Category Archives: Movies

Movies

Storytelling and Richard Jewell (2019)

I’m a big fan of Clint Eastwood.

I suspect if I were to do a detailed count of the many movies I have in my collection, either physical copies or digital, movies either featuring Clint Eastwood and/or were directed by him likely makes up a larger count than another other actor out there.

I loved him in the “Dollars/Man With No Name” Trilogy. I loved him in the Dirty Harry films (though the first one is clearly the best, with the others varying in quality). I loved him in quirky films like Play Misty For Me (the first film he actually directed. He was also the movie’s star). I loved him in High Plains Drifter, The Gauntlet, The Eiger Sanction, Unforgiven, etc. etc. etc.

Sure, he’s had his clunkers (Pink Cadillac was an absolute chore to sit through), but by and large I like his movies, whether he acts in them or serves only as director.

Released this past week, Richard Jewell is the latest of Clint Eastwood’s films. He served solely as director and the film, alas, looks to be a box office bomb (no pun intended!).

It would appear people aren’t terribly interested in seeing this film, which chronicles the real life Richard Jewell, who was a security guard who discovered a bomb planted in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and likely saved the lives of hundreds of people with this discovery… only to become vilified when he it was revealed he was suspected of being the person who planted the bomb to begin with and remained a suspect until the true culprit was found.

Now, reading the above paragraph, I must say: That’s actually a pretty good hook for a based on true life film. A man who goes from hero to villain, only to be absolved when the real person behind the bomb was discovered and arrested.

However…

The film arrived under a cloud of its own controversy, specifically in the way it depicted one of the real-life people involved in this affair: Journalist Kathy Scruggs. From what I’ve read, Kathy Scruggs was a real life character, a hard charging journalist who worked for an Atlanta newspaper and was known to work hard to get her stories. At the time, she was supposedly dating a member of the Atlanta Police Department who tipped her off that the FBI was suspicious of Mr. Jewell. She made inquiries to the FBI and eventually verified this fact and wrote an article (she was co-writer) regarding the fact that Mr. Jewell was now a suspect in the aborted bombing. Her article was the first to finger Mr. Jewell as a suspect and, subsequently, the other news media latched onto the story and made his life a living hell.

In the movie director Clint Eastwood and writer Billy Ray make some curious -terrible- changes to Ms. Scruggs’ story. In the movie, she meets up with Tom Shaw, the FBI agent played by John Hamm, who is investigating/suspecting Jewell of being the bomber. In a now very controversial scene in the film, Scruggs essentially trades sex with Shaw for information regarding Jewell.

That change in the real life story is odious, IMHO. I mean, wasn’t the whole point of this film to show how the media tarred an innocent person? So in clearing him they decide to tar another person as a slut who gets information by trading for sex. Even worse: They tar a person who, if you step back and look at the facts of the case, was simply doing her job as a journalist.

Ms. Scruggs was not the one to suspect Mr. Jewell, it was the FBI. She reported on the fact. Ms. Scruggs, in real life, got a tip and followed up on it. She corroborated the information and then wrote an article about her findings. Editors in the newspaper, one would think, considered the story before approving and publishing it.

While the article certainly proved horrible for Mr. Jewell, did she not do what a journalist should do? Did she not pursue a lead and verify it before writing about it?

And consider this: Ms. Scruggs wasn’t the first person to hear that Mr. Jewell was a suspect. CNN supposedly heard the rumor as well. If Ms. Scruggs article hadn’t been published, how long do you think it would have taken before this information would have made its way to the public anyway?

I strongly suspect it wouldn’t have taken all that long.

I haven’t seen the film but many of the people who have -even those who very much like it- point out the portrayal of Ms. Scruggs and Mr. Hamm’s FBI agent are the film’s biggest liabilities, that they are portrayed as cliched bad guys who are only missing long mustaches they can twirl while they go about their bad guy business.

But, incredibly, it gets worse.

Not only does the film incorrectly depict Ms. Scruggs as trading sex for information, but Tom Shaw, the FBI agent played by Mr. Hamm whom she trades sex for information, is a fictitious construct.

Let that sink in!

There is NO Tom Shaw who worked in the FBI at the time of the Atlanta Bombing. There never was. So not only is the story of Ms. Scruggs trading sex for information bogus, the person she supposedly slept with to get the information doesn’t even exist!

The word comes back to me: Odious.

Yeah, what happened to Richard Jewell was absolutely terrible. He should not have gone through that scrutiny and the accusations.

But you know what? Making alternate -and also terrible- accusations about a real life person in Ms. Scruggs is, in my opinion, just as bad.

Ms. Scruggs passed away at the very young age of 42 in 2001, the result of an overdose of prescription pills. Was it an accidental overdose or suicide? The coroner could not determine. It was reported the Jewell article affected her deeply and she spent the rest of her years regretting what Mr. Jewell went through and her responsibility in the situation. Truly it seems like she cared deeply about her role in this affair.

The sad thing is that it seems to me there is a legitimately good story here which could -and should- have been presented without tarring this woman as some kind of bad guy involved in a fictional affair with a fictional character.

It reeks of Eastwood and company putting the thumbs on the scale, of kicking someone because you have to have villains in your story.

A shame.

If you want to read a good article concerning this controversy, check out Julie Miller’s article presented on VanityFair.com…

The Richard Jewell Controversy – and the complicated truth about Kathy Scruggs

Movies

A few more thoughts on the Snyder Cut of Justice League…

As I’ve mentioned far, FAR too many times now, I’m a big fan of director Zack Snyder’s Batman v. Superman, though I would quickly add that its the Director’s/Extended Cut of the film that is the one I’m referring to.

Full disclosure: While I liked the theatrical cut when I saw it -twice- upon its original release, I also gave that version of the film a bit of a pass as I knew there was the longer version out there and further I knew it would eventually be released to home video. Now, I can’t recommend anyone see the theatrical cut. Stick with the Director’s/Extended version.

Anyway, when Justice League was in the works, I was genuinely excited to see the film. Everyone who has any interest in the film knows what happened: Zack Snyder stepped down from making the film following the tragic suicide of his adopted daughter and Joss Whedon stepped in to supposedly complete some re-shoots and… well… as we’ve learned since, he essentially re-did the film in a way I suspect Warners/DC wanted it done, and some reports suggest as little as 10% of Zack Snyder’s original vision of the film remains in the theatrical cut, despite the fact that he is listed as the director of the film.

What followed was plenty of fans of BvS clamoring/demanding Warners/DC release the “Snyder Cut” of Justice League.

At first, there were questions as to whether such a cut even existed. This didn’t stop the speculation. Some insisted there was absolutely no “Snyder Cut”, that what existed were a bunch of unfinished scenes and nothing which could be salvaged into an actual, watchable work.

I never believed this to be the case.

The fact of the matter was that Mr. Snyder finished all principle photography and he left the film when he was brought back to do some re-shoots. I always suspected those re-shoots were studio demanded, perhaps sequences which featured more humor and less seriousness/darkness, something many fans viewed very negatively about Snyder’s previous DC works.

In time, it became obvious that a Snyder Cut of Justice League did indeed exist. This was made all the more obvious when Aquaman star Jason Momoa himself stated he was shown the Snyder Cut of the film and came away with very positive feelings about it.

Director Zack Snyder has played this whole thing most curiously, holding back on any strong statement regarding the film and his version of it but rather hinting -at times strongly- that such a thing existed and could be released. Not too terribly long ago and in early December, he finally issued that strong statement of the “Snyder Cut” of Justice League indeed existing. He did so with this posting:

If you look closely at the film reel shipping containers on this photograph, they state Z.S. JL Director’s Cut Running Time 219.

This should put the whole “does it exist” question to rest, but it doesn’t answer the “how much is left to do on this film?” question.

For I strongly suspect there are still effects that need to be completed in the film, and these may be quite significant. By significant I mean: To get them done, Warners/DC will likely have to put down some serious $$$$ to finish up whatever work remains on this cut.

But let’s move beyond that and to the reason I’m writing about this.

Let’s assume that Warners/DC does fund the completion of the Snyder Cut of JL. Let’s assume the film is completed the way Mr. Snyder wanted it done. And then let’s further assume the film finally gets its release.

Frankly, I fear many fans are going to find themselves disappointed.

Understand: I really, really like BvS. I’m not a Snyder uber-fan, however. I’ve seen only two of his films, Dawn of the Dead and BvS. I don’t consider Justice League (the theatrical cut) “his” film, despite the credit given to him. I have not seen Man of Steel, Watchmen, 300, and Sucker Punch, though I own all but 300.

I’ve read the reviews and the opinions of people regarding his works. There are those who very much hate what he’s done. There are those who absolutely love what he’s done. There are those in the middle, who feel the works are middling at best, with one or two films standing out.

I love BvS and, yes, I’m curious to see Snyder’s Cut of Justice League but given all the hoopla/interest in this film, I can’t help but worry that in time there’s going to be a whole lot of people suffer from a bad case of let-down-itis. I worry many of those demanding the release of the film have blown its potential quality sky-high and when the film is eventually released, they’ll watch it expecting nothing short of something amazing. And when that might not materialize, they may feel really, really let down.

Don’t get me wrong: the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League could turn out to be a very good film, perhaps on the level of BvS to me. It could turn out to be a better film than that, again IMHO.

But for many it has become this magical unicorn, a film whose importance and quality is at this point subject to nothing more than one’s imagination. We -you and I- can do nothing more than suppose the quality of the film. We have some ideas, yes, and some beautiful stills and the stuff that appeared in the trailers of the film but weren’t shown in the theatrical cut of it to get some sense of what Mr. Snyder was up to.

But we really have no idea what the film will be in the end.

What I’m getting at is the old expression of “be careful what you wish for”. While it is totally appropriate to ask for/demand that Warners/DC release this film, perhaps we should temper our excitement/interest. We are, in the end, talking about a film. It could be damn good. It might wind up being average to some. It might wind up being crap to others, even some of those who most vocally demanded the film’s release.

What will it be?

We won’t know until it is eventually released.

While at first there was a question as to whether the film would eventually be released, I’ve come around to thinking its no longer a matter of “if” but of “when”.

We will get to see the Snyder Cut of Justice League. Perhaps very soon.

Let’s hope it was worth the wait.

Movies

Biggest Bombs of 2019

Hot on the heels of writing about some critics’ favorite films of 2019 comes this fascinating article by Ian Sandwell and found on digitalspy.com focusing on…

The Biggest Movie Flops of 2019

Unlike many of the films listed as top quality releases last year, I’ve actually seen one of the films on this list, Terminator: Dark Fate. Further to that, I’m familiar with pretty much all the films on this list, with the exception of Missing Link and Ugly Dolls.

The one that really surprised me was Captive State. I recall seeing the trailer for it and then promptly forgot the film existed! Not only did it exist, it apparently came and went without much of a ripple!

Others on the list, like Charlie’s Angels, The Goldfinch, and X:Men Dark Phoenix were pretty well known to me, even if I didn’t see the films.

Of note is the fact that some of these “flops” seem to have made a decent amount of money but it was only a little over their budget. When one takes into account the amount spent on advertising, etc. I suppose the loses become greater… either that or creative accounting takes over!

For example, X:Men: Dark Phoenix, according to this article, had a budget of $200,000,000. HUGE number, I grant you, and according to the article it took in $252,000,000, ie about $52 million over its budget. Yet that’s enough to make it a flop because -again I’m guessing- you have to factor in other expenses besides those that relate to the actual budget of making the film.

Similarly, Terminator: Dark Fate had a budget of $185,000,000 and drew in just north of $255,000,000 at the box office yet it too is considered a flop.

As I said, that’s the only film in this group I saw and, frankly, I liked it well enough.

But in the end, my opinion is but one of many or, in this case, perhaps one of too few!

Ah well.

Movies

Best Movies of 2019

It’s getting to be that time of year once again when people look back at what came before and decide to make lists about it.

Yep, we’re talking “Best Movie” lists of 2019!

First up, we have Dana Stevens at Slate.com offering this take…

The best movies of 2019, plus the best of the Decade

Oh yeah, we’re about to enter a new Decade! Why not add that?

And looking over the list I have to say… I haven’t seen a single one of the films listed. Neither for the year of Decade!

Sheesh!

I do have the movie Us recorded, though, and I do intend to see it eventually, so at least there’s that…

Kristen Acuna at theinsider.com offers this list:

The best movies of 2019 so far you need to see

Once again, I’ve seen… none of ’em. There’s Us here, as well as critical and commercial hits The Joker, Avengers: Endgame, The Lighthouse, Parasite. I have to admit, I’m curious to see all these films and even have Endgame in my digital collection.

Perhaps I will see some of these in time?

The Irishman is also finding its way to lists like these but, I have to be dead honest: I’m not interested in seeing this film, despite the Scorcese/DeNiro/Pacino/Pesci combo. Four hours of movie based on what is likely a totally fabricated story? I dunno.

Finally, Vulture.com offers three of their critics’ Top 10 lists…

The Best Movies of 2019

Another intriguing batch of films, though these feel more “high brow” than some of the other lists.

Anyway, if you’ve seen more than I have (I’ve seen none, sadly!), I hope you find/found them good, and if you’re intrigued by some of the rest, give ’em a try.

If I had the free time, I would too!

😉

Movies

The Predator (2018) a (mildly) Belated Review

I’ve mentioned it before so indulge me as I mention it again: When I was younger and I was eager to have a career as a writer, one of my dreams was to write the Batman comic books.

Mind you, back then (we’re talking the late 1970’s and into the early-middle 1980’s) Batman wasn’t THE BATMAN, multi-billion corporate sold platinum/gold character. Back then, the books were doing decently but most people knew of the character from the purposely cheesy TV show starring Adam West and Burt Ward or perhaps some of the cartoons released in the 1970’s. (You’d have to be really into culture to recall the two serials made prior to the TV show!).

Since that time and roughly beginning with the release of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Tim Burton’s Batman, the character has become part of the global culture and is rightly one of DC Comic’s prized characters.

So if you have any dream of writing the character, be prepared to have plenty of editors/management/investors looking over your shoulder and making sure you don’t do anything bad with the character. Further to that, expect to be told (often) that you have to do this or that with your stories. And if fans express any disappointment in your work, chances are pretty good you’ll get the axe.

The point is: The character is corporate now.

I realized this and, further, realized the way I write requires me to have absolute freedom to do “my thing”. That and plenty of time to get the story “right”. The books I currently have available for audiences to read are, for better or worse, my creations from the very first word to the last. Whether you love, hate, or are indifferent to those books, they’re mine.

With that realization came the realization that I really can’t see myself becoming a contract writer for a character as big as a Batman or considerably smaller/less known. I have my way of doing things and unless given total freedom, I can’t see myself doing these characters with others looking over my shoulder and/or deadlines pushing me to hurry through the creative process.

I mention all this because having seen The Predator, I get the very strong feeling that if I were to make a film featuring a prominent character and under those tight deadlines and with corporate types hovering over me expecting me to do this or that and facing tight deadlines, that’s the type of sloppy film I’d come up with.

Shane Black (he directed Iron Man 3 and was one of the actors in the original Predator), co-wrote and directed this film. There were considerable controversies around the movie’s creation, word of the final act being re-done. Of the controversy when it was revealed a convicted sexual predator was in the cast -albeit in an apparently minor role- and actress Olivia Munn’s anger at realizing she participated in a scene with him without being told of his past. His scene was subsequently deleted.

When the film was finally released, the reviews weren’t terribly kind. However, I’m a fan of the original Predator and despite figuring the film wasn’t going to be all that good, I still wanted to see it. Shane Black has done some decent films in the past and, what the heck, right?

Uh huh.

To say The Predator is a mess is something of an understatement. The film leans far too heavily on humor in the early going, with characters engaging in smart-ass banter while other red-shirts are being ripped apart via gory -but not terribly good- CGI.

The plot of the film goes something like this: A Predator is running away from another Predator. It escapes to Earth. It’s escape pod crash lands near a U.S. Special Op team engaged in… I really don’t know what they’re doing there, except killing off some random badguy.

Anyway, the sniper in the team, Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), has the running away Predator escape pod almost land right on top of him. He is the only survivor of his team and manages to get a couple of Predator items (the helmet and wrist band) and mails them to his wife and child back in the U.S. (why not?!).

He’s then taken into custody by black ops officers run by a man named Traeger (Sterling K. Brown, overacting pretty wildly) who intend to get information off of him then do away with him.

Meanwhile, Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn), some kind of super-biologist, is picked up by these same black ops people and gets to see the supposedly tranquilized Predator in a secret U.S. base that conveniently lies within a stone’s throw of McKenna’s home (where his ex-wife and child live) and, we find out a little later, also a stone’s throw from where that Predator’s ship crash landed.

Yeah, I’m feeding you SPOILERS here but consider the absolute absurdity of this scenario: We start in what appears to be South America with that Special Ops team and the escape pod of the ship (with the Predator) crash landing there, we then move to the United States, and it turns out that not only the SECRET BASE where the Predator is being held is near our McKenna’s home but also the crashed ship itself (which is what Traeger wants to get his hands on) is ALSO within close driving distance….!

How’s that for coincidence?!?

Anyway, it turns out the Predator that crash landed was running away from an even more fearsome (and taller) Predator. They are screwing up Earth -or at least allowing Earth to get screwed up- so they can come in and claim it for themselves. They like hot weather… or something.

Anyway, redux, McKenna winds up with a group of military misfits/mental cases, Olivia Munn’s super-biologist, and finally his autistic kid (who also figures, improbably -yeah, who would’a guessed?!- into the bad-guy Predator’s ultimate plans). There’s also an addled Predator dog. This is another element that looks like it was pieced together into the film while whatever sense the scenes made were cut to shreds.

How so?

Well, in the sequence where the Predator dogs first appear/attack, they menace McKenna’s autistic son, who happens to be on a baseball field (don’t ask) after he has befriended a regular/ordinary dog.

I suspect that sequence was originally a lot darker because that friendly, nice regular dog simply disappears from the sequence the moment the action starts and, at the very tail end of it and when our heroes are leaving, we have a brief clip of that nice friendly dog walking on the field and toward the camera, as if the director/editors took some old sequence/scene (perhaps when the dog originally appeared) and stuck it in there to assure audiences that dog -who, again, disappeared entirely once the violent action started) is actually ok rather than, as I suspect in the original cut, likely cut to shreds.

Further, what becomes/became of the addled Predator dog is also something of a mystery. It shows up toward the end of the film and attacks (I won’t get into spoilers as to who) and then is gone.

I could go on and on but let me add one final head-scratcher: Toward the end of the film, one of the film’s most prominent characters is killed. This is done in such an offhanded, long distance viewed way that as an audience of one I hardly even realized he was gone. It was until a few more sequences passed I realized he was no longer with the rest of the cast!

In sum, The Predator is, sadly, a giant mess of a film. In many ways it reminds me of Suicide Squad, a film which was also famously taken from the director’s hands and reworked into what was story-wise an incoherent mess. Thing is, at least Suicide Squad had a bunch of charismatic actors making you care for them even if what they were going through made zero sense. Alas, the cast and characters in The Predator are simply not as charismatic or interesting.

Alas, in the case of The Predator, we simply don’t even have that.

A pass.

I can’t help myself: ONE MORE SPOILER!!!!

At the movie’s very end there’s a CODA which reveals what the “good” (I suppose its all relative) Predator brought with him.

I won’t reveal what he brought but if you do see the film, pay attention to McKenna’s autistic son and how he talks during this sequence. While in the movie proper he talked with great hesitation (suggesting his autistic nature), in this part of the film he suddenly talks perfectly normal and even shows emotions!

Could there have been another cut scene which showed the Predator messing with the kid’s head and making him more normal?

Who knows.

Not that it would have made the film any better.

Movies

Melancholia…

It’s been noted these times -the end of the year and the holidays associated with them- often sees a rise in depression and suicides.

Perhaps it is times like these when people assess what they’ve done in the year, or maybe they realize the strains on their relationships with family and loved ones.

Of late, I personally am finding reading the daily news very depressing. There’s the inanity of Trump, a man who should have never become president and who is single-handedly screwing up, it seems, not only the U.S. but the world itself with his craven, paranoid, idiotic rantings.

There are other news stories, of how people are destroying natural habitats and endangering so many species of animals and insects and… its heartbreaking to see.

Then, there’s stories like these, which on the surface is also sad but shows that some good comes when people care. From huffingtonpost.com and written by Lee Moran:

Disney lets man with terminal illness see new Star Wars film before official release

Let’s not kid ourselves: The story is ultimately a sad one. The man in question is terminally ill with cancer and the Hospice he’s in felt he would not survive long enough to see the film when it is released December 20th.

However -and this is where the story becomes much nicer- the hospice staff made a few inquiries online and people got in touch with people in the know and ultimately a laptop was brought to the man’s Hospice which carried the yet-unreleased film. The man, along with his son, was thus able to see the new Star Wars film thanks to the generosity of Disney Corp.

I hope whatever time this gentleman has left will be pleasant, and I especially hope he had a great time watching the film with his son.

Movies

Blade Runner (1982) Day’s Here…!

Back in 1982 Blade Runner, a film directed by Ridley Scott (Alien) and featuring Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer, was released… and pretty much flopped.

The years, however, were kind to this film, and it became viewed as something of a cinematic classic. The film famously opened with this…

Image result for blade runner november 20 2019

Yeah, the far flung (at that time, anyway!) future of November 2019. A little later in the film, we found the exact date in November of 2019 when the film was taking place…

Image result for blade runner november 20 2019"

Yup, November 20th, 2019.

The date is here and we are there.

Tomorrow, November the 21st, Elon Musk -such a cheeky boy!- will unveil his “Cybertruck”, a pickup truck he has stated looks like something from Blade Runner. Clearly a big fan of movies, Mr. Musk’s unveiling is obviously timed with Blade Runner’s then -and now our- present date.

I don’t need nor want a pickup truck and there is no doubt I won’t be buying this one when it comes to market. Indeed, in all my years of driving, I have never had a pickup truck nor needed one.

Yet I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see this “Cybertruck”.

Until tomorrow, happy -if such a term applies to that grim future!- Blade Runner day!

Image result for blade runner"
Movies

Box Office Problems, Redux

A few days back (you can read it here) I wrote about how difficult it was to predict the success and failure of released films. In that case, my focus was on the Box Office disappointments Terminator: Dark Fate and Doctor Sleep, two films which I personally figured -and I’m quite certain the studios also figured- would do far better than they did.

I noted that screenwriter William Goldman’s famous quote of Nobody Knows Nothing with regard to how well a film will do applied in these cases.

But there are occasions where things work out almost exactly as one suspects they will.

Over the last week, three movies were released, Ford v Ferrari, Charlie’s Angels, and The Good Liar.

Based on their trailers alone, I suspected Ford v Ferrari would do well. The film looked strong and confident in its story. The two leads, Matt Damon and Christian Bale, looked like they were having a ball playing testosterone fueled gear heads.

And so it was, Ford v Ferrari took the pole position (ouch) at the box office, earning a strong $31 million or so in its first week of release.

On the other hand, Charlie’s Angels and The Good Liar didn’t fare quite as well.

Charlie’s Angels, the second movie reboot of the venerable 1970’s TV series, had what I thought were very weak commercials/trailers that, frankly, didn’t sell me all that well on the product. The inverse of what I saw in Ford v Ferrari appeared to be the case here, a trailer that seemed hesitant, lacked confidence in their product, and, worst of all, was a mish-mash of action cliches without giving us any strong sense of a plot.

The studios -not total fools- were already thinking the film wouldn’t do all that well and predicted a box office take at less than $15 million, already a rather low prediction, and the film’s paltry under $9 million take was even worse than expected.

And I’m not terribly surprised.

Moving to The Good Liar, a film that features Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen in a tale that is pretty hidden in the film’s trailer -though one understands it involves scammers taking advantage of each other- I was also not terribly surprised the film didn’t do all that well. However, given its low budget, I suspect the studios aren’t sweating the end results. The film will likely make up its investment.

Ah well!

Movies

Box office Problems…

1 Comment

I’ve mentioned it before -many times!- but it bears repeating. It’s the lovely quote by prestigious screenwriter/writer William Goldman concerning making films, and their chances of becoming box office successes:

Nobody knows anything… Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.

I point this quote out because we’ve had, IMHO, two prime examples which demonstrate the wisdom of this quote.

I refer to the box office performances of Terminator: Dark Fate and the just released Doctor Sleep.

Terminator: Dark Fate (let’s refer to it as TDF from here on) looked to me like it would be a success well before its release.

I mean, come on! You had James Cameron back to the Terminator universe, not as a director but providing the story and producing the film, his first involvement in this universe since Terminator 2. You had hot director Tim Miller (Deadpool) behind the camera. You had the Arnold Schwarzenneger and Linda Hamilton. The film gets released and, over on rottentomatoes.com, winds up with a very strong 71% positive among critics and another very strong 84% positive among audiences.

Things were certainly looking good.

What could possibly go wrong?

Welp…

Rebecca Rubin at variety.com notes the following:

Terminator: Dark Fate stalls overseas with $29 million

According to the article, the movie has made approximately $200 million so far, counting both the U.S. and worldwide residuals. However, to “break even” the film needed to make around $450 million, which means -again according to the above article- Paramount stands to lose around $100 million from this film.

Ouch.

Scroll back up, my friends, and re-read that wonderful quote from William Goldman. Can you at least begin to understand why I feel it is so on the mark?

TDF had so much going for it, yet when it was finally released, audiences essentially didn’t care to go see it.

Why?

I suppose in part it could be because of fatigue with the Terminator brand. Even in my review of the film (you can read it here) I noted the weak box office and stated:

If I could go back in time, maybe I’d convince the makers of those (Terminator) sequels to lay off and, by the time TDF shows up, people might be more willing/eager to give it a shot.

It is also possible that, plain and simply, Arnold Schwarzenneger simply no longer holds the box office appeal he used to have. Maybe seeing an older Linda Hamilton was also a turn off. Let’s face it: The big box office hits often involve the young and pretty. Or maybe the story presented simply wasn’t “good enough” to justify seeing the film again. In other words, maybe the movie had few/no repeat customers, another ingredient necessary for box office success.

Who knows.

Nobody knows anything.

Regardless, the studios gambled on what I personally would have thought was a sure thing and, ultimately, it looks like that gamble won’t pay off. In time I suspect the film will make its money, especially through home video, but for now the film is a loser.

Which brings us to example “B”: Doctor Sleep.

Released just this past Friday, here was another film I would have thought would do quite well.

The movie is based on a Stephen King novel, the sequel to one of his most famous works and movie adaptations, The Shining. The director, Mike Flanagan, was a director on the rise known for his work in horror. He won plenty of accolades for his The Haunting of Hill House mini-series. He earned both Stephen King and the Stanley Kubrick (director of The Shining) estate’s thumbs up for his attempts to merge both movie and books.

The movie’s trailers, I thought, were intriguing. The idea of seeing what happened to the main character of Danny Torrence some forty years after the events of The Shining was to me very appealing. Hell, I don’t read Stephen King novels but I admit I was tempted to get that one!

Then, like TDF, the movie is released and gets wonderful ratings on rottentomatoes.com. As of today, the film has a 74% positive rating from critics and an incredibly strong 90% positive among audiences.

Only, it too underperformed.

Anthony D’Alessandro at deadline.com writes:

Doctor Sleep to lose $20+ million for Warner Brothers

The movie opened much softer than expected, earning some $14.2 million and coming in second to the wartime drama Midway. According to the above article, if Doctor Sleep manages to make some $100 million at the box office in its run, it will still nonetheless lose that $20 million. If it makes even lower than that…

Unlike TDF, I wound up not liking Doctor Sleep (you can read my review here). Having said that, I nonetheless really expected audiences to flock to the film the first week, yet that clearly didn’t happen.

Perhaps it was because the film was inexplicably released just after Halloween. Seriously, what’s up with that? You have a horror film you’re going to release and you don’t take advantage of the one holiday associated with all things that go bump in the night?!

Perhaps it was the fact that, despite many viewing The Shining -movie and book- as a classic, it is an older work and they simply weren’t that interested in revisiting something that old. Perhaps the cast simply wasn’t strong enough to elicit interest.

Who knows.

Nobody knows anything.

And so it goes.

Movies

Doctor Sleep (2019) A (Right On Time!) Review

Way, waaaaaaaaay back 1980, my father took thirteen or fourteen year old me to the just released horror film The Shining.

Yeah, I know. Excellent parenting, no?

Back then, I had little awareness of director Stanley Kubrick and his films. For that matter, I knew very little about author Stephen King, though I likely knew by that point the film was based on one of his novels.

We sat through the film and I was really embarrassed to be sitting next to my father when the completely nude woman in the bathtub appeared and what famously followed.

But other than that, I found the film a chore.

I really didn’t like it much at all and, when we left the theater, I suspect my father didn’t either (Now that I think about it, I should ask him…!).

Then, something really curious happened. The Shining showed up on TV here and there and I’d catch some minutes of it, then a few more, then still more.

And I’ll be damn if that film didn’t grow on me. I’m dense, I guess, but after a while I got it. I became a big fan of the movie and, in time, of director Stanley Kubrick, and today consider the movie one of my all time favorite horror features.

Ever.

Those who know even a little about the movie and Stephen King likely know that Mr. King was not too fond of the film. In fact, he famously stated he was unhappy with the changes made to his novel. Some have speculated it was because Mr. King viewed the novel more personally than any other (the main character is a writer struggling with alcoholism while Mr. King famously also struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction).

Fans of Mr. King’s novels have been vocal in defending the novel and many consider it a far better work than the movie. I haven’t read the novel and can’t comment on that.

Mr. King was clearly bothered enough about the movie version that years later and in 1997 he personally produced a TV mini-series which was more faithful to the novel.

The mini-series, IMHO, sucked. I thought it was dull and in the end was completely lost in the shadow of its more famous movie version.

A few years later and in 2013, Mr. King would release a sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep. As with most King novels, it did well and, given the success of recent Stephen King movie adaptations (in particular It), it isn’t terribly surprising a film version was made. It was released last Friday and I got to see it a few hours ago…

…and I must say, I’m befuddled.

The film, directed by Mike Flanagan (The House on Haunted Hill) is well made. The acting is generally quite good.

But the film… it feels bloated and unfocused. Even worse, there are almost no big scares. In fact, I would describe the film as not all that frightening at all. Finally, when all is said and done, the movie’s main villains are… well… without getting too SPOILERY… they wind up being not all that hard to take down in the end.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Doctor Sleep concerns Danny (now Dan) Torrance (Ewan McGregor), first immediately after the events of The Shining (both book and movie. Reportedly Mr. Flanagan tried to bridge the gap between the novel and Kubrick film). After he’s grown, we find that, like his father before him, Dan has become an alcoholic. During these opening scenes we also meet up with a group of oddball cultists known as The True Knot. They are led by Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson, quite good) and roam the highways in their vans and motor homes hunting people who have “The Shining”, ie psychic abilities. Their victims are small children, and the group kills these children and feed off their souls.

I couldn’t help but think this group had more than a little similarity to the vampires presented in the 1987 cult classic vampire film Near Dark…

The True Knot are in trouble: They are having a harder and harder time finding new victims, that is, until Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran) has visions of their latest victim which in turn alerts The True Knot of her existence.

They hunger for her. Meanwhile Abra has psychically contacted Dan Torrance and, when it appears she is in danger, the two eventually team up to deal with The True Knot.

I won’t get into too many more spoilers about the film. I will say this: The movie takes a while to get going, presenting perhaps more information than was needed in the first act (Did we need to waste so much time with the backstory of Snakebit Andi?). Eventually, when things are sorted out and the players are revealed, the movie moves a little better but, again IMHO, things never really clicked as well for me and while I wouldn’t say I was hating what I saw, neither did I feel it was as interesting as I hoped it would be and the characters in The True Knot felt like -with the exception of Rose the Hat- they belonged in a cheap comic book. And, lest you think otherwise, I love comic books!

Worse, things became rather predictable and it was pretty obvious where the movie was going and where specifically the climax would occur.

In the end, I can’t recommend Doctor Sleep, despite the fact that the film was professionally done, both behind and in front of the camera. The story itself simply wasn’t that interesting and there were few -almost no!- scares, a very surprising fact given the film is supposed to be a horror movie.

Yet I wonder… given how I originally didn’t like The Shining when I originally saw it, is it possible that in time I may wind up liking Doctor Sleep?

Sadly, I don’t think so. Too bad.