahine, Yasujiro Ozu, Carlos Saura and Amitabh Bachchan, as well as major film series devoted to African, Swedish, Israeli, Cuban, Polish, Hungarian, Arab, Korean, Taiwanese and Argentine cinema. He is a Professor of Film Studies at Columbia University, where he specializes in film theory and international cinema, and from 2006-2009 was a Visiting Professor in Spanish at Princeton University. He is also currently the co-host of WNET/Channel 13’s weekly Reel 13.

Alexei Popogrebsky
Alexei Popogrebsky was born in 1972 in Moscow into a family of a screenwriter. He wrote and directed the award-winning films Roads to Koktebel (2003) (with Boris Khlebnikov), Simple Things (2007), and How I Ended This Summer (2010), set and shot on a polar station in the Russian Arctic and based entirely around two characters. The film won two Silver Bears in Berlin, Gold Hugo in Chicago and Best Film at BFI London Film Festival. Alexei is currently developing his first English-language project, a 3D fantasy drama.

ALFRED P. SLOAN JURY

Scott Burns
Scott Burns recently wrote the screenplay for the Warner Bros. film, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The film, starring Bradley Cooper and currently in development, is set to begin production in early 2012 and marks Burns’ fourth collaboration with Steven Soderbergh, who will direct. He also wrote Contagion and co-wrote the Academy Award^®-winning Bourne Ultimatum, starring Matt Damon and directed by Paul Greengrass. As a producer, he received the Humanitas Prize and the Stanley Kramer Award from the Producers Guild of America for his Academy Award^®-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. He wrote and directed HBO Films’ critically acclaimed PU-239, which was produced by Soderbergh and George Clooney. Scott also wrote The Library, a stage play based on the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School with Kennedy/Marshall producing. He began his career in advertising and was part of the creative team responsible for the original “Got Milk?” campaign.

Tracy Day
Tracy Day co-founded the World Science Festival in 2008 with world-renowned physicist and best-selling author Brian Greene. She serves as CEO and oversees the creative and programmatic offerings of the World Science Festival. She is a four-time National News Emmy^® award-winning journalist and has produced live and documentary programming for the nation’s preeminent television news divisions for over two decades. At ABC News she was producer for This Week with David Brinkley, editorial and field producer for Nightline and story editor for the news magazine, Day One. Tracy has produced documentaries, specials and live town meeting broadcasts for PBS, The Discovery Channel, CNN, Lifetime and CNBC. In addition to Emmy^® Awards, she won a Hugo Award, a 2004 Clarion Award and the CINE Golden Eagle for investigative journalism. She has been an adjunct professor in the Leadership and the Arts program at the Sanford Institute for Public Policy.

Helen Fisher
Helen Fisher, PhD, is a biological Anthropologist at Rutgers University. She studies the evolution, brain systems (fMRI) and cross-cultural patterns of romantic love, mate choice, marriage, adultery, divorce, gender differences in the brain, personality, temperament, and business personalities. She has written five internationally best selling books, including WHY HIM? WHY HER?; WHY WE LOVE; and ANATOMY OF LOVE. She lectures worldwide. Among her speeches are those at the World Economic Forum at Davos, TED, United Nations, Smithsonian, Salk Institute, Harvard Medical School and Aspen Institute. She publishes widely in academic and lay journals. For her work in the media, Helen received the American Anthropological Association’s Distinguished Service Award.

SHORT FILM JURY

Mike Judge
Mike Judge is the creator of Beavis and Butt-Head for MTV and King of the Hill for FOX TV. He expanded into writing and directing his own live-action films, Office Space, Idiocracy and Extract. He’s done voices for South Park and acted in Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids movies. Mike recently resurrected Beavis and Butt-Head with 12 new shows for MTV.

Dee Rees
Dee Rees is an alumna of New York University’s graduate film program and a Sundance Institute Directing Lab Fellow. She’s written and directed several short films including the award-winning Pariah, which screened at over 40 festivals worldwide. Her feature documentary, Eventual Salvation, premiered on the Sundance Channel in 2009, and her debut narrative feature, Pariah, opened the U.S. Dramatic competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Dee received a Renew Media Arts Fellowship for her work, and recently completed an endowed residency at Yaddo. Currently, Dee is writing an original screenplay for Focus Features and is also in development on a new television series with HBO. Dee interned on Spike Lee’s films When The Levees Broke and Inside Man.

Shane Smith
Shane Smith has been a programmer, jury member and speaker at film festivals all over the world. He is currently the Director of Public Programmes at TIFF Bell Lightbox. He previously served as the Executive Producer, In-flight Entertainment at Spafax Canada Inc., where he oversaw all in-flight programming for Air Canada. He also was the Director of Programming for the digital TV channels Movieola: The Short Film Channel and Silver Screen Classics. He was a Short Film Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival from 2006-2010 and for six years was the Director of the Canadian Film Centre’s Worldwide Short Film Festival. He is a former Programmer for the Inside Out Festival, a member of the Organizing Committee of the International Short Film Conference and was formerly on the Board of Directors of the Centre for Aboriginal Media, presenters of the imagineNATIVE Film Festival.

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This year’s Sundance Film Festival runs from January 19 to January 29. Warm up your little hands with some of our lead-up coverage to the festival, and brace yourself for plenty more very, very soon.

In a recent E! article about the nudity that’s going to be on display in the upcoming, Amanda Seyfried-starring biopic of 70s porn star Linda Lovelace, Lovelace, one of the film’s producers, Patrick Muldoon, made some hilariously hypocritical comments that were clearly designed to drum up interest for the film based on promising Seyfried’s boobs, but which still try to paint the people making the movie as serious artists who would never do such a thing.

He starts off the interview by promising that the film is going to be“very risqué,” but then adds out of the other side of his mouth that it’s also “not about the nudity.” It’s not about the nudity because, according to Muldoon, “it’s profound, the performance that she’s giving…she’s doing such an amazing job. We’re about two weeks into filming, and the movie’s going to be incredible.” If that’s the case, then great, but why are we talking about the nudity at all? Don’t worry, it gets better.

Muldoon shows what deep thinkers they are over at Eclectic Pictures by saying, “thematically, it’s talking about how abusive the porn industry was to Linda Lovelace.” He then goes on to clarify, “yes, there’s a lot of nudity, but it’s a message movie about respecting women.” So in order to make a movie about the exploitation of women that goes on in the porn industry and to send a message about how we need to respect women, you’ve hired a hot young actress, paid her to be filmed naked, and are now selling the film on the promise of everyone getting to see her goodies? You stay classy, Mr. Muldoon.

I have to admit, though, the sales pitch worked. I’m now totally pumped to see Lovelace, and it’s almost 100% because of the chance to see Seyfried shedding some layers and showing some skin. That’s the reason I saw Chloe and that’s the reason I’ll see this; not because of any promises of a “profound performance.” I usually go see movies that haven’t been sleazy in their promotional campaigns to get something like that. Thanks for letting me know ahead of time what kind of movie Lovelace is going to be.

It’s been my opinion for a while now that all-you-can-eat subscription services like Netflix are going to be a temporary thing with a limited window of success. Back when movie streaming was a minor thing aimed at a niche, tech savvy audience, it probably made sense for studios to sign deals with Netflix giving them access to their film libraries. Even five years ago high speed Internet wasn’t so ubiquitous, and if you wanted to stream something over the Internet, that pretty much meant you were streaming it to your computer monitor. But in today’s world of omnipresent wifi and apps that allow everyone to stream movies to smart TVs, video game consoles, app-enabled Blu-ray players, smart phones, and tablet computers, the entire game has changed.

Now people can stream movies wherever they are, whenever they want. And they do… a lot. I think we’ve all seen that statistic floating around that 1/3 of all Internet traffic in the evenings comes from people streaming movies through Netflix. While I’m not in any position to prove that such a statistic is true, let’s just assume that it’s mostly true; that accounts for a huge amount of movie watching that ten years ago was being done through the more profitable to studios vehicle of DVD purchases and rentals.

Recent looks at the film industry’s health have shown that the only two places where the industry is seeing any growth are in the sale of high definition Blu-ray discs and in video on demand streaming. With the entire home video market ditching DVDs and becoming streaming right before our eyes, it’s long past time that the studios start taking steps to regain a bigger piece of the pie. That means killing streaming services like Netflix, where they’re paid pennies every time a movie they own gets watched, and promoting pay-per-view video on demand services that generate more income; which means we’re about to enter a period of open hostility between Netflix and the people who produce the content they’re reliant on for subscribers.

The first shots in that war may have very well just gotten fired. A report from Deadline Reseda says that, at this year’s CES, Warner Bros. has announced that the window between when a movie gets released on DVD and when Netflix can begin offering it to its subscribers has just been doubled from 28 days to 56. Warner Home Video North America president Mark Horak said, “Since we implemented a 28 day window for subscription and kiosk, we have seen very positive results with regard to our sell-through business. One of the key initiatives for Warner Bros. is to improve the value of ownership for the consumer and the extension of the rental window — along with our support of UltraViolet — is an important piece of that strategy.”

What is UltraViolet?

It’s a service created through a partnership of most of the big studios and retailers that allows a person who purchases a film in any format the legal rights to stream it on pretty much any of their various electronic doodads. Training consumers to stream their content this way rather than through Netflix is going to be an essential step the studios will have to take if they want to keep making enough money to produce the big budget spectacles that audiences have come to expect from Hollywood. Warner Bros. trying to keep their DVDs out of Netflix’s hands is the first step, the next will be to wait and see if other studios follow suit. And perhaps after that we’ll start seeing studios letting their rights deals with Netflix lapse altogether, so that the only place consumers can acquire their movies will be in their own video on demand services where the studios see the bulk of the profits. If that comes to pass, then it will surely mean doom for the company famous for their little red envelopes. Whichever way the wind blows, the next five years are guaranteed to be both volatile and interesting for the home video market.

Hey look, it’s an edition of This Week in Blu-ray. We’d bet you didn’t see that coming, did you? Anyway, it’s back to the grind with plenty of great new Blu-ray releases to talk about. Everything from one of the best shows on television to Brad Pitt revolutionizing the game of baseball to a few releases from previous weeks that we’re sad to have missed. This includes, of course, a release from last week that has us developing a severe case of mysophobia.

Boardwalk Empire: The Complete First Season

It has taken HBO something like forever to get their premiere drama out on Blu-ray and DVD, but the story of Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) and his power struggles at the top of 1920s Atlantic City is more than worth the wait. From an all-star cast led by Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Michael Shannon and Kelly McDonald (alongside Paz de la Huerta’s naked body), Boardwalk is one show that does not fail to keep its audience glued from episode to episode. Which makes it the perfect title for a Blu-ray purchase, as you’ll want to keep watching until you hit the end. And with its beautiful menus, well-designed and sturdy packaging and decent assortment of extras, the Blu-ray set feels right at home in the stylish world of Nucky and friends. It’s the collector’s item that you’ll want to have on your shelf for years to come.

Moneyball

The Pitch: Brad Pitt reinvents baseball with a little help from Jonah Hill.

Why Buy? Who knew that this movie would produce a Golden Globe nomination for the otherwise award unworthy Jonah Hill? And who knew that he’d actually be deserving, as is Brad Pitt for his performance as Billy Beane, the ambitious and inventive General Manager of the Oakland Athletics. Beane and his sidekick Peter Brand (Hill) used math and statistical analysis to buck age-old baseball management trends and turn their small market team into a contender among giants like the New York Yankees. With the help of a script from Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin and director Bennett Miller’s ability to give the whole thing a big scale, Moneyball is a real winner. One of my personal favorites of last year. It’s a perfect buy to kick off the New Year as well, as it does not disappoint on Blu-ray.

Contagion

The Pitch: Steven Soderbergh assembles a bunch of big name actors and infects them with a virus.

Why Rent? Because buying this movie will probably make you want to watch it multiple times, which would make you want to wash your hands a lot, which may turn you into a crazy germaphobe like Howie Mandel. And no one wants to be a weird bald man who hosts an endless string of stupid gameshows. Especially not because of a movie starring Matt Damon. That said, this viral outbreak story is one of Soderbergh’s biggest efforts yet, showing the ferocity of public panic as a vicious disease rips through the world’s population. It’s an interesting film that will make you very uncomfortable around other people and a Blu-ray that delivers impressive sight, sound and a few little extras. Too bad it doesn’t come with a bottle of Purell. Otherwise it would be Deal or No Deal, here I come!

Fright Night

The Pitch: Colin Farrell will bite you, damn it.

Why Rent? In August during its theatrical release, our own Dustin Hucks called Fright Night a slick, sinister and playful thriller. He also proclaimed that it was a worthy remake, something rare in this day and age. Why it has taken me so long to get around to seeing it, then, is a complete mystery. Anton Yelchin stars as Charlie Brewster, a young man who discovers the fact that his neighbor, a good-looking night owl named Jerry (played by Colin Farrell) is a vampire. This discovery, as you might imagine, piques his curiosity and draws Charlie closer to the danger zone, which inevitably lands him in the crosshairs of a dangerous member of the undead community. It’s fun, sometimes bloody and Colin Farrell delivers a wicked performance, as does David Tennant as Peter Vincent. I should have listened, as I would have enjoyed seeing this in theaters. That said, the Blu-ray more than satiated my appetite for blood. It also came in 3D, which wasn’t so bad, even on a much smaller screen. The only holdback on the Blu-ray is that it’s light on supplements, despite being heavy on enjoyment.

The Hangover Part II

The Pitch: It’s basically The Hangover, but with more Thai people.

Why Rent? This is one of the aforementioned titles that I missed somewhere along the lines in December. To say the least, there’s nothing that happens in this movie that won’t feel at least a little familiar to those who saw The Hangover. What’s important to remember, however, is that repetition does not preclude a film from being funny. Sure, it’s not discovering new comedic territory, but The Hangover II is also not leaving any stone unturned or any laugh unearned. The old gang is back — Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, Ken Jeong, a monkey and Ken Jeong’s penis — and they are doing all they can to survive a torrid night in Bangkok. It’s worth a few laughs and on Blu-ray, it goes so far as to have a decent assortment of extras. At the very least, it will help you kill a few hours and forget about the stresses of life.

Killer Elite

The Pitch: It’s an action movie with Jason Statham, Robert De Niro and Clive Owen’s porno mustache.

Why Avoid? Where to begin with this helpless bore of an actioner. Perhaps its a major loser of the expectations game, as it was being sold as a non-stop action thrill ride, or perhaps its just a completely undercooked tale of a bunch of washed up assassins who set out to sort of almost maybe kill people. Never in our wildest dreams could we dream up a situation that pits Clive Owen against Jason Statham only to deliver absolute boredom. But here it is in the form of a convoluted tale of ex-spies who get tangled in a web of lies only to end up trying to kill each other for a completely undefined and totally irrelevant reason. When the action finally drops, there’s no one around to watch it. Which begs the question: if action happens and no one is awake to watch it, does it still have a soundtrack?

Final Destination 5

The Pitch: Terrible architectural design tries to kill nubile young people.

Why Avoid? Because like the characters in this movie, death is stalking you. Except for most of us, death will come in the form of heart disease, cancer or old age. It will not be quite so clever — and surprisingly unclever — as death, the character in this fifth installment of the Final Destination franchise. The visuals are crisp, the CGI is surprisingly seamless and the soundtrack absolutely screams in Dolby 5.1 HD, but it’s all just fodder for distraction away from the fact that after all these years, you’re still watching the same death gags over and over again for no good reason. In a world of Saw, Hostel, Human Centipede and A Serbian Film, we’ve become desensitized to all this twenty-something carnage. And once there’s no more shock value left, what does a franchise like Final Destination have? I’ll let you answer that one for yourselves.

• 1911: Collector’s Edition (Well Go USA)
• Billy Elliot (Universal)
• Fever Pitch (20th Century Fox)
• Film Socialisme (Kino)
• Greece: Secrets of the Past (Image)
• The Hellstrom Chronicle (Olive Films)
• Higher Ground (Sony)
• John Tucker Must Die (20th Century Fox)
• Just Married (20th Century Fox)
• Just My Luck (20th Century Fox)
• Looney Tunes Showcase: Volume One (Warner Brothers)
• Nature: The Animal House (PBS)
• Never Been Kissed (20th Century Fox)
• Proof (Echo Bridge)
• Shallow Hal (20th Century Fox)
• Sinners and Saints (Starz/Anchor Bay)
• That ’70s Show: Season 1 (Mill Creek)
• There Be Dragons (20th Century Fox)
• What’s Your Number? (20th Century Fox)

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that, tonight, is focused on a cornacopia of new Blu-ray release information. From James Bond to Jake Gittes, it’s going to be a beautiful year of high definition goodness. There is also non-Blu-ray news, for those who like variety.

We begin tonight with a look at the box for Bond 50, the upcoming release of the Golden Anniversary Blu-ray edition of all 22 James Bond films on Blu-ray for the first time as one complete offering. MGM and Fox laid out plans at CES today, which included making it available for pre-order right now. Put simply, it’s beautiful. They even delivered a trailer, which I’ve included after the jump.

We’ve also received word today that Paramount Home Video intends to release Chinatown on Blu-ray on April 3, 2012. As you can see to the right, the cover art is gorgeous. Beyond that, its special features also sound like a big deal. The Roman Polanski film will come with a commentary track featuring Screenwriter Robert Towne and Director David Fincher. David Fincher barely bothers to do commentary tracks for his own films, let alone those he didn’t direct. So count this among life’s little blessings.

The folks at Time Magazine present 20 movies to look forward to in 2012. More importantly, they also deliver 10 movies to completely ignore in 2012. There you go Three Stooges, you finally made a list.

Over on a newly discovered blog called Shadowplay, there’s an interesting countdown at work. An exploration of Brigitte Bardot’s 26 bathrooms. Why? Because that beauty was always in the damn bathroom. And for good reason.

We feature art tonight from a perennial favorite, artist Dave Williams, who is responsible for some of the most fun posters of last year. He begins his 2012 with a limited edition print called The Finest Features of Forrest Gump. A better title would be The Many Faces of Forrest Gump or Jobs Forrest Gump Done Did. Either way, it’s fun:

Salon’s Irin Carmon explains why liberals love Downton Abbey, despite the muddled politics of the PBS costume drama. You know who else loves Downton Abbey? Old white people.

For those who saw and enjoyed David Fincher’s latest film, io9 has an awesome look at the making of the Dragon Tattoo opening titles. Three words: “primordial dream ooze.”

Over at Ain’t It Cool, the ever-industrious Quint got Frank Darabont to tell us all about how season 2 of The Walking Dead should have opened. Spoiler alert: it’s much more interesting than what actually happened.

There are a few things that make me truly nerd out. Movie posters are one. Temples of cinematic delight, known as movie theaters to the layman, are another. Which is why I was drawn to We Love Cult’s Tarun Shanker and his essay about Brooklyn’s reRun theater. I must now visit this place.

If you enjoy clicking 50 times with your mouse, but being rewarded with a wealth of information, then Total Film’s Complete Guide to The Avengers is for you. I got to about the 27th slide. Can anyone beat that?

According to lovely screenwriter Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn probably won’t direct Kick-Ass 2. But he will produce the film and is hand-picking a director who “would be cool.” That said, the entire thing still seems to be hanging on the fence. Because, well, there isn’t much of a story just yet.

We close tonight with a 47-second spot for Archer, which returns to FX next Thursday in all its misogynistic glory. This time Archer has to undergo some surgery, leaving him horribly scarred in the facial area. Therefore he must be rebuilt — this is where H. Jon Benjamin comes in.

Why Watch? Because Guest Week continues here on Short Film of the Day, and I’m picking a bunch of silly animated shorts that Cole would almost never touch. Perhaps he’s got a thing for the real world. Perhaps I’ve got a child’s mind. Either way, we’re featuring a lot of fun shorts this week.

Today’s short is one that will be familiar to anyone who’s been reading Film School Rejects for several years, as I wrote about it way back in 2009 when it played the Austin Film Festival. Lucas Martell’s Pigeon: Impossible is part spy story, part bird-related comedy and all smooth animated bliss. It’s the tale of Walter, a rather green secret agent who must learn on the fly when a curious pigeon ends up in his multi-million dollar nuclear briefcase. It’s a short that took 5 years to make, but delivered Martell into the spotlight in festivals around the country. Now we’re bringing it back as today’s Short Film of the Day. Why? Because you should watch it again.

What will it cost you? Just six minutes and fourteen seconds of your wild Wednesday.

Your mission: to watch more Short Films.

I’m not sure how we missed this one, but I can only assume it was intentional. If you do a search of our site for the name ‘McG’ you’ll find mostly negative comments, critiques and flat-out insults including us celebrating the idea of the director being launched into space on a one-way ticket. (Of course, you’ll also find my Transformers 2 review that inexplicably calls for an apology to be given to McG.)

But while we’re a month late in featuring this trailer for McG’s newest movie, we’re at least covering it with an open mind and a positive attitude. Because surprisingly, This Means War looks like it could actually be kind of fun.

Tom Hardy and Chris Pine play CIA agents at the top of their game. They’re partners and friends who have each others backs and would let nothing come between them. Nothing that is, except a hot blonde. When the two discover that they’re both dating the same woman (Reese Witherspoon) they decide to let her choose the better man. But that doesn’t mean they can’t try to hedge their bets using all the skills and equipment at their disposal. So yes, it’s basically Mad Magazine’s Spy vs Spy with a love story angle thrown in as motivation.

Check out the trailer below, and get ready to accept the fact that even with Chelsea Handler co-starring it doesn’t look anywhere near as bad as we all feared.

See? That actually looks like it could be pretty entertaining. It’s especially fun and refreshing to see Hardy in a comedic role after he teased a sense of humor in Inception. And tell me that line towards the end at Chelsea Handler’s expense isn’t killer. You can’t. Because it’s damn funny. And kudos to Handler for playing along and being the butt of the film’s best joke (most likely).

That dig aside the humor seems fairly middle of the road, but there may be more laughs to be found through the bantering of Hardy and Pine. Even if it turns out to be no funnier than Knight & Day the film’s action actually looks to include some fairly exciting and impressive stunts and scenes. Adding to the fun is a supporting cast that includes Til Schweiger, Angela Bassett, and David Koechner.

So yes, between the solid action, amusing tone, and great cast we’re cautiously looking forward to seeing this one. What about you?

This Means War opens February 17th.

With the entire original run of The Twilight Zone available to watch instantly, we’re partnering with Twitch Film to cover all of the show’s 156 episodes. Are you brave enough to watch them all with us?

The Twilight Zone (Episode #136): “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross” (airdate 1/17/64)

The Plot: A no-good putz wishes the universe would give him a break just once. And it does… Twilight Zone style.

The Goods: Salvadore Ross (Don Gordon) is what the French call “a douche.” He pulls up one morning in a fancy new car and accosts a woman on the street who he used to date (and who briefly looks like Rene Russo). Leah (Gail Kobe) is surprised to see him riding around in style, but she’s less impressed when she learns he simply “borrowed” the car from an old man he’s currently working for. She rebuffs his aggressive advances, but he works his way into her home where he gets an equally chilly reception from Leah’s otherwise kindly father. Sal wishes aloud that something would go his way just one time and punches a wall for emphasis… which immediately results in a broken hand.

“I’ve got a Christmas morning surprise for you baby!”

Sal arrives at the hospital and finds himself rooming with an old man suffering from a cold and whining about it. True to form, Sal gives the old guy grief and jokingly offers to swap his busted hand for the old guy’s sniffles. The man accepts, and when they awaken the next morning the exchange has come true. His eyes immediately filled with the possibilities, Sal ignores the old man’s pleas that his hand can’t heal at his age and sets out to make his fortune.

First he trades his youth for a million dollars and a fancy apartment, and then he brilliantly parlays his age back down again, one year at a time, for $1000 a pop. The end result sees him back to his mid-twenties but hundreds of thousands of dollars richer. He’s a dick, but he’s a no fool.

But when his new bank balance isn’t enough to win back Leah he appeals to her father with one last trade. Quick cut to the next day and the couple arrives all happy and in love, but when Sal asks the old man for his daughter’s hand in marriage the guy reminds him that Sal took his compassion. And then shoots Sal dead.

This is not a good ending.

The revelation that Sal traded for the father’s compassion implies that’s the element that was missing from Sal’s personality. He’s nicer now, so Leah loves him. Fine. But what did he give the old man in return? He’s still in a wheel chair and doesn’t appear to be any wealthier. But also, why would the old man have given away his compassion like that anyway? He seemed like a smart and wise father and man, so a deal like this seems out of character. But even if you accept that decision, why would he shoot Sal? Lack of compassion doesn’t drive a person to murder, especially one they can’t cover up at all. Sal was without compassion apparently for 26 years, but he never killed anyone.

Ending aside, this is a pretty good episode of the show. The actors give solid performances, and even Gordon, who is a complete tool for most of the episode, manages to come across as sincere in his final minutes. Wish fulfillment is a common theme on the series, but the script here from Jerry McNeely (from Henry Slesar’s short story) puts an interesting spin on it with the concept of trading up and down. It’s like a white elephant party with a Twilight Zone twist.

On an unrelated note, is anyone else creeped out by Sal’s turn as an old man? Not his physical appearance, that looks fine, but by his behaviors and words with the young man. He invites the 19-year-old in saying “let me take a look at you” before touching his arm and asking his age. It’s interesting how a scene that was so innocent in the sixties now seems like an after school special on pedophiles.

What do you think?

The Trivia: Seymour Cassel plays the elevator man, Jerry. Thirty seven years later he starred in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums where he once again played an elevator man.

On the Next Episode: “In a futuristic society, a young woman resists undergoing a medical procedure that makes people young and immune to disease.”

Catch-Up: Episodes covered by Twitch / Episodes covered by FSR

We’re running through all 156 of the original Twilight Zone episodes over the next several weeks, and we won’t be doing it alone! Our friends at Twitch will be entering the Zone as well on alternating weeks. So definitely tune in over at Twitch and feel free to also follow along on our Twitter accounts @twitchfilm and @rejectnation.

This week, on a very special Reject Radio, we talk with the filmmakers behind The Devil Inside about going guerrilla in Vatican City (and responding to negative reviews) and writer Derek Haas (3:10 To Yuma, Wanted) about jumping between screenwriting, short stories, and his “Silver Bear” novel series.

Plus, it’s Rob Hunter vs. Robert Fure in the first Movie News Pop Quiz of the season. Let the slap fight commence!

Download This Episode

On This Week’s Show:

Movie News Pop Quiz: [Beginning - 19:40] It’s Hunter vs Fure in an all out brawl of movie news guessing. The challenge will take both contestants to the mat, and the victor will emerge sweaty and ready to talk about MMA movies. So, guess who that is.

Sweet Talking the Swiss Guard: [19:40 - 36:00] Writer/director Brent Bell, writer/producer Matthew Peterman and producer Morris Paulson drop by on the day of The Devil Inside‘s release to respond to the barrage of negative reviews and to explain filmmaking methods that could have seen them arrested in the Catholic holy city.

Contract Killer: [36:00 - End] “Dark Men” author Derek Haas talks stacking the deck against a main character, murdering protagonists, repeatedly killing his screenwriting professor and the deadliness of Angela Lansbury. Just, a ton of death in this conversation. But then we keep it light and fluffy with some Popcorn Fiction.

Pick up a copy of “Dark Men”

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On Next Week’s Show:

A thrilling segment in which I buy a monthly planner in order to schedule things ahead of time. Plus, more talking about movies! Huzzah!

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It’s not often that word of a large-scale adaptation of an existing theatrical property thrills me to my absolute core, but I am willing to forget all the weird Les Miserables Starring Country Pop Star Taylor Swift talk if this next project works out as well as it should. Word about a cinematic adaptation of the Tony and Grammy-winning hit musical Jersey Boys (originally produced by Dodger Theatricals, written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, directed by Des McAnuff, with music by Four Seasons member Bob Gaudio and lyrics by Bob Crewe) has been brewing for awhile, and it’s such a welcome concept for a film that I might actually be dancing in my chair right now. The musical centers on the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and their incredible rise to fame in the 1960s, and it’s one of those rare musicals that deserves all the heaping and glittery praise it has received. Dancing in the aisles? Check. Smiling from ear to ear? Drama laced in with a great story and fantastic music? Check, check, check!

In case it’s not yet readily apparent, I love this musical. It’s my favorite musical. The way people feel about Les Miz? That’s how I feel about Jersey Boys. So the news that two-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter John Logan has been picked to adapt the film has excited me so much that I’ve very nearly passed out six times while writing this.

Logan has been writing for the big screen since 1996, and his resume is rounded out with such titles as Any Given Sunday, Gladiator, and The Aviator, but he’s also got some theatrical endeavors under his belt – like Tim Burton’s adaptation of Sweeney Todd and his own play, the multiple Tony Award-winning Red. But Logan is perhaps best well-known for his recent works – including Rango, Hugo, the upcoming Bond flick Skyfall, and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. He’s also currently working on the Just Kids adaptation with its author, Patti Smith. An award-winning playwright and screenwriter on a hot streak that has a proven track record of crafting adaptations? Oh, Hollywood, thrill me like this every day.

But what’s most exciting about a Jersey Boys film is not just that big fans like me will get to see it as often as they want, but that the story is accessible to people who aren’t even fans of Valli or the Four Seasons (yet). I guarantee you that you know more Seasons songs than you know, and I also guarantee you that Jersey Boys will instill an unexpected love for them upon immediate consumption.

GK Films’ Graham King and Tim Headington are producing, with Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio serving as executive producers.

[Press Release, with additional information from Thompson on Hollywood]

Fire up the kettle and break out the Jaffa Cakes, because I’m ready to curl up with a cup of tea and devote my television habits exclusively to the efforts from across the pond. Okay, even I know I couldn’t live without a weekly one-two punch of Leslie Knope and Liz Lemon (returning this week on Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock, respectively), but the BBC has been offering up a bevvy of programming that seems tailor-made for TV geeks like myself, and I’ve aristocratically sipped the British Kool-Aid in a big way.

I’ve long been a fan of television with a stiff upper lip. At a young age, my European mother, bored with some of the comedies of the 80s (not everybody loved Mork & Mindy, apparently), turned to the programming of her mother continent – re-runs of Are You Being Served?, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, heck, even Mr. Bean, and I soaked it up like a tea-soaked sponge; the only second grader at Maple Hills Elementary to practice her cockney British accent on the playground. So it should come as no surprise that when it came time to curate my own cultural landscape, I looked to the Brits for inspiration. Sure, most teenagers listen to The Smiths at one point or another, and The Clash is pretty much a staple of adolescent angst, but as for TV? I watched each episode of Ricky Gervais’ take on The Office ad nauseam, got an education from Doctor Who, and spent many laugh-filled nights with Spaced. Yes, I adore Parks and Recreation, and Happy Endings has me laughing so hard that I verge on an ugly cry, but there’s some pretty great British TV on the horizon right now, and I’m almost ready to apply for dual television citizenship.

Sunday night saw the second season premiere of Downton Abbey, the ITV/PBS period answer to Mad Men. The buzz surrounding the highly anticipated episode was palpable, and for many, Twitter feeds were flooded more with Downton talk than the usual chatter about Sunday night sports. Heck, even Patton Oswalt got in on the Abbey-gabbing. The show’s chronicling of the servants and their masters is so masterfully (peasantry puns!) acted, that it should be the Jon Hammian benchmark by which television is measured. The love saga of Mary and Matthew is so tortured that it makes Ross and Rachel look like Joanie and Chachi. And Anna and Mr. Bates? Their own tortured love story is the epitome of the kind that Nicholas Sparks novels aim for, but hopelessly fail to emulate.

And then there are the villains. THE VILLIANS. Lady maid O’Brien (while experiencing a tender streak in season 2 thus far), is so devilishly mean that she makes Ursula from The Little Mermaid look like Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life. Footman Thomas is such a smarmy subterranean specimen that you’re actually hoping for him to meet his maker in The Great War.

Downton’s splendor is such that I could talk about it all day, but that would beat the horse that pop culture has so mercilessly slaughtered. In fact, there’s another show from across the pond that deserves just as much praise for its irreverence, and that show is Sherlock. Doctor Who creator Stephen Moffat has put his own spin on the trials and tribulations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s protagonist, and he’s done it big. Newest Hollywood it-guy Benedict Cumberpatch embodies Holmes with a quirky and distant antisocial flair that leaves the character with nothing to process but the facts. As John Watson, Bilbo Baggins himself (Martin Freeman) is every bit the straight man to even the keel and relate to the humanity of it all. The series has kicked off its second round in the UK – it will make its way to PBS in May – and with just two episodes thus far, it’s eclipsed in quality ¾ of the fall’s new drama offerings.

Like I said, American TV isn’t without its own merits. But most of what is on now is an offshoot or adaptation of a concept from across the pond. Sure, they have bad teeth, but it looks like we Americans are doomed to exist as TV households that are just a little bit behind the curve. What do you think? Am I just a little too obsessed with all things BBC, or are we destined for less TV wit and more Fear Factor?

Spartacus fans, lend us your ears! At the end of this month, the good folks at Starz will unleash the next chapter in the blood-soaked, mostly nude and dirty saga that is Spartacus. The show has moved on from the untimely death of star Andy Whitfield, who passed in September of last year due to Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Even though Whitfield is gone and dearly missed, the production did find a way to finish a second series, Spartacus: Vengeance, picking up right where Spartacus: Blood and Sand left off. And to celebrate this return, Titan Books is publishing a companion book, “Spartacus: Swords & Ashes.” They were so kind as to send us two exclusive excerpts from said book, so we thought we’d share them with you. It requires you to do a little extra reading, but it does include plenty of cursing.

About “Spartacus: Swords & Ashes”

Spartacus is the hit TV show which combines blood-soaked action, exotic  sexuality, villainy and heroism. This original novel from the world of Spartacus: Blood and Sand tells a brand new story of blood, sex and politics set in the uncompromising, visceral world of the arena. The gladiator Spartacus, the new Champion of Capua, fights at the graveside of a rich man who was brutally murdered by his own slaves. Seeing an opportunity, ambitious lanista Quintus Batiatus plots to seize the dead man’s estate. In the arena blood and death are primetime entertainment. But not all battles are fought upon the sands…

Read exclusive excerpt one:

The hillside was cloaked with cypress trees, old and young, reaching to the sky like tall, green fingers. Below, the streets and houses of Neapolis stretched toward the distant sea. Above, the slopes continued ever higher, as the hill became the dark, ashen mountain that loomed above Neapolis like a permanent shadow.

The scent of pine wafted. As the trees bowed in the wind, they sometimes revealed the bright white of stone memorials, glimpsed for the briefest of moments before the limbs sprung back into place.

Slaves placed cypress branches against the stack of dry wood, while others carefully slipped rolls of cinnamon or cassia wood into the gaps between the logs and straw. They set final, greener branches against the sides, putting the workmanlike bonfire kindling out of sight, creating the impression of a green, growing altar in the middle of the hillside forest. With each gust of wind, the branches shifted slightly, making it seem as if the altar could breathe.

The slaves turned to other activities. They swept the ground clear of pebbles. They fiddled with the line of lit torches, deliberately incongruous in the daylight, that stretched toward the road into Neapolis. And they studiously ignored the men who were picking through a pile of outsized, burnished armor.

“We are to be attired as warriors of the north, it seems. Cimbri, perhaps, or Teutones,” Varro said.

“And these warriors from the north, they wear helmets such as these?” Spartacus mused.

“I believe so.”

“Believe? No wonder the gods did not favor them.”

“Your meaning?” Varro asked.

Without warning, Spartacus leapt at the tall roman, grabbing his newly donned helmet by one of its prominent horns. Varro stumbled backward in surprise, but Spartacus had him in a firm grip, dragging his helmeted head down into the dust as if he were wrestling an ox.

Varro hit the ground with a whoosh of air, and did not even attempt to struggle from the hold, instead raising the two fingers of submission. The slaves with brushes and torches looked up momentarily from their labors, and then returned to work as if the fight had never happened.

“The horns serve no purpose,” Spartacus said coldly. “There is no way for you to employ them in combat, and even if you did, they are blunt to the point of futility. But to an opponent, they offer secure purchase. Absent the defence of your sword-arm from the front, these horns offer your foe a handle by which to drag you down.”

“Very well!” Varro protested in an anguished growl. “Your point is made. Let me go.”

Spartacus climbed nimbly to his feet, holding out a hand to help up his friend.

“The costumes are chosen for us,” Varro said. “I cannot choose my armor.”

“Indeed,” Spartacus agreed. “But you can choose how to wear it.”

He drew his sword from its scabbard and carefully began sawing through the leather chin strap.

“Have you lost mind?” Varro asked, scraping the worst of the black Neapolitan dirt from his frame.

“I do not wish to enter battle unprotected,” Spartacus said calmly. “But I can aid its removal if pulled with sufficient force.”

He held it up for Varro to see. A neat nick in the chinstrap left it only half as wide as it once was.

“I suggest you do the same,” Spartacus continued.

Varro nodded, unsmiling, with the calculation of a man in search of any advantage.

“You are cunning, Thracian,” he said. “No ordinary man would think to win victory by losing that which is to protect him.”

“My only thought, to stay alive,” Spartacus said.

Their fellow slaves from house Batiatus, the swarthy Galatian Cycnus and the jet-black Numidian Bebryx, watched their chatter sullenly.

“You would do well to listen to the champion of Capua,” Varro said to them quietly. “Or die with closed ears.”

Bebryx sucked thoughtfully on his teeth, peeling them back from his lips with a contemptuous smack. Cycnus also said nothing, fussing instead with the straps of his armor.

“Please yourselves,” Varro said with a shrug. “But mark well our opponents.”

He jerked his head across the clearing toward a second group of gladiators, picking through a pile of antique roman swords and shields. The others followed his direction.

“Why are there but three of them and four of us?” Cycnus asked.

“Their fourth marches in the procession itself,” Varro explained. “The freedman Timarchides, friend to the deceased.”

“Does this mark advantage?” Spartacus asked.

“A freedman will not seek true danger. He has too much to lose.”

“Strike him with flat of sword and see honor restored?” Cycnus suggested with a grin.

Bebryx sucked on his teeth again, and looked away at the trees warily, as if expecting the wood itself to come for him.

“But he is a freedman,” Spartacus said, “in a house of gladiators.”

“What is your meaning, Thracian?” Varro asked.

“He is not a weak-willed patrician, thinking of wine and the next banquet,” Spartacus said. “He is a gladiator so proficient that he received the wooden sword. We fight a man skilled enough to fight his way to freedom.”

“Oh,” Varro said quietly. “Fuck.”

Read exclusive excerpt two:

Spartacus and Varro stood back to back, the two of them still facing four opponents. At their feet, Bebryx moaned in pain, his hands grasping the blood-wet spear in his shoulder.

“The odds fall out of favor,” Varro muttered.

Spartacus said nothing for a few moments. He glared in turn at each of the men who faced him as he and Varro spun in small circles.

“I have won victory against worse,” Spartacus muttered. Cackling, Cycnus’s killer drew close to Spartacus, his sword arm outstretched, his other hand held far away from his body.

“Mark the others,” Spartacus said to Varro. “I am for this one.”

The man stopped laughing, but still drew near, his eyes staring deep into Spartacus’s own, his arms held wide, presenting a tantalizing target.

Spartacus feinted, watching his opponent’s left arm twitch in response to an attack that never came.

Spartacus smiled to himself, and lunged for real.

The man darted to the side, his left arm coming up to grab at the horn of Spartacus’s helmet, tugging savagely down as he had done to the luckless Cycnus. But the helmet came off clean in his hand, throwing him off balance, sending him tumbling back onto the grass, his arms crossed protectively over his body, warding against a blow that never came.

For Spartacus had immediately wheeled and plunged his sword into the neck of one of the other attackers, a man who had been too busy watching the scuffle to parry an unexpected blow. The crowd roared.

While Varro railed against the remaining two, keeping them at bay, Spartacus turned back to the fallen man, who was struggling to his feet.

Spartacus kicked away his sword arm, dropping to his knees on the man’s bicep, cracking the bone even as he lifted his sword to strike downward.

His victim tried to ward off the blow, shoving the stolen helmet in front of him. Spartacus’s sword glanced off its curves, missing the man’s face, but plunging deep into his chest.

The sword was stuck fast. Spartacus wasted no time wrenching it free, instead he snatched up his victim’s Roman sword—and that of the other fallen opponent.

Now it was two against two. His paired new swords threshing in an unstoppable onslaught, Spartacus cut and slashed against his remaining opponent, pushing him back under a hail of blows, forcing him perilously close to the mounting flames. The man stumbled against the edges of the pyre, pushing up a cloud of red embers that danced in the smoke around the fighters like angry flies. There were choking coughs from among the crowd of onlookers, but few dared to give up their place. Ilithyia retreated, one hand over her mouth, another clutching at her hair, but among the rest of the crowd, there was barely a rustle.

Varro was face to face with Timarchides. The two men shifted, each sizing up the other. Timarchides made to thrust with his sword, revealing it as a feint only at the last moment, as the edge of his shield shoved up toward Varro’s face. Varro darted to the side, spinning so as to wheel upon the Greek with the full force of his sword, wielded with two hands.

Beside the pyre, the heat of the flames stung Spartacus’s flesh. He saw his adversary struggle and shift as the warmth infested his armor plates. Sweat poured from their bodies as the two men labored against the heat like blacksmiths in a furnace. Spartacus’s opponent flinched, and the Thracian saw his moment, driving forward with both swords, shoving the other man back into the flames. Parallel, his twin swords rammed through the gaps in his rival’s shoulder armor into the vulnerable flesh, traveling straight through his body and sticking fast in the burning logs.

The flames leapt up, crackling along the hairs on Spartacus’s arms. he let go his grip on the two hilts, stumbling back from the shimmering heat as his opponent began to scream. Pinned to the heart of the fire, the man struggled to pull at the blades, even as the flames caught on his hair and in the padding beneath his armor.

“SET ME FREE!” the trapped gladiator yelled. “FREE ME!”

Backing away, his eyes still on his victim as though he was hypnotized by the grim sight, Spartacus tripped into a sitting position. He stared open-mouthed at the other gladiator’s dreadful torment. The man screamed for mercy, pleaded in vain for the gods to save him even as Vulcan claimed him.

“Finish him!” Verres shouted angrily.

Spartacus looked back at Verres, and saw him animatedly giving the signal for execution, even doomed man shrieked for merciful death.

The eagerly awaited new series of Spartacus, Vengeance, premieres January 27 2012

On January 11, 1991, the then-head of Disney studios, Jeffrey Katzenberg, circulated an incredibly important memo about the state of the movie industry and the products they were making. It was called, “The World is Changing: Some Thoughts on Our Business,” and it had a simple purpose: to locate the root of a growing problem and to take steps to avoid falling victim to it.

Katzenberg began the memo by stating:

“As we begin the new year, I strongly believe we are entering a period of great danger and even greater uncertainty. Events are unfolding within and without the movie industry that are extremely threatening to our studio.”

As we begin a new year two decades after this memo was written, it’s critical to look back at the points Katzenberg made to see that his period of great danger is now our period of great danger, to note that the same events unfolding within and without the industry still threaten the entire studio system in 2012, and to predict our future based on the past.

There are definite similarities between 1991 and 2012. The country was in a recession then and finds itself crawling out of one now. We were dealing with an Iraq invasion then, and we’re dealing with the aftermath of another now. The country was losing economic power while maintaining cultural dominance then, and it’s the same story now. Disney was the #1 studio then, and although they weren’t last year, they still busted $1b while coming in at #4.

Studios are still judging box office success against Batman.

Now, with all this talk about money, it might seem like fans have no stake in this game, but we all do. Imagine the top six studios from last year (Paramount, Warners, Sony, Disney, Universal and Fox) as players at a poker table. When the chip stacks are high, they can all afford to test the pot with some wild hands. They can get creative with what they play. Unfortunately, the stacks aren’t high, which means they can’t get as loose, and while some attractive cards may come their way, they’re all trying to get dealt a full house.

That means the same hand being played for fans, and for those that like variety in their life, these are the salad days. But we’ll get to that later when we optimistically predict the future.

The Katzenberg Memo

For now, let’s live in the past with Mr. Katzenberg. At its core, his 1991 memo has three major statements to make about how movies are made:

1. The Blockbuster Mentality – There is no middle ground anymore because massive resources are put into 1-3 movies per year that hold the fate of the studio hostage. Instead of making ten $30m movies, they make one $300m flick that has to succeed in record-breaking ways. To do that, all efforts must be focused on a giant opening weekend that will earn notoriety alongside a big chunk of the overall gross. Further, even if the film does well, it will be called a failure if it doesn’t make as much as Batman (1989). The result? Overspending on a dangerously difficult bar to clear while over projects go unfunded.
2. The Movie Industry Isn’t Recession-Proof – As Katzenberg points out, the reason movies appear to be recession-proof is because people have historically run to escapist entertainment during hard times. The facts might partially support the theory, but Katzenberg shows the theory itself to be misguided – stating that, “When there is fear and uncertainty, the people have craved bargain entertainment. During previous downturns, the best escapist entertainment value was at the movie theaters. But no longer.”
3. The Rise and Fall of the Movie Star – With the inflation of budgets and grosses, two things happened almost simultaneously. One, actors (and writers and directors and everyone) started (rightfully) demanding their fair share of the profits. Two, the concept of movie stars buckled. It’s unclear when “movie stars” stopped being as bankable as they once were, but actors demanded more money while they had less to do with financial success.

All of these points could be made today.

Coupled with other fads, studios are scrambling hard to make sure that their tentpoles are safe. That’s why Sony is rebooting with The Amazing Spider-Man. It’s why Warners needed The Green Lantern to be a mad success (and why they’re automatically planning on continuing with Batman movies post-Nolan). It’s why the seven highest grossing movies of 2011 were sequels (and why 17 of the highest 20 were either already part of a franchise or the planned beginning of one). Studios can no longer afford to create name recognition – it has to come built-in.

At the beginning of our most recent recession, analysts like The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki prematurely hailed movies for being recession-proof. Even as late as August of last year, Hollywood.com’s Paul Dergarabedian claimed erroneously that people only focus on price when they have a negative experience while citing it as part of the reason why summer ticket sales were up (further confusing the myth of movies in tough economic times). Of course, at the end of the year, the final numbers showed that ticket sales were about half-a-billion behind 2010 and attendance was at its lowest since 1995. There’s no point in believing a single year is proof of a trend, but it certainly injures the blind belief that movies always do well in times of trouble. They sure didn’t last year.

As for movie stars, the big names still exist, but there are fewer of them and they’ve lost the luster of being sure things. We’re too familiar with them for them to remain glamorous, studios have struggled to foist new unproven “stars” like Channing Tatum and Sam Worthington on the public, and as Landon Palmer wrote back in 2009, our definition of what makes a movie star has shifted irrevocably and in a way that isn’t nearly as obviously beneficial to the people banking their shots off names and faces.

All of this to show that reading Katzenberg’s memo is a bit jarring because of how accurately it predicts the environment of filmmaking in 2012. Beyond the aforementioned echoes, he comments on theaters being choked by sequels; he shuns the idea that children’s movies are just for kids (something Pixar picked up and ran with); and he alludes to a partnership with Jerry Bruckheimer that won’t necessarily have to be about blockbuster building (which, fair enough, turned out to be a bit wrong). Still, it’s creepy.

True Then, True Now

Considering the current resurgence, it’s fascinating to note that Katzenberg’s negativity toward the Blockbuster Mentality in 1991 is sparked by two comic book movies. The first is Batman and its unforeseeable effect on the way other big movies were judged. The second is Dick Tracy – Disney’s big budget blockbusting contender that year. In his own words, it was:

“…a film that did very well, a film we were rightly proud of, a film that was critically acclaimed… and a film that is still being savagely disparaged as ‘having failed to achieve Batman-like success at the box office.’

This is not a healthy situation. If every major studio release must aspire to repeat the 1989 success of Batman, then we will undoubtedly soon see the 1990’s equivalent of Cleopatra, a film that was made in the hope of repeating the 1959 success of Ben Hur.”

And so it goes.

Dick Tracy has a modern equivalent in The Green Lantern. Both are comic book-based and feature cocky heroes who fight crime while hanging out with bizarre-looking characters. Both are technically and visually interesting. Both should have been bigger hits based on the formula that existed. Both pulled in millions of dollars in ticket sales. However, they were both failures in their own ways. Katzenberg prophetically, of course, has an explanation for it. Here, he’s talking about Dick Tracy and The Rescuers Down Under‘s inability to grow the “legs” the studio wanted, but for our purposes, let’s pretend he’s talking about Dick Tracy and Green Lantern:

“In both movies, everything remained static for the main characters. At the end, nothing elemental had changed. To compensate for the lack of an emotionally driving core story, the two films showered the audience with dazzling and inventive ‘business.’ But much of this failed another test of storytelling — i.e., the movies would still have made sense had many of these scenes been cut. Just like songs in a musical, no matter how beautiful the melody, if they don’t move the plot along, they don’t belong.”

Spectacle is nice, but it can never compensate for a lack of engaging characters and a compelling story. This is precisely the reason why both of these movies failed to be bigger successes, and it’s the reason (coupled with high pricing) why 3D is fizzling after a year where studios could have sworn it would save them.

What will save them (and save fans)? Writers who can write story. Filmmakers and actors who can deliver great character. Oh, and spectacle-makers who can make magic. They have a place too.

Katzenberg knew this in 1991, but it seems to be a lesson studios haven’t quite learned yet here in 2012. However, with the budget for a tentpole like The Amazing Spider-Man getting trimmed down, maybe they’re on the verge. Maybe they can still change.

The Money Quote

It’s difficult to pin down a singular point from this invaluable piece of writing because it’s so broad in its scope. It covets a principle, a philosophy about film production that can’t be broken up piecemeal. Katzenberg highlights storytelling as their most important job, but the businessman in him shines through as well. So, then, this might be the core message:

“Any film can fail at the box office. And that’s o.k. It’s part of our business. No one can know for certain what the public will want to see. So the basic problem with the above movies [a list of flopped sequels] wasn’t that they were ill conceived or misguided or even bad entertainments. The problem was that they were just too expensive.”

It may seem simple. It may seem to let producers off the hook. It may seem craven, but it gets to the heart of the problem. The Blockbuster Mentality that Katzenberg so fervently fought against has taken over the studio system, including Disney, and threatens fans in a major way. The behemoth idea is anathema to risk-taking, it steals money from the coffers for other movies, and it drives a world of creativity toward toy sales and stagnancy. It’s odd that in a time of panic, people will grab for anything to save them from sinking except solid ground. Maybe the studios have been adrift for so long that they’ve forgotten how to find the shore, but the building blocks of story haven’t changed; the reason the past few years of studio offerings have been so underwhelming is that they’ve been wrapped up in plastic, unable to see what audiences still want.

The answer isn’t more explosions; it’s characters we care about running away from more explosions.

Although he fought hard against a raging sea of change, Katzenberg left Disney a few years after writing this memo to found DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen – a studio not without Blockbuster Mentality blame here in the future.

A Simple Prediction

What happened in the 1990s after Katzenberg expressed his fear at the laziness of studios? The independent industry grew to fill the void. Filmmakers like Kevin Smith, Ed Burns, Jim Sheridan, Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, and Quentin Tarantino led the Indie Movement to critical and commercial heights.

The same thing will happen in this decade. Now that the means to make a movie and the equally important tools to promote the thing are within arm’s reach, the Second Indie Movement that’s been talked about for half a decade is finally ripe for revolution. If quality is missing from studio pictures, audiences will seek it elsewhere (especially if they can find it on iTunes or on their own television screen for a smaller ticket price).

Of course, the studios bought out and co-opted the independent houses of the 90s, too. That will probably happen again as well, but for now, we’re on the cusp of a great change in power unless, and only unless, the studios can remove the rotten core of their production philosophy and replace it with an emphasis on fundamentals over flash. They must realize they’ve fallen victim to the very danger and uncertainty about which Katzenberg warned.

Fortunately, this is all reason to be optimistic for we fans who stand patiently in line at the box office hoping to be transported and transformed. The slump, either by indie takeover or big budget wake-up call, will be over soon.

Until the next one.

Why Watch? Because Guest Week is coming to a close and it’s time to bring out the big guns. As promised, it’s been a week of animated bliss — an overcompensation of sorts for all the live-action stuff programmed by this column’s rightful author.

Not to jump the shark and go commercial all of the sudden, but a week of animated shorts isn’t complete without a little something from the brilliant minds at Pixar. In their library, the Emeryville Einsteins have plenty of great short films. Geri’s Game, For the Birds, Knick Knack and a number of others. But a personal favorite among those with a love for French style and theatrical characters is One Man Band, the story of two street performers, one little girl and a very important financial decision. It’s good for a long, sweet laugh.

What will it cost? Four minutes and thirty four seconds of your fine Friday.

Play on with more Short Films

An old woman enters a small corner shop in London for milk and finds herself shuffled about, ignored and treated like just another no-name pensioner. What the clerk and other customers don’t know though is that this elderly lady in a head scarf, glasses and overcoat is actually their former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. She played an integral role in the shaping of the Western world due to her policies and length of time in office, and was at one time as reviled as she was revered.

The Iron Lady is similar in that the film’s outward impression is far removed from the inner truth. The film should be, and by all accounts is meant to be, a look at the fascinating and historical life and times of the UK’s first and only female Prime Minister. But instead, the movie lets all of that fall by the wayside as it focuses on Thatcher as an old woman struggling to let go of her dead husband.

Meryl Streep (and the film’s make-up department) brings the historical figure to life with an amazing and expressive performance, but it’s wasted on a film more interested in lost love and the onset of dementia than it is in telling an engaging and relevant story.

“I cannot die washing up a teacup.”

The former PM returns home to a chastisement by her staff and security for venturing out on her own and some gentle ribbing from her husband Denis (Jim Broadbent). She dodders about in conversation with him about their children and such and occasionally flashes back to days gone by. Small things trigger blasts from the past including her time as a young woman interested in far more than domestic duties, her first meeting with young Denis, and her entry into politics. None of these glimpses last very long though, and any momentum regarding a woman on the rise in a man’s world is repeatedly lost when the film returns to the present.

Thatcher’s early days in government are presented as a series of minor challenges including some King’s Speech-style shenanigans to smooth out her shrill speaking voice, and they culminate with her 1979 election as a conservative party Prime Minister. From there we see her deal with IRA bombings, recession, a hostile and sexist cabinet and her country’s short-lived adventure with the Falklands War.

All of these events offer the possibility of exciting and interesting storytelling, but almost like clockwork director Phyllida Lloyd and screenwriter Abi Morgan repeatedly let their film grind to a halt as it returns to elderly Thatcher and her ghost of a husband. She’s weak and frail in these scenes, not at all “the Iron Lady” that the Soviet leaders once referred to her as. Denis’ death in 2003 has left her a lonely and somewhat depressed woman, and her ongoing memory loss has confused things further. She knows Denis is gone but is together enough to hide the fact that she still “speaks” with him.

Even though her awareness of Denis’ state argues more for a case of depression and loneliness than it does for Thatcher’s reported battle with dementia the film-makers work to argue the latter through dizzying camera-work, Streep’s quirky behaviors and a near constant focus on the poor, old woman who misses her husband. On more than one occasion we see Thatcher in a car surrounded by frustrated Britons as the camera tilts to show the mania and frenzy around her. A cabinet meeting descends into personal chaos for Thatcher as she begins to react to sounds (memories?) that only she can hear and she’s forced to cut the gathering short. Were the film not written and directed by women the case could be argued that it’s intentionally making the case against women in politics. And again, just as past events and conflagrations threaten to get interesting the movie jumps back to the uneventful and unexciting present day.

Those past events, the history that Thatcher affected, deserve more attention than they get here. Bombings, protests and important war decisions are glimpsed mostly in montage scenes that never allow viewers the opportunity to see the Prime Minister in action. We’re teased with one short but fun scene with Thatcher battling her opponents in the House of Commons and little else. We’re given brief views of her making unpopular decisions, but the movie rarely allows for any degree of real follow up or assessment. The film simply isn’t interested in the history.

There’s no doubt that Streep gives a charismatic and lively performance here (even if it does occasionally resemble her turn as Julia Child in Julie & Julia), but it’s equally without doubt that her performance far outweighs the film itself. Streep really is the only reason to watch, and for most viewers that’s just not enough to warrant 100 minutes of their time. It’s a shame as Thatcher’s life and career are filled with a rich history that could and should have made for engaging cinema.

The Upside: Meryl Streep.

The Downside: Disjointed screenplay and structure; important issues glossed over with a montage; way too much time spent in present day.

On the Side: Not that you need a reason, but watching this dull and lifeless film will make you want to watch Love Actually just for the Hugh Grant as Prime Minister scenes.